Reviews

REVIEWS Studies in modern Kentish History. By (Eds.) Alec Detsicas and Nigel Yates. 27.5 x 22 cm. Pp. xv + 230, 7 figures and 20 plates. Kent Archaeological Society, Maidstone, 1983 (£20.00, cased). This is the best kind of Festschrift: a sincere tribute from friends, written specially for a volume which has a clear focus of interest and will, therefore, appeal to like-minded readers. An added bonus in this case is that among the contributors is a geographer and an emeritus professor of politics as well as historians, with or without archive training and experience. The volume is well and aptly illustrated and most carefully edited, even if the editors have interpreted 'Modern' in the title to start in the early sixteenth century and end over 100 years ago. It is a tribute to Dr Hull and Miss Melling in more ways than one, for most of these chapters draw upon the rich collections they have built up at the Kent Archives Office. Indeed, Dr Eileen Bowler's survey of the work of the Sewers Commissions of north and east Kent from the sixteenth century onwards - a much neglected subject which Dr Hull himself was always urging us to consult - is so dependent upon the Kent Archives that no special footnoting has been considered necessary. This brief account of Kent's efforts to organise, finance, build and maintain the walls, dams and sluices to defend the vulnerable coastlands between Woolwich and the Stour will appeal particularly to those living in those low-lying places. Peter Bloomfield uses a 92-page minute book, recently purchased by the Office to write about a Commission of another, and more limited, sort: the Cromwellian Commission of 1655-57 which was set up to take action against Kentish royalists or their properties, if they had fled abroad. A survey of a different kind from Dr Bowler's but also drawing upon Kent archives is Dr Michael Zell's use of 1500 probate inventories to describe the economic and social composition of the Kentish Weald's population in Elizabethan times. He finds much variation in wealth and status among people pursuing the same occupation and reaches the conclusion that an element of farming 385 REVIEWS activity was required to enable most Wealden craftsmen to sustain their families. Dr Frederick Lansberry contributes another economic chapter. This discusses methods of calculating tithes and the difference between great tithes, which went to the rector, and small tithes, payable to the vicar, the former usually paid on field crops (sown broadcast) and the latter on crops specially planted in gardens. Such a roughly defined distinction clearly gave considerable scope for dispute. Legal cases provide a valuable source for the subject. An ecclesiastical contribution of quite a different sort comes from Nigel Yates, the County Archivist, a specialist on nineteenth-century religious matters. He writes a critical introduction to, and comments upon, Sir Stephen Glynn's notes on 312 Kent churches compiled between 1829 and 1873 and published posthumously in 1877. Dr John Whyman performs a similar editorial function on a diary at the Archives Office written by someone (name and origin unknown) who spent nine days touring the county in September 1809. It must be admitted that it is not the most exciting and informative of sources, even if now a lavishly footnoted one. Most of the tourist's observations concerned the inanimate and could easily be gleaned from contemporary printed work, as Dr Whyman's footnotes attest. The most this tourist can aspire to is a description of a dozen German hussars getting soaked by a shower of rain at Milton. One can hardly expect much to stir enthusiasm from someone who, when extolling the virtues of the ladies of Folkestone for not exhibiting 'any wanton exposure of naked charms' goes on to explain that by that he meant that they wore 'no Hats or Bonnets cut or drawn aside with the mutinous Intentions so disgusting in London Ladies'. Although focussed upon Kent, many of the chapters make comparisons with other counties and, by their use of Kent sources, contribute to our knowledge of topics of widespread current discussion. One such topic is road transport, now seen to have played a far more important role than earlier historians believed. Christopher Chalklin's chapter on the valuable bridge building and repair work carried out by the Kent Justices under powers granted by the Act of 1531 provides evidence confirming the considerable growth in the volume and nature of road traffic in the county from then onwards. He considers in particular the J.P.s' activities between 1700 and 1830, giving details of expenditure on particular bridge works and relating it to comparable activity in other counties. The chapter complements well the brief section of bridges in Elizabeth Melling's Roads and Bridges volume in the Kentish Sources series. Peter and Jennifer Clark's use of England's first known census, a survey of 173 households outside the walls of Canterbury in 1563, makes possible a detailed description of the occupations and social 386 REVIEWS conditions among these poorer folk at that time, another topic of national interst. The seven folios listing these inhabitants have been carefully analysed and related to relevant information in other Canterbury sources at that time. The authors are able to show, for instance, not only that the average size of these households was about the same as that revealed by other later urban listings elsewhere but also that, of the families enumerated, 5 per cent of the householders or their wives were involved in some sort of illicit sexual activities ranging from adultery to prostitution in the years betwen 1560 and 1575. (Dr Whyman's early nineteenth-century traveller would have been horrified.) The documents upon which these conclusions are reached are in the custody of that Canterbury pluralist, Anne Oakley, the Cathedral, City and Diocesan Archivist. She herself contributes one of three biographical chapters to the book, about Richard Beseley, a Reformation figure who, on her evidence here, almost merits a place in the Dictionary of National Biography, already so full of deserving and not so deserving ecclesiastics. A protege of Thomas Cromwell, through whose help he became a Fellow of All Souls, Beseley was presented to the Rectory of Staplehurst in 1535 and then, in 1552, became one of Cranmer's Six Preachers at Canterbury Cathedral. His marriage, in March 1457/48 a year before the Act of Parliament legalising clerical marriage was passed, led to his being deprived of his Six Preachership and living after Mary's accession. He lived abroad in Frankfurt until he was able to return to his two offices (to which a third was soon added) in 1559. As a young man he had been an assiduous priest at Staplehurst; but, as he climbed in the world, he lived exclusively in Canterbury, to the almost total neglect of his livings. Dr David Ormrod writes on Thomas Papillon, the Huguenot merchant who became a landed gentleman in Kent. He worked in London, specialising, it would seem, in trade with France, and was also a member, and subsequently deputy governor, of the East India Company as well as being a pillar of the French Church. In 1666, he bought Acrise Place with 874 acres, including three large and three small farms, for £5,000. Though a native-born Englishman, his French connection did not help him: he was forced into exile in Holland for a few years after 1685. He is already a fairly well-known figure (he is in the Dictionary of National Biography) and it is doubtful whether Dr Ormrod's attempts to concentrate upon the religious side of his life and to relate it to the arguments of Religion and the Rise of Capitalism are entirely convincing. The third biographical contribution, by Professor Bryan Keith- Lucas, is the highlight of the volume, though it is not always easy to 387 REVIEWS follow. It deals with Francis Austen (1698-1791) and his son, Francis Motley Austen. English Literature students may known Francis as Jane Austen's great uncle - his wife was also her godmother - who had helped his nephew, destined to be Jane's father, when left an orphan, to train for the church before presenting him to the living of Deane in Hampshire. This benefactor had already become a very successful lawyer and, in 1753, Clerk of the Peace for Kent. His son succeeded him in that office which, between them, they held for 55 years. They amassed considerable fortunes from legal fees and wealthy heiresses. We now know much about men who succeed in industry and commerce. Professor Keith-Lucas here gives us an unusual glimpse of two highly successful legal entrepreneurs. Francis Austen, the fifth son, was not initially smiled upon by fortune. Although the family held land in Horsmonden, his father, a spendthrift, had died when he was only six-years-old leaving many debts. His grandfather, then in possession of the estate, refused to help the young family apart from assisting with the education of his eldest son and heir. Her mother had to fend for herself and her seven children. She moved to Sevenoaks where she took in as lodgers masters and boys from Sevenoaks School where she was able to send her own boys. Francis was obviously bright and in due course was articled at Clifford's Inn and practised there before setting up in business at Sevenoaks 'with £800 and a bundle of pens'. The practice prospered and he became agent to the Knole estate of the Duke of Dorset, Lord Lieutenant of the county. Professor Keith-Lucas is a leading authority on local government and there is much here about parliamentary elections, patronage and the like which brought Francis in due time to the County Clerkship and all the prestige and opportunities for gain that went with it in that venal and corrupt age. As the author, not given to overstatement, puts it, 'there is an undercurrent of suspicion about his activities' which caused him to refer to 'ill-natured insinuations' at the time of his appointment as Clerk; and Jane Austen herself late mentioned that branch of the family's 'ill-gotten wealth'. Some of it, ill-gotten or not, came from a marriage to an heiress and, on her death, to another marriage, this time to a wealthy widow whom he had helped to contest a disputed will. From the first marriage came land near Dartford; from the second the manors of Baston, Keston and West Wickham, with the mansion of Wickham Court, Coney Hall Farm and land in Hayes, Beckenham, Orpington, Bindbury, Thurnham and Detling. To this he added more land in other parts of the county, especially round Sevenoaks. The son was aleady emulating the father during the father's lifetime. In 1772, he married a co-heiress who brought with her not 388 REVIEWS only a £9,000 dowry but also property in fourteen parts of Kent. With his father's connivance, he also acquired land in other parts of England, too, from Sarah, Lady Falkland, another rich woman who had earlier agreed to become his godmother. He was, too, to inherit his father's fortune, said to bring in £6,000 a year. If money is to be associated with success, here is a remarkable success story which deserves to be pursued further if more evidence can be unearthed either from family sources or from solicitors' offices in Sevenoaks. Even if this is forthcoming, however, two questions are bound to remain. Would Francis Austen's career have been the same if his upbringing had been less of a strugle? And would we have the writings of Jane Austen without the help her father received from his rich uncle in Kent? This is a splendid volume which will be used by historians outside Kent as well as read with fascination and pleasure by all those in the county who have an interest in its history. It is a most worthy tribute to Felix Hull and Elizabeth Melling, scholars both, whose dedication and service in the Kent Archives Office since the early 1950s - over more than half of its life - are here recognised. To their help and friendship so many of us owe so much. T.C. BARKER The early History of the Church of Canterbury; Christ Church from 597 to 1066. By N. Brooks. 23 x 15 cm. Pp. xiv + 402, 10 figures and 6 plates. Leicester University Press, Leicester 1984. £28.00 (cased). Dr. Brooks has written a remarkable book. For the first time, the whole range of material available for the study of a great Anglo- Saxon minster has been put together by a master of its most complex elements, the charters. At Christ Church, the authentic documents only begin with a charter of Archbishop Aethelheard in 798. The first two parts of the book, therefore, depend on a fresh view of the established evidence written outside Kent, supplemented by some early material from Reculver and Lyminge which passed to the cathedral later, supported by a summary of the current state of the archaeological and numismatic evidence and a detailed analysis of the narrative tradition on the history and arrangement of the pre- Conquest cathedral. Perhaps the most striking features of this section are its firm grasp of the European background, the discussion of the achievements of Archbishop Theodore and a new effort to explain precisely King Offa's abortive effort to create an archbishopric of Lichfield. The architectural section is necessarily tentative, given the 389 REVIEWS absence of detailed archaeological information, but it will not be only local patriots who are excited by the suggestion that we should believe Eadmer when he says that the cathedral destroyed in the great fire of 1067, which he could just remember, was still in essence a great seventh-century church after all its vicissitudes. With Part Three, on the ninth century, we pass into a world lit with relative brilliance by some seventy charters from the period 798-899 written by or for Christ Church, many surviving in contemporary form. This is by a large margin the most substantial archive to survive for the period for any English church. Chance for once has been kind; the curtain goes up on a crucial period of Canterbury's history as the archbishops sought to steer a dangerous course between old loyalties to Kent and Mercia and the rising power of Wessex. The stage is dominated by Archbishop Wulfred (805-832); he emerges as one of the most able if neglected archbishops of the whole period, a man of great wealth and energy who enlarged and consolidated the estates of his church, reformed the life of his clergy according to the rule of Chrodegang of Metz just as it reached its peak of effect at the court of Louis the Pious; a builder, and accomplished if ungrammatical scribe, and an indefatigable champion of episcopal control of the Kentish monasteries. For this cause his long years of suspension from office around 820 show him the true ancestor of Becket and Winchelsey, and with equally ambiguous success. In the tenth century, the records begin to fail again; even the date at which the cathedral community became monastic remains as obscure as ever, though the close interdependence between the cathedral and St. Augustine's in earlier years is well shown. Only in the reign of Cnut do authentic records of the community's relatively modest transactions begin again in any numbers, now supplemented by the evidence of the pre-Conquest library, largely re-established it seems in the generations after Dunstan's death. The artistic achievements of the scriptorium, allied with an extraordinarily conservative content, the complex politics of Cnut's reign and the eighteen years of Stigand's inert but ominous pontificate close the story. If Dr. Brooks' mastery of the tangled diplomatic and palaeographical evidence is the first impression made on the reader, his handling of literary, numismatic, liturgical and archaeological issues gives his story a substance and breadth which are equally impressive. A detailed study of this kind fits uneasily into the large generalities of the conventional picture of Anglo-Saxon society. If Wulfred's struggle for control of his monasteries can be shown to form part of a much wider movement, and the decay of English learning so lamented by Alfred can be followed with vivid clarity in the declining calligraphy and Latinity of the ninth-century charters, the great silence that falls 390 REVIEWS over Christ Church in the tenth century in the heyday of Edgar's reforms is quite unexpected, for elsewhere this was a period of unparalleled literary activity. Equally, the excellence of the Canterbury artists and their limited literary tastes come near to a mirror image of the Worcester scriptorium over the years between 990 and 1066. It follows that we need much more of such work. The history of Rochester and St. Augustine's is still very obscure, but they are an essential element in the context of Canterbury's story, without which much remains uncertain; the rich archives and extensive library of Worcester and Winchester cry out for similar treatment. We will be fortunate indeed if they find a scholar as devoted, complete and lucid as Dr. Brooks to trace their history. M. BRETT The Victorian Churches of Kent. By Roger Homan. Pp. xvi + 122, 141 pis., 8 figs. Phillimore, Chichester, 1984. £12.00 (cased). This volume is meant to be a companion to Robert Elleray's Victorian Churches of Sussex published by Phillimore in 1981. It follows much the same format as the earlier volume with a largely historical introduction, a gazetteer of church buildings and a substantial photographic section. Some of the criticisms of the Sussex volume, in respect of the relationship of the different sections of the book to one another (see Southern History, iv (1982), 249), apply to the Kent volume as well, but overall Dr. Homan's work is much more satisfactory that Mr. Elleray's. The photographs are more interesting, better arranged and captioned, and the quality of production has been much improved. Homan's gazetteer is much fuller than Elleray's, giving for instance details of the cost of buildings, and the sources of information more clearly noted. The most noticeable improvement of the one book upon the other, however, is the respective quality of the introductions. Elleray's approach was that of the reference librarian cum amateur historian; Homan's is that of the religious sociologist with a particular interest in small sects. His introduction is an extremely well balanced and informative summary of the major religious developments in Victorian Kent, set firmly in the context of comparable developments at the national level, which provides a helpful background to the detailed gazetteer and photographs that form the core of the volume. Dr. Homan is to be congratulated on a very thorough job; in particular, he has identified 391 REVIEWS and catalogued the very large number of small dissenting places of worship built in Kent in the nineteenth century, many of which have either been destroyed or, at the very least, converted to a nonecclesiastical use. What is now needed is for the surviving records of these chapels to be identified as well, so that a thorough analysis of non-conformist activity in Kent can eventually be undertaken. NIGEL YATES Hoath and Heme - The Last of the Forest. 21 x 15 cm. Pp. 184 with numerous illustrations. Published by K.H. Mcintosh, 1984. Certain villages in north-east Kent are fortunate in having their history recorded in a series of publications of which this is the fourth. Previous volumes on Sturry, Fordwick, Chislet and Westbere were reviewed in Arch. Cant, for the years 1973, 1975 and 1979. Under the editorship of two of our Members, Miss K.H. Mcintosh and Mr. H.E. Gough, forty-five contributions by various writers have now been brought together to form another record of equal standard to what has gone before. This series is, indeed, a great credit to all engaged in its production. Hoath and Heme are villages less than two miles apart, the former deriving its name from its situation on 'the boggy heath' and the latter from being 'a nook or corner of the valley'. Their development during 1500 years as human settlements is ably described, with another backward glance at the palaeolithic flints of the Stour valley and speculation on the course of the Roman road from Sturry to Reculver. Mr. K.W.E. Gravett has contributed three articles on local houses while others have described the churches with their bells, brasses and the seventeenth-century clock at Heme. Nearer to our own times, an account of the Victorian pumping station at Ford will be of interest to students of industrial archaeology and the record of a World War I landing ground at Broomfield - long since abandoned - provides a useful contribution to aviation history. Among the numerous illustrations, the attention of anglers will be captured by a painting of a 27 lb. trout caught locally in 1672, shown wearing an expression of smug satisfaction no doubt reflecting that of the fortunate disciple of Izaac Walton who landed it over three centuries ago. Copies of the book may be obtained from Miss Mcintosh at 1, Sturry Hill, Sturry, price £5 including postage, or from local booksellers at £4.50. P. J. TESTER 392 REVIEWS Stock Bricks of Swale. By Sydney James Twist. 25. 5 x 20 cm. Pp. 20. Published by the Sittingbourne Society, 1984. Price 60 p. (80 p. post-paid, from the Fleur de Lis Heritage Centre, Preston Street, Faversham). Although according to the author the Kent stock brick came into being about 1700 his booklet mainly looks back to the nineteenth century and the flourishing days of the industry. He himself, a stock brick-maker to the core, is careful to distinguish in considerable and valuable detail - in some nine pages - the difference between the making of stock and red bricks. The real change in manufacturing technique came in the mid-1860s when first the chalk and then the chalk-and-clay constituents were washed. 'With the advent of washing, the brickfields became stable, the washbacks being built in rows with usually three to each making shed or berth'. The washed clay for 300,000 to 400,000 bricks was kept in each berth. The other important ingredient of the stock brick was its self-contained fuel - cinders - whereas red bricks were dependent on the kiln fire. This fuel itself promoted a small industry for the 'roughstuff consisted of house refuse brought down from London in sailing barges. The brick-master usually owned the barges and so could use them for sending a return load of bricks to that city. Besides discussing manufacture the author deals with conditions in the brickfields. The first accommodation for workers in the Murston district consisted of brick huts 9 or 10 ft. sq. with a tiny 6 ft. square kitchen. In the early days work would start as early as 3 a.m. and last until 10 a.m., with a resumption at 4 p.m. and finish at 7 or 8 p.m., 'unless of course they were too drunk to restart, which was often the case'. In 1833, the father of a certain Mr. G. Mathews was taken to the brickfield at the age of five and this is only one instance of the abuse of child labour at a time when it was also considered in order to ask a youngster constantly to lift 40 lbs. of clay. When the Duke of York (later King George VI) went to Sittingbourne in 1921 the firm of Smeed Dean was producing 52 million bricks a year. According to recent statistics furnished by the Kent County Council's Minerals Subject Plan, four surviving works at Funton, Murston, Ospringe and Otterham can collectively only muster 40 million. I doubt if Mr Twist's booklet can be supplanted for usefulness. Certainly not for good value. ALLEN GROVE 393 REVIEWS Boughton-under-Blean. By Joan White. 30 x 21 cm. Pp. 65 with numerous illustrations. Published by the Faversham Society, 1983. Boughton lies on the old A2 highway, five miles west of Canterbury, and in recent times suffered severely from the volume of traffic passing through its narrow main thoroughfare. In 1976, however, this burden was lifted by the opening of the bypass from Brenley Corner to Dunkirk and one can now walk in comparative peace and safety through the village and enjoy its picturesque appearance and historical associations with the assistance of this admirable publication. In the Middle Ages the pilgrims passed through to Canterbury and the place is mentioned in Chaucer's prologue to the Canon's Yeoman's Tale as Boghton-under-Blee. The author explains that her interest in local history was stimulated by helping the vicar to deal with letters from people enquiring about their Boughton ancestors. Her extended researches have resulted in this book, written in a straightforward manner which makes easy reading while at the same time conveying a wealth of information about the place and its people past and present. Good use is made of the extensive parish records, throwing interesting light on the social conditions of the villagers in past centuries. Apparently, the poor were treated far more humanely than might be supposed before the advent of the welfare state, though when Henry Shrubsole lost his wits in 1676 he became such a problem that the parish eventually expended £1 10s. to get him conveyed to Virginia. Not far from the main road stands Nash Court, at one time the home of the Hawkins family who suffered for their adherence to the Roman Catholic faith in penal times. In the parish church there is the splendid monument to Sir Thomas Hawkins and members of his family - the work of Epiphanius Evesham and dating from 1617. Towards the end of the book, in Chapter 8, we are taken on a guided tour of the village when almost every interesting feature is brought to the reader's attention. This is the 22nd publication of the Faversham Society - and one of its best. Copies may be obtained from the Fleur de Lis Heritage Centre, Faversham, price £1.75, including postage. P.J. TESTER Bibliography of British Newspapers: KENT. County editors Winifred F. Bergess, Barbara R.M. Riddell and John Whyman. The British Library Reference Division. London, 1982. £15.00. Local, family and social historians working in the county of Kent will 394 REVIEWS have much cause to thank the authors of this excellent bibliography. Dr. John Whyman in the introduction reminds us that local newspapers started to appear during the eighteenth century and Canterbury produced one of the earliest provincial news-papers, namely The Kentish Post or Canterbury Newsletter, which was first published in 1717. It was to three years of this newspaper (1750-52) that a published index was made by International Research Publications (n.d.) apparently the only index to at least 665 different newspaper titles mentioned in the bibliography. Newspapers provide a vast reference source that remains virtually untapped, partly because of the difficulty in finding what papers were in existence and can be consulted and because they have few if any indexes. Whilst it is not the place of this review to sing the merits of newspapers as a source of historical detail unavailable eleswhere, it is worth bringing to the notice of readers the information on indexing newspapers in W.G. Hoskins, Local History in England (2nd Edn. 1972), 213-4, and the extensive section on births, marriages and deaths from newspapers in D.J. Steel, National Index of Parish Registers, Volume 1 (1968), 271-291, which includes a useful bibliography. The work under review will remove one obstacle in the path of the researcher by showing what papers are available for the area in which he or she is interested and where to locate a copy for examination. The locations of files for consultation cover Kent, London and overseas in Australia and the United States of America. The newspapers have been arranged as far as possible by the local authority district whose news they report, with the single exception of the Medway Towns section, which covers both Medway and Gillingham boroughs. Each section commences with a chronological list of the newspapers covering all or part of the area, including references to such papers as have been placed in another section, and indicating the first and last years for which any copies have been found. Each paper has been recorded under its current title, if it is still in publication, and under its first title, if it has been discontinued. There is an index of titles so that readers will have no problem in finding any particular newspaper or working out which newspapers they need to consult to find details about a particular local issue. The work is further enhanced by an index to Kentish places mentioned in newspaper titles. Each entry for a paper gives the place of publication (with the publisher's name and address, if the paper is still published), details of a complete file and locations of other copies showing holdings. The authors have thoughtfully included details of any published historical account of the paper and the existence of microfilms. 395 REVIEWS With the two volumes of Kent Bibliography and Kent Directories Located this bibliography of Kentish newspapers is an excellent addition to the finding aids for the county. DUNCAN HARRINGTON Seventeenth Century Wilmington. By I.E. Morris and K.M. Roome. Pp. 16 with 11 illustrations and 2 maps. Privately published, 1984. £1.25. Brutally bisected by the new course of the A2, and largely swamped by modern housing development, the former rural village of Wilmington on the banks of the Darent, near Dartford, bears little resemblance to what it was three centuries ago. Yet to those who know the area intimately, there are still things worth searching out to remind one of the past, as our Members, Misses Morris and Roome, are able to show in this brief historical sketch. Researches into primary sources such as a manorial Survey of 1678, Wills and Probate Inventories, the Hearth Tax Return of 1664 and the Parish Registers have provided clues to enable those interested in their local history to follow the course of existing lanes and roads whose former names can be read in old records. There is a sketch-map of the parish in the seventeenth century compared with one of our own time, and the text is interspersed with pleasant illustrations of husband-men of the Stuart period engaged in various seasonal occupations. At the end there are reproductions of two inventories of the goods belonging to local inhabitants - a yeomen of 1691 and a blacksmith who died four years later. Acknowledgement is made of financial assistance with the cost of publication by the K.A.S. and the late Mrs. E. Whorton. Any profits will go to the Wilmington Society. P.J. TESTER The Archaeology of Disease. By Keither Manchester. 29.5 x 21 cm. Pp. xii + 100, 51 pis. and 34 figs. University of Bradford Press, Bradford, 1983. (No price). Following the publication of various works in paleopathology during the first three decades of the century, there was then a relative eclipse of this type of work until the 1960s, after which time the literature has continued to grow. These works have been of very variable quality and have been aimed at different reading audiences, from symposium 396 REVIEWS specialists to the general medical historian and archaeologist. Surprisingly, it is not the medical historian who has been most involved and contributed much, but the archaeologist and those in bioanthropology- Dr Manchester could claim to be a pure medical man, but his associations at a research level have been with archaeologists, and in particular with the School of Archaeological Sciences in Bradford. The book he has produced might be seen as pitched at a student audience, but in fact will be found to be eminently suitable for all those in archaeology likely to handle bones or who have an interest in the study of man himself. The chapters sensibly divide up diseases into major categories, so one can read separately of oral disease, joint pathology, evidence of tumours or accidental trauma. Dr Manchester's special interests are concerned with inflammatory bone changes, especially leprosy and tuberculosis, and these are well discussed. Some conditions are far more likely to turn up in archaeological material and these reasonably get most attention and there are in any case numerous examples of ancient pathology given. This is by far the most important contribution of the book in the sense that archaeologists finding or handling human remains must get used to recognizing pathology, though not necessarily to specific disease, so that abnormality can be treated and curated carefully, and referred to specialists interested in this field. In a short introductory text of this kind, it is inevitable that detailed discussion cannot be given to the many intriguing debates surrounding some skeletal pathology. Will we ever separate inherited anaemias from those environmentally related? What are the factors behind the various evidence of joint diseases, and how well are these currently classified? Do changes in dental decay frequencies mean changes in diet or what? It would have taken a volume five times the size to do justice to the vast amount of accumulated data, but that was not the intention of the book. The author shows clearly, I think, that a consideration of ancient disease can provide valuable information on past peoples, including social and environmental aspects. It is pleasing to see that London, Bradford and Sheffield at least, include the health of past populations as a worthwhile aspect of archaeology. Long may this trend continue and expand. For any with their appetite whetted for further reading, there is a well selected bibliography. In any further edition of this work, I would urge that there is a considerable increase in wellprepared line drawings. DON BROTHWELL 397