New Books

Tracing Your Kent Ancestors by David Wright

Published by Pen & Sword Books Ltd.
ISBN 978 147 383 3456 - RRP. £14.99

This new book joins Pen & Sword’s substantial list of county volumes devoted to genealogical research and resources and is based on the author’s nearly 40 years of working in Kent. After an historical and geographical introduction, there is a concise summary of how to get started, based on his own forays as a young genealogist. Principal sources of civil registration, the census returns, parish registers and probate records are considered before substantial chapters follow on 1) local records such as borough, cathedral and church courts; the parish chest; poor law; quarter-sessions; maps; trades and industry; schools and hospitals; and 2) national records including crime and punishment; heraldry; land and its possession; the mediaeval manor; the professions; the services; and tax records. The volume ends with a comprehensive gazetteer of organisations, a dozen or more bibliographies, and a parish map and index of all ancient parishes. There are several dozen photographs illustrating a wide variety of Kent’s historical sources, and up-to-date information on Kent’s many genealogical indexes.

The author has written this book to encourage both those who have yet to investigate the fascinating fields of genealogy and local history as well as researchers who have proceeded so far but may be unaware of (or daunted by) the many later mediaeval sources which can enormously increase our knowledge of families and their lands and properties set in individual historical and social contexts.

Email: davidastextkent@gmail.com
Web: www.drdavidwright.co.uk

OF THE NORTH KENT MARSHES

Edited by Ian Jackson and Keith Robinson

Privately published by the authors by the L-13 Light Industrial Workshop with the assistance of Billy Childish in a limited edition of 500 copies of which 50 copies are hardbound.
ISBN 978-1-908067-14-2

The North Kent Marshes can be a cold, damp, lonely place or a bright, warm refuge from the hurly-burly. Their savage beauty inspired many writers and artists including Dickens and Turner. In times past few would venture into their disease ridden swamps. Haunted by smugglers, the saltings and seaways played host to preventative men and coast guards. When war was threatened, the army and navy mounted guard on their rivers, creeks and foreshores. The marsh folk have grown the crops and raised the cattle and sheep to feed the London market.

The marshland nature reserves are internationally important for the future well-being and survival of breeding and migratory birds. In these days of industrial and environmental peril this wilderness on London’s doorstep is threatened as never before.

The history of the marshes and their people has rarely been told. Surviving archaeological notebooks offer insights into his working practice.

THE WIFE OF COBHAM

By Susan Curran

More than 130 illustrations, most in full colour. Paperback, published by Lasse Press. RRP: £19.99.
ISBN 978-0-0033069-1-4

From the Peasants’ Revolt, through the Lollard Disendowment Bill to Oldcastle’s doomed attempt to remake his country; from Richard II’s rise and deposition, through Henry IV’s dour reign and his son Henry V’s glorious one; through the rise and dramatic downfall of other relations, and through wars, rebellions and plague, the life of this real-life contemporary of Chaucer’s Wife of Bath was a dramatic and eventful one. Susan Curran draws on a wide variety of sources to trace its course, and to illustrate it and give a sense of its texture. In exploring what its patterns suggest, she brings out from the shadows and extraordinary true story.

THE AMIABLE MRS PEACH

By Celia Miller

38 Illustrations, including some in colour. Paperback, published by Lasse Press 2016, RRP: £19.99.
ISBN: 978-0-9933069-0-7

Betsey Peach’s surviving diaries and correspondence provide the core of Celia Miller’s spirited account of a life lived to the full, but the author also sets the events in a broader social and political context. From Woodstock to Norfolk and Kent (and back to Norfolk), Betsy travelled, chatted, and always wrote. From those letters and diaries an enthralling picture emerges of a sometimes exasperating but always likable woman, and of the relatives and friends who made up the patchwork of her life.

DRINKING IN DEAL: BEER, PUBS AND TEMPERANCE IN AN EAST KENT TOWN 1830-1914

By Andrew Sargent

Published by Bettany Press 2016. RRP £25 hardback & £20 paperback. Over 80 illustrations.
ISBN 978-1-908304-20-9

Drinking in Deal draws on reports in Victorian and Edwardian newspapers and many other sources to discuss the role of pubs and beer-houses in the life of this fascinating seaside town. It tells the history of the men and women who ran them, the boatmen and marines who used them, and the local disputes generated by the “drink question”. Developments in Deal, a small town on the east Kent coast, are set in their wider county and national contexts. In its heyday, Deal had over 90 pubs and beer-houses. Drinking in Deal shows why there were so many.

Available from Roper’s Booksellers, High Street, Deal or from www.dealbooks.co.uk