Leland L. Duncan papers in KAS Library
Each person that carries out archaeological and historical research, accumulates throughout their lifetime a vast amount of data, as scribbled notes, written up documents and even some published articles or books. Our member Leland L. Duncan (1862-1923) was such a person who worked tirelessly to promote interest in our past through the study of early documents, such as wills and State Papers through to the recording of churchyard memorial inscriptions as a source of information. After his death very many of his unpublished notebooks, papers and other collections were put into the care of archives and learned societies; some came to Kent Archaeological Society of which he was a life member. An obituary in Archaeologia Cantiana Vol XXXVII (1926) gives details of his life and achievements.
'..... as a junior clerk, he would slip out of the War Office during the luncheon hour and make for the underground chamber at Somerset House, where those interested were allowed to copy the wills entered in the various registers. He would copy a will -or two and then return to the office'.
'Duncan, besides finding a rich store of matter in the testamentary disposition of the dead, paid very special attention to their existing memorials in our churches and churchyards. He had a well-thought-out plan of plotting the churchyards, so as not to risk getting an accurate copy of all the legible inscriptions remaining. The memorials he copied at Tenterden were printed at his own expense in 1919, and he very handsomely presented a copy to every member of our Records Branch. Those of many other parishes were left in manuscript at his death'.
Duncan was a leading force in the establishment of our Society's 'Records Branch'.
Churchyard memorial inscriptions and wills are a very useful source of information for local and family historians and can contain 'nuggets' of information about relationships, locations of places mentioned that might not occur in other forms of records.
Our member Zena Bamping and her husband Frank have been typing up some of Duncan's notes on wills and churchyard memorial inscriptions from the Duncan collection in the K.A.S. Library. Between them twenty-eight churchyards mostly in North West Kent have been completed together with an index of names and places mentioned. Six quarto exercise books of Duncan's transcriptions of wills from the Shoreham Deanery that mentioned some parishes in Kent have also been indexed. A quote here from L.L.D. "It is my earnest hope that in years to come those with the facilities may be able to exploit my work".
With modern technology in the form of computers and the internet we have been able to place the typescripts completed by Frank and Zena onto a website where members and any other interested party can access the information instantly from anywhere in the world. This information can be accessed from the website at www.kasresearch.com
Would you like to help?
There remains at least another forty-five churchyards mostly in East Kent, not typed up. If you have access to a computer and would be willing to type up from a photocopy, which could be posted to you, of Duncan's manuscript quarto sized books or his 'scribbled' notebooks that information, with suitable acknowledgement could be put up onto the website. Or maybe you would be willing to help type up some of Duncan's transcriptions of the Shoreham Deanery Wills these could also be put up on the website. All this work would be possible for you to carry out at a place, i.e., your home, and at a time and pace suitable to you without having to travel to the Society's library in Maidstone. Copies of the completed typescripts will also be placed in the K.A.S. Library and Record Offices for visiting researchers to consult. If you are willing to help please contact Ted Connell, 110 Manor Forstal, New Ash Green, Longfield, Kent DA3 8JQ. Tel: 01474 872763, email: ted.connell@btinternet.com