Rosalind Johnson interview
So, how do you set about researching a new volume?
Dr Rosalind Johnson has been commissioned to delve into the past of Whiteparish and Landford in the south east of the county and write 25,000 words for volume 21. She’s been telling Paul Deal about the joy of finding out about the lives of our ancestors.
“Some of the documents I look at, such as agricultural statistics, do sound dull,” admits Rosalind, “but they are really quite fascinating.”
The National Archives at Kew, she tells me, has records collected from every farm during the Second World War, tracking the food they were producing as part of the war effort. Each farm was rated A, B or C.
“If you achieved an A, the Ministry of Food was happy. But if you got a lower score you were under-producing and told to pull your socks up and, in some cases, put into special measures. It was a sort of OFSTED for farmers.
“At Kew they also have agricultural statistics for each parish, for every year from the mid 19th century to the 1980s. You can find the acreage of crops, how much wheat or oats; how many pigs, sheep or cattle. From those figures you can work out the agricultural profile of a particular parish.
“I noticed whilst researching Chippenham for volume 20 that the area is pastoral, mainly for dairy herds, whereas in the parishes of Landford and Whiteparish it was a much more mixed picture with a lot more arable land.”
Before embarking on research for a new volume, Rosalind says there are two documents that it is crucial to read. First there’s a template issued by the Victoria County History (VCH) central office in London which sets out the six chapters that must appear in a county history.
They are:
Landscape, settlement and buildings
Land ownership
Economic history
Social history
Religious history
Local government
The second is a checklist issued by VCH Wiltshire with a list of books and documents, both primary and secondary sources, that should be consulted.
Rosalind’s speciality is religious history and she says two volumes on the checklist – Walker Revised and Calamy Revised – are very useful. Calamy has an account of the ministers who were ejected from their ministry after the Restoration in the early 1660s.
The Coronavirus lockdown meant that Rosalind has had to work from home for months, but she says some of the documents she needs are available via her computer.
She says: “A lot of printed medieval manuscripts are online and they can be downloaded as PDFs. British History Online is also very useful with a lot of primary sources.
“Much of the Wiltshire Records Series - containing volumes of printed primary source material – is also online. The series includes John Chandler’s volume on Wiltshire Meeting House certificates covering the activities of non-conformists, including Quakers, Baptists and Presbyterians, from 1689 to the 1850s.
“I also subscribe to the British Newspaper Archive (BNA) which is incredibly helpful and yet somewhat under-used as a resource by historians. When I was researching Chippenham I just couldn’t get an exact date for the opening of a school. I went to the BNA and there was a report of the opening which gave me the definitive date I needed.”
Rosalind tries to inject a bit of human interest into the chapters she writes, but acknowledges that the VCH is not really the place for a lot of such material.
“I was researching for VCH Somerset and found a reference to a prisoner of war camp close to a village. Looking at the BNA I discovered there had been an audacious escape by German PoWs in spring 1946, no doubt because they were keen to get home.
“They managed to escape in the camp commander’s car which was found abandoned at Taunton station. Presumably they then got aboard a train to London because they were arrested later at Basingstoke in Hampshire. I didn’t find any reference in official documents.”
“While researching Chippenham I found letters written by the Rev Lewis Purbrick in the 1840s. The churchyard was almost full, and he was desperate to find somewhere to decently bury his parishioners. The nonconformists’ burial ground was unsuitable as it was a water-logged site near the canal. Land near the new railway embankment was rejected as having no suitable road.
“His preferred solution was some land belonging to Mrs Michell, owner of Monkton Park, but she adamantly refused to sell, to Purbrick’s intense frustration. The problem was not solved until Chippenham cemetery was opened in 1855.”
All writers are advised to have in mind the audience they are writing for. So who does Rosalind think of when compiling a chapter for a VCH “big red book”?
“I’m writing for anyone with an interest in history. When I write for VCH I have in mind people who want to know about a particular locality. I set out to write an authoritative history of a parish, but it can’t possibly be a total history, so footnotes are important to point readers to various sources if they want further information.”
And how about the word count? “Usually with research in Wiltshire you are given an approximate word count. In the case of volume 21, 15,000 words has been suggested for Whiteparish and 10,000 for Landford, on the basis that Whiteparish is bigger.
“When I sit down to write I don’t worry about the word count at the start, but I do when I finish. That’s when I edit it down.”
Rosalind had been due to have as her consultant editor Professor Peter Fleming, a former professor of history at the University of the West of England. But Peter stepped down from the trust on health grounds in October 2020. Rosalind says: “It is very helpful to have a knowledgeable historian like Peter casting a second pair of eyes over what I write. Even for an experienced historian like me, there is always something you miss. I was sorry to learn of Peter’s decision to stand down and I would like to send him my very best wishes.”
