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The Dorset Record Society
Dorset Record Society was set up in the 1960s with the aim of publishing
original manuscripts to make them accessible to the general reader.
In January 2016 it became a separate
charitable organisation from DNHAS.
Dorset Record Society
has concentrated on documents that are not readily available for study,
those that are difficult to read, or those that are of particular interest.
Publication is occasional, and depends on funding from sales of previous
volumes.
For general enquiries please contact the Hon. General Secretary,
Dorset History Centre, Bridport Road, Dorchester, DT1 1RP.
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Edited by Mark Forrest
with Jenny Halling Barnard, Rose Mitchell and Martin Papworth.
Price £19.95 (add £2.50 for post and packing)
Published October 2017
When Elizabeth I's courtier Sir Christopher Hatton acquired lands in Purbeck
he commissioned Ralph Treswell to produce a survey of his estate.
Treswell used the most advanced and revolutionary mapping techniques
to create a document that still conveys the character of
the late Tudor landscape.
The detailed plan of Corfe Castle gives an insight into
the building's features and construction
only sixty years before its destruction in the Civil War.
This facsimile edition reproduces all of his maps,
together with maps by Saxton and Hawsted with which they were bound,
the accompanying written survey and a transcription in modern English.
Martin Papworth, National Trust regional archaeologist,
Rose Mitchell, map curator at the National Archives,
Jenny Halling Barnard, conservator, and Mark Forrest, archivist,
both at the Dorset History Centre,
introduce the text in four essays that provide
a national cartographic, archaeological and historic context
by exploring the themes of early map making, land use,
manuscript conservation and estate management.
Hardback, 190 pages, including colour plates of the maps and text.
Edited by June Palmer.
Price £12.50 (add £2.00 for post and packing)
Hardback with coloured jacket.
Published November 2015
The Dorset manors of Lytchett Minster, Durweston cum Knighton and Okeford Fitzpaine were all owned by Sir Thomas Kitson of Hengrave, Suffolk, in the late sixteenth century. This volume brings together the surveys of the manors that he commissioned and which were later dispersed to archives in Dorset, Suffolk and Norfolk.
The surveys reflect the differences between the three East Dorset manors and how the underlying geology influenced local farming: the dispersed settlements on the heath of Lytchett Minster, the open fields and downland sheep grazing at Durweston cum Knighton and the inter-locked enclosed fields at Okeford Fitzpaine.
A broad ranging introduction highlights the key themes of the surveys: inclosure of common land, the techniques of sixteenth century surveying and the management of the Kitson family estates. In part this is achieved through comparison with later estate documents and maps which allow much of the written surveys to be plotted and individual pieces of land to be identified.
The texts are presented in translation from Latin, with a series of maps, colour plates and a comprehensive index. The volume has a hard cover and coloured dust jacket.
Also new in 2015: hardback reprints of volumes long out of print
DRS Volume 12
William Whiteway of Dorchester, his diary 1618-1635
With an introduction by D. Underdown.
Whiteway was the son of a leading Dorchester merchant and a friend and
associate of John White, the rector of Holy Trinity and a founder of the
Massachusetts Bay Company, who turned Dorchester into a model Puritan
stronghold in the generation before the Civil War. In his diary, brought
to an abrupt end by his early death, Whiteway gives a first-hand account
of these momentous years. 195pp, index of personal names.
DRS Volume 13
Farming in 18th century Dorset, the diary of James Warne 1758
Edited by J. F. James and J. H. Bettey.
James Warne's diary is a remarkably comprehensive snap-shot of the life, work and attitudes of a respectable tenant farmer before agricultural improvement. It is set alongside the letters of George Boswell whose working life as a tenant farmer saw many agricultural changes.
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Edited by Dr Ann Clark.
Price £12.50
(add £2.00 for post and packing)
Hardback with jacket, with photographs.
Published December 2013
The Hospital of St John the Baptist and St John the Evangelist at
Sherborne, founded 1437, is one of Dorset's oldest surviving almshouses.
In the late 16th century, the brethren managing the almshouse began to
copy into one register, probably for easier reference, important individual
foundation and endowment documents and surveys of lands held by the
almshouse. Governance decisions; oaths sworn by brethren and residents
on admission, with rules for behaviour; and bequests from benefactors
were added. They also began to list in the same volume the elections of
brethren and admissions of over 800 almspeople from 1582 till the 1860s,
usually noting their deaths and sometimes their expulsion. Entries for
many almspeople recorded the possessions they brought into the house.
These records are transcribed here in modern English for accessibility. The
comprehensive introduction places Sherborne almshouse in the context of
national and local almshouse provision. It also highlights the unexpected
role of the brethren in managing private philanthropy destined for the poor
of Sherborne, some of whom are named. Additional sources help to bring
to life certain individual almspeople and brethren.
The book is hardback, with photographs and a coloured jacket. It should
be of interest to social, local and family historians as well as to those with
a more general interest in almshouses, Sherborne and its inhabitants. Dr
Clark is the author of several academic articles on social history and her
chapter on the possessions of Sherborne almspeople will appear in a major
new volume on almshouses to be published by the Family and Community
Historical Research Society in 2014.
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DNHAS Occasional Paper no.2
Dorset Manorial Documents: A guide for local and family historians
By Mark Forrest
Published by DRS 2011
Price £6.00
(add £1.00 for post and packing)
48pp, index, colour photographs, A4 stapled, glossy cover
Manorial documents are a useful and yet underused source for local and
family historians in Dorset. They illustrate many aspects of the lives of
ordinary people: property ownership, maintenance of roads and hedges,
punishment of minor crimes, election of local officers and interpretation
of local customs all fell within the remit of the manor court. The guide
explains the history and development of Dorset manors and introduces the
documents produced by the manorial administration through examples from
the collections held at the Dorset History Centre. The focus is on those
documents written in English produced between the mid-seventeenth century
and the early twentieth century which are most easily accessible to
researchers who have not previously worked on manor and estate records.
Examples of court rolls, perambulations, stewards' papers, presentments
and customs are provided with transcriptions to illustrate the contents
and uses of a variety of records.
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Dorset Record Society, Volume 16
Birth, Marriage, Death and Taxes, the Lyme Regis Censuses 1695-1703
Edited with an introduction by Dr Judith Ford.
Price £10.00
(add £2.00 for post and packing)
Hardback with jacket, illustrated with engravings and photographs.
Published July 2011
This book reproduces in full all the Marriage Duty Act assessments
for Lyme Regis and Colway, with an index of names.
In 1695 the 'Marriage Duty Act' imposed a tax
on births, marriages and burials, as well as an annual charge
on bachelors over the age of 25, and on childless widowers.
The tax was introduced by William III to help pay for war with France.
The administration of the tax involved the drawing up of a certified list
of the names of the inhabitants of every town, village and hamlet
in England and Wales.
Only about 150 of the Marriage Duty Act documents are known to survive
nationally but the
Marriage Duty Act assessments for Lyme Regis survive
for the years 1695, 1698, 1699, 1701 (two copies), 1702 and 1703. One
undated assessment survives for the tithing of Colway, adjacent to Lyme.
The war for which the tax was raised damaged Lyme's trade with France
in serges and linens and the town's resulting decline can be traced both in the decrease of the total number of inhabitants
and in that of individuals liable to surcharges.
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Published 2009, price £10.00
(add £2.00 for post and packing)
Hardback with jacket. Illustrated with contemporary photos.
Phyllis Walther worked as a volunteer for the WVS and witnessed at first
hand the effects of war. She was responsible for the welfare of evacuees
and for providing clothing for displaced children and their mothers. She
organized the provision of hand-knitted comforts for the troops and
despaired of the tangle caused by garments mistakenly knitted in the wrong
sizes and service colours. She is an acute observer of patriotic fund-raising
events and local military exercises and her descriptions of some of
the inevitable muddles make amusing reading. Phyllis had an enquiring mind
and decided opinions. Everyday life in wartime Dorset comes alive in her
diary.
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