With apologies for cross posting

The much delayed 2011 double issue of ARCHIVES, the journal of the British Records Association, has now appeared. A list of contents appears below - for fuller information scroll on down to the abstracts.

I take this opportunity to remind list users that ARCHIVES is always keen to receive good quality submissions; a copy of the editorial policy is available here: http://www.britishrecordsassociation.org.uk/pages/editorial_policy.htm

Regards
Ruth Paley
Hon Editor
ARCHIVES

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ARCHIVES, xxxvi, 2011

ARTICLES

John S. Moore, Redating the Cartae Baronum

David Dymond, Fair and Foul in Historical Evidence

Brian Barber, Petitioning Parliament 'to remedy these great mischiefs': The West Riding of Yorkshire Quarter Sessions and Law Reform, 1729-1731

Anne Summers, Gaps and Bias in the Records: Researching Christian-Jewish Charitable Collaborations, 1880s-1920s

Nicole Baur, John Draisey and Joseph Melling, Public Policy and Patient Privacy: Archiving Patients' Mental Health Records from the Age of the Great Hospital, c.1948-1970

Frank Prochaska, The Changing Fortunes of Philanthropy

Daniel Waley and Christopher Whittick, The Earl, his Daughter, her Brother's Housekeeper and The Cat: The Remarkable Story of the Sheffield Park Archives

NOTES AND DOCUMENTS

Richard A. Gaunt, 'Captain Swing' on trial: a prosecutor's perspective. Extracts from the diary of Godfrey Tallents

REVIEWS

ABSTRACTS

John S. Moore, Redating the Cartae Baronum
The cartae baronum have long been dated to the year 1166, a date not found in either of the two surviving original cartae or the later transcripts first printed from the Liber Niger Scaccarii Parvum in Thomas Hearne's Liber Niger Scaccarii. It derives instead from Hubert Hall's later, faulty, edition of Liber Rubeus Scaccarii. The date of the cartae baronum was more precisely defined as February-March 1166 by R.W. Eyton in his pioneering work on Henry II's Itinerary in 1878. Eyton offered no evidence to support his assertion other than a 1165-6 Pipe Roll entry first discovered in Thomas
Madox's work on the history of the Exchequer. This essay re-assesses the evidence and suggests that the cartae should be dated to 1165.


David Dymond, Fair and Foul in Historical Evidence
The OED relates the word 'fair' to handwriting which is neat, clear and legible, and a 'fair copy' to a transcript which is free from corrections. If asked today what word is the opposite of 'fair' in this sense, most of us would probably say 'rough', 'preliminary' or 'original'. This short note is intended to show that these differences have interesting implications for working historians today, as we attempt to wring meaning out of various levels and types of so-called 'primary' evidence.


Brian Barber, Petitioning Parliament 'to remedy these great mischiefs': The West Riding of Yorkshire Quarter Sessions and Law Reform, 1729-1731
A number of initiatives for reforms to improve and cheapen legal procedures were made by the West Riding court of quarter sessions through three petitions to the House of Commons and by the lobbying of members of Parliament between 1729 and 1731. In a national context, the most important consequences of these were Acts of 1729 and 1731, the first of which led to the formalisation of qualification for attorneys and solicitors and the second, well known to both archivists and archive users, finally established the practice of using English in the written proceedings of all courts of law. The third Act reduced the possibility for successful appeals from quarter sessions through either disputes over correct form or the use of writs of certiorari. It is likely that these means were taken to reform legal procedures for the benefit of the numerous small clothiers in the West Riding who were suffering financially from a trade depression in the later 1720s.


Anne Summers, Gaps and Bias in the Records: Researching Christian-Jewish Charitable Collaborations, 1880s-1920s
This paper arises from research on relations between Christian and Jewish women in England in the century before WWII. Charities play a large role in the project, because they provided many such meeting-places. As charities in the period 1880-1920 have a great deal to do with issues of religious engagement and are obliged by law to leave some record of their activities, they provide a very fruitful field of research. However, what is not revealed in the documentation is often as intellectually challenging as what is found there, furnishing examples of gaps, bias and questions which must be confronted, but may remain unresolved.


Nicole Baur, John Draisey and Joseph Melling, Public Policy and Patient Privacy: Archiving Patients' Mental Health Records from the Age of the Great Hospital, c.1948-1970
The demands and challenges facing the archivist, the historian and the medical researcher may appear very different, though they share a concern with creating and preserving accurate information. Not only those concerned about the growth and evaluation of medical treatments, but those charged with the preservation of medical records are actively engaged in the challenge of retaining individual records. For the patient files of the hospital era provide the materials from which a serious history of medical treatment must be written. Selecting and linking relevant information remains the most significant challenge for archivists and historians.

Frank Prochaska, The Changing Fortunes of Philanthropy
This paper was delivered as the Bond Lecture at the annual conference of the British Records Association, which met on 7 December 2010 on the subject: 'The Philanthropic Files: records of charities and their uses'. The talk sought to throw some light on the shifting fortunes of philanthropy over the last two centuries, with asides about charitable records based on the author's archival researches over many years. Among the paper's themes were the changing relationship of philanthropy to the state, the rich tradition of working-class charity, and the democratic nature of voluntary activity. It concluded with some reflections on the present state of charity, and its meaning for British records, in an era of cross-party support for welfare pluralism and government partnerships.


Daniel Waley and Christopher Whittick, The Earl, his Daughter, her Brother's Housekeeper and The Cat: The Remarkable Story of the Sheffield Park Archives
This article reconstructs the means by which the archive of the Holroyd family of Sheffield Park, East Sussex, including papers of Frederick North, 2nd earl of Guilford, best known by the courtesy title that he bore for most of his adult life as Lord North, came to be dispersed. A series of losses, pilferings and sales (some dubious), culminated in an entirely proper but archivally disastrous auction, held in 1981 on the instructions of Mrs Kate Frances King (1899-1989) of The Cottage, Fletching, the village which stands at the gates of the park. The extraordinary descent of the archive was set in motion by the eccentric lifestyle of the third earl of Sheffield, Henry North Holroyd, who died without legitimate issue in 1909. The article concludes with a brief description of the 67 lots in the sale, with details of the whereabouts and references of those which can be traced.


NOTES AND DOCUMENTS

Richard A. Gaunt, 'Captain Swing' on trial: a prosecutor's perspective. Extracts from the diary of Godfrey Tallents
This article presents new source material relating to the prosecution of the Hampshire and Wiltshire 'Swing' rioters at the special commissions convened at Winchester and Salisbury in December 1830 and January 1831. This material comes from the diary of Godfrey Tallents (1812-77), the eldest son of the attorney and political agent William Edward Tallents (1780-1837), who assisted in the prosecution of the rioters. Godfrey Tallents accompanied his father to Winchester and acted as his junior. The relevant diary entries, which are reproduced in their entirety, offer important first-hand testimony from a participant in the special commission. They offer a new and welcome perspective on events, broadening the base of archival material upon which historians of the subject (such as the Hammonds and Rudé and Hobsbawm) have traditionally relied.

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