 |
 |
I'm pretty certain that the Gloucester Port Book data is still accessible. Wolverhampton sold cds of the spreadsheet at £1000 a time. Shropshire Archives purchased a copy and I have occasionally used it there. I suspect a number of other institutions will also have copies. There may come a point when the cds become unreadable but I would be surprised if that has happened yet. This will be no help for Plymouth, which I don't think was ever part of the Wolverhampton project. David -----Original Message----- From: mining-history [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Peter Claughton Sent: 09 September 2012 08:58 To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: Port Books At 08:11 09/09/2012, Rick Stewart wrote: > I understand that Woverhampton Poly undertook a project to transcribe > the Gloucester port books; did they do anything else > (i.e Plymouth)? I possibly have access to a partial transcription > of the Plymouth books but ideally I would like to be able to see the > whole lot. Am I just goin to have to plough on with th e grotty > micofiche or biteth ebullet and make th etrip up to the national > archives? Keep ploughing Rick. The Wolverhampton project focused on Bristol Channel trade, and the analysis of the Gloucester data was published as Hussey et al., The Gloucester Coastal Port Books 1575-1765, (1995), but the full data set was stored on the mainframe at the university. Unfortunately software changes mean that data set is no longer accessible. The same thing happened with the Mineral Statistics at Exeter and it took decades to recover the data. In the Wolverhampton case, I understand the data set was corrupted and will never see the light of day again - a considerable waste of research time. The best you could do is work on the microfilm then check your transcripts against the originals in the National Archives: PRO (Kew). The original material is certainly easier to deal with. Other lines of enquiry you might also try are post grad studies based on the portbooks - there was a PHD thesis a few years back looking at early modern trade and the Duchy of Cornwall which may have included Plymouth itself (the port of Plymouth covers all the creeks in Cornwall so you have to be selective) but I cannot recall the author (Roger Burt will remind me - he once lent me a copy of the thesis). Peter Dr Peter Claughton, Blaenpant Morfil, nr. Rosebush, Clynderwen, Pembrokeshire, Wales SA66 7RE. Tel. +44 (0)1437 532578; Fax. +44 (0)1437 532921; Mobile +44 (0)7831 427599 Hon. University Fellow - College of Humanities, University of Exeter http://people.exeter.ac.uk/pfclaugh/about.htm E-mail: [log in to unmask] Co-owner - mining-history e-mail discussion list. See http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/files/mining-history/ for details. Mining History Pages - http://www.people.exeter.ac.uk/pfclaugh/mhinf/ _____________________________________________ If you need to leave the list, send the following message to [log in to unmask] - leave mining-history --------- If you need to leave the list, send the following message to [log in to unmask] - leave mining-history ---------