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History of Lincolnshire Committee

Some counties were lucky enough to have historical surveys prepared in pre-Victorian times; one thinks of Plot’s Oxfordshire, Hutchins’ two volume (later extended to four) study of Dorset and Hasted’s Kent. Lincolnshire has no equivalent. The Victoria County History series was initiated at the end of the nineteenth century and, it was hoped, that in Lincolnshire’s case, a comprehensive record of the county’s history would result. Some counties hardly ‘got off the ground’ and Lincolnshire was one such. Only a Volume Two appeared and the project for this county has fallen by the wayside.

When Dr (later Professor) Alan Rogers heard that a committee had been set up in Cheshire to produce a history of that county he proposed to the Lincolnshire Local History Society that a similar project administered by the Rural Community Council be set up. On 12 January 1966 a meeting was held in Lincoln Castle at which a History of Lincolnshire Committee was inaugurated. Shortly after, at a meeting in Nottingham University, Dr Joan Thirsk agreed to chair a group comprising Professor Bullough and Dr May (both Nottingham), Ben Whitwell (Lincoln City and County Museum), Dr Dorothy Owen (Cambridge), G A J Hodgett (King’s College, London), Dr Rogers and Mrs Simpson (Leicester).

Sufficient funding and guarantees were obtained so that the project could proceed. It was originally expected that there would be eleven volumes dealing with the county in a chronological sequence. It was also hoped that there would be two volumes issued each year since work from several potential authors seemed to be well in hand already. By 1968 Dr Rogers had become Chairman and the committee had taken on a more Lincolnshire orientated colour with the inclusion of Tom Baker (Director, Lincoln City Libraries and Museum), the Lindsey & Holland County Librarian, the Lincolnshire County Archivist, Rex Russell and Jim English. Mr G R Watson became treasurer.

The early days were difficult owing to the failure of most of the intended authors to produce acceptable material. It was not until 1971 that Ben Whitwell’s volume Roman Lincolnshire appeared as the first of the series. It also proved impossible to issue books in the order of the proposed chronological sequence. In the event, the final books of the series, now increased to twelve, did not appear until 1998 and 2000 and dealt with Anglo-Saxon Lincolnshire and Churches, Chapels and the Parish Communities of Lincolnshire, 1660-1900 respectively.

In the thirty years between the first and last of the series the Committee was chaired by Professor Maurice Barley, followed by Dr Dennis Mills and, presently, by Professor John Beckett of Nottingham University; the personnel has also altered considerably.

Once the project had been completed the Committee decided to pursue a policy of publishing monographs on topics relating to the county but cutting across chronological distinctions by concentrating the focus on special subject areas or on specific geographical parts of the county. The first two to be published in the new series are The Lincolnshire Wolds in the Nineteenth Century by Dr Charles Rawding (2001) and Farming in Lincolnshire, 1850-1945 by Dr Jonathan Brown (2005). Other titles are in the pipeline.

Ray Carroll