 | a bibliographical newsletter Issue 13 March 2020  |
Into the 2020s on the eve of Covid-19
The new decade began following a familiar pattern as far as the British national bibliography is concerned. Among the publications listed in the first few weeks of 2020 are a number of works of fiction set in Devon or by local writers, including names already well represented in the Devon bibliography: Michael Jecks, Kate Ellis, Hilary Mantel, S. M. Hardy, Hilary Bonner, Rosie Meddon etc. Anne Cleeves has also moved the settings of her novels from the Shetland Isles to north Devon. There are also poetry publications from publishers in Exeter, Plymouth and Axminster. Plymouth features highly, both with works on the Pilgrim Fathers (fact and fiction) and also relating to the figurehead collections in the Box, due to open during the year and, profiting from the city's high profile in 2020, an A-Z of Plymouth : places, people, history. Local publishers also continue to produce works whose significance is not primarily local: Pelagic Publishing in Exeter with works on wildlife and David and Charles, now also in Exeter but the same in name only as the earlier Newton Abbot outfit, publishing works on crafts rather than railways. There is still however the inevitable railway title on Devon locomotives. There are important studies of Early Christianity in south-west Britain, Exeter Cathedral : its history, art and meaning and Cornwall in the age of rebellion, 1490-1660 as well as guides to Lydford Gorge and 50 gems of South Devon, described as introducing "the history and heritage of the most iconic places". Until recently these could be enjoyed over a coffee selected from the latest South West and South Wales independent coffee guide published in Barnstaple by Salt Media. The occasional official publication creeps in: a report on a fishing vessel capsized in Plymouth from the Marine Accident Investigation Branch and a South West region report by the Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate but these are exceptions. BNB lists few official publications, whether from central government departments or local authorities, nor is it picking up the many local guides that should now be appearing for the coming year, although some of these may well now be delayed as people are being urged not to visit the Westcountry in the coming months. Some attempt has been made to search for local official publications, particularly in the area of waste disposal and Covid-19 which will be added to the bibliography. There has not been time to seek out any local guidebooks and other tourist publications that might have appeared. Is there anyone out there who might do this for the Westcountry Studies Collection and let me know about any they are aware of for the Devon bibliography? Difficult now that tourist offices have closed.
Some works on epidemics in the Devon bibliography
Cook, Judith. Year of the pyres: the 2001 foot-and-mouth epidemic Edinburgh : Mainstream Publishing, 2001. - Held by: WSL: s636.089/WES/COO. -
Coppard, William Isaac. Cottage scenes during the cholera: being extracts from a diary written in July and August, 1832 (1848). - Held by: WSL: 614.514/PLY/COP
Gibson, Anthony. An ill wind : the impact of the 2001 outbreak of foot and mouth disease in Devon . - In: Devonshire Association Transactions ; 138, 2006, pages 1-24.
Huxham, John. Observationes de aere et morbis epidemicis, ab anno MDCCXXVIII ad finem anni MDCCXXXVII Plimuthi factae. .... London : J. Hinton, 1752. - Held by: WSL: s614.4/WES/HUX.
Huxham, John. Observationes de aere ... volumen alterum. - London : J. Hinton, 1752. — Held by: WSL: s614.4/PLY/HUX.
Huxham, John. Observations on the air and epidemic diseases from the year mdccxxviii, to mdccxxxvii. inclusive .... 1759. Held by: WSL: s614.4/WES/HUX.
Huxham, John. Observations on the air and epidemic diseases from the ... year mdccxxviii, to mdccxxxvii.- Vol. 2 Trans. by J.C.Huxham. 1759. Held by: WSL: s614.4/GEN/HUX
Huxham, John. Observationes de aere et morbis epidemicis, ab anno MDCCXXVIII ad finem anni MDCCXXXVII Plimuthi factae. - Venetiis : apud Laur. Basilium, 1764. - [6],xxx,161,[1],38,[6] pages ; 8º. - Held by: WSL: s614.4/PLY/HUX. -
Huxham, John. Observations on the air and epidemic diseases. - London : printed for J. Hinton, at the King’s-Arms in Pater-Noster Row, and Henry Whitfeld, 1767.
Killingback, Alan John. James Golsworthy and the Exeter city water supply during the 1832 cholera epidemic. In: Devonshire Association, Transactions, ; 130, 1998. pages 95-110. Copies: WSL: PER/DEV ; BAR ; DEI ; EXU ; PLY ; TOR.
Oswald, Neville C. Epidemics in Devon. - In: Devonshire Association Transactions ; 109, 1977. - Pages 73-116.
Pickard, Ransom, 1867-1953. The population and epidemics of Exeter in pre-census times. - Exeter : James Townsend & Sons Ltd, 1947. - Privately printed. The original manuscript and proofs are held in the archives of the University of Exeter. - Copies: EXU. -
Shapter, Thomas. The history of the cholera in Exeter in 1832. - London : John Churchill, 1849. - Held by: WSL: sB/EXE/614.514/SHA ; BAR: 614.514/EXE/SHA ; NDA: D614/SHA.
Wylie, John A.H. The changing face of the English sweating sickness in the epidemic of August 1551, in Devonshire... - In: Devonshire Association Transactions ; 116, 1984. - Pages 97-107.
An 18th century Exeter lock-down
Those of us wondering what to do while confined to home might gain some ideas from the Exeter printer Andrew Brice, confined to his house near Northernhay in 1730 and 1731. He used his time to write a lengthy poem in blank verse, printed in June 1730:
Freedom: a poem, written in time of recess from the rapacious claws of bailiffs, and devouring fangs of gaolers / By Andrew Brice, printer. To which is annexed The author's case. - At Exon : Printed by and for the author, at his printing office opposite to St. Stephen's Church, in the High-Street, 1730. The work was published by subscription, price half a crown (2s 6d in real money or £0.125).
From this it is clear that Andrew was not confined because of an epidemic but, as explained in the first lines:
Rich Freedom's Joys I sing ; unparallel'd
Distress and wail of Wretch in dismal Hole
For Debt absconding, who perpetual dreads
Close Vestigation of Sh'riffs Blood-hound cry.
During his incarceration his workforce continued to print his newspaper for him and he was only able to leave his house after dark or on Sundays, a day when debtors could not be arrested. In his newspaper for 30 April 1731 he describes Exeter when he left his house for exercise:
"I can't take upon me to swear that they so much as open their Shops in Exeter ; finding 'em all close shut every day that I behold 'em. ... No man, I believe, makes more of the Sunday than I do.
By every Shop a solemn Closure's worn,
And reverent Silence Sacred speaks the Morn.
[...]
Absconding Debtor hails the blissful Dawn,
Snuffs free the Breeze, and dreadless seeks the Lawn.
Andrew's ramm'd Petronels [firearms] unproved lie,
Nor hangs defensive Steel upon his Thigh.
[...]
Fell Catchpoles now their own Restraint deplore,
And glum aloof beshrew his open Door."
Whether he had armed himself to defend his house during weekdays is uncertain, but in many other respects we may sympathise with Andrew's lost freedom almost two centuries ago. Will the Devon bibliography be listing any poems published in Devon recording the lock-down in 2020?
The new decade began following a familiar pattern as far as the British national bibliography is concerned. Among the publications listed in the first few weeks of 2020 are a number of works of fiction set in Devon or by local writers, including names already well represented in the Devon bibliography: Michael Jecks, Kate Ellis, Hilary Mantel, S. M. Hardy, Hilary Bonner, Rosie Meddon etc. Anne Cleeves has also moved the settings of her novels from the Shetland Isles to north Devon. There are also poetry publications from publishers in Exeter, Plymouth and Axminster. Plymouth features highly, both with works on the Pilgrim Fathers (fact and fiction) and also relating to the figurehead collections in the Box, due to open during the year and, profiting from the city's high profile in 2020, an A-Z of Plymouth : places, people, history. Local publishers also continue to produce works whose significance is not primarily local: Pelagic Publishing in Exeter with works on wildlife and David and Charles, now also in Exeter but the same in name only as the earlier Newton Abbot outfit, publishing works on crafts rather than railways. There is still however the inevitable railway title on Devon locomotives. There are important studies of Early Christianity in south-west Britain, Exeter Cathedral : its history, art and meaning and Cornwall in the age of rebellion, 1490-1660 as well as guides to Lydford Gorge and 50 gems of South Devon, described as introducing "the history and heritage of the most iconic places". Until recently these could be enjoyed over a coffee selected from the latest South West and South Wales independent coffee guide published in Barnstaple by Salt Media. The occasional official publication creeps in: a report on a fishing vessel capsized in Plymouth from the Marine Accident Investigation Branch and a South West region report by the Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate but these are exceptions. BNB lists few official publications, whether from central government departments or local authorities, nor is it picking up the many local guides that should now be appearing for the coming year, although some of these may well now be delayed as people are being urged not to visit the Westcountry in the coming months. Some attempt has been made to search for local official publications, particularly in the area of waste disposal and Covid-19 which will be added to the bibliography. There has not been time to seek out any local guidebooks and other tourist publications that might have appeared. Is there anyone out there who might do this for the Westcountry Studies Collection and let me know about any they are aware of for the Devon bibliography? Difficult now that tourist offices have closed.
Some works on epidemics in the Devon bibliography
Cook, Judith. Year of the pyres: the 2001 foot-and-mouth epidemic Edinburgh : Mainstream Publishing, 2001. - Held by: WSL: s636.089/WES/COO. -
Coppard, William Isaac. Cottage scenes during the cholera: being extracts from a diary written in July and August, 1832 (1848). - Held by: WSL: 614.514/PLY/COP
Gibson, Anthony. An ill wind : the impact of the 2001 outbreak of foot and mouth disease in Devon . - In: Devonshire Association Transactions ; 138, 2006, pages 1-24.
Huxham, John. Observationes de aere et morbis epidemicis, ab anno MDCCXXVIII ad finem anni MDCCXXXVII Plimuthi factae. .... London : J. Hinton, 1752. - Held by: WSL: s614.4/WES/HUX.
Huxham, John. Observationes de aere ... volumen alterum. - London : J. Hinton, 1752. — Held by: WSL: s614.4/PLY/HUX.
Huxham, John. Observations on the air and epidemic diseases from the year mdccxxviii, to mdccxxxvii. inclusive .... 1759. Held by: WSL: s614.4/WES/HUX.
Huxham, John. Observations on the air and epidemic diseases from the ... year mdccxxviii, to mdccxxxvii.- Vol. 2 Trans. by J.C.Huxham. 1759. Held by: WSL: s614.4/GEN/HUX
Huxham, John. Observationes de aere et morbis epidemicis, ab anno MDCCXXVIII ad finem anni MDCCXXXVII Plimuthi factae. - Venetiis : apud Laur. Basilium, 1764. - [6],xxx,161,[1],38,[6] pages ; 8º. - Held by: WSL: s614.4/PLY/HUX. -
Huxham, John. Observations on the air and epidemic diseases. - London : printed for J. Hinton, at the King’s-Arms in Pater-Noster Row, and Henry Whitfeld, 1767.
Killingback, Alan John. James Golsworthy and the Exeter city water supply during the 1832 cholera epidemic. In: Devonshire Association, Transactions, ; 130, 1998. pages 95-110. Copies: WSL: PER/DEV ; BAR ; DEI ; EXU ; PLY ; TOR.
Oswald, Neville C. Epidemics in Devon. - In: Devonshire Association Transactions ; 109, 1977. - Pages 73-116.
Pickard, Ransom, 1867-1953. The population and epidemics of Exeter in pre-census times. - Exeter : James Townsend & Sons Ltd, 1947. - Privately printed. The original manuscript and proofs are held in the archives of the University of Exeter. - Copies: EXU. -
Shapter, Thomas. The history of the cholera in Exeter in 1832. - London : John Churchill, 1849. - Held by: WSL: sB/EXE/614.514/SHA ; BAR: 614.514/EXE/SHA ; NDA: D614/SHA.
Wylie, John A.H. The changing face of the English sweating sickness in the epidemic of August 1551, in Devonshire... - In: Devonshire Association Transactions ; 116, 1984. - Pages 97-107.
An 18th century Exeter lock-down
Those of us wondering what to do while confined to home might gain some ideas from the Exeter printer Andrew Brice, confined to his house near Northernhay in 1730 and 1731. He used his time to write a lengthy poem in blank verse, printed in June 1730:
Freedom: a poem, written in time of recess from the rapacious claws of bailiffs, and devouring fangs of gaolers / By Andrew Brice, printer. To which is annexed The author's case. - At Exon : Printed by and for the author, at his printing office opposite to St. Stephen's Church, in the High-Street, 1730. The work was published by subscription, price half a crown (2s 6d in real money or £0.125).
From this it is clear that Andrew was not confined because of an epidemic but, as explained in the first lines:
Rich Freedom's Joys I sing ; unparallel'd
Distress and wail of Wretch in dismal Hole
For Debt absconding, who perpetual dreads
Close Vestigation of Sh'riffs Blood-hound cry.
During his incarceration his workforce continued to print his newspaper for him and he was only able to leave his house after dark or on Sundays, a day when debtors could not be arrested. In his newspaper for 30 April 1731 he describes Exeter when he left his house for exercise:
"I can't take upon me to swear that they so much as open their Shops in Exeter ; finding 'em all close shut every day that I behold 'em. ... No man, I believe, makes more of the Sunday than I do.
By every Shop a solemn Closure's worn,
And reverent Silence Sacred speaks the Morn.
[...]
Absconding Debtor hails the blissful Dawn,
Snuffs free the Breeze, and dreadless seeks the Lawn.
Andrew's ramm'd Petronels [firearms] unproved lie,
Nor hangs defensive Steel upon his Thigh.
[...]
Fell Catchpoles now their own Restraint deplore,
And glum aloof beshrew his open Door."
Whether he had armed himself to defend his house during weekdays is uncertain, but in many other respects we may sympathise with Andrew's lost freedom almost two centuries ago. Will the Devon bibliography be listing any poems published in Devon recording the lock-down in 2020?
Devon and Cornwall Record Society
The latest DCRS publication and the one still forthcoming in 2020 are not yet listed by BNB but both are handsome publications. I was pleased to be able to attend the presentation of William Birchynshaw's map of Exeter, 1743 to the Lord Mayor of Exeter at the Guildhall on 7 February. The volume includes a reproduction of the newly discovered map, A platforme of the city of EXOИ [sic] 1743, together with images of more than twenty other maps of the city from 1587 to 1949. These accompany a history of the mapping of Exeter by Richard Oliver and Roger Kain and there is also an account of the city of Exeter in 1743 by Todd Gray, covering topography, society, economy, government and religion. It is in an impressively large format and the resolution of the images is excellent, but it would have been better if some attempt could have been made to heighten the contrast on some of the images which have a muddy brown background. It would also have been helpful if references were also given to the entry numbers in The printed maps of Exeter : city maps 1587-1901 by Francis Bennett and Kit Batten. It is a shame too that in the account of the history of Exeter's mapping there is no mention of the Goad insurance plans. These were published at a scale of 1:480 for Exeter from 1888 to 1962 and are in many respects more detailed than the OS 1:500 plans, giving detailed information on the construction of individual buildings, but only for a restricted central area. Copies are held in the Westcountry Studies Library and they are also available for Exeter and Plymouth on aperture cards. The base sheets for 1888 are accessible on-line at the BL website and they were regularly updated. This old bibliofool is long enough in the tooth to remember visits from staff of Charles E. Goad Ltd who would arrive with paper and paste-pot at Guildhall Library in London in the 1960s to carefully cut out areas to be updated and paste them over the relevant buildings. For this reason it is difficult to know exactly which dates the copies in Westcountry Studies cover.
The forthcoming DCRS volume, due for publication in October, is also for a recent Exeter discovery dating from just twenty years after Birchynshaw's map. The Exeter cloth dispatch book, 1763-5, edited by Todd Gray, is for a colourful manuscript detailing the exports of Claude Passavant, a Swiss émigré merchant. It will reproduce the most extensive surviving collection of Devon cloth with 2,475 samples, dyed in many colours. It also brings together contributions from specialists analysing the local and wider contexts of the Passavant family and the manufacture and trade in woollen cloth, the mainstay of Exeter's economy until the later 18th century. Contributors are Todd Gray, Michael Nix, Elly Babbedge, Martin Watts, John Allan, Jenny Balfour Paul, Isabella Whitworth, A. G. Collings, Peter Maunder, Michael A. Patrick, Sarah Nuthall, Anita Travers and Philip A. Sykas.
More on maps
The pages on maps in the Devon bibliography have had a wholesale recasting with clickable maps leading to listings of national grid maps and the earlier county series sheets. The national grid sheets for each 10Km square are introduced by images of the area from Saxton (1575), Donn (1765), Greenwood (1827) and later boundary maps. This is not yet complete as much previous work was lost but work is also in hand to integrate onto the national grid base the Devon road maps of Ogilby (1675) the first surveyor to adopt the one inch scale. These homespun presentations do not replace the excellent interactive map coverage to be found in the National Library of Scotland Ordnance Survey website, the Old Maps nationwide coverage or Devon's Know your place. While these provide marvellous opportunities for research across seamless mapping, they do not always make it easy to run to earth the original maps on which these resources are based. Nevertheless this approach will serve for a period when one inch to a mile was the largest scale available county-wide and accuracy was not sufficient to permit overlaying one map upon another. When complete the map listings in the bibliography will provide details of locally held copies of more than 17,000 Ordnance Survey maps and plans. The early 1:500 surveys of Plymouth in about 1860 and Exeter in 1876 are also being added.
The forthcoming DCRS volume, due for publication in October, is also for a recent Exeter discovery dating from just twenty years after Birchynshaw's map. The Exeter cloth dispatch book, 1763-5, edited by Todd Gray, is for a colourful manuscript detailing the exports of Claude Passavant, a Swiss émigré merchant. It will reproduce the most extensive surviving collection of Devon cloth with 2,475 samples, dyed in many colours. It also brings together contributions from specialists analysing the local and wider contexts of the Passavant family and the manufacture and trade in woollen cloth, the mainstay of Exeter's economy until the later 18th century. Contributors are Todd Gray, Michael Nix, Elly Babbedge, Martin Watts, John Allan, Jenny Balfour Paul, Isabella Whitworth, A. G. Collings, Peter Maunder, Michael A. Patrick, Sarah Nuthall, Anita Travers and Philip A. Sykas.
More on maps
The pages on maps in the Devon bibliography have had a wholesale recasting with clickable maps leading to listings of national grid maps and the earlier county series sheets. The national grid sheets for each 10Km square are introduced by images of the area from Saxton (1575), Donn (1765), Greenwood (1827) and later boundary maps. This is not yet complete as much previous work was lost but work is also in hand to integrate onto the national grid base the Devon road maps of Ogilby (1675) the first surveyor to adopt the one inch scale. These homespun presentations do not replace the excellent interactive map coverage to be found in the National Library of Scotland Ordnance Survey website, the Old Maps nationwide coverage or Devon's Know your place. While these provide marvellous opportunities for research across seamless mapping, they do not always make it easy to run to earth the original maps on which these resources are based. Nevertheless this approach will serve for a period when one inch to a mile was the largest scale available county-wide and accuracy was not sufficient to permit overlaying one map upon another. When complete the map listings in the bibliography will provide details of locally held copies of more than 17,000 Ordnance Survey maps and plans. The early 1:500 surveys of Plymouth in about 1860 and Exeter in 1876 are also being added.
Charlotte Mary Yonge and her goslings
My attention was recently directed to a literary society
whose activity will probably escape the net of the Devon bibliography as few
of the Devon members' works reached
publication. The novelist Charlotte
Mary Yonge (1823–1901) was born and
lived most of her life in Otterbourne, Hampshire where she produced some 160 books, mainly aimed at young people.
The Westcountry Studies Library in Exeter
has a large collection of her works and many of her letters. She felt a
strong affinity for Exeter and Devon through her relatives in the Coleridge family. In
1859 she was encouraged by her cousin Mary Coleridge to start an essay
society for a group of young girls who were in need of more mental
stimulation than the life of a Victorian daughter at home afforded
them. They called her Mother Goose and they became the Goslings.
Each girl adopted a fancy pen-name and wrote two essays a month for her, and
the best essays were circulated among them all in a manuscript periodical The
Barnacle. Its foundation reflects the anxiety felt by many
Victorians about the restricted educational opportunities for women. The
Gosling Society ran in all for about eighteen years, ending by mutual consent
in September 1877 and it provides an interesting example of a literary group not affected by "social distancing" and using an early version of social media to keep in contact.
The earliest known
members of the Society were Mary’s niece Mildred Coleridge, two other
cousins of hers, Paulina Martyn and Christabel Coleridge, two Devon neighbours, Charlotte and Henrietta Fursdon, and
Charlotte Yonge’s friend and neighbour Emily Moberly. Many of them were
related to each other; all were drawn from a narrow social circle,
mainly from clerical and gentry families. It seems to have usually
included about ten young women at any one time. The main evidence about the Gosling
Society comes from the surviving volumes of its manuscript magazine, The
Barnacle of which an incomplete series from 1863 to 1867 is in the
library of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford . These
have circulation lists at the front, which, in conjunction with two other
surviving circulation lists for 1869 and 1876 in a private collection,
provide most of the information about membership.
Here is a list of
some of the Devonian members together with their
nicknames and their place of residence:
ALBATROSS, Joanna Dorothea Dyke Acland Troyte
(1843/4-1917).
BOG OAK, (Anne Elizabeth) Mary Anderson Morshead
(1845/6-1928), Plympton.
QUEEN BEE, (Helen) Beatrice Anderson Morshead
(1853/4-1922), Plympton.
HOOPOE, Ebba Bayley (b.1845/6), Cotford
House, Sidbury, Sidmouth.
Elinor Champernowne (1846-1876),
Dartington Hall, Totnes.
BLUEBELL, The Hon. Alethea Elizabeth Catherine
Colborne (1852/3-1927), Plympton.
THE OLD
SECRETARY, Mary Frances Keble
Coleridge (1824-1898).
GURGOYLE, Alice Mary Coleridge (1846-1907).
GLOW WORM, Charlotte Sophia Fursdon (1846-1916),
Fursdon and Dawlish.
IRENE, Henrietta Elizabeth Fursdon (1843-1928).
Sister of Glow Worm.
PIXIE, Mary Penelope Fursdon (1851-1925)
Sister of Glow Worm and Irene.
POTATOE, (Elizabeth )
Emily Maconchy (1848/9-1927), Corrinagh, Torquay.
(Mary Sophia) Paulina Martyn
(1843-1887), Harleston, Torre, Torquay.
UGLY DUCKLING, Lilian Mary Mitchell (1847/8-1893),
Kingsteignton.
FERNSEED, Frances Mary Peard (1835-1923),
Sparnow, Torquay.
Most of the above information comes from a web page by Dr Charlotte Mitchell: Charlotte Yonge : the Goslings.
Blue plaque to Sabine Baring-Gould unveiled in Exeter
The latest of the Exeter Civic
Society's blue plaques, to Sabine Baring-Gould, was unveiled on his birthplace
in Exeter, now the premises of Gilbert Stephens, solicitors, at 16 Southernhay
East on Friday 20 March by a great grand-daughter who just happened to be
passing by and noticed the plaque. Hazel Harvey, President of Exeter Civic Society was
pleased to hand over that honour to her as the American great grand-daughter who had
been invited to unveil the plaque had to cancel her flight.
Covid-19 meant that the event was
severely curtailed but it was decided to go ahead with the unveiling so as to
fulfil the wishes of the donors who had generously funded the production of the
plaque. A celebratory event which would have done fuller justice to this
remarkable man with a recital of folk songs by Wren Music and a display of books,
manuscripts and broadside ballads from the Devon Heritage Centre is now postponed until life returns to
normal.
Sabine
Baring-Gould is probably responsible for more entries in the Devon bibliography than any other Devon writer. He considered his greatest achievement to be his pioneering
collecting of folk songs of Devon and Cornwall
which he began in 1888. Many of these were published between 1889 and 1895 but
manuscripts in Exeter and Plymouth libraries and archives preserve many
more. More than twenty organisations and individuals who are involved in
maintaining his heritage were to be represented and these are listed in a
programme which is available on the website of the Devon
bibliography. They include Wren Music, who have long been inspired by
his work and have digitised his manuscripts and the Kent
Kingdon Bequest, a charity for Exeter's heritage, which was to use the
occasion to present substantial grants to Wren Music and the Devon Heritage Centre to
help in their work in safeguarding this important part of Devon's literary and
musical heritage.
What next?
With old bibliofools like me safely isolated and with time on their hands there is an opportunity for more work to tidy up the Devon bibliography. Apart from the maps, work is being undertaken on periodicals. The rediscovery of an archived listing of periodicals from about 2003 with details of holdings will make it possible to flesh out the information available from the South West Heritage Trust's listing where much data seems to have been lost in transfer and the web presentation is not helpful. The archived pages are also making it possible to upgrade bibliography entries for the 1920s with the idea of assisting the Devon in the 1920s project, a collaboration between Devon History Society, Devon Family History Society, and the South West Heritage Trust which is managed by Devon History Society, with Dr Julia Neville acting as Project Manager. Items located by the project in repositories or private hands across the county could also be added to the Devon bibliography but this would require assistance. It might be possible for copies of the spreadsheets to be made available to the project for entries to be added or amended directly. There is already a booklist on the project website with which this could be integrated, perhaps a first step to integrating more fully the Devon bibliography with the Westcountry Studies Library catalogue on which it is largely based.
What the bibliographical scene will be once the present unprecedented situation returns to normal remains to be seen. By then the UNESCO city of literature four year programme should be up and running in Exeter with the opportunity for more collaborative projects. In the meantime keep your social distance and stay safe.
