 | a bibliographical newsletter Issue 24 February 2022  |
Devon and Cornwall Notes and Queries URGENT
The South West Heritage Trust urgently requires the space currently used to store DCNQ stock in he Devon Heritage Centre. It is proving difficult to find alternative storage so, to avoid the necessity of incurring the costs of pulping or burning the stock, the editor John Draisey would welcome approaches from anyone who could take any of them off our hands - I use the first person plural possessive pronoun here, as I am one of the committee of DCNQ. The stock includes more than 70 bound volumes, with examples for most volumes from 1 to 32 (1900-1973) some with the special volumes which were issued before WW1. Titles of the early special volumes that are also available separately include:
- Cresswell, Churches of Kenn Deanery
- Chope, Early
- Carew Scroll of Arms
- Two Widecombe Tracts 1638
- Richard Peake of Tavistock (Three to One, Commendatory
Verses, Dick of
- Bosses and Corbels of
- Prideaux,
- Lega-Weekes, Topography of the Cathedral Close
- Misericords of
- Nuns of St Mary Cornworthy
There is multitude of loose parts available and the lack of an easily accessible index to articles for all volumes makes identification of items of interest difficult. The full run is in the process of being digitised by the Devon Family History Society and a listing of articles covering the years 1900-1928, 1974-1996 and 2007-2018 has been prepared by the Devon bibliography to assist in the identification of parts which might contain articles of interest. I am working to extend this to include major articles of interest for the missing years. There is also an analytical index for 1900-1996 compiled by DCNQ Treasurer Norman Annett on the GENUKI website, but this does not identify parts within the volumes. Please contact the editor John Draisey if you can either offer storage, preferably in Exeter, or can take items off our hands. Items are available free of charge but, to help defray the costs of disposal, a donation to DCNQ of £5.00 for a volume and £1.00 for a part is suggested. Postage costs would be additional for those unable to collect from the Devon Heritage Centre. The deadline for disposal is mid-March.
A new local studies librarian for Devon and Exeter
We welcome Sonia Llewellyn to the Devon and Exeter Institution as replacement for Emma Laws who has moved across the Close to become Cathedral Librarian. Sonia was previously with Greater Manchester as an archivist but she grew up in Devon, so is not entirely a stranger to the county. The busy programme of events and exhibitions around the heritage collections continues apace under her management, most recently a display of astronomical items linked to the "Museum of the Moon" in Exeter Cathedral, whose library also showcased astronomical items in its collections, none of them by Devon printers, but including Exeter's very own copy of the impressive Nuremberg Chronicle, the Liber Chronicarum by Hartmann Schedel printed in Nuremberg by Anton Koberger in 1493.
Devon bibliography, recent activity
The previous Devon bibliography newsletter, issue 23, a bumper issue published in December covered five months of developments. The latest interval is somewhat shorter, but there is progress to report. The Devon bibliography, as of 22 February 2022 contains some 120 records for 2022, many of them pre-publication records from the British National Bibliography. However, as of 22 February BNB still had not picked up The story of the book in Exeter and Devon received on legal deposit several months ago. It is reassuring to note that as of 24 February there are now 24 Devon publications for 2021 recorded in the SWHT catalogue, including several that had passed the compiler of the Devon bibliography by. There were as yet none for 2022 as pre-publication records are not included, although the Westcountry Studies Library catalogue used to include books that were on order. A retrospective trawl has also been made for Ofsted and Care Quality Commission reports. For earlier years many records have been upgraded, although many skeleton records remain from the rescue operation undertaken before Devon County Council withdrew the older catalogue database.
Devon dialect
A new web page has been added to the one compiled for the Unlocking our Sound Heritage initiative, covering periodical and newspaper articles, particularly many of the weekly series by Jan Stewer. The dialect database now contains more than 1,800 records for Westcountry dialect, covering also counties adjoining Devon as the dialect continuum does not respect county boundaries. The compiler of the Wikipedia article on Jan Stewer has congratulated the Devon bibliography on its work and added more detail on some of his earlier publications.
Newspaper indexes
The historian Peter Christie has generously made available to the Devon bibliography the book section of his massive index to the North Devon Journal from 1827 to 1966. It has more than 4,200 records which are currently being converted from a very long Word file to an Excel spreadsheet with a format which is compatible with the Devon bibliography. It is hoped to add book trade records for the Exeter Flying Post as included in the Exeter Working Papers in Book History series of Devon book trades directories. Newspaper indexes are still valuable resources for local historians; comment was made in the December newsletter on the shortcomings of the British Newspaper Archive when listing the newspaper dialect articles, largely deriving from the errors generated by OCR. The Exeter Flying Post card index in the Devon Heritage Centre was already compiled in the 1970s in a format that would be susceptible to digitisation, and it covers a wide range of subjects for the period 1763 to 1885 - scope for another lottery funded project to convert it? The index to the Bideford Gazette is also gradually appearing on the Bideford Community Archive website.
Work is almost completed transcribing the book references in the manuscript of 68 folio pages by Richard Lapthorne detailing events in London from 1690 to 1699 (2610M/F/2), a transcript of his letters from London to Richard Coffin at at Portledge, Alwington, near Bideford. In 1999 Professor Michael Treadwell was due to visit us in Exeter from Canada to analyse the book related extracts, which had been largely omitted by the published Portledge papers in 1928 but he suffered a fatal heart attack on the eve of his departure from Trent University in Canada. Papers relating to his work were passed to me, while the rest of his massive collection of papers on the London book trade of the late 17th century remained at Trent University. I now understand that negotiations are in hand to transfer them to the Bodleian Library, the present home of the British Book Trade Index, so when I have finished transcription I can pass my Treadwell files over. The correspondence provides an unparalleled insight into the workings of the London book trades and its relationship to provincial book collectors in the 17th century. I am now working on the identification of the several hundred 17th century book referred to in the letters.
Letters for 1698 in the recently recognised letter book which are missing from Lapthorne's original letters include some references to the surveyor John Norden (1548-1625?) and the draft transcripts are included here as they link to the Friends of Devon's Archives project to transcribe Norden's survey of Devon manors. Richard Lapthorne writes from London:
ulto Apr.98
[...] I have a survey by mee of Hertfordshire by Mr Norden don in Qn. Elizabeth's time in a smale print with a mapp its no bigger than a stitched sermon a most accurate [piece ?]. I am informed hee designed to doe every countie in England, but did onely that & Middlesex which two I have by mee & very - much esteem them because wel done & very hard to be gotten, if they are to be [available ?] at all.
2 July -98
[...] as for Nordens 2 little books if I cannot meet with them against your next box, if you please to command mine you shall have them. They are amongst a smale colleccion of odd things which arecatalogued.[15 October 1698]
[...] I have sent you my 2 bookes of Mr Nordens in which you have He[rtfordshire?] in a nutshell. I hunted up & down in all places where I thought they were to be had but could not meet with either of them at last I was told that Mr Morden (the geographer by the Royal Exchange) had them to whom I applyed, hee had them but they were both put under an old filthy parchment cover & the bookes spotted & steyned abominably & [index ?] wanted the map of Westm. & Hartfordsh. the general map of the county & would not part with it under 4s. so that I have sent my own, the reason why I [was] willing to have bought them was becaus I have a smale collecion of such scarce things & a catalogue of them.
25.8ber.98Richard Coffin Esqr his account 25. 8ber -98 all former accounts discharged R. L.[...] Nordens 2 books Middx & Hartfordshire 6s.
