David Butcher
Though of Bungay origins, my whole working-life - as a teacher of English - was spent in Lowestoft, at the Harris Secondary School for Girls (1965-9) and at Alderman Woodrow/Kirkley High School (1969-2002). My BA degree from Durham University was in English, Modern History & Latin (1964) and I also hold an MPhil in History, from the University of East Anglia (1989), for a study of Lowestoft’s social and economic development 1560-1730. I taught that university’s Certificate Course in English Local History for its Continuing Studies Dept., at Lowestoft College of Further Education, from 1990-2004 - this being via a two-year, weekly, evening class for adults. My interest in the town’s history, specifically, began when my wife and I moved to Corton in August 1971 - beginning with its maritime activity connected to fishing, before moving on to other aspects of its fascinating past.
My main focus in the study of Local History generally (beginning, perhaps, in boyhood with an interest in the countryside around me) has always been rooted in what a particular environment enables its inhabitants to make of it. For me, starting with surface geology and major topographical features is the basic building-block (including a maritime setting, in the case of Lowestoft) on which to base study of a community. Added to this, wherever possible, is full family reconstitution of parish registers, in cases where the documentation allows this to be done, with manorial and probate records acting as valuable supplementary back-up. Other contemporary sources - such as parish tithe records, account rolls and land rentals, poor law accounts, settlement certificates, legal indictments and decisions, and old maps - can all help to create some sense of the past which goes beyond the merely superficial and creates an idea of “life at the time”, in so far as we are able to represent it.
In specialising mainly on the Early Modern period of English history (loosely, that stretching from the early 16th century to the end of the 18th), one of my main concerns has always been to show Lowestoft within the context of its own local area - as well as within a national one also, wherever possible. Too much “Local History” begins and ends with the first word: local. Events referred to are often merely a statement of what happened, without any attempt at either analysis or placing them within a wider framework. Context is everything, in the study of history, and every effort must be made to reflect this - something which is made easier today by the amount of national government documentation (e.g. Calendar of Patent Rolls, Calendar of State Papers Domestic etc., etc.) and other material which is now available online via the process of digitisation.
The pioneering work of W.G. Hoskins, during the 1950s and 60s, in establishing English Local History as a legitimate field of academic study, was a most important development within the world of university teaching and learning. It is to be regretted that it hasn’t managed to find its way as yet, in some form or other, into secondary-level education in England at either GCE Ordinary or Advanced levels.
Archived on WaybackMachine
user's content
Title | Image | Body |
---|---|---|
Lowestoft Almshouses | The first almshouses in Lowestoft were provided by John Manyngham, the parish vicar from 1457-78. / 19 January, 2025 | |
Bequests for the Relief of Poverty, 1560-1730 | For centuries, the use of alms boxes in parish churches throughout the whole of England was a means of collecting sums of money for charitable purposes – particularly the relief of poverty where it / 13 January, 2025 | |
Outsider Presence in Lowestoft 1561-1730 | (Parish Register Entries)The register entries below are presented in as close a way as possible to the original handwritten ones / 7 January, 2025 | |
Samuel Morton Peto and the Wider European World | , | Centuries of Ongoing ChangeDenmark Road, Flensburgh Street and Tonning Street: three closely connected roads near the shopping-centre and railway station of the Suffolk coastal town of Low / 31 December, 2024 |
Occupied Ground space 1600s | Nos. 5 -25 High StreetNos. / 17 December, 2024 | |
Properties on West Side of High Street in 1618 | (North of Mariners Street) / 17 December, 2024 | |
Ship Money Levy (1636) | So-called “Ship Money” had its roots in Late Medieval times, when coastal towns and counties in England were periodically called upon to supply vessels to the Crown for use in naval warfare during / 21 November, 2024 | |
Brewing in Lowestoft 1560-1760 | , | The Town of Lowestoft c. / 8 November, 2024 |
Human Migration into Lowestoft – 1696-1735 | In 1662, an Act of Settlement for the Better Relief of the Poor was passed by Parliament – a measure soon to become known as the Act of Settlement and Removal, as it aimed at rest / 5 November, 2024 | |
The Hearth Tax of 1674 | , | Hearth Tax, as a means of raising money for The Crown, was introduced into England following the Restoration of the Monarchy under Charles II in 1660. / 25 October, 2024 |
The Lay Subsidy of 1568 | , | Authorisation for this Elizabethan taxation was granted by Parliament on 18 December 1566 and the official date of collection was 24 February 1568. / 28 September, 2024 |
The Lay Subsidy of 1524-5 (2) | Comparisons of Lowestoft with other Suffolk communities / 24 September, 2024 | |
The Lay Subsidy of 1327 | , | The national tax levied in 1327 to raise revenue for the Crown came at a troubled time for the country, for this was the year in which Edward II was deposed by his wife, Isabella, and her lover, Ro / 2 September, 2024 |
The Old Town of Lowestoft | , | A paper written in advance of the creation of the High Street HAZ in 2019 / 31 August, 2024 |
The Hundred Roll of 1274-5 | , | When Henry III died in November 1272, his son and successor Edward (thirty-three years old) was in Sicily, on the way home from fighting in the Seventh – and last – Crusade. / 31 August, 2024 |