In an age when gentlemen and ladies often neither dined together, or shared the same church pews, Bath’s communal facilities must have come as quite a shock for the first-time visitor. When Edward Ward visited the famous city he observed a startling and deeply unattractive picture of the middle classes taking to the waters.

The recently published survey of the Burghfield St Mary Memorial Inscriptions (BRK0287) contains lists of the 55 men who were killed in the two world wars. This article describes the techniques used to try and identify the people behind the names not listed, and also records the 31 other people, with connections to Burghfield, who died in these conflicts.

An aunt showed me a bible belonging to her grandfather Alfred Purton. Inside was an inscription from Queen Victoria ...

I began writing up my family history about twenty years ago. I wanted to turn my research into a story which included something of what life might have been like for my ancestors. One driver for this was an eager audience within my family who, I suspected, would be quickly bored by a list of dates and places.