Heraldry: more than just logos for nobles
Heraldry can help with family history research, and there are many sources freely available online.
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19 Feb 2020
The Victorian Plentys
At the Newbury Branch January 2020 meeting Ellie Thorne of the Berkshire Record Office outlined the history of the Plenty company, an innovative and successful engineering firm founded at the turn of the nineteenth century. Lifeboats, steam engines, boilers, pumps, diesel engines and even a delivery van were produced at Plenty's Eagle Ironworks in the heart of Newbury.
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16 Jan 2020
Boiled cats, mercury and Jesuit Drops: healthcare in Georgian Newbury
Whilst the physicians and surgeons of Georgian times were technically regulated by their professional bodies, standards of training and practice were unenforceable. Itinerant “doctors” moved from town to town, dispensing miracle cures for all diseases
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14 Nov 2019
The life and times of Robert Tebbott (1782 – 1850)
Around 1820 the Prince Regent, about to become George IV, decided that Windsor Castle should be rebuilt as a royal residence. The contract for the work was awarded to Robert Tebbott. The original estimate of £120,000 soared to £1.2 million.
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10 Oct 2019
Lord Craven and his problems with the Commonwealth
William Craven was born in 1608, the eldest son of a self-made Lord Mayor of London who died in 1618. Baron Craven of Hamstead Marshall was a soldier who chose the Thirty Years’ War to pursue his military career.
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13 Feb 2019
Jack of Newbury
Jack of Newbury is a legendary figure of early Tudor England. However, you have to get the right one, out of several, including four generations of the same family where the heir was named John
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09 Jan 2019
Was your ancestor a criminal?
18th C English Law drew a distinction between public and private offences, the former being criminal and the latter being civil . Private offences included assault and battery, slander, libel, malicious prosecution, false imprisonment and abduction.
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13 Nov 2018
