Editorial note

EDITORIAL NOTE

Volume II of the Victoria History of Gloucestershire was published in 1907. At the time of its publication some progress had been made with compiling another volume but it did not come out and the remaining volumes as originally designed were not started. No doubt the First World War put a final stop to all activity on the History of Gloucestershire as of many other counties.

Practical interest was not revived until 1958 when the Gloucestershire County Council resolved to raise funds to enable a special staff to be appointed to write and organize the completion of the Gloucestershire History. A sub-committee of the County Records Committee was formed in 1959 to superintend the arrangements, and on this the Corporations of Bristol and Gloucester and the University of Bristol, though not participating financially, are represented. Over this Committee Lt.-Col. A. B. L. Lloyd-Baker, D.S.O., T.D., has ever since presided. Thus was formed another of those partnerships between a group of local patrons and the University of London, of which the prototype is the Wiltshire Victoria County History Committee described in the editorial note to the Victoria History of Wiltshire, Volume VII. The essence of such a partnership is that the local patrons undertake to provide money to meet the local expenses of compiling and editing the History of their county, and the University agrees to publish what is prepared, provided that it approves the result. The present volume is the firstfruits of this partnership in Gloucestershire. The generous attitude displayed by the Gloucestershire County Council is most sincerely appreciated by the University.

In 1959 Mr. C. R. Elrington was appointed local editor in Gloucestershire and began work in 1960. Later in the same year he was joined by Miss Kathleen Thomas (now Mrs. J. R. Morgan) as assistant editor.

Many people have given help in the preparation of this volume. The help of those who were concerned with particular parishes is acknowledged in the footnotes to the accounts of those parishes. For more general help the editor of the volume is indebted to the late Mr. A. Cossons of Nottingham, who supplied notes on the turnpike roads of the county; to Mr. G. Dutton of Barnwood, who lent his notes on the sources for the history of religious nonconformity in the county; to Mrs. Helen O'Neil of Bourtonon-the-Water, who repeatedly answered requests for information about archaeological sites in the north Cotswolds; and to Professor A. H. Smith, O.B.E., General Editor of the English Place-Name Society and compiler of the society's survey of Gloucestershire place-names, who gave access to typescript and proof copies of the survey before its publication.

For the present volume the resources of many libraries, record offices, and collections, both public and private, have been exploited, as the footnotes below indicate. Special mention must here be made of the Gloucestershire Records Office, the Gloucester City Library, and the library of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society; the unflagging help of the County Records Officer, Mr. I. E. Gray, M.B.E., and the City Librarian, Mr. A. J. I. Parrott, who is also Honorary Librarian of the Archaeological Society, and of their respective staffs is acknowledged with gratitude.