Long Melford Historical and Archaeological Society 2013-2014 Programme

2013

19th September – ‘Problem children in the Victorian period’ Clive Paine

‘What shall we do with our bastard, orphan, delinquent and pauper children’ asked Mary Carpenter in 1851. Her pioneering work inspired the formation of the Kerrison Reformatory at Thorndon in Suffolk. Clive will describe this and other attempts to help disadvantaged children, including the Workhouse, Ragged Schools, Orphanages and Emigration Societies.

17th October – ‘Bad neighbour to Brewer’ Wendy Barnes

The story of a Suffolk landholding over ten centuries. From an entry in Domesday to a dusty bundle of solicitor’s papers in the Suffolk Record Office, the trail via France, Shropshire and the Feet of Fines, finally leads to a surviving house and fields.

21st November – ‘Grandad played the Cornet’ David Cawdell

David Cawdell will talk to us about the history of Brass Bands in Suffolk, including how brass bands started; the instruments of a brass band; bandstands and some of the histories of local bands.

2014

20th February ‘Members Evening’  - short talks by members

Please contact Liz Wigmore (01787 880229) if you would like to contribute a short 10-15 minute talk. 

20th March ‘More about Melford’ Lyn Boothman

Lyn reveals more about the history of Melford’s population, the families that moved or stayed over the generations and the factors that influenced this.

10th April AGM followed by ‘The Time Traveller’ Ancestral Voices

The novelist Daniel Defoe travelled extensively and in later life he embarked on an epic journey around the British Isles. His account of his travels in 1722 through East Anglia forms the basis of the presentation drawing on this portrayal of rural and maritime life a few decades before the Industrial Revolution. Ancestral Voices use extracts from his account as well as contemporary sources to recreate a picture of the region under King George I and perform music that Defoe may have heard on his travels.

15th May Evening visit – details to be confirmed

19th June Evening visit – details to be confirmed