Description: The history of Bedfordshire Historical Record Society 1912-2026, including associated publications - the Bedfordshire Bibliography and Bedfordshire Magazine.
Founded in 1912, Bedfordshire Historical Record Society has published volumes on Bedfordshire's history ever since, making sources widely available, particularly to local and family historians. Ninety-nine volumes have appeared. This final volume, marking the dissolution of the Society, explores the Society's history, the people involved and its associated publications - Bedfordshire Bibliography and Bedfordshire Magazine - showing how editorial policy evolved and how it embraced developments such as digitisation.It also highlights the remarkable range of material published: Bedfordshire in 1086; medieval cartularies and Dissolution records; early wills and probate inventories; Civil War studies; the papers of a doctor who treated Oliver Cromwell; Nonconformist church books including the Bunyan Meeting; and research into Moravian and Roman Catholic communities. From poll books and church surveys to the history of Luton and Vauxhall Motors, and from First World War diaries to Second World War accounts drawn from the Mass-Observation Archive, the Society's work has deepened understanding of Bedfordshire's past and contributed to local history more broadly.
This volume takes its place within the growing literature on record societies and their contribution to historical research.
Brief description: James Collett-White is an archivist and has worked at the Isle of Wight Record Office (1970-1974), Bedfordshire Archives and Records Service (1975-2012) and has been Archivist to Sir Samuel Whitbread since 1997. He has contributed to several BHRS volumes and was, for a short time, the Society's general editor. He has published articles to celebrate the hundredth anniversaries of Bedfordshire Archives and Records Service and BHRS and researches, lectures and writes on history in Bedfordshire. He is working with Bob Ricketts and David Newman on another volume for BHRS on the Turner family of Milton Ernest.