Kent History Grants Top £38,000

By Paul Tritton

Ten Kent local history projects are now in progress, supported by the latest grants from the Kent Archaeological Society.

Every year the society awards more than £3,000, divided among individuals, groups, organizations and students, to help cover the cost of research, publications, exhibitions and other projects focused on the county’s history and heritage.

The grants are made from the Allen Grove Local History Fund, the legacy of one of Kent's most eminent historians of his generation who was Hon. Curator of the KAS for 26 years (and its President in 1987/88), Curator of Maidstone Museum from 1948 to 1975 and Chairman of the Kent History Federation for eight years.

When Allen Grove (see pic 1) died in 1990 he left £26,000 from the proceeds of the sale of his house to the KAS, with instructions that the society should invest the legacy and distribute the interest in ways that would promote the enjoyment of Kent's local history (including that of the London Boroughs of Bexley, Bromley, Greenwich and Lewisham, which were once part of the county).

The first grants were made in 1994. Since then the value of the fund has grown to more than £56,000 and the total amount awarded has exceeded £38,000, mainly to support the publication of books and booklets but also for displays in heritage centres, for oral history projects, and for establishing archives and research centres.

Application forms for the next tranche of grants should be submitted by 31 March 2017 and can be downloaded from www.kentarchaeology.org.uk or they can be obtained by email from allengroveadmin@kentarchaeology.org.uk or by post from the KAS.

2016's Grants Were Awarded To:

Biddenden Local History Society: £250 towards the costs of researching, copying and transcribing the Biddenden Church Wardens Accounts 1645 - 1780, which form the basis of the records of the ‘Chulkhurst Charity’ (aka ‘Bread and Cheese Charity’) which distributes ceremonial biscuits and cheese each Easter Monday from the Old Workhouse to senior citizens of the village and deserving families.

Eliza and Mary Chulkhurst are believed to be the names of Biddenden’s famous conjoined sisters (the ‘Biddenden Maids’), born c. 1100. (For more details visit here)

Blean Village Heritage Museum: £500 to help pay for cataloguing, filing in acid-free envelopes and digitising 1,500 photographs, dating back to the late 19th century, of local events and people, many of whom have been identified.

Said Godfrey King, one of the museum's founders: ‘My wife Dorothy and I were concerned that so much family and local history is lost when people die, so we began collecting as many photos, artifacts and documents as we could. The grant will be of immense help. In 2013 we funded the building of a museum in the village hall and have bequeathed our entire collection to the village in perpetuity. Our collection is well-used by family history researchers, children and students.

Chestfield History Society: £300 towards a book covering the history of the area now administered by Chestfield Parish Council. The society already has a website (here) and this will be updated...

...extended to include an electronic version of the book's text and images.

The Chislehurst Society: £200 to help pay for the purchase of digital recorders and the publication of a booklet and curriculum pack for local schools, to support an oral history project capturing memories of local life in WW2. For more information visit here

Maurice Dalton (volunteer researcher at Smallhythe Place) has received a grant of £450 to help pay for publishing a book on the history of Smallhythe, which he has written in collaboration with co-authors Tony Buttler (churchwarden of St John the Baptist, Smallhythe), Fred Walker (author of books of shipbuilding and related subjects) and Susannah Major (house steward at Smallhythe Place).

Said Maurice: ‘Smallhythe was a flourishing port and shipyard in the Middle Ages. We believe this is the first book exclusively on this subject. All the authors live in or close to Smallhythe.'

Smallhythe Place, built in the 16th century, is nationally famous for having been the home of the renowned Victorian actress, Ellen Terry, and is in the care of the National Trust.

The book, ‘From Ships to Sheep – the Story of Smallhythe,’ is available from outlets in Tenterden, Smallhythe and Rye, price £8, and online from Waterstone’s and Amazon. More details from maurice.dalton@tiscali.co.uk

Irina Fridman of Chatham has received £500 towards costs incurred researching and publishing a history of the Jewish community in Medway from 1100 to the 1930s.

Said Irina: ‘After the Norman Conquest, William I invited French Jews to settle in the area. However, Jews were expelled from the country in 1290. After their readmission, some 350 years later, Jews from the Netherlands, Germany and other countries settled in the area and played an important role in local, national and international life throughout the centuries. Issachar Zacharie became Abraham Lincoln's personal chiropodist; Lazarus Magnus left a legacy that helped fund the Sittingbourne to Sheerness railway, used by thousands of travellers every week; Daniel Barnard founded a dynasty of entertainment entrepreneurs. There has been no comprehensive study of the Medway Jewish community.’

(For more information on Barnard visit here)

Short Brothers Commemorative Society is working on an illustrated book of memories and photographs of the world-famous aircraft company, and a biography of its founders, Horace, Eustace and Oswald Short. They built aeroplanes for pioneer airmen Charles Rolls, Frank McClean, J T C Moore-Brabazon and others at Muswell Manor on the Isle of Sheppey in 1909 and moved to Eastchurch in 1910. When the need for a landing-space for flying boats arose, the firm moved to a factory beside the River Medway at Rochester.

The KAS award of £500 will go towards production costs. Said project leader Elizabeth Walker: ‘We want to celebrate the important contribution the Short brothers and their much valued workforce made to world-wide aviation history from their bases in Kent and we are interviewing more than twenty “Short Boys” (apprentices and women) and descendants who worked for the company before it moved to Belfast in 1947.'

St Margaret's History Society is celebrating the centenary of the first Rolls-Royce aero engine, the ‘Eagle,’ which was designed by Sir F H Royce when he lived at St Margaret's in WW1. The society has received £500 to help pay for an information panel that will be erected near the house in which Royce lived, and the publication of a book entitled ‘When Rolls and Royce Made History on Dover's White Cliffs.’

Said the society's vice-chairman, Christine Waterman: ‘In his time at St Margaret's, Royce laid the foundations for one of the world's most successful and prestigious aero engine manufacturers. Few know of his association with St Margaret's and our society would like to rectify this for residents and visitors to the village.’

Tonbridge Town Team has received £250 which will be spent on printing a booklet describing three short walks around the town.

Said the booklet's author, Susan Adams: ‘We want to encourage more visitors. Each walk will highlight a different area that can be enjoyed by local children and tourists.’ In addition to the above, a further grant has been made to Chris Pickvance of the University of Kent to part-fund for the dendrochronological analysis of a group of medieval chests in East Kent.

Medieval Chests in East Kent

Kent Archaeological Society made an Allen Grove Local History Fund research grant to me for the dendrochronological analysis of a group of medieval chests in East Kent. The research was also funded by grants from the Marc Fitch Fund, the Regional Furniture Society and the Furniture History Society.

Aim:

The research was part of a research programme being undertaken on clamped medieval chests. The specific purpose was to obtain dates and provenances for the timber in:

• a) some of an unrecognised group of five clamped chest with gothic arcading in East Kent: (Graveney, St John’s Hospital Canterbury (A and B), Norton and Wormshill.)
• b) a tracery-carved clamped chest at St John's Hospital Canterbury (C) which is similar to chests in Rainham, Faversham, Litcham, Norwich and Wighton.
• c) a plain clamped chest at Yalding

Results:

Dr Martin Bridge and Dr Dan Miles of Oxford Dendrochronology obtained probable felling date ranges and provenances for the timber in the six chests selected: St John’s Hospital A 1237-69, B 1250-82, C 1400-1424, Graveney 1258-90, Norton 1302-34 and Yalding 1300-1320

Significance:

The arcaded gothic group. The date for the Graveney chest is much later than the previous 1200-1220 stylistic date. The three pre-1300 dates are extremely early. They mean that the St John’s Hospital A and B chests are the earliest chests with carved facades in England so far dated by dendrochronology. The pre-1300 chests at Westminster Abbey have plain facades (and in some cases carved feet). None of the chests in Sussex and Surrey and elsewhere with chip-carved roundels have yet been dendro dated. This raises the question of why arcaded facades are found so early in East Kent.

The research provides a base line of knowledge against which to analyse the pin-hinged clamped chests in Sussex and Surrey.

The date of the St John’s Hospital C chest helps to date similar chests in Norfolk. The Yalding chest was the first of its kind to be dated.

The research provides dates for construction details, locks and ironwork. For example, it reveals the first evidence of pin or pivot hinges being used after 1300.

Outputs:

I plan to publish two articles. The first, on the arcaded gothic group of chests, is complete. The second, on the early 15th century tracery-carved chests in Kent and Norfolk, is under way. I have sent reports to the three churches and to St John’s Hospital on their chests. I spoke about the chests at the ‘Medieval Canterbury’ event, as part of Dr Sheila Sweetinburgh’s guided visit of St John’s Hospital.