A contemporary view of the Americans – the diaries of E.J. Rudsdale

Posted on June 4, 2024 by admin

Back in April, we held an event to commemorate the 80th anniversary of when the United States Army Air Force (USAAF) reached peak strength in Essex in the run-up to D-Day, Welcome to Essex. We were delighted that Dr Catherine Pearson gave a fascinating talk based on the diary entries of E.J. Rudsdale, about relations between the Americans and the Essex locals. We are even more delighted that Dr Pearson has kindly taken the time to turn her talk into a blog post. To mark the anniversary of D-Day, we have also recorded an edited version of Rudsdale’s entry for that momentous day.

Black and white photograph of identity card, with photograph of a man and a signature on the left side of the page and his name and registration number on the right.

E.J. Rudsdale’s travel identity card, 1946 (D/DU 888/66)

Eighty years ago, in the midst of the Second World War, Essex had become home to thousands of US service personnel in readiness for the allied invasion and liberation of occupied Europe. Essex Record Office holds a contemporary diary account by Colchester Museum curator, E.J. Rudsdale (1910-1951), which records the impact of the arrival of the USAAF in Colchester and the nearby USAAF airfields of Boxted and Wormingford.

Rudsdale was seconded from Colchester Museum in 1941 to become Secretary of the Lexden and Winstree District Committee of the Essex War Agricultural Committee for the duration of the war. This gave him a valuable insight into the development of the American airfields because the USAAF commandeered agricultural land from the Essex War Agricultural Committee for the construction of the airfields at Boxted and Wormingford.

Owing to the drive to increase agricultural production for the war effort, the Essex War Agricultural Committee viewed the takeover of farmland for airfields with some trepidation and a degree of antagonism. This is evident from Rudsdale’s first official encounter with USAAF personnel:

April 29 1943

Went to the Office of the Clerk of the Works [at Wormingford Aerodrome], … and found to my surprise that it was not Air Ministry men whom I was to meet but United States Air Force Officers. Two of them I had seen [in Colchester], a Major Miller and a Lieutenant Walters. … Miller … looks the typical “small-town” American one sees in so many films, his worn, lined face surmounted by rimless glasses. … Walters was dark and dapper … The arrangement was that we all went off in two cars, driven by English girls in pseudo-American uniform, to inspect sites for a shooting butt. I was supposed to say whether the site was suitable from an agricultural point of view.

As we moved off along the concrete perimeter road, through a desert of derelict farm land, I remarked “Well, there has certainly been a change since I was here last. Why, you’ve changed the whole landscape.” I said this quite innocently, but at once Major Miller turned on me and snapped out “Well, wouldn’t you rather have us here than the Germans?” … He went on “We can’t bother about the convenience of a few British farmers, you know.” It was obvious from his manner that he had already had a good deal of criticism since he came to England.

(D/DU 888/26/3 pp.568-571)

It was clear that greater accommodation on both sides was necessary for establishing more harmonious relations and Rudsdale’s next encounter with American personnel was of a warmer nature. On 1 July 1943, he was called to Boxted Airfield to discuss the USAAF’s further plans for the site and wrote:

… Major Anderson of the USAAF … was very affable. … [He] looked at the lay-out plan, and said: “This is a mean site, I guess this is the meanest site I’ve ever seen.” Then we went into various details, and their final requirements were not unreasonable. …

We rode all over the site in two jeeps – old [Gardiner] Church [a member of the Lexden and Winstree District War Agricultural Committee] was very tickled, and said “These are the things for farming, boy! I’m going to have one o’they after the war!”

(D/DU 888/26/4 pp.819-822)

In 1944, Rudsdale visited Wormingford Airfield in order to rescue historic timbers from Harvey’s Farmhouse, which was demolished in the course of the aerodrome’s expansion, and his diary entry recorded:

January 15 1944

Thick fog this morning, and bitterly cold. … we got busy loading the moulded ceiling timbers, with the help of three Land Girls. The driver ventured onto the mud, against my advice, and soon the lorry was stuck fast, so that no amount of tugging could release it. Took one of the Land Girls … and went off to see if we could get any help. It was very strange to wander about among planes and lorries in the thick fog, hearing the accents of America and Ireland intermingled as we passed groups of mechanics or labourers.

Found the big hanger, which thrilled the Land Girl a good deal – “Well,” she said, “I never thought I should see the inside of a hanger.” Neither did I.

… The sergeant could not do enough for us, and within a matter of minutes [an] enormous tractor, … was ploughing through the mud towards us. … [a] wire was attached to the lorry’s front axle, the motor raced, and out she came, … leaving behind four pits almost as big as graves, where the wheels had been.

By this time … we … set off back to Colchester… first collecting one of the Land Girls from the pilot’s seat of a nearby ‘plane, where a sergeant was showing her the controls. …

(D/DU 888/27/1 pp.48-51)

Rudsdale also discussed the black servicemen and women who formed part of the American Forces and were regularly seen in Colchester. African-American service personnel were employed as drivers or military policemen or worked in supplies or in the construction of aerodromes. Under American segregation orders, black troops had their own club in Priory Street in Colchester, and white troops had a club in Culver Street. However, Rudsdale and his fellow curator, Harold Poulter (1880-1962), regularly talked to the black service personnel. On 10 June 1944, Rudsdale wrote that he had ‘called at the American Red Cross Club in Priory Street’ to deliver a message from Poulter to a Miss Marie Wall, who Rudsdale described as a ‘delightful’ black servicewoman ‘of about 25’ and went on to record that they ‘Talked for an hour or so’. (D/DU 888/27/3 p.491).

Colcestrians do not appear to have been in favour of American segregation orders. Rudsdale noted black and white Americans troops sitting in the same café in Colchester in February 1944, albeit at separate tables (D/DU 888/27/1: 25/2/1944 p.182). He also recorded that black service personnel staged a week’s theatre performance at Colchester Repertory Theatre in December 1944 (D/DU 888/27/5: 30/11/1944, p.820).

Black and white photogrpah of five men in uniform and another in a smart outfit and trilby hat stood on top of castle walls.

American servicemen on the Castle Walls, Colchester Castle, 1944. Harold Poulter, Curator of Hollytrees Museum, is in the centre of the photograph and Lieutenant Stich, Public Relations Officer at Wormingford Airfield, is on the left (D/DU 888/27/4 p.590)

The positive developments in Anglo-American relations in Colchester were made apparent in late 1944, when the Americans were invited to stage an exhibition at Colchester Castle. The display was the brainchild of Lieutenant Stich, Public Relations Officer at Wormingford Airfield and Harold Poulter, the Curator of Hollytrees Museum. The exhibition, entitled The England that America Loves, featured paintings and photographs of English scenes that had appealed to the American troops during their time in the UK (Colchester Museum and Muniment Committee Report 1948, pp.5-6).

Black and white photograph of a stone building with wooden timber structure and exhibition panels. A woman sits on a bench and a man sits on a pallet in the foreground.

An American serviceman and a woman visitor at The England that America Loves exhibition at Colchester Castle Museum, 1944 (Courtesy of Colchester and Ipswich Museums)

Black and white photogrpah of a crowd of people in coats and uniform looking at exhibition panels.

Visitors to The England that America Loves exhibition at Colchester Castle Museum, 1944 (Courtesy of Colchester and Ipswich Museums)

The shared experience of war was a further factor in bringing the allies closer together. One of those who participated in the Castle exhibition, Lieutenant-Colonel Elwyn G. Righetti, a pilot at Wormingford, lost his life on 17 April 1944 when his plane went down over Germany. A party to celebrate his 30^th birthday had been prepared for him back at the airbase to which he never returned (Benham 1945, p.57). Such tragic incidents increased the local community’s gratitude for the sacrifices being made by the Americans.

Four men in uniform stand around a man in ceremonial robes. Behind them is an exhibition of artwork and a stone wall behind that.

Pilots of the 55th Fighter Group, Wormingford Airfield, meeting the Mayor of Colchester at The England that America Loves exhibition at Colchester Castle Museum, 1944 (Courtesy of Colchester and Ipswich Museums). Left to right: Lt-Col Elwyn G. Righetti (who lost his life on 17/4/45 over Germany, aged 30); Col George T. Crowell; Arthur W. Piper, Mayor of Colchester; Col Joe Huddleston; unknown.

With the arrival of VE Day on 8 May 1945 and the close of hostilities in Europe, there were opportunities for the troops to relax and local people were invited to visit the US airbases. As the USAAF prepared to leave Colchester in July 1945, they presented Colchester Corporation with a silver rose bowl to thank the town for its hospitality and this remains part of the City’s regalia today.

Black and white photograph of a group of people, including men in uniform and a man and woman in ceremonial robes. The man in the centre of the photograph holds a silver bowl.

The presentation of a silver rose bowl to Colchester Corporation to thank Colchester’s inhabitants for their hospitality towards American service personnel, 1945 (Courtesy of Colchester and Ipswich Museums)

After the war, American veterans made regular visits to the UK to remember their time in Essex and to pay homage to fallen comrades. One ex-serviceman wrote to the curator of Colchester Castle in 1988, that the veterans ‘would like to see a museum exhibition depicting their life as it was here in Colchester from 1943-1945 … with its bitter sweet memories’. (Colchester and Ipswich Museums, Historic Displays & Exhibitions file, Lewis to Davies, 22/11/1988). Colchester and the Castle Museum, therefore, remained as touchstones for the veterans’ wartime experiences in Essex.

Black and white photograph of Colchester Castle, with trees and plants in the foreground. There is a notice on the grass.

Colchester Castle Museum, 1944, a photograph by Lieutenant Stich, USAAF. Note the air raid shelter sign in the rose bed (D/DU 888/27/4 p.586)

In this excerpt from Rudsdale’s diaries, read by the ERO’s Neil Wiffen, he recalls 6 June 1944 – D-Day – from being woken up by planes warming up at Wormingford Airfield at 2am to hearing the King’s speech on the radio at the end of the day. You can read a transcript here.

Dr Catherine Pearson will be speaking to us about E.J. Rudsdale at ERO Presents on Tuesday 3rd September. Book your tickets on our Eventbrite page.

References

Primary sources:

Rudsdale, E.J., (1939-1945). ‘Colchester Journals’, Essex Record Office, ERO D/DU 888.

Colchester and Ipswich Museums, ‘Historic Displays and Exhibitions’ archives.

Secondary sources:

Beale, A., (2019). Bures at War: A Hidden History of the United States Army Air Force Station 526.

Benham, H., (1945). Essex at War, Essex County Standard: Colchester.

Pearson, C., (2010). E.J. Rudsdale’s Journals of Wartime Colchester, The History Press: Stroud.

8^th Airforce Historical Society: https://www.8thafhs.org/research/ Accessed 16 April 2024.

Archive of the American Air Museum in Britain, Imperial War Museum Duxford, including the Roger Freeman Collection of USAAF images: https://www.americanairmuseum.com/archive Accessed 16 April 2024.

Black GIs in Britain: https://mixedmuseum.org.uk/brown-babies/black-gis-in-britain/ Accessed 16 April 2024.

Colchester Museum and Muniment Committee Report 1944-1947 (1948): https://www.esah1852.org.uk/library/files/C0938954.pdf Accessed 15 May 2024.

US Black Servicemen in Suffolk in WW2: https://www.suffolkarchives.co.uk/sharing-suffolk-stories/us-black-servicemen-in-suffolk-during-wwii/ Accessed 16 April 2024.

USAAF Airfields: Guide and Map, East of England Tourism. http://www.ukairfields.org.uk/uploads/7/0/8/5/7085670/usaaf_airfields_guide_and_map.pdf Accessed 16 April 2024.

Recordings of D-Day experiences in the Essex Sound and Video Archive:

SA 1/455/1: ‘Essex at War’, BBC Essex programme, 1989; role of Southend and Leigh in D-Day

SA 1/634/1: Interview with John Hayes on BBC Essex, 1990; serving as an RAF Ground Technician at Southend airfield in the run up to D-Day

SA 1/1183/1: Interview with Clifford Pontbriand on BBC Essex, 1994; American D-Day bomber pilot at Stansted

SA 8/540/1 (Colchester Recalled reference 2057): Interview with Alfred Douglas Chignall, 1989; serving in the Royal Navy during D-Day

SA 8/948/1 (Colchester Recalled reference 2208): Interview with Fred Ramplin, 1990; serving in the army during D-Day

SA 8/14/1/6/1 (Colchester Recalled reference 2141): Interview with Harry Finch, 1990; involvement in the D-Day invasion, including movements of warships

SA316 (Colchester Recalled reference 1272-4): Interview with Lance Corporal Ken Lambert, 1994; involvement in D-Day with the 8th Battalion Middlesex Regiment

SA443 (Colchester Recalled reference 1621): Interview with Fred McIntosh, flying instructor, at a reunion of American airmen, 1992; covered the Arnhem parachute drops.

SA779 (Colchester Recalled reference 1532): Interview with Arthur Parsonson, 1988; NCO with 431st Bty, 147th (Essex Yeomanry) Field Regt, Royal Artillery, 8th Armoured Bde during D-Day (see also Imperial War Museum interview)

SA 20/1138/1: Interview with Geoff Barsby, 1983; serving in the Royal Navy during D-Day, covering the Canadian landings, escorting the battleship Nelson, and being based off Normandy

SA 20/1533/1: Interview with Jack Nelson Wise, 1981; serving in the Royal Navy, operations in preparation for D-Day, MTBs

SA 20/1/47/1: Interview with Howard Stone, 1984; serving as a Telegrapher Air Gunner in the Fleet Air Arm during D-Day

SA 20/1/22/1: Interview with Sylvia Ebel, 1983; serving in the ATS during D-Day, D-Day preparations at Eastleigh, near Southampton

SA 79/1/1/1: Interview with Alec Hall, 2016; serving in the Royal Army Medical Corps during D-Day; stationed along the east coast of England, then travelling to Arnhem by glider

SA 79/1/3/1: Interview with Alfred Smith, 2016; serving in the Royal Army Service Corps during D-Day, driving his lorry onto Gold Beach, Normandy

SA 79/1/4/1: Interview with Ken ‘Paddy’ French, 2016; serving in the RAF during D-Day, flying over American troops at Omaha Beach

SA 79/1/5/1: Interview with Alfred Fowler, 2016; serving in the Royal Navy during D-Day; being involved in the dummy convoy to Norway

SA 86/1/3/1: Interview with Ron, 2017; serving in the Royal Navy during D-Day, escorting HMS Belfast on HMS Ulster at Gold Beach

SA634: Interview with Olive Redfarn, 2012; working on HMS Leigh, printing instructions for D-Day in the weeks beforehand [including her own diary entry of the 6 June 1944]

Mystery motorcycle riders

Posted on April 24, 2024 by admin

Among a recent deposit of postcards is this one showing a man and woman on a motorcycle with sidecar. But who are they?

A postcard showing a man and woman on a motorcycle with sidecar from the Dowsett Collection (catalogue ref: A15840)

The licence plate is clearly visible which means that we can look it up in our Vehicle Licensing Registers (C/DF 11). An Enfield with the licence HK3016 was registered to Frederick Jay, High Street, Mountnessing on 8 June 1917. Is this an image of Frederick Jay on his new Enfield motorcycle? Or is it another person with aspirations of one day owning such a machine?

The photograph was taken by Geo. Francis Quilter, a photographer in Ingatestone, who’s listed in the Kelly’s Directory for 1917. In the same Directory is Harry Raven, dairyman, whose shop can be seen in the background of the postcard, and Mark Wells, cycle agent, who operated from Ingatestone High Street. At this time motorcycles were often called “cycles”, so it is likely that this cycle agent sold motorcycles, perhaps even the one shown?

Mountnessing is about 2 miles south-east of Ingatestone and was home to two people named Frederick Jay – a father and son. The 1911 Census tells us that the younger Frederick, then aged 21, was a boarder at 3 Redcliffe Road, Moulsham Street, Chelmsford while working as an “Engineer Journeyman [ball bearing works]”. By 1921, he was back at his parents’ house in Mountnessing and working at the Hoffmann Manufacturing Company.

Marriage Register from St Giles Church, Mountnessing showing the marriage of Frederick Jay and Kate Everett on 3 Jun 1922 (catalogue ref: D/P 73/1/10)

On 3 June 1922, Frederick Jay married Kate Everett at St Giles’ Church, Mountnessing. Is the woman in the sidecar Kate or one of Frederick’s sisters? Sadly, we will probably never know for sure, but it’s nice to imagine that this is an image of Frederick Jay, the proud new owner of a motorcycle which he used to commute from his home in Mountnessing to work at the Hoffmann’s premises in Chelmsford.

Welcome to Essex: remembering the USAAF

Posted on February 20, 2024 by admin

Tickets are selling fast for our forthcoming event, ‘Welcome to Essex’: remembering the USAAF.

The Saracens Head in Chelmsford (Now ‘The Garrison’) was used as the American Red Cross Service Club.

In the spring of 1944, the United States Army Air Force (USAAF) reached peak strength in Essex during the run-up to the hotly anticipated invasion of Europe — D-Day. Week after week new units of the USAAF flew into recently constructed airfields across the county, to start participating in the air campaign against the Luftwaffe and German coastal defenses. Small, rural villages across Essex became the center for many hundreds of American servicemen to descend on, to look at the ancient architecture as well as go in search of a pint of warm English beer! For the locals their quiet roads were filled with unsurpassed numbers of trucks and Jeeps buzzing around, ferrying men and material about the countryside. Overhead the air was filled with aircraft, Mustangs Thunderbolts, Flying Fortresses, Liberators, Havocs and Marauders, and many a morning was interrupted by the thunderous sound of hundreds of thousands of horsepower engines warming up.

Join us 80 years on from these momentous times for this mini-conference to remember the impact the Americans had on the county, both in how they shaped the physical landscape as well as making memories with the locals. Remembrance will be a theme running through the event, the date on which it is being held being of particular significance to one of the speakers in relation to one of those Americans who flew out of Essex.

This mini conference will see a series of short talks given on various aspects of,
predominantly, the Ninth Air Force, although mention will be made of the Eighth as well

– there’s just so much to discuss!

For further details and bookings please visit: www.essexrecordoffice.co.uk/events.

Reduced price ‘early-bird’ tickets are available If you book before mid-day on March 14^th – don’t dilly-dally as tickets are selling fast. We look forward to seeing you there.

Where there’s a will, there’s often an archaic word!

Posted on February 5, 2024 by admin

Chris Lambert, ERO Archivist

The ERO’s collection of wills, stretching from 1400 up to 1858, is widely used by family historians, but also by those trying to get closer to our ancestors’ material lives and their mental worlds. In particular, wills can tell us about the language that they used. A query from our friends at the Oxford English Dictionary recently brought this example to our attention.

One page of Black ink on paper, secretary hand, sentence concerning temes loaf outlined in black

Will of Thomas Leffyngwell of Pebmarsh (catalogue ref: D/ABW 23/83)

It comes from the will of a man from Pebmarsh called Thomas Leffyngwell, made in January 1553 when he was sick and probably close to death (will reference D/ABW 23/83). Having made over his landed property to his two sons, his main concern was to provide for his wife Isabel. The two were to pay her, in quarterly instalments, a pension of £1 6s.8d. (half each), and to provide her with food, drink, clothing, a room called ‘the nether chamber’ with a bed, and a cow that they were to keep fed, winter and summer. And then, as if thinking that perhaps more detail was needed:

‘… Item I wyll that myne executores shall / delyuer unto Osbell my wyffe wekely one pote wythe ale off too galons & a [word struck through] / Temes loffe wythe a chese as often as nede shall requyre …’

Close up of manuscript. Black ink on paper, secretary hand, sentence concerning temes loaf outlined in black

Close-up of the section of the Will of Thomas Leffyngwell concerning “Temes loffe”. Right-click the image and open in a new tab to see an enlarged copy

All perfectly clear, except just possibly that bit about ‘a temes loffe’. ‘Loffe’ is easy enough if you give it a long ‘o’, but ‘temes’ may puzzle you as it certainly did us. It turns out that this is the earliest known reference to a ‘temse loaf’, meaning ‘a loaf made of finely sifted flour’. To temse, you see, was to sift, and a temse was a type of sieve, especially as used for bolting meal. A ‘temse loaf’, therefore, was one of several contemporary expressions for a better sort of bread – a class distinction as well as a culinary one, even in the 1500s.

The word temse itself, of Anglo-Saxon origin, survived into the 20th century, although seemingly restricted latterly to the brewing industry. The burial register from Pebmarsh unfortunately did not, and so we do not know whether Isabel lived to enjoy her ration of bread, cheese and ale. One can only hope that Thomas’s careful instructions were useful to her as well as to the makers of dictionaries.

Planes, trains and automobiles (but mostly planes)

Posted on November 17, 2023 by admin

Chris Lambert, Archivist

Surprise presents are the best. The Record Office recently welcomed an unexpected gift from the Friends of Hylands House, who had acquired this splendid wedding album.

It belonged originally to Dorothy Cadwell Taylor, heiress to an American leather goods fortune, who ended her life as the widow of an Italian count. In between, while living the life of a wealthy socialite, she had been married briefly to Claude Grahame-White, a pioneering British aviator whom she had met while crossing the Atlantic on the ‘Olympic’.

Black and white photograph of bride and groom leaving the church with scouts as guard of honour

Bride and groom leaving the church, May 1912

The marriage took place in May 1912 at Widford church, seemingly for no better reason than that both parties were friendly with Sir Daniel Gooch, a railway magnate who had bought Hylands House and offered it for the reception. The wedding was one of the social events of the year, receiving a huge build-up in the press – only somewhat dampened by the loss of the ‘Titanic’ in April. The Great Eastern ran a special train from Liverpool Street, although Grahame-White himself and several others – including the representative of the Daily Express – arrived by plane, taxi-ing on to the lawns at the back of the house. Public flying demonstrations were given during the day, and even the wedding cake bore the model of an aeroplane. The whole event was a confection of money, modernity, celebrity and speed, with a country house and its grounds used as an almost theatrical backdrop. of Hylands House

Black and white photograph of wedding party (mainly men with some women nearly out of shot) posing with a biplane in front of Hylands House. Groom and several men on the biplane wing. Bride standing in front of the biplane in white wedding dress

Wedding party posing with a biplane in front of Hylands House, May 1912

Black and white photograph of the bride and groom leaving by car surrounded by wedding party throwing confetti

Bride and groom leaving Hylands House in their wedding car, May 1912

Fans of motor transport were not entirely left out: the wedding car, a present from groom to bride, was a Métallurgique, made in Belgium. Dorothy herself, however, seems to have had a liking for Rolls Royces. Tucked into the back of the album is a letter of 1951 from a now aging Claude, writing from his flat in London to his very much ex wife in New York. He tries to explain the difficulties he is having in getting her Rolls repaired: the garage is slow, they are blaming a shortage of steel (which he does not believe), and anyway there is no demand for second-hand cars, especially with petrol at 3s.7d. a gallon (about 4 pence a litre) … Elsewhere he commiserates on their mutual problems with osteopaths, mechanical and human frailty seemingly now going hand in hand. The glitz of Widford must have seemed far away.

Ornate, four tiered cake topped with a model aeroplane

Wedding cake, May 1912

If you are registered on Essex Archives Online, you can see full-size images of the complete album at document reference D/DU 3465/1. The wedding photographer, improbably enough, was our old friend Fred Spalding of Chelmsford, and you will find several photographs of his that seem to exist nowhere else.

Black and white photograph of a man (Mr Grahame-White at the front) and woman, Miss Dorothy Taylor sitting in a biplane. The man is wearing a suit and tie and the woman is wearing a dress or skirt and shawl.

Mr Claude Grahame-White and Miss Dorothy Taylor on a biplane, 1912

What on earth is a Seax – Essex Day 2023

Image

The 26th October is the feast day of St Cedd, it is also Essex Day. Over on our social media we have taken you on a treasure trail of where you can find Seaxes here at the Essex Record Office. The three Seaxes will be familiar to many Essex residents as part of the logo for Essex County Council and on a red background, as their Coat of Arms. But what is a Seax and why has Essex taken it as their symbol? Customer Service Team Lead, Edward Harris delves deeper.

Essex County Council was first granted it’s Coat of Arms by the College of Arms on the 15^th July 1932 comprising:

Gules, three Seaxes fessewise in pale Argent, pomels and hilts Or, pointed to the sinister and cutting edges upwards.

The somewhat archaic terms used by the College of Arms can be translated to:

Red, three Seaxes horizontal in pale silver, pommels and hilts gold, pointed to the viewers right with cutting edges upwards.

So now we know what the official Coat of Arms should look like, but we are still not given any clues as to the origin of the name Seax for the bladed weapons shown on the Coat of Arms.

The seax, (or scramasax as it is more usually called by archaeologists) is a weapon used by the Anglo-Saxon people who had displaced, at least culturally the Romano-British inhabitants of the British Isles in the 5^th and 6^th Centuries. The earliest evidence for the use of a Seax is from the mid 5^th Century, though they would still see use in one form or another into the late 13^th Century. The term Seax covers a whole family of germanic blades which varied widely in size and shape. The Anglo-Saxons widely used the distinctive broken back seax which varied in length from 30″ to as short as a few inches and, for most, it was probably a utility or defensive knife rather than a weapon of war.

Iron seax, with a straight cutting edge and sharply angled back, the tang offset from the blade.
© The Trustees of the British Museum.

It is from the Saxons that the County of Essex (along with the Ancient County of Middlesex) takes its name. The Boundary of Essex still resembles that of the Saxon Kingdom of Eastseaxe. And it is from this Saxon heritage that Essex adopted the seax as it’s symbol.

The Coat of Arms itself was in regular use well before the grant from the College of Arms in 1932 albeit unofficially. It is likely that the Arms were first assigned to the Saxon Kings of Essex by the more romantic minds of the Late 16^th and early 17^th Century, as the heraldry in any recognisable sense would not exist until the 12^th Century.

One of the earliest mentions of a coat of arms is by Richard Verstegan who writes in 1605 of the East Saxons having two types of weapon, one long and one short. The latter being worn “privately hanging under their long-skirted coats” and “of this kind of hand-seax Erkenwyne King of the East Saxons did bear for his arms, three argent, in a field gules”

Peter Milman’s History of Essex 1771 (LIB/942.67 MUI1-6)

By the 18^th Century the use of the Arms seems commonplace, in 1770, Peter Muilman published the first volume of his History of Essex. The frontispiece shows a shield with the three seaxes although with an unfamiliar shape.

The Plans for the building of the Shire Hall in Chelmsford drawn up in 1788 (Q/AS 1/1) clearly show the Seaxes emblazoned on its neo-classical portico. These wouldn’t form a part of the final design though with this space being blank in an engraving from 1795 (I/Mb 74/1/59) shortly after the building’s completion. It now houses a clock.

[You can find about more about the history of Shire Hall on our blog – ed]

John Johnson plans for Shire Hall 1788 (Q/AS 1/1)

Engraving of Shire Hall shortly after it’s opening 1795 (I/Mb 74/1/59)

The seaxes on a red field would make numerous other appearances, among them: the Essex Equitable Insurance companies fire plate from around 1802; the Essex Local Militia ensign formed in 1809 and the Chelmsford Gazette in 1822. It appears on the cap badge of Essex Police and who remembers the single seax that appeared on the original logo for BBC Essex way back in 1986?

BBC Essex logo from 1986

The shape of the seax on Coats of Arms has led to confusion and myth. As you can see from the examples here, the shape of the Seax changes with use, the notched back of the weapon may simply be to distinguish it from a scimitar for which it is often mistaken. The notch itself has gained a myth all of its own. To many people the notch exists so that the Saxons could hook their Seax over the cap-rail of an enemy longboat to haul it closer. This sounds rather difficult to achieve, but also to justify, given that the notch doesn’t appear on any of the real world weapons categorised as Seaxes.

The Coat of Arms of Essex

Either way, the Essex Coat of Arms remains an enigmatic and iconic link to our county’s Saxon past.

I owe much of the information that I have garnered from the excellent pamphlet ‘The Coat of Arms of The County of Essex’ produced by F.W. Steer, an Archivist at Essex Record Office ,in 1949 (LIB/929.6 STE) which is well worth a read on your next visit.

Just who is St Cedd? Essex Day 2023

Posted on October 26, 2023 by admin

The 26th October is St Cedd’s day. It is also known as Essex Day as St Cedd is Essex’s very own patron saint. Bur who is St Cedd? And why is he held in such high esteem in Essex? Archive Assistant, Robert Lee takes a look at the life of St Cedd.

St Cedd – A Hagiography

Icon of St Cedd

Cedd’s life began in the Kingdom of Northumbria under the tutelage of Saint Aidan of Lindisfarne. The oldest of four brothers (Chad, Cynibil & Caelin), Cedd in particular would be unwavering to the Celtic Rite imbued to him by Aidan. Cedd’s introduction to Christianity was anti-diocesan: not liturgical and parochial, but peripatetic and abstinent. In one of very few sources on Cedd, the Venerable Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People, emphasis is made on both Cedd and Chad’s devotion to Saint Aidan; such that four years after Aidan’s death in 651, Cedd is said to have been consecrated by the hands of his successor, Saint Finan of Lindisfarne.

Cedd’s reputation in Christendom had much to do with his proselytizing. In 653, at the behest of King Oswiu of Northumbria, Cedd journeyed into the Midlands with three other priests in order to evangelise the “Middle Angles”: an ethnic group predominantly living in Mercia. By Bede’s account, Cedd was greatly persuasive, with masses coming forward to listen to his preaching and receive baptism. Cedd’s enthusiasm would even sway the opinion of King Penda of Mercia, a long committed pagan. Later in the same year, Cedd would be recalled from Mercia and sent into Essex to aid King Sigeberht of the East Saxons. Again Cedd’s evangelism was highly successful, and Essex was thoroughly Christianised. For his efforts Cedd was ordained Bishop of the East Saxons.

Cedd attended the Synod of Whitby in 664 as a vigilant mediator between Iona (followers of the Celtic Rite) and those who followed the Roman Rite. Roman missionaries were arguing for their own computation of the calendar day of Easter, to which the predominantly Celtic northern English initially disagreed. Uncharacteristically, Cedd was won over by the catholic system, and converted to the Alexandrian computus of Easter Sunday. Following the Synod, Cedd returned to Northumbria to supervise the foundation of a monastery, but the Kingdom had been overwhelmed by the yellow plague, which would bring about Cedd’s death.

St Peters-on-the-wall in November with clear skies

St Peters-on-the-wall in November (Copyright Edward Harris)

Perhaps appropriately, Cedd is remembered far more for his itinerant sainthood than for government of the East Saxon Church. The chapel of Saint-Peter-on-the-Wall in Bradwell-on-Sea is said to have been built by Saint Cedd after his ordination. Having gone through several phases of disuse and ruination, the chapel still stands as testimony to Cedd; to God’s glory and the humility of man.

His role in converting the East Saxons and role as their bishop is the reason that Essex now claims Cedd as their patron saint.

If you would like to visit the Chapel of St Peter yourself it can be reached by taking East End Road from the brick built church in Bradwell-on-Sea for about one and a half miles, until you can see the carpark ahead of you, from there it is a ten minute walk to the Chapel. It is open all year and is well worth a visit!

Solanum Lycoperiscum – the tomato

Posted on September 23, 2023 by admin

The home-grown tomato season is coming to an end and to mark this, ERO Archive Assistant and vegetable patch correspondent Neil Wiffen, delves into the history of the tomato.

Tomatoes in season are one of the joys of summer, especially if you can grow your own which, warm from the greenhouse, are a delight to eat. In our modern world they are available all year round, but this is a rather recent phenomenon, as with so many of our salad and soft fruit crops. It’s really only in the last 40 or so years that they have become such staple fare for before that, the cost of heating greenhouses was such that they were really just another seasonal crop which came on during the summer. It has a fascinating history.

A (concrete – but that’s another story!) greenhouse in Broomfield full of tomatoes, possibly the variety Moneymaker c.1980. (Reproduced by courtesy of N. Wiffen)

The tomato, which is really a fruit, originates in South America, back to at least the eight century, and its name derives from two Nahuatl words for ‘swelling fruit’ – xitomatl and centtomati. It arrived in Europe sometime in the mid-sixteenth century where it was known in Italy as pomi d’oro (golden apple), with the first English reference being recorded in 1578. Several names were recorded by this stage including Poma Amoris and pommes d’amour – the love apple. It is likely that this was a corruption of an earlier name, possible the Spanish pome dei Moro, the ‘apple of the Moors’ (T. Musgrave, Heritage Fruits & Vegetables (London, 2012), p.120). Philip Miller, writing in the early eighteenth century (P. Miller, The Gardeners Dictionary (London, 1731): ERO, D/DU 588/1) called them Love-Apples, a name which was still in use, although now subordinate to ‘tomato’, when Mrs Beeton was writing in the mid-nineteenth century (I.M. Beeton, The Book of Household Management (London, 1861, p.252). At the end of that century, it was still listed thus by Cramphorns in their catalogue of 1898 (ERO, A10506 Box 7).

Title page of Philip Miller’s Gardeners Dictionary. (ERO, D/DU 588/1) — Title page of Philip Miller’s *Gardeners Dictionary*. (ERO, D/DU 588/1)

The tomato didn’t get off to a flying start as it was treated with suspicion, it being related, along with the potato and aubergine, to the poisonous deadly nightshade.

It took until the later nineteenth century to become more acceptable, which might have had something to do with the spread of greenhouses from the big country houses to more general growers. Tomatoes will grow outside in our climate but growing them in greenhouse will give a much better chance of successful harvest and fuller flavoured fruits.

It might also have had something to do with the Victorian mania for growing and propagating all sorts of fruits and vegetables, along with the proliferation of magazines and newspapers related to gardening which helped to spread information about new ideas and new plants, while the postal and railway systems allowed seedsmen and nursery gardeners to easily send catalogues and packets of seeds throughout the country.

The tomato varieties sold by Cramphorns in 1898, including the Dedham Favourite. (ERO, A10506 Box 7)

It was not only private gardeners who were growing all sorts of fruit and vegetables. Urban populations were growing and needed feeding and there was a proliferation of market gardens on the outskirts of larger towns, from the later years of the nineteenth century to the 1980s. And it was here that market-gardeners and growers were producing tomatoes, earlier on grown as an outdoor crop but over time growing under glass, for local sale via a network of green grocers. However, for larger growers with access to a railway station, or later via road haulage, the massive London market was accessible. Tomatoes were not listed in 1850 among the ‘Principal kinds of vegetables sold at the London Markets’, although 260 tons of asparagus, 300 tons of marrows and a staggering 4,150 tons of turnip tops were (G. Dodd, The Food of London; a sketch (London, 1856), p.387).

The hey-day of Essex grown tomatoes was probably from the 1920s to the 1980s, although more research could really be undertaken on this subject. The rise of foreign imports, from large Dutch growers and Spanish producers, along with the decline of local retail outlets, due to the growth of supermarket chains, very much put an end small market-gardeners and growers.

To see what commercial tomato growing looked like in the early 1980s do take a look at the Essex Educational Video Unit production showing the processes involved in the commercial production of tomatoes as carried out at Spenhawk Nurseries, Hawkwell (ERO, VA 3/8/11/1):

Cramphorn’s tomatoes as sold in 1962 with Golden Sunrise and Harbinger listed. (ERO, A10506 Box 7)

In the last few years ‘heritage’ tomatoes have become quite common in shops and supermarkets, with fruits of different shapes, sizes and colours, very different from the post-war period when they were almost exclusively red. This is not a modern phenomenon, for Miller describes red and yellow fruits, small cherry ‘shap’d’ tomatoes and ‘hard, channell’d fruits’, possibly what we might recognise as lobed, maybe beefsteak tomatoes. Cramphorns advertised 20 varieties in 1898, which included red and yellow varieties along with cherry and currant sized fruits and the ‘irregular’ shaped President Garfield, although it was of ‘good quality’.

Of particular interest is the Dedham Favourite – was this a locally raised variety and does it still exist out there?

By 1962, 12 varieties were listed, including the well-known and comparatively recent Moneymaker but also including the older Golden Sunrise (c.1890) and Harbinger (c.1910). A special tomato,’ Cramphorn’s own Wonder of Essex headed the list. In the catalogue for 1975 eight varieties were listed.

And those you could buy from Cramphorns in 1975. (ERO, A10506 Box 7)

And how to deal with a tomato? Miller states that ‘The Italians and Spaniards eat these Apples, as we do Cucumbers, with Pepper, Oil and Salt, and some eat them stew’d in Sauces, &c’. Meanwhile, Mrs Beeton, says they are:

chiefly used in soups, sauces, and gravies. It is sometimes served to table roasted or boiled [into submission?], and when green, makes a good ketchup or pickle. In its unripe state, it is esteemed as excellent sauce for roast goose or pork, and when quite ripe, a good store sauce may be prepared from it.

An interesting use as an acidic sauce to accompany goose or pork, perhaps replacing cooking apples before they were in season? The other curious thing about these recipes is that the tomatoes are all cooked or processed in some way. Where we regularly eat them as a salad, here they are cooked – perhaps a hang-over from the suspicious way they were treated when first introduced.

Writing about tomatoes is one thing, but it’s being able to taste them that counts! Recently the massed ranks of the ERO staff were treated to a ‘blind’ tomato tasting of seven different varieties, some modern, some old. It was very gratifying to see that the old variety Harbinger, first listed over a century ago, was the outright winner with seven votes (eight if you include the outdoor grown version):

A selection of tomatoes for blind tasting by ERO Staff.

Golden Sunrise: 0
Artisan Bumble Bee mix: 1
Harbinger (greenhouse grown): 7
Indigo Blue Berries: 0
Gardeners Delight: 2
Tigerella: 1
Chocolate Pear: 1
Harbinger (out-door, pot grown): 1

The eagle-eyed among you will surely have noted though, that Golden Sunrise, the oldest known variety grown, received no votes, so age isn’t everything!

While Mrs Beeton might not have mentioned bruschetta, it’s one of my favourite ways of eating tomatoes, so I treated the staff to a taste to celebrate the flavour of locally grown toms!

Bruschetta made with Harbinger and Golden Sunrise tomatoes along with lots of basil and a good heft of garlic. (Photo courtesy of Andy Morgan)

So, if you have any stories to share about tomato growing in Essex, or market gardening in the county (an under-researched and known about topic in my mind), then do a leave a message below. There’s still lots to learn about their culture in the county. And, if you fancy growing any of the tomatoes mentioned above (and I really recommend the Harbinger as a very good ‘doer’) in 2024, then a quick search of the internet will find many suppliers from whom you can purchase some seed. Just remember not to over-water and to pick out the side shoots. But hey, this isn’t Gardeners Question Time but a history blog, you’ll work it out!!!

Neil

400th anniversary of William Byrd (c.1540-1623)

Posted on July 20, 2023 by admin

July 2023 marks the 400^th anniversary of the death of the composer William Byrd, who for over 25 years lived in Stondon Massey.

Byrd was a recusant Catholic who refused to attend the services of the Church of England. While living at Stondon Massey, Byrd composed two books of illegal Latin religious music known as the ‘Gradualia’. The first set of 1605 was dedicated to the Earl of Northampton, and the second set dated 1607 was dedicated to Byrd’s great friend and patron, Lord Petre of Writtle who lived nearby at Ingatestone Hall.

According to a household inventory dated 1608, the Petre family possessed “2 sets of Mr Byrd’s books intituled Gradualia, the first and second set”, as well as other books containing “songs” by the composer (Edwards, A C. John Petre (1975), p.138). All the pieces were probably tried out at Ingatestone Hall before publication.

At the ERO we are fortunate to have two books from the household of John, 1^st Baron Petre (1549-1614) that feature music written by Byrd. Dating from around 1590, these are known as part books, as they only show one part of the composition – in this case the part for the bass singers.

Leather-bound book with gold detailing on front, including the name 'John Petre' embossed in gold. — The front cover of one of the part books, c.1590 (D/DP Z6/1 and D/DP Z6/2). It is embossed with John Petre’s name, suggesting that it was his personal book.

Open leather-bound book, showing a music score with text below. William Byrd's name is written in elaborate writing at the end. — Part of William Byrd’s motet *Ne irascaris Domine* in the part book. Can you spot Byrd’s name at the end?

Byrd’s motet Ne irascaris Domine, dating from 1589, is one of the pieces included in the Petre part books. Dating from 1589, its Latin title means ‘Be not angry O Lord’. Here it is performed by Southend-based chamber choir Gaudeamus:

Essex Record Office · Gaudeamus performing William Byrd’s ‘Ne irascaris Domine’

William Byrd successfully managed to navigate the intrigues of being a Catholic in late Elizabethan and early Stuart England, being about 82 years old when he died. His wonderful music lives on.

With thanks to Andrew Smith. To find out more, read our previous blog post on music in the archives, which delves deeper into the music the Petre family would’ve enjoyed at Thorndon Hall and Ingatestone Hall during this period, and another post by archivist Lawrence Barker on the part book and Byrd’s Ne irascaris Domine motet.

You can also listen to more Byrd on BBC Radio 3’s Composer of the Week – William Byrd: A Man of Many Parts, and BBC Radio 4’s Sunday Worship, where the Revd Dr Jonathan Arnold visits the Church of St Peter and St Paul in Stondon Massey and Ingatestone Hall.

Observatories in Essex and sightings of Halley’s Comet

Posted on July 13, 2023 by admin

“So far as destroying the world was concerned, well, you might just as well try to disturb a charging hippopotamus by throwing a baked bean at it.”
Patrick Moore on Halley’s Comet, Colchester Hospital Radio, 1986

Until the end of the nineteenth century, most astronomical research in Britain was funded and carried out by private individuals of independent means. There were several such individuals based in Essex, including Revd. James Pound, his nephew Revd. James Bradley, and Joseph Gurney Barclay.

The Revd. James Pound (1669-1724) was Rector of Wanstead, then in Essex, between 1707 and 1720. During this time he made various planetary observations, at first with a 15-foot telescope and then with a 123-foot ‘object glass’ telescope, which the Royal Society lent to him in 1717. The telescope was constructed by Christian Huygens and mounted in Wanstead Park on a maypole that had just been removed from the Strand and presented to Pound by Sir Isaac Newton. Pound’s observations of Jupiter, Saturn, and their satellites were used by several eminent scientists, including Edmond Halley – more on him later.

James Bradley. Mezzotint by J. Faber after Thomas Hudson (1701-1779).
Reference: Wellcome collection 1341i

Revd. Pound tutored his nephew, James Bradley (1693-1762), in astronomy, with many of Bradley’s early observations made jointly with his uncle at Wanstead. In 1718 Bradley followed Pound in becoming a Fellow of the Royal Society, and after Pound’s death in 1724 he continued to make observations from Wanstead at the Grove, the house to which his aunt had moved in her widowhood. Here he installed an instrument even the Observatory at Greenwich didn’t possess: a zenith sector of 12 ½ radius and 12 ½ º. When he left Wanstead in 1732 he left the zenith sector in place, frequently returning to carry out his research, which led to him succeeding Halley as Astronomer Royal in 1742. His research culminated in the discovery of two major phenomena: the aberration of light and nutation (wobbling) of the Earth’s axis. In 1749 Bradley moved the zenith sector to Greenwich, where it can still be seen today.

In the autumn of 1854, over a century after James Pound and James Bradley were conducting their research in Wanstead, Joseph Gurney Barclay (1816-1898) set up an observatory at his home in Knotts Green, Leyton. The ERO Library has two volumes of his Astronomical Observations published in 1865 and 1870. These include details about the observatory and its equipment as well as the observations of double-stars, planets and comets. He writes:

My Observatory is erected in the midst of the pleasure-grounds which surround my residence at Leyton, in Essex, about six miles N.E. from the City of London; its position being 51^o 34’ 34” N. latitude and o^h o^m o^S.87 W. longitude, and about ninety feet above the level of the sea. The building consists of a quadrangular room, sixteen feet square, surmounted by a wooden dome, covered with copper and lined with American cloth, which I found prevented the internal condensation of vapour; it revolves on gun-metal wheels connected by a ring (in mechanical phraseology a “live-ring”).

Photograph of a domed building, endorsed in pencil ‘Leyton / Barclays Observatory / 1899 / M. [?Albin]’ (catalogue ref: D/Y 33/4/30)

Barclay employed the services of professional astronomers: first Herman Romberg, who left in 1864 to take up a position in the Berlin Observatory; then Charles Talmage, who wrote up Romberg’s observations for the English press and continued the work of recording “Planetary and Cometic Observations” from Knotts Green. Although comets were recorded from this observatory, none were Halley’s Comet.

Astronomical Observations Taken at the Private Observatory of Joseph Gurney Barclay, Leyton, Essex, pub. 1865 (catalogue ref: LIB/E/LEY 4)

Amongst the astronomical phenomena recorded from Barclay’s Leyton observatory were comets. Prior to Edmond Halley’s work, comets were widely thought to be unique objects that passed through the solar system once and then disappeared forever. Using Isaac Newton’s laws of gravitation and planetary motion, Halley calculated the orbits of several comets. He noticed that the orbits of three particularly bright comets observed in 1531, 1607, and 1682 were strikingly similar, and proposed that these three comets were, in fact, the same object making periodic returns to the inner solar system. Based on his calculations, Halley predicted that this comet would return in 1758. The comet did return as he had anticipated, but Halley died in 1742 so did not see his prediction proved accurate. To honour Halley’s ground-breaking work, this comet was later named Halley’s Comet.

Astronomers have now linked Halley’s comet to observations dating back more than 2,000 years. One such observation is its appearance in the Bayeux Tapestry which depicts the events leading up to the Norman Conquest of England in 1066.

Section of the Bayeux Tapestry showing the comet in the sky with a group of six men looking and pointing towards it — Bayeux Tapestry, Bayeux, France, c. 1070-1080, Scene 32, detail of Comet Halley. Photo by Myrabella

As seen by the recordings of Halley’s Comet over the centuries, comets and other celestial events really capture people’s attention. Several of the diaries and personal papers looked after at the ERO have references to Halley’s Comet in 1910. In her memories of her youth in Great Waltham, Mildred Joslin recalls seeing Halley’s Comet with her family (catalogue ref: T/P 306/1 page 9):

I remember seeing Hayley’s [sic] Comet, we stood in the road at the bottom of South St, looking towards the school; it came from the right, where Cherry Garden Estate is now, but in those days it was a field. I also well remember standing in the road with my parents and several other people looking at what seemed to be flames in the sky; someone said they were the Northern Lights.

George H. Rose (1882-1956), a talented artist, working chiefly in water colours, kept diaries which present a vivid picture his youth spent his live sketching, going to art exhibitions and concerts, piano-playing, singing in his lodgings – and seeing Halley’s Comet. His entry for 18 May 1910 reads:

Fine weather.
Thunderstorms nearly every night this week, owing, I believe, to Halley’s Comet which approaches nearest to the earth today. Mildred is very much alarmed at it. I, it seems, an unable to keep away from the scenes of National mourning and tonight went to watch the people passing into Westminster Hall, where the mortal remains of King Edward VII now lie in State.

Diary of George H. Rose, entry for 18 May 1910. (catalogue ref: D/DU 418/11)

Rose mentions that his companion, Mildred, was “very much alarmed” by the comet. There had been much anticipation for the comet’s arrival in the press and the belief that it was an omen did cause fear in some people, intensified by the death of King Edward VII just days before the comet arrived. It also came especially close to Earth on this occasion: so close that on 19 May 1910, Earth passed through its tail. This was the first time that the Halley’s Comet was photographed and that spectroscopic analysis could be carried out. It was also discovered that the toxic gas cyanogen was present in the tail. This led the astronomer Camille Flammarion to claim that, when Earth passed through it, this gas would lead to an end of life on Earth..

Rose, however, didn’t seem particularly impressed by the comet, writing on 23 May 1910:

The weather was grand all day, and after a visit to Robersons for some more sepia and some REED PENS I drifted to the Heath and there at last learned how to use these pens.
Later after moonrise I stood among the crowd on the other side looking at the comet. There was a large crowd for such a little sight.

I remember studying Halley’s Comet at primary school when it returned in 1986. It was a very exciting topic, even though the view of the comet on this occasion wasn’t as good as in 1910. In the Colchester Hospital Radio archive – one of several hospital radio archives preserved in the Essex Sound and Video Archive – is an interview with the well-known astronomy writer, researcher, radio commentator and television presenter Patrick Moore (1923-2012). In the recording, Moore reassures listeners that a comet striking Earth would cause local damage but “so far as destroying the world was concerned, well, you might just as well try to disturb a charging hippopotamus by throwing a baked bean at it”.

Audio clip of Patrick Moore speaking about Halley’s Comet on Hospital Radio Colchester (catalogue ref: SA653). Read a transcript here.

Another clip of Patrick Moore speaking about Halley’s Comet on Hospital Radio Colchester (catalogue ref: SA653). Read a transcript here.

Nowadays, astronomers can now see Halley’s Comet at any point in its orbit, but the next time it will be visible from Earth with the naked eye will be in 2061.

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