Our Sound Archivist Martin Astell brings us another highlight from the Essex Sound and Video Archive…

SA 24/854/1

This month’s recording is an extract from a lecture delivered to the Essex Branch of the Historical Association by Hilda Grieve in 1981. The lecture – entitled ‘The Rebellion of 1381 and the County Town’ – was given to mark the 600^th anniversary of the Peasants’ Revolt. As the title suggests, the lecture considers the contribution of people from Chelmsford to the rebellion. The extract I have chosen comes from the start of the lecture, as the speaker sets the scene by describing the extent and nature of Essex’s county town in 1381. It is a fascinating picture painted by a historian who may have developed a greater knowledge of the history of Chelmsford than any other. It may come as a surprise to learn of the humble nature in the fourteenth century of what is now the only city in Essex. Hilda Grieve (1913-1993) joined the newly-created Essex Record Office in 1939 – the same year in which she was awarded the Alexander Medal of the Royal Historical Society – and continued in the post of Senior Assistant Archivist until 1966. From 1966 to 1973 she was Deputy Editor of the Victoria County History of Essex.

Hilda Grieve’s house in New London Road, Chelmsford

Hilda Grieve, eminent historian of Chelmsford

Her first major publication was The Great Tide (1959) which was written for Essex County Council on the subject of the 1953 floods in Essex. The first volume of her exhaustive history of Chelmsford – The Sleepers and the Shadows – was published in 1988 (as Essex Record Office publication no.100). This volume covered the medieval and Tudor story. And the second volume, subtitled ‘From Market Town to Chartered Borough 1608-1888’, was published posthumously in 1994 (as Essex Record Office publication no.128). Volume 1 is now unfortunately out of print but can be consulted at ERO or Chelmsford Library; volume 2 is also available for consultation and we have copies for sale.

Our Sound Archivist Martin Astell brings us another highlight from the Essex Sound and Video Archive…

SA 13/4/9/1

The Essex Sound and Video Archive holds a wealth of material relating to farming practices and village life before the Second World War. This recording provides us with an example of how village life was often defined by the requirements of agriculture. It is an interview with Eric Wright, whose father was the farm bailiff at Rickling Hall, and who, as a child in the 1920s and 1930s, had a part to play in controlling the numbers of vermin on the farms in the village of Rickling.

He describes the Rickling Rat and Sparrow Club which was a means of ensuring that responsibility for pest control was shared throughout the community, and also served as a social activity for the working men of the village.

This recording is not for the faint-hearted as it describes an unsentimental, or one might say brutal, approach to the trapping and killing of rats, sparrows and rooks.