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by
Alf Wilkinson
The
tiny village of Little Hale today has absolutely no services - well,
it has a post box and a telephone box, but no shops, pubs or anything
of that kind. Even the school has long been closed and converted
into a residential base for Brownies and Girl Guides. Yet these
two old photographs show things were very different at one time.
This
(above) clearly shows a village shop and beyond it, in the
distance, the Bowling Green inn.
At
one time there obviously were both shops and pubs in the village.
How can we find out more?
The
1881 census for Little Hale lists a shoemaker, a dressmaker, a grocer
and a blacksmith. Interestingly enough, no-one lists 'publican'
as their occupation, although it may be that it was a secondary
occupation rather than a main job thus not warranting a mention
in the census return. Census returns can pose as many questions
as they answer!
Most
places have trade directories throughout the 19th and most of the
20th centuries. Kellys are perhaps the most famous, but there are
many more such as Pigot and Mortons.
On
the right is an extract from Kelly's Lincolnshire Directory
for 1913. (Click on the images for a larger version.) Besides
listing a school for 60 pupils, the entries include a shopkeeper,
a Post Office, the Bowling Green Public House and a blacksmith and
shopkeeper. So there was at least one pub and several shops in 1913.
By
1921 this has become a Post Office, a blacksmith and the Bowling
Green Public House.
By
1936 there is a Post Office, (with telephone, notice!) The Stores
and the Bowling Green Pub. By using several directories you can
thus trace the changing infrastructure of the village over a long
period of time and learn a lot about your area in the process.
Another
way you might use trade directories is by looking at the adverts.
Many contain lots of advertisements for both local and national
names. Take this one for instance, from Kelly's 1913 directory,
the Boston section (Click on the image for a larger version.).
It
is interesting to note that there were still regular, timetabled
coastal shipping services right up to the First World War - we tend
to think the railways would have replaced such services as this.
Another
interesting way to use directories is to look at individuals rather
than occupations. It is possible to follow the fortunes of an individual
family through several generations, just from the information we
have here. And if you add census data - almost always available
now from your local library - you have plenty of information. You
could even link that with the topic of using
your local war memorial.
Weblinks
Some examples of trade directories you can access on the Internet:
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