Books on Buckinghamshire

[delphine]

Can anyone please recommend (to a Londoner living in Devon) one or more books on the development of Buckinghamshire, especially about the 18th and early 19th centuries. My DORRELL ancestors worked in wood (carpenters, turners etc) and came from the Chalfonts. Some seem to have been nonconformists.

NB I tend to get books through Inter-Library loan if I can, on the principle of use it or lose it (and here it costs about £3 a book for one from outside the County) But I do buy sometimes. Well, rather too often ....

Even tourist books on the county might have something.

[Neil Wilson]

Well if you would like to buy, I'm sure our sponsor, 'Parish Chest' would like to help make the decision easier for you. Try this link straight to the list of items which mention Buckinghamshire

Happy reading

[stepives]

Amazon is a good place to look. Books are cheap, but the delivery can be inhibitive.

I managed to get a book of old photographs of my Hometown on there, and it's brilliant. It also has a lot of historical facts in there.

Also, if you want to pay nothing, you can look here..... www.
british-history.ac.uk/

Steve.

[delphine]

Thanks for the suggestions - I had already looked at Parish Chest, and on Amazon and abe , though I will re-visit the Victoria County History. I'm not so much looking for books written at the time as a general overview of the county and how it developed in the context of British History, events at the time, social history (Not very good on Georgians - we'd just got to the Stuarts when we had to start GCE syllabus from 1832-1945, then back to the Tudors for A level - which was all a very long time ago). Living in a much-written about county with its own prolific historian (Dr Todd Gray), am I spoilt?

[Nivard Ovington]

Try again :-(

Hi Delphine

Have a look at

http://www.
archive.org/details/texts

Where you will find many books on Buckinghamshire (and every other County)

Try various search words such as Buckinghamshire
England Topography
History England

Etc etc

Plenty there to be found and read online or downloaded for free

[Peter Goodey]

• Try the Bucks FHS website
• Try getting some ideas from the Bucks Library Service's online catalogue using the 'Local Studies Catalogue' option. You could try searching with some fairly obvious keywords or using the Dewey Decimal classification (eg 941, 942).

[AnnB]

Living in a much-written about county with its own prolific historian (Dr Todd Gray), am I spoilt?

Yep, you sure are - we really are spoilt for choice here in Devon

Best wishes
Ann

[delphine]

Thanks to all once again - am already a Bucks FHS member and have posted to their Forum too. Didn't know the archive.org ref, and what a clever idea to search the Bucks Library site - I did search Devon's (and found out what a lot of stuff about Buckinghamshire railways there is in the specialist railway collection in Newton Abbot ..... ). Off to search right away!

[Yeates]

Dear Delphine,
I, too, am reassured when I can read about the history of a county/village. It brings context approaching understanding to the lives of our ancestors, doesn’t it? Here are two books I ordered through interlibrary loan. Both have helped my research (Chesham families also involved in the wood trades and also nonconformists.):
1. Buckinghamshire by Alison Uttley; London; Robert Hale Limited; 18 Bedford Square WC1; first published 1950;
2. The Geography of Religion in England by John D. Gay, Duckworth, London, 1971;

I am sure you have found the archives of Origins, the BFHS publication, valuable.
In case, you have ever come across information about the making of wooden shovels industry in 19th century Bucks, I would be interested.
Regards,
Yeates

[delphine]

Thanks for this - these look potentially interesting. Have also looked at the out of copyright books on the BFHS site and am eagerly awaiting further back issues of Origins on their website. Still trying to fit together the various records of DORRELLs that I have - one of whom may have been a millwright/wheelwright. But will try to carry wooden shovels in the back of my mind. As it were.