Discover Your Ancestors

Issue 019

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Welcome to Discover Your Ancestors Periodical, Britain’s only monthly digital magazine about family and social history. This month I’d particularly like to welcome new subscribers who join us from Discover Your History magazine, which has sadly closed. We have a similar mix of content – plus an annual print magazine available in newsagents and with completely different content.

Mental illness has always been stigmatised, and sadly in past ages people with learning disabilities too were often hidden away in workhouses, as this month’s feature by Helen Angove reveals – it’s a subject that has been little written about before. On a similar topic, we also have news of a major new digitisation project which will see many records from old asylums go online.

This month sees the 20th anniversary of Britain’s National Lottery (yes, already!) – in this issue our regular social history expert Nell Darby takes the long view and reveals its numerous antecedents through history.

Plus we’ve got more online WW1 records to explore, and other articles take us right back to mediaeval times. I hope you enjoy the issue.

Andrew Chapman, Editor.

Articles

Life’s a lottery

On 19 November 1994, a television programme was broadcast that marked a watershed in Britain’s long history of gambling and lotteries. On this Saturday evening, Noel Edmonds presented the first draw of The National Lottery. The first draw saw 15 million people buy £1 tickets that gave them a chance of winning an estimated £7 million jackpot.

Fresh from the Front

From the famous battles and the spiralling casualty rates to the increasing use of photography and the use of 'gallows humour’ by the troops at the front, World War One saw a great change in the way news was reported.

Saturday Night Soldiers

The Army Reserve underwent a major restructuring in 1908 in the reforms introduced by Richard Haldane, the Secretary of State for War. The previously civilian-administered Volunteer Force was combined with the mounted Yeomanry, while the militia was renamed the Special Reserve.

Seeking asylums?

More than 800,000 pages of archival material from psychiatric hospitals in the UK from the 18th to the 20th century will be digitised and made freely available online as part of the Welcome Library’s ambitious digitisation programme.

Stall stories

London, in its first incarnation, was a trading post of the Roman Empire. The area was carefully chosen for its estuarine location, where the trade and distribution of goods could easily be maintained. In subsequent centuries, as London grew, street trading became its lifeblood, creating an unparalleled number of markets, each serving its own communities and each offering a different character.

“Weak in intellect”

The explicit rationale of the workhouse was that you’d be prepared to put up with just about any kind of living hell rather than go there. The Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 - the most radical restructuring of welfare support that Britain had seen - envisioned the workhouse as the ultimate deterrent.

The Herald Calls

Heraldic visitations, which began in 1530, regulated coats of arms of the gentry and nobility as well as boroughs in England, Wales and Ireland until 1688. They also recorded family pedigrees, and the records that were generated can be a valuable source for genealogists wanting to find out more about their well-heeled ancestors in the Tudor and Stuart period. Many of them are online at online at TheGenealogist.co.uk.

November 2014's books

From 1917 British soldiers who were deemed too unfit or old for frontline service were given a different duty, one that still left them very much within range of German guns for weeks and months at a time. These soldiers were made to undertake labouring tasks such as digging, construction and demolition. The vital yet largely unreported role played by these brave soldiers was crucial to achieving victory in 1918.

Place in Focus Sussex

Sussex has three main geographic sub-regions, each oriented approximately east to west. In the south-west of the county lies the fertile and densely populated coastal plain. North of this lie the rolling chalk hills of the South Downs, beyond which lies the well-wooded Sussex Weald. The name derives from the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of Sussex; the modern division into East and West counties only dates from 1974. The region is rich in prehistoric and Roman remains.

History in the Details: Shawls

Garment terminology is complex, many dress items sharing similar features and their boundaries often being indistinct. Shawls sometimes resemble cloaks (see DYA Periodical, October 2014 issue), but they have a more intricate history and varied usage.

Additional Information

Other Formats

You can buy a printed version of the annual Discover Your Ancestors bookazine directly from the publishers, please see www.discoveryourancestors.co.uk and click on ‘Order print copies’ at the bottom.

Editorial Office

Discover Your Ancestors Publishing,

PO BOX 163,

Shaftesbury,

SP7 7BA

E: [email protected]

W: www.discoveryourancestors.co.uk

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Discover Your Ancestors Periodical is published by Discover Your Ancestors Publishing, UK. All rights in the material belong to Discover Your Ancestors Publishing and may not be reproduced, whether in whole or in part, without their prior written consent. The publisher makes every effort to ensure the magazine's contents are correct. All articles are copyright© of Discover Your Ancestors Publishing and unauthorised reproduction is forbidden. Please refer to full Terms and Conditions at www.discoveryourancestors.co.uk. The editors and publishers of this publication give no warranties, guarantees or assurances and make no representations regarding any goods or services advertised.