Introduction: New Perspectives on Worcester Since the Seventeenth Century

On 2 October 1621, King James I added his seal to a royal charter that incorporated the city of Worcester. It granted rights and a constitution to the city – introducing the office of mayor – that formed the basis of its modern government.¹ Four hundred years later, Worcester City Council’s intention to mark the quatercentenary of ‘Charter Day’ was reinforced by its determination to help the city recover from the global coronavirus pandemic. Seven historians and an archaeologist based at the University of Worcester played their part by delivering a one-day conference that was open to the public. Held at the Hive, Worcester, on 9 October 2021, ‘Charter 400: Explorations of Worcester History through Four Centuries’ provided an opportunity for them to tailor their research interests to the history of Worcester. Five out of the seven articles in this special issue are based on papers presented on that occasion, those by Professor Darren Oldridge, Professor Howard Cox, Professor Maggie Andrews, and Dr Anna Muggeridge. The conference also heard from Dr Helen Loney on ‘Industrial Archaeology and the Worcester Porcelain Industry: Results of the Worcester Porcelain Project’, and from Professor Suzanne Schwarz and Dr Mégane Coulon on ‘History Teaching at the University of Worcester’. Two additional articles have been produced for the special issue, by Professor Neil Fleming, also of the University of Worcester, and Dr Alan Robertson, formerly of the University of Birmingham.

It hardly needs to be said that the city of Worcester has a rich historical heritage. Long dominated by its cathedral, physically and in other ways, Worcester had by the late-eighteenth century become more than a ‘cathedral city’ or ‘county town’. Manufacturing was not new to Worcester at the onset of the Industrial Revolution, but it ushered in its significant expansion beyond the cloth industry and leather trade that was its manufacturing base in the early modern period, to include iron works and engineering, and the production of porcelain and fermented condiments, the latter two products making the city known around the world. That transformation was facilitated first by canals and later by railways. Along with the city’s civic government, the Industrial Revolution also further sharpened the contrast between Worcester and its surrounding county, as the latter, with the notable exception of several towns in the north, remained predominantly agricultural and under the influence of its large landowners. Such contrasts, however, should not be exaggerated. Throughout, as David Whitehead observes, Worcester’s ‘industrial superstructure’ existed in parallel with its status as a ‘rural service centre’.² And the city’s relationship with the surrounding county developed in the second half of the twentieth century, as it expanded as a centre for further and higher education, healthcare, administration, and shopping, just as better public transport and mass car ownership deepened its connections to the surrounding county towns and villages.

For all that change, there were those among Worcester’s citizenry who recognized the need to record and commemorate its past. In 1854, they and others in the county formed the Worcestershire Archaeological Society, and in 1893, it was joined by the Worcestershire Historical Society. Both societies have since produced a stream of publications that preserve our knowledge of Worcester’s material culture and reproduce potentially vulnerable or hard to access primary sources. They were joined in 1994 by the relative newcomer, the Battle of Worcester Society, which organized its first lecture series that year.³ In addition to the valuable work of these organizations, Worcester boasts eight museums: Worcester City Art Gallery and Museum, the Museum of Royal Worcester, the Tudor House Museum, the Commandery, the Mercian Regiment Museum, the George Marshall Medical Museum, the Infirmary Museum, and the Worcestershire Masonic Library and Museum. The city also has numerous sites of historical interest that have exhibitions or explanatory panels, such as Worcester Cathedral, the Guildhall, and Greyfriars House.

Most of the historical scholarship produced by the Worcestershire Archaeological Society and the Worcestershire Historical Society has focussed on the medieval and early modern periods. It is a feature that is even replicated in survey histories of the city.⁴ Worcester’s ancient past, its significance as a regional centre in the Middle Ages, and its momentous role in 1651 as the setting for the last major battle in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms have naturally absorbed the attention of generations of historians. Even so, Worcester’s history since that period has not been neglected by scholars and writers. Much of this is public history, and as might be expected a significant proportion incline towards the commemorative and celebratory. Surveying these works, it is possible to observe how certain themes and topics stand out. As noted already, seventeenth-century Worcester is well served by historiography, so what follows refers to the period since the eighteenth century. The pronounced attention given to urban development and demographic change builds on the sizable body of scholarship that addresses Worcester’s earlier history.⁵ A similar observation might be made about religion and church history, but these works are noticeably less comprehensive in scope.⁶ Publications on education and learning,⁷ public health and welfare,⁸ and industry and consumption,⁹ are reasonably significant in extent, but like religion and church history, the tendency is to focus on certain locally prominent institutions such as the King’s School, the Infirmary, and the porcelain works. Similarly, the Worcestershire Regiment overshadows much else in publications examining war and the armed forces.¹⁰ The importance of Worcester’s transport infrastructure has not gone unnoticed,¹¹ and there are more modest bodies of work on crime and policing,¹² and politics and local government,¹³ but sport is poorly served.¹⁴

This special issue seeks to plug some of those gaps as well as look anew at familiar topics in the history of Worcester since the seventeenth century. As noted, the Battle of Worcester is ingrained into the city’s public consciousness. Darren Oldridge opens the issue by approaching that event from an unusual angle, by investigating the legend that Oliver Cromwell sold his soul to the Devil in Worcester’s Perry Wood on the eve of battle. Oldridge demonstrates how the tale was constructed from the legend of Johann Faust and the demonization of the royalist Prince Rupert, and he highlights how its depiction of a physical Devil drew on older ideas that sat uncomfortably with the emphasis placed by English Protestants on Satan as an invisible tempter.¹⁵ Alan T. Robertson adopts an innovative approach to the history of Worcester’s economic development by examining how Freemasonry served as an informal business network in the early eighteenth-century through to the mid-nineteenth century.¹⁶ Through a prosopography of over four hundred listed members of the fraternity, Robertson traces their participation in a range of economic activities to advance the argument that masonic lodges offered those critical elements identified by historians and business management theorists as necessary for any business network to operate successfully. There is understandable pride in Worcester that it is the birthplace of the British Medical Association. Howard Cox brings his expertise on the business of magazine publishing to add new detail and context to this event, in particular, how Worcester emerged in the period between 1828 and 1854 as the leading centre for English medical publishing outside London.¹⁷ In a city better known for its relationship with the army, N. C. Fleming reveals how in 1897 Worcester established one of the Navy League’s first branches outside London.¹⁸ Placing the organization's remarkable early growth and later decline within the political and religious contexts of late Victorian and Edwardian Worcester, Fleming highlights how the enthusiasm of navalist propagandists was not always reciprocated by local people. If Worcester’s politics is relatively neglected by historians, the significance of gender has until now been ignored. Anna Muggeridge draws on her ground-breaking work on women and politics in the West Midlands to uncover how women experienced and navigated local government in the city between 1907 and 1939.¹⁹ In spite of Worcester’s limited suffrage movement, Muggeridge demonstrates how women were able to enter its local government during the First World War, through specific local authority committees, and how this ushered in women standing for the council as representatives of the Labour, Liberal, and Conservative parties, and as Independent candidates, in the years that followed. Closing the issue, Maggie Andrews, a leading authority on the ‘Home Front’ in both world wars, goes beyond the typical focus on combatants by highlighting the overlooked multitude of ways in which war impacted on the lives of Worcester’s housewives.²⁰

Collectively, several common themes emerge in this special issue. The relationship between the local and the national is addressed by all the contributors. Oldridge, for example, highlights how a legend set in Worcester played a role in delegitimising Cromwell on the national stage, Cox demonstrates how the city held out for a time as a serious rival to London in medical publishing, and Robertson outlines how the national and overseas network offered by Freemasonry had an impact on the ground in the economic development of Worcester. The importance of associational culture in the city is addressed by Cox on the Provincial Medical Association, Robertson on Freemasonry, Fleming on the Navy League, and Muggeridge on the Conservative, Labour, and Liberal parties. Fleming, Muggeridge, and Andrews each demonstrate how organizations locally aligned with and deviated from trends nationally. At the same time, individual agency is brought to light by Cox on Charles Hastings, Fleming on the Rev. C. Poyntz Sanderson, Robertson on local business entrepreneurs, and Muggeridge on local political entrepreneurs. War and conflict feature in contrasting ways in the contributions of Fleming, Muggeridge, and Andrews. The political hegemony of the Conservative party in late-nineteenth and twentieth-century Worcester is charted by both Fleming and Muggeridge. Similarly, the pre-eminent place of Anglicanism in the city is touched upon by Robertson, Fleming, Muggeridge, and Andrews. Several local institutions make multiple appearances across the special issue, including the Chamber of Commerce, in the contributions of Robertson and Fleming, local government, in the contributions of Fleming and Muggeridge, and the Infirmary, in the contributions of Cox and Muggeridge. The weekly newspaper, Berrow’s Worcester Journal—purportedly the oldest newspaper still in production, allowing for a change of title – features conspicuously in the contributions of Cox, Robertson, and Fleming.²¹

Notwithstanding these wide-ranging themes, the special issue is far from comprehensive in scope. There is much for Worcester’s future historians to do, aided by the Worcestershire Archive and Archaeology Service and the wealth of material that has become available through the digitization of newspapers. The contributors hope, nonetheless, that they highlight the creative ways in which Worcester’s local history can be integrated with wider historical contexts and mutually enriched as a result.

Acknowledgments

The one-day conference on which this special issue is based was arranged with the support of the County and Diocesan Archivist and Charter 400 Project Manager, Dr Adrian Gregson. Professor Howard Cox first proposed that those proceedings should be published in a special issue. Ever since that idea was put to the editorial team at Midland History, Dr Malcolm Dick and Justine Pick have been consistently encouraging and helpful. Additional thanks must go to Professor Dilwyn Porter and Teresa Jones.

Notes

¹ W. R. Buchanan-Dunlop, ‘The First Mayor of Worcester: Edward Hurdman, 1565–1635’, Transactions of the Worcestershire Archaeological Society, 23 (1947 for 1946), 52–6.

² D. Whitehead, The Book of Worcester: The Story of the City’s Past (Chesham: Barracuda Books, 1976), p. 132.

³ D. Hallmark, ed., The Battle of Worcester 1651: A Collection of Essays on the History of the Battle of Worcester (Worcester: Battle of Worcester Society, 2012), p. 2.

⁴ See, for example, J. W. Willis-Bund and W. Page, eds., The Victoria History of the County of Worcester, Volume IV (London: St Catherine Press, 1924); Whitehead, Book of Worcester; P. Hughes and A. Leech, The Story of Worcester (Almeley: Logaston Press, 2011); A. Reekes, Worcester Moments: River, Religion and Royalty (Alcester: West Midlands History, 2019).

⁵ W. R. Buchanan-Dunlop, ‘Thomas White of Worcester, Sculptor and Architect (c. 1674–1748)’, Transactions of the Worcestershire Archaeological Society, 20 (1944), 15–25; M. Whiffen, ‘White of Worcester: A Local Architect of the Eighteenth Century’, Country Life, 98, 2551 (1945), 1002–5; W. R. Buchanan-Dunlop, ‘Old Worcester Families, 4: Inglethorp’, Transactions of the Worcestershire Archaeological Society, 29 (1953 for 1952), 19–32; L. Richardson, ‘Upton-on-Severn, and the Severn and Lowesmoor, Worcester, Bridges: Historical and Geological Notes’, Transactions of the Worcestershire Naturalists’ Club, 11 (1961 for 1954–65), 136–41; J. A. Johnston, ‘Developments in Worcester and Worcestershire 1563–1851’, Transactions of the Worcestershire Archaeological Society, 3rd ser., 5 (1976), 51–61; P. M. Hughes, ‘Houses and Property in Post-Reformation Worcester’, Transactions of the Worcestershire Archaeological Society, 7 (1980), 269–92; P. Hughes, ‘The Street Names of Worcester’, Transactions of the Worcestershire Archaeological Society, 3rd ser., 7 (1980), 317; D. Whitehead, ‘John Gwynn, R.A. and the building of Worcester bridge 1769–86’, Transactions of the Worcestershire Archaeological Society, 3rd ser., 8 (1982), 31–45; D. Whitehead, Urban Renewal and Suburban Growth: The Shaping of Georgian Worcester (Worcester: Worcestershire Historical Society, 1989); D. Whitehead, ‘The Georgian Churches of Worcester’, Transactions of the Worcestershire Archaeological Society, 3rd ser., 13 (1992), 211–22; J. Vilagrasa and P.J. Larkham, ‘Post-War Redevelopment and Conservation in Britain: Ideal and Reality in the Historic Core of Worcester’, Planning Perspectives, 10, 2 (1995), 149–72; J. M. Knowles, College Green Worcester 1800–1900 (Worcester: Worcester Cathedral Publications, 1995); C. R. Haynes, Worcester within the Walls: The Changing Face of Worcester (Worcester: Osborne, 1996); J. Dunleavey, ‘Suburban Residential Development 1880–1939: Polite or Vernacular Architecture?’, Local Historian, 32, 3 (2002), 178–95; J. Dunleavey, ‘Suburban Residential Development in Worcester during the Bye-Law period, 1866–1939’, Transactions of the Worcestershire Archaeological Society, 3rd ser., 19 (2004), 175–99; C. Wardle and T. Wardle, The History of Barbourne and the Early Development of North Worcester: Eleven Hundred Years of Recorded History of Worcester’s Northern Suburb (Worcester: MTC, 2007); T. Wardle, Historic Worcester Streets: Their History and the People who Lived and Worked in Them: Listings of Worcester Streets Recorded from the Earliest Times up to 1940 (Worcester: TWP, 2014).

⁶ D. Lysons, History of the Origin and Progress of the Meeting of the Three Choirs of Gloucester, Worcester, and Hereford (Gloucester: printed by D. Walker, for Cadell and Davies, 1812); J. Noake, Worcester Sects, or a History of the Roman Catholics and Dissenters in Worcester (s.l.: s.n., 1861); W. Urwick, Nonconformity in Worcester, with an Account of the Congregational Church Meeting in Angel Street Chapel (s.l.: s.n., 1897); A. Davies, Worcester Cathedral: its History, its Architecture, its Library, its School, 7^th edition (Gloucester: British Publishing Company Limited, 1948); W. R. Buchanan-Dunlop, ‘St Alban’s Church, Worcester’, Transactions of the Worcestershire Archaeological Society, 27 (1951 for 1950), 1–14; B. D. G. Little, The Three Choirs Cities: Gloucester, Hereford and Worcester (s.l.: s.n., 1952); F. G. Davies and H. R. Harrison, Worcester and its Cathedral (s.l.: s.n., 1953); W. Shaw, The Three Choirs Festival: The Official History of the Meetings of the Three Choirs of Gloucester, Hereford and Worcester, c. 1713–1953 (Worcester and London: Ebenezer Baylis and Son, 1954); W. R. Buchanan-Dunlop, ‘The Life and Times of William Cleiveland, Rector of All Saints’, Worcester, 1757–94’, Transactions of the Worcestershire Archaeological Society, 36 (1960), 6–18; M. Ransome, The State of the Bishopric of Worcester, 1782–1808 (Birmingham: Worcestershire Historical Society, 1968); R. B. Lockett, ‘George Gilbert Scott, the Joint Restoration Committee, and the Refurnishing of Worcester Cathedral: 1863–1874’, Transactions of the Worcestershire Archaeological Society, 3rd ser., 6 (1978), 7–49; G.H. Browning, ‘Two Celebrities of Nineteenth Century Worcester: William Laslett and Bishop Robert Carr’, Transactions of the Worcestershire Archaeological Society, 3rd ser., 8 (1982), 59–65; J. Physick, ‘Royal Monuments in the Nineteenth Century’, Church Monuments, 2 (1987), 44–56; J. Black, ‘A Worcester Catastrophe in 1757’, Worcestershire Archaeology (and Local History) Newsletter, 40 (1988), 8–9; A. Boden, Three Choirs: A History of the Festival: Gloucester, Hereford, Worcester (Stroud: Sutton, 1992); M. Parsons, A Prevailing Passion: A History of Worcester Festival Choral Society (Worcester: Osborne Heritage, 1996); D. Hunt, Elgar and the Three Choirs Festival (Worcester: Osborne Heritage, 1999); J. Aitken, Census of Religious Worship, 1851: The Returns for Worcestershire (Worcester: Worcestershire Historical Society, 2000); T. G. Tipple and S. J. Watson, Organs of the City of Worcester (s.l.; s.n., 2005); S.D. Church, ‘The Care of the Royal Tombs in English Cathedrals in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: The Case of the Effigy of King John at Worcester’, Antiquaries Journal, 89 (2009), 365–87; P. L. Walker, Tithe Apportionments of Worcestershire, 1837–1851 (s.l.: Worcestershire Historical Society, 2011); J. Berrow, ‘One “of the old school, solid, & good, and a gentleman”: William Done of Worcester Cathedral, 1844–1895’, Transactions of the Worcestershire Archaeological Society, 3rd ser., 24 (2014), 249–61; M. W. Brierley, Life after Tragedy: Essays on Faith and the First World War Evoked by Geoffrey Studdert Kennedy (Eugene: Cascade Books, 2017).

⁷ A. F. Leach, ‘An Ancient and Modern School: The Royal Grammar School, Worcester’, Journal of Education, 37 (1915), 363–65; E. O. Browne, Fifty Years of the Alice Ottley School, Worcester. With afterthoughts by Miss Spurling (Worcester: s.n., 1933); A. MacDonald, A History of the King’s School, Worcester (s.l.: s.n., 1936); M. G. Thomas, The First Seventy Years: Worcester College for the Blind, 1866–1936 (s.l.: s.n., 1939); F. V. Follett, A History of the Worcester Royal Grammar School (Worcester and London: Ebenezer Baylis, 1951); W. Atkins, ‘Music in the Provinces: the Elgar-Atkins Letters’, Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association, 84 (1958 for 1957–8), 27–42; M. M. Jones, The Lookers-Out of Worcestershire: A Memoir of Edwin Lees, Worcester Naturalist (Trowbridge: s.n., 1980); B. S. Smith and H. Basford, ‘The Last Years of John Doharty of Worcester, Map-Maker’, Transactions of the Worcestershire Archaeological Society, 20 (2006), 151–56; D. Payne, The King’s School, Worcester: From 1541 into the 21st century (Worcester: The King’s School, 2015); P. Cheeseright, The University of Worcester: An Illustrated History (2nd edition, London: Profile Editions, 2019).

⁸ W. H. McMenemey, A History of the Worcester Royal Infirmary (s.l.: s.n.: 1947); C. Latta, The Commandery: The Hospital of St Wulstan, Worcester (Worcester: s.n., 1977); J. Lane, Worcester Infirmary in the Eighteenth Century (Worcester: Worcestershire Historical Society, 1992); F. Crompton, ‘Needs and Desires in the Care of Pauper Lunatics: Admissions to Worcester Asylum, 1852–72’, in Mental Illness and Learning Disability since 1850: Finding a Place for Mental Disorder in the United Kingdom ed. by P. Dale and J. Melling (London: Routledge, 2006), pp. 46–64; H. S. Torrens, ‘Another Quaker “Lunatick”: The Worcester origins of Jonathan Stokes Junior, (1754–1831), Physician, Botanist, Geologist and Youngest Member of the Lunar Society (from 1783)’, Journal of the Friends’ Historical Society, 61, 3 (2009), pp. 196–220; A. Hamblin, If Only the Walls Could Speak: An Orphanage Diary (Codicote: Blenheim Press, 2010); M. Harvey, Tales from Worcester Royal Infirmary (Malvern: Aspect Design, 2012); A. G. Western, ‘A Star of the First Magnitude: Osteological and Historical Evidence for the Challenge of Provincial Medicine at the Worcester Royal Infirmary in the Nineteenth Century’, in Anatomical Dissection in Enlightenment England and Beyond: Autopsy, Pathology and Display ed. by P. Mitchell (Farnham: Ashgate, 2012), pp. 23–42; F. Compton, Doctor Sherlock’s Casebook: Patients admitted to the Worcester City and County Pauper Lunatic Asylum at Powick – August 1854 to March 1881: Writing History from Below of the Worcestershire Pauper Lunatic Asylum (Worcester: George Marshall Medical Museum, 2016); P. Griffith, While The World Endureth: A History of the Worcester Municipal Charities: The First 460 years from 1559 (Worcester: Worcester Municipal Charities, 2020).

⁹ R. W. Binns, A Century of Potting in the City of Worcester, being the History of the Royal Porcelain Works, from 1751 to 1851 (London: Bernard Quaritch, 1865); R. W. Binns, Worcester China: A Record of the Work of Forty-Five years, 1852–1897 (London: Bernard Quaritch, 1897); A. W. Waters, ‘Notes on Nineteenth Century Tokens Issued in the City of Worcester’, Spink and Son’s Numismatic Circular, 38 (1930), 479–81; C. W. D. Perrins, ‘John Wall and the Worcester Porcelain Company’, Transactions of the English Ceramic Circle, 2, 8 (1942), 121–31; G. Wills, ‘John Flight of Worcester’, Connoisseur, 119, 504 (1947), 87–92; F. S. MacKenna, Worcester Porcelain: The Wall Period and its Antecedents (Leigh-on-Sea: s.n., 1950); F. A. Barrett, Worcester Porcelain (London: Faber, 1953); H. R. Marshall, Coloured Worcester Porcelain of the First Period (1751–83) (Newport: s.n., 1954); H. W. A. Linecar, ‘Some Mints of the Midlands’, British Association of Numismatic Societies Yearbook, 8 (1962), pp. 31–41; D. C. Lyes, The Leather Glove Industry of Worcester in the Nineteenth Century (Worcester: s.n., 1976); M. Holmes, ‘Samuel Gamidge: Bookseller in Worcester (c. 1755–1777)’, in Images and Texts: Their Production and Distribution in the 18th and 19th Centuries ed. by P. Issac and B. McKay (Winchester: St Paul’s Bibliographies and Oak Knoll, 1997), pp. 11–52; M. Cooper, The Worcester Book Trade in the Eighteenth Century (s.l.: Worcestershire Historical Society, 1997); A. Toplis, ‘Ready-Made Clothing Advertisements in Two Provincial Papers, 1800–1850’, International Journal of Regional and Local Studies, 5, 1 (2009), 85–103; T. Willis and L. Willis, Edward Walter Locke, Master Potter, 1829–1909: His Family and his Factory (Studley: Brewin Books, 2009); B. Hornsey, Worcester Revisited (Stamford: Fuschiaprint, 2010); R. L. Ollerton, ‘Hereford Cider, Worcester Leather, Birmingham Iron, Rhondda Coal: Foundations of a Welsh Coal Mining Dynasty’, Morgannwg, 56 (2012), 62–83; J. Stevenson, Worcester Trades Union Council: 120 Years Commemorative Booklet 1891–2011 (s.l.: s.n., 2012); R. Ritchie, ‘From Kays of Worcester to Vogue, Paris: The Women’s Institute Magazine, Rural Life and Fashionable Dress in Post-war Britain’, in Dress History: New Directions in Theory and Practice ed. by C. Nicklas and A. Pollen (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015), pp. 161–78; H. G. M. Edwards, Porcelain to Silica Bricks the Extreme Ceramics of William Weston Young (1776–1847) (Cham: Springer, 2019).

¹⁰ H. F. Stacke, The Worcestershire Regiment in the Great War (Kidderminster: G.T. Cheshire and Sons, 1928); P. Sumner, ‘Review of the Worcester Militia, 1800’, Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research, 24, 99 (1946), 111; C. Bromhead, The Worcestershire Regiment, 1922–50 (Aldershot: Gale and Polden, 1952); D. R. Guttery, The Queen’s Own Worcestershire Hussars, 1922–56 (Stourbridge: Mark and Moody, 1958); R. Gale, The Worcestershire Regiment (The 29th and 36th Regiments of Foot) (London: Leo Cooper, 1970); K. Delve, Wales and West Midlands: Cheshire, Hereford and Worcester, Northamptonshire, Shropshire, Staffordshire, Warwickshire, West Midlands, Wales (Ramsbury: Crowood, 2007); B. Rolfe-Smith, A Gilded Cage: Lucien Bonaparte, Prisoner of War 1810–1814 at Ludlow and Worcester (Ludlow: Stonebrook, 2012); M. Wilks, The Defence of Worcestershire and the Southern Approaches to Birmingham in World War II (Almeley: Logaston Press, 2008); M. Wilks, Chronicles of the Worcestershire Home Guard (Little Logaston: Logaston Press, 2014); M. Andrews, A. Gregson and J. Peters, Worcestershire’s War (Stroud: Amberley, 2014); N. Beeching, ‘The Provincial Press and the Outbreak of War: A Unionist View in Worcestershire’, Midland History, 39, 2 (2014), 163–84; S. Jobson, The Story of Norton Barracks: Home of the Worcestershire Regiment (Woonton: Logaston Press, 2015); D. Hodgkins, Lest We Forget: Stories from World War 2 Veterans of the Worcestershire Regiment (Kingswinford: Geoffrey Publications, 2018).

¹¹ H. Rake, ‘The Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway’, Railway Magazine, 32 (1913), 17–20, 145–59; R. A. Pelham, ‘The Worcester and Birmingham Canal’, University of Birmingham Historical Journal, 5, 1 (1955), 60–82; J. B. Harley, Christopher Greenwood, County Map-Maker, and his Worcestershire Map of 1822 (Worcester: Worcestershire Historical Society, 1962); S. C. Jenkins and H. I. Quayle, The Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway: A History of the ‘Cotswold Line’ and its Branches from the 1840s to the Present Day (Blandford: s.n., 1977); G. Wood, Constructing the Worcester and Hereford Railway Line (s.l.: s.n., 2011); D. Voice, The History of Worcester’s Tramways (Brora: Adam Gordon, 2015); E. Dorricott, Samuel Telford Dutton: Railway Signal Engineer of Worcester (s.l.: Signalling Record Society, 2016); A. White, The Worcester and Birmingham Canal: Chronicles of The Cut (Studley: Brewin Books, 2016); S. Bartlett, Worcester Locomotive Shed: Engines and Train Workings (Barnsley: Pen and Sword Transport, 2020).

¹² N. Sly, Worcestershire Murders (Stroud: History Press, 2009); D. Cochrane, Crimes of Worcestershire (Stroud: Amberley, 2012); B. Blandford, The Spike: Worcester City Police: The Lives, the Crimes and the Violent Times: Part 1: 1833–1900 (Worcester: Whole Picture Publishing, 2016); A. Bradford, Foul Deeds and Suspicious Deaths around Worcester (Barnsley: Wharncliffe, 2008).

¹³ W.R. Williams, The Parliamentary History of the County of Worcester … 1213–1897 (Hereford: s.l., 1897); A. MacDonald, ‘Two 18th century parliamentary elections in Worcester’, Transactions of the Worcestershire Archaeological Society, 22 (1946 for 1945), 55–68; E. H. Sargeant, ‘The Formation of the Worcestershire Record Office’, Transactions of the Worcestershire Archaeological Society, 27 (1951 for 1950), 25–32; V. Ryder, All Bull and Black Pears: A Celebration of One Hundred Years of Hereford and Worcester County Council (Upton-on-Severn: Malvern Publishing, 1989); G. Matthews, ‘Poverty and the Poor Law in the First World War in Worcestershire’, in The Duty of Discontent: Essays for Dorothy Thompson ed. by O. R. Ashton, R. Fyson and S. Roberts (London and New York: Mansell, 1995), pp. 212–30; F. Crompton, Workhouse Children: Infant and Child Paupers under the Worcestershire Poor Law, 1780–1871 (Stroud: Sutton, 1997); C. S. Shearman and B. A. E. Cornish, Firefighting in Worcestershire (Stroud: Tempus, 2004).

¹⁴ W. R. Chignell, A History of the Worcestershire County Cricket Club, 1844–1950 (Worcester: Littlebury and Company, 1951); M. D. Vockins, Worcestershire County Cricket Club: A Pictorial History (s.l.: Severn House, 1980).

¹⁵ See also D. Oldridge, The Devil in Tudor and Stuart England (Stroud: History Press, 2010); D. Oldridge, ‘Mother Shipton and the Devil’, in The Extraordinary and the Everyday in Early Modern England ed. by A. McShane and G. Walker (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), pp. 211–23; D. Oldridge, The Devil: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012); D. Oldridge, ‘Demons of the Mind: Satanic thoughts in Seventeenth-Century England’, Seventeenth Century, 35, 3, (2020), 277–92.

¹⁶ See A. T. Robertson, ‘The Contribution of Freemasons to Social and Economic Development in North Worcestershire c. 1760–1824’, Midland History, 45, 1 (2020), 55–74; A. T. Robertson, ‘Freemasonry and Provincial Culture: Worcestershire 1733–1850’ (PhD, University of Birmingham, 2022).

¹⁷ H. Cox, S. Mowatt, and S. Young, ‘Innovation and Organisation in the UK Magazine Print Publishing Industry: A Survey’, Global Business and Economics Review, 7, 1 (2005), 111–28; H. Cox, ‘Vogue in Britain: Authenticity and the Creation of Competitive Advantage in the UK Magazine Industry’, Business History, 54, 1 (2012), 67–87; H. Cox and S. Mowatt, Revolutions from Grub Street: A History of Magazine Publishing in Britain, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014).

¹⁸ See N. C. Fleming, ‘Imperial Maritime League: British Navalism, Conflict, and the Radical Right, c. 1907–1920’, War in History, 23, 3 (2016), 296–322; N. C. Fleming, ‘The Navy League, the Rising Generation, and the First World War’, in Histories, Memories and Representations of Being Young in the First World War ed. by M. Andrews, N. C. Fleming and M. Morris (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), pp. 97–118; N. C. Fleming, ‘Navalism and Masculinity before the First World War’, in Negotiating Masculinities and Modernity in the Maritime World, 1815–1940: A Sailor’s Progress? ed. by J. Begiato, K. Downing and J. Thayer (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2022), pp. 245–65.

¹⁹ A. Muggeridge, ‘A “Practical” Politics? Suffrage, Infant Welfare and Women’s Politics in Walsall, 1910–1939’, in The Politics of Women’s Suffrage: Local, National and International Dimensions ed. by A. Hughes-Johnston and L. Jenkins (London: University of London Press, 2021), pp. 109–28; A. Muggeridge, ‘Women and Politics in Smethwick, 1918–1929’, Midland History, vol. 47, no. 2 (2022), 191–207.

²⁰ M. Andrews and J. Lomas, eds., The Home Front in Britain: Images, Myths and Forgotten Experiences since 1914 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014); M. Andrews, ‘Tropes and Trench Cakes: The Home Front in the Media and Community History’, Twentieth Century British History, 27, 4 (2016), 506–12; M. Andrews and J. Waugh, How the Pershore Plum won the Great War (Stroud: History Press, 2016); M. Andrews and J. Lomas, ‘Home Fronts, Gender War and Conflict’, Women’s History Review, 26, 4 (2017), 523–27; M. Andrews, ‘Worcestershire’s Women: Local Studies and the Gender Politics of the First World War and its Legacy’, History, 104, 363 (2019), 851–70; M. Andrews, Women and Evacuation in the Second World War: Femininity, Domesticity and Motherhood (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2019); M. Andrews and E. Edwards, Bovril, Whisky and Gravediggers: The Spanish Flu Pandemic Comes to the West Midlands (1918–1920) (Alcester: West Midlands History, 2019); M. Andrews, A. S. Fell, L. Noakes, J. Purvis, eds., British Women’s Histories of the First World War: Representing, Remembering, Rewriting (London: Routledge, 2019).

²¹ See W. Bennett, ‘A Note on The Worcester Post-man’, Book Collector’s Quarterly, 4, 14 (1934), 77–9; I. Griffiths, Berrow’s Worcester Journal: An Examination of the Antiquity of Britain’s Oldest Newspaper (Worcester: George Williams and Berrow’s, 1941).