Next meeting. 3 August 2016

ESAH/EIAG Industrial Events 2016

The next visit of industrial interest is on Wednesday 3^rd August at 10:00 to the Essex Fire Museum, Grays.

A guided tour of the museum will be followed by refreshments. The museum provides a fascinating look at the history of the Essex Fire Service through historic fire engines, firefighting equipment, uniforms and photographs. Those of you who attended the Industrial Heritage Fair last October will recall their very popular stand at the event.

ESAH: Website News

Council, on 23 July 2016, has appointed Sensei Intelligent Solutions Ltd. to develop a new website for the Society.  John Hayward and Andrew Smith are core members of the Project Team which will see our new online offering develop in three stages.  Firstly, the migration and upgrading of the current website; secondly, the creation of an Archives area which will enable online access to our previous publications; and thirdly and most ambitious, a new and additional way in which the Society engages with its members through Customer Relationship Management (CRM) to use the jargon.  You can follow the latest news on website development on this blog, 

Announcement: ESAH to absorb Essex Congress

Senior officers and trustees of the Essex Society for Archaeology and History agreed yesterday (Saturday 23 July 2016) to absorbing the activities of the Essex Archaeological and Historical Congress.   Congress had been the umbrella organisation for Essex local history groups since its foundation in 1964.  The process of dissolving Congress as a Charity is under way, and officers of ESAH will be discussing how the activities of Congress are incorporated into its own programme. Institutional members will be contacted in due course.

The Society's Council also confirmed acceptance of the ownership of the title of Essex Review and Essex Journal.

The following announcement has been made on the Essex Congress website home page:

At the 2016 Congress A.G.M. held on Saturday 25th June, the ongoing difficulties related to the running of Congress, and options for its future, were discussed.

It was the unanimous decision of the meeting that Congress should be dissolved, and that its key functions, including the staging of Symposia, the publication of the Panel of Speakers, and the co-ordination of the various local societies falling within the remit of Congress, will pass to ESAH (Essex Society for Archaeology and History).

As further details of this change become available they will be circulated to members. 

Essex Churches Then and Now

All Saints Church, Hutton, before restoration in 1873.
One of many fascinating Essex church photographs
 in the Society's collection.

'Essex Churches Then and Now' has been launched online today by the Essex Society for Archaeology and History. 

Andrew Smith, Hon. Deputy Librarian says, "We have been looking through and cataloging our archives and have come across two volumes of Essex church photographs and postcards dating from c1870 to c1910. These are important because some of the photographs pre-date Victorian church restorations, and could therefore be a unique record."

Andrew has digitised over 650 pictures in the collection and produced an index, which has just been published online.

"Publishing the list of photographs online is only the start of the process.  We would be pleased to hear from anyone with an interest in Essex churches, and are happy to share digitised copies with researchers and local history groups".

Andrew plans to visit some of the churches over the next few months and is devising a one-hour talk entitled 'Essex Churches Then and Now' which he hopes to premier in spring 2017.

Initially the photographic collection was thought to have been compiled latterly by John Edward Knight Cutts[1] (1847-1938) (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._E._K._Cutts ), member of the Essex Archaeological Society from 1883, and church architect (see http://archiseek.com/tag/j-e-k-cutts/ ) whose name is and date is credited to later photographs in the collection.  According to The Buildings of England: Essex by Pevsner / Bettley (2007) J.E.K. Cutts was architect of the now demolished St Augustine’s Church, Lower Dovercourt, 1883-84, and the Arts Centre, formerly the Great Burstead Board School, in Billericay, 1877-78.  All Saints, Dovercourt, restored 1897-98; St Paul Church, Elmstead Market, now a house, built 1908; and, St Mary, Little Oakley, now a house, restored 1895-1902 are all the work of J.E.K. & J.P. Cutts.

It was tempting to think that the work was begun by Edward Cutts.  Having compared the pencil labelling to the handwriting in the EAS Minute Book during the time Cutts served as Secretary, it is clear that the labelling is not his work.  Equally there are errors in labelling: South Benfleet should be North Benfleet, Coopersale should read Theydon Garnon, Stock should read Laindon, Blackmore End should read Stisted, the omissions of East Mersea, Stondon Massey and Chigwell.  Warley is, in fact, Great Warley not Little Warley, a church demolished in the 1950s.  The photograph labelled “Litt. Oakley ?” is clearly not Little Oakley but Ugley[2], and is compelling because Cutts was its restorer.  On the same page a corrected entry from Great to Little Oakley is in fact, from Internet images research, Great Oakley.  There is therefore sufficient evidence to determine that the volumes did not belong to the Cutts family.

The various sizes of photographs, as well as the revelation that copies appear elsewhere, suggest that the mystery compiler was not the photographer but acquired copies probably from perhaps other gentlemen members of the Society, sharing the same taste and concern to record changes in church buildings.  The contents list below gives sizes for some of the photographs, which may indicate the same photographer or equipment employed.

“THERE is no need to stress the importance to the ecclesiologist of photographs and reliable drawings of churches before they were subjected to nineteenth-century reparation.” (Benton, TEAS n.s. xxiv).  Benton makes reference to the Chancellor collection of photographs in the Society’s collection, now at the Essex Record Office.

A further important collection of Essex prints, exquisite sketches, photographs and newspaper cuttings in the name of Probert (ERO A13366) was deposited by the Society at the Essex Record Office in 2012.

The collections of photographs may be supported by contemporary narrative: Suckling (1846), Buckler (1856), Chancellor (as published in the Transactions of the Society, and Essex Review), and manuscript notes by King (1856-93) and C. F. D. Sperling.

---

[1] On the Membership List in 1915, Cutts was living in Ontario, Canada having retired there in 1912.  His parents were Edward Lewes Cutts (1824-1901), clergyman and founder of E.A.S., and Mariann Elizabeth Knight (see http://www.vangoozen.ca/bios.html ).

[2] Identified by Martin Stuchfield who sent an identical modern photograph following the Society’s AGM on 25 June 2016.

Archives Update

The Essex Society for Archaeology and History has this week delivered to the Essex Record Office its archives in series S/LIB/9 (with the exception of S/LIB/9/20-25,48-49) and S/SEC/4/1.  Content will be reviewed with the intention of deposit on permanent loan.

Dengie From The Air: The Blackwater as a London Airport

A London Airport we never had.

Following the 2^nd World War the Government sought to improve transatlantic and long distant air transport.  Flying boats were considered suitable and Saunders-Roe were approached in 1945 to design a suitable plane.  The following year they received a contract for three of what were to be the largest flying boats – the S.R. 45 ‘Princess’. 

Steps were then taken to find a suitable site for a Flying Boat air port to serve London.  The Chichester area and the Blackwater were the two suggested locations and assessments were made in 1947 of their suitability.  Initial conclusions stated :

“At  Chichester, the ideal terminal cannot be provided without the engineering difficulties of building on reclaimed land.  At Blackwater, it cannot be provided without a larger terminal basin and mooring area than is proposed in the Blackwater Survey Report.  If neither of these courses should prove practical, then, in terms of taxying distances, Blackwater, with a terminal at Bradwell and Maintenance and M.O.S. at Ramsey, would be preferable to Chichester …

Extendibility of Alighting Area.  -  Chichester, once built could not be extended, whereas the length of run at Blackwater is practically limitless.

Availability.  -  Chichester would not be available for use until the end of a lengthy development period.  On the other hand, most of the alighting area at the Blackwater is available now and would be so during the development period.”

The three terminal sites suggested were at Osea Island, Ramsey Wade between Stansgate and Ramsey Island, St. Lawrence, and Bradwell Creek. The Bradwell basin would have utilised an enlarged Creek. At Ramsey it would have occupied the Wade, previously sealed off from the Blackwater in 1815. Both basins would have been deepened by excavation and at Ramsey Wade the sea wall demolished to gain access. 

The plans do not indicate where the Osea basin might have been but the terminal would have been on the island itself with a new causeway constructed to give road access towards the A12.

It was envisaged that the then redundant Bradwell Bay aerodrome could act as a feeder airport for the south bank sites.  They estimated that the road journey from these two sites would take 3 hours compared with today’s 1½ hours.

Consultations were held between several government ministries and local authorities.  Maldon’s M.P. Tom Driberg also requested to be kept informed.

One consultee put forward the Medway Estuary as a better alternative – a precursor to ‘Boris Island’ ?

The scheme came to nothing as it became obvious that land based airfields would cater more economically and safely.  Only one of the Princess aircraft ever flew, in 1952.

Small sea planes did operate on the Blackwater during the First World War in conjunction with H.M.S. Osea fast motor boat base.  Sea planes may still return to the Blackwater as there is currently a proposal to operate a service between Osea and small airports around London.

“The Dengie Hundred in the Air” is this year’s exhibition to be held at St Lawrence Heritage Church from 9^th July until 11^th September, Saturday and Sunday afternoons.

Sources.

TNA BT 217/1777   River Blackwater, Essex: proposed flying boat base

Maldon & Burnham Standard March 2016

Ingatestone: Somme Commemoration

Blackmore Area Local History: Ingatestone: Somme Commemoration: The events of the first day of the Battle of the Somme were remembered at 8am today with a simple service by the War Memorial to mark the centenary of its commencement. Gordon J W Francis, born 1891 at 21 High Street, died 1 July 1916. Muffled bells were rung in remembrance of the one-time bell ringer.

1 July 1916: The Opening Day of the Battle of the Somme

The Revd. Edward Reeve, rector of Stondon Massey, kept a diary called ‘Notes for a Parish History.  In it he wrote his observations of the First World War from his study in what is now Stondon Massey House.

“1^st July 1916: As I write, the reverberation of the great guns and explosion of mines are shaking the windows of the Rectory and of all the other houses, I suppose, in the southern and south-eastern counties of England.  There is evidently a very heavy bombardment in progress."