A one-day conference is being held at the Essex Record Office on the topic of Industrial Archaeology.
How much coverage this topic has had in the past by the Essex Society for Archaeology and History is debatable. Clearly there are enthusiasts who today will be launching a sub-group of the Society.
On the one hand:
Industrial Archaeology has been an area almost
totally ignored by writers in past volumes of Transactions. The only
post-medieval reference I can find in the Contents listings is an article in
Volume 37 by Crosby, Garwood and Corder-Birch on ‘Industrial Housing in Essex’
– most conveniently a topic on the day’s programme by the same clutch of
authors. Having a box full of Volume 37’s for sale at ERO for £5 each
seems a good pairing. (The logistics need to be worked through.) Other
references in the third series are about the late medieval cutlery trade in
Thaxted (vol 29); the Roman salt industry (Vol 26); the medieval textile
industry (Vol 20) and the Mesolithic industry (Vol 10). Reference to industrial
appears in Vols 8 and 9 only. That’s it! The Last Days of
Bay-Making in Colchester appears in the ‘New Series’, now viewable online.
Another view of industrial archaeology is taken in response:
I think you may be overly
pessimistic about the amount of industrial archaeology in ESAH, the last two
volumes both had articles (as it happens both about brickworks), rather a lot
of industrial archaeology/post medieval archaeology, may be lurking under
the guise of building recording, for instance volume 33 for 2002
has reports on the Brooks maltings at Mistley, St
Andrews hospital, Billericay (formerly the Billericay Union workhouse),
and the Fyfield truants school; not to mention a group of apothecary vessels
from Stratford. Part of the problem is what is or is not industrial
archaeology, a lot of people would not include Bronze Age metalworking (or for
that matter Roman salt making), but would certainly include hospitals and
schools.
The formation of a sub-group is a welcome addition to the Society's development.
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