HOSKINS DAY
The Annual W. G. Hoskins Lecture
The contribution made to English local history by Professor W. G. Hoskins is widely recognised. As founder of the Department of English Local History (now the Centre for Regional and Local History), his achievements are commemorated by the Friends each year in the annual W. G. Hoskins lecture given by a distinguished historian. Following the lecture, Friends and visitors are welcome to adjourn afterwards for tea and conversation.
The lecture is a public one, and the Friends encourage anyone who is interested in the topic to attend. A small charge of is made for those who are not members of the Friends, but in return for this you have a warm welcome to the lecture and to tea afterwards.
2023 Lecture Saturday 1st July 2023
2022 Lecture Saturday 2nd July 2022 – The Local Politics of Civil-War Military Welfare
For the first Hoskins’ Day since before the coronavirus pandemic The Friends met in the King Richard III Centre, Leicester where Professor Andrew Hopper, a former Director of The Centre, gave the keynote presentation on the topic of The Local Politics of Civil-War Military Welfare where, drawing on evidence from the Arts and Humanities Research Council-funded ‘Conflict, Welfare and Memory’ project (2017-2022), he addressed the question of how maimed soldiers, war widows and orphans petitioned for welfare to alleviate their sufferings during and after the British Civil Wars.
In addition to the Hoskins’ Day lecture there was a short presentation by Dr. Richard Jones on the continuing relevance of Hoskins and a talk by Rachel Small, a current PhD student at The Centre, on her research subject Food, identity and humoral theory in early modern England: a case study from Leicestershire an interdisciplinary case-study of an early modern aristocratic household – the Grey family at Bradgate House, Leicestershire.
2019 Lecture Saturday 15 June – Kingdom, Civitas and County: The Evolution of Territorial Identity in the English Landscape
In this year’s Hoskins Lecture Professor Stephen Rippon from Exeter University, a past president of the Medieval Research Group which has strong links with Leicester, mapped the evolution of large-scale territorial identity and landscapes in the late prehistoric, Roman, and early medieval periods across eastern England.
2018 Lecture Saturday 23 June – Wharram Percy and its Landscape Contexts
The Hoskins Lecture this year was given by Dr Stuart Wrathmell, perhaps best known to former students for his formidable ‘Atlas of Rural Settlement in England’, (with B.K. Roberts) but who has also done much distinguished work on early settlements, and his presentation to us of ‘Wharram Percy and its Landscape Contexts’ was a fascinating update on that intriguing site.
2016 Lecture 21 May – Trees and Topography
Depictions of individual trees in the C18th and C19th by Professor Charles Watkins from the School of Geography, University of Nottingham
2015 Lecture 27 June – The Power of Pits
The 2015 Hoskins Lecture was given by Professor Carenza Lewis and title of her talk was ‘The Power of Pits — New evidence for rural settlement development from excavations in eastern England’.
2014 Lecture – 7 June
This year’s Hoskins lecture saw a record turnout, which is perhaps not surprising as Professor Chris Dyer was the guest lecturer. Chris’s subject was an appropriate one for an occasion where we remember W.G. Hoskins and his work: ‘Who made the medieval landscape?’
Chris used recent, and as yet largely unpublished research, to address the question of agency in the formation of the landscape. Was the layout of town, hamlet and field the result of lordly planning? Or did settlements evolve to meet the needs of their less grand inhabitants? Chris characterised the discussion as one of ‘top down’ development versus ‘bottom up’.
2013 Lecture
In 2013 Dr Richard Gaunt of Nottingham University spoke on ‘Patrician Landscapes in Nottinghamshire in the Georgian Era’.
2012 Lecture
The 2012 lecture was given on 26 May 2012 by Dr Susan Oosthuizen who spoke on ‘Medieval Open Fields and their Origins’.
For more than a century scholars have agreed that the open fields of medieval England, divided into furlongs and strips, and frequently ridged, were an Anglo-Saxon introduction. The earliest researchers asserted that Anglo-Saxon migrants brought collective cultivation with them. Later scholarship suggested a middle Anglo-Saxon date, perhaps related to the expansion of vast aristocratic estates. This lecture takes a different approach. It asks whether the longue durée has anything to contribute to these debates, and does so by setting medieval fields in the wider context of those laid out, managed and cultivated by prehistoric and Roman Britain farmers.
2011 Lecture
The 2011 lecture was given on 4 June by Dr Angus Winchester of the University of Lancaster, entitled ‘Custom and Common Rights: the management of common land in England and Wales since the Middle Ages’
2010 Lecture
The 2010 lecture was given on 12 June 2010 by Dr Michael Wood who spoke about the making of ‘The English Story’ which became a series of six one-hour television programmes looking at the history of Kibworth, an apparently, undistinguished village on the A6 between Leicester and Market Harborough.
2009 Lecture
The 2009 lecture was held on Saturday 16 May, when Dr Rosamund Faith spoke on ‘Exploring Anglo-Saxon Farms’ and discussed some of her research approaches to this topic. Dr Faith’s interests extend across the whole medieval period. She is perhaps best known for her book, The English Peasantry and the Growth of Lordship, published in 1997. In 2002 she was awarded the John Nichols prize for her essay on a South Devon estate in the Anglo-Saxon period. She is currently working on a co-authored book for Oxford University Press about Anglo-Saxon farming.
2008 Lecture – The English Story
A large audience in the Ken Edwards Building welcomed Dr Michael Wood who gave
the 21st Hoskins Day lecture. Introducing Dr Wood, Chairman of the Friends Frank
Galbraith, noted that it was hardly necessary to introduce one who is so well
known for a number of historical programmes produced for television, from ‘In
search for the Dark Ages’ (1979) to ‘History of India’ (2007). He has also
published a number of historical works.
Dr Wood first made reference to the works of W.G Hoskins and R. Hilton and the
influence they had on him in forming his understanding of history. Hoskins’
approach of looking at history from the perspective of ordinary people had made
an indelible impression on him. By bringing together an understanding of the
landscape with the people who lived and toiled in it, Hoskins used whatever
information he could find about ordinary people and produced a story showing how
they lived, which helps us to understand how our communities have evolved.
Michael has taken Hoskins’ approach and adapted it to television, using the
latest technology and techniques available to archaeologists and historians. In
this way, it is hoped that people will find it easier to understand how history
has shaped the way we live today.
‘The English Story’ will be a series of six one-hour television programmes
looking at the history of Kibworth, an apparently, undistinguished village on
the A6 between Leicester and Market Harborough. Dr Wood explained that the
original agreement with the BBC was to produce a series that would explore the
history of an ordinary village from the Norman invasion to the present day. It
was assumed that a year would be more than sufficient to complete the series.
But why choose Kibworth, or more accurately, the three linked villages of
Kibworth Harcourt, Kibworth Beauchamp and Smeeton Westerby? The answer lay in
the extraordinary amount of archival evidence that is available, especially on
Kibworth Harcourt, which came into the estate of Merton College, Oxford in 1270.
The Hundred Rolls of 1270 no longer exist but did so when Burton wrote his
history of the county in1672 and Burton’s notes are published in Nichol’s
History of Leicestershire (1779). The County Record Office holds over 20,000
pre-1600 wills, including a number from Kibworth. In addition, a number of
families have remained in the area for three or four hundred years and therefore
provide that link between past and present.
Having decided on a location, Dr Wood explained how the production team set
about their work after June 2009. The first that most villagers knew of the
project was a notice advising that a team of archaeologists from the University
of Leicester Archaeological Service, together with Carenza Lewis and a film
crew, would be in Kibworth at the beginning of July and villagers were asked to
participate and dig test pits over the weekend. As a result, fifty five pits
were dug in the three communities, the majority of which were in Kibworth
Harcourt. Finds included Roman pottery, fifth or sixth-century pottery, an
Anglo-Saxon bone comb and some eighth-century Ipswich ware at Smeeton Westerby.
Some pieces of St Neots and Stamford ware were also found as well as
considerable amounts of seventeenth and eighteenth-century items.
While the finds were being analysed, the team were looking for any other
evidence of early habitation. They came across evidence of a Roman villa that
had been located by Bert Aggass, a local archaeologist and historian, during the
1960s. At this point, the team became aware that the area had a rich history
going back much further in time and which offered the possibility of some
exciting finds. The BBC agreed for the project to be expanded. A geophysical
survey of the area located by Mr Aggass clearly showed the complete plan of a
large Roman villa, and in the same field the team found a bronze age barrow.
Also in the field is the mound of the first windmill which is known to have been
in existence before 1280. Not far away lies a mound, locally referred to as the
Munt, which has always been considered to be the base of a Norman motte and
bailey. Work undertaken by the survey team now suggests that the mound has a
much earlier origin and was originally the burial mound of a Romano- British
chief. It subsequently became a motte and bailey in later times.
Turning to later times, Dr Wood acknowledged the work of Dr Cecily Howell whose
PhD thesis on Kibworth Harcourt was subsequently published under the title Land,
Family and Inheritance in Transition; Kibworth Harcourt 1280-1700 (Cambridge,
1983). Her work enabled Dr Wood to delve further into the history of the
families and buildings and relate them to life in the community today. Much of
the research was undertaken at Merton College library and the Record Office for
Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland. A dendro-chronology survey of the Manor
Farm house has shown that part of it dates from the period 1320-40. Various open
meetings have been held where villagers have brought in all sorts of items that
have historical connections with the area. As the area is on the western
boundary of Danish influence, some of the families who have stayed in the area
were asked if they would take a DNA test to ascertain whether there might be
evidence of families having stayed in the area since the invasion.
Dr Wood ended the lecture by showing a short film clip of the day that test pits
were dug. Time did not permit him to talk about the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries but this did not seem important as his enthusiasm for his subject and
the enormous amount of information that has been uncovered held the audience’s
attention to the end.
This series of programmes will provide an opportunity to take Hoskins’ approach
to local history and use the latest technology to describe how communities
evolved and so contribute to The English Story. Local historians in towns and
villages up and down the country may well wonder how much more could be learnt
about their own community if only sufficient money, expertise and time were
available. Kibworth is very fortunate in having been chosen for this project
because it has elicited knowledge and information that could not have been
obtained by the local history society.
David Holmes