This chapter covers other sources of information including:

• local newspapers
• local historians
• and oral history.

NEWSPAPERS

There are two main types of newspapers: national and local. Unless an event of national importance happened at your house (or a previous owner/occupier was involved), you’re more likely to find information in local newspapers rather than national ones. However, it’s still worth running a broad-brush search through The Times online www.galegroup.com/Times to see if an event or a person made national news. If you live in a small village it’s also worth running a search on the village name. If you find a mention in The Times it’s likely that your local newspaper will have a more detailed report somewhere in the period between the week prior to The Times’ report and the week after.

Working with local newspapers

The oldest provincial newspapers date from the early eighteenth century. They tend to be a single folded sheet with two columns per page, produced every Saturday, sometimes twice a week, on Saturdays and Wednesdays. Gradually, as print became cheaper and stamp duty on newspapers was repealed, newspapers grew larger (with around seven columns per page), contained more pages and were published much more frequently.

The earliest local newspapers contain a mixture of local news and advertisements, plus national and international news reprinted from London papers.

Advertisements can be a rich source of information, particularly if your house was owned by a tradesman or was a former shop or pub – but it does mean spending a lot of time combing through the archives, unless your particular local newspapers have been indexed by academics or library staff and the advertisements are included in the index.

Antiquarians occasionally produce ‘annals’ – a kind of digest of newspapers, which can help you to pinpoint the date of an event and then look up more detailed information in the newspaper itself. For example, in Norwich Charles Mackie produced two volumes of annals, based on the reports of the Norfolk Chronicle and Norwich Gazette. The index to the annals lists people who died and also events such as fires, floods, accidents, elections, murders, escapes from prison and the like. However, the annals usually have a bias towards the compiler’s interests (in the case of Mackie, election and political coverage is particularly detailed) so even if you don’t find something in a set of annals, there may still be a reference in the newspapers.

Where to find local newspapers

Previous copies of local newspapers tend to be available on microfilm nowadays to preserve the originals. They are usually found at the main local studies library in your county, but your local records office may also have copies.

Other sources of local newspapers include these.

• Online at the British Library website, though availability is limited.
• In the British Library’s Newspaper Library at Colindale.
• On local library computer terminals; usually these are abstracts or full articles of more recent issues, held in intranet archives and for copyright reasons they may be available only in the main county library. These archives are often searchable if the reports are digitised, but be aware that the articles are highly likely to be within copyright.
• Online – for example the Newspaper Detectives have various nineteenth-century editions of the Surrey Advertiser at www.newspaper detectives.co.uk/index.htm. There may also be transcriptions from local newspapers online as part of a local history group’s website or through Genuki www.genuki.org.uk.

What to expect from local newspapers

Local newspapers are particularly useful sources for:

• obituaries;
• notices of weddings;
• births and deaths;
• notable events – fires, epidemics, accidents, railways;
• criminal trials (usually reported verbatim) – general sessions and assizes, executions were usually covered as well;
• lists of people killed in wars or awarded medals;
• notices of bankruptcies;
• advertisements for local activities (e.g. events, clubs, societies) and local trades;
• sales of farms, businesses or property;
• information about licensing, e.g. if a pub received or was refused a licence – and why;
• enclosure (or ‘inclosure’) notices;
• information about collection of tax assessments;
• information about public buildings e.g. laying of the first stone, opening.

Potential difficulties with local newspapers

Very few local newspapers are digitised and searchable, so unless you know dates for particular events it can take a long time to comb through the archives and you might not find anything helpful. The print tends to be in a very small font, particularly for newspapers from the mid to late nineteenth century, and can be very wearing to read for long periods. Although it’s possible to print copies from microfilm, it tends to be very expensive – you need to magnify the pages in order for the photocopy to be legible, so you may end up with 12 A4 sheets covering just one page of a printed newspaper.

Your local archive may not have every edition in a series of newspapers and some older newspapers may be damaged. If the original owner of the newspaper had ticked off things while reading through or circled bits of interest, some words may be illegible in the microfilm copy.

Obituaries aren’t always reliable, because often the information was provided to the newspaper by family and friends – people who clearly wanted to paint a rosy picture of the deceased’s life.

Be aware of political slants, too. If your local city published more than one newspaper they may be biased in favour of different parties and report things differently. For example, in Norwich there’s the Norfolk Chronicle (a Whig paper, which tends to report events in a rather sober manner) and the Norwich Mercury (a Tory paper, which tends to be more colourful).

If you’re intending to publish your research note the laws of copyright re quoting from a newspaper.

• For an unsigned article (i.e. the author was anonymous): copyright expires 70 years from the end of the calendar year in which the work was made, or made available to the public. So a newspaper published in 1920 was out of copyright in 1991.
• For a signed article (i.e. one with a byline giving the reporter’s name): copyright expires 70 years from the end of the calendar year in which the author died.

Case study: using local newspapers

I had already struck lucky with the discovery of the sale notice in 1804 (see Chapter 7, pages 101–2, regarding newspaper advertisements). Some of the eighteenth-century newspapers for Norfolk had been indexed by historian John Fone, so I checked to see if there were any reports for Attleborough or Attleburgh, or if any of the names mentioned in the index happened to match names on my ‘occupiers and owners’ list.

I found two references in the Norfolk Chronicle and Norwich Gazette to a Mr John Knights in Attleburgh. John Knights occupied/owned the land, according to the land tax assessments for 1800–1810, and was also listed as a baker in the town in the Universal British Directory 1793–8.

The first reference was on 7 April 1781 (shown here with original punctuation and spelling):

He was offering a reward for information, which he said should be given to Charles Hawksley, the landlord of the Cock pub in Attleborough. The Cock pub is a couple of hundred metres away from Mill House. This corroborates the evidence of Faden’s map of 1797: so there was a mill in more or less the same location before the new one was built in 1804.

The second reference, from 12 April 1783 (again with original spelling and punctuation), gave me a possible clue as to what had happened to the original mill:

Was it possible that after Knights’ bankruptcy the bulk of the business moved to Carleton Rode and the mill fell into disrepair?

There was another advertisement on 10 September 1796, for a ‘capital post windmill, with two pair of French Stones and Going Geers [sic], in good repair’ to be ‘sold and removed from off the Premises’. The seller was S. N. Stephens – who built the 1804 mill on the same land, so it’s possible that the old mill was either too small or too old-fashioned.

I managed to trace further changes of occupancy/ownership of the mill via the Norfolk Chronicle:

• 19 September 1807, the mill was advertised for sale again (the ad was repeated on 26 September and 3 October). The sale was to be in Norwich, in the Star inn at the Old Haymarket at 4 o’clock on 3 October. In addition to the mill, two acres of land, the dwelling-house, granaries and stable, the purchaser was offered the lease of ’eighteen acres of arable land, a baking-offices and two cottages, of which nine years will be unexpired next Michaelmas’. Potential purchasers should apply to Mr W. Harmer ‘who will shew the premises’.
• 24 June 1809, the mill was advertised for sale again, this time offering ‘a small Farm on lease’ as well as the usual comments about the mill, land and buildings. This time potential purchasers should ‘apply to the Printers’.
• 23 March 1811, the mill was up for sale again ‘by order of the Assignees of Mr Robt. Bradfield, a Bankrupt’. (His bankruptcy was listed on 2 March 1811.) This time the mill and cottages were put in separate lots: lot 1 was the mill, yard, stables, and cart; lot 2 was the brick and tile dwelling house (i.e. the cottage) with baking-office, granary, cart-lodge, stable and cowhouse; lot 3 was another dwelling-house with a keeping-room, kitchen, wash-house, store-rooms, comfortable sleeping-rooms, attics, cellar, yard, garden, stables and outbuildings; lot 4 was the pasture land (the only bit that’s excepted from being freehold – this would tie up with the details on the enclosure map), and lot 5 was clearly the small leased farm with 18 acres, a house and cottage, which had an ‘unexpired term of six years from Michaelmas last’.
• 6 April 1816, Joseph Cooper (who was the occupier of the mill and house in 1815–6) had a ‘Commission of Bankrupt awarded and issued forth’ against him.
• 9 September 1826 the mill was up for sale again, together with a dwelling house, miller’s cottage, barn, stables and lodges, with grassland and gardens ‘well planted with choice fruit trees’, and potential purchasers were directed to ‘enquire of John Mann’.
• 28 November 1832, the mill was up for sale or to be let. John Mann, the owner, appeared to be happy to split the property into two sections: the mill with dwelling house, miller’s cottage and outbuildings, and the dwelling-house and baking office adjoining it.
• 1 October 1836, there was another advertisement, this time for letting the mill (together with 14 acres); those interested were directed to apply to ‘Mr Wm. Miles, Saddler’.
• 22 January 1842, the mill appears again – ‘in full trade’ together with the baking office, dwelling house, miller’s cottage, barn, stable and outbuildings, and two acres of land. Those interested were directed to apply to the Post Office.
• 16 November 1861, we finally see the end of the mill: Salter and Simpson, auctioneers, were ‘instructed by Mrs Wright’ to sell the mill ‘by auction, without reserve’. The mill had been taken down and divided into lots.

LOCAL HISTORIANS

Local historians may already have done some work on the property (perhaps as part of a larger project) and may be willing to share information with you. To find a local historian, try asking at your branch library; the staff there are quite likely to know anyone locally who’s studied local records, or if there’s a local history group.

The British Association for Local History www.balh.co.uk can put you in touch with local groups, or try looking up the list of groups at Local History Online www.local-history.co.uk/Groups – it’s arranged by county and includes a list of national groups with specialist interests.

ORAL HISTORY

Former owners and neighbours may be able to tell you what they know of the history and may even have photographs. However, you need to bear in might that they might not want to talk to you about the house, and you might not like some of what you hear. Always be polite, and ask rather than demand.

If you’re looking at a particular event that affected your house, your local radio or newspaper might run a piece and help you get in touch with people who remember the event or might have material to help you. Library staff, curators and record office staff may also be able to suggest sources.

The Oral History Society and British Sound Library Archive hold training courses around the country every year about how to interview people. The Oral History Society (www.ohs.org.uk) or your local sound archive can advise if there’s a course near you.

Preparing for an interview

Once someone has agreed to talk to you about the house, you need to prepare for the interview. Make a list of questions you want to ask to get more information, but don’t be too rigid about it – as the interview develops you may find more information coming out. But do keep the interview going along a loose structure, otherwise you might not get answers to the questions you wanted to ask.

When you set up the interview, your interviewee needs to know exactly what you’re planning to do with the information (e.g. if giving a copy to the local sound archive, or publishing part or all of the interview in print, in broadcast or on the internet). It’s a good idea to use a clearance form to make sure that everyone understands what’s being planned to protect both the interviewee and interviewer.

Doing the interview

Use an audio recorder if you can. For a start, you won’t be able to write as fast as your subject speaks – or be able to read your notes very easily afterwards! Using an audio recorder also helps you with eye contact and positive body language that might help encourage the person to talk to you. If you don’t have your own equipment you may be able to borrow something from your local oral history group or sound archive, who can also give you more advice about preserving the recording.

A few rules of thumb:

• Keep questions short and clear.
• Use open questions (i.e. which can’t be answered with yes or no).
• Don’t interrupt – wait for a pause before asking the next question.
• Use positive body language – nods and smiles.
• Don’t rush.
• Don’t contradict or get into an argument with your subject.
• Be sensitive and respect confidences.
• Try to make smooth transitions between subjects.

Under the Data Protection Act 1998 you need to get permission before publishing the interview if your subject, or anyone else they’re talking about, can be identified as individuals.

After the interview

Thank your subject for talking to you, but don’t rush away. You need to give them your contact phone number and address – they may remember something later and want to tell you about it. You also need to say whether you’re coming back for a further interview or not, and arrange a time if you are.

Tell them how the interview is going to be preserved (e.g. if you’re going to deposit a copy in your local sound archives and keep a copy on your computer), and what you’re going to do with the interview (for example: use it for research, publish or broadcast it, or transcribe it).

If your interviewee asks for any restrictions, such as no publication on the internet, you need to write these down and make sure you both sign them. You also need to discuss copyright and clearance – a form stating that you can use the recordings (a clearance form) is a very good idea. If your interviewee wants a copy of the recording or transcript, you need to make this copy and deliver it.

Copyright issues

There are separate copyrights for the words spoken and for the actual recording. The person who owns the words spoken is the speaker; the person who owns the recording is the person or organisation who arranged for it to be made. Copyright of transcriptions belongs to the owner of the words spoken.

Copyright lasts for 70 years after the end of the year in which the speaker died. If the material was recorded before 1 August 1989 copyright lasts until 50 years from the end of 1989, or 70 years after the death of the speaker, whichever is the longer.

Under the Copyright Act 1988 you also need to make sure you don’t edit, adapt or alter the material to give any false impressions, regardless of who owns the copyright.

Example clearance form

Other issues

Oral history needs to be corroborated, as people’s memories may mix up dates and names, so always check with another source if you can.

Case study: using oral history

Unfortunately, the people I would have liked to interview about the house had already passed away or. being elderly and rather frail, were too ill to be able to talk to me.

The most interesting piece of oral history about the house is something I remember from the early 1970s when I was supposedly asleep in the back of the car. and my parents started talking about the ghost of our cottage. Local lore had it that the house belonged to a miller who thought his pregnant wife had been unfaithful, murdered her in a jealous rage and threw her body down the well. He then died from septicaemia when he burned his hand on a bread oven. (It’s hardly surprising that I grew up to be a romantic novelist with a taste for spooky stories!)

A local shopkeeper, a few doors further down the street, told me that the ghostly miller was well known and if she left bread in a certain room in the shop overnight it would be thrown everywhere the next morning. This might have been an adult enjoying telling a spooky story to a child, though- at the time I was too young to ask for corroboration of the evidence!

We experienced some spooky events at Mill House. I saw unexplained shadows passing the kitchen window, when I was very small: the family dogs refused to go anywhere near a certain spot in the garden and would circle it, barking, if a ball went into the area; and the dining room was always cold, even when the fire was lit. Was this to do with the mad miller and the ghost story?

Sadly, as noted in Chapter 9.1 couldn’t find any evidence to support the legend. The only murder in Attleborough for which I could find details was that of Martha Alden’s husband Samuel in 1806 (incidentally, her ghost is meant to haunt Norwich Castle).

What’s more likely is that the mill fell into mild disrepair after Knights’ bankruptcy in 1783. There is a folk ballad called The Wittam Miller about the miller John Mauge from Wytham in Oxfordshire, who murdered his sweetheart Annie Kite in the eighteenth century and was hanged. This ballad is attributed to tales in several places around the country, so it’s entirely possible that someone heard the ballad and thought that it probably explained why the mill became derelict, and the legend became more and more embroidered over the years. There was a case at Witton in Norfolk, where miller John Rudd Turner killed his wife Hannah and son William in 1831, was found insane and committed to the asylum; he died of natural causes in the asylum, the following year. Over the years the story could have been confused with the Attleborough mill and seen as an explanation of why the Great Mill was knocked down.

The more prosaic truth is that a new mill was built near the station, which had the advantage of better transport links and the business from the Great Mill. Dodd’s Mill and the mill at Rivett’s Lane simply transferred to Station Mill. The Great Mill was taken down in 1861 and according to a newspaper advertisement its various parts were auctioned off at the end of November.