Lincoln Record Society

The diary and account books of Matthew Flinders, surgeon and apothecary at Donnington in south Lincolnshire, are published here for the first time. His son Matthew, a navigator and sailor, became a central figure in the early history of the Australian nation, and much is revealed about the early life of the young Matthew in his father’s diaries. There is a wealth of detail about the home,the family and the village in which the future explorer grew up. The daily routine of business, socialising with neighbours, unusual events such as the beaching of a whale near Boston, or the visit to Donnington of Mr Powell the famous fire-eater are recorded alongside family joys and sorrows, the births and deaths of children, the passing of Flinder’s beloved wife Susanna and his subsequent remarriage. The childhood and schooling of the young Matthew are a recurring theme, and the recording of the purchase of a two-volume edition of Robinson Crusoe in 1782 perhaps gives a hint of things to come.

The five hundred and thirty-two letters that are published in this volume come from the extensive correspondence that was received from people in Lincolnshire parishes by John Kaye, bishop of Lincoln between 1827 and 1853. They are important because they express the opinions and reflect the attitudes of lay people as well as clergymen: Kaye's correspondents ranged from members of the landed gentry to people who would usually have little direct contact with the bishop. They included a 'troublesome', 'deceptious' and 'pugnacious' village carrier disputing the fees charged for burial in his local churchyard, as well as the farmer who complained of the 'hill usige' that he had 'ricivid from the viker' of his parish. The correspondence reflects Kaye's work as a Church reformer, but it is also important for the way that it demonstrates the changing significance of the Church in the lives of local communities. The extent to which the Church and its affairs were the means through which the social relations of parishes were articulated and sustained was a measure of the continuing importance of the establishment.

In the fourteenth century, Boston was not only the outport for the major city of Lincoln, but was also one of the largest and wealthiest English towns in its own right. Yet, because the townsmen of medieval Boston lacked formal powers of self-government, there is no surviving local borough archive for the period before its incorporation in 1545, which means that the town has been relatively neglected by historians. Given this lack of a local archive, the port’s Exchequer customs accounts now constitute one of the main sources for the history of medieval Boston. However, very few of these accounts have yet appeared in print even though they offer fascinating insights into Boston’s trade with Scandinavia, the Baltic, the Low Countries and Gascony. They also provide important information about the merchants involved in overseas trade and about the work of the officials who administered the customs system. This volume provides an English calendar of all of the surviving accounts of the port's customs and subsidy collectors from Richard II's reign (a time when Boston was still one of the leading ports in England) along with all the surviving counter-rolls compiled by the customs controllers as a check on the honesty of the collectors. In addition, it gives translations of a number of other documents preserved in the National Archives relating to Boston during this period which offer important information on the crown's regulation of overseas trade and the workings of the port's customs administration.

Lincoln is fortunate to have a detailed record of its geography since 1610, when John Speed published the first surviving map of the area. At that time, and until the Victorian age, Lincoln was still a relatively poor and under-developed city with only a small population. Despite some errors, Speed’s map is remarkably accurate work which bears testament to his abilities as a surveyor. His map was followed in 1722 by that of William Stukeley, the antiquarian and early archaeologist, whose map concentrated on historical features, and attempted to show the extent of the old Roman city, and medieval walls and monuments. The nineteenth century saw Lincoln mapped a number of times: William Marrat’s work of 1814-17 brought a more rigorous mathematical approach, showing the city just before it finally began to prosper and develop. Around this time both James Sandby Padley and the Ordnance Survey published new maps, both with increased accuracy, though neither one was perfect. It was the electoral reforms of the 1830s that drove map-makers to define ward and parish boundaries, thje details of which required a larger scale than previous works. So it was that in 1842 Padley published his remarkable Large Map of Lincoln, a map of such high quslity that it matched anything in the country. The collection ends with the Ordnance Survey map of 1920, a detailed record of the city scaled at six inches to the mile. It shows an urban Lincoln much more recognizable to the modern eye: railways, terraced streets, industrial areas, roads, and much less empty space. This book collects together these maps and demonstrates their importance in describing the changing geography of the historic city. Together, however, the maps show more than just the development of Lincoln; they also show the history of cartography,, the application of scientific techniques, and the development of improved accuracy and precision.