Wiltshire Victoria County History


The Wiltshire Victoria County History, properly called The Victoria History of the County of Wiltshire but commonly referred to as VCH Wiltshire, is an encyclopaedic history of the county of Wiltshire in England. It forms part of the overall Victoria County History of England founded in 1899 in honour of Queen Victoria. With eighteen volumes published in the series, it is now the most substantial of the Victoria County Histories.

Overview

A set of Wiltshire volumes was planned from the start; the authors engaged included Maud Davies, who began writing in 1906. However, the VCH central office ran into financial difficulty in 1908, and although work resumed in 1910 in ten counties, Wiltshire was not among them.
In 1947 the Wiltshire project was revived, leading to publication of the first volume in 1953. For many years the project was chiefly funded by Wiltshire County Council and other Wiltshire local authorities and managed by the Wiltshire Victoria County History Committee.
In 2002 the project became a partnership between the county council and the University of the West of England, employing a county editor and an assistant county editor, with offices at the Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre in Chippenham. Beyond writing the history itself, the staff promoted local history by giving talks and presentations to local societies. The chairman of the Wiltshire VCH Committee said in a news release in December 2003: "While the big red volumes are still at the heart of the Wiltshire Victoria County History, we are keen to take our county history out to as many people as possible, through affordable publications, modern technology, and new ways of working".
In 2014 the Wiltshire Victoria County History Committee was wound up because all funding partners had ended their funding, and the continuation of the project became the responsibility of the Wiltshire Victoria County History Trust. Work is expected to proceed more slowly, according to available resources, but will continue to be overseen, and volumes published, by the Institute of Historical Research of the University of London.

Staff

List of county editors

  • 1947–1955: Ralph Bernard Pugh FSA
  • G. M. Young
  • 1956–1977: Elizabeth Crittall
  • 1977–2006: Douglas A. Crowley
  • 2006–2014: Virginia Bainbridge

List of assistant county editors

Until 1968, there was only one assistant editor, but after that there were sometimes two.
  • Margaret Saunders
  • K. H. Rogers
  • Colin Shrimpton )
  • Janet H. Stevenson
  • Douglas A. Crowley
  • Jane Freeman
  • Carrie Smith
  • Virginia Bainbridge
  • James Lee PhD
  • Alex Craven

Volumes published

General volumes

  • Volume I, Part 1 : Archaeological gazetteer; prehistoric, Pagan Saxon, and early medieval remains.
  • Volume I, Part 2 : Settlement and agriculture during the prehistoric, Roman, and Pagan Saxon periods.
  • Volume II : Anglo-Saxon Wiltshire, the Wiltshire Domesday, the Wiltshire Geld Rolls, fiefs in the Exon Domesday.
  • Volume III : Ecclesiastical history, Roman Catholicism and Protestant Nonconformity, religious houses.
  • Volume IV : Economic history, agriculture, industries, roads, canals, railways, taxation, population, sport, spas, freemasonry, royal forests, Cranborne chase.
  • Volume V : Medieval government, feudal Wiltshire, parliamentary representation, county government, public health, education.

Topographical volumes

A series of volumes addresses the history of Wiltshire on a parish-by-parish basis, arranged according to the former hundreds.

Planned publications

Three topographical volumes are in preparation:
Four further volumes will complete the coverage of the county. In no particular order, these will cover:

Parishes now in Wiltshire but recorded elsewhere

Shalbourne is covered by the History of the County of Berkshire.
South Tidworth, now part of Tidworth parish, is covered by the History of the County of Hampshire.

Wiltshire Victoria County History Committee (1947–2014)

The committee was established in 1947. It did not control the day-to-day work of the staff, but from the early days of the Wiltshire County History project the committee was responsible for ensuring that funding was available for staff salaries and other expenses, offices provided, and suitable projects undertaken. The members of the Committee represented the main financial contributors to the project, and also the Central Committee of the Victoria County History, the University of Winchester, the Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society and the Wiltshire Local History Forum. The Lord Lieutenant of Wiltshire, as Custos rotulorum, was also an honorary member of the Committee.
The Committee was wound up in 2014 after all major contributors had withdrawn their funding for the Wiltshire VCH, so that there were no longer any partners to be represented. At that point, the project was handed over to the Wiltshire VCH Trust, with support from the national organisation of the Victoria County History.

Chairmen of the Committee

Wiltshire Victoria County History Trust

The Trust, originally established in 2004 as the Wiltshire Victoria County History Appeal Trust, is a registered charity. Until 2014 it was responsible for raising funds for the work of the VCH beyond its core activities. With effect from February 2014, after the core funding of Wiltshire Council and the University of the West of England had been withdrawn, the Trust took on the whole responsibility for the Wiltshire VCH.

Chairmen of the Trust

  • V. C. S. Landell-Mills
  • D. Moss