THE NEWSLETTER OF THE DEDDINGTON & DISTRICT

HISTORY SOCIETY ISSN 1479-5884, issue no 22, March 2005

From the ChairThis issue of 224 is truly impressive,thanks to scholarly articles by Nor-man Stone and Colin Cohen on re-cent discoveries, an early lithographof Deddington parish church and avery rare ‘War book’ from theBarfords, giving the lie to the viewthat there is nothing left to discover.

With snow still on the ground,our thoughts turn with enthusiasmto the summer. We are planning an-other series of visits and socials, andMoira Byast has offered to lead an-other of her famous historicalwalks. We will give members fulldetails as soon as we have finalisedthe arrangements.

Chris Day

Engravings on stoneThe Oxford Dictionary of Art defineslithography as ‘A method of print-ing from a design drawn on the sur-face of a stone or other suitable ma-terial … The process is based on the

An old print rediscoveredThe image of Deddington Parish Church [above] dates from the early yearsof the nineteenth century. Drawn by Nathaniel Whittock, Oxford, andprinted by D Redman, London, it was published by Charles Faulkner, aDeddingtonian of independent means. Although Whittock was creditedas having drawn and engraved it, the 11 x 14 inch image is in fact a litho-graph. It was rediscovered in 2004 by John Vaughan of Castle Antiques inClifton, among some previously overlooked odds-and-ends. Under thetitle is the inscription ’This print is Respectfully Dedicated to the Benefac-tors & Subscribers to the Deddington National Schools, established July16th 1814 (to whose funds the profits arising from the sale of it will beappropriated) by their humble Serv’t. C. Faulkner’.

antipathy of grease and water. Theartist draws his design with a greasyink or crayon on the stone [or metalplate], which is then treated withcertain chemical solutions so theimage is fixed. Water is then ap-plied. The moisture is readily ac-

cepted by the remainder of the po-rous surface … The surface is nowrolled with a greasy ink which ad-heres only to the drawing, the restof the surface, being damp repelingit.’

Early lithographs were oftenknown as engravings on stone. Theprocess was invented by AloysSenefelder, a Bavarian dramatistand printer, around 1798. An Eng-lish translation of his 1818 book waspublished in 1819 under the title AComplete Course of Lithography.Nathaniel Whittock was Litho-graphic printer and engraver to theUniversity of Oxford at about thistime. One of his business cardsstates ‘stones lent and instructiongiven in lithographic drawing’,which suggests that keen amateursin England were able to learn aboutand use this revolutionary processalmost before the world’s major art-ists had cottoned on. From then ittook another 150 years or so for li-thography to replace Gutenbergand Caxton’s letterpress as the

dominant printing process.

Dating the printWe can say with some certainty thatWhittock’s lithograph of Dedd-ington Church was produced after1814 when the Deddington Na-tional School was established, andbefore 1865 when the Georgianporch shown in the print was re-placed by the present porch.

Can we be more precise? Thereis no clock on Whittock’s churchtower, which would make it pre-1833, when the present clock, byTaylor of Oxford, was installed byDeddingtonian clockmaker ThomasFardon, whose name is on it.Whittock moved his Oxford busi-ness to London in 1828, where hetraded as Whittock and Goodman,of 14 Paternoster Row. My conclu-sion is that the new process of li-thography was used by Whittock inhis portrayal of Deddington ParishChurch some time between 1814and 1828. This would make it con-temporary with Joseph Skelton’s

steel engraving ‘Rectorial Farm-house and Church of Deddington’,published in Skelton's engraved illus-trations of the principal antiquities ofOxfordshire, from original drawings byF MacKenzie. Accompanied with de-scriptive and historical notes, 1823.Whittock’s print is clearly earlierthan a similar view by Dedd-ingtonian Joseph Wilkins, as illus-trated in Sir Hugh Colvin’s A His-tory of Deddington, Oxfordshire(SPCK, 1963).

FundraisingThe print was first published as aschool fund-raiser. It was repub-lished at the end 2004 by J Guthrieand J Vaughan of Clifton, as afundraiser for school and church.Framed prints cost £33, of which £10goes to Deddington School and £5to the parish church. Enquiries to JGuthrie on 01869 338229.

Norman StoneA shorter version of this article ap-peared in the February 2005 issueof The Deddington News.

The 1942 Barford census and ‘War Books’—a unique record? Part 1As anyone who has done any fam-ily or local history research willknow there has been a census takenevery ten years since 1801 (theyonly become useful for personalnames from 1841) with the excep-tion of 1941—well, there was a waron.

Unless, that is, you are research-ing Barford St John or St Michael.The census returns up to 1901 (laterones are still ‘closed’ for 100 years)are widely available in microformin libraries, on CDs transcribed byfamily history societies and, in thecase of 1901, on line.

This article treats the subject ofthe census. I shall return to the Bar-ford War Books in a later article af-ter a brief description. These WarBooks seem to be a considerablerarity: the National Register of Ar-chives1 only records copies forLechlade (in the Gloucester RecordOffice) and for Plymouth (in theDevon local studies collection). Lo-cally there are Invasion CommitteeWar Books for the parishes ofKirtlington and Spelsbury2 , and Ac-cess to Archives (A2A)3 only pro-duces a handful more. When oneconsiders that Executive War Com-mittees in every county instructedthat each parish produce two cop-

ies of a War Book it is astonishingthat so few survive.

The only text on the subject I havebeen able to find is by lan Angus,vice-chairman of the LympstoneSociety; since completing his articlehe has circulated all Record Officesin the south west of England withconsolidated lists of the results ofhis War Book studies, the area hecovered4 . For the purposes of thisfirst article I shall only say that theBarford War Books look rather likeschool exercise books and werefilled in by the person designatedby the War Committee. They de-tailed all strategic informationabout a community—who hadphones, cars, vans or first aid skills.There were some ten first aiders inthe Barfords5. Home Guard mem-bership was detailed, and perhapsmost significantly the able-bodiedhad to be distinguished from therest.

The Barfords’ LDC chairman wasA J Woolgrove of Mead Farm andthey chose Barford House as theirHQ6 as it had a telephone.

In order to complete the WarBook7 each local [in most cases par-ish] defence committee had to havesome formal way of making its as-sessment, bearing in mind this work

was being carried out while therewere still invasion scares, and at atime when many rural communitieswere already struggling to accom-modate evacuees from the cities.

The control of the LDCs wasthrough a series of County Councilcommittees, first set up under pre-War legislation, initially under theAir Raid Precautions Act of 1937.The County Emergency Committeefor Civil Defence was set up follow-ing Home Office circular 57 of 1939,requiring them to appoint an ARPController and an Emergency Com-mittee with executive powers incase of war. Sub-controllers (ourswas in Banbury) took on their re-sponsibilities on 31 August 1939;just three days later war was de-clared. They were also to be respon-sible for evacuation plans.

From 1941, at the request of themilitary authorities, the CountyDefence Committee took over theresponsibilities; it included the pre-vious members, but added the Areacommander, the Home Guard zonecommander and the Chief consta-ble. They controlled the LDCs,which later became Invasion Com-mittees: its Chair was LordMacclesfield and the County con-troller was Major F G Scott.

It seems clear from a part of a cir-cular from the County controllerthat an aim of the census exercisewas as much to identify the old andinfirm so they could be forced tostay at home in the event of an in-vasion and not clog up the roads forthe military as to identify the able-bodied:

‘Group IV Those who owing toage and infirmity, would be ex-pected to adopt a purely passiverole, namely to take shelter and“stay put”, to obey orders, and sofar as possible avoid becoming casu-alties.’ …

‘Those entrusted with the duty of

making the survey should be dis-creet in their approach to membersof the general public, and whilethose approached should be en-couraged to furnish the particularsnecessary to complete the form, nopressure should be brought to bearon any person who objects to fur-nish [sic] the necessary particulars,but a note to the effect should bemade on the back of the form, andthe necessary information obtained,if possible, from another source.’8

For those of you that read it, thereis a certain similarity to the Prepar-ing for emergencies booklet that theGovernment produced last sum-

mer; in the case of the Barfords onlyone form has a note on the reverse,so presumably the information wasfreely given.

Dating the Barford censusIt is still not quite clear exactly whenthe door-to-door census took place.Evidence is available from the dataon the forms (most notably people’sages): for instance on sheet 532Pamela Jackson [née Mitford] ofRignell, who was born on 25 No-vember 1907 was 34, so it was be-tween 25 November 1941 and 24November 1942. Other sheets indi-cate that it was between 28 Mayand 24 November 1942, while oneCounty Council memo indicatesthat it was after 19 August.

Perhaps the oddest aspect of thecensus is that in the whole countryonly those for Barford may survive;the Barford census and War Books,like at least one other set of Warbooks came to the County recordoffice by way of the Diocesanrecords and not the County Coun-cil indicating that it is a village copyinitially kept in the Parish chest.However, in minutes of a meetingon 2 November 19449 the Control-ler reported that the Regional Com-missioner considered that the LocalInvasion Committees were nolonger necessary:

‘With regard to the War Booksprepared prepared by each LocalInvasion Committee it had been ar-ranged that the complete sets fortheir respective Areas in the posses-sion of the Area Invasion Commit-tees should be deposited at theCounty Hall for preservationamongst the County records; thesecond copy hitherto held by LocalInvasion Committees should be de-posited for safe custody with thelocal authority (Borough, Urban, orRural or Parish council) or in caseswhere this was not practicablewould be forwarded for deposit inthe County muniment rooms at theCounty Hall.’

‘Steps are being taken to securethat a copy of every War Book is-sued, which gives the fullest detailsof local arrangements and organi-sation for each individual townshipand parish, is deposited for safe cus-tody in the County archives [my ital-ics].’

Their final meeting [the 93rd]was held on 6 September 1945 whenthey recommended that they

A partly-completed poster, roughly A3 in size, announcing the Local DefenceCommittee for the Barfords

If undelivered please return to: Deddington & District History Society, c⁄o 37Gaveston Gardens, Deddington OX15 0NX. 224 is the newsletter of the Deddington& District History Society, published three times a year and distributed free tomembers.

The Society meets on the second Wednesday of the month during the season,normally at the Windmill Centre in Deddington. Membership £9/16 pa single/couples, or £2.50 per meeting at the door.

Editorial address: 1 South Newington Road, Barford St Michael, OX15 0RJ. e-mail: editor224@nehoc.co.uk

Programme for therest of 20059 March Dr Deborah Hayter,Ridge-and-furrow: the pattern ofthe plough

6 April Tony O’Gorman:Military aviation in the southmidlands

Summer programme to beconfirmed

Our meetings take place at theWindmill Centre at 7.30 on thesecond Wednesday of the monthduring the season.

Family researchAre you interested in researchingyour ancestors?

I have been researching mine forthe last three years and have foundit fascinating. My family are notoriginally from Oxfordshire, so Ihave found ways of gaining infor-mation without too much travel-ling.

If any member of the Society isinterested in researching their ownfamily, I would be willing to help,using my own experience to pointpeople in the right directions.

It might be possible to start aFamily history research group,where like minded people couldswap information to everyone’sbenefit.

Please contact me on 01869338637, or by email at thebyasts@connectfree.co.uk

Moira Byast

should be wound up.As every county was working

under the same central governmentinstructions why do perhaps only adozen or two other War Books sur-vive—and possibly no other censusforms besides the Barfords’?

Colin Cohen

To be continued. I am grateful to ChrisGilliam at the Oxfordshire Record Of-fice and to Ian F Angus for their helpin the preparation of this article.

Notes1 www.hmc.gov.uk/NRA/searches/

DPdocs.asp?DPR=4475

2 Kirtlington PC/V/6 & PC246/A1/13 www.a2a.org.uk/search/index.asp4 www.britannia.com/lympstone/

warbook.html and The DevonHistorian, no 54, pp 27-29. April1997, Exeter. Both by Ian F Angus

5 ORO MSS DD Par Barford StMichael c6 [tss letter, 19 December1942]

6 Ibid [LDC mss minute book]7 Ibid [The Barford War book was

finally approved at county level on5 January 1943. See mimeographedletter from County Council]

8 Ibid [Mimeographed letter of 29 July1942]

9 ORO CC1/27/A1/2, p 140

Rignell Hall and the Old Houseforms (before and since the OldVicarage). Pamela Jackson, néeMitford, was the second of thefamous Mitford sisters. Her sisterand husband, Sir Oswald Mosley,were briefly interned at Rignell.[ORO MSS DD Par BSM c6c]