I’ve been spending a lot of time in the past, recently. I have been working on a local history project to transcribe the court records. I keep saying that I don’t think I’m cut out for this work because I get totally absorbed and then distracted. I’ve only transcribed two cases because there are so many questions. I need to build up a picture of what the witnesses were like, where they lived, how old they were and what they did for a living. I spent a whole afternoon looking into records for a boy who had given evidence for the defence. He said 11 words but I needed to know more about him. He lived in London Road and grew up to become a court recorder. I like to think I’ve found his inspiration.
Yesterday, I got hold of a book, which is considered to be the bible for local historians. It’s called Maldon and the River Blackwater by EA Fitch. Fitch was quite a man but I don’t think I would have liked him. He was Mayor and commissioned the building of the Prom, although not the lake, which came later. In his book he says that the Prom cost £4000 - £5000 but I have read £3000 in other places. You would think he would know but maybe he was just exaggerating his wealth. We think History is set in stone but it always depends upon who is writing it.
People who want history to be remembered in a certain way do often try to set it in stone. It’s not comfortable to remember that this country made so much of its wealth through slavery and colonisation, so we re-framed these men as philanthropists and put up statues. But history has always been more fluid than that. Even stone statues can be moved.
I think the Black Lives Matter movement have been very clever in targeting statues. They have made us question the history that we believe is set in stone. Was Coulston a philanthropist or an evil gang master? Was Churchill the leader that saved us from Hitler or the person that invented the concentration camp? Was Baden-Powel a jolly little man who set up the scouts or a paedophile? (Sorry, I don’t think that’s the problem they are tackling with him).
They are also challenging street names. Both Brighton and Glasgow councils have agreed to look at the streets that are named after slave owners and consider renaming them. Some people are very cross about this but street names change all the time. There used to be loads of Black Boy lanes and Gropecunt streets but very few of these exist now.
Fitch’s book starts with a walk around the town, which hooked me immediately because that’s my favourite thing to do. It has been joked that, “she just walks,” would be the three words that would describe me.
I was stunned at how many street names had changed and how many more were known in several ways. I often wonder why a road is named as it it. I’ve been fascinated with this road for a while and assumed it was named because it was used as a cut-through or diversion.
Cromwell Lane used to be called Maypole Lane and Cromwell Hill was known as Back Hill. Queen Street was Essex Place and Fambridge Road was known as Pinchgut Hall Road.
In the High Street, next to the Rose and Crown (now a Wetherspoons) is a road called Butt Lane. This road name has always intrigued me and it used to make my children laugh. Fitch says that it used to be called Crown Lane and before that Whang Poo Street.
Now, there’s a name for historical research. Was it to do with smelly faeces, hence the conversion to Butt, or does it hint at a Chinese connection to the Huangpu river in Shanghai? The road does lead down to our own river.
So, if anyone is getting cross about History being erased just remember you could be living in Whang Poo Lane if nothing ever changed.
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