When Valerie Brenton started as a volunteer researcher on ‘Unlocking the Bankes Archive’ little did she realise how many totally unrelated families would come to fascinate her and bring to life the economic and social history of a small area of East Dorset

LANDED GENTRY RECORDS

UNINDEXED ARCHIVAL GEMS

Once research has exhausted the Victorian plethora of information online, finding out what your ancestor did for a living or how much they were paid becomes a lot more challenging. A solution may be visiting an archive and exploring records that have been deposited by the families who owned the land in the parish where you believe that your ancestors were baptised, married or buried.

Exploring mainly Georgian and Victorian records, which have fairly uninviting catalogue descriptions such as estate vouchers or accounts ledger, opened a whole new window onto the lives of those who worked for the Bankes family.

The discoveries detailed in this article are all from the Bankes Archive – comprising more than 30,000 items – which is held at the Dorset History Centre in Dorchester.

Entries for the young apprentice, James Oak, in the 1727 household accounts, held in the Bankes Archive:

1 The top five entries are all payments relating to James

2 Thos entry is for sweeping the chimneys and a pair of shoes for the boy (ref D-BKL/G/A/5, Dorset History Centre)

1 Hannah Cox’s July 1783 blacksmith bill for £14 18s 1d (ref D-BKL/E/D/1/8/1, Dorset History Centre)

2 Although paid promptly, bills were only submitted four times a year; this was Hannah’s second quarterly bill