Researching Rutland
Copyright © Rutland Local History and Record Society. - All rights reserved
Registered Charity No 700273
Book Review
History of Uppingham
- By Vivian Anthony
Published in 2015 by Uppingham Local History Study Group - Softbound - 285 pages – 190 x 246mm
Price £20 from local bookshops and Rutland County Museum
The author has produced a comprehensive compilation of what is known about the
history of Uppingham, and it is useful to have this material collected in a single volume.
The author has assimilated the existing secondary material very effectively, but, as he
himself acknowledges, there is little in this book which will be new or unfamiliar. The
local material is summarised accurately for the most part. The author does, however,
sometimes struggle to relate his material to the wider historical context, and there is
little attempt to differentiate between vital contextual material and detail which is
undeniably superfluous to the tale which the author has to tell. There is some inaccuracy
in this wider material. For example, the Venerable Bede, who died in 735, was hardly in a
position to comment on the tenth-century restoration of monasticism under King Edgar
and Archbishop Duncan, and Henry III reigned for 56 rather than 35 years. The author is
on safer ground when discussing developments in the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries, but the book as a whole would have been more useful to readers had it been
subjected to more rigorous editing prior to publication.
Mike Tillbrook