The Retreat Letters Project: The Proctor family

Many researchers into the history of mental health treatment will already be familiar with the Borthwick’s Retreat Collection, an extensive archive from York’s Quaker mental health asylum, established in 1796 by Samuel Tuke.[i] But the collection should also be helpful to many others, including social, family and Quaker historians. Of particular interest to this group will be the Retreat’s incoming correspondence. Following a recent update to the catalogue, summary information on the 12,000 letters the Retreat received between 1795 and 1852 is now available online.[ii] Each letter can also be viewed online at the Wellcome Collection (bundled by year).[iii]

The Proctor family’s story of coping with mental illness in the family is one of many told in these letters.

An 1826 envelope from the correspondence series

 “Stockton 24 / 3^mo 1826

Respected Friend,

I duly received thy acceptable favor this morning and it has indeed afforded us the greatest satisfaction to find that our dear son appears pretty comfortable and I trust that thro’ divine favor he will in time be restor’d to us. … … …

Thy Assured Friend, John Proctor”[iv]

John Proctor was plainly relieved to hear from the Retreat’s Superintendent that his son, also John, was settled and was optimistic about his chances of recovery. John Jnr had suffered from a fear of personal injury since he was twelve. Now, aged twenty-six, things had come to a head. His phobia was causing him such severe depression that after a particularly severe attack, his Quaker parents sought help from the Retreat in York.[v]^,[vi],[vii]

Sadly, despite many years of care and treatment, John never fully recovered from his mental anguish. Over his adult lifetime, John Jnr was discharged from the Retreat several times, only to be re-admitted following the recurrence of his symptoms.

Throughout that time, his family’s support and feelings for their son are evident in the letters they sent to the Retreat. In fact, the Proctor family were prolific writers, and their letters chart the highs and lows of their experience.

Many of the letters are very practical, and his family often advised the Retreat of parcels of food or clothing they were sending to make John comfortable. New coats were especially popular! Others share items of news that may interest him, such as family events or alerting him to their upcoming visits.

Letter from Jane Thomas to Thomas Allis, 1836

But the letters also reveal tensions. Two years before admission to the Retreat, John had married Jane Spence, and she often disagreed with his parents on his treatment. On one occasion in 1836, Jane was keen to see him return home, where she felt he would be less anxious and have a better chance of recovery.[viii]

His parents, especially his mother, Mary, disagreed with this, although later said there had been a misunderstanding.[ix]^,[x] On another occasion, John Snr was so frank that he ended his letter asking that it be burnt after perusal.[xi] Several more bursts of letter-writing can be found lobbying the Retreat regarding John’s discharge. Such family disagreements were not limited to the Proctors. For instance, in 1848, Isaac Wright asked that his sister-in-law Elizabeth Wright be prevented from meeting her husband and removing him from the Retreat.[xii]

Most letters in the Retreat collection use a distinctive writing style; kind, considerate, humble and supportive. However, the writer rarely gives you a glimpse of their underlying emotions, making you wonder, “what are you really thinking?” or “how do you really feel?”

Long-term correspondents like the Proctors occasionally relax their writing style, giving you a glimpse

Letter from John Bright to John Candler, 1845

of their underlying feelings. For instance, in her later letters, Jane’s writing strays beyond a ”functional” exchange about clothing and provisions. Instead, you get a deeper insight into her feelings for John and how his absence affects her. In a touching letter addressed to her “dearly beloved Husband”, Jane tries to lift his mood, assuring him, “thou are not forgotten, my love”.[xiii] She talks in poetic terms about the arrival of good weather, recalling his enjoyment of hay-time and how he used to like its “getting up”. “I hardly know what is sweeter than new made hay”, she says. In another letter, Jane is remarkably open with John Candler, the Superintendent at the time.[xiv] She explains that she had been unaware of John’s condition when they married and that “the sympathy of our friends is a mitigation”. However, she now finds herself quite embittered at their fortune and feeling “hardly [unfairly] dealt with in 19 years out of not quite 21, being so bereft”.

John died at the Retreat aged fifty-two, and Jane sent her final letter in July 1852, ending twenty-six years of correspondence.[xv]

Letter from Proctor and Son, 1849

The archive’s incoming correspondence is a fantastic research resource and is not limited to family letters. For example, there are regular letters from a wide range of Friends’ Meetings across England, sending subscription payments to support the Retreat’s work or paying the accounts of Friends they have placed there. In addition, prominent Quakers often made contact. Sometimes they requested admission for Friends in need or sought advice on setting up and running their own asylums. Occasionally they engaged in discussion about important topics of the day. For example, the 1845 Lunatics Bill prompted a flurry of letters expressing concern that the introduction of new commissioners could interfere with the smooth running of the Retreat.[xvi]^,[xvii]

The correspondence also gives a flavour of life in the early nineteenth century. For example, visitors

from afar often explained the types and routes of transport they would take, whether road, river, or rail. In addition, the postal options appear to be very efficient, with many letters being received the next day. Some even arrived on the same day!

There are letters relating to running the Retreat, such as introductions for potential employees or purchasing goods and provisions. The records show that the Retreat was a big consumer of cheese. It received regular deliveries from Proctors of Selby, transported by steam packet along the Ouse. A typical order could amount to 4cwt of cheese, costing the equivalent of £1,400 in today’s money.[xviii]

The catalogue has been created by a small team of volunteers whose work has not always been plain sailing. They developed a skill in reading a wide variety of handwriting – some of which appears to have been done under candlelight using a broken ink quill! The writing of William Nainby is particularly challenging, closely followed by the cross-writing some authors used as a way of saving precious paper.[xix]^,[xx]

If you’re interested in finding out more about the Borthwick’s Retreat Collection, information can be found at https://www.york.ac.uk/library/collections/named-collections/retreatcollection/

Index of Incoming Correspondence https://borthcat.york.ac.uk/index.php/ret-1-5-1

Images of Incoming Correspondence https://wellcomecollection.org/works/g522gcy8

Written by Paul Wainwright, Retreat Letters Project volunteer

---

[i] The Retreat Collection https://www.york.ac.uk/library/collections/named-collections/retreatcollection/

[ii] Incoming Correspondence subseries RET/1/5/1 https://borthcat.york.ac.uk/index.php/ret-1-5-1

[iii] Wellcome Foundation Images https://wellcomecollection.org/works/g522gcy8

[iv] Incoming Correspondence RET/1/5/1/30 (1826) https://wellcomecollection.org/works/ve2d7urv/items?canvas=102

[v] Admission Register RET/6/2/1/1 https://wellcomecollection.org/works/en2eated/items?canvas=68

[vi] Admission Papers RET/6/1/1 https://wellcomecollection.org/works/kvxqcqmq/items?canvas=683

[vii] Case Book RET/6/5/1/1A https://wellcomecollection.org/works/fe9cszjf/items?canvas=331

[viii] Incoming Correspondence RET/1/5/1/40/5/22 (1836) https://wellcomecollection.org/works/kqd8cjsv/items?canvas=399

[ix] Incoming Correspondence RET/1/5/1/40/6/8 (1836) https://wellcomecollection.org/works/kqd8cjsv/items?canvas=472

[x] Incoming Correspondence RET/1/5/1/40/7/2 (1836) https://wellcomecollection.org/works/kqd8cjsv/items?canvas=588

[xi] Incoming Correspondence RET/1/5/1/40/5/1 (1836) https://wellcomecollection.org/works/kqd8cjsv/items?canvas=429

[xii] Incoming Correspondence RET/1/5/1/51/9/14 (1848) https://wellcomecollection.org/works/cxhgsxx2/items?canvas=759

[xiii] Incoming Correspondence RET/1/5/1/48/7/16 (1845) https://wellcomecollection.org/works/aqsvr7j8/items?canvas=819

[xiv] Incoming Correspondence RET/1/5/1/48/5/17 (1845) https://wellcomecollection.org/works/aqsvr7j8/items?canvas=637

[xv] Incoming Correspondence RET/1/5/1/55/8/23 (1852) https://wellcomecollection.org/works/tndc2npc/items?canvas=689

[xvi] Incoming Correspondence RET/1/5/1/48/7/2 (1845) https://wellcomecollection.org/works/aqsvr7j8/items?canvas=741

[xvii] Incoming Correspondence RET/1/5/1/48/7/20 (1845) https://wellcomecollection.org/works/aqsvr7j8/items?canvas=767

[xviii] Incoming Correspondence RET/1/5/1/52/5/11 (1849) https://wellcomecollection.org/works/pqquupp6/items?canvas=343

[xix] Incoming Correspondence RET/1/5/1/60/6/20 (1857) https://wellcomecollection.org/works/zmzwux7n/items?canvas=543

[xx] Incoming Correspondence RET/1/5/1/44/2/17 (1840)  https://wellcomecollection.org/works/pcu4jg6p/items?canvas=175

Introducing our new and improved online catalogue!

If you’re a regular visitor to our online catalogue Borthcat (and if you aren’t I recommend checking it out!) you may have noticed a few changes lately.  This is because we’ve made the upgrade to AtoM 2.4, the latest release from Artefactual systems who develop AtoM, or Access to Memory, the archives management system we use here at the Borthwick.  

We first launched Borthcat in April 2016 with 376 top level descriptions of our archival collections and 578 authority records (histories of the individuals, families or organisations which created or featured in them).  Since then Borthcat has grown enormously, reaching users in 136 different countries.  As of April 2018 it boasts 563 top level descriptions and over one thousand related authority records.  A significant number of these archives now also have full catalogues available online, including the Borthwick’s Yorkshire hospital archives, the archive of the Earls of Halifax, and the archives of the Rowntree Company and Vickers scientific instrument makers.

We are always looking to improve Borthcat and make it more accessible and intuitive for our users.  We created a special guide for those users looking for wills or other probate documents that can be accessed whenever someone clicks in the search box.  We also backed up our detailed help page with a page of frequently asked questions and a glossary of terms to help users better understand the way the catalogue works.

The new AtoM release adds yet more improvements that we hope will fill in some of the gaps on Borthcat and introduce new ways of navigating the ever growing mass of information it holds.

So what’s new about AtoM 2.4 and why should you care?

You can search by date

 You might be surprised to learn this wasn’t previously a feature of Borthcat.  When most of the archival descriptions were ‘top level’ or fonds level descriptions this was not such an issue, but now Borthcat has so many full catalogues the ability to filter your search results by date or to sort search results by start or end dates will be incredibly useful.  Are you looking for patient records at The Retreat hospital but only for the 1860s? Just open the advanced search, search for ‘patient records’ in ‘The Retreat Archive’ and fill in the ‘filter by date range’ fields with the earliest and latest date of your search.

Equally you could open The Retreat Archive, select ‘Browse as list’ from the ‘Explore’ menu to the right and order your results in order of the start or end dates.  

Or perhaps you just want to know what our earliest dated archival collection is (the Takamiya Fragments Collection dating from 900 AD) or our most recent (too many to list! We are constantly adding to existing archives).

One of our Takimaya Fragments

You can keep track of the records you’re interested in

Another new feature that we think will be very popular with both users and staff is the clipboard function, as represented by the paperclip seen here on the top right of the page.

As you look through archival descriptions or authority records on Borthcat you will see the paperclip symbol on every entry when you browse archival descriptions as a list (with the text ‘Add to clipboard’ appearing when you hover over it with your mouse) or the option to ‘add’ to the right of an entry after you open it.  

Clicking on it automatically adds the record to your clipboard which can then be opened using the button at the top of the page.  This works for any authority record and any archival description (at any level of description from fonds down to item) and it means you can create a list of the records you are interested in as you browse, saving yourself the job of writing them out!  Moreover, once you’ve created your list in clipboard you can use the ‘print preview’ button to save the list as an image which can be kept for your own research or emailed directly to us if you’d like to preorder some records before you visit.

Tip:  If you’re saving both archival descriptions and authority records to your clipboard be aware these will display as two separate lists and that you will have to toggle between the two using the ‘Entity type’ drop down menu.

You can see the whole archive structure at once

The clipboard button isn’t the only change you’ll see when you open an archive catalogue on Borthcat.  Whereas before the full hierarchical arrangement of a catalogue was displayed to the left in a small sidebar, now it can be clearly seen at the top of the page.  

If you’ve had experience of navigating a catalogue through the sidebar the advantages to this new page-width display will be obvious.  You can now see the whole of the catalogue structure at once, without long titles being truncated by limitations of space. You can also expand each level to its fullest without concealing the rest of the archive.  You can also expand the display window to take up the full page should you wish!

We can upload or generate finding aids for you more easily

Finally the upgrade to AtoM 2.4 means we have new ways to share finding aids with our users.  We can now generate them from full catalogues already available on Borthcat - or we can upload our paper finding aids for archives that currently have only a top level archival description online.  The latter replaces a rather cumbersome system of linking across to paper finding aids that we’d uploaded to a hidden page on our website, a workaround we used to great success with our parish record collection but which was far from ideal as a long term solution.  

Now users will be able to download full catalogues to browse offline, to share, print out and annotate as needed - just look for the ‘download’ button on the right of the entry!  

To begin with we will only be uploading the finding aids that were already available as linked documents, but going forward we will be generating new finding aids from complete online catalogues and using our Twitter and Facebook accounts to let people know when these become available.

Looking to the future

AtoM 2.4 brings a number of useful new features to Borthcat but this first upgrade is only the beginning.  AtoM is under constant development, both by Artefactual and by its global user community, and future releases promise yet more innovations alongside improvements to its existing functions.  We would welcome your feedback on Borthcat, the new features, or even features you would like to see in the future - you can let us know what you think here. In the meantime we will continue to add new catalogues, new authority records, and new finding aids - so be sure to keep an eye on our ‘newest additions’ list!

Now you’ve heard about all of the new features, why not try them out for yourselves?

The Nature of the Job II: Structuring the archive of Yorkshire Wildlife Trust

In my last blog about my project cataloguing the archive of the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust, I wrote about how I got started with the survey of this archive. In this instalment, I'll be writing about my experiences in developing a structure for the archive, why it's important and how it'll translate to our online catalogue, Borthcat. 

Trying my hand at some slip listing for the Skipwith Common files.

From the very beginning of the project, I was aware of how vital it was for the structure of the archive to be right. The organisation was (and still is) a complex one and I want the structure of the archive to convey a sense of the wider scheme of the Trust's business, allowing users to contextualise, through their interrelationship, the individual records they look for. Of course this applies to all archives, but particularly so in this project for a number of reasons. Firstly, the archive is still very much a living repository of information - it is actively consulted by YWT staff as part of ongoing legal and campaign work and there are regular accruals of new material. This means that the records themselves are not necessarily going to be in our physical custody and in turn means that the intellectual control we have over these records needs to be robust. Secondly, aside from the additional deposits of archival material already received, the Trust continues to dynamically develop and so the structure needs to make allowances for future growth. Thirdly, (and perhaps a little intimidatingly for me!) at the time of writing, no other Wildlife Trust in the UK has deposited archival material in such quantities in a public repository so it is hoped that this project will provide a model for any future Trusts in arranging their archives.

The beginnings of a structure!

So while the latter makes Yorkshire Wildlife Trust unique in both the scope of its archival material and its public availability, it also means that there aren't any parallel organisations for me to reference in structuring this archive. So I was relying on a number of sources in developing the scheme - first and foremost my own research into the records themselves, then the excellent published history in Tim Sands' book 'Wildlife in Trust: A hundred years of nature conservation' and then on the living memory of the organisation in the shape of members and trustees, some of whom form part of the board monitoring and supporting this project.

Using survey notes to identify links between files.
Here, minutes copied and sent to Executive Committee

As an organisation, YWT has changed over its 70 year life, shifting from an amateur conservation body in 1946 to a professional campaigning organisation. Alongside this have come numerous administrative changes, all impacting on how records were accumulated by the organisation. Luckily, these changes have been well documented (for the most part) and so I was able to get a good understanding of the provenance of the archive. These records of change were a useful point of reference for me in developing my structure, as were the numerous references to now obsolete filing systems - often filed by the initials of the person generating the correspondence, with date and document references, and then by an increasingly complex system of alphanumeric codes. I used these to give me an understanding of how committees, departments and individuals interacted with one another, as well as documenting the links between the centralised functions of the Trust and the vital operational work carried out all over Yorkshire by volunteer committees.

I started working on the structure of the archive at the same time as surveying the records. I've worked iteratively, and initially worked on the overarching structure of the archive. I'm now on the fourth (and hopefully final!) version which incorporates 7 subfonds covering the foundation of the Trust, its governance, administration, liaison work, conservation records and campaigns. The seventh subfonds, and the one I'll focus on here, is the one covering the sites associated with the Trust. The majority of the material in the archive relates to the sites that the Trust has owned, managed and advised on and each site has anywhere between 1 and 70 files including environmental records, management records and research into each site.

I decided to move away from slip listing and started to use a piece of
mind mapping software. Above: working copy of Skipwith Common version 3!

I started the process using the files of Skipwith Common, which is no longer a Trust reserve, but which was one of the first sites whose records I surveyed. My first, uncertain, attempt at a structure split the files into three subsubsubfonds (!) but I felt that this structure was too generic to really reflect with accuracy the unique and complex nature of the ecology and management of each site. This became increasingly apparent as I tried to apply this structure to more sites. I decided to go back to the drawing board and began to work on a different structure, which even as I started it, felt much better in tune with the nature of the records. A good lesson in going with your gut feeling, even as a new professional!

This overall structure will well reflect the types of records that are present in the archive as well as the symbiotic relationship between the ecology of each site and its stewardship. Further, although loosely based on the same framework, the records of each site will have their own individual structures according to the records that are deposited. 

Sneak peek at how the records for Askham Bog will look on our online catalogue

But how will it look online? This structure looks lovely and clear on paper (at least to me!) but will appear very differently through our online catalogue. Above you can see a sneak peek of the entry for Askham Bog as it currently stands, although before it's published there will be more information added and probably a different iteration of AtoM too! I'll be adding the descriptions of each file very soon and I'll be blogging about that process in the next instalment of this series. For now, I'll continue to add files to my skeletal framework and to refine the structure, adding new levels as more information comes to light. It's really exciting to see it finally taking shape and emerging from my sea of drafts!

Lydia Dean

Project Archivist

You can follow updates on this project via Twitter, Facebook and this blog. Please do get in touch with any questions or comments and I'll be happy to help! 

The nature of the job: surveying the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust archive

Most of the boxes of the YWT archive;
we've since added a few more!

So, I'm about halfway through the 12 months of the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust archive project - and what a six months it's been! The time is going quickly; summer was filled with continuing the survey of deposited material, drafting and re-drafting an archival structure and finishing off my Masters in Archives and Records Management at the University of Dundee. Now the Autumn has rolled around again and the new academic year is here, I wanted to give a quick update on the progress of the project so far and what's yet to come. I'm intending to do a few related posts, which you can explore through the labels at the bottom of the page - clicking either 'Yorkshire Wildlife Trust' or 'new professional' should show all the project-related posts - that will outline the more practical side of the project. This is the first in that series and is going to look at how I, as a newly qualified archivist, have approached surveying what is a large and complex archive.
I began my project by reviewing the box lists that were supplied when the material was accessioned. This gave me an idea of how varied the material is, as well as getting a handle on its original order. I then went to have a look at it on the shelves in the strongroom (left). This really brought home what just over 3.5m3 of archive looks like! For the most part, the material had been repackaged when it arrived so it was all neatly wrapped and divided in archival folders.

Boxed and unboxed files in the strongroom.

I decided to have a look at a couple of what I thought would be key files before I started the proper survey and I selected some of the foundation papers of the organisation, including correspondence from just before and just after the Trust was established, as well as the minutes of their first meeting. I also had a look at some of the unpackaged material relating to Askham Bog, which was the Trust's first reserve. This not only gave me insight into the post-war context in which the Trust was established but also gave me key names of the founding members - among them Arnold Rowntree and Francis Terry - and an idea of how the original Council thought the organisation would be structured. Examining the reserve files was a further step in understanding not only the sort of information likely to be found in the files - from scientific recordings of the habitat and species present, to photographs, through to independent research about the site - but also how the files were put together.

Askham Bog environmental data, 1933. 

I wanted to use the survey phase of the project to achieve several key objectives. Firstly, to get a good understanding of the material and how it fits together to intellectually represent a whole organisation. Secondly, to make a note of the content of each file: the types of records it contained, key topics covered by the file, significant correspondents and covering dates which will all be useful in describing the file at a later stage of the project. Thirdly, to gain an understanding of how the file was put together: did it have an intellectual order, was it structured around physical or practical constraints such as the size of the folder or the capacity of a filing cabinet drawer, who generated or collated the material and for what purpose. Fourthly, as both a new professional and as an outsider to the Wildlife Trust, to build up my knowledge of the depth and breadth of the archive.

A page of notes from my survey of
material on Bretton Lakes

Although only eight weeks were allocated to this phase of the project in the original project plan, I decided to take a little longer to do a more detailed survey concurrently with some structuring and describing of records (more of the latter in a future post). As the project was designed to describe the archive to file level, I needed to ensure I had enough information to create a usefully detailed description which could convey the right information to researchers - information to which they wouldn't have access otherwise.

I have worked in what I suppose is a pretty analogue way, filling four notepads as I've gone along and then reappraising what I've written as I type it into a master spreadsheet. From there, I've been able to move files around and to separate different levels of the archive out for further examination. This phase of the project is coming to an end now and I will be continuing with the final tweaks to the structure of the archive and starting to describe the records in our online interface, Borthcat. Whilst it will be refreshing to move from leafing through files to adding to our online catalogue, I'll miss discovering lots of little snippets, and discussing them with my (very patient!) colleagues. I have been adding some of these to Twitter and Facebook as I've gone along, and I'm sure there'll be more to come as I finish the last few boxes this week.



Lydia Dean
Project Archivist

Thoughts of an Indexer: I name this cow....

Our Marc Fitch project archivist, Helen Watt, reflects on some of the common (and unusual names) given to our bovine friends...)

As a recent authority states, we have been naming animals for thousands of years; not only did the ancient Egyptians give names to animals, but also the ancient Greeks, for example, Alexander the Great called his horse, Bucephalas (‘ox-head’)1. Apart from horses, other types of animal, particularly farm animals, may be given names for many reasons, predominantly because the animals are seen as individuals and are treated as such among the herd or flock, long before the days of factory farming with large herds and uniform breeds. Otherwise, they might be named according to any distinctive markings or characteristics, apparent to their handlers in everyday work.

Sources for names of animals are often provided by wills and when Canon J. S. Purvis, first Director of the Borthwick, compiled his Classified Subject Index for material held there, he included a section for Agriculture covering names of horses, cows and oxen. Examples for these were taken from various series of York Province ecclesiastical documents such as Probate Registers, Dean and Chapter Probate Registers and the Cause Papers. Only a few references to named animals in one of the registers of the Archbishops of York, Register 28 of Archbishop Lee (1531-1544), are given. However, it is now possible to add many more such references from other registers, thanks to the University of York’s project funded by the Marc Fitch Fund, developing the earlier Archbishops’ Registers Revealed Project funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The results of this project are now available on line via https://archbishopsregisters.york.ac.uk/ and provide an index to all the entries in Registers 31 and 32, covering the period 1576 to 1650. In the process of adding keywords to entries for the many wills of clergymen found within, several legacies of horses and farm animals, especially cows, including those mentioned by name have been identified.

'a cowe called nightegale'

Apart from flower and bird names, such as ‘Primrose’, ‘Marigold’, ‘Nightingale’ (1581, Reg. 31, fol. 94r) and ‘Daisy’ (‘Daze’, 1625, Reg. 31, fol. 249r), names given to cows show many of the characteristics identified by scholars such as Leibring and also Keith Thomas and George Redmonds, particularly with reference to Yorkshire names and including some of those listed by Canon Purvis 2. For instance, ‘praise’ names, such as ‘Lucky’ (1632, Reg. 32, fol. 29r), or names celebrating the animals’ nature, such as ‘Stately’ (1599, Reg. 31, fol. 139r). Others might denote the animal’s physical markings or makeup, such as cows called ‘Brownie’ (1577, Reg. 31, 80v), ‘Great Brownie’ and ‘Young Brownie’ (1588, Reg. 31, fol. 106v), also ‘Great Allblack’ (1609, Reg. 31, fol. 158v).

Other names may seem to be harder to classify, including such names of heifers as ‘Jeliver’ (1594, Reg. 31, fol. 132r), ‘Tymlye’ (1629, Reg. 32, 96v), ‘Flowrell’ (1584, Reg. 31, fol. 97r) or ‘Sternill’ (1625, Reg. 31, fol. 249r). However, some of these appear to be favourites, handed down over the years. For instance, ‘Tymmyll’, perhaps a variant of ‘Tymlye’, occurs nearly a hundred years earlier (1546, Probate Register 13, fol. 171), as does ‘Starneld’, perhaps a variant of ‘Sternill’ (1565, Reg. 30, fol. 24r). One name which seems to have persisted in some form in the York Probate Registers between at least the 15th and 16th centuries is ‘Motherlike’ (‘Moderlybe’, 1441, Probate Register 2, fol. 25; ‘Motherlicke’, 1585, Probate Register 23, fol. 186), which may be of particular interest as it has been compared with similar types of cattle names from Scandinavia, perhaps suggesting an earlier origin, who knows, possibly even from Viking times 3.

This phenomenon is not restricted to Yorkshire, but is found in other areas of the country; evidence from Essex wills also shows the same kind of naming practices, with  cows called ‘Gentle’ and ‘Brown Snout’ and even ‘one black cow called Tytt’ 4. Back in Yorkshire, if I had to choose one of these kinds of name, my favourite of all – for a cow difficult to milk, maybe –  is Shorte Papps (1588, Reg. 31, fol. 106v)!

'A cow called shorte papps'

1. Katharina Leibring, ‘Animal Names’, in Carole Hough (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Names and Naming (Oxford, 2016), Part VII, section 43, 615-627.

2. Keith Thomas, Man and the Natural World (London, 1983), pp. 93-6; George Redmonds, Names and History: People, Places and Things (London, 2004), p.148.

3. Katharina Leibring, ‘Animal Names’, in Carole Hough (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Names and Naming (Oxford, 2016), Part VII, section 43.3.2.1, Names in Europe’s Traditional Agricultural Societies.

4. F. G. Emmison, Elizabethan Life: Home, Work and Land, Essex Record Office Publication No. 69 (Chelmsford, 1991), p. 52.