This is a book for those thousands of family historians who have already made some progress in tracing their family tree and have become interested in the places where their ancestors lived, worked and raised children. It emphasises the diversity and extraordinary complexity of the rural and urban communities in provincial England even before the great changes associated with the Industrial Revolution.

David Hey

List of plates. List of figures. List of tables. Preface. Acknowledgements. 1. The Middle Ages. 2. Early-modern England. 3. Late Georgian and Victorian England. 4. Excursions into family and local history. Further Reading. Index.