Although unmentioned in modern reference books and works of economic history, Thornton was one of the greatest commercial figures of the day and, writes W.G. Hoskins, when he died, left “by far the largest fortune of the century to that date.”
W.G. Hoskins' study of English surnames shows that, even before the Industrial Revolution, country families were very often on the move.
Much of the history of any English district is recorded in its farmhouses. This, writes W.G. Hoskins, is particularly true of Devon; where, at some places, “farming has been carried out without a break since Romano-British times,” and possibly from the prehistoric period.
Not problems of the Squire’s pedigree, or of titles to land, but the origins and growth of town and village communities, W.G. Hoskins argues, should be the subjects of local historians today.
W.G. Hoskins pays an historical visit to Leicester.
W.G. Hoskins pays an historical visit to Exeter.
The remarkable wave of rebuilding and new building that took place across society, between 1570 and the outbreak of the Civil War.
