Dr. David Dymond is one of Britain's most highly respected local
historians. He is a Vice President of the British Association for Local
History and of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and History,
President of the Suffolk Records Society, and an honorary fellow of the
University of East Anglia. The author of several valued books about the
practice of local history, notably Researching and Writing History, his
contribution to the study of local history generally, and in his adopted
county of Suffolk in particular, has been immensely influential. The
essays in this Festschrift are offered as a token of esteem and
affection by colleagues, friends, and students of David. They consist of
new research on aspects of local history from the medieval period to the
twentieth century, with a particular focus on Eastern England. Taken
together, they illustrate David's philosophy of local history (that it
should be 'wide ranging, inclusive, integrating and interdisciplinary').
In his introduction, Professor Mark Bailey pays tribute to the breadth
and depth of David's scholarship and to his passion for teaching. These
essays, in turn, aim to reflect the values that have always
characterised David's approach: a focus on primary sources meticulously
interrogated and a concern to avoid the pitfalls of parochialism by
remaining sensitive to the wider influences upon communities. From
papers exploring aspects of medieval religion, the contributors move on
to medieval trade and industry in Norfolk, Suffolk, and Lincolnshire.
Two studies of the structures of local elites provide fresh insights
into communities at later periods, while the final selection of essays
consider fascinating and wide-ranging aspects of nineteenth- and
twentieth-century commerce, society, and culture. The very varied
contributions to this collection aptly reflect the breadth and depth of
David Dymond's own scholarship whilst offering a rich choice of material
to anyone with an interest in local history.
