Alison Light is a writer and critic. She is also an Honorary Professor in the Department of English at University College, London. She was born in Portsmouth, read English at Churchill College, Cambridge, and was awarded a DPhil. from Sussex University. She has worked at the BBC, in adult education, and also lectured at Royal Holloway College and at Newcastle University. She spent several years helping to establish the Raphael Samuel History Centre and Archive in London. She writes regularly for the press, and also frequently broadcasts on radio and television. Her last book was the much-acclaimed Mrs Woolf and the Servants, which is published by Penguin.
I am delighted to be able to acknowledge the help of all those across the country who answered enquiries and put me on the right track. I am grateful to the staff at the Birmingham Central Library, at the Museum for English Rural Life at Reading, and at the history centres and record offices of Berkshire, Dorset, Hampshire, Warwickshire and Worcestershire; to Marie Lewis at the Pembrokeshire Archives; Sue South at the National Archives, Kew; Matthew Piggott at the Surrey History Centre; Robert Pearson at the Wiltshire and Swindon Archives; and to Vicky Thorpe at the Gloucester Record Office. A special thanks to the registrars at the Portsmouth Register Office, who bore patiently and courteously with my endless requests and never once failed to find the relevant information. I am indebted to the staff at the Portsmouth City Record Office, especially to John Stedman, editor of the Portsmouth Papers, and to Diana Gregg, ‘the human oracle’, now sadly – for family historians – retired. I would also like to thank Revd Emma Walsh and Emily Burgoyne at the Angus Library, Regent’s College, Oxford; Jane Wickenden at the Institute for Naval Medicine in Gosport; Sally Webb at the Imperial War Museum; Dean Philips at Yardley Wood Library, Birmingham; Eileen Dwane at the State Library of Queensland; Leanne J. Franklin at the State Library of Tasmania; and at the North Tyneside Local Studies Centre, Kevin Dresser, who guided me round the ‘Jungle’ on Tyneside.
When I began this book in 2008, I was lucky enough to be given a tour of Netherne by George Frogley, who was once the manager of the hospital’s print department, and he made it come alive for me. Others were also splendidly free with their time and local knowledge: Simon Hancock, curator of the Haverfordwest’s Town Museum; Robert Nisbet; John Chandler; Sue Robinson; Peter Haylor at the Holy Cross Community Centre, Warstock; Christine Pavey of the Hampshire Genealogical Society; and Peter Watkins. Professor Gordon Handcock at Memorial University, Newfoundland, kindly shared much salient information and his own research with me. I would also like to thank Ian Wheeler, Assistant Bereavement Officer at Brandwood End Cemetery; Barrie Simpson of the Friends of Brandwood End Cemetery, Birmingham; Gerry O’Brien, Cemetery Officer of Kingston Cemetery, Portsmouth; David Cufley of the British Brick Society; Viv Head, Chairman of the British Transport Police History Group; Peter Barham; Mark Harrison at the Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine, Oxford; John Fitzgerald of the Family History Society of Newfoundland and Labrador; Stephen Spencer at the Salvation Army International Heritage Centre; Simon Harmer and Ted Parker of the Salvation Army in Portsmouth; and Hazel Vitler for information on her grandfather, Benjamin Light: my grandfather’s cousin. Janet Lovesey’s Internet site, exploring Frances Road in ‘the Cotteridge’, was a boon. Simon Fowler undertook some final research into naval records, the Liddell Collection and the archives of the Poor Law with great efficiency. My brother, Chris Light, stepped in at the eleventh hour to take the photograph of Penhale Road Infant School. I am grateful to everyone.
During a spell lecturing at Newcastle University, I was the fortunate recipient of a research travel grant, which made it possible for me to visit archives around the country. I would like to thank all my colleagues in the School of English, especially Professor Linda Anderson and Professor Jenny Richards, for their support. Special events at Manchester University, at the École des Hautes Études in Paris and at UCL’s History Department Neale colloquium advanced the work: my thanks to Professor Jackie Stacey, Professor Laura Lee Downs and Professor Catherine Hall for the invitations and to the attendees. The offer of a visiting fellowship at the Australian National University at Canberra came as a great fillip: thanks to Dr Kynan Gentry and Professor Melanie Nolan. I am also grateful to Professor Laura Marcus and the English Faculty of Oxford University for giving me access to the resources of the university as a visiting member.
Although it has greatly benefited from contact with academic communities, Common People was written outside the university and grew as much from life and politics as from research. I particularly want to thank those friends and family who kept me going during the summer and autumn of 2012 when I was being treated for cancer: Lenore and Yasha Abramsky, Sally Alexander, Jane Caplan, Erica Carter, Norma Clarke and Barbara Taylor, Basil Comely, Simon and Cathy Cooke, Alison and Adam Elgar, Mary Grover, Catherine Hall, Marybeth Hamilton, Ken Jones, Cora Kaplan, Andrew Macdonald and Pete Swaab, Dick Newman, Sandra Pidoux, Michael Rossington, Nick Stargardt, Helen Taylor. Without their stimulating talk, their curiosity and care, this book would have taken far longer than it did. Working briefly with new colleagues for the BBC, especially Annabel Hobley, Emma Hindley and Hugo Macgregor, was also a boost. Thanks too to Kate Binnie, yoga teacher extraordinaire. And especially to Kasia Boddy, for being generous and listening, and always willing to go shopping.
My agent, David Godwin has been a great ally and lifter of spirits throughout. My editor, Juliet Annan, took to the idea of Common People from the first and was warmly encouraging when both it and I languished. It has been a great pleasure working with her and with the team at Fig Tree/Penguin, who made the process of production speedy, smooth and congenial; I am especially grateful to Sophie Missing for her help with the images, to Jeff Edwards for working on the family trees and maps, and to Caroline Pretty for her scrupulous copy-editing. Early versions of parts of this book appeared in the London Review of Books, New Formations, the Sarum Chronicle and the Revue D’Histoire du XIXe Siècle. I am grateful to the editors of those journals.
Family history is always a family affair, and I owe thanks to my cousin Marilyn Betts, who began the research into the Smiths, Hosiers and Sarah Hill. My mother, Barbara Light, was the first to unearth her own mother’s history and to begin looking for the Lights. This book is dedicated to her and to the memory of my father.
In the closing stages of the book, Sally Alexander read the chapter on Netherne, and Norma Clarke and Cora Kaplan read the complete manuscript: their thoughtful comments spurred me on to the finishing line and I owe them warm thanks. My friend and neighbour Lyndal Roper discussed the book with me as it evolved, closely read various drafts and saw me through the ups and downs of the writing life, or just of life in general. I did not always take her advice, but I know how much better the book is for her contribution. Fran Bennett knows far more about poverty in Britain than I do and I learnt much from our conversations. She found the Dowdeswell graves on a wet afternoon in Alcester and spent many hours at my side on that strange planet known as hospital; a friend in need indeed. My deepest debt is to my husband, John O’Halloran. I won’t begin to thank him, because I cannot thank him enough. Only, I mean to say, ‘What larks, eh, what larks!’
Alison Light, Oxford, June 2014
Forever England: Femininity, Literature and Conservatism between the Wars
Mrs Woolf and the Servants
