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PRINTED QUESTIONNAIRES, RESEARCH NETWORKS, AND THE DISCOVERY OF THE BRITISH ISLES, 1650–1800*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 August 2010

ADAM FOX
ADAM FOX*
Affiliation:
University of Edinburgh
*
School of History, Classics, and Archaeology, University of Edinburgh, 50 George Square, Edinburgh, EH8 9JY[email protected]
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Abstract

This article examines the circulation of printed questionnaires as a research strategy among those investigating the constituent parts of the British Isles between the mid-seventeenth and late eighteenth centuries. It traces the origins and development of published ‘heads’ or ‘articles of enquiry’ as a means of acquiring information on antiquities, geography, and natural history and pieces together the research networks through which this methodology was shared and elaborated. The learned societies, ecclesiastical infrastructure, and periodical publications of the day are shown to have been instrumental in promoting this practice and in forging links between scholars and the ‘learned and ingenious’ in the parishes to whom such ‘queries’ were addressed. It is argued that these questionnaires were an important and insufficiently appreciated aspect of regional studies during the period. Though the responses to them are shown to have been highly variable, both in quantity and quality, it is suggested that they helped to establish what has become an important technique of data collection in modern academic inquiry.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 53 , Issue 3 , September 2010 , pp. 593 - 621
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

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Footnotes

*

I would like to thank Michael Hunter, Charles Withers, Daniel Woolf, and the anonymous referees for their valuable comments on earlier drafts of this article. Seminar audiences at the Universities of Edinburgh, Oxford, and St Andrews provided constructive criticism. Much of the work presented here was undertaken during a Research Fellowship from the Leverhulme Trust for which I am most grateful.

References

1 W. G. Hoskins, ‘The rediscovery of England’, in his Provincial England: essays in social and economic history (London, 1963), pp. 209–29. Amongst subsequent scholarship on this theme, see C. R. J. Currie and C. P. Lewis, eds., English county histories: a guide (Stroud, 1994); Graham Parry, The trophies of time: English antiquarians of the seventeenth century (Oxford, 1995); Daniel Woolf, The social circulation of the past: English historical culture 1500–1730 (Oxford, 2003); Rosemary Sweet, Antiquaries: the discovery of the past in eighteenth-century Britain (London and New York, NY, 2004).

2 On Scotland see Stuart Piggott, Ruins in the landscape: essays in antiquarianism (Edinburgh, 1976), ch. 7; on Wales, Prys Morgan, The eighteenth-century renaissance (Llandybie, 1981); and on Ireland, Clare O'Halloran, Golden ages and barbarous nations: antiquarian debate and cultural politics in Ireland, c. 1750–1800 (Cork, 2004).

3 Charles Webster, The great instauration: science, medicine and reform, 1626–1660 (London, 1975), ch. 5; Michael Hunter, John Aubrey and the realm of learning (London, 1975), ch. 3; F. V. Emery, Edward Lhuyd F.R.S., 1660–1709 (Caerdydd, 1971); Joseph M. Levine, Dr. Woodward's shield: history, science, and satire in Augustan England (Ithaca, NY, and London, 1977); S. A. E. Mendyk, ‘Speculum Britanniae’: regional study, antiquarianism, and science in Britain to 1700 (Toronto, 1989); C. W. J. Withers, Geography, science and national identity: Scotland since 1520 (Cambridge, 2001).

4 Stuart Piggott: William Stukeley: an eighteenth-century antiquary (2nd edn, London, 1985), pp. 21–3; Mendyk, ‘Speculum Britanniae’, pp. 195, 209, 215; Sweet, Antiquaries, pp. 12, 51, 89–90.

5 See, for example, Peter Burke, A social history of knowledge: from Gutenberg to Diderot (Cambridge, 2000), ch. 6; Cline, Howard F., ‘The relaciones geográficas of the Spanish Indies, 1577–1586’, Hispanic American Historical Review, 44, (1964), pp. 341–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Slack, Paul, ‘Government and information in seventeenth-century England’, Past and Present, 184, (2004), pp. 33–68CrossRefGoogle Scholar; James E. King, Science and rationalism in the government of Louis XIV, 1661–1683 (Baltimore, MD, 1949), pp. 130–6; D. V. Glass, Numbering the people (Farnborough, 1973), pp. 12–13; Kenneth Fincham, ed., Visitation articles and injunctions of the early Stuart church (2 vols., Church of England Record Society, Woodbridge, 1994–8); Whitaker, Ian, ‘The reports on the parishes of Scotland, 1627’, Scottish Studies, 3, (1959), pp. 229–32Google Scholar.

6 J. Spedding, R. L. Ellis, and D. D. Heath, eds., The works of Francis Bacon (7 vols., London, 1857–9), iv, pp. 249–71, 293–314; Hunter, Michael, ‘Robert Boyle and the early Royal Society: a reciprocal exchange in the making of Baconian science’, British Journal for the History of Science, 40, (2007), pp. 6–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Mendyk, ‘Speculum Britanniae’, pp. 116–28.

7 An interrogatory relating more particularly to the husbandry and naturall history of Ireland (1652), in Samuel Hartlib his legacie (London, 1652), sig. Q4-U1; Webster, The great instauration, pp. 428–31; Mendyk, ‘Speculum Britanniae’, pp. 185–92.

8 Webster, The great instauration, pp. 431–44.

9 Hunter, ‘Robert Boyle and the early Royal Society’; Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, 1, (1666), pp. 186–9, 315–16, 330–43; reprinted in Michael Hunter and Edward B. Davis, eds., The works of Robert Boyle (14 vols., London, 1999), v, pp. 508–11, 527–40.

10 See, for example, British Library, London (BL), Additional MS 72,892, fo. 1; BL, Additional MS 72,897, fos. 44–45r, 157–8; BL, Additional MS 72,882, fos. 94–7; R. T. Gunther, ed., Early science in Oxford, iv:The Philosophical Society (Oxford, 1925), pp. 97, 114–15, 116; R. T. Gunther, ed., Early science in Oxford, xii:Dr Plot and the correspondence of the Philosophical Society (Oxford, 1939), pp. 63, 140, 160; Royal Society, London (RS), MS 92, p. 58; Bodleian Library, Oxford (Bod. Lib.), MS Ashmole 1820a, fos. 281–2. In 1684 Petty drew up, and had printed for the Dublin Philosophical Society, A miscellaneous catalog of mean, vulgar, cheap and simple experiments (Dublin, 1684?) (Wing M2228B) which amounted to sixty-three questions on curiosities of natural history: Bod. Lib., MS Ashmole 1813, fos. 356–7, and see Gunther, ed., Early science in Oxford, xii, pp. 152–3, 156, 159–60, 205–7.

11 BL, Additional MS 72,899, fos. 161–2; and printed in marquis of Lansdowne, ed., The Petty papers (2 vols., London, 1927), i, pp. 175–8.

12 In parishes of about an hundred families, and wherein the registry of the births, burials, and marriages hath been well kept, enquire (London? 1683?) (Wing I119D), copies in BL, Additional MS 72,865, item 1, and BL, 816.m.6.(80*). The latter is reproduced, without identification, in D. V. Glass and D. E. C. Eversley, eds., Population in history (London, 1965), p. 179, and Glass, Numbering the people, p. 52.

13 Carey, Daniel, ‘Compiling nature's history: travelers and travel narratives in the early Royal Society’, Annals of Science, 54, (1997), pp. 271–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hunter, ‘Robert Boyle and the early Royal Society’, pp. 14–17; RS, Classified Papers, vol. 19; Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, 1, (1666), pp. 140–3; 2 (1667), pp. 415–22, 467–72, 554–5; 3 (1668), pp. 634–9.

14 Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, 1, (1665), pp. 91–44; John Houghton, A collection of letters for the improvement of husbandry & trade (2 vols., London, 1681–3), i, pp. 6–9; RS, Classified Papers, vol. 10, and vol. 19, item 21; Lennard, Reginald, ‘English agriculture under Charles II: the evidence of the Royal Society's “Enquiries”’, Economic History Review, 4, (1932), pp. 23–45CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

15 Robert Hooke, A general scheme, or idea of the present state of natural philosophy, in Richard Waller, ed., The posthumous works of Robert Hooke (London, 1705), pp. 21–4; Michael Hunter, ‘Hooke the natural philosopher’, in Jill Bennett, Michael Cooper, Michael Hunter, and Lisa Jardine, London's Leonardo: the life and work of Robert Hooke (Oxford, 2003), pp. 120–1.

16 Taylor, E. G. R., ‘Robert Hooke and the cartographical projects of the late seventeenth century (1666–1696)’, Geographical Journal, 110, (1937), pp. 530–3Google Scholar.

17 [John Ogilby], Queries in order to the description of Britannia (London? 1673?) (Wing 0180); Queries in order to the description of Britannia (London, 1673) (Wing 0180A). Aubrey sent a copy of one version of the Queries to Anthony Wood in a letter from London on 18 June 1673: Andrew Clark, ed., The life and times of Anthony Wood (5 vols., Oxford Historical Society, 19, 21, 26, 30, 40, Oxford, 1891–1900), ii, p. 265.

18 Bod. Lib., MS Aubrey 4, fos. 31r, 221; Gunther, ed., Early science in Oxford, xii, p. 269; Hunter, John Aubrey and the realm of learning, pp. 71–3; RS, MS 92, pp. 26, 203.

19 Henry W. Robinson and Walter Adams, eds., The diary of Robert Hooke M.A., M.D., F.R.S., 1672–1680 (London, 1935), pp. 38, 56–7, 60, 73, 86, 130, 210.

20 Gunther, ed., Early science in Oxford, xii, pp. 335–46; R. P., Quar's to be propounded to the most ingenious of each county in my travels through England (Oxford? 1674?) (Wing P2589: copies in Bod. Lib., MS Ashmole 1820a, fos. 222–3; RS, Classified Papers, vol. 19, item 93).

21 BL, Additional MS 72,850, fo. 141r; Bod. Lib., MS Hearne's Diaries, 158–9; Emery, F. V., ‘English regional studies from Aubrey to Defoe’, Geographical Journal, 124, (1958), pp. 316–19CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

22 R. P., Enquiries to be propounded to the most ingenious of each county in my travels through England and Wales, in order to their history of nature and arts (Oxford? 1679?) (Wing P2584: copies in Bod. Lib., MS Ashmole 1820a, fos. 224–5; RS, Classified Papers, vol. 19, item 94; and BL, 599.i.24.(4), pages 1–2 only).

23 [Thomas Machell], That the northern counties which abound in antiquities and ancient gentry, may no longer be bury'd in silence information is desir'd concerning the following queries as they lye (Oxford? 1677?) (Wing M127B: copies in Bod. Lib., MS Ashmole 1820a, fos. 226–7; Cumbria Record Office, Kendal, WD/Ry/1904).

24 J. R. Magrath, ed., The Flemings in Oxford (3 vols., Oxford Historical Society, 44, 62, 79, Oxford, 1904–24), pp. 214–17, 221, 225–6, 229–30; Rogan, John and Birley, Eric, ‘Thomas Machell, the antiquary’, Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society, n.s.., 55 (1956), pp. 149–53Google Scholar.

25 Material from volume 2 of Machell's notebooks relating to the barony of Kendal is printed in Jane M. Ewbank, ed., Antiquary on horseback (Kendal, 1963). He was elected fellow of the Oxford Philosophical Society in 1684: Gunther, ed., Early science in Oxford, iv, pp. 97, 98.

26 Nathaniel Johnston, Enquiries for information towards the illustrating and compleating the antiquities and natural history of York-shire (London? 1683?) (Wing J878: copies in the BL, shelf marks 816.m.16.(44.), and L.R.305.a.8.(3.)). For dating, see Letters of eminent men. Addressed to Ralph Thoresby, F.R.S. (2 vols., London, 1832), i, p. 20.

27 Gunther ed., Early Science in Oxford, xii, pp. 2, 3, 10.

28 John Beaumont, A draught of a design for writing the history of nature and arts of the county of Somerset (Oxford? 1685?) (not in Wing: the sole extant copy is Trinity College Cambridge, MS R.4.45, item 57); Gunther ed., Early Science in Oxford, xii, pp. 45, 274, and reproducing a facsimile of Beaumont's pamphlet, pp. 275–8.

29 William Molyneux, Whereas there is an accurate account and description of Ireland (Dublin, 1682?) (Wing M2407: copies in Bod. Lib., MS Aubrey 4, fo. 245; Bod. Lib., MS Ashmole 1820a, fo. 221). See Emery, F. V., ‘Irish geography in the seventeenth century’, Irish Geography, 3 (1954–8), pp. 268–74Google Scholar; K. T. Hoppen, The common scientist in the seventeenth century: a study of the Dublin Philosophical Society 1683–1708 (London, 1970), pp. 21–2, and pp. 200–1 where the queries are reprinted.

30 Francis Paget Hett, ed., The memoirs of Sir Robert Sibbald (1641–1722) (London, 1932), p. 76; National Library of Scotland (NLS), Adv. MS 33.3.16, fo. 25v; [Sir Robert Sibbald], Advertisement (Edinburgh, 1682) (Wing S3721A). The two surviving copies of this are in NLS, shelf marks 1.19(94) and S.302.b.1(21), and printed in The Bannatyne miscellany (3 vols., Edinburgh, 1827–55), iii, pp. 373–5; [Sir Robert Sibbald], In order to an exact description (Edinburgh? 1682?) (Wing S3721): copy in NLS, shelf mark Crawford.MB.277. Both are reprinted in Withers, C. W. J., ‘Geography, science and national identity in early modern Scotland’, Annals of Science, 53, (1996), pp. 66–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar; see also Emery, F. V., ‘The geography of Robert Gordon, 1580–1661, and Sir Robert Sibbald, 1641–1722’, Scottish Geographical Magazine, 74, (1958), pp. 3–12CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Mendyk, ‘Speculum Britanniae’, pp. 213–22.

31 On Lhwyd and the Britannia, see R. T. Gunther, ed., Early science in Oxford, xvi:Life and letters of Edward Lhwyd (Oxford, 1945), pp. 266–7; William Camden, Britannia, ed. Edmund Gibson (London, 1695), pp. 583–702; Emery, F. V., ‘Edward Lhwyd and the 1695 Britannia’, Antiquity, 32, (1958), pp. 179–82CrossRefGoogle Scholar; idem, Edward Lhuyd F.R.S., 1660–1709, pp. 59–73; idem, ‘A new account of Snowdonia, 1693, written for Edward Lhuyd’, National Library of Wales Journal, 18, (1974), pp. 405–17; Walters, Gwyn and Emery, Frank, ‘Edward Lhuyd, Edmund Gibson, and the printing of Camden's Britannia, 1695’, Library, 5th ser., 32 (1977), pp. 133–7Google Scholar.

32 Bod. Lib., MS Ashmole 1829, fo. 5 (Ogilby); MS Ashmole 1820a, fos. 21–7 (Molyneux, Plot, and Machell).

33 E. L., Parochial queries in order to a geographical dictionary, a natural history, &c. of Wales (Oxford? 1696?) (Wing L1947); Bod. Lib., MS Ashmole 1817b, fo. 415r.

34 ‘Dr. Plot's enquiries concerning husbandry in Kent’ are printed in Gunther, ed., Early science in Oxford, xii, pp. 413–15, from Bod. Lib., MS Rawl. D. 787. The fragmentary notes from his Kentish tour are Bod. Lib., MS Rawl. D. 390, fos. 85r and 95; and see John Nichols, ed., Bibliotheca topographica Britannica (8 vols., London, 1780–90), vi, Part ii, pp. 62–4.

35 [Robert Plot], Enquiries to be propounded to the most sincere and intelligent in the cities of London and Westminster, in order to their history of nature, arts, and antiquities (Oxford? 1694?) (Wing P2584A): sole copy at Christ Church, Oxford, shelf mark Wd.2.13(5). See Camden, Britannia, ed. Gibson, pp. 214–30, 326–40.

36 Bod. Lib., MS Rawl. B. 323 (copy at fo. 4, not in Wing). See Piggott, William Stukeley, p. 21; Suzanne Eward, ‘Parsons, Richard’, in Oxford dictionary of national biography (60 vols., Oxford, 2004–5) (ODNB). Sir Robert Atkyns's The ancient and present state of Gloucestershire (London, 1712) incorporates some of Parsons's material.

37 John Morton, Certain heads intended to be treated, of in a natural history of Northamptonshire (London? 1700?) (not in Wing: copy in Bod. Lib., MS Ashmole 1816, fo. 427). See letters of Morton to Lhwyd, MS Ashmole 1816, fos. 426r and 431v. Morton's research was published as The natural history of Northamptonshire (London, 1712).

38 D. G. Moir, ed., The early maps of Scotland to 1850 (3rd edn, 2 vols., Edinburgh, 1973–83), i, pp. 65–78; Withers, Geography, science and national identity, pp. 87, 96, 258, 259, 260; John Adair, Queries, in order to a true description; and an account of the natural curiositys, and antiquities (Edinburgh? 1694?) (Wing A469A): copies in NLS, shelf mark 1.4(60) and 1.19(102). The ‘Short account’ is NLS, Adv. MS 19.3.28, fos. 35–45.

39 Jeremy Gregory, ed., The speculum of archbishop Thomas Secker (Church of England Record Society, 2, Woodbridge, 1995); idem, ‘Archbishops of Canterbury, their diocese, and the shaping of the national church’, in Jeremy Gregory and Jeffrey S. Chamberlain, eds., The national church in local perspective: the Church of England and the regions, 1660–1800 (Woodbridge, 2003), p. 41.

40 Peter Clark, British clubs and societies, 1580–1800: the origins of an associational world (Oxford, 2000), chs. 3–4; Celina Fox, The arts of industry in the age of Enlightenment (New Haven, CT, and London, 2009), ch. 4.

41 R. M. Wiles, Serial publication in England before 1750 (Cambridge, 1957).

42 Joanna Innes, Inferior politics: social problems and social policies in eighteenth-century Britain (Oxford, 2009), ch. 4.

43 David C. Douglas, English scholars, 1660–1730 (2nd edn, London, 1951), pp. 208–21; Stephen Taylor, ‘Wake, William’, and ‘Gibson, Edmund’, in ODNB; Sweet, Antiquaries, pp. 51–2. For a later eighteenth-century example, see Mary Ransome, ed., Wiltshire returns to the bishop's visitation queries, 1783 (Wiltshire Record Society, 27, Devizes, 1972), pp. 17–18.

44 Bod. Lib., MS Willis 35, fo. 281; MS Willis 36, fos. 247–54.

45 Browne Willis, To … at … in the county of Buckingham (n.p., n.d.) (ESTC T095776: copy in BL, G.999.(2.)); Bod. Lib., MS Willis 1, fos. 649–730, quotation at fo. 651; J. G. Jenkins, The dragon of Whaddon (High Wycombe, 1953), pp. 128–9, and the queries reprinted pp. 240–2.

46 Enright, B. J., ‘Rawlinson's proposed history of Oxfordshire’, Oxoniensia, 56 (1951), p. 62Google Scholar. Willis's four replies are in Bod. Lib., MS Rawl. D. 1480, fos. 99–106.

47 Enright, ‘Rawlinson's proposed history of Oxfordshire’, pp. 69–72. Copies of To the reverend the clergy and gentlemen of the county of Oxford (n.p, n.d) are in Bod. Lib., MS Rawl. B. 400b, between fos. 134 and 135 and Bod. Lib., MS Rawl. D. 1481, fos. 30–1.

48 Tony Brown and Glenn Foard, The making of a county history: John Bridges' Northamptonshire (Leicester and Northampton, 1994), pp. 31–5, 68–71.

49 Nichols, ed., Bibliotheca topographica Britannica, i, p. i; David Boyd Haycock, ‘Peck, Francis’, in ODNB; Sweet, Antiquaries, pp. 246–7, 431.

50 Stephen, G. A., ‘Francis Blomefield's queries in preparation for his history of Norfolk’, Norfolk Archaeology, 20, (1921), pp. 1–9Google Scholar. Sir, intending to publish an essay towards a topographical history of Norfolk (n.p., n.d.) is in Norfolk Record Office (NRO), ACC 30/1/73, and see David A. Stoker, ed., The correspondence of the reverend Francis Blomefield (1705–52) (Norfolk Record Society, 55, London, 1992), pp. 254–5. For the suggestion that Blomefield owed the idea to Peck, see David Stoker, ‘Blomefield, Francis’, in ODNB.

51 Centre for Buckinghamshire Studies, D/X 579; Woolf, The social circulation of the past, pp. 114–15.

52 Bod. Lib., MS Willis 43, Queries relating to the county of Dorset (n.p., n.d.), at fos. 224–5, and letters from Hutchins to Willis, fos. 226–92 (quotation at fo. 290v).

53 Richard Walwyn, To … at … in the county of Hereford (n.p. n.d.). A sole copy, addressed to Dr Roberts at Ross, is in Herefordshire Record Office, B 56/12 (unfoliated).

54 Earlier, in 1720–1, the Scottish kirk had circulated sheets of ‘directions’ or ‘rules’ to ministers in every parish seeking information on topography, population, and natural resources, receiving 222 replies by 1733: Emery, F. V., ‘A “geographical description” of Scotland prior to the Statistical Accounts’, Scottish Studies, 3, (1959), pp. 1–16Google Scholar. On Maitland, see also Paul Baines, ‘Maitland, William’, in ODNB; and for his use of parochial data in compiling the History of London (1739), see Innes, Inferior politics, p. 130.

55 Queries for the county of Devon (n.p., n.d.)

56 Sir, having collected from several of the public offices and other repositories … (n.p, n.d.) (ESTC T179455). Three copies (two versions) of these queries survive in Bod. Lib. MS Gough Berks. 13, fos. 108–13.

57 A copy of Queries proposed to gentlemen in the several parts of Great Britain, in hope of obtaining, from the answers, a better knowledge of its antiquities and natural history is in Society of Antiquaries, London (SA), Letters and Papers, 1754–8, fo. 167. On Theobald's influence, see Joan Evans, A history of the Society of Antiquaries (Oxford, 1956), p. 123; Sweet, Antiquaries, pp. 90, 380.

58 H. T. Wood, A history of the Royal Society of Arts (London, 1913), pp. 298–302; Harley, J. B., ‘The Society of Arts and the surveys of English counties, 1759–1809’, Journal of the Royal Society of Arts, 112 (1963–4), pp. 43–6Google Scholar, 119–24, 269–75, 538–43.

59 On Gough's influence, see Evans, A history of the Society of Antiquaries, pp. 135–7; Sweet, Antiquaries, pp. 61–9; R. H. Sweet, ‘Gough, Richard’, in ODNB.

60 Foote Gower, An address to the public, relative to the proposed history of Cheshire (London, 1772?) (ESTC T226283).

61 George Allan, An address and queries to the public, relative to the compiling a complete civil and ecclesiastical history of the antient and present state of the county palatine of Durham (Darlington, 1774) (ESTC T117424).

62 Nichols, ed., Bibliotheca topographica Britannica, i, pp. i–xiv; John Nichols, Queries proposed to the nobility, gentry, and clergy, of Leicestershire; with a view of more accurately completing, from their answers, the antiquities and natural history of the several parishes in that county (London? 1787?) (ESTC T202265); Nichols utilized the research notes of Francis Peck that he had purchased: The history and antiquities of the county of Leicester (4 vols., London, 1795–1815), i, p. v.

63 Magennis, Eoin, ‘“A land of milk and honey”: the Physico-Historical Society, improvement and the surveys of mid-eighteenth-century Ireland’, Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, c, 102 (2002), p. 205Google Scholar; for Harris's ‘Queries’ see Walter Harris and Charles Smith, The antient and present state of the county of Down (Dublin, 1744), pp. xiv–xviii.

64 The statistical account of Scotland 1791–1799 edited by Sir John Sinclair (20 vols., Edinburgh, 1983), i, pp. 90–1; Henry F. Berry, A history of the Royal Dublin Society (London, 1915), pp. 146–7.

65 John Nichols, Illustrations of the literary history of the eighteenth century (8 vols., London, 1817–58), vi, p. 502; Donald J. Withrington, ‘General introduction’, in Statistical account of Scotland, i, p. xvi.

66 John Burton, Monasticon Eboracense: and the ecclesiastical history of Yorkshire (York, 1758), pp. 425–48.

67 Davies, Robert, ‘A memoir of John Burton’, Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, 2, (1873), pp. 432–4Google Scholar. For Burton's antiquarian activities more generally, see Nichols, Illustrations of the literary history of the eighteenth century, iii, pp. 375–94, iv, pp. 589–93.

68 Bod. Lib., MS Willis 1, fo. 662; Nichols, ed., Bibliotheca topographica Britannica, I, p. i; Gentleman's Magazine, 60, (1790), pp. 1178–180; Gentleman's Magazine, 61 (1791), p. 1120; Richard Polwhele, The history of Devonshire (3 vols., London, 1793–1806).

69 Gentleman's Magazine, 25, (1755), pp. 157–9; Sweet, Antiquaries, pp. 52, 369; Scot's Magazine, 34, (1772), pp. 21–3. On Muilman's ill-fated attempt to extend this method to the whole of Britain in the early 1770s, see Evans, A history of the Society of Antiquaries, pp. 164–6.

70 Queries proposed to gentlemen in the several parts of Great Britain, pp. 3, 4, 6, 8; Allan, An address and queries, pp. 9–12; Nichols, ed., Bibliotheca topographica Britannica, i, p. iv.

71 Thomas Pennant, A tour in Scotland MDCCLXIX (Chester, 1771), pp. 287–98 (unlike the first edition, that published in London in 1772 explicitly acknowledged that these ‘Queries’ were ‘originally composed and published by order of the Society of Antiquaries’, p. 302). Soon afterwards, Pennant announced another intended tour through the country accompanied by twenty-two queries addressed ‘To every gentleman desirous to promote the publication of an accurate account of the antiquities, present state, and natural history of Scotland’: Scot's Magazine, 34, (1772), pp. 173–4.

72 Sir John Sinclair, Queries drawn up for the purpose of elucidating the natural history and political state of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1790) (ESTC T046194); Gentleman's Magazine, 61 (1791), p. 506; Statistical account of Scotland, i, pp. 91–3.

73 Innes, Inferior politics, pp. 168–70.

74 Cumbria Record Office, Carlisle, D&C/Machell MS 6, pp. 699–722.

75 Bod. Lib., MS Rawl. B. 400b, between fos. 134 and 135 (Fletcher's replies on the printed sheet); Bod. Lib., MS Rawl. D. 1481, fos. 30–1 (Ayshford's replies added to the sheet). Toovey's full manuscript reply on Watlington is MS Rawl. B. 400c, fos. 63–72. The Oxfordshire notes of Rawlinson and Curll (MS Rawl. B. 400b, c, e, f) are mostly reprinted in F. N. Davis, ed., Parochial collections … made by Anthony à Wood and Richard Rawlinson (3 vols., Oxfordshire Record Society, 2, 4, 11, Oxford, 1920–9), including the questionnaire and Fletcher's reply, iii, pp. 368–72.

76 SA, London, Letters and Papers, 1754–8, fos. 187, 217. Theobald's own researches are in his ‘Parochial histories’, Society of Antiquaries MS 115, and his ‘Antiquitys, monuments, inscriptions &c. found in divers parts of Great Britain’, BL, Additional MS 45,663, fos. 71–105.

77 Magennis, ‘“A land of milk and honey”’, p. 200.

78 Statistical account of Scotland, i, pp. 90–1.

79 Withrington, ‘General introduction’, in Statistical account of Scotland, i, pp. xvi–xvii; Archaeologia Scotica: or Transactions of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, 1, (1792), pp. 40–121 (Haddington), 139–55 (Uphall), 292–388 (Liberton), and 511–22 (Aberlady).

80 Centre for Buckinghamshire Studies, D/X 579. Willis eventually published The history and antiquities of the town, hundred and deanry of Buckingham (London, 1755).

81 These replies are bound in Bod. Lib., MS Gough Berks. 13, fos. 31–83.

82 Stephen, ‘Francis Blomefield's queries in preparation for his history of Norfolk’, prints the reply of the Rev. Charles Barnwell from Beeston, and Stanfield, now NRO, MS 10836. Other surviving responses are in NRO, NAS 1/1/14 (9 returns); NAS 1/1/15 Wreningham 29; NAS 1/1/1/1; NAS 1/1/2/65; NAS 1/1/4/136; NAS 1/1/19/6. The Rev. John Russell's accounts of the parishes of Great Plumstead, Brundall (NAS 1/1/1/1), and Postwick are printed in Blake, William J., ‘Parson Russell's reply to Blomefield's Queries’, Norfolk Archaeology, 29, (1946), pp. 164–80Google Scholar. The letter from Blomefield to Norris is in Stoker, ed., Correspondence of the reverend Francis Blomefield, pp. 101–2, and see also the letters to Blomefield, pp. 97, 121, 226–32.

83 Trinity College Dublin, MS 883/1–2; MS 888/1–2; Royal Irish Academy, MS 12 W 22; and RS, Classified Papers, vol. 19, item 92.

84 A list of the principal respondents to Sibbald has been drawn up by Withers, ‘Geography, science and national identity in early modern Scotland’, pp. 69–73, and idem, Geography, science and national identity, pp. 256–62. For responses see especially, NLS, Adv. MS 34.2.8; NLS, Adv. MS 33.5.15. Much of this material is printed in Sir Arthur Mitchell and James Toshach Clark, eds., Geographical collections relating to Scotland made by Walter Macfarlane (3 vols., Scottish History Society, 51, 52, 53, Edinburgh, 1906–8), ii–iii. The fullest single response to Sibbald's queries was Andrew Symson, ‘A large description of Galloway’ (1684), NLS, Adv. MS 31.7.17.

85 Most of the returns (146) are published in Rupert H. Morris, ed., ‘Parochialia: being a summary of answers to parochial queries in order to a geographical dictionary, etc., of Wales issued by Edward Lhwyd’, in Archaeologia Cambrensis (Supplement, 3 pts in 1, London, 1909–11). For discussion, see Emery, F. V., ‘A map of Edward Lhuyd's Parochial queries in order to a geographical dictionary, &c., of Wales (1696)’, Transactions of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion (1958), pp. 41–53Google Scholar; and for subsequent discoveries, see idem, ‘A new reply to Lhuyd's Parochial queries (1696): Puncheston, Pembrokeshire’, National Library of Wales Journal, 10, (1958), pp. 395–402; and ‘Edward Lhuyd and some of his Glamorgan correspondents: a view of Gower in the 1690s’, Transactions of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion (1965), pp. 77–114.

86 Brown and Foard, The making of a county history, pp. 63, 70, 84.

87 The returns are in Bod. Lib., MS Top. Devon b.1–2, and Milles's polished notes on the basis of them are MS Top. Devon c.8–12. There were 394 parishes in Devon: Richard Blome, Britannia: or, a geographical description of the kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland (London, 1673), p. 80. In the 1770s William Chapple distributed another questionnaire in Devon as part of his project to produce a new edition of Tristram Risdon's early seventeenth-century ‘chorographical description’ of the county with extensive ‘notes and additions’: Elizabeth Baigent, ‘Chapple, William’, in ODNB.

88 Bod. Lib., MS Ashmole 1817b, fo. 48r.

89 Bod. Lib., MS Willis 1, fos. 695, 723.

90 NRO, NAS 1/1/14 (ll); and in Stoker, ed., Correspondence of the reverend Francis Blomefield, pp. 29, 229–30.

91 Bod. Lib., MS Rawl. B. 400f, fos. 84–5, quoted in Enright, ‘Rawlinson's proposed history of Oxfordshire’, pp. 65–7.

92 Magrath, ed., The Flemings in Oxford, i, p. 229; Letters of eminent men. Addressed to Ralph Thoresby, i, p. 39; Gunther, ed., Early science in Oxford, xii, p. 285.

93 Bod. Lib., MS Ashmole 1829, fos. 51r, 59r; Bod. Lib., MS Ashmole 1817b, fo. 424r; Bod. Lib., MS Willis 43, fo. 290v; Nichols, Illustrations of the literary history of the eighteenth century, vi, p. 514.

94 Enright, ‘Rawlinson's proposed history of Oxfordshire’, p. 65n; Bod. Lib., MS Gough Berks. 13, fo. 82r.

95 Rosalind Mitchison, Agricultural Sir John: the life of Sir John Sinclair of Ulbster 1754–1835 (London, 1962), ch. 10; Withrington, ‘General introduction’, in Statistical account of Scotland, i, pp. ix–xlv.

96 Scot's Magazine, 34 (1772), p. 175.

97 Statistical account of Scotland, i, pp. x, xix–xx, 94.

98 In his government post Sinclair followed the success of his ‘statistical’ questionnaire with a request for information in the form of Queries proposed by the board of agriculture, to be answered by intelligent farmers (London, 1793), a pamphlet printed with two columns, ‘Queries’ and ‘Answers’, the latter left blank for filling in. On the Board of Agriculture, see Mitchison, Agricultural Sir John, ch. 11.

99 Statistical account of Scotland, i, pp. 56–72.