HomeAssociated publications and other items

Associated publications and other items

Ordered by date.

Richard Waring. "A Letter from Richard Waring, Esq; F. R. S. to the Hon. Daines Barrington; On Some Plants Found in Several Parts of England", from the Philosophical Transactions, Vol. 61, 1771.

An early botanist in the area, listing abundant finds in Staffordshire and Shropshire.

John Aikin and his sister Mrs. Barbauld, "Eyes or No Eyes; or, The Art of Seeing".

A short story written circa the 1790s. The story was influential on the early founders of the North Staffordshire Field Club, and was cited by them in two addresses in the early Annual Reports.

Appendix to General view of the Agriculture of the County of Stafford (1796) by William Pitt.

The Appendix surveys North Staffordshire based on a 1794 personal tour, and there is a substantial annotated plant-list with local Staffordshire names and herb-lore notes on each regarding medicinal, fumigatory, edibility and other uses . Who knew that English pond-weed could be made into durable writing paper? This Appendix is the sort of earlier 'baseline' work that the North Staffordshire Naturalists' Field Club would have had access to.

John Ward, The Borough of Stoke-upon-Trent, W. Lewis and Son, 1843.

A major book, important in its time, by a key member of the Field Club.

Robert Garner, The Natural History of the County of Stafford; comprising its Geology, Zoology, Botany, and Meteorology; also its Antiquities, Topography, Manufactures etc London, J. Van Voorst, 1844.

A major book, important in its time, by a key member of the Field Club. Three scans of the same volume are online at 2015, stated to be bound with the Supplement of 1866.

"Sun Pictures" (1859) by Mary Howitt. Originally serialised in The Eclectic Review, 1859.

A sustained piece of local topographical writing which appear to have been an inspiration for key members of the Club, as cited in the Club's journal in 1896.

John Sleigh, A History of the ancient parish of Leek, Robert Nall / John Russell Smith, 1862.

Has a chapter on the geology of Leek and district by Thomas Wardle, a member of the Field Club. Inadequately scanned - the fold-out illustration pages were not unfolded before scanning.

Mr. W. Molyneux, "Report of the Committee on the Distribution of the Organic Remains of the North Staffordshire Coal-Field - Concluding Report", Report of the Thirty-Fifth Meeting of the British Association, Birmingham 1863, John Murray, 1866, pp. 42-51.

Read by Mr. Garner. Coalfield fossils.

Robert Garner, Holiday excursions of a naturalist, forming a guide-book to the natural history of the inland and littoral, London, Hardwicke, 1867.

Written by the "father of the Club" in the 1890s, a founding member. Originally published anonymously. An account of his early life, ordered by places and types of natural history. Early and vivid sections on North Staffordshire and the Peak. Later section on the Cheshire Mosses and a chapter on the fossils of the coal-measures.

Frances Anna Kitchener, A Year's Botany, Adapted for Home and School Use, Rivingtons, 1874.

General introductory book for student botanists, by two members of the North Staffordshire Naturalists' Field Club. Based on a lecture series given by her husband Francis Elliot Kitchener, first Headmaster of Newcastle High School at Newcastle-under-Lyme. With three chapters in the book also written by her husband. 195 small woodcut illustrations by the author. No references to the Field Club or Staffordshire, as Mr. Kitchener was an assistant Master at Rugby from 1862-75.

Athenaeum, Stoke-upon-Trent. A Systematic Catalogue of the Museum of the Natural History, Pottery, Antiquities, &c. C. Head, 1874.

Robert Plant, History of Cheadle, in Staffordshire, Leek, W. Clemesha, 1881.

Also includes an account of the geology of the Cheadle coalfield by William Molyneux (1824-1882), and Croxden Abbey by C. Lynam, both members of the Field Club.

Rupert Simms, Coming of age of the North Staffordshire Archaeological and Naturalists' Field Club, 1865-1885 ... Bibliography of its Publications. Newcastle: Godwins. 1886.

42 pages.

Alexander Morison McAldowie, The Birds of Staffordshire, with Illustrations of Local Bird Haunts, Stoke-on-Trent, 1893.

Reprinted from the Transactions, with additional records. 100 copies.

Rupert Simms, Bibliotheca Staffordiensis, Lichfield : Printed for the compiler by A. C. Lomax, 1894.

Comprehensive bibliography for the county. Has thumbnail biographies of many of the active Field Club members prior to the mid 1890s, followed by a bibliography of their published works.

Alexander Morison McAldowie (Ed.), Staffordshire Knots : the book of the bazaar, Book Committee of the Stoke-on-Trent Church Day Schools Bazaar, 1895.

"McAldowie was a member of the North Staffordshire Field Club from 1877 and was a keen amateur naturalist" (from Staffs PastTack). He was also Vice-President of the North Staffordshire Literary and Philosophical Society, c. 1897. His brother Robert also contributed articles to the North Staffordshire Field Club Transactions, such as the 1891 article "Notes on a Staffordshire Witch Brooch".

Important articles in the Staffordshire Knots book:

Thomas Riley, WITH ROD AND LINE IN NORTH STAFFORDSHIRE. [Substantial survey and historical notes on local fishing and fish].

Alice Annie Keary, FOLK-LORE [proposals for collecting and recording the folk-lore of Staffordshire].

Robert Garner, THE UPPER TRENT IN OLDEN TIME, Part I [Paper read at the Potteries Mechanics' Institution, November, 1858. Important now for its "Archeological and Geological Map of the Source of the Trent"]

NOTES ON St. CHAD'S GOSPELS FACSIMILE. [Followed by facsimile of the illuminated opening page]

F. Barke, A POPULAR ACCOUNT OF THE GEOLOGY OF THE PARISH OF STOKE-UPON-TRENT [A vivid account for the layman]

Alex. M. McAldowie, THE GREAT FROST IN NORTH STAFFORDSHIRE [Severe and long frost in early 1895. Account, temperature tables, photographs, press reports, effects]

Bishop of Shrewsbury, THE MEMORIAL TILES IN STOKE CHURCH

J. T. Arlidge THE BRIDESTONES

Alfred J. Caddie, ENGLISH AS SHE IS SOMETIMES WRITTEN [Amusing first hand account of the patrons of the Stoke-on-Trent Free Libraries, by the Chief Librarian]

Alex. Scrivener, THE BRITISH ARCHAEOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION IN NORTH STAFFORDSHIRE [Account of the excusions and papers read at their five-day annual meeting of August 1895]

J.P. Steele (ed.), illustrated by T.T. Blaylock, A book of the fields and woods : being the first book of the North Staffordshire Clarion Field Club. Leek, Staffordshire, Moorlands Press, 1899. 112 pages.

Includes an essay titled "The Philosophy of Field-Clubbing". I have also found a reference to a 1898 address made to the club in which... "Kineton Parkes attempted to articulate a philosophy for socialist nature study" (Culture and Science in the Nineteenth-century Media, p.29). I wonder if the Clarion was a short-lived radical socialist breakaway group in Leek, circa late 1890s-early 1900s? This supposition has since been partly confirmed by the following: [In Stoke-on-Trent] "During the summer of 1896 a Clarion Field Club was organised [as part of the local Labour Church], but after a time its activities began to detract from the summer attendances. The club later gained an independence of the congregation, and by 1899 could almost be classed as an opposition organization. Socialist it remained, but Labour Church it ceased to be." (The Labour Church, appendix volume, p.402. Undated). I have also found a lone reference to a North Staffordshire Clarion Field Club Notes journal publication, issued 1900 (Granite chips and clints; or, Westmorland in words). So it appears that the N.S. Clarion Field Club was not associated with the area's main Field Club, though it borrowed the name and perhaps had some cross-over membership.

Charles J. Blagg, A history of the North Staffordshire hounds and country : 1825-1902, Sampson Low, Marston & Company, 1902.

Book by a member of the Field Club. Map has been half cut off by the scanner. Photos not well scanned.

Walcot Gibson, The Geology of the North Staffordshire Coalfields, Wyman and Sons, 1905.

Includes a "Palaeontological Account, with List of Fossils", by John Ward, member of the Field Club.

A.S.W., "John Ward, F.G.S." (obituary), Geological Magazine, Vol. 4, Issue 3, 1907, pp. 141-143.

Obituary of one of the founding members and leading lights of the Field Club, with a focus on his geological work. List of his published works, by date. "The little library in the room above his shop, and the dark basement in which he kept his collection for so many years, were the familiar haunts of all who were interested in the English Coal-measures. haunts of all who were interested in the English Coal-measures. His robust physique enabled him to participate in active field-work almost until the end of his life, and he was always ready to accompany enquirers to any part of the district he knew so well."

W. T. Boydon Ridge, The North Staffordshire Flora, from the Transactions of the North Staffordshire Field Club 1922-29. Walsall Observer Press, 1922.

173 pages, scan has notes in pencil. List of plants, Notes on the List, Bibliographies, Historical List of Known Botanists who worked the flora of North Staffordshire, and a map of the natural history 'provinces' and eco-system borders within North Staffordshire. List of flora articles and papers in the Annual Report or Transactions of the North Staffordshire Field Club, to 1912.

Edward Marshall Yates and Frank Moseley, "Glacial Lakes and Spillways in the Vicinity of Madeley, North Staffordshire", Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society 1957, Vol. 113, pp. 409-428.

Glacier meltwater drainage systems at the end of the Ices Ages, and their continuing influence on the natural drainage systems of North Staffordshire.

Stanley H. Beaver, "The Potteries: A Study in the Evolution of a Cultural Landscape: Presidential Address", Transactions and Papers of the Institute of British Geographers, No. 34 (June 1964), pp. 1-31.

Follow up to his March 1963 Address to the North Staffordshire Field Club. From the premable: "The latest regional treatise on the whole country, however, which is alleged on its dust-jacket to ‘cover the geography of Great Britain regionally’, devotes but a single sentence to North Staffordshire, explaining that it is ‘marginal’ and that its interests are ‘divided between Birmingham and Manchester’; the name Stoke-on-Trent is not even mentioned. This treatment of a conurbation of 350,000 people, and the home of what is probably the world’s greatest concentration of ceramic industries, strikes me as so outrageous that I am attempting, in two Presidential Addresses, to remedy the deficiency. The first of these, delivered in March 1963 to the North Staffordshire Field Club, was an attempt, under the title ‘A geographical agenda for North Staffordshire’, to show what we do not know about the region, and to suggest some of the topics that we ought to be investigating. In the pres ent address I wish to summarize, as succinctly as I can, what we do know about the Potteries conurbation and its environment."

Steven A. Shapin, "The Pottery Philosophical Society, 1819-1835: an Examination of the Cultural Uses of Provincial Science", Science Studies, 2, 1972, pp. 311-336.

Account of a provincial scientific society established at Hanley, in the Potteries, late in 1819. A forerunner of the Field Club. Fortnightly lectures, but no field excursions.

"Stoke-on-Trent City Museum and Art Gallery Natural History Section (G. Halfpenny & D. Steward)", Biology Curators Group Newsletter, Vol. 3, Part 6, 1983.

A very substantial profile. The "Introduction" includes a detailed and thoroughly researched account of the long gestation and forming of the Natural History collections at the city museum, and the role of Field Club members in this. Remarks on the... "early collections coming via the North Staffordshire Field Club [to] form the nucleus of our [natural history] holdings".

Donald I. Steward, "Geology at Stoke-on-Trent Museum and Art Gallery", Geological Curator, Vol.4, No.3, 1984.

Concise historical account of the display of various geological collections in Stoke-on-Trent, noting the various roles of the Field Club members in establishing these. List of Fossil and Rock Collections, by collector. "Biographical Notes", including many members of the Field Club. Full page signed portrait of John Ward, high-contrast photocopy.

Donald I. Steward, "Geology at Stoke-on-Trent Museum and Art Gallery: Supplement", Geological Curator, Vol.4, No.3, 1985 (for 1984).

Short supplement to the earlier article in Vol.4, No.3. Notes on the bringing together of the John Ward collection, a key member of the Field Club. Remark about "a booklet about the Ward Collection (in preparation)."

Wardle Centenary Project, The Wardle Heritage, a Heritage Lottery funded website from 2012.

"Born out of the 2009 exhibitions about the life and works of Sir Thomas Wardle and Lady Elizabeth Wardle. ... [Thomas] Wardle was an active member of The North Staffordshire Field Club, formerly the North Staffordshire Naturalist’s Field Club and Archaeological Society, holding office as President and Vice president for almost 40 years."

Graham Bebbington, The Life and Times of Charles Masefield MC, North Staffordshire Press, 2014.

Member of the Zoology section of the Club, before the First World War.

David Haden, The Folk-lore of North Staffordshire.

A comprehensive new bibliography in PDF. At 2018, currently in version 1.4.

See also:

Midland Naturalist Vol 1, 1878.

Midland Naturalist Vol 2, 1879.

Midland Naturalist Vol 3, 1880.

Midland Naturalist, Vol 4, 1881.

Midland Naturalist, Vol 5, 1882.

Midland Naturalist Vol 6, 1883.

Midland Naturalist Vol. 7, probably 1884.