The Tewkesbury Historical Society
Welcome to our local History Society website
November 2024 Meeting
October 2024 Meeting
Hazel Crisp
Woodard Award 2024
Bishops Walk Plaque
April 2024 Meeting
80th Anniversary of D-Day
GLHA Local History Day 2024
Gloucestershire Local History Association Local History Day was held on Saturday July 27th 2024. At the Graze building at Hartpury University, Gloucester.May Meeting - THS Annual General Meeting
Bulletin 33
Lionel Perry
Sir George Dowty
Event at Pershore Abbey to commemorate Sir George Dowty and will include visiting the newly erected statue of him. Full Details.34th Season - Programme of Talks
21 Nov 2024 Andrew Mellor - Cider Making in Gloucestershire - from Fox Whelps to Firkins!
23 Jan 2025 Social - For Members, Friends & Guests
20 Feb 2025 Carol Davies - Workhouse Songs
20 Mar 2025 Andrew Chapman - Imagining History: the case for Historical Fiction
24 Apr 2025 Steve Goodchild - The Battle of Tewkesbury newly r-examined
1832 Cholera Epidemic in Tewkesbury
One of our members, Dr Peter Raggatt, who is a retired NHS Clinical Biochemist at Addenbrookes Hospital and Lecturer in Cambridge University School, was moved to research and write an article about this epidemic with its comparisons with the present pandemic. [see attached PDF above] It links in with previous research on Cholera in Tewkesbury. Such was the impact of these two epidemics on the town that a monument was commissioned which now resides in the Cemetery, adjacent to the ‘Cholera Pit’ where many victims received a mass night burial [see attached]. Although John Snow, clean water for the Mythe Waterworks and improved housing conditions have ensured that 1849 was the last appearance of cholera, the brutality which occurred in World War II Japanese POW camps caused the death of several Tewkesbury soldiers of cholera in 1943-44. Here is a biography of one of them, Frederick Key.
Smallpox was another medical curse of the18-19th centuries but by the late 19thC vaccinations were made compulsory and a significant number of people in Tewkesbury became anti-vaccination. For more on this familiar tale, see Martin Holt's award winning article.
History is always so topical!
February Meeting
Joan Smith
Tewkesbury Workhouse
Two large scale maps of Tewkesbury from 1811 and 1880
We are proud to present two maps on our site using new zoom and pan technology.We have the 1811 Enclosure Map of Tewkesbury and the huge 1:500 scale map of Tewkesbury created in the 1880s, both full of amazing detail. Use your mouse wheel to zoom and left mouse to drag.
Aspects of Hidden Tewkesbury
Dowty Group
Results of Tree-Ring Dating for Tewkesbury Buildings
Cemetery and Burials database for Tewkesbury
Over the years we have collated information from the various burial grounds in the town and now is the time to release a one-stop location for all of them on this site. The new Burials Database in our Research section tries to do this. There is also an accompanying history and guide to finding the resting place of persons buried in the town. There are currently an impressive 18,564 records. For the decades 1841 to 1881 we can also link to the Census Database (not guaranteed they are same people)Even more Census Data
We are pleased to announce that the Tewkesbury Census Data for 1841 to 1891 has doubled in size. We now have 37,608 people spread over 9,575 property records. Take a look here.Remarkable Incidents Relative to Tewkesbury
In 1579 the sickness appeared again, supposed to be the pestilence, which, by the good government of the bailiffs in shutting up the houses, it began and ended in the Swan Inn. – Five persons only dying thereof.