Why not join the Berkshire Records Society now?

The BRS is celebrating its 30th year of publishing key sources of Berkshire history. As a celebratory offer, all joining as an individual subscriber in 2024 will receive two volumes rather than the customary single annual publication.

Medicine and Society in Late Eighteenth-Century Berkshire: The Commonplace Book of William Savory of Brightwalton and Newbury, edited by Stuart Eagles *and* From Prison to Parish Church: Greyfriars Reading, 1861-1865, edited by Malcolm Summers

All for an annual subscription of £19.50 including p&p for UK citizens (other options available).

On joining, you will be sent the Savory volume immediately. The Greyfriars volume will follow in the autumn. You will also receive two volumes in 2025. Exciting projects in the pipeline include the tax records of 1522; the early Quakers in Reading; Tudor and Stuart Wallingford; Blagrave diary 1650-53; the Clewer House of Mercy 1849-83. Your subscriptions support ongoing research and publication of Berkshire history.

Any queries, please contact the General Editor, Prof. Anne Curry, a.e.curry@soton.ac.uk.

Click here to join.

Berkshire Record Society was founded in October 1993 to print scholarly editions of important documents on the history of Berkshire held in the Berkshire Record Office and elsewhere. Our aim is to publish one volume each year and we welcome ideas for new projects.

Before the Society was formed there was no systematic programme of publishing historic records in Berkshire. Yet the county has a rich heritage of written records. The Society has selected a wide variety of documents ranging in date from the middle ages to the nineteenth century as the subjects for its volumes. Twenty-six volumes have been published and more are in preparation. Each volume contains the printed transcript of an original text, fully annotated, with a scholarly introduction and an index.

The Society is backed by the History Department of the University of Reading and by the Berkshire Record Office and has individual and institutional members from around the world including many leading university and national libraries.

On this website you will find details of the benefits of membership; how to join the Society and how to order our publications which are available to members and to non-members.

Since its foundation, the Society has made an important contribution to scholarship in Berkshire.

Image of Abingdon Town Hall
Abingdon County Hall

Volumes Available

All published volumes are carefully edited, comprehensively indexed and include introductions explaining the background to the documents they present. They are attractively produced and uniformly bound in soft covers.

The majority of past volumes are available for purchase through the Berkshire Record Society.

Volume 1 is now out of print but is available online.

Latest Publication

Medicine and Society in Late Eighteenth-Century Berkshire: The Commonplace Book of William Savory of Brightwalton and Newbury. Edited by Stuart Eagles

William Savory (1768-1824) strove to become a professionally accredited surgeon-apothecary and man-midwife with his own medical practice in Newbury. Following his marriage in 1791 he compiled a manuscript volume from notebooks, correspondence and diaries. It is a compelling account of his upbringing in Brightwalton, full of observations about the villages, people and events of Downland Berkshire. It is transcribed and published here in full for the first time. We read about Savory’s schooling and studies, his medical apprenticeship and his training in London’s teaching hospitals. The light he shines on these experiences, and on the day-to-day care he gave his patients, offers valuable testimony to historians of medicine. A rich source for local, family and social historians, this is an informative and entertaining volume enlivened by Savory’s sense of humour. Above all, it is a study in personality focused on one fascinating young man and his journey into early adulthood in late eighteenth-century Berkshire. In his comprehensive introduction, cultural historian Stuart Eagles draws on Savory’s insights to explore what we can learn about education, health, medical apprenticeship, astrology and witchcraft, women and sexual politics, leisure, music and dance, religion, royalty and politics, transport, crime, disability, and medical training and practice

Membership of Berkshire Record Society

Individual – Individuals (over the age of 18 years) who are interested in furthering the work of the Society.

Joint – Two persons residing at the same address and being members of same household may be Joint Members of the Society. Each such Joint Member shall enjoy all the privileges and responsibilities of Individual membership of the Society, including the entitlement to vote at General Meetings of the Society and to stand for election to membership of the Society’s Council, but Joint Members shall be entitled between them to only one copy of each of the Society’s publications.

Corporate – Any body corporate or unincorporated association which is interested in furthering the Society’s work.

Individual
(UK)

£19.50/year
  • A copy of each volume annually

Individual (Overseas)

£24.00/year
  • A copy of each volume annually

Corporate
(UK)

£29.50/year
  • A copy of each volume annually

Corporate (Overseas)

£35.00/year
  • A copy of each volume annually

Our Council Members

Professor Ralph Houlbrooke

Chairman

Dr Margaret Simons

Secretary

Professor Anne Curry

General Editor