Since its foundation in 1906 local branches have been the life-blood of the Historical Association. Their number, size, location and activities have varied greatly over the intervening years but a few branches have produced their own publications, most notably Bristol and Coventry. In a series which ran from 1964 to 2009 Coventry Branch produced 28 pamphlets mainly concerning aspects of the History of Coventry but a few looking at other parts of Warwickshire or the county generally. Eileen Gooder’s work on Richard Newdigate, the Squire of Arbury,is book length but most of the others amount to about 20,000-30,000 words; they are small enough to be manageable to read comparatively quickly but sufficiently focused on a specific topic to have something useful to say.

In Coventry, appropriately, a variety of trades have been covered, textiles, baking, engineering, watchmaking as well as mining in the county more generally. All periods have been covered from the medieval divisions of Coventry and effects of the Black Death to the final pamphlet which took the story of Coventry’s Holy Trinity Church right up to 2007. There have been publications on mystery plays, landed gentry, enclosures, Methodism, schools, influential women such as George Eliot and Alice Arnold, local politics, and two of Coventry’s churches. Many raise questions which are not merely of parochial interest and they may even stimulate researchers in other areas to feel they could do something similar.

It is gratifying that the Historical Association has been able to digitise these valuable works so that they are now available for all. We have – so far –  managed to contact five of the surviving authors to introduce their work. The words of the then President of the Coventry Branch, K.J. Ball, in his Foreword to the very first pamphlet – written by Peter Searby and published in 1964 – are still apposite: he hoped the series would ‘encourage local members in their research by giving them the opportunity to publish their papers and to make available to a wider public information which will be of value and interest but is not easily obtained’.

David Paterson. (Author of ‘A Victorian Election’ Pamphlet no 12 and editor of the series 1987-1991)