Who would have thought Annual Reports could be so interesting....

or so sort after - the signed 1980 report pictured is priced on Ebay at $100! The value to most is probably that the author is John Fowles but the real interest lies in the sub-heading "with notes on recent research and new acquistions."

For whilst it is true that all the usual information expected in an Annual Report is given, the amount of "new" information imparted about a myriad of aspects of Lyme life is amazing.

[Go straight to the Reports]

To take the1980 report as an example:

• the Acquisitions section begins with a page describing in detail information gained from Fane family documents kept in Lincoln Record Office about how the Fanes gained and kept their empire, including details and costings of the feasts they provided and the outrage against them expressed by Eleonor Coade's father in a "long letter of equal anger and dignity";

• coincidentally another "find" was a missing Memorandum Note-book of Captain Thomas Follett, who, treading in George Coade's footsteps, assumed the leadership of the Town (or Whig) Party against the Fanes in the later 18th century. Again, John Fowles quotes copiously from the diary-type entries, concluding in that "we suffered here from a particularly venal set of [Customs] officers".

• John then moves on to Church documents, and the parish apprentice book 1823-43. This last was particularly revealing of the great social changes taking place in Lyme at the period. He remarks that "No fewer than 30 of the 47 apprenticeships listed were to two trades: tailoring and shoe-making. Only three were to the two principal trades of ancient Lyme, shipping and cloth-making"; and how one of those shipwrecked on the Unity in 1824 was only 9 years old and likely a chimneysweep.

• next he writes "Far and away the richest and most touching document is the workhouse (in Coombe Street) account-book 1738-1747" seeing it as an invaluable contemporary price index.

• he notes that the general diet is better than in later years, detailing the items of food and their cost for December 1739

• remarks on the linguist interest now being shown in the phonetic spelling (with many examples)

• muses on where Jane Austen might have stayed (certainly not at Wings, more likely Pyne House)

• tells how it has been discovered in George Roberts' manuscript notebooks that Mary Anning's father George is reported as having been one of two mob leaders demonstrating against the famine caused by the Napoleonic blockades and causing considerable damage.

• finds when examining Deeds that great doubt was now cast on Tudor House being the place of the Fielding abduction

• tries to kills the ancient myth that Lyme Regis' Charter is the third oldest

................and so much more that you really must read these wonderful reports for yourself. We guarantee that each will raise at least one smile and provide at least one previously unknown snippet of interesting information. Happy Reading!

Memories of Lyme......

Have you taken a look yet at some of the fascinating glimpses of life in the Lyme of times gone by - many back to the early 1800s?

[Go straight to Archive]

If not, some lovely stories await you, mainly told by the ordinary people living there at the time - although Harriett Wilson in her Memoirs of 1825 described those attending the Assembley Rooms in these words: 'There were, among them, persons of the highest rank but the society was chiefly composed of people of very small independent fortunes, who, for economy, had settled at Lyme Regis; or of such as required sea-bathing . Harriett herself had numerous liaisons with the aristocracy and was able to try blackmailing none other than the Duke of Wellington to have his name removed before she published her Memoirs. (Unsurprisingly, rather than cave in, he responded "publish and be damned" ).

However delightful these memories are to read, historians should probably heed the warning words of John Fowles in his forward to the two "Lyme Voices" published under his auspices:

"I have also edited, or omitted, as little as possible, but should warn readers that this is not gospel truth, the exact history it may sometimes sound. It is largely oral history, what people –sometimes rather vaguely, even wrongly –remember; not what they can always prove actually was or truly happened. "

Another John Fowles quote: whilst describing "Picture of Lyme Regis & its Environs (1817)" as appearing to be the first Lyme Guide Book, he berates "its fragrant inadequacy and inaccuracy" but adds "here at any rate is a tiny vignette of a long-ago Lyme; and of a long-ago mentality also".

I'm sure most readers will agree that any lack of absolute veracity is more than compensated for by the general atmosphere of the times conjured by these voices from the past. ENJOY!

Fascinating scrapbook now available for you to browse

In 1870 10 year-old Gulielma Lister's family bought High Cliff as a holiday home. Despite becoming world famous for her research into slime mould, one of the first 15 women admitted to the prestigious Linnaean Society and widely travelled, Guilielma frequently visited Lyme Regis over the next 60 years, taking a great interest in every aspect of life here, both past and present. Beginning in 1905 she compiled a scrapbook with the help of her friend Blanche Palmer, an eclectic mix of newspaper cuttings, annotated postcards and photographs, handwritten drawings, maps, diagrams and transcriptions. This wonderful collection, christened the Lister Thesaurus, is now available for you to browse. If you would like more detailed information about the Lister family, do read this article on the Museum's own website by Richard Bull