Mr Dave Mason, assisted by his wife Doreen, gave us a very well presented talk on the history of the Workhouse at Nantwich. Gilbert's Act of 1782 allowed parishes to combine for the setting up of proper workhouses. Many parishes continued to act independently in dealing with their poor. The buildings date from the late 18th century and provided shelter for the deserving poor.

The Poor Law amendments act of 1834 compelled parishes to unite into groupings called Unions. Their responsibility was to deal with the poor. Institutions known as Workhouses were set up. The administration was in the hands of the Board of Guardians, mainly local land owners.

Conditions were harsh, families were split up and married couples separated. The buildings at Nantwich were extended and a hospital built to provide medical care. Generally speaking the intentions were to provide for the deserving poor and to get the idle poor back in employment.

Dave provided many interesting examples of the working of the system and promised to complete the subject at a later meeting

A talk given by Dr. Di Drummond on February 11th. 2000 in Christ Church Hall

Dr. Drummond outlined the many records available to family historians to help them trace their railway ancestors, including Staff Registers, parliamentary papers, Trade union documents and Internet Guides and sources.

Dr. Dianne explained the differences in the contents of the Staff Records of Crewe Locomotive Works by studying staff record cards of staff on the operating side of the railways, a complete picture can be obtained of the movements of staff around the system.

The records are mainly in the Public Record Office and the Railway Museum at York, although many county record offices contain Plans and staff records. An example is Chester where some records relating to Crewe can be seen.

Of great interest to many members were the details of material on the Internet. Lists of members of the old Steam Engine Makers Union are available. Many early Crewe families had menfolk who were members. Movements of its members can be traced and provide flesh for the bare bones.

A selection of slides ended a very useful and interesting talk. The handouts provided give a clear guidance to research and further copies can be obtained through the programme secretary.

The March meeting was an open evening. Several members made good use of the I.G.I and various other fiche. The index to marriages provided by Mr. Alan Clarke was available, together with the wills index provided by the Cheshire Record Office. Of special interest was a talk given by Joan Merrill on the Merrill family. The family were prominent in the development of Crewe.

The chairman, Phil Coops asked for support in our latest project, recording the Memorial Inscriptions in Wybunbury Churchyard. This represents our biggest challenge to date. Many of the stones are old and in a somewhat dilapidated state. Local authorities have the power to make safe such monuments, mainly by laying them down flat. We need more people to be active in recording the inscriptions and for the vital work in typing up the sheets after they have been taken and checked

A talk given by Fred Holdcroft on 14^thApril in Christ Church Hall

Mr Fred Holdcroft gave a very interesting talk on Codes and Ciphers from Ancient Greece to modem times. The need to pass messages between countries and their armies and embassies gave rise to codes and ciphers to enable secrecy to be maintained.

Many of the earliest codes used substitution and transposing of letters to convey messages. By moving letters in the make-up of the wording used, a message could appear as jumbled garbage.

The need to give instruction to front line troops needed to be simple, but well concealed codes. Code books for the sending and decoding messages were in use from early times and the capture of enemy codes played an important part in the outcome of battles.

The finding and decoding of the Enigma code used by the Germans in the second world war has been well covered on TV and made for very interesting viewing.

Mr. Holdcroft was thanked both for his talk and for filling in at very short notice.

Mr Fred Holdcroft gave a talk on the various Enclosure Acts, which completely changed agriculture. A growing population needed more food and this in its turn needed more productive methods of farming

Enclosures could be by act of parliament or by consent. The old open fields were divided into large units and fenced off to prevent animals staying onto growing crops.

Copies of the enclosure acts and maps survive in county record offices and owners and occupiers are named. In some cases the names of those dispossessed of their rights to common pasture are listed.

Mr Holdcroft involved members in a demonstration of how the act worked. In a village of some fifteen families ranging from the squire, the parson, some farmers down to squatters. The squire, the parson and a few farmers were in favour of enclosure and although they were out voted by the lesser folk, the counting always favoured the former. As a result a few grew richer and many who lost their grazing rights were poorer and many left the land to work in the towns.

A jingle pointed out (the transported) those who stole the goose from the common, but glorified those who stole the common from the goose.

Mrs Sandra Burgess gave a very useful talk on Civil Registration of births, marriages and deaths. The Act came into force on July 1^st 1837. In the early years it was the duty of the registrar to collect the information from the persons concerned. Later the act was changed and the responsibility lay with individual to report the event within six weeks at the Registrars Office for the district.

Failure to register was a fineable offence. Sandra pointed out several pitfalls, wrong names, altered certificates and in some cases the wrong sex of the children. This short report does not show the full depth of the coverage, those members present had a very useful and informative evening. We look forward to another visit from Mrs. Burgess

We held an open meeting in July, with several fiche readers available. Help was on hand and members were able to make a start or progress their family trees. We will have two similar meeting in the 2001 programme under a fresh title.

Miss Eileen Simpson gave a well illustrated talk on the Parish Chest. With the introduction in 1538 of the Parish Registers Act to record births, marriages and deaths in the parish a secure chest was needed to store the books. The chest, complete with two keys, was kept in the vestry to record much of the proceedings of parish life. The church warden's accounts of the maintenance of the Church fabric and the religious behaviour of the priest and congregation was recorded. These reports usually post dated the registers. Vestry minutes date from the sixteenth century and the poor law relief from the seventeenth century. The enclosure and Tithe Awards of the eighteenth century were kept in the Parish chest. Many other papers were stored in the chest, these included records of the parish school, almshouses and charities. Quarter Sessions order papers, terriers of vicarage and glebe, apprenticeship papers and parish surveys and militia and muster rolls were all kept in the parish chest. Eileen illustrated her talk with many examples of the various documents. With the Parish Records Act of the mid nineteen-seventies, most of the surviving documents moved to the County Record Offices. Those parishes with secure and safe storage facilities were allowed to keep their documents Much of interest to family historians is recorded in the various documents and these are well worth searching through. A vote of thanks was recorded and we are pleased to know Miss Simpson will be able to visit us in our new meeting place, namely the Salvation Army Citadal, just across the car park.

Monday 11th September was our AGM and also our first meeting at our new venue. (N.B. We now meet on the second MONDAY of every month). We were all welcomed to the Citadel by Captain Tansley and then the President welcomed everyone to the AGM and gave an opening address in which he announced that he was stepping down from the President's post in order to take on the role of Editor together with his wife Annette. The meeting was well attended and all committee posts were filled. The meeting finished with the award of 7 certificates to members for their contributions to the journal over the last 10 years and a gift voucher was presented to Mr & Mrs Proudlove, who have for several years provided tea, coffee and biscuits at our meetings. For a full report on the AGM please see the accompanying booklet. Research facilities were available in an adjoining room.

Graham Fidler was our speaker for this meeting. It was well attended by both new members and old, with a good mixture of those with and without computers. Graham gave an interesting, informative and humorous talk on the benefits of Computer aided research for Family Historians.

So was titled the talk given to the society by David Lambert. It proved to be a most enlightening and entertaining introduction to the complexities of Wills, Administrations and Probate.