Talk:History of Cheshire

Assessment Report

1. Article needs to be massively expanded.
2. It should make use of sections.
3. Photos and maps need to be added.
4. A "timeline" would assist greatly.
5. References and Citations are crucial for wikipedia, and so these must be added as the article is expanded. Make sure that as many as possible are "in-line" citations.(See WP:References, WP:V, and WP:CITE for guidance.)

 DDStretch  (talk) 16:30, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Coverage

This article seems to be exactly the same as the history section of Cheshire. Should it be changed into a redirect? Nik42 05:57, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Not necessary. It was short and identical for a long period, but now that the Cheshire WikiProject is up and running, it will be shortly expanded by probably a group of people.  DDStretch  (talk) 01:30, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Expansion to begin

I'll be periodically, over the next few weeks, be putting the "inuse" template on the main page, as I've begun to expand this article to what i hope is more than a mere stub, which is what it's been up till now. People will see that a bibliography has now been added. This lists all books tyhat will be referenced with in-text references during the editing of this period. Thanks. DDStretch  (talk) 18:23, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Expansion begun

I have had a go at expanding the page. I am aware I have not yet cited everything. There is also a 'gap' covering the early 20th Century. I have therefore classed this as 'C' instead of stub - but I am not expert on grading pages! Anyway, it is a start in the right direction!  Pixie2000 (talk) 21:03, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Great job! If you're able to finish the citations in the next few days, then you should definitely submit this to Did You Know (though note that most reviewers are requiring a minimum of one inline citation per paragraph these days). Espresso Addict (talk) 23:22, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Added much more citation, some minor grammatical tidy-up has been completed.  Pixie2000 (talk) 20:28, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

OK, getting there! It is missing 1600 to 1750 and early 20th century, if anyone wants to contribute!  Pixie2000 (talk) 21:26, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

I can't help with 1600 to 1750 (never got my head around the Civil War and for some unknown reason my local library doesn't contain the 1660–1780 volume of A History of Cheshire), but I've got Tigwell out at the moment so I could have a stab at fleshing out the early 20th. Espresso Addict (talk) 22:56, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

Chronology v Themes

As an aside, I notice that History of Hertfordshire has just failed FA review largely for being organised chronologically rather than by themes. There's some discussion about what's wanted in these articles by the FA reviewers at: Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/History of Hertfordshire/archive1 & Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates#What to expect in a "History of..." article. Espresso Addict (talk) 20:32, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Interesting debate. Hertfordshire's history page is more "advanced" than Cheshire's article, but Cheshire would fail for the same reasons if and when we get to FA review. It looks like we will have to have a think about a re-structure, but I am not sure around what "themes". Off the top of my head: Administration and politics, Economics and industry, Religion (missing from the current article), Transport? There will be stuff that does not fit into any attempt at theming, I am sure. I will need to sleep on it.  Pixie2000 (talk) 21:30, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Off the top of my head, and in no particular order:

• agriculture/forestry
• industry (salt, chemical, manufacturing)
• religion (abbeys, growth of nonconformism)
• transport (especially canals, railways, M6 corridor)
• tourism/leisure industry
• war (Roman & Norman invasions, forts/castles, civil war, contribution of Cheshire soldiers to other wars)
• administration
• toponymy

Will have to think for a more coherent list, but bits that don't easily fit into whatever structure we decide on can always be hived into separate articles & linked under See also. Espresso Addict (talk) 21:55, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Not sleeping yet! Yes, looks much better now I think about it - and allows us to tie in with articles like Salt in Cheshire, Religion in Cheshire, Canals in Cheshire etc. through the See also as you suggest. A Timeline of history of Cheshire article would be complimentary and can be developed alongside this article.

For industry, may I also suggest silk? I am sure there is plenty more specifics to come out abuot the themes, but it does seems the way forward and your list looks a good starting point. We may also want to cover major 'art and culture' in some manner, again non-existent in the current article.  Pixie2000 (talk) 22:16, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes, indeed, silk was omitted purely because it was an off-the-top-of-my-(very-scatty)-head list! I was wondering about literature (Gaskell, Carroll, Garner...), but don't know anything at all about art or music locally. Also keep meaning to mention immigration which was one of the topics that came up in the FA discussion re Hertfordshire -- perhaps population and immigration? There's a fair amount about population growth/urbanisation in the Historical Atlas. Also sport, especially things like hunting & fishing. Espresso Addict (talk) 22:30, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

PS We also ought to attempt to rope Peter I. Vardy into this, though I know he's busy at the moment -- particularly re religion as he's written long articles on two of the abbeys. Espresso Addict (talk) 22:40, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Peter I. Vardy would be useful to help. I know nothing about local art, music etc. One topic of 'culture' could well be Architecture? I was particularly thinking of the development of country houses. We need to be careful the article does not become the Cheshire article - how do we distinguish stuff that should appear on the History article from stuff on the main article? Perhaps we just need to start the article and see how it develops.  Pixie2000 (talk) 06:04, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

As an outside observer here (born in, and occasional contributor to articles on, the Wirral), can I make the point that it doesn't look to me as though the Herts discussion was against a chronological approach per se, but against the insertion of unrelated facts into an overall chronology - for example, inserting the fact that actress X was born in the area in 1800 into the middle of a paragraph about the Industrial Revolution. I'm no expert on FA criteria, but I'd be very surprised and disappointed if, in any guidance about how to write an article on the history of an area, it proposed deviating from a broadly chronological approach, albeit with themes highlighted and brought together in the text - not "chronology v themes", but themes addressed logically within an overall chronology. A broadly chronological approach (without unrelated facts breaking up the flow) is surely what readers of articles on an area's history would expect to find. Ghmyrtle (talk) 06:52, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

I think the argument went that to make the article flow as a narrative in a chronological manner meant adding sentences or paragraphs to glue the 'facts' together. The authors were then challenged that these sentences were not citable and therefore became original research. The Cheshire article suffers from something similar. An example from the start of the 17th century:

By the early 17th century, Cheshire had established its own gentry descended from the Normans stock. These families dominated trade, legal and community affairs and of course dominated land ownership.[20]

However, the outbreak of the English Civil War in 1642 was to change all that. People aligned with either the Royalist or Parlimentarian causes regardless of social status, but more due to their own conscience.

This is not all cited, but without it, there is no real join between the Norman part of the article and the Civil War, and therefore the article resorts to a bunch of unrelated facts that do not flow. Or am I way off? I think I am more confused than ever now! Time for a coffee :)  Pixie2000 (talk) 10:53, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

Ah yes, I understand, but it is those sentences that create the problem, by suggesting a causal link between the two facts and commenting on it ("However..."). Do we know (verifiably) that it was "the outbreak of the English Civil War" that "changed all that"? To get a flow, there needs to be a sentence about the Civil War period, but it does need to be verifiable, and - although desirable - there doesn't necessarily need to be an explanation of why one verifiable fact follows another verifiable fact. But that's just my opinion and I don't have sources for it! Ghmyrtle (talk) 14:45, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

Maybe one compromise is to amalgamate some of the sections from 17th century onwards and highlight the shared themes throughout longer time periods -- I've been finding reading Tigwell on the 20th century that the early–mid 20th is a continuation of the late 19th in industry, and back to the 17th (and probably earlier) in agriculture. It's only around WW2 that things start to change. Whatever we decide is the best organisation, I think it would be useful to agree the broad themes so that everyone working on the article can bear them in mind.

As to overlap, one problem is that the Cheshire article itself is pretty undeveloped. I was going to suggest moving the bits on the modern county organisation at the end to the Cheshire article. Espresso Addict (talk) 17:13, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

20th century reverted edits

I'm having trouble writing something short enough for 20th century -- just agriculture proved rather too detailed, and that's just one of six chapters in Tigwell. I think I'll broaden what I wrote out in my sandbox somewhat, and then start it as an independent article, perhaps History of agriculture in Cheshire? Espresso Addict (talk) 01:38, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Proposed deletion - irrelevant illustration

The photo captioned "Offa's Dyke near Clun" (in section "Mercian [period]") should be deleted - it is irrelevant to the article as Clun is in south-west Shropshire, outside Cheshire!Cloptonson (talk) 20:18, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Not only that, but I'm pretty sure that no parts of Offa's Dyke or Wat's Dyke are located within Cheshire. Some tweaking is needed. Ghmyrtle (talk) 11:27, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

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Reference formatting

This article uses mostly plain-text short footnotes, with one use of {{sfn}}. Are there any objections to me converting the plain-text footnotes to {{sfnp}}? This has the advantage of linking the footnote to the source in the bibliography. I would also convert the bibliography to either CS1 ({{cite book}} etc.) or CS2 ({{citation}}) at the same time to make the links work. Wham2001 (talk) 12:26, 6 November 2021 (UTC)

I agree, but would prefer avoiding the vague {{citation}}. Specific templates such as {{cite journal}}, {{cite encyclopedia}} and {{cite web}} are better. Dudley Miles (talk) 15:39, 6 November 2021 (UTC)

Agreed. Best, Wham2001 (talk) 09:08, 7 November 2021 (UTC)

OK – I'm going to take that as a consensus to go for {{sfnp}} and the CS1 templates for the full references. Wham2001 (talk) 12:06, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

Done (it's not such a big article after all). I removed Roffe (2000), which appears to be Roffe, David (23 March 2000). Domesday: The Inquest and the Book. OUP Oxford. ISBN 978-0-19-154324-1. I couldn't find any trace of the statement which it was being used to support in the book (which I had available mostly in full and partially in snippet view via gbooks). Anybody disagreeing should feel free to add the reference back in with full bibliographic information and a page number. Wham2001 (talk) 20:16, 25 November 2021 (UTC)