Memory and identity: the influence of early preservation practices on English culture

Until the nineteenth century, written records were often considered an adequate form of preservation for historic monuments, buildings, and landscapes. The shift from written to physical preservation was a gradual one that was pioneered by seventeenth century chorographers, eighteenth century antiquarians, and nineteenth century archaeological and architectural societies. Drawing on the work of historians who have examined these eras of amateur historical study, this paper will examine how chorographers and antiquarians who have not always been given serious consideration by historians of the modern preservation movement were, in fact instrumental in popularising heritage and advocating for early protectionist measures.

connections that can be made across the centuries. The development of the preservation movement in England occurred slowly and only flourished in the closing decades of the twentieth century, but the preservation spearheaded by organisations like the National Trust and Historic England has its roots in the writing that was pioneered by sixteenth-century chorographers. This paper will draw connections between the works of existing historians and expand beyond it, examining how chorographers and antiquarians who have not always been given serious consideration by historians of the modern preservation movement in fact were instrumental in popularising heritage and advocating for early protectionist measures.

Writing as a tool of preservation
Before the nineteenth century, written records were often considered to be an adequate form of historical preservation. Chorographical and topographical writers from the Renaissance onwards  Glendinning (2013). The conservation movement: a history of architectural preservation, antiquity to modernity, London: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, takes a high-level look at British and European preservation movements, focusing mainly on the nineteenth century campaigns and legislation for physical conservation protects. More work remains to be done to trace the English preservation movement, particularly at the provincial level.
past. 2 William Camden's Britannia, first published in 1586, pioneered this trend, and the Society of Antiquaries' official series the Vetusta Monumenta, which began in 1718, as well as countless antiquarians working independently, compiled similar chorographies of historic monuments and sites throughout the country in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. However, antiquarians' interest in the documentation of historic monuments did not translate to a movement to protect such monuments from destruction. In fact, by the eighteenth century, some critics held that the 'art of engraving' was responsible for the loss of many monuments in England. This belief represents a fundamental misunderstanding of the work of chorographers, for many, especially those contributing to the Vetusta Monumenta, sought to record monuments that were already endangered, but it also raises a bigger question: why didn't antiquarians work harder to preserve monuments in situ?
Furthermore, how did the preservation movement rise from these beginnings?
A fundamentally important aspect of the rise of the preservation movement was the cultural shift that led people to see historic buildings and monuments not just as pieces of architecture or even craftsmanship, but as important parts of a legacy created by ancestors and tangible markers of British identity. 3 The conscious change in the treatment of the built environment was one aspect of a general movement towards the acknowledgement and even creation of British identity and culture over the course of the nineteenth century, and it revolutionised how people cared for historic monuments. 4 But the relationship between the built environment and cultural practitioners was a symbiotic one. By the nineteenth century, generations of chorographers, antiquarians, historians, and archaeologists had laid the groundwork that allowed a new set of connoisseurs to use historic structures as sites of memory and culture. The treatment of historic sites prior to the nineteenth century, while generally not recognised as preservation by modern critics, nevertheless played a fundamental role in shaping the views of nineteenth-century preservation advocates.
When William Camden's Britannia was published in Latin in 1586, it was a ground-breaking piece of work. Prior to the publication of Britannia, there existed in Britain a tradition of regional studies, but these studies existed without acknowledging one another, and often failed to situate regional history in the context of broader national history. 5 Camden's Britannia revolutionised the field of regional studies by rejecting the existing tradition and creating a work that examined and connected the touchstones of local history throughout Great Britain and Ireland. His chorography was immensely popular, running to five editions even before an English translation appeared in 1610, and it was hugely influential to the antiquarians that followed in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. 6 Chorography was a new practice in Britain at the time of the Britannia's publication, and it created for historians and antiquarians of the time a new opportunity to assess the context and significance of local history. Although the practice has not been widely studied by historians, it has been acknowledged as a fundamental aspect of the establishment of an antiquarian tradition in Britain. 7 Chorographies such as Camden's contextualised landscapes and monuments in local and regional perspectives, utilising techniques that would later be used in antiquarian, archaeological, etymological, geographical, and historical analyses. Chorographies like the Britannia also served an important additional function: they memorialised the landscape and monuments of a region, providing a lasting record not only of their existence, but often of their history and origins, as best as they could be traced. preservation in place took hold in England. 8 Written records of historic monuments served as important memory tools, and records of historic monuments likewise served as tools to interpret and contextualise English identity for readers. According to Rosemary Sweet, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, 'antiquaries were encouraged to record and preserve the memory of the monuments of history before their disappearance from the face of the nation'. 9 There was no concerted effort to present the destruction of monuments or historical sites on the part of chorographers and antiquarians either in Camden's time or in the years that followed, but conversely, such writers would have been acutely aware of the potential for destruction that had been borne out first by the dissolution of the monasteries in the sixteenth century, and then by the iconoclasm experienced during the English Civil War. 10 The destruction experienced during both of these upheavals served as a reminder of the temporality of architecture and the discontinuity of history.
Both the Reformation and the Civil War were difficult topics for chorographers to broach because of their partisan nature, but nevertheless, writers such as John Leland, who was active during the time of the Reformation, as well as Camden and his successors documented ruins from these events and were spurred by the large-scale destruction to catalogue historic structures they encountered. 11 Nonetheless, for a variety of reasons often closely related to the way contemporary chorographers and antiquarians understood land rights and property ownership, memorialisation was seen as an adequate form of preservation well into the nineteenth century. 12 Antiquarians in the eighteenth century devoted considerable effort to chronicling historic monuments, and the Society of Antiquaries' series Vetusta Monumenta, which was begun in 1718, the year the society was founded, focused its attention on structures that were endangered by demolition or restoration, an act which often destroyed original features of a building or monument. 13 The publication of chorographies and illustrated plates was influential in debates over the concept of national identity and heritage, as antiquarians understood historic monuments to be an important aspect of local and even national culture and identity. 14 Antiquarians in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries viewed historic monuments as memorials to ancestors who had erected them. Although this added a layer of significance to such historic structures, kindred or patriotic attitudes towards the built environment still did not eventuate any sustained movement for preservation in place.
In fact, some early preservationists believed the practice of engraving historic monuments led to their destruction. 15 Although the Society of Antiquaries' Vetusta Monumenta was widely read and hailed as an innovation for preservation in its time, others pushed back against the series of engravings as a factor in the destruction of historic sites. 16 In many cases, however, the factors of destruction were not so straightforward. Historic monuments were generally either destroyed by time and neglect, a process which many antiquarians viewed as natural and even inevitable in the eighteenth century, or because they stood in the path of intended new developments, a process that few contemporaries seemed willing to interfere with. 17 The sites that were chosen for engraving in the Vetusta Monumenta were often already endangered by one of these two processes, and the artworks 13 The Vetusta Monumenta was originally published as a series of independent plates before the first collected volume was compiled and issued in 1747.
14 Michael Cyril William Hunter (1996). 'Introduction: the fitful rise of British preservation', in Michael Cyril William Hunter (Eds.). Preserving the past: the rise of heritage in modern Britain. Stroud: Alan Sutton, p.5. 15 Lolla, p.19. 16 A letter to the editor in Gentleman's Magazine praised the Vetusta Monumenta saying, 'To collect and preserve every thing tending to illustrate the history and antiquities of this country, is a most laudable object'. 'Prints, portraits, engravings, biographical anecdotes, &c'., in Gentleman's Magazine 52 (1782), p.223; and Lolla, p. 19. that the Society of Antiquaries' draftsmen produced served to memorialise historic structures that could well have been lost to time without intervention.
Although the discipline of historic preservation has its origins in antiquarianism, which in turn was influenced by early modern chorography, neither chorographers nor antiquarians were necessarily preservationists in accordance with a modern understanding of the term. While chorographers and antiquarians were certainly interested in the physical vestiges of history that surrounded them, and many antiquarians were avid collectors of historical artefacts, their interest did not often translate to a desire to protect historic buildings and landscapes in place. It was not until overseas factors precipitated a significant scholarly turn to British antiquity that attitudes towards historic structures began to change. Before the beginning of the nineteenth century, antiquarians were often most interested in relating British history to classical antiquity, and antiquarians were often most The nineteenth century saw a sustained and growing movement towards preservation. It was experienced at the national level, in part as a reaction to the plans of groups like the Cambridge Camden Society, which was founded in 1839, to restore ancient churches, a process which performed some necessary repairs and beautified many deteriorating structures, but at the expense of historic fabric and styles. 29 But it was also experienced at the local level, as antiquarian and archaeological groups dedicated to studying local history propagated from the 1830s. 30  Antiquarians' attitudes towards preservation were undoubtedly shaped by their political views, although to define a liberal and conservative preservation principle would be generalising too greatly. Politics brought nuance to preservationism, but it also had the potential to bring tension to preservation groups. Politics and religion did play an important role in access to antiquarian groups, especially in the first half of the nineteenth century. 38 Generally, and particularly in the southern areas of the country, antiquarian societies were founded by prominent local citizens who were often fervent members of the Church of England and politically conservative. Antiquarians who were nonconformists or who were politically liberal could have trouble gaining membership to such groups.
In Cambridge, the university architectural society had specific religious requirement for members, while in Essex, one of the founders of the Colchester Archaeological Society was quickly pushed out of the group, a move he believed was related to his political views. 39 For many local preservationists, politics had particular importance when it influenced interpretations of local historical events and figures, two practices that were closely related to the act of creating memory places in historical monuments. In the nineteenth century, especially outside of London, monuments were often considered to be significant because of their associations with historic people and events, rather than merely because of their architectural significance, especially in the case of secular rather than religious architecture. 40 In Taunton, for example, the Somersetshire Archaeological and Natural History Society purchased and preserved the Taunton Castle not because it was a particularly notable example of Saxon architecture, but because it was believed to be the site of one of the earliest castles in the country, and because the surviving buildings had seen significant battles during the Civil War. 41 The people who were able to historicise structures in accordance with their own worldview could have a significant influence over the sense of culture and community in a locality.
Many, if not most, of the people who became preservationists in the nineteenth century did so because of changes, whether owing to neglectful decay or purposeful demolition, they observed in their surroundings. 42 Local preservationists were aware of the debates taking place at the national level regarding preservation theory and practice, but for all their awareness of high-level argumentation, they found motivation in provincial issues that had personal significance. 43 In the nineteenth century, many people from the English provinces retained lifelong ties to relatively small areas, and antiquarians and preservationists often approached their craft with particular pride of place.

Preservation as a grassroots movement
Even as the preservation movement gained momentum at the beginning of the nineteenth century through the raised awareness created by antiquarian and archaeological societies, the British government did not show a particular concern for preservation until the closing decades of the century. Instead, the rise of the preservation movement was experienced as a grassroots movement in local communities throughout the country. Antiquarians and archaeologists with a particular interest in local history took it upon themselves to use historical remains, including monuments, antiquities, and buildings to interpret and understand the past, and in doing so, they created a more meaningful connection to their history. Historic places became sites of historical understanding and memorialisation, tangible connections to the past. 44 This seemed particularly important in the nineteenth century, as the rapid changes of the industrial revolution made the past seem particularly distant to many students of history. 45 In the beginning of the nineteenth century, the shifting historical consciousness had the effect of creating a new understanding of how history related to the present. 46 Combined with the fact that in the nineteenth century, more people were participating in antiquarian and archaeological societies than ever before, changing historical consciousness led people to historicise architecture, and it is in these changes to participation in and understanding of history that the roots of historic preservation can be found.
However, a cohesive national preservation movement was slow to take hold in the nineteenth century, and most antiquarian and archaeological societies who undertook any preservation advocacy operated only at a local level, at least until the 1890s. Antiquarians in England were aware of preservation organisations in other countries, especially in northern Europe, and when According to John Waller Green, a contemporary of Wright's, he wanted to create an organisation that could lobby the government to protect 'objects of antiquarian and historical interest'. 48 The government seemed wary of private efforts to promote preservation, however. Acknowledging the role of the French government in preserving monuments in that country, Henry Pelham-Clinton, Earl of Lincoln and Commissioner of Woods and Works, declared 'in this Country the Societies which exist have done, and I believe can do, very little good'. 49 The fact that the British Archaeological Association was not created solely as an advocacy group likely dimmed its chances of success, however. Charles Roach Smith, one of Wright's associates, hoped the association would provide an educational opportunity for amateur antiquarians and archaeologists, which created a conflict with archaeologists who hoped the body would take a more academic tone. 50 The first congress of the British Archaeological Association, held in Canterbury in 1844, devolved into infighting which led to a split in which the Royal Archaeological Institute was created to be a more serious archaeological body. 51 Ultimately, neither society ever truly became a lobbying group; the British Archaeological Association became known for organising excursions to historic sites, and Thomas Wright, while he remained a member, concentrated the bulk of his efforts elsewhere. activity and coordination between the different provincial archaeological groups. 52 While the Archaeological Institute retained a professionalising approach to their practices and focused their study largely on ecclesiological remains, the British Archaeological Association picked up on the ascendant spirit of nationalism that was beginning to infuse politics and national life by the midnineteenth century and use archaeological and antiquarian study as a tool to celebrate the illustriousness of the national past. 53 Although the members of the British Archaeological Association were true amateurs, and the appeal of joining the group was often as much social as historical, politics nonetheless had an important effect on the association's activities throughout the country. 54 The societal changes, coupled with the physical changes to the landscape that the technological advances of the nineteenth century brought, created a sense of loss from the destruction of historic monuments amongst antiquarians. In the middle of the nineteenth century, as sentiments towards historic monuments evolved, John Ruskin's books The seven lamps of architecture and The stones of Venice were ground-breaking treatises on the importance of historic architecture, even if they would not be considered preservationist tomes by more modern standards.
In The seven lamps of architecture, Ruskin states that 'if indeed there be any profit in our knowledge of the past […] there are two duties respecting national architecture whose importance it is impossible to overrate: the first, to render the architecture of the day, historical: and, the second, to preserve, as the most precious of inheritances, that of past ages'. 55 Furthermore, Ruskin asserts, 'we may live without architecture, and worship without her, but we cannot remember without her'. 56 Ruskin recognised the importance of a preserved environment to heritage and identity, but Ruskin himself was not a particularly strong proponent of concrete preservation projects in England. He disparaged

Conclusion
The second half of the nineteenth century marked a true turning point for the preservation movement in Britain and was a culmination of the gradual evolution that grew interest in historic monuments in Britain from the seventeenth century onwards. Antiquarian and archaeological societies continued to flourish, and over sixty new groups were formed throughout the country between 1850 and the passage of the 1913 Ancient Monuments Consolidation and Amendment Act. 62 Local groups continued to play a vital role in preservation, which took on a personal tone as groups worked to save monuments because of the specific local cultural currency with which they had been imbued. Even at the close of the nineteenth century, the preservation movement in England was still in its infancy, but the long history that saw chorographers evolve into antiquarians, and antiquarians to archaeologists and preservationists by the middle of the nineteenth century was a fundamental precursor to the actions that followed. Historians of the preservation movement and of local history groups often discount the actions of early antiquarians as insignificant and unlearned, but doing so discredits important early moments in the history of architectural preservation in Britain.
The long legacy of the preservation movement was also an important aspect of the way in which early preservationists played a role in the development of English culture in the nineteenth century. As regional antiquarian and archaeological societies preserved monuments, landscapes, and buildings either through documentation or in situ, such groups made important statements about their understanding of local and national history. Written documentation was easily accessible to other antiquarians and archaeologists across the country, as nineteenth-century societies regularly exchanged transactions and annual reports, allowing aspects of local history to be considered in national contexts. As physical conservation became more important to advocates, the actions of preservationists had even greater importance. The physical remnants of the past that were protected in place, especially when otherwise threatened with destruction, contributed to the collective memory of a locality and allowed all residents, whether members of archaeological societies or not, to engage 62 The 1913 act significantly expanded preservation protections that had first been enacted with the passage of the 1882 Ancient Monuments Act. Simon Thurley (2013). Men from the ministry: how Britain saved its heritage. New Haven: Yale University Press, pp. 82-3.