THE HAMPSHIRE ANTIQUARY &> NATURALIST. 



THE HAMPSHIRE INDEPENDENT, March 8, 1890. 



THE BASIS OF HAMPSHIRE HISTORY.* 

 This was the subject ot an address delivered before 

 the members of the Hampshire Literary and Philo- 

 sophical Society, at Southampton, on Monday, by Mr. 

 T. W. Shore, F.G.S., F.C.S., the president of the 

 society (Mr. R. Westlake, J.P.), in the chair. 



Mr. Shore said it had always appeared to him that 

 one of the subjects which had, perhaps, been taught 

 least satisfactorily in their schools was that of history. 

 In these days, when they had had within the last few 

 years such great political changes, it was most 

 important that the best methods should be adopted 

 for research into history, and that history should be 

 taught in a correct and intelligible way. Many years 

 ago, when, as a boy, he began to learn 

 English history, the book he used began with the 

 Norman Conquest. It was a very hazy intro- 

 ductory page or two to which boys were treated 

 in those days relating to the time previous 

 to the Norman Conquest. That evening he should 

 not talk of much after the Norman Conquest. A great 

 deal of improvement had been made, certainly, in 

 teaching history since that time, but much remained 

 to be accomplished. With regard to their own 

 county, it was quite certain that the history of Hamp- 

 shire was not yet written. He did not think it would 

 be written satisfactorily in the lives of any of those 

 present. The county was so full of all kinds of those 

 ancient matters which were the foundation of the 

 history of the people for it was only with regard to 

 that he would deal that he could see many 

 many years of work and research in the county 

 before it could be possible to say the time had 

 come when the history of Hampshire could bewritten. 

 They had fortunately in the county several societies 

 doing preliminary work in that way. The Hampshire 

 Record Society had published some records of the 

 county, and there were also the Literary and 

 Philosophical Society and the Hampshire Field Club, 

 which he hoped would do much work in the future 

 bearing some useful result. The basis of Hampshire 

 history must rest, as concerned the institutions of the 

 people, more or less upon all the various races of 

 people who had inhabited the county ; and perhaps 

 the earliest race they could trace distinctly he would 

 only say perhaps was a branch of that great Celtic 

 race which was an important part of that great 

 Aryan family of nations, that great family which 

 their books told them was Indo-European. They 

 found in connection with these preliminary remarks 

 upon the Aryans how modern research was opposed 

 to the old theories. The old proverb was no doubt 

 familiar to them that civilisation travelled westward, 

 and that the Aryans had their origin in 

 India, passed westward and reached western 

 Europe, and in the great Anglo-Saxon 

 * From The Hampshire Independent, March 8 and 15, 1890. 



emigration passed over to America. Modern investi- 

 gation threw great doubt upon that, but it was far too 

 wide a subject for that evening. Great confirmation 

 was to be met with in Hampshire that the original home 

 of the Aryan nations was not in the far East, but in 

 Scandinavia. The Celts, of whom he must first talk, 

 were the earliest people with whom they had any 

 very considerable acquaintance as regarded their re- 

 mains in Hampshire. They had traces of earlier 

 people, of people who buried their dead in a sitting 

 posture. These were in all probability the Iberian 

 race, and could be traced from North Africa. They 

 built dolmens like one in the centre ot Stonehenge, 

 and could be traced through the Iberian peninsula to 

 Great Britain. As far as his personal investigation 

 went he had only met with three instances of that kind 

 in Hampshire. Fortunately in one case he secured 

 the bones for the museum from Wherwell, near 

 Andover. But it was with the Celtic people, who 

 perhaps succeeded, or conquered, them that they had 

 to deal. These Celtic people invariably cremated 

 their dead. Their distribution must have depended on 

 the food supply ; consequently, to judge from prinia 

 facie evidence, there would have been a great popu- 

 lation round Southampton Water, seeing that it was 

 an estuary affording abundant fish supply. They 

 found the remains of these people along both banks 

 of this great estuary. They also knew that these 

 people followed the river valleys he could prove 

 that to a certainty. After their immigration very 

 probably their course was along the valleys of the Itchen 

 and Test, up the Avon, and so on until they occupied all 

 that part of Hampshire which naturally fell into those 

 chief river basins. The intervening land between 

 these basins was forest land, and, as such, was certainly 

 unoccupied in the time of the Celts or Britons as they 

 were sometimes called and to a large extent in the 

 time of the Saxons and Normans, down to the period 

 of the Middle Ages. These Celtic people must have 

 been living there in a tribal state, constant evidence 

 pointing to that. In all probability in the tribal state 

 the people were more or less under kinship. If 

 there was no real relationship, the men of a tribe in 

 all probability established a blood-relationship by 

 certain rites of their own, such as Stanley described 

 as existing at the present day in Africa. They knew 

 that these Celtic people had refuges, called camps, 

 existing in some parts of their hills and valleys. At 

 least forty of these still existed in Hampshire. The 

 shapes of some he showed on a diagram, that at Wai bury 

 being the largest. This was in the north-west part 

 of the county, the highest point to which chalk 

 attained in England 970 feet above the sea and 

 overlooked an enormous area of country, being within 

 sight of seven or eight counties. The people who 

 lived near rallied around it in case of attack. It was 

 used as a refuge against such raids as those of the 

 Moss Troopers of Scotland. He had pointed out 

 in a paper read before the British Association that 

 this camp, according to the lowest computation of 



