Editorial note

EDITORIAL NOTE

Like the fourteen earlier volumes of the Victoria History of Wiltshire, the present volume has been prepared under the supervision of the Wiltshire Victoria County History Committee. The origin and early constitution of that Committee are described in the Editorial Note to Volume VII, the first to be published, and the new arrangements introduced in 1975 are outlined in the Editorial Note to Volume XI. The arrangements for financing the research and writing of the Wiltshire History were modified in 1990, after the District Councils of Kennet, Salisbury, North Wiltshire, and West Wiltshire had agreed to increase their contributions to the Committee's funds so that Thamesdown Borough Council, the successor to Swindon Borough Council which in 1947 had jointly set up the Wiltshire V.C.H., should not continue to meet a disproportionate share of the cost. To those five District Councils and to the Wiltshire County Council, the major financial contributor, the University of London again offers its profound thanks for their support of the Wiltshire V.C.H. Committee, whose collaboration in the enterprise is also acknowledged once more with warm gratitude.

Thanks are also offered to the large number of people who have helped in the compilation of the volume by granting access to documents and buildings in their ownership or care, by providing information, or by giving advice. Most of them are named in the footnotes to the articles with which they helped and a few in the preamble to the List of Illustrations. Special mention must be made of the assistance given by the County Archivist (Mr. K. H. Rogers until September 1990) and his staff, and of the information and access to documents given by the Clerk to the Burgesses and Freemen of Malmesbury (Mr. L. Grey).

The General Introduction to the Victoria County History, published in 1970, and its Supplement published in 1990 give an outline of the structure and aims of the series as a whole, with an account of its origins and progress.