User:Chris troutman/Randal

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Randal Bingley (23rd November 1937 - 11th August 2014)[1] was an author, museum curator, archaeologist and local historian, with a special interest in Thurrock. His work was cited or mentioned in books,[2] scholarly articles[3] and on the UK National Archives web site.[4]

Career[edit]

Bingley came to Thurrock from Surrey as Museum Assistant in 1966 after serving as a Junior Lecturer with the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst. He was appointed the Borough's first Curator in 1975 and was editor of Panorama, The journal of the Thurrock Local History Society for ten years.[5] Bingley was a keen archaeologist and conducted an emergency excavation during the restoration of the Woolmarket at Horndon-on-the-Hill.[6]

His Thurrock research included establishing the location of the site at which Queen Elizabeth I gave her Armada speech.[7]

In his annotations to the diary of Martha Randall he "plays shadow to the daily activities of farmer's daughter, Martha Randall of Orsett, during her 4 years' diary keeping (1858-61). He has managed to identify most of the nearly 200 - contemporary people about whom she speaks (frequently by mere intials) and leads us through her times with the sure hand of one who knows the local countryside and its old family structures in surprising detail."[8]

He was born, Randal Bingley Doyle but changed his name.

Books[edit]

  • Bingley An English Family Notebook. 1978.
  • Where Dips the Sudden Jay: A Rowhill boyhood. 1979.
  • Bingley: The Second Notebook. 1981.
  • South Ockendon: echoes from an Essex Hospital. 1994.
  • Fobbing Life and Landscape. Lejins Publishing. 1997.
  • The Nightingales Were Singing: the Diary of Martha Randall of Orsett, 1858-61. Thurrock Unitary Authority. 2000. (Ed)
  • Behold the Painful Plough: Country Life in West Tilbury, Essex, 1700-1850. Thurrock Unitary Authority Museum Service. 2010.
  • A Brief Historical Guide to Mucking. Thurrock Local History Society. 2013.

Notes[edit]

  1. ^ Echo web site
  2. ^ The English farm wagon: origins and structure by John Geraint Jenkins
  3. ^ Essex Archaeology and History
  4. ^ UK National Archives
  5. ^ Thurrock Local History Society Web site
  6. ^ Thurrock Museum "factfiles"
  7. ^ Written up in Elizabeth’s Armada Camp : A Locational Report published in Panorama, the Journal of the Thurrock Local History Society No.29 (1988) and acknowledged in Eliot, Colin (1987). Discovering Armada Britain: A Journey in Search of the Sites, Relics and Remains Which Tell the Story of the Defeat of the Spanish Armada 400 Years Ago. David & Charles. p. 137.
  8. ^ Back cover of book