by Judy & Stuart Dewey and David Beasley

ISBN-10: 0-948598 03 4

(ISBN-13: 978-0-948598-03-6)

published 1989

268pp

300 photographs

size: 21cm x 27.5cm

published price: £15.95
but see note below

We take it for granted today that we can see what's happening on the other side of the world through the television set in our living room. But for the Wallingfordians who celebrated the Accession of Queen Victoria in 1837, news came - eventually - by messenger on horseback, and was broadcast by the Town Crier. However, things were to change dramatically - newspapers, photography, the Penny Post, the railways, all were to change the world of these new Victorians.

In this book you can discover how these happenings affected the lives of ordinary people living in Wallingford and its neighbouring villages. With the help of 300 photographs - all taken before 1914 - and lots of stories from local newspapers, you can see life in this Thames-side town through the eyes of those who lived there then.

For the past 35 years, David Beasley has been collecting pictures, mostly postcards, of his native Wallingford and now has many thousand; local historians Judy & Stuart Dewey have written a number of books on local history. Together they created this uniquely intimate view of Victorian and Edwardian life in a typical English market town.

PLEASE NOTE: Unfortunately this book is effectively out of print now, but we do have some slightly substandard copies on sale at a price of £10. It will be complete in text and pictures but will have some blemishes in the cover or elsewhere.