Purists, note, will not approve at some of my choices, for instance cutting adverts. I took out all surplus material (blank pages, adverts etc). If anyone is researching this area I would very much like to communicate: though if this is after 2026, say, it is possible my interests will have moved on! To go through these local N&Q systematically I’ve searched out the various numbers and spliced them together in single pdfs.

Each one is an ecosystem with its own rules. I have a list of about eighty of these local N&Q. I’m particularly interested in ‘local notes and queries’ in newspapers and county magazines and periodicals because I’m fascinated by British folklore collection and local N&Q often prioritised folklore (or tried to). At its best N&Q was a kind of glorified notice board or as Patrick Leary had it ‘a Victorian virtual community’. Notes and Queries relating to Biblical studies or Shakespeare). The format spread to newspapers (‘Local Notes and Queries), county journals (‘Gloucestershire Notes and Queries’) and specialist publications (e.g.

This was the system popularised by the journal of that name, where readers wrote in with observations, questions and answers about matters of shared interest. *** As of the spring of 2023 I’ve become interested in the Notes and Queries phenomenon in Victorian and Edwardian Britain. Some highlights were published in The Hampshire Antiquary and Naturalist 1-2 (1891-1892): this publication combined extracts from the column with ‘reports of meetings of the Hampshire Field Club’. There was also a certain amount of natural history (late or early swallows etc etc), and natural history content grew with the years. The early columns depended on a great deal of editorial intervention. The column lasted almost a decade winding down in the second half of 1895: the BNA is missing for 1896 so we cannot be certain when exactly the column finished. The Hampshire Antiquary and Naturalist: being the local notes and queries, reports of meetings of the Hampshire Field Club, & other archaeological and natural history matters reprinted from ‘the Hampshire Independent’, (1891-1892), 2 vols The Hampshire Independent began its ‘Local Notes and Queries’ 20 February 1886.

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