The Invention of Essex: The Making of an English County

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The area which Essex now occupies was ruled before Roman settlement by the Celtic Trinovantes tribe. A dispute between them and the Catuvellauni was used as an excuse for a Roman invasion in 54 BC, [1] and they allied with Rome when Claudius returned in AD 43. This led to Camulodunum (Colchester) becoming the capital of Roman Britain. The Trinovantes later fought with the Iceni tribe against Roman rule. This sudden arrival was part of a sprawling new web of commuter districts that spread across the south of Essex. By the 70s, the constant destruction of weatherboarded cottages and the concreting of country lanes was causing consternation among some commentators. “Essex has suffered so much; the new towns, the vast growth and overspill of London, the lancing through of motorways,” wrote the naturalist and author, JA Baker. The reactionary Express columnist James Wentworth Day put it more simply: “Essex is becoming the dustbin of London.” Essex man, in Heffer’s portrait, was in thrall to excess without necessarily being able to handle it. “When one walks through the City most evenings, the pools of vomit into which one may step have usually been put there by Essex man, whose greatly enhanced wealth has exceeded his breeding in terms of alcoholic capacity,” he wrote. The phrase, Heffer said, was a deliberate echo of “Neanderthal man” – implying that Essex man was the missing link between the lumpen proles of the new town estates and the bright new citizens emerging under the stewardship of Margaret Thatcher’s party. The editorial was published just before the prime minister’s final Conservative party conference and seemed to rubber-stamp her legacy. Also at this time the Municipal Borough of Ilford and the Municipal Borough of Wanstead and Woodford were abolished and their area, plus part of the area of Chigwell Urban District (but not including Chigwell itself), were transferred to Greater London to form the London Borough of Redbridge. The Municipal Borough of Romford and Hornchurch Urban District were abolished and their area transferred to Greater London to form the London Borough of Havering.

The Invention of Essex by Tim Burrows (Hardback) - Coles Books The Invention of Essex by Tim Burrows (Hardback) - Coles Books

Finally in 1965 under the London Government Act 1963 the County Borough of West Ham and the County Borough of East Ham were abolished and their area transferred to Greater London to form the London Borough of Newham. Fawn, A.J., Evens, K.A., McMaster, I., Davies, G.M.R. (1990) 'The Red Hills of Essex; Salt making in Antiquity' Published by Colchester Archaeological Group. ( ISBN 0 9503905 1 8)DisobedientBodies explores society’s patriarchal and capitalist beauty standards and calls on us to rebel against them! This is a powerful and inspiring new way of looking at beauty. Everyone loves a good Essex girl story, don’t they?’ … Tracy Playle in 2001. Photograph: Sean Smith/The Guardian

The invention of Essex: how a county became a caricature

A deeply sensitive and engaging portrait of a misunderstood county and its people' Financial Times, 'Books to Read in 2023' Much of the development of the county was caused by the railway. By 1843 the Eastern Counties Railway had connected Bishopsgate station in London with Brentwood and Colchester. In 1856, they opened a branch to Loughton (later extended to Ongar) and by 1884 the London, Tilbury and Southend Railway had connected Fenchurch Street railway station in the City of London to Grays, Tilbury, Southend-on-Sea and Shoeburyness. Some of the railways were built primarily to transport goods but some (e.g. the Loughton branch) were to cater for commuter traffic; they unintentionally created the holiday resorts of Southend, Clacton and Frinton-on-Sea [ citation needed]. I've always loved Essex and been a staunch defender of it. It's not only the place I live now, but where I was born. Hence, why this book appealed to me so much.

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If you can visualise the map of Great Britain as a wild-haired angry monster shouting at Ireland, then Essex rests above its rectum, the Thames Estuary. If you were to draw a diagonal line from the south-west of the county to the north-east, it would measure 55 miles in length, although the creeks and inlets on its eastern side make the Essex coastline at least 400 miles. The Essex shore is home to more than 40 islands – although no one can quite agree on exactly how many – with grimly exotic names such as Lower Horse, Cindery and Foulness. Save Essex Wreath Making Workshop | Make Your Own Christmas Wreath Class to your collection. Share Essex Wreath Making Workshop | Make Your Own Christmas Wreath Class with your friends. Tim Burrows is one of the finest and most humane writers on these islands. In The Invention of Essex he makes the familiar seem strange, and vice versa, by digging deep into his own life to tell the story of his native Essex with eloquence and verve. I can't see how anyone could fail to be delighted and enthralled by this passionate, erudite journey into the soul of the English South-East' By the mid 90s, the threat of Essex girl was everywhere. “Is Diana now an Essex Girl?” the Daily Mail fretted in 1994 while reporting on an editorial in the society magazine Tatler, which begged: “Will the real Diana please sit down, turn off Birds of a Feather, forget the Queen Vic [the pub from East Enders] and dress like a princess.” In the Mail the following day, the writer Anne de Courcy recoiled at the “Sharonisation of Diana”. After Margaret Thatcher became its leader in 1975, the Conservative party ramped up its efforts to win over voters who had moved to places like South Woodham. Their pitch was based on the promise of prosperity and home ownership, rather than the Labour party’s old appeals to class solidarity.

The Invention of Essex — developed but not tamed

More than just brashly consumerist, Essex was also painted as a hotbed of bigotry, the place where white people moved to escape parts of London that were no longer white enough for them. In 1994, Lord Inglewood, a pro-European Conservative MEP, told a newspaper that the “Essex view of conservatism” was threatening the “more generous, less xenophobic historic tradition”. (Inglewood also blamed the influence of Essex for increasing “public bad manners, aggressiveness and yobbishness” in the party.) Essex came to represent “white flight” in the UK, and there is much evidence of xenophobia and racism in Essex: the county was a hotbed of BNP membership during the first decade of the 21st century. Save Essex Event / Evening Of Clairvoyance / Ongar Essex Psychic Events to your collection. Share Essex Event / Evening Of Clairvoyance / Ongar Essex Psychic Events with your friends.Secrecy came naturally to John le Carré, and there were some secrets that he fought fiercely to keep, nowhere more so than in his private life. Seemingly content in his marriage, the novelist conducted a string of love affairs over four decades. To keep these relationships secret, he made use of tradecraft that he had learned as a spy: code names and cover stories, cut outs, safe houses and dead letter boxes.