Foreword
Over the past one hundred years the Thoroton Society has done a great deal to foster interest in the history of Nottinghamshire. My own fascination with local history could be said to have begun when I was thirteen. That was when my father inherited Flintham, which had once belonged to the Thoroton family. Although my family was called Thoroton, nobody in the family seemed to know or care anything about the Thorotons. I had never been to Flintham, and everything was the more exciting for that, with old swords, old portraits and old papers, none of which interested my father. So, in a way, I began to resurrect the Thorotons, and I must have been glad to learn of the Thoroton Society, which I joined in 1933 when I was nineteen. Mr Blagg, who had been a founder member, was a close neighbour with much local lore to teach me, and Mr Holland Walker the long-serving secretary was very friendly and encouraged me to take an active interest in the Society.
From these beginnings I started to write both a family and a village history. Dr Robert Thoroton’s Antiquities of Nottinghamshire was a great standby, much missed when my enquiries embraced Lincolnshire and Yorkshire. Thoroton’s work is still invaluable, as many local historians writing about their own communities can testify.
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Myles Thoroton Hildyard. |
I am sure Dr Thoroton would be delighted to know that the Society which bears his name has accomplished so much in its first century. I am proud of my long association with the Thoroton Society, particularly my time as President since 1961, and I wish it well for the next 100 years.
Myles Thoroton Hildyard
Flintham
December 1996