Herefordshire
Sometimes it takes an inquiry to reveal gems hidden away in archives. Rhys Griffith, senior archivist at the Herefordshire Archive and Records Centre (HARC), was struck by how a request from a Swiss research project revealed some very detailed, personal and searing indictments of the treatment meted out to the poor in the early 19th century.
“One was a heart-rending request for help from the overseers by Richard Jones, a painter of Eardisland,” he says. “It describes his family’s descent into destitution and ill health in faraway Carmarthen. The tragedy of his situation is
