Libraries and leisure

Gerish Collection

The antiquarian William Blyth Gerish (1864-1921) only lived in Hertfordshire for some 20 years but during that time he created a prodigious quantity of work relating to the history of the county. Among his many achievements were the compilation of Hertfordshire's monumental inscriptions (now at the British Library), writing 19 pamphlets on Hertfordshire folklore and a biography of the Hertfordshire historian Sir Henry Chauncy.

Gerish also edited and heavily contributed to the East Herts Archaeology Society Transactions and the Archaeological Notes and Queries columns in the Hertfordshire Mercury and Watford Observer. He failed to complete his Dictionary of Hertfordshire Biography but the notes for it survive at Hertfordshire Archives & Local Studies.

Hertforshire Archives and Local Studies holds Gerish's collection of Hertfordshire material (ref. D/EGr). It is arranged by parish, each parish being contained in a box, with the exception of St Albans which Archives & Local Studies has never had. The boxes contain photographs, prints, notes, maps, newspaper cuttings, correspondence and brass rubbings. They cover subjects such as the general history of the parish, churches, historic buildings, biography and folklore. There is also a collection of Hertfordshire books from Gerish's library at Archives & Local Studies. It includes 18th century poll books indexed by Gerish and an eight volume grangerized set of Cussan's History of Hertfordshire.