Ison history launched in Hackney

One of the highlights of my recent time in the UK was the launch of my new family history book in South Hackney on Sunday 13th May.  Luckily it was one of the rare, fine days of the early summer.

 

The book was 'officially launched' by Geoff  Taylor,Councillor for Victoria  ward on the Hackney Council who in his launch handed over a copy of his own book concerned with South Hackney, ‘Parish in Perspective’. All in all it was good day with a tour of relevant areas of South Hackney in the morning led ably by local guide, John Finn.  Descendants from four of the nine children of James Thurgood Ison Sr were present for the launch.  One, Rachel Marrington, led us on a walking tour of parts of Bethnal Green after a lunch and launch at the The Royal Inn on the Park in South Hackney.

 South Hackney Church

 Hackney Terrace

 Mike Fitch, Ray Ison and Geoff Taylor

In Bethnal Green

The citation for my book is:

Ison, R.L. (2011) “I am willing to give up my garden ground.” Market gardening in South Hackney, Middlesex, as revealed through the life and family of James Thurgood Ison Sr., (1792-1858) Self Published. (ISBN: 978-0-9551270-2-1)

A Table of Contents follows.

. 226

Table of Contents

 Preface

1.       Introduction

2.       Orientations

2.1. Market gardening in Middlesex

2.2 Imperial units

2.3 Geography of Hackney and surrounds

2.4 The origins of the "Ison" name

3.       Isons in the Eighteenth Century

4.       The Isons of South Hackney in Middlesex

4.1 The early records for James Ison Sr.

4.2 James Thurgood Ison family tree

4.3 South Hackney and surrounds

4.4 Market gardening in South Hackney

5.       Lease and land records

5.1 The tithe records

5.2  The impact of Victoria Park

5.3 The Rent Rolls - Sir John Cass's Charity

6.       Landlords and neighbours

6.1 Thomas Natt

6.2 William Fitch

6.3 William Ivory

7.       Family connections

7.1 Daniel Giles

7.2 The Thurgood connection

8.       The children of James Thurgood Ison Sr., and Elizabeth Giles

8.1    James Thurgood Ison Jr.

8.2    Emma Ison

8.3    Daniel Ison

9.       The family of James Thurgood Ison Sr., and Elizabeth Wiltshire

9.1    The death of James Thurgood Ison Sr.

9.2    The remarriage of Elizabeth Ison

9.3    Sarah and James White

9.4    Elizabeth Ann and John Mumford

9.5    Rosina and William Branchflower

9.6    George Ison and Lucy Greenwood (nee Worbis)

9.7    Fanny (Ann Mary) and Daniel Cottrell

9.8    William Thomas Ison and Mary Nix

10.    Concluding remarks

11.    Acknowledgements

12.    Further Reading

ANNEXES

Annex 1: Some other Ison Families in London and the County of Middlesex

Annex 2: Letter from Rachel Marrington

Annex 3: Thurgood, Clements and Brice Records

A3.1 Other Thurgood records

A3.2 Some Clements and Brice records

Annex 4: Rickman Family in Middlesex and Surrey

A4.1. Louisa Eliza Rickman

A4.2 James Latham – Louisa Eliza’s father

A4.3 The Rickman family origins

A4.4 A possible Rickman family tree

A4.5 The Rickman Family of Mitcham, Surrey and Homerton, Hackney

A4.6 Maria Rickman, Kittridge, Benton? ….. Louisa Eliza’s mother

A4.7 Margaret Kitridge and the Kirby connection

A4.8 Other Rickman families and entries.

Annex 5: Giles and Price Family Details

Annex 6. Possible Ison connections in other Counties

 

Systems Engineering Conference

Jack Ring advises that:

Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) will be hosting the 11th Annual
Conference on Systems Engineering Research (CSER), which is scheduled for
March 19-22, 2013 in Atlanta. This year’s conference topic will be
“Addressing Societal Challenges with Next-Generation Systems.”

Using this year’s conference topic, Georgia Tech will continue evolving CSER
into a high-quality research conference with academic rigor, and continue
broadening the perspective of the conference so that it appeals not only to
systems engineers, but also to colleagues from other disciplines with whom we
collaborate in addressing societal challenges with next-generation systems.

The conference website is http://cser13.gatech.edu/.
Important schedule dates include:
-Abstract submission deadline: September 1, 2012
-Draft paper submission deadline: October 1, 2012
-Notification of paper acceptance: November 26, 2012

For registration questions, please feel free to contact us at:
Email: cser2013@gatech.edu
Phone:  404-894-0413

Reflections on 'Farming Systems' from Peter Hildebrand

I reproduce below with permission an email sent to the editors of 

Farming Systems Research into the 21st Century: The New Dynamic

 

Subject: The new book

Dear Ika, David and Benoit,

 

So far I have had time to go over the Preface and all of Part I or your very interesting and important book that was distributed at the IFSA meetings in Aarhus.  I congratulate you on such a demanding undertaking.  It is very well done and will be important to current and future farming systems practitioners. 

 

It was interesting to read about the struggles between those striving to incorporate farming systems methods and perspectives in the various countries, especially with the resistance of the entrenched disciplinary researchers—from virtually all fields.  I struggled with this from the early 1970s to the end of the century, in El Salvador while I was with the University of Florida assigned to CENTA, in Guatemala while I was with The Rockefeller Foundation with ICTA, and even at the University of Florida where the Food and Resource Economics Department was never sure quite what to think of me (my PhD is in Agricultural Economics).

 

In El Salvador  the other disciplinary UF members of the team were jealous of the recognition I was getting by farmers and the press as well as the funding I was receiving for the research in multiple cropping systems oriented to the conditions of the small farmers in that country.  The others were all doing standard research and receiving little notice nor outside funding.

 

In Guatemala  it took quite a while for the expatriate team to come around to understand—and finally participate in—what we in Socioeconomia Rural were up to.  One of the regional directors (an expat and coordinator of the sorghum program) once said when I finally got him up to the rocky hillside where we were doing on-farm trials: 1) Pete, I can’t even get up here on my motorcycle let along my pickup, 2) those trials look like something a social scientist would do, and 3) you can’t get any response under those conditions! His trials with sorghum were all on sub-irrigated land so he would get a response even though no farmers planted sorghum under those conditions.

 

In Florida  even though I went there as a full professor, it took the department several years before they granted me tenure because of my focus on farming systems and not disciplinary activities.  However, at the University of Florida we did manage to create an Interdisciplinary Ecology degree at both the MS and PhD levels.  This is an exceptional program in my mind and has participation of faculty from all over campus.  One of my PhD students recently was recognized with the first SNRE outstanding achievement award.  SNRE is the School of Natural Resources and Environment where the Interdisciplinary Ecology degree is housed.  The school is in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.  I think if you look over Victor’s achievements you will see that he does span much of the space discussed in the recent IFSA conference and in your book.

 

There is mention of diversity in your book, but not of the kind of diversity found even within seemingly uniform communities in the South.  In 2002 Norman Borlaug and I were each invited to give Keynote addresses at the 1^st Henry A. Wallace Inter-American Scientific Conference on Globalization of Agricultural Research at CATIE in Costa Rica.  In my presentation I stressed the challenge that this kind of diversity among households presents in agricultural development work and that it had been ignored in most of the efforts to that time.  In these households, land is not necessarily the most limiting factor of production, but nearly all traditional development technology stressed yield per unit of land.  Ignored were scarce factors such as labor in critical periods, cash, seed (which was also food), etc.  Afterwards, Norman’s only comment to me was, “Interesting!”  Obviously the Green Revolution was focused on productivity per unit of land.  The Ethnographic Linear Program methodology reported on in several European IFSA conferences is an efficient way to manage this kind of diversity.  I have developed a paper explaining how ELP can be used for pretesting technologies, policies and infrastructure and to understand what kinds of households would benefit from each kind.

 

Well, these were some of my thoughts as I read the first part of your book.  I hope you find my comments interesting and useful.

 

Best regards,

 

Peter Hildebrand

Professor Emeritus

Food and Resource Economics and Interdisciplinary Ecology

Director Emeritus

International Programs, Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences

University of Florida