A Pair of Shoes for a Poor Child - some tickets available

What could a pair of shoes possibly tell us about life in West Devon more than two centuries ago?

Poverty. Family. Illegitimacy. Work. Education. Opportunity.

And, above all, the lives of people who rarely found their way into the history books.

With Tavistock Heritage Open Days now just a week away and many of our ticketed events already fully booked, there is still an opportunity to secure a FREE place for one of the talks that perhaps captures this year's theme of Everyday Histories better than almost any other.

A Pair of Shoes for a Poor Child

On Tuesday 15 September at 6.30pm, Dr Sue Andrew of the Devonshire Association comes to Tavistock Guildhall with the wonderfully evocatively titled A Pair of Shoes for a Poor Child.

And if you enjoy family history, social history, local history, or simply a really good human story, this is an evening well worth booking.

Dr Andrew follows the fortunes of three generations of one West Devon family, tracing their lives from the late eighteenth century into the opening years of the twentieth.

It is a journey stretching from the Poor House in Lamerton to a Police House in Plymstock, taking us through Dunterton, Bradstone, Alphington and Aylesbeare along the way.

But this isn't history told through kings, battles or great political events.

It is history discovered in the fragments ordinary people left behind.

When a tiny detail opens a door

The title of the talk comes from something apparently insignificant: a reference in an old document to providing a pair of shoes for a poor child.

It is precisely the sort of detail that might easily be overlooked.

But follow it, and a whole world begins to emerge.

Through surviving records, Dr Andrew uncovers stories of poverty and illegitimacy, agricultural labour and education, family relationships and changing opportunities.

These were people who left no grand houses, portraits or memoirs.

Instead, their lives survive in births and marriages, parish records, encounters with authority, charitable assistance and small entries made by somebody with a pen more than two centuries ago.

Pieced together, those fragments become something much more powerful. They become lives.

The perfect story for Everyday Histories

Much of Tavistock's history is dominated by remarkable people and remarkable institutions.

During this year's Heritage Open Days we encounter Anglo-Saxon nobles, the founders of Tavistock Abbey, an English queen, great architects and the wealthy families who reshaped the town.

But most people didn't live in that world.

History was also happening in cottages, farmyards, schools, workhouses and police houses.

It was happening to agricultural labourers trying to support their families, to unmarried mothers, to children whose prospects could be determined by circumstances over which they had little control.

And sometimes something as simple as a new pair of shoes really mattered.

That is why Dr Andrew's talk sits so perfectly within this year's Heritage Open Days programme.

It asks us to look beyond the famous names and discover the people behind the records.

Many events are full. This one can still be booked.

The response to Tavistock Heritage Open Days 2026 has been extraordinary.

A number of our walks, talks and special-access events are now FULL, with waiting lists operating for several of them.

But there are still a few places available for A Pair of Shoes for a Poor Child.

So if you've missed out on one of the other events, or you've been looking through the programme thinking I'll decide later, now is the time to book.

A Pair of Shoes for a Poor Child Dr Sue Andrew, Devonshire Association

📅 Tuesday 15 September🕡 6.30pm

📍 The Courtroom, Tavistock Guildhall

🎟️ FREE, but advance booking is required

BOOK YOUR FREE PLACE NOW BY CLICKING OR SCANNING THE QR CODE.

Because sometimes the smallest objects leave the biggest footprints.