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BRECON OCCUPATIONS AND SOCIETY, 1500-1800. By E. G. PARRY IN the last thirty years historians have rediscovered provincial Britain. A grow- ing dissatisfaction with the generalisations of earlier writers and an awareness of the particular problems of different regions and towns have focused attention on the society and economy of individual areas.1 It is not until the history of more provincial towns is thoroughly understood that a truer national history can be written. Brecon, like many towns, was fortunate in the eighteenth century to have a distinguished local historian, Theophilus Jones, but his invaluable study suffers from the defects of the antiquarian's approach.2 Brecon awaits its modern historian. The sources from which a very full history of the town could be written certainly exist, although they are widely scattered. One of the aims of this article is to draw attention to some of those sources and to illustrate the uses to which they can be put. There are two principal reasons for the choice of the period 1500 to 1800. First, as will become clear later, the nature of the evidence influences the starting date second, two articles published in earlier volumes of Brych- einiog have dealt with the later eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.3 While the sources for the eighteenth century are more complete than those for the sixteenth I think that comparisons between the two periods will help to explain and illustrate the development of the town. The most valuable and unexpected information is that contained in the eighteenth century Parish Registers of the parishes of St. John and St. Mary.4 They include entries about the occupations of the persons noted and, in some cases, they mention the ward of the town in which that person lived. This unusual evidence appears from the 1690's up to 1739. The next most important single source is the Borough Rental of 1664.5 This survey of burgage plots, their owners and occupiers also includes some indications of occupation or status. Collections of family papers supplement the Registers and the Rental. The great mass of the Penpont Papers includes hundreds of deeds, leases and miscellaneous documents among which occupational information can be found.6 Smaller collections7 often yield a surprising quantity of useful material. For the eighteenth century the manuscript evidence is complemented by maps and drawings.8 The buildings of the town, many of which date from the period covered by this essay, are a rich source for the social historian.9 The one major collection of documents I have not made full use of is the Probate Records. This is partly because of the pressures of time available for research and also because these records are being studied by a local study group whose findings should throw more light on this period.10 My limited knowledge of the wills and inventories suggests however that their evidence will not alter greatly the impression derived from other sources.