EDITORIAL NOTE

The present volume is the fourth to have been compiled for the Middlesex V.C.H. Committee formed in 1979 to complete the Middlesex History. The University of London gratefully acknowledges the help of the Committee, which has continued under the chairmanship of Dr. David Avery until 1998 and thereafter of Dr. Alan Clinton, with Mr. Roy Harrison succeeding Dr. K. A. Bailey as Treasurer in 1997. The University also records its gratitude for the continued generosity of the City of Westminster and the London Boroughs of Kensington and Chelsea, Islington, and Hackney in supporting the Committee's work. Changes in the funding and structure of the Committee in the early 1990s are recorded in the Editorial Note to volume X. Thanks are once more offered to those who contributed to the Middlesex V.C.H. appeal from 1990, including the Corporation of London, the Marc Fitch Fund, the British Academy, the Pilgrim Trust, the Goldsmith's Company, the Mercer's Company, Camden History Society, Mr. Graham Bird, the late Mr. S. E. Piesse, and others giving privately. Their help was essential to the completion of this volume.

No changes in the editorial staff have occurred since the publication of volume X, but in 1996 Mrs. Jenny Free retired after long service as secretary.

Those who have provided information for the volume or commented on parts of the text are named in the footnotes, and they are sincerely thanked for their help.

The structure and aims of the Victoria County History as a whole are set out in the General Introduction (1970) and its Supplement (1990). The contents of the first seven volumes of the Middlesex History are listed and indexed in outline in a booklet, The Middlesex Victoria History Council, which also describes the work of the precursor of the present Middlesex Victoria County History Committee.