Hatfield in History was one of the first fruits of research into Local History by a WEA group in South Yorkshire. It was not the first, for thathonour went to A Further History of Penistone, produced by John Addy and his Penistone class in 1964. The work at Hatfield was directly inspired by that which John Addy was doing with his group in Penistone. Discovery learning through project work was a novel concept in adult education in the early 1960s, perhaps ultimatelyinspired by some of the exciting approaches which took shape inprimary education. The idea of presenting groups of adults withbundles of documents and encouraging them to study these alongsidethe reading of specialist books led to a series of WEA publications inSouth Yorkshire.
