Brian Nixon’s
talk was really well attended. He was surprised that so many Audley folk should
come to hear a talk about Silverdale!
There is some controversy as to how Silverdale got its name
and no one really knows. It is known that before 1792 it was an empty valley
and that a profusion of silver birch trees may have given rise to the name.
As far as population goes; a log book owned by Rafe Downing
shows that when the company celebrated its centenary in 1790 there were 100
people in the valley. This rose to 1000 in 1841, 1500 in 1851 and by 1871
Silverdale enjoyed a population of 6000.
We were shown maps of railways of the 1830’s when Walter
Sneyd was cashing in on iron prices. Iron was taken from Silverdale via
Francis Stanier had capital and together with Robert Heath
they built a forge and a railway to Pooldam in
When Robert Heath left the business he moved to Market
Drayton and lived the life of a country gentleman. He built a railway and used
it daily. There were 17 mines serving the furnaces in Silverdale. In these
mines the very difficult to win black band iron was mined. Photographs taken
during a strike in 1912 were reckoned to have been taken at the only time the
air was clear enough for photography. During working hours there must have been
a permanently overcast unhealthy haze.
Female employment included work in the silk mill, followed
by the fustian works. Fustian was a type of velvet and women could have walked
to 30 miles in a day trimming the material. This continued until the 1930’s.
Young women also often went into service.
Individuals would have often built terraced houses rather
that the employers, perhaps a shopkeeper would build three houses with some
capital and take money from the rent.
In 1901 Silverdale Iron Works were closed and demolished.
By 1932 slum clearances were under way and council houses
being built.
This entertaining talk was enjoyed by all present.
(Thanks go to Joan Tomkinson for supplying this review)
Cartlitch--Willcoks--Grocod--Bouers--Bruckes--Talor--Dail--Ryley.
1.
Work Backwards; start with yourself and work
backwards, generation by generation. Check your data to as many sources as
possible at each stage.
2.
Be Organised and Honest; you’ll collect a mass of
information, get organised. Get a file to keep certificates in. Open up a file
per generation and a card per person. Eventually move to a computerised system.
You may find skeletons in the cupboard, don’t ignore them. Don’t conclude
without evidence simply because ‘its obvious’ or the only apparent option.
3.
Start With Your Relatives; assemble everything that
you can, especially from the older generations. Take copies of certificates.
Ask for approximate dates. Make comprehensive notes of what you’re told.
4.
Set Your Sites; decide where to concentrate your
efforts. Your whole ancestry may be overwhelming, by the time you get to your
grandparents start to focus on a particular branch.
5.
Understand Surnames; they usually derive from four
basic groups; place, occupation, patronymic and nickname. (Check Edgar Tooth’s;
‘The Distinctive Names of North Staffordshire’.)
6.
Classes and Society; it is always being a member of a
family history society. You’ll get a good grounding in the essentials and
probably meet people with similar interests.
7.
Use Technology; as I hinted above, you’ll probably
soon be forced to organize your data with a computer. Modern, dedicated Family
Tree Software is user friendly and relatively cheap to buy. Data can be
organised in programmes such as ‘Custodian’ and word processing software such
as ‘Word’ allows easy note recording.
He eloped to
Thomas Garratt then returned to
In 1830 he was appointed curate in
charge at Audley, vicar Hicken being in poor health. His salary was £75 per
year and he was quite relieved to be appointed curate at Talke in 1831 at a
salary of £250 per year. Late in 1832 vicar Hicken died, and Garratt’s father
in law, who had become joint patron of the living, was instrumental in him
becoming vicar at a salary of £600 per year. During his time at Audley he built
the new vicarage and the Audley National Schools, and also continued to write
his poems and religious books, in 1836, although still only 40, his health
began to fail, the main cause being his ‘diabetic gout’. He spent much time in
the south of
Various sources seem to suggest
that he was not a popular vicar and his poems do not merit a mention in standard
reference books on literature.
(Stan Brassington, July 1991)
So a man, who has been working at
Hall o’Wood, Balterley, for about 7 years, told me. This is a great shame as I
had an eventful walk from Engelsey Brook to Mill Dale and back this morning.
The first half of the walk was
easy to follow as I headed across the fields.
A fox and I were mutually surprised and it sprang up about 8 yards away
and bounded off through the green crop stuff.
The path through the attractive buildings at Hall o ’Wood (a
half-timbered Tudor building) was easy to locate and I located the path that
entered Mill Dale.
This was the main attraction of
the walk. Many people of a certain age
mention trips to Mill Dale as children, but I’d never been. This is from Wilf Chadwick’s ‘Miles Green
Memories’ (Audley Historian Vol 2) and he is referring to the 1920s:
‘Same as Good Friday, way used go Mill Dale, down
Balterley road. Well you can get to it
along
Mill Dale
is still heavily wooded with many bluebells, pink campions and white stuff in
evidence. If I was of an imaginative and
Romantic disposition – like our esteemed Newsletter Editor indeed – I could
maybe imagine the echoes of all those children’s voices from so long ago.
The walk
back to Engelsey Brook was a bit more difficult to find and involved a scramble
under the temporary fences near The Limes Farm and a welcome from the loose,
but not-too-threatening dogs there. If
you do the walk, make sure you keep to the path because there is a £25 fine for
using the drive (it says on a board).
Thereafter, it was plain sailing and a very enjoyable walk; I only got
lost a couple of times in the second half.
(The Editor is grateful to Ian Bailey for this contribution.)
Do you have a digital camera and do you live in North
Staffs? Read on…
The war memorial project started some years ago and we published our book ‘Never to Return’ in 2000. Since the publication, a great deal of further information has become available and the amount of information has increased by something like 50%, and it is still coming.
One great source has been the Weekly Sentinel, but since our
original book, the estimable Mrs Curwen has indexed all the photographs of
First World War men. This led to many
new discoveries and has located perhaps 100 photos. However, the quality is often very poor and
when printed out it deteriorates further.
An enquiry to the Newspaper Library at Colindale in
At the moment I am working through the Weekly Sentinels for
the Second World War. It is surprising
but true that we often know less on these people than we know of the First
World War soldiers. This will also
locate photographs.
The best solution at the moment is a digital photograph from
the microfilm when it is displayed on the reader at Hanley library. But I don’t have a digital camera.
If I provide a list of editions and pages where photos
appear, will you photograph the soldier and provide me with an image on
disc? This would not take too long, but
would greatly assist the project.
Is there a volunteer?
Contact Ian Bailey at ian_bailey76@hotmail.com or ibail1sc@stokecoll.ac.uk
This year’s Audley and District Family History Society’s Audley
Historian, the society’s annual journal, contains the usual variety of
articles:
- something of interest to everyone! Audley Historian will be on sale in the early Autumn, watch out for local advertising.