Denis Small spoke to an appreciative
audience about his father William Henry Dennis Small. He was born in 1905 and
came from a sailing family. He joined the navy in 1924, became an engineer and
served in many ships.
H.M.S. Kelly was launched in 1938 at a
cost of £392,000. Mr. Small joined the destroyer at this time and became
associated with and under the command of Louis Mountbatten, who was a natural
leader and very popular with his men. Mountbatten felt that he wanted to prove
himself as good, if not better than his father and this he succeeded in doing.
He was dashing and ambitious and at the age of 23, in 1923, he became a lieutenant.
Small was very impressed by Mountbatten’s fairness, strictness and attention to
detail. H.M.S. Kelly was a happy and efficient ship.
An example of Mountbatten’s
extraordinary understanding was demonstrated when, on one occasion, a case of
cowardice occurred when an 18 year old rating left his post at a time of
action. Mountbatten let him off and blamed himself for not setting a good
enough example.
During the Battle of Crete, in 1941,
Dennis’ father lost his life. He was an engineer below deck in the engine room
and unable to escape when H.M.S. Kelly was sunk. During his 17 years service in
the Royal Navy he had spent a total of just 12 months with his wife and 2
children.
Coincidentally this most interesting
talk was given on 3rd Sept 2004, exactly 65 years since the outbreak
of World Was II.
(Many thanks to Joan Tomkinson for this
review)
The Lobby
Supper and Quiz Evening took place on the 16th October in the Church
Hall, Audley. It was to celebrate the tenth year of the Historian and the 80th
birthdays of some of our members. Over 70 members and guests enjoyed the
excellent traditional Staffordshire fare of lobby, dumplings, red cabbage and
chunky bread laid on by our chairperson and her team. What an extraordinary
achievement this was by Ann James and her able assistants. Being fully
refreshed, everyone retired to the lower hall and pitted their wits, and memory
(!), against an 80-question history quiz. With the use of a joker, that could
double the tally in a given category, the maximum score on offer was 90 marks,
remarkable then that of the thirteen teams competing 7 scored in the 80’s and
the winners, ‘Woody’s’; achieved the extraordinary score of 86! Well done to
Roger Wood and his team.
Thanks should also be extended to all the committee members who worked very hard to make the evening a success.
Just one of
the hot topics of conversation during the quiz was the answer that I had
proposed to the question:” In which year was the
If anyone has
any newspaper clippings, photographs or memories of the incident please get in
touch (MayerFam@aol.com)
and I will try to get them included as an article in the next Audley
Historian.
On Friday 5th Nov, Rosemary Dear presented a talk on the
above subject. Mrs. Dear initially covered the setting to the subject informing us that
a background of social unrest combined with a need to maintain the arms race
with
Mrs. Dear pointed out that this is a
snapshot of a forgotten time and anyone who has read Laurie Lee’s ‘Cider with
Rosie’ or Peter Laslett’s ‘The world that we have lost’ will have already have
a feeling for this time of apparent innocence.
Mrs. Dear then went on to talk about
the records themselves of which three are of most use:
The research group, of which Mrs. Dear was a part, used the data to develop several projects e.g. changes in land use, but another product of the work was a publication called ‘A walk around Holmes Chapel.’
For the family historian the information is really important in that it has the capacity to link people to properties.
All the work that was put into these surveys collapsed with the outbreak of the First World War and for obvious reasons it was never resurrected.
Mrs. Dear proved to be knowledgeable, fluid, eloquent and her natural enthusiasm kept an audience of about 50 people thoroughly entertained throughout.
The Society is
pleased to make available to members transcripts of the
·
Genealogical guides for researching mariners in both the British
merchant service and the Royal Navy (the former from 1835 and the latter from
1793) are available at: www.barnettresearch.freeserve.co.uk
·
Staffordshire
Past Track: www.staffspasttrack.org.uk is
a website dedicated to Staffordshire’s past, featuring thousands of resources
relating to the history and heritage of Staffordshire.
·
A
Jonathan Smith has been traced, continuously over the generations, in one
family in the Audley area from 1680 to the present day.
·
The
Heathcotes of Apedale Hall were descended from an innkeeper in Buxton.
·
Charles
Philip Wilbraham was an officer in the Coldstream Guards until he became vicar
of Audley in 1844.
·
Not
many people know that an admiral was born in Audley. In 1730 the future Admiral
Smith Child was born at Boyles Hall to Smith and Mary Child. The Smith-Childs
had been large landowners in the Audley area before 1730 but father Smith-Child
had dissipated most of the family fortune by 1730, which meant that in 1747 the
budding admiral entered the Royal Navy under the auspices of Lord Anson and
Lord Gower. He saw action off North America and
·
The
Society was present at the Border History Fair held in
Software Review
FAMILY TREE MAKER 2005
(various suppliers, packages and prices)
This is not a
review because I haven’t yet received my copy but a statement of deep
anticipation.
I have used
FTM for many years and currently have all my genealogical records on V9. After
a series of lacklustre upgrades (including V9) and increasing competition from
the likes RootsMagic, this revamped 2005
version of the best-selling family history software finally looks set to recover FTM status.
Early views
suggest that the layout is attractive and the toolbar boasts fewer and better defined
buttons. The tabs for parents and children have been removed from the
side of the screen and replaced with buttons logically placed alongside the
people concerned. You can now display eight (rather than four) children at the
same time, and there are extra spaces for
birthplace, date of death, and so on. Buttons for citations are adjacent
to names and events and take you directly
to the software's excellent sources window.
Navigating around large families was not one of FTM’s strengths. Now,
thanks to a new Pedigree Chart, you can display between three and seven
generations. Double-clicking on any name in the chart to opens up its
information window.
The index panel is particularly useful, enabling you to quickly navigate to any person in your
records. The simplest list is a full index of everyone in your tree; a single
click on a name then makes him or her the primary
person of a new chart. As pedigree charts only show direct ancestors, it can be
difficult to navigate to their siblings or children, but FTM solves this by
adding buttons to the index panel. Simply
click on any person in the chart and select Spouses and Children or
Parents and Siblings to display their names.
When I have
migrated to V2005 I will provide a further review.
Robert Mayer
·
The
discovery of a set of Audley Parish Magazines has opened some very interesting
doors. Those I have been using, from the
1920s has given some detailed information about many of the soldiers on the war
memorial in Audley. Perhaps 10-15 pages
of fascinating material has been added to the text of
‘Never to Return.’ More information
will be forthcoming on this unexpected turn of events.
·
The
following people worked at Old Hayswood Colliery and
are shown in the wages book on January 14th 1891 of which I have one
sheet:
|
Banksmen: |
£ |
|
J Prince, 7
days |
1.15.0 |
|
Wm Wood, 7
days |
1.15.0 |
|
J Cope Senr,
6 days |
1 |
|
T
Richardson, 6 days |
1.4.0 |
|
F Lingard, 6 days |
1 |
|
|
|
|
Pitmen |
|
|
Cope |
2.0.0 |
|
T Pointon, 6 days |
1.7.0 |
|
G Bailey, 7
days |
1.11.6 |
|
D Burgess, 7
½ days |
1.10.0 |
|
S(?) Glover, 7 ½ days |
1.10.0 |
|
Jno Richardson 6 days |
1.4.0 |
|
Jno(?) Davies, 6 days |
1.4.0 |
|
John Whalley, 6 days |
1 |
|
D Cook, 7 ½
days |
0.18.9 |
|
P Platt |
1 |
|
(illeg) |
1.8.0 |
|
|
|
|
Contractors |
|
|
|
|
|
J Whalley |
(various
amounts) |
|
Henry Walker |
(various
amounts) |
Pretty
interesting, pretty unusual you are saying to yourself. But this is only scratching the surface. Check out the article ‘Mrs. Thompson’s
Travails’ in this year’s Audley Historian.
This colliery is the same as the Co-operative pit at Halmerend and not
only has one wages sheet survived but a stack of documents. What’s more the history of the Co-operative
Pit, about which we could find so little, has in fact been written up in a book
on the
·
The Society would like to apologise to Wood Lane Post Office for not including them in our list of outlets
for the Audley Historian, this was an oversight by the editor. John, at Wood Lane Post Office sold almost 30 books for the Society in 2003 and we are
deeply appreciative of his support.
·
Members are aware of the ongoing wills project and the initial publication of the
Wills and Probate Inventories of the people of the Parish of Audley, (1650
–1700) has been transcribed and is available CD, please see the publications
listing below. If you would like to take part in this project please contact
Robert Mayer on: MayerFam@aol.com. A further project is being
developed around the 1910 LAND
TAX SURVEY. It is clear from the review
of the talk on the subject, reviewed earlier in this newsletter that the 1910
Land Tax Survey is an absolute goldmine of information and anyone interested in
taking part should contact Roger Wood at the next meeting.
·
A family bible has been received by the
Society. The bible apparently relates to the families of Griffiths and
Turnocks. You may be aware that unscrupulous traders are purchasing such bibles, the genealogical information is removed and sold on,
thus defacing the book. This book is complete and requires a good home. All
enquiry’s should be forwarded to Anne James on: barannejames@Tesco.net
·
Sadly
I have some disturbing news to report. It has come to the attention of the
Society that complete pages have been removed from at least one of our books
that are on open access to members and guests. In the past the Society has
resisted all moves to make access to the records more secure as such a move
would inevitable involve making access less convenient in some way. This is now
a situation that we are monitoring closely and would ask all members who attend
research sessions to report any unusual behavior in relation to the records
that may give cause for alarm.