AUDLEY & DISTRICT FAMILY HISTORY SOCIETY NEWSLETTER

November 2005

  

 

TRAFALGAR EVENING

 

On Saturday, 22nd October, the society entertained members and guests with a Celebration of the Battle of Trafalgar. With tickets costing only £5; the raffle, supper and entertainment were remarkable value for money.

 

Over 50 members and guests enjoyed the excellent fare of shepherd’s pie and vegetables followed by a variety of sweets laid on by our chairperson and her team. What an extraordinary achievement this was by Anne James and her able assistants. Further thanks should go to Joan Dobson for her artistic skills, which were in evidence in the decoration of the hall and to Gwyneth Pearson for her preparation of the Trafalgar Game.

 

Being fully refreshed, everyone retired to the lower hall where a ‘Trafalgar Drive’ ensued. Anyone familiar with a Beetle Drive will get the meaning of what was involved. With the cry of Trafalgar ringing round the hall and people moving from table to table to test their luck with the dice, great entertainment was had by all!

 

The Trafalgar Drive was followed with a chance to flex the vocal chords with a selection of sea shanties. The ensemble was ably accompanied (and led) by Joyce Morlidge, one of our members, on piano. 

 

Thanks should also be extended to all the committee members who worked so hard to make the evening such a success.

 

 

‘BETWEEN THE TRACKS’

 

On Friday 2nd September, Mr. Harold Forster MBE reminisced about his 48 years at work on the railways.

 

As a boy he joined his church choir where some of the choir members were signalmen who invited the boys into the signal box. At that moment he became hooked on railways.

 

In 1936 he started as a junior in the Station Master's office at Crewe station working for the LMS (London, Midland, Scottish Railway), which controlled 1900 miles of track and had 434 million passengers per annum. Famous personalities used the railway and everyday there was something new to do, even cleaning the ambulance room. The boys working at the station were sent to evening classes.

 

When war broke out the railways came to the fore and were taken over by central government; half a million children were evacuated by train; the trains were used for the return of personnel after Dunkirk; huge movement of troops was made by train.

 

In 1946 when Mr. Forster was manning the signal box the track was flooded and some of the track was washed away. He managed to stop an oncoming train and won a commendation of 2 guineas.

 

By 1947 he became Station Master at Waverton near Chester on the Duke of Westminster's estate. The Royal Train came from London via Waverton to North Wales and when it stopped in the sidings vats were placed under the toilets.

 

In 1958 he became Traffic Inspector at Crewe. He reminded us that the McMillan government brought in Dr Beeching who closed a lot of stations. The steam age was over and a new age began for the railways, first diesel and then electric.

 

Eventually he was made Assistant Station Master, after which he worked at Whitchurch with 15 stations to look after. He had another spell at Crewe as Deputy Station Master followed by a short time at Wrexham. In 1969 he was Area Manager at Piccadilly, Manchester, with a staff of 2000 originating from 17 countries. He met passengers of every walk/vacation of life. The Queen Mother travelled via Piccadilly, as did the Queen and Prince Philip in the Silver Jubilee year.

 

He told us about the IRA leaving an explosive in the left luggage department in 1969, after which cameras were installed over the station, of a little boy arriving on his own from London one Christmas and of an Oriental gentlemen found kneeling in the Booking Hall dealing cards.

 

His talk was very interesting and amusing and has had time during his retirement to recall the amusing and interesting people he has met during his life on the railways.

 

(Thanks go to Wendy Wood for this review)

 

 

‘MINING 1940 –1986’ – Errata

 

In the review of the talk given by Mr Reg. Goulding on Friday the 6th May and published in the August Newsletter certain errors occurred, they are corrected as follows:

 

  • Mr Goulding’s actual job title was foreman blacksmith; his job involved looking after cages, headgear, winding ropes etc.
  • The average air pressure was 14.5lbs per square inch and as the pressure increases gas is pushed out of the coal seam.
  • Every coalfield had a mobile winder and individual pits, when required sent this for.

·         Up to 1950 coalfields were self-contained, after 1950 they became dependent upon the National Grid and this caused problems.

 

 

SNIPPETS

 

  • www.Ancestry.com is set to put on the web the 1851 Census covering England, Wales, Channel Islands and the Isle of Man. It will enable access more than 17 million names indexed for easy online searching. This makes Ancestry the only place on the Web where you can search all census records from England and Wales spanning 1851 to 1901.

·         The picture (not shown) shows a teapot from the Talke O’ the Hill pottery. It is approximately 12.5cm high and decorated like a barrel, with TEA TIME written on the front.  The lid has a small teapot as a handle. Following on from the picture of a pot from the Audley Pottery in the last newsletter the same questions apply; where was this pottery? Did any members work there? How long was this pottery in business? The editor would welcome any replies to mayerfam@aol.com

  • Anyone with ancestors who lived in Dean Hollow in the village of Audley should visit the following web site: www.fcet.staffs.ac.uk/audleyvillage/. All manner of useful information can be located there.
  • In addition to the 1901, 1891, 1881 and 1871 census records, the indexes and images for the 1861 Census for Scotland are now available online at www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk.

 

 

BOOK REVIEW

 

It is a pleasure to mention two brand-new books, which deal with the history of our patch.

 

Pride of place has to go to the new volume (Vol. 15) of Staffordshire Studies, which is available from the History Dept, Keele University, for £11 inc. postage.

 

The first article therein, and the most substantial in the whole volume, is by our noted Audley historian and esteemed newsletter editor, Robert Mayer.  Robert uses his detailed and extensive knowledge of Audley wills, 1650-1700, to assess the level of literacy in the parish at that time.  Out of this all sorts of questions arise: who was giving the education?  Who paid for it?  Did anyone go from the parish to university?  How many had books, or desks even?  Were girls and boys equally literate?  Essential reading for all of us.

 

But there is more.  Joseph Barker was a controversial religious figure in mid-C19th North Staffordshire and America.  He changed denominations with regularity, campaigned for Chartism and anti-slavery while he was in America.  In short, he was a controversialist.  In 1849 he moved to America, returning to England in 1854… to Betley of all places.  (Not at that time a hotbed of political and religious controversy, but that is where his wife’s family was from.  Her maiden name was Frances Salt.)  From Betley he wrote five letters to the Salem ‘Anti-Slavery Bugle’ describing the state of things in England as he saw them, so there is plenty of description of Betley at the time.  This is excellent – I wish I’d known about them when I wrote about Betley at just this period in Audley Historian No. 7.

 

This week I spotted  ‘Goodbye Old Pick’ in the excellent Scarthin Books at Cromford.  This is a fine new & second-hand bookshop, with an equally interesting café. You can have some inexpensive home-cooked organic food surrounded by books and magazines.  Anyway, as soon as I saw what the book was I couldn’t buy it fast enough.  Phillip Leese – another of our eminent local historians – alerted me to the existence of a manuscript written by a local man some years ago.  It described his early life in pits around Kidsgrove.  He rose, in traditional fashion, from the lowest rung of the mining ladder to senior management.  He was very much involved in the events surrounding the disaster at Talke Colliery in 1866 when 91 men and boys were killed.  Lawton’s account of his mining life is quite short – 45 pages of the book.  However, his descendant, Ann Goddard has done an interesting thing by transcribing reports of the disaster from various sources and this takes up most of the rest of the book – and the result is fascinating.  (She also gives transcribed accounts of two further disasters soon after – at Talke and Bunkers Hill.)  In Lawton’s account we read of his heroic efforts to rescue people after the explosion.  The later reports show him in a different light.  However, as the story, which unfolds, is so fascinating, I don’t want to give any further details.  The book has great relevance for North Staffordshire mining as well as the history of Audley parish.  It cost me £9.99 but I haven’t yet seen it in a local bookshop.  The publishers are J & A Goddard, 1 Plains Lane, Blackbrook, Belper, DE56 2DD.  If you add a couple of pounds for postage I’m sure they will be happy to receive a cheque.

(My thanks go to Ian Bailey who provided both these reviews)

 

 

OBITUARY – John Taylor

 

John died on the19th September 2005, aged 74. He was the only son of Jack and Alice Taylor -Alice is still living aged 95. John trained for the teaching profession, met and married another teacher Freda and they had three children. John had many interests; he was a keen cricketer and played for Bignall End, a lover of the countryside and all things natural, he enjoyed a friendly 'chin wag' and was a leading light in the Foresters. John was an ardent amateur historian, a member of this society from its beginning and a devoted Port Vale fan. He was a friendly gentle man who loved his 'quiet out of the way place'. We miss him!