Carlton War Memorial and CAMRA pubs - a photographic expedition

Yesterday afternoon we (the OH and I) went out for a circular tour of Barnsley in the car.  He needed to take some photographs of pubs for the forthcoming issue of the Barnsley Ale Report (The Bar) which he edits for the Barnsley Branch of the Campaign for Real Ale.  The magazine comes out quarterly - the perennial problem of trying to get advertising and the lack of 'copy' from contributors just got too much for the branch a few years ago and the frequency had to be reduced from six copies a year to four but the couple of weeks before the magazine go to print are still a bit fraught in our house(s).


A 1920s map showing part of our photographic expedition (from National Library of Scotland)

I was going along for the ride and I had my own agenda too!  If he had to go to A, B and C for photos of pubs and we passed W, X, Y and Z on the way then I could get some pictures of War Memorials to add to my project! Honestly, it won't take us out of the way, hardly at all!  The OH needed a photo from Brierley on the right of the above map snip and from Mapplewell on the left - so we had to go through Carlton and Royston ... 

Just look at all the railway stations on this 1920s map, Grimethorpe, Staincross,  Notton & Royston and Cudworth's is just off the map at the bottom and Darton (which is the only one remaining) off at the left. No wonder there are so many Station Roads dotted about this area, once upon a time they would have each led to the local railway stations.  I can see at least three collieries as well - no make that four, there's a little Colly noted just under Mapplewell.  I'm still new to the Barnsley area, I've lived here ten years now but there's still so much to take in and lots and lots of history to find out about.  Old maps like the Bartholomew Series on the National Library of Scotland's website are a great way of seeing how places fitted together in the past

I ended up taking 71 photographs in total of five different memorials.  They were all the kind which stand in churchyards - I had been able to find good general images online especially on a website that specialises in Second World War research but what I needed was clear photographs of the names and inscriptions on the monuments.  Happily the OH didn't mind his quick trip out for a few pictures taking twice as long - and he took some extra photos too, of me taking photos!

Barnsley Chronicle 7 Aug 1920

I found a good piece in the digitised Barnsley Chronicle last week relating the unveiling of the War Memorial at St John's church in Carlton, a small village about three miles north east of Barnsley town centre.  The item was published on Friday 7 Aug 1920 and states that the memorial was unveiled the previous Tuesday. 

The article records the sentiment that I am finding underlies a lot of the planning for commemoration in Barnsley after the First World War - the community was split as what kind of memorial would be suitable, "At first when the idea was mooted in the village petty jealousies were aroused as to what form the Memorial should take and where it should be erected ..."

I have found that some villages preferred the option of a public park or cottage hospital or homes for disabled soldiers.  As I am still only beginning my research it will be interesting to see how many of these alternative proposals were carried through as the standard monumental style of war memorial seems fairly common around the area. 

As you can see from the snip above the people of Carlton were won over to the idea of a "magnificent Cruxifix in Carlton Churchyard" and it further claims that "practically every resident in the village - man, woman and child" contributed to the £400 cost.  Converting money is always difficult as prices and expectations have changed so much over the years but that is over £8,000 in todays money according to the currency converter on the National Archives website.

War Memorial at St John's Church, Carlton, Barnsley

There are already pictures of the Carlton War Memorial and a transcription online on the Genuki website.  It has not been my intention to 'reinvent the wheel' at any point in my research, however it is very satisfying to go and actually see a memorial yourself rather than relying on other people's work.  Plus I wanted to add the memorial to the War Memorials Online website and I could not do that with someone else's photos.

There are 52 names inscribed on this memorial for men who lost their lives in the First World War and 20 for men from the Second World War.  The entry on War Memorials Online has now been created and has a short description of the monument and a list of the all the names.

A branch of the OH's family lived in Carlton at the end of the 19th and beginning of the twentieth centuries.  I have been able to link several of the names on this memorial to his family tree - they are not direct ancestors or even great uncles, but they are members of a large extended family.  Carlton would have been a very small village or even just a few farms before the pits opened in the middle of the 19th century but hundreds of men arrived there from all over the country, most notably Wales - see a piece in volume 2 of Aspects of Barnsley, pp.49-71, 'Welsh Community in Carlton and Smithies' by Melvyn Jones.  It is now almost contiguous with Athersley and Royston, the villages to either side as the green fields between have been filled up with housing estates and a big new school.

In my reading of the Royston book about the First World War, which I wrote about two days ago, I found a mention of a brother in law of the OH's great grandfather who lived in Carlton.  It seems to have been taken from the local newspapers so I have a note of the dates and will be looking that up on my next visit to Barnsley Archives!  Royston have their own War Memorial and I will be looking at my pictures of that next.

Book of Me - Falling Behind due to Lack of Inspiration - Deeds and Daft telly

Unfortunately the last two weeks Book of Me prompts have not inspired me to write.  Julie Goucher of the Angler's Rest Blog started us off nine weeks ago with a good few interesting and thought provoking prompts.  Week 1 was describe yourself in 20 different ways and we've done Childhood Homes and Grandparents since then, both of which I could have written reams about, but just recently I've been finding it far too easy just to let the weeks slip by without writing anything in a timely fashion.  Playing catch up somehow seems to defeat the object of a weekly project - and I did so want to do this properly - the purpose being to help us to write stuff about ourselves to leave for our families, as many of the participants being family historians, we often spend ages researching other people and writing it up, but rarely spend anytime on ourselves.

 

Last week, Week 8, was all about creating (or virtually creating) a Time Capsule.  I gave this some thought - I remember putting a coin in the studwork when my dad built a wardrobe at one of our houses.  I wonder if anyone has found that yet? I was thrilled when we moved into our new house to find, in the coal shed (this house is a doer upper that we can't afford to do up unless we sell the old one and two years later we are still waiting!) an incinerator bin full of old newspapers, postcards, ephemera to do with the previous owner's long dead husband and various other interesting bits and pieces.  My theory is, judging by the date on the newspapers that the widow was going to have a bonfire with the various papers, put it off (maybe it rained!) and somehow never got around to it - for 34 years!

 

And yet, despite this wonderful example, my mind remains stubbornly blank.  The best thing I could come up with was to make copies of the deeds of the two houses we have and leave them with the houses - our solicitor doesn't want them anymore and if I hadn't have taken them they would have been thrown away - I am now deeply sad that we didn't keep the deeds for the OH's first house which he sold when we bought our first house together ten years ago.  They are probably long gone by now and that house was over a hundred years old ... such a waste of history.

 

My parents always lived in new houses - their deeds don't amount to much at all, so I don't have much experience with this kind of old document.  After being given our first set when we paid the mortgage off I did scan them as best I could (hey, there's a thought - I could do a better job now with my FlipPal Scanner) and learnt useful information such as when actually the various extensions were built and what happened to the toilet and coal store at the bottom of the garden (the back road and a strip of our land was compulsorily purchased when the field behind was sold by the council to a Housing Association).  I was even inspired to try to get the Cudworth Group to start a project encouraging people to ask to see their deeds before their solicitors throw them away - we might even get some useful history out of them too!

 

I might write a blog about deeds one day - but of course I don't want to write one about ours - we still live here and there's a limit to how close to home I want my blog posts to be!

 

This week, Week 9, is about Halloween - very topical (as next Thursday will be the 31st October), but not a particularly important calendar event in England unless you have small children, to whom the American Trick or Treat thing seems to have unfortunately spread.  I say unfortunately because it necessitates buying a box or tin of sweets to keep handy by the door, just in case.  Even though we usually only get the OH's little nephews coming calling you never know, we have been here two years now - people might be getting used to us and feel that it's safe to knock on our door with their little children - or not!

 

Have you been to Halloween event?  Or dressed up?  asks Julie in her extra prompt questions.  Well, no.  For Children in Need, which is in a few weeks time, yes - but not ever that I recall for Halloween.  I remember getting my son dressed up for a school event once - I was particularly proud of his cape, such a lovely big pointy collar - all homemade.  And I'm sure my daughter, with all those student years of working in pubs and clubs has dressed up every year ... but it somehow doesn't seem to fit the CAMRA real ale socialising circles I have been part of for the past twenty years or so. 

 

I vaguely remember a party which had a Halloween theme, mainly because the hostess had a lovely little girl and I think we were playing along - and we watched lots of episodes of some children's cartoon or puppet thing - something about a Trapdoor?  Hang on, I'll Google that ....

 

Yep, that's the right programme! 

 

It was an odd way for half a dozen young grown-ups to spend an evening, but we had plenty of beer and food - and I suppose the young mum couldn't have come out to the pub with us as she had the little girl to look after.

 

Sorry, but that's all I can come up with at the moment. 

My Battle to Buy a Book! Royston's Home Front in the First World War

On Friday I bought a new book.  Now I like books as anyone who has ever been to our house (or seen some of my Facebook photos) will know.  We have books in the sitting room, books on the landing, books in the bedroom and a whole office full of books in the room where normal people would have put the master bedroom (well, it's bigger!).  However I don't usually have to work quite as hard to buy a book as I did for this one yesterday. 

A few weeks ago I attended a talk at Experience Barnsley on Oral History - in the lunch break ('cos I didn't think to bring sandwiches and I was saving my money for a beer afterwards) I went down into the Barnsley Archives and browsed through some of the hundreds of wonderful local history books they have on the shelves there.  I don't usually have time to do this on my regular visits because I'm either booked on the Barnsley Chronicle (digitised version) or supposed to be transcribing something (inventories or non-conformist baptisms at the moment).

The book I really, really wanted!

I found a copy of this book - Royston and District in the Great War 1914 - 1919 but didn't have time to do more than flick through it.  I thought they might have a copy at my local library or at least in the central Barnsley Library that I could borrow but to my surprise there is only one copy on the library catalogue and that's the one in the Archives.

Searching online I found that the Royston History Group meet on alternate Fridays at Royston Library, so I phoned up to find out when the next meeting would be.  I'd just missed one so I had to wait a fortnight to call in to see the Group.  I did try the email address that was online but unfortunately got no reply.

I was very keen to get a copy of the book ...

Now again some of you might know that I am a little bit dodgy health-wise these days ... I get tired rather easily and when I do too much (get carried away with having fun for example like last weekend) I usually have to spend one or more days in bed recovering.  Going to Royston from Cudworth was, for me, a great expedition.  I would have to go by myself, no OH to lean on when I got tired; it was going to be four (yes four!!) bus rides to get there and back and although I didn't realise it from the Google map there was quite a sharp hill to walk up when I got off the bus. 

I also discovered that Royston suffers from Barnsley 'Libraryitis' too, just like Cudworth.  Their library is hidden away up a hill behind some trees with no proper footpath or signposts from the middle of the village and is called a Lifelong Learning Centre - not a great deal more helpful than Cudworth's hidden behind a row of shops Centre of Excellence or as the small brown road sign says, "Resource Centre".  Why on earth can't they just call them libraries, we all know what one of those is!  I tried asking four different people where the Royston Library was and ended up in the Post Office for asking for directions.  Just like Cudworth - even the local residents don't know where their libraries are these days!  And don't get me started on Barnsley Council's plans to demolish our Central Library ...


The sixth form centre they are planning to replace our library with (from the Barnsley Chronicle website)

I went, I met the Royston History Group, I came away empty handed ... the couple who did books were on holiday and the Group had not received my email - it was the address of someone who no longer attended.  They were very nice, I was told the book I wanted would be £5 and that only a few copies were kept in stock but that they would pass on the message that I wanted one.  We had a chat about the First World War and family history and all kinds of things, but as the OH has very few family connections with Royston (his Jones's passed through briefly and are buried in the cemetery and that's about it) it was a bit hard to work up an interest in their general business at short notice.  Oh, and I gave them some of my flyers - you never know, they might fancy a talk ... you can download my flyer from my History Talks tab if you are curious!

My History Talks Wordle

Two weeks passed, I made an even more cunning plan - I arranged to meet a friend at Royston, as the History Group were having a Photo Exhibition which I thought he might be interested in, and he offered me a lift home in his car.  Brill!  Only two buses and that hill to deal with!  Ha! Too clever for my own good, that's me!

It was raining on Friday morning, not heavily, that 'damp sort of rain that soaks you through' as Peter Kay used to say.  I caught the 31 bus in Cudworth, changed in Monk Bretton for the 57 (only a five to ten minute wait in the rain with no bus shelter and nothing to lean or sit on) got off the second bus in Royston and faced that hill again.  I knew the shortcut through the trees and the shrubbery to the front of the library this time (instead of going all the way around to the signposted car entrance which is about 50 yards out of the way there and back) and I successfully made my way up to the meeting room (hey, even the lift was working this week - I forgot to mention, it was out of order the last time and I had to use the stairs).

I was shown to the lady with the books - Royston History Group actually have a very impressive back catalogue of books, why do I never see them on the stall on Barnsley Market?  She got out a copy of the Great War book, I got out my purse and offered her my precious £5 (again - if you have read many of my posts you will know I'm absolutely skint, and dependent on the OH and my mum for spending money).  She was quite embarrassed to tell me that the price was actually £10 - the people the previous fortnight had got it wrong. 

So close ... and I still really wanted that book, I put so much effort into it now that I wasn't going to give up!  I apologised for the misunderstanding and asked where the nearest cash point machine was (I only had another £3 in change in my purse, making a total of £8 - and she didn't seem like the sort of lady who would haggle!).  It seemed I would have to walk back down the hill to the Post Office. Oh no, my heart sank.  But I still wasn't going to give up!  Hat, scarf and gloves back on, and out into the rain again.  I left a message that if a big chap came looking for me to tell him I'd be back! 

 Through the trees, down the hill, cross two roads ... cash machine, drat someone just beat me to it ... wait a minute or two ... get the £10, back over two roads (Why do some pedestrian crossings let every road go and then the pedestrians even with those clever camera things?) Up the hill, still raining, through the trees, through the shrubbery, over the muddy bit and into the library.  Up the stairs - you couldn't make this up, there was a man servicing the flipping lift this time!!

One of the ladies asked me if I was alright - I nearly burst into tears - my knees hurt, my ankles ached, I was so, so tired and I was wet.  But I bought the book.  And my friend turned up a few minutes later, we had a nice chat until I had recovered and then he brought me home.  It was OK in the end.

I've only read the first chapter so far - but it's a very thoroughly researched account of Royston's experiences during the war years based on newspapers, school log books, the parish magazine and even a few precious family letters and photographs.  It's a good book - worth £10?  Yes!  Worth the pain in my knees?  Probably, although ask me again tomorrow as they still hurt today!

Barnsley Radical & Liberal Club War Memorial "enduring for all time", so what happened to it?

As you may have read in the last few weeks I have been researching War Memorials in Barnsley.  My plan (it's a cunning one!) is to search the digitised Barnsley Chronicle in the years immediately following the First World War for all references to memorials and see how the plans for commemorating the men who lost their lives develop in Barnsley and the nearby villages.

Barnsley Township Map (from Barnsley Family History Society)

It's a slow process - I can only book one hour a day in Barnsley Archives on the laptop that gives access to the digitised newspaper - you might be thinking, well she could still do it the old fashioned way on the microfilm, but have you tried reading those old newspapers cover to cover?  Searching electronically, even just a month at a time (which is the way it works at the moment) is much faster than scanning visually through eight large pages per issue of very small print.  I'm picking up advertisements as well as news items and the smallest mention, buried deep in the proceedings of various parish council meetings is being revealed. It's really very good!

Yesterday I was a little late arriving at Barnsley Archives due to a diversion to visit St Edward's church to photograph their War Memorial but happily things worked out nicely and I still managed an hour on the newspaper search. 

Barnsley Chronicle 27 Dec 1919 (from Barnsley Archives)

This is the top couple of paragraphs of a long article about the unveiling of a Roll of Honour in a club in Barnsley.  Unusually it mentions that the 127 names which were inscribed on the panel are of the members who "served in H. M. Forces" not just the men who died.  As so many of the records of First World War soldiers were lost in the blitz (60% of the records were destroyed and many more damaged - those that remain are known as the Burnt Records for very good reasons!) a list like this would be invaluable in identifying men who served in the war for whom we have no other records.

Further down the page the piece comments that this is an updated Roll of Honour, adding the names of the men who went to serve after the first panel was erected (it would be interesting to look back into the war years to find out exactly when this was - but that would be an extension to my project).

The poignant thing about this section of the article is the description of the tablet, "which is prepared after the manner of a stained glass window by which process wonderful colouring effects are secured, yet at the same time the work is imperishable and enduring for all time".

"Enduring for All Time" eh?  That is a nice thought, but unfortunately it appears not to have been quite as good as they hoped, for just 94 years later the panel is probably lost.  The OH's best guess is that the Barnsley Radical and Liberal Club was the building which now forms part of Escapade nightclub on the end of Wellington Street in Barnsley town centre.  If that was the case then I think even that must have been a rebuilding since 1919 as the old maps show a foundry on the Escapade plot in the 1930s.  A newspaper report, found on Find My Past, notes a serious fire in premises of the Barnsley Radical Club in Market Street in 1907, could that be the same organisation?


Wellington Street and Market Street, Barnsley in the 1960s (from Digimap)

By a lucky chance searching on my Open University Digimap account I found the above map snip which seems to be made up of two different maps - the section on the right shows the Barnsley Radical & Liberal Club clearly on Market Street - and the left hand section shows it where the OH thought it was on the corner of Wortley Street and Wellington Street, where Escapade is now (although the nightclub has expanded to fill the whole block). 

When they moved premises they may have moved the commemorative panel, however the chances of a memorial plaque being extant in a night club?  Slim and none I would have thought - but please prove me wrong if you can!  This picture on the Tasker Trust website shows the building on Wellington Street, but with scaffolding obscuring the front.  The Rose and Thistle pub shown in the picture is now Voudou or Silvers Bar.

The closest I can find to a picture of the Market Street site is this one here on the Tasker Trust website again. Is the club the building with three gable ends facing into the street, just below Wellington House?  If so that building still exists - part of it is a take away food shop I think.  Maybe they completely rebuilt after the 1907 fire - that could very well be an early 20th century building.

A second clip from the Barnsley Chronicle 27 Dec 1919
(from Barnsley Archives)

The cutting also contains some social comment, appropriate perhaps to a political club.  It discusses the men who went to war and those who bided their time, "there might have been some who did not go at first because they had their wives and families, and mothers and fathers to look after".  This is very interesting - so they are suggesting that the great rush to volunteer that we have read about was tempered by a sense of responsibility for families and dependants even if people did think it would all be over by Christmas 1914.  The article goes on, "when Kitchener asked for 500,000 men he would have got a million without any difficulty had better provision been made at that time for dependents". 

I wonder what provision was made for dependents and how and when it changed, if indeed it did.  I know that conscription took effect in early 1916 and slightly later for married men.  Was it the case then, that the majority of the men who volunteered in 1914 and early 1915 were young and single? 

This second snip notes that 119 men returned to Barnsley from the club members listed on the Roll of Honour, eight men did not.  It does not give their names.  Minute books or membership rolls from the Barnsley Radical & Liberal Club might help identify these men, they may still survive in Barnsley Archives - Note to self - remember to ask next week! Two of the club members won the Military Medal ... but again no names are given, this is quite frustrating.

Ah, well another mystery to work on - but it's sad that the good intentions of the committee members of the Barnsley Radical & Liberal Club came to naught - less than 100 years later we have nothing tangible to remind us of the 127 brave club members who served their King and Country in the Great War.

Lest We Forget

St Edward's, Barnsley - more WW1 casualties to be remembered

Having royally overdone it last weekend it was difficult to make the effort to get up this morning - I've just spent three days in bed recovering, but the chance of taking photos of another Barnsley war memorial seems to have been a large enough carrot to tempt me out of the house.

I was meeting JA (who is working on a project researching Barnsley War Memorials) at St Edward's church at the junction of Racecommon Road and Park Road; the area is called Kingstone although I don't know where the name comes from.  The church is relatively recent, built at the turn of the last century baptisms begin there in 1902 and marriages in 1903.

An early image of St Edward's from an old postcard

We were shown into the church by two friendly chaps and directed to four window panels and a large ornate plaque at the front of the nave.  There was also a small plaque to soldiers who died in World War Two, but unfortunately my photograph of this did not come out very clearly.  I think I should take the OH and his big camera and tripod with me on these expeditions!  The windows were in memory of Fred Johnson King, whose name appears towards the centre of the memorial plaque.

The memorial plaque at St Edward's, Kingstone, Barnsley

Along with the names of 45 men who lost their lives the plaque also commemorates the vicarage being used as a "convalescent home during which time 562 men received treatment.  The whole cost being paid by E.G. Lancaster Esq. Keresforth Hall".  This is a fascinating detail and my friend GB is very interested in this aspect of St Edward's history.  Her great uncle George Henry Fretwell is remembered on the plaque and her grandfather returned from the war severely injured.  She is hoping to research the names and convalescent home in Barnsley Archives.

The gentleman who showed me around, Fred Thompson, is also interested in researching these men.  He would dearly like to get in touch with any descendants or relatives of these soldiers with a view to organising a commemorative service at some point in the future.  He can be contacted here.

I have transcribed the list of names.

Charles Coote Allport	Charles Hayes	Alfred Henry Perry
Frank Bailey	Richard Hill	Benjamin Robinson
Walter Henry Barrett	Percy Holmes	Harry Watson Robinson
Tom William Beldan	Edgar Hyde	Fred Rooke
Charles Bennett	Ernest Hyde	Albert Salmon
Charles Ashley Brierley	Ernest Jackson	Louis Sanderson
Herbert Burkinshaw	Edward Jones	Vernon Sanderson
George Chapman	Fred Johnson King	Harold Sawyer
Terence Cottney	James Laycock	Alexander Smithson
Harry Farnsworth	Arthur Moxon	Clifford Spurr
Joseph Fieldhouse	Fred Moxon	George Arthur Thompson
Charles Henry France	William Strode Pankhurst	John Vallance
George Henry Fretwell	Frank Parkin	Daniel Jones Wells
George William Fynn	Harold Parkin	Arthur White
Fred Harrison	John William Pearson	Edmund Wilson

Again I note several instances of the same name, two men by the name of Hyde, two Moxons, two Parkins, two Sandersons and two Robinsons.  Were these men brothers or cousins?  Are any of your great grandfathers or great uncles listed here? Please get in touch with either myself or Fred if you can help us in our research.

Thank you.

Week 7 - Book of Me - Grandparents

This week's prompt for the Book of Me (an online writing project promoted by Julie Goucher of the Angler's Rest blog) is 'Grandparents'. 

We are now into Week 7 and despite looking forward to writing this post I've been putting it off until I had posted something for last week's tricky 'Journals and Diaries' prompt.  As I have never really kept a diary it was a bit difficult to find something to write about ... until my daughter came last weekend to have a poke around in my loft to reclaim some of her old books and DVDs.

The pictures I posted for Week 6 are of badges that I collected over an eight or nine year span from various rock concerts I attended.  It is noticeable that once I married and the children came along this stopped!  We found the strip of material on which I had saved the badges in a box with an old fringed suede jacket and some really fancy black leather and concho'd belts.  Mmm, yummmm! I don't think they fit me any more but it was nice to remember wearing them and having fun!

For the week 7 prompt Julie gave us some further additional questions:

Grandparents

What were their names?

Where were they from?

Were they related? – Cousins perhaps

Where were they born, another Country or state/area

Photos

What did they do?

Did you know them?

What was your relationship with them?

If you didn't know them have you researched about them?

  

My paternal grandparents were Edward Lawrence Hall and Janet Bunn.  If I remember aright my dad used to say his father was called Barney - he didn't know why.  My dad was Edward Lawrence as well and he was called Laurie ... rebelling against awkward family names must just run in the family as I am also known by my middle name!

 

They were born just a few miles away from each other and my grandmother was a smidgit older than my grandad.  He was born in 1904 in Witton Gilbert, Co Durham and she in 1903 in Langley Park, Co Durham 1.3 miles away according to Google Maps.  They were not related but my grandmother's cousin had married my grandfather's brother three years before my grandparents' married which might have something to do with them meeting - I really don't know.

 

Grandfather Hall was a coal miner, but the story goes that he left home to join the army after a bit of bother involving my grandmother - I will not go into the details in a public blog.  You can read more about his army career on a previous blog post.  There is also a nice picture of them with their youngest child, my aunt, on that post.

Back row: Arthur Bunn, Vera Bunn, Linda Bunn, Henry Bunn
Middle: Henry and Linda's son Peter
Seated: Clementina Bunn, Janet Hall (nee Bunn), E L Hall

I understand that my grandmother Janet or Jessie as she was known was in domestic service before she married.  She picked up a lot of tips about the 'proper' way of doing things that she tried to pass on to her family and children.  She came from a large family, her brothers and their wives and her mum Clementina appear in the picture above.  Grandfather and Jessie married in 1926.

She died before I was born, but my mum says that she knew I was 'on the way' so that's a nice thought.  Despite my grandfather not passing away until I was in my late teens I didn't really know him.  We had moved away when I was only a small child and we did not visit.  He stayed close to his daughter's family and my cousins and they have some fond memories of him which they passed on at a family gathering earlier this year.

 

My maternal grandparents were William Satchell Hutton and Doris Gibson.  I have written a couple of blog posts about my grandad, one about some of the treasures I found in an old tin box and one about his Home Guard service during the Second World War.   He was born in 1905 in Crook, Co Durham - I visited Crook with the OH some years ago now and walked from there to Witton le Wear searching out family history - you can find those posts here, here and here.  We also visited again this year as I had realised I had been looking in the wrong place for many years for his birth place and now I needed new photos.

My grandma Hutton was born in 1907 in Wallsend, Northumberland (now part of Tyne and Wear).  She hadn't worked - or maybe just a 'little job' in a local shop - I'm not sure about this.  She was the youngest of a large family and her next oldest sister had died in the flu epidemic in 1918, my mum thinks grandma was a bit spoilt by her parents as a result of this.  She met my grandfather when he moved to Wallsend to work in the late 1920s.  I remember her telling me that they used to go to the same tennis club, and I think they may have attended the same church too.  They married in 1931.

Doris and William's Wedding Day
Back row: Jim Hutton, Doris Hutton (nee Gibson), William Hutton
Front row: Jean Hutton, little Irene Nelson, her mum Lily Nelson (nee Gibson)

I knew my Hutton grandparents very well, we actually lived with them for a few months when my father changed jobs - I wrote about their last house, one of my childhood homes, a few weeks ago.  Even after we moved away from the North East we visited them regularly and usually spent Christmas with them and my mum's brother, sister and their families.  I am convinced families are usually matriarchies, with husbands joining their wives families and socialising more with them than their own relatives after marriage.  Note I did say 'usually' I'm not claiming this as an unbreakable rule of course!

Doris and William Hutton enjoying their retirement

Grandad passed away in 1983 - he died of 'Chronic obstructive airway disease', a legacy of his lifelong career down the pits.  Grandma moved to live near my mum and enjoyed another 20 years with her grandchildren and great grandchildren visiting, gadding about on foreign holidays with my parents and generally being everything you might expect of a great grandma!  Their ashes are buried together in the cemetery in the village where my mum still lives.



Week 6 - Book of Me - Wordless Wednesday - Journals and Diaries

St Peter's, Barnsley - Another 160 Men from WW1 to Remember

Today I visited St Peter's church on Doncaster Road, Barnsley with my new project partner JA and her husband.  The full title of the church is St Peter the Apostle and St John the Baptist and I was hoping the incumbent might be able to tell us if the name means it absorbed the parish of St John's church which used to stand on Joseph Street in the Barebones area.  St John's was demolished in the late 1960s.

I wrote about St John's and St George's, another demolished church, a week or so ago.  I had found evidence in the digitised Barnsley Chronicle at Barnsley Archives that both churches were planning commemorations for the men lost in the First World War who had belonged to the parishes and I am trying to find out if anything has survived the destruction of the buildings.

JA is working on a project with the Cooper Gallery to research the names of the men who died in WW1 who are commemorated on the plaque from Holgate Grammar School which is now on display there.

Plaque from Holgate Grammar School now in the Cooper Gallery (from War Memorials Online)

My interest is in finding out how the various memorials in the Barnsley area were planned and executed.  I started writing on this theme in September this year.  We were both quite shocked to find that there is no centralised Roll of Honour for Barnsley, at least not one that anyone now knows the whereabouts of.  We plan to submit the locations of the memorials we find and the lists of names to the Imperial War Museum for publication on their website - the UK National Inventory of War Memorials.  All kinds of memorial can be submitted - from "crosses and statues to bus shelters and park benches".

Today's visit was prompted by a conversation with some church going friends last weekend, the OH had taken me out for Sunday lunch in the new Wetherspoon's pub in Chapeltown, and very nice it was too.  Our friends were sure they had seen plaques with names in both St Peter's and St Edward's churches in Barnsley.  I contacted Jane and she took the plunge phoning the Reverend Paul Cartwright at St Peter's to arrange for us to visit.

The commemorative plaque at St Peter's, Doncaster Road, Barnsley

My photo, seen here, is a bit of a Photoshop job - I'm afraid my camera flash reflected from the polished wood at the centre of the image so I had to paste in a segment from my other pictures.  It was a bit too dark in the church for photos without flash and most of my sectional images came out blurred.  Never mind - this was good enough and I can make out all the names.

The darker, smaller board below the main board also bears names from the First World War. I hadn't been sure so after I had fiddled with the image to make it as readable as possible I called up the Commonwealth War Graves Commission website (CWGC) and started checking some of the more unusual names from both upper and lower sections.  Although many of the entries didn't mention Barnsley the names on the lower sections are sufficiently unique to reassure me that it also relates to deaths in WW1. 

Information collected by the CWGC was and is dependent on information from family for the 'Further Information' section at the bottom of the entries.  This is often the only place on the index entry that lets you positively identify a man if he has a fairly common name.  Sadly many men are listed without this extra family information.


Fred Brettoner's listing on the CWGC website

Fred Brettoner appears on the plaque in St Peter's church - his name is towards the bottom of the first panel on the left.  As you may be able to see on this image (click it to open in a larger window) from the CWGC website he actually lived with his wife Lily at 17 Spring Street, off Princess Street (near Morrisons) which is in the parish of St George's. However his parents, John and Jane Brettoner, had lived on Doncaster Road, very near St Peter's church for many years so I imagine they had submitted his name for inclusion in the memorial in their local church.

Father Paul was able to confirm that St Peter's had taken over the parish of St John's as I had suspected.  He even knew of a parishioner who might be able to tell us if any items were transferred from one church to the other in the 1960s.  He is going to keep in touch with us on this.

Here is the full list of the names from the board in the church:

J Ambler	H Clough		H Midgley	E Saville
H Ardron	P Coulson		Hy Miller	T Sawyer
T Atkinson	D Craig		Ht Miller	H Scott
L Barlow	W Crawford		W Millthorpe	E R Sharman
W Barlow	H Drury	C W Heptinstall	A Naylor	G H Simms
T E Barr	R Dryden	C H Herbert	F Nell	J J Simpson
J Beaumont	H Dyson	S Hodgson	C Nutting	W J T Sizer
S Beaumont	W Edon	W Houghton	A Ogden	G Stainsby
J Bell	C Ellerby	L Jackson	G Ogden	G Stringer
T F Bell	J G Fallas	W Jackson	W Pemberton	J Sutcliffe
J P Bent	J A Farkin	W Jennings	C C Petty	E E M Taylor
J Benson	D Fenton	R H Kaye	E Phillips	H Taylor
J Betchetti	A Fieldhouse	E Kevitt	H Philpott	F Thompson
W A Bird	E Fieldsend	J W Kevitt	C Pickering	A W Tindall
R A A Blackburn	F Firth	W H A Kevitt	H Pickles	F Wainwright
J T Booth	H Firth	S King	W Place	P Walker
J H Bower	A W Frost	F H Laister	J Power	J Walker
A Bowler	A Fryer	C R Lawson	E Pratt	A Watson
E Bowring	W Fullwood	H Loach	E Price	C Watts
T H Bradley	H Gill	J Loach	W H Raley	W Weldrick
F Brettoner	F Goldthorpe	T Loach	W H O Raley	J Wesley
H Brown	C W Goodair	W Lovatt	J W Redford	J Whalley
B Brownridge	N Goodwin	M Lucas	J Ridley	A Wherritt
C F Carr	O Graham	G Lyons	Alf Robinson	A E Williams
J W Cartwright	W H Grant	H McElvey	And Robinson	F W Williams
E Charlesworth	S Green	J McLee	R Royston	G Wilson
J Chilvers	J Harris	H O F Marsden	M Ruckledge	L Winter
A Cliffe	H Hawcroft	G Mason	S Rushforth	W Woodcock



F Bramley	H Hemingway	A McLee
W Brown	J W Hepplestone	A Moore
Wilf Brown	P Jackson	S S Musgrave
R Dingle	W Kenworthy	C G Norton
L Exley	J Leatham	P Oddfield
A Gilson	P O Law	W Rood
W E Hall	W F Law	E Saxon
A Hemingway		S Sharp
		A Wray

You can download the list of names here as a .pdf file to save and read later.  There are 160 names.  As I noticed in my St George's post some of the surnames repeat.  There are  two Bells, three Kevitts, three men called Loach, two called Ogden, two Walkers and two Williams.  In the lower list there are two Hemingways and two Laws.  I am sure I will spot others as I continue to read the list through and through again.  Some of these men will have been brothers or cousins, can you imagine the sadness of their families?  Bad enough to lose one son or brother ...

And of course in a close knit community, as Barnsley was at the beginning of the twentieth century,  just one hundred years ago, these men will have worked together, gone to school together and will have been married to each other's sisters; their families may have lived next door to each other, and even if they were incomers from Staffordshire or Durham to work in the new deep pits in Barnsley they may have come as members of communities or families from their places of origin.  They will have known everyone in their area, and one hundred and sixty of them died over the four years of the war and no doubt many more afterwards from wounds, gas and the harsh environment in the trenches.

One hundred and sixty names here, seventy four at St George's - that is from just two parishes in the town centre.  There are so many more to research.

Of course it is entirely possible that men will appear on more than one list like this in Barnsley.  They could be listed in their home parish, in their parents' parish (as Fred Brettoner has been), at their place of work and their school.  They might also be remembered at their local club.  One of the newspaper cuttings I found last week mentioned displaying photographs of men in Smithies Chapel, Old Mill Chapel and Smithies Club.  I wonder if those buildings still exist and whether there is a dusty pile of photos at the back of some cupboard?

JA, GB and I with  the assistance of Barnsley Archives, are compiling a list of War Memorial projects that have been undertaken or that are underway so we don't re-invent the wheel.  If you know of any lists, plaques or other memorials in the Barnsley area please get in touch or if you have carried out research on the men named on a particular War Memorial please contact the Archives about depositing your work so that other people can benefit from your research.

Thank you.