Cheslyn Hay & District Local History Society

Barry Balmayne is this month’s speaker and comes highly recommended.  His talk is on his life in Showbiz and is entitled ‘A Variety of Comedy’.  At the Salem on Thursday, 24th February at 7.30pm.  £1 including refreshments.
Requests this week include a little known pit, the ‘Pool Hayes Colliery’ in Holly Lane at Landywood and the death of Charles Smith  aged 54 who died whilst eating his ‘snap’.  Plus an enquiry from a  lady from Australia who is tracing her Hawkins/Jennings family tree. Plus Neal from Crewe for any information on his Hackett family.
And more success after last week’s requests including on tracing details of the deaths and graves of John Ernest Ansell, a WWII soldier and William Valentine Cross. Also more information on Jim Whitehouse the milkman.
New photographs this week include the wedding of Harry Rogers and Evelyn Perks, Joan Perks and Colleen Horton handing out coronation mugs  at the GW High School to Glenice Davis and Ann Heminsley, Rosemary Avenue photographs of the Queen’s Jubilee Parade and their Street Parties, and photographs of the local clean up operation called ‘Operation South Cannock’.  We also have received the family album of Margaret Kingston that include a range of photographs over the past eighty years.  Names written on the photographs are the Kingstons, Davis, Stan Jellyman, Webbs, Edwards and Prime but there are many to be named.
And documents handed in for our Archives include the Cannock Advertiser of June 1977 which has all the local street parties of Cheslyn Hay and Great Wyrley celebrating the Queens Jubilee in Mitre Road, Fair Oaks Drive, Johns Lane,  Rosemary Avenue, Littlewood Lane,  Low Street and Lingfield Drive as well as some carnival pictures.  And a newspaper cutting of five bombs being dropped near Lodge Farm in August 1940.  Also a list of 47 Accident Reports at Hawkins pit in 1942 with full details.  The records and newspaper reports on Superindendent Bill Longmore’s project of the BMX Track that was opened in 1984.  A list of 541 miners and addresses who were employed at Hawkins Colliery in 1941 and ten fatal accidents at the pit between 1918 and 1943 which were Thomas Farnall, John James, Albert Jackson, William Perkins, Cooper, F Holt, Thomas Hart, H Hodgkins, James Bate and G Street.
And memories this week include flashbacks to when the Wolves turned out to play Cheslyn Hay at cricket in the 1950s and at football in the 1970s.  Together with the war years with the evacuees from Margate and in the seventies Ruby Loakes making homemade cakes, meat pies and faggots.
Our Salem Base will be open as usual on Tuesday 10am to 4pm.  and this week we are meeting up with someone researching their Whitehouse and Morris family trees, later in the morning.  Anyone with mutual interests are welcome.
More information on any of these items can be supplied free of charge on request to the email address below.
trevor.cheslynhayhistory@talktalk.net

No Comments »

Two heartrending requests this week from family members trying to trace their long departed relatives in order that they may be able to offer some token or acknowledgements on their graves.  One is for William Valentine Cross who died in 1922 after a very sad life and the other is for John Ansell who was killed in WWII.  Also a request from Australia on her Perry family and for the first time we have been approached by a Heir Hunter after a Mr Michael George Harrison.
We have had much response for last weeks requests plus we have now located the family of Joseph Stokes who was killed in the First World War.
The family of Enos Cope have kindly donated photographs of Cheslyn Hay choirs for our archives and we have also a batch of photographs of the Southerton family together with the Perks, Westwoods, Handys and the Altrees.   And we have received several newspaper reports on various subjects including the drowning of Wm Woodward Perry of The Lot, the suicide of his father Wm Perry of The Lot and the tragic accident of Fred Whitehouse of Station Street who was crushed to death by a coaltub at Hawkins Colliery.  Also a newspaper report on the evacuee children from Margate in June 1940 and the career of Howard Benton as reported in the Cannock Advertiser on his death  in 1981.  And we have received full entries in the Brough Family Bible of Births, Marriages and Deaths, including the Southertons and Baileys, beginning with the marriage of George and Ann Brough on March 6th 1848.
And more memories from Peter Cadman in this week’s Weekly Newsletter that include names such as Perks, Hodson, Wesley, Horton, Doctors Williams and Malone, Abrahams, Geoff Parkes, Brough and Hawkins.
Our Salem Base will be open as usual on Tuesday 10am to 4pm and we had another marvellously busy day again last week.
More information on any of these items can be supplied free of charge on request to the email address below.
trevor.cheslynhayhistory@talktalk.net

No Comments »

There will be a powerpoint presentation by Geoff Hackett on ‘Cheslyn Hay – Now and Then’ at our Coffee Morning this Thursday 10th February at 10am at the rear of the Salem.
This week’s family tree requests include the Whitehouses, Perrys and Walkers.  Plus some information on the Farrington and Edmunds trees.
More photographs received include the Waterworks, a beautiful one of the Nook Cottages before the war and more of the Edmunds family and we have now got photocopies of all the Salem School School Teachers Meetings 1892 – 1920.
And more nostalgia in our Weekly Newsletter that include well known families in the post war years such as the newsagents Cliff and Jessie Ball, the Perks, Baileys, Cadmans, Mytton, Brough, Edmunds, Benton, Elsmore, Smith, Ponder, Blackley and Derek Stanton.
We are now appealing for photographs of any Street Parties that were held around the village in 1977 to celebrate the Queen’s Jubilee for our new book this year.  It could well be the last time any street parties will be held and we do not have one single photgraph in our archives.
Our Salem Base will be open as usual on Tuesday 10am to 4pm.  Last week we entertained another nine visitors, many kind enough to provide us with their memories of the Isolation Hospital and some photographs, plus researchers looking into their family trees.
More information on any of these items can be supplied free of charge on request to the email address below.
RESPONSES With our family tree project taking shape, we have received news on the Farrington family, with Ralph taking up an impressive initiative by creating a new web site on MyHeritage.com.

trevor.cheslynhayhistory@talktalk.net

No Comments »

We have had an appeal for hellp on tracing the family tree of the Wood family which have lived in the Cheslyn Hay/Landywood area for well over 200 years just to fill in a couple of gaps.
New photographs handed in this week include a Nurse Ewers of the Isolation Hospital, Laura Edmunds (nee Boot) and the Edmunds family taken in the 1940s, a 1934 Carnival with a horse drawn carriage laden with children and their parents and a childrens parade from 1938 including names such as the Dunns, Winslows, Deakins, Evelyn Hough and Mary and Mavis Whitehouse.   And we have received the Great Wyrley Secondary Modern School’s Admissions list inc names, addresses, dates of birth and religions from September1946 – September 1952 to add to our Documentary Archives.
For our Memories Column this week there have been more additions to the old shops and shopkeepers from the postwar era.
Our Salem Base will be open as usual on Tuesday 10am to 4pm.
More information on any of these items can be supplied free of charge on request to the email address below.

trevor.cheslynhayhistory@talktalk.net

1 Comment »