Cheslyn Hay & District Local History Society

Our AGM will take place on our usual Speakers Evening Thursday 31st March at the Salem starting at 7.30pm.  Everyone is welcome and directly afterwards we will have all of our archives on view for the first time.  Tables will be set out to cover separate categories eg Church & Chapel, Industry, Music, WWI, WWII, People, Schools etc etc and all 8000 photographs will also be available.
Our Salem Base will be open as usual on Tuesday 10am to 4pm.  Six more visitors last week but this coming Tuesday we welcome a member of the Whitehouse family with all of his family research.  Anyone interested in the Whitehouses please drop in on the morning!
A request from a Whitehouse researcher who has traced his line back to a marriage with a Dace, but there he is stumped.  Has anyone information on this marriage?
And from a recent Weekly News a member realises her Allen family is connected with the Kingstons and the Browells and asks for more information.
Following the request from last week we have received a newspaper report of the pit accident at Harrisons Pit in June 1923 with George Wood being one of those killed.  The report gives full details of the two miners crushed to death with the other miner killed being William Henry Reaney, son of Thomas, of Cheslyn Hay.
New photographs received this week are of Steve Whitehouse, Joe Badger Wesley, Ruby Farrington, Mrs Handy as well as several of the Moore family – Tanny, Jane and Bill.  Plus a Cartwright family wedding in 1917 when they lived at Bridgtown with 23 guests who are all named.
And to add to our archives an edition of the Cannock Advertiser dated 4 July 1974 covering Princess Margaret’s visit to Cannock.  Plus a tribute in verse to Thomas Weetman the local Blind Preacher on his death.
Once again we continue this week with more of Olive’s (nee Whitehouse) delightful childhood memories which include many of the old characters of Cheslyn Hay – Tumpter the tramp, Nigger Zip, the Pretty Woman, Buggerman from Low Street, Sgt Ballance, Harry Bates and of course Jellyman.
We also have to report the sad news of the passing of Edna Brown, another member and lifelong villager from Landywood, who passed away suddenly last Sunday morning at the age of eighty-six.
Also Doris Plant passed away on Wednesday 9th March at Rugeley aged 90.  Doris (nee Jenkins) married Raymond Plant of Littlewood  Lane but Raymond died several years ago and she lived in Wesley Avenue, then in Zion Close, before moving to Rugeley eighteen months ago.
trevor.cheslynhayhistory@talktalk.net

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Requests this week include two pit fatalities – Thomas Cornelius Jones was killed on 7 Sept 1882 and Richard George Wood of Landywood who was killed at Harrison’s pit around the First World War.
Plus an enquiry concerning Mary Ann Bagguley, who was born in Wyrley 12 June 1846 and died in 1921.  She married George Dickinson in Pelsall (b 12 Aug 1867) but nothing has been traced since.  Has anyone got any connections with this family to help John?
And good response to last week’s request on the Westwoods and the Daces from two sources which linked the families all together.
And success for Kath Reeves (nee Brough) in her quest to find her old friend, Winnie Birch, from sixty years ago. They have been in contact and a meeting has been arranged in the near future.
New photographs this week include the Blind Preacher Thomas Weetman (1866 – 1935) with wife, daughter and grandchildren inc Douglas Hubery who was to become a noted Methodist minister, and a photograph of the Salem Harvest Festival of 1965 showing many well known Salemites. Plus a  two Mystery Photographs – one of a wedding photograph between two twins brothers marrying two twin sisters named Altree in the 1940s and they emigrated to  New Zealand.  And the other photo is of Joseph and Sarah Jane Pearce (nee Whitehouse) outside their shop in the 1930s and believed to be in Great Wyrley.
We now have in our possession the Cheslyn Hay Police Occurence Book from 16 January 1931 – 16 November 1935 and includes all incidents from the very minor to the quite serious offences.  These are the names that appear in the book including those charged and the victims, but these names do not relate to any of the serious crimes.  Harry Rogers, Alfred Thomas, John Pyatt, Ida Youngs, Horace Price, Julia Hart, Walter Whitehouse, Harold Bott, Alfred Parr, Albert James Bowyer, Herbert Brough, Ernest Davis, Alfred Gorman, Walter Kempson Owen, Richard Jones, Handel Weetman, James Walker Morris, Alex Davis, Florence Bate, Simeon Barker, Albert Barker, George Barker, Wm Henry Whitehouse, William Peach, Frank Dennis Burton, Samuel Newell, Philip James Kent, Joseph Lockett, Wm Perry, Eric Morris, James Bate, Derek Roberts, Ernie Carter, John Wesley Pratt, Wm Steadman, George Kingston, John Smith, John Smith (two separate charges), Walter Harvey, Beryl Hewitt, Mary E Richardson, Mary Felton, James Locket, Clarence Smith, Rosina Marion Tonks, Adaine Louise Tonks, Arthur Kingston, John Spinks, Thomas Marshall, Bernard Grinsell, Walter Wood, Violet Hill, Joseph Lockett, Mabel Chetter, James Ansell, Georgina Rake, Wilfred Hawkins, Edith Lunt, Harold Mellor, Dr McAinsh, William Bowen, Stephen Whitehead, Oscar Dunn, Elizabeth Dunn, Edwin Ridgway, Elizabeth Bates, Richard Hall, Freda May Birch, Frank Dunning, Albert Podmore, Gladys May Shirley, Eric Shirley, Richard Lockett, Harry Bate, Percy Thomas Perry, James Edward Perry, Thomas Henry Hawkesworth, Richard Franks, Bertram Henry Jellyman, Stephen Pratt, James Wm Smith, Wm Elwell, George Mason, Wm Barnett, Frederick Barnett, George Barnett.  All these cases can be seen at the Base on Tuesdays.
This week’s memories are more from Olive (nee Whitehouse) from the early thirties recalling life as it was then in the village.
Our Salem Base will be open as usual on Tuesday 10am to 4pm.  Four visitors last week with information on the Hacketts, Smiths and Ansell families.
trevor.cheslynhayhistory@talktalk.net

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There will be an entertaining Coffee Morning this Thursday 10th March at 10am at the Lecture Room at the Salem with four speakers giving a five minute talk each.
We have had requests this week for researchers of the Westwood, Craddock and Dace Family Trees and an enquiry for an evacuee named Barbara who stayed at 3 Station Road Great Wyrley during the war.
And plenty of response from last week’s requests.  Details and a photograph of the Norton Cannock Colliery as well as a list of 16 small and virtually unknown pits in the Cheslyn Hay and Great Wyrley area.  Also follow up information on Winnie Birch and the Birch family, together with photographs, as well as more news on the Balls and Jim Whitehouse.
New photographs include Cheslyn Hay artist Gladys Hammond in her studio at the High Street – 1985, and excellent one of Sgt Wright in his garden with PCs Alfred Clough and Halford, one of the Razza being drained in the 1930s, a group of the Paradine family, an early Cheslyn Hay Fire Brigade photograph, a Pinfold Lane class from the 1890s, Augustine Kingston in fireman’s uniform and his wife Laura (nee Prime), Bernie Bill from Wedges Mills c1900 and a beautiful picture of evacuee Joy Quested from Margate.
And the memories this week come from a different source and from the prewar days with many of the old families remembered such as the Whitehouses, Cooke, Laurence, Wilkinson, Goodall, Harry Rogers, the Hills and schoolteachers Miss Hulse, Miss Holden, Mr Carter and pupils Marion Lockett, William Whitehouse and Bert Parsons.
A 78 minute DVD of Brindley Village entitled ‘Lost, but not Forgotten’ priced at £7 has been made and will be launched shortly, but we already have a supply of them for anyone who is interested.
The latest ediitions of ‘The Local Historian’ and ‘Local History News’ have arrived and are available at our Base.
In the month of February we have had another remarkable 120 sightings on the staffspasttrack site as follows – Woottons Post Office 23, Brittania Picture House 19, Salem Church 18, Hacketts Butchers Shop 17, Garretts Shop 14, High Street 13, Albert Hawkins Shop 9 and Walter Hackett 7.
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

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Membership for the coming year will be increased to £5 (individual or family membership) at the AGM whiich takes place on Thursday 31st March, but anyone who pays their subscription will have it at the current price of £4.  Cheques to be made out to ‘CH&DLHS’ for £4 and either posted to Dianne Ashdown, 4 Orchard Close, Cheslyn Hay, Walsall, Staffs WS6 7DG, or handed to me.
Requests this week concern Winnie Birch, who was born around 1935, and a Faye McBride and the history of Newtown.
And there was plenty of responses from last week’s requests with details of the Pool Hayes Colliery, and also the evacuees from Slough who were looked after by Mr & Mrs Ball, with more details of the milkman Jim Whitehouse and we were able to link Neal Hackett’s plea to the rest of the Hackett family to pool their family history researches together.
New photographs have turned up this week on local hero, Charlie Moore of 131 High Street, who played 328 times for Manchester United in his playing career with Cannock Town and United, as well as snaps of him in WWI.  We have a beautiful photo of Harry Morris and family with Tuppennny Row in background from over 100 years ago, a 1969 Carnival shot of Pauline Hodgkiss and Letitia Bowater, a marriage picture of Ben Felton, Iris Hart on her round delivering meat, Joyce Jamieson and Wendy Paradine, some Churchbridge Garage snaps, 1977 Silver Jubilee photos in Leveson Avenue, the Salem Playgroup of 1982, Wyrley Bank Brownies Church Parade in 1985, and a few shots of the locals of the Woodman on a trip to Blackpool in 1979, eight Gilpin workers in 1914, and an unofficial motley gathering of ‘kids’ from the Primary School in 1961 including Martin Stokes, John Smalec, Roger Fletcher, Owen Lawson, David Southerton, Richard Berry, Robert Guy, Tony Cartwright, Roger Westwood, Peter Cadman and John Turner with a couple unnamed.
And newspaper cuttings of Charlie Moore’s playing career, a separate one of his death and a Boys Brigade presentation by the Walsall footballer Colin Harrison in 1976 together with picture.  And the last will and testament of Thomas Hart, Cheslyn Hay butcher, dated 17th December 1896.
Memories this week come from the Wolves v Cheslyn Hay cricket match from the 1950s and extracts from Joe Cadman’s memoirs concerning the miners of the village from when he was a lad.
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

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