Cheslyn Hay & District Local History Society

Our Salem Base will be open as usual on Tuesday 10am to 4pm but this week Arthur Davies is visiting us from Canada and he will be meeting up with some old friends and acquaintenaces including Dr Dora Mann (nee Davis) and Alf Newell and he would love to meet up with anyone from the old days. Arthur will be there at 2pm.
A request comes from Australia this week asks for information on the Bate/Bates family. In particular Isaiah and Sophia Bate (nee Stokes) and their son Matthew who married Eliza Whitehouse.  Isaiah died in a mining accident on 8 January 1864 at Great Wyrley.
And Joan from Canada requests details on John Pearce (b1806) and wife Ann Collier, Henry Pearson (b1791) and wife Sarah Whitehouse, Phoebe Whitehouse (b1791), William Biddle (b1801) and wife Maria Foreman.
Responses to recent requests include contact with the son of Albert Kendall, who was killed at the Leacroft pit on 26th January 1943.  And more is added to the Edward and Clara Brough information with news of their daughter Hannah who married Frederick Horton in 1889.  We have also put Joan from Canada in touch with one of our members who is part of the Biddle family and we have much more information on the John Whitehouse/Lydia Dace marriage as well as the Benton family.
New photographs include Carol Lyons with her Brownie pack, a Woodman Bowling team, nurse Lily Ewers, and one of nurse Ann Elsmore at the Isolation Hospital and a mystery photograph of a play at Great Wyrley High School.  Also for our archives, an old magazine featuring Birmingham in the 1930s.
From the recent ‘Memories columns, we have had information on PC Murtagh, Sgt Tommy O’Neil and a very poignant snippet on Oliver Cadman who was killed down Hawkins pit in 1938.
This week’s nostalgia covers tales of Claude Green of ‘Monty the Bull’ fame and life on Bunter Kinston’s farm in the 1940s.
Fully details can be obtained from the email below and we welcome all enquires.
trevor.cheslynhayhistory@talktalk.net

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Our Speaker this month is Marion Canning on Thursday 26th May 2011 at the Salem at 7.30pm, admission £1 including refreshments.  The title of Marion’s talk is ‘An Unusual Job for a Lady’.  She is excellent and one not to miss.
Our Salem Base will be open as usual on Tuesday 10am to 4pm.  Last week we entertained Arthur Davies from Canada, who says he will pop in again and see us again before he returns.
Requests this week include an enquiry on the history of Hawkins Colliery and one on the Pearson family tree from Cheslyn Hay.  And also information is sought on Charlie Towle the professional boxer.
And we had a marvellous response to last week’s enquiry from Joan in Canada.  Much information on Enoch Pearce and the Whitehouse/Dace marriage but we have also been able to put her in touch with someone who remembers Joan’s mother on her last visit here over fifty years ago.
Also we have been able to add much more to the enquiries on the Baker family and the Broughs. New photographs for our archives include Syd Perry of The Lot in kit who played for Torquay United in the 1938/9 season, a Brough family group that also include the Baileys, and one of the marriage of Lottie Read (nee Pratt) and Jack Bradford including the Pratts and John Riley.  Also a Tramps Supper held at the Salem Church in the early 1970s with Margaret & Bob Whittall, Neil & Ian Whittall, Les & Jimmy Moorhouse, Ivor, Julie Osborne & Gary Osborne, John Radford, Jim & June Bullock, Ruth Crook, Pat Mason and David Leach with many others unnamed. This week’s Memories include some amusing stories from the fifties about the policemen that served Cheslyn  Hay, including PC Merter, Tommy O’Neal and PC Alec Weeks.
More details by contacting me at – trevor.cheslynhayhistory@talktalk.net

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Our base at the Salem will open as usual on Tuesday 10am to 4pm.
And requests this week are for the Perry family from Cheslyn Hay and in particular of the couple Florence Perry, who married Benjamin Hawkins in Fremantle in West Australia on 4 March  1913.
Florence was the youngest child of Joseph Perry (1853 – 1919)  and Mary Kent (b1856 d1890s).  And help is needed for the research of Henry Pearson (born c1801-05) who married Elizabeth Benton.  plus an enquiry for the Stanton connections in our area.
Also from Ontario a lady is researching her roots that involve the Pearce, Whitehouse and Dace families.
And once again we are indebted to everyone who takes the time to reply to our weekly requests to make this Weekly Newsletter so satisfying in helping so many members in their researches.  And this week is no exception.  Firstly we have the location now of Bleak House, plus details of  the Bentons in Upper Landywood and May Snape’s shop, and the Farringtons living in the house next door from 1940.  And Brian Hughes answers Jill’s request from Australia with a full and comprehensive family tree with certificates of the Withington family together with a very interesting story over the last 200 years.  It has been sent on to Jill but is available to our members on request.
But Jill Dorney’s request  about Joseph Baker from last week seems to have hit the jackpot.  Three detailed replies outlined family trees, births, deaths and marriages and even newspaper reports including other local families Perks, Evans, Wootton and Smith.   And finally more details were required on Simeon Tuft going back over 200 years.
In our request for more information on serving policemen and women in Cheslyn Hay, we have received this addition ‘In the 1950s at Brinsford Lodge Featherstone, the hutments that had been built to house the workmen building the factory complex there were left after the war and they were made into a teachers training college for the Malayans.  In the late 1950s there was a fire in one of the huts and several people died and it is believed that one of the policemen from Cheslyn Hay got a commendation for helping to identify the bodies.’
New photographs include the Price family dated 1942.  Beatrice (nee Wilkes) and Jim Perry of the Lot.  A childrens Christmas Party including Jean Parry, Janet Marshall, Mike Belcher, Annette Poxon, Maureen Bladen, Joyce and Pattie Brown,  Pam Shirley, Alan Courtney, Harold Sambrook and three Kingston sisters and a couple unnamed.  A very old sepia photograph of Edward and Clara Brough of the Lot – not dated but they married in 1833!  A 1954 presentation at the Salem with a clear view of the audience waiting for someone to name them. The last day of the William Baxter School and Tom Kingston on the steps of the Nelson Inn.  All available at our Base.
This week Memories come from Peter Cadman on ‘The Cricket Season on the Village’ with fond remembrances of his dad Joe Cadman naming Horace Horton, Percy Poole, Sid Thacker, the Grey-Davies brothers, Les and Jim, David Hewitt, Owen Lawson, Tim and Philip Perks, Ivan Massey, Frank Hemmingsley, Ian Scott, Mr Pee, Bill Cadman, Badger Wesley, Boyd Price, John Dicken, John Hemminsley, Gary Cooper, Tim Perks, Chris Grundy, Gary Cartwright and Chris Harrison.
More details can be had from emailing -
trevor.cheslynhayhistory@talktalk.net

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Coffee morning should be special this week as it is a slide show and a talk on the ‘Razza’ presented by Derek Middleton and David Battersby.  Thursday, 12th May in the Lecture Room at the rear of the Salem starting at 10.30am and is free.
Our Salem Base will be open as usual on Tuesday 10am to 4pm.  Last week we had another four visitors with interests in the Perry and Kendall families.
Requests this week  include information on Joseph Baker born about 1802, son of Joseph & Elizabeth Baker who farmed in Landywood Lane Essington.
And from recent requests we are able to provide information on Walter Bull the postman, as well as Mrs Lawson’s (nee Owen) and Gladys Hewitt.   Also more details of the Bowen family tree including addresses and wills.  And a couple of anecdotes re some of the village characters Bunter Kingston, Claude Green, Nurse Flint and PC Harold Barnett.
An appeal for details of Bleak House in Great Wyrley and the dancing troupe The Bunnies or The Cats, split off groups from the Gingham Girls in the 1960s.
New photographs handed in include Rosemary Tileries in the 1940s with 13 workmen.  And some recently taken photographs of the Woodman before being demolished last week.  Also for our Archives two School Reports of Elsie Morris from Pinfold Lane School dated 1933 and an Abbey Dropforging Ltd brochure with its history and photographs.
This week’s nostalgia comes from Eileen (nee Whitehouse) from Cemetery Street relating to games everybody played in and around the war years plus life in the 1940s with mention of names like
Alan Goodman, Harry Bate and Cliff Titley.
More details from the email address below.
trevor.cheslynhayhistory@talktalk.net

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Our Salem Base will be open as usual on Tuesday 10am to 4pm.  Last week we had four visitors including Marion from Cardiff and we all shared a ‘eureka’ moment when we discovered the long lost Simeon Tuft family connection to Cheslyn Hay going back to the 1700s.
Requests this week come from Norma (nee Bowen) in Canada emails ‘My dad, Frank Bowen, was born and grew up at 4, Hatherton Street and I have been trying to trace his family but with little success. They were related to the Bulls and our postman was Walter Bull who, my dad said, was his cousin.  I was told the Bulls lived in the Fever Hospital.  I wonder if anyone there has any information about any of this?’
And responses to last weeks ‘Requests’ include details of  the families of Howard Benton and Doris and Sid Whitehouse from  Holly Lane, Upper Landywood. Plus a full family tree from William Whitehouse b1818 right down to his descendants today.
One new photograph of the Cheslyn  Hay Villa football team outside the Rose and Crown in the early 1920s including William Jellyman and his son.
And adding to our documentary archives this week is a copy of the Whitehouse family tree stretching back to 1821.  Also a St Marks Church Magazine June 1963, Cheslyn  Hay Carnival Programme 1977, 1983 Operation South Cannock Magazine with Joe and Bill Cadman photographed on the front cover, and copies of some wonderful items from the 1930s and the war years including the Rule Book of the Cannock Collieries Works League 1938/39, a Programme of Harrisons Sports Day 2nd August 1937, a Public Notice warning of the invasion and listing the Invasion Committee, a detailed list of names and addresses of the ARPs and a 23 page booklet listing all important Centres of Activities and all personnel from Billeting Officers to the WVS plus a map of the village highlighting all the pumps, wells and public shelters.  Also a chalk drawing of a seaside castle by Joseph Kingston on the back of his Club and Institute Union of Merit framed card dated 9th August 1939.
And the Memories Column this week relates to the plane crashes  in Cheslyn Hay during the war and Joe Cadman with his schoolday memories at Pinfold Lane and of teachers Miss Sanders, Miss Hulse, Dora Moseley (Mrs Cooper), Miss Abbey Sambrook (Mrs Fairfield), Corona Brough (Mrs Price), Walter J. Simkin, Ikey Stokes, Ernie Carter, Jack Martin and Mr Blount.  Plus other well known names from the village.
Fuller details of the Weekly Newsletter can be obtained for free by emailing
trevor.cheslynhayhistory@talktalk.net

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