Cheslyn Hay & District Local History Society

This month’s speaker is Malcolm Astley talking on the life of Sir Christopher Wren at the Salem on Thursday 28th July at 7.30pm.  £1 including refreshments.  Our Salem Base is open as usual on Tuesday from 10am to 3pm and this week we welcome members of the Stacey family tracing their local connections.  We have a request this week from  Sheila in Lancashire who wants to trace her favourite teacher Mr Frank Smith who taught Maths at the High School in the sixties.    And Nigel is tracing his Stacey family and is asking if there is anyone with any knowledge or connections to this family from Low Street. Ben Alcock is also after information on his grandfather Frank William Alcock who married Lillian Allsop and lived in Cheslyn Hay. More responses have been received on the Kingston and the Shorter family trees as well as some conflicting information as to whether there was a station at Cheslyn Hay or Landywood in the fifties or not. Two of the best footballing photographs imaginable have been handed in of the Cheslyn Hay Villa of 1913/14 but with no names. Many of them are easily recognisable though and we will be putting names to them.    More additions to our archives this week include several original newspapers of important events of the last century as well as of Howard Benton and his choir successes. Also local shop receipts going back to 1937 and other Cheslyn Hay artefacts.  In Mike Belcher’s report of local newstories of this week in 1911 and 1961 there are reports of the funeral of Jesse Crutchley and extensive coverage of the final of the Butchers Cup in which the Woodman thrashed the Castle of Bridgtown. And we continue with memories from 1946 with stories concerning the Busby family, Harry Larger, Ethel Horton (nee Rhodes), Harry North, Percy Hudson,  the Bailey, Poole and Bills families,  Mr Bladen,  Granny Cosavello, Chris Jervis, Police Sergeant Bill Donaldson, Mr Norman, Harry Rogers, Owen’s shop, Len Smith, Derek Griffin, Ron Hicks, Tracey Webb, Gill Bullock, Jane Turner, Jill Flanagan, Julie Bradbury and  Karen Avery.  Also memories of the school cross country run and the 1926 Miner’s Strike.  Full details of the Cheslyn hay & District LHS Weekly News (24 July 2011) can be obtained free of charge at the email address below.
trevor.cheslynhayhistory@talktalk.net

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Mike Birch from Australia would like to know more of the Cheslyn Hay/Great Wyrley railway as he remembers the station was sited on the Station Road bridge and Cheslyn Hay was one side and Great Wyrley the other. On Sundays he and his mates would catch the Bloxwich train to Rugeley town then walk to Trent Valley to spend the day trainspotting.  He didn’t think there was a station serving Landywood in those days as there is today and there was only one station in Bloxwich.  Mr Beeching closed this line down many years ago and it remained closed for many years apart from goods trains and when diversions were needed.  Can anyone help?  New member Andrew has sent us a remarkable 137 page long document of the descendants of Joseph Shorter the shoemaker with over 200 descendants including many local names – Dace, Lawson etc. Andrew also supplies more information on the recent enquiries from the Lawson, Stokes and Thomas trees.  and he had information of both sides of Wilfred’s family. And Dorothy from Stone adds to the John Whitehouse and Lydia Dace saga as they were Dorothy’s g-g-grandparents and Julie responds to the Wilkes/Bentons query with full details of their trees as they were also her great grand parents.  A series of new photographs this week include several of the Don and Diane Dance Centre over the last forty years, the christening mug of Joseph Stokes of 1846 and a photo of Joseph Kempson Stokes who was killed in WWI, Emily Hackett in the munitons factory, the Honeytots from the 1960s, Pinfold Lane School photo of 1959 with Mr Martin and Mr Blount and six photos of the Bullivant family including the weddings of Edgar Herriott and Violet as well as Albert and Marion Turner. And for the archives this week we have more newspaper cuttings and pictures of Pinfold Lane football team captained by Jimmy Goodman and vice captain Ronnie Benton, athletics picture of Ian Lawson and two Speech Day pictures and articles including Sid Boswell, Carol Johnson and 13 others.  A price list of Bullock Brothers (Edge Tools) Ltd of the 1950s and a reference for James Whittingham dated 4th July 1951. Newspaper reports from 50 and 100 years ago include the funeral of 30 year old Enoch Marshall that was attended by 2000 people and the death and inquest of local man Sydner Barbeck. The Memories article this week gives a first hand account of Cheslyn Hay as it was in 1946 with all the shops, buildings etc. We welcome all visitors to our base open as usual every Tuesday at the back of the Salem from 10am – 3pm. Fuller details can be forwarded on any of the above items by contacting me at the email address below. trevor.cheslynhayhistory@talktalk.net

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Requests this week include family history enquiries for the Pace and Emery families and responses to previous enquirers provide much information on the Bennetts, Flowers and Stopp families.  Also details of the Dace and Whitehouse marriage and their families as well as the Isaiah, Sophia and Joseph Bate query.  Plus more on the Peppers, Garratts and Westwoods.

New photographs this week cover a complete collection of the Bullivant, Owen, Platt, Bickley and Herriott families.  And new additions for the archives include the signing on forms of Sid Perry for Grimsby Town   in 1937 and a newspaper cutting of him captaining Great Wyrley Juniors in 1933/34 with all names included.  A newspaper cutting of the Golden Wedding Anniversary of Mr & Mrs Joseph Stokes before the war.  A Joseph Kempson Stokes letter home during WWI and his Marriage Certificate to Agnes Cross, together with his Death Certificate and their daughter’s Birth Certificate.  A newspaper report on the death of Sam Bullivant of 7 Cross Street , plus copies of the sale of two houses 163 and 165 Station Street purchased by Fred Perks and George Allman and a Tithe Redemption Certificate for 179 and 181 Station Street by Henry Perks dated 1913.  The newspaper reports of 50 and 100 years ago cover a fire at Wynn’s shop, a branch of the Junior Imperial League being set up and fifty years ago Dora Davis of 10 Wesley Avenue qualified for being a doctor.

And this week’s Memories cover the Bray family, the Parbrooks and the Griptons.

And another 57 viewings on the staffspasttrack website on our Cheslyn Hay photographs in the month of June.

Our Salem Base will be open as usual on Tuesday 10am to 3pm.

More information can be obtained by emailing: trevor.cheslynhayhistory@talktalk.net

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