Cheslyn Hay & District Local History Society

Society Report

We have two new aspects for our members to enjoy in 2010.
A New Base
Once again our thanks go to our old friends at the Salem who have agreed for us to use a room in the church as a base. We are currently painting and decorating the room and together with a new carpet and blinds we are hoping for our base to be officially opened by mid January. Opening hours have yet to be confirmed but provisionally we are looking to open to the ‘general public’ on Tuesday mornings and Thursday afternoons until 6pm but to our members we intend to be more flexible and to arrange alternative times. This is of particular importance to any of our ‘distant’ members when they visit their relatives in Cheslyn Hay or any of our member’s friends visiting the area and wishing to indulge in a bit of nostalgia by looking through our photographs. Our main aim is to collate many of our records, currently tucked away in our archives, together with many of the Photograph Volumes that are being stored elsewhere, together in one place. And when you consider that we have now in excess of 5000 photographs with over 7000 individual names there will be much for our members to enjoy that has not been available before. Obviously we will be encouraging potentially new members with help on researches and their family trees and we intend to use the base as a centre to arrange interviews with the more senior residents of the village, as well as cataloguing items of the Hawkins Colliery, Tileries and Brickworks for the benefit of both the Cannock Chase Museum and ourselves plus bringing up to date all the items in our own archives. For this we will be needing volunteers and any help would be appreciated – even to make the tea and coffee for anyone that just turns up.

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Old Weekly Update – 4 April 2010
Memberships are now due for 2010/11 covering our year from 1 April – 31 March 2011. Still £4 which includes any other name at the same address and members are entitled to four Quarterly Newsletters, Coffee Mornings and discounted items such as books and photographs as well as receiving this Weekly News email. Free advice and local records are also available and there will be other advantages at our Annual Exhibition for members. Cheques made out to CH&DLHS for £4 and post to Dianne Ashdown, 4 Orchard Close, Cheslyn Hay, Walsall, Staffs WS6 7DG or see any member of the Committee.
This week Vanessa Morgan is giving a talk together at our Coffee Morning on Thursday 8th April in the Lecture Room at the Salem – doors open at 10am. Vanessa gives talks on ‘Grandad’s Stories of Cheslyn Hay’ around the Redditch area so it will be of particular interest to us all in the Society. The tales were written down by Syd Lawson and reflect the times, places and local characters of the early part of the last century.
More information on the Bailey, Marshall,Heminsley and Garratt famlies this week but most interesting family history comes again from the Beech family where George was killed by John Field in 1844.
Photographs received this week contain two excellent batch of photographs from the Dace family and the old Great Wyrley schoolteacher/photographer Bob Pointon over a wide range of subjects and people a Newtown football team of 1940, a Shraders dayout at Wedgewood in the early sixties, a school football team of 1946 and the office staff of West Cannock Colliery of 1938. There are too many names to be listed here but more information can be given by emailing me at the address below. Our old friend Phil Gee has interviewed Fred Moore and Gladys We have also received two CDs of recent interviews with Fred Moore and Gladys Turner who were born nearly a century ago. Both are very nostalgic but are priceless because of their factual content.
Another 53 viewing of our Cheslyn Hay photographs on Staffordshire Past Track site with Albert Hawkins shop (12) the most popular, followed by High Street (10), Britannia Picture House (9) and Garretts Shop & Salem Church (5 each) plus Hacketts Butcher’s Shop, Walter Hackett and Woottons Post Office (4 each)

If anyone wants more information of items above or wants to receive the Cheslyn Hay &DLHS Weekly News (free) please email trevor.cheslynhayhistory@talktalk.net
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Old Weekly Update – 28 March 2010

More responses from family tree historians have been received this week on the Burton, Elwell, Hughes, Titley, Marshall and Bailey families and some nostalgia reminiscences of Arthur Davies, Les Payne, Des Owen, Marjorie Pee, EJ Homeshaw, Doctor Eileen Malone and Minnie Wright who was the village postwoman for 25 years and stalward of the Salem living at 4 Wesley Avenue.
We have also received a fascinating report on the boundaries of Cheslyn Hay as they were on13th March 1823 mentioning Campians Wood, Barn Flatt, Poynors Field Yard, Birds Rickyard, Hadley Bridge, Meadow, Hattons Wooldridges and Browns Meadows, Colonel Grahams Land and many more referrals of landmarks from 200 years ago. Also donated this week are three programmes of Musical Concerts – Evening Concert at the Methodist New Connexion Schools (21 April 1904), Cheslyn Hay Branch of the Womens Unionist Association (14 January 1909) and the Cheslyn Hay WMC Male Voice Choir (9th December 1920). All are now available to be seen at our New Base,open this week Tuesday 10am – 4pm.
We are now looking for any volunteers who would like to to help at our base in the recording, cataloging and copying of the Hawkins Colliery and Brickworks items for our archives.

Old Weekly Update – 21 March 2010

Our AGM is this Thursday 25th March at the Salem at 7.30pm followed by separate displays from our archives including all photographs and documents and newspaper cuttings of Churches & Chapels, Sport, Industry, Organisations etc. In many instances for the first time ever shown. Everyone welcome.
Although Tuesdays are very popular at our New Base, Thursdays are not, so in future we are extending the opening hours on Tuesdays from 10am – 4pm but not opening on Thursdays. However we will be looking to open at other times on request.
Every week we have family history requests from our Members Weekly News but incredibly we have had two separate requests this week from the same family – BEECH. One from Bernice in Canada who is trying to find a death record or burial for Susannah Beech between 1837 and 1841. And the other one from Paul in Yorkshire who is wanting more information of Thomas Beech who was working at Gilpins around the mid 19th century. We have been able to supply information for them both but if anyone wishes to receive same or to get in touch with Bernice and Paul, please email me at the address below.

Old Weekly Update – 14 March 2010

Bridgtown & District LHS have two events this week. Dave Battersby is giving a talk at a Coffee Morning at the Bridgtown Community Centre at the Ramada Centre on Wednesday 17th March at 10am. Also there is a service to link the Bridgtown History Society with the Bethel Chapel next Sunday 21st March at 6pm with John Devey from the Committee taking the service. All will be welcome.
We have just received copies of some Mining Fatalities and Accidents at Hawkins Colliery 1890 – 1900 with names including Evans, Brough, Lloyd, Lawson, Stanton, Hill, Follows, Hichins, Jellyman, Buck, Vernon and Garrett. Also an extensive list with 450 names of everyone who was working at Hawkins’ pit on 24th March 1941. All available to view at our base. Our Base is open on Tuesday 10am – 2pm and Thursday 2 – 5pm and open to everyone.

Old Weekly Update – 7 March 2010
We are at the Cheslyn Hay Community Centre for Bus Passes/Tokens Day this Tuesday 9th March with a ‘Now and Then’ Display from 10am – 3pm.
Also the theme for this weeks coffee morning this Thursday, 11th March at 10am is based on ’The Education on the Village’ in the Lecture Room at the Salem. Our Base is open on Tuesday 10am – 2pm and Thursday 2 – 6pm and open to everyone.
A fascinating book has been handed in for copying and our research. It is a rent book that covers the tenants of Red Lane (Low Street) and Queen Street from 1883 – 1920 with well known names such as Bladen, Gill, Boulton, Westwood, Perks, Russell, Hawkins, Allsopp, Jones, Roe, Steadman, Pearson, Bailey, Ridgway and Cooper. Available at our base for viewing.
If anyone wants more information or wants to receive the Cheslyn Hay &DLHS Weekly News (free) please email
trevor.cheslynhayhistory@talktalk.net
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Old Weekly Update – 28 February 2010
A successful opening week for our New Base dealing with several family history enquiries as well as general ones. We were also surprised at the number of photographs that were handed to us for coping for our archives. Our base is now open every Tuesday morning (10am – 2pm) and Thursday afternoons (2 – 6pm).
More facts, photographs and enquiries relating to the following families have been received this week – Woodings, Bailey, Allsopp, Baker, Stannard, Barlow, Morrey and Franklin.
Also photographs include the Stella Tileries football team of 1966, a 1964 Gilpins/Eliott LucasChristmas Party and a 1953 local Coronation Event. Also three excellent photographs of different sets of neighbours outside their homes in Low Street. Amongst them are named Tommy ‘Bannock’ Bailey, Jack Davies,George Bailey and someone named Scott. The rest are unnamed if anyone can help.
If anyone wants more information or wants to receive the Cheslyn Hay &DLHS Weekly News (free) please email

trevor.cheslynhayhistory@talktalk.net
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Old Weekly Update – 21 February 2010
Our February speaker is the experienced and well recommended Dorothy Nicolle who gives talks on a range of subjects. The topic is a really fascinating one – ‘The Life of a Victorian Photographer – Francis Frith’. He was the first of the Street Photographers and you will see examples of his work all over the country in pubs, supermarkets (Morrisons in Cannock), libraries and hotels and the family continued with the tradition right up to 40 years ago. This Thursday 25th February at 7.30pm at the Salem. £1 including refreshments.

This week we are also giving a talk on ‘The Old Days’ at the Lakeside Residential Home in Great Wyrley on Monday afternoon. Our base is now open every Tuesday morning (10am – 2pm) and Thursday afternoons (2 – 6pm) and everyone is welcome to view photographs, files and newspaper reports etc in our archives as well as being helped to research their family trees. A book has been donated to our collection from The Newcomen Society and a chapter is designated to ‘The Newcomen Engine at Great Wyrley 1722′. Fascinating reading for the technically minded and is now available at our base. More facts, photographs and enquiries relating to the following families have been received this week – Willis, Stallard, Hickman, Wood, Perks, Franklin, Hodgkins, Wilcox, Horton and Lockett.

If anyone wants more information or wants to receive the Cheslyn Hay &DLHS Weekly News (free) please email

trevor.cheslynhayhistory@talktalk.net
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Old Weekly Update – 14 February 2010

The Chairman of the Parish Council Mac Harris will be officially opening our new base at the Salem on Monday. Then it will be open this week on Tuesday (10am – 2pm) and Thursday (2 – 6pm) for members only. Afterwards the base will be open every week at the same times for everyone.
We have received a fascinating request about a Gallery School on the Walsall Road. Does anyone remember it? It’s doubtful whether there were more than about 30-40 pupils there and the windows were so high up that even the teachers could not see out! It was all painted in glass paint, dark brown up to about 5 – 6 foot then cream so that dirty finger marks did not show. There was one room with all the children from 4-14 in it and the benches rose in steps. The youngest children began at the front and moved along as a younger child went. It was still going strong in the 1940s although it is thought that Gallery Schools had been abolished by Act of Parliament in 1870. Can anyone throw any light on this enquiry?
More requests and information as well as photographs on the following names – Hickman, Perks, Sarah Wood, Walker, the Smith family, Matthews, Dolphin, Ayres, Victor Middleton, Ernie Fletcher, the Thomases, the Whitehouses and Bill Follows shop.
If anyone wants more information or wants to receive the Cheslyn Hay &DLHS Weekly News (free) please email

trevor.cheslynhayhistory@talktalk.net
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Old Weekly Update – 7 February 2010
Bob Leighton is talking about the History of the TA at this week’s Coffee Morning on Thursday morning at the Salem at 10am. And also on the same evening Bridgtown & DLHS are holding an Open Evening with photographs and memorabilia at the Bridgtown Community Centre starting at 7pm.
More successes from our Weekly News email with direct links being formed with the Moore family in Australia, the enquiry re Thomas Woodings solved, another connection set up with the Egerton/Stokes families from New Zealand and another from Brisbane.
More family tree enquiries have come in concerning many families including Bowen, Russell, Lockett, Francis Smith, Wilcox, Hulme and the Lawsons. Also information is sought for areas once known as Cock Sparrow Lane, the Sling, Coppice Lane, Middle Hill, Honeysuckle Lane, Joss’ Lane, Smokey Joe’s place as well as pubs such as The Cat, The Garter, The Pot and Poker, Ivy House. Plus knowledge of people like Jonty (killed in Gallipoli), Wilty (died through injuries received in mine soon after war) and Benjy (who was a servant to the Laird).
Photographs handed in this week cover many aspects of the village and Landywood and include names Joy McLachlan, Paxton, Ann McCulloch, Diane Illidge, Hammond, Hilary Stevenson, and Hickman, Percy Webb, Joan Perks, Helen Farnell, Barry Bickley, Christine Heakin, Keith Hall, Christine Ayres, Maureen Willetts, Cherie Griffiths, Alan Willetts, Diane Scott, Carol Orr, Pauline Dolphin, Melvyn Salt, Gloria Perry, Diane Stanton, Robert Wheatley, John Foster, Kevin Tindall, Freddie Brown, Colin Wiggin, Doreen Evans, Janet Corfield, Sheila Gretton and Glenda Lockett.

The Weekly News is an email containing all information/requests/contacts/updates around Cheslyn Hay and district. If anyone wishes to be included over the next two months please contact me via the email below and I’ll be only too pleased to keep you in touch.

trevor.cheslynhayhistory@talktalk.net
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Old Weekly Update - 31 January 2010

On BBC Midlands News last week was local historian Chris Poole with Carl Chinn with a sabre used by a Wednesbury soldier in the Charge of the Light Brigade. Chris has written a book ‘Balaclava Heroes – Midlands Survivors of the Charge of the Light Brigade’ and although our area is not mentioned there are many soldiers with local names such as Grigg, Buck etc and I will be pleased to look up any names for anyone who thinks that their forefathers might have been involved in the Crimean War.

This year’s Bugle Annual contains three full pages of Pinfold Lane School with its footballing headmasters together with a photograph of the 1957 football team. These annuals are still available at WH Smiths – price £3.99.

Once again the response to our Members Weekly News Items is quite surprising. This week contains information, photographs and family tree requests from many well known local names such as Dace, Haycox/Haycocks, Job Whitehouse, Bailey, Woodings,

Hackett, Kingston, Bull, Wollaston, Rogers, Violet Timmins, Muriel Bladen, May Dace, Margaret Smith, Robert Cartwright,Kempson, Jack Dace, Dick Shorter, Mervyn Brough, Eddie Wise, Potts, Westwood, Pauline Brough, Ann McCulloch, Dianne Illidge, Jean Gretton, Pearl Thacker, Wendy Alden, Shirley Baldwin,Monica Worthington, Helen Jones, Avril Smith, Jean Bladen, Yvonne Hadley, Freda Smith, Sylvia Bickley, Mary Bradbury, Walter Bickley, John Haycox, J Lockett,Gretton, Aaron Foster, Lionel Hand, Pee, Bate,Stanton, Hodgekiss, Hodgekins, Parker, Stokes, Egerton. Paddock, Moore, Maiden. If anyone wants more information please email

trevor.cheslynhayhistory@talktalk.net
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Old Weekly Update – 24 January 2010

This month’s speaker is the author Anthony Poulton-Smith talking on ‘The Origins of Street Names’. His latest book includes quite a few mentions of local streets around the Cheslyn Hay area and he will be at the Salem on this Thursday evening, 28th January, at 7.30pm.

Our Weekly News email has produced an excellent response with information and photographs on many families – Lockett, Bullas/Bullos,Sivorn, Lever, Barnes, Giles, Cross, Cadman, Worsey, Bradbury, Potts, Peach, Rowe, Smithyman, Round, Brown, Wright, Colman, Illidge, Cooper, Heminsgley, Merchant, Benton,Pritchard,Marshall, Bate, Preece, Ford, Foster, Lewis, Masefield, Altree, Dace, Coton, Baxter, Bailey Allsopp, Hawkins and Wooding. If anyone wants to receive this Weekly News email please contact me via the address below.

trevor.cheslynhayhistory@talktalk.net
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Old Weekly Update – 17 January 2010

Unfortunately the Coffee Morning talk by Jon Barton had to be postponed due to the bad weather but will be held later in the year. This week I will be introducing our Family History researchers at the St Andrews Monday Afternoon Club tomorrow, for them to look up their members family trees. This follows on from the tremendous interest that was created last year as several families were found from the barest of details and we just run out of time.

The first Weekly News email went out today to a remarkable 106 members detailing all the photographs, items of interest donated for our archives and plus family history requests. If anyone wants to have their names added to the list without being a member for the next three months please contact us by email.

trevor.cheslynhayhistory@talktalk.net
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Old Weekly Update – 10 January 2010

First Coffee Morning of the New Year is this Thursday 14th January in the Lecture Room at the Salem at 10am. Jon Barton will be giving a talk on ‘Names on the Cenotaph’ and he will be expanding on some of the stories behind these names. Also Norman Rowe will be bringing in some of his paintings of the old pubs and buildings of old Cheslyn Hay as a bit of nostalgia.

We have had another 60 ‘hits’ on the Staffs website in December and, as usual, the most popular viewings were of the Brittania Picturehouse (17), the High Street (17) and Hawkins’ Shop (15).

trevor.cheslynhayhistory@talktalk.net
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Old Weekly Update – 3 January 2010

We open the New Year with some two new ventures.

The first one is to open our new base at the Salem at the end of this month. Painting and supplying furniture and new carpets are going well and we are convinced that it will prove to be an ideal base for anyone who want to see our photographs and remember what our area was like ‘in the old days’, or to research their family trees or just to have a cup of coffee.

Also we have set up a database for our members so that they are kept in touch with what’s happening, forthcoming events, plus details of all the photographs that are being handed in on a weekly basis as well as developments on family history enquiries or dealing with appeals for help like ‘Does anyone remember my grandfather Joe Bloggs who worked at Hawkins Tileries in the 1940s?’ etc etc.

The list has almost been completed and the first email will be forwarded on 17th January.

So an interesting year ahead.

trevor.cheslynhayhistory@talktalk.net
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Weekly Update – 27 December 2009

We would just like to take this opportunity to wish all of our friends, whether still on the village or ex-bonkers, all our best wishes for the New Year.

trevor.cheslynhayhistory@talktalk.net
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Weekly Update – 20 December 2009

We have just acquired several copies of Frank Morris’s excellent book ‘The Story of Cannock United Reformed Church’.It is a hard backed book with 647 pages that include photographs and everything to do with the churches around the Cannock area, which of course includes Cheslyn Hay and Great Wyrley. There are lists of preachers, the Library Register from 1885, lists of Sunday School pupils from the 1800s, anyone signing the Band of Hope Pledge from1850, Members of the Church from1816, Baptisms from1815, Marriages from 1901 and also where Church Members have been married in other Churches from1784, Burials from 1833 and even football teams and leagues.A must for any local family historian. It cost £17 to publish but we are now selling it at £5 (and we receive £2.50) – so it is £2.50 for members of the Committee. Unfortunately the cost of postage is practically prohibitive.
May we wish all of our friends a very Happy Christmas and all that you’d wish yourselves for the New Year.

trevor.cheslynhayhistory@talktalk.net
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Weekly Update – 13 December 2009

We have now sold over half of our allocation of ‘The Fleeting Years’ books and we are now in profit. Bridgtown have also sold the majority of their books and have paid us back the £200 loan that we granted them to set up their Society together with a letter of appreciation.

We now have more than 5000 photographs which include more than 7000 individual names in our archives and these photographs are still flooding in.

We are appealing for anyone who can share their old Cheslyn Hay memories with us as we are creating a separate page on our website for such items.

trevor.cheslynhayhistory@talktalk.net
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Weekly Update – 06 December 2009

Coffee Morning this week will be a Chrismassy affair with Geoff Hackett on the keyboard and some Carols and mince pies.

We had another 58 viewings on the Staffs Past Track website in November with the most popular sightings being Hawkins shop (16), Brittania Picture House (11), High Street (9) and Hacketts shop (7).

trevor.cheslynhayhistory@talktalk.net
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Weekly Update – 29 November 2009

We did well at the Cheslyn Hay Primary School Christmas Fayre on Friday selling 21 of our books and we are at Glenthorne School this Sunday afternoon at 2pm (29th Nov).

It was nice to hear from one of our old friends Vanessa Morgan this week. Vanessa gives talks on various topics and she has agreed to address one of our coffee mornings next year on the memories of Cheslyn Hay from the stories of her grandfather Sidney Lawson.

I am currently compiling a list of all of our members email addresses so that in January,our members will receive a Weekly News Update with listings of all new photographs together with names that are being received on a weekly basis, as well as local artefacts, and general news and what is happening within the Society. It will also be a boon for all members who are tracing their Cheslyn Hay and Great Wyrley families to interact with each other.

trevor.cheslynhayhistory@talktalk.net
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Weekly Update – 22 November 2009

Our monthly speaker is Paul Bedford and he is appearing this Thursday at the Salem at 7.30pm very much on a local theme. He is expanding on the stories behind the names on the Cheslyn Hay and Bridgtown cenotaphs.

We have appeared at a Mini Market at the Great Wyrley Town Womens Guild and at the Cannock Library this week and next week we are attending two Christmas Fayres at both Cheslyn Hay and Glenthorne Primary Schools this week.

trevor.cheslynhayhistory@talktalk.net
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Weekly Update – 15 November 2009

We are at Cannock Library next Saturday 21st November for a mini display from 11am – 3pm, and selling our books together with the Bridgtown & District LHS and Frank Allen with his new book on local railways.

More and more photographs are still coming in after our recent publication and they include a raft of sporting and school events from 1948 – 1950 at the Great Wyrley Secondary Modern School plus one of the old Mortuary in Mount Pleasant – the first one we have in our archives.

trevor.cheslynhayhistory@talktalk.net
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Weekly Update – 8 November 2009

Another 51 viewings of our Cheslyn Hay Collection in the Staffordshire website in October with the most popular being Brittania Picture House (17) and 9 sightings for both Albert Hawkins’ shop and the Cheslyn Hay High Street.

Also Bridgtown LHS holds their first Exhibition and the launch of their new book next Sunday 15th November at the Bridgtown Social Club from 10am – 4pm and we will be there to support them.

trevor.cheslynhayhistory@talktalk.net
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Weekly Update – 1 November 2009

Together with Bridgtown LHS we have been selling poppies for the British Legion and Bridgtown have their Remembrance Sunday on 1st November, whilst we have our next week on the 8th November.

Two events are planned with Moat Hall Primary School this week – a WWII Day for Year 6 and for Year 5, a tour round the Gables, the Victorian House, once owned by the manager of the local pit and still preserved in all its Victorian finery.

trevor.cheslynhayhistory@talktalk.net
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Weekly Update – 18 October 2009

Another successful Exhibition with the new book ‘Cheslyn Hay – Those Fleeting Years’ going particularly well.

The Darren Butler Project on the histories on all the older properties in Cheslyn Hay drew the most comments for the professional manner in which it was displayed and is a project we must develop upon for next year. Also the volumes of Peoples Photographs which total in excess of 2500 produced as many enquiries as the main photograph display in the hall and is something we must expand upon in the future. And, as expected, the 1911 Census proved to be very popular. People have also commented about our new polo shirts and how easy it was to pick out the committee for enquiries.

We are laying on a display at Harrisons Club in Wharwell Lane Great Wyrley on Thursday 22nd October at 7.30pm to lay on a display for the Miners Association. There will also be an excellent speaker there and the admittance is free.

trevor.cheslynhayhistory@talktalk.net
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Weekly Update – 11 October 2009

Our Annual Exhibition is on Saturday 17th October at the Village Hall in Pinfold Lane Cheslyn Hay from 10am to 6pm. All the advertising has been done, posters put up and with the launch of our new book ‘Cheslyn Hay – Those Fleeting Years’ we are expecting another busy day.

The wireless connection is also up and running so that our Family Researchers will be able to give beginners, as well as the more experienced, more extensive support than previously.

At the last minute we have been able to acquire a brand new DVD (price £5) on the history of the local Joseph Lucas factory and its employees and this will also be on sale as well as our own new CD containing fascinating information for family historians.

Further to the coverage of the Anglo Saxon hoard in last weeks Chase Post we have been inundated with phone calls culminating in an interview on the local Tamworth & LIchfield Radio Station, Touch Radio.

Closer to home, builders doing repair work at the Cedar Tree shop, that used to be the old Post Office, have discovered an old waterpump and it brings into question of how many of these pumps were in existence in the late 1800s?

trevor.cheslynhayhistory@talktalk.net
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Weekly Update – 3 October 2009

The Chase Post have taken up on the interest of the Anglo Saxon hoard with an interview connecting the treasure with the ‘lost king of Cheslyn Hay’ and it will be interesting to see if their are any follow up stories.

200 copies of our Quarerly Newsletter have been run off this week and once again it is an excellent production with 24 pages of local history and news.

We have had another 36 ‘hits’ on the Staffordshire Past track website again in September with Hawkins shop (9), Britannia Picture House (8) and the High Street (7) the most popular viewings.

A wide range of items from our archives will be on hand for this Thursday’s coffee morning in place of the advertised June Pickerill who is unavailable.

We have set up the wireless connection for broadband at the Community Centre this week so that we will be able to have full access to the internet for family history researches at our Exhibition on October 17th.

trevor.cheslynhayhistory@talktalk.net
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Weekly Update – 27 September 2009
The author Anthony Poulton-Smith is our January monthly speaker and he has a blog that is updated weekly and would be only too pleased to respond to any comments or enquiries. http://anthony1956.blog.co.uk/

The deeds are still coming in for our main House History Project in our Annual Exhibition in October and we are currently copying details of properties and householders in Chapel Square including the White Lion from 1835. Interesting to see the Anglo Saxon hoard discovered along the A5 and amongst all the speculation we have to ask – ‘Does this treasure belong to the lost Anglo Saxon king or chieftain that everyone’s been after over the centuries and where Cheslyn (Anglo Saxon for chest or coffin) Hay is thought to have derived its name from?

trevor.cheslynhayhistory@talktalk.net
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Weekly Update – 20 September 2009
This month’s speaker is Ned Williams who will be talking about ‘A Century of Cinemas’ on Thursday 24th September at 7.30pm at the Salem. A new innovation at our Exhibition this year is that we will be selling sticks of Cheslyn Hay rock at 50p each. Another website enquiry this week is from someone of the Winfer/Winters family researching their family tree. We already have information on this family if anyone would like to offer anymore information it certainly will be appreciated.

trevor.cheslynhayhistory@talktalk.net
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Weekly Update – 13 September 2009
We are at the Cannock Chase Mining Museum today (Saturday 12th September) and Sunday from 11am together with all the other local history societies and the mining groups. Unfortunately the dates clash with the Great Wyrley Town Womens Guild weekend display at the Wesleyan Chapel on the Walsall Road but we have also supllied them with an display of old photographs of the Wesleyan Chapel itself.

trevor.cheslynhayhistory@talktalk.net
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Weekly Update – 30 August 2009
We have had quite a response from our website this week requesting help or recalling nostalgia. If anyone can help please contact me through the email address below.
First request comes from Colin Roberts who says in his email - My grandparents were living in Queen Street on the 1911 Census they had moved there from Chadsmoor. They moved about abit before ending up in Saredon Road where they lived until their deaths.
My grandad John Roberts was known Jack so was his son and grandson who was quite a well known boxer in the 1930′s. Does anyone remember the Roberts family?
And a request from Connie Bateman (nee Young) who lives in Rugeley. Her sister Dorothy is visiting Cheslyn Hay for the first time in years from Canada and wants to meet up with old friends. Her mother was from the Holland family (Bertha, Walter, Horace and Ada) and she wants to know if any of the Holland, Ansell, Thomas and Hewitt families (from the late 1940s/early 1950s) are still about. Can anyone help?
And this is an update on our House History project.
Regarding the project we have managed to get approximately 90% of 1901 completed. We are still struggling with the corner of High Street where the three ways Off Licence was just down from the Bricklayers Arms. The enumerator’s route doesn’t seem to make sense. Does anyone know who may have knowledge on the buildings and the people who lived in them for this corner? We did have a small eureka moment with Chapel Square, although we still haven’t fully cracked it. It seems during the latter part of the 19th century parts of Station Street and numbers 3, 5 and 7 Rosemary Road (Railroad at the time) were classed as Chapel Square. Also it seems prior to Chapel Square this area was called White Lion Yard (Last mentioned in 1881).
Can anyone help/advise?
Then a bit of nostalgia from Harry Russell:
When I lived on The Bonk there were four fish and chip shops on the top end of the village. One was Denny’s in Wolverhampton Rd. another was Shirley’s on High St.a bit lower down was Hilda Hicken’s and the fourth being on Mount Pleasant opposite Thackers yard which was known as the ‘Pretty Womans’.
A story I remember being told was when the ‘Pretty Woman’, who was very busy serving in the shop, was asked by her husband, Ernie who had returned from the Bricklayers Arms, just over the road after his evening drink if she would put him a bit of supper. His wife shouted several times “In a minute I’ve got a shop full.” Ernie, by now was very angry and went into the shop and holding the coal bucket threatened to throw it’s contents into the cooking pans, shouting “If I can’t get any supper nobody else can.” I think he was served next.

Miss Jean Hawkins sadly passed away on Tuesday aged 95. Miss Jean lived all of her life in the village and is the last connection in the village with the Hawkins family – a link stretching back almost 200 years.
Another very sad announcement this week is the demise of the popular Gordon Illidge. We will all miss him because of his local knowledge, his willingness to help – but above all, we will miss the man himself – a true Cheslyn Hay man through and through who took a real pride in the village. People like Gordon are impossible to replace.
His funeral is at Bushbury Crematorium on Monday 7th September at 3pm.

trevor.cheslynhayhistory@talktalk.net
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Weekly Update – 23 August 2009
Richard Bifield is our monthly speaker this Thursday 27th August at 7.30pm on the subject ‘Life and Times of Thomas Telford’ at the Salem, High Street, Cheslyn Hay. Admission £1 including refreshments.

trevor.cheslynhayhistory@talktalk.net
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Weekly Update – 16 August 2009
One of our members Frank Allen has completed his book ‘The Cannock Line – 14 Miles of History’ and is now available at £4.99. It will be of vast interest to many locals from around the area and it will also be on sale at our Exhibition in October.

trevor.cheslynhayhistory@talktalk.net
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Weekly Update – 9 August 2009
In July we had another 26 ‘hits’ on the South Staffs website relating to the Cheslyn Hay postcards but 17 of these were of the old Brittania Picture House. It is always rewarding to receive memories from ex-Bonkers who have left Cheslyn Hay years ago and here is one in point responding to our website - Seeing the report of the vandal attack on Louis cottage in Landywood Lane reminded me of the time me and my brother took a goose to her to be dressed. When we returned the next day we were greeted by a very irate Louis trying to explain to us never to ask her to dress another large bird. There were feathers everywhere,including in her hair. The price she asked for doing such a menial task was ten shillings.

Another three responses this week included an enquiry for baptisms at Salem, tracing a local mining accident and an enquiry from the Roberts family tracing their relatives.

One of our members has recommended a free website available to anyone tracing their family history is www.medievalsoldier.org which contains information on troops who fought for England against the French in the Hundred Years War between 1369 and 1453 (Agincourt etc). Apparently there are 250000 of them.

Also we have given permission for one of our members to include an 8 minute cinefilm of Pinfold Lane’s holidays in Coombe Martin in 1967/8 on his website. Just click on to 1zaac.com to view.

trevor.cheslynhayhistory@talktalk.net
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Weekly Update – 2 August 2009
Our monthly speaker Nigel Wiggin gave an excellent talk on ‘The History of Old Hall Tableware’ this week to a packed audience of almost 100 people. In fact Nigel decided to split his talk into two parts because of the reception he received and thus the second part will relate to the history of the Bloxwich firm from the Second World War to its closure and this will be given early next year.

Dr Alan Jones brought us up to date this week with his researches into the Edalji case after several weeks of reviewing the documents stored away at Kew and the case becomes more and more fascinating even after 100 years. An enquiry from New Zealand has been received from a gentleman trying to trace his mother who was in service at the Dell in Cheslyn Hay and we have had a couple of interesting photographs of a local WWI soldier, Albert Rogers, who lost a leg in action.

trevor.cheslynhayhistory@talktalk.net
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Weekly Update – 26 July 2009
This months speaker is Nigel Wiggin giving a talk on the history of Bloxwich’s Old Hall Stainless Steel tableware. Nigel was the last MD there and he is a much sought after speaker and will also value all items of Old Hall tableware. The event takes place at the Salem this Thursday 30th July at 7.30pm.

The project of transcribing our records are certainly gaining pace and we have now completed the 1914 Directory for Cheslyn Hay and the 1902 Electoral Register and started on the Rates Valuation for 1926 plus the 1849 tithe valuation books.

We now have more copies of Mick Drury’s book ‘The Hutment Communities’ which concentrates on Cannock and our areas. They are now available at £5.

We have received an enquiry this week from Canada wanting details of Gilpins and Wm Gilpin’s family which, as always, we will be delighted to help with.

This week we have also received a tape of an interview with a nurse at the Cheslyn Hay Isolation Hospital recalling how things were then with reference to the food, the diet and conditions etc. The interviewee passed away a few years ago so the tape is of significant interest.

As are the recordings made by one of our members of an 87 year old lady of her memories in Cheslyn Hay and Great Wyrley particularly of the war years and even of her grandparents going back to the 1800s.

We are also pleased to report the growth of Bridgtown Local History Society who now have over 50 members and are in the advanced stages of publishing a book in time for their November exhibition

trevor.cheslynhayhistory@talktalk.net
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Weekly Update – 19 July 2009
Our 2009 book ‘Cheslyn Hay – Those Fleeting Years’ are now in the hands of the publishers and will be available at our Exhibition on 17th October at £5 and we are already reserving copies in advance.

Archive material and artefacts are still being donated and a meeting is to be held this week to reassess all these items and to bring our Database up to date.

trevor.cheslynhayhistory@talktalk.net
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Weekly Update – 12 July 2009
We have stalls this week at the Cheslyn Hay Primary School Fete on Sunday,12th July and we have a display next Saturday 18th July at the Great Wyrley Wesleyan Chapel on the Walsall Road from 10am – 12noon for the Great Wyrley Townswomens Guild.
One of our members has visited the English Heritage Centre in Swindon and ordered 2 aerial maps dated 1946 and 1952 of the topside of Cheslyn Hay, around the Holly Bush area in 1946 and 1952 together with a report of what was assumed to be a Roman site.

trevor.cheslynhayhistory@talktalk.net
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Weekly Update – 5 July 2009
This year’s book ‘Cheslyn Hay – Those Fleeting Years’ is now in the hands of the publisher. Once again we have been able to maintain the price at £5 and 1200 have been ordered. It will be launched on Saturday 17th October at our Annual Exhibition.

trevor.cheslynhayhistory@talktalk.net
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Weekly Update – 28 June 2009
This month’s speaker, Peter Rhodes of the Express & Star was as humorous as ever and provided an excellent afternoon’s entertainment. The weather for the Great Wyrley Carnival kept fine and once again we had a tremendous amount of interest and enquiries.The official ‘Re-opening of the Glenthorne School’ is on Saturday 4th July which we have been invited to and they will be ‘back to normal’ for the coming year. We have received a request from Mark Jones in Canada who is researching his family from Cheslyn Hay in the late 1800s. So anyone who have researched their family trees with the names of Cooper, Brownhill, Witcutt and Pursell around this area would they please make contact via this email address:

trevor.cheslynhayhistory@talktalk.net
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Weekly Update – 21 June 2009
Peter Rhodes of the Express & Star is our guest speaker this month and he will be talking on ‘The Humorous Side of Journalism’. It is at the Salem, High Street on Thursday 25th June at 2pm and just £1 entrance fee.

We will be appearing at the Great Wyrley Carnival next Saturday 27th June and we will have a stall next to Great Wyrley Local History Society to promote our interests.

The Cheslyn Hay Primary School have kindly loaned the Society the Log Books of the old Pinfold Lane School going back to the 1890s. Absolutely fascinating reading but the real ‘must’ for the family historian is the School Register from 1882 to the early 1900s showing the pupils’ addresses, DOBs, fathers’ names etc.

trevor.cheslynhayhistory@talktalk.net
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Weekly Update – 14 June 2009
Another meeting this week at Pickwick Cottage in Dundalk Lane revealed more interesting facts relating to its history and previous tenants – mostly from the one family, the Biddles. From the Chase Post article we have had another report of a resident spirit in one of the more older properties in Cheslyn Hay as well.

trevor.cheslynhayhistory@talktalk.net
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Weekly Update – 7 June 2009
The Chase Post gave us coverage to Darren Butler’s project in tracing the oldest properties in Cheslyn Hay with a photograph of Lynne Jones in her Dundalk Lane cottage. Since when we’ve been contacted by Mr Peter Cadman who lived there some years ago and he is coming over this week to meet us. We are also hoping for a follow-up story concentrating more on the House History research.

Following on from last weeks reference on the subject of pit disasters, I now understand that all local pit accidents have already been recorded by the old Cannock librarian Roger Whiting and are available at the Cannock Library.

Another 36 ‘hits’ recorded in May on the South Staffordshire website of our local photographs – mainly on Cheslyn Hay High Street (13), Albert Hawkins shop (10), and the Brittannia Picture House (8).

The Bridgtown & District Local History Society will be launched this Tuesday, 9th June with an Inaugural Meeting and Coffee morning at the Bridgtown Community Centre at 10am.

trevor.cheslynhayhistory@talktalk.net
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Weekly Update – 31 May 2009
The fun day at the White Horse Bank Holiday Monday proved to be a pleasant day and worthwhile in supporting the British Legion.

Our guest speaker on Thursday, Terry Carter, gave a talk and demonstration on Medieval Music and was the best speaker we’ve had for a couple of years. He was entertaining, amusing and an excellent musician.

Hopefully we may get some coverage and a couple of photographs in the Express & Star this week.

We appeared in Friday’s Express & Star again in ‘The Way we Were’ covering Gilpins and the Tileries and this coming week the Chase Post is covering Darren Butler in his project of chasing up the deeds on the older properties in Cheslyn Hay and he is meeting the owner of a Dundalk Lane cottage, which also has a ghost apparently.

Mick Drury has recently published an excellent book on the Hutment Communities covering Great Wyrley and Rosemary Hutments in Coppice Lane as well as other areas and has donated a copy to ourselves.

An interesting response received this week from our website on the subject of pit disasters. It’s from a researcher who offers help on pit disasters. Click on to www.cmhrc.co.uk enter the name and it will show details of date of accident, colliery, the owner and how he died. It is excellent.

trevor.cheslynhayhistory@talktalk.net
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Weekly Update – 24 May 2009
We are at the fun day at the White Horse in New Horse Road on Whit Bank Holiday Monday supporting the British Legion. It starts at 10am with a Car Boot Sale, the pigroast is at 12.30pm and there’ll be stalls etc all day until 4pm. Carol Adshead and Ron Mattison will be in period costume and military uniform for the benefit of the Express & Star.

Our guest speaker this month is most unusual. It is Terry Carter with a talk and demonstration of Medieval Music. He needs over an hour to set up his instruments and he is quite well known in musical circles. The Express & Star will also be there. This Thursday, 28th May, at the Salem with a 7.30pm start. £1 including refreshments.

trevor.cheslynhayhistory@talktalk.net
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Weekly Update – 17 May 2009
This week sees the launch of the newly formed Great Wyrley Local History Society and we will be supplying the boards and all of our Great Wyrley photographs for their display on Wednesday 20th May at the Great Wyrley WMC at 7.45pm. We are expecting large numbers and if we have the same support and enthusiasm as from Bridgtown the new Society should be up and running within weeks.

An excellent range of bowls photographs has been handed in this week but we need someone with either knowledge of bowls or the Woodman to help identify them as they range from the 1920s to 1960s. Any help would be appreciated.

One of our stalwart members, Viv Bruton, passed away last week and her funeral is on Wednesday 20th May at the Salem at 10am. Viv was a popular character around the village and was particularly known for her humourous and sometimes poignant poetry about Cheslyn Hay as shown in her appearance on the Cheslyn Hay DVD ‘Walk Round the Bonk’.

trevor.cheslynhayhistory@talktalk.net
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Weekly Update – 10 May 2009
There is an important theme to this Thursday’s Coffee Morning. It is an interactive session run by Darren Butler on House History and we want as many of the more ‘senior’ residents with good memories to be there so that we can record who lived where and when. All are invited and it is at the Salem, in the Lecture Room, on Thursday 14th May at 10am. We are also involved addressing the St Andrews Monday Group tomorrow, 11th May on ‘Tracing your Family Tree’. We have only done this once before and it was surprising how successful it was.

We are taking no more bookings for the coach trip to the Arboretum at Alrewas on 11th June, as the 33 seater coach is now full.

More photographs have arrived this week – this time of the Bate and Haycock families from the 1920s & 30s.

trevor.cheslynhayhistory@talktalk.net
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Weekly Update – 3 May 2009
We are organising two trips this year. One to the Arboretum at Alrewas on Thursday 11th June at a price of £4 and a coach trip on Thursday August 13th to the Birmingham back-to-back houses. Entrance cost is £5.15 so we are charging £6 and subsidising the coach.

We have been presented with an excellent selection of 34 photographs of the Hawkins, Pearson, Baker, Hitchens, McCulloch families as well as workers at the Hawkins Colliery from the 1920s & 30s from one of our members this week.

Four more enquiries from our website this week include an enquiry into the history of her recently bought house that belonged to Miss Jean Hawkins, an enquiry from Canada concerning the Gilpin family, someone researching the Smith family history of Great Wyrley and Cheslyn Hay and finally we had a response from last week’s request from Australia tracing her family. It was from her nephew and we were able to put them in touch with each other.

We have liased with the Chase Post this week on the Edalji case over two letters that have been unearthed in Texas that were written by George’s sister Maud. Another interesting article will appear agin next week.

trevor.cheslynhayhistory@talktalk.net
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Weekly Update – 26 April 2009
Our monthly speaker this Thursday 30th April, at the Salem is Dr Pamela Sambrook on ‘Domestic Service in the 19th Century’ and should be a real enlightening talk. Following Joan Lockley’s coffee morning two weeks ago we have been only too pleased to present a cheque for the ‘West Midlands Hedgehog Rescue Centre’ for £50 and it has been particularly well received. We have accepted an invitation to put on a display stand at the White Horse pub in New Horse Road on Whit Monday, 25th May. We will be providing photographs as well as a World War Two soldier and a Victorian lady in authentic costumes to add to the atmosphere.

One of our members has requested a mention of her proposed visit to the grave of Job Whitehouse in November 2009. He is buried at Mailly, near Albert in France. His name is on the Cheslyn Hay War Memorial. Job died in Nov 1916, on the Somme. His Grandfather was her Great x 2 Uncle, John Whitehouse, son of another John, born Brownhills 1812. Job was married and lived in Bloxwich,when he joined South Staffs Regiment. Our member would like to see if there are any folks related to him, in case they would like to know about her visit.

trevor.cheslynhayhistory@talktalk.net
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Weekly Update – 19 April 2009

The Token Days went well at the Cheslyn Hay and Great Wyrley Community Centres with plenty of interest with the Daz Project and other unexpected queries. A Mr Eric Fowler presented us with a threeha’pence token from the Lord Nelson Inn that he had found digging on his allotment. What a marvellous find. The last Tokens Day is this Friday 24th April in the Lounge at GW Community Centre from 10am to 2pm.

The Daz Project is gathering apace with plenty more individual information on the most popular addresses, but to further his research he’ll have to visit Kew and he is appealing for anyone with contact with any researcher who frequents Kew to save him a jorney.

This Quarters Mystery photograph has revealed two names now – Wes Newman and Joby Bird of Cross Street.

Two interesting emails from our website this week.

(a) Jon Wood has bought the old Schoolhouse on the corner of Hatherton Street and is sympathetically renovating it and is appealing for anyone with memories or information of its past. Plus one email that is a real coincidence. It contains a photograph of an Edwardian wedding including the Titley, Lawson, Thomas and Hughes families. They name the Titley and Lawson family but we already have the same photo in our archives from a member who names only the Thomas and Hughes families! So now we have the full information.

Although we only started taking subscriptions for memberships this week we already have in excess of 100 members, which proves that it is right to maintain our annual fees at just £4.

The Bridgtown Committee meeting could not have gone better. Ambitious plans are already in the planning process with meetings to be held every fortnight. We now have a full committee that include such people of ‘substance’ such as a recently retired Headmaster of Bridgtown school, 2 retired councillors, a current councillor, one renowned historian, a retired accountant from one of the most prestigious Bridgtown families, a retired company director and of course Tony Pearson who will be leading the committee as Chairman.

With interest in forming a similar Great Wyrley History Society gathering pace we could set up the same programme and in the same time scale if we can attract a similar likeminded and committed people.

trevor.cheslynhayhistory@talktalk.net
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Weekly Update – 12 April 2009

After another successful coffee morning at Bridgtown last week, a committee will be formed this Wednesday as the first step to promote a separate Bridgtown & District Local History Society.

This week we have a display on Wednesday, 15th April for the Tokens Day at the Cheslyn Hay Community Centre in Pinfold Lane. For the first time we are displaying isolated maps of different parts of Cheslyn Hay and appealing for local knowledge so eventually we can produce a complete house history of Cheslyn Hay.

trevor.cheslynhayhistory@talktalk.net
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Weekly Update – 5 April 2009

Two coffee mornings are arranged for this week. The first one is at the Bridgtown Community Centre in Bridge Street, Bridgtown on Wednesday 8th April at 10am and this will be for anyone from the Bridgtown area and we will set the plans to launch a separate Bridgtown & District Local History Society.

The second coffee morning is at the Lecture Room at the Salem on Thursday at 10am and Joan Lockley will be talking about her experiences ‘From Fast Cars and Showjumping to Hedgehogs’.

Historian Ned Williams is requesting any information on the building of the old Brittania Picture House and we are looking for anyone who has any memories of the cinema.

We have recently received photographs and newspaper cuttings of Sunshine Farm from Mr Irven Hall, whose father managed it before the war and we are appealing for anyone with memories of this farm so that they can be included in this year’s new book.

Two requests this week. One from Garry Cooper who is compling a book on crown green bowling and requests photographs or information from the trophy winning side of the Cheslyn Hay WMC of the 1940s. And the other enquiry is ‘Where was Hetty’s Lane in Great Wyrley in the 1940s?’

trevor.cheslynhayhistory@talktalk.net
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Weekly Update – 29 March 2009

Our AGM is on Thursday, 2nd April at the Joe Cadman Suite at the Community Centre starting at 7.30pm and a selection of photographs from the ‘Peoples’ volumes will be available.

We are currently copying all the Sunday School Records and Attendance Records for the Salem (and pre Salem going back to the 1830s) with the intention of putting them on a CD for family historians.

Our website has produced another fascinating snippet of information this week from Roger Betts of Reading who informs us of some Roman coins found in the 1960s and says ‘They were found by Mr. Harry Benton but I would assume he is now long dead. He lived at 336 Walsall Rd. and the coins were found by the gate to his front garden. The Reading museum told me they had been minted in Triers and none of them was at all worn, suggesting that they had been deposited shortly after minting.’

If anyone can throw any further light on these coins or if anyone has any connection or knowledge of the Benton family, I would delighted to hear from them as we would love to borrow them for a display at this year’s Exhibition.

trevor.cheslynhayhistory@talktalk.net
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Weekly Update – 22 March 2009

We will be attending the Tokens Day at the Cheslyn Hay Community Centre on Wednesday 15th April with a display on House History with photographs of old buildings and illustrations from old maps. Likewise we will be at the Great Wyrley Tokens Days on Fridays 17 & 24 at the GW Community Centre concentrating on local photographs and Family History.

In his quest on the origins of street names in Great Wyrley Mr Anthony Poulton-Smith needs more information on the following, if anyone can help. Alpha Way Alwyn Close Appledore Close Ash Lane Beaumont Road Beech Court Cadman’s Lane Cedar Grove Cherrington Drive Chillington Close Cotswold Avenue Cromwell Court Dove Hollow Dunston Close Fern Drive Hartwell Lane Honeysuckle Way Hut Hill Lane Jubilee Close Lime Close Martin Grove Oak Avenue Oxley Close Peacock Croft Penny Court Pine Close Saxon Court Shanklyn Close Somerford Close Southfield Way Spring Drive Strawberry Lane Streets Lane Trevor Avenue Wardles Lane Weston Drive Yemscroft

trevor.cheslynhayhistory@talktalk.net
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Weekly Update – 15 March 2009

Cheslyn Hay’s Pinfold Lane School Log Book (1923 – 41) and Punishment Book (1943 – 1959) has now been completed and is available on CD for £3. It is an absolutely fascinating glimpse into our past with over 50 years of Cheslyn Hay pupils names and should be invaluable to family historians.

I have just received copies of two letters written by Maud Edalji in the 1950s for our archives. It concerns her thoughts on her brother’s trial and how the case was handled. It makes fascinating reading.

Two website enquiries this week. One from a lady in Australia tracing her father’s family tree. He was Harold Thomas Whitehouse, born in Cheslyn Hay in 1926. He worked at a coal mine before emigrating to Australia in 1950 after being demobbed from the army. We are currently making enquiries. And the other enquiry was if anyone knows the Whitehouse firm that used to make geological hammers. This should not prove too difficult to solve.

trevor.cheslynhayhistory@talktalk.net
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Weekly Update – 8 March 2009

The Cheslyn Hay photographs on the South Staffs website had another 78 ‘hits’ in February but 33 of these were of the usual one of the High Street.

This month’s Coffee Morning this Thursday is at the Salem and is a talk and demonstration on Lock Manufacturing.

The first meeting reforming a Bridgtown Local History Society took place this week and was a real success with a full programme of events pencilled in to be discussed and hopefully to be put into practice during the next 12 months.

Further to last week’s appeal as to whether the formation of a Great Wyrley sub committee is a viable proposition on the same basis we have had a burst of activity and another volunteer to help out this week.

Another enquiry from our website this week is from Australia from someone researching the Whitehouse family tree and who wishes to contact any other Whitehouses. Happily I can provide her with 17 independent family trees.

An update on our update of our cataloging system shows that 3652 photographs have been indexed with an incredible 5466 names on the database but there are still many more to catalogue before our main exhibition later in the year. The volumes completed to date are Sport (2 volumes), Industry (7), Military (1), Schools (2), People (8) and Places (3). These are now to be archived on Gold Discs for future reference.

trevor.cheslynhayhistory@talktalk.net

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Weekly Update – 1 March 2009

Our AGM is now fixed for Thursday 2nd April at the Community Centre in Pinfold Lane.

The first meeting to launch the Bridgtown Local History Society will take place this week and photographs will appear in the Express & Star’s ‘The Way We Were’ on Friday.

A proposal has also been mooted for a similar experiment for Great Wyrley and I would be very pleased to hear from anyone who has an interest in the local history of Great Wyrley.

We have been invited again to lay on displays at the Cannock Library on Saturday 5 September and the Cannock Chase Mining Museum the following weekend – 12/13 September. .

The Glenthorne School exhibition to celebrate 40 Years has been postponed and probably cancelled because of their asbestos problems. I’m told that they may even have to destroy their own photographs that were stored at the school.

Finally, a member of our Society and another cornerstone of Cheslyn Hay, Joe Cadman, passed away recently and was buried on Monday. Another sad loss to the village.

trevor.cheslynhayhistory@talktalk.net

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Weekly Update – 22 February 2009

Trish Dawson is this months speaker on ‘The Life and Times of Mrs Beeton’ on Thursday, 26th February at the Salem in the High Street at 7.30pm. Admission is £1 including refreshments and will be an excellent talk. One request received this week is from someone researching the Parsons family. Anyone with any connections/knowledge of Cyril Parsons born in Cheslyn Hay in 1903 and lived at 104 High Street and later at 166 High Street please email. He had two brothers Clarence and Herbert and two sisters Grace-Evelyn and Emma. Any help would be much appreciated.

trevor.cheslynhayhistory@talktalk.net

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Weekly Update – 15 February 2009

Rona Ballance’s family have contacted ourselves after our requestfor any old photographs/memorabilia that were to be thrown away. They have donated one box and although some of it relates to Sgt Ballance and his North Staffs connections, there are many items of local interest. The best photograph is one of Sgt Ballance, Secretary of the Cheslyn Hay Allotments Society at the top of the village with a wonderful backdrop of old Cheslyn Hay buildings. Two other items received this week are a 1933 class photo of Miss Hulme’s class including several well known village names plus the wartime memories of Norma Ford (nee Roper), an evacuee from Margate.

trevor.cheslynhayhistory@talktalk.net

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Weekly Update – 8 February 2009

We have another 73 ‘hits’ on the Staffordshire website containing our photographs. The most popular were once again – High Street (31), Hawkins shop (12), Britannia Picture House (9) and Hacketts shop (7).

Because of the weather our meeting on Thursday morning to form a Bridgtown sub committee had to be postponed and has now been rearranged in three weeks time where the possibility of a Bridgtown book will be discussed.

This month’s coffee morning is on ‘Recently Improved Cinefilm and Videos’ this Thursday in the Lecture Room at the Salem.

trevor.cheslynhayhistory@talktalk.net

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Weekly Update – 1 February 2009

Following the excellent coverage in the Chase Post, we have received more interest and photographs from the Bridgtown area. We have now more than 100 names on the Bridgtown database and the first meeting has been arranged for this week to form a sub committee.

This month’s speaker provided another entertaining and successful evening but what was particularly encouraging was how many new faces Bob Bibby attracted.

The Pinfold School Reunion was an outstanding success on Friday evening. The Cheslyn Hay WMC was packed out and we laid on a display of old school photos. The only downside of the evening was the news that David Paradine, who had co-organised the event with Edna Brown, had been taken into hospital with a heart problem on the same day and everyone passed on their best wishes to David for a speedy recovery.

Cheslyn Hay High School are designing and making a bench with brickwork sculptured with scenes linking with Cheslyn Hay’s history. We are on hand to give advice and the project is being supervised by Gwen Heeley, a sculptor of some renown from the North.

Local author Paul Bedford is appealing for help on his new book ‘More than just a Name’ on names on local cenotaphs. He is after information on John Thomas Duckhouse and Edward Haynes who were killed in WW I from Bridgtown.

Finally a request from anyone who were in the Cheslyn Hay Carnival in 1962 and from Hatherton Street and Hill Street. The photograph will be used in our next book, but it is names we want.

trevor.cheslynhayhistory@talktalk.net

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Weekly Update – 25 January 2009

The Bridgtown Coffee Morning was an overwhelming success. We were just inundated with photographs – 300 plus to be copied but the interest created had to be seen to be believed. The first step now is a sub committee which will be arranged within the next 10 days and anyone with a connection with Bridgtown and wants to be involved please contact me.

Another good week in the press – a write up in the Express and Star Friday night on ‘Small Village had a Crucial Wartime Role’ and Les Belcher’s story in this week’s Chronicle’s History Corner. There will also be excellent coverage on the Bridgtown Coffee Morning in the Chase Post this coming week.

To read article in the Chase Post click here

We have now been presented with a tape of an interview with Elijah Whitehouse in 1999 when he was 90 and covers his life from down Hawkins Colliery and his early life in Cheslyn Hay. Fascinating.

Another item for our archives came our way this week from the Great Wyrley School archives when they were researching local stories from the past. Most of them have already been researched by Mike, but one amusing snippet in 1910 reads as follows – The coronation pole was being retained by a gentleman in the village. Someone suggested he might be setting up as a barber. The Clerk promised to make inquiries.

Unfortunately there’s no follow up report of the Clerk’s enquiries.

trevor.cheslynhayhistory@talktalk.net

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Weekly Update – 18 January 2009

The Bridgtown Coffee Morning is all set up for this Wednesday, 21st January 2009 at the Bridgtown Community Centre in the Orbital Centre in Bridge Street in Bridgtown starting at 9am. The response has been quite overwhelming and the ambition of creating an independent Bridgtown Local History Society is very promising. There will be over 150 photographs on display on Wednesday together with a mini display from Burgess’s Bag Factory.

Following on from the contact with the Moore family of last week where Horace was killed on the HMS Hussar in ‘friendly fire’ in 1944 the Chase Post took up the full page on the story on Friday and the Black Country Bugle are also interested in it.

trevor.cheslynhayhistory@talktalk.net

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Weekly Update – 11 January 2009

Our Annual Exhibition has been fixed for Saturday, 26th September and we are looking to link up the censuses with the 1884 map of Cheslyn Hay so that we can project on to a screen at what houses people were living throughout the 1800s. It certainly is an ambitious project and will be the main feature this year and one that will attract a lot of attention from local and family historians alike.

Twelve months ago I liased with Phil Gee of the Cannock Photographic Society providing him with material to make a short film of the Edalji case and he has now produced a really well made DVD which could well be the source of an interesting coffee morning, particularly together with the 15 minutes of Matthew Kelly reviewing the case for the ITV Forensic Science series.

A Mr Anthony Poulton – Smith has contacted us this week with a plea to help him with the origins of street names around Cheslyn Hay as he is compiling a book on the subject. This should be an interesting, and not too arduous, a task for us to undertake.

An interesting addition to our archives has been provided this week. It is a photograph together with a newspaper cutting concerning a young 19 year old Horace Moore of 6 Council Houses, Walsall Road in Great Wyrley who was one of the 56 men killed (plus 39 seriously wounded) when the HMS Hussar was attacked and destroyed on 27 Aug 44. The real tragedy of this story was only released comparatively recently which revealed that it was attacked by our own RAF in what is now known as ‘friendly fire’.

Another new member has joined us this week from Boston, Massachusetts who is enquiring about her family roots from the Cheslyn Hay area and wants to know if there are any Bird and Satchwells still in the village or if anyone remembers anybody of that name before the war.

Also we’ve had an enquiry from an existing member who needs help in researching her family tree and is looking for anyone with knowledge or connections with the names of Butler and Bullas.

trevor.cheslynhayhistory@talktalk.net

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Weekly Update – 4 January 2009

60 more hits in December on the Staffs website showing a range of Cheslyn Hay photographs. Once again the most popular are the old High Street (20), Hawkins shop (12), Brittannia Picture House (9) and Woottons Shop and Post Office (7).We have come across a reference to Needleys Alley,close to Mount Pleasant. This has stumped us all and if anyone can enlighten us please contact Darren by email sappa@talktalk.net

Last week’s request re the Purshouse family was answered by one of our members who was able to give a full range of information as the Purshouses are connected to her grandparents. Apparently one Purshouse ‘emigrated’ to Rotherham, which is where the enquiry came from. Another new member has contacted us this week for help re the Elwell/Dutton/Pearson families. Once again, can anyone oblige?

This week’s Coffee Morning is on Thursday, 8th January in the Salem lecture room and the subject is Hawkins Tileries.

Sadly we have to report that Rhona Ballance has just passed away. A lovely lady and another well known village name has now passed into history. The funeral takes place at the Catholic Church in Walsall Road, Cannock (opposite the Aldi/Lidl store) at 2.30pm on Thursday, 8th January.

trevor.cheslynhayhistory@talktalk.net

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Weekly Update – 28 December 2008

The sales of our ‘Happy Days’ books have well exceeded the 1000 mark and we now have just 169 books left from our initial order of 1300 books.

One exciting project this year is the one being worked on by Darren Butler who has digitised the 1884 map for Cheslyn Hay and also collated the 1871, 1881, 1891 and 1901 census returns for the buildings and the heads of household for each building. He is now cross referencing the census returns with the maps he has and although it is a mammoth task (424 buildings registered in the 1881 census alone) it will be a real boon for all family historians with a Cheslyn Hay connection.

Thanks to our website we are receiving more and more enquiries from all over the country. The latest one, from Yorkshire, is from someone tracing their family tree of Purshouse/Pershouse. Anyone with any contacts with such connections please get in touch.

And finally a happy New Year to everyone.

trevor.cheslynhayhistory@talktalk.net

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Weekly Update – 21 December 2008
We are involved with an Open Day at Glenthorne School on Saturday, 31st January with the sole purpose of arranging all the photographs in year order over the last 40 years – then arranging to put names to them. This will be the first step to arranging a display to celebrate the School’s 40th Anniversary in March.

Finally a Merry Christmas to everybody!

trevor.cheslynhayhistory@talktalk.net

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Weekly Update – 14 December 2008
The last Christmas Fayre at Glenthorne School was held on Sunday afternoon and we completely sold out of both the Cheslyn Hay and Great Wyrley mugs and coasters. In fact we took another 16 more orders for mugs and another 30 orders for coasters.

The Christmas Coffee Morning went down very well with a Local Quiz organised by Jim Brevitt and followed by Geoff Hackett on the keyboard leading the carol singing. On the same evening the Plank Singers were also in fine form in place of our normal Speakers Evening.

Glenthorne Primary School have invited us to lay on a display for their 30th Anniversary in March and we will be sorting out from their archives the photographs and log books to put on display.

The Edalji case we were involved with in the summer was broadcast on ITV3 on 28th November. It is called ‘Forensic Casebook with Matthew Kelly’ and aims at the angle of how the forensic evidence was bodged up. It is an excellent production and it is hopefully to be repeated on ITV next year.

trevor.cheslynhayhistory@talktalk.net
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Weekly Update – 7 December 2008
The Christmas Fayre at Moat Hall School on Friday night was a great success helping several people with family history enquiries as well as selling a full selection of our books and CDs. The last Christmas Fayre this year is at Glenthorne School this Sunday afternoon between 2pm – 5pm.

The story I responded to in the Black Country Bugle about Jack Windmill the Aston Villa player who was headmaster at Pinfold Lane School was published last week (27th Nov) but the follow up story about Jack Martin is included in this week’s Bugle together with a 1957 photograph of the school’s football team.

David Paradine is organising a reunion for former pupils aged 65 and over who went to Cheslyn Hay County Primary School in Hatherton Street. It will be held at the Cheslyn Hay WMC on Friday 30th January at 7.30pm but anyone wishing to attend must contact Edna Brown (01922 417131) so that the buffet will be adequate for everyone. David is paying for the buffet and the evening will be free. A raffle will be held for the County Air Ambulance and we will be providing display boards with photographs relating to the Infants School.

This week, because it’s Christmas, we have both the Coffee Morning and the Speakers Evening on the same day – Thursday, 11th December. The coffee morning will have a Christmas flavour to it and on the night we have the popular Plank Singers with a range of festival and favourite songs.

trevor.cheslynhayhistory@talktalk.net
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Weekly Update – 30 November 2008
The Christmas Fayre at Cheslyn Hay Primary School went well last week and we sold a range of books as well as receiving many enquiries. We have another two Fayres this week. The first one on Friday evening, December 5th at 6pm at Moat Hall Primary School and a second one at Glenthorne Primary School on Sunday afternoon December 7th from 2pm to 5pm.

Last month another 88 people logged on to our photographs on the Staffs Website with the 3 most popular viewings being the usual High Street (43), Hawkins shop (15) and the Brittania Picture House (10).

One interesting enquiry came this week from someone who is researching the Boot family from Bridgtown. We are able to supply a short potted history together with photographs as the Boots were well connected to the Methodist chapel there. We would also like to hear from anyone if they have anymore information.

trevor.cheslynhayhistory@talktalk.net
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Weekly Update – 23 November 2008
The Bridgtown Community Centre is open to our Society for Wednesday 21th January for a coffee morning for anyone who has lived in, or had any connection with Bridgtown – everyone will be welcome. We will lay on a mini display with all of our Bridgtown photographs and we will be appealing to anyone to bring along their Bridgtown photographs to scan, copy and return them on the morning. Another old ‘Bridgtonian’, Tony Pearson, will also be there and he is keen to organise an evening Bridgtown School reunion.

This Friday, 28th November, we will attending the first of our Christmas Fayres at the Schools and it will be at the Cheslyn Hay Primary starting at 5.30pm.

Further to recent requests we have approached a local company for a quote to produce calendars for us next year. The quality is excellent and will include 12 different scenes but initial thoughts are that it is too costly to be viable at the moment.

An ambitious project has been proposed by one of our committee members. It involves collating local maps from the 1880s and linking up with the 1881 census to try and pinpoint who is living in which house! Although ambitious, if the idea is brought to fruition, it will certainly be a main feature in next year’s Exhibition.

The speaker next Thursday evening, 27th November, is Gemma Oakley from Shugborough talking about ‘A Victorian Christmas’ with a range of artifacts. It is held at the Salem, starting at 7.30pm.

trevor.cheslynhayhistory@talktalk.net
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Weekly Update – 16 November 2008
The musical play ‘Four Winters at War’ written by local historian Peter Sidgwick was an outstanding success as performed by the Tower Players at Hednesford last week and because of the play being based around the Cannock area in the First World War, we are hoping to have the same players to repeat the performance around the Cheslyn Hay and Great Wyrley area for next November.

A new display in the Cheslyn Hay library will be set up this week displaying the four brass plaques donated to us by Alan Westwood of A Westwood & Sons Transport. These attractive plaques were donated to every mechanical vehical entrant in the Cheslyn Hay Carnivals. People came from miles around with classic and vintage cars and motorbikes and the plaques are a nostalgic reminder of how popular and successful our carnivals were.

We have accepted invitations to appear at all the local Christmas Fayres at all of the local schools – Glenthorne, Moat Hall and Cheslyn Hay Primary.

The Bridgtown Community Centre was opened on Wednesday by Mr Fred Pritchard and it certainly is impressive, ideally suited for coffee mornings and reasonable sized gatherings. Our first involvement will be to organise a coffee morning around the third week in January for just the Bridgtown residents. We will put on a photo display and advertise for people to bring in their old photographs which we will scan and copy immediately. Another suggestion that was put to Eddie Smith, Chairman of the Community Centre Committee was to organise a reunion for the Bridgtown School early in the New Year.

Deadline for our Christmas Newsletter is Friday 12th December and we are appealing to anyone for requests or items of interest to contact us before this date.

Trevor McFarlane
trevor.cheslynhayhistory@talktalk.net
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Weekly Update – 9 November 2008
Another 92 people visited our local views on the Staffordshire Local History Website in October with nearly half of them (39) viewing the populay High Street postcard from the 1940s.

We were presented with 4 brass plaques by Alan Westwood (of Westwood Transport) and John Ridgway (Carnival Organising Committee) for our archives this week. Alan had 50 of these plaques made every year and one was presented to every mechanised entrant in the Carnivals.

It certainly was rewarding to see a marvellous attendance at the Remembrance Parade, despite the weather and equally rewarding to see a packed St Marks afterwards for the service.

The Chase Mining Museum have said that they need our help again researching the Hawkins Colliery archives again, which we certainly will be only too pleased to provide the manpower.

Our Coffee Morning this Thursday,13th November, in the Lecture Room at the Salem has the theme of ‘Photographs on the Big Screen’. There is also Mr Frank Jellyman coming along and he would be delighted to meet anyone who has any knowledge of the Jellyman family.

Trevor McFarlane
trevor.cheslynhayhistory@talktalk.net
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Weekly Update – 2 November 2008

Book sales of ‘Cheslyn Hay – Happy Days’ now seem to be exceeding last year and, despite ordering an extra 300 books, we now have only 250 left in stock.

We will be assembling at the Cheslyn Hay Library to parade for the Remembrance Service on Sunday and we have supplied the vicar with a list of all the names of the men from Cheslyn Hay, Great Wyrley and Landywood who were killed in the two World Wars and these will be read out in his service at St Marks.

It was rewarding to see how many attended the talk by Major Ted Green last Thursday night on the history of the Staffordshire Regiment. Well over 100 attended and the local British Legions were well represented as well.

Further to a mention of Jack Windmill of the Villa in last week’s Black Country Bugle, I’ve contacted the editor pointing out that he was Headmaster at the Pinfold Lane School and that we had another Aston Villa player, Jack Martin, there as well. They are going to publish this as a story in the next couple of weeks.

We have received a letter after our recent write up in the Bugle from a Maurice Pearsall from Stafford. He’s aged 83 and his father owned the Old Nook and Wyrley Colliery Company until it closed in 1980. He with his 5 brothers ran it and he will be coming over and bringing some photographs to relive old times and be interviewed this week.

Trevor McFarlane
trevor.cheslynhayhistory@talktalk.net
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Weekly Update – 12 October 2008

We’ve had some very interesting negatives in this week from films that were taken 50 to 60 years ago and we are currently catagorising them for displays and our archives.

All the shops are selling our latest book ‘Cheslyn Hay – Happy Days’ far faster than the sales have gone in previous years with Waterstones of Walsall ordering 50 books this week. We’ve had more requests for our photographs to be framed around the village – from the Landywood Snooker Club and the White Horse who want 20 – 30 pictures for their new dining room.

Tickets are available (£6 & £5 concessions) for ‘Four Winters at War’ – a musical play written specially for the Cannock Chase area – involving the local training camps and the Gaskell murder. Its at Blake Valley College in Marston Road in Hednesford on 6th, 7th and 8th November. Tickets available through 01543 422300 or visit www.towerplayers.co.uk.

This month’s speaker is Major Ted Green on ‘The History of the South Staffs Regiment’ on Thursday, 30th October at the Salem Schoolroom in High Street at 7.30pm. £1 admission inc refreshments.

Trevor McFarlane
trevor.cheslynhayhistory@talktalk.net
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Weekly Update – 12 October 2008

Sales of Happy Days are going very well again with all shops having received their copies now and all reporting far more interest than last year. We have been invited to become involved with a Schools Project that is aimed to combine certain 14-15 year old pupils from both Cheslyn Hay and Great Wyrley Schools with the more elderly members of our community to talk about how life used to be and about local history. Weekly meetings are to be held and an illustrated booklet will then be prepared. This project shpuld prove very interesting.

A mini-exhibition for anyone who went to Pinfold Lane School is being organised at the Cheslyn Hay WMC in January and we’ve been asked to provide a board with photographs. Please contact me if you are interested in attending the event. This week’s events are both on Thursday. An illustrated talk at the Cheslyn Hay Town Womens Guild on the afternoon and Glenthorne School are spending all day at Linda’s Victorian House.

Trevor McFarlane
trevor.cheslynhayhistory@talktalk.net
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Weekly Update – 5 October 2008

Our new book ‘Happy Days’ is now in all the local shops plus Martins of Cannock, Holly Bush Garden Centre and Waterstones of Walsall will be stocking it shortly.

Prize winners of our Free Raffle Draw at our Annual Exhibition were Mrs Williams of Alpha Way, Great Wyrley (Travel Bags), Paul Chilton, High Street, Cheslyn Hay (Briefcase), Carol Forrester, 6 Mitre Road, (Wine) and Mr Hughes of Sunnyside, Harrisons Lane, Gailey (Chocolates).

We have had an amazing 120 ‘hits’ on the Staff website in September, with the most popular being the Brittania Picture House (32), Albert Hawkins shop (30) and the High Street (27).

Our book ‘Happy Days’ was mentioned this week on the Smooth Radio Breakfast Show on the topic of ‘books you’re reading now’. It was mentioned by Andy Hill as he was delighted to see his picture on page 12 of the book.

A plea for help. I have had a request from a Joy Kosoros who is trying to trace the whereabouts of her father just after the war. He arrived here in 1948. Does anyone know where the Miners Hostels were? Apparently he stayed at the hostels in Landywood, Bridgtown and in Harrison Buildings in Gorsey Lane (were these the Nissen Huts opposite the Landywood School?). Any information at all will be appreciated.

It has been proposed that we should set up a programme to record all the 200 plus Family Trees we already have so that all names from all the trees will be interlinked. So eventually we can feed in any name and it will show you where it appears on any of the family trees. It sounds like an exciting prospect for the future.

This Thursday’s Coffee Morning is ‘Press Cuttings on the Big Screen’ being presented by Mike Belcher.

Trevor McFarlane
trevor.cheslynhayhistory@talktalk.net
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Weekly Update – 21 September 2008

Everything is geared up for Saturday’s Exhibition at the Village Hall in Pinfold Lane and we’re expecting the usual support and turnout. We have now all the equipment for the ‘rug bodging’ demonstration – all we need is an experienced bodger! But we’ll find one. The talk Mike Belcher and myself gave to the Bentley Ladies Social Group was particularly well received on Tuesday and Mike traced several individual family trees from his 1881 census disk.

The Walsall Local History Centre has turned up some more local ‘gems’ for us in the local newspapers. First a cutting of a bomb dropped from a Zeppelin in 1916 that landed – unexploded – in the allotments at Great Wyrley. Then some minor rioting in Cheslyn Hay in the 1910 election. And finally – the first case of benefit fraud in the country was recorded round this area. The old age pension was introduced in 1908, but a few months later, a Mr Benton was being looked after at the Workhouse and he was still claiming his pension!

Finally the sad news that Mrs Brough has passed away this week. Mrs Brough was in her mid nineties and was a regular and priceless fund of knowledge to our Society and she will be missed, not only for her help and support, but for the person she was.

Trevor McFarlane
trevor.cheslynhayhistory@talktalk.net
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Weekly Update – 14 September 2008

Due to the popularity of such programmes like ‘Who do you think we are’ on TV, we have been requested to give a talk on ‘Tracing your Family Tree’ this Tuesday morning to a Ladies Group in Bentley. This certainly will be a ‘first’. We are pleased to advertise Gill Jordan and the Sundial Theatre Company’s ‘Evening’s Entertainment and Fish & Chips Supper’ at the Salem on Friday 26th Sept. Tickets are £8-50 and available through me or at the Cheslyn Hay Primary School.

Alf Newell has donated a large picture of the Hawkins Mine Rescue Team of 1935 this week and the trophy that they won. Unfortunately Alf only knows his father on the picture but our thanks again – as usual! – go to the Cannock Chase Museum who have looked up in their archives and found all the relevant correspondence to the event together with the names. It will be included in the Hawkins Display at our Exhibition. I have also asked the Museum to provide us with some interesting material/documents relating to Hawkins Colliery and they have forwarded lists of everyone together with addresses that worked there in 1941.

Now that our website is being updated on a weekly basis we are getting regular enquiries, plenty of interesting information, book sales and new memberships from all over the country. It certainly is paying dividends as we welcome all enquiries which we guarantee to respond to, and, hopefully, with answers and all free of charge.

Trevor McFarlane
trevor.cheslynhayhistory@talktalk.net
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Weekly Update – 7 September 2008

Another 49 viewings were recorded of our Cheslyn Hay photographs last month on the Staffordshire website www.staffspasttrack.org.uk which is now remaining constant at 50 ‘visits’ per month. We are currently recording all the old records of the Salem church going back to the Sunday School attendance records of 1835 and hope that some time in the future we will be able to produce a cheap CD for family historians. Also we aim to catalogue and edit the Pinfold Lane Punishment Books starting in the 1920s on the same basis.

An interesting contact was made at our display at the Cannock Library this week. It was with someone who was involved with house clearances in the 1960s and he kept a Family Bible that was in excellent condition. The family was the Edaljis – together with several photographs – but as the name Edalji meant nothing to him he gave it away ten years later to a lay preacher who knew all about the Great Wyrley mystery. Together with this man’s help we are now trying to locate the bible and photographs.

One addition to our Annual Exhibition on Saturday, 27th September will be free valuations given by Astral Antiques on all coins, jewellery, knick knacks and collectables.

Trevor McFarlane
trevor.cheslynhayhistory@talktalk.net
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Weekly Update – 31 August 2008
We are now approaching the busiest time of the year for ourselves – the run-in to our Annual Exhibition on Saturday, 27th September 2008. Once again, with a new book to launch – ‘Cheslyn Hay – Happy Days’ and some new displays, we should be well supported again.

The Cannock Chase Heritage Trail is being officially opened this week on Wednesday, 3rd September and we have been invited for the ceremony and we’ll see how we can support them in the future. There is a Family History Taster Session this Tuesday at the Cheslyn Hay Library from 5 – 7pm run by a fully qualified genealogist for £2 and we will be there prior to the meeting to offer our services to anyone researching families in our area.

We have been invited by the Library Services to lay on two displays at Perton on Thursday 4th September (2 – 7pm) and at Cannock on Saturday 6th September (10am – 4pm). The display will concentrate on the Horse Maimings of Great Wyrley.

Trevor McFarlane
trevor.cheslynhayhistory@talktalk.net
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Weekly Update – 24 August 2008
Ian Bott of the Wednesbury Local History Society is this month’s speaker this Thursday, August 28th at the Salem at 7.30pm on ‘Gruesome Tales from South Staffordshire’. Admission £1 inc refreshments. Ian is a very likeable chap and his talk should prove very popular.

We have now started sorting out all the new photographs from the 28 volumes in our archives for this year’s exhibition in September. We may have to include a few from 2004 and before to complete the 96 boards on show. But once again we’re confident that it will be much different again from last year and no doubt we’ll have the usual support from everyone, which is always appreciated. Can anyone help? We’re trying to find a suitable backing to arrange a rug botching demonstration from the 1940s. Any ideas please?

We’ve received invitations to lay on two displays at Cannock Library on Tuesday 16th Sept and at Perton on Thursday 16th Oct (4 – 7pm). I’ve provisionally accepted and we’ll be arranging for a display on the Edalji Affair.

A recent request from our website enquiring about an address – Providence House in Essington where this person’s grandfather lived at the time of the 1901 census has proved successful. We have located, photographed it and emailed the pictures back to the enquirer who is absolutely delighted.

Trevor McFarlane
trevor.cheslynhayhistory@talktalk.net
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Weekly Update – 17 August 2008
A new display is in the library advertising our new book ‘Happy Days’. Further to our recent meeting with Dr Alan Jones we have been given copies of many similar cases to the George Edalji trial. Remarkably these crimes have been quite prolific dating back to Elizabethan times and Dr Alan Jones have offered to give a talk on the subject.
A final meeting concerning the organisation of our Annual Exhibition on Saturday, 27th September 2008 was held this week and will include many exhibits that have never been shown before and we are expecting another large attendance.

Trevor McFarlane
trevor.cheslynhayhistory@talktalk.net
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Light House invites you to the Private View of Littleton by Luke Unsworth Thursday 14 August 2008, 6.30pm – 8.30pm.
Refreshments will be served. Admission free.
Photographer Luke Unsworth will open the exhibition and talk about his reasons for making this work. Mick Drury, Chairman of the Cannock Chase Mining Historical Society, has been invited to talk about how Cannock has changed since it was a thriving mining community. Speeches 7pm.
All Welcome.
Littleton updates the stories of ex-miners in the Cannock area since the pit closed, combining personal stories and portraits of the miners with historical information about the area. The exhibition will continue until Friday 19 September. Heartlands by Peter Grego Accompanying the Littleton exhibition is Heartlands, a photographic installation focusing on how ex-mining sites have been redeveloped leaving no sign of their former mining communities, or even the original name of the area.

Light House Gallery is open Mon – Fri: 9am – 8.30pm Sat & Sun: 1 hour before first film screening – 8.30pm (Open Bank Holiday Monday 1 hour before first film screening – 8.30pm)
Admission to Light House Gallery is free.

Light House, The Chubb Buildings, Fryer St, Wolverhampton, WV1 1HT
tel: 01902 716055 email: info@light-house.co.uk web: www.light-house.co.uk

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Weekly Update – 10 August 2008
Our new book ‘Happy Days’ is now at the printers and we’ve ordered 1300 books for the launch at our Annual Exhibition on Saturday 27th September 2008. Following the sucess of Peter Rhodes’ talk last week we are looking to book him again for ‘An Aftenoon with Peter Rhodes’ next year and he’s happy to talk about the humourous side of journalism.

We’ve had more approaches from people requesting that we copy their photographs from the past as well as offers to view the covenants of Saredon Hall Farm plus the Russian medals of a Cheslyn Hay soldier from the First World War together with newspaper cuttings and a lady with an extensive collection of postcards from WW I. Finally, Emerson Mayes has sent me an update of his amended play on the Edalji case which is proving very interesting and we now have two local organisations who are interested in putting it on as a play.

Trevor McFarlane

Trevor McFarlane
trevor.cheslynhayhistory@talktalk.net

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1 Comment »

on 06 Sep 2008 at 1220664555UTCC Mary Stackhouse

Hi Trevor,
Isn’t life strange? last evening i picked upthe January 2008 magazine to have a look at(Our society magazine) I was reading through it and found an item about Elsie May Pee. What’s so strange about this is My husband is a Stackhouse (obviously) but his father was always known as Georgie Pee and his mom was always called Rebecca Pee (or Mrs Pee). Now we do know that Rebecca was married a few times but we cannot find any reference to Pee anywherein the family, he has asked his cousins and they seem to think that she was married to a Jim or James Pee, but are not really sure. Rebecca died in 1953, and is buried in Brownhills cemetary (St James Church) My husband has tried to find the item in the newspaper about her fueral has he knows that there was one, but we have tried Cannock library for the Advertiser archives but cannot trance the archives for either the Walsall Observer or the Express and Star for that time. Rebecca dies on the Sunday evening before the Coronation and was buried sometime after either the Thursday of that week or the Thursday after, again memories amongst the surving cousins cannot be more acurate.
THERE MUST BE A CHANCE THAT THERE IS A CONNECTION HERE, IS THERE NOT?

I hope to see you at the September meeting, if we can get transport.
Regards Mary.

Cheslyn Hay & District Local History Society

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