The painting of the Holy Family shown below has hung in the Vicar’s Vestry at All Saints church in Oakham for many years, and has, until recently, never been properly identified. Recent expert advice suggests it is a late 18th / early 19th century copy of a composition by Francesco Albani of between 1608 and 1610. It is believed that it was produced by a workshop in Italy, or perhaps the Netherlands, to satisfy the demands of those on the “Grand Tour” for devotional works. Whilst thus not of any great value, it thus does have an interesting back story.
After a composition by Francesco Albani, paint on metal, late 17th / early 18th century
It’s detailed provenance is not known, but a difficult to read caption on the painting frame (below) has the inscription
“Presented to Oakham Church in memory of Harry Ellingworth”.
The Ellingworth family were prosperous shopkeepers in Oakham in the late 19th and early 20th century, and a number of them were named Harry. The most significant of these seems to have been a Harry Ellingworth who was a Town Crier in Oakham in 1881.
Painting in frame (with window reflections)
Dedication label
Interestingly a number of similar copies of the painting can be traced – either painted in Albani’s workshop or elsewhere (see below). The details vary, but the basic composition is the same. The market for such paintings was clearly buoyant.
Print of the original by Francesco Albani housed in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. 1608-1610
Dulwich Art Gallery Holy Family by Studio of Francesco Albani 1610-60
The painting shows a somewhat weary and pensive looking Madonna in a red dress with a dark blue shawl, The Christ child sits on a golden cushion on her lap, partly surrounded by a blue sheet. Joseph looks on from the right, with an open book in front of him, that seems to be placed on a stone chest or altar or perhaps a tomb. It may be that the directions in which the Madonna and her husband are pointing is of some iconographic significance – Joseph, in his contemplation of scripture pointing upwards to God, and Mary, with the Christ child on her lap, pointing down to earth, the direction, if that is an appropriate word, of the incarnation. Two angelic figures look on from the left. There is a figure carved on the stone chest, that, from the original, appears to be some sort of Bachannalia, with wine being poured out for small dancing child like figures. Again there may be some iconographic significance here with a representation of Christ’s blood being poured out at the Eucharist. The mixture of biblical and classical themese seems to have been common at the period of the original composition.
One of my recent tasks as a member of the committee of the Black Country Society has been to help organise an exhibition of photographs and other material at Dudley Archives entitled “From Agenoria to Beeching – the first and last days of steam in Dudley”, which ran from October 2025 to January 2026. This brought together material on the first Railway in the area (the Shutt End or Kingswinford Railway) and its locomotive, the Agenoria, with photos from the 1950s and 1960s that illustrate the last days of steam in the area. As the exhibition drew to a close, I prepared a web version which included the majority of the material in the exhibition and gave it some sort of long term presence. When this online exhibition went live, it resulted in some very interesting email exchanges and conversations with a number of those who looked at it. One of these was with Mr. David Marlow from Northumbria who provided two items that are now actually included in the online exhibition. The first is a photograph of a plaque on the wall on the old (and then derelict) John Bradley and Company factory in Stourbridge (now renovated as the Lion Health Centre), which commemorated the locomotives Agenoria and its sister locomotive, the Stourbridge Lion, that were built there. The second was a copy of a posed picture of the Agenoria with a number of workmen / managers. The original was donated to the National Railway Museum in the 1990s. From Mr. Marlow’s perspective, this photograph was particularly interesting as the “driver” of the locomotive was his great great grandfather Edward Stockton. Both these items raise some interesting chronological questions about the timelines of the Agenoria and the Stourbridge Lion, and these issues are probed in what follows.
Construction and operation
Figure 1. The derelict John Bradley factory in the early 2000s and the renovated building, now the Lion Health Centre
The Agenoria and the Stourbridge Lion were built at the John Bradley factory in Stourbridge in the 1820s (figure 1). The first was to run on the Shutt End Railway in Kingswinford for over 30 years, and is now preserved in the National Railway Museum in York. The second became the first locomotive to run under steam in the USA, although it was not much used because the tracks provided were not sufficiently robust. The careers of both locomotives are well outlined in “Two Stourbridge Locomotives” by Bill Pardoe and Michael Hale, Black Country Society Studies in Industrial Archaeology No. 3, published by the Black Country Society.
On a Black Country Society Industrial Archaeology Group visit to the derelict John Bradley foundry in 2005, Keith Hodgkins took a photo of a plaque that had been placed there by the Newcomen Society in 1959, commemorating the Stourbridge Lion and the Agenoria (Figure 2a). In our recent correspondence Mr. Marlow sent a photo of another plaque from the same building, apparently placed there to replace the Newcomen Society plaque by the Stourbridge Locomotives Celebrations Committee in 1988 (Figure 2b). The current whereabouts of these plaques is not known. But my interest was aroused by the dates on the plaques – Stourbridge Lion 1828 and Agenoria 1829 on the first, and Agenoria 1828 and Stourbridge Lion 1829 on the latter. There is clearly some chronological confusion here – which of the two engines should have the chronological priority?
a
b
Figure 2. Plaques celebrating the Agenoria and the Stourbridge Lion
From the historical record, we can trace the timeline of the construction and operation of the locomotives to some extent. The Shutt End Railway was first proposed in the early 1820s to connect the mines and the developing Iron Works in the area to the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal to the west, to enable coal and iron products to be shipped to market. Eventually in January1827 an agreement to build the line was signed between the Dudley Estate and James Foster of the Shutt End Iron Works, which was itself owned by John Bradley and Company, coal and iron masters of Stourbridge. Construction took place soon after the signing of the agreement and the line was opened with great celebrations on June 2nd 1829. The Agenoria locomotive was built by Foster Rastrick and Co at Stourbridge (at the works of Figure 1). The Foster was the same James Foster who owned the Shutt End works, and John Rastrick was a noted locomotive engineer and builder.
In 1828 Horatio Allen, went on a railroad research tour of England on behalf of the Delaware and Hudson Railway in the USA. By July 1828 he had ordered four locomotives – three from Foster, Rastrick and Company and one from Robert Stephenson and Company. Stourbridge Lion was one of these three locomotives built by Rastrick, but Stephenson’s shop completed their locomotive, the Pride of Newcastle, before any of Rastrick’s locomotives, and it arrived in America nearly two months before the Stourbridge Lion, which was transported from Liverpool aboard the ship John Jay, arriving at New York in mid-May 1829. The two other Foster, Rastrick & Co locomotives that had been ordered by Allen, Delaware and Hudson, arrived in New York in August and September 1829. The Lion however was the first to be used, running on the Delaware and Hudson Railway on August 8th 1829. Although the locomotive performed well, the track laid for it was unable to adequately take its weight and it never found operational use.
So which of the Agenoria and Stourbridge Lion should have priority. Certainly the Agenoria ran along tracks at Shut End in June 1829 a few months before the Lion did the same in the USA. But the Lion is the first recorded in the historical record on its shipment to the US in May that year. But, in my mind it is likely that the Agenoria was under construction and seen by Allen before he placed his order in July 1828. Certainly the Agenoria must have been complete by early 1829, as it is almost certain that there would have been extensive trials on the Shutt End line before the public opening in June that year. So I would suggest that Agenoria was probably completed first, sometime in late 1828, and the Lion a few months after that. Thus of the two plaques, the second, from 1988, is probably correct, although it would be fairer to say that both were probably constructed if not completed in 1828, and first ran in operation in 1829. But Agenoria should have the historical priority in both construction and operation.
Retirement and Restoration
The Agenoria ran along the Kingswinford Railway from the top of the incline at Ashwood Basin in the west to the bottom of two inclines close to Kingswinford church in the east. See the map from “Two Stourbridge Locomotives” shown in Figure 3.
Figure 3.The Shutt End Railway – from “Two Stourbridge Locomotives” by Bill Pardoe and Michael Hale, Black Country Society Studies in Industrial Archaeology No. 3
One incline (shown in Figure 3) took the railway itself to the mines around Corbyn’s Hall in Pensnett, and one (not shown on the Figure) provided access to and from the works of John Bradley and Co. Both inclines can be assumed to have been cable hauled. The Engine Shed and presumably other maintenance facilities was close to the foot of the two inclines. The Kingswinford Railway was only connected to the wider Earl of Dudley’s Railway network (the Pensnett Railway) in 1865, through a junction several hundred yards to the west of the bottom of the inclines. Correspondence in 1864 between the mineral agent of the Dudley Estate (Frederick Smith) and William Orme Foster who had taken over control of John Bradley and Co Iron Works from his uncle James Foster, implies that Agenoria was owned by John Bradley and Co, rather than by the Dudley Estate, as was the Locomotive Shed and the maintenance facilities. The correspondence was about the state of the Kingswinford Railway infrastructure and led to improvements being made and a new locomotive being purchased by Foster in 1865 – a Manning Wardle 0-4-0 saddle tank. It is generally assumed that it was around that time that the Agenoria was taken out of service.
The next mention of Agenoria in the historical record is in 1880, when Edward Marten (Chief Engineer at the Midland Steam boiler Inspection and Insurance Co in the 1860s, and later the engineer in connection with the South Staffordshire Mines Drainage and Improvement Act of 1873) sought to gain support for restoring and preserving the locomotive whose components by that time seem to have been scattered around Shut End Iron Works. This led to a restored Agenoria being exhibited at Wolverhampton Fine Arts & Industrial Exhibition in 1884, before being formally donated to the Science Museum in 1885 by William Orme Foster. The implication here is that, after the Agenoria had been taken out of service, it was taken into the Iron Works, either by being hauled up the incline or (possibly more likely) taken around a less steep but more circuitous connection into the works that was in place by 1880 and possibly a couple of decades earlier.
Figure 4. The Agenoria and workers (from Mr. D. Marlow)
Now consider the photograph that was sent to me by Mr Marlow, shown in Figure 4 above. Mr. Marlow believes the figure closest to the boiler on the photograph, in the driver’s position, is his great great grandfather, Edward Stockton, and family tradition has it that he was one of the drivers of the locomotive. Figure 5a shows an expanded version of Figure 4 where the driver is shown in better definition, whilst figure 5b shows an (admittedly poor) photograph that is certainly of Edward Stockton and his wife Ellen from the 18890s or later, also supplied by Mr. Marlow. These both, in my view, seem to show the same person, and I am reasonably confident that the driver of the footplate is indeed Edward Stockton.
a
b
Figure 5 Edward Stockton – (a) from Figure 4 and (b) showing Edward and his wife Ellen
Edward Stockton was born at Moreton Cobbett in Shropshire in 1824, Some time before the 1851 census he had moved to the Pensnett area as he married an Eliza Farringdon at Dudley Parish Church in November 1847. She died within a very short time and Edward then married her sister Ellen two years later, this time at Kingswinford Parish Church. In the 1851 census he is identified as a Furnace Man, in 1861 as a Labourer, in 1871 as a Labourer in Iron Works and in 1881 as a Farm Labourer, always living in the vicinity of the Shutt End Iron Works. Nowhere is he identified as an Engine Driver as might be expected. Of course this might simply be due to the idiosyncrasies of how he completed the census returns, but it seems to me more likely that Stockton became an Engine Driver sometime after the 1871 census. This suggests that the Agenoria, after being withdrawn from the Kingswinford Railway, had a brief afterlife as a locomotive in the Shutt End works, where an extensive railway system was developing in the 1870. Supposing the photo to have been taken between 1871 and 1875, this would put Edward in his late 40’s / early 50’s at the time, which seems consistent with the photograph. The occasion of the photo might be to mark the start of Agenoria’s Iron Work’s career (which would imply that it was not moved into the works till the 1870s, or perhaps we have here a picture of the reconstructed engine in 1880 or early 1881 before the census of that year. However at this time Edward was a farm labourer and presumably working elsewhere. The first occasion seems to me to be more likely.
Recently I have come across a number of old Church Guides and Histories for All Saints Church in Oakham- from 1932, 1972 and 1980. PDFS of these can be found on the History and Heritage page of the church website. There comes a time of course when old guides and histories become historical documents in their own right, revealing how the church was thought of and communicated at the time of writing, and in their description of their contemporary activities, give an indication of the nature of the church’s worship and other activities. This is particularly true of the 1932 guide – The Story of Oakham Church, School and Castle by the then vicar, A. Edward Fraser. In what follows I post just a few pages from this this guide – the adverts it contained for local businesses that paid for its publication. These are given below, and I suspect that Oakham readers will find them of considerable interest.
In 1996, All Saints church in Oakham, organised a flower festival. Some photographs from this event were deposited in the church safe for safe keeping, and I have recently come across these whilst searching the safe for other items. It seems to me that these photos are well worth sharing – both for the flower displays but also for the glimpse they give of the church from 30 years ago. Pleas click on the photos below for larger versions of the pictures. The colours aren’t marvellous – they can only be as good as the prints – but they will be of interest to some.
Holy Trinity ChapelHoly Trinity ChapelNorth TranseptHigh altarSouth TranseptSouth TranseptSouth TranseptLady ChapelLady ChapelArea near north doorCentral CrossingCEntral CrossingNorth TranseptNear pulpitEntrance to Lady ChapelWest End
The Lady Chapel at All Saints Church in Oakham is to the south of the chancel and is entered from the south transept. It is a high roofed open space dating from around 1480, that has had a number of functions in the recent past – as a location for the organ, as a choir vestry, and as a small side chapel. Indeed there is still an altar with its associated communion rails at the east end of the chapel. It is currently mainly used as an area for after church coffee, small meetings etc.
The floor of the chapel consists of memorial slabs from the late 17th to the early 19th centuries, a number of which contain inscriptions indicating that there are burials beneath them. Thus it would seem that in the 18th century this area was an internal burial space of some sort. Why this area was used in this way and what determined who was buried in this area is not clear. Now over the years some of the memorials have been worn down very badly, particularly those between the priest’s entrance and the vicar’s vestry on the south side of the chapel and the entrance to the chancel on the north side. With its current use as a fellowship area, it is likely that the other memorial slabs will experience a rapid deterioration over the coming years. Thus the purpose of this post is twofold – firstly to record the current layout and inscriptions that are still visible, and secondly to try to come to some understanding as to why the area was used as a mortuary space.
The layout of the Lady Chapel
Figure 1 shows a view of the Lady Chapel from its entrance from the south transept, looking east. The altar and communion rail can be seen in the background. It can be seen that the floor consists of a regular grid of memorial slabs, separated by a pattern of tiles. In total there are seven rows of slabs between the entrance and the communion rail (which will be denoted by the letters A to G, with A being at the transept entrance. There are five columns of slabs, which will be denoted by the letters A to E, with A being on the south side to the right of the view of Figure 1. Thus, for example, slab AC is the one in the near centre of figure 1 – row A and column C. Most of the slabs are a soft brown stone, with the exception of AA and BA (to the right of the view in Figure 1) which are of a darker colour, although they are both badly worn.. The grid of memorials is regular in columns B, C and D, but the rows are displaced somewhat in columns A and E due to the presence of structural columns at the transept end.
Figure 1. The layout of the Lady Chapel
Figure 2 shows a view of columns B to D in rows F and G from just in front of the altar rail at the east end of the chancel. It can be seen that the rail cuts across a number of slabs, and there is a carpeted area that obscures part of columns B and D and all of columns A and E. Indeed very little can be seen of the slabs in row G, which extend beneath the altar. In this region the regularity of the grid in columns B to D is lost and the slabs become staggered – presumably to fit into the space available at the east end of the chapel beneath the current altar.
Figure 2 Detailed view of the slabs in front of the Lady Chapel altar
The memorials
The layout of the meorials is shown in Figure 3 below. The photos of the slabs are in roughly the correct position relative to each other, although the correspondence with the actual layout in the Chapel is not exact. They are identified using the notation given above. The discontinuity in the photographs of slabs FB, FC and FD indicates the position of the altar rail.
AABACADAEA
ABBBCBDBEBFB
ACBCCCDCECFC
ADBDCDDDEDFD
AE BECEDEEEFE
Figure 3. The layout of the memorial slabs
The inscriptions
In the inscriptions that follow, I have (deliberately) not reproduced the details of the typogrpahy on the memorials (capitalisation, punctuation etc.) but have tried to put them in a form where they are more easily read with modern typography. The texts in italics are not on the memorials.
AA. …Bradford….Widow of … of Henley in Ox… departed this life .. 20th May 1802 aged 66 years ….. Undecipherable verse AB. … body of …. 12th 1772…. AC. Here lieth the body of Mary Lawrence, late wife of Mr William Lawrence, dec., one of ye daughters of Mr William Maxon, who died March 5th MDCCLXXIV (1774) aged 39 years. Also the body of Anne Maxon…her sister who died February 2nd MDCCLXXIII (1773) aged XXXIII (33) years. AD. Sacred to the memory of Elizabeatha Doris Bullivant, wife of Thomas Bullivant who departed this life on the ….. 1798 aged 42 Years………. AE. … remains … Benjamin Cramp Esq. He served the office of High Sheriff for the County of Rutland in the year … departed this life on the 2nd February 1800 aged 59 years. Time flies; Eternity succeeds; of bliss or woe; according to our deeds.
BA. Not readable BB. Beneath this stone rests he mortal remains of Mary Ann, daughter of the late Adam and Mary Ann Hicks of this place who died April 3rd 1835 aged 62 years, BC. Sacred to the mortal remains of Mrs Dorothy Twentyman, consort of Mr William Twentyman who departed this life February … 1809 in the ,,, year of her age after a very long and severe illness which…..Christianity can alone inspire. This stone is here deposited by an only child as the last but perishable memorial of one who has seldom been surpassed, as a tender parent, an affectionate wife and a virtuous woman. Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord! BD. In memory of Mrs Elizabeth Whitehead, widow of the Revd William Whitehead MA, Rector of Stanground in the county of Huntingdon. She was ye youngest daughter of Andrew Love Esq. formerly of this place, and died on the 10th of October 1789, in the 75th year of her age. BE. …. Hind Gent who died February the 17th MDCCLXXI (1771) aged LXXIX (79) years. Likewise ….are buried the remains of Elizabeth …who was buried March …MDCCII (1702) Also five … sons if the above died…infants
CA. No inscription visible CB. Beneath this stone are deposited the mortal remains of Edward Hicks, Gentleman who departed this life December 3rd, 1812 aged 56 years. CC. In memory of Ann, daughter of Thomas and Ann Exton, who departed this life August the 22nd 1808 aged .9 years. Also in memory of Thomas Exton who departed this life April the 17th 1809 aged 73 years. Also in memory of Ann, wife of Thomas Exton, who departed this life November …18… aged 88 years. CD. Here lieth the body of Frances Davie, the wife of Thomas Davie Senior who died January 12th 1721 aged 67 years. Full happy man that dies in faith, His good works follow him…; …….are his saints …. to be; To live with Christ his face to see. Also the remains of Frances Ashby, who died September 6th 1792 aged 66 years, The sweet remembrance of the just … shall flow … they sleep….. CE. ….year 1706 .. year of his age ….peace
DA. No inscription visible DB. No inscription visible DC. No inscription visible DD. No inscription visible DE. No inscription visible
EA. …memory of ….. wife of … John Bellaers of Barleythorpe, who died the 12th May MDCCLXXXVI (1786) age 37 years, Her lies beneath…; A tender mother, a loving wife; A quiet neighbour, to the poor a friend; Happy is he who finds a …. Also in memory of John Bellaers who died the … of September 1787 in the 49th year of his age. EB. Here lies the body of John Bellaers who died August 18th MDCCCIX (1789) aged .2 years. Affliction … long time I bore; Physician skill was vain; Till Christ the chief sent me relief; And cured me of my pain. EC. Underneath are deposited the remains of John Healy, Gent.. who departed this life on 13th August in the year of our Lord 1767 aged 57 years. ED. Underneath are deposited the remains of Mr Mary Burton, wife of the Reverend Bartin Burton, who departed this life November 8th 1750 aged 47 years. EE. ……forti et constanti …….opptimiissii vertutis studies…..quibus finerlis est… obit aprilis …4th Anno Domini 1732…19…21. Recordare creatoris tin in oliebus. Juventulis tiroe……Jun 1815 (latin text very uncertain)
FA. Covered by altar rail and carpet FB. Part covered by altar rail and carpet. In memory of Martha Ades wife of …..this day .. year 1846 … years. FC. Part covered by altar rail. Sacred to the memory of Thomas …on the …. April … Aged 37 years. Vain in our pleasures…..; Bound on the wheel of time … and ….; Yet present wrong eternity repairs; The mighty empires and the …. of all FD. Part covered by altar rail and carpet. Here lieth the body of … Drury, Gent., who died January 15th 1775 ….. FE. Part covered by altar rail and carpet …lieth the body of William Pante the younger, Gent. who departed this life the second of June Ann. Dom 1672
GA. Covered by carpet. GB. Partially covered by carpet and altar. …. remains of Healy …. Edward Ealy…. GC. Mostly covered by altar. No inscription visible. GD. Parially covered by carpet and altar. Inscription not legible GE. Covered by carpet
When and Who
Two questions arise in association with the floor memorials. Firstly, when was the Lady Chapel used for burials and secondly what sort of people were buried there? To answer the first consider Table 1 below which shows the dates from the memorial slabs where they could be found. The pattern is not wholly consistent, but it is clear that the earlier graves are on the north side next to the chancel and the later ones on the south side next to the outside wall. The earliest grave of all – FE- dates from 1672, and the latest – FA – from 1846. The larger majority date from the 18th century. The pattern suggests that the early graves might have been a continuation of graves in the chancel. In the late 17th and 18th centuries, the chancel was configured very differently and was rebuilt in the restoration of 1858, so if there were similar graves there, the memorial slabs have been lost.
AA 1802
AB 1772
AC 1773
AD 1798
AE 1800
BA
BB 1835
BC 1809
BD 1789
BE 1702
CA
CB 1812
CC 1808
CD 1721
CE 1706
DA
DB
DC
DD
DE
EA 1786
EB 1789
EC 1767
ED 1750
EE 1732
FA
FB 1846
FC
FD 1775
FE 1672
GA
GB
GC
GD
GE
Table 1. Memorial dates
In terms of who is commemorated on the memorials, on the eighteen inscriptions where one might expect to find some designation, there are four identified as Gent., two as Esq. and two as clergy (not necessarily referring to the one who is buried). A web search revealed that there are the memorials of four High Sherrifs – William Lawrence 1765, Thomas Bullivant 1771, John Bellaers 1783 and Benjamin Cramp 1789. In addition William Twentyman was the Supervisor of Excise in Oakham Lordshold in 1787. Thus it is clear that those interred in the Lady Chapel were, as one might expect, members of the Rutland Gentry.
Finally it is worth noting that the family of Rev Bartin Burton, whose wife is interred in ED, also has a wall memorial in the south transept (figure 4). It may be that Burton himself and his son are also interred in one of the plots in the Lady Chapel with an illegible memorial inscription.
William Baker worked at Woodside Iron Works, which was founded in 1840 by Alexander Brodie Cochrane and his son. It became very well known and respected and produced components for many significant structures, including girders for the Runcorn Bridge over the River Mersey and the Farringdon Street Viaduct in London; ironwork for the Rochester Road Bridge, the Swing Bridge over the River Medway and the Clifton Suspension Bridge; and a wrought iron bridge for New Street Railway Station in Birmingham. In the early years of the 20th century it was owned and operated by Alexander’s grandson, Walter Cochrane.
The works were situated between the Dudley and Pensnett Canals , with the Earl of Dudley’s Round Oak Steelworks being on the other side of the Dudley Canal (Figure 1). Woodside was connected to the Great Western Railway which ran to its west (given by its earlier name of the Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway on the map). It was supplied with coal from mines on the other side of the railway, through a series of inclines and tramways. A view of the works, roughly from the point marked by a red circle in Figure 1, is given by an engraving in Dudley Archives (Figure 2).
Figure 1. Location of Woodside works from the 1910 OS Map
Figure 2. Engraving of Woodside Iron Works from Dudley Archives
Furnace operation
There are 148 entries in the diary that describe the operation of the Blast Furnace. These are mainly in the earlier period covered by the diaries and become very sporadic after 1913. On the cover of Book 2 we find a list of when the two furnaces (numbers 2 and 3) were “blown” i.e. when they started to produce cast iron.
Dates of Furnaces Blown. No 2 Dec 14 1904; No 3 Aug 15 1906; No 2 Dec 3 1909; No 3 Sept 19 1911; No 2 May 19 1916
There were periods when both were in operation, but also periods when one of the furnaces was being rebuilt or relined. Furnaces would be in operation for several years before being rebuilt. The starting process for the furnaces was lengthy and extended over several days. As an example consider the start up of Number 3 Furnace in August 1906.
9/8/1906 Started to fill No 3 Furnace. 12/8/1906 Finished filling No 3 Furnace. 12/8/1906 No 3 Furnace fired off 6.18pm. 15/8/1906 Blast put to No 3 Furnace at 9.40am…… 17/8/1906 First cast of iron from No 3 Furnace. 17/8/1906 ?? blow out No 3 Furnace at 8.50pm. 2½ lbs.
I am not familiar with the terms used here, and readers might be able to say more, but presumably the “filling” was with coke and ironstone (with the use of the hoist engine), the “firing” was the lighting of the fire, and the “blast was the turning on of the Blast Engine to provide a through flow of air. The 2½ lbs mentioned in the last entry is the pressure of the blast air flow – which should properly be in lbs / square inch. Sometimes at start up the increase in this pressure over several days is recorded.
Furnace “stands” when presumably the blast is turned off, are frequently recorded. In addition we have entries of the following type t roughly annual intervals.
3/10/1907 Mine load On No 3 Furnace……. 30/10/1907 Mine load taken off about 4.00am
I am not at all sure what such entries describe – again reader input would be useful. Other work in the vicinity was obviously of interest to William Baker, and he may well have been involved in some way – there seems to be some flexibility in the use of manpower across different tasks. For example
19/3/1909 The three new Sankey and Sons boilers put to work. The new reducing valve put to work …… 1/8/1910 Preparing to start new colliery
Repairs
There are 244 entries in the diaries that relate to what might be described as ongoing maintenance or repairs. These cover the entire period of the diaries, but there are more in the period up to about 1914 than afterwards. At roughly three month intervals we have series of entries of the similar to this example from late 1910.
11/11/1910 Steam valve packed with 5 rolls of 3/8” white packing. 14/11/1910 Steam Valve packed 2 rolls 3/8” by 1″ Lapped elastic. 23/11/1910 New rope put on right hand cage . Stand from 9 till 12. 3 hours stand. 30/11/1910 New rope put on left hand cage. Screw loosened out on right hand band. Stand from 9.20am till 11.40am 2 hours 20 mins 1/12/1910 Left hand band taken up 1½” 4/12/1910 New lamp put on over engines No 32 9/12/1910 Right hand band taken up 1″. 13/12/1910Small steam box packed to back 14/12/1910 Large steam boxes packed to back 16/12/1910 Right hand band taken up 1¼” 21/12/1910 New joints put in lubricator
Again, reader input would be useful. What were these steam boxes and steam valves and what did packing them entail? Presumably they were some part of the hoist engine. The bands seem to have been part of the hoist mechanism and expanded with use and needed to be taken up by an inch or so at regular intervals. Similarly new ropes were required for the “cages” – were these to transport workers to the tops of the furnaces?
Less frequently we have a number of other tasks – the whitewashing of the Engine House (at intervals between 6 months and 2 year); repairs to the “Nelson” locomotive used to move material around the site; and occasionally (recorded only two times) the drainage of a stretch of canal to repair the loading wharfs. Some examples are shown below.
28/5/1908 Engine house whitewashed
17/5/1909 The Nelson loco put in for repairs 31/5/1909 The Nelson loco came out of repairs at 9.00
5/8/1911Started to empty the water out of canal at 4.00am. Started pumps to feed ….. at 5.30am 11/8/1911 Canal started to be refilled 12/8/1911 Pumps stopped at 4.0am
The Nelson locomotive might be a mis-wrting of Neilsen – Neilson and Co. were a Glasgow based locomotive manufacturer in the 19th and early 20th centuries,
People
The diaries mention a large number of individuals in the context of Woodside Iron Works, but most only once or twice. There are 192 such entries in total from across the period covered by the diaries. In this section we mention a few who occurred in many entries. First of all there is J. Lewis, the foreman over the Blast Furnace Men. There is also mention of his son, another J. Lewis, although the entries usually refer to the former.
15/10/1907 J Lewis foreman (in place of) Mr Hughes. 15/12/1907 J Lewis Jun started to work at No 1 Furnace with H Pearson. 1/1/1909 Mr Lewis has … that his house cost £260 8/2/1909 Mr J. Lewes bought a house in Scotts Green. The amount asked was…… 1/3/1909 Mr J. Lewis removed to Scotts Green to live in his own house 20/8/1909 J. Lewis went on his holiday 28/6/1913 Mr J. Lewis went on his holiday 2/7/1913 Mr J. Lewis came back from his holiday 6/4/1914 J. Lewis left Woodside for Pitt and Co, Shut End Colliery 8/8/1914 Mr J. Lewis went on his holiday 24/8/1914 Mr J. Lewis came back from his holiday 24/9/1914 J. Lewis was buried at the New Cemetery Dudley Thursday 28/9/1914 ? Stockton and W. Baker paid a visit to the Guest Hospital to see Mr J. Lewis. They allowed us 2 mins only. The late John Lewis compensation award £75 to the widow, £100 to the sons 26/4/1915 Mr Lewis came to work after his accident 31 weeks
Clearly the early mentions are quite mundane, with a particular interest in living arrangements and holidays, but in September 1914 there was clearly some (unrecorded) major incident that resulted in the death of John Lewis senior, and a significant compensation payment, and serious injury to the son.
Mr D Colley was a colleague of William Baker’s that clearly suffered significant periods of ill health.
21/2/1907 Mr D Colley was admitted into the Corbett Hospital 25/3/1907 Mr D Colley admitted into the convalescent home at Clent 3/7/1907 Mr D Colley admitted into the Corbet Hospital 4/8/1907 Mr D Colley came out of Corbetts Hospital Sunday after having all his teeth drawn 2/9/1907 Mr D Colley has gone to convalescent home at Clent 16/9/1907 Mr D Colley comes back home from Clent 24/9/1907 Mr D Colley started to work after his second illness 29/3/1908 Mr D Colley was taken ill down the pit and was taken to Corbett Hospital and an operation was performed. 14/5/1908 Mr D Colley admitted into the Convalescent home at Rhyl 17/08/1908 D Colley started to work at his old job.
Mr W Shuker seems to have been a long term colleague of William’s and again the entries express much interest in his holidays. At this point it is perhaps worth saying that William makes no mention of his own holidays at all.
24/3/1907 William Shuker was married at St Luke’s Dudley 14/8/1909 Mr Shuker went on his holiday 23/12/1909 W. Shuker finished on Thursday morning 16/1/1910 W. Shuker started to drive the loco Sunday nights on a night turn 7/8/1910 Mr Shuker went on his holiday for 8 days 12/8/1912 Mr Shuker went on his holiday 17/8/1912 Mr Shuker came back from holiday Saturday night 20/9/1913 Mr Shuker went on his holiday 27/9/1913 Mr Shuker came back from his holiday 26/12/1913 W. Shuker suspended 5/1/1914 W. Shuker started to work after being suspended 24/8/1914 Mr Shuker went on his holiday 2/9/1914 Mr Shuker came back from his holiday 30/1/1915 Mr Shuker sent J Young home and said he was drunk on Saturday night 9/2/1915 …. and Mr Shuker were burned about the face and were taken to the Guest Hospital. Shuker was allowed out 13/3/1915 Saturday night. Had a few words with W Shuker for not telling the bone man where I was going away from about 9.20am. . Realised 9.50am. He accused me that we were paid better than anyone else on the ground . I told him either him or someone else was tampering with the books in the offices if he knew what we were having 11/3/1919 W. Shuker left Woodside. J. Bagger took his place
It may be that the entries refer to more than one person as there seems to be more than one marriage recorded. Clearly Shuker came to hold some position of authority, in that he could send someone home for being drunk. In February 1915 he suffered from an accident that burned his face and the month after he and William seemed to have some sort of altercation.
S. Powell was another colleague of William’s that we will meet again in the next section. His working career seems to have been relatively uneventful.
19/8/1907 S. Powell started to work on the Hoist Engine in J. Lewis place 28/8/1908 S. Powell went on his holidays to Blackpool 4 days 5/1/1909 S. Powell had his strong book 11/1/1909 S. Powell was taken ill and went on the sick fund till Jan 19 6/2/1913 S. Powell moved to 40 St Andrews St Netherton 11/3/1914 S. Powell left the shop
The war impinged little on the activities at the Iron Works, but inevitably a number left to enlist in the army. From an entry of late 1914
Embarked for the war from Woodside Furnaces and Colliery. J Mills enlisted August; H Sumner enlisted August; Round enlisted Nov 7; Mr Hughes enlisted Nov 9; S Edwards enlisted December 28; G Shaw enlisted December 28; J Dean enlisted December 28; W Marten enlisted September 1st
Employment
There were approximately 120 entries associated with employment practices and concerns. Whilst these are mostly concentrated in the period after 1913, from 1909 the issue of meal time working was clearly of concern.
23/6/1909 Meal time work increased to 4 rounds per meal hour 3/7/1909 Machine men received 9d extra for mealtime work. Make 440 tons 24/7/1909 Received payment of 1s per meal time work 19/4/1913 Payment stopped for meal times
Many entries concern wage advances (increases) and reductions. For his own wages, he recorded these in some detail and these are included in the table below from 1912 to 1915. Wages were changed at regular intervals of around 2 to 3 months. The table shows the annual change in each year and compares this with the national inflation rate. It can be seen that broadly wages fell below inflation from 1912 to 1914, but far exceeded inflation in 1915. Overall in the period wages increase by 36.7% against a national inflation rate of 14.7%.
Change in pay
Inflation
17/02/12
15/06/12
10/08/12
1912
1912
-2.50%
+2.50%
+2.50%
+2.4%
+3.13%
04/07/13
14/06/13
18/10/13
20/12/13
1913
1913
+2.50%
+2.50%
-2.50%
-5%
-2.7%
-1.01%
14/02/14
18/04/14
13/06/14
15/08/14
12/12/14
1914
1914
-2.50%
-2.50%
-2.50%
-2.50%
+5%
-5.1%
0%
20/02/15
01/04/15
19/06/15
14/08/15
16/10/15
11/12/15
1915
1915
+2.50%
+0%
+2.50%
7.50%
+10%
+10%
+36.7%
+12.14%
Overall
+29.2%
+14.7%
Some indication of the absolute values of these wages can be judged from the entries below from April 1913 and July 1917. The latter shows how these wages were agreed – through discussion between J. Lewis the foreman and Mr. Cochrane, the Iron Works owner. The wages shown are for one 8 to 10 hour shift in a 6 shift working week.
7/4/1913 2 ……. Blast Furnace Men 6-2, Stokers 4-2, Labourers 3-5 1/7/1916 Blast Engine Men and stokers 7-3, Loco Engine men and stokers 7-3. Hoist Engine stokers 6-330/5/1913 Friday. Hoist Engine. Mr J. Lewis had an interview with Mr Cochrane and he agreed to give us 10% advance on our present wages and to go up and down with the …. but not to go below the mark of 4d per day
As the years passed, the entries concerning employment practice become more regular. Discussion between workers and the owner are frequently recorded.
12/6/1913 Deputation … Mr Cochrane those drivers and labourers and he agreed to give 10% 14/1/1914 Mr Walter Cochrane called a meeting with the Furnacemen about the advances and extra service 29/5/1914 A deputation of Furness Men was sent for by Mr Cochrane and he agreed to give 1% extra for Sundays 11/10/1915 A delegation out of the works waited on Mr Cochrane for advances in wages. He agreed to put the war bonus on the wages 6d per day permanent 13/12/1915 Mr Powel spoke to Mr Bach about the 10% advance. He said he would pay the … workers which he did 6/6/1916 W Baker had interview with Mr Bach about the 10% due to us
Union activity also seems to have increased from 1914 onwards, with the Blast Furnace Workers joining the Midland Blast Furnace Association, and strikes being recorded.
14/3/1914 The Blast Furnace men and engine men joined the Midland BF Association first payment 4/11/1915 Moulders came out on strike for 4 advances on wages instead of War bonus 29/4/ 1915 The moulders started to work again from strike . The firm sent for them
William himself seems to have become involved in union activities, although this is nowhere made explicit. He had responsibility for distributing collections and for setting up a fund to support disabled ex-soldiers.
2/12/1915 Paid to J Hill the sum of £1-0-2 collected for Mrs Hill’s memorial fund . W Baker 1/3/1916 Started to pay 1 penny to … fund to help the soldiers who come home disabled 1/4/1916 It was agreed by W. Foster and seconded by B. Hutchinson that Mister Shuker be appointed on the committee of the penny a week fund and E. Clowes suspended
From April 1916 we have entries of the following rom at roughly three month intervals
21/4/1916 Received payment as President 7-3
I read these as indicating that William had become President of a local union branch and was paid roughly the equivalent of one working shift every three months from the union funds. I could however have completely mis-interpreted these entries.
The 1921 census identifies William as a hoist engine driver at the Woodside Iron Works. However in that year the factory closed after a strike and was bought by John Cashmore’s Limited and used to manufacture a number of products including street lamps. What part William played in the strike and what happened to him and his family afterwards is not known. Did he play some sort of role, for good or bad, in the demise of his place of employment?
The diary entries that record national events are every bit as variable as those that describe events in William’s locality. Most of them were undoubtedly derived from reports in newspapers that simply took his fancy. Firstly there are simple reports of the birthdays of the great and the good – Henry Asquith in 1915 and 1917, David Lloyd George and Arthur Balfour in 1917, and the Earl of Dudley in 1918. The death of Joseph Chamberlain and Lord Frederick Roberts the soldier in 1914.
Secondly a number of “disasters” are noted.
24/8/1907 John Goldie the famous steeple jack fell from the highest stack in Great Britain which is 488 feet at Glasgow was …… smashed. (More details can be found here.) 4/3/1908 Hamstead Colliery Disaster (More details can be found here.) 14/4/1912 The Titanic struck an iceberg and was sunk (More here, and of course in very many other places.) 9/7/1912 Cadeby colliery disaster 87 lives lost including 3 government inspectors (More details can be found here.) 16/10/1913 The Welsh Mine Disaster (More details here of the Senghenydd colliery disaster.) 30/5/1914 Empress of Ireland sinking (More details can be found here.)
Figure 1 The Hamstead, Cadeby and Senghenydd disasters
There are surprisingly few mentions of the events of the Great War apart from those outlined in Part 3 about those who enlisted and those who died. There are three other mentions in total.
7/5/1915 The Lusitania was torpedoes and sunk about 2.30. 8/9/1915 Public Houses and clubs not to be opened till 10.30am Morning and closed at 9.00pm. Ordered in August in the Dudley district 11/1/1918 Armistice accepted by Germany
Murders and executions also clearly made an impression,
26/3/1907 Joseph Jones was executed at Stafford Gaol for the murder of Edmund Clark of Quarry Bank (More details can be found here.) 14/4/1909 Wednesday Joseph Edwin Jones was executed at Stafford at 8.00am for murdering Charlotte Jones his wife (More details can be found here.) 23/11/1910 Doctor Crippen was executed (More details can be found here.) 18/4/1912 H. Seddon was executed at Pentonville Prison (More details can be found here.) 26/2/1914 Ball was arrested at Liverpool for the murder of Miss Bradfield. The murder at Bilston near Wolverhampton was about January 2 (More details can be found here although the murder occurred in Liverpool and not Bilston.) 3/8/1916 Roger Casement was executed at Pentonville prison for Tuesday (More details of the Irish Nationalist who was executed for treason can be found here.) 22/12/1916 J. Ashman murdered his father
Figure 2 Dr. Crippen, Henry Seddon and Roger Casement
Finally there are a range of random facts that William clearly found interesting. A few examples.
18/5/1907 Music. The Organ in the Town Hall Birmingham belongs to the General Hospital but the Corporation undertake to look after it and pay the city organist. Weekly Post. 27/3/1909 The cost of a Dreadnaught ship is about £1,800,000 with her guns. Displacement 17,900 tons, when loaded 20,000 tons. 3/4/1909 Metal used for casting bells is 17 parts copper and 5 parts tin. 26/8/1909 It takes about 16000 pennies to the ton. 1/3/1912 National Strike. The colliers came out on strike.
The local entries in the diaries are very heterogeneous, but for the sake of convenience we divide them into three categories – Pensnett People, The Earl of Dudley’s Railway, and Accidents and Disasters.
Pensnett People
Most of the entries in this category are simple records of marriages and deaths, and I suspect many of them are simply those whom William knew as neighbours and friends However there are some entries whose names I recognize from elsewhere. From September 1st 1906
The Rev C H Cole-Webb died at Holyhead in his 70th year. He came to Pensnett in the year 1875 and left in1883 to go to Penn.
Cole-Webb was the incumbent who followed Rev Charles Atherton. I have written extensively about the events of his incumbency, and the events that shook the village at that time. Cole-Webbs role would thus have been to bring some stability – and to continue the efforts to stop St. Mark’s church falling down old mine workings.
On January 24th 1907 we read of William Barlow, formerly of the Tiled House, a stalwart of St. James New Connexion chapel on Chapel Street, and, in his role as a liberal member of the National School board, was often a vociferous opponent to the tory views of Cole-Webb.
Mr. W Barlow celebrated his 93 birthday and he’s quite well considering his great age.
And two weeks later, on February 12th.
Mr. W Barlow, late of Pensnett, died at Stourbridge Aged 93.
On 20th November of the same year we read of the death of another old Pensnett worthy, Cornelius Chambers.
Mr C Chambers died at Moss Grove Kingswinford aged 69 years.
Chambers was one of the chief characters in the Atherton saga noted above, and I would consider him the chief villain, although that may be unjust. He was an Iron Works Manager and a liberal councilor.
Another to get a mention was David Clark (Figure 1), a pioneering teacher in the area, whom I have written about here. From October 10th 1914
Mr David Clarke of Kingswinford died at the age of 83 years. Late Headmaster of Bromley School
Figure 1 David Clark at the age of 80 in 1911
The deaths of the owners of local engineering firms is also noted – David Parsons of Shut End and the Parsons Engineering Works at the Hollies on May 19th 1909; John Glaze of Glazes Tin Works who lived at Asquith House on Commonside on March 5th 1915; H S Pitt of Shut End Colliery on the 5th April of that year; and George Hingley of N. Hingley and Sons, and Harts Hill Iron Co.
On October 30th 1906 the marriage of a relative of William’s employer, Walter Cochrane, is also noted.
The marriage of Mr J B Cochrane’s oldest daughter Alice Beatrice to Mr R H Boyd Parnall, Solicitor (Christ Church, Monmouth). Married at Pedmore
The later entries from 1915 onwards report those who have enlisted in the army and, more somberly, those who were killed in action. Just one example, from Christmas Day 1917.
Fred Higgins died from being gassed, in base hospital in France. His brother James was wired for as he was in France when he passed away but he did not see him die.
Not all the personal entries related to deaths however, and there are a few that relate to St. James Chapel, which suggest that William and his family were part of that congregation. From August 18th 1907
Mr Jones of Dudley approved organist of St James, Pensnett
It would seem he didn’t last long and from 24th January 1909.
Mr Tart appointed organist at St James Pensnett ….. house costs £255
Earl of Dudley’s Railway
A significant number of entries relate to accidents on the Earl of Dudley’s railway (or the Pensnett Railway) . I have written about accidents on this system here, but did not include those below. Details of some of them however can be found in the British Newspaper Archive if the correct search terms are used, and I will probably put these into a blog sometime in the future.
5/4/1909 Richard Salters while working on a Lord Dudley Engine slipped and had his two legs cut off and died while going to the hospital. 28/1/1911 A Runaway from Baggeridge New Colliery, which a collision with the Countess Engine. A youth injured and taken to the General hospital. 6/1/1913 Hiram Plant, son of G Plant Church St, Pensnett, was killed on the ED railway Sunday. 27/1/1913 Runaway at Himley with the Countess Engine. ED Driver W Mase 17/11/1913 Ada Granger had her left leg cut off with the wagon on the ED railway by the Sampson Bridge. 3/4/1914 Railway accident. Near Sampson Bridge. 4 wagons smashed and one damaged. E.D. 20/11/1914 Robinson Albert of Pensnett had his leg cut on the ED railway coming back from taking his father’s dinner. 17/10/1915 Harry Southall aged 12 had one of his legs crushed very bad. He had it amputated at the Guest Hospital and the other foot was ….. on the EDR…… 29/3/1917 Railway Accident on Barrow Incline with No 13 Engine and 26 wagons. The engine crashed into the Goods shed and was badly damaged. Some wagons damaged.
ED of course refers to the Earl of Dudley’s Railway. The railway was clearly a dangerous place for both those who worked on it and those who crossed it, and safety considerations were not taken as seriously as today. It was also an organization where there was sporadic industrial unrest. From the 9th of January 1918.
The ED loco drivers and stokers went on strike for the 12½% they were informed of by a man from London that they should either have the 12½% wages advanced so they agreed to go on from day to day.
The exact sense is not clear, but there was clearly some national level involvement in the decision to strike.
Other accidents
William seemed to have a particular fondness for noting accidents of different types, as well as those on the Earl of Dudley’s railway, the more spectacular the better. Firstly there were industrial accidents.
7/7/1906 Cradley Heath Boiler Explosion (More details can be found here.) 3/4/1913 Two sinkers killed in Himley Colliery. 17/9/1913 Samuel Elgeton died from his accident at the Oak Brickyard. 2/12/1913 No 17 pit fired and 4 horses ……. had to be left in the pits. 26/1/1914 Thomas Jones had his hand crushed and was taken to the Guest Hospital. 24/4/1914 Accident at Shut End colliery overwinding. 10/10/1914 Accident at Harts Hill Ironworks. Engine man fell off boiler side and died in the Guest hospital. 3/12/1914 George Burton Engine Driver at No 6 pit Himley Colliery was scalded when the hooks ….. the roofs lid off at the pump. He lived at 41 High St Pensnett and died in the Guest Hospital. He was 51 years of age. 22/10/1915 A mine explosion at Pennant Hill Colliery Rowley. 5 victims. (More details here.)
Then there were drownings in the canal or the feeder pools.
15/7/1906 Mrs Plovey, the wife of J Plovey, was found drowned in the canal at 5 o’clock am, the right side of Hadley’s Bridge. She was pulled out by J Harries and S Young. 12/12/1906 A son of Mr Oliver of Pensnett aged … was drowned in Brockmoor Canal. 17/2/1909 John Oakley was found drowned in the canal by No 5 bridge Woodside. 8/8/1911 Man the name of Cooper was drowned in the Middle Pool and got out. 31/1/1913 Two girls Sally Hill and Elizabeth Jevons were dragged out of canal….Brettell. 7/2/1913 Woman found in canal at …. Lane bridge. 27/6/1913 Sarah Ann Green from New Chapel St was drowned in Middle Pool
Suicides were also noted.
2/3/1911 Joseph Whise of Church St Pensnett committed suicide by cutting his throat and was buried at Pensnett Church on March 8. 26/5/1913 The wife of G Dean of Kingswinford hung herself and son cut her down
Finally a couple of tram accidents are reported.
16/1/1916 Tram smash at Dudley near to the Guest Hospital. One died at Guest Hospital and one at Wolverhampton hospital 2/2/1917 Dudley. Tram accident at Scotts Green with J Thompson going to Dudley ….. One coming from Kingswinford. The driver of the Kingswinford was killed . John Morgan aged 53 from Kingswinford. The driver of the…. was Joseph Wright of Round Oak
A number of the above incidents can again be found in the British Newspaper Archive, and may well be the subject of future blog posts.
A very simplified family tree is shown in Figure 1, containing the names of most of those mentioned in the diaries, together with some who are not mentioned, but are important in the family story. We will consider specifically the diary entries relating to William’s wife Dinah and his four children John Simeon, William Henry, Joseph Richard and Eliza Jane. We then consider entries relating to other in Figure 1.
Figure 1. A simplified family tree.
Dinah Baker (nee Chambers)
The first mention of Dinah is an entry for March 8th 1909, where we are told
Dinah was operated on and a polp was taken out of her back passage
Polp is presumably a polyp. This raises all sorts of questions about who did the operation, what the procedure was etc.. Later that same year on September 2nd, we are told
Dinah went to Dudley station and had consent to get on with the job
Again the lack of detail is regrettable. Did she work at Dudley station, or was she employed by a railway company in another way? The other entries are mainly of visits that Dinah paid, often with Eliza to various places in the locality, including to see her brother Joseph in Smethwick.
On January 30th 1916, William wrote
We had photo taken at W Clarke 2 ….. St. Brierley Hill
And two weeks later on February 13th
Mr W Clarke brought ….. photo and post cards
Rather wonderfully that photo has survived and is shown in Figure 2.
Figure 2. William and Dinah Baker, 1916
At this point we also include in Figure 3 another photo of Dinah, taken perhaps 35 years later, after Williams death. She cuts a somewhat formidable figure!
Figure 3. Dinah Baker c 1940
John Simeon Baker
The diary entries for John Simeon, William’s oldest son, are extensive, and give hints of more complex events that are not explained. We read first that on June 17th 1907, when he was 14, he began work at Parson’s Leys Foundry. Just two days later he finished working there – why that position only lasted two days isn’t explained. On the 14th of July 1908 he started to work at CIC……… Ltd Bridge End (an almost illegible entry), which probably refers to Bridge End mine in Bromley. The next entry concerning him is from March 24th 1909.
John received last pay of compensation
And a week later
John started to work after his accident at No 16 Colliery
So it would seem that at some point between July 1907 and March 1909 he was injured in some way – presumably quite seriously if compensation were paid. He remained at the Colliery until June 1910 when he began work at J. Glaze’s Tin Works, and he was clearly still employed there at the 1911 census when he is referred to as a Tin Works labourer. In the next two years he was employed at WW Round Oak, Roberts and Coopers, Brockmoor and at another illegible location. Then on the 7th July 1913 we read of him as being sent to the convalescent home at Clent (see Figure 4). One wonders if these multiple changes of job, and his period at Clent, were in some way a result of whatever accident he suffered in 1909. After coming out of the home, this succession of jobs continued – Roberts and Coopers at Brockmoor again, J Glazes, Cartwrights at Harts Hill, somewhere in Brettell Lane and on the 6th December 1915, the Earl of Dudley’s Steel Works (Round Oak). And there the entries end. There is no indication that he attempted to enlist in the army as did his brothers (see below). On the 13th April 1916 he married Miriam Blanche Cotton in a civil ceremony in Stourbridge. Mirian was 5 months pregnant at the time, so clearly whatever accident John experience, had no effect on his fertility. But there is no mention at all of his marriage, or of Miriam, in the diaries. Does this hint at some sort of family estrangement perhaps?
Figure 4. Clent Convalescent Home (from an old postcard)
Miriam Blanche was the daughter of James Cotton, a miner from Kingswinford. It can be seen from Figure 1 that her mother Phoebe had died in 1915 and prior to her marriage she worked as a tailoress. After the marriage, John left his Chapel St. home and he and Mirian began their married life with their eldest child at 32, Commonside in Pensnett. In the 1921 census John is described as a Blacksmith at the Earl of Dudley’s Ironworks Round Oak, where he had started in 1915, so perhaps he found stable employment at last. In the 1939 register he is described as a constructional fitter. Figure 5 shows a photograph of John and Miriam outside the Commonside house, sometime in the late 1930s, before they moved to a house in Tiled House Lane.
Figure 5 John Simeon and Miriam Blanche in the late 1930s
William Henry, Joseph Richard and Eliza Jane Baker
In contract to the entries concerning John Simeon, the entries relating to his siblings are much more straightforward. William Henry began work around 1910 and in the 1911 census he is described as 1911 Apprentice engine fitter. This may have been at Parson’s works in the Hollies where he remained till 1915. He enlisted in the army on the 21st September 1915 and served in France. The entries thereafter simply give times and dates for his periods of leave when he returned to Pensnett. The 1921 census records him working as an Engineers Fitter at Gibbons and Co. There is no record that he married, and he does not appear on the 1939 register, so presumably died before then.
It is not clear when Joseph Richard started to work, but in 1913 he is recorded as having his foot bruised. He seems to have begun work at Cochranes and Co in Woodside in February 1914 (the same place as his father). In August 1914, at the age of 16, he enlisted and was sent to a Foot Camp at Looe in Cornwall. For some reason he was discharged on January 1st 1915 (perhaps again as a result of an earlier injury) and on January 12th he began to work at “Mr Shaw’s Foundry”. He clearly enlisted again in 1917/18 and we read of further visits home on leave. On the first of May 1919, presumably after his discharge we read,
Jo was taken ill coming home from work and Doctor Plant was sent for. He came to see him
Dr Plant was one of the dynasty of Pensnett doctors from that family, who lived at the Plantation, formerly Shut End House, on he High Street in Pensnett. A few days after this incident Joseph was sent to the convalescent home at Clent where he stayed for two weeks. In the next two years, he found employment at Woodside Iron Works (again), Beans at Tipton and in the local police force. The last that records tell of him is that at the 1921 census he was a patient at a hospital in Birmingham. Again there seems to be an ongoing history of illness of some form.
Eliza Jane clearly took up the position of domestic worker at home, as was so common for girls in that era. She is recorded in September 1915 as collecting her glasses from Dudley so she clearly had issues with her eyesight – issues which certainly have appeared elsewhere in the family line, not least with me. From January to June 1916 she worked at Dixons’ Green in Dudley, before moving to Miss Rushworth in Dudley High Street, on a wage of 2s 6d per week. Miss Rushworth’ business, whatever it was, folded in 1918 and Eliza went to work at Mason’s Accounts in Wolverhampton St. in Dudley as a clerk. By 1921 she was again engaged in domestic duties. In the 1939 register she was living with Dinah, then recently widowed, and is described as a “Female Examiner. Inspector of Naval Ordinance”. She was to marry in 1941 at the age of 40 and lived until 1974. I remember her as rather a severe unsmiling lady – with very thick spectacles!
Other family members
A number of other relatives are mentioned in the diaries. William’s brother Henry, a Railway Guard for the GWR living at first in Birmingham and then in Stourbridge, was a regular visitor, often with his wife Annie Mary. It may well be that some of the entries that relate deaths in the area refer to one of William’s five sisters under their married names. One such was certainly Merriah Jones who dies on February 3rd 1916. There were also references to various members of the Chambers family in Smethwick with whom Dinah clearly kept in touch, but it is difficult to determine the precise family relationships here. Perhaps of most interest, one James Chambers is recorded as having emigrated to Canada in 1910.
The entry that most surprised (and indeed shocked) me however was to James Cotton, Miriam’s father, and my great grandfather. For June 22nd 1916 we read
James Cotton was killed at the Sampson Colliery Netherton
A little more detail can be found in the Dudley Chronicle of June 24th.
DUDLEY COLLIERY ACCIDENT – BURIED BY FALL OF COAL. Two miners were buried by a fall of coal at the Dudley Sampson pit, owned by Stourbridge Brick Co., on Thursday, and one—James Cotton, of Commonside, Pensnett—was dead when released. The other, a man named Thomas Treater, had a remarkable escape. He was practically uninjured when liberated, and was able to walk home. The fall was caused by timber supports giving way.
James’ name was given as “Cloteon” in the transcript on the British Newspaper Archive – a result of the fallibility of the OCR system that the Archive uses. This explains why I had hadn’t picked out this accident in earlier searches. In terms of the family it means that Miriam Blanche and her siblings would have lost both parents in a very short time. We find one of them, her younger sister Gertrude Gladys Cotton, living with John and Miriam in the 1921 census.
Somewhere around 1980, my mother gave me two small notebooks that contained William Baker’s (her grandfather) “diaries” for the period from 1907 to 1919. At that time Willian (1866-1936) worked at the Woodside Iron Works as a Stationary Engine Driver, and lived in Chapel Street in Pensnett. The diaries were far from easy to read, and although my wife and myself transcribed a small portion of them not long after they came to us, we never completed the task. The diaries were put away in a drawer in a large chest that moved from house to house over the coming years without being emptied, and we largely forgot about them. Recently however I have come across them, and, with the leisure that retirement apparently offers (although I remain unconvinced about that), I decided that I would try to transcribe them in full and see what they contained. And they did indeed contain material of interest, even if the grammatical style and spelling is somewhat wobbly throughout. This is thus the first in a series of blogs that describe these diaries and their contents and hopefully illustrates something of the life and times of a Black Country Ironworker in the first two decades of the 20th century. This post gives a brief description of the diaries and their context, and then sets out the different categories of material that they contain – family matters, matters of local and national interest, and details of life at the Woodside Iron Works.
The diaries
The diaries, if that is not too grand a name for them, are two small notebooks (3” x 6”), clearly produced by the Great Western Railway, with GWR embossed on the front cover – see figure 1. They are now in a poor state of repair. They each contain around 80 or 90 sheets of thin paper, written on both sides. In addition a few loose leaves were bundled with them, and the isolated cover of a (missing) third volume. The entries date from June 1907 to June 1911 for the first notebook and July 1911 to September 1919 for the second. In each volume the entries begin both at the front of the back and work towards the middle. Although there is a tendency for each of the resulting four series of entries to differentiate in terms of subject matter (see below) this is far from always the case the case, and there is much jumbling up of dates, as entries are added retrospectively. The earlier entries tend to be in pencil and are much faded and difficult to read, but are more frequently in ink for the later entries – see Figure 2. William’s hand is reasonably neat, but not always easy to understand, and his grammar is odd and spelling very inconsistent. Punctuation doesn’t exist.
Figure 1. The diaries
Figure 2. Sample pages – from 1910 (pencil) and 1915 (ink)
The author
William Baker (1866 – 1936) was the son of John Baker (1833 – ) and Hannah Jones (1835 – ). His family are recorded as living on Church St. in Pensnett in the Black Country. He married Dinah Chambers from Smethwick in 1892, who he met whist she was working at a Draper’s shop in Dudley. The records show that they lived in Queen St. in Pensnett (1893), Vine St. in Harts Hill (1901) and then at 37, Chapel St in Pensnett in 1911 and 1921. In 1891 the young William is described as a labourer, and in 1901 and 1911 as a blast furnace engine driver. The 1921 census expands this description somewhat to identify him as a hoist engine driver at the blast furnaces at Cochrane and Co. Ironworks at Woodside. William and Dinah had four children who will feature in later blog posts – John Simeon (my grandfather) born in 1893, William Henry born in 1896, Joseph Richard born in 1898 and Eliza Jane born in 1901.
The contents
To put the material into a workable form, all the entries were transcribed into an EXCEL spreadsheet, where they could be ordered by date and classified by type. This was, inevitably, quite a tedious process, but in the long term very useful. In total the diaries contain just over 1200 entries (although there is considerable interpretation involved in the definition of what makes for an entry). These can be conveniently divided into four categories.
Family. Entries concerning family members – 105 entries.
Local. Descriptions of local people and events in the Pensnett / Woodside / Dudley area – 306 entries. The majority of these are recordings of deaths and burials, but contain some material relating to enlistments in the army and major occurrences in the area (often accidents of one sort or another).
National. Descriptions of national and international events or famous people that had come to William’s notice – 62 entries. There are many reports of executions and major disasters included – but surprisingly little about the events of World War 1.
Woodside Iron Works. Detail of the operation and personnel at William’s place of work – 734 entries.
These four categories of diary entry will be discussed in turn in the four posts that follow.
At this point it is perhaps worth noting that there are duplicate entries (written at different ends of the same notebook) and there is little consistency in the recording of sequences of events that are related to each other. Thus it is sometimes difficult to pin down series of events and their consequences and in the blogs that follow there is much conjecture. Also the commonplace things relating to day to day living and relationships are not recorded – they would simply have been part of the recurring background of William’s life.
Finally it should be noted that in the quotes of diary entries that are given in the following blog posts, spelling and presentation has been “cleaned” up to avoid the reader being distracted. The sense of the entry, and the order of words has not been altered however.
Engineering, history and ecclesiology 