Young Helen Taylor….. an embroidered sampler …. and heaps of twists and turns

I am looking at the embroidered sampler made by Helen Taylor in 1834.

The sampler 1834

It is a beautiful piece of work, and she was sufficiently proud of her accomplishment to add her name and age.

As befitted a work which also carries an image of the village church in Dore it is heavy with religious messages.

It belongs to Ron Marsden whose direct ancestor was Helen, and it has been handed down through the female side of his family.

It is a treasured possession taking him back 189 years to that young girl and the small village of Dore which was in Derbyshire but is now a suburb of Sheffield.

And what particularly stands out for Ron is the verse, “This world is a city full of crooked streets

Death is the marketplace were all men meets

If life was a merchandise that sold would buy

The rich would live and the poor must die”.

Like the other verses there is that emphasis on the purity of the world to come but perhaps also a challenge to the existing social order.

And that got me looking for it’s origins.  It appears on at least one other sampler from the North of England just four years earlier,* and appears on an 17th century gravestone.**

But the first two lines are from The Two Noble Kinsmen written in 1634 by William Shakespeare in collaboration with John Fletcher.  It is described as a tragicomedy but reading the plot summary along with the first scene I think we are into heavy nastiness, but we shall see.**

Baptism, 1822

So far, I know very little about Helen.  She was born in 1822 and baptised in the church for which she made the sampler.  

Her parents were Isaac and Sarah and she had four siblings.  Mr. Taylor described himself as a “saw grinder” on the 1841 census and the absence of Sara on the same census suggest she may have died.  And given that the youngest of the children had been born in 1830 it may well be that if Sarah had died it will have been after that date.

As for Helen apart from the record of her baptism and her appearance on the 1841 census there is as yet no more official records of her existence.

The family in 1841

But Ron thinks she may have been married and may have died in child birth, and there isa reference to a Helen/Ellen Taylor dying in Ecclesall Bierlow in 1854.

As yet I can't find exactly where the Taylor's lived in Dore, but I know that the siblings continue to turn up in the historic records.

So the twist and turns continue.

Location, Dore, Derbyshire

Picture; Helen Taylor's sampler, 1834, from the collection of Ron Marsden

*Ann Carbutt, https://scarlet-letter.com/product/ann-carbutt/

**James Handley's Grave Stone, James Handley's, http://www.redmilearchive.freeuk.com/handley.html

***The Two Noble Kinsmen, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Two_Noble_Kinsmen

Women of Steel ........... the memorial and a chance encounter with Martin Jenkins .... revisiting a story

Now I had been following the project to commemorate the women who had worked in the Sheffield steel works during the last world war.

In Sheffield at the unveiling, 2016

The project culminated in the unveiling of a statute at Barker's Pool in the city centre when over  100 surviving Women of Steel came along to the unveiling ceremony and lunch in the City Hall Ballroom.

The story had featured on several radio programmes and so I was more than pleased that last night purely by chance I met Martin Jenkins who designed and made the statue.

He was here at the invitation of Andrew Simock who launched a campaign to identify a Manchester “woman of significance” who would be remembered by a statute.

The vote chose Emmeline Pankhurst and Mr Jenkins was here with 18 other sculptors to take the project forward.

Margaret Ashton ....... nne of the contenders for "Women of significance

All of which was exciting stuff but for now I shall close by quoting from Sheffield City Council’s story on the unveiling of that other statue.

“During both World Wars, thousands of women were conscripted to work in the factories and steel mills to keep them running whilst the men were away fighting.

The women took on these roles, which were often dangerous and physically demanding, alongside looking after their families.

The Sheffield statue

The Women of Steel are an important part of Sheffield's history and an inspiration to young people today.

A public appeal has raised over £160,000 for a stunning bronze statue as a permanent memorial to the Women of Steel.

The statue is designed by sculptor Martin Jennings who worked closely with a group of Women of Steel to come up with the design. About the project.

Martin Jennings is a highly renowned designer and sculpture, many of his statues and sculptures are now world famous.

Perhaps his most celebrated piece is the statue of John Betjeman at St Pancras station which is now recognised as an iconic London landmark.

Other works include figures from the world of politics, military, royalty, academia, the arts, industry, medicine and the law. 

Women of Steel

Martin Jennings has been commissioned to design and craft the sculpture due his creative vision, and his signature aesthetic of bronze or silver sculpture which we believe will be a credit to Sheffield, its famous industry and our Women of Steel.

The statue will be bronze in colour and human scale, celebrating the work and lives of Sheffield’s Women of Steel.”*

Back in 2013 Martin Jenkins said “I want the statue to represent both the camaraderie that helped these young women triumph over the exceptionally difficult task allotted to them and the pride they felt in achieving expertise in an industry that was traditionally the preserve of men.”

All of which leaves with giving the last word to my facebook chum Margaret Nash who commented, "a lovely statue. I love the way they appear to be walking along with ones' arm resting on the others shoulder beautiful."  

Location; Sheffield and Manchester

Pictures; Women of Street statute courtesy of Sheffield City Council

*Women of Street, https://www.sheffield.gov.uk/planning-and-city-development/urban-design--conservation/public-art/women-of-steel.html

Sheffield in 1935

Fitzalan Square in 1935

Never let be said that the blog is hide bound by geography.  

And so today we are in Fitzalan Square in Sheffield, in 1935.

This I know because the postcard was produced by the Valentine Company and the reference number dates it to that year.

Of course it has changed quite a bit since then and I did have some difficulty recognising it at first.

Some of the old land marks remain like the bronze statue of Edward VII erected in 1913 which cost the square its large cab stand and clock.

King Edward V11 statue

Ahead of us the big white building which twists round from High Street to Haymarket is also still there but seems to have been truncated somewhat.

But others have long gone, like the London Mart which stood on the corner of Flat Street and High Street and can just be glimpsed in the top left hand corner of the picture opposite the C&A building.

It was first occupied as a hotel in 1870 and was taken over by John Marples in 1886 who gave it the name of the London Mart but as was locally known as the Marples.

During the Sheffield Blitz on the night of December 12th the building received a direct hit from a bomb which plunged through the building and detonated just above the cellars killing approximately 70 people who had taken shelter in the cellars.

Flat Street & corner of the London Mart 

The building was reduced to a 15 foot high pile of rubble.  Despite this, the following day 7 men were rescued alive from a section of the cellars which had been protected when the cellar roof had not collapsed.

The site remained derelict until 1959 when the brewing company John Smith opened a pub on the site which was called the Marples.

Square received a facelift during the summer of 2003 when  the Edward VII statue was cleaned and  lights were added to illuminate it at night.

New sandstone paving and steel benches were installed, the trees were pruned back and improved street lighting put in.

I could go on but think I have strayed well away from 1935.  Suffice to say that in writing this I discovered that one of my new facebook pals knew the pub well and our own Josh and Polly live close by.

So another small world.

Picture; Fitzalan Square, 1935 from the collection of Alan Brown, listing of Marples, John & Co, wine & spirit merchants from Whites Directory for Sheffield and Rotherham, 1911

Children of the Scattered Homes............ stories from Sheffield on Radio 4 today with a bit about Canada

Fitzalan Square, Sheffield 1935

Now here is a programme that gets to the heart of how some of our children were treated while in “care” at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th.

Using original records and memories as well as the research of local historians the programme focuses in those Sheffield children who were taken into care by the Sheffield Union.

And as you would expect contains stories of those migrated to Canada by the Catholic Emigrating Society and Barnados.

"Clare Jenkins uses the resources of the Sheffield Archive, social media and newspapers to track down the children of the 'scattered homes' - a pioneering scheme, begun in 1893, to take poor children over three years old out of the workhouse and bring them up in homes scattered across the city.

Clare researches the history of the system and talks to descendants of those children adopted by the Sheffield Guardians . 

She looks at their school reports and finds out what happened to the children after they left their 'scattered home'.

The system was called 'utopian' by the Victorians, and copied all over Britain. It was seen as a successful way of removing the children away from the pauperisation effects of the workhouse - but the children were often parted from their parents just because they were poor.

Detail of Fitzalan Square, 1935

Clare discovers how to research recent history as she tracks down the stories of the children of the scattered homes and learns of their fate."**

There will be much that will strike home with anyone who has a family member who was a BHC.

One contributor  said of her grandmother that "not much love was given out" but then she had not "experienced much love".  

Many of those remembering grandparents who had been in care commented on how they seldom talked of their time in the homes.

C&A Fitzalan Square, 1935

There is also that all too familiar attitude from the people of plenty and their political representatives that such care was a double edged, and that if those homes were too comfortable poor parents would seek to place their children there to avoid their responsibilities.

Not that some of the homes were such havens, and in once case a young girl called Ada had her name changed to Ida just because of the confusion that arise because there was already an Ada living there.

That said we should never forget that in some cases children taken into care were in real danger.

So the programme draws on the Magistrates Records to highlight one family where the children were judged to have been neglected for some time that they were "very dirty" and as consequence both parents were sentenced to three and four months in prison.

But I get carried out away and so will just suggest you follow the link and listen


Picture; Fitzalan Square, 1935 from the collection of Alan Brown,

*Children of the Scattered Homes, Producer: Janet Graves, A Pennine production for BBC Radio 4,http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05pr81r

**Programme notes