Looking for Dad at Eltham Fire Station in 1908

We will never know whether Lizzie’s aunt appreciated this picture postcard of our Fire Station.

But as she had been receiving regular such pictures of Eltham, I rather hope she did.

The added bonus was that there in the photograph was Lizzie’s Dad, which prompted Lizzie to ask “Do you recognise dad?

There is lots more detail but I rather think I will leave that up to you to search out.

Location; Eltham Fire Station











Picture; Eltham Fire Station,1908, courtesy of Tricia Leslie

Walking down the High Street sometime around 1907

Now I can’t be sure when this picture was taken.

The postmark records that it was sent at 11 am on September 20th 1907, but picture postcard companies did keep old photographs in the catalogue and reuse them long after they had been taken.

In some cases even over printing on what was a summer scene a Christmas greeting or retouching the picture to the point where it almost became a blur.

In this case we are on the High Street looking west down towards the church, and I am fascinated by the shop advertising “Eltham Steam Printing Works” which was on the north side of the street.

Given that the Castle is almost opposite I think our shop will be under the modern block which includes Marks and Spencer but I am finding it difficult to find the shop on the street directories.

It doesn’t appear in the 1914 lists, so may have gone by then.

Of course I may be looking in the wrong place and at present I don’t have access to earlier directories, but someone will, and the story behind the “Eltham Steam Printing Works” will come out of the shadows.

Location; Eltham High Street

Picture; Eltham High Street, 1907, courtesy of Tricia Leslie

Eltham Church ......”one towards your collection”

Now, I don’t for one minute think that when Lizzie sent this picture postcard to her auntie in Bridlington, that she ever thought it would reappear in Eltham a full century and a bit later.

And I am please it has courtesy of Tricia Leslie, because it offers up some interesting detail.

To the right, directly opposite the church is the wall of the Congregational Church which was later demolished to build Burton’s which is now McDonald’s.

The half timbered gateway is there but the space beyond, heading north down Well Hall Road, has yet to get the tram huts and has a second wooden gate and iron fence where today the stone seat and low wall with the word Eltham have been placed.

Add to this, that Well Hall Road looks narrower and was itself just under two years old, having been cut at this point as far as the railway bridge in 1905.

That said there is a lot that does look familiar, even though today the novelty of a camera has worn off leaving people unlikely to pose for a photographer.

Location; Eltham Church

Picture; Eltham Church,1907, courtesy of Tricia Leslie

Ki-ora, a choc ice and Bambi ...... the lost picture houses of Plumstead no 1

Now a while ago I set down a challenge to find some of our lost cinemas, and quick as a flash Tricia came back with a first and the promise to find more.

So here is what she said and what I know about the Cinematographe in Plumstead High Street.

The Cinematographe

“That sort of challenge is right up my street Andrew. 

I will dig out my many maps of Plumstead & Woolwich & find one for 1913. The first time I ever went to the pictures was at the Cinematographe in Plumstead High Street although it was called the Plaza in the 1950's. 

I saw Bambi, I still remember sitting there sobbing when his mummy died. 

The Plaza was more or less where Iceland is now. It had one screen & seated 528 people. The second time 

And just before i it was demolished in 2012

I went to the pictures was to see Tom Thumb at the Century Cinema which although was classed as being on Plumstead High Street it was set back and  I think the entrance was in Garibaldi Street. 

That was a larger cinema than the Plaza although it still only had one screen and seated 913. 

It closed in 1960 after which the building was many things, in 2012 it was demolished & is now flats. The images are of the Century the second image after it closed but before it was demolished.”

And that I think has set me off on a new series, Lost cinemas of Plumstead, which might well become Lost cinemas of south east London.**

Location; Plumstead

Pictures; from the collection of Tricia Lesley

*Off to the “flicks” in the winter of 1913 and a challenge for today https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2017/04/off-to-flicks-in-winter-of-1913-and.html

**Lost cinemas of Plumstead, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Lost%20cinemas%20of%20Plumsted 
Lost cinemas of south east London. https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Lost%20cinemas%20of%20south%20east%20London

The story behind the story of an Eltham postcard

Now as everyone knows there can always be more than one story behind a picture postcard.

The first is the image on the front which in an instant tells you so much about a place in the past.

And then there is the name, address and message on the back which can be equally revealing.

The skill of the historian is to marry the two sides and tell a story, but just sometimes that story cannot be told and that is what happened to my friend Tricia who found this postcard on eBay back in September.

She told me that having found it “I did a little research on the information on the back and managed to trace the family history of the person it was sent to.”

The research led to a connection with the garage beside the church and a family who had lived in Eltham.

Tricia managed to trace the family, met up with one of them and handed over the postcard.

It would have made a compelling story but given that one of the familiy did not want the details made public Tricia quite rightly chose not to publish it.

But there is always a story in a story and for me the story is less aboutt the family and more about how one postcard in the hands of a skilled researcher can reveal much that might otherwise have been ignored or lost.

It involved Tricia's leap of imagination to use the name and search through social networking sites and then the diligence to match these against people and those listed and  then try and make contact.

And I like the final touch of Tricia's in  choosing to reunite the card with the family a full seventy seventy years after it was sent.

Location; Eltham

Picture; Eltham Church circa 1940s from the collection of Tricia Leslie

Walking Well Hall ......... past the station and then the climb up to the High Street

Now anyone who walked up to the High Street from anywhere along Well Hall Road may well have wondered about these houses.

I was always fascinated by how high and set back they were from the road and was always particularly intrigued by the one with high wall and brick entrance.

And I remember the time when one of the occupants excavated all that land in front of their house to create a car space which must have been in the late 60s or early 70s.

In time someone will post on the history of these properties.

Tricia’s picture, she thinks, dates from the 1930s and certainly the tram lines  will date it to before the end of the 1940s.

When I regularly walked Well Hall from our house just beyond the roundabout which will have been thirty or so year after the picture was taken little had changed.

And I still remember the school friend who lived on the opposite side of the road.

She was called Deboarah, was a year below me at Crown Woods and went off to train as a teacher.  Alas our paths never crossed again.

Many others remember those houses.  My friend Jean thought they were posh while Lesley like me passed them many times on foot.

For me it was the return journey back from the High Street, which was just that better with its view down the slope to the station and then that steady rise away in the distance that took in the Odeon and the woods.

So thank you Tricia for posting the pictures.

Memories are made of these.

Location; Eltham

Pictures; Well Hall Road, circa 1930s, courtesy of Tricia Leslie

Opening tomorrow ...... our new Library in the High Street

I like the way there is always a story, and here is a good one.

The date is October 20th 1906 and Lizzie has selected this picture of Eltham Library to send to her aunt in Somerset.

The message on the back reads, “This is our Free Library which is to be opened tomorrow, what do you think of the building?”

Sadly I don’t know what Miss Neath of Bridgewater in Somerset thougth of the building and nor have I been able to track down with certainty, either her or Lizzie, although in 1901 there were a few candidates living in the south west and  I found a Mary E, aged 10 in Plumstead who could be our sender.

So for now I shall concentrate on the card and reflect that here is a bit of history, sent the day before the library was opened.

That was on October 20, 1906 and Lizzie had posted it sometime in the evening, although I am a bit confused about her timing given that October 20th was a Saturday.

I won’t be alone in having a soft spot for the building, our Stella worked there and I was a frequent visitor, taking out books and records and sitting for hours in the reference section.

The picture postcards come from the collection of Tricia and she has three more.

The four were sent between October 1906 and July 1908, and one includes a tantalizing picture of a man she identifies as her dad.

All of which makes them very personal, and there may have once been more, given that Lizzie talked “about another for your collection”.

But for now that is it other than to wonder whether any of the young people in the picture were known to Lizzie which of course is something we will never know.

But almost as soon as I posted Matt replied with the comment, "That Library one is one of mine, sent by Elizabeth Ann Neath b1869 Woolwich to her Aunt, fathers side sister, Elizabeth Neath b1841, shown as a servant at Quantock View in 1911". Matt K Minch

Location; Eltham High Street

Picture; Eltham Free Library, 1906, courtesy of Matt K Minch

Stories of Woolwich and the River Thames ........... you never quite knew about

Now I have just gone off and ordered the book, Ferries of the Lower Thames by Joan Tucker on the recommendations of my old friend Tricia.

In fourteen chapters it covers the story of our river from Staines down to Yanlet Creek.

Now Staines I knew but Yanlet Creek I had to look up and discovered it is 54 km as the crow flies from London Bridge and was the formal limit of the jurisdiction of the City of London, and yes Staines marks the other boundary.

So that explains the fourteen chapters of which for many of us it will be the two covering the Isle of Dogs, Greenwich and Woolwich which will of real interest.

And Tricia picked out a fascinating description of the ferries and Tommy Tucker who was a captain on one of the ferries.

He will always be linked to the writer Edith Nesbit who lived at Well Hall.  It is a story I have written about in the past and will go back to.

Suffice to say at the time and even now the relationship was the subject of some poor comments on the part of people who misunderstood the couple and their politics.

Both were in the Woolwich Labour Party which over half a century later I joined aged 16 in 1966 and for the details having read the blog stories I suggest you go to Tricia's choice of a good read for January.

Picture; cover of Ferries of the Lower Thames by Joan Tucker, 2013 Amberley Publishing

Location; London

*Ferries of the Lower Thames, by Joan Tucker, 2013 Amberley Publishing,

**Edith Nesbit

The picture of Rusholme that washed up in London and came back to Chorlton

Now I grant you it’s not the zippiest of titles but it does the business.

Wilmslow Road, date unknown

We are on Wilmslow Road although I don’t exactly have a date.

But I know that in 1911 the Clarence Pub was run by Mr James Oldham and his neighbour at number 83 which is just visible in the picture belonged to George C. Pinchien, tobacconist and more about both gentlemen at a later date.

The has gone but more recently has been a restaurant.

Mr Oldham of the Clarence Inn and his neighbours, 1911

The picture was sent up to me by my friend Tricia who still lives close to where I grew up in Eltham in South East London, which pretty much explains the title.

Tricia saw a picture I have in the collection of London Transport Tram 1622, on route 40 to the Embankment via the Old Kent Road and Westminster and prompted her to share this one of a Manchester Corporation tram on Wilmslow Road.

The Clarence Inn, date unknown

And as you do I went looking for a date, which I have yet to find, but in the process I did discover that along with the Clarence Inn and Mr Pinchien there was Mr Albert Barber, the butcher, Herbert Mee, the saddler, and Mrs Ann Maria Willcocks, shopkeeper all of whom were neighbours of the Maypole Diary Company and John Armstead, milliner.

Which just leaves me to wonder whether anyone will be able to come up with a date.

And in answer to that question my old mate Andy Robertson has gone one better and sent over a picture of the Clarence Inn from 2015.

It was back then the Pharaoh  but I am not quite sure if it was a night club or a place to eat.

But someone will come back with chapter and verse, adding their own stories of nights in the place and perhaps even of nights when it was the Clarence Inn.

We shall just have to see.




Location; Wilmlsow Road

Picture; Wilmslow Road, date unknown from the collection of Tricia Lesley and the Clarence Inn in 2015 courtesy of Andy Robertson.

Rediscovering one young man from the Great War

I think this will be the last of the stories about the young officer who died in 1916 during the Battle of the Somme.

Unknown young soldier, date unknown

And it has brought together both the centenary of that battle which began in July and ended in October but is very close to that date which marks the end of the conflict in November 1918.

It began as a request from my friend Tricia to help put a name and a story to a picture of an unknown young soldier.

His photograph was on a picture post card which on the back carried the comment, "16th Manchester, (30th Division.) Missing Reported 'Wounded and Missing” from 26th July 1916, probably taking Deville Wood.' ”

It wasn’t much to go on but we agreed to run a story on the blog in the hope someone might be able to identify him.

And within a day Michael Gorman came back with a carefully researched set of comments and the suggestions that our young man might be George Horace Plested, who was a “Second Lieutenant Manchester Regiment 4th Bn. attd. 16th Bn” who died on July 30th 1916.  He was just 19 and came from Putney."

Michael with the help of another researcher followed this up with the discovery that he “he died of wounds in the casualty station at Corbie.”

Meanwhile both Michael and Tricia had made contact with relatives on ancestry and another photograph of the George Horace Plested seemed to confirm that this was our young man.

George Horace Plested

And today Michael added this, “the Plested family sent me a photograph of an unidentified young soldier (attached) who bears a remarkable resemblance to the subaltern of the Manchester Regiment in the original photograph. Comparing the photographs I feel that they are one and the same person.

Horace attended Wandsworth Grammar School, in London, and enlisted in the 28th Battalion of the London Regiment in 1915. 

This was the famous Artist Rifles battalion, a unit trained potential officers, at Hare Hall in Romford, who were then assigned to serving regiments. 

In Horace’s case this was the 4th Battalion (another training battalion) of the Manchester Regiment – which he joined in June 1915 at Larkhill.

He was then “attached" to the 16th (1st City) Battalion of the Manchester’s – a “pals” unit which was about to embark for France. – and took part in the Battle of the Somme in July 1916.

Cap badge of the Manchester's

Taking an almost identical route was the famous war poet Wilfred Owen. 

He also enlisted in the Artists Rifles and was also sent to Hare Hall – assigned to the 5th Battalion of the Manchester Regiment – being commissioned just a week later than Horace. Owen was to be killed in action in November 1918 – the last week of the War.”

I am pleased that through the efforts of Tricia and Michael we have that name and the story.

What I think is also important is the way the story has been uncovered, partly through the use of social media and online historical sources but more because Tricia and Michael and others were determined to honour the memory of this young man.

Leaving me only to than the Plested family for providing their photograph.

Pictures; Unknown Soldier, date unknown, from the collection of Tricia Leslie, and cap badge of the Manchester Regiment courtesy of Paul Wright, and photograph of George Horace Plested from the collection of the Plested family

Discovering a lost soldier of the Great War .......... with a nod of thanks to facebook

Now it is easy to deride social networks and write them off as the preserve of the trivial and the vain but that is to ignore their potential for allowing people to showcase their talents in a whole range of artistic endeavours from photography to painting and much else.

Added to which there are a growing number of sites and individuals who share their research and are willing to offer advice, and encouragement to those writing about their family history as well as those wanting to tell the story of their community.

All of which is why my friend Tricia and I decided to make an appeal for help in finding out more about this young man who as far as she knew was an officer in the 16th Battalion of the Manchester’s and disappeared in July 1916.

There was a photograph, and a comment on the back and nothing else.

Given the date Tricia began with the Somme war memorials but drew a blank and so that was when we made the appeal through a blog story and posted across a selection of facebook sites.

And within a day Michael Gorman came back with a carefully researched set of comments and the suggestions that our young man might be George Hoarce Plested, who was a “Second Lieutenant Manchester Regiment 4th Bn. attd. 16th Bn” who died on July 30th 1916.  He was just 19 and came from Putney.

Now what marks Mr Gorman’s contribution off as special is that he didn’t claim the credit, quoted his source and carefully presented alternatives which I think makes my point about just how useful social media can be in advancing our general knowledge.

Tricia I know is pleased and has now got engaged in searching for our young man to put an identity and a story to the photograph.

Location; London & France

Picture; Unknown Soldier, date unknown, from the collection of Tricia Leslie, and cap badge of the Manchester Regiment courtesy of Paul Wright

Who was this young man?

I wonder who this young man was.

This question has been preoccupying the thoughts of my friend Tricia from Bexley who sent me the picture with the comment

“Would you do me a favour and walk the streets of Manchester and pin the attached picture of the mysterious Manchester Soldier to every lamp post in the hope that someone may recognize him.

I am getting no nearer to identifying the young man the only info I have is on the postcard with the exception of the fact that underneath the photo it stated he was a 2nd Lieutenant I assume they came to that conclusion through the evidence of his one pip shown in the photo. 

It may be the person who wrote on the postcard knew the young man perhaps a relative.

I have been through all the cemetery records at Deville Wood where he fell and am halfway through the Thiepval Memorial but have had no luck. 

I have also tried Ancestry but the outcome was the same.”

Now the reverse of the card simply says, "16th Manchester, (30th Division.) Missing
Reported “Wounded and Missing” from 26th July 1916, probably taking Deville Wood.”

It is not much to go on but if Tricia has the names of those officers killed at Deville Wood or in the July of 1916 we may be able to move forward.

My old friend David Harrop has lent me the huge volume containing the Roll of Honour of the Manchester Pals and between the two we might be able to identify him.

And this is an appropriate moment to try and find him given that next month marks the end of that battle a century ago and of course will also be dominated by the acts of Remembrance across the country.

Here in Manchester as elsewhere there will be ceremonies for the anniversary of the Armistice as well as Remembrance services.

David will be participating in a “remembrance walk and talk” in Southern Cemetery with Emma Fox and has also added to his permanent exhibition in the Remembrance Lodge in Southern Cemetery, of which more later.

But for now it may just be that someone recognises the picture and can help us.
Location; Manchester

Picture; Unknown Soldier from the Manchester Regiment, date unknown from the collection of Tricia Leslie