Losing your history ……. and finding some stories

If you were born in the first half of the last century the chances are that you carried a little bit of our collective history around with you.

Queen Victoria penny, 1865

It would be there in your pocket, your purse or held for a rainy day in one those small containers which resembled a pillar box or any one of a heap of animals pretending to be a savings bank.

But in 1971 when the country adopted a currency based on decimal units almost all of the existing coinage was junked.  

Out went the old-fashioned penny, the threepenny bit as well as the ha’penny and while some silver coinage lingered on, kidnapped and made to perform a new role as decimal coins they too pretty quickly vanished as the bight new shinny stuff rolled out of the Mint.

And of course, all the new coins bore the head of the reigning monarch, which is how it has been ever since, ensuring that the oldest real decimal coin dated from 1971.

All of which for my generation wiped out the history lesson whereby you might have coins in your pocket stretching back into the mid-19th century, and meant you rubbed hands with effigies of Queen Victoria, Edward V11, King George V and V1 as well as the young Elizabeth.

Reverse of Queen Victoria, penny, 1865

The older the coin the more warn and thin it might have been but it still passed for legal tender, even though there was as ever the temptation to save the older ones for their historic connection.

So while early and mid-Victorian pennies were rare they did turn up, hence this 1865 one, and those of Edward and the two Georges were to pinch the phrase “two a penny”.

At which point I am not making out any great claims that this was much of a history lesson, but it did mean you were vaguely aware of the past stretching out in front of you.

And in another way, it points to the historical continuity which was a currency based on pounds shillings and pennies, where 240 pennies made a pound, 12 pennies made a shilling and twenty shillings made a pound, and along the way introduced to the guinea.

Half penny, 1951

At the time of decimalization great claims were made of how complicated was a currency based on different units, but I doubt many of us were, after all we grew up with it and it was just part of the backdrop of normal life, like steam locomotives, black and white television and bus conductors.

And in Junior school it was just one of the many ways you learnt to add up and subtract along with those more challenging problem solving exercises involving  four men, three women seven apples and the amount of money Eric Braithwaite might make from selling the apples to the people at 2d an apple.

All of which makes me wonder whether Roman school children had to endure the same brain numbing lessons or for that matter the slave sent out into the local market to get the best deals on olive oil and black pepper.

This is no flight of fancy but a very unsubtle way of introducing this Roman coin which along with three others I bought in a small shop behind the British Museum sometime around 1974.

Roman coin, Claudius, 43 -54 AD

At the time I was looking for the odd little teacher resource to make the teaching of Roman history a bit more interesting.

Already I had bought a replica Roman lamp and very shamefully presented an old leather sandal bought in the Eighth Day on Oxford Road as a genuine 1st century piece of Roman footwear similar to those found at Vindolanda along the Wall.

Reverse of the Claudian coin,

The older me shudders at such a breach of historical accuracy while the younger me enjoyed the hushed silence of 30 first year students in room 11 on Portway in Wythensawe.

Now as we are in confessional mood I can’t say this one is part of the four I bought for what amounted £2 new money, and it is possible that it came from a collection of replicas I bought later.

Either way I still find it something to look at, and put with the very real Viking oyster shell I bought in York at the Jorwick archaeological dig in the later 1970s for the price of 10 new pence, there being so many found during the excavation.

The shell I can date to the Viking settlements of York and I think the coin is the Emperor Claudius and the rest as they is another story.

Viking oyster shell, Jorvick

Location; our collection

Pictures; Queen Victoria penny 1865, half penny, 1951, a Roman coin from the era of the Emperor Claudius, [I think] and a Viking oyster shell from Jorvick

Walking through York’s past

Now I shouldn’t be surprised that this image of the Shambles in York from around 1902, is pretty much what you will still see today.

After all cities like York have an interest in retaining those bits which the tourists love to see and photograph.

Of course, the intervening century and a bit have seen a change in the businesses but there is still a food shop roughly where the butcher’s was located at the beginning of the last century.

And of course, it remains a reminder of the twisty turny narrow streets which dominated our medieval towns and cities.

My Wikipedia suggests that it was there at the time of the Conquest and many of the buildings along its length date from the 1350s through to 1475, some still retaining evidence of the association with the meat trade.*

And the house the card was sent to has also survived.

True it is not as old as the Shambles, but 127 Graham Road in Hackney is still there and looks to be late Victorian or Edwardian.

In time I will go looking for the directories for York and Hackney around 902 and see what else emerges about the story of the two places.

Location; York and Hackney

Picture; the Shambles from a picture postcard, sent in 1902 from the collection of Tony Goulding.

*The Shambles, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shambles

Remembering the Great War ................ the Clifton Cycle Club Roll of Honour

I think it is fair to say that the story of the Clifton Cycle Club’s Roll of Honour is just beginning.

The Roll of Honour, 2015

The club was formed in 1895 at the Old Grey Mare on Clifton Green in York and is still going today.

Like many organisations at the end of the Great War the club created a Roll of Honour in remembrance of those members who had participated in the conflict.

It is a simple and elegant brass plaque with the club crest, which records the names of members including Lord Helmsley who was killed on the Western Front in 1916 aged 37.

For many years it had a place of honour in the Old Grey Mare, was later removed by a club member and eventually turned up at auction in York and was bought by my old friend David Harrop who has included it in his permanent exhibition of memorabilia from two world wars in the Remembrance Lodge at Southern Cemetery.

Its chequered history highlights the plight of many such Rolls of Honour.

Most are still intact and remain in situ where they were first placed.

But others have been lost, stolen or mislaid and so I am pleased that this one is back on public display and the names of the Clifton Four can come back out of the shadows.

he brass plaque on display, 2015

Of these of course Lord Helmsley’s will be well known and his political, military and personal life are relatively easy to track down.

Less easy will be those of Harold Hiscoe, Robert Wilson Hope, and L Johnson.

Mr Johnson has so far drawn a blank but I know that Mr Hope of the Royal Field Artillery died on September 23 1917 and Harold Hiscoe on March 27 1918.

And of these last two it is Harold Hiscoe which has revealed the most.

He was born  in 1888 in Ripponden and in 1911 was working in York managing a butcher’s shop and living in a boarding house on St Savioursgate.

It was a tall terraced property consisting of eleven rooms and was home to Mrs Buckle, five of her children, Harold and three other boarders.St Savoursgate is one of those very narrow York streets running from Collergate to the corner of Spen Lane and St Saviours Place.

If I have got this right Mrs Buckle’s house which was number 15 was opposite the church but sadly it has gone and is now a car park.

The Old Grey Mare, 2014

So like much of the story there is much still to find out.

And it may well be that in the club’s records there are the details of the decision to commission the Roll of Honour, its cost and discussion on where it should be placed.

But that is for later.

In the meantime I know David has plans to visit the Old Grey Mare on Clifton Green which is still in business.*

Pictures; Clifton Cycle Club’s Roll of Honour, from the collection of David Harrop, and the Old Grey Mare, 2015,courtesy of the owner

* the Old Grey Mare  Clifton Green, York, North Yorkshire YO30 6LH, 01904 654485 www.oldgreymare.com Set in a 17th-century former coaching inn opposite a park, this traditional pub with rooms is 6 minutes' walk from the River Ouse and 15 minutes' walk from the York Minster Cathedral