On this day .... 103 years ago on the north Yorkshire coast

Now I like the way the blog occasionally gets requests to do a story.

Picture postcard pf the attack, 1914

And this week David Harrop asked me to run the account of the attack on Scarborough on December 16, 1914.

We are all familiar with the devastation caused by German bombers during the Second World War and the Zeppelin attacks during the Great War, but the bombardment of a British coastal town maybe less well known.

So given that today is the anniversary of the event David asked if it could be commemorated on the blog.

The extent of the damage, 1914

The attack was carried out by the German High Seas Fleet and resulted in 592 casualties, many of them civilians, of whom 137 died.

It caused public outrage given that it was an attack on civilians, and led to a series of patriotic posters calling for men to enlist and avenge the bombardment.

Also attacked were Hartlepool, West Hartlepool and Whitby, of which Hartlepool was a more significant target because it had extensive civilian docks and factories.

St Nicholas Parade near the Grand Hotel, 1914

In total something like 200 people were killed and 300 houses, seven churches and five hotels were damaged across the four towns and along with the public outcry, the enlistment posters and media coverage, the picture postcard industry was quick to exploit the event.

They rushed out a series of cards featuring the devastation and one in the possession of David has a detailed account of the attack.

So there you have it .......... a little bit of Scarborough’s history a century ago.

Location; the Yorkshire coast,






Picture; Scarborough after the raid, picture postcards, 1914, from the collection of David Harrop

More Victorian Christmas Cards

From the collection of Tony Walker

Holiday greetings from Chorlton in the August of 1920

This is the last of the series of postcards produced by Tuck and Sons of scenes around Chorlton.

They were first marketed in 1913 and all but one of the five was specially produced for Robert Sowerbutts who sold newspapers and stationary and ran a circulating library from 105 Manchester Road.

It says something for the series that they were still in use a full seven years after they were first issued.

So this one of Edge Lane was sent in the August of 1920 and Cecil was commenting on his holiday here in Chorlton.

The weather had been good and he had visited Bell Vue on the Monday, watched the fireworks and enjoyed the sport.

He was also keen to alert Miss Bragg that he would be home on the Saturday.

Now given the speed of the postal service he could have his message on the Friday evening confident that Miss L Bragg would have to read with her breakfast.

As it was he sent the card on the Wednesday evening which may been prompted by a walk along Edge Lane which while it was dominated by tall fine mansions would have taken him be degree down small lanes and the open fields.

Pictures; Edge Lane from the series Chorlton-cum-Hardy, issued by Tuck & Sons, November 1913 courtesy of TuckDB http://tuckdb.org/history

On coming across my book on the shelves of Eltham Library

Now I am fascinated by the Eltham of the 1840s, so much so that most nights I fall asleep walking its lanes and field boundries.

Added to which over the years I have come to know many of the people who lived and worked there.

These include the blacksmiths who hammered and heated by the High Street.

In 1841 this was George Smith who was in Eltham by 1823 and still active at his forge in 1841.

Or Peter Wakeman an agricultural labourer who decorated his invitation to the “1833. Eltham Jubilee, in commemoration of the 50th year the Rev. J.K. Shaw Brooke has resided within the parish as Vicar, universally beloved and respected” and was nvited by name “... to partake on Thursday , the 5th day of September, of a dinner provided by public subscription in token of the respect and regard entertained the Vicar of the Parish Of Eltham, 1833."

And Mr Richard White who taught at the National School on Pound Place in 1841, and lived on the same street.

It is the sort of history I enjoy and comes from wanting to know about the lives behind the cottage doors.

This was pretty much why I started writing about the village I now live in which was a small rural community much like Eltham but without as many posh houses and like Eltham would in time become a suburb of its neighbouring city.

The Story of Chorlton-cum-Hardy was a snapshot of life during the first fifty years of the 19th century covering everything from domestic life, to work, play and the scandals of the village including two murders, two infanticides and a rates rebellion.

Now what I did not expect was to discover that it is now on the bookshelves of Eltham Library which pleases me not only because much of what is written in it could be applied to the area but for some very personal reasons.

I grew up in Well Hall and look back on those years with great fondness and owe much to my years at Crown Woods, my sister Stella worked at the library and finally I like to think my mother would have been pleased given that she too  wrote stories and plays and was working on a book before she died.

So before this slides into a piece of outrageous self promotion I would just like to thank who ever ordered up the book allowing a little bit of me to sit in the library I liked so much.

Pictures, Peter Wakeman’s invitation from from The story of Royal Eltham, R.R.C. Gregory, 1909 and published on The story of Royal Eltham, by Roy Ayers, http://www.gregory.elthamhistory.org.uk/bookpages/i001.htm and cover of Chorlton-cum-Hardy, the Story, 2012


*The story of Royal Eltham, R.R.C. Gregory, 1909

** THE STORY OF CHORLTON-CUM-HARDY, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/the-story-of-chorlton-cum-hardy.html

One hundred years of one house in Chorlton part 92 ......... the washing up bottle and the project

The continuing story of the house Joe and Mary Ann Scott lived in for over 50 years and the families that have lived here since.*

Now I have to confess to never throwing anything away.

Having parents and grandparents who lived through two world wars and the Depression, and who could always find a use for almost any discarded item, I scrutinise everything with a view as to its possible reuse.

Dad kept tons of old screws, storing them in discarded dried milk tins, while mum had her button box.

And while the kids were growing up I saved cereal boxes, washing up bottles and assorted milk tops.

The cardboard cereal boxes were perfect for making space ships while milk tops smoothed out are just perfect for all manner of decorations.

But it was the washing up bottle which provided just what we needed for our Joshua’s science project.

The mission which we had to undertake was to produce a moving object, which we did with Mr Squeezy, a plastic propeller some toy wheels and an elastic band.

And in an age before Internet help we devised it and made it ourselves and the rest as they say was an evening’s work finished off with some bright red and yellow paint which set off the black top.

For years it was a feature on a book shelf and then finally made its way to the cellar and a decade inside a cardboard box, only to emerge into the daylight yesterday.

Location; Chorlton

Pictures; Joshua’s moving washing up bottle, circa 1996, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*The story of a house,
https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/The%20story%20of%20a%20house

Letter from Manchester .......... December 2017

Now it is that time of year when most of us will be very focused on family events.

Castlefield, 2007

And amongst the maelstrom of activities from wrapping presents, and unwrapping presents, sitting down to the big meal with an eye on the Queen’s Speech and the repeat of “It’s a Wonderful Life”, those of us with BHC ancestors will find a moment when we stop and reflect on what Christmas was like for a young person born in Britain and living in Canada at the turn of the last century.

Our own great uncle had done 15 Christmases before he sailed west and most if not all of them would have been in an institution of some sort leaving only one spent on a Canadian farm and another two somewhere in France during the Great War.

What happened to him after his demob and how he spent Christmas in the years afterwards are lost to us.

In time I am confident we shall find out more, and our cousin Marisa is on the case.

St Anns Square, 2016

In the meantime I have gone off in a different direction and have been drawn in to the story of the Manchester and Salford Boys’ and Girls’ Refuges which migrated young people from the 1870s but unlike the other charities stopped in 1914 and never continued the practise after the Great War.

My interest is partly that I have lived in the city for almost half a century but also because the charity has commissioned me to write their history to coincide with their 150th anniversary in 2020.

It is an exciting project, in the course of which I have been able to roam their archives, explore the wider issues of 19th century “care in the community” and revisit the different interpretations of the history of BHC.

But as Noddy Holder of Slade once shouted “Its Christmas” and with that in mind rather than offer up a festive card, I have included a few pictures of the city drawn from the last decade.

Piccadilly Railway Station, 2015

I know I should have gone back into the historical record and selected scenes that were familiar to a BHC from Manchester and Salford, but that I do all the time.

So here is a collection of ones of my adopted city from the last decade and a bit which have been chosen purely because they span the time I have been interested in BHC.

Leaving me to thank all those who run sites and organisations dedicated to promoting an interest and understanding of the story and of course to all those who beaver away at helping others find details of a relative who was migrated.

Stevenson Square, 2017

Merry Christmas, a Happy New Year and may the continuing personal search we are all on prove fruitful for each of us, with the knowledge that the story of British Home Children has matured into a serious area of study, which makes for a nice present.








Pictures; Manchester, 2007-2017

Victorian Christmas Cards

From the collection of Tony Walker