The mystery of the Woolwich picture ........

Now there is a story here..... but I am just not sure what it is.

The meeting, 1911, 1914

We are outside the Royal Arsenal in Beresford Square at what appears to be a meeting.

The caption on the pictures postcard just says, “A Dinner Time Crowd, Before Beresford Square, Woolwich”.

I have now come across it twice, once on social media and also on Pinterrest, and I guess it will pop up elsewhere.

Always careful of copyright I went looking for the company which marketed it.  I know they were P&S and that our picture carried the catalogue number 1329 but so far that has led nowhere.

And that is frustrating because the name might reveal the catalogue which in turn might offer up a date and context.

Listening

Nor do I have the reverse side which might provide a company address, the name of the retailer and perhaps even a message with a post mark and date.

So we are back to the hard way which is looking for clues in the photograph.  The caption refers to a “dinner time crowd " which is confirmed by the clock and given the close proximately to the Royal Arsenal I am guessing that many of those in the picture will be Arsenal workers.

It is a big crowd large enough to have stopped the tram and seems to be entirely made up of men.  The meeting is coming to a close and some men have already started to make their way toward the gates of the Arsenal.

At present those two dates have yet to be confirmed.  If it is 1914 and given that no one is wearing an overcoat we may be in the summer and possibly July or August just as the Great War is about to break out.

This could suggest a peace rally or a patriotic call to action.  Some trade unions were opposed to a possible war seeing it as a disaster for Europe and in particular for working people.

The tram

Alternatively if the year is 1911, then this could be a meeting called to discuss the Government’s plans to reduce the workforce from 14,000 to 8,000, by directing work to private companies.

Our own MP for Woolwich, Mr Will Crooks, speaking in the House of Commons observed that it “was a moral impossibility for the Government to run the Arsenal with anything like the safety with only 8,000 men [when] the Governments’ own officials had said it could not be run with any degree of certainty, with fewer than 14,000 men”, reflecting that “the Government were turning away practical workmen, and in a case of sudden emergency these men could not be replaced from the street”.

And concluded that at a time when the Government had increased military spending “the proper place for some of that outlay was in the Government’s own workshops.  No business man would think of putting out work he could do in his own factory.  It was only in the case of the Government that it was found the private contractor had complete control of the situation”.*

That debate occurred in the June of 1911 which fits again with what appears to be a summer’s day in Beresford Square.

Returning from the meeting

Of course there is a lot more research to do, but 1911 into the following year was also a high point industrial action with the Government sending troops into the Welsh coal fields, and the Manchester docks along with Royal Naval vessels to Liverpool.

And today after a comment that there was a strike on July 6 1914, I went looking and yep it started after the dismissal of one man, who refused to work on the erection of a machine on a concrete foundation built by black leg builders.

The strike quickly spread to the whole of the Royal Arsenal with the very real possibility that it would then spread beyond Woolwich.

Three days later it was settled to the satisfaction of the workers.**

So this could be the strike, we shall have to see.

Location; Woolwich

Picture; “A Dinner Time Crowd, Before Beresford Square, Woolwich”, 1911 or 1914, posted by Teresa Ann on I’m from South East London and on Printerst

*Wages in Government Arsenals, Manchester Guardian, June 14, 1911

**Manchester Guardian, July 6-9, 1914

Call Up: The Story of National Service …. Tonight on the wireless

I missed being conscripted into the Armed Forces by just a decade.

The policy of conscripting young men for 18 month started in January 1949, with the last leaving the services in 1963.

You still hear older people call for its return, although I suspect many of those will never have experienced being “called up”.

Some of my older friends who just missed it or indeed went through it have very different views as to its usefulness.

So I am looking forward to Call Up: The Story of National Service,  in the series Archive on 4, on Radio 4, tonight at 8pm.*

“Sixty years after the last conscripts arrived at their barracks and queued for their kit, historian Richard Vinen uncovers stories of the two million young men who went through National Service.

While some embraced the discipline, camaraderie and opportunities that National Service offered, others endured misery. Most never left the country, but some fought in Korea or the Malayan jungle, or found themselves in Kenya, Suez or Cyprus.

As well as memories of parade grounds and patriotism, brief moments of terror and long months of tedium, Richard considers the absurdities of army life and post-war ideas of class and masculinity.

And in an era when war with the Soviet Union seemed likely, Richard unpicks the politics of National Service from the late 1940s to the early 1960s, asking why post-war Britain needed its young conscripts and whether conscription changed Britain.

A TBI Media production for BBC Radio 4"

Picture; Are You with Us in National Service? 1939-45. This poster was scanned and released by the Imperial War Museum on the IWM Non Commercial Licence. The artwork was created by a commissioned military artist during their active service duties in the First World War. In the UK this these became controlled under the Crown Copyright provisions and so faithful reproductions may be reused under that licence, which is considered expired after 50 years.

*Call Up: The Story of National Service Archive 4, https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000g520

My Salford ........... nu 3 a glass of wine a shedload of water and the prospect of a show

Now I don’t claim that any of the following short series of pictures of Salford are magnificent photographs but I like them.

A lunch time drink at the Lowry.

Location; Salford

Picture; Salford 2013 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

New records from the Great War go online …………….

I think we have become accustomed to being able to delve into the past, and pluck from the wealth of online records, all manner of information about our ancestors.

Three decades ago much of this information was much harder to track down, and involved journeys to Records Offices, requests to churches to investigate their parish archives, and trawling newspapers for any mention of a family member.

And yet the past is still a place with many shadows, in which lurk much of what we search for.

So I doubt we will ever know the identity of this woman. She was a member of the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps, and the picture comes from the collection of David Harrop.
I asked David for the picture, as a way of introducing a new set of online records which are available from Findmypast.

They will enable historians and those wanting to know more about family members who served in the Corps during the Great War to “Explore this amazing collection of records from your ancestor’s service with the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps during World War One. 

The records include application forms, medical examinations, uniform assignment forms, personal references and much more. Through these documents you will find your ancestor’s birthplace, a physical description and medical history, work and education background and details about your ancestor’s parents’ nationalities. 

For the family historian this is an amazing resource and exciting to discover with so many documents in one place. The original documents are held at The National Archives in London in series WO 162 and WO 398. 625 records are women from outside of the United Kingdom. 

Many of these women are children of British parents and had moved out of the country”*

And a fitting release in the month where we celebrate International Women's Day

Location; the Great War

Picture; unknown member of Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps, circa 1914-1918, from the collection of David Harrop

*Findmypast.

Games we played ......... on the Rec, separated by a century

There is always a danger in running a story about playgrounds and how they have changed over a century and a bit.

The temptation is to fasten on the dangers of see saws, hard surfaces, and those nasty, stomach churning roundabouts.  Which in turn allows those of a certain age to mutter darkly about “Health and Safety” and the dominance of electronic games and the smart phone amongst the young.

Well, I was part of that generation that went out in the morning in the holidays and pretty much stayed out till time, armed with nothing more than a bottle of Tizer and the price of a bag of chips.

Added to which we did get into scrapes, and once sank to our ankles in the smelly, oil impregnated Thames mud, and frequently fell off the play equipment onto the concrete.

That said certain Health and Safety regulations wouldn’t have gone amiss, and I rather think I would have liked a smart phone.

All of this was prompted by coming across the rocking horses, swings, and slides in the Rec today, which contrast nicely with their counter parts from 1910.

In one sense the similarities are greater than you think, in that both offered endless repetitive play with the added fun of a bit of a challenge.  In 1910 that challenge involved seeing who could bump the other off the seesaw, while today it might be who could or manage to take the swing the highest.

And here I confess that back in 1958, the added twist in the swing contest was to see who could shout even louder the refrain “I can see Bognor”, which made little sense as we were firmly in south east London.

But such are the stories of games played at their fullest, remembered 62 years after the event.

Then there were the singing games, which for my generation were about creating a song including as many of the leading characters in the Westerns shown on the TV.

And here I am in danger of sliding into nostalgic tosh, so instead I shall just point to the heap of litter which covered the Rec back on that day in 1910.

Location; the Rec; Beech Road

Pictures; the Rec, 2020, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, and back in 1910 from the Lloyd Collection

The New Oxford in Salford .............. a pub with more names than me

Now here is a pub with a history and I rather think a shed load of stories.

The New Oxford, 2015

After all according to that excellent pub site the Pubs of Manchester “the New Oxford was originally the Town Hall Tavern beer house in the 1850s in what was then Bexley Street, it become the Court Tavern a few years later then the Amateurs Arms in 1871 when it contained a music hall.”*

Later it changed its name again to the Oxford Hotel when Wilsons Brewery acquired it and the four neighbouring shops and cottages.

There is more but for that you will just have to follow the link and read the rest of the story.

The Town Hall and the pub that became The New Oxford, 1844 

I can’t say I have been inside but Peter’s painting has certainly made me want to.

And as we get to the midpoint on the book on Manchester pubs it may well be time to go down there and sample the beer just of course in the interests of historical research and to see how better Salford pull a pint.





Location; Bexley Square Salford

Paintings; the New Oxford, Salford, © 2015, Peter Topping,
Facebook; Paintings from Pictures, Web: www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk


Map; Bexley Square, 1844, from Manchester & Salford OS, 1844, courtesy of Digital Archive Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/

*The New Oxford, Manchester Pubs, http://pubs-of-manchester.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/New%20Oxford%20-%20Bexley%20Square

Back on Hulme Hall Road ............... five years on

Now, it has been five years since Andy wandered down Hulme Hall Road, and began recording the sad fate of the warehouse which had been damaged by fire, and was eventually demolished.

And Andy being Andy, then began regularly revisiting the site, photographing first the demolition, then the moment the builders broke ground on the new development, and the slow rise of the new building.

Yesterday he was back on what might be one of his last visits.  The building seems complete and with a nod to the history of the site the developers have included a little bit of its history a on a plaque.

But not content with taking pictures of the property Andy also took a few of the Duke’s Canal which I rather liked.

Location; Hulme Hall Road







Pictures; Hulme Hall Excelsior Works, 2020, from the collection of Andy Robertson