A Rich Vein - and a Sad End

I am always pleased to hear from folk from around the world - none more so that those who I have been able to help wit their Beeston ancestors. This week I was pleased to hear from Trish Symonds from Australia who had extracted several pages of very interesting Beeston related stories from 19th century newspaper archives. I even discovered that my gt-gt-grandfather's brother - Thomas Hudston, then Beeston's postmaster - was killed on the railway crossing in May 1877.

But I was particularly struck by this poignant story from the Derby Mercury in March 1830 :

On the 26th ult., a coroner’s inquest was held at Codnor Park, in this county, on view of the body of Samuel Fletcher, late of Beeston, Nottinghamshire. The deceased had been begging in that neighbourhood for some days, and appeared unwell. On the day of his death he had applied to some miners there to let him lie down in one of their cabins, but was inhumanly refused. The poor fellow sat down near to a cabin door, and in two hours was found a corpse. Verdict – “Died by a Visitation of God”.

There is much in these extracts to explore and to develop into stories for this site and I certainly hope to do that - as always, keep visiting and watching for what's new about what's old !

End of an Era

The news that the Ericsson presence in Beeston will come to an end later this year is sad indeed. The origins of the factory in Beeston Rylands were built in 1901 by the National Telephone Company Ltd but were soon - in 1903 - taken over by British L M Ericsson Manufacturing Co Ltd. At the time this was a very significant development in the town, bringing the manufacture of a new technology of the age to replace the traditional textile industries - particularly lace and silk - which, even then, were past their peak.


And what a contribution to local prosperity - and the development of local skills - it made. Always a major employer, at its height in the years after the 2nd World War over 5000 were employed there. Anyone who lived in Beeston will remember the stream of bicycles and buses which passed through Beeston at the end of the working day - and at at mid-day when, as was then the custom, many of the workers went home for a midday meal. Nothing (except the railway crossing gates, before the road bridge was built) stopped them as they passed through the town.

For many too, it was the employer of choice when leaving school - in an era when engineering apprenticeships were sought after, forming a first-rate basis for a career. I well remember that, in the 1950s when I was leaving school, many considered a place in the Ericsson Drawing Office the perfect job. Now of course, the traditional draughtsman is no more. The old skills, prized by generations of local people and respected by their peers, are no longer learned.

These valuable skills were not just a basis for a job, they also often formed the basis of a hobby - many a model steam engine or radio set was constructed in a Beeston garden shed ! One group we heard of even got together and constructed the first television receiver in Beeston.

We hear that the workforce is down to about 300 - whatever the number, the loss of the jobs is particularly tragic for those involved as well as the town - and that perhaps half of these will be offered jobs in Coventry. Here, history is repeating itself when we recall that, in 1907, Beeston's economy was hit severely by the consolidation of Humber car manufacture to Coventry. Then, 3000 workers followed the jobs leaving empty properties and depressed conditions throughout Beeston. How much worse would it have been if Ericssons had not arrived and developed to help fill the gap. Lets hope that other opportunities arise now to use and develop local skills.

A Mysterious Find

When Julie Batchelor, of St Barnabas Church in Chilwell, approached me to help identify a collection of family papers which had come to light, I was intrigued and keen to help. The papers - mostly books, family photographs and postcards - were found in a box in the rafters of the church - and there is no real explanation as to why they were put there.

After examining them in detail, it was reasonably straightforward to establish that they appear to have belonged to Harold Bernard Garratt who was probably born in Beeston on 1914 and died in Nottingham in 1992. His parents were Bernard and Flora (née Hayward) who lived at 5 Chapel Street, Beeston (this would have been one of a row of cottages associated with the old Methodist New Connexion Chapel, long gone - having been absorbed into The Square shopping centre in the late 1960s). Harold attended Church Street school and there was a series of class photographs which I was kindly permitted to scan for the schools page on this site.

Using the available clues and the easy availability of the 19th century census records, it is easy to track his ancestors - but that is not the main objective. Ideally, the wish is to offer the collection to his descendants. So - we have to tackle the more difficult task of tracking the family forwards.

What do we know so far ? Using the evidence from a rent book in the collection, we know that, by 1938, he had married and was living with his wife at Gloucester Avenue, Chilwell, just over the Beeston boundary. This gave us a relatively small search in the GRO indexes from about 1935 - when he would have been 20. In fact, the couple were wed in Basford Registration District (probably in Beeston, but not, according to my available records, at the Parish church). His wife was Hilda Comery (1915-1999). No births to the couple have been found up to 1940.

That's the progress to date. The search will continue using the records that are available to us - including electoral rolls and newspapers - but help from anyone who knows the family would be very welcome.

Look forward to hearing from you !

New Premises, Old Tradition

On Saturday morning I was very pleased to attend the opening of the new Pearson Centre for Young People on Nuart Road - on what was part of Roundhill School field. This excellent, purpose-built building replaces the old Lads' Club building on Station Road which has now been demolished as part of the Tesco development. The centre provides a wide range of activities for young people and facilities for the community and is the home of the 17th Nottingham Boys Brigade and the Girls Brigade.



The old building (shown left) - and the sports field on Queens Road which is also being redeveloped - were originally given, for the most part, by the Pearson family - notable Steven Hetley Pearson who was killed in World War 1. The original building - opened in 1913 and extended in 1915 - served generations of young people for about 95 years and it owes much to the foresight of the original donors in providing these facilities that the provision of such excellent new facilities has been possible.




It was appropriate therefore that a member of the present generation of the Pearson family, Simon Mark Pearson, a great nephew of Steven Hetley Pearson - and grandson of Gervas Pearson - should officially open the new premises. In this, he was ably supported by the Mayor of Broxtowe, Councillor Brian Wombwell and the Chairman of the Centre, John Wilson. This historic moment in the life of the centre is shown above.

We wish the centre well in its excellent work for the young people of Beeston and district.

Names from the past

Earlier this year I added several school group photographs to the site - some of which were from my own family archives. Although I invited people to identify individuals - or even the date in many cases - I wasn't too hopeful of learning anything about the early 20th century groups.

I had forgotten though, that I had asked my mother the same question about 25 years ago - and, over Christmas, I found her notes which I have now added to the Church Street School groups which are tentatively dated 1910 and 1914.

I am pleased to say that as a result, most of the girls on the 1914 group and some on the 1910 picture, are now identified for posterity.

It's a reminder to us all that now is time to put names to all those family photographs we can identify now but will be more difficult - perhaps impossible - for future generations if we don't do it now.

Useful to know

Wednesday found me on my way down the M1 - through driving rain, as it happens - to visit Leicestershire Archives to follow up a few aspects of the life of Samuel Theodore Bunning. I had corresponded with the staff there and they were most helpful in providing details that confirmed that a visit would be useful. Once there, the efficient service continued and, I was able to check all the sources, -both originals and microfilm - and get the details and copies I wanted all within a three hour visit. As is always the case, it has taken much longer to follow up the genealogy and write up the detail that arises - but its almost done now and will appear today on the site.

One source they do have which I found most useful and convenient was a set of microfiche of the wills proved at Leicester Probate Registry which run up to comparative recent years. Up to now, many of us have used the Postal Searches & Copies Department at York to get copies for a relatively modest fee but now, at least for Leicester wills, these details are even easier to obtain. I don't believe that a similar facility resource at Nottingham Archives yet - lets hope that we will see them there soon.

Difficult - but enjoyable

As I have often mentioned, I get a lot of requests for help from people around the world who have Beeston connections of some kind. As I have always said, I enjoy these contacts. Most are very appreciative, they usually (sadly, not always) reply with a thank-you and many feed back useful information that I can use to build my view of Beeston. Its a big jigsaw and inevitably others have some of the pieces so I am always looking for input that helps fill out the picture.

But, if I was asked to describe my favourite tasks I would have to say its finding long-lost relatives with a Beeston connection. But the irony is that although we are dealing with more recent times, the task is very much more difficult than tracking ancestors in the 19th century - the census is not yet available, there are restrictions on some records, indexing of records is not as complete and - a huge problem - people are much more mobile. But there are also big pluses - notable the Internet which is making available information which has been hidden for decades and sometimes centuries, people interact with social networking site and Google helps us to find traces and connections that would have been invisible before.

This year, so far, there have been several such searches, all of them successful. Some required great sensitivity and caution because of the personal issues involved, another - seeking living descendants to settle an estate in the States - took six months but successfully reunited a family some members of which had not not moved far while others, who seemingly vanished, were found half way around the world.

But it was one that I was able to solve in the last month that has given me particular pleasure. A contact from a Belgian local history group asked for help to locate a member of a Lancaster bomber crew who were on a Cologne raid when they were brought down in June 1943. Some of the crew lost their lives but some survived and were captured - but not before they were helped by a local family which still retains a vivid memory of one survivor. He had been tracked to a post-war address in Beeston but he had soon moved on from there. I hope to publish the full story in due course but suffice to say, I was very pleased to be able to track the gentleman to an address on the south coast and a reunion is being planned.

Certainly, it was a very great privilege to help with this request in particular.