Thomas Pemberton – Blacksmith

The Newport History Society recently came into possession of daybooks, ledgers, correspondence and newspaper cuttings of the late Thomas Pemberton, kindly donated by his niece.

They give a fascinating insight into the life of a blacksmith in the twentieth century whose career spanned the vast changes in farming practices from horse-pulled ploughs to full mechanisation. Thomas kept pace and adapted his work from making horse shoes and mending farm machinery to more intricate and creative wrought ironwork. He even demonstrated his craft for the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh at the Shropshire and West Midlands show.

Thomas Richard Pemberton was born in 1902. His father (also named Thomas) was a blacksmith until he retired in 1926 and Thomas took over the business at Puleston Forge, Chetwynd. One of the first entries in the daybook for 1933 (the earliest existing records) show that he charged 2 shillings for making a horseshoe. He reminisced in a newspaper interview given later in life that he made his first horseshoe at the age of ten. The bulk of his work in the early days was for shoeing horses and repairs to agricultural equipment such as threshing boxes and ridge ploughs.In the 1930s he styled himself ‘Farrier and General Agricultural Smith’ and worked for local farmers as well as the Aquelate Estate and Harper Adams Agricultural college, now Harper Adams University.

 By the 1940s he referred to himself on headed notepaper as ‘Farrier and Agricultural Engineer’ as he moved into more complex wrought iron work and welding larger pieces of machinery using an acetylene welder.  In 1943 he overhauled an Eddison steam roller in Dorset. He was paid £30, 12shillings and 4 pence (over £1000 in today’s money) so it was well worth the trip. Back at the forge on a more mundane level he started working for Salop County Council Roads and bridges department sharpening picks and between 1946 and 1949 he sharpened 336 picks at one shilling each. He was still shoeing horses late in his career but they were racehorses and hunters more than working farm horses.

 

Possibly the most impressive example of his work are the gates to the Shropshire and West Midland showground in Shrewsbury. They were made in 1951 as part of a regional celebration of the Festival of Britain. The festival commemorated one hundred years since the Great Exhibition of 1851, a showcase for the best in British science and technology. As well as the famous 1951 Festival site on the South bank of the Thames in London there were celebrations and exhibitions all over the country. Thomas’s gates showed off the skill involved in making large pieces of wrought ironwork.  The official opening by Lord Forester took place on 25^th May 1951 with Tom present and the Newport and Market Drayton Advertiser on hand to take a photograph of them shaking hands.

In the 1960s he continued to make a variety of items ranging from a cattle grid for Aquelate Estate to ornamental wrought iron staircase for a farm in Childs Ercall and the memorial gates at Adams Grammar school. Late in his career, in 1966, he got an order from Newport (Salop) town council for garden gates at £9 per gate. His drawings and the correspondence between him and the town surveyor K A Griffiths survive in his papers. There is no record of the siting of the gates but they may still be gracing the entrances to properties today. In 1973 (after he had retired) he restored the weather vane on St Nicholas church, High street. He added feathers which were gilded by John Mansell.

In his spare time Thomas was a very keen and talented bass baritone who made forty public performances in the Winter of 1952/53. He was also involved in amateur dramatics, played the piano and was a church warden  of St. Michael and All Angels church, Chetwynd and member of Chetwynd parish council.

Another aspect of his life was the fact that he was diagnosed as a type 1 diabetic when he was twenty one years of age. This would be unremarkable today but in 1923 the prognosis was not encouraging. Luckily, Tom was one of the first people in the country to be treated with insulin. In 1970 he gave a talk to the Diabetic Association of Birmingham entitled ‘My life as a diabetic for 47 years’. In 1976, when he was 74 he was interviewed by the Newport Advertiser  and was pictured drinking his first ever pint of beer. Tom died in 1982 in Wrexham.

The Old William Adams Town Hall

Last year we were pleased again to have access to and digitise an engraving from Caroline Cross’s archives at Davies White & Perry. Here we have an engraving created and printed by  Adnitt & Naunton whose business was based at The Square Shrewsbury. Newport History Society have come across versions of this picture but have not seen an original engraving before. We were therefore very pleased when Caroline agreed that we could copy it to our Newport SNAP Project, which for people who dont know is a project to digitise all images of Newport both past and present.

The engraving is by Adnitt & Naunton, whose names appear in the left hand corner. It seems their business started in 1872  and they were engravers and printers.  Henry William Adnitt was very much involved with the Shropshire Archaeological and Natural History Society being their librarian. The company survived until 1978 when at the retirement of the general manager, Frank Lycett, the business closed .

Newport old town hall was built as part of a bequest through the will of Newport’s William Adams, who also founded Haberdashers Adams Grammar School, and who gave £550 towards this town hall. Inside there was a corn market. A general market was held on Saturdays. Above was a large room which held petty session and county courts.

In this engraving we see to the left, in the distance, the Butter Cross market . This encapsulated a cross erected for the soul of Roger de Puleston who fought with king against the Welsh. The cross is still there today.

Here we see an image of the market  in 1850s. The important people of the town decided that they wished the town hall and market be moved to the side of the High Street, with the market behind the town hall. You can see that on market day, the High Street became a quagmire of dirt, and it is no surpise that these peope decided to demolish both the town hall and the butter market.

The new town hall opened late in 1859, and we assume soon afterwards the town hall and butter market were demolished.

 

 

The Newport (Salop) Tradesmen’s Plate Glass Insurance Association 1935-1981

 

Documents consisting of minutes of meetings, correspondence, policy documents and savings books of the Association, which ran from 1934 to 1981, were given to the Newport History Society in March 1998 by Geoffrey Robinson of Lloyd and Robinson Solicitors.

The Association was formed at a meeting in the Literary Institute on Wednesday 28^th March 1934. Tradesmen present were: W.G Hayward (grocer, 18 St Mary St.), J Tucker (ironmonger, 55 High St.), F. W Midgley (confectioner and grocer, 2-5 Lower Bar), T.W Hutchin (draper, 81 High St), J Elkes (baker, 66 High St. and 3 St Mary St.), J Scarratt (tailor, 31 High St.), C. E Plant who was represented by H Plant (draper, 79 High St.), R. H Turner (boot dealer, 27 High St.), F Bridge (Draper, 22 High St.), S. B Hayward. Also present was a solicitor J. R Elliott and W T Chamberlain.

The object of the Association was the insurance of the plate glass windows in commercial premises.  Those present elected F W Midgley as the first chairman. In the Rules it was agreed that there would be a maximum of twenty members; the reasoning behind this decision is not recorded.

 

Plant’s drapers, 79 High Street.

The first policy was issued to Messrs Bridge and Doxon drapers of 22 to 24 High Street. They paid 10 shillings and a penny. Fifteen original 1934 policies exist in the archive. The bank they chose to deposit the funds into was the Salop and Welsh Counties Savings Bank and they started the Association with £204.18s3d. The entrance fee was 5% of the value of the glass insured. The yearly premium was set at 2.5%. This premium held for over twenty years.

Bridge and Doxon, 22-24 High Street.

 

In September, 1940 the association got into a dispute with the General Accident, Fire and Life Assurance Co Ltd. A van owned by Brookfields of Trentham Road, Longton and insured with GA collided with a window blind of the Ark Stores and broke a window. GA denied liability because the blind overhung the road by 18 inches thus absolving their driver of blame. The cost of repairing the window was £13 but the total income from premiums that year was only £15. The Association tried to persuade GA to contribute half the costs. This was denied but eventually GA wrote that they ‘would be prepared to contribute one-third of your loss, as an indication of our desire to settle the matter in an amicable spirit’. The Association tried again for the higher figure but agreed to ‘gratefully accept the smaller contribution’ and received a cheque on the 4^th December.

 

 

In March 1944 the Association again went into battle with a most formidable enemy: the British Army. An army jeep from Aqualate Park travelling in convoy skidded on ice and broke the window of the grocer Messrs R Brittain of 58 High Street. The cost of repair was £24.10s0d. The Association wrote to the Director of Claims of Western Command in Chester asking for a reimbursement of the full amount. Lt. Arthur Jackson, assistant claims director wrote that ‘this accident was in no way due to the negligence of the War Department driver’. He attributed it to the icy conditions but offered an ex gratia payment of 2/3 of the cost. The Association did not give up and persisted in asking for the full cost.

 

The correspondence continued back and forth. Lt. Jackson wrote an exasperated letter expressing ‘regret that your committee do not yet feel able to accept the suggested recommendation mentioned in my last letter’.  The Association pursued full reimbursement and on June 23^rd they received a letter stating that the Army would pay £24.10s.0d ‘in full and final settlement of the claim’.

Included in the correspondence of the association is a letter written in March 1951 to Mrs Lawrence of 4 Chetwynd End concerning her son who was alleged to have broken the window of the Happy Days café which at that time was owned by T W Hutchins. They wrote again in April, this time to Mr Lawrence, threatening legal action if Mr and Mrs Lawrence did not pay for the damage caused by their son. The cost was £20.5s which, according to an online inflation calculator, equates to over £400 today. There is no further correspondence so it can be assumed that the Lawrence family paid.

Tucker’s 55, High Street.

In June 1958 when the membership was down to twelve businesses an existential crisis arose and an extraordinary meeting was called for the 16^th September. Present were H. O Hogben (chair), Messrs Midgeley, Tucker, Plant, Smith and Hitchin. During that year a large claim had arisen from G. H Austins, owners of Happy Days café, for £99.7s.8d. This meant that the association only had £79.5s.2d left in the bank and its future was in doubt. They agreed to levy an additional 2.5% premium on all members. The 5% premium stayed for the following year as members felt that they should aim for a reserve fund of between £125 and £150. At the AGM on 21^st June 1960 the only claim was for £50.7s. paid to Darralls and Tucker but the financial situation was still precarious so the recommendation was carried to increase the premium again to 7.5%. The premium was increased again to 10% from 1961 to 1964 where they managed to accumulate £244.6.11 in the bank. Unfortunately, in 1965 they had yet another claim for Happy Days café and a significant claim for £139.9.8 for The London House department store and gentlemen’s outfitters owned by Plant. In 1967 Happy Days café (which over the years was a magnet attracting breakages) cancelled their policy as the café had closed. The building was demolished and replaced with a new building housing Woolworths. The Woolworths building is currently occupied by B&M.

In 1960 Dorothy Hartley of 29 High Street put in a claim when she said that vibration from traffic caused a set of shelves to fall and break a window in the property.  The following year Dorothy cancelled the policy saying that she had taken out a new comprehensive insurance policy which included plate glass windows. This probably signalled the beginning of the end for the association as businesses realised they did not need separate cover for their plate glass. By 1973 they were down to seven members: H.E Tucker, T.B Plant, F.W Midgley, Hogbens Garage, L .M Browns Motors, Mr and Mrs Jones, R.W Wright.

In that year the policies rolled over with no premiums being paid. There is very little activity recorded for the rest of the decade. At a meeting held on 24^th April 1981 a resolution was carried to dissolve the association. The money in the bank was distributed to H E Tucker, T. B Plant, F Midgley, L M Brown Motors, R W Wright and Mr and Mrs Jones.

Sources:

Newport History Society Archive     NDHS 00087  00090 09.06

Kelly’s Business Directory 1934      NDHS 00644 07.06

 

Picken Papers Advertising Stamp

Picken Papers 

This advertising stamp was found recently in the Picken Papers ( NHS01616) in one of his scrap books

In 1873, Picken glued this advertisement into his scrap book and wrote :

 “Given by Mr Aston, grocer who succeeded T Collier in the shop called ‘The Lower Bar’. Stamp used by the present T Collier’s grandfather probably 150 years old.”   He also noted that “BB” means “Best Broseley”

 The image is an historical depiction of slaves or native American Indians with grass skirts and pipes . They are standing on tobacco barrels.  Beside the barrels and on their lids, there are tobacco rolls.

In the 17^th and early 18^th century,  the leaves were rolled, then spun into rope, which was wound into balls weighing as much as a hundred pounds . These balls were protected in canvas or barrels for the journey to Britain.

Thomas Collier is listed in an 1828 trade directory as a druggist, grocer, ironmonger and nail manufacturer. Quite a mixture of trades!  His business was taken over in 1835 by Jones and Aston and he died in 1850.

On the 1851 census, which has been transcribed by our member Geoff Culshaw and is available for members to use,  we see that Mr Jones and Mr Aston lived next to each other (respectively  1 and 3 Lower Bar). They are both described as ‘ Grocer and ironmonger’, although  Mr  Jones says that he employs 3 grocers and 10 blacksmiths. Mr Aston had no employees, so perhaps Mr Aston was a sleeping partner.

The image above shows Vernon’s ‘Canister’ store; see the canister above the door.  This is two doors away from Jones and Aston ( 1 Lower Bar). The Canister, today, is James Dalloway hairdresser.  Jones and Aston’s became Hogben’s garage in the mid 20th century and is now ‘Home Essentials’.

King Charles III Commemoration Tree Planting

On Monday 8th May, the Coronation Bank Holiday, members of various Newport organisations met in Victoria Park to plant fruit trees as part of a commemorative orchard celebrating the Coronation of King Charles III.  These trees are to represent the ecological values of the King and provide free fruit to the residents of Newport.  Members of NDHS met to plant our tree, which is an Apple tree still emblazoned with blossom, on a wet day, but missing the rain during the Ceremony.  The event was organised by Newport Town Council and presided over by the Deputy Mayor.  We were also honoured by the attendance of the Mr Anthony Morris-Eyton, Deputy Lieutenant of Shropshire.  The RDHS tree is clearly marked in the new orchard, so please take time to have a look when you are next passing.