Bristol Times 12 November 2013

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● Ships at anchor at King Road. The Mouth of the Avon is in the background. The June painting by Joseph Walter Sat was 1st done in the 1830s, 80 years after the voyage of the War Horse (2 Only) Dreadnought, but gives a good idea of what King Road would have looked likeincluding in the top price Full day Museums, Galleries days of sail. Courtesy of Bristol evening tickets - Adults £132.95 and Archives BMAG K462

Robbie Williams @ Wembley

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Wed 28th Aug

ily, so until recently has not Lion Kingit‘Matinee’ been available to the public.

Top arriving price evening Since at tickets the BRO, Adults it has been- Child tran-£79.95 £99.95 scribed by Nigel Sommerville, a retired solicitor who works there as a volunteer.

The journal describes a voyage taken by the Dreadnought in 1757.

The owners of the ship had obtained a letter of marque from the Government Coach only £47.95 – issued March 22, 1757 – which liIncluding General censed the ship to cruise against Admission £199.95 named enemy vessels.

This document

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As part of a national HE language may be old and dusty – but it is full of promcampaign to encourage ise: “A journal of the proceedpeople to use their local ings on board the SAT 13 OR Dreadnought archives more,• Bristol Celebrate 60th Coronation Anniversary privateer, James Leisman com(m)ander, 200 Royal Warranty Holders14 Exhibiting Record Office •has SUN 14 JULY mounting four pounders: • Products available on the Lawn fortoaPicnic four months cruise revealed a diary kept by against the enemies • Specially Selected Restaurants and Cafe’sof a man travelling on a Great Britain.”

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That is the title of a perBristol privateer in the • Perfumiers etc etc - Adult £59.95, 60Plus £57.95 sonal journal that was left 18th century. to Bristol Record Office in the ALSO AUG/SEPT - A of VARIED SELECTION OF BUCKINGHAM PALACE STATEROOMS, Eugene Byrne puts on will a woman who lived in the QUEEN’S GALLERY & ROYAL MEWS VISITS. but who hailed from Wiltshire. It his tricorn hat to plunder USA is thought that the diary was passed the tale. down through generations of her fam-

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Tuesday, November 12, 2013

Treasure trove Privateer diary reveals life on ocean wave

● Bristol Record Office volunteer Nigel Sommerville with the Dreadnought journal; above, its cover and title Courtesy of page Bristol Museums, Galleries and Archives BRO 44938

FROM PAGE 1 these owners as John Harbord, Jonah Thomas, Samuel Thomas and William Wasbrough, who were merchants from Bristol.

The author of the diary, the ship’s surgeon, is unknown. The surgeon was named Samuel Pye in the letter of marque – but a later advert for crew in Felix Farley’s Bristol Journal (May 7, 1757) stated that “an able surgeon is wanted”.

Britain was at war with France, so joining a privateer could be very lucrative for the crew who were paid a proportion of each prize captured.

The amount varied by rank, with the surgeon receiving six times more than a regular seaman. His financial account at the back of the diary shows that he earned more than £340 for the cruise. This was at a time when a skilled working man earning an honest living would be very fortunate to make £5 in a month.

The ship was well armed and had a crew of about 120 men. The surgeon mentioned treating about 50 of these during the cruise – everything from dislocated thumbs to musket-ball wounds.

Our anonymous surgeon’s journal covers a four-month journey from beginning to end, during which the Dreadnought cruised areas frequented by French ships, probably heading towards the Bay of Biscay. The Dreadnought chased and captured many vessels in case they were French. Those that were could be captured and sold, along with their cargo.

On June 1, the Dreadnought captured the Lyon, which was travelling from St Domingo to Bordeaux with a cargo of coffee, sugar and indigo from slave plantations in the West Indies.

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At 4am saw three sail to the eastward and perceived them to steer different courses. We singled out the largest and gave chase. At 1pm fired three guns at her and she struck her colours. She proved to be a large snow from St Domingo to Bordeaux laden with coffee, sugar and indigo. On boarding her we found 16 red-hot shot to fire at us. Sent officers and crew on board her to steer her home.

The Dreadnought brought the Lyon home to Kingroad, an anchoring point at the mouth of the Avon, where it would lie until the winds and tide were suitable for sailing into the port of Bristol. On July 16, an auction of the ship and goods was advertised in Felix Farley’s Bristol Journal, which valued the prize at £20,000.

Meanwhile, the Dreadnought had

Retired solicitor’s 12 years of cataloguing ● RETIRED solicitor Nigel Sommerville is one of the volunteers at the Bristol Record Office. He transcribed the journal, and will be giving a free talk about it at M shed at 6pm on Thursday, November 21.

He got into volunteering at BRO when he inherited some old Elizabethan-era legal documents.

He said: “When I retired 12 years ago I thought I would take them down to the BRO so that they could be looked after properly. While talking to the staff there the idea emerged of volunteering to do some amateur archiving, cataloguing some of the documents, particularly old legal documents, which had not yet been catalogued. I have been doing that ever since.”

Transcribing the journal was not that difficult as it was fairly legible. Parts of it are amusing.

Mr Sommerville said: “The surgeon did not seem to have a very high opinion of the captain.

continued its cruise, with more chases and encounters. The surgeon described stopping on Lundy Island.

deford. She with other privateers had taken six outward-bound St Domingo men.

Mr Crisp our linguist and self went ashore to kill some rabbits, returned in six hours with a great many couple of rabbits and good many murrs (guillemots) after a good deal of diversion. Lundy is an island about three miles long, full of rabbits and in the winter has plenty of woodcocks.

There is but one family (on the island) which consists of a man, his wife and four children. They rent the island at £10 per annum and pay their rent with the skins of rabbits, and murr feathers. About 12 o’clock at night all hands were called to quarters – for there was a privateer come round the point within gun shot of us. We hailed her and found her to be the Tygress of Bid-

Two days later the surgeon went ashore with the linguist (presumably a French interpreter), the captain and first lieutenant to shoot more rabbits and guillemots.

The surgeon recorded: “This day I was very near being shot – on the island by the carelessness of our captain.”

In another incident, the captain of another ship invited the captain of the Dreadnought to dine with him.

The surgeon reported that the captain “went… and returned at 10 o’clock at night, after getting so drunk that he tumbled out of the boat”.

Occasionally the crew members

were unruly – and towards the end of the cruise, they were keen to return home. But the captain insisted on staying at sea for several more days.

Throughout the text, the surgeon included notes on medical treatment he provided. And there are further details in two sections at the end – ‘An account of the sick men with their diseases’ and ‘An account of the cases in surgery’.

Most of those treated suffered from fever – although there were single cases of dysentery and smallpox – but death, accidents and injuries were also recorded.

In an attack on a French ship, “one man was shot through the heart – dead”, another lost an ear to a cannon ball and more suffered other injuries.

On the same occasion, the surgeon described how the ship’s carpenter

There are some sarcastic comments about the captain, particularly when he got drunk – which he did several times during the cruise, on one occasion causing the surgeon and the lieutenant to move out of the cabin ‘to mess where twas more agreeable’.”

So if Mr Sommerville had been around in the 1750s, would he have sailed on a privateer?

He said: “If I was a seaman in my early 20s I would have been very tempted to sign up on a privateer, for the excitement and the chance of earning a substantial sum by way of prize money. The ordinary seamen on the Dreadnought got more than £57 prize money each from a four-month cruise, which compares with an average merchant-seaman’s wages of £2 a month. If I was the age I am now, nothing would have induced me to join the crew of a privateer.”

was sent “raving mad” with fear.

There were also several accidents on the ship, such as men falling from the rigging or overboard.

There is little reference to the fate of the French crews except for: “When I came on board I found the Frenchman dead as was wounded in the abdomen, sewed him up in his hammock and tossed him overboard”.

The diary ended when the ship arrived at Hungroad, another anchoring point on the River Avon.

While the cruise had been a commercial success, the crew were glad that it had ended.

On this date, October 31, the surgeon wrote: “Cast anchor at Hungroad and all people went ashore. And God be praised I am once more landed in old England safe.”

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Tuesday, November 12, 2013

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EXPLORE YOUR ARCHIVE 2013 EXPLORE Your Archive – www. exploreyourarchive.org – is a national campaign to encourage people to discover more about archives.

Bristol Record Office is taking part to tell the story of the Dreadnought.

There are talks and tours, and you can follow the story of the Dreadnought online or use BRO’s online guides to find sources for your own research into the city’s maritime past.

EVENTS:

● Bristol privateers from a later period, this time the Napoleonic Wars, tied up at Hungroad in the early 1800s.

Painting by Arthur Wilde Parsons.

Courtesy of Bristol Museums, Galleries and Archives BMAG K442

Nothing new about privatisation

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“ The privateer crews, drawn by the promise of adventure and big money, were often a rough lot, terrorising dockside areas. two Bristol ships spent the years 1708 to 1711 preying on Spanish shipping.

They also rescued Alexander Selkirk – later the model for Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe – from a desert island along the way. It was a stupendous feat of leadership and navigation which travelled fully around the world and brought back an immense haul of plunder.

During the Seven Years’ War (1754 to 1763), Britain was at war with France and, later, Spain. The enemy’s seaborne commerce provided rich pickings – so rich that Bristol’s businessmen fitted out and put to sea at least 60 ships, including Dread-

nought.

At first, the privateer crews were popular heroes and their exploits celebrated. In April 1758, the Phoenix – 16 guns and 90 men – captured the French privateer Bellona, which had 20 heavier guns and 120 men. The Phoenix came within hailing distance of the Frenchman at night and pretended to be the Royal Navy ship Tartar, which at this time was the terror of French privateers. The French crew surrendered at once. A few weeks later, a Bristol ship ran into a French port, cut out 14 French vessels from their moorings and brought home two of them, along with their valuable cargoes of wine. This was done in broad daylight in full view of 11 French warships.

Meanwhile, the Royal Navy was not idle. Later in 1758, French first-rater Belliqueux was reported lying off Lundy. The news was brought to Captain Saumarez of HMS Antelope, 60 guns, lying in Kingroad. Captain Saumarez was at a ball at Hotwells that evening, and rushed to his ship, accompanied by several thrill-seeking

Bristolians who volunteered on the spot. Antelope moved along the Bristol Channel as fast as she could, captured the Belliqueux and her crew of 470 and towed her to Kingroad.

The privateer crews, drawn by the promise of adventure and big money, were often a rough lot, terrorising dockside areas. If the authorities ever tried to arrest any of them, they would turn out mob-handed to rescue their shipmates. Likewise they collectively resisted attempts by press gangs to get them into the Navy. This could get so vicious that at pubs in Long Ashton and Marsh Street, press gangs and privateersmen exchanged gunfire.

This also happened in Cardiff, where the gang tried to press 70 men of the Bristol ship Eagle – at least one man was killed and several wounded.

By 1759, most French ships had been swept from the sea, and Bristolians were fed up with the lawlessness of the privateers. There was no more profit to be made and that year only one privateer was fitted for sea.

The golden age of Bristol’s legalised piracy was over.

●M shed

● Explore Your Archive behind-the-scenes tours at Bristol Record Office – Wednesday, November 20, 2pm; Tuesday, November 26, 2pm; Wednesday, December 4, 2pm; Thursday, December 5, 6pm, Bristol Record Office, B Bond Warehouse, Smeaton Road, Bristol, BS1 6XN. Join Bristol Record Office staff behind the scenes and hear how the city’s archives are preserved and used. These tours will have a special focus on records of the port, overseas trade and Bristol’s privateering past. Tours involve walking, standing and using a lift. Cost – £5. To book a place, call Bristol Record Office on 0117 922 4224 (Tuesdays to Fridays). ● Online Extracts from the diary will be serialised online from November 16.

Twitter: www.twitter.com/bristolro Facebook: www.facebook.com/ bristolrecordoffice Storify: http://storify.com/ BristolRO/dreadnought RESEARCH ● Bristol Record Office has published two source guides on its website for people interested in researching Bristol’s maritime history.

See www.bristol.gov.uk/ exploreyourarchive to download these free guides.

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OWADAYS we talk of privatisation of state enterprises as though it was something invented only in the 1980s.

But our 18th-century forebears would have understood the idea immediately.

In wars, the British Government licensed merchant ships as privateers – legally entitled to prey upon enemy shipping and keep most or all of the proceeds. It was a way of damaging the enemy’s economy that came at no cost to the taxpayer. Ship owners and their crews took all the risk – along with the businessmen who usually flocked to invest in privateer voyages.

Bristol was never a naval port and only occasionally built, refitted and hosted warships. But the city’s merchant classes knew a potential profit when they saw one.

The most famous Bristol privateer voyage was that of the Duke and the Duchess, during the War of Spanish Succession.

Commanded by Woodes Rogers and navigated by William Dampier, the

● The Dreadnought journal: a cruise against the enemies of Great Britain.

Thursday, November 21, M shed, 6pm to 7.30pm, admission free and no need to book.

Hear more about the Dreadnought from Nigel Sommerville, who has transcribed and researched the journal.

The event is part of the University of the West of England Regional History Centre and M shed seminar programme.

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www.bristolpost.co.uk

Tuesday, November 12, 2013

● Right, Thornbury Castle today; above, a computer-generated image of what Thornbury Castle probably looked in like Tudor times, complete with Photo: Thornbury and District Museum knot garden

Gory story Book uncovers how castle’s owners met a grisly end The newly-published history of Thornbury Castle is a tale of blood, guts, treachery and infidelity, as well as good taste, as Eugene Byrne explains.

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F YOU live in the Bristol area, you know you are going up in the world if you dine at Thornbury Castle, or get invited to a do there. It is a prestigious hotel – and wedding venue – in a very prestigious building.

Thornbury Castle is not, strictly speaking, a proper castle. But it is very old. There was a medieval manor house on the site, and parts of the present building date from the early 1500s. And it has an astonishingly-colourful history.

In Anglo-Saxon times the manor of Thornbury was among the landholdings of Earl Bethric (sometimes spelt Brictric). He was part of a diplomatic mission to the court of Baldwin, Count of Flanders, when Baldwin’s daughter Matilda took a shine to him.

The silly man spurned her advances, so she married someone else. Too bad for Earl Bethric that she had transferred her affections to William the Conqueror. Following the Norman invasion, she saw to it that Bethric’s lands were confiscated and that he was left to rot and die in prison.

By the middle ages the manor was in the hands of the earls of Stafford.

And in the 15th century Humphrey Stafford was created first Duke of Buckingham. These were people of great consequence.

The builder of Thornbury Castle was Edward Stafford, third Duke of Buckingham. He was the wealthiest peer in England.

His estates, spread across England and Wales, included 11 castles, 124 manors and numerous smaller properties. He owned vast woodlands, and 8,000 deer roamed his nine forests and 24 parks.

Buckingham, however, got too big for his boots. It was his misfortune to be an alpha male during the reign of

● Left, Tony Cherry and friend. Mr Cherry said: “We often got visitors asking if we had anything on the castle and we had nothing to offer.” ● Right, members of the Howard family on their bikes at Thornbury Castle, 1872. Tony Cherry said: “Given that photographs needed a very long exposure at that time, how did they manage to take a photo of people moving while riding a bike? If you look carefully you can see the poles they are resting their feet on.”

Photo: Thornbury and District Museum the greatest alpha male in English history – King Henry VIII. The circumstances around Buckingham’s fall from grace are mysterious. What we do know is that he liked pomp and show as much as Henry did. Buckingham was always dressed very richly, followed around by a train of retainers and flunkeys.

What we also know is that Henry’s claim to the throne was almost as rickety as his father’s had been. If you want to spend time studying the family trees of the English nobility from the time, you can spot plenty of people who could lay just as plausible a claim to being the rightful king as Henry could.

Buckingham was one of them. The Staffords had been top dogs for generations. Many of them had died a violent death during the Wars of the Roses, and were related to most of the other great families of the land. Buckingham kept in touch with all his

relations, and by 1520 Henry suspected he was plotting against him and began to gather evidence.

Historians cannot agree whether or not Buckingham genuinely was looking to overthrow Henry. It would not have been surprising if he was.

Henry summoned him and he was put on trial, accused of treason.

Whether he was guilty or innocent was irrelevant. The outcome of the trial was a foregone conclusion, and Buckingham was executed on Tower Hill on May 17, 1521.

Tony Cherry – a local historian and a volunteer at Thornbury museum – takes up the story.

He said: “It was in the genes that Buckingham would not die of natural causes.

“His great, great grandfather had been killed at the Battle of Shrewsbury in 1403, his great grandfather had been killed at the Battle of Northampton in 1460, his grandfath-

er had probably died from wounds acquired at the Battle of St Albans in 1458 and his father had been beheaded in 1483.”

Mr Cherry has just published A History Of Thornbury Castle. Written in association with Meg Wise, it is a fine read. But then it has some great material to work with.

Buckingham’s land and possessions were confiscated by the crown, so Henry became the owner of the new and as-yet unfinished Thornbury Castle. He and Anne Boleyn stayed there for ten days in 1535.

Henry was meant to visit Bristol but cancelled the trip on hearing reports of an outbreak of plague there.

So the castle passed through various royal and aristocratic hands down the years, eventually becoming the property of the Howard family.

Henry Howard started to renovate and restore it in the 1850s. Through the 19th century and well into the

20th, the castle remained a family residence. The castle was sold in 1959 and the estate broken up over the following decades.

It is only now that the whole story from the times of Earl Bethric to the present has been told in book form.

Mr Cherry said: “Meg and I are volunteers at Thornbury and District Museum.

“We often got visitors asking if we had anything on the castle and we had nothing to offer. For years we have been accumulating information but never had it in a form to hand out so I thought I would put a book together. This was with museum's blessing.

“I wrote the book but Meg has an insatiable desire to hunt out more and more facts. Without her input the book would have been much duller.

Thornbury and District Museum is run by volunteers and there is a culture of collaboration. Everyone

www.bristolpost.co.uk

Tuesday, November 12, 2013

Time to stand up for pedestrians

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Latimer’s Diary

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Attention Old Hengrovians I LOVE this here picture. It’s 1966 and a Russian ship has docked in Bristol. It’s the height of the Cold War and the visitors are obviously very exotic. The Soviet Union is mysterious and enigmatic, but one of the things everyone knew about the Ivans was that they love a game of chess.

So one of the teachers at Hengrove School fixed it so that some of his star chess players could go head to head with sailors from the world’s greatest chess-playing superpower.

In this picture we see Hengrove pupil David Bagshawe playing one of the Russians. Looks a fairly even game to me.

This is only one of a huge collection of photos and memories in a stupendously wonderful book that’s recently been published by the Hengrove School History Project Team.

It’s titled ‘Hengrove School Bristol

1954-1974’ and traces not just the history of the school itself during this period, but also its teaching staff and large numbers of pupils.

If you’re an Old Hengrovian and you don’t already possess a copy, then you really need to get hold of one. If you are not, but have an Old Hengrovian in your life, that’s their Christmas present sorted. Better still, if you know a Hengrovian among the Bristol diaspora worldwide, out in Oz, America, New Zealand, wherever, you’re in good time to mail them a copy for Christmas.

Trust me on this – there are not enough superlatives in the thesaurus to do this book justice. If someone had produced a book a tenth as good about my old school, I would happily pay twice the price – £16.99 – they’re asking for this one.

Your money gets you almost 400 pages. There’s the serious history of one of Bristol’s first comprehensive schools and a wealth of old press clippings ranging from serious news

A go on the slider AND finally, one of those little things that make this one of the best jobs in the world …

We had a phone call the other day from Mrs Eileen Tomlin about the Bristol Times Picture of the Week from two editions ago.

This was of the famous rock slide close to the Observatory and Clifton Suspension Bridge. She said that’s her son, aged four, in the picture looking on as the other children are having a go on the slider. You wouldn’t know it from this photo, but young Mark Tomlin would one day captain Bristol Rugby Club.

“We used to keep a pub in Clifton Village,” Mrs Tomlin told us. “The Portland Vaults, at the end of Portland Street, though it got pulled down a long time ago.

“We didn’t have a back garden or

stories through to reviews of school productions. There are school documents too, prizegiving programmes, lots and lots of group photos of teams and production casts and loads of where-are-they-now material about former pupils.

Oh, and there’s also a CD of music from a couple of school performances from back in the day.

My predecessor-but-one at Bristol Times, the late, and genuinely great, David Harrison, gets a mention as a former pupil. He would have thoroughly approved of this book.

Copies are available, price £16.99, from Broadwalk News newsagents at 11 Broad Walk, Knowle, Bristol.BS4 2RA. Tel: 0117 9777814. Or you can order it by post from Hengrove School History Project, c/o 262 Wells Road, Knowle, Bristol BS4 2PN. This costs £19.84 to include £2.85 P&P. Cheques should be payable to ‘Hengrove School History Project.’

anything, so my mother used to take the children up to the Downs to play.

At the slide she would put my daughter Sonia on her lap … She’d say, ‘Do you want to slide down? Don’t tell your mother, mind!’ So at the age of 69 she’d be sliding down with my daughter, who’d have been two years old, on her lap.

“I didn’t find out about this for years! My daughter never told me about it until she was about 12.”

See, I have this theory that the rock slide was not just created by children, but also by adults using it down the decades – maybe centuries – too. Mrs Tomlin’s delightful story is a small shred of evidence.

Cheers then!

● Get in touch: Email Bristol.Times@b-nm.co.uk or write to Bristol Times, Bristol Post, Temple Way, Bristol BS2 0BY.

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shares their information and supports each other.”

One of Ms Wise’s contributions, for instance, was uncovering the will of Henry Howard, Earl of Stafford, who owned the castle in the early 1700s. He had married Claude Charlotte, the daughter of the French Comte de Gramont, who may have been at one point a mistress of the son of Louis XIV. Henry did not really like his wife.

In his will he said: “I give to the worst of women (except being a whore) who is guilty of all ills, the daughter of Mr Gramont, a Frenchwoman who I have unfortunately married, five and 40 brass halfpence, which will buy her a pullet supper, a greater sum than her father can often make her; for I have known when he had neither money or credit for such a purchase, he being the worst of men, and his wife the worst of women, in all debaucheries.”

Mr Cherry said that the biggest surprise in researching the full story was “just how many of the Stafford family came to a gruesome end”.

He said: “When Edward Stafford was beheaded he was the fifth generation to die a violent death. Then one of his grandsons was beheaded.”

Mr Cherry’s favourite characters in this colourful tale are the Duke of Buckingham and Henry Howard.

Mr Cherry said: “Henry Howard revived the castle in the 1850s.

Without his love of hunting and his considerable fortune, the castle would, at best, be a ruin.”

A History Of Thornbury Castle is only available from Thornbury and District Museum, Chapel Street, Thornbury, priced £15.

Visit www.thornburymuseum.org.uk or call 01454 857774.

LLRIGHT? There’s a lot of what Bristol East’s former MP Tony Benn would call “ishoos” in the Post at the moment, isn’t there?

Frinstance, last week the Chief Constable was reportedly looking to re-start some of the speed cameras Round These Parts.

Igor! My soap-box and megaphone, if you please!

Turning the Gatsos on again is obviously a good thing. Yesireebob.

All good. Catching speeding motorists. Marvellous. Go for it.

Just as long as, for every car-driver fined for speeding, they impose an equal and corresponding fine on someone for riding a bike on the pavement.

I know this is an issue that gets a lot of people hot under the collar, and that the war between the motorist and the cyclist is one of the things that keeps the Post’s letters page and website comments sections in business, but this here column frankly calls a pox on both their houses.

This column SUPPORTS THE PEDESTRIAN, and I think it’s high time us pedestrians RECLAIM our city from selfish, irresponsible IDIOTS ON BOTH TWO WHEELS AND FOUR! To the barricades comrades! Who’s with me?!!!

[Sound of crickets] What’s all this ranting got to do with history?

I’ve been doing a little research into the history of speeding in Bristol. I’ve not yet unearthed the first speeding fine imposed on a driver, but here’s a case from 1906 …

In August that year William Fraser of Peckham was charged with driving a motor car at a dangerous speed along St Augustine’s Parade. Bristol magistrates fined him £5 (equivalent to a month’s pay for a skilled working man at this time) plus costs. Chair of the magistrates, Colonel Coates, said: “Some of you fellows are a perfect nuisance and a pest to society and don’t care what you knock down and who you run over!”

Fraser said he was unable to pay the fine as he only had £2, but the beak – God love him! – wasn’t going to put up with any nonsense and said: “You will have to pay the fine or go to prison. People who keep these infernal things [i.e. cars] can afford to pay fines.”

And the speed the wretched Fraser had been doing at the time of the offence? The arresting constable estimated it was a breakneck 15 miles per hour.

A few years later Bristol’s Watch Committee – the council body responsible for law and order – considered imposing a 10mph speed limit in the city, but decided in the end that they would leave it to the police to decide on a case-by-case basis whether or not anyone was driving recklessly.

A whole different world, I tell you.

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Tuesday, November 12, 2013

Soldier father was a prisoner of war ✒AFTER reading your article in the

Post last night I started thinking of my father’s wartime history. I am in my early eighties. My father’s name was Thomas Bellamy and he lived with my mother and his mother in Avonvale Road, Redfield when he went to war.

He joined the Glosters during the First World War. I don’t know how long he was in the army before he was captured and sent to a camp – not known by the Red Cross. He was starved and ill-treated and often used to say when I was a little girl: “Eat up that food. I would have given a gold watch for mouldy food.” He used to have to eat mouldy scraps in order to stay alive.

Then he and another PoW managed to escape, and got into Belgium where a family hid them in their barn and fed them, all in secret.

Meanwhile my Mum had notification from the War Office that he was missing and presumed dead, and received widow’s pay. He eventually managed to get back somehow to Avonvale Road. He was like a skeleton – very thin and covered in sores, and with a huge belly.

He suffered a lot over the years. He had several operations to have a growth from his throat removed which kept returning.

He kept in touch with the Belgian family. I wonder if any of them remember him? Dad had several notifications when he got home, including a welcome back letter from the King.

Dad lived until he was 85 years old!

Peggy J Kingswood

Shed light on a medical mystery

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ISTENING to the news recently, when it was stated that today’s young children need extra vitamins, triggered a memory – and I am wondering if any other Bristol Times readers can recall a similar experience.

I can remember sometime in the mid 1940s attending Tower Hill Clinic accompanied by my mother, and as I recall there were about a dozen or so other children attending at the same time.

After confirming names and address we were told to strip off (leaving

our pants on I must add for modesty’s sake.) We were then herded into a large room which contained a huge tent-like contraption which appeared to be made of heavy-duty canvas.

We were told to put on heavy black goggles, then led into this “tent”, seated on long forms, and then the nurse made a hasty exit. We were then exposed to very bright, very strong ultra violet portable lamps.

After a while we were told to get dressed and go home. I think this ritual went on on a weekly basis for a few weeks.

As far as I can recall it took place a little while after I was discharged from Ham Green Hospital where I was kept in isolation after contracting measles and pneumonia – but hey! That’s another story.

I presume this treatment was to build us young children up.

Chris Taylor Redfield

● Editor’s reply: Your letter triggered a memory here too and had me racing off to consult the children’s history of Bristol which was

published by Frys in 1945.

There’s a page or two in this book about how Bristol is looking after its citizens nowadays and it includes this photo – shown above – of children getting UV treatment somewhere in Bristol.

We’re not rightly sure what the treatment was for, or whether all children had it. We think it might have been for skin complaints, but really don’t know.

If anyone out there is up on medical history perhaps they’d like to let us know.

Footsteps into history

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The story behind pupils’ bun bonanza YESTERDAY, November 11, was the Society of Merchant Venturers’ annual Charter Day. That is the day on which the society celebrates the charter it was granted

by King Charles I in 1639.

The society usually marks the day on November 10 each year. However, it picks November 11 or 12 if November 10 falls on a weekend.

It is a time-honoured tradition, and one of the most colourful in Bristol’s civic calendar.

Charter Days sees the new master of the society for the coming year take office.

And he, together with two wardens, 12 assistants and the treasurer, are sworn in at Merchants’ Hall after a service in Bristol Cathedral.

The thing that many people know about Charter Day is that school pupils are each given a bun and 10p.

And if you are thinking to yourself

that nowadays it might be more appropriate to give them a bag of crisps, a can of cola and a £10 note, you are missing the point of tradition.

The custom of giving buns probably goes back to Edward Colston, who attended the Christ’s Hospital school in London.

Every Easter, Christ’s Hospital pupils were each given a cake and a small bun known as a starver.

They were meant to eat the smaller confection to stave off hunger while they were taking the bigger one home.

The society continues the custom as trustee of the Colston Hospital Foundation – which supports the Colston schools – and in memory of Edward Colston who was born on November 2 by the Julian calendar or November 13 by the modern, Gregorian, calendar.

Staunch Anglican that he was, Colston would probably have disapproved

of the Gregorian calendar as a Catholic invention.

Britain was well behind most of the rest of Europe in adopting the new calendar, which had originally been promoted by the Pope, and did not switch over until 1752, leading to a myth that the lower orders rioted in the belief that they had been robbed of 11 days of their life.

After Colston, later Merchant Venturers chipped in, so that the boys – there were no female pupils at this time – were given money as well as buns.

In his will, dated 1798, William Vaughan left £125 to the society to be spent on Colston’s Day by giving “each boy in his hospital a shilling (5p) and to boy No 49 half a crown (12.5p), with any remaining interest buying a greatcoat and gloves for the doorkeeper and any spare sixpence (2.5p) going to the last pupil to collect his shilling.”

A few years later Philip Jones gave

● Pictured in 2011, the society’s then-master David Marsh, left, at Charter Day celebrations with pupils from the three schools supported by the society – Colston’s School, Colston’s Girls’ School and Merchants’ Academy – plus cakes and starver buns

£500 in Navy bonds – which were helping to pay for the Napoleonic Wars – to the Colston’s Hospital Trust to give each boy a shilling a year, plus £5 per year to be put aside for the head boy and given to him when he left.

At this time two shillings would have been a considerable sum of money, one that would help a poor family’s budget very nicely for a few weeks.

It is impossible to translate it accurately into modern values – but if you think in terms of around £100 you would not be too far wrong.

More recently, society master Denis Burn donated £12,500 to the Merchant Venturers’ Charity in 2008. This was the year that Merchants’ Academy was set up in Withywood, sponsored jointly by the society and the University of Bristol.

The interest on this donation is used to enable as many pupils as the principal of Merchants’ Academy so directed to participate in the custom of receiving buns and shillings in celebration of Charter Day. The pupils of the Colston schools also participated.

www.bristolpost.co.uk

Tuesday, November 12, 2013

7

Searching for great uncle’s memorial ✒CAN any of your readers help? I

have been searching for a WWI memorial in St. Werburgh’s in honour of my great uncle, Ernest Francis James Orr, who died at the age of 24 on the Invincible ship during the battle of Jutland on May 31, 1916.

My 89-year-old uncle remembers seeing the memorial, which he believes was made of marble and about 2ft x 3ft, as a young boy, along with my late father who was named after Ernest.

The memorial was sited on Mina Road School which was later renamed Cutlers Brook School and is now currently named St. Matthias Pupil Referral Unit.

I have already contacted the Bristol Records Office, St Werburgh’s Community Centre, St Werburgh’s Church and local historians without success. If anyone knows of its whereabouts or has a photograph of it I would be very grateful if they could contact me.

My e-mail address is lindajbigg@ googlemail.com.

Linda Bigg

● The F. Hinds branch in Castle Street

School’s double prize success

We are still very much a family company

✒IN 1933 Paul Dirac (pictured), who was educated between 1914 and 1918 at the Merchant Venturers Secondary School won the Nobel Prize for Physics.

Cotham Grammar School was the direct successor to that school, renamed when it was taken over by the city.

This year, 80 years later, an Old Cothamian shares the Nobel Prize for Physics. Peter Ware Higgs attended the school between 1941 and 1946. Many people have heard of the Higgs Boson, which some have called the “God Particle”.

There cannot be many schools with two such successes. I was there from 1938 to 1946. Peter and I were friends when we were in the upper sixth for m.

Michael Young Fuengirola, Spain

✒RE:

Christine Taylor’s letter of September 17th, we are very interested in her comments concerning Castle Street after the war and the F. Hinds branch in particular.

This photograph shows Frank

Hinds leaving the shop in the early 1950s. In the picture are Arthur Roberts, the branch manager and Tom Robinson the company secretary, Frank was my father and I well remember visiting the shop on many

occasions.

We now have 111 branches, the nearest being in Cribbs Causeway Shopping Centre and at Yate.

We are still very much a family company and I am the Chairman and

From Romans to a black hole

Picture of the week

Does anyone recall this Cotham school ✒I WOULD like to hear from anyone

● THIS is the Lord Mayor of Bristol Alderman Thomas Underdown, accompanied by the Lady Mayoress. It’s 1940 or ’41 and they’re in Exeter, visiting a party of young Bristolians at Alphington School as part of a tour of South Devon to see children evacuated from the city.

We’re also running it as a sort of apology to Alderman Underdown’s descendants as an article about the Bristol Blitz in BT mistakenly called him Thomas Underwood. We got a well-deserved telling-off on that one from his grandson Andy Brown of Westbury-on-Trym.

Apparently BT is not the only offender in this department, but that’s no excuse. Won’t happen again.

Meanwhile, if you’re one of the kiddies in the picture, or you know any of them, the BT Letters page awaits your stories of life as an evacuee.

✒A TALK and display about Crews Hole will be held on November 27.

St George History Group presents a talk and photo display: ‘Crews Hole: Romans, Baptists, Press Gangs, Industry and its People’ on November 28 at Summerhill Over-50s Club, Summerhill Road, St George, 7.20pm, £2. All welcome. Further details from Dave Stephenson on 0117 940 6202.

The talk will begin with the Romans and then move to the early Baptists, who were tolerated by the locals when they couldn’t preach anywhere else.

They sheltered sailors from the press gangs and were against the slave trade. The civil war came here too, to Troopers Hill.

Finally we look at the industries which changed it from an idyllic village compared to Clovelly in North Devon to a black hole, with death no stranger.

The main part of the talk will be about the locals, a very distinct, tightly-knit and fiercely independent community that emerged.

I have had access to an old school log book that tells us a lot about what was going on inside and outside the school – such as the time when the school was almost empty because the parents had taken their kids to the Bath races!

Now Crews Hole has returned to being a somewhat isolated village, but many locals still can’t dig too deep in their gardens; remnants of the tar works are still there.

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who remembers Essex Lodge school in Cotham. I went there from 1955 to 1957 then went to La Retraite school until 1959.

Although born in Preston, Lancs in 1950 and returning to live in Blackpool in 1959, I still have fond memories of Bristol, especially the Suspension Bridge and the Downs, as my mother took me there almost every day after school.

I would love to hear from anyone who may remember me. My name was Susan Cope then. Incidentally on a recent flying visit to Bristol I found I can no longer walk across the bridge, it’s much too high!!!

Susan Dennett Blackpool, Lancs Tel: 01253 314520

we have just been joined by my grandson who is the sixth generation to be involved since we started in 1856.

Roy Hinds Chairman, F. Hinds Ltd, Uxbridge, Middlesex

Dave Stephenson by email

8

Ship, ship, hurrah for Her Majesty This year the country marked the 60th anniversary of Queen Elizabeth’s coronation. Back in June 1953 the event was celebrated with a review of the fleet. This was when Britain had a much larger Navy.

Bristol Times reader Terry Male was there, and here shares his memories with us.

● Left, HMS Flying Fox, floating home of Bristol’s Royal Naval Reserve, and the old Mardyke Ferry, photographed in the 1950s. Above, souvenir programme of the Coronation Fleet review

I

a degree of discomfort. Apparently the ship was to host a large consignment of servicemen from the Commonwealth countries who had taken part in the coronation procession in London. I was issued with a hammock and was warned that I would just have to make do with sleeping on deck.

The ship had been prepared for sea and we steamed around the Isle of Wight before taking up our allotted position in one of the lines. Our time was spent making the ship tidy by moving accumulated rubbish, and painting everything. We also had to prepare the rigging and flags to be used for dressing the ship overall.

On Wednesday, June 10 the ships were dressed overall to celebrate the birthday of HRH the Duke of Edinburgh, with a royal salute being fired at noon. Although we were busy, we were able to see the arrival of ships from all nations including the magnificent Russian cruiser Sverdlov and the Italian training ship Amerigo Vespucci, whose crew manned the yards for the review.

Next in line to us was the aircraft carrier HMS Perseus which had grandstand seating on the flight deck.

These seats were to be occupied by dignitaries on the day of the review.

We were intrigued to see that these seats were facing away from the planned route of Her Majesty’s review ship. But precise calculations of wind and tidal current ensured that

SAT 18 JAN, SUN 19 JAN

STRICTLY

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“ Precise calculations of wind and tidal current ensured that the whole fleet swung into the correct position in time for the review! quickly the entire fleet could display an array of coloured flags.

In the days leading up to the review we witnessed ocean liners returning from voyages across the world making steady progress through the lines to give their passengers a sight to remember.

Boats of all descriptions brought sightseers from the mainland and the Isle of Wight, and liberty boats were kept busy taking sailors ashore for a spot of leave. A trip ashore for liberty men was very exciting and not

without adventure. With sailors of so many nationalities crowding the streets and bars it was inevitable that there was a great deal of rivalry. This was mostly friendly – but occasionally tempers flared and we were pleased to return to the safe haven of our ship.

With the arrival on board of members of the Commonwealth forces, sleeping arrangements left a bit to be desired, with hammocks being slung in gangways and anywhere on deck where a stanchion could be utilised.

During the review we sailors would be lining the side of the ship to cheer the Queen, and in true Navy tradition this was rehearsed until the authorities were satisfied. We were observed by an officer from the deck of a ship which followed the route to be taken by the review ship. Instructions and criticism were shouted into a loud-hailer.

At the command of “off caps” we had to remove our caps with our right hand and ensure that our arm was extended at 45 degrees. At the command “three cheers for Her Majesty the Queen” we had to turn our caps in a circular motion above our heads – then each command of “hip, hip” was followed by our rousing response of “hurrah”. We were reminded through the loud hailer that a number of “hurrays” had been heard which were more reminiscent of a football crowd and certainly not the Royal Navy. After these rehearsals we

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the whole fleet swung into the correct position in time for the review.

Thursday, June 11 marked the official birthday of Her Majesty the Queen. And once again the ships were dressed overall and a royal salute was fired at noon.

Each morning we assembled on deck for colour-hoisting. On several days the ships were dressed overall and we were amazed to see how

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came to realise why we had won the Battle of Trafalgar.

Sunday evening, June 14, was a hive of activity in preparation for the review the following day. Ships were dressed overall, a royal salute was fired and the Royal Standard broken out as Her Majesty embarked in HMS Surprise, a frigate which was performing the duty of royal yacht.

We were awake very early on the Monday morning. The ships were dressed overall, a procession of ships was assembled and the review took place in the afternoon. The review ships passed through the lines of the fleet to the cheers of the sailors, with a fly-past of Navy aircraft overhead.

Later in the evening the fleet was illuminated, with each ship being outlined with lights.

There had been speculation about whether or not the Russians would participate. But we were delighted to see the Russian cruiser Sverdlov outlined in lights which seemed to illuminate every feature of the ship.

The eventful day ended with a magnificent fireworks display, the biggest cheer of the day coming when the Queen sent a signal to her ships around the world – “splice the mainbrace”.

The following morning, ships were dressed overall for the final time and a royal salute was fired by the fleet as HMS Surprise weighed anchor and returned to harbour. As the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh disembarked to return to London, a further royal salute was fired by the Navy saluting battery as the Royal Standard was struck in HMS Surprise.

Later in the day the fleet started to disperse and I stayed on in HMS Adamant for the rest of the week, enjoying the space and freedom and realising how fortunate I was to have been a participant in such a historic and spectacular event.

ROYAL ALBERT HALL Christmas

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Pr C PE est A TE ige R R Co O ach L ing

N 1953 I was working with the Bristol Aeroplane Company at Filton as a draughtsman. I joined the company in 1951 following two exciting years with the Royal Air Force, with most of that time spent in what was then Southern Rhodesia.

I found it difficult at first to adjust to a different way of life after the variety and travel I had enjoyed in the RAF. I joined the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve in Bristol for a five-year commitment, with one evening a week training, an occasional weekend, and two weeks per year – for four years out of five – serving with the Royal Navy.

Training and serving as a seaman would make a complete change from my full-time job in engineering. Soon I became very familiar with HMS Flying Fox, a veteran ship of the First World War moored at Mardyke Wharf in Hotwells, where we were based.

My first two weeks of annual training were on HMS Finisterre, a destroyer, on gunnery trials in the English Channel.

The following year, 1953, my annual RNVR training was rather special as I took part in the coronation review of the fleet at Spithead. Several ratings from the Severn division were involved and we were all allocated different ships. The review took place on Monday, June 15 but I travelled to Portsmouth on Sunday, June 7.

Her Majesty’s ships began to assemble on the following day. Foreign warships began to assemble on the Wednesday. There was close to 300 vessels from around the world. These included warships, lightships, merchant ships, fishing boats, lifeboats, yachts and pleasure boats. It was a remarkable sight.

I was assigned to HMS Adamant, a submarine depot ship which had been in mothballs for some time and needed our care and attention. I was taken out to the ship in a small boat and welcomed aboard by the master-at-arms who warned me to expect

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