Issue 112 – September 2016
BE PROPERTY SERVICES MARTIN & CO MACBRYDE HOMES KINGSWOOD MANOR
Village characters By Stephen Guy LOCAL personalities can brighten up everyday life and this was particularly true in the 19th century when eccentricity was often celebrated. From the aristocracy and the gentry to professionals and traders there were many characters unafraid to dress as they liked or express their own particular slants on life. The Victorian age was, for some, an era of social nonconformity. Even the poorest and most difficult living conditions did not stop people having a zest for life. Writers such as Charles Dickens, Anthony Trollope and George Elliot wrote bulky novels crammed with characters their readers could recognise in themselves and others. Community figures were celebrated by J F Marsh in his 1931 book The Story of Woolton (Part Two). He gives potted biographies of about 175 individuals and families who were prominent in and around the village, mostly in Victorian times. They are largely glowing testimonials to people who were held in high regard by their fellows.
When the book was written, Woolton was dominated by quarry workings while retaining much of its rural character with farms and livestock. The book harks back to a time when locals spoke in Lancashire dialect and colourful people seemed to be at every gate. Thomas Foster arrived in Woolton in 1877 and ran Newstead Farm in Quarry Street. He and his wife had 12 children, mostly sons. The family still ran the farm in the 1930s before the area was developed as Liverpool expanded. In the old days many people avoided the sun and Tommy Adcock (pictured) was no exception. Pictured about 1865, the private school tutor wears a top hat, suit and gown and carries a large parasol or sunshade. Mr Adcock was the head of a well-known family who did much for Woolton in the first three decades of the 19th century. Marsh adds: “Though comic and original in the extreme, he was essentially a true type of the ancient schoolmaster and one of the principal characters and shining lights of the
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village.” Gannie Kay, born in 1773, kept a “public mangle” – presumably where people could wring their wet washing. George Howe at the Elephant Hotel was a former stage coach driver. In the 1870s he regaled customers and friends with tales of life on the old coach roads. n Learn more about the history of Liverpool at the Museum of Liverpool, Pier Head, open 10am to 5pm every day, admission free.
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