‘The first time we went to Manchester was after we’d talked with a bloke named Danny. I remember him saying he’d been in Manchester on a Saturday night with a couple of mates of his and they’d visited some rock and roll clubs there. Because there wasn’t all that much of it going on around in Stoke at that time, we started going to Manchester on the train. It used to be 3s 6d return, and the trains used to run every half hour so you could catch one back early in the morning from Manchester to Stoke. We would catch the train at six o’clock on a Saturday night, arriving in Manchester three quarters of an hour later and would go the clubs until one or two o’clock in the morning. Then on the Sunday morning we would catch the mail trains back, that were coming down to deliver the papers from Manchester to Stoke and Birmingham. We went there plenty of times visiting all the different clubs in Moss Side in Manchester.
The Teddy Boy was also a miner. L to R: Stuart Colclough, Bill Cooper and Derek Ford at Hanley Deep Pit.
There were a few times when we didn’t take the train and instead had a lift up there in a car. I worked at Hanley Deep pit at the time and I knew this big, tall black guy named Jim Brown who had come down from Manchester to work in the pits here as he couldn’t get any well paid jobs where he came from. He’d got an old Standard Vanguard car – he was the only bloke I knew that had got a car – and he asked us if we wanted to go with him to Manchester for a weekend. We said “Well, it’s going cost us a bit.” – “Ooh no, you can stay with my family.” he said.
Anyway, he took us, five of us, in his Standard Vanguard, from the pit on a Friday night when we’d finished, straight to Manchester. When we got there we found that his family had a three storey house, a big old Victorian place with a stack of bedrooms! It was like being in one of the boarding houses at Blackpool. His parents were nice people and his mother especially was a right jovial woman! Jim had about five or six brothers and sisters and they all lived at home. I said, “Where are we going stay?” His mother said,” Well, there’s a lot of us here. Just grab somewhere to sleep. There are plenty of rooms. If you go in somebody’s bed you’re all right, they’ll go in another one.”
We went out that first night, but we were all tired because we’d been at work, so we only stayed out until about two o’clock. But on the Saturday night Jim took us to a party in Moss Side, where all the warehouses were. Going down some steps he opened an ordinary looking door and we went into a huge cellar. There were old settees scattered all around the place and tables too, a band was playing and there were records in between! It was packed, mostly with black people, but there were quite a few white folk there as well. But, bloody hell, it was five o’clock in the morning when we finally came out, from about seven at night! And talk about drunk! Well, they were selling beer out of wooden barrels on trestles and you’d just helped yourself. You just gave them the money and filled your pint; or you could have bottled beer or whisky, or whatever you fancied. It was licensed, the blacks ran their own club. We went again on the Sunday night and then went to come home the next morning, because we had to go work on Monday night.
We went to that place two or three times and Jim’s mother used to feed us up like mad. She had a large room and she’d had two big tables put in it, with chairs all around and then a kitchen with a serving hatch she’d had knocked in. She said, “I was fed up of carrying the stuff in, so I’ve had this knocked in so I could just pass it through to them.”
They’d got a big range to cook all the stuff on and two of the grown up girls used to help her. They used to have a stack of food, a quantity of food I’ve never had since. I remember going in once and she said “We’re having chicken.” She got these big bowls out and they were full of chicken legs piled high, all cooked, it was steaming hot and you just helped yourself!
They seemed to have plenty of money but, there were a lot of them and most of them worked. I’m not sure, but I think I remember something about a shop they’d got. Well in that area there were a lot of big shops down the main street and I think one of them was theirs. The mother didn’t work, I think it was the old man and two or three of the lads that run the shop. But, she used to come with us when we went out at night time, either that or she and the father used to come along later. She would dance as well, she wasn’t all that old, I should say she was in her late forties, but she seemed old to me because I was only sixteen or seventeen.
Pioneer balloonist Charles Green was quite a celebrity when he arrived in the Potteries in early October 1826. Five years earlier, Green had become famous almost overnight when he made a special ascent into the air in his coal gas filled balloon at George IV’s coronation. Since then he had become a professional balloonist, touring the country giving displays and allowing a lucky few to take a ride up with him. Now that thrill was open to the people in North Staffordshire and to one lucky passenger would fall the chance to make local history by joining Green in the first ever flight over the district.
The first ascent was to take place from Shelton late in the afternoon of Tuesday, 3 October 1826. ‘A vast concourse of persons’ had assembled according to a reporter for the Staffordshire Advertiser. A carnival atmosphere prevailed, a band had been arranged to keep the onlookers entertained and enclosures were set up for paying guests. The most exclusive of these for ‘the most respectable inhabitants’, was rather thinly populated at first, but started to fill up after 3 p.m., allaying fears that Green would not be fully compensated for his visit to the area. Another cheaper enclosure was also pretty well filled. Most of the locals, though, opted for a free view, an immense number of whom were camped out in surrounding fields, streets and yards, perched on roofs or leaning out of windows.
Charles Green in later life
The weather was cloudy but favourable despite a brief shower which dampened those waiting for the launch. Half an hour or so before the main event a small pilot balloon was released to check on the wind direction, Green then got to work preparing the large crimson and gold striped main balloon for its trip over the Potteries. There was at this point some anxiety as to who, if anyone, would accompany Green on his historic flight. Some days earlier a suitable companion had been selected, but who this was is a mystery as the man backed out shortly before the launch and it seemed very likely that Green may have to go up alone. Indeed, the celebrated balloonist had clambered into the basket or ‘car’ as it was then called and was making his final adjustments prior to lift off, when the band suddenly struck up the popular Irish melody ‘Fly not yet’ to get his attention. A last-minute replacement had been found, the Reverend Benjamin Vale, perpetual curate of Stoke-upon-Trent, had volunteered to go. A Londoner by birth, Vale was an abrasive character with a very chequered history, which would not improve during his long career in the Potteries, but whatever his other faults he did not lack for courage and after briefly justifying his decision with his anxious friends, to the applause of the onlookers, he eagerly stepped forward to join Mr Green for this first historic trip.
With the clergyman aboard, the balloon was allowed to rise into the air to a considerable height above the gathered crowd, ropes still holding it secure while it did so. Here, Mr Green released some ballast and dropped a parachute over the side attached to a basket that carried a cat, which floated safely back down to earth. After a short while suspended thus probably to give the crowd a good view of the ‘buoyant and splendid machine’, it was drawn back down to earth, two flags were handed over which were fixed at either end of the car, the ropes were released and with the band playing and crowd applauding the balloon rose gracefully into the air. To those on the ground the balloon remained in sight for about twenty minutes before vanishing into a cloud for ten minutes, then reappearing briefly in the distance as a dark-coloured ball. The rest of the journey was instead charted by Reverend Vale who subsequently wrote an account of the historic flight, which was printed in the Staffordshire Advertiser several days later.
Reverend Vale described how after being released, their balloon was blown off first to the north and east and that he continued to answer the cries from the ground for as long as he could. Once they were out of earshot, though, he instead occupied his time watching Green work the balloon, or he looked over the side. It is perhaps a measure of his crusty character that rather than expressing delight at the experience and what he saw, he instead began musing on why anyone would strive to possess what looked like so many mud heaps below them. He tried to spot the church that he hoped to obtain the curacy to, but it had already dwindled into the distance and he could see little save a sprawling mud-heap where Hanley stood and another where Lane End lay.
A mile up, after entering a thick yellow cloud that to Vale’s mind had a curious soapy feel to it, Charles Green opened the bottom of the balloon to give the gas inside room to expand and as Vale was interested in helping he allowed him to operate the valve when needed. Meanwhile, the balloon sailed over Blythe Bridge where a fresh current of air took hold and they moved towards Cellarhead, passing over Werrington windmill where they heard voices shouting up to them, but they were up too high to make out any figures on the ground.
Charles Green’s balloon
Whilst over Consul Woods they heard the sound of several guns being fired and got a good view of the country they were now passing over. The balloon was descending a little too rapidly for Mr Green’s liking, so ballast was dropped to slow the descent. Vale peered down once more, trying to make sense of the landscape below. Straight lines he realised were roads, while an odd mushroom was a haystack and what looked like a solitary bush was in fact a small wood. There were more cries from below and a curious humming noise could also be heard as a rain shower lashed the balloon above them. They crossed the Churnet and the canal near to Belmont House, spotting the reflection of the balloon in the water.
Another wood loomed and more ballast fell and the balloon rose up into a fresh contrary zephyr that sent it south between Ipstones and Kingsley. Here the two aeronauts heard a voice crying “Come down, come down.” Far below, a woman watching the balloon had called up and thought she heard the men calling back, “Yes, yes, mistress.” and she brought out some brandy ready to greet them and celebrate, but to her disappointment, the balloon passed on by.
After forty minutes in the air they were two miles up and getting cold and Mr Green decided to tie off the end of the balloon before attempting a landing. To achieve this he boldly stood up on the edge of the car, but even at full stretch he could not reach the fabric until Reverend Vale pulling down on a rope with all his might, dragged it to within Green’s grasp. As Green tied it off they distinctly heard the sound of a horn being blown followed by the clatter of carriage wheels, which indicated that a coach was rattling its way over the hills below them.
Mr Green was now on the lookout for a safe landing spot, which became more urgent as bad weather closed in. However, nothing but fields and dry stone walls appeared before them and as they slung the grapple over the side, the two men steeled themselves for the worst that might happen. Spotting a couple of men below they yelled for assistance, but flew overhead much too quickly and it was not until their anchor had snagged and demolished parts of two walls that more locals rushed over and grabbed hold of the balloon and they finally came safely to a stop in the middle of a field. Vale estimated that they had been in the air for about an hour and had travelled over at least 25 miles.
A couple of days later, after an early attempt had to be aborted due to high winds that made flying much too risky, Mr Green took a similar balloon trip over Newcastle, accompanied this time by a member of the Wedgwood family.
Reference: Staffordshire Advertiser 7 October 1826, p.4; J. H. Y. Briggs, ‘A Staffordshire Clergyman: The Reverend Dr Benjamin Vale, L.L.D. (1787-1863)’ in Staffordshire Studies (Keele, 1987) pp. 141-153.
William Cooper (third from the left) in his early days as a Ted
When I was 14 and still living in Nelson Place with my sister Minnie and her family, two of my mates who were older than me had asked me if I wanted to go dancing. I said, “Dancing. I’ve never danced in my life except some square dancing at the church hall. Where you going?” They said “The skating rink, they’re playing rock and roll.” I said, “Rock and roll, what’s that?” – “Haven’t you heard those new records on the radio?” They said.
Well, I wasn’t all that interested at first, but I said I’d think about it. They were going on the Tuesday, so I tuned in to the radio after this just to find out what they were on about. The first rock and roll record I ever heard, even before Bill Haley and the Comets, was by Boyd Bennett and the Sky Rockets. It was one that was imported from America, you never heard it much because they didn’t play that sort of stuff on the wireless much then, it was mainly crooners and big band sounds like Victor Sylvester, Edmundo Ros and Ted Heath.
Anyway, I went to the dance. It was at the Ideal Skating Rink; they had dancing there on Tuesdays and Saturday nights and as I was tall for my age they thought I was 15 and they let me in. I enjoyed myself, but I was still a bit shy so didn’t dance, I stood at the side talking to some girls from school and some older ones who’d already left. They were all asking me why I was there. I went again the next week and this time I had a few dances and started to like it. They were still doing what they called jive which had been introduced when the Americans were here during the war. It was very similar to what they called bopping, only to big band music. But that wasn’t in the Teddy Boy era; it hadn’t started around here yet.
Of course, when the first rock music came out, the big band stuff and the jive had had it, that had gone. When Elvis and Bill Haley came out, we didn’t want to know that other stuff, all we wanted was rock music. And when proper rock and roll dancing came in, the Teddy Boys appeared. The Teddy Boy era didn’t last all that long. It started in about 1953 and by 1959 it was all over, around here at least. I first decided to be a Teddy Boy after seeing an article in the ‘Daily Mirror’ about lads in London dressing as Teddy Boys. Anyhow after the article in the ‘Mirror’ about the Teddy Boys in London, of course it spread all over the country and they started appearing around Hanley. I saw one or two and then more started dressing like that, then as I say, I became one as well. My family didn’t mind about me becoming a Teddy Boy. Minnie wasn’t really bothered, she knew it was the ‘in’ thing then and that I liked dancing. Her kids, Marie, Margaret and all the others would say “Where you going?” when I used to start getting dressed up to go out on a Saturday night.
Weekday wear
In the week we’d wear jeans and bomber jackets, sometimes leatherette or leather if we were well off, but at the weekend we’d never go out without a suit on and a tie. That was the real Teddy Boy look – it took Edwardian style dress and exaggerated it a bit. I think we took some style from the pictures too, like the film ‘Beau Brummell’, that one with Stewart Granger. I know Beau Brummell wasn’t Edwardian, but he was a dandy and if you watch that film you’ll see the influence there, the flashy cravats and ties. The long coats were the main thing that made us stand out, some with fancy lapels and we wore drainpipe trousers that tight that you used to have to sometimes lie down on the bed to pull them on. But a lot of the tailors in Stoke-on-Trent wouldn’t make you a Teddy Boy suit, I don’t know why – they just wouldn’t do it. To get a Teddy Boy suit, I had to hunt around and finally got one made at a private place down in Shelton. It cost me £15, which was a lot of money then, even when I worked in the pit. At one time, though, I did have a real Edwardian suit. The bloke next door, Lily Kondratiuk’s father, saw me dressing up one night and he said, “That looks like Edwardian stuff.” and I said, “That’s how they’re beginning to dress now. They call them Teddy Boys.” He says, “Well, I’ve got one of them suits, but it’s in the pawn shop. If you want it, here’s the ticket; go get it.”
Anyway, I went up to get it and it was absolutely brilliant! Jet black it was, with a waistcoat. When I put it on it was a perfect fit because he was same build as me then. I bought a pair of black shoes to go with it, a fancy white shirt with frills on and a string tie. My mates were jealous to death. They said, “Where’ve you had that made?” I said, “I haven’t had it made. It’s older than any of us this is.” I wore it for ages, it was a lovely suit.
Another time, I bought a Teddy Boy jacket on its own. A grey one it was, very long, down to my knees. I’d only worn it a couple of times, but with sweating from all the dancing I did the lapels went crinkled on both sides. I said to one of the lads, “I onna bloody wearing this again. It’s had it.” To my surprise, though, he said, ‘Hey, it’s great! I wish I’d got one like that.’ What it was, after the dancing I’d put a big duffle coat over the top of my jacket – a big black one with those big peg buttons – and it held all the sweat in and made the jacket all wrinkled down the lapels. Everyone said it looked good, so I wore it all the time after that.
We also used to wear fancy shirts as well. We’d think nothing of wearing bright orange shirts, or pink or yellow. Tony Hughes was best when he came in a frilly shirt. He met us outside the Albion and when he arrived he’d got his big duffle coat on and he says, “I’ve bought a new shirt.” That was nothing new because we used to buy shirts regularly. Anyhow, we went inside the Albion for a couple of drinks and said, “Let’s have a look at it then.” He took his coat off and it had frills all round his collar like lace, all around his wrists and lace sticking out all down the front. Harold Hale said, “You look like a big girl, you do!” We were all laughing, but it was different and the following week, we’d all got them on. They didn’t last long though, as they were right buggers to iron. Minnie had to iron my shirts, I couldn’t iron shirts, I’d just iron the front and put it on. When she saw these frilly shirts, though, Minnie said, “What the bloody hell have you brought me here for iron?”
The Tony Curtis look was in, so you had to have a quiff as well. I went to see how much it cost to have it cut in that style – I was told 10 shilling, which was an astronomic price! So, I did it myself, they showed you how to in a paper. To do your quiff you’d comb your hair up, then just pull it forward. I used sugar and water mixed. What you did was you mixed the sugar and water, not much water, but plenty of sugar. The water had to be aired so the sugar was just starting to melt and then you dug your hands in it and rubbed it hard until it melted right down, you could feel it sticky on your hands and you rubbed it on. Then you combed your hair and that’s it, it stayed. Mind you, my first go wasn’t all that brilliant, my hair was too short and it came out all spiky.
Bill Cooper, Harold Hale (on bike) and Ronnie Williams.
I had plenty of friends to go out with. There was still John and Harold Hale from Nelson Place. They were Teds as well, but John more than Harold. There was our cousin Raymond Walsh and Tony Smith, he was only a little guy, he was only about five foot and when he’d got his long jacket on the sleeves hung down to his finger tips. He’s the one that kept getting into bloody trouble all the time and expected us get him out of it. There were a lot of us. There was Brian Ward, Ronnie Williams, Billy Gilbert, Bernard Shaw and others. There was quite a few of us from the Nelson Place area, but not the older ones; those that were two or three years older than me and who I first went dancing with didn’t take it up.
You could call us a gang, I suppose, but it wasn’t just made up of those I’d known when I was growing up in Nelson Place, there were others that we’d meet in dance halls and in pubs. We used to all hang round together. There used to be a bunch of girls with us as well all the time. We would go all over the place dancing, not only in Stoke either, we also went to Manchester.’
The sinking of the Lusitania, by marine artist Norman Wilkinson. Source: Wikimedia Commons.
On 7 May 1915, the Cunard liner Lusitania, en route from New York to Liverpool was some 11 miles off the Old Head of Kinsale, Ireland, when a lurking German U-Boat fired a torpedo that struck the ship just aft of the bridge on the starboard side. Shortly after the torpedo struck, a second explosion occurred inside the ship, dooming the vessel, which sank in only 18 minutes. There were only 763 survivors out of the 1,960 passengers and crew and about 128 of the dead were American citizens. The sinking of the Lusitania was widely condemned around the world and it became a contributing factor to America’s entry into the Great War in 1917.
As had been the case with the Titanic three years earlier, there were several people aboard the doomed liner who hailed from the Potteries, though some of them had become naturalised American or Canadian citizens, who despite the increasing dangers posed by the war in Europe, were coming to Britain to visit relatives. Most of them perished in the disaster, but three survived and had dramatic but tragic tales to tell.
When the Lusitania was first struck by the torpedo, 39 year old Martha Barker, her nine year old daughter Winifred, with their friends Elizabeth Brammer aged 32 and her five year old daughter Edith, were sitting down to lunch in the second class saloon. They had all been born in the Potteries, Martha in Stoke, her daughter in Hanley, Elizabeth in Longton and her daughter in Stoke. However, they were now US citizens, their two families having emigrated to the States in 1909, setting up home in Trenton, New Jersey, where their husbands and fathers had found work in the local pottery industry. But the ties that bind were strong and in 1915, the four of them decided to take a trip back to Britain, Mrs Barker to visit her mother who was ill and the Brammers to see relatives. They were all aware of the dangers they faced in taking the trip; indeed the Germans had recently placed warning notices in many American papers – one was even placed next to the notice announcing Lusitania’s sailing – stating that all British ships were now subject to unrestricted submarine warfare and would be legitimate targets to attack. But the journey thus far had been uneventful and the women and girls were looking forward to arriving safely at Liverpool.
That happy prospect, though, was suddenly cut short, when at about 2.10 p.m., the torpedo slammed into the Lusitania. Mrs Barker recalled that the ship seemed to stop, almost dead, shuddered and began to list to starboard. Everyone knew what had happened and there followed a scramble to get out of the saloon, but in the confusion and crush to get up on to the deck, the Barkers and Brammers were separated from one another.
Mrs Brammer and Edith, got to the main deck where a fellow passenger, a clergyman from Queenstown, put life jackets on the two of them. Martha Barker had lost track of what was going on, but she and Winifred also made it to the boat deck, where a gentleman provided the young girl with a life jacket, though Martha never managed to get one. They both climbed into a nearby lifeboat, but on the captain’s orders they and other passengers were told to get out, which was fortunate as the boat was situated on the side that went down first. The occupants were told that everything was fine, the watertight doors were closed and that after the shock of the blast, the ship was slowly righting itself.
The ship was indeed settling back onto an even keel when the second explosion occurred deep within the hull, dooming the vessel. Martha Barker held Winifred’s right hand and with nothing else to do, they simply waited for the end. Despite the peril, the little girl showed great courage and said, “Don’t worry mother darling; we shall be saved.”
But as the ship rolled over, with hundreds of others they were plunged into the water and the suction quickly pulled them under. Mrs Barker remembered being pulled down and down before she lost consciousness. When she awoke some time later, she found herself on an upturned boat onto which she had been lifted by someone, but she was horrified to find that Winifred was no longer with her.
The Brammers too had gone down with the ship, but they must have held on tight to each other. Elizabeth Brammer also lost consciousness, but when she came to she found herself safe in a lifeboat with Edith by her side. Martha Barker, meantime, was picked up by one of the collapsible lifeboats, then a fishing boat came along and took her and others on board. Some time later, she was moved once again, this time to a steam tug which transported her to Queenstown harbour, where it seems she was reunited with the Brammers.
The survivors were taken to the Queen’s Hotel in Queenstown, arriving there at about 10 p.m., some seven or eight hours after the sinking. Here, the US Consul based in Cork, came to render assistance and Martha Barker and the Brammers, were overwhelmed by the kindness of the locals, who helped in every way they could. For Martha, though, it was a heart-wrenching time, and though she waited for several days, hoping against hope to hear something about her daughter, no news ever came. Brave little Winnie Barker, was never seen again, just one of the 1,197 people lost with the Lusitania.
It soon became clear in the North Staffordshire press, that others from the Potteries had perished alongside her. Arthur John Wood, aged 39, had been born in Wolstanton, but grew up in Burslem and Tunstall. By 1915, he was a married man living in Goldenhill and he worked as a designer and representative of Messrs W. H. Grindley and Co., of Tunstall. He had been in the States on a business trip for his firm and having crossed safely on the Lusitania, he took the ship for the return, but was lost in the sinking. His body was later recovered and like many of the victims he was later buried in Queenstown.
William Henry Crutchley, aged 48, had been born in Hanley and worked in the pottery industry as a sanitary presser and caster. A married man with six surviving children, he had been in the States visiting his son who worked as a potter in East Liverpool, Ohio. William was travelling as a steerage (3rd class) passenger on the Lusitania, returning to Britain to see his wife and daughters. William was reportedly a good swimmer and his son in the States at first held out some hope that his father had survived the sinking, but William was never seen again.
Also born in Hanley was Edward Jones, sometimes referred to as Edward Carr-Jones. Aged 39, he was a pianist aboard the Lusitania. After a period working in the pottery industry, by 1911, he was listing himself in the census as a ‘professor of music’ and ‘Pianist Cunard Line.’ He had, in fact, been leading a very different life from most of the locals for several years and before going to sea he had spent several summers working in Barmouth as a member of a pierrot troupe, ‘The Royal Magnets’, wherein he played the flute. From 1912 onwards, he was working regularly on ships. Now styling himself Edward Carr-Jones (Carr was his mother’s maiden name) he had worked on the Carmania and Lusitania as a pianist. He too was lost in the sinking.
Also mentioned alongside these was Gertrude Walker, a Canadian citizen who had been born in Newcastle-under-Lyme. Aged 28 at the time of her death. She was the wife of John Walker, a native of Warwickshire, who had trained in the Potteries as a blacksmith and who later worked as a mechanical engineer for the Cobridge Sanitary Brick and Tile Works. The couple married in Newcastle in 1913 and emigrated to Canada soon after, settling in Toronto, where John found work as a fitter on the railways. In 1915, Gertrude got news that her father was ill, which prompted their journey back to Britain. Friends had tried to dissuade them from going, but to no avail, and both perished in the disaster that overtook the liner.
For the survivors, life went on, though not always in the happiest of ways. Martha Barker suffered the tragedy of losing her daughter alone at first, though she was soon joined in Liverpool by her husband Thomas and daughter Doris, and Elizabeth Brammer’s husband also came over. In July, they all returned safely to the United States aboard the American Line steamer New York. Not long after this, Thomas Barker died and Martha went on to marry one Michael Thomas Gretton. By 1940, she was a widow once more and eventually died in 1963, in Trenton, being listed as Martha Barker.
Her friend Elizabeth Brammer is something of an enigma after the sinking and her return home. It has been claimed that she died in 1983, but this has been disputed. Her daughter Edith, though, is easier to trace. She married one Arthur Fletcher in 1929, and the couple had a daughter. Edith Fletcher, born in Stoke-upon-Trent in 1907, died in Mercer County, New Jersey, in April 1985, aged 78.
Reference: Staffordshire Sentinel, 8 – 10 May 1915; Staffordshire Advertiser 15 May 1915, p.7. Peter Engberg-Klarström’s website ‘Peter’s Lusitania Page’ https://lusitaniapage.wordpress.com/ is an excellent online resource for those looking for more in-depth biographies of the passengers and crew of the Lusitania. I gratefully acknowledge his research here, notably into the life of bandsman Edward Jones. My thanks also to Ken Ray, for drawing my attention to the story
John Edward Kitson was born at Coseley, near Dudley, Staffordshire in 1897, the eldest of two children born to Edward and Florence Kitson. His father was a police constable at first in the Dudley and Handsworth regions, but it seems that promotion to sergeant saw him move north to the Potteries, perhaps before John was 10 years old. Here the family prospered and his father would eventually rise to the rank of Chief Inspector at Burslem Police Station. In the 1911 census, the family was living in Shelton New Road, Newcastle and barring service in World War One, John Kitson would remain in the area for the rest of his life.
The Great War started late in 1914 and by early 1915 John Edward Kitson had joined the army. As 31331 Gunner J. E. Kitson, Royal Field Artillery, he arrived in France in March 1915 and from April 1916, he served as a driver for X/9 Medium Trench Mortar Battery, part of the divisional artillery attached to the 9th Scottish Division. Though never promoted, he proved a brave soldier, being wounded in action at least four times, seeing service on the Somme and at the Battle of Passchendaele. Gunner Kitson finished his war by winning the Military Medal in 1918 for gallantry in the field. Hospitalised in Britain after his final wound, he did not return to the front to see out the war, being discharged from the army on 8 July 1918.
After the war he married a local woman, Doris Hudson, they settled in Sneyd Green where they brought up five children. Kitson worked as a civil servant for the Ministry of Labour, but this seems to have been an anti climax after his wartime adventures which prompted him to leave an interesting anecdote of his service during the war and a record of how his injuries had affected his life afterwards. The stories were colourful enough to warrant syndication on papers as far afield as Australia and New Zealand.
‘A WAR HORSE’ ‘ALMOST HUMAN.’
‘Mr. J. E. Kitson. of Hanley, Staffordshire, in England, sent to the “Daily Mail” the following remarkable stories of his war horse: – During 1916 and 1917 I had a charger named Tommy. He was nothing short of human, and many an entertainment was given by him to the troops. Once, when we were being shelled he got loose from his peg, and coming to me, gripped my shoulder In his mouth and “led” me away. A minute later a shell fell at the very spot where I had been standing. His favourite trick was to wait until I had given him a thorough grooming, then sit down like a dog. open his mouth, and “laugh” and roll. This usually happened when the Inspecting officer was just coming round the lines. Luckily, the officer knew Tommy. Another time, when I was riding him at a gallop my tin hat fell off. Tommy at once stopped, turned. and picked it up and “handed” It to me. Just as I had put the hat on a piece of shrapnel struck it a glancing blow. He brought me in when I was badly gassed, I was unconscious on his back. A few weeks later he also entered hospital, and was sent into retirement.’
The Mercury (Hobart, Tasmania) 2 July 1931, p.12
‘MAN WHO REFUSES TO DIE’
‘Mr J. E. Kitson, of Hanley Road, Sneyd Green, Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent, is known to his family and friends as the man who refuses to die. Doctors have repeatedly told him he has only a few years to live – but he fools them all. It all started during the war, when a piece of shell pierced his neck and killed a comrade behind him. Mr Kitson recovered, but doctors gave him just five years of life.
The five years went by; then two years later he collapsed at work. This time he was given just seven months more. But after five months he got fed up with being a sick man and returned to work.
Two years ago he collapsed again, was rushed to hospital and put on the danger list. Two hours later he was normal again and walked out of the hospital the next day.
Doctors are perplexed about Mr Kitson, but he doesn’t mind. He says he will live to be 100.’
Cairns Post (Queensland, Aus.) 15 March 1939, p.9
John Edward Kitson certainly defied his doctors by many years, but did not carry on going as long as he predicted and he died on 13 July 1953 in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, when he was 56 years old.
The oldest profession in the world had its place in soft underbelly of the Regency Potteries. Prostitutes plied a regular trade usually around the local inns where there were rich pickings when the potters and miners rolled in with their wages. A brief memoir of the period reveals that then as now many of the local working girls were ordinary women driven to extremes by circumstances, the probable cause being abject poverty. A Short Memoir of Ann Sheldon, published in 1821, tells the story of the short life of a dedicated Burslem Sunday School teacher. Constructed around entries in Ann’s diary, it reveals her to have been a noble spirited young woman, who saw it as her Christian duty to visit the sick and try to save the fallen.
Burslem town centre in the early 19th century.
In April 1813 following a class, one of her class members asked Ann if she would visit a woman who was very ill. Accompanied by a fellow teacher ‘Miss B’, she went to see the woman whom she soon discovered to be a local prostitute. They found her to be, ‘a little better and very penitent.’ Ann continued : ‘she had been a very wicked woman for years, and is now little more than 30 years of age. Her parents died when she and her sister were young. As they advanced in years they got into bad company and lost their character. Masters would not employ them and they became common prostitutes.’ The woman, exhausted and frightened by her illness, told the two teachers that if she lived she was determined to leave her ‘wicked course of life.’
After praying together they left her. The two young teachers had obviously been shocked by the interview and though the nature of the woman’s illness is never stated, the impression we are left with is that it was contracted as a result of her calling. Both came away from the house burning with a desire to save others from such a dangerous and degrading career.
The next day, Ann and Miss B set out once more and found a woman to direct them to the ‘houses of ill fame’. They visited two buildings, but met with a mixed reception, made all the more galling no doubt, by the fact that at least two of the girls they encountered were old Sunday school scholars.
In the first house ‘we found a young woman about seventeen years of age, who lived by herself, and was three years ago a Sunday scholar.’ The girl was unmoved by the teachers’ entreaties, Ann went back many times to invite her back to the school, but to no avail.
There were two women in the other house: ‘we found a woman about twenty-seven years of age; who met in class about two years ago: we both spoke as close as possible for an hour and a half; they shed many tears and confessed they had a hell upon earth. There was another woman present, a companion in sin, who appeared to take no notice: – I said to her come down on your knees, and cry to the Lord, to have mercy upon your soul, before it is too late: we all bowed the knee before God, and found much liberty in prayer.’
It is unknown whether Ann and Miss B efforts were successful. The biography remains silent on the matter. Ann herself died at a young age in 1819.
Reference: John Tregortha (publisher) A Short Memoir of Ann Sheldon, Burslem 1821
Following the British invasion of the independent Zulu Kingdom in Southern Africa in January 1879, a force of over 1,700 men, mostly from the 24th Regiment of Foot, was camped at the foot of a sphinx-shaped rocky hill called Isandlwana. Here on 22 January, they were attacked by a Zulu army some 20,000 to 25,000 strong that they had supposed to be many miles away. As the Zulu warriors swarmed down from hills to the north and spread out in a wide arc to envelope them, the 24th Foot and numerous colonial units moved forward and formed a line to face the enemy and for some time – in the centre at least – they did successfully hold their ground, keeping the Zulus at bay with concentrated volley and cannon fire. In trying to keep in contact with a mounted force to the east, though, the main British line became fatally over-extended and in danger of being outflanked. Seeing this, Colonel Pulleine the officer commanding the camp ordered his forces to fall back to a more defensible position in front of the hill, but it was a fatal move. When the gunfire slackened the Zulus in the centre seized the moment and rushed forward in pursuit while those out on the plain soon outpaced and outflanked the British line to the east, rushing in on the camp and behind the retiring blocks of infantry, cutting off their escape. Chaos ensued as the British line disintegrated and the battle then degenerated into a mass of isolated fights with knots of redcoats surrounded by masses of Zulus. Some 400 men, mostly mounted troops, managed to escape the resulting slaughter before the end, but over 1,300 men perished on the British side, including nearly the entire 1/24th and a company of the 2/24th Foot. The Battle of Isandlwana became the worst defeat ever suffered by the British army at the hands of a native foe and for the time at least it effectively stopped the invasion of Zululand in its tracks.
The stained glass window and grave memorials to Private William Henry Hickin.
Several local men were killed in the action. In the ranks of the 1/24th were 25 year old Private William Henry Hickin from Hanley; the son of one Henry Hickin a local locksmith and bell hanger, William had previously worked as a writing clerk before enlisting in early 1876. Private George Glass 1/24th aged 22 from Shelton, was the son of a local school master and had briefly worked as a potter and joined the army in 1874. Private Enoch Worthington 1/24th from Kidsgrove, was 24 and had been a miner like his father before him; he enlisted in Newcastle in 1875. Private Samuel Plant 1/24th was an older man from Shelton, who had joined the 24th Foot in 1859, married in 1862 and prior to serving in Southern Africa he had served for a year on St Helena.
In the 2/24th, former potter Sergeant William Shaw from Tunstall, was about 32 years old. After joining the army in 1870 he was promoted corporal in 1873 and sergeant in 1877. He had married locally before joining the army, had four children and had served in India and Britain before being sent to Southern Africa. His wife Emma and their children had come with him on this tour of duty and were lodged in King William’s Town, Cape Colony, far away from Zululand. Private Samuel Poole, 2/24th is something of an enigma as several possible candidates of that name were born in Audley, Kidsgrove or Newcastle, but there is no clear evidence if any of these are our man, all we know is merely that a man of that name enlisted in Hanley on 27 April 1875 aged 21 years. Records state that he served in G Company 2/24th. Private David Pritchard 2/24th, was from Stoke-upon-Trent though no one of that name appears in the civil records so that may have been an alias. He claimed to have worked as a forgeman before joining up in 1865 and he went on to see service in India. Aged about 34 at the time of the Zulu War, records say he served in B Company, but that was the company left at Rorke’s Drift, so he had probably been transferred to G Company.
The most interesting of these local victims of Isandlwana from a historian’s point of view, is Sergeant William Shaw of the 2/24th, as evidence exists giving us a glimpse into his fate that day. According to the notebook of Corporal John Bassage 2/24th, now held at the Royal Regiment of Wales Museum, who was part of the force sent to bury the dead in June 1879 after the war was over, the remains of Sergeant Shaw and three private soldiers of the 2/24th were found together in a heap on the battlefield. The four men caught out in the open appeared to have formed into a small group in a last desperate attempt to try and fend off the Zulus as they poured into the camp. All seemed to have been stabbed to death with assegais.
Staffordshire Sentinel and Commercial & General Advertiser – Saturday 8 March 1879, p.5
In a report in the Sentinel noting Shaw’s death in action, it was stated that there were hopes of raising a memorial to him and all the Tunstall men killed in South Africa. This, though, never seems to have come to pass and of all the men mentioned above only one appears to have been commemorated locally. In December 1880 at St John’s Church in Hanley, a stained glass window was dedicated to the memory of 25 year old Private William Henry Hickin, whose father was a churchwarden there. Hickin was further commemorated on his grandfather and aunt’s gravestone in Hanley Cemetery. Private Hickin is in fact the only ‘other ranks’ casualty of the Battle of Isandlwana remembered with a memorial window.
A local soldier who who was initially listed as a casualty was Private Frederick Butler from Shelton and son of the proprietor of the Bell and Bear Inn. He was a soldier of the 1/24th but prior to the invasion he had been transferred to the Imperial Mounted Infantry, Though initially listed as a casualty of the battle, Butler was in fact many miles away with his new unit serving in another invasion column that saw action at the battle of Nyezane on the same day as Isandlwana. He survived the war, rejoined his own unit once the fighting was over and later returned to the Potteries.
Another local man who missed the battle, was 26 year old Private John McNally of C Company 2/24th Foot from Hanley. Described as being 5’ 5¼” tall, with brown hair, brown eyes and a fresh complexion, he was a former iron worker and had been a part-time soldier in the 3rd Staffordshire Militia before enlisting for the regular army in 1877. On 22 January 1879, he was part of a detached force that returned to the deserted battlefield of Isandlwana on the evening after the battle. Ten days later he penned a letter to his parents describing how they had returned to the camp that night and the soldiers of the 2/24th were sent in to retake it. His horror at the scenes he encountered is palpable.
‘Our tents were destroyed, our ammunition stolen, our rifles broken and taken off. Our hospital waggons were torn to pieces, the sick killed, the medicine bottles all broken, bags of flour and meal – in fact, everything – destroyed. It was a horrid sight for us. When we returned at night in the dark, we had to charge our way to camp with our bayonets. We were falling in holes and over anthills, and in camp we were falling over the dead bodies of our comrades, who had been killed, and awful as it is to relate, it is true – they were cut right down the chest and across their bellies, their bowels coming out. Some had their toes, some their ears, others their arms cut off, and some in fact – dear mother and father, I cannot describe the horrible treatment they had to suffer. The little band boys were tied to a waggon and their flesh stripped off them.’
McNally was writing home from the mission station of Rorke’s Drift which had also been attacked following the battle of Isandlwana. In his letter he then gives a pithy description of that battle that was later immortalised in the film Zulu, plus an account of one of their sick who had been left in the camp at Isandlwana, and who had a relative in the Potteries.
‘We had our company, B. Co., staying here to guard our stores. The Zulus came upon them and tried to take possession of our stores, but they were repulsed, our side losing about 12 men, the enemy about 900 or a thousand. We numbered about 100; the enemy numbered about 5,000 or 6,000. But although we have suffered this loss, we hope, please God, to have our revenge when we get some more troops out from England. We have been twelve days and have never taken our boots off, always watching day and night for the enemy making an attack, which they generally do at night. Tell McDermott that lives in Weaver-street, to write to his brother in Wolverhampton, and tell him that his son James has been killed. He went sick the morning our camp was attacked. If McDermott likes he can write to the commanding officer of his regiment, and he will give him every satisfaction respecting him.’
Unlike so many of his comrades in the 24th, McNally survived the war and stayed in the army until 1889, when he returned to the Potteries. He later married and had nine children. John McNally died in 1928, aged 75.
A panoramic view of the battlefield of Isandlwana. The British camp was situated in the middle of the picture. The Zulu attack came over the hill line in the distance. The white cairns in the near foreground are British burial pits.
Photo courtesy of Ken Ray
Reference: Staffordshire Sentinel, various issues March-May 1879., Pvt Mc Nally’s letter can be found in Staffordshire Sentinel, 26 March 1879, p.3. My thanks to Ken Ray for his detailed list and information on the local men killed at Isandlwana and to Alan Rouse for family and background information on Sergeant Shaw.
