Buffalo Bill Cody with some of the Red Indians of his Wild West Show. Source: Wikimedia Commons
On 17 August 1891, former hunter and US army scout turned impresario, William Cody, better known as Buffalo Bill, opened his ‘Wild West Show’ for the first of six days of performances in the Potteries. The show was making a tour of Britain and had arrived from Sheffield several days earlier in three trains comprising 76 carriages, bearing 250 performers, several hundred horses and dozens of bison. Cody and his company also brought enough scaffolding with them to build a pavilion that could seat 15,000 spectators, which was quickly constructed not far from the train station in Stoke by local workers. A Red Indian village was also built nearby for the many native American performers and their families, which became a great attraction during their stay. In the main pavilion there were two shows a day at 3pm and 6pm and though it rained on the first day the weather improved as the week went on. Sure enough, as elsewhere, thousands of local people turned up to watch the shows, one of which a reporter for the Sentinel described briefly for their readers:
‘Notwithstanding a persistent downpour, an audience assembled in numbers large enough to crowd the popular parts of the stands, and though with more favourable weather a better display might have been expected, the full programme was given and all seemed intensely delighted. The shooting feats of Miss Annie Oakley, Mr. C. L. Daley, Johnnie Baker, and General Cody [sic] himself, created a great deal of enthusiasm, whilst the antics of the bucking horses, and the agility of the cowboys, caused considerable interest, as well as amusement. The attack on the Deadwood coach was performed in a manner quite realistic, and the concluding tableau, an attack by Indians on a frontier man’s cabin, gave all present a very true idea of what a pioneer’s life was like a few years ago on the Far West. During the afternoon the Indian encampment was visited by thousands of interested spectators.
For the evening performance the ground was lit up by Wells’ patent lights. Unfortunately, the wet and boisterous weather prevented the public from gaining an accurate idea as to the capabilities, and must have rendered the performance, especially the shooting, a matter of some considerable difficulty. Nevertheless, there was a large attendance of spectators, and the programme was gone through without a hitch. General Cody was loudly cheered when he made his parting bow.’
Thirteen years later on 21 October 1904, the people of the Potteries witnessed the last ever performance by ‘Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show’ to be held in Britain. The season had started here earlier that year on 25 April, most of the animals and some of the cowboys and stable hands having overwintered at Etruria, while the bulk of the company had gone home. Now after their last tour of the country, the show made a final return to the area prior to departing for the Continent. They signed off with two final performances held on this day at the Agricultural Show Fields at Birches Head. The evening performance attracted a crowd of 12,500 people and at the end of the show the performers were bid goodbye by the audience spontaneously singing Auld Lang Syne.
Reference: StaffordshireSentinel, 22 August 1891, p.3; 25 April 1904; 22 October 1904.
In the late 19th century, Nelson Place, a small undistinguished back street in the Wellington estate to the east of Hanley town centre, was home to a flint mill owned by a Mr George Edwards. It was a small establishment that ground flint for the pottery industry and was just one of many similar works that were dotted around the Potteries, all part of a larger infrastructure that fed into the manufacture of ceramics. There was the mill itself and its out-buildings, plus some stables where several horses belonging to a carter named George Flower were housed at the time, Mr Flower himself living further down the street at number 40 Nelson Place. The mill’s main feature, though, was a fine chimney that had been erected half a century earlier, which in size and dimensions was said to be a copy of Pompey’s Pillar, a Roman triumphal column in Alexandria, Egypt. Whether it was a true copy of the famous column – complete with square base and Corinthian capital – or was simply an 88 feet tall tubular shaft is not made clear, but it was a notable landmark in the surrounding streets, at least that is, until the night of Wednesday 8 November 1882.
It had rained heavily in Hanley all afternoon and into the evening, the rain driven in hard by a heavy gale that had caused serious damage elsewhere in the Potteries. In Stoke, the roof of the parish church had been partially torn up by the wind and dashed down onto the north side of the church. This in turn had knocked down some of the decorative masonry on the roof, which was smashed to pieces when it hit the floor, destroying a gravestone as it did so. In Burslem, it was the culmination of a couple of days of variable weather, a frost on Tuesday had given way to a fall of snow on Wednesday morning, then a hail storm in the early afternoon which transformed into a full-blown thunderstorm in the evening, with an incredible play of lightning in the sky.
This seems to have been the same storm that rolled in over Hanley late on Wednesday evening. The StaffordshireSentinel reported, ‘Such a disturbance of the elements has not been known in the town for very many years, the nearest approach to it, perhaps, being during a heavy storm which took place about forty years ago, when the Old Wind-mill was struck.’
The lightning was unusually vivid throughout the storm, particularly one flash which occurred shortly after 10 p.m., the thunderclap that came with it being likened to a short, sharp volley of artillery. People who were out of doors, were staggered by the flash, the noise and the rush of displaced air that hit them. Sergeant Jones of the Hanley Borough police, on duty at the lower end of Charles Street, was bowled over by the shock, but not physically hurt.
The cause was a massive lightning strike that hit the chimney of the flint mill and blew it apart. A mass of bricks fell straight down onto the nearby stables, crushing them and killing and burying two of the three unlucky horses housed there while seriously injuring the third. Debris was scattered over a wide area, the houses nearest to the mill taking the brunt of the damage with nearly every window broken, while a finger of the lightning had entered a house at the top of the street, struck a cupboard and destroyed its contents, consisting of crockery, which was scattered around the room. On other homes, chimney pots were gone, rain spouts and gutters were missing, and tiles were blown off the roofs. Indeed, scarcely a house in Nelson Place escaped damage. Telephone lines were brought down in the street and pieces of brick from the collapsed chimney were hurled great distances. Some smashed back windows in Hassall Street, while the cross was knocked off the west end of St Luke’s Church and holes were made in the roof. The lightning blast also seems to have done some damage to J. and R. Hammersley’s pot bank at the bottom of Hassall Road, but to what extent is unknown.
Today, such an event would garner serious press attention, but for papers in the late 19th century where news tended to be presented in a digest form, the reportage was restrained to a relatively small account the day after and a repeat of the story at the weekend. As a result it is impossible to go into any more detail on what the overall effect was on the area. The destruction to the Nelson Place mill was considerable, the once admired chimney was now just a mass of broken rubble. Estimates placed the damage at about £300 (nearly £32,000 in 2026), a hefty sum for a small business to shoulder. Thankfully, no one was killed or injured save for the horses and only on that subject was there anything further in the paper. The death of the two horses and the injuries to the third had robbed George Flower of his only source of income and a couple of days after the storm, a letter written by one Edwin J. Hammersley appeared in the Sentinel, making an appeal on Mr Flower’s behalf. Describing the carter as ‘one of the most industrious and persevering working-men in the borough’ he proposed a subscription fund to help Mr Flower in his distress. Headed by the Mayor Mr John Emery, who acted as treasurer, this soon gained legs and numerous manufacturers, neighbours and most of the workforce of Hammersley’s factory chipped in. So successful was the appeal, that by 20 November an additional letter to the paper announced that so much had been collected that George Flower was now nearly fully compensated for his losses. Certainly, nine years later in the 1891 census, he was still listed as a carter at 40 Nelson Place.
That was all that was written about the lightning strike that demolished Nelson Place’s most distinctive landmark, but what of the flint mill itself? Well, that too seems to have literally ridden out the storm, trade directories indicating that George Edwards continued to do business as a flint grinder in Nelson Place, certainly up until 1912. At some point between then and the 1940s, though, the mill ceased working and was finally demolished and the land cleared, much to the delight of the local kids, who adopted it as a playground, known simply as ‘The Mill’. One of those children was my own father, who told me many tales of life in the street, of it’s people and it’s buildings, but he seems to have been completely unaware of that dramatic night, six decades before he was born, when the sky fell in on Nelson Place.
Reference: The Staffordshire Sentinel, Thursday, 9 November 1882, p.3; Friday, 10 November 1882, p.3; Monday, 20 November 1882, p.3.
The Timothy Trow Memorial, London Road, Stoke. Image: Google Earth
At about a quarter past four on the afternoon of 13 April 1894, a three year old girl named Jane Ridgway who lived with her parents at Steele’s Cottages alongside the Newcastle canal* in Boothen, Stoke, tumbled into the water. Nearby 21 year old Timothy Trow, a tram conductor who was in charge of the car working London Road that afternoon, was just about to signal to the driver to pull away from the West End terminus, when he heard a loud splash from the adjacent canal and saw the little girl in trouble. Without a thought for his own safety, Trow – a non-swimmer – got down from the tram, ran to the canal and jumped in. He managed to wade most of the way across the cut, the water only coming up to his waist, but then it fell away much deeper and Trow called out to his colleague the tram driver that he had cramp. The young man was in trouble and seemed to become helpless in the water. A passer by, Mr Henry Lloyd of Beresford Street, Shelton was one of several other men who rushed to the canal and he now jumped in to help Trow while another man, John Forrester of Wellesley Street, Shelton also plunged in and fished little Jane Ridgway out of the water. Timothy Trow desperately grabbed hold of Mr Lloyd who tried to pull him to the bank, but Lloyd too was struck by cramp and unable to hold onto the floundering man who threatened to pull him under had no option but to let go. Lloyd managed to scramble back to the bank where others hauled him out while John Forrester having handed Jane Ridgway to others, also tried to grab onto Trow, but to no avail. Every effort was made to catch the drowning man, but it was futile and in the struggle Timothy Trow disappeared from view and it was not until half an hour later that his body was found.
This dramatic rescue that ended in tragedy made quite an impact in the Potteries and all involved were praised for their bravery, especially Timothy Trow whose selfless act in going into the canal despite not being able to swim won him a massive amount of sympathy. As a result, his funeral three days later was a grand affair attended by dozens of mourners, his parents, family and friends as well as 30 fellow tram conductors and drivers who had been let off work for the day to attend the service as well as several company officials. Numerous wreaths decorated the hearse and hundreds of people watched from the pavements while blinds were drawn in many houses along the route that the funeral cortege took on its way from Timothy’s family home in William Street, Hanley to Hanley Borough Churchyard.
All this and the church ceremony were reported in the Sentinel which several days later announced that a memorial committee was being formed to raise funds for a permanent memorial to the young tram conductor and during the summer news came that Timothy Trow, Henry Lloyd and John Forrester were to be recognised by the Royal Humane Society. By early October a sum of £47,11s had been raised, enough to fund an 8 feet tall obelisk made of grey granite to be sited in London Road near to the scene of Trow’s deed and a marker was placed on his grave in the cemetery. The inscription picked out in gold near the base of the obelisk reads: ‘Erected by Public Subscription in Grateful Memory of TIMOTHY TROW, tram conductor aged 21 years who lost his life by drowning near this spot, in an heroic effort attempt to save that of a child April 13th 1894.’
The remaining money from the collection was divided between Messrs Lloyd and Forrester. On 22 October 1894, a large party of council officials and a crowd of onlookers were in attendance when the obelisk was unveiled, after which Henry Lloyd and John Forrester were presented with their certificates from the Royal Humane Society while the Society’s ‘In Memorium’ certificate for Timothy Trow was later presented to his parents. Despite the depredations of years in the open and the unwanted attentions of an occasional vandal, the obelisk still stands today and forms to focus of ‘Timothy Trow Day’ on 13 April each year that still draws a crowd to remember one young man’s brave deed.
* The Newcastle branch of the Trent and Mersey was a four mile long canal connecting Newcastle to Stoke. It no longer exists, having long since been filled in.
References: Staffordshire Sentinel, 21 April 1894, p.2 and 11 October 1894, p.3; Birmingham Daily Post 16 April 1894 p.8 and 23 October 1894.
‘The Battle of Trafalgar’ by William Clarkson Stanfield Source: Wikimedia Commons
On 21 October 1805, a British fleet of 27 ships commanded by Admiral Horatio Nelson caught up with and attacked a combined Franco-Spanish fleet of 33 ships as they made their way towards the Mediterranean. The fleets met off Cape Trafalgar between Cadiz and the Strait of Gibraltar where the British attacked (albeit at a snail’s pace due to lack of wind) in two divisions striking at right angles into the enemy line splitting it into sections and the battle then became a series of small struggles between individual ships or groups of vessels, in which superior British gunnery and seamanship carried the day. Casualties on both sides were heavy, Nelson himself being mortally wounded by a French sharpshooter. Before he died, though, he received news that his fleet had inflicted a devastating defeat on the enemy force, capturing 20 ships, thus ending any immediate threat of a French invasion of Britain. Trafalgar was also the victory that established British naval dominance for the next century.
Despite hailing from so landlocked a region, several men from the Potteries and neighbouring Newcastle were involved in this decisive sea battle. Two Royal Marines, Corporal William Taft, aged about 30 at the time of the battle, from Hanley Green (modern day Hanley town centre) and Private William Bagley aged 31 from Stoke, served aboard Nelson’s flagship HMS Victory, which led one of the two squadrons attacking the Franco-Spanish line and was in the thick of the fighting from the beginning. Bagley got through the battle uninjured, but Corporal Taft was badly wounded in the left arm, which had to be amputated near the shoulder. After the battle and the week of storms that followed it, Taft was transferred to Gibraltar, then to a hospital ship and transported with other wounded back to Britain. He survived, but was pensioned off and his fate after that is unknown. Bagley too returned to Britain early in 1806, but on 26 January he suffered a fall at Chatham and died from his injuries. His belongings were later returned to his daughter Susannah in Hanley.
At the head of the other British squadron was HMS Royal Sovereign, the flagship of Admiral Collingwood, aboard which was 24 year old Royal Marine Private Richard Beckett from Burslem. The RoyalSovereign had recently had her hull re-coppered and as a result of her clean hull was a faster ship than most and was the first to pierce the enemy line. For most of the battle the ship was engaged in a prolonged duel with a Spanish vessel and suffered heavy damage. Private Beckett, though was fortunate and escaped injury. Equally lucky and untouched that day was another locally born Royal Marine, 29 year old Private Joseph Sergeant from Clayton aboard HMS Prince, which joined the battle late and saw little action.
Only two local men that we know of, served as sailors in the British fleet that day and both survived the battle unhurt. John Bitts, a 24 year old landsman from Stoke was aboard the frigate Naiad which took no part in the fighting between the bigger ships, but joined in with the mopping up after the battle, while 28 year old ordinary seaman John Williams also from Stoke was part of the carpenter’s crew on board HMS Leviathan, which was one of the ships of the squadron that followed the Victory into the enemy line and captured a Spanish ship.
Unlike the soldiers who later fought at Waterloo, no special medal was issued for the men of Trafalgar, but all were entitled to a share of the prize money from the captured enemy vessels, plus a special Parliamentary award. In the event some, for whatever reason, did not bother to claim their shares and the monies were donated to the sailor’s hospital at Greenwich. Corporal Taft, the man in most need of the cash, though, did take his share. His prize money came to £1 17s 8d, plus the Parliamentary award of £4 12s 6d, and presumably because of his life-changing injury, Taft also received £40 from the Lloyds Patriotic Fund.
Reference: The National Archives, ADM 44 Dead Seamen’s Effects; ADM 73 Rough Entry Book of Pensioners; ADM 82 Chatham Chest: ADM 102.
Ken Ray, a long-time researcher into the lives of local soldiers has assembled an impressive list of North Staffordshire men who served in the Napoleonic Wars, the Crimea and the numerous colonial conflicts Britain participated in during the 19th and early 20th centuries. He has very kindly given me access to some of his documents which chart the lives and careers of ordinary men from the region who might otherwise have been forgotten. This is one of those stories…
Private John Potts, 3rd Battalion 1st Foot (Royal Scots),
Napoleonic Wars.
Depending on which document you consult, John Potts was born in either Hanley or Stoke, in either 1784 or 1789, though the latter seems the most likely date as on his discharge certificate the age ’32’ is crossed out and replaced with ’27’, putting his birth in 1789. This accords with other documents which seem to agree on that date. Nothing is known of his parentage, but before joining the army he worked either as a printer or a painter in the pottery industry, though on at least one occasion he simply listed his occupation as a potter; Potts was ever fickle with his personal details.
There is a hint that Potts may have been a member of the Staffordshire Militia before joining the regular army as when he attested for the 1st Foot at Windsor on 1 February 1808, he did so with several other men from Staffordshire who all indicated previous military service in Staffordshire. John Potts, however, did not specify how long his service had been. After several months of training, he was assigned to the 3rd Battalion 1st Foot on 25 June 1808.
Potts went on to see service in the latter half of the Peninsular War. One John Potts later earned two clasps for the Military General Service Medal (awarded to surviving veterans of the Napoleonic Wars in 1847-48) for the storming of Badajoz in 1812, and the Battle of Vittoria in 1813. This may have been our man, but to further muddy the waters of his service record there were two John Potts in the 3rd Battalion 1st Foot (the other hailed from Roxburgh in Scotland) and the surviving records for both give no indication which of them this was. Our John Potts certainly suffered serious injuries during his service, with gunshot wounds to the head, right arm and leg and left knee. As the Royal Scots only suffered two casualties at Badajoz, (two wounded officers) then John may have got his wounds at Vittoria where the Royal Scots took a severe mauling. However, there is an excellent memoir of the Peninsular War written by Corporal John Douglas of the 1st Foot that mentions a Private John Potts having a miraculous escape from death, but suffering serious injuries, at the siege of San Sebastian in late 1813; and as his account indicates, this was almost certainly our man. We join the story just as the 1st Foot and other regiments are launching an attack against the southern walls of San Sebastian, which was a fortress town situated on a rocky peninsula.
The attack on the breach at San Sebastian, illustration by Denis Dighton. Source: Wikimedia Commons
‘On the 25th July the breaches were pronounced practicable, but waiting for the tide to be sufficiently low to admit the men to reach the breach, it was daylight ere we moved out of the trenches; and having to keep close to the wall to be clear of the sea as possible; beams of timber, shells, hand grenades and every missile that could annoy or destroy life were hurled from the ramparts on the heads of the men; to shun which, if they kept further out in the tide, showers of grape and musketry swept them away by half companies. Those who scrambled onto the breach found it was wide and sufficient enough at the bottom, but at the top there was not sufficient room for one file at the curtain and from thence to the street was at least 20 feet. This was a house which was on fire close to the breach, and through which our poor fellows were forcing their way when a shell from our 10-gun battery at the passage side struck the gable and buried nearly a company in the burning ruins. One man alone escaped. The sides of the door being stone fell towards each other, and formed a letter A over him. Though his life was saved by this providential circumstance, he was, I might say, half-roasted, but survived. (I saw him in June 1817, after returning from France, near the potteries in Staffordshire, on the banks of the canal. His face then resembled a new-born infant. His name was John Potts.’
Potts’ rejuvenated appearance was probably the result of new flesh and scar tissue covering the burns he had received in this closest of shaves.
The uniform of the 1st Foot in 1815.
The 1st Foot also took part in the Waterloo campaign in 1815 as part of General Picton’s division, a Private John Potts served in Captain Robert Dudgeon’s N° 8 Company, being awarded the Waterloo Medal for his service in the brief but dramatic campaign. There is evidence that the other John Potts in the ranks of the 1st Foot may have been stricken ill with eye problems on the march from Ghent to Brussels, which may perhaps have put him out of action for the duration, but again as with the Peninsula War clasps there is no clear indication as to which John Potts it was who saw action at Waterloo.
Potts was in France with the army following Napoleon’s final overthrow and it was whilst stationed at Valenciennes that on 16 May 1816, he was discharged from the army due to being worn out by the effects of his numerous wounds. He was described at the time as being about 32 (sic) years of age, 5 feet 11 inches tall, with brown hair, grey eyes and a fresh complexion. Another document added the detail that he had a long visage. Having made his way back to Britain, on 9 August 1816 Potts was duly examined at the Royal Hospital, Chelsea to secure a soldiers’ pension. This he did, being awarded a shilling a day as an out-patient.
John Potts disappears from the records after this, though we can presume from John Douglas’s account that he returned to the Potteries following his medical exam. There is some circumstantial evidence that he may have been the John Potts listed in the 1841 census as living in Joiners Square, Hanley. This man was was 52 years old (born in 1789 as the soldier seems to have been) and he worked as a pottery painter (one of Pott’s suggested pre-army trades). He was married, his wife Elizabeth being 45 years old, though they had no children. A decade later, though, the fuller census of 1851 revealed that the couple had suffered a serious downturn in their fortunes. John had gone blind and he and Elizabeth were listed as beggars lodging with a family in Bow Street, Northwood. By the time of the 1861 census, John Potts was 72 years old, his wife was 64 and they now had their own house at 34 Bow Street, where they lived with John’s niece. The census noted that John had been blind for 14 years. This, though, was the last census he would appear on and a John Potts was listed as having died in Stoke-on-Trent in the last quarter of 1862.
Was this man really our old soldier fading away? We will probably never know for sure, but if so, the tale of his later years makes for a sad counterpoint to the high dramas of his youth.
Reference: The National Archives, WO 97- Royal Hospital Chelsea: Soldiers’ Service Documents, piece 235, box 4; John Douglas, Douglas’s Tale of the Peninsula & Waterloo 1808-1815, pp. 79-80. Information courtesy of Ken Ray.
On 1 April 1852, the writer Charles Dickens wrote a letter to his wife Kate informing her ‘We think of going on tonight from Birmingham to Stoke upon Trent.’ Despite worries about the trains, it seems that he and a travelling companion arrived in Stoke the next morning. Here after gazing with some fascination at the town before him, the famous author (who at the time was also writing up weekly instalments of his longest book, Bleak House) spent a few hours at the Spode factory which was at that period owned by W. T. Copeland.
Dickens started his tour of Copeland’s works by watching a thrower and his attendant swiftly and skilfully fashion a breakfast set for his amusement, watched jiggerers and pressers making bowls and basins and saw Parian statuettes being produced in moulds. He then explored the factory kilns, seeing the saggars being stacked prior to firing and mused on the constant cycle of heating and cooling that accompanied the manufacture of pottery. This was followed by visits to see transferers and decorators at work, producing willow pattern wares or fancier stuff, before moving on to the dipping shop for glazing and then to the placers carefully loading the ware into the appropriate saggers prior to them being loaded into the kilns he had seen earlier. Dickens seems to have enjoyed his tour and it was doubtless a thrill for the workers at the Copeland works to meet, albeit briefly, one of the biggest celebrities of the Victorian age and show him their own impressive skills. Armed with all he had seen and imbibing a good working knowledge of the history and process of pottery making, Charles Dickens moved on the next day to Stafford.
Compared to the grime and industry of the Potteries that evidently spoke to his imagination, Dickens was bored with Stafford and rather rude about the place, ‘it is as dull and dead a town as any one could desire not to see’ he wrote tartly. He lodged at the Swan Inn, which he disparagingly nicknamed ‘the Dodo’ and where he apparently seemed doomed to spend a very dull evening indeed. According to the tale he told, though, he chanced to look at the bottom of a plate and saw the name ‘COPELAND’, which set him to musing on the previous day’s events. Employing a literary conceit, he then let the plate ‘remind’ him of all he had seen at Copeland’s pot bank, telling the story outlined above as a journey through its creation. The plate’s ‘recollections’ got Dickens through the evening, so he claimed, though one might suppose that he was actually quite busy putting his recollections down on paper. His clever bit of writing, ‘A Plated Article’, was published in the magazine Household Words, on 24 April 1852.
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
Some of the prize winning animals at the 1885 Hanley dog show.
When he paid a visit to the Potteries in the summer of 1874, journalist James Greenwood noted that Hanley was a town full of dogs:
‘Tykes of all ages, sizes, and complexions sprawl over the pavements, and lounge at the thresholds of doors, and sit at the windows, quite at their ease, with their heads reposing on the window-sill, hob-and-nob with their biped “pal,” who cuddles his four-footed friend lovingly round the neck with one arm, while his as yet unwashed mining face, black and white in patches as the dog’s is, beams with that satisfaction which content and pleasant companionship alone can give.’
How accurate a portrait of the town this was is open to debate as Greenwood immediately went on to write the infamous story of the ‘man and dog fight’ that scandalised the area, a tale that ultimately backfired on him when it became pretty obvious that he had concocted the whole story. Yet there is plenty of evidence to suggest at least in the comment above that Greenwood was not being untruthful and the locals were indeed keen pet owners and dog fanciers. A dog and poultry show was regularly held in Hanley from 1865 into the 1870s and in October 1883 Hanley hosted a major dog show organised by the North Staffordshire Kennel Club. This proved so successful that in February 1885 a second exhibition took place. This was larger and much more widely reviewed by the press, attracting not only local but national and even international attention.
Held over two days 24th and 25th February in the old covered market in Hanley, there were 774 entries for the show and there could have been more but for a lack of space. Most of the major show breeds were present in large numbers. There were 170 fox terriers; 74 St Bernards; 27 mastiffs; 22 pointers; 18 setters; 88 collies; 34 bull dogs; 20 bull terriers; 48 dachshunds; 18 pugs; and six bloodhounds. Add to this the more obscure dogs and hounds, some from abroad, plus some champion dogs including five mastiffs who had secured honours at the prestigious Crystal Palace shows, and you had you had a major treat for dog lovers from across Britain. Anticipating a good turnout both the North Staffordshire and London and North Western Railways issued cheap tickets for those wanting to attend the show.
Providing a series of illustrations for The Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News, was Louis Wain, the artist who in later life went mad and spent his latter years painting numerous pictures of sinister anthropomorphic cats. At the time of the Hanley dog show, however, he was still quite sane and penned a series of fine dog portraits and whimsical side illustrations. The most amusing sketch showed a carriage trundling its way up the bank from Stoke Station up into Hanley, bringing with it a fine collection of prize pooches, large and small, riding in or on top, or running behind the coach, evidently much to the astonishment of onlookers.
Another of Wain’s illustrations showed that once in the market hall the various dogs were housed in a series of pens ready for the viewing of the general public and while they waited on the judges to do their rounds. There were a few problems. A reviewer in the same paper that carried Wain’s illustrations noted that quite a few of the dogs on show still bore evidence of a mange epidemic that had recently swept the country. Most were over the disease and the worst effects they showed were rather patchy coats, but a few displayed signs that their condition was still ‘alive’, much to the reviewer’s alarm. The entry of such obviously infected dogs he put down to the laxness of the ‘honorary veterinary surgeon’ and the inconsiderate nature of some owners. This was all the more surprising as one of the Kennel Club’s rules stated quite forcefully that no dog suffering from mange or any other infectious disease would be allowed to compete or be entitled to receive a prize.
The writer also suggested that the chains holding the dogs in their pens were in many cases far too long. Some of the dogs were fierce or excitable and in their frenzy apt to fall over the edge of their bench and with the smaller dogs in danger of hanging themselves. Wain illustrated the point with a picture showing a placid St Bernard face to face with a group of irate terriers, one of whom had taken just such a tumble and was in danger of throttling itself. The long chains also allowed more mischief as some of the animals were able to get around the partitions and engage in scraps with their surprised neighbours.
In the long run, though, these were minor issues in what turned out to be a very successful and well organised show. And as can be seen from Louis Wain’s fine illustrations, despite the ravages of the mange epidemic there were still many handsome dogs on hand to pick up the numerous prizes. So popular did the exhibition prove that another show was organised early the next year and the competition carried on through the latter years of the 19th century expanding into a dog and cat show by the late 1890s.
References: The Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News, 7 March 1885 pp. 607, 617, 623. James Greenwood, Low Life Deeps, pp. 16-17
Standing outside of the Brampton Museum in Newcastle-under-Lyme is a large black-painted cannon, mounted on a cast-iron limber. This was one of thousands of similar pieces of war booty brought back from the Crimea, following the fall of the Russian citadel of Sevastopol in 1855. In that city the Allied armies had discovered a large ordnance depot filled with 4,000 damaged or obsolete guns and these along with many of the guns captured during the fighting were later used as ballast on the merchantmen and troopships when they were bringing the army home. The Crimean War (1854-1856), had been a horrendous and utterly pointless conflict and perhaps as part of a wider public relations exercise to calm the national anger at the lives lost and at just how badly the war had been run, these cannon were freely distributed to towns and cities around the country.
Newcastle’s cannon, weighing 2.8 tons is a 36 pounder made in 1840, and was presented to the Borough in 1857 by its then MP Samuel Christy. It was originally situated in Stubbs Walks, opposite the Orme Girl’s School, Newcastle, where it stood until 1965, when it was moved to its current location. Such was the fate of most of these retired instruments of war and in the latter half of the nineteenth century it was no unusual thing to find a large, defunct piece of Russian artillery decorating a municipal park or fronting some grand civic building anywhere in Britain. Today, though, they are not so common; time and necessity have seen many of the others scattered or scrapped over the years and such seems to have been the case with a couple of cannons that came to the Potteries, no trace of which now seems to exist.
Newcastle’s impressive Russia cannon in situ. The carriage was mass-produced at the Royal Armouries in Woolwich.
In his autobiography Past Years, Potteries-born scientist Oliver Lodge, mentioned a close encounter with a Russian cannon in his youth. Lodge recalled that at a very young age his father took him from their home in Penkhull down the steep hill to Stoke where peace celebrations marking the end of the Crimean War were taking place. A captured Russian cannon had been placed in front of the Wheatsheaf Hotel and Mr Lodge told his son to wait by the cannon until he came back for him. Looking up at the monstrous artillery piece, young Oliver wondered what they were going to do with the gun, half fearing but half hoping that they were going to fire it. However, nothing so exciting happened, instead the local dignitaries made several speeches before they all set off for lunch. Oliver’s father went with them, minus his boy, and afterwards in the evening he went home having completely forgotten about Oliver. Only after returning home and being asked by his wife where their son was did he suddenly remember and went dashing off back down the bank to find the lad still obediently standing by the gun, utterly unconcerned at being left alone for several hours after everyone else had departed.
The Victoria History of Staffordshire notes that a Russian cannon was presented to the town by W. T. Copeland in 1857 and erected opposite the Wheatsheaf Hotel in 1858, as per Lodge’s memoirs. In 1858, the Illustrated London News carried an interesting illustration of what was called Stoke-upon-Trent’s ‘Russian trophy’, along with some background information.
‘RUSSIAN TROPHY AT STOKE-UPON-TRENT.’
‘We give a representation of the Russian Trophy as mounted and in closed at Stoke-upon-Trent a few weeks ago. The gun is placed on a stone platform, as shown in the Illustration, in which the Royal arms, in Minton’s tiles, is inserted. On the stone parapet an ornamental railing of a handsome pattern is placed, and at each angle of the square of the platform a pillar in cast iron rises, to carry the wrought-iron scrollwork, which was manufactured by Mr. Haslam, of Derby, and is an excellent specimen of the old art of ironworking, now so extensively superseded by the process of casting. All the ironwork is coloured in imitation of Florentine bronze, and richly gilt in the more decorative parts of the design. The whole is surmounted by a large globe lamp, which forms the principal feature of the construction, as the erection, being placed at the junction of three streets, requires a prominent and well adapted mode of lighting. The trophy was inaugurated by Mr. Alderman Copeland, one of the members for the borough, who also defrayed the expenses connected with mounting the piece. The work was designed and carried out under Mr. Edgar, architect.’
Longton also received a gun, but even less is known about that one. There is a brief note in the Staffordshire Sentinel in 1867 that reads: ‘The same committee reported a resolution, in accordance with a suggestion from the Council, to remove the Russian cannon from the front of the Town Hall to the space within the railings at the front of the Court House… The proceedings were approved, and the recommendation adopted.’ In his Sociological History of Stoke-on-Trent, E. J. D. Warrilow includes a photograph of Longton Court House with the cannon situated behind the railings as described, but a second photo taken in 1950 shows that the gun had been removed. It was resited to Queen’s Park, Longton, where it stood in front of the clock tower. However, it has long since vanished and its current whereabouts are unknown.
Stoke’s gun was also later moved, to a site in Hill Street by the old town hall in about 1874, but what finally happened to this and Longton’s cannon is unknown. The most likely scenario is that the valuable metal was sacrificed to the war effort early in World War Two, and ironically perhaps went on to become part of a more modern arsenal.
Contrast this sad end with that of the Newcastle gun which has achieved a certain status in the area. Between 1919 to 1942, during its time in Stubb’s Walks, the cannon was joined by a World War One training tank as a companion, but the tank was sent to be scrapped during World War Two. When the Crimean gun was shifted from its original site in 1965 some feared that it too was destined to be melted down and contractors arrived to find that some of the pupils from the Orme Girl’s School had hung a notice on the gun – ‘Hands off our cannon’. They need not have worried. Today, the cannon points out over the Brampton Park, providing a striking and novel photo opportunity to visitors to the town’s museum.
Reference: Oliver Lodge, Past Years: An Autobiography (Cambridge, 1931) pp. 22-23. E. J. D. Warrillow, A Sociological History of Stoke-on-Trent, p.385, Illustrated London News, 12 June 1858, Staffordshire Sentinel, 6 July 1867, Victoria History of Staffordshire Vol. VIII., p.180.
Stoke-on-Trent’s best known connection with the Titanic disaster is of course the ship’s venerable skipper, Captain E. J. Smith, but a less well-known Potteries-born sailor who also perished in the Titanic disaster was Senior Fourth Engineer Leonard Hodgkinson. At the time of his death he was 46 years old, and like Captain Smith had spent most of his adult life at sea, albeit in a far different environment to that of his much more famous shipmate. As a member of the ship’s engineering staff, his working life was one spent for the most part in noisy, hot engine rooms, with little view of sea or sky save when he was off duty.
Leonard was born at 20 North Street, Stoke-upon-Trent, on 20 February 1866, the second son and fifth child of potter’s presser John Hodgkinson and his wife Caroline nee Steele. Educated at St Thomas’ School, Stoke, before the age of 15, Leonard was apprenticed as an engine fitter with Messrs Hartley, Arnoux and Fanning, in Stoke. Once his apprenticeship was done, Leonard left the Potteries sometime in the 1880’s and took up a position with Messrs Lairds of Birkenhead, lodging with his elder sister Rose, her husband Henry Mulligan and their children, who had settled in Liverpool sometime after their marriage in 1877. It was in Liverpool that Leonard met his wife-to-be, Sarah Clarke. The couple were married in West Derby, Liverpool on 14 February 1891 and within a few years the couple had three children.
North Street, Stoke-upon-Trent
Leonard was now a seagoing marine engineer. He served for five years with the Beaver Line, whose ships sailed from Liverpool to Quebec and Montreal. In 1894, though, the Beaver Line went into liquidation and it may have been at this point that Leonard left and joined Rankin, Gilmour and Co., Ltd, which firm he also served with for five years, earning his first class certificate in the process. He may also have served with the Saint Line of ships which were owned by Rankin and Co., most of which carried the ‘Saint -’ title. Leonard’s final position with the company was as chief engineer aboard a ship with just such a title, the Saint Jerome.
For a few years between 1901 and 1905, Leonard quit the sea and set himself up in business ashore as a mechanical engineer, but in May 1905, he returned to his old line of work, joining the White Star Line, serving first as assistant engineer on the Celtic, later earning promotion to fourth and then third engineer.
According to family lore, Leonard Hodgkinson was keen to serve on as many vessels as possible before retirement, so was doubtless pleased after what appears to have been a six year stint aboard the Celtic, to be transferred over to the glamorous new Olympic (the Titanic’s elder sister) when that ship came on-line in June 1911. Here he was briefly bumped back down to assistant engineer, but soon earned promotion to fourth engineer once again. Perhaps more troublesome for him and his family was the fact that the Olympic was to sail from Southampton. There is no indication that the whole Hodgkinson family moved to Southampton at this time, though it is a possibility, but if not, then Leonard had to put up at lodgings in between journeys and perhaps only got to see his family on a few occasions when he could make the journey back to Liverpool.
It was in early 1912, that Leonard travelled to Belfast where he joined the staff under Chief Engineer Joseph Bell, who were involved in getting the Olympic’s younger sister Titanic up and running. On 2 April he was signed onto the ship’s books for the delivery trip from Belfast to Southampton and on 6 April he was signed on once again in Southampton, now as senior fourth engineer.
A White Star engineer at work.
As senior fourth engineer, Leonard Hodgkinson was the highest ranking of the five fourth engineers aboard the Titanic, one of whom was a specialist in charge of the ship’s refrigeration equipment. Whilst at sea their duties involved checking that the adjustments and routine maintenance of the ship’s machinery were carried out. They dealt with any minor problems as they arose, answered any orders rung down via the ship’s telegraphs and ensured that everything ran as smoothly as possible. As officers it was also their duty to supervise the firemen, trimmers and greasers who worked with them down in the bowels of the ship.
How Leonard’s days passed aboard the Titanic prior to its fateful collision is unknown, as too are his deeds on the night in question, as no accounts seem to exist noting him. If the story is to be believed, though, his fate and that of the 1500 other people who perished on the Titanic was foreseen by one of his relatives back in the Potteries, none of whom had any idea that Leonard was aboard the Titanic. According to the story she later told, two days before the disaster, Leonard’s 14 year old niece, Rose May Timmis, the daughter of Leonard’s elder sister Agnes, was sleeping in the same bed as her grandmother Caroline Hodgkinson (Leonard’s mother) when she had a nightmare. Rose dreamt that she was standing by a road in Trentham Park looking out over the lake, when a large ship steamed into sight. Suddenly the ship went down at one end and she could hear screams. Rose herself woke up with a yell that frightened her grandmother awake. When the frightened girl related her dream her grandmother snapped, “No more suppers for you, lady; dreams are a pack of daft.”
After a while, Rose drifted back to sleep once more, only to find herself dreaming the same scene and as before when she heard the people screaming she did the same. She recalled that her grandmother was furious with her this time. A few days later, though, the news of the disaster broke and the family learnt that Leonard had been aboard the Titanic and that he and the other 34 engineering officers aboard had perished with the ship. Though several bodies from the engineering department were recovered in the following weeks, Leonard’s was not one of them.
Though Leonard’s body was never found, he is remembered in several memorials, most notably on the Engineers Memorial, East Park, Southampton, the Titanic and Engineers memorial, Liverpool; the Glasgow Institute of Marine Engineers memorial; and the Institute of Marine Engineers Memorial in London. There is also a brass memorial plaque in the church of St Faithful, in Crosby, Liverpool, dedicated to the memory of the Chief Engineer and his Engine Room staff.
The Titanic Engineers Memorial, Southampton
Leonard Hodgkinson was not the only member of his family to go to sea. His son Leonard Stanley also became a marine engineer with White Star and later Cunard. He served on the transatlantic run most of his career, mainly on RMS Majestic before the war and later on the Queen Mary and the Queen Elizabeth.
