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Messages - bykerlads

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1
Northumberland / Re: present day location of 1860/70's streets, Byker
« on: Monday 04 March 24 15:58 GMT (UK)  »
Alan, thanks for the info about Jonas Bambrough, a name appearing in a number of generations of the family.
And indeed, in 1853/4/5 there was mention in the press of the name in connection with housebreaking and counterfeit coinage! The Bambroughs were glassmakers by trade and jn 1871 Jonas is "publican and glassmaker"

Paul, our immediate Byker relatives had left in the mid 1930's, Joseph and Eliza Mary West and their son Herbert Edward. They moved to Huddersfield. Previously they had a shop on the Walker Road.
The Wests in Byker go back to at least 1780. In 1841 they were at Dents Hole and Birds Nest, Other names are Spatchett, McDonough, Bambrough, Russell, Reay., Wolff.

2
Northumberland / Re: present day location of 1860/70's streets, Byker
« on: Sunday 03 March 24 21:03 GMT (UK)  »
Good to see my old original post being resurrected.
I will encourage me to re-visit my research on our Byker ancestors.
Many thanks for the recent posts.
I'll report back if I have anything more to add.

3
Staffordshire / Re: Pottery factories in WW2
« on: Monday 15 January 24 10:17 GMT (UK)  »
Yes, the role of women in wartime is still not fully appreciated.
The Ladies Bridge ie Waterloo Bridge in London springs to mind. Between 60 and 70% of the workers who built it during the war were women. At least they are remembered daily in the commentary given on the Thames boat trips.
The fire brigade memorial near St Pauls has a list of fire brigade women who lost their lives in the blitz.

Another interesting fact often (possibly deliberately) not mentioned is that, in order to enable women to work in the war effort, nurseries were set up for their children. And often infant schools would take children of only 3 or 4 for the same reason, camp beds and blankets being provided for daytime naps.

I wonder if the potteries had wartime nurseries?

4
Staffordshire / Re: Pottery factories in WW2
« on: Monday 15 January 24 08:55 GMT (UK)  »
I'd that deduce that the lady I'm looking into indeed remained in the potteries during WW2, but in one of the heavier jobs previously done by men and then resuming her work as "pottery artist at Spode", as her obituary notice proudly informs us.

Here in West Yorkshire my mother in law spent the whole war working nights on a turret lathe at David Browns engineering, she had previously worked like her sisters in a woollen cloth mill. Her 2 sisters jumped at the chances brought by the war and left home to train as nurses.
The mother of a friend of mine had a nice job as a secretary which, as a single young womwn she would have had to give up and do a heavier job to help the war effort. In order to keep her office job she married in haste and, on her own admission, later regretted it.

5
Staffordshire / Re: Pottery factories in WW2
« on: Sunday 14 January 24 19:44 GMT (UK)  »
So the pottery factories might well have been considered to be essential to the war effort.
Thanks for the comments, folks.

6
Staffordshire / Re: Pottery factories in WW2
« on: Saturday 13 January 24 13:11 GMT (UK)  »
Thanks. I'll definitely follow this up with the Spode museum.

I was especially struck by the 1939 register entry for the family in question because the mother, unlike the majority of married women with children then was not doing "unpaid domestic work" , an official category in the register. She was employed as "pottery cup maker". Clearly the women of the potteries were an interesting group of ladies.

7
Staffordshire / Re: Pottery factories in WW2
« on: Saturday 13 January 24 12:36 GMT (UK)  »
Thanks for the info and the link.
I had supposed that ceramic production would have been stopped at the outbreak of war, I hadn't thpught of all the new military bases etc that would have needed supplying, albeit with undecorated pottery.
A new question: would the unmarried young women working in the pottery factories have been allowed to continue or would they have been obliged to work in more war-related factory work eg munitions or in the military, land army or nursing? ie was pottery production considered necessary to the war effort?
( I am just following up an obituary I saw recently of a lady b.1925 who had been a "pottery painter at Spode". I am curious to know if she would have continued there during WW2 or done something different. She did not marry until 1949, so would have been subject to wartime rules about unmarried women's work. In 1939 the her family lived in Minerva Rd, Stoke on Trent, near to Wedgewood rd.)

8
Staffordshire / Pottery factories in WW2
« on: Saturday 13 January 24 08:09 GMT (UK)  »
Can anyone tell me what happened to the pottery/ceramic factories during WW2? Did they continue to produce ceramics or were they re-purposed for the war effort?
Also, did the factories keep records of employees, specifically female painters employed from the late 1930's?
Thanks for any replies.( Staffs, Stoke and the Potteries is a new area for me)
Byker.

9
Yorkshire (West Riding) / Re: Meltham WW1
« on: Saturday 09 December 23 15:35 GMT (UK)  »
Just in case anyone comes across any mention of him in WW1, the chap I am looking into was Tom Hirst of Meltham. Dob Mar 1887 and employed as overlooker in silk mill. We had rather deduced what is confirmed in the  publication which Heywood refered us to, namely that he had no military service and absence from home during the war, as 2 of his children were born during that period.
I would have thought that he would have been of conscription age and not apparently involved in a reserved occupation type job. Unless the silk mill became used to produce uniforms etc or maybe he had some kind of medical exemption?
A bit of a puzzle.

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