Blackpool RNLI History and Archives

[KGarrad]

Or even O... Life Saving Club?

Are there any clues on the trophy?
Can you make out any of the engraving?

[Keston]

Hi,

I can't unfortunately.  It is very big though!  I have two photos though and on the second one which looks to be earlier and she is standing with a lot of prizes.  One seems to say "something" Swimming Club Annual Gala First of second place on the certificate.  It may be Chaddington Swimming Club.  I looked on their website and they say they are 120 years old.  I am going to email them as they have a history page but there is nothing on it.

I also think that she may have been in an early silent movie put together by Kineto Ltd, which was a company which pioneered journalistic films, including those on sports.  It seems to be on the website at the BFI but I am waiting for them to come back to me as well.

This could all be a coincidence, but it seems a big one

I have been searching and searching on the British Newspaper Archive with various phrases but can't find a reference to her and any search with Smith brings up a million responses.  I am wondering if I should also get in touch with the Local History people in Oldham as the Oldham Gazette doesn't seem to be included in the titles on that site.

It is all a bit of a mystery and we are having a family reunion of all her descendants here in New Zealand so would be great to get to the bottom of it.



Thanks,
KESTON.

[Aulus]

I'm a bit puzzled where Oldham comes into this, if she was in Blackpool.

If she was in Oldham, might she have not been a member of the Blackpool Lifesavers Club (that existed: see http://website.lineone.net/~moyes.pr/lifesavers/area_reports.html, but that website doesn't appear to have been updated for years and the www.blackpoollifesavers.org.uk website is no longer accessible) but someone who just happened to save a life at Blackpool while she was on holiday there?

I'm not trying to be disruptive, but thinking around it more, and you don't actually say how you "found out that my great grandmother, Nellie Smith was a lifesaver in Blackpool in the early 1900's".

Aha. I've just noticed you've said she was born in Bardlsey in 1888.  If this is the Nellie Smith who's the daughter of Thomas & Hannah, she's in Crompton, north of Oldham on the 1891 and 1901 censuses.  Now I understand the Oldham connection.

Do you know if the family moved to Blackpool? (they could be looked up in trade directories of the time)
I had a quick look for the family in the Outward Passenger Lists on Ancestry but couldn't spot them, though I think it's still too early for the UK passenger lists to give the address they were leaving in the UK.

If she saved lives in Blackpool, I'd have thought that this would be have been mentioned in the local paper, the Gazette (http://www.blackpoolgazette.co.uk).  Sadly, like many local newspapers, I don't think they have any online archive, and I don't think they're on Findmypast's British Newspaper Collection.  But a letter to them, particularly if you give them copies of your photos of Nellie and can provide dates, might pique a journalist's interest or they might just publish your query in full to pass it on to their readers.  I know I'm a bit cynical, but local papers are always looking for stories, and a female lifesaver in the early 1900s would, I reckon, be just as "newsworthy" then as it is now.