Photographs of Shrewsbury / completed

[J.J.]

Also, Jan you'll get a kick out of this... found this recently, an image of Swan Hill congregational and the old shop front, although not as old as the era depicted on page, nor that it matches what the captions states...but how fabulous to see an image of the old shop.... (Robert died the year Thomas Porter was born, 1842 so it would have been father Thomas's or Thomas Porter's shop at the time of the actual photograph.)
http://shrewsburylocalhistory.org.uk/samaritan.htm

Now also see with the new archived information on the online index that Thomas Porter's grandfather Robert originally owned part of the Town walls and leased it out...so the property was in family hands for a while, must send for this information...


With the important scientific discovery Thomas Porter Blunt &  Arthur Henry Downes made in the little chemist lab in a section of that shop... one would think there might be a plaque or something to depict that find... Odd that he has been mostly forgotten in Shrewsbury where he devoted his talent to the health & well-being of the town & area as public analyst ( and agricultural analyst) for so many years...His partner Downes also served the public health in the areas in which he lived.
 

[J.J.]

Hello Jan & Monica...and any rellies looking in!
Seems that Thomas Porter Blunt and Arthur Henry Downes made a little more history for Shrewsbury...
Chemist Thomas T. Tidwell has just had a thesis article published in the upcoming August 2013 issue of Nature Chemistry.

http://blogs.nature.com/thescepticalchymist/2013/07/the-birthplace-of-free-radicals.html

[lex_hale]

Apologies for posting to such an old thread. As mentioned in the thread, Thomas Porter Blunt and family were living at 28 Tower Place (now 28 Town Walls) in Shrewsbury from at least the 1880s onwards. This building is now part of Shrewsbury High School. I am the librarian at the school and we have a number of references to Blunt in our archives. In addition, at least three of his children attended the school; two of them were among the very first pupils of the school when it opened in 1885. I'd be happy to help with any further enquiries regarding the Blunt family at this time.

[J.J.]

  Hello  lex_hale, and welcome to Rootschat. I really appreciate you communicating with me on the forum.  I wish I could invite you into the website I created to honour my great grandfather Thomas Porter Blunt and his many papers & accomplishments, but the recent cost of keeping it online was becoming rather steep.  I think it may have been of interest to students who wished to enter the sciences. ( He was also an active amateur botanist) or the art field for that matter, as his uncle who was also a chemist & amateur astrologist, was one of many artists who loved to paint the marvelous picturesque town landscape, castles & abbeys. Several artists have descended from the family including my mother & myself.
   I just recently stopped looking into my genealogy entirely, so perhaps this may be a nudge to do more. Do your records follow the students after their school years? While I'd managed to trace the children into the 20th century to a certain extent, I'd found early deaths from sickness & war, very few children except for the son's family who thrived in New Zealand.  One daughter for whom I never found a marriage nor any other information. 
  The town has no interest in my ancestor. I made a webpage for a Shrewsbury website who said they wanted the information, but they never posted it after all my work putting it to their specifications... There was mention of a plaque outside his old shops, after the writeup that he & Downes had also recognized & mentioned Free Radicals long before they were thought to have been named...but have not seen it come to fruition.  Thank you so much for contacting me.  Not sure where to go from here, as I haven't touched anything for at least a year, and 8 months of isolation has made me a little down.   J.J.

[lex_hale]

Hello J.J. many thanks for replying - I really appreciate it.
I started looking into the history of 27 & 28 Town Walls a couple of weeks ago as our junior department will be moving into those buildings next year and I thought it would be nice to see who lived there. I found T. P. Blunt on a number of censuses and I'd previously come across his name in the school log book; he was a regular judge on the school's annual bulb and flower shows, and he also gave botany lectures at the school.
I then did a bit of Googling and came across Tidwell's article about Blunt's discovery of free radicals with Downes. I shared all this information with our Headteacher and science department in school and they are all hugely excited about it! They teach about free radicals and I know they have already started sharing this information with their classes as it was such an important discovery. None of us can quite believe that their discovery was overlooked for so long, and we're all really surprised that Shrewsbury seems to have forgotten about it too.
From memory the three children who attended the school were Mildred Frances, Ethel Marion and Hubert Porter Blunt. I can give you the exact dates tomorrow when I'm back in school. Sometimes the admissions register says where they went afterwards so I'll check that for you too.
Many thanks again for replying - finding out about their discovery of free radicals and that the Blunt family not only lived so nearby but had connections to the school has really created a lot of interest and excitement at Shrewsbury High School. Alex

[J.J.]

Thank you so much for your interest in my ancestor. I made the website many years ago because there was not a single web presence for Thomas Blunt & Arthur Downes & their very important discovery in 1877 of the effects of various spectrums of light on bacteria which is being utilized to this day. I did it for my mother...who was so sure when she'd bought her set of encyclopedias for us that he'd be mentioned as a pioneer in ultraviolet research. She was heartbroken to see that he was not.  It was, for the most part, students & other people with web interests who found my site & started sharing their respect for him online. A lot of them are no longer online either, but there is still residual interest thanks to them.
  Again, it was an educator, Professor of Chemistry Thomas Tidwell of the University of Toronto who found my site mentioning their papers.  He made contact and was interested enough to look into the work of Blunt and Downes and subsequently found the mention of radicals. I cannot thank him enough for all the work & time he devoted to this.
   My mother visited her grandfather's home when they went to England for a WW2 reunion as both had served. Someone there must have been kind enough to show her some of it. She was so surprised that it was now part of a school and that it now had an elevator! She was young when he died but she always remembered her visits with her loving grandfather, and his magnificent fruit & flower gardens. She had an enormous garden and tried to grow as many varieties of flowers, fruits and vegetables as would grow locally (middle Prairies of Saskatchewan) just as her ancestor had in Shrewsbury. ❤ ❤ ❤
   Now that you have 2 posts I can reach you in private message mode (the scroll image to the left) and will do so shortly.  Chilly hugs from Canada  J.J.

p.s. he was also interested in fossils...whether he found this trilobite or not I am not positive, but it was in his collection: "Mr. Blunt, of Shrewsbury , who has had it for twenty years is covered with a strong oblique striation . And the incurved fascia beneath is the widest and most coarsely ribbed that I know in any British species . It resembled that of the Bohemian fossils..."  I wonder if he found it in the quarry nearby the home ...as we can find the imprints of fossils here in our limestone quarries..
 

 

[J.J.]

 I had this on my web pages ( no longer online) regarding Tower Place:

28 Tower Place, 4 story home of the Blunt Family. Betw. the Tower Town Walls and Crescent Cottages  This and neighbour's homes were on the site of the old Shrewsbury wall.
- Occupied by Thomas Porter Blunt  (1861 census)  - death  1829  ( then daughter - Mary Ella)

Thomas Blunt sr. - 1861 census resided at Tower Place with wife Sarah,
 daughters Elizabeth & Sarah Maria, sons Thomas Porter & Charles Gaire

  I eventually found through online archives that Robert Blunt, Thomas Porter Blunt's grandfather owned and leased out land at Town Walls in the earlier part of the century. In 1836 marriage of son Henry...Robert Blunt was living Tower Place. I imagine Town records might have exact date he moved in...their 3rd child was born Shrewsbury 1809.

 It must be have been exciting for the family to have lived in such a place of ancient town history.

 

[ILEXSALOPIA]

I have found Walter Arthur Blunt in the general cemetery in Shrewsbury. He died on 8th October 1911 aged 37. I have made a memorial to him on the Find a grave site. I'm not sure how to post an image of the grave here, but if you go to Find a grave and search for the general cemetery you will see the photos I took.

I also uploaded the grave photos onto Family Search. His memorial ID is 263497408. He is buried on a nice sunny hill in the part of the cemetery where the more "important" people are buried (section 190).

If you have the grave plot numbers of any of the other Blunt family in this cemetery I am happy to go and try and find them. To find the grave numbers you email Harriet and she responds in a few days (it's a free service) emstrey.crematorium@thecmg.co.uk

[J.J.]

Welcome to Rootschat, ILEXSALOPIA! Thanks ever so much for your kindness!  ❤❤❤ The emblem I use for my avatar is the symbol from his spoon! It is way to large to be a child's silver spoon so perhaps made in commemoration, instead of a ring? Mum said it was the blunt family emblem/insignia although I've not seen other evidence of this, so perhaps they came up with it themselves.

I was interested in the St. Chad grave photos at one time, but now have many of their life stories which I am happy with.  Thanks ever so much for the offer, though!

********************               

 Also...My take is that...The family did do some very important work, but were not more important than anyone else. I do think there is such a thing as having too much money, though. Having larger homes or land than one needs or can look after oneself, just because one can afford it, isn't the way we were meant to live... I learned this from his grandaughter...my Mum, who could do many things & make something from so little.

Here is the old web site, for anyone searching...although it is old information. The newer site was more up to date, but because it was new, did not get as many views so was not archived. Sorry if you find images or links that were not archived.
Family Photos: http://www.rootschat.com/links/01t0c/
Bio, etc: http://www.rootschat.com/links/01t0d/
Thomas Porter Blunt's many papers as a chemist although the links did not archive...Anyone who is interested, please p.m. me if you want to see any of them: http://www.rootschat.com/links/01t0d/

Wow, just looked back & saw that this thread is almost 20 yrs old!!! Such a great bunch of people back then, so helpful & kind.  Noted that a photo image was removed from a post earlier on this thread. Rather maddening...my husband paid way too much to the person who held it, but back then we had found so little about him.