Swindon in the Past Lane

Town centre visitors could be forgiven for thinking of Edgeware Road as a mere shortcut behind Regent Street shops to the law courts on Princes Street.  But before the 1960s development Edgeware Road was a busy community presided over by St Paul’s Church. Building began on Edgeware Road in 1877 by H.C. Smith and by the time of the 1881 census there were seventeen occupied houses.  Primitive Methodist Minister Thomas Powell lived at the grandly named Bourne Villa, while his neighbours were mostly GWR employees, among them a coach builder, a railway clerk and a boiler maker. A new church was soon needed for the growing town centre community and in 1881 Gloucester builders D & C Jones & Co began work on St Paul’s Church, designed by Edmund Ferrey.   William Morris, founder of the Swindon Advertiser, recorded that St. Paul’s, like St Mark’s in the railway village, held highly ‘Ritualistic’ services.  He wrote that the High Church practises included ...

Albert Beaney Swindonians of a certain age might remember Albert Beaney.  With his camera and his notebook he was a familiar figure on the streets of the town. Albert George Beaney was born in Swindon in 1913.  He worked in the Post Office for many years, but photography was always his first love and he advertised the photography business he ran from his home at 50 Beatrice Street.  When the customers didn't come to him, he took to the streets for inspiration. According to anecdotal memory he would take photos of children in the streets and parks, sometimes individually, sometimes in groups of friends - difficult to imagine in today's more fearful climate.  Having recorded their addresses he would return at a later date with the prints to sell. Many of the photographs taken between 1945-1970 went unclaimed and in 1998 the Swindon Society helped towards the purchase of 40,000 of Albert's prints and negatives now held by the Swindon Museum and Art Gallery. ...

l to r Bob Townsend, Diane Everett and Andy Binks - image courtesy of the Swindon Advertiser Members of the Swindon Society are now on their summer break, so I thought it was time to publish a couple of blogposts about the work they get up to. Scroll down to see what's on when the group reconvenes in September. In 1972 a house in Eldene cost £9,600, local lad Gilbert O'Sullivan was number one in the pop charts with his song Clair and Pressed Steel was the biggest consumer of electricity in town as Swindon struggled to cope with power cuts during the three day week.  These were just some of the facts and figures Andy Binks and Dave Bedford revealed at Sunday's Swindon Society 40th celebrations held at the Southbrook Inn. The local history society was founded in September 1972 following a series of WEA lectures given by local historian Eric Arman and at Sunday's party one of those original members was still taking an active role. Membership secretary Martin Va...

This week's episode of Wartime Farm saw historian Ruth Goodman getting to grips with the availability of ordinary foodstuffs, rationing and the role the Women’s Institutes played during the war. In Swindon the first meeting of the Food Control Committee took place during the second week of September 1939.  It was already anticipated that there would be rationing of butcher’s meat, bacon, butter, margarine, lards, fat and sugar. Chairman of the new committee, Swindon Mayor Harry Hustings, announced that plans for the registration of customers was under way and that forms would be sent to every household within the week.  Ration cards would be issued and it was hoped that food queues would be shorter than during the previous war.  Mr Hustings commented that as far as he could see there would be little opportunity of profiteering in food stuffs. The rationing of coal as of October 1 was announced and supplies, along with gas and electricity for domestic and sm...

I have become the fortunate recipient of a box full of women's magazines, which I shall be sharing with you on this blog over the coming weeks.  The oldest to so far surface from this treasure trove is a copy of the Woman's Outlook published September 11, 1926. This magazine was first published by the Co-operative Women's Guild in 1919 and printed articles on gaining the vote and the lives of women involved in political struggle, along with employment and maternity issues, readers's letters and editorial comment.  Published fortnightly the Woman's Outlook cost three-halfpence in 1926 and was still in print in 1967. The best known journalist associated with the Woman's Outlook has to be feminist and campaigner Mary Stott.  Born in Leicester in 1907 the daughter of journalists Robert and Amalie Waddington, Mary began her career on the Leicester Mail as a temporary copyholder.  She speedily graduated to the reporter's room, but prevented from joining the...

When the going gets tough, the tough - laugh.  It's perhaps the most endearing quality we Brits possess, and never was the British sense of humour more important than during the Second World War.  Even the Government recognised that laughing at the enemy was a valuable weapon in our arsenal. Cyril Bird, Art Editor on Punch at the outbreak of war, offered his services free of charge to the wartime government.  Under the pen name Fougasse he produced a series of posters, which today are probably the most enduring images of British home front propaganda - Careless Talk Costs Lives.  The Cheltenham born artist took his professional name from the fougasse, a French anti personnel mine to which he likened his cartoons - "its effectiveness is not always reliable and its aim uncertain." Closer to home the mirth maker on the Swindon Evening Advertiser was George Arthur Middlelton.  George was born in Pontefract in 1888, the son of James Robert Middleton, a corn facto...