Swindon in the Past Lane

For those of you who may have missed this item, which appeared on the Swindon Advertiser website yesterday afternoon, SBC has agreed to debate the Lydiard House and Park issue at the next council meeting. 'There will be a debate surrounding the future of Lydiard House and Park at the next council meeting, despite a petition with 8,000 signatures not meeting the necessary requirements to trigger one. Swindon Borough Council are looking at leasing the popular site as a cost saving measure despite strong protests from residents. Thousands of people signed a petition calling for the move to be stopped, comfortably passing the 1,500 normally needed to trigger a debate at full council. However, the signatories need to live within the borough and because the petition, set up on Change.org could not prove this, it did not qualify. But Council Leader David Renard (Con, Haydon Wick) says he recognises the level of interest in the issue and a motion on the proposals will be tabled a...

Do not be fooled by the casual mien of this group of people, chatting, making tea, waving.  This group knows more about the collective history of Swindon and its surrounds than you can shake a stick at. Members of the Swindon Society, Rodbourne Community History Group et al, independent researchers and freelance writers gather four times a year to look at what's new on the local history scene and last night's meeting was a doozy. Graham Carter, journalist and columnist on the Swindon Advertiser, gave the Swindon & District History Network a sneak preview of Swindon Heritage - an 80 page, all colour, glossy magazine due out Spring 2013 - the like of which Swindon has never seen before. Network members got to view a select few pages - the record of Swindon men's sacrifice during WWI by military historian Mark Sutton and a companion piece written by two Commonweal students just returned from a visit to the battlefields.  The story of the Stratton workhouse as seen ...

‘Doc Bishop and Fran Latham were lynched yesterday morning by the settlers living near Watonga, for horse stealing,’ reported the Cheyenne Sunbeam. ‘Both men belonged to a gang that were systematically stealing horses from the settlers and driving them into the Panhandle of Texas.’ While the impressive Morris family memorial at Christ Church contains all the names of newspaper magnet William’s twelve children, one son lies not in the shady churchyard on the hill but in a cemetery in Cheyenne, Oklahoma. Walter George Morris, third son of newspaper editor, proprietor and printer William and his wife Martha was born above the family firm at 10 Victoria Street on March 2, 1852.  Unlike his brothers, Walter chose not to join the staff on the Swindon Advertiser but instead worked as a clerk at the GWR Works in New Swindon.  But by 1872 twenty year old Walter had decided life in Swindon was a little too tame for him and he emigrated to America. With printing ink...

There should be champagne corks popping at Swindon Central Library today where the innovative free online image gallery has just notched up 2 million page views. The project was launched on June 22, 2009 with images from the local studies collection of photographs and ephemera.  And before long library visitors were bringing their own photographs to be scanned and added to the online collection.  Today the archive contains some 6,000 images. Among the photographs of local people and Swindon dignitaries is one of the last Lord of the Manor, Fitzroy Pleydell Goddard pictured here with his pet parrot at his home The Lawn. Images of Swindon suffragette Edith New (back row, left) include a photograph taken with members of the Women’s Social and Political Union in prison uniform and newspaper coverage of her attack on 10 Downing Street. Taken at the top of Victoria Street, could this be the oldest Swindon street scene?  The Swindon Advertiser building is on ...