Swindon in the Past Lane

The November speaker at the monthly Monday lunch time talk at Swindon Central Library was archivist Robert Jago from the Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre in Chippenham. Robert’s subject was Churchwardens’ Accounts and he described the many and varied tasks performed by the churchwarden, charting a role dating back to medieval times. The oldest surviving churchwardens’ accounts are those of St. Michael’s in Bath which date from 1349. The main duty of the churchwarden was to keep the fabric of the church in good repair and to attend to the fixtures and fittings, although he also had to sort out any unruly sexual behaviour in the parish especially when it involved the vicar! Pest control also took up a fair bit of the churchwardens’ time and account books list payments for song birds found to be depleting the local crops. Foxes presented a big problem as well and the accounts for Brinkworth reveal regular payment for foxes heads, a wily solution to parish enterprise where the ...

With residential car parking at a premium in Old Town today, there was no such problem for the 1900 owner of 31 Wood Street. The sale catalogue of 1903 advertises a carriage entrance at the rear of the property leading from Devizes Road with a coach house, stable yard and stabling for two horses. A Grade II listed building, 31 Wood Street dates from the late 18th century to early 19th century. Described as a 'commodious family residence' the property belonged to John Chandler, a successful local businessman. At the time of his death in 1902 Chandler owned fourteen other properties on Eastcott Hill and stocks and shares in numerous local businesses including the Swindon United Gas Company and the Swindon Central Market. He also owned an impressive five bedroomed house, The Lime Kiln, standing in over an acre of land in Wootton Bassett, let to solicitor Harry Bevir. Born in Pewsey, by 1841 John Chandler was already working as a draper in Swindon and in 1844 he married...

As electronic communication takes over, it has to be asked - what has happened to the love letter? When Judy Rebbeck Watten of California began investigating her family history she discovered 32 letters written by her grandfather James Knight Rebbeck to his fiancée Lili. Born in 1848 in Lockeridge, near Marlborough, James Knight Rebbeck, the eldest of Cornelius and Caroline Rebbecks's nine children, was raised by his maternal grandparents. By 1851 two year old James was living with James and Caroline Knight in a house described in the census of that year as Near Assize Hall in Devizes. In 1863 James, 15, was sent to his Uncle James Knight in Calcutta where he studied mechanical engineering. James junior worked as a superintendent in the railways workshop of the Howrah Foundry in Calcutta until the beginning of the 1880s when he was seconded to Hong Kong. By the mid 1880s James was based at the Victoria Foundry, Hong Kong, employed on the ambitious Peak Tram project, a cable railwa...

'She found the wide open prairies a big change and was very afraid of the howling coyotes,' writes Pat Psooy, a Canadian Swindon Advertiser reader. A far cry from Park Ground Farm in Wootton Bassett, part of the extensive Meux Estate sold in 1906, where Pat's grandmother, Daisy Eleanor Tuckey spent most of her childhood. Reading Remember When articles about Robert Ernest Plummer Tuckey who set sail for Australia in 1877 and the Rev. Henry Edward Tuckey who took his bride to New Zealand in 1859 set Pat wondering if these adventurous Tuckeys might be connected to her own Canadian explorers. The prosperous Tuckey family arrived in Swindon from Gloucestershire in the mid 17th century and figured prominently in local affairs. Through carefully negotiated marriages and shrewd property deals the family held considerable influence in the small market town. Robert Thomas John Bailey Tuckey, Daisy's father, born in 1856 at Shaw House in the former par...

Today the infamous Magic Roundabout is probably one of the busiest junctions in Swindon. At the beginning of the 19th century a different method of transport stopped close by at the site of the Swindon wharf, although this traffic was considerably slower. In 1826 William Cobbett, 19th century radical politician, travelled through Swindon on one of his famous fact finding journeys across Britain. Surveying the Wilts and Berks Canal, Cobbett remarked on the 'gentleman's house, with coach house, stables, walled in garden, paddock, and the rest of those things, which, all together, make up a villa,' and supposed that the canal earned prodigious profits. In fact the canal was never particularly successful and was at its busiest, somewhat ironically, during the 1830s when it conveyed vast quantities of materials to build the Great Western Railway. The GWR itself once considered buying the canal for £20,000. In 1894 the United Commercial Syndicate was another possible ...

1912 William Hooper photograph of United Gathering of Band of Hope at GWR Park With the party season getting into gear, no doubt few people will be paying much heed to their recommended units of alcohol consumption, despite the continued warnings of health experts. Mid 19th century social reformers also attempted to tackle the problem as concern grew over alcohol and its effects upon the working class.While the drinking habits of the middle class were largely a private affair, those of the working class tended to be more public. With the cost of picking up the financial pieces falling upon rate paying businessmen and traders, it is hardly surprising that the temperance movement was initially led by middle class social reformers and philanthropists. The original tenet of the movement was that alcohol in moderation was acceptable and members continued to imbibe wine and beer, abstaining only from spirits. Out of the early temperance movement evolved the hard line teetotalism ...

Panto season in Swindon gets off to a swinging start with Keith Chegwin starring as Buttons in the Wyvern Theatre's production of Cinderella, opening on December 10th. But more than fifty years ago Mollie Tanner's dance troupe was left waiting in the wings when a production of Aladdin at the Empire Theatre was blighted by a wage dispute and eventually cancelled. Let's hope the current financial climate doesn't cast a malevolent shadow over this year's festive season. With a seating capacity of over 1,000, the new Queen's Theatre on the corner of Groundwell Road and Clarence Street opened on Monday February 7, 1898 with a production of Dick Whittington and his Cat. In 1906 the theatre changed its name to the Empire. One of the characters closely associated with the Empire was rag and bone man James 'Raggy' Powell. During the First World War Raggy organised free shows and refreshments for the families of men in the armed forces. His philanthropic...