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Wellingtonia Issue 9 : Fourth Quarter 2010 FREE ISSUE! Newsletter of the Wellington History Group, rediscovering the past of Wellington in Shropshire EDITORIAL IN THIS ISSUE hen Allan Frost took the ****************** chairmanship of Page WWellington History 2. The Future of History; Group in November 2007, he New Speakers promised to spend a year setting 3. The New Chair; up the Group and obtaining a grant to print this magazine. A Fire! Fire! year later, he promised to spend 4. Fulk Eyton another year establishing the 6. The Bells, The Bells! Group and the magazine. Finally, 8. The Quakers he spent yet another year 10. Quality Advertiser consolidating the Group’s Allan Frost activities. 12. Hidden Heritage Fortunately, well known local 14 The Coalport Branch All this, of course, couldn’t historian and speaker Neil Clarke have been achieved without has very kindly agreed to be our and the ‘Dodger’ invaluable support from our small chairman for the next twelve 15. The Mount band of enthusiastic Committee months. He has been a member of 16. Memories of WUDC members ... and you, the people our Committee since 2008 and 18. 100 Years Ago: 1910 who have encouraged us by introduces himself on page 3. giving information, seeking our One thing is certain: no one can 20. Announcements help with your own research, ever know everything about the Contact Details attended our public lectures, history of our area ... but we can supplied articles for our have a lot of fun finding things DON’T FORGET TO VISIT OUR magazines and, crucially, made out. It’s a never-ending quest and WEB SITE. THE ADDRESS IS AT donations to our funds. this latest issue of Wellingtonia is THE FOOT OF THIS PAGE The time has now come for just another step along the way. Allan to step down as chairman. His involvement over the last three years has taken an enormous amount of time and effort and he needs to concentrate on writing more of his popular books. Why are He will, it goes without saying, these happy continue to support us and our aims in a variety of ways but it is folk hanging now time for someone else to take around? the reins and steer the Group into See page 6. the future. We are sure you will join us in thanking Allan for helping Wellington History Group to achieve so much in such a short Photo: Andrew Gordon. amount of time. Visit us at www.wellingtonhistorygroup.wordpress.com THE FUTURE OF HISTORY George Evans NEW SPEAKERS etails of our monthly free- History will always be to-attend public talks from part of human life ... but the DJanuary to June 2011 are way it is taught has changed given on the back page of this over the years. magazine. In addition to Neil Clarke, George Evans makes a few Geoff Harrison and Allan Frost, pertinent observations. we are pleased to introduce two new speakers. hen I was a boy history was very boring. It was Wsimply a list of battles and kings and queens. Forgetting any battle, king or date was an They don’t learn lists by rote offence often resulting in a caning. and the way Romans really lived We learned, ‘William, William, here is more important than who Henry, Stephen, Henry, Richard, the emperor was. They are John’; enough to keep us out of fascinated by different ways of life trouble for a while. The Battle of and changing priorities and find Bannockburn was fought on 24th history is interesting, not boring or June, 1314 but I only remember confusing. Hurrah for their because I learned it on my teachers! They may never become birthday, 24th June, while historians but at least they are Wellington Town Councillor changing age from 13 to 14 and I learning to understand their Pat Fairclough (who has been still don’t know who won. Nor did environment in terms of time and heavily involved in the town’s I ever care. evolution as well as in space highly successful Annual Literary The next fashion came. through geography. Festival) will be talking about Children were expected to have Local history is so much more Wellingtons Around The World, interesting opinions about many real than the old textbooks from New Zealand and America to aspects of history without any because we live with the results of ... well, you’ll have to come and idea what had happened. Their previous happenings. It’s not just find out. Will she have a casual thoughts were considered Blists Hill, Sunnycroft and Wellington for each leg of her far more important than any hard Wroxeter; it’s Watling journey? facts – at least by a few trendy Street/Holyhead Road, The Wendy Palin (our treasurer) teachers. That was a silly time and Wrekin and Market Square, not to will shed light on tracing her only happened in a few schools, mention recent changes to places Turner ancestors in Wellington. though the media fulminated all around us, even brash new This dashing young fellow was mightily about it. That’s what sells Telford. one; do you recognise him? newspapers. Those of us who Local history is the real thing; thought we knew better carried on it’s what we all understand and doing what we thought right. are interested in. Come to think of Then there were the ‘topics’ it, all history of any kind is local and ‘projects’, which sensible somewhere. Our old Wellington is teachers juggled around until the packed tight with history. That’s syllabus had some relevance to why Wellington History Group real life, and in particular to the works so hard to discover and lives of those in the class. All publicise it. attempts to make history sensible It used to be true that the only were attacked by ‘experts’ with thing we learn from history is that entrenched ideas and often little mankind learns nothing from it. experience of teaching. Some of us That’s true of the old-fashioned taught for forty years without ever stuff but there’s now hope. History being trendy. ‘Educational Experts’ has an exciting future if it sticks to are often suspected of being failed real subjects we understand, like teachers. our own environment. Then we Now, according to my great may not keep repeating the old grandchildren, history at their mistakes over again. History may schools is interesting to them. have a bright future. 2 Wellingtonia: Issue 9: Fourth Quarter 2010 THE NEW CHAIR FIRE! FIRE! Allan Frost Founder Chairman Allan Frost stood down in November and has been replaced by Neil Clarke. ellington has had a fire brigade of one sort or Wanother for the best part of 200 years. Although we can’t be sure of its type or effectiveness, we do know an ‘engine’ was kept in the same builkding as the town lockup in 1840 when the Tithe map was created (above). According to a brown plaque the Fire Station was relocated in 1883 and the fire engine kept in a building in Walker Street until it became the town’s Urban District eil grew up in Madeley, Council office. In fact, the belfry was educated at where the bell to sound the alarm Coalbrookdale High N is seen in the 1930s photo, top School and graduated in Modern right. The sides of the belfrey have History at the University of since been filled in. For a while in London (King’s College). the 1890s, the engine was stored in Following teaching posts in the the yard behind Edgbaston House Midlands and the South East, he on the opposite side of the street. became headteacher at Lakelands The Fire Station subsequently School, Ellesmere in 1987. When moved to Foundry Lane (seen he retired from the education right in the early 1950s to the left service, he worked part-time in the of a young Alwin Edwards whose county museum service at Acton grandfather was once fire chief). Scott and Ludlow. The fire station moved to its With a life-long interest in the present location in Haybridge history of this area, Neil has over Road in 1955. the years served on the committee of a number of local history Talking of bells, the story of these bells is told on page 6. groups. His particular interest is the industrial and transport history of the East Shropshire Coalfield, on which he has lectured and written articles over a number of years. When he returned to Shropshire, Neil and his family lived in Wellington for seven years before moving to Little Wenlock. Neil sees his year as chairman of the Wellington History Group as one of working with other members of the committee to build on the sterling work of his Photo: predecessor in creating a confident Andrew Gordon. future for the group. www.wellingtonhistorygroup.wordpress.com 3 FULK EYTON Geoff Harrison leaders, including Talbot and Who was Fulk Eyton? Arundel, with whom he had And was he a patriot or family ties and allegiances in the soldier of fortune? Geoff first half of the fifteenth century. Harrison investigates. Arundel died of wounds in 1435, and it is likely that Fulk Eyton was in his service at that time, a year id you know that there is a later he was serving under Talbot reference to an Eyton in a and gained ‘fame’, or ‘notoriety’. Dchurch in France? One Fulk had some measure of Fulk or Fulco Eyton. This was the independent command at the subject of a conversation with attack on Lillebonne. He devised somebody who had just returned an underhand, sneaky and risky, from a holiday in Normandy, and strategy to capture the castle.

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