Issue 10, February 2020 HIDDEN VOICES Inside this issue Matlock Bath: An East Midlands 04 trippers’ paradise “ They Prefer the River” Nottingham’s Trent 07 Baths, 1857–1941 Ronald Pope: 21 The 'Secret' Sculptor PLUS Homes for Hinckley’s heroes • Ruddington: A “large and well-built village”of handloom weaving and much more 1 WELCOME & CONTENTS WELCOME HIDDEN VOICES So write History and WELCOME & CONTENTS WELCOME for us Heritage at NTU Let us have details of your news Postgraduate qualifications with flexible study starting and events. September 2020 We’ll take your stories about your community’s MA History: This course is ideal if you wish to pursue a historical Welcome history to a larger regional audience. We’d also interest beyond your degree or as preparation for further PhD study. Welcome back to East welcome articles about our region’s broader Case studies have included Crusades and Crusaders; Early Modern Midlands History and Heritage, past. Articles are normally between 1500- Religions and Cultures; Slavery, Race and Lynching; Memory, Genocide, 2000 words long. Keep a look out, too, Holocaust; Social History and ‘The Spatial Turn'. the magazine that uniquely Contents for matching images that will help illustrate your work (the higher the number of pixels, MA Museum and Heritage Development: This interdisciplinary caters for local history societies, the larger we can make the image). course combines academic interrogation of museums and heritage schools and colleges, heritage as ideas, organisations and experiences with creative, practice- Matlock Bath: An East Midlands trippers’ paradise Contact us via our website at based approaches to their ongoing development. It is delivered in practitioners and history 04 www.eastmidlandshistory.org.uk collaboration with Museum Development East Midlands, Nottingham professionals across the region, or email [email protected] City Museums and Galleries, Museum of the Mercian Regiment, the National Justice Museum and Barker Langham. putting them in contact with “They Prefer the River” Nottingham’s Trent Baths, 1857–1941 MA (by research) Holocaust and Genocide: Pursue advanced research you and you with them. 07 in the field of Holocaust and Genocide. You will have the unique We’d encourage you to submit work to us opportunity to collaborate in research with the National Holocaust for publication. You can pick any topic from any Centre and Museum, and be active within regional and national period, just so long as it has a strong East Midlands Bowled Over: a “lost” 18th Century bowling green re-found Holocaust memory networks. connection. Articles are normally between at Langar Hall, Nottinghamshire Book a place at an open event 1500-2000 words long. Keep a look out, too, for 10 www.ntu.ac.uk/hum matching images that will help illustrate your work (the higher the number of pixels, the larger we can make the image). So, if you are currently working on a community project, or a private piece Homes for Hinckley’s heroes of research, and would like to take your findings to 13 a large audience, why don’t you email us with the details at: [email protected]. A voyage round my Grandad Dr Nick Hayes 17 Editor East Midlands History and Heritage Oresta Muckute, Dr Helen Drew, Dr Hannah Nicholson Assistant editors 21 Ronald Pope: The 'Secret' Sculptor Ruddington: A “large and well-built village”of Find us on handloom weaving Facebook 24 We now have a group on Facebook to help 11 19 extend our network of academic institutions, The mysterious tenant of Thoresby Hall students (undergrad and postgrad), local 27 history groups, and the wider community, who are united by an interest in the history and heritage of the East Midlands area. To post and comment, just join our group Mansfield revived which you'll find by logging on to 30 www.facebook.com and searching for East Midlands History and Heritage. We're also on twitter The leaves of Southwell @EastMidlandsHH 31 20 26 29 2 3 Visit www.eastmidlandshistory.org.uk or email [email protected] Visit www.eastmidlandshistory.org.uk or email [email protected] MATLOCK BATH: AN EAST MIDLANDS TRIPPERS’ PARADISE MIDLANDS TRIPPERS’ AN EAST BATH: MATLOCK HIDDEN VOICES BY CHRISTOPHER CHARLTON AND DOREEN BUXTON The years following the end of the writing to the Derby Mercury in August 1842, holders were fed inside; second-class outside in a Napoleonic wars were challenging for noted the special trains which, within the last marquee. The arrangements were not foolproof. In month, had brought “hundreds and thousands July 1842 a disgruntled second-class ticket holder the smaller inland spa resorts. Their to see this mystic vale.” The potential was not from Leicester returned home unfed. He was told wealthy clientele could now return to lost on the directors of the Manchester, Buxton, the fault was his because the marquee was fully the German and French spas that had Matlock and Midlands Junction Railway as they “capable of containing hundreds of occupants” and been denied them by so many years contemplated a new line extending north from enough food was left over “to furnish dinner to 250 or Matlock Bath: Amber Gate to connect Matlock Bath directly to the 300 persons.” Enlarged eating places later emerged, of conflict. Also, they faced increasing national rail system. As its chairman, George Henry catering for immense numbers. The Central competition from the coastal towns Cavendish MP, reminded shareholders, there were Restaurant, for example, could seat 500. Touts now offering seaside fun and treatments already “thousands of individuals” visiting Matlock; stood outside the station and on the pavements based around saltwater bathing. once they were in business “the existing large traffic imploring visitors to patronise their establishments would be immensely increased.” or use their carriages, cabs or donkeys to explore Nor could they compete with the He was right. An East Midlands The railway reached Matlock Bath in June 1849. the neighbourhood. It took the resort many years larger inland resorts, such as Harrogate, Already by November The Illustrated London News to come to terms with the demands of this new way with its new medical treatments and, could report that, since the opening of the 11 1/2 of life. As late as June 1871 the Local Board was MATLOCK BATH: AN EAST MIDLANDS TRIPPERS’ PARADISE MIDLANDS TRIPPERS’ AN EAST BATH: MATLOCK later hundred bed hotels and high- miles of line from Ambergate to Rowsley, “trains being urged to consider the provision of urinals [had] incessantly poured in from all the principal “for the convenience of the excursionists”, because quality entertainment. towns of the Midland Counties.” Matlock Bath’s future as Mr Parkin, a member of the Board, admitted: “at Matlock Bath was no exception. For some years as a regional day trip honeypot had been secured. present there [are] no public conveniences whatever.” trippers’ after the war it still welcomed its coroneted visitors, The actual number of day trippers in these The attractions, too, that had once offered a but it now catered predominantly for the middle early days, or indeed throughout the century, bespoke service to the well-to-do now had to adapt class, the farmers and tradesmen, from across via this rail link, is difficult to establish precisely. to the needs of huge parties. In 1844, for example, the region. Yet a new life for the resort was on the The figures so often seem prodigious. How could Benjamin Bryan, who styled himself the principal horizon. The first step towards the development a village of Matlock Bath’s size accommodate such Matlock guide, and who was the proprietor of the paradise of a different economy was taken in May 1840, an influx of visitors? But the consistency of the Devonshire Cavern from 1832 -1847, met a 700 with the opening of the North Midland Railway newspaper and other reports suggest the numbers strong party in Cromford and conducted them from Derby to Masborough, Rotherham. At the have to be accepted, at least as ballpark figures. through the cavern. On one such occasion he found beginning of July, the line was further extended Just a year from the opening of Matlock Bath’s himself at the head of a party leaving the cavern to Leeds. It passed through a place then known station there was news of a single party of 1,700 from where the tail of the group had yet to enter. as Amber Gate (now Ambergate), and the sharper schools in Sheffield and, a month later, of a train of minds in Matlock Bath, and in the railway company, Aside from the practical issues there were also 47 first- and second-class carriages from Gloucester, were quick to recognise a potential new tourist social tensions. Cheap rail travel brought to the Cheltenham and Birmingham. Years later, towards trade, where passengers were carried onward, resort members of a humbler social class than the end of the century, figures as high as 20,000 by coach or canal boat, to the Bath, as it was would previously have visited. Some groups, or 30,000 visitors on a single day are noted. Such known to locals, about 8 miles away. And so funded by philanthropic generosity, even contained days would have been public holidays but it is clear began Matlock Bath’s reinvention as a regional people from a stratum of society which, in the that on a summer Saturday, if the weather was day-tripper destination. strictly hierarchical system of the period, was reasonable, the Bath would have been buzzing. regarded as being the lowest rung of the social Mary Cumming, the proprietor of the Old Bath For a resort with generations of experience of Hotel, was among the first to exploit this new dealings with a leisured opportunity, advertising an omnibus service and moneyed elite, to meet trains as they arrived at Amber Gate.