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13 February 2012 Mr John Quirk
Nicholas Blundell – Reluctant Churchwarden
Mr Quirk has transcribed the parish registers from 1600 and studied the gravestones in Sefton Parish Church. He detailed the family tree of the Blundell family of Little Crosby who became Lords Sefton in 1800. In particular he told of Nicholas Blundell who was elected Churchwarden in 1714 and was reluctant to take office as he was a Catholic of Roman tradition serving in the Church of England. Duties of a Churchwarden included tax collection for the administration of relief for the poor, upkeep of roads, law and order, collecting pew rents for the seating of the congregation and conducting services if the clergy were unavailable. Nicolas kept a diary of his activities detailing his meetings to discuss parish affairs at Hisnop’s, the local tavern, now The Punchbowl. His main achievement was the provision of a parish hearse or corps carriage to convey bodies to Sefton Church which was the graveyard for a wide area. Wayside crosses still mark the routes to Sefton Church. After the Jacobite Rebellion of 1715 he lived in Belgium returning in 1718. His memorial is in the Blundell Chapel in the Church.
30 January 2012 Dr Liz Stewart
A Place called Home - Liverpool Court Housing
Dr Stewart showed plans of typical court housing which consisted of two rows of back to back houses with a central courtyard, an ash pit and privy at one end of the courtyard and sometimes a standpipe in the centre. Houses were usually entered up a flight of steps to allow families to inhabit the cellar area. Upper floors were shared between several families. Courts were either "open" to the street or "closed" when there was only a narrow entrance. This type of housing was developed from the Georgian terraces as a cheap alternative in an acute housing crisis when there was an influx of Irish and other immigrants in the 1800s. In 1889 building regulations began to be tightened in response to campaigns about the insanitary conditions, closed courts were declared illegal, and by the early 20th century the courts were being demolished and social housing was being provided in new areas of the city.
16 January 2012 Dr Alyson Brown
Dartmoor Prison Riot 1932
On January 24 1932 prisoners in the exercise yard at Dartmoor Prison rioted and took control of the prison for about 1 ½ hours before they were rounded up by armed police brought in from Plymouth. Dr Brown showed film and newspaper articles of the event and dealt with the subsequent trial and enquiry into the causes and prosecution of the rioters.
There had been previously been some disturbances and grievances which had been harshly dealt with and prison reform was slow in the 1920s especially in a large out of date prison in an isolated area with violent offenders who could spend 18 – 19 hours per day in the cells.
Of the rioters 22 were found guilty and sentenced to a total of 99 years in other prisons and the rest were dealt with by the Board of Visitors.
This episode highlighted the urgent need for prison reform.
12 December 2011 Members Social EveningMember Henry Mullarkey showed slides collected by the late Cyril Bradley showing Ormskirk past and present. This provoked much lively discussion on the where, when, who of the various pictures. Afterwards members enjoyed a buffet supper
28 November 2011
Prehistoric and Medieval Excavations at the M62 Interchange. Dr Ron Cowell
Dr Cowell explained that proposed new road routes are surveyed for possible archaeology sites and that excavations are timetabled into the construction of the road. He showed aerial photographs of the M62/M57 interchange and explained the various sites that were excavated. Soil creep had buried an earlier landscape and digging revealed prehistoric flints and arrowheads and also a pit containing burnt shells which were dated to 5000 BC showing the presence of an itinerant hunter gatherer community. Nearby a Roman farmstead had been excavated in 1993 and there they found stamped tiles and evidence of metalworking. Remnants of early ploughing (pre-medieval) were found under Ox Lane. At Windy Arbor Brow there was evidence of farms and cottages but they failed to find the leper hospital and chapel reputed to be there although they found much medieval pottery and metalwork.
They had been restricted to digging on the road route only and a lot of archaeology had been destroyed in the 70’s when the M62 was built.
14 November 2011
The Pretoria Pit Disaster, Mr Alan Davies
In December 1910 344 miners of a workforce of 889 in the mine were killed by a gas explosion followed by a coal dust explosion. Mr Davies explained the layout of the pit situated on the northern boundary of Atherton fitted with the latest ventilation fans although they were sited underground and not on the surface. Rescuers fought to reinstate ventilation and three men were brought out alive. Mr Davies showed graphic photos of the rescue attempt, the grieving families waiting for news and the organisations who provided help - the Salvation Army and St Johns Ambulance. A relief fund was set up by the local council and donations were received from all parts of the country. At the subsequent enquiry it was found there had previously been problems with gas and that there were some poor management systems. These findings led to changes in mining legislation. The mine closed in 1934 and traces of the old buildings, now overgrown, can be seen. Mr Davies also showed a film taken in 1911 of a mine in Wigan with its workers.
31 October 2011
Liverpool Sailors on the Waterfront in the 19th Century. Dr Graeme Milne
The idea of the Waterfront conjures up a vibrant, multicultural, notorious sailor's town. In reality it was where sailors, paid up after a long voyage, were relieved of their hard earned cash by unscrupulous tavern owners, boarding house keepers and brothel owners. Often when the sailors were destitute they were forcibly recruited into other trades. In the 19th century philanthropists and missionaries established hostels and seamen's missions to alleviate the situation. However the advent of steamships with regular timetables meant sailors spent less time in port and the arrival of new communications technology also helped in enabling seamen to have a more responsible, respectable family life.
3 October 2011, Professor Kevern Verney/ Subject; Barack Obama.
The first lecture of the 2011/2012 session was to do with very modern history in the making. Professor Verney described Obamas early life (born in 1961) and his forceful movement into the political scene.
President Obama is a graduate of Harvard Law school and worked as a civil rights attorney and taught Constitutional Law at Chicago Law School . He served 3 terms in the Illinois Senate and won election to the US Senate in 2004. His Presidential campaign began in 2007 and in 2008 defeated Republican canditate John McCain and was inaugurated as President on 20/01/2009.
On the international front the President withdrew troops from Iraq and increased troop levels in Afghanistan and signed up to the'New Start' arms control treaty with Russia and of course sanctioned the Bin Laden assasination. He has signalled his intention to seek re-election
The lecture covered a wide range of topics including details of legislation he signed in both in home and foreign policy, the writer struggled a little to 'keep up'.
20 July 2011 Visit to Ellesmere Port Boat Museum
The boat museum at Ellesmere Port was the venue for this visit. Members enjoyed a trip on the canal before having a guided tour of the site. This included the stables - most important place when barges were horse drawn; the blacksmith's shop; the motor hall and Porters Row - houses provided for the workers. Interesting and unique canal barges both restored and awaiting renovation were also seen.
4 April 2011 Outing to Capesthorne Hall
Capesthorne Hall in Cheshire, a Jacobean-style house dating from 1719, is the home of the Bromley-Davenports whose family have owned the land since Domesday times. Members enjoyed a guided tour of the grand reception rooms now used for weddings and the bedrooms with historic tapestries and the Georgian chapeland also learning more about the family. Unfortunately the weather prevented a walk in the park and gardens which looked spectacular from the windows.
Annual Sunday Lunch on 13 February at Briars Hall
Members enjoyed a pleasant lunch and afterwards heard an interesting talk by Mr Allan Patterson on Banks, Banksia and Botany Bay.
He spoke of Joseph Banks the celebrated 18th century botanist who sailed with Catain Cook on his expedition to observe the transit of Venus in Tahiti and also to explore and chart the coast of Australia. He collected many plant samples, one of which was the shrub Banksia which Allan had admired when he visited Australia recently.
LATEST LECTURES
28th March 2011 Dr Andrew Gritt reminded the society about living conditions in Industrial towns of Lancashire 1840-1950. There is no doubt that living and working conditions were difficult but Dr Gritt went to considerable lengths to make it clear that most of the written accounts from a range of mainly southern based writers were unfair and often untrue and at best were grossly exagerrated eg statements like'From Wolverhampton to Wallsend and St Helens to Sheffield were blighted landscapes'.with rivers heavily polluted for most of their lengths. THe talk was about getting thing into an accurate perspective. The writers of course wanted to maximise sales of their books,sordid stories achieved this aim.
Southerners took solace from the comparisons made and never did appreciate that the majority of northerners were good living family people who did work hard and were honest clean living, responsible family people many with deep religious beliefs.
Dr Gritt produced extracts from the writings of Tschilly Walter Greenwood George Orwell Dickens and the Bloomsbury Movement and others, where northerners were depicted as rogues vagabonds desperadoes savages with bestial habits etc. A member pointed out that the really poor and oppressed were the agricultural workers of the west country. The lecture was followed by a social evening and Dr Gritt was involved in lively conversation.
14 March 2011 Cowkeepers in Liverpool from the Yorkshire Dales Duncan Scott
Did you know that up until 1975 there were cowkeepers in Liverpool?
Mr Scott had interviewed members of the Capstick family originally from and maintaining close links with Howgill in Cumbria. Some of them had moved to Liverpool in the early 1800s when there was not enough work and others in the family went as far as Nova Scotia, Missouri and New Zealand. He showed pictures of their cottages with attached dairies, cellars, shippons and yards in West Derby and Mossley Hill.
In 1878 there were 452 cowhouses in Liverpool, in 1900, 900 cowhouses with 4000 cattle, and in 1939, 199 cowhouses with 2500 cattle. Fodder was grass supplied from parks and cemeteries and hay and rotten vegetables were exchanged for milk. Although the cowkeepers were in competition with each other, they were a closely knit group with strong community links to their suppliers of equipment and services.
Cows were milked twice a day and the milk delivered daily by cart to nearby streets first in churns and later bottled. With the advent of mechanisation in bottling and the influx of larger dairies, numbers steadily declined until the last cowhouse closed in 1975.
28 February 2011 The Life and Liverpool buildings of Harvey Lonsdale Elmes Dr James O'Keeffe
Harvey Lonsdale Elmes 1814 - 1847 has been described as "a martyr to architecture". His uncle was a builder and his father a surveyor, and not wishing to go in for commerce or music, he initially trained with his father and in 1834 worked with Henry Goodrich, a classical architect, at Bath.
In 1839 he entered and won a competition to design a new concert hall for Liverpool and in 1840 he submitted the winning design for the new Assizes Court. Because of costs the two designs were incorporated into one hall - St George's Hall. Built of Derbyshire sandstone the classical design had the assizes and civil court at each end of the great hall. Innovations were coke burning boilers and the first air conditioning system designed by Dr Reid.
He won the competition to design the Liverpool Collegiate, a Tudor/Gothic building, but did not oversee the construction due to a dispute about his commission and expenses. He was also responsible for the design of private houses in Woolton, Wallasey and Allerton, St Paul's Church and also Rainhill Asylum. During this time he lived and worked in London.
In 1846 Prince Albert visited Liverpool and awarded Elmes a gold medal.
However, his health deteriorated with overwork and worry and he was diagnosed with consumption and advised to winter in the West Indies where he died in November 1847. Sir Charles Cockerell supervised the completion of St George's Hall and the court was opened in 1851.
14 February 2011 Henry VIII and his Women Ray Irving
Imagine the surprise when King Henry himself joined us to tell of his life as second son - destined for the church - until the death of his elder brother and his quest to find the perfect wife - a woman like his mother, beautiful, obedient and able to produce a male heir.
He married Catherine of Aragon, his brother's widow, to obtain the balance of her marriage settlement and also because it was politically advantageous. After ten years of marriage which produced only one daughter he became attracted to Mary Boleyn and then her sister Anne. She, however, wanted to be queen so he declared himself Head of the Church and divorced Catherine. Anne only produced a daughter and he tired of her ambition so he arranged to have her executed for treason and took comfort with Jane Seymour. Unfortunately she died after giving birth to a son.
Another political marriage was sought and he chose Anne of Cleve after seeing her portrait by Hans Holbein. She, however, was not to his taste and he divorced her amicably. The Duke of Norfolk sought power by advancing his niece Katherine Howard but she had affairs with younger men and had to be executed for treason. He now needed someone who would care for him and chose twice widowed Katherine Parr and lived with her until his death.
31 January 2011 British Empire and the Zionist - Palestinian Conflict
Dr James Renton
Dr Renton said that in 1917 when the British were appointed Trustees of Palestine under the League of Nations after the fall of the Ottoman Empire, they inherited a difficult situation.
From Balfour to Bevin 1917 - 1948 the history of Palestine is viewed very differently by historians of the opposing groups. Zionists who were in the minority in 1917 felt betrayed by the British who in the Balfour Declaration pledged to facilitate a national home, aid Jewish immigration and land settlement, and blame Bevin for his anti semitic attitude in 1948 when the British supported the Arabs at the beginning of the Cold War. Palestinians on the other hand felt there was Anglo-Zionist colonial collusion (Europeans versus Arabs) in encouraging Jewish settlement in Palestine and the civil and religious rights of non Jewish people were not protected.
The Zionist -Palestinian conflict was firmly established when the state of Israel was formed in 1948.
17 January 2011 The Winton Train Lady Milena Grenfel Baines
Lady Milena was one of 669 Jewish children who were evacuated from Czechoslovakia just before the outbreak of WW2 in 1939.
Nicholas Winton, a British businessman, when approached for help to rescue the children organised lists, negotiated with the English government to grant them entry, prepared travel documents, found foster parents for them and arranged transport by train and ferry.
Nothing was known about this venture until the late 1980s when his wife found the scrapbook in the attic and it was publicised on a TV programme when Nicholas was reunited with some of the children.
Lady Milena showed a very moving film of the event narrated by Joe Slesinger, one of the evacuees, and answered questions about her experiences both on the train and her life at the Czech boarding school in Wales.
