A merry Christmas and happy a new year to all. Whether you are member of the Derbyshire VCH Trust, an active supporter, or just enjoy our posts or books, a big thank you for your support over the last year.
We can’t bring you snow in this year’s Christmas photograph, but we thought we would at least bring you a Christmas bus, even although it’s a little bit un-VCH!
Our 2023 Christmas offering is this photograph of a seasonally decorated Chesterfield bus taken sometime during the November 1981 to January 1982 period. (Collection P Cousins).
Our picture tells a story
The bus is pictured at the top of Ashgate Road, heading into the town. This Chesterfield Borough Council Transport Department Leyland Panther (fleet number 89), was first registered in early 1968. Seating 49 passengers, like most ‘modern’ buses in the Chesterfield fleet, they featured dual doors – one for entry and a separate one for exit.
Behind the bus, to the left, is the Friends Meeting House. This replaced their Saltergate building which had opened in 1697. The latter was demolished in the early 1970s and is now covered by the Saltergate multi-storey car park – there’s a plaque marking its site – a sad loss.
Specially decorated Christmas buses used to be a feature of the Chesterfield concern and other operators across the country. They haven’t disappeared either. Chances are that if you live in the Chesterfield vicinity you may see Stagecoach’s Christmas bus.
Finally, a quick example of inflation. At the beginning of the 1980s, on the route pictured, a ride from Chesterfield town centre to Walton Top Road would cost 14 pence!
Chesterfield Transport
Chesterfield’s municipal transport undertaking grew out of the council’s purchase of a horse-drawn tram line in 1897. The line was first established in 1882 by a private company, but the company had to be reconstituted a few years afterwards. Electric trams were operated from December 1904, with an extension opened a month later. Motorbuses first ran in 1914, but the trams went in 1927 being replaced by electrically powered trolley buses, but they only lasted until March 1938.
In those days having a well run and equipped municipal transport undertaking, with its own distinctive livery and perhaps even a unique interior upholstery seat pattern, was seen as an important contributor to municipal pride.
The ability of a council to run services meant that it could pursue a deliberate policy of providing stimulus to industry, commerce and leisure, through its network of bus services – including special services to local industrial concerns coordinated with shift patterns. This was a policy adopted by many councils up and down the country regardless of their political control. But it did mean that rate-payers would have to directly subsidise any losses and local councils could be quite protective of their operating territory. For example, it could be difficult for private operators to drop off and pick-up passengers in town centres.
Like most other council owned bus operators, the Chesterfield undertaking saw changes in the 1980s. This was as a result of the relaxation (privatisation) in the bus transport industry. In 1986 an ‘arms length company’ from the council was formed, with an employee buy-out following in 1990. The new company, however, over-reached itself and met with lots of competition. It was taken over by Stagecoach plc in 1995, reportedly only days away from collapse.
So, one might say that at least one major player in Chesterfield’s public transport network went from private enterprise, through to municipal enterprise and back again into the private sector. This is echoed by the fate of the area’s other major operator – East Midland Motor Services, though its period of public ownership was latterly with the National Bus Company. It too is now owned by Stagecoach plc.
Our plans for 2024
We are excited about 2024, as this should see the publication of our next VCH spin-off series – on Wingerworth. We will be bringing you news about this in the coming months and preview some of its content. The book is primarily written by local historian David Edwards – a familiar figure in Wingerworth and district. More about this important new book in 2024.
Our best wishes
We hope that you have enjoyed our posts during 2023. We will be returning in the new year with some more.
Wherever you are this season we hope you have a lovely time and wish you all the best for 2024.
This is the final part of our history of Spital Mills, Hasland. It covers the period after tobacco manufacturing ceased at the mill, bringing the story right up-to-date.
Today the old mill premises are mainly used as a storage facility. the original building is to the bottom of this photograph, taken in October 2023, looking down the mill yard from Spital Lane.An advertisement in the Derbyshire Times 26 February 1937 for sale of liquidated stock at Spital Mills
After Mason’s tobacco manufacturing business closed in the early years of the 20th century, Spital Mills were taken over by A.D. Gray, who with a partner, established a cabinet making business there, trading as A.D. Gray & Lewis Ltd. In 1916 the company bought the freehold of the works.
Although the company was said in 1935 to be thriving, it went into voluntary liquidation early in 1937, when 40 bedroom suites were sold by auction. Later that year there was a two-day catalogue sale of the premises, the whole of the woodworking machinery, a gas engine, two electric motors, a large number of tools, 27,000 ft of oak and other plain timber and 40,000 ft of walnut, mahogany, oak, sycamore and other veneers.
Spital Mills were acquired in 1937 by the Woodseats Joinery Company, which in 1949 was purchased by Frederick Wale. He had, in 1912, served an apprenticeship at Gray & Lewis.
In the 1950s the business moved away from joinery to the manufacture and sale of tiled fireplaces and was renamed the Spital Tile Surround Company. The name was shortened to Spital Tile Co. Ltd when the business began to supply ceramic wall tiles.
Frederick Wale died in 1964, when the company passed to his son Ian. In his hands, the business diversified into the supply of plumbing and heating materials, ironmongery and tools to the trade, while still selling tiles.
The frontage to Spital Lane in October 2023. The large extension to the left dates from 1981 and was latterly used as a bathroom and kitchen showroom. It is currently used as the premises of a dance studio.
In 1981 the company built a 5,500 sq. ft showroom on Spital Lane, in front of the mill, to promote the retail sale of bathrooms, kitchens and other products. The sale of gas fires and fireplaces was resumed in the 1990s, when Ian Wale was joined as directors by his daughters Victoria and Elizabeth.
A 1981 advertisement for Spital Distributors. (Taken from a Derbyshire Times special supplement on Chesterfield).
The business closed in 2019. The former mill building was taken over by a storage company and the show room became a gym and dance centre. Both continue to this day.
Between 1954 and 1963 part of Spital Mills were occupied by the Midland Light Pattern Co., which moved to Chesterfield from Annesley Woodhouse (Notts.) in the former year, and from Spital Mills to a new factory at Calow in the latter year.
The mill erected by Holmes & Smith back in the 1840s, today survives substantially unaltered. The main building is of brick, of three-storeys beneath a hipped slate roof. An extension at first-floor level over part of the yard provided additional rooms, which in the 1930s were used as offices. There were other outbuildings adjoining and originally a boiler house with tall chimney and engine-house at one end of the mill, which had been demolished by 1937.
The mill stood within easy reach of the Midland Railway goods yard and later that of the Great Central Railway, but was never rail connected.
Our other parts of the story of Spital Mills can be found as below:
This text is a slightly edited version of that appearing in our ‘History of Hasland …’ book, which is now of print, but you can find copies in Chesterfield Local Studies Library. All sources are fully referenced in our book.
On 13 January 2024 we amended the original post to include a 1981 advertisement for Spital Distributors.
This is part two of our history of ‘Spital Mills’ – more recently known as the premises of Spital Tile. This time we look at the mill as a centre of tobacco manufacturing.
Spital Mill as pictured in the c. 1899 ‘An illustrated guide to Chesterfield’. By this this it is occupied by Mason’s tobacco factory.
In the early 19th century George Mason, born at Cutthorpe (in Brampton) in about 1794, was a tobacco manufacturer in Chesterfield, with premises at 45–47 and 49–51 Low Pavement (either side of Wheeldon Lane). Here he had a works powered by a horse-gin, making cigars and twist tobacco. He was employing six men in 1851.
Mason died in 1854, leaving personal estate of £4,000, when the business, henceforth known as George Mason & Son, passed to his second son Edwin, born about 1829. He was living with his wife and family in Mason’s Yard, behind Low Pavement, in 1861, when he had 15 men, ten girls and two boys working for him.
A few years later, as the business grew rapidly, Mason moved to the former lace mill on Spital Lane – our Spital Mills and bought Spital House as a residence. By 1871 he had 116 employees at the tobacco works.
Edwin Mason died in 1887, leaving personal estate of £44,030. He was the sole owner of George Mason & Son, which was described as one of the largest tobacco manufacturers in England. He concentrated on business rather than engaging in public affairs, and was ‘retiring and unambitious’. In the 1880s the company was said to employ more young women than any other concern in the town.
One of a short series of half-page advertisements in the Derbyshire Courier – this one from the edition of 28 June 1887.
Edwin’s two sons, Oscar Edwin and Charles Leonard, succeeded to the business just as tastes were changing and the demand for twist tobacco was falling. They tried to move into cigarette making, advertising repeatedly over two years in 1892–4 for ‘up to 40 respectable young girls’ to learn the ‘clean and light work’ involved. They also, immediately after their father’s death, rather extravagantly took a half page advertisement in the Derbyshire Courier for several weeks to promote the company. Their final undoing was the creation of a tobacco combine by the larger British firms, in an attempt to meet American competition. Masons were not included and found their old markets closed to them.
Advertisement in the Derbyshire Times, 6 February 1892.
Another reason for the decline of what was clearly a very successful company in their father’s day appears to be loss of interest on the part of his sons. Oscar initially lived at Spital House but, after the estate was sold to the Lancashire, Derbyshire & East Coast Railway in the early 1890s, moved to Dunston Hall (in Newbold), where in 1901 he was employing a governess and eight servants, several more than his father ever had.
Oscar remained at Dunston Hall until he died, aged only 45, in 1903, when he left a modest £1,283. An obituary made no reference to his business career, but described him as an enthusiastic sportsman.
Oscar died after returning home early from a race meeting at Doncaster; he and his family were then staying at Bridlington (Yorks.). Many years later it was said that he had ‘always been largely interested in racing and sport’. His widow Mary Ann died at Frimley (Surrey) in 1936.
The business came to an end soon after Oscar died. In 1901 both he and his brother Charles, who was then living with his family, a governess and three servants in a house in The Crescent, Scarborough (Yorks.), gave their occupation as tobacco manufacturer, but Charles was a ‘late tobacco manufacturer’ in 1911, when the family were living in rooms in Cheltenham (Gloucs.) with no servants.
Charles later lived at various places on the South Coast and died at Portsmouth (Hants.) in 1935, leaving personal estate of just £20.24.
This brings to a close the tobacco manufacturing story of Spital Mills – but there is more to come in our next post.
The full entry for the tobacco factory from the c. 1899 book ‘An illustrated guide to Chesterfield’.
Part one of our history of Spital Mills can be found here.
The next and final part of our history can be found here.
This text is a slightly edited version of that appearing in our ‘History of Hasland …’ book, which is now of print, but you can find copies in Chesterfield Local Studies Library. All sources are fully referenced in our book.
In this blog we start reviewing the history of ‘Spital Mills’ – more recently known as the premises of Spital Tile – which started out as a steam-powered lace mill, probably in the 1840s. Today it’s a dance studio with most of the former mill building used for storage.
Spital Mills in its later guise as a tobacco manufactory – which we’ll be exploring in our next part in this series of blogs.
A large, brick-built, steam-powered mill on the right bank of the Rother near the northern end of Spital Lane was probably erected by Thomas Holmes and Francis Algernon Sidney Smith, who in 1849 were the owners and occupiers, trading in partnership as Holmes & Smith, machine builders and lace manufacturers. Holmes appears previously to have been in partnership with Thomas Johnson, in a firm named Johnson & Holmes, which made gingham in a workshop in Castle Yard, behind the Castle Inn at 41 Low Pavement. He was living at Spital Lodge in 1841 and ten years later at The Terrace on Saltergate, when he gave his occupation as gingham manufacturer. Gingham is lightweight plain-woven cotton cloth. The firm of Holmes & Smith continued into the 1850s, but on 1 January 1858 the partnership was dissolved and the business taken over by John Drabble (1834–1908) and William Edwin Dutton (1821–63), a master draper with a shop on Lordsmill Street.
By 1862 the works had evidently been divided between two firms, Drabble & Dutton, lace manufacturers, and Drabble, Dutton & Parker, gingham makers. The third partner was Richard Parker, a draper on Low Pavement. In 1860 Dutton was the defendant in an action brought by Richard Holland, a mechanic from Preston (Lancs.), who unsuccessfully claimed that he was owed money for obtaining, building and installing improved gingham looms of his own invention at Spital. Both partnerships would have come to an end with Dutton’s death in his early forties in June 1863.
In 1864 John Drabble applied for a patent for improvements in the manufacture of bobbin net, made on bobbin net or twist lace machines. The lace-making side was given up when the rising price of raw material made the business unprofitable and the machinery was removed to the factory of Messrs Jacoby of Nottingham. A few years later gingham making also came to an end and Spital Mills (as the premises were always known, although there was only one mill building) became a tobacco manufacturing works.
In 1861, when he still had the lace-making business at Spital, Drabble was living in Nottingham. He later occupied the mill behind Lordsmill Street, on Hipper Street, which had once been a twist factory, and made gingham there, although in 1871–81 he described himself as a cotton doubler. He was then living at Herne House (in Calow).
Drabble was a member of Chesterfield corporation between 1871 and 1879, and mayor in 1877. In the 1891 census, by which date he had moved to Stanley Street in Spital, Drabble was enumerated as a commission agent and merchant, and ten years later as a timber merchant. He died at Spital in 1908, leaving personal estate of only £58.28.
We’ll be covering the later history these premises in future blogs, looking in particular at its short history as a tobacco manufactory under George Mason.
Part two of our history of Spital Mills can be found here.
The third and final part of our history of Spital Mills can be found here.
This text is a slightly edited version of that appearing in our ‘History of Hasland …’ book, which is now of print, but you can find copies in Chesterfield Local Studies Library. All sources are fully referenced in our book.
Our sister organisation – the Derbyshire Record Society (DRS) – is shortly to publish ‘Derbyshire Feet of Fines 1196-1325’. We preview this publication here.
This book completes the publication of the late Harold Garratt’s calendar of feet of fines recording the conveyance of estates in Derbyshire from their commencement in the reign of Richard I down to the end of Henry VIII’s reign. An earlier volume (XI, 1985) contained the fines for the county executed between 1324 and 1547.
This second volume replaces and extends the unindexed calendar published in instalments in the Derbyshire Archaeological Journal between 1885 and 1895.
What are feet of fines?
Feet of fines are among the best known and most heavily used sources for medieval genealogy and the descent of landed estates. They provide a wealth of information, going back to a period from which few estate muniments survive. Above all, they are precisely dated from their commencement, which most private deeds are not before the end of the thirteenth century. With the appearance of this volume, Derbyshire finally joins the list of counties for which all the medieval fines are available in print in a reliable calendar in English, fully indexed by person, place and subject.
The book will immediately become (and remain) a standard work of reference for historians interested in medieval Derbyshire, and for genealogists tracing the origins of families in the county
Further information
The book will be published at the DRS AGM on 23 September 2023. Priced at £25 for members, it is available to non-members at £35 (plus postage). The DRS website will shortly have an on-line order form available, but you can also email their treasurer at treasurer@derbyshirerecordsociety.org.
Our AGM on 23 September includes a free talk – open to all – this year focussing on the role of businesswomen in Georgian England.
Through Derbyshire case studies, our speaker Dr Collinge, will explore this perhaps neglected subject. Female-owned businesses are commonly regarded as short-lived, marginal concerns, abandoned upon marriage, appropriated by avaricious husbands or set up by impoverished widows.
But Dr Collinge presents evidence of women navigating the opportunities and challenges they encountered in order to secure an independent living.
Everyone is welcome to attend the talk (you don’t have to be a VCH member). Our AGM starts at 2pm, with the talk starting at 2.30pm – Imperial Rooms, 4 Imperial Road, Matlock, Derbyshire, DE4 3NL, Saturday 23 September 2023. Light refreshments are available afterwards. Admission is free.
When was Bess of Hardwick born? Our county editor thinks it was sometime between 13 February 1521 and 12 February 1522, not as some others have it in 1527. We take a look at the evidence in this short blog.
Bess is probably the third most famous Englishwoman of her age after Queen Elizabeth and Mary Queen of Scots. Bess is, of course, particularly, associated with Hardwick Hall.
Though there’s no shortage of books on Bess of Hardwick, there has been some conjecture, over a long period, on just when she was born, most quoting 1527. Our VCH county editor, Philip Riden, who has extensively researched the issue, is certain, though, that she was born between 13 February 1521 and 12 February 1522.
It’s widely known that Bess of Hardwick had four husbands ending with George Talbot 6th earl of Shrewsbury, who died in 1590 – hence the ES emblazoned extensively on Hardwick new hall. She died in 1608.The impressive monument to Bess of Hardwick in Derby Cathedral. It was designed by Bess in her lifetime. For some years it was thought that her age inscribed on the monument was incorrect, but our county editor believes that its does carry the correct information. Thebannersited adjacent to the monument, which gives her birth as 1527, is therefore incorrect.
Philip presents his argument in an article in the Derbyshire Archaeological Journal (DAJ) of 2010 ‘The Hardwicks of Hardwick Hall in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries’. You can directly download the article as a pdf via the link here. Look for the final paragraph on page 150 onwards, which presents a reasoned argument for her birthdate. Since publication in 2010 we are not aware of anyone who has presented alternative evidence. So, we are sticking with a birthdate in between 13 February 1521 and 12 February 1522.
You can find out more about Bess and the Hardwick estate in our paperback book ‘Hardwick a great house and its estate’ though this is now out of print, you may be able to obtain copies second-hand.
Philip has extensively researched the Hardwick family at Hardwick Hall and published a number of articles on the family and their descendants. In the 1980s, with David Durrant, he published building accounts for Hardwick Hall. More recently his work in the archives at Chatsworth has enabled him to publish (again in two parts), household accounts of William Cavendish of Hardwick (1597-1607) all for the Derbyshire Record Society. His latest DAJ article on the family – ‘The household accounts of the Cavendish family of Hardwick’ – was in 2016.
This blog looks at a ‘find’ we’ve made – a copy of the 19th century Chesterfield printer’s ‘Gallimore’s Almanack’ in Chesterfield Local Studies Library.
Gallimore’s almanack
Front cover of Gallimore’s Almanack (then ending with a ‘k’) for 1842. This is believed to have been the first edition of 22, but local content is strictly limited. Our knowledge of 19th century printers in Chesterfield is incomplete VCH hopes to sort this out as part of its work on the town’s history.
You may remember in our blog of 28 May 2021 we posted about Gallimore’s almanack – which might have been a much earlier version of the once popular TP Woods Almanac with its popular chronicle of local events.
Thanks to some work by one of our members and staff at Chesterfield Local Studies Library, we have now found a copy of the errant publication, which we said we’d love to see.
Disappointing
We must admit to being a bit disappointed.
Speaking at a meeting of the Rotary Club in late 1924, local historian William Jacques mentions ‘Gallimore’s Almanac’ which he said dated back to 1842 – which makes the copy we’ve identified the first edition. Jacques had recently been presented with a set of 22, which he believed were the only ones in existence.
Jacques description of Gallimore’s almanack content was that half of it consisted of advertisements ‘nine-tenths of which related to quack medicines’ (Gallimore was a dealer in these). Jacques makes reference about some local content being present – but in the edition we have found, this is very limited.
In fact our copy basically comprises, for the most part, ‘Moore’s Almanack’ (now Old Moore’s) for 1842 which is of 48 pages in length. Local content is limited to ‘C Gallimore’s (late Ford) companion to the Almanacks for 1842’. This comprises a short list of the Chesterfield Corporation followed by names of such local offices as the clerk of the peace, gas and water company, boards of highways, etc. There then follow details of local carriers, feasts and wakes, followed by county lists of fairs, all ending at page 8. There’s certainly no local chronicle – a feature of TP Wood’s almanacs. (Indeed, the the title is actually ‘…Almanacks’ indicating there’s more than one within the covers!)
Open the cover and you’ll find that the vast amount of the almanack’s content is provided via the insertion of Moore’s Almanack within it.
Quack
There’s then a so-called ‘Second Sheet’. Rather as described by Jacques, this comprises testimonials from users of ‘Parr’s Life Pills’, of some four pages. A further four pages are given over to more Parr testimonials, until a description of Simpson’s ‘antibilious pills’ takes two pages, whilst the same manufacturer’s ‘herbal pills…for coughs aschmas & consumptions’ takes the remaining two pages. All these, what we now call quack medicines, are naturally stocked by Gallimore. The whole has a presumably Gallimore printed cover, which is illustrated above.
So, all in all, rather a disappointment, particularly when set against Jacques’ talk to the Rotary Club in 1924.
Incidentally, the almanack is not part of the local studies library’s Jacques’ collection. It appears to have been presented or acquired by the library within the last 20 years or so. There’s still, then, the mystery as to what happened to the 22 copies Jacques had.
Date
As we’ve written above, the first edition is 1842 – making the almanack featured here the first one of its type.
This would also nicely fit into the start of TP Wood’s almanac, which, in his almanac for 1904 (published in 1903) he stated was first published in 1864. If 1842 was the first edition and there were 22, TP Wood would have started publication only a few years after the Gallimore almanack had ceased.
A limited amount of local information follows the Moore’s almanack section. It commences with a list of the Chesterfield Corporation. This section would have been printed by Gallimore in his premises on Iron Gate – formerly that occupied by printer of the 1839 History of Chesterfield – Thomas Ford.
In 1903 Wood went on to state that he his first almanac had been a ‘ready-compiled’ purchased from ‘a Mr Egglinton’, with a few added pages about Wood’s own business. The following year, Gallimore’s having ‘retired’, Wood added ‘about a dozen pages’ of local information’ to his almanac. The publication then rapidly grew, so much so that in 1903 Wood was expressing his concerns about the commercial viability of his almanac, suggesting that it might be slimmed down in future years.
More about Gallimore
Following our original post in May 2021 we were very pleased to receive the following comments from Isabel Fogg via our Facebook page.
She stated that in an article Quaker Printers, 1750-1850, C. Gallimore is listed as a printer c. 1845-1850 in Chesterfield. In contemporary newspapers they have the Gallimore brothers in dress and deportment apparently resembling Charles Lamb, the essayist. There are also references to ‘Moore’s Almanack with Gallimore’s Appendix’ and ‘Gallimore’s Companion to the Almanacks’.
As we have previously noted – VCH needs to carryout further work on Chesterfield’s 19th century printers. This should include following up the above comments.
In a past blog we have looked at Thomas Ford – printer and publisher of the 1839 history of town – who proceeded the Gallimores at their Iron Gate premises.
Featuring in the almanack are various testimonials for what we would now regard as ‘quack’ medicines. One wonders what these contained?
Found but limited
So, almanack found – but its content is limited. Maybe it increased as the years went on – but we don’t know – as we still need to find the other editions that were published.
Although it is only one example of the 22 editions Jacques says he had, we can rather confidentially say that if this edition of Gallimore’s Almanack is of limited use to VCH in our research. Unless, of course, we decide to look at the quack medicines of the 19th century – readily available in Chesterfield and elsewhere – particularly to Parr’s Life Pills’ or Simpson’s ‘antibilious pills’!
Gallimore was, of course, promoting his own business with these medicine testimonials – as he stocked them. This block is taken from his 1842 almanack.
Our thanks to the staff at Chesterfield Local Studies Library (where the edition of Gallimore’s Almanack featured here can be found) and to Derbyshire County Council for allowing us to reproduce the illustrations in this blog
Sources for this blog
Gallimores’s almanack for 1842 (presumed published in 1841)
In this blog we take a look at a lavish dinner thrown by members of Chesterfield Corporation, in 1911, to celebrate the final year of retiring mayor Charles Paxton Markham. And it may well surprise you as to just how lavish it was. We’ll also take a brief look at Markham’s final spell as mayor and the man himself.
No expense spared – not even with the menu card – complete with gold embossed borough seal towards the top. Note the decorative blue ribbon.
It’s Late October 1911 and Charles Paxton Markham (1865-1926), who many later regarded as the ‘uncrowned King of Chesterfield’ is just about to complete his spell as mayor for the third and final time. Markham, without doubt the area’s leading industrialist (and perhaps politician) at the time, was entertained by the corporation members to a sumptuous dinner at the Stephenson Memorial Hall. Thanks to one of our member’s who has leant us a copy of the menu, we can look at that grand mayoral dinner and just what was on the menu.
CP Markham
The ‘uncrowned King of Chesterfield’ – Charles Paxton Markham – taken from the 1913 yearbook and directory of Chesterfield.
Markham was the managing director and chairman of the Staveley Coal & Iron Company and had many other industrial interests. He had a reputation of being a man who wanted to get things done and wouldn’t let things get in his way too much. He personally paid £10,000 towards clearing the notorious Dog Kennels slum housing area and construction of a new road through a part of them – known as Markham Road – completed by March 1912. The Dog Kennel clearance had become something of a personal crusade to Markham.
Markham had started to become interested in social conditions and housing matters, including those for whom he employed. But he was equally a man you would not want to cross unless you were well prepared or didn’t work for him! Despite these later interests in the welfare of his workers he was anti-union. A few years later he would describe unions as one of the worse things that could have happened to workers.
Markham had first been elected as Mayor in 1896, a term of one year, which was to be repeated for two years from 1909. In 1910 he was also elected as one of eight aldermen and a little later the same year an Honorary Freedom of the Borough was also conferred on him. He was first elected to the council in 1895, serving on it until 1920.
The complimentary dinner
So, to the ‘complimentary dinner’ that members of the town council threw for Markham as he retired from his mayoral duties. And it was right royal affair – fit for an uncrowned king!
Just take a look at the menu below. Starting with ‘native oysters’, we then move into Turtle soup, followed by a second course with all manner of delicacies, all rounded off with fruit and coffee. The wine list also looks interesting, with presumably different wines served at different points in the extensive menu.
A feast fit for an uncrowned king? The complimentary dinner menu. On another page of the menu card ‘artists’ at the dinner are listed – ‘Mr Langford (humourist); Mr Sadler (FRCO); Councillor Lancaster; Councillor Glossop; The Cavendish Glee Party’. It’s thought that Sadler was organist at the parish church, but of the glee party we know nothing. A further page lists the three toasts given, another members of the 1911 corporation and a further one mayors of Chesterfield since 1835 (see below).
It’s not known who paid for this dinner – but it is possible that members of the corporation themselves paid for it, as their thanks to the outgoing mayor (this tradition lasted until recent years). The corporation at that time consisted primarily of business men in the borough – people who would generally be of some means. But whoever did pay for it, it might well have been regarded as one of the social events of the year.
The new Mayor – The duke of Devonshire
Markham was replaced as Mayor by the duke of Devonshire, in early November, at the mayor making ceremony, with Alderman Markham becoming deputy mayor – a separate occasion to the complimentary dinner. It is believed to be the first time that the corporation had sought a mayor from outside its elected body. (The duke was, of course a member of the Lords, but was also a county council alderman, Chairman of the Bakewell Board of Guardians and had been Mayor of Eastbourne. It appears that the council wanted to use his expertise in promoting the borough and in its governance).
Markham’s ‘splendid mayoralty‘
In reporting the mayor making ceremony, the Derbyshire Courier’s headline expressed; ‘Alderman Markham’s splendid mayoralty’. (The Courier was one of the two Chesterfield based newspapers of the era).
In reviewing his two years in office the Dog Kennels’ area improvements were stressed. Markham himself made reference to extension of the borough (in 1910) and improvements to the Queen’s Park Annexe which had been started.
In typical Markham fashion, he announced that he and Major Clayton, as Trustees of the Jubilee Drill Hall, had executed a deed to hand it over to the town, if the Territorials using it were to disband. The rider being that there was a big debt on the building – if the town were to pay it the trustees might well hand it over! (This building was much later owned by the borough council. From 1970 it opened as an entertainment centre, renamed as the Goldwell Rooms, and was used as such until the Winding Wheel Theatre opened).
Markham expressed pride that the town were early adopters of ‘town-planning’. Lordsmill Street had been widened – but he hoped that more of it could be so treated – St Mary’s Gate was ‘a disgrace to the town,’ he said. The sewage works had been modernised and work was planned to widen Hasland Road.
Perhaps somewhat confusingly Markham also promised to hand over the deeds of ‘Eastwood Park’ to the town council. This, he said, was land he acquired some time ago, but that he had held onto during negotiations with the Midland Railway when the line through Chesterfield was quadrupled. (This is probably a piece of the frontage of the park, presented in 1913 – though is some miles distant from the railway).
Markham did think a good job had been made of the coronation celebrations held in Chesterfield of King George V.
All-in-all this was typical Markham stuff, in times when the mayor was seen as something more than the mainly ceremonial role played today. It’s clear from the Courier’s review that Markham had given the council (he sat on all the committees as mayor) the benefits of his considerable knowledge.
Difficulties
But there had been also been some difficult issues – perhaps in particular the August 1911 railway riot. Here Markham had to read the riot act, in order to deploy military forces against striking and rioting railway workers.
The Chesterfield Railway Riots were one of a number of disturbances nationwide during the railway strike of 1911. As mayor, Markham took a leading, but not uncontroversial role in quelling them. These extracts are taken from the Derbyshire Courier of Tuesday 29 August 1911. The Courier appears to have been a particular supporter of Markham.
The extension of the borough in 1910 had not realised all the corporation’s wishes. Their desire to extend into Whittington and completely into Newbold was not met. Thus were sunk aspirations to become a county borough.
Due to the extension, elections were required to the council. In those days the electorate for the town council was much more limited than today – more likely to vote for those, as Frank Wright in his volume (IV) of the History of Chesterfield puts it; the ‘shop-keepers, professional men, manufacturers and engineers’ that were elected to the council.
Indeed, the unofficial opposition during the period was mainly from Chesterfield Trades Council (the group still with us today of trades unions in the area). They had, for example, written to Markham (as mayor) in April 1910, objecting to the £4,000 that was to be spent on the Queen’s Park Annex. So, the elections of November 1910 returned the usual mix of people. Perhaps the return of the status-quo was somewhat celebrated at the complimentary dinner a year later. Entertaining was, of course, much more lavish back then and Markham and his cohorts would have been used to rather more food than we are today. More (albeit earlier) examples of this type of entertaining are given by Markham’s sister -Violet – in her autobiography ‘Return passage’.
The complimentary dinner does not seem to have attracted the Courier’s attention, though that newspaper’s rival – the Derbyshire Times – did briefly mention it in fulsome terms. But it lamented that a fuller report could not be given due to the private nature of the event. The newspaper was able to record that the duke of Devonshire’s speech apparently embodied the ‘highest ideals of public service, and one which might cause many of the critics of municipal management to think furiously’. The menu was not mentioned.
One might imagine that the vast majority of Chesterfield residents would have been quite surprised, with some of them possibly outraged at the dinner’s menu and indeed the expense of whole event.
The printed menu booklet ended with a list of mayors from 1835. When Markham was first elected as such in 1896 he would have been in his early 30s.The menu measures about 130mm x 205mm, comprises eight pages (including the front cover) – with six printed pages.
Sources:
The complimentary dinner menu.
Derbyshire Courier 4 and 11 November 1911.
Derbyshire Times, 4 November 1911.
V Markham, Return passage (1953).
J Murphy, ‘Chesterfield’s drill halls’ The Cestrefeld Journal, number 8, 2023.
TF Wright History of Chesterfield volume IV (1992).
