Ghostly figures shed light on women’s work at the pit

The ghostly figures, in our first photograph in this blog, shed some light on a now forgotten aspect of coal mining – women’s work on the pit top.

Ghostly figures of pit-top women workers. Behind them, to the right, appears to be coal exiting the colliery top screens. These screens also employed female labour in manually sorting extracted coal and removing unwanted dirt.

At first we thought that these rare photographs (published here for the first time) might have been taken in the north eastern part of Derbyshire, possibly at a colliery of the Staveley Coal and Iron Company. We also thought that they were of the First World War period or later. The short series of plate glass negatives (of which we reproduce three), shows women engaged in pit-top work, sorting and stacking coal.

Though women were banned from working underground in the Mines and Collieries Act of 1842, following the Children’s Employment Commission report of the same year, this didn’t stop pit-top work.  Nationally this was fairly common – even by 1900 4,808 females were employed against 155,829 males working at coal, iron, shale and clay mines.  But it’s thought that no women were employed in the Derbyshire coalfield during the nineteenth century. This resulted in most women staying at home.

The Derbyshire Miners’ Association wanted to see ‘a total prohibition of female labour about our mines’ in response to a proposed Coal Mines bill of 1911. But this amendment to the bill was defeated, with the aid of women suffragists.  This caused some consternation with one MP saying that the ’university women’ responsible for the amendment’s defeat did not understand the hard nature of the work involved.

A filled tub of presumably freshly worked coal with three women pit-top workers. This looks as though it has been sorted from from the coal screens and comprises mainly ‘slack’. Colliery buildings loom large in the background.

In 1915, following the onset of the First World War, nationally it was thought that employers and workers would be best placed to look, jointly, at employing more women on the surface (along with other measures to increase productivity).

Though reports of actual employment in Derbyshire are scant some have surfaced. For example in March 1916 the Derbyshire Miners’ Association was protesting after it was reported that ‘women workers had been introduced to certain pits in the county.’ This appears to have centred on a dispute at Waleswood Colliery. The need to replace men at work had presumably started this move. In 1916 some 12,000 men had left the pits in Derbyshire to join the army.

In some areas of the country the employment of women is fairly well documented, but in Derbyshire, with its early absence of women, it is possibly less so. Later, as coal owners were forced to consider welfare provision at the pit top, women played their role in what might be termed traditional work – occupational nursing and canteen work are just two.

Although our ‘ghostly figures’ were first thought to be possibly of Derbyshire origin, but are probably not, they do throw some light on a sometimes-forgotten part that women played in the coal industry of past years.

Neatly stacked coal at an unknown colliery. We think the other two photographs are at the same location. Where could it be and who was one of of the unsung women pit-top workers pictured here?

Sources used in this blog:

Angela V John, By the seat of their brow. Women workers at Victorian coal mines, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul (1984).

JE Williams, The Derbyshire miners. A study in industrial and social history, London: George Allen & Unwin (1962).

Derbyshire Courier 11 March 1916, 22 April 1916 and 5 September 1916.

Our thanks to one of our VCH research group members for allowing us to share these photographs. We would be interested to hear views on where these photographs might be.

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Seizing Derbyshire church goods in 1553 – new book to be published

Our sister organisation, the Derbyshire Record Society (DRS) is publishing a new book Church Goods in Derbyshire 1552-1553, edited by Richard Clark

Front cover of the new DRS book.

About the book

The book is concerned with the national seizure of church goods in 1553, one of the major dispossession of ecclesiastical assets during the English Reformation. It contains the surviving documents relating to their confiscation in Derbyshire, including the inventories of church goods made in 1552 in preparation for their seizure. The book also contains the indentures made in May 1553 about the retention by parishes of vessels for the administration of Holy Communion and of their bells, and the returns made from Derbyshire and handed over to government officials in Westminster. The final item in the volume is a letter from the borough of Derby to the Privy Council in 1553 about its failure to report to it about its survey of church goods there in 1552.

Details of the goods itemised in the Derbyshire inventories and indentures have been available in print for over a century and a half, but the documents, appearing here, have never been printed in full. They have previously been exploited for their interest concerning surviving church furnishings and ornaments in Derbyshire before their final seizure by Edward VI’s government. However, without a full edition of the documents presented here a review of their administrative and political significance as well as detailed and critical consideration of their contents has not previously been possible. This volume aims to rectify these omissions as well as to provide a full critical apparatus to set these documents and their contents.

Anyone is welcome to join the DRS for the launch on Saturday 16 July 2.30pm, with talk by the editor at the Imperial Rooms, Imperial Road, Matlock, DE4 3NL.

The book will be available to purchase on the day for £30 (£20 for Record Society members). If you are unable to join the DRS on the , but 16th, but would like to order a copy of the book, this can be done online or by printing and completed the attached order form.

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What do we do

Colleagues at our national office in London have done a great job in summarising what we do.

We aim to produce a history of every place in England, from the earliest times to the ever-moving now, in a consistent form including accounts of landscape and settlement, with buildings and archaeology.

Our histories include histories of landownership from Domesday Book (and earlier) to the present, economic and social histories, the history of religion and local government using original sources.  As well as our ‘Big Red Books’ (which look at a number of places), VCH Shorts (which describe individual places) and much more, we also have a smart-phone App, ‘A History of England’s Places’.

You can find out more by visiting the VCH’s national pages and, of course, browse our Derbyshire pages on this website.

If you would like to help us in Derbyshire visit our ‘Get involved’ website page.

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Successful Hasland book launch

The evening of the 15 June, saw a successful launch for our new book on the history of Hasland.

Philip Riden, VCH County Editor, talking to a packed audience at the Devonshire Arms during the launch of a new book about Hasland’s history.

Launched at the Devonshire Arms in the village, it was a capacity audience of over 60 people who attended the event. Our County Editor, Philip Riden, explained about what VCH does and gave a brief overview of the history of this formerly large parish, which used to comprise Spital, Hady, Boythorpe, Grassmoor, Winsick, Birdholme and Corbriggs.

The beginnings of the township, its growth, economic history, religion, education, landownership and local government were amongst topics covered. Large-scale industry like the former Chesterfield Tube Works got a mention, along with the less well-known story of local mining and the Broad Oaks furnaces near Storforth Lane were mentioned.

Priced at £20 the book is of some 200 pages, with colour illustrations and maps. The A4 sized hardback book should hopefully soon be available at Waterstones in Chesterfield and the town’s Visitor Centre. It is also available from the VCH by using an online order form at https://bit.ly/HistoryofHasland and from Hasland Coop.

The Trust’s first publication in this VCH spin-off series, Chesterfield’s Streets and Houses, is still available. The next spin-off book should be an account of Temple Normanton and Calow.

Our thanks to everyone who attended and to the Devonshire Arms for providing the venue.

Philip Riden, Derbyshire VCH County Editor, far right, with some of the volunteer group who have contributed to the new book on Hasland. Holding the book, centre, is Lyn Pardo Roques, Chair of the Derbyshire VCH Trust.

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You’re invited to our 15 June Hasland book launch

No apologies for advertising our nee Hasland book’s launch on 15 June, in this blog.

Pop along to see us at the Devonshire Arms, Hasland, starting at 7.30pm. There’s no admission fee and you’ll be able to hear our county editor Philip Riden, give a short account of the book and the formerly extensive parish of Hasland. You’ll also be able to purchase the book if you want to.

Our Hasland book
Our Hasland book cover, by kind permission of Derbyshire County Council, features Spital House. Our last blog looked at this now disappeared property.

Published on behalf of the Derbyshire Victoria County (VCH) Trust, the book represents hours of research by a group of volunteers, under the guidance of VCH county editor Philip Riden. They have been busy researching the history of Chesterfield for around 20 years. Although this is the second publication as a result of this work, it is the first to look at an actual area of Chesterfield and the north eastern part of the county – and more are set to follow.

The book looks at Hasland’s history through the ages, charting the many communities that once made up its historic area – Spital, Hady, Boythorpe, Grassmoor, Winsick, Birdholme and Corbriggs. The beginnings of the township, its growth, economic history, religion, education, landownership and local government are amongst topics covered. Large-scale industry like the former Chesterfield Tube Works gets a mention, along with the less well-known story of local mining, the Broad Oaks furnaces near Storforth Lane and many others.

Philip Riden described the history as the fullest account of the history of Hasland published so far, and the first ever attempt to write the history of Grassmoor or Birdholme. He commented; ‘Our work on Hasland was well progressed, and so we thought there was a need to bring this together and publish it. Hopefully, local people will find the book of interest. It’s really an interim account of the township as we aim to produce a volume of the Victoria County History for the area.’

At some 200 pages with colour illustrations and maps, the A4 sized hardback book will be available to purchase at the launch and afterwards at Waterstones in Chesterfield and the town’s Visitor Centre and from the publisher Merton Priory Press (mertonpriory.co.uk). It’s priced at £20 (plus postage and packaging).

Philip Riden comments; ‘We hope that by publishing our research it will herald a new understanding of the area’s varied past. All VCH accounts are well-researched, fully indexed and have copious references, so that anyone interested can look up our sources and research things further if they want to’.

The Trust’s first publication in this spin-off series, Chesterfield’s Streets and Houses, is still available. The next spin-off book will be an account of Temple Normanton and Calow.

To find out more about the launch event visit our events page.

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Our dedication

Our colleagues at our VCH central office at the Institute of Historical Research remind us that Royal Jubilees have a special place in the history of our project. The Victoria County History was dedicated to Queen Victoria and was intended as a lasting celebration of her Diamond Jubilee in 1897. On Elizabeth’s Diamond Jubilee, in 2012, that royal dedication was renewed.

In 2013 we published our first big red book since 1905 and 1907. Our 2013 book was amongst the first to carry our revised dedication to Her Majesty in her then diamond jubilee year.

Congratulations to Her Majesty on her Platinum Jubilee.

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What’s on our Hasland book’s cover

Our Hasland book
Our Hasland book will be out from 15 June – but what’s the image on its cover?

If you’ve been following us recently you will know that we’re about to publish our new book on the history of Hasland. It’s got a nice colour picture on the front but of what?

In fact, it’s of Spital House, which stood on the east side of Spital Lane about midway between the junctions with Hady Hill and Calow Lane (opposite the present Co-op).

Early ownership

It appears to have formed part of the Foljambe family’s estate centred on Walton Hall, although when they acquired this part of their property is not clear. It passed to their successor, Sir Paul Jenkinson Bt, who married into the Revell family. It then fell to Richard Turbutt of Doncaster, to the Babington family and to John Woodyeare.

Among the larger houses in 1670 were those of Mr Shawe senior, Mr Shawe of Spittle, Mr Wheeldon and Mr Jenkinson of Spital. The property is likely to have been one of these.

A closer look at our front cover. It’s a water-colour of Spital House, painted about 1813 – reproduced by courtesy of Derbyshire County Council.

The 19th century

We’ll fast-forward into the 19th century, but there’s more about the intervening history in our book.

In 1801 John Woodyeare included Spital House, together with about 100 acres of land adjoining and 22 acres at Grassmoor, in a sale of portions of the Walton Hall estate. Neither Spital House nor most of the land was sold. When a further attempt was made to dispose of the estate in 1812, after Woodyeare’s death, the sale included Spital House and 75 acres of land in Spital and Hasland. Spital House was described as ‘calculated for the residence of a very respectable gentleman’. It was not as big as Walton Hall, the main mansion on the estate.

In 1813 a sale by private treaty was agreed with Sir Thomas Windsor Hunloke of Wingerworth Hall of the entire Woodyeare estate. In 1821 part of this estate, including Spital House and some adjoining land, were offered for sale by order of the court of Chancery during an action involving the trustees of Sir Windsor Hunloke’s will.

Spital House was to the left in this recent view of the area. The coach house to the property is to the centre and has been restored as a residential property.

It may have been John Charge, the Chesterfield attorney who was also clerk of the peace for the county and practised from 23 West Bars who bought the Spital House estate from the Hunloke trustees in about 1821.

Charge died in 1849; his widow in 1850. Elizabeth left her property to be divided between her nephews and nieces, the children of her sister Jane. The Spital House estate passed to the Revd John Boyer, who was living there by the start of 1852 but later moved. On her death John’s wife left £1,000 to meet the cost of building new almshouses on Saltergate to replace those in the parish churchyard.

Edwin Mason, the head of the firm of George Mason & Son, the tobacco manufacturing business founded by his father, with works at Spital, was the next owner. Mason also bought all the land in front of the house through to Mansfield Road. He  died in 1887, aged 58, after which his two sons lived there at varying dates.

Spital House and the surrounding area from the 6″ Ordnance Survey map. The Lancashire, Derbyshire and East Coast Railway is the line running roughly left to right across the map. (Derbyshire Sheet XXV, revised: 1914, published: 1921. Courtesy National Library of Scotland – https://maps.nls.uk/)

Enter the railway

In 1892 it was announced that the Lancashire, Derbyshire & East Coast Railway was to run immediately behind the house. By March 1893 the railway company had purchased Spital House

The LD&ECR’s general manager, Harry Wilmott, lived at Spital House until the company was absorbed into the Great Central (as the MS&LR had become) in 1907. That year the new owners sold 52 acres of 25 accommodation and building land belonging to the Spital House estate, described as suitable for either house-building or works that required railway access.

By 1912 Spital House itself had been let to John Morton Clayton, one of the principals of Joseph Clayton & Co. Ltd, whose tannery was nearby on Clayton Street. Clayton left or a few years later.

Spital House was taken over by an Anglican order of nuns, the Sisters of the Poor, who were resident there by 1921, when it was proposed to build the Spital Hotel opposite. They vacated in 1932, when the property was advertised to let as either a private house or ‘dancing rooms’.

Decline

Spital House was briefly used as a kindergarten and preparatory school run by Mrs Annie Dixon, previously of 79 Saltergate. After this closed, the property became a lodging house. An inspection in February 1936 discovered eleven tenants living there, seven in conditions of overcrowding which were unlawful under the 1935 Public Health Act.

During the Second World War Spital House was used by Chesterfield corporation for storage, but when this ended the property was taken over by squatters. In March 1950 the Railway Executive (as owners of the freehold in succession to the Great Central and LNER) had the squatters removed. The following month the Executive was reported to be demolishing the building, described as dangerous and lacking water or sanitation, at the request of the local authority.

What did Spital House look like?

The watercolour painting, on the front of our book, is said to date from c.1813. It shows the main (west) front from the opposite bank of Spital brook, appears

It was an E-  plan house of two storeys and attics, built of local coal measures sandstone, with stone-flagged roofs. There were brick-built chimney stacks at the north end and towards the southern end of the main range, and in each of the wings. On the ground floor the central doorway had a pedimented surround. The windows appear originally all to be have been two- or three-light mullioned windows with hood-moulds over, although by the early 19th century some had been replaced with sash windows. These features (except perhaps the chimney stacks, which may have been altered) appear to be consistent with an early 17th-century date of construction.

By c.1813a single-storey extension had been built on the north end of the original house which was enlarged by the early 20th century – upwards. A two-storey bay had been built in the internal angle between the north side of the north wing and the extension.

In the garden to the rear of the house, the painting on our book’s cover shows what appears to be a small ‘temple’ with a pediment supported on four arches. This would have disappeared when the LD&ECR line was built through the grounds, if not before.

The site of Spital House on Spital Lane is approximately where the modern bungalow, to the centre of this photograph, is sited.

Immediately to the south of the house stood a long, low building which appears to have been a stable block. This was not demolished in 1950. It was sold in 1984 and converted into a private residence. Other outbuildings further south again remained derelict at the time of writing, as they had done for many years, although a boundary wall was rebuilt in 2020–1. The buildings presumably date from the late 17th century or early 18th. A mounting block on the pavement outside the stables has been jumped off by generations of small children.

Some years after Spital House was demolished, a bungalow was built on the site, set in a precipitous garden created from part of the LD&ECR embankment.

There’s more about Spital House in our book, which will be launched at a special event on 15 June 2022. This free event will be held in the function room at the Devonshire Arms, Hasland, starting at 7.30pm To find out more about the launch event visit our events page.

Find out more about our book on the History of Hasland here.

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Eyres of Chesterfield’s sad demise

In this blog we’ll look at one of the unfortunate but less obvious results of the demise of Eyres of Chesterfield – the disappearance of its company history on their now removed website. But thanks to the Internet Archive at least part of the site has been preserved.

This isn’t to detract from the problems and hardship that are caused to employees and customers of a company that reaches the end of the road – these cannot be underestimated.

Pre internet days – front page of a brochure published in 1925 to mark 50 years of Eyre & Sons Ltd. In fact it’s fairly brief on the company’s history – this is all you get in the 75-page brochure. The rest mainly features available products including pianos and gramophone record players along with the more traditional bedroom and living room furniture. Note what latter became the Stephenson Arcade – then Eyre’s Arcade on Stephenson Place. At this time the company were also involved in furniture removal, and decorating. The brochure’s front cover was also keen to promote their ability to furnish hotels and undertake bar fitting.
Missing – presumed lost. Part of the now disappeared Eyres of Chesterfield website. The summary history text may have been preserved by the Internet Archive.

It’s a fact that many companies now publish the only readily accessible history of their business on their website. Largely gone are the days when companies used to produce hard copy product brochures which might contain a useful potted company history.

Eyres was a longstanding and formerly prosperous Chesterfield company. Latterly it had been situated in large retail premises on Holywell Street and Stephenson Place, in the centre of the town. According to the company’s own website – now disappeared following announcement on 20 April 2022 that it had ceased trading – it was first founded in 1875. An Isaac Eyre of Barrow Hill, near Chesterfield, ‘was left jobless, and needed to find another way of earning income to raise his family.’ He started out buying and selling sewing machines and mangles – ‘Victorian Eyres was born’.

The enterprise grew into his first premises at 3 Holywell Street. His son joined Isaac, by which time they were making furniture. (There was a substantial cabinet making factory at one time on Tapton Lane). 1891 saw the concern move to larger premises – which remained the site of the business until its sad closure. Eyre & Sons Ltd was registered in 1894, in 1897 the website claimed ‘Eyres became the largest Furnishing Store in the Midlands. Their reputation spread so far that people came from miles around to buy their furniture.’

Usefully the former Eyres website gave an out-line of the company’s later history. In the mid-1980s there were 12 stores trading, but in 1985 most of these closed down. ‘Charles Summers formed Eyres of Chesterfield in his great Grandfather’s original premises.’ Charles became a member of the Worshipful Company of Furniture Markers – a City of London liovery company – in 2019.

The now removed company website also contained some historic and modern photographs and the usual run-down of products sold, along with information about the ‘Artisan Café’ and the store’s gift department. All of this has now disappeared, though some of the photographs can still be found elsewhere on the web.

In Worksop and Mansfield the Eyres business has been completely separate since the mid-1980s. The Eyres of Worksop website fills in some of the details.

There was a 6 week break in trading in 1985 when all Eyres stores were sold to a property company but soon enough a new company, Eyres of Worksop, was formed and leased the building from the property company. The present company has continued to run for the past 30 years and the building itself was bought in 1991. So one way or another, with only two small hiccups, Eyres have provided an excellent service with a vast selection of goods and aim to do so well into this century.

Eyres (of Worksop) website

The Companies House website (which contains information on companies, such as accounts and incorporation documents) shows that Eyres of Chesterfield had been formed as Chaselodge Ltd at the end of December 1984. But Chaselodge had almost immediately changed their name to Eyres of Chesterfield Ltd.

You can search for the Eyres’ former website and view it (and other ‘disappeared’ ones) on the Internet Archive, but depending on which browser used the illustrations may not be present and the original layout may not have been preserved.

Another extract from the 1925 brochure. The middle photograph is of the ‘magnificent carpet saloon’ A recent newspaper report stated that this was a former chapel. It was not, though as we have previously written, a former medieval wayside chapel was not far away, but this disappeared many years previously.
Our final extract from the 1925 brochure shows this bedroom suite. This may well have been made at Eyre’s own cabinet factory – a large corrugated iron clad building at the bottom of Tapton Lane. Eyres also owned Ryland Works – a trade wholesalers with premises latterly off Newbold Road. These premises replaced a building off Stephenson Place, which had had its top storey gutted by fire many years ago. In the 1970s the surviving ground floor was used as Eyre’s second hand furniture shop.

This post was edited on 22 May 2022 to add reference to the Internet Archive.

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Hasland book launch date 15 June 2022

Our new Hasland VCH spin-off book is to be published at a launch event on the evening of 15 June at the Devonshire Arms, Hasland.

Our Hasland book

The book will be the first authoritative account of this large parish.

Until 19th-century boundary changes, the township (later civil parish) of Hasland (near Chesterfield) included not just what people think of as Hasland today but also Corbriggs and Winsick, Grassmoor, Birdholme and the St Augustine’s end of Boythorpe. It formerly included much industry on Derby Road. We’ve recently been featuring some of the many varied subjects covered in the book in our blog. You can rad more about why Hasland has been chosen for our first township based spin-off book in our blog.

With colour plates, of just over 200 pages, A4 in size, we think that this will be a landmark publication in the history of the area. The book will be available for £20 at the meeting. We also hope to make it available in Waterstones bookshop in Chesterfield and by post from the publisher (additional postage of £5 will apply).

The launch event, which is free to attend, will be held on Wednesday 15th June starting at 7.30pm in the function room at the Devonshire Arms, Hasland. To find out more about the launch event visit our events page.

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