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"Jack of Many
Trades" gives a helping hand at 83: Samuel Lack has
been a Jack of Many Trades. He has worked in the local ironstone
works, on the railway, on road repairs, on a farm, helped a salesman and
worked in stables as a carrier. Today, at 83, although he retired
many years ago, he likes to get out and do a little work. Besides
the odd jobs he cultivates a fair sized garden and a 16 poles
allotment. Mr. Lack remembers difficult times. When he first
started work as a plough driver he earned only 3s. a week (15p) for a
six day week, working from 6 am to 5.30 pm. "There were no
half-days or holidays in those days". When he was married he
was earning only 21s. a week. There followed unemployment and the
dole - and he was thankful to get a job as a road repairer. Mr.
Lack comes from an old Blisworth family. He remembers years ago
how his uncle used to 'leg' barges through the long, dark Blisworth
Tunnel.
"The very heart's blood and soul of commerce" That
was the description given to canals at the beginning of the last century
(~1800) and one of the major ones was built through the village and was
tunnelled through the nearby hill to reach Stoke Bruerne.
Originally there were no ventilating shafts but two were added 12 years
after its construction in the 3056 yard length of tunnel - following a
hold up of barges which resulted in a child's death by
suffocation. Before barges (now called narrow boats) were equipped
with engines, Blisworth had 12 registered 'leggers'. These leggers
lay on special outboards and by pushing their feet on the tunnel wall,
propelled the boats forward. Payment for the journey was 1s. 6d.
per man. They always had to walk back from Stoke Bruerne as the
leggers of that village had the rights to the boats going north.
Lock-keepers and other officials presented an imposing sight in those
days. They wore high topped hats and gloves with glass shelters
being set up to protect them from the weather!
A hundred years the Whitlock family have been the village carpenters
and undertakers. Some of the entries in William Whitlock's
huge account book make interesting reading (now 81, he retired 7 years
ago). 'For making coffin for late W.A.Dunkley, aged two months,
died Mar 2, 1899 .... 9s. 6d. For making coffin for late Joseph
Carter, died June 26, 1896 .... £1 15s. 0d.' Mr. Whitlock said
that the corresponding amounts today would be about £16 and and about
£50. He joined his father at the age of 14 as soon as he had left
school "It was hard work in those days - right through the
day from 6 am to 6 pm, no holidays". When his father died he
took over the business and from then on until his retirement he has made
many hundred coffins. He has also given service as the church
sexton, retiring 12 months ago from that after 39 years.
Mr. Whitlock has vivid memories of the day the horse-drawn fire-engines
came from Towcester and water was pumped by hand to put out a fire in
the old mill that once stood on the site of the present of the British
Bacon Company. He was only about five at the time and was carried
to see the fire by his grandfather. Nowadays Mr. Whitlock spends
much of his time in his garden or on his 12-poles allotment. And
of course, he is always ready to do the odd carpentry job.
The mill that caught fire was run by Joseph Westley. The loss
prompted him to abandon the site for milling (though leaving a more or
less undamaged bakery, eventually let to the Sturgess family, and build
a new mill in 1879 by the canal
side. The new mill used a new
technology based on roller milling, using china rollers, rather than
flat limestone grinding milling. The next excerpt shows that
Westleys retained some conventional grinders to cater for a continuing
market for the traditional loaf - this being the only reference to the
mill accommodating a mix of milling techniques at least in ~1900.
Mr. John H. Foster was born in Greens Norton 75 years ago but
has lived in Blisworth nearly 60 years. He began work in the mill
at St. James' End in Northampton but when he was 20 he worked at the
Blisworth mill. Here he was following in his father's footsteps
when he became a mill stone dresser. The 17 cwt. stones needed
attention every two or three weeks as they wore down. [This
is the evidence that Westleys in 1899 operated old-fashioned milling
alongside the modern - to cover the market demand for flours.]
The cottage
he lives in belonged formerly to a baker and in the garden there is a
large bake-house, empty of ovens now but full of old benches and tables
which he lends out to villagers for fetes, etc. without wishing to
charge anything but readily accepting the odd gift [exactly as Jim
Payler reports in his memoir of
1940s Blisowrth].
More examples of Blisworth workers. Working seven days a
week from dawn to dusk for 1s. a week as a bird scarer was the first job
for Mr. Fred Marriott, now 87. He should have been at school - he
was only eight - but the farmer slipped the school-master 2d. and took
Fred away with him. His next job was in an ironstone boat which
carrier ironstone from one of the chutes, see
image 18-08, to the railway sidings nearby -
this earned him 10s. a week. In those days (~1890) people came
from all the surrounding villages to work at Blisworth and Mr. Marriott
well remembers men walking in from Shutlanger and Stoke. They used
to bring with them good "clangers" (bacon and onion
dumplings). He also remembers that Blisworth used to have band (some
carrying instruments in this photo, 23-01) and his father was band-master.
Transport Issues: The Canal and the Railway Missed the Town
Once opened in 1805 the canal passed by Northampton at a distance of
about four miles. At what we now know as Blisworth Arm, in the
Parish of Blisworth, there was a short canal spur of length about 200
yards and from it - a tramway once ran into
Northampton. It was
apparently of rough construction and was powered by horse with the
wagons probably running on flat plates. In a ~1820 map the
place is marked up as Northampton Arm, being a perfectly logical name
that should have been retained as some have hijacked the place in the
name of 'Gayton Arm'. This form of travel between the canal and
the town was not approved by the Borough of Northampton - they wanted a
canal connection which would transport 'water-carriages'. In fact
Willaim Pitt visited the county in 1806 and records the horse railway
and remarks, from his recall of reports earlier, 1797, that a canal had
been projected by the constructors. By 1815 the flight of
locks and the canal connection had been made. The horse railway would have
immediately fallen into disuse.
The newspaper mentions the horse railway as background to the fact that
a good railway connection was established by 1845, being the branch line
from a new Blisworth Station to Northampton and on to
Peterborough. In fact the main line missed the town when completed
in 1838 and offered a simple station on the embankment near to the
archway over the Northampton Road. There was much lobbying and
argument around that time but suffice to say a new station was quickly
built, a little way towards the west, along with a fine Hotel. On the Northampton Road were built
Grafton Villas to advertise local stone and nearby was established a
toll house for as long as the road was a registered turnpike.
Conditions at Blisworth Station 40 years ago are recalled by Foreman
Walter Barden, who started work there in 1913 as a junior porter.
In those days hundreds of people used the station every day, he says,
and the staff were rushed off their feet. To connect with
Northampton two coaches used to be slipped from the London
express. The local gentry used to travel to Northampton by rail
rather than car and that kept the trains full. There were freight
wagons too, horse boxes and ironstone wagons - the sidings were quite
extensive.
Mr. Barden is one of a remarkable railway family. His grandfather
worked at Fenny Stratford for many years, his father was a shunter and
foreman at Blisworth for 50 years and various others were platelayers or
a blacksmith's striker. His father has recollection of a robbery
while at Blisworth. About twelve years ago, one night he saw
several people leaving the station, complete strangers - a car was
waiting to take them away. Together with a booking clerk he had to
go to Scotland Yard to go through hundreds of photographs but failed to
identify anyone.
Mr. William Williams, a member of another railway family, reported
recalling that the ground opposite the station was once thought suitable
for a racetrack. How the history of the village would have changed
if that plan had materialised. In fact, the large plot of land
has in more recent years has been 'offered' as a lorry park plus filling
station on the new road and railway freight terminal with an exotic link
to Northampton.
More Transport Issues: Early Aviation and the Village Garage.
On aviation, this is an excerpt from the editorial of the Northampton
Independent, April 30, 1910. The chief topic of the week has
been, of course, the sudden appearance of competing aviators in the
proximity of Northampton. Although everyone knew that Mr. Grahame White
proposed to fly from London to Manchester last Saturday, yet, truth to
say, very few people expected him to reach Rugby. When, however, the
news spread through the town that while we were peacefully slumbering in
bed the aviator had flown through the county, we could hardly believe
our ears; and before our surprise was over, Mr. White had started on a
second attempt almost simultaneously with M. Paulhan and had landed for
the night at Roade. Yesterday morning we knew that the great feat had
been accomplished, and that Paulhan had won the £10,000 prize. The
local commotion caused by the flights was enormous, and, as a result,
there has been a sudden awakening to the vast possibilities of the
aeroplane. While successful flights were being made in France and
America, only a mild interest was evinced locally, and even when
Blackpool and Doncaster held aviation meetings, last Autumn, and the
Channel was crossed by Bleriot, our attention was but transient. The
establishment of an aerodrome at Huntingdon began to bring the subject
of flying nearer home to us, then, quite unexpectedly, within a week,
daring aviators have traversed the Midlands and almost passed over
Northampton itself. After this we shall look upon the aeroplane as an
accomplished fact, as something that has emerged from the experimental
stage into the realms of the practical; and a few years hence flying
will probable be as much an everyday occurrence as is motoring.
An article in the body of the issue includes this delightful passage - What
will happen when we can all take trips in the air one can only
conjecture. Certainly we shall all live the higher life and Socialists
and others with Utopian ideas, whose heads are already in the clouds
will be in their element. Politicians and poets who now indulge in wild
flights of fancy will be more irrepressible than ever, and everything
will be treated in an airy spirit. We shall require doors in the roofs
of houses, and governments will be able to turn deserts to profitable
account by letting them out as advertising spaces. The whole aspect of
civilisation will be changed.
This is our cue to note that the Graham White flight passed over
Blisworth as the inset photograph from 'the independent' seems to
indicate. A Sarah Barden of Blisworth, mother of the Walter Barden
mentioned above, is recalled as saying as the plane flew over "man
is getting too clever for himself". So 1910 is the first
recording of airplane flights over Blisworth. We might conjecture
that certain hot air balloon flights may have flown over Blisworth
before then, taking off from Blisworth
Gardens. The next occasion was when the school children
experienced interesting times in 1913 with the beginning of the RAF
flying over the county - see School Records. The
year 1910 was also the year the Freeston family came to the village
and one year later Eliza, the mother (still alive at 82 in 1954), gave
birth to her fifth son George. It was George who developed into
the zealous collector and amateur village historian and so into the
chief source, indirectly, of a majority of the information on this
website. The newspaper we began with on this page has something to
say about the brothers: If you want your car, cycle or
radio mended, if you need a taxi or if you just want to know something
about the village, the people to see in Blisworth are the Freeston
brothers. Four of them, Ronald, William, George and Frank run the
garage whilst Ralph works in the railway offices. Their business
has progressed through the years beginning with carpentry and wheel
wrighting, being the trade of both father and grandfather elsewhere in
the County, and later incorporating petrol sales and repair work - all
at the garage on the corner of Stoke
Road and the High Street. George ran a taxi service and Ron,
from his naval experience, repaired radios (and worked as a
decorator). Some anecdotes are provided in the locally
published book, now out of print, entitled "Blisworth - the
Development of a Village". |
