Staffordshire County Research Articles

The Wardle Family and its Circle: Textile Production in the Arts and Crafts Era, by Brenda M. King

Reviewed by: The Wardle Family and its Circle: Textile Production in the Arts and Crafts Era by Brenda M. King Maureen Daly Goggin (bio) The Wardle Family and its Circle: Textile Production in the Arts and Crafts Era, by Brenda M. King; pp. xix + 218. Woodbridge, England: Boydell and Brewer, 2019, £29.95, $45.00. In The Wardle Family and its Circle: Textile Production in the Arts and Crafts Era, Brenda M. King weaves a tightly woven and meticulously researched story of the Wardle family, its textile production, and its circle of influential friends from the mid-nineteenth century to the early part of the twentieth. As such, the book fills a void in the history of Victorian textiles and makes plain why this was a rich time for design, printing, and embroidering of fabric. The book makes clear, too, that the Wardle family were superb experts in all of these areas. Organized into four chapters with an introduction and a conclusion, the book includes twenty-eight beautifully colored plates of Leek embroidery, as well as a useful appendix on materials connected to the Wardle family. In the introduction, King carefully stitches the history of Leek, a market town in the county of Staffordshire, England, and of the Wardle family during the Victorian era. The most notable members are Thomas, a dyer and printer of fabrics; his wife Elizabeth (née Young Wardle), a talented embroiderer and leader extraordinaire; and Elizabeth’s brother George Young Wardle, a designer who first worked with William Morris and then with Thomas. (As far as this reviewer could tell, although Elizabeth and her brother had the last name “Wardle,” there was no relation to the Wardle family that Elizabeth married into.) Later Thomas and Elizabeth’s children would join them in the family businesses. The Wardle family cultivated important links to the Anglo-Indian silk trade, becoming one of the largest importers of silk fabric and thread. As the introduction makes clear, King has great reverence for the entire Wardle family, a stance that marks all the chapters. Elizabeth Wardle is often given short shrift in textile histories of this period, even in the very description of this book by the publishers: “Elizabeth Wardle, embroiderer, worked with many major architects such as R. N. Shaw, G. G. Scott Jnr and J. D. Sedding,” they write (“The Wardle Family and its Circle: Textile Production in the Arts and Crafts Era,” Boydell & Brewer [Boydell & Brewer], par. 2). This characterization paints her as a helper and a crafts worker—true, but diminishing of what Elizabeth actually achieved during this time. Indeed, three of the chapters focus almost entirely on Elizabeth Wardle’s [End Page 676] contributions to color, design, administration, mentoring, embroidery, and entrepreneurship. The book is to be credited with introducing Elizabeth Wardle’s many skills and accomplishments. The first chapter, “The Wardle Family and its Circle,” traces the personal and professional webs of notable architects, designers, needleworkers, and others in the textile industry that Thomas and Elizabeth cultivated. Morris, for example, was a close friend sharing interests and connections in fabric, thread, and design. Like Morris, John Ruskin, and others, the Wardles adhered to the Arts and Crafts movement that called attention to the past for design and color in fabrics and thread. As Ruskin made clear, the fine medieval, hand-wrought craftsmanship was to be valued and engaged; beauty, not perfection, was the goal. This chapter introduces Thomas Wardle’s dye and print shop for fabric and the Leek Embroidery Society that Elizabeth ran, among her other responsibilities. King notes how their textile influences ran throughout England, Europe, and India as they participated in many exhibitions and travel in these regions. The second chapter, “The Business of Stitch,” introduces Elizabeth as a leader in and of stitchery; her own stitch work was exquisite and her leadership outstanding. As the head of the Leek Embroidery Society, Elizabeth brought the national organization to great repute in both ecclesiastical and domestic stitchery as magazine articles, books on needlework, and exhibitions of the day made clear. It was the first society to work with India’s tussah silk thread and Wardle’s dyed and printed tussah cloth, often...

The Decline of the Clerical Magistracy in the Nineteenth-Century English Midlands

A significant proportion of Church of England clergy in the early nineteenth century took up the role of magistrate to help enforce the law in local communities, partly in consequence of the growth of clerical wealth and status which had begun in the previous century. This legal role was perceived by some as contradictory to clerical pastoral duties, and as such detrimental to the church. Some would view it as contributing to a decline of the Church of England, which was seen as too much associated with the established powers in an era of social change. After the peak of the 1830s, the number of clerical magistrates began to fall dramatically, marking the emergence of a more exclusively religious clerical profession uneasy with the antagonisms associated with local law enforcement. This study, focusing on the diverse county of Staffordshire, presents the case that the decline of the clerical magistracy is an early indicator of the withdrawal of the clergy from involvement in secular concerns, and as such provides important evidence for the growth of secularization in British society.

Estimating the benefits of joint occupation for street works in the UK

The UK’s local road infrastructure is subject to frequent openings to maintain and invest in buried infrastructure. Opening a road reduces its structural integrity, necessitates the implementation of traffic management and causes environmental pollution. These in turn can result in increased road use costs, adversely affect local business, cause social disbenefit, reduce road asset value and necessitate unplanned maintenance. There are therefore benefits to be gained from coordinating the openings of the highway in similar locations. Shared highway openings, however, are often not realised in practice for a number of reasons, including the lack of public accountability among infrastructure providers and the absence of appreciation for quantifying the benefits of joint occupation. To address this, this paper describes a novel rigorous procedure, based on multicriteria analysis, developed for Staffordshire County Council that evaluates the primary monetised and non-monetised economic, social, political and environmental benefits and costs associated with joint occupation and enables potential joint occupation schemes to be ranked. The use of the procedure is demonstrated by two joint occupation schemes in a rural and an urban area of Staffordshire. The work highlights the advantages of encouraging collaborative working among service providers to reduce costs and to increase asset life.

A 120-year record of the spatial and temporal distribution of gravestone decay and acid deposition

Abstract This investigation examines the spatial and temporal variability of marble gravestone decay throughout West Midlands County and adjacent portions of Warwickshire, Staffordshire, and Worcestershire. Gravestone decay has been used effectively as a quantitative measure of acid deposition. Numerous techniques have been used to assess gravestone decay and each is subject to different sources of error. To minimize error we focus only on marble gravestones that use the flush lead lettering technique. Decay of the marble leaves the lead lettering raised above the surface, and the distance can be measured with the use of a digital micrometer. Gravestone decay can be used to quantify the spatial and temporal distribution of acid deposition. Our gravestone decay database consists of 1417 individual measurements on 591 tombstones in 33 cemeteries and covers the period from 1860 to 2010. Sites range from industrial and residential areas to rural settings. These data allow us to establish the natural background rates of decay, the effects of urban/residential expansion, and the efficacy of environmental regulations. Decay rates vary from a minimum of 0.2 mm/century in remote rural areas to nearly 3.0 mm/century in the Birmingham City Center. The data are corrected for environmental variables, converted to acid deposition rates, and plotted at 10-year intervals from 1890 to 2010.

The Victoria History of the Counties of England. A History of the County of Staffordshire. Volume XI: Audley, Keele and Trentham. Edited by Nigel J Tringham. 310mm. Pp xxi + 297, 80 figs and maps. Institute of Historical Research, Boydell & Brewer, Woodbridge, 2013. ISBN 9781904356417. £95 (hbk).

The Victoria History of the Counties of England. A History of the County of Staffordshire. Volume XI: Audley, Keele and Trentham. Edited by Nigel J Tringham. 310mm. Pp xxi + 297, 80 figs and maps. Institute of Historical Research, Boydell & Brewer, Woodbridge, 2013. ISBN 9781904356417. £95 (hbk).

‘Good in all respects’: appearance and dress at Staffordshire County Lunatic Asylum, 1818-54

Dress was integral to the ideals and practice of Staffordshire County Lunatic Asylum, an institution catering for all social classes. Lunatics' appearance was used to gauge the standard of care inside the asylum and beyond. Clothing was essential for moral treatment and physical health. It helped to denote social and institutional class: clothes were integral to paupers' admission; rich patients spent time and money dressing; for disturbed inmates and those who destroyed asylum attire, the consequence could be'secure dress', which was fundamental to therapeutics. Later, when an ethos of non-restraint was introduced, the superintendent used patients' appearance to propagate an image of his enlightened care.

The ‘Staffordshire Hoard’: the Fieldwork

AbstractThe Staffordshire Hoard was found by a metal detectorist on arable land in the parish of Ogley Hay in south Staffordshire in July 2009, and was recovered by archaeologists from Staffordshire County Council and Birmingham Archaeology. More than 3,940 pieces were retrieved, mostly of gold or silver alloy and mostly representing what appear to be martial battle goods. The date of the material has yet to be ascertained but the artefacts appear to range from the late sixth to the early eighth centuries AD. The reasons for burial remain, as yet, largely unknown. The choice of location, on the north-western spur of a prominent ridge, could have been intended to facilitate its rediscovery, unless the locale held a symbolic significance within the wider landscape. The second stage of fieldwork, in March 2010, identified a number of undated field boundaries and undated palisade trenches perhaps associated with a small farmstead of pre- or post-Roman date, unlikely to be associated with the hoard.

THIRD ANNUAL MEETING OF THE TRANSPORT BOARD AND LOCAL ASSOCIATION REPRESENTATIVES. REPORT OF A MEETING HELD ON 11 MARCH 1997.

Keywords INDEPENDENT, PRIVATE FINANCE PANEL, STAFFORDSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL, ESSES COUNTY COUNCIL TRANSPORT, ASSOCIATIONS, LOCAL, POLICIES, POLITICS, PFI, PRIVATE, FINANCE, INITIATIVES, INVESTMENT, HIGHWAYS, ROADS, IMPROVEMENT, CONSTRUCTION, GUIDES, DESIGN, PRACTICE, JOURNALS, PERIODICALS... Show All

Home from hospital--an experiment in group care.

Bill Foden, Chairman of Stafford League of Hospital Friends, and Suzanne Watwood, Senior Social Worker with Staffordshire County Social Services, describe the successes and failures encountered in setting up and running an experimental group home for elderly people newly discharged from hospital

Pindown, Truancy, and the Interrogation of Discipline: A Paper about Theory, Policy, Social Worker Bashing... and Hypocrisy

On June 29th 1990 Staffordshire County Council set up an independent inquiry into 'pindown', a disciplinary regime practised from 1983 to 1989 in four of the county's children's homes, and involving young people between the ages of nine and seventeen being placed in solitary confinement for continuous periods of anything up to eighty-four days (the longest continuous period recorded). When the report of the inquiry was published in early summer 1991 its authors concluded that:

The Victoria History of the Counties of England: A History of the County of Staffordshire. Vol. XX.

The Victoria History of the Counties of England: A History of the County of Staffordshire. Vol. XX.

The urban hierarchy in medieval Staffordshire

This paper suggests that analysed critically, and in combination, with each other, the Lay Subsidies of the early fourteenth century can be used to construct an urban hierarchy for this important period of English urban development. The county of Staffordshire has been chosen to examine the problems of the data source. The Subsidies provide sufficient population. The data suggest that the wealthiest individuals lived in the larger towns and that these towns had a wider migration field than smaller boroughs, greater occupational diversity and a concentration of specialized trades.

Teaching Number Conservation

A successful way of teaching an understanding of the conservation of quantity to an ESN(S) boy of 16 is described by Dr Caroline M. Lister, educational psychologist, Staffordshire County Council

William Ernest Stephen Turner, 1881-1963

William Ernest Stephen Turner was born on 22 September 1881 at Wednesbury, Staffordshire. He was the second of seven children and the eldest son of William George and Emma Blanche Turner. His father was self-educated and shared in the precariousness of employment of those times being successively railway porter, signalman, iron works labourer, morning postman and industrial insurance agent. Throughout these varying hardships he served as deacon and elder in a community known as the Church of the Baptist Brethren in Smethwick. At the age of 12 Turner was awarded a Staffordshire County minor scholarship from the Crocketts Lane Board School, Smethwick, and when he was 13 gained admission to King Edward VI Grammar School, Five Ways, Birmingham. Tremendous sacrifices must have been demanded of the family to make it possible for Turner to continue his education. He was, apparently, a brilliant pupil and won many prizes while at school. He entered the then Mason University College in 1898 with a school leaving scholarship and graduated with the London degree of Bachelor of Science with honours in chemistry in 1902. He was awarded a Birmingham University Research Scholarship and began research work under Dr Alex Findlay. He became M.Sc. (Birmingham) in 1904 and was awarded the Erhardt Research Prize.

Wightwick hall school for physically handicapped pupils: A survey of the first six years

A survey of 138 pupils admitted to the Staffordshire County Council's Wightwick Hall School for Physically Handicapped Pupils during its first six years shows that: 47 percent. of the pupils had previously only received home tuition. Almost 50 per cent. admitted were cases of cerebral palsy and allied conditions. Almost half the children could be regarded as fundamentally educationally subnormal including 73·5 per cent. of all the “spastics” in the school. The problems of educating children with the dual handicap are mentioned. Over 21 per cent. of pupils required further orthopacdic operative treatment after admission. Future employment or placement after leaving school presents many difficulties.

Francis William Aston, 1877-1945

Hard winds are blowing. The contemporaries of Lord Rutherford who helped him to lay the foundation of the nuclear sciences are following one by one their great leader. Francis William Aston, one of the most successful architects of that edifice, was born on 1 September 1877, at Camomile Green, Harborne, Birmingham, as the third child and only surviving son of a family of seven. His father, William Aston, was a metal merchant of Harborne, second son and third child of George Aston, farmer and metal merchant of Birmingham. The family is presumably descended from a branch of the well-known family Aston of Tixall, Staffordshire. His mother was Fanny Charlotte Hollis, youngest daughter of Isaac Hollis, gunmaker of Birmingham, founder of Isaac Hollis & Sons, now the Birmingham Small Arms Company. Francis William Aston was brought up on his father’s small farm, now Tennal House, Harborne, then in the county of Staffordshire. He was fond of all animals, a passion which followed him all through his life. His earliest memories of a scientific nature were the formation and study of soap bubbles in the rick- yard. His first research (carried out under conditions of extreme secrecy in a disused pigstye) was the action of sulphuric acid on pieces of zinc in an old blacking bottle.

John Cadman, Baron Cadman, 1877 - 1941

The Right Hon. Sir John Cadman, first Baron Cadman of Silverdale, in the County of Stafford, was born in the north Staffordshire mining village of Silverdale on 7 September 1877. He was christened and confirmed in the village church there, and in a grave near its entrance he decided that his ashes should rest. It is there’, he said, ‘that I belong.’ The writer, who was present at his funeral, was much struck by the attachment of the villagers to their old friend ‘Jack’. Throughout his life he never forgot them, and when the end came they showed that they had not forgotten him. Cadman was educated at the High School, Newcastle-under-Lyme, and studied mining under his father, Mr James Cope Cadman, M.I.C.E. When in 1922 he was elected President of the Institution of Mining Engineers he reminded the members that, eighteen years before, his father occupied the same presidential chair. He won a Staffordshire County Council Scholarship for mining which he held at the Durham College of Science, now Armstrong College; there he took his B.Sc. degree with honours and subsequently took the M.Sc. and the D.Sc. At twenty-two he worked as assistant manager at the Silverdale Collieries, and at twenty-three was appointed manager of the Collieries of Trindon Grange. A few years later he was made one of H.M. Inspectors of Mines, and among the districts he covered was one containing Scottish Shale. Thus it was that Cadman made his first contact with oil.

The Protection of Bulk Milk : With Special Reference to Bovine Tuberculosis, by F. A. DAVIDSON, B.Sc., M.R.C.V.S., Chief Veterinary Officer, Staffordshire County Council. (Member)

The Protection of Bulk Milk : With Special Reference to Bovine Tuberculosis, by F. A. DAVIDSON, B.Sc., M.R.C.V.S., Chief Veterinary Officer, Staffordshire County Council. (Member)

Obituaries

WE regret to announce the following deaths: Sir Graham Balfour, from 1903 until 1926 Director of Education for the County of Staffordshire, who contributed notably to the progress of technical education in Great Britain, on Oct. 26, aged seventy years.

Ophthalmia Neonatorum, by GEORGE REII), M.D., D.P.H., County Medical Officer, Staffordshire County Council (FELLOW)

Ophthalmia Neonatorum, by GEORGE REII), M.D., D.P.H., County Medical Officer, Staffordshire County Council (FELLOW)