Author: David Martin

John Lloyd (Part Two)

The Argosy

Civil Aviation developed rapidly after the First World War.

In March 1924, the government set up Imperial Airways to carry passengers and mail throughout the British Empire.

New routes were established linking England with South Africa, India, Australia, New Zealand and Hong Kong. Short-range planes made the journey in stages, flying to airports spaced out along the route.

Aircraft manufacturers were asked to build bigger more powerful planes. In 1925, John designed the Argosy a three-engined biplane big enough to carry 20 passengers. Imperial Airways ordered seven Argosys which flew from Croydon to Basle Brussels and Cologne.

An airmail service opened between England and India in 1929 and Imperial Airways asked Armstrong Whitworth to build a four-engined monoplane capable of carrying passengers and mail.

John designed the Atalanta, a commercial transport plane with a range of 540 miles that could carry 17 passengers. The Atalanta made its first flight on 6 June 1932 and appeared at the Hendon Air Display three weeks later. Imperial Airways bought eight aircraft, and the first went into service on 26 September.

The company assigned four Atalantas to its base in South Africa. The other four were sent to India, flying from Karachi to Calcutta, Rangoon and Singapore.

During the 1930s, three Atalantas crashed, and in 1939, the remaining aircraft were transferred to British Overseas Airways. They were requisitioned by the Royal Air Force in 1941 and given to the Indian Air Force, which used them for coastal reconnaissance.

End of Part Two

This post is taken from a series of articles about John Lloyd written by Betty Martin when she was researching Aviation History. Copyright: North Staffordshire Heritage 2024.

Photograph of the Argosy from Bundesarchiv, Bild 102-00921A / CC-BY-SA 3.0. Imperial Airways’ Advertisement is in the Public Domain.

John Lloyd (Part Three)

The Whitley Bomber before it was fitted with Rolls Royce Merlin Engines.

Realising that Germany was preparing for war, the government decided to modernise the Royal Air Force. It asked the aviation industry to build fast heavily armed monoplane fighter aircraft and long-range bombers to replace the air force’s old-fashioned biplanes.

John designed the Whitley (pictured above), a long-range two-engined heavy bomber. It was originally powered by two Armstrong Siddeley Tiger IX radial engines that were later replaced by Rolls Royce Merlin Engines.

The Whitley’s maximum speed was 230 miles per hour. It had a range of 2,400 miles and could carry bombs weighing up to 7,000 lbs.

A front-line aircraft from 1939 to 1942, the Whitley played a major role in the Royal Air Force’s bombing offensive against Germany and Italy. During the Battle of Britain, it bombed Belin and Italian aircraft factories, munitions works and railway marshalling yards.

The Whitley’s last operational flight was on 30 May 1942 when it took part in the first 1,000 bomber raid on Germany. The target was Cologne, and for almost 90 minutes over 3,000 tons of bombs rained down on the city.

After designing the Whitley, John built the Albemarle, a twin-engined transport plane flown by both the Royal Air Force and the Soviet Air Force.

The Albemarle

Flying from bases in North Africa, the Albemarle took part in the invasion of Sicily. On D-Day, it dropped paratroopers into Normandy and, during Operation Market Garden, towed gliders carrying airborne forces to Arnhem.

Between 1942 and 1949, John worked on the Flying Wing, an experimental tailless jet aircraft. Hoping he would be able to design a tailless airliner, John built a two-seater tailless glider that flew successfully.

Impressed by the glider’s performance, the government allowed him to build two jet-powered Flying Wings. One crashed. The other was sent to the Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough where it was used in tests that helped develop the V Bomber force and Concorde.

In the 1950s, John created the Seaslug Missile for the Royal Navy which was undoubtedly the best ship-to-air guided missile in the world.

Retiring in 1959, John went to live with his daughter in London. A modest man who never boasted about his achievements, John died aged 90 at Kingston-on-Thames on 16 November 1978.

These posts about the life of John Lloyd are from a series of articles about Aviation History written by Betty Martin. Copyright: North Staffordshire Heritage 2024. More articles by Betty will be posted from time to time.

Exploring the pottery industry’s history

Starting on Friday, 2nd February 2024, Miranda Goodby, the former head of ceramics at the Potteries Museum and Art Gallery, is running a six-week course exploring the social history of the pottery industry.

The course at Newcastle’s Brampton Museum costs £80. Students will learn about Newcastle’s forgotten pottery industry, the growth of the Staffordshire Potteries in the 18th and 19th centuries, working conditions in the industry and the dramatic changes that took place in the 20th century.

More details can be obtained from the Brampton Museum.


Money to Save Heritage Buildings

Re-Form Heritage, a Stoke-based charity that owns Middleport Pottery, is getting money to help save dilapidated buildings in Stoke-on-Trent.

The money from the Architectural Heritage Fund’s Heritage Development Trust will help to preserve historic buildings and kick-start the regeneration of key heritage sites in the Potteries.

St. Edward’s Hospital

Not far from Leek, the Cheddleton Asylum, later called St Edward’s Hospital, was the third County Asylum to be built in Staffordshire. This vast institution, initially designed to accommodate 618 patients in 16 wards, was intended to relieve chronic overcrowding at the Stafford and Burntwood Asylums. The site at Bank Farm, Cheddleton, near Leek, was decided upon in preference to the original proposal of land at Bramshall Park Farm, Uttoxeter, because it was on elevated land; a criteria considered essential to provide a healthy environment for the patients. 

Inside the asylum: a short history of St. Edward’s Hospital, Cheddleton

David and Lee Need Your Help

Tunstall Town Hall

Before she died in 2023, North Staffordshire Heritage’s historical geographer, Betty Martin, planned to publish her extensive original research into Stoke-on-Trent’s history and architectural heritage.

Betty went to Brownhills High School and Tunstall always had a special place in her heart. A not-for-profit foundation is being set up to publish a series of books based on her research. The first books are about Tunstall. They are being written by Betty’s husband, David, and Lee Wanger.

David and Lee are working on the first book, The History of Tunstall Town Hall and Market. Other books in the series include The History of the Jubilee Buildings and The Life of Sir Smith Child.

Senior citizens remember the town hall and market as they were before they closed for regeneration in the 1990s. They can recall social activities they went to in the town hall and going shopping in the market. Amateur photographers and students from Stoke-on-Trent College and Staffordshire University photographed the market and the town hall before they were regenerated.

David and Lee need your help to trace these photographs.

If you have photographs of the town hall or market please email davidmartin227@outlook.comm

The Mystery of Simeon Shaw

Simeon Ackroyd Shaw was born in Salford on April 17th, 1785. He became the Potteries’ leading intellectual in the first half of the 19th century.

Simeon came to North Staffordshire, where he worked as a printer and compositor for the Potteries Gazette and Newcastle-under-Lyme Advertiser.

Simeon Aykroyd Shaw

In 1985, Keele University’s Department of Adult Education published People of the Potteries. The book says that by 1818, Simeon was “running an academy for young gentlemen in Northwood, Hanley”. According to People of the Potteries, in 1822, Simeon owned a commercial academy in Piccadilly, Hanley. By 1834, he had a large academy in the town’s Market Place.

When he was writing By-gone Tunstall (Published in 1913), William J. Harper was given notes called Tunstall Reminiscences written by Simeon’s grandson, Mr W. S. Shaw. In these reminiscences, Mr Shaw says his grandfather lived in Piccadilly Street, Tunstall. He had one of North Staffordshire’s largest and most influential academies in the Market Place (Tower Square).

White’s Directory of Staffordshire, published in 1834, shows that Simeon owned an academy in Market Place, Tunstall. Official records prove that he lived in Piccadilly Street, which ran from Market Place to Sneyd Street (Ladywell Road).

Simeon was still living in Piccadilly Street in 1851. He died on April 8th, 1859 and was buried in Bethesda churchyard Hanley.

Stagecoaches and Coaching Inns

When they left the Sneyd Arms in Tunstall, stagecoaches going to London followed the Old Lane through the Potteries, stopping at coaching inns in Burslem, Hanley, Stoke, Fenton and Longton.
A Red Rover Stagecoach

During the 1830s, two firms, the Red Rover Company and the Royal Express Company, ran mainline stagecoaches between London and Liverpool.

Between Warrington and the Potteries, the coaches were driven along the Old Lane (the A50) that linked London and the East Midlands with Merseyside and the Northwest. These coaches stopped at the Sneyd Arms in Tunstall to pick up passengers. When they left the Sneyd Arms, the coaches followed the Old Lane through the Potteries, stopping at coaching inns in Burslem, Hanley, Stoke, Fenton and Longton.

On leaving Longton, coaches owned by the Royal Express Company left the Old Lane and went to London via Stone, Rugeley, Lichfield, Birmingham and Warwick. Coaches owned by the Red Rover Company followed the Old Lane to Hockcliffe in Bedfordshire, where it joined the London to Holyhead Road (the A5).

Two Stoke-on-Trent firms, the Hark Forward Company and the Independent Potter Company, ran day return stagecoach services that stopped to pick up passengers at the Sneyd Arms.

The Hark Forward Company’s coach went to Birmingham via Stone, Stafford and Wolverhampton. The Independent Potter Company’s coach ran to Manchester, Congleton, Macclesfield and Stockport. These two coaches left the Potteries early in the morning and returned late at night.

Stagecoaches were pulled by teams of four or six horses and could travel at a speed of eight to ten miles an hour. Travelling by stagecoach was expensive, and tickets had to be booked in advance. Coaches carried first and second class passengers. First class passengers travelled in the coach, and second class passengers sat on wooden seats on the roof.

The cost of the journey depended on its length. First-class passengers were charged threepence per mile, and second-class passengers were charged one and a half pence per mile.

NSH.2023

Tunstall Was a Prosperous Town

In the 1830s, Tunstall was a prosperous industrial and market town.

There were 17 firms manufacturing pottery. Twelve made earthenware. Three produced earthenware and china. Two manufactured china figures and Egyptian blackware.

The Trent & Mersey Canal ran through the Chatterley Valley. In the valley, there were two brick and tile works. There was a factory making chemicals at Clayhills and a coal wharf on the banks of the canal. Coal and ironstone were mined at Newfield and Clanway.

The east side of Liverpool Road (High Street) from the Highgate Inn to the Old Wheatsheaf Inn had been developed. There were shops on Liverpool Road and in Market Place (Tower Square) where a market was held on Saturdays.

A typical 19th-century market where green grocers displayed fruit and vegetables in wicker baskets.

The market opened early in the morning and closed late at night. It was a bustling market with stalls selling a wide range of goods, including household items, furniture, shoes, and clothing. Green grocers sold fruit and vegetables. Farmers’ wives had stalls in the Market Hall, where they sold eggs, butter and cheese. Between the Market Hall and Liverpool Road were stalls selling meat, fish and poultry.

Saturday was the busiest day of the week for shopkeepers and innkeepers. The market attracted customers from Butt Lane, Kidsgrove, Mow Cop, Harriseahead, Packmoor, Biddulph, Chell and Goldenhill.

Copyright David Martin 2023

NSH2023/Revised2025

The Lamb Inn by Henry Wedgwood

An extract from his book Romance of Staffordshire

The Lamb Inn on Liverpool Road (High Street), kept by Nancy Grey, was where Tunstall’s “aristocracy” assembled in the evening to discuss the pottery industry.

The most important issues facing the town were the state of the pottery industry and how well crockery was selling. Everything was alright if things were going well for the industry, and little else could go wrong. The owners of Tunstall’s pottery factories enjoyed sitting around a blazing fire in the Lamb, discussing matters that interested them. They were an exclusive group who did not like strangers from the other pottery towns calling at the inn for a drink. The pottery manufacturers believed these calls were made to spy on their business affairs, steal their patterns, or learn more about their production methods.

“Let every town keep to itself. We want a visit neither from the master nor the men”, was the sentiment of people living in the six towns. Nothing could exceed the jealousy with which the potters looked upon one another. Every town was sure that it possessed some secret that it was not in its interest to let any of the others know. If workmen came to see each other, there would surely be a fight, and arguments developed when men from other towns visited the Lamb.

One night, Jimmy Caton, landlord of the Duke of Bridgewater Inn, Longport, called at the Lamb.

Caton was fond of boasting about how much money he had made and about his possessions. Pottery manufacturer Benjamin Adams was in the Lamb. He was talking about the money he was making and his hunters – his favourite breed of horses. Caton, who had been ignored because he was a stranger, could not bear to hear anyone talk about wealth without taking part in the conversation. Burslemites believed that Caton possessed as much money as a strong man could carry. Thinking himself as good a man as any, Caton made disparaging remarks about Adams’ hunters. Adams did not like Caton’s comments, and they started arguing.

Adams said that he had enough money to buy and sell Caton, who replied by saying that he was worth as much money as any man in Tunstall. After boasting about their wealth, the two men began discussing their physical powers, and Adams offered to fight Caton. He accepted the challenge. The two men stripped to the waist and fought like common labourers in the yard at the back of the inn.

(Edited by North Staffordshire Heritage. Unfortunately, Wedgwood does not tell us who won the fight.)