The Great Wind brought destruction and death to the Mersey Estuary.
Between Sunday, January 6th and Thursday, January 10th, 1839, a hurricane known as ‘the great wind’ swept across the British Isles leaving a trail of death and destruction.
Small boats and ocean-going sailing vessels were blown onto sandbanks in the Mersey Estuary. Many were broken up by high waves before steam tugs could reach them. Passengers and crews were forced to take to the lifeboats. Most were rescued, but over 100 men, women and children were drowned.
As it swept across Cheshire, the hurricane destroyed farmhouses and uprooted trees. Particles of salt were blown along village streets. Buildings, hedgerows and fields were covered with a layer of white salt, giving the impression that there had been a heavy frost.
When the hurricane hit North Staffordshire, gale-force winds caused extensive damage.
A 130-foot-high chimney at Apedale was blown down. Streets in Newcastle-under-Lyme were blocked by falling masonry, and windmills in the Potteries lost their sails.
The galleries in Christ Church, Tunstall, were destroyed when pinnacles on the church tower were blown down and fell through the roof. At Chell, the wind blew the roof off the new workhouse that was being built for the Wolstanton and Burslem Union.
Note: The Great Wind is one of a series of articles written by Betty Martin before her death. Other articles from the series will be posted from time to time.
The condemned cell at Lincoln Castle Prison where William Horry spent his last days.
Despite his superficial charismatic charm, William Frederick Horry, the landlord of Burslem’s George Hotel, was a cold-blooded, ruthless killer.
Born on November 17 1843, in Boston, Lincolnshire, he was the son of William Horry, senior, a successful brewer.
When he left school, young William became a trainee manager at Parker’s Brewery in Zion Street, Burslem. He lived at the George Hotel in Nile Street, where he fell in love with Jane Wright, the hotel’s barmaid.
When she left the George Hotel and went to work at the Sneyd Arms Hotel in Tunstall, William realised he could not live without her and asked her to marry him. She consented, and William’s father gave them £800 to buy the George Hotel. The couple married in 1867 and had three children.
William was a heavy drinker and convinced himself that Jane was flirting with male customers. At night, he walked the streets looking for prostitutes or drinking with criminals in back street beer houses.
William’s father and Jane’s brother Thomas, a solicitors clerk, came to Burslem to find out why the marriage had failed. William told them Jane had committed adultery with three of the town’s leading citizens and that witnesses would confirm it. When the two men investigated these allegations, they discovered that William had lied to them.
William and Jane separated in March 1871. She took the children and went to live with his father in Boston. William sold the George Hotel and went to Nottingham.
He visited Boston and asked Jane to take him back. She refused, and William started divorce proceedings, claiming she had committed adultery with five men.
While waiting for the case to be heard, William bought expensive clothes and visited the Potteries frequently. Early in January 1872, he stayed a week visiting brothels in Hanley and drinking with friends in Burslem.
On Saturday, January 13, William returned to Nottingham, where he bought a revolver and a hundred cartridges, telling the gunsmith they were for his brother who was going to Australia.
William left Nottingham and went to Boston, where he visited Jane’s home. She invited him into the house, and he followed her along the passage to the breakfast room. As Jane entered the room, William pulled out the gun and shot her in the back. The bullet passed through her left rib and penetrated her lung. She died a few minutes later. William was detained by her relatives, who called the police. He was arrested and charged with murder.
William’s friends in Burslem launched a public appeal to pay for his defence.
He was tried at Lincoln Assizes on March 13 and pleaded “Not Guilty”. His trial lasted three hours. The jury took 15 minutes to convict him.
William stood in the dock and watched Mr Justice Quain don the Black Cap, a square of black cloth worn by judges when passing the death sentence. The court fell silent as the judge passed the sentence, saying:
“William Frederick Horry, the sentence of this court is that you be taken from this place to a lawful prison and then to a place of execution where you shall be hanged by the neck until you are dead and that your body be afterwards cut down and buried within the precincts of the prison in which you were last confined before execution. And may the Lord have mercy upon your soul.”
William was taken to Lincoln Castle Prison and hanged on Easter Monday, April 1, 1872.
Burslem is situated in the north-west of the City of Stoke-on-Trent, one of the six towns which form the City.
When it was recorded in the Domesday Book in 1086, Burslem was called Barcardeslim (Burgweard’s Lyme). It was not a large village consisting of just four households and one plough team. The other resource mentioned is two acres of alder wood. Its value was 10 shillings.
Through the medieval period, Burslem was not a centre of any importance. It was part of the parish of Stoke on Trent and was subject to the Tunstall manor court. A survey in 1563 reported 30 households for the area served by the chapel of St John. The village was agricultural and did not have good communications. However the occupants of the poor farms had beneath their feet mineral resources, which over the next two centuries produced steady growth turning Burslem into…
17-19 St John’s Square, Burslem, Stoke on Trent, Staffordshire ST6 3AN
Woolworths opened in Burslem in September 1929 in a purpose-built two-storey building. According to the book Burslem Through Time by Mervyn Edwards, the first store manager was L.H. Hewitt. This branch of Woolworths stocked a range of locally manufactured china and pottery items.
Burslem Woolworths 1930s
Source: Historic England
In 1966 the store was modernised – this photo was taken just after the store reopened. Doors were moved to the left, and inside you can see signage on the walls saying ‘Quality Foods’ and ‘Frozen Foods’. The store was quite long inside.
Ambitious plans have been made to save “Burslem’s new town hall”, a listed heritage building that houses the Queen’s Theatre and the Prince’s Hall.
The proposals made in a report prepared for Stoke-on-Trent City Council by architectural consultants Affinity Design and Management would cost over 12 million pounds to implement.
The theatre and the hall were abandoned many years ago, and it will cost about £320,000 to make the building safe.
If the council accepts them, the proposals could make the theatre a conference centre, an exhibition hall or a venue for Asian weddings and the foyer could become a bar or restaurant.
The Prince’s Hall would be turned into retail shops or become one- or two-bedroom flats with a shared roof garden.
Burslem Woolworths 1930s 
Burslem Woolworths 1966
Burslem Woolworths 1994 
Burslem Woolworths 2000 
Burslem Woolworths 2008 
North Staffordshire Heritage 