Slaughter of the Innocents

At about 10.10pm on the night of 28 May 1837 in Lane Delph, Fenton, on hearing a cry of ‘Murder’, a man in a nearby house and two customers from the Canning Inn went out into the street to see what was happening. To their horror they found two young boys, 11 year old George Colley and nine year old Josiah Colley, running down Market Street (now part of King Street) dressed in their night gowns and drenched with blood. George had one of his ears nearly cut from his head, while Josiah had suffered a severe cut to the throat. The distressed boys cried out that their mother had attacked them and was killing their brothers and sister. The three men quickly passed the boys into the care of others and rushing to the house, lit a candle and ventured in. Going up the stairs to the family bedroom they encountered a scene that none of them would ever forget. In the middle of the bare room they found the mother, Ann Colley, on her knees with her head down and blood streaming from her throat. Beside her was a black handled kitchen knife which she had used to kill or wound her children before using it on herself. Her six year old daughter Ann lay uncovered on the floor, her head nearly severed from her body which was covered in blood. On the right of the room was Charles Colley, aged about three years, lying on his back on a pile of bloody clothes. He too had suffered a deadly cut across the throat. Her infant son James aged about three months lay at right angles to the dead girl, his feet resting against her, the slit across his throat was not easily seen and the dead baby had a peaceful look on its face.

At first, the stunned men thought that Ann Colley was also dead, but when they went to lift her up there was a flicker of life and on repeatedly being asked “What have you been doing?”, the woman replied “I am in want. I am in want.” She then asked if any of her children were alive. Surgeons were sent for and were soon on the scene, one tending the struggling, injured mother, while another treated her two surviving children. More neighbours came in to help as did the police and George Colley the father also arrived, but was quickly led away by a neighbour. By midnight the surgeons were finished sewing up the injuries and Mrs Colley and her son Josiah were both transported to the North Staffordshire Infirmary two miles away. On Monday afternoon an inquest was held at the Canning Inn, where the numerous witnesses of the night’s events described what had occurred and a picture began to form of a once respectable family that fallen on hard times with horrifying results. The tragedy of the Colley family was explained in detail at the subsequent trial of Ann Colley at the Stafford Assizes in July that year.

The Colleys were originally from London and had arrived in the area at the beginning of the year, when the father George, who had served as a police constable in London and then in Walsall, secured a position as superintendent of police in Fenton. However, in March, he had been dismissed from his post by the inspector and was forced to make a humiliating apology for some unspecified wrong-doing. The family’s formerly comfortable existence rapidly fell apart after that and they had to sell most of their belongings to live. Though well-educated, Ann Colley either suffered with mental issues, or was in the grip of a severe postnatal depression that had worsened with each pregnancy. She had reportedly threatened to kill her children a few years before, but had been dissuaded by her husband. However, when George lost his job and the family sank into poverty, her depression deepened and finally tipped her over the edge.

As a result of the evidence presented at the trial, Ann Colley was found not guilty due to temporary insanity and ordered to be detained at Her Majesty’s pleasure at Stafford. But hers was not destined to be a long incarceration as she could not escape the horror of what she had done. On Wednesday, 4 October 1837, George Colley paid Ann a visit in prison and foolishly gave his wife a locket containing hair from the three murdered children. This left Ann greatly agitated for the rest of the day and night. The next morning at about 10 o’clock, she went to the privy and hung herself from the rafters with a long silk handkerchief. Discovered shortly afterwards she was cut down still alive, but the effect of the strangulation had put her beyond medical help and at 5 p.m. that day, she died. Ann Colley aged 36 was buried two days later in the grounds of St Mary’s Church, Stafford.

Reference: Staffordshire Advertiser 3 June 1837; 17 June 1837; 7 October 1837; numerous other papers nationwide, June to October 1837.

The Ballad of Stevo and One-Armed Jack

On 26 January 1895, 27 year old George Stevenson, a habitual petty criminal and deserter from the British army was shot and mortally wounded in a backroom to a bar in Johannesburg, in Southern Africa, for informing on his fellow criminals after a robbery. The story made news locally as Stevenson, though born in Hixon near Stafford, had grown up in Hanley, where he had turned to a life of crime at a very early age. At the age of ten, after several run-ins with the law, he was sentenced to Werrington Industrial School for four years, where he did seem to turn his life around and in 1882 was released back to his parents. For several years Stevo, as he was known to his friends, worked in his father’s clay pits, then in 1886 aged 18, he joined the army and the next year was posted to Pietermaritzburg in South Africa. Though he stayed in touch with his mother, Stevenson never saw his family or the Potteries again.

At first Stevo enjoyed army life, but garrison duty bored him and at the end of 1889, he deserted and fled to Johannesburg arriving there early in 1890. There he led a brief inglorious life as a thief being quickly caught and sentenced to a year on a chain gang and though he escaped and went on the run he was eventually recaptured and sent to finish his sentence. Shortly after his release in 1893, he fell in with a villain and fellow deserter (from both the army and the Royal Navy) named Jack McLoughlin, who went by the nickname of ‘One-armed Jack’, from having lost his lower left arm during a jailbreak. At first the two men were good friends, but only a few months passed before tattled tales between their respective lovers caused them to have a falling out and they shunned each other for a time. It was only when McLoughlin needed several others to help him with a robbery a few months later that they patched up their differences enough that Stevo could join the gang. 

The gang robbed a safe at a railway station in Pretoria, it was a pitiful haul and their troubles started immediately after the robbery when they tried to take the train back to Johannesburg and realised the authorities were onto them. One of the gang stayed in Pretoria, while early in the journey Stevenson got cold feet and quit the train and doubled back. McLoughlin jumped through a window to escape while the train was in motion, leaving one man on the train who was arrested in Johannesburg. Stevenson and the gang member in Pretoria were also quickly caught. In custody and fearful of returning to prison, when he heard that another of the men was about to inform on them, Stevo got in first and told all to the authorities, naming McLoughlin as the ringleader. Stevenson avoided imprisonment as a result, but he knew that his life was now in danger as McLoughlin, who remained at large, was a vindictive man who hated informers. 

Stevenson and his lover Sarah Fredericks fled Johannesburg for a time, but foolishly drifted back into town a few weeks later and by January 1895, they were living out of a room at the back of the Red Lion bar close to their old haunts. With no sign of McLoughlin, Stevo thought he was safe, but on the 26 January he learnt that One-armed Jack was in town looking for him. Stevo and Fredericks retreated to their room hoping he would not find them. A few hours later, though, there was a knock at the door. Expecting a visitor Fredericks opened the door, only to find that it was McLoughlin, who had tracked them down. Brushing Fredericks aside, One-armed Jack then pulled a gun and shot Stevenson who was sitting on the bed, mortally wounding him before making his escape. Pursued by an angry mob, McLoughlin then shot and killed another young man who he thought was trying to stop him and fled into the night going on the run once more. Back at the Red Lion meanwhile, Stevenson lingered for a time, but presently died from his wound. His last request to Fredericks was that she send his ring back to his mother in the Potteries.

McLoughlin escaped and eventually fled South Africa, first to India, but later back to Australia and it was there in 1908 that he was arrested. When the Australian authorities realised McLoughlin was wanted for murder he was extradited back to South Africa where he was quickly sent to trial, found guilty of the double killing and hung in February 1909.

Reference: Charles Van Onselen, Showdown at the Red Lion: The Life and Times of Jack McLoughlin, pp. 288-342. Staffordshire Sentinel, 22 December 1877; 19 June 1878, p. 3; 28 October 1878, p. 3. 

A Crime of Passion

Brownhills Hall, from an engraving made some years later.
Source: John Ward, The Borough of Stoke-Upon Trent (1848)

In 1796 whilst visiting Brownhills Hall, near Burslem, the home of wealthy pottery manufacturer John Wood and his family, a young apothecary named Thomas Millward Oliver, became enamoured of the Wood's teenage daughter Maria, a noted local beauty, who returned his affections. Oliver came of a respectable Stourbridge family and as a well educated, popular and respected medical man locally, he would seem to have been the perfect suitor for Maria Wood. Certainly Oliver himself believed this and he thought at first that Mr Wood actively encouraged him in his courtship of the young woman. In this, though Oliver was wrong and when John Wood learned of the affair he quickly put a stop to Oliver’s visits, professional or otherwise, and had forbidden the young couple to meet. This threw Thomas Oliver into a fit of lovelorn despair that festered for some time before coming to a head early the next year in the most dramatic fashion.

At 8 am on 27 January 1797, Oliver arrived unannounced at Brownhills Hall and asked to see John Wood. Mr Wood was in bed, but on hearing of his visitor and thinking that the apothecary had come to present his final bill, he went to his Compting House behind the hall and asked his foreman William Bathwell to bring Oliver down to see him. Bathwell went, but returned without Oliver who had sent word that he would wait for Mr Wood in the parlour. So, along with his foreman, a slightly puzzled Mr Wood returned to the hall to see what his visitor wanted. Here the two men greeted each other coolly but politely and as expected Oliver presented his bill, but hardly had he done so than he drew two pistols that he had recently borrowed from a neighbour and pointed one at Mr Wood, asking him to take it. Mr Wood refused and Oliver lowered the gun for a moment, but then brought it up again and fired directly at Wood who was struck in the right breast. Oliver then raised the second pistol, perhaps to shoot himself, but Bathwell threw himself on the man and knocked the gun from his hand. Others in the house alerted by the noise soon rushed into the room to help the struggling foreman and tend to the injured man. The wounded Mr Wood was then quickly carried upstairs to his bed and a doctor was called for, while Oliver, now aghast at what he had done, was handed over to the local constables.

John Wood had been mortally wounded and died three days later, being buried in Burslem on 2 February 1797; he was only 50 years old. Oliver meanwhile was left languishing in Stafford Gaol until the Summer assizes that year. Here on a sweltering day in August he was put on trial on a charge of murder and though many witnesses came forward to speak of his gentle nature and good deeds, or argued that the act took place due to temporary insanity, the evidence against him was overwhelming and Thomas Oliver was quickly sentenced to death. 

During his time in prison, Oliver is said to have impressed everyone, prisoners and gaolers alike, with his courteous behaviour and his obedience of the rules. All were struck by the calm and dignified manner in which he accepted his fate and in which he finally met his end. On Monday 28 August 1797, he displayed this same calm manner as he mounted the scaffold above the prison gatehouse, bowing to the large crowd that had gathered below to watch. Moments later the noose was placed around his neck and the trap door opened. Apothecary Thomas Millward Oliver, aged just 28, died without a murmur. 

Reference: Trial of T. Milward Oliver at Stafford Summer Assizes, 1797

Murder in Mind

During a visit to Liverpool, a financially insecure pottery manufacturer, Theophilus Smith of Tunstall, asked one of his creditors, a merchant named Peter Wainwright, to return to the Potteries with him for a meeting. Very early in the morning of 21 June 1800, after travelling most of the way back to Tunstall, Smith stopped their carriage near to his home Smithfield Hall and said to Mr Wainwright that they should proceed the remaining short distance across the fields on foot. The two men were seemingly on good terms and had enjoyed a pleasant ride despite the distance, but as they crossed the field in the half-light before dawn, suddenly and without warning Smith drew a gun from his pocket. Thinking that the desperate potter was about to shoot himself, Wainwright pounced on the man, wrestled the gun out of his hand and threw it away. The crisis seemed to be over, but moments later as they continued their walk, Smith drew another pistol and fired at Mr Wainwright, but missed. The two men fought and Smith was thrown to the ground and begged forgiveness of his would-be victim. Evidently stunned by events, Wainwright relented and even let Smith get up and go to collect a coat he had left behind after leaving the coach, never thinking that Smith may have another pistol hidden there which he produced as they neared his home and shot Wainwright through the body just below the stomach. Though badly wounded Peter Wainwright again fought back, but Smith then drew a knife and the merchant received numerous cuts to his hands and jawline before he finally threw his attacker off. Smith then retreated to his house, leaving the badly injured man to stagger several hundred yards to a neighbouring cottage for help. Doctors were called who at first despaired of his wounds, but against the odds Mr Wainwright survived, though he spent several weeks recovering from his ordeal. 

Smithfield Hall c. 1794. Detail of an engraving by W. C. Wilson after an illustration by E. Dayes.
The field in the foreground may be where Theophilus Smith attacked Peter Wainwright.
(Author's collection)

The alarm was immediately raised and constables raced to Smithfield Hall to arrest Theophilus Smith, but he had already fled his home and 50 guineas were offered for his capture. This was achieved a little time later in London where Smith was arrested in his lodgings by the Bow Street Runners. Sent for trial at Stafford Smith was sentenced to hang, but he cheated the hangman when on New Years Day 1801, whilst in the hospital at Stafford Gaol and having by some means got his hands on a couple of pistols, he shot and wounded his wife who was visiting him, then shot himself through the head, dying instantly. Fortunately Theophilus Smith was the only fatality of his two murderous assaults as like Mr Wainwright, Smith's wife survived the attack. 

It has been suggested that this final act and Smith's earlier attack on Mr Wainwright were because he suspected that Wainwright and his wife were lovers, though there seems to be no clear evidence to support this. 

Reference: Staffordshire Advertiser, 12 July 1800, p.3; 19 July 1800, p.4; 2 August 1800, p.3; 3 January 1801, p.4; The Annual Register 1800, Vol. 42.

In Grateful Memory of Timothy Trow

At about a quarter past four on the afternoon of 13 April 1894, a three year old girl named Jane Ridgway who lived with her parents at Steele’s Cottages alongside the Newcastle canal* in Boothen, Stoke, tumbled into the water. Nearby 21 year old Timothy Trow, a tram conductor who was in charge of the car working London Road that afternoon, was just about to signal to the driver to pull away from the West End terminus, when he heard a loud splash from the adjacent canal and saw the little girl in trouble. Without a thought for his own safety, Trow - a non-swimmer - got down from the tram, ran to the canal and jumped in. He managed to wade most of the way across the cut, the water only coming up to his waist, but then it fell away much deeper and Trow called out to his colleague the tram driver that he had cramp. The young man was in trouble and seemed to become helpless in the water. A passer by, Mr Henry Lloyd of Beresford Street, Shelton was one of several other men who rushed to the canal and he now jumped in to help Trow while another man, John Forrester of Wellesley Street, Shelton also plunged in and fished little Jane Ridgway out of the water. Timothy Trow desperately grabbed hold of Mr Lloyd who tried to pull him to the bank, but Lloyd too was struck by cramp and unable to hold onto the floundering man who threatened to pull him under had no option but to let go. Lloyd managed to scramble back to the bank where others hauled him out while John Forrester having handed Jane Ridgway to others, also tried to grab onto Trow, but to no avail. Every effort was made to catch the drowning man, but it was futile and in the struggle Timothy Trow disappeared from view and it was not until half an hour later that his body was found.

This dramatic rescue that ended in tragedy made quite an impact in the Potteries and all involved were praised for their bravery, especially Timothy Trow whose selfless act in going into the canal despite not being able to swim won him a massive amount of sympathy. As a result, his funeral three days later was a grand affair attended by dozens of mourners, his parents, family and friends as well as 30 fellow tram conductors and drivers who had been let off work for the day to attend the service as well as several company officials. Numerous wreaths decorated the hearse and hundreds of people watched from the pavements while blinds were drawn in many houses along the route  that the funeral cortege took on its way from Timothy’s family home in William Street, Hanley to Hanley Borough Churchyard. 

The Timothy Trow Memorial, London Road, Stoke.
Image: Google Earth

All this and the church ceremony were reported in the Sentinel which several days later announced that a memorial committee was being formed to raise funds for a permanent memorial to the young tram conductor and during the summer news came that Timothy Trow, Henry Lloyd and John Forrester were to be recognised by the Royal Humane Society. By early October a sum of £47,11s had been raised, enough to fund an 8 feet tall obelisk made of grey granite to be sited in London Road near to the scene of Trow’s deed and a marker was placed on his grave in the cemetery. The inscription picked out in gold near the base of the obelisk reads: ‘Erected by Public Subscription in Grateful Memory of TIMOTHY TROW, tram conductor aged 21 years who lost his life by drowning near this spot, in an heroic effort attempt to save that of a child April 13th 1894.’

The remaining money from the collection was divided between Messrs Lloyd and Forrester. On 22 October 1894, a large party of council officials and a crowd of onlookers were in attendance when the obelisk was unveiled, after which Henry Lloyd and John Forrester were presented with their certificates from the Royal Humane Society while the Society’s ‘In Memorium’ certificate for Timothy Trow was later presented to his parents. Despite the depredations of years in the open and the unwanted attentions of an occasional vandal, the obelisk still stands today and forms to focus of ‘Timothy Trow Day’ on 13 April each year that still draws a crowd to remember one young man’s brave deed.  

* The Newcastle branch of the Trent and Mersey was a four mile long canal connecting Newcastle to Stoke. It no longer exists, having long since been filled in.

References: Staffordshire Sentinel, 21 April 1894, p.2 and 11 October 1894, p.3; Birmingham Daily Post 16 April 1894 p.8 and 23 October 1894.

Old News from the Potteries

Regular newspaper coverage of events in the Potteries only really started at the end of the 18th century with the advent in 1795 of the Staffordshire Advertiser paper, though as this was published in Stafford, it's coverage of the goings on in the north of the county was limited to the most noteworthy events. Another half century would pass before more local newspapers were being produced in Hanley, Stoke and Burslem. However, histories, travellers journals and some other national or regional papers occasionally carried tales from the Potteries from this early period giving us fleeting glimpses into life in the area.

* * * * *

The King's Touch

It was widely believed in the past that the King's touch could heal certain ailments. To this end on 29 August 1687, the minister and churchwardens of Stoke-upon-Trent gave John Bell of Cobridge a sealed certificate whereby he could obtain the King's sacred touch for his son Samuel Bell, who suffered from 'the King's Evil' i.e. scrofula. 

(John Ward, The History of the Borough of Stoke-upon-Trent, p.281)

John Wesley is Pelted in the Potteries 

On 8 March 1760, the Reverend John Wesley, the founding father of Methodism, visited Burslem for the first of many visits to the region. He described Burslem as 'a scattered town, on the top of a hill, inhabited almost entirely by potters', a large crowd of whom had gathered to hear him at five in the evening. He noted that great attention sat on every face, but also great ignorance which he hoped he could banish. 

The next day Wesley preached a second sermon in Burslem to twice the number of the day before. 'Some of these seemed quite innocent of thought. Five or six were laughing and talking till I had near done; and one of them threw a clod of earth, which struck me on the side of the head. But it neither disturbed me nor the congregation.' 

(John Wesley, Journal, 8-9th March 1760)

The First Cut

After receiving the royal assent two months earlier for construction of a canal connecting the rivers Trent and Mersey, on the morning of 26 July 1766, at a site just below Brownhills, pottery manufacturer Josiah Wedgwood cut the first sod of what would in time become the Trent and Mersey canal. James Brindley, the engineer who would oversee the canal's construction, and numerous other dignitaries were present, many of whom would also cut a piece of turf, or wheel away a barrow of earth to mark the occasion. In the afternoon a sheep was roasted in Burslem market place for the benefit of the poorer potters in the town. A bonfire was also lit in front of Wedgwood's house and many other events took place around the Potteries by way of celebration. 

(Jean Lindsay, The Trent and Mersey Canal, pp.31-32)

News from the North

'As you often give me London News, I will give you some from this Country, which has of late made a Figure. This Neighbourhood has for many Years made Pots for Europe, and will still do so, though the King of Prussia has lately clapt 28 per Cent, upon them. Our Roads were so bad that nobody came to view the Place where the Flint Ware is made, but now we have Turnpikes upon Turnpikes, and our Potteries are as well worth seeing as the Stockport Silk-Mills, or the Bridgewater Navigation, which we intend to beat hollow by Lord Gower's, now begun in our Meadows, and advancing apace towards Harecastle, on the other Side of which Multitudes of Men are at work, and before Christmas we shall have cut through the Hill, and made another Wonder of the World. There are already 100 Men employed on our Side, and 100 more will be added as soon as Wheelbarrows can be procured for them. Saturday last we had brave Sport at Earl Gower's, where 100,000 Spectators were present at the Prison-Bars played in Trentham Park. Among them were the Dukes of Bedford and Bridgewater. The Prizes were Ten Carline Hats, with gold Loops and Buttons, given by the Earl. The Cheshire Men were active Fellows, but unluckily their Lot was to wear Plod Drawers, to distinguish them from their Antagonists, which made the Crowd oppose their getting the Honour of the Day. During this Game, my Friend Bucknall loft his Boy, about Eight Years of Age, who was suffocated by going aslant down a Sort of a Cave into an old Coalpit, the top of which was fallen in. The Man that ventured to fetch him out, found a Number of Birds, supposed to have dropped down there by the sulphurous Stench issuing from the Pit. We have much Hay, and Cheese is plenty, and Corn without Barn-room, nor do we want Money. 

P. S. I have just seen a Hen, which laid Twelve Eggs only, from which she has brought up Twelve Cock Chickens, which is looked upon as somewhat remarkable.' 

(Extract of a Letter from Burslem,14  August 1766, Derby Mercury, Friday 29 August 1766, p.2)

Tunnel Vision

On 1 July 1772, an anonymous correspondent writing from Burslem related what he had seen the day before when he and some companions paid a visit to the first incarnation of the Harecastle Tunnel, situated between Tunstall and Kidsgrove and then under construction as part of James Brindley's Trent and Mersey Canal. 

'Yesterday we took a walk to the famous subterraneous canal at Harecastle, which is now opened for a mile on one side of the hill, and more than half a mile on the other, of course the whole must be compleated in a short time. As it is not yet filled with water, we entered into it, one of the party repeating the beautiful lines in Virgil, which describe the descent of Æneas into the Elysian fields. On a sudden our ears were struck with the most melodious sounds. - Lest you should imagine us to have heard the genius or goddess of the mountain singing the praises of engineer Brindly, it may be necessary to inform you, that one of the company had advanced some hundred paces before, and there favoured us with some excellent airs on the German flute. You can scarcely conceive the charming effect of this music echoed and re-echoed along a cavern near two thousand yards in length.' 

(Leeds Intelligencer, Tuesday 14 July 1772, p.3)

A Fungi to Be With

'A few days ago, a mushroom was got at Stoke-upon-Trent, in the county of Stafford, whose diameter was 5 inches, and 30 inches in circumference, it weighed 16 ounces. The above is very authentic.' 

(Leeds Intelligencer, 5 September 1775, p.3)

All in a Spin

'The following extraordinary phenomenon was lately observed here; at the latter end of last month, a field of hay belonging to Mr. J. Clark, near Burslem, was carried off by a whirlwind; the day when it happened was exceedingly calm, scarce a breath of air to be perceived. The people who were at work in the field observed, that in one part the hay began to be agitated in a small circle, at every wheel it increased in size and velocity, continually sucking more hay into its vortex; after a considerable time it began to ascend, taking along with it a silk handkerchief which hung rather loosely about the neck of one of the men who was at work; it continued ascending till entirely out sight, and in about an hour it began to descend, and continued to so for an hour's space, alighting at, or within a few hundred yards of the place from whence it had been carried up, so that the owner lost but a very trifling quantity of his hay.' 

(Hereford Journal, 23 August 1781, p.2)

A Tragic Accident

The following melancholy tale from the Potteries is related in a letter dated August 14 1785. 'As Ellen Hulme, a poor woman of Lane End, was returning to her habitation late last night, with her infant, six weeks old, in her arm, she unfortunately stepped into a coal-pit, which shamefully lay open close to the road, and even with the track which led to the poor creature's house. Her husband, whom she had been to fetch from an alehouse, immediately alarmed the neighbourhood, when her distressing cries were very distinctly heard from the bottom of the dreary pit every effort was attempted by the hardy colliers to fetch her up, but the damp prevailing very much, obliged them to use means to extract it, after which was found the mother with her infant upon her arms, both dead.' 

(Sussex Advertiser, 22 August 1785, p.3) 

A Hard Winter

During the harsh winter of 1794-1795, the better off inhabitants of Hanley and Shelton formed a committee which started a subscription list for the temporary relief the poor who were suffering great hardship during the cold weather. By February 1795 the committee had collected an impressive £150, enough to enable them  to supply nearly 500 local families with meat, potatoes, and cheese. The Wedgwood family gave a liberal amount and through them a Mrs Crewe kindly added a welcome donation of a quantity of flannel clothing. The Marquis of Stafford aided the relief fund by ordering 100 tons of coal to be at the distribution of the committee. 

A month later, in an issue of the Staffordshire Advertiser that noted that thermometers in Macclesfield had measured temperatures as low as -21° F (-29.4° C), the fearsome nature of the winter was highlighted dramatically by one small but rather macabre snippet of news. 'Through the inclemency of the night of Saturday last [i.e.,14 March] a poor man perished betwixt Hanley and Bucknall. He unfortunately lost himself in attempting to cross the fields, and was found on Sunday standing upright in a snow drift, with his hand only above the surface.' 

(Staffordshire Advertiser, 7 February 1795, p.3; 21 March 1795, p.3.)

Wild Fire

In late March or early April 1799, a dreadful accident happened in a pit at Lane End, the property of John Smith, Esq. Four men were blown up, and two them terribly burnt by what the colliers of the time described as 'the wild fire'. The explosion was loud, and the concussion so great that nearby houses shook violently. Two of the men were not expected to recover, while the other two were thrown to a considerable distance, and left badly bruised. The reporter noted that their hats were blown to the distance of 70 yards from the mouth of the pit. 

(Staffordshire Advertiser, Saturday, 6 April 1799, p.4)

The Battle of Burslem

Thomas Cooper, the Chartist whose
fiery speeches sparked the riots.

In 1842, a prolonged miner's strike had crippled the Staffordshire Potteries. Hundreds of men were on the streets begging and intimidating passers by, while surly mobs raided police stations to free those who had been arrested. The situation in the Potteries was likened to that of a powder keg ready to explode and all that was needed was a spark to kindle all into combustion. Enter Thomas Cooper (see here) lay preacher and Chartist firebrand, whose powerful speeches finally struck that spark and plunged the Potteries into two days of rioting and mob rule. During this period dozens of buildings were looted and destroyed and order was only restored after a clash between rioters and the army, an incident popularly known as the Battle of Burslem.

The confrontation took place on 16th August 1842. After a day and night of rioting and looting, early in the morning of the 16th crowds began to gather once more on streets of the Potteries. Of the five towns which had suffered in the previous day's rioting, Hanley had been hit the worst. Plumes of heavy fire smoke curled up from either end of the town and the streets were filled with debris. The parsonage was a smouldering ruin and at the top of Pall Mall, Albion House home of local magistrate William Parker had been reduced to a charred and broken shell. On the streets of the town by 7 o'clock a crowd of 400 to 500 people had gathered and were being addressed by two of the local Chartist leaders, young William Ellis and John Richards, the elder statesman of Potteries Chartism. Ellis was urging the crowd not to give up the struggle until the People's Charter became the law of the land. According to witnesses, though, it was the normally mild-mannered Richards who was more to the point. "Now my lads," he said, "we have got the parson's house down, we must have the churches down, for if we lose this day, we lose the day forever." Ellis then spoke again and urged the crowd to go to Burslem to join the crowd there. They were expecting to meet up with a large crowd who were coming to the Potteries from Leek and extend the rioting even further. By 9 o'clock, with shouts of "Now lads for Burslem" and "Now to business", the Hanley mob began marching north.

From Hanley to Burslem is a steady half hour walk for a healthy man and as they entered the town at about 9.30am, the crowd were singing a song that Thomas Cooper had taught them, "... the lion of freedom's let loose from his den, and we'll rally round him again and again." On their arrival in the town a part of the mob barged into George Inn which had only ten days earlier been attacked by outraged strikers and suffered substantial damage. To try and avoid further trouble, the owner of the Inn, Mr Barlow tried to buy the rioters off by giving them a shilling each; some of this was in half crowns and a dispute arose at the door as to the division of it. By this time the greater part of the mob had arrived and they immediately rushed in and filled the house. Mr Barlow had taken the precaution to remove the bulk of his cash; there was however £14 in coppers wrapped up in parcels of five shillings, which were all taken. Numerous bottles of wine, whisky and rum was also stolen, and the taps attached to the beer kegs were left running. Prominent amongst those who conducted this raid was George 'Cogsey Nelly' Colclough, a local lout who had flitted from one town to another the previous day, joining in with the burning and looting wherever he went. Like a moth to the flame he had followed the trouble back to his native Hanley and now thought to export his brand of local thuggery to the Mother Town. But the invasion of the inn did not go unopposed, for while the mob had previously only faced outnumbered police constables, they now found that they were in a town containing a small but formidable force of regular soldiers. They were surprised by a sergeant of dragoons and one or two other soldiers who were billeted at the inn, who hearing the noise, rushed into the bar and lobby to confront the troublemakers. Being in their undress uniforms they only had their swords to hand, but undaunted, the sergeant immediately drew his sword and began to cutting and swatting at the looters and in a few minutes the house was cleared. On being forced back into the street, the mob vented their anger by throwing stones at the windows, and in a very short time all the newly fitted glass was smashed and the house soon presented the same dilapidated appearance as it did after the attack in the night of the 6th.

The Leopard Inn, Burslem.

At the Leopard Inn, meantime, local magistrate Captain Thomas Powys was with Brevet-Major Power Le Poer Trench the commander of the 50 or so 2nd Dragoon Guards, who had been stationed in Burslem the week before. The two men had met shortly after the news had come in of a large crowd coming from Leek and Powys was doubtless consulting with the military as to what should be done if they tried to join the rioters. It was at this point that Thomas Lees the landlord of the inn came over with news that trouble that had broken out in Chapel Square. Captain Powys immediately asked for the Major's assistance and Trench quickly ordered his available men to horse. Most of the men were billeted at the inn, their horses being stabled outside and the troopers now came out into the cobbled courtyard and hurriedly got themselves and their animals ready for action. A flurry of stones came flying over the gate striking at least one soldier on the helmet, but unfazed they were soon clattering out of the courtyard and through the streets. Mounted on their big bay horses, the soldiers dressed in scarlet tunics, dark blue trousers with a yellow stripe down the side and tall, crested brass helmets on their heads, they were a sight to see and doubtless provided the townsfolk with a gallant if alarming show as they rode towards the Market Place.

The mood in the town had grown increasingly ugly with the arrival of the soldiers and Captain Powys knew that the crowd of people from Leek were even now on the outskirts of the town. If the two mobs joined up and went unopposed Burslem might well be utterly wrecked, so Powys decided that it was now time to restore law and order before things got completely out of hand.

An officer of the 2nd Dragoon Guards
in 1842. The helmet would have lacked
the black plume while on active duty.

Riding up to the top of St John's Square with Trench's dragoons posted on either side and 200 special constables behind them, Captain Powys faced the mob and began to read out the Riot Act in a loud voice. He then gave several other warnings and then read the Riot Act again, urging the crowd to disperse and go home peacefully. The crowd, however, were unmoved and milled about between the market or the Shambles, as it was called, and the Big House, Thomas Wedgwood's former home that still stands at the junction of Moorland Road and Waterloo Road, though at that time there was a walled garden before it. Powys then called out, "Clear the streets!" Then shouted, "Charge!" and led the dragoons towards the crowd. He had hoped to scare them off and the horse soldiers beat with the flats of their swords any who were slow in getting out of their way. The ruse did not work, though, for as one portion of the crowd fell back others spilled out of the side streets and alleys, back into the main crowd. Seeing the opportunity to cause more trouble, George Colclough set about the nearest soldiers with his stick, beating at their sword arms as they attempted to swat him. After a time several of the cavalrymen were so bruised by Colclough's attacks that they left him alone, which is said to have raised a cheer from some in the crowd.

By now it was getting towards noon and despite the best efforts of Captain Powys and the soldiers, the streets were still full of people. Some had climbed onto the roof of the Town Hall and the covered market, from where they threw stones at the troops and special constables. Powys, increasingly alarmed that the situation might escalate to the point where he might have to use the soldiers more forcefully, was repeatedly seen riding up to the crowds and calling out that the Riot Act had been read and urging people to return to their homes. He was joined in his efforts by others including an Irish naval officer, 41 year old Captain William Bunbury McClintock, who had come to town to meet his friend Major Trench, only to find himself in the eye of a storm. McClintock now rode back and forth from where the bulk of the troops were gathered by the Leopard Inn to check on what the crowds were doing. He saw 'a vast concourse of people in the Hanley Road, and a dense mob on the Smallthorne Road - the latter were accompanied by a band of music. I returned again to the troop, and told Captain Powys there would soon be bloody work.'

Word quickly spread, to the delight of the rioters in the town that the Leek mob of between 4,000 to 5,000 people was advancing down Smallthorne Road and they began moving up Chapel Square to meet them. As McClintock had noted, at the head of the crowd marched a band playing 'See the Conquering Hero Comes' preceded by a large number of men and boys shouting and waving makeshift weapons overhead, all of which could be clearly seen from Market Square. Captain Powys described it as 'the most tumultuous and violent mob which I have ever seen assembled, having seen many riots in the country and in London." He guessed that a clash was now inevitable and barely three minutes after McClintock had ridden back to the troop, Powys ordered Major Trench to move the troop forward to meet the crowd and he formed his dragoons up in sections diagonally across the road from the Big House to the Post office, so cutting the newcomers off from the bulk of the Potteries' mob in the Market Square. The special constables, meantime, closed up nervously behind the cavalry, among them local manufacturer Joseph Edge and his friend Samuel Cork. They looked so alarmed at this point that a kindly lady watching the action from a nearby house sent her servant over with a glass of wine for them both, hoping that the drinks would revive their spirits.

They needed it, for by now the fresh crowd was closing on the thin line of soldiers. Captain Powys on horseback was on the left of Major Trench, who with the other officers were in advance of the dragoons. A large crowd was assembled in the area above the Wesleyan chapel, to witness the arrival of the Leek mob. When about eighty or a hundred yards from the spot where the dragoons were stationed, the Leek party began to cheer and those in front waved their bludgeons. As the head of the procession entered the open space, the front ranks turned to the left, with the apparent intention of making their way by the Wesleyan chapel. About twenty or thirty deep of them had got so far when as Captain Powys later recalled, 'Immediately large volleys of stones, and brick ends were thrown by this mob at myself, and also at the military, I being then in the advance. Similar stones were thrown at the same time by the mob coming in the direction from Hanley at the military, myself and also at the special constables.'

By now the situation was intolerable. Stones were being hurled from both sides of the Market Square, striking horses and men alike and rattling over the cobbles. Captain Powys had thus far been the model of restraint, giving the crowd ample opportunities for a peaceful withdrawal, but it was now obvious that they were bent on trouble. Fearing for the safety of the soldiers, special constables and himself, by his own account he felt he had no choice but to use the soldiers to full effect and turning to Major Trench, Powys asked him to get his men ready to open fire. Trench agreed that the situation was getting out of control and gave the appropriate orders. As the soldiers sheathed their swords and primed their carbines, the large crowd moved forward as far as the Big House. The dragoons advanced slightly to counter them and only at the last moment when the front of the crowd was only six or seven yards away from the soldiers did it seem that the rioters saw the line of guns being raised and levelled at them. 'This movement on the part of the soldiers caused a strange movement amongst those in the front of the mob, and a look of terror came over their faces. Another moment and the order "fire" was given' and the rattle of musketry echoed out loud over the town.'

The Big House, Burslem, where troops and rioters clashed.

The soldiers fired directly into the crowd, not over their heads as some reported, and many bullets found a mark. Standing in front of the large brick wall that then stood in front of the Big House, was a 19 year old shoemaker from Leek named Josiah Heapy. Despite glowing reports from his employer, who later extolled his gentle character and claimed he had been forced to join the crowd, Heapy appears to have been actively engaged in throwing stones at the soldiers, at least, that is, until a musket ball struck him in the temple and blew his brains out against the gate post.

As Heapy's lifeless form slumped to the pavement, in another section of the crowd, a bricklayer named William Garrett got a ball through his back that exited through his neck and he too fell to the ground gravely wounded but he was eventually whisked off to the infirmary. According to reports others were hit, but in the confusion no one stopped to count the casualties, though it has been supposed that some of the wounded were carried off by their friends and died later. A report in the Bolton Chronicle later claimed that the true tally had been three people killed and six wounded, while reports from Leek spoke of numerous wounded being brought back into the town after the riots.

Some in the crowd seem to have been expecting this development, for shortly after the soldiers had fired their volley someone released a number of carrier pigeons which set off in the direction of Manchester. One of these birds was later captured and found to be carrying a note reporting that the mob had been fired on by dragoons and calling for 50,000 workers to join them in the Potteries. Some witnesses also recalled seeing plumes of gun smoke coming from the crowd just before the soldiers fired, though if this was the case, none of the soldiers or special constables were injured.

Most of the mob, though, was just shocked by the gunfire. From his position behind the dragoons, special constable Joseph Edge had watched all this in fascinated horror, as his son later noted: 'such a scene presented itself which we may pray may never be repeated in this good old town. So panic stricken was the mob that the men simply lay down in heaps in their efforts to get away from the cavalry... '

The 2nd Dragoon Guards open fire on the crowd from Leek.

Having stunned the rioters, the soldiers kept moving forwards and slinging their carbines, they drew their swords and followed by the special constables they charged their horses into the head of the crowd which scattered in panic before them. Immediately, thousands of people began rushing in all directions, many falling over each other in tangled heaps, others leaping through open windows, or into any available hiding place. Apocryphal tales abound. One Joseph Pickford of Leek is said to have taken shelter in a pig sty, much to the annoyance of its porcine occupants, whose squeals threatened to reveal his hiding place. Hundreds more escaped into the adjoining fields. Another story recalled how Thomas Goldstraw, a powerfully built man from Leek and a noted drummer, dropped his drum when the soldiers charged and quickly fled from Burslem back the way he had come, unaware at first that his son who had been nearby at the time had been shot through the thigh and was lying wounded in a field just outside the town. According to the storyteller, Goldstraw junior was later placed on a cart and transported to the surgery of an obliging physician, Dr Wright at Norton-in-the-Moors, who soon had him back on his feet again.

As the military swept past into the Moorland Road, a portion of the mob from the direction of Hanley, rallied and began throwing stones at the body of special constables, who advanced to the conflict in a dense mass, playing away with their truncheons, and completely routed the mob in that quarter. After the soldiers had charged a short distance up the Smallthorne Road, they were halted and recalled: their job was done as the mob, which just before had consisted of five or six thousand people was completely dispersed and the danger to Burslem had passed.

Reference: Staffordshire Mercury, 20 August 1842; Staffordshire Advertiser, 20 August 1842, p.3;  John Wilcox Edge ‘Burslem fifty years ago’, quoted in Carmel Dennison’s Burslem:People and Buildings, Buildings and People, (Stoke-on-Trent, 1996), pp. 36-37; Leek: Fifty Years Ago, (Leek, 1887), p.107 and 121.

The Crimean War: The Fall of Sebastopol

For the soldiers, the end of the fighting in the Crimean War, came with the fall of the Russian port of Sebastopol on 5th September 1855. The latter fell only after the Russians had started to abandon the town. However, before leaving they destroyed their forts, ships and munition dumps to stop them falling into allied hands. One local soldier 'T.M.', an artilleryman, (probably Thomas Moreton R.A., who had previously had a letter printed in the Sentinel) writing of the event to his parents in the Potteries, was manning one of the gun batteries that had pounded the town in the days prior to its fall and thus had a grandstand view of the final allied advance.

British artillery during the Crimean War.

'Dear Parents,

It is with pleasure that I have another opportunity of addressing a few lines to you, hoping they will find you enjoying perfect health, I am happy to inform you that I never enjoyed better health in my life than I am doing at present time. Dear parents I am very happy to inform you that Sebastopol has fallen into the hands of the allies at last, the bombardment commenced on the morning of the 5th inst, and at twelve O' clock mid day, on the 5th, the Malakoff and Redan Batteries stopped, two divisions of the British Army assisted the French at the Malakoff, and Redan was attacked by the red jackets. I believe they advanced into Malakoff without a gun opening fire on them, the Russians being quite surprised when the enemy perceived the attack, they retired a little to the rear and got under cover, and a sharp struggle ensued, and after a lapse of time they had to retire from the Malakoff entirely and leave in the hands of the Allies. My brave countrymen, who attacked the Redan were not so fortunate, they perceived them coming. Dear parents I can scarcely tell what my feelings were when I saw our men jumping over our works to make the attack, many of them never to return alive; They had no sooner left the works than the Musketry commenced to rattle, and the firing from the Cannonade that was pretty brisk before, was now kept up with more vigour, but a very short time elapsed, before the British were climbing over the ramparts of the enemy's works, driving the enemy before them. When our men got into this the "Redan" we commenced to send the shell further over the works to catch the enemy when retiring.

British troops attacking the Redan

The infantry were in the Redan for about a hour or a hour and a half as near as I can tell; We had ceased firing at the battery I was at for fear of wounding some of our men.I was looking over to see what was going on when all at once I perceived the infantry retiring from the Redan as fast as their legs would carry them. When I saw this I thought it was going to be another 18th of June affair (i.e. an earlier unsuccessful attempt to storm the Redan). We did not take possession of it until about twelve O'clock at night, and then the Russians abandoned it altogether. They did not only leave the Redan and Malakoff in our hands, but the Barrack, Flag staff, Garden and point Batteries, in fact, they deserted the place entirely, and went to the north side. The next day, Sunday, was a regular day of plunder, everyone who could pass the sentries made their way into Sebastopol, for to make themselves masters of anything they could find. I got in myself, and was not a little surprised to find every house that was not destroyed by shot and shell the enemy had set fire to; It was nothing but a heap of ruins; and furniture of every description, pictures, pianofortes, in fact, everything that you could mention was there. I had as much as I could carry away, but it was all taken away from me, and from hundreds more; there was a line of sentries all along, who had orders to take every article away from everyone. The French, on the contrary, were allowed to take away whatever they could carry. There was a great many who got drunk in the town, some of the stores being cramped with spirits. I managed to get away a very nice forage cap, by putting it into my breast, also some silver lace, and a few other articles. Their shipping is completely destroyed. The French have thrown up a Battery in the town to play upon some of the Forts on the north side; They still keep possession of that point Our Batteries look strange, all the platforms are dug up, and the guns are being taken away daily, and we have orders to destroy the works entirely. I don't known how they are going to act, but reports are going abroad that part of the seige train will be removed from the Crimea altogether to go on station. Some of the infantry are removed to Balaklava, they say they are going to sail around to Perekop. God only knows how it is to be; As yet they have only to give orders, and we will obey them. I don't expect to leave the Crimea until the enemy is driven from it, and winter will soon be upon us now, and prevent us from doing much more, without they look sharp. I received a letter from Morgan the day I received your last; He was in Portsmouth, but was expecting to be shifted to Woolwich; He said he should come on Furlough. I am very happy to inform you that I did not receive a scratch this last bombardment. We had two men killed one of them by the bursting of one of our guns, the other by gun shot. I was at the gun that burst the day before, they only fired six rounds out of it after I left it when it burst. I fired sixty rounds myself out of it the day before; It was the man that fired it off that was killed. I have nothing more to say at present, but wishing you all well. Give my love to brother, and accept the same yourselves.

T. M.

Reference: Staffordshire Sentinel and Commercial & General Advertiser, Saturday 06 October 1855, p.3

The World's First Mid-Air Rescue

On 9 July 1908, the Longton Park Fête was in full swing and as well as the numerous stalls, funfair rides and other amusements put on to beguile the crowds that flocked to the park, there was another attraction, a parachute descent was to be performed by Captain Auguste Gaudron’s team. Thrilling as this was in itself, spice would be added to the display by the descent being made not by men, but by two young women, an experienced parachutist, Elizabeth ‘Dolly’ Shepherd and a novice named Louie May. In fact, Louie May should have made her first jump the day before from a new large balloon known as the ‘Mammoth’, the biggest then in Britain. The balloon and its passengers had indeed gone up, but it had been too windy to make the jump and to console the disappointed crowd Captain Gaudron had announced that they would try again the next day. He added that they would be joined overnight by the famous Dolly Shepherd who was doing a jump elsewhere that day, but that tomorrow she and Louie would make a double descent. Sure enough, Dolly arrived in Longton later that night and though initially surprised that Louie’s jump had not gone ahead, she was happy to join her for her maiden descent. 

L to R: Dolly Shepherd and Louie May

This morning the day seemed perfect; the sun was out and there was no sign of the high wind that had spoilt the jump the day before. At Captain Gaudron's request Dolly and Louie went out early and mingled with the spectators to drum up interest. This they could do without even trying. Dolly was an attractive brunette and Louie a pretty blue-eyed blonde and both of them were practically clad in – for the time – rather daring, masculine-looking blue knickerbocker suits styled loosely after a midshipman's uniform, plus matching caps that certainly attracted a lot of attention. So too again did the Mammoth which Gaudron’s men now began filling with gas and this soon towered high over the park and stood waiting for its passengers.

However, the weather again spoilt their plans, this time with a short but heavy downpour of rain that suddenly and rather unexpectedly caused the Mammoth to sag and then collapse. There were urgent cries from Gaudron’s team and announcements over a loudspeaker, “No smoking please. Gas is escaping.” The spectators moved back a safe distance and watched the balloon in dismay. Sensing the frustration of the onlookers, seemingly robbed of yet another chance to see the lady parachutists, Captain Gaudron now turned to Dolly and asked her if she had brought her smaller balloon with her from her previous performance. Luckily, she had left it at the train station, so a pony and trap were immediately sent to collect it while the Mammoth crumpled into an untidy heap and Gaudron’s men went in to check it over. The problem was soon identified as a faulty top valve that had been leaking and it had only needed the weight of the rain to cause its collapse. 

All was not lost, though, for Dolly’s balloon, though much smaller in size was quite capable of lifting two people. There was no basket underneath, instead the parachute hung down beneath the balloon and the parachutist would be suspended at the bottom in a sling-like seat into which she was tied with a belt, whilst holding onto a trapeze bar. Keeping track of her altitude with an aneroid barometer on her wrist, once the correct height had been reached, the parachutist would then tug on a cord that would release the parachute via a simple mechanism. The mechanism would also cause a valve on the balloon to open, venting the gas and thus sending it back to earth. These ‘solo’ balloons were normally reserved for more advanced parachutists and it was unusual to send a first-timer up under them, maiden jumps usually being accomplished from a basket, but as that was no longer an option and with Dolly as a willing chaperone, Captain Gaudron felt confident enough to let Louie go up with her.

When the balloon arrived it was immediately hooked up to the gas pipe and the canvas soon began to swell up into a large globular shape, the ground staff holding it down with ropes attached to the netting that covered the balloon. It was no hardship to rig it for two parachutes, one on either side to balance it up, though a second release mechanism had to be hastily improvised for Louie’s chute and this worked perfectly. Then the two women were carefully fastened into their slings and held onto their trapeze bars while the balloon was held suspended above them. With all of the delays it was now 8 p.m., and a huge crowd had gathered to watch. Captain Gaudron now gave the order, “Let go!”, the ropes were released, the two women ran forward to get under the balloon as it leapt into the air and were suddenly lifted off the ground, Dolly setting off with a jaunty wave of the silk Union Jack that she kept for such occasions.

The plan was for the balloon to climb to a height of 4,000 feet before the two women pulled their release cords; they would then float to earth within view of the thousands of spectators. However, that height came and went and no descent was made. Instead the balloon kept on climbing higher and drifting out of sight. By this time the spectators as well as Captain Gaudron and his people, had realised that something had gone wrong. Alarmed, Gaudron soon set off in urgent pursuit of the errant balloon and its two passengers, leaving the crowds in Longton Park to slowly disperse and go home, troubled by the turn of events and anxiously awaiting news of the fate of the two female aeronauts.

Something had indeed gone badly wrong. High in the sky above North Staffordshire away from the eyes of the assembled spectators, a scene of high drama was taking place, against which even the excitement and danger of a normal parachute drop paled into insignificance.

Initially, the ascent to 4,000 feet had been trouble free and as Dolly later recalled, Louie had been delighted with the experience. When they did eventually reach the required height, Dolly as the more experienced parachutist called time and waited to see Louie release her chute and start her descent before she did the same. It was just as well that she did, for when Louie reached up and pulled on her release cord, nothing happened; the improvised mechanism that worked so well on the ground had jammed. Pulling herself over via a connecting rope, Dolly tried to release her companion's parachute but to no avail and the balloon carried on ascending, passing through the cloud layer and into the clear sky above to a height of 11,000 feet. At this height the air was thin and it was getting cold and Dolly realised that the only way that they would both escape from their increasingly perilous situation would be to risk making the drop back to earth on her parachute. Using the connecting rope to pull them together once more, she now told her frightened companion what they needed to do. Painfully aware of the two mile drop below them, Dolly held them together while Louie carefully unfastened herself from her sling and the two women wrapped their arms and legs around each other tightly before letting the defective 'chute swing away. Hoping that her own parachute release still worked, Dolly reached up and pulled the release cord and was rewarded instantly by the sight of the the balloon apparently leaping away from them as they plummeted earthward. For a few nerve-wracking seconds the parachute struggled to open, but as they exited the clouds and hit heavier air Dolly felt a familiar pull and looked up to see the parachute fully deployed above them, arresting their fall to what she hoped was a survivable speed.

A wildly exaggerated newspaper illustration of the

incident. Not only are details of the rescue incorrect

but in reality Dolly and Louie's knickerbocker 

suits were much more practical.

Swinging down out of the evening sky on their single parachute, the two women now found themselves suspended over a vast tapestry of green fields, woods and little villages. The prevailing winds had taken them south-east of the Potteries in the direction of Uttoxeter. Dolly, though, was not so much concerned about where they were, but how to land safely, as with Louie restricting her movements, there was no way of steering to a softer landing spot and the ground was rushing up much faster than normal. As they neared the ground, for the first time in the entire episode Dolly felt a pang of fear and cried out in alarm, as they seemed to be heading directly for a road, the hard surface of which might prove fatal at this speed. Luck, though was on their side and moments later they thumped down into the soil of a farmer’s field,  Dolly hitting the ground first and falling backwards as Louie, still holding on tightly, landed on top of her. The impact felt like a hammer blow for both of them and Louie immediately jumped to her feet, crying that all her teeth were knocked out. In fact she was unharmed and when the initial shock had passed, the two of them burst into peals of hysterical laughter out of sheer relief at having survived such a terrifying but remarkable adventure. 

Though Louie was fine, Dolly remained lying on her back and did not move. She felt that she had injured herself quite badly and that she needed to stay where she was until help arrived. Moments later a portly farmer appeared followed by his wife and children, then another farmer and his family, all of whom had seen the parachute coming down. They immediately offered to help Dolly to her feet but she begged them to leave her alone and call for a doctor. One of the farmers, Charles Hollins then took charge and a man was sent off to Shelton to get a doctor. The women now discovered that they had landed at Field Farm, three miles from the village of Leigh and 14 miles from Longton where they had begun their balloon ride.

When the doctor eventually arrived he immediately appreciated that Dolly had sustained a serious back injury and had her carefully lifted into a door provided by Farmer Hollins in lieu of a stretcher. She was then transported back to the Hollins’ farmhouse where she would find herself laid up for the next 8 weeks. Here, under the doting care of the Hollins family and the watchful eyes of a couple of local physicians, who treated her with mild electrical therapy, Dolly made a remarkable recovery and to the surprise of many within a couple of months of her accident she was not only walking, but parachuting once more.

Dolly continued with her parachuting career until 1912, when during one of her solo ascents, she claimed to have heard a voice telling her quite clearly not to come up again or she would be killed. Utterly convinced, once she had landed safely she announced to Captain Gaudron that she was giving up parachuting and immediately returned to London, where for a time she worked in her aunt’s shop. During World War One, Dolly served as an ambulance driver on the Western Front. Occasionally, she was called upon to use her driving skills to chauffeur army officers around the front; one of these she later married and finally settled down. True to her word, she never did another parachute jump.

Decades later, though, in her twilight years, the old parachutist did mix with like-minded people once more. She was famous now not only for her pioneering achievements in parachuting, but also because she was a record holder, being officially recognised by the Guinness Book of Records, for making the world’s first mid-air rescue. As a result she was honoured by invites from the Parachute Regiment’s Red Devils and the RAF Falcons display teams and despite the ethereal warning from above not to go up again, in 1976, the elderly Dolly took advantage of her latter-day fame to take a ride up in an aeroplane with the Red Devils, to watch them perform a sky dive, but it was her last journey up into the clouds. Dolly Sedgwick, nee Shepherd, died in 1983, just a few weeks short of her 97th birthday. 

As to what became of the other actor in that famous first mid-air rescue, Louie May, Dolly could not say. Captain Gaudron and Louie had returned to London during Dolly’s convalescence and she never saw her again. She later heard that Louie’s fiancé was livid when he discovered what she had been doing and that he had immediately spirited her away from the crazy world of parachuting and the dangerous company of Miss Dolly Shepherd.

Reference: Dolly Shepherd, When the Chute Went Up, pp. 129-151 : Uttoxeter Advertiser and Ashbourne Times 17 june 1908, p.8 and 1 July 1908, p.5.

Zeppelins over the Potteries

During the First World War, the action for the most part took place along a line of trenches stretching from the. Belgian coast, down to the Swiss border, where massed armies, huddled in their trenches, were launched in pointless attacks in the face of merciless machine gun and cannon fire. For the civilians back home the war was distant, though those left at home may have had relatives in the trenches, the Great War was an impersonal thing. True, foodstuffs were in short supply, and women took a great leap forward in society by going to work in the factories and on the farms, but the prospect of imminent death from enemy bombers, was still a generation away, or so it seemed. Then there came the Zeppelins. In a bold move, the Germans attempted to disrupt British life and industry, by sending over fleets of hydrogen-filled airships to drop bombs on anything they thought worthy of being destroyed. Two of these airships, at least, made it as far as North Staffordshire, and though the damage they did was insignificant, the authorities fell that they were such a threat to British morale, that the circum­stances of the raids were not fully reported until a month after the war had ended.

The first raiders came on the night of the 31 January 1916, Several cities through­out the Midlands were surprised to find airships over them, since few had thought that the area was within the radius of such craft. This was in the days before the blackout, and the major manufactories of the Midlands were a blaze of lights and fires, and in North Staffordshire, the glow was particularly noticeable from the pot banks and steel-works of Stoke on Trent, which were obscured only by a slight ground mist.

A squadron of Zeppelins had crossed the coast that night. One attacked Walsall at 8.10 p.m., and later at 12,30 a.m. There, the Mayoress, Mrs. S. M. Slater, was fatally injured in a bomb blast. The Wednesbury Road Congreg­ational Chapel was dem­olished by a bomb and other unspecified damage was done. At 8.30, another airship suddenly loomed out of the dark over Burton on Trent, and dropped a cluster of bombs, one of which fell on a mission house, where a clergyman's wife was holding a service, and in the blast three of the congregation were killed and a forth fatally injured.

Not long after the Zeppelin over Burton had begun its attack, engines were heard moving towards Trentham and the Potteries, and presently, the Zeppelin appeared, cruising slowly overhead. Its obvious target could be seen miles away, the light from the Stafford Coal and Iron Company's blast furnaces. The raider circled the foundry like a vulture and dropped half a dozen bombs in close succession. However, these fell on the spoil banks between the colliery and the furnaces, where they made several large holes, but did no serious damage.

After that the elusive raider sneaked off. Its course was only a matter of speculation, though engines were heard over Hanley, then Wolstanton and as far west as Madeley, where it dropped a flare over open country. It's raid, though it must have injected some excitement into the area, caused no harm and it must have used up its stock of bombs, or been searching for a secondary target.

German airship designer, Count Zeppelin

The second Zeppelin raid, though, was more dramatic, and took place during the night of 27 to 28 November 1916. It was a clear, dry night over the Midlands, there was the nip of an autumn frost in the air, perfect weather for an air raid. So, perhaps, at 10.45 p.m.. when the warning was received in the Potteries that Zeppelins had been sighted, few were surprised. The whole district was blacked out. and air raid precautions were put in place the special constabulary, the fire brigade and doctors and nurses were all alerted and went to their stations. Positive information was soon received that a raider was making for North Staffordshire, and at a few minutes before 1 a.m, the steady drone of aero engines was heard and the Zeppelin was sighted over Biddulph. slowly making, towards the Kidsgrove-Goldenhill-Tunstall area of the Potteries. Then the bombs came crashing down.

One unnamed witness, had been up late and was just going to bed at about 1 a.m., when he heard a 'deep rumbling, long-sustained explosion' and thought that there had been a serious colliery accident nearby. He went into another bedroom to ask if anyone else had heard the noise, when there were further explosions, two short sharp blasts, then another 'accompanied by a rending sound', then a series of four or five blasts in succession. The witness looked out of a bedroom window and caught sight of flashes off towards the Chesterton area, followed by the thudding boom of the detonations. The bombard­ment went on for about half an hour until the Zeppelin drew nearer to the witness' house and dropped another bomb about half a mile away 'that shook every brick and window in the house', before it moved. The witness had counted 21 explosions.

The first bomb blew a hole in a spoil bank at Birchenwood Colliery, Kidsgrove, while the second two landed not far off from the Goldendale Iron Works. The forth landed in Tunstall, impacting in the back yard of No. 6 Sun Street, and the explosion destroyed the sculleries and outhouses of Nos. 2, 4, 6 and 8, but shards hit other houses, as well as a nearby Roman Catholic church. Luckily, no one was killed and only one person was injured, a Mr Cantliffe of No. 8 Sun Street, who was hit in the chest by shrapnel, but he later made a full recovery in the North Staffordshire Infirmary. Had the raider circled in that area for a time, there is little doubt that there would have been a great deal of destruction and many more casualties, but the Zeppelin moved on, leaving Sun Street battered and bruised and in such a state that it would for days attract a horde of sightseers.

The Zeppelin cruised over Tunstall and out across Bradwell Wood, where the burning mine hearths seem to have attracted the raider away from the areas of population. This area was just a mass of calcinating ironstone left to smoulder out in the open, but which obviously seemed to have given the impression of being an ironworks of some description. Certainly the Germans thought so, and the area was heavily bombed, watched from a distance by our nameless witness. Explosion after explosion reverberated over Chester­ton, but the only damage done was to a shed that was knocked over and the closest that any other bomb got to the public, was when one of the last of these landed behind Bradwell Lane, Wolstanton. A later report summed it up succinctly as a 'particularly futile' attack on the area.

As it had circled over Bradwell Wood and the area around Chesterton and Wolstanton for some time, illuminated in the flashes from the bombs, many locals had spotted the airship. But finally, spent of its bomb load, the raider turned south-east and was last sighted passing low over Blurton Farm coming from the direction of Hartshill. This was at 1.35 a.m., the Zeppelin then vanished into the dark at a 'moderate speed'.

There had been a number of bombing raids over Britain that night and many came to a grim end. Certainly the North Staffs raider never made it back to Germany. Lord French, reporting the fate of several of these Zeppelins in a communique, made special reference to the airship that had bombed the Tunstall area. It appeared that after leaving the North Midlands, the airship hail taken a direct route towards East Anglia, from where there was but a short stretch of sea separating her crew from their homeland. However, before she even reached the coast, the Zeppelin had been repeatedly attacked by aeroplanes of the Royal Flying Corps and by ground-based artillery. Perhaps she was damaged, since Lord French's report noted that the last part of her journey was made at a very slow speed and the airship was unable to reach the coast before day was breaking. By the time she reached Norfolk, however, it seemed that the crew had managed to make repairs, and after running a gauntlet of coastal batteries, one of which claimed a hit, the Zeppelin was seen making off to the cast at a high speed and at an altitude of about 8,000 feet. But more planes came at her. About nine miles out at sea, the Zeppelin was attacked by four machines of the Royal Navy Air Service and further fire came from an armed trawler. Worried like a bear with terriers at her heels, the airship struggled on until gunfire ripped into her hydrogen filled body and she went crashing down in flames into the sea at about 6.45 a.m. No survivors were noted.

Reference: Staffordshire Sentinel, Friday, 27 December 1918, p.4