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Erdington Post Office On The Green

Just been reading about sub-postmasters. Apparently most Sub-postmasters weren't salaried and their main business was a shop. As Mike suggested ours might well have been a franchise because most sub-POs were in fact franchises, so our village green PO could well have been part PO, part shop selling tea, coffee, that sort of thing. Now if that's the case, I can't quite imagine that a lovely marble plaque would be hanging in amongst the groceries. So maybe it was somewhere outside. Just a thought. Viv.

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postal plaque.jpgERDINGTON_SORTING_OFFICE_003.JPGmorning viv somehow i cant imagine the plaque being in amonst all the veggies and groceries either lol..this really wont help us but i thought i would post anyway....here is a photo of the plaque that was found in albert sharps wifes possessions..its of the plaque taken either at or after the service in 1922..nothing written on the back and mounted on card...also a pic that i took some time back confirming that the new sorting office was built in 1934
 
Wow that's great Lyn. The plaque looks like it's inset into a white plastered wall. And unless the person who took the photo was very small, I'd say it was possibly high up on a wall from the angle of the photo. None of the fixing holes seem to be there either. It looks like an interior photo as there's a flash reflection on the lower right of the photo. One thing we can be certain of, is that this must have been taken when the plaque was in its original location.

Thanks for the Sutton New Road PO date. That fits in much better with what we know. So the large PO was built 4 years before the Sutton (New) Road expansion.

Now then, what does this all tell us? Well, the village green PO must have been demolished before 1934. And the Sutton (New) Road PO most definitely would have replaced the services formerly provided by the village green PO. Given the size of the Sutton (New) Road PO, there must have been a great demand for PO services; not just mail delivery but sorting, parcels, telegrams, telephones, money transactions etc. It must have become a key PO for a rapidly expanding town/area. If the plaque had been removed from the village green PO, then the new Sutton (New) Road PO was the obvious place for it to be re- sited.

Again though, we are none the wiser as to why it ended up in Ladywood.

Thanks Lyn. Viv.





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No date Lyn. but below is a good scan of a post card, which I think is a coloured photograph,. Another poorer copy of it is stated to be 1905 ...


high_st_erdington.jpg

Interestingly Mike, the shop on the corner of Wilton Rd/High Street is called 'Wilton' on the window blind. Wonder if this is John Wilton who lived at Holly Mount/70 Sutton Road and who is named in relation to the PO/shop where we think our plaque was located? Also does Wilton's corner shop have one of those fancy 'By Appointment' shields above the entrance. John Wilton must have been a pretty well known businessman. Viv.


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Sub-postmasters were paid a salary to have a post office (TSO) in their shop, they would be in a suitable location to fill in the gaps between Crown (main) post & sorting offices. Until the 80's it was un-usual for there to be more than a mile between any office within a city area. They would have to be accepted and trained by the GPO and be able to supply suitable premises and staff for the office, the salary was based on the amount of work done, each transaction had a point value which when added up gave the salary range for that office, the more work the higher the salary.
I spent five years with Dillon's the newsagents organising the day to day running of nineteen sub-offices in the Midlands.

I'm convinced the plaque would have only have been located in a public civic building of sufficient stature.

Colin
 
yes viv john wilton would have had some clout as they say...he had a road named after him and also the indoor market is called wilton market..

hi col and thank you for your input..i must admit i dont think ive ever encountered such a mystery..at the min all we are certain of is that the plaque was originally on the wall of erdington post office...well at least according to the orginal invite i posted that is where it was unveiled...surely after they unveiling they wouldnt have put it up somewhere else...WOULD THEY..i dont want to go there lol..
 
Viv
The shop was occupied by John Wilton , butcher in 1905. In newspapers, only other thing i could find out was that an employee there was had up for embezzling money from him, and that a John Wilton (possibly his father?) was selling a butchers shop at 166 Ashted row in 1895, saying he was retiring.Also he is at the corner of wilton Road up to 1915, but by 1921 it is the Co-op butchers there
 
Lyn

I notice in your recent photo of the plaque, that it is minus the two central fixing holes, meaning that it was obviously re-fixed in a different manner elsewhere after the date of that photo.
 
Lyn

I notice in your recent photo of the plaque, that it is minus the two central fixing holes, meaning that it was obviously re-fixed in a different manner elsewhere after the date of that photo.


i would agree phil...the old rusty bolt holes at the back must have come from when it was first placed and the second holes at the front when it was intended to be moved to somewhere else...i just have one problem...the newer holes do not go right though to the back of the plaque and even if they did they would not meet up with the older ones so its my theory now that maybe the job was not finished and it never ended up in its new place but somehow ended up in ladywood...hope ive not confused lol....

lyn
 
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I would suggest that it was removed somewhere around the demolition of 51 High Street and intended to be re-located but then perhaps WW2 came along (while the powers that be were deciding where to put it) and it got put somewhere for safekeeping and then either forgotten about or replaced by the wooden one which combined both war dead - perhaps they could not afford another marble one and rather than make WW1 look more important that WW2 used one plaque. (I did say I had a good imagination!).
I am not going down the route of imagining its journey to Ladywood!!

Janice
 
Now I'm going to let my imagination really run riot. How about the Wilton's having a hand in all of this? OK maybe a bit off the wall (same old pun, sorry but can't stop myself). Anyway, turns out the Wilton's certainly were big shots in Erdington early 1900's. Look at this lot - literally, a lot of Wilton freeholds of properties(shops) for sale from the Wilton estate in 1949.


View attachment 93121

Even one of the agents is a Wilton. But basically, what I'm saying is surely the Wilton's could have been involved in the commissioning of the tablet? If so, maybe some local council/group had documented/recorded a discussion about it. Viv.
 
I would suggest that it was removed somewhere around the demolition of 51 High Street and intended to be re-located but then perhaps WW2 came along (while the powers that be were deciding where to put it) and it got put somewhere for safekeeping and then either forgotten about or replaced by the wooden one which combined both war dead ......

Janice

Hi Janice I think you might be right. When the need for a new PO in Erdington was discussed in Parliament (yes it had become a big issue by 1931!) Hansard records the fact that a new PO was planned, but B'ham Council were dragging their feet on the land issue. It took another 3 years for it to be built. I get the impression this period in the development of the area was potentially a bit of a headache.

View attachment 93144

And the expansion of the road to make Sutton New Road didn't happen until 1938. So it could be that the village green PO building - even if it was no longer a PO or even occupied - wasn't demolished as soon as the new PO on Sutton (New) Road was opened. The plaque may have stayed in the old village green PO building up to the demolition of that row of shops. This could have been up to 5 years after the Sutton (New) Road PO had opened. It that was the case, by that time maybe the old row of shops were unoccupied and the plaque had been almost forgotten. Then, as you say, WW2 came along and everyone was far more focused on this war than the previous one. Maybe not until finding it just before demolition it was undecided about what to do with the plaque and it was taken to Ladywood. The plaque may never have gone across to Sutton New Road PO.

But one thing to note is whoever commissioned the wooden memorial must have been very aware of the WW1 casualties to make sure they'd been incorporated into the wooden memorial to both WW1 and WW2 casualties. Even down to the same wording. The wooden memorial is now supposed to hang above the mail hatch in the Sutton New Road premises but isn't accessible to the public. Thinking about it, I doubt they'd have gone to such efforts to remove a marble plaque when they erected the wooden one.

One last point, was the plaque stolen from the old village green PO? Would it have had any monetary value being marble?


e3u7u7yq.jpg


Viv.
 
Another point which might help us is what was the actual date of demolition of the village green row of shops? Were they still there much longer than we think? Maybe that section of the Sutton New Road was modified later (is that likely?) I know there were the modern buildings there in the late 1960s. Viv.


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Viv
this picture gives a better picture of the coat of arms.

Erd2520Village2520Green.jpg

Thanks for this Mike. I think it looks like a 'by appointment' coat of arms, but no expert. Had a browse to find out more about the Wilton's but nothing springs out at the moment. Viv.


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IMG_1940.jpg
hi jenny good to see you posting again..sad news about stephen birch i believe he did a lot for our history...

here is one of erdington new post office View attachment 115630

This clip is from December 1918 and I would presume it was before the new PO was built, but it brings to mind the small room at the right front of the picture where you went to collect parcels. 20 people crowed round the hatch!
 
Did the building of New Sutton Road actually affect those shops? I am desperately trying to remember what was there when I was small and what was at the back of them. Further along, the picture house stretched right to the new road and I seem to remember an undertakers (workshop) being around there. There were also some old toilets where the new ones are. My friend remembers going to the post office with her mother and it had moved to a new location by where Boots is by then. Was this due to demolition or for more room?
 
This is Erdington Green around 1931, just a couple of years before the new post office was built on Sutton New Road and just before the village green post office was demolished for road development. I can see a postman with a bike and his parcels just to the left of the parked car. He must have been an employee of the Village Green Post Office. Viv.

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That's interesting Viv, I'm always puzzled by this block of shops and not sure how many of them went in the development of the by-pass. I know that the gardens may have gone but I have a feeling that some of the shops remained. I will have to have 'a think' about it.
 
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