Joseph Allday, Warstone Lane Cemetery

[Tinpot]

interesting article...as most will know the pub mentioned is now called just the jewellers arms and is still very much up and running and i was also wondering what make of car would have been around in 1861

lyn

Jaunting car?

 

[Stokkie]

My thinking was that "car" wouldn't have yet taken on its modern meaning by the 1860s.
I see online sources suggesting that the first recorded use of "car" to mean "automobile" was in the 1890s, e.g.:

Car « The Word Detective

The tiger in my tank is very tired. Dear Word Detective: Don't know why, but the word "car" popped into my head the other day. I've lived with it all my life and always taken it for granted.

www.word-detective.com

Prior to that, I think it could mean any wheeled vehicle. Wiktionary reckons there was Birmingham-specific usage of the word to mean a four-wheeled cab:

car - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

en.wiktionary.org

There would have been things like this about at the time, I guess, but I don't know if they would have yet evolved into a form practical for dropping someone home from a night out:

Dr Church’s Steam Carriage

Experiments with steam transport dates back possibly to as early as the 17th century, but it was with the expansion of road links in the later 18th century that interest in developing efficient for…

birminghamhistoryblog.wordpress.com

I agree. 4. In Birmingham: a four-wheeled hackney carriage. English Dialect Dictionary (JBP given as source)
I think the specific Birmingham usage is telling.

 

[Welshnwobbly]

There is an open day at Warstone Lane Cemetery tomorrow (September 16) where you could get some help and assistance. Someone helped me find my relative who died aged five.
What was the Argus Libel proceedings?
Is that report you very kindly attached for us all to read specifically about Warwickshire gaol or does it include Winson Green?
Are prison records kept? I know that one of mine went to prison and the court he was sentenced in but have no idea which prison nor how he got on in the slammer.

 

[Stokkie]

There is an open day at Warstone Lane Cemetery tomorrow (September 16) where you could get some help and assistance. Someone helped me find my relative who died aged five.
What was the Argus Libel proceedings?
Is that report you very kindly attached for us all to read specifically about Warwickshire gaol or does it include Winson Green?
Are prison records kept? I know that one of mine went to prison and the court he was sentenced in but have no idea which prison nor how he got on in the slammer.

As to prison records the National Archives has linked with the commercial site Find My Past, https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C11497
'Registers of prisoners and habitual criminals, photograph albums, minute books, visitors' books, order books, journals, assizes and quarter sessions calendars and other records relating to various prisons in England and Wales, to Gibraltar prison and to some ship prisons.'

Also Ancestry lists some prison records. I think the most recent on-line records go up to 1951 at the moment. And these are not complete.

I suggest you post your question in the appropriate forum https://birminghamhistory.co.uk/forum/index.php?forums/surname-interests.32/ so people can help you research.

 

[ed.s]

There is an open day at Warstone Lane Cemetery tomorrow (September 16) where you could get some help and assistance. Someone helped me find my relative who died aged five.
What was the Argus Libel proceedings?
Is that report you very kindly attached for us all to read specifically about Warwickshire gaol or does it include Winson Green?
Are prison records kept? I know that one of mine went to prison and the court he was sentenced in but have no idea which prison nor how he got on in the slammer.

Hello, and thanks for the info on the Warstone Lane open day. I can't make it today sadly, but I shall certainly pay it another visit at some point.

The Argus was a Birmingham paper / magazine edited by my relative Joseph Allday, launched in 1828. It started out as a miscellany of theatre reviews and the like, but Joseph also loved "exposing scandals", and soon found the Argus a convenient and popular means of launching attacks on public Birmingham figures and institutions of whose actions he disapproved. Unfortunately Joseph appears to have been, at best, careless in checking whether the accusations he published were provably true. Various of his targets took legal action against Allday and / or his publisher, William Chidlow. It was a series of libel cases brought in 1831 by wine merchant Samuel Morris, and by Joseph Parkes and George Edmonds, both lawyers and politicians, that saw Joseph sent to Warwick prison for 10 months.

The report I linked covers the legal proceedings around a much later incident, the 1853 "Gaol Atrocity Enquiry" into the sadistic regime of Governer Austin at Winson Green prison (opened 1849). One of the key incidents investigated was the case of a 15 year old boy, Edward Andrews, who had taken his own life after two weeks in prison, during which time he had been set impossible tasks of physical labour, then starved and tortured when he failed to complete them. This was one exposed scandal in which an older, and perhaps wiser, Joseph Allday got his facts right, and he received commendations for bringing the matter to light.
There's a good write up of the matter by Mercian Liam in this forum post:

Winson Green prison

Hi had a relative in prision at Winston Green Prison in 1911, can anyone tell me if I could get his records to see what he had done. He was from Aston and up till that point had a good buisness in the area. Im researching the family at Birmingham Central Library would they hold these records...

birminghamhistory.co.uk

 

[ed.s]

Since I have my research on Joseph Allday and Winson Green open, here's an extract from the memoirs of prison warder William Brown, recounting his acquaintance with Joseph:

FORTY YEARS OF PRISON LIFE.
THE EXPERIENCES OF CHARLES READE'S ¹
"WARDER EVANS," ²​

... as published in the Dundee Evening Telegraph, Saturday 07 December 1895.
Original image hosted on the British Newspaper Archive, transcription and footnotes my own.

THE EVENTFUL HISTORY OF MR ALLDAY.​

A few words should be said of Mr Allday, who was instrumental in bringing about the exposure of the atrocities at Winson Green Gaol, and who thereby earned for himself the thanks of the Commissioners and of the public. His history was rather peculiar. Mr Allday, who belonged to a Tamworth family³, was apprenticed to Mr James Busby, wire-worker, who resided on the site of Warwick House, in New Street. On completion of his apprenticeship he commenced business on his own account, being afterwards joined by his brother Edward, who was a saddler's ironmonger, and the two businesses became united. However, they did not agree, and in 1824 they separated. Edward, who was possessed of some literary ability, was the proprietor of a small publication⁴ and to annoy his brother the same year Mr Allday published a little paper called the "Mousetrap," his own articles bearing the nom de plume of "Argus." His next literary venture was a paper called the Argus, which he published in 1828. It was a very good sheet for those days. However, his vigorous attacks on public and private men alike soon got him into serious difficulties. In February 1831 a Mr Gibbons⁵ brought an action against Chidlow, the printer of the paper, who carried on business at 65 Great Charles Street, for libel, and £150 damages were awarded against him, and his type and printing presses were confiscated. The following month Mr George Frederick Muntz and Mr George Edmunds, two of the foremost citizens, instituted proceedings for libel against Allday, and he was

ARRESTED ON A WARRANT​

at his house at Highgate. Subsequently, at the March Assizes in 1831, he was found guilty on several indictments for libel, and sentenced to 10 months' imprisonment. The trial lasted three days. One of the local journals said at the time, "Some regret is expressed that a fine was not imposed on Allday, but it was proved that he was penniless, and 10 months' confinement in a gaol is a severe punishment if deserved.” It seems rather curious to find a man with this record becoming the leader of a great cause, and achieving success in it. But Mr Allday, whom I knew very well, was a man of indomitable pluck and perseverance, and on June 1, 1832, in spite of all that had happened, he published No. 1 of volume 4 of the Argus. This time it was "printed and published by Joseph Allday, 38 Upper Temple Street." This was almost striking a note of defiance. He and another brother, in May 1837, went into business in Bull Street, but these two brothers could also not agree. John remained in Bull Street, and Joseph removed to Dale End. He afterwards opened an eating-house in Union Street⁶. But Mr Allday could not stick to business. He was always dabbling in public affairs and exposing the many abuses then existing in the town. He became the ruling spirit in matters political, and in 1849 he was chosen by the electors of St Mary's Ward to represent them in the Town Council. He was for 12 years churchwarden of St Martin's Parish Church, and Chairman of the Board of Guardians. The great event of Mr Allday's life was his exposure of the atrocities, and perhaps it was this action which gave him his most honourable reputation. Poor Allday came to a tragic end. He was returning to his home at 27 Warston Lane, from the annual dinner of the Retail Brewers' Protection Society at Aston Hall, about 10.30 on the night of Wednesday, the 2nd October, and in crossing the road in Vyse Street he fell across a doorstep, sustaining severe injuries from which he died on Saturday, the 12th October 1861.

¹ Charles Reade (8 June 1814 – 11 April 1884) was an English novelist and dramatist, best known for The Cloister and the Hearth. - Wikipedia

² Mr William Brown (1826 – 1903), warden of Winson Green Gaol, Birmingham. Brown came to public prominence in 1853 on the exposure of the prison abuses at Winson Green. During the Royal Commission to investigate the atrocities, he was recognized as one of the few humane officials who tried to mitigate the impact on the inmates of Governor Austin’s sadistic regime. Brown was the basis for the character of “Warder Evans” in Reade’s novel and stageplay It Is Never Too Late to Mend, inspired by the events of the Commission.

³ I think Brown mistakes Tanworth, Warkwickshire for Tamworth, Staffordshire here. My family tree has Joseph as a descendant of the Alldays of Tanworth-in-Arden and Knowle.

⁴ Edward Allday's paper was named The Theatrical John Bull. Like the Mousetrap it was similarly concerned mainly with theatre reviews, I think.

⁵ Banker Joseph Gibbins of New Street.

⁶ The Corn Exchange Dining Rooms / Mrs Allday's Celebrated Tripe Establishment, run by Joseph's wife, Ann, which I've written about elsewhere:

Corn Exchange Dining Rooms / Mrs Allday's Celebrated Tripe Establishment

"Restaurants.—Our grandfathers knew them not. They took their chop or steak at their inn or hotel, or visited the tripe houses. Indeed, Joe Allday's tripe shop in Union Street (opened about 1839-40) may be called the first "restaurant" established here, as it was the favourite resort of many...

birminghamhistory.co.uk