Recent content by ed.s

Hi Mark, and welcome to the forum. I know something of the history of Alldays & Onions, but was not familiar with their power hammers, so I've just been reading up on those - sounds like an impressive machine you have there. The purported history of your device doesn't tie up all that well with...

I can't shed any light on James' fate, I'm afraid, but I recognise the Showell name. Walter Showell's 1885 Dictionary of Birmingham has been a source several interesting details about my own family. Walter was nephew to Thomas Showell the victualler, which I'd hazard a guess makes him first...

I can't find any baptism records, but have a wedding of Edward Watkins, brush maker, and Jane Rhoda Fullett on 22nd May 1864. Edward's address is Bell Barn road, and his father is John Watkins, plasterer. Jane's address is Wrentham street, and her father is Thomas Fullett, a hatter, I think it says.

Comparing with the 1880 census, the brother I've read as "Ned" above might be Fred, actually. Here the family is at 148 Hope Street, with mother Jane, aged 39, b. Birmingham. Edward snr's birthplace is given as Evesham, Worcestershire this time. Annie's siblings include the aforementioned Fred...

Ancestry has the wedding details of 22nd August 1897 giving Annie's father as Edward Watkins, a brush maker, deceased at the time of the wedding. Annie's address is 169 Dolman St, and Gregory's is 82 Heneage St. One of the witnesses is Edward John Watkins, perhaps a brother. From that, I can...

I dimly remember Evesham Micros. I think my first computer, a mid 80s era ZX Spectrum, or some of its accessories came from them. I learned BASIC programming on the Spectrum, and still use the language today on occasion, for Excel automation and suchlike. My first serious software job was in...

I see that Edward and Hannah Cooke get a brief mention in the Wikipedia article for Sambourne, citing a book Warwickshire Villages, by late Warwickshire historian Lyndon F. Cave

On the origins of Allday Ltd., printers of Birmingham, and its founder The Birmingham Daily Post of Wednesday 15th March 1972, carries a full page advertisement announcing the merger of Allday Ltd with Green and Welburn Ltd., written by the new company's managing director, S. E. Allday. The...

I've just taken delivery of this charming miscelleny of maps, pictures, adverts and encyclopedic entries, which includes an advert for Allday Ltd themselves showing their premises. It dates from around 1905/6

The French variant, Theophile, is still popular - there were one or two among my colleagues at the French company I used to work for. The equivalent name derived from Latin rather than Greek is Amadeus

This is the CWGC entry linked to George Shannon of Cape Town, 2nd Worcestershire battalion, service no. 11365, died of wounds 9th September 1914. He is buried at Boitron churchyard, near Rebais in France. https://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/574034/g-shannon/

Nice work!

Thanks for the link - this has turned up some fascinating, if somewhat disturbing, records. I ran a search on my Allday family, assuming I'd find one or two, but was rather taken aback to find five siblings all committed in around the mid-1850s while in their 20s and 30s. Maybe something that...

Fascinating. The first appears to be an extract from Joseph Hill's "Plan of Birmingham 1553 (conjectural)", which he put together in the 1890s, based on a detailed survey of Birmingham from that year of Queen Mary's reign. Chappell Street became Bull St (I have a print of a 1731 map showing...

Interesting that that sketch of the Lamb House shows gables that weren't present at its demolition in 1886, nor going back as far as the 1835 sketch of post #422. The Birmingham Daily Mail article "Destruction of the Oldest House in Birmingham" (18th May 1886) recounts that the building was to...