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I am attaching 2 cartoons of local sports teams by an artist named G E Thompson. One was in a previous thread in this forum and the other is from my own collection. It was said in the earlier thread that he worked for the Sports Argus. Can anyone say if that is true or if not which newspaper he...

Sue Naval history has been my main interest for about 20 years. Sorry to spoil a good story but I've never heard any of those names as ships in the Nelson era. Not even one of them. Sorry. T

Thanks for the photos posted already - really nice! Here are a few of mine from Sunday - 2 from the Bull Ring and 3 of the various parties marching up to the cathedral for the salute.

Hi Maris There is one statue of Nelson that is usually credited as older than the Birmingham one. And that is the one in Montreal, Canada. It is much more like Nelson's Column, being a stone statue on top of a stone column. I can't recall if there was an official "unveiling" but the column...

https://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=320546326526&ssPageName=ADME:B:SS:GB:1123 T

I did have to read it a couple of times myself. I just checked it out again and I am sure the petition was in favour of Scott. Apologies if I am wrong. I wonder if he stayed in Birmingham after his release. I would imagine John Pryse's family would have been pretty unhappy with that. T

I bet it would surprise quite a few people that even back then a life sentence didn't actually mean life. T

Some information here from 20 years later when Scott was released from prison. Amazing to see that for part of his sentence he was imprisoned at Gibraltar. I know I read somewhere that despite the number of people who were hanged many death sentences were in fact commuted. I wonder how all...

Just out of interest does anyone know the principle behind Rippingille's oil cooking stoves. As recently as the 1970's I remember using a paraffin stove when camping whereby you had to pump it to pressurise the oil and therefore create a powerful flame. Probably not - but I just wondered if...

From a London newspaper in 1896 (2 years after JD's death) Confirms that his widow continued the business after his death. (Replacement) T

Hopefully the company did pay but many employers would not have been so generous. I remember reading about some firefighters who died in WWII trying to save a factory. The company gave their families just £25 in compensation. When you think what people get nowadays for spraining their wrist or...

Polly At the inquest the doctor gave the cause of death as "suffocation from foul air". It seems that no-one should not have entered the vat until it had been drained and checked. But it had become custom and pratise to override the rules. Huddlestone entered the vat first and was overcome...

I wonder who paid for the gravestone? These men would have been the most basic of manual workers. No compensation, pension or benefits for their families. I imagine a gravestone like this would normally have been way beyond their means. T

Max Sorry can't say where the grave was located. But the circumstance of their deaths was not quite as bad as described. i.e. the two men entered an "empty" vat to clean it. But the dregs had not been drained off and they were overcome by the fumes and suffocated. T

How interesting! I don't recall ever hearing of a "Cradle Roll" for pre-Sunday School babies/toddlers. Perhaps it just operated in certain areas/churches. T

I don't mean to throw a spanner in the works here but I noted that there was quite a lengthy entry for Edward Villiers Rippingille in the Dictionary of National Biography. And yet it makes no mention of the marriage that supposedly produced EA! That's odd!! But it does seem to answer one...

I don't mean to be morbid - but it would be interesting to know what caused JD's death. I suppose it could have been a hundred different reasons but I was wondering if he might have to gone to the South Coast for some kind of convalescence - but finally succumbed to an illness??!! T

Very unusual I would say. Around the 1890's many businesses that started as family concerns and/or partnerships became limited companies. This enabled the owners to take some money out of the business and also bring new investment in. I am pretty sure that I have seen that by 1900 the Albion...

The Birmingham Post had various ads re the disposal of EA's assets. But I found this one interesting. It seems that EA and JD had been in partnership together. But most importantly that it was Eliza (presumbly JD's wife Elizabeth) who carried on the business after these tragic circumstances...

They obviously returned JD's body to Birmingham for burial. According to the newspaper his father had homes in Torquay and Birmingham (Sutton) so he might have been returned to Torquay or buried here. It must have been devastating sequence of events for the family. T