On Tuesday 29th June 1852 a Sawley woman was battered to death in her home by a stranger. John and Sarah Walters lived in Thompsons Barns, a solitary group of three 2-storey buildings around a yard on the lane to Church Wilne, about ¼ mile before Wilne Mills. The left building (looking from the road) was their house, the other buildings being sheds. The buildings were owned by Richard Thompson, a Draycott farmer. John Walters was a farm labourer for Mr Thompson. The Murder On Tuesday 29th June 1852, two days after Sarah’s 58th birthday, John was out hoeing turnips in the fields. Sarah left home around 11am, stopping to see the sexton in Wilne before walking to Draycott to do some shopping. She mentioned seeing ‘a bad looking fellow’ sitting in the lane near the cottage and being glad to get past him. On her return she found the man inside her house and left her shopping on the doorstep. Her husband described her as a courageous and spirited woman and the man later claimed she hit him first. But he beat her to death with a hatchet, which was later found in the yard. It was customary for […]
Posts - People
Henry Dicken (1883-1973) was from near Chesterfield. He was one of 10 children born before his father, Robert Dicken, died in 1891. Five years later his mother (Ann 1855-1920) married Edwin Lomas in Derby. They lived in Normanton (between Osmaston and Littleover) and had two more daughters before Edwin died in 1900. Henry Dicken worked as a lace card puncher. In 1904 he married Ada White (1885-1972) from Spondon. A year or two later they moved to Long Eaton (where there were many lace mills). Around 1908 they moved to New Sawley (where there were other lace mills; or he could have walked across the park to Long Eaton). In 1911 the family were at 18 Myrtle Avenue (not far from the site of the Sawley windmill discussed in a recent post). According to one source, they may also have lived in Golden Row in Old Sawley. The last of their children to be born in Sawley was Nellie (1911-1991). 1912 Henry left Liverpool aboard the SS Merion, bound for Philadelphia, USA. The rest of the family followed later. SS Merion The family settled in Elyria, Lorain County, Ohio (West of Cleveland), beside Lake Erie. In 1931 Nellie Dicken […]
[A longer version of the following story appeared in the Long Eaton Advertiser in January 1947] Many details of the life and change in the ancient township Sawley are revealed by Mr William Smith of Towle-street, who is the oldest inhabitant of the village and who will celebrate his 93rd birthday this month. In a talk with this hale and hearty veteran farm worker he recalled scenes people and happenings as far eighty years ago. Born at Sawley in 1854 Mr Smith retains vivid recollections his youthful days. In his early days, Sawley consisted of 200 houses and less than 800 Inhabitants, then chiefly engaged in farming, boating, stocking making, warp net and lace making and blacksmith work. In Smith’s early days Sawley possessed four small one-storey factories containing about ten warp lace machines, owned by the Smedleys and Cliffords and later by Mr John Thorpe, several of these warp machines being subsequently shipped to America. An Italian named Arnabiliano also made warp lace in Sawley. A small number of women possessed lace frames and used to sit outside their homes in summer especially on Smithy-row (now demolished) working designs on plain net from paper patterns underneath. During the building […]
At about 4am on 20th January 1931, John Roe of Oakwood Bungalow, Plant Lane got up, complaining of a violent headache and difficulty in breathing. When he left home half an hour later, his wife assumed he was going to work early. But he wasn’t seen alive again. When it was realised that he was missing, dozens of villagers made unofficial searches of the riverbank. On 10th Feb an appeal was broadcast on BBC radio. John Roe had been born in Long Eaton in 1872. In 1895 he married Tacey Ann Clifford from Sawley. Their daughter, Gladys May, was born later that year. At first they lived in Co-operative Street, before moving to Myrtle Cottage on Nottingham Road in Sawley. Their next house was 13 Charnwood Avenue and finally Oakwood on Plant Lane. John was a Jacquard (lace machine) card maker. From around 1911 he had his own card punching business at Birchwood Mills (Wilsthorpe Road). At about the same time, his parents moved to ‘Avondale’ 81 Wilsthorpe Road. His father was a lacemaker, working as a foreman for Fletchers works and attended the nearby St Mary’s Chapel. John suffered from ear trouble. A short time before his disappearance […]
Albert Edwin Smith was born in Castle Donington, where his mother, Eliza’s (Hickinbottom) family lived. Albert’s father was Edwin Smith, a lacemaker from a long-established Sawley family. Albert and Eliza set up home at 141 Sawley Road, Long Eaton. In 1914 he joined the Army, serving with the South Nottinghamshire Hussars; though he may already have been a volunteer trooper before the war. After mobilization, the South Notts Hussars served in the Gallipoli campaign in 1915 and then at Salonika before deploying to Egypt as part of the Desert Mounted Corps. Albert was promoted Lance Corporal. (* Ed. When I was very young I heard that Albert (a neighbour) had been in the cavalry at Omdurman. I assumed he’d been at the famous 1898 battle in which a young Winston Churchill took part in the last full-scale British cavalry charge. But Albert wasn’t that old, so he must have visited Omdurman (in Sudan) during his time with the Desert Mounted Corps around 1917.) In early 1918 the South Notts Hussars gave up their horses and were transferred to the Machine Gun Corps (MGC) and set out for France. But early the next morning, their troopship, the SS Leasowe Castle, […]
“As I remember Sawley, it was a lovely village with farms all around us. Mr. Bates, two Mr. Bradley Smiths, Mr. Gregory, Mr. Grammer, Church Farm. The fields were beautiful when harvest time, with horses pulling carts, and we as children catching a ride underneath and grabbing corn to eat. I remember walking into a telegraph post on Draycott Road, near Shirley Street, and what a bang on the nose. When the cows came out, I used to collect the manure for the late Mr. Rice who lived near Dr. Clifford’s house, Wilne Road, opposite the late Mr. Kirkland’s buses and petrol pump. I was a pupil at Old Sawley Infants school, moved to Sawley Junior School which now is a motor showroom. I was there till the outbreak of WWII, 1939. I left on my 14th birthday and worked for the late Mr. Jarvis, Wilsthorpe Road, named Paragon Works, wood working; wage £1. !Os, eight till five pm. My father worked at Sheet Stores, British Railway for 50 years, as a workshop and shunter, sometimes all night shift work. I remember going for his wages to keep nine of us, £2.10s.0. Trent Lock was my favourite walk, and Wilne […]