You may have heard of a connection between Sir David Attenborough, his elder brother Lord Richard Attenborough, and Sawley. They never lived in Sawley (despite Wikipedia claiming Richard Attenborough lived at Bothe Hall – don’t believe everything on the Internet!). But their mother was from Sawley and Richard came to support the Sawley Carnival and later opened the Memorial Hall. David Attenborough came to Sawley in 2024 to unveil a blue plaque at Rye Hill Close on Tamworth Road, near Bradshaw Street, the home of his maternal grandparents – Samuel Clegg and Mary Bradshaw. Their father, Frederick Levi Attenborough, came from Stapleford, where his family ran a bakery. Frederick became a teacher and lodged for a while in Bradshaw Street, while working at Long Eaton School, where Samuel Clegg was the headmaster. He left Sawley to study at Cambridge University and went on to join the staff. In 1922, whilst a fellow at Emmanuel College, he married Mary Clegg and their first son, Richard was born there a year later. In 1925 Frederick and Mary moved to Isleworth (West London) where Frederick took over the training college. David was born in Isleworth in 1926. Frederick then became the principal of University […]
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John Robert Foster was born in Long Eaton in 1885. His father was a wheelwright who worked at Claye’s Wagon Works. They lived nearby in New Eaton Cottages (formerly Claye’s Row), a row of terraced cottages facing the railway and backing on to New Tythe Street – between the Main St crossing and the Huss’s Lane footbridge. John started work as a wagon repairer but then in Feb 1902 (claiming he was 18) he joined the Royal Artillery, just before the end of the Boer War, on a short service engagement. In 1914, two weeks after the Great War was declared, he volunteered for the Army again. He initially joined the Sherwood Foresters, but was soon in trouble for disobeying orders and being AWOL. He seems to have ended up in the artillery again. In 1920 he married Edith Elizabeth Futter and the next year they were living with her family on Granville Avenue. By then he was a wheelwright, working for Leys Malleable Castings, probably in Derby. In 1928 he fined for riding a bike without a light and two years later he was fined for playing pontoon at Trent Meadows. In 1931 his wife applied for a separation […]
Mary Jane Hill Bardgett of ‘Kia-Ora’ 16 Mikado Road, died in 1947, aged 83. She was born Mary Jane Hill in Lincoln in 1864. In 1891 she married James Bardgett, a saddler from Westmoreland. They married in Leeds but moved to Cleethorpes to run a pub – the Leeds Arms, and then the Cross Keys. They then moved to Australia and spent the next 15 years living in Melbourne and Perth. Although working as a saddler, James made several unsuccessful journeys into the bush, searching for gold during one of the later gold rushes. Two sons were born in Australia: James William 1893-1972 and Clarence May 1898-1982. In the early 1904 they moved to Nottingham, where another son was born – George Leonard (1904-1972). James then bought a saddler’s business at 9 Gibb St, just off the High Street, Long Eaton and the family lived above the shop. By 1921 he was unemployed and they were at 9 Clifford St (probably the same house, as the saddler’s shop seems to have been on the corner of Gibb St and Clifford St). He retired due to ill health in 1926 and died in 1929. The shop disappeared when Woolworths (now B&M) was […]
The story of two Sawley families, lots of aunts, and the largest airborne battle in history. Lily Marsden was born in Melton Mowbray in 1894, but was brought up by her aunt, Eliza Jane Dawson (nee Marsden) in Sawley. They’d moved to East End after her husband William Dawson started working as a platelayer on the Midland Railway. They later moved to 3 Town Street. In 1917 Lily married a Frederick Hill and moved to Nottingham with him, but their son Frederick William Hill seems to have lived with the Dawsons in Town Street. Lily may have moved back to Sawley too, but she died in 1922. In 1939 Frederick (Fred) was still living with the Dawsons, but when war broke out he volunteered for the Army and was drafted to the Royal Army Service Corps (RASC) as a driver. Whilst on leave in 1940 he married Marjorie Bennett. Arthur Bennett was born 1889 in Buxton. His father, Philip Bennett, was from the Forest of Dean, but had moved to North Derbyshire while working as a signalman for the Midland Railway. Soon after Arthur was born the family moved to New Tythe Street, Long Eaton. Philip was probably working in […]
This is an expanded version of an article first published in the Society’s newsletter ‘The Twitchell’. All the old pictures are the copyright of Steve Mills. Mills Dockyard is probably the oldest family business in Sawley. Established around 1895 at a yard on the Erewash Canal, about 400 yards upstream from Trent Lock, four generations of the Mills family have been building and servicing inland waterways craft. (Arthur) Amos Mills (1870-1942) started the business in the 1890s. He’d been born in East Leake and initially followed his father in the basketmaking trade and also been a toll collector at Ratcliffe on Soar, before moving to Sawley. The business ran two narrow boats and a horse, carrying plaster from Thrumpton to the Sheet Stores for transshipment to railway wagons. This trade ended about 1924. Amos also used the yard for boatbuilding, converting e.g. Trent barges to houseboats, and building (in the loft during the winter months) rowing skiffs. This picture, from before 1900, shows two workmen at the yard. The one on the right holds a smoothing tool called an adze. The corrugated sheets were when the men had to lie down on the ground After the second world war Amos’s […]
Charles ‘Tim’ Tyler (1906-2005) was born in Draycott and visited as a child, but lived in London and then Sussex. In 2000 (aged 95) he wrote to the Sawley Historical Society with his memories of Draycott around the time of the First World War. Charles Tyler’s Letter At the turn of the 20″ century, Draycott was a small village in east Derbyshire, on the old Roman road (now A6005), between Derby and Nottingham. I was born in the village on August 2″, 1906, but my memories only relate to the period 1914-1919, so this needs explanation. Father and mother started their life together in Brussels, where Father was accountant to a small new company called The Gramophone Company — trademark “His Master’s Voice”. After a miscarriage, Mother, pregnant again, had to decide whether to go with Father who has just been appointed as manager of a new branch of HMV in Alexandria, Egypt. Determined to have her children born in England, she chose to go to her brother John’s house in Draycott. He was manager of a cotton mill in the hamlet of Church Wilne, about a couple of miles away on the banks of the river Derwent, which provided […]
On the evening of 31 Oct 1846, a 28-year-old man called Thomas Mullins was travelling from Derby to Nottingham in a third class carriage. He worked as a footman for the Reverend Curzon of Aston on Trent. At some point he realised he’d caught the wrong train, heading for Leicester. As the train slowed down at the old Sawley Station he jumped out, rolled over and one of his legs was run over by 3 carriages. He was taken by train to Nottingham Infirmary (now City Hospital) but died a few hours later. Midland Railway, Derby Station c1840 The inquest heard from John Bailey of Sawley who was a Midland Railway gate (level crossing) keeper on the Sawley-Breaston road and about 19 years old. One of his duties was to deal with trains which stopped there after 7pm. The evening Leicester train did not routinely stop at Sawley, but Bailey used a red light to signal for it to slow down as he had a parcel to give the guard. It slowed to about 2½ mph as he handed over the parcel and confirmed to the guard that no passengers needed to get on. As the train began to accelerate […]
On Monday 10th June 1889 an inquest was held at the Nags Head in Sawley on the death of Henry Cook, who’d been found dead at his aunt’s house two days earlier. The coroner was W.H. Whiston and the inquest jury were W. P. Bennett (chair), Joseph Birkin, Percival Bosworth, William Ward, Edward Kilbourne, Benjamin Allen, George T Lodge, John Bromley, Henry Bonser (landlord of the Nags Head), Albert Robinson, Reuben Bailey and Thomas Ironmonger. They heard that Henry Cook (25) was separated from his wife. Lately he’d been lodging with his aunt and grandmother in Hey’s Buildings in Sawley. He was out of regular work but had been doing odd jobs and gardening. HIs aunt, Emma Smith, identified the body. She said that there had been some ‘unpleasantness’ in the village which had disgraced the family. And as Henry couldn’t pay his way, she’d told him on the Wednesday that he’d have to leave the house. He told a friend, John Staples, that he’d got himself in trouble and didn’t know how to get out of it. He was tired of life, and he’d bought small amounts of laudanum (a tincture of opium and alcohol) at different chemist shops […]
In July 1906 Sawley’s Harrington Bridge was being rebuilt. Traffic was using a temporary bridge whilst the damaged centre section of the old bridge was being replaced by a new central pillar and a steel deck. On Tuesday 10th July a 7-year-old boy – Redvers Buller Barton – was fishing for minnows in the Trent. It was either the school holidays or late afternoon after school and several children were playing in the area. Redvers decided cross a plank to reach a boat moored under the bridge (probably the temporary bridge) to make better use of his net. But, leaning over the side, the boat tipped up and he fell in. Another boy, Thomas Noon (aged 9), saw him and called for help. Horatio Allport (aged 11) of Cross Street ran to the spot, crossed the plank to the boat, grabbed an oar and tried to reach the boy, but he’d drifted too far downstream and soon disappeared. The police were called and dragged the river, finding the body on Wednesday night. He was taken to the Harrington Arms and the next afternoon an inquest was chaired by Mr Whiston, the local coroner. The jury found that he’d accidentally […]
In the 1870s there were many boatmen in Sawley, working on the river and canals, but Daniel Barkham was a qualified master mariner, who’d been brought up as a fisherman on the Isle of Wight. In 1871 he was still a ship master, but lodging in Ripley with his first wife, Anne (nee Blanchard). After Anne died in 1873, he moved to Sawley. In 1875 he married again, to Ellen Comery. They lived in Narrow Bridge cottages, on the Lock Lane bend, and had 3 children: Parling Barkham (born 1876) Karl Barkham (born 1878) Reginald Barkham (born 1880) They rented the 40-acre ballast hole known as Trent Lake from the Midland Railway. It’s not clear why a master mariner was renting a lake miles from the sea. Perhaps he was hiring out boats (it seems there was a boathouse next to Narrow Bridge cottages) and/or teaching people to sail. In the winter they rented the lake out for skating. Ice skating was quite a big thing locally at the time. There even seems to have even been an ice rink in Long Eaton (Forbes Hole?). Trent Lake, c1884 On Thursday 7th Feb 1881, there had been a thaw, but […]
Samuel Hill was born in Somercotes in 1859. His father William (1832-1903) was a colliery agent, and his mother Eliza was from Shardlow. By 1871 the family had moved to Station Street, Long Eaton and were living with William’s father, a coal merchant. Samuel was in the lace trade, which was booming at the time, as labour in Long Eaton was cheaper than Nottingham and the canal and railway were conveniently placed for the delivery of coal to run the steam-powered factories. Samuel had started to raise money for his own factory whilst still in his teens, but he fell out with his creditors, and it took him 3 years to pay them off. In 1879 he started a partnership with his father. The same year Samuel married Mary Jane Draper in Radford and moved to Regent Street in Long Eaton. In 1882 Samuel and his father had a factory built on Princess Street, near Lime Grove (where the parking for West Park is now), at a cost of £4,000-£5,000. It was a 3-storey building, about 12 windows wide. It was steam powered and had a large chimney. The Hill family had most of the top floor, with half a […]
Having researched a family, we normally include military records on the page about the family, linked from the Families index and (where applicable) from the War Memorial page. But we haven’t completed the long and complicated history of the Leivars family in Sawley yet. So, for Armistice Day, some of the wartime records for the family have been extracted and set out below. John Leivars (1844-1926) known as Jack, was a regular solder in the 1860s and 1870s, serving with the 45th Regiment of Foot (which became the Sherwood Foresters). He took part in the 1868 Abyssinian Campaign. In 1879, Jack qualified for an Army (Chelsea) pension and returned to Sawley, where he married Ann Catliff. In 1924, General Smith-Dorien chatted with him at the Sherwood Foresters Old Comrades Annual Dinner. By 1914 Jack and Ann had 12 children and were living in Chantry Place. Their eldest son John William Leivars (1882-1916) served with 9th Battalion, Sherwood Foresters during the war. In late September 1916 they took part in the Battle of Thiepval Ridge, one of the later stages of the Somme campaign. In mid-November they were at the Battle of the Ancre Heights. A week later, on 26 November […]
The following are transcripts of letters sent by a Long Eaton girl to her pen-pal in America in 1945 and 1946. Sheila Redford was born in Long Eaton in 1929. Her family lived in Bennett Street. She left school at 14 and started work in a factory office in Sawley during World War 2 (perhaps Park Mill on Grosvenor Avenue which was used by Rolls Royce during the war). Arlene Olsen lived in Harrietta, a small town in rural Michigan. After the USA entered the war in December 1941, she helped the war effort by collecting milkweed floss to fill lifejackets. Arlene’s daughter found the letters amongst her mother’s papers and thoughtfully contacted the Sawley Historical Society and sent the letters back to England. The extracts are printed with the kind permission of Sheila’s daughter. 6 Feb 1945 Dear Arlene Very many thanks for your lovely letter, to which I am answering straight away. So, Sergeant Elmore was your music teacher, was he? When he came to talk to us about you boys and girls over there, we asked him if any of you would like to write to some English girls and he gave us your addresses. I […]
The Harriman Family Grange Gardens were opposite Sawley Grange Farm, on the other (reservoir) side of Draycott Road, when it used to go to Draycott! Although always referred to as ‘Grange Gardens, Sawley’ it was (just) in Breaston parish. The image above shows an 1890s map superimposed on a modern air photo. The story seems to start with the Harriman family … Thomas Harriman was born in Hathern in 1812. He married Mary Frearson from Sawley in 1838. At first, they lived near Nottingham, but by 1846 they’d moved to Sawley Grange. Their children were: Annie (1842-1898) William (1844-1927) Elizabeth (1846- Mary (1848-1882) Grace (1851-1934) Mary (the mother) died in 1851 probably while, or soon after, giving birth to Grace. In 1860 Thomas got married again, to Zillah Briggs. By 1871 the family had moved to Draycott where Thomas worked as a brewery agent. But Thomas still owned over 12 acres of land, whilst the 3 younger daughters had just over an acre each (Annie was married by then). Elizabeth and Mary were still at home, both working as governesses. Grace (pictured) was probably living at home too, though she was away on the night of the 1871 census. […]
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 farmyard 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 […]
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 as eighty years ago. Born at Sawley in 1854, Mr Smith retains vivid recollections of 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 […]
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 […]