St Bertram of Ilam

It took 100 years for Christianity to establish itself in England after Augustine landed in Kent in 597. It seems that missionaries mixed pragmatically piety with an ability to “schmooze” the local rulers as they fanned out around the country. Bishop Wilfrid of York, in one example ,held a three day drunken revelry with many of the nobility of Northumbria and Mercia to celebrate the dedication of Ripon Cathedral in the 660s. Proselytising in those days came with a hangover it would seem. It was a crucial time for the establishment of the Church and it was around this time that Christianity arrived in Staffordshire. It is difficult however to disentangle the myth and reality in the lives of the local Saints. I was pondering on this whilst visiting the shrine to St Bertram or Bertellinus at Ilam Church.

Bertram, so the story goes, was of royal blood and having fallen out with his father fled to Ireland where he fell in love with a princess. She became pregnant and they escaped to England sheltering in the dense forests that surrounded Ilam in the 7^th century. Alexander a monk writing in the 13^th century takes up the story.

“They were in hiding in a dense forest when lo ! the time

of her childbirth came upon them suddenly ; born of pain and

river of sorrow ! A pitiful child bed indeed ! While Bertellinus

went out to get the necessary help of a midwife the woman and

her child breathed their last amid the fangs of wolves. Bertellinus

on his return imagined that this calamity had befallen because

of his own sin, and spent three days in mourning rites”.

That was the turning point in his life, he retired from the world and became a hermit. Bertram is linked with Stafford where he preached converting the heathen. Then he returned living in one of the caves beside the river Dove. After his death his remains were buried at Ilam,

The shrine itself is in the Lady Chapel. It is in the form of an altar tomb made about 1386 when a blind Ilam man, named Wilmot prayed to Bertram and recovered his sight. People still leave requests for prayers on the shrine. When I was there prayers of intercession among them people who had lost their faith, a sick relative and for a woman who had committed suicide from Birmingham were placed on the shrine.

Monarchy and Staffordshire-a 1000 year connection

Staffordshire’s connection with Royalty goes back over 1500 to the beginning of kingship in England. Saxon England before uniting under one Crown was divided into the petty kingdoms of Mercia, Northumberland and Wessex. Mercia was one of the most powerful states ruled by Offa who ruled from 757 to 796 over an area that included Staffordshire and Cheshire. His capital was Tamworth and such was his reputation that he was known as an able ruler throughout Europe. Offa minted his own currency and built the defensive system that kept the marauding Welsh at bay. The Staffordshire Hoard, some of which is exhibited in the City Museum in Hanley, dates from this time.

100 years after Offa’s time Staffordshire found itself on the front line following the invasion and settlement of Vikings. The northmen had established colonies to the North and East of the county. The great warrior Anglo-Saxon king Alfred beat the raiders armies and the torch of organising resistance passed to his formidable daughter Ethelfreda, one of the most capable women in English history. She took the fight to the Danes by building “burghs” or forts in Stafford and Derby. She pushed them back north and made peace with them in York in 918 where they recognised her supremacy.

The area did not take kindly to a new invader after 1066. Staffordshire rose in rebellion against William the Conqueror in 1069 and he came to Stafford to personally supervise the brutal repression of the uprising. Moorland communities suffered greatly and the chroniclers noted the punishment meted out to villages such as Longnor and the starving people.

Medieval Kings came to Staffordshire for two principal reasons en route to Wales and Chester to embark for Ireland of for pleasure to enjoy hunting. In the former category was one of the greatest Plantagenets the awesomely energetic Henry II who stayed in Chesterton in 1157 no doubt he will have seen the newly built castle in the town that took the name of the fortification. King John who gave Leek its market charter in 1207 liked the county for the chase and hunted in Kinver and Cannock Forests. There is no evidence to suggest that he visited the “Queen of the Moorlands”. Two inept monarchs who spent time in the county were Edward II who beat down a rebellion in a skirmish near Burton in 1322.Richard II who was lead a captive through the streets on Newcastle by his cousin the usurper Bolingbrook later to become Henry IV in 1399. Both men were later savagely murdered.

Staffordshire was involved at the beginning and the end of the Wars of the Roses. In 1459 at Bloreheath Queen Margaret of the mad Henry VI witnessed the route of his army by the Yorkists and fled Mucklestone Church as legend had it by getting a blacksmith to reverse her horseshoes to confuse any pursuers. In 1485 the army of the Welshman Henry Tudor passed through Staffordshire before meeting Richard III at Bosworth. The man who guaranteed Henry’s victory William Stanley lead his army through Newcastle drawing on retainers in Cheshire and Staffordshire legend has it that a knight from Rudyard, Ranulph killed Richard that fateful August date.

The Tudors rarely visited this part of the country one who did was Elizabeth who visited the county town in 1578. It was a very lavish affair and the Queen following representation from the town which was suffering a decline said that she would do all she could to protect the declining hat industry and ensure that a assize would be held in Stafford  “forever”. But the historical character of this period most closely associated with Staffordshire was the doomed Mary Stuart Queen of Scots who was held at two castles Tutbury and Chartley near Uttoxeter. The gaunt ruins still stand. It was from Chartley that Mary allowed herself to be drawn into the plot to assassinate her cousin Elizabeth. The coded messages from the plotters being passed in the false bottom of barrels of beer from Burton. As a consequence of her involvement in the conspiracy Mary was executed.

Elizabeth’s successor, son of Mary Stuart, James I it seems had little time for the county and is reputed to have damned the area as  “fit only to be cut into thongs to make highways for the rest of the country”. James was not in modern parlance a “hearts and minds” man and threatened to bare his backside once, impatient with displays at public adoration. Perhaps the feeling was mutual, as there was a strong Staffordshire connection in the “Gunpowder Plot”.

The county tended to side with Parliament in the Civil War the result of the stubbornness and vanity of the next monarch Charles I. After the king raised the standard to begin the war in 1642 in Nottingham travelling back through Uttoxeter. He seems to have been hated by many in the county. One battle was fought in the war at Hopton Heath near Stafford the following year. Two prominent men with strong Staffordshire connection determined Charles’s fate the judge at his trial in 1649 Bradshaw and the Newcastle born Thomas Harrison who signed the death warrant. Harrison suffered a gruesome fate on the restoration to the throne of Charles’s son Charles II. Harrison was butchered one January day in 1661.

Charles II had knowledge of Staffordshire as a consequence of fleeing the Battle of Worcester in 1651. He spent a few weeks on the run from parliamentary forces some of the time spent squeezing his over 6-foot frame in an oak at Boscobel. Royalists used to celebrate oak apple day in late May to commemorate Charles return to the throne. Charles recalled this event up to his dying day in 1685. He asked the Staffordshire priest from Boscobel, Huddlestone to convert him to Roman Catholicism.

Religion played a key role in the fate of monarch throughout the 17th and 18th century. The Protestant belief of George I ensured the success of the Germans from Hanover who replaced the Stuarts after 1714. The pottery from the developing industrial areas in North Staffs proclaimed the succession. But it was under threat and the area witnessed the final act in the religious struggles that had dogged the country for two hundred years. Charles Edward Stuart more popularly known as “Bonnie Prince Charlie” intended capturing the throne for his family and Roman Catholic faith. Initially he was successful and following his coronation in Edinburgh as Charles III marched south on a whirlwind campaign as cities and towns such as Lancaster, Manchester and Stockport fell to his Highland army. On December 3rd 1745 the battle hardened Scots arrived in Leek. Terrified townspeople cowered as the rebel army went on the rampage. After several hours they left to march towards Derby where realising the game was up as an army led by King George’s son William, Duke of Cumberland advanced to Stone. Realising that they risked being cut off from home they retreated. Cumberland’s forces arrived in Leek pursuing the Scots and were treated as liberators. Charlie and his army met their nemesis at the Battle of Culloden near Inverness in April 1746.

The focus shifts to a country experiencing the Industrial Revolution. Royal sons of George III spent three days in September 1806 staying at Trentham Hall visiting the new factories of Spode and Wedgwood. George Prince Regent and William Duke of Clarence were somewhat dissolute individuals obsessed with drink, women and gambling. In fact the more prudish non-conformists sorts of the district refused to meet the debauched pair. Mr Spode and Mr Wedgwood had fewer qualms. Prince Regent whilst at Etruria was interested in a modern piece of technology- a steam engine. They moved on a day later to Longport to inspect the Kinnersley Glass works. The appreciative locals were plied with free drink again annoying the Methodists. The two succeeded to the crown as George IV followed after his death in 1830 by Clarence who became William IV.


Victoria through her lone reign did not visit the North of the County. There is a story that as a child, in company with her mother the Duchess of Kent, she passed through Leek. She stayed at her Prime Minister Robert Peel house at Drayton in the 1840s and following his death unveiled an equestrian statute of beloved Albert in Wolverhampton in 1867.

It was once said that we have had three wastrel monarchs on the British throne Charles II, George IV and Edward VII. Charles had an interest in science, George in the arts and architecture whilst Edward was a good shot. History has not been kind to Victoria’s eldest son who was described by Rudyard Kipling as a “corpulent voluptuary” which probably explains why he never got a peerage. In between the strenuous round of country weekends games of baccarat and womanising Edward as Prince of Wales did visit Stoke taking time to open the Sutherland Institute in Longton in 1877.

His son’s reign was an eventful one. George V became King on the eve of the First World War. The model of kingship he took differed greatly from his father; George aimed for bourgeoisie respectability. He and his wife Queen Mary visited North Staffordshire frequently. In 1900 as the Duke of York he opened Leek Technical School. And two years after his Coronation he visited North Staffordshire on a two day visit in Appril 1913. He visited major pottery manufacturers in Stoke including an exhibition at the Kings Hall. But it was the visit he made in 1925 when he conferred City status on Stoke, which was the most profound. The visit was an eventful one with visits to lay a foundation stone at the Infirmary and a civic luncheon at the Town Hall.

Zeppelin Raids over North Staffs 1916

I came across two accounts of Zeppelin raids over North Staffordshire, which are fully described in a newspaper account of late 1918. The Zeppelin was the brainchild of Count Ferdinard Zeppelin a German army officer who began developing his ideas on airships in 1897. The first Zeppelin flew on 2nd July 1900. The LZ-3 Zeppelin was accepted into army service in March 1909. By the start of the First World War the German Army had seven military Zeppelins.

The Zeppelin developed in 1914 could reach a maximum speed of 136 kph and reach a height of 4,250 metres. The Zeppelin had five machine-guns and could carry 2,000 kg (4,400 lbs) of bombs.

In January 1915, two Zeppelin navel airships 190 metres long, flew over the east coast of England and bombed great Yarmouth and King's Lynn. The first Zeppelin raid on London took place on 31st May 1915. The raid killed 28 people and injured 60 more.

The two raids over North Staffordshire occurred on January 31st 1916 and on the night of the 27th/28th November 1918.

On the first occasion North Staffs the district escaped without damage or injuries. On the second occasion 21 bombs were dropped and exploded as well as several duds. The damage was small and one person was injured.

January 31st 1916

The area was taken completely by surprise by the first raid. Few people thought that the airship could reach into the north or the Midlands. Lighting restrictions were not in force and the whole area including the steelworks at Etruria was a blaze of light, hidden by a slight ground mist. A number of airships reached the Midlands. One was over Walsall at 20.10 and another attacked Burton at 20.30. A zeppelin came up from the south and was seen over Trentham. It was attracted by the lights of the steelworks and dropped 6 bombs in rapid succession. (It was probably the one that my grandmother saw who was living in Ashford Street, Shelton in 1916). All the bombs fell on refuse heaps between the works and a colliery entrance. It made craters but did not cause any material damage. Thereafter the course of the Zeppelin is not known. It was heard in Hanley over Wolstanton and Madeley and then passed over the area. Other towns in Staffordshire suffered damage that night. Walsall was twice raised. The Wednesbury Congregational Chapel was completely damaged. Wednesbury, Tipton and Burton were also heavily attacked and the number of deaths in these towns was 12.13 and 14 receptively. At Burton a bomb fell on a mission hut killing the wife of the preacher as well as 4 members of the congregation.

November 27th-28th 1916

Monday the 27th November was a clear and dry night. At 10.45 a warning was received. The whole district was blacked out and air raid precautions were taken. Doctors and Red Cross Nurses were sent to their allocated stations. The Regular and Special police were in readiness for any emergency and the Fire Brigade wee on stand by. Information was received that the Zeppelin was seen coming from the direction of Biddulph and making for Kidsgrove, Goldenhill and Tunstall

A local gave an account of the raid

“I had been burning the mid night oil unaware of the air raid warning had been given, and had just reached my bedroom at a few minutes to One o’clock when I heard a deep, rumbling long sustained explosion. I concluded that a serious colliery explosion had happened, and I had gone to the next bedroom to see if anyone else had heard it when two more detonations occurred- shorter and sharper than the first. Obviously an air raid was occurring. After a brief interval another explosion ripped through the night- still nearer and accompanied by a rending sound. A few seconds and a series of two or three followed in such quick succession as almost to suggest machine gum fire except the firing I heard was of the heavy stuff

Then from the window I could see distant flashes – over in the direction of Chesterton- and every sound was following by a grinding and rending detonation. So the infernal artillery continued to half past one, when the Zeppelin, obviously coming closer to my point of vantage, dropped a bomb that shook every brick and window in the house. Yet the explosion was half a mile away. That was the last and saw of the raider. I counted 21 explosions.”

Bombardment of Tunstall

The first bomb fell on a spoil heap near the Birchenwood Colliery Kidsgrove: it did no damage. The second and third exploded on slag heaps not far from Goldendale Iron works. The third fell in a working class area of Tunstall in a working class district and there was done the main damage of the raid.

The bomb buried itself into soft ground forming the backyard of 6 Sun Street making a crater six feet deep and 7 to 8 yards wide sweeping away the sculleries and out houses of 2,4,6,8 Sun St wrecking those dwelling houses and doing damage more or less severe to many other houses in the locality as well as the Roman Catholic Church nearby. At Number 8 which was occupied by Mr and Mrs Cantliffe and their two children. Mr Cantliffe had just returned from work as a local pit and with his wife was having supper. He was hit in the chest and injured by flying fragments. His wife was uninjured, as were the other occupants of the house who were asleep at the time. The man was taken to the North Staffs Infirmary for treatment for a chest wound and he recovered quickly.

The doors and windows of nearby houses were torn from their framework and splintered windows were shattered and furniture was reduced to matchwood. There were fifteen houses in this row and all were considerably damaged. Back to Back with this row were another houses with their frontage in Bond St; and they suffered considerably, most of the windows were smashed and some having frameworks torn out. Masonry fell on the roofs of houses for some distance. The roof of the Roman Catholic Church was damaged by falling fragments, and the windows were blown out. At the Royal Albert Pottery many windows were damaged. After the explosion of bomb many of the people of the area were out in their night attire, and ready help was given to the people whose homes had been wrecked. Next day the Sun Street area of Tunstall presented a devastated aspect and for days afterwards became a spectacle for the curious.

Chesterton District

From Tunstall the Zeppelins made across Bradwell Woods for Chesterton wee the burning mine hearths in the collieries attracted the raider and gave the enemy the impression of more important targets than mere heaps of ironstones in the process of calcimining. At any rate the airship heavily bombed and the explosions were heavily and numerous. Apart from an old shed, which collapsed from the concussion and a big crater formed in the mine works and on the ground not a scrap of damage. This bombardment was particularly futile. One of the last bombs fell behind Bradwell Lane in Wolstanton and the force of the explosion was felt with great intensity.

For some time the raider circled around and many residents saw the airship. Eventually the airship turned south east and was sighted over Blurton coming over Hartshill at 01.35 leaving the area shortly afterwards

Beside 21 bombs that exploded there was an array of duds. Several were discovered in the Chesterton. And two unexploded bombs at the entrance of the Stafford Coal and Iron works at Sideway and one at Fenton Hall. Both had harmlessly dug in.

The airship responsible for the raid was the LZ61

The LZ 61 took part in a total of ten raids on England during 1916. These included:
January 31

It was ordered to attack Liverpool, but problems with night navigation meant that instead it bombed Tipton, Bradley, Wednesbury, and Walsall: killing over 30 people - including Julia Slater, Walsall's Lady Mayoress.

April 1
It attacked Cleethorpes, dropping several bombs on the town just after midnight. One of which landed on the Alexandra Road Baptist Chapel, killing 31 soldiers of the 3rd Battalion the Manchester Regiment, who were billeted there One of the only British Army units to be directly engaged by enemy action on British soil during World War I.

September 2

It took part in the largest airship attack of the war with 13 other Naval airships and also four Army airships - 16 in total. During this raid the crew of the LZ 61 witnessed the downing of the SL 11, the first airship to be shot down over the British mainland.

September 25–26

It was unable to find its designated targets of Derby and Nottingham, and instead attacked Bolton, Lump, Rawtenstall, Ewood Bridge, Stonefold, Haslingden, Helmshore, Rossendale, Ramsbottom and Holcomb.


On November 27, 1916 LZ 61 began its last raid on England in the company of nine other Zeppelins. Crossing the coast north of Atwick, LZ 61 initially attacked Leeds but was repelled by anti-aircraft fire.

After bombing Sharton, Dodworth, Kidsgrove, Goldenhill, Tunstall, Chesterton, Fenton and Trentham it made out into the North Sea near Great Yarmouth. It was intercepted by three RNAS pilots: Flight Sub–Lieutenant Edward Laston Pulling; Flight–Lieutenant Egbert Cadbury; and Flight Sub–Lieutenant Gerard William Reginald Fane flying B.E. 2C aircraft. After exchanging fire with the three aircraft the LZ 61 burst into flames and crashed into the sea about eight miles (13 km) east of Lowestoft. Kurt Frankenburg commanded the Zeppelin. He and the 16 other members of the craft did not survive.