Accidents

I took part in a trade union health and safety course recently. The lecturer made the point about how many lives had been saved by the implementation of the legislation since 1974. It made me think of my own ancestors who had died in accidents at work such as Thomas Sherwin killed in an explosion at the pit at Wetley Moor in 1841. I considered when the view was taken that accidents ceased being the result of Acts of God and began to be seen as a consequence of organisational failure. Of course some attitudes persist. Witness the recent remarks of the Nigerian Aviation Minister who blamed a series of plane crashes on God’s displeasure.

By the 17^th century for the first time statistical evidence began to be collated on the causes of death. The “Bills of Mortality” for London in 1647 give a death rate of unintended as 2.1 per 100,000. For reference, the rate in Britain was 53.6 per 100,000 in the 19^th century. Today it is 0.6. As the Industrial Revolution took hold, accident rates soared with the introduction of unguarded machinery in confined spaces as well as in mining. The state then began to collect data on a more systematic basis and legislated accordingly. The first Factory Acts were passed in the 1840s and inspectors appointed to ensure that laws were enforced. It is difficult to find any suggestion that industrial accidents were caused by divine displeasure, most sought human failing as a reason.

I found in the Oxford Journal of 21^st December 1779 a report of a “shocking” accident when “Mr Cooper’s London Waggon from Manchester being left to the care of a boy about 4 miles from Leek when coming to descending ground and the boy not able to stop the horses to lock the wheels the wagon ran down the bridge and there overturned into the river; whereby Serjeant Adkin, his wife( who was pregnant and near delivery) and a little girl of his; all Passengers therein, were instantly all crushed to death; one Horse was killed, and others much hurt, the Waggon broke to pieces”.

A later comment suggested that the boy driver was too young for that level of responsibility.

The accident probably happened on the border of Staffordshire and Cheshire beside the River Dane on the A523.  The road to Macclesfield had been improved and turnpiked in 1762 although the route was later changed by a later road.

The London Waggon was a large cart with benches inside and covered by canvas. It was drawn by 8 horses with the Waggoner walking beside them travelling at 2 miles an hour .It would have taken several days to cover the 200 miles from Manchester to London. The Waggon was an inexpensive form of transport, about half the cost of a stage coach. Travellers could take as much luggage as the vehicle would hold and the horses could draw. The ride was a very uncomfortable and slow experience.

An advert from two years earlier recorded

'This is to acquaint all Gentlemen, Tradesmen, and Others, that Mat. Pickford's Flying Waggons to London Via Leek, Derby, etc in Six days Set out from the Saracen's Head, in Market Street Lane, Manchester, every Wednesday, at Six o'clock in the Evening, and arrive at the Swan Inn, Lad Lane, London, the Tuesday noon following”

Frank Randle

Barney Smith, the landlord of the Black Swan in Leek, produced a series of articles reminiscing about his time as a theatrical agent in Manchester in the years immediately after the Second World War. The articles appeared in the Post and Times in early 1975 and are a roll call of post war entertainers that Barney knew. I was interested in his relationship with the legendary North Country comedian Frank Randle. In the late 40s Barney was managing  the Plaza Ballroom in Manchester and got to knew him through some of the people involved in the revue “Randle's Scandals and through this link found himself one day in 1949 on the set of Randle’s latest film “Somewhere in Politics”. Randle used the studios of Mancunian Films based in an old chapel in Rusholme- it was later used by the BBC for “Top of the Pops”, Mancunian Films were an independent film company which made very popular comic films which for a time ranked in popularity with Hollywood. Stars like Frank Randle, Jimmy James and Norman Evans worked there and it was a world into which Barney was drawn.

But first a word about Frank Randle who in 1949 was at the top of his game and easily the most popular comedian in the north. He knew his audience and rightly thought that his act would not fit well with London audiences. By the same token the Brighton based Comedian Max Miller did not do well north of Watford. Randle was difficult man. Born in 1901 in Wigan Randle in many ways was the antithesis of fellow Wiganer George Formby whilst Formby was cuddly and innocuous, Randle was abrasive and rude, but still his audience loved him and he sold out his summer shows in Blackpool.

 A combination of paranoid personality, alcohol misuse and possession of a Luger pistol made him a dangerous person to fall out with. Following a conviction for obscenity he hired a light aircraft to bomb Blackpool with toilet rolls after falling out with the puritanical Chief Constable of the town.  And if heckled, would hurl his false teeth at the offending miscreant. He would often not turn up for a venue usually being drunk and incapable. My Mother tried to see Randle who should have been appearing in Southport in 1940, but didn’t as he was sleeping it off somewhere. She did get her money back.

Barney Smith was present at a script reading at the studio while “Somewhere in Politics” was being made. One of the cast members  Tessie O’Shea encouraged him to try his luck in the film and he appeared in a minor role as a hotel manager. Also present was the Irish singer and Randle’s drinking partner Joseph Locke.

 Barney Smith’s other brush with British comedy history is that he was present when Jimmy Jewell received a letter from his long term partner straight man Ben Warris in a Manchester hotel in 1966 informing Jewell of the end of their 40 year partnership.

Being on Mastermind

The BBC kindly arranged for me to stay in the Palace Hotel in Oxford Rd the night before my appearance as a semi-finalist on Mastermind.

I had been in it once, but had not realised what a carGeorge Washingvernous building it was. I felt uncomfortable especially at meal time and was put off by the richness of the place beside I was on a budget and I knew that the BBC would cover my expenses but thought that I would practice frugality instead and had a steak sandwich in the “Cornerhouse” over the road. The Cornerhouse were holding a quiz that night as well and devilish hard it was. An example of the questions being what links the 1st,3rd,16th and 26th American Presidents. I knew that the 1st and 3rd were Washington and Jefferson and I guessed that the 16th was Lincoln, but the 26th? My hunch that it was William McKinley and the answer was that they had all mountains named after them. I was one out and the 26th was Theodore Roosevelt. The answer was that they were all carved at Mount Rushmore. Suitably chastened I went back to the hotel.

The hotel was opulent and very large and as I told the producer the following day my unease might have something to do with seeing a clip of “The Shining” . A customer had come into the supermarket with a “Here’s Johnny” tee shirt although curiously he had not seen the film and my comment that ” he had always been the caretaker” when I made the comment. I half expected to see an effusion of blood come seeping out of the lifts as well as the caretaker comment when I walked back through the rain.

Nevertheless, I slept well and breakfasted and managed to have a last lingering look at my notes on Thomas Paine before walking to the Granada studios in Quay St.

Why choose Thomas Paine the 18th century political writer? Well its a very rich life and as the man said involvement in two revolutions- the American and the French- is living life to some purpose. As I said during the interview that will be screened when the quiz is shown I think that Paine has something to say about society today. the relationship between the governing class and the governed, the role of the church, what do we do wiith the poor, popular sovereignty and the defence of minority rights are all in Paine’s writing way before they had entered the political mainstream. I also am fascinated by the man because of his lowly origins and the action that he packed into his life. He was a soldier in the American revolutionary war, a member of the French convention and the author of the “Rights of Man” only beaten by the Bible as the most sold book in English. And above all on most of the issues of his day he was right. I felt that more people should know about Thomas Paine and Mastermind was a good vehicle.

I managed to ring my daughter before I set out and put the little talisman in my pocket before setting out.

My walk took my past the Grapes pub. I found the pub that we sat in in late 1977 as part of a York University Challenge team that had been hollow in the rehearsals by Merton College, Oxford. We decided that we might as well have a few beers before transmission and the beer served to loosen us up and we then went on to beat Merton and a number of the Oxbridge colleges before loosing to Magdalene Cambridge in the semi finals. In 1977 I seemed to remember the pub was something of a dive with women’s underwear adorning the walls. It looked a little more upmarket now.

In the Green Room I met the other contestants. A Bloke from Buckinghamshire taking a crime novelist I had never heard off, someone from Nottingham doing “the TV series ” Our Friends in the North”, a Welsh guy answering questions on Glamorgan Cricket Club and finally some light to be shed on the Dark Ages by a chap from Sale. They all seemed to be decent blokes, unlike my previous appearance where I was on the on the same team as a supercilious Deputy Head Teacher from a private school from Buckinghamshire. The others in the previous round were from the South although the young lad from Reading was nice enough. We had a conversation about Dave Kitson.

We went to make up and the dressing room. I had selected a green shirt and black trousers. One was dressed in a yellow shirt, one in purple, another in red and finally a bloke in light blue. We were, I remarked, the Rainbow coalition.

In the Green room before I went on I found out that the man from High Wycombe had won his round answering questions on Mott the Hoople. we had a discussion on bands we had seen and I remarked that I had seen Mott the Hoople on the ill fated Rock and Roll Circus gig of 1972 in the Victoria Hall. Max Wall was on the bill and got booed off. The chap from Nottingham joined in who had a grandfather who was born at the Chell workhouse. he said that the most oddest gig that he had ever seen was a double bill of Jimi Hendrix and Englebert Humperdinck!

We were miked up and one of them mentioned Robert Maxwell as the guy was another Reading supporter. I said that the night that Maxwell fell off his boat that Gerald Kaufman was asked about Maxwell’s frame of mind on Channel 4 news. Kaufman replied that he seemed buoyant. We all laughed at that one.

We sat in our chairs as John Humphrys arrived and shortly afterwards Ted Robbins the warm up act. Humphries had said that they had just filmed a celebrity Mastermind for Christmas and that some soap star had been asked a question on what breakfast cereal do you associate with prison assuming that the guy would know the answer was porridge. Cheerios he answered. Humphreys did not know whether he was being ironic or thick. he was scathing about some of the politicians who had been on such as Blunkett who scored very low and David Lammy whose answer to who discovered radium was Marie Antoinette and more strangely still who succeeded Henry VIII answered Henry VII. Thereby getting both his history and maths wrong. Lammy was the Minister for Higher Education.

The lights darkened, the ominous music began and I am in the black chair facing the man.

Bill Cawley from Leek

Supermarket cashier

Answering questions on the Life and works of Thomas Paine

19th century Jewish Settlement in North Staffordshire

The change of use of the Hanley Synagogue in Birch Terrace to a dance studio made me look into the archives to explore the early Jewish settlement into the area. I came across a very full article in the Sentinel dating from the early 1880s entitled “ Jews in North Staffordshire” written by an unknown correspondent. The writer informs the reader that after Jews were arrived back into the country in the 17th century after being excluded during the Middle Ages some began to move into the new industrial areas looking for commercial opportunities. 

The first Jew came to Newcastle under Lyme in around the 1790s from Dublin Abraham Francks an optician. The legend is that Francks arriving at Liverpool and took a coach to Newcastle in the mistaken belief that he was in Geordie land. He quickly became aware of his error the following day when he asked in the town of the way to the docks. It is a good story but probably not true. The Francks family were well known for making optical equipment which was sometimes made for scientific institutions and had been established in Manchester since the 1760s. Abraham's father Isaac lived in Manchester having moved to England from Holland the decade before. The Francks also had business interest in Dublin which might be where the Irish connection might come in. Abraham settled in Newcastle and established in the town. He lived in Hick Street and welcomed any visiting Jews to his home setting out his residence as a place of worship. He lived to a great age dying in 1848 surrounded by his large family.

The first Jew to arrive in the Potteries, the article goes on to say, was George Myers who lived in Shelton in the 1840s. It was his intention to establish a Synagogue in the Potteries an ambition he failed to realise, After his time Joseph Solomon of Hanley was instrumental in establishing a temporary place of worship in Foundary Street before a concerted fund raising attempt by the Solomon and Falk families in 1873 led to the purchase of a former Welsh Chapel in Hanover Street  for £700 aided with a contribution of £50 from leading Christians in the community. A school was established on the premises where children of the 200 strong community could be instructed in Hebrew.

The Jewish Chronicle of 24th September 1875 reported 

“The new Synagogue at Hanley was consecrated yesterday (Tuesday). The usual dedicatory service was held. The Rev. Prof. D. M. Isaacs, of Manchester, officiated and delivered a sermon. As we have before mentioned, the synagogue has been completed about twelve months since but it was decided to open the building free of debt. In this the executive have not succeeded. It is a small neatly fitted building of unpretentious architectural features. It will accommodate about 100 person on the ground area and about 40 in the ladies gallery. There is a spacious school-room adjoining and a residence for the minister. The congregation is much indebted to Mr. Phillip Falk, who kindly undertook all the arrangements as to the purchase of the building and otherwise lent a helping hand to the young community. Hanley is a thriving place situated in the Potteries district. It would afford scope to Jews of the industrial class who are energetic’.

The strange death of Manuel de Silveria Leek 1836

Manuel Egido da Silveria of Rio da Janeiro disembarked from the Manchester coach a matter of minutes before his death. Mr Brunt the silk manufacturer was worried. The foreign looking gentleman who climbed out of the Manchester coach looked very agitated. It was midday on Tuesday the 7^th October 1836 and the mail coach had arrived promptly outside the Red Lion in the Market Square. The arrival and the departure of the mail coach were always noted with interest. Mr Brunt and Mr Alcock, the ostler, returned to the Red Lion and climbed the stairs to an upper room. At the top of the stairs they met Miss James, the niece of Mr Barlow the landlord, and a serving girl Agnes Hambleton having heard what had sounded like a gunshot. The two men entered the room, which was full of smoke and smelt of gunpowder. In a corner of the room was a toilet, which had been locked from the inside. They tried to force the door. They eventually got it open and lying on the toilet floor was the foreign looking gentleman with a pistol in his right hand. Mr Robins a local doctor was called for but it was obvious that the man was beyond hope. He had shot himself in the right ear and blood and brain matter oozed out of large hole in the left side of his head. They laid him on the bed in the room but he died a few moments later without uttering a single  word.

Who was Manuel da Silveria the name of the man who lay dead on a bed in the Red Lion? He was Brazilian and a man of some importance. He was described in the coroner’s report published in the Macclesfield Courier on the 15^th October 1836 as being a person who held a commission for the newly independent Brazilian Government for the West African country of Sierra Leone. In other words, Manuel Da Silveria was probably a person of some influence and connections; certainly the name had a long connection with Africa and Portuguese influence. A Silveria was canonised by the Catholic Church following his murder by Muslim Slave Traders in Africa in the 16^th century. Several of that name crop up as colonialists running areas of Asia and Africa for the Portuguese Crown in times past. The Brazil that Da Silveria would have known would have been in a state of turmoil during the 1820s and 30s as it sort to free itself of Portuguese rule to eventually proclaim in 1822 the first Brazilian Emperor Pedro 1^st to rule an extremely large empire. The Emperor proved autocratic and after an uprising fled to Britain.

One subject that would have linked Brazil and West Africa where Da Silveria worked would have been slavery. The Portuguese had began to take slaves from West Africa in the late 15th century and slaves were forcibly taken in their millions over the next 300 years to North and South America. By the early 19^th century a country like Sierra Leone, by then a British possession, would have been in the front line in the attempt by the British to drive slave trading out of the continent. During the period that Da Silveria worked there the British launched military expeditions against slave owning chiefs. Perhaps he was ensuring Brazil’s interests, still slave based, were defended? It took Brazil several years to take the decision to abolish slavery and then only after considerable British pressure.

A clue about the wealth of Da Silveria emerged at the inquest when reference was made to him living at a London address and also a Liverpool one. The London address of Portland Place would have been very fashionable in 1836 as the Adam brothers designed the houses only a few decades before. In the case of the Liverpool address the area around Great Charlotte St was rapidly being developed in Liverpool, a city that had very strong slavery associations.

At the inquest a local doctor, Dr Robins, reported examination of the corpse revealed that the bullet had entered the head of Da Silveria through the right lobe of the ear and had travelled upward causing an inch long exit wound. Mention is also made of an old injury on the back of the head, which he had complained about to Henry Numes, a personal friend of Da Silveria and lived in Liverpool. The doctor also suggested that the dead man’s liver showed signs of damage.

Numes gave a vital clue at the inquest, which confirms Da Silveria involvement in West Africa. He said that Da Silveria had moved to Liverpool only 4 months before he shot himself in Leek. He was on long-term sick leave from the Brazilian Government after falling ill with a fever in West Africa. He told the coroner that his friend was of a depressed state of mind as a consequence of his work in Sierra Leone.

Another possible reason for the action taken by De Silveria was that he was under investigation by the authorities and the police accused of a massive fraud against the Brazilian Government. In fact the Consul General for the Brazilian Government and a man called Ruthven a detective hired by him attended the inquest. The matter led to a great deal of interest in the town with over 200 trying to attend the inquest in the Red Lion