Archive

Posts from November 2014


  • 26th November 2014
Treasures from Worcestershire’s Past: ~50~ Hand to hand with ancient Worcestershire

This week’s Worcestershire Treasure has been chosen by the Archive & Archaeology Service Manager, Victoria Bryant. The artefact Victoria has chosen is a lower Palaeolithic ‘handaxe’, discovered in a field near Madresfield. It was produced by a species of human ancestor named Homo Heidelbergensis during one of the warm ‘interglacial’ periods within the last Ice...

  • 19th November 2014
West Mercia Police records to be catalogued thanks to National Cataloguing Grant success

We are delighted to announce that Worcestershire Archives are one of the lucky repositories to be awarded funding from the 2014 round of the National Cataloguing Grant programme. Each year the Cataloguing Grants Programme supports the cataloguing of collections that need external funding to provide access to their content. The 2014 round received applications for over £1.8...

  • 15th November 2014
Treasures from Worcestershire’s Past: ~49~ A letter from Ceylon

This week’s Treasure is a letter from the Bantock archive, which has been chosen by Lesley Downing, Archive Assistant. This item shows just how far afield the remit of records from Worcestershire Archives can stretch as the letter was sent from Ceylon (modern day Sri Lanka). Although the opinions of the unknown author of this letter may be...

  • 15th November 2014
Explore Your Archive: The End of the Dandy Row Tale…

After Thomas Boyce died in 1920, Dandy Row, Pleasant Row and three houses in Chestnut Street were left to his son Rowland. In July 1936 it was proposed that the city council purchase Dandy Row, Pleasant Row and the land between from Rowland O’Hara Boyce for the purposes of widening Severn Street. Demolition orders had...

  • 14th November 2014
Explore Your Archive: No. 2 Dandy Row

At No. 2 Dandy Row, lived Nathaniel Wale and his wife Ellen. Nathaniel married Ellen Morgan in 1870 and the newlyweds moved into their home in Severn Street where in early 1871 their first child Ellen Maria was born. Sadly, their baby daughter died the following year, but they had five further children: Anne Marie...

  • 13th November 2014
Explore Your Archive: 4 Dandy Row

The Webb Family who lived at no 4 were one of the many fishing families that lived in the area. Isaac Webb baptised in 1790 was the founder of this fishing dynasty. He was an apprentice fisherman. He completed his apprenticeship and received his freedom of the City in 1812. He married and had 11...

  • 12th November 2014
Explore Your Archive: 5 Dandy Row

John Baylis was born around 1868. His father Samuel Baylis is also a previous resident of Dandy Row. John and his wife Susan (who died in 1908) had five children, Sidney, Gertrude, Edith, Arthur and Bertram. For many years John worked at Worcester Porcelain as a china printer, although in some sources he has also...

  • 11th November 2014
Explore Your Archive: 7 Dandy Row

Fanny Martin and her only child Henry William came to live at Dandy Row after her husband William died in 1891. Henry William Martin was born in 1887, and we have found that he attended St Peter’s School.  Worcestershire Archive and Archaeology Service, ref: b899:749, BA9294/49(iii) Henry Martin died, aged 30, on 15th September 1917...