Hagley Historical and Field Society

Our next meeting is on Tuesday 4th October. There will be a presentation by Mary Bodfish entitled ‘Made in Smethwick’. Smethwick has a surprisingly rich and varied history and she will describe how a mere Anglo-Saxon hamlet became a Victorian boom-town producing many products which have become household names. Mary is a member and current chairman of Smethwick Local History Society. She has taught local history research and palaeography for the University of Birmingham’s School of Continuing Studies.

Commences 8pm at St Saviour’s Church Hall, DY9 0NS. Visitors are most welcome at all our events – see Home page for details.  Annual membership £10

In recent times it has become popular to research family history. The Internet has made it much easier to access the census returns taken every 10 years and which are one of the vital genealogical resources now available online. Probably the most popular website is Ancestry.com (there are others) but there is normally a charge made for using it on your home computer. Luckily, you can use it for free at Hagley Library by arrangement and also get some friendly advice on how to start.

The first census taken in 1801 will be of little use as it only contains simple headcounts for each locality. It was primarily conducted in response to the threat of Napoleonic invasion to ascertain how many potential men would be available for conscription. In the Hagley Parish archives we still have the original summons requesting the Constable of Hagley to present himself in Stourbridge to record the Hagley count. From 1841 and onwards the names of everyone in each household was recorded. Now is the time to quiz your family elders for their full names, dates of birth and places of birth before starting your research and perhaps record their anecdotes of childhood.

Our next meeting is on Tuesday 4th October. There will be a presentation by Mary Bodfish entitled ‘Made in Smethwick’. Smethwick has a surprisingly rich and varied history and she will describe how a mere Anglo-Saxon hamlet became a Victorian boom-town producing many products which have become household names. Mary is a member and current chairman of Smethwick Local History Society. She has taught local history research and palaeography for the University of Birmingham’s School of Continuing Studies.

Visitors are most welcome at all our events – see home page for details and contacts.

The book “Hagley Miscellanea” by John-Homery Folkes, the architect of St.Saviour’s Hall, was first published in 1974. It was for private circulation and only 25 copies were printed. Forty years later it is considered sufficiently interesting to merit this reprint. The author (born 1906) has gathered a wide range of reminiscences that together give a picture of Hagley’s inhabitants, houses, industries, celebrations and entertainments in the century and more before the explosion of house-building in the 1960s.

The book includes: the early days of the railway station; the building of St. Saviour’s church and planning the cemetery; houses large and small; an attempt at encroachment in Church Street; the Rifle Corps and the Range; the nursemaid question!; Hagley celebrities; the Sunday postal delivery and church attendance and an eyewitness account of the fire at Hagley Hall on Christmas Eve 1925. The “Illustrations” section includes the programme for the Coronation Celebration of June 1911.

The book is priced at £5 and can be purchased from Happy Families or can be ordered online from Hagley History and Field Society.

The Society has now launched a new book entitled ‘Hagley: A Village at War 1914 – 1918’, researched and written by local author and member, Pat Dunn. It is based on the ‘Hagley Parish Magazines’ of the period and describes how the people of Hagley dealt with the problems presented by the Great War on the Home Front. The people and places featured on the front cover of June’s issue of the Hagley Village News feature in the book along with many others.

The book is priced at £4 and can be purchased at the Hagley Library or ordered online. Click on the book cover below to view the first few pages.

Our next meeting is on Tuesday 1^st November. There will be a presentation by Sandy Cale entitled ‘Elegant Georgian Worcester’. Sandy has been a Worcester Walks Green Badge Guide since 2000 and she will give us a pictorial guided walk through Worcester in Georgian times, dressed in period costume. Despite the ravages of post war town planning, Worcester still retains many magnificent Georgian buildings and frontages.

Commences 8pm at St Saviour’s Church Hall, DY9 0NS. Visitors are most welcome at all our events – see Home page for details.  Annual membership £10