Hagley Historical and Field Society

Our next meeting at St Saviour’s Church Hall is on Tuesday 4th September 2017 at 8.00pm. Kate Round will give a presentation entitled “Stourbridge Glassmakers – on the Move”.

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

The May meeting was our annual social night and 66 members and guests enjoyed a variety of wines, cheeses, patés and salads. This was followed by an illustrated presentation by member Eric Greenwood, entitled ‘A Voyage Around My Grandfather – A Chauffeur’s Tale’. Eric’s Grandfather was chauffeur to a Northern industrialist in the early part of the 20th century when ownership of cars was still the privilege of the few. He still has an original paper licence belonging to his grandfather which at the time of issue had to be renewed each year upon payment of five shillings. No driving test was required but the maximum speed was restricted to 20 mph. This was really motoring as prior to the ‘Locomotives on Highways Act, 1896’ the speed limit was 4 mph in rural areas and 2 mph in towns. Still quicker to walk!

Our next meeting at St Saviour’s Church Hall is on Tuesday 4th July 2017 at 8.00pm. Gay Hill will give a presentation entitled “100 Years of Electoral Reform in the West Midlands”. It is just over 100 years since the visit of influential suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst to Kidderminster to speak at the Corn Exchange in the town hall. She was campaigning for the vote to be given not only to the middle class but also extended to the working class. As you read this we will have just had a General Election and whatever the outcome it is a salutary thought that prior to electoral reform most of us would have taken no part in it. Visitors are most welcome at all our events – see home page for details and contacts.

The idea for this new publication was originally developed by the late Dr Peter Bloore, who lived in Middlefield Lane. He was a member of Hagley Historical and Field Society and also Hagley Parish Archivist. His widow offered the file to the Archive Group and they decided that they would continue his research and aim at publishing a summary of his work plus contributions from people, who lived or had lived in the Lane or had first hand knowledge of the residents. The results are now available as an illustrated book of fifty-two pages.

Middlefield Lane front

Middlefield Lane back

The book is priced at £4 and can be purchased from Happy Families or can be ordered online from Hagley History and Field Society.

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.