mis 17 Hartshill Church, built by Harbert Minton, 1842 the Consecration

Probably the most significant thing for the immediate post war years was rationing and little money. For families it must have been especially hard for mothers and hardships continued as for a decade following 1945. What is more surprising they are all within a person’s lifetime and have no relationship to present-day austerity.

As children we only had new clothes at Eastertime and these were purchased from the Co-op Emporium in Liverpool Road, Stoke, with the ‘divvy’ mother received on what we had spent at the co-op over the year. I was totally fascinated by the overhead wires carrying the Dart Cash Carriers from every corner of the store to a central elevated cashier’s desk.

Just a short part of an interesting view of life in the early 1950s. 2 pages

One of the highlights was when our landlord Mr. Bourne decided it was time to replace the ducket lavatory with actual clean fresh flushing one. The whole yard was dug-up for a water supply from the kitchen. I could not believe it; it was flushed with clean water you could drink – such wonders of the world I thought. But having water laid on brought a whole new set of problems in the winter months with freezing. Old rags were used as lagging to wrap around the pipe, but this was not sufficient. So, in addition a paraffin lamp had to be secured and placed by the pipe to keep the water from freezing ultimately leading to a burst-pipe and possibly no water for weeks.

My guess is that few in the city are aware that Hanley Town Hall has become redundant because of council services being amalgamated with better use of council stock. This prominent Hanley building became a town hall in 1886, prior to which it was the prestigious Queens Hotel. Sadly, for a combination of reasons its life as a hotel extended just less than twenty years, but no one has over the last one hundred and forty odd years explored its demise, and yet its short life is full of intrigue and wonder as to why the most attractive building in North Staffordshire closed its doors.

The need for such a hotel came about because from the late 18^th century, the combined townships of Hanley and Shelton were rapidly expanding with Hanley as the central town of the six and where most of local business was conducted and meetings were held.

In 1857, because of its growth and importance, the township of Hanley with Shelton become the first incorporated borough of the six towns leaving the other five behind. It became the prominent town of the Potteries where its leaders and influential businesspeople were set on a course for Hanley to become the central and most important town in North Staffordshire.

With its new-found status of a county borough, the town council and leading citizens came to realise that to attract new business to the town that a hotel which outshone all others was important to its growth. As a result, they came together to form the Hanley Hotel Company in July 1864 offering four thousand shares at £5 each for sale. Hanley, they declared was the centre of the Potteries and frequented by china and earthenware dealers, commercial travellers and as such there was an urgent need for public functions and superior accommodation associated with a progressive town like Hanley. Indeed it was the most impressive hotel in all of the potteries six towns.

This four page history identifies the trials and tribulations that fell onto the Queens until it was purchased by Hanley Borough Council. A further good read of how a depressed financial state of the period can loose such a building. Four Pages.

The land discussed here was Doody’s messuage comprising of all the land and other properties from between Kirkland Lane and St.Thomas Place.

A long barn stood facing Penkhull New Road. This was converted by Spode into ten small terraced houses, going by the name of Ten Row. There was another large property, standing back from the highway and facing St Thomas Place. This now forms four cottages converted from one.  Unfortunately, the records are not very conclusive. It could have been assumed that this building, long and narrow was a barn or a group of stables, but evidence from the manor court rolls point to the fact that it was more likely to have been one dwelling house owned by Thomas Doody.

A further entry then provides the necessary evidence: a dwelling house has for many years been subdivided into and occupied as four dwelling houses, which servants belonging to the family of Josiah Spode and his late father now deceased. This conversion must have taken place after 1811 and before 1827.  Further evidence of this is contained in records for November 1858 when the owner James Dean finally paid off the mortgage on the cottages: All those four several dwelling houses situate in Penkhull, lately converted out of a certain dwelling house known as Doody’s Messuage. The next record is dated June 1899 when the court records make note of the fact that Richard Nicholls, a timber merchant from Stoke had died the previous year.

The 1841 census records Richard Nicholls,  By 1851, Richard senior was listed as a grocer from Stoke who with his wife Anne, aged 53, had handed over the timber business to his son Richard. Twenty years later in 1871, Richard junior was the only son left at home living with his widowed father.  From the document dated 1899 the row of cottages was purchased at some date before then.

Three A4 pages. This illustrates how Penkhull started to develop from the early 1800s.