| From an Inner Tube to Shoemakers!... |
| Let's not forget the horses, they must have been all over the place, the only form of transport, loyal servants, what would we have done without them? I can envisage all kinds of carriages, stagecoaches, the beautiful Shires.... Don't forget also the cobbled streets, the lack of street lighting, the choking smog caused by the numerous bottle ovens. My ancestors would not have given these things a second thought, they grew up with it all. It was their world, they just got on with living their lives, working, raising families........ Water..we take it so much for granted...listen to this...Before 1820 Hanley's water supply, whether fetched in a pitcher or bought from a higgler at 1/2d. a bucket, came from a spring called Woodwall Well near to the present Well Street.. This spring, with a pump added, was still in use in the 1840's, but the "service"....was impaired by robberies made upon it's hidden streams! You don't realise do you, until you read it, how it used to be.....it really was a different world....and don't forget, it's doubful whether you would have understood a word they said..... I was ready to begin, I now felt enveloped in the atmosphere of their times........ I discovered that the 1881 census was on compact disc and that it was indexed, so I duly typed in the name "James Hawkins". I found that there were only about four who could possibly be him, so I had a closer look. At 27, Mount Street, Northwood (see what I mean ) the following family was listed:- James Hawkins, 30yrs......potter's fireman, Phoebe Hawkins, 26yrs., Frederick Hawkins, 8yrs., James Hawkins, 5yrs., Charlotte Hawkins 4yrs., Ernest Hawkins, 1 mth. He had the right occupation, and my father had mentioned Charlotte and Ernest as Alfred's brother and sister. Was I on the right trail? I believed that I was but I needed some confirmation, this was to come later.... Before I go any further with the journey, I must say that Northwood had begun to be a special place for us. It seemed that my great grandfather, my grandfarther and my father himself all had their roots there. I spent some of my childhood there as it happens, because of my mother's roots in Rose Street. Northwood had originally been a very select area, an area full of fruit trees in the lower part. In 1881, the year that James was living in Mount Street, it was rapidly filling up with houses, and the area had numerous collieries and pottery factories, like most places in Stoke on Trent. When you imagine that Northwood Park, opened in 1907, was built to "clean the air" for the local residents, you can imagine what it must have been like. So it looked as though I had found my great grandparents, James and Phoebe, although I had to keep an open mind, just in case it was a coincidence. If the census was right, James was born in 1851, so I had enough information to obtain his Birth Certificate. At this stage Barbara was appointed to the rank of Registrar Liaison Officer, and she duly applied for the certificate. We waited impatiently but it was worth it....there it was... |
| part 5 |