Skip to content Skip to main navigation Skip to footer

Category

Williams family

WDYTYA Live

WDYTYA Live!

Well, I’ve spent today at the Who Do You Think You Are? Live exhibition in London. It was an exhausting day, with over 6 hours of train travel, plus a couple of hours hanging around for connections.

(more…)

Read more

Swindon ironworks

This is Swindon in Staffordshire, not the other, much larger one in Wiltshire.

I have been browsing through Around Pattingham and Wombourne in old photographs and thought I’d note the following information about the ironworks. Hopefully, this will help me unpick the movements of the Williams family between Swindon, Wolverhampton and Wilden.

(more…)

Read more

Books and maps about Parkgate

Well, I haven’t had time to do very much over the last few days. I did order a book of old photos of Rawmarsh and Parkgate, though, which looks interesting (Around Rawmarsh and Parkgate by Anthony Dodsworth).

From flicking through it, I have discovered that

  • Parkgate increased rapidly in size over 50 years or so from 1823
  • Between 1853 and 1861 the Parkgate works was the only one in the country capable of producing huge rolled armour plate for naval ships
  • Workers flocked to Parkgate from all over the country but especially from iron-producing counties like Staffordshire
  • The name Parkgate is first recorded in a will of 1559 and is likely to refer to a gate to nearby Aldwarke Hall (the hall was demolished in 1899)
  • The  original ironworks was developed from 1823 on a site to the west of the main Rotherham to Rawmarsh Road, adjoining Taylor’s Lane
  • The works relocated in the 1860s to the opposite side of the road to a larger site alongside the LMS Railway

There doesn’t seem to be any mention in the book of the takeover of  the works by the Birmingham Tin Plate Company in 1832. I’m interested in this because it does seem possible that James Williams moved there c. 1837 from the Wednesbury area because of this connection (although it could just be coincidental).

Tracey

Read more