Old Whittington One Place Study

Another wedding I couldn’t resist, I love the details, the descriptions of the clothes, the presents information of who attended and even details of the honeymoon departure. Derbyshire Times 24 April 1897. 

23 December 1893 the Derbyshire Times reported that the Revolution House had been handed over from the Chesterfield Brewery Co to a board of trustees. The trustees were trying to decide what to do with the property. One of the options was to open it as a lending library and reading room for the district. I don’t know if this ever happened, the library at the Swanwick Hall wasn’t opened until 1929 so perhaps the Revolution House was the first lending library in Whittington. If anyone knows then please get in touch.

Old Chesterfield Pictures had a post from Kev Walton with a newspaper article about Nurse Cheetham. She was the local midwife in Whittington from 1912 to her retirement in 1939.

The article got me thinking about Nurse Cheetham and how she had delivered over 5000 babies. She would have been present when many of our Whittington ancestors were born and must have been very well known in the area.

She wasn’t born a local woman she came originally from Sherington Bucks, but she married James Albert Cheetham in 1896 and not long after the couple moved to Old Whittington, she had two children and became a midwife when she was 37 years old.

She lived many years at 99 Holland Road and was still living in Whittington when she died on 17 November 1958.

Derbyshire Times 28th July 1939

I have just updated the facebook cover picture (https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100064718707620) with this evocative picture of the old blacksmiths shop on High St at Old Whittington. It stood roughly where the old peoples bungalows are now. The photo is dated 1937 and was originally posted on Old Chesterfield Pictures facebook page by Alan Taylor.

I couldn’t resist posting this article from the Derbyshire Times 10th March 1928. The writer doesn’t appear to have a very high opinion of the residents of Old Whittington and how they view the war memorial. I imagine at the time it could have been quite offensive to some! Would be interesting to have known who the author was and where he came from.

I found this story in the Guardian from 17th October 1856. Fascinating how the people who supposedly stepped in to help with an argument ended up on the wrong side of the law! The Fowler family owned Whittington Hall up until 1884.

Happy New Year to everyone who follows this One Place Study of Old Whittington.

New Years Eve 1874 – sounds as though there was a bit of rowdiness in Old Whittington! John Smith didn’t end up having much fun on New Years Eve 1873, according to this entry in Sheffield Independent 5th January 1874.

I remember many years ago, when I was in St Barnabas church choir visiting Whittington Hall at Christmas to sing carols to the ‘girls’.

Years before in 1945 it sounds like the inmates had a marvellous Christmas if this newspaper excerpt from the Derbyshire Times 28 December 1945 is anything to go by.

I never realised, until reading this, that the original annexe at the Swanwick Memorial Hall was in memory of Miss Mary Swanwick.

Derbyshire Times 25 July 1925. Interesting that using the annexe for a library and reading room was suggested here.

This article shows the police took the noise from rowdy behaviour late at night very seriously , this was when policemen were on the beat, things have changed a bit in the last 90 odd years and sadly no police men on the beat now!