Tring News on 20th March, 1915

Military

While there were a large number of troops billeted in and around Tring the main military news in the local section of the paper was that there had been two concerts for their entertainment. One was put on by Mrs Williams at Pendley Manor and the other was arranged by the Soldiers' Entertainment Fund and held in the  Medical Inspection Hall (now the Victoria Hall). However in the main part of the paper, covering Aylesbury, there are indications that billeting is to end in April, and the soldiers will be moving on.

Old News

One of the soldiers, based in nearby Aston Clinton was before the court for driving a car with no lights and one can only wonder if the police were tightening up after the accident in which two soldiers had been killed a week or so earlier. One may also wonder if some of the road repairs deemed necessary were due to the wear and tear due to the number of troop movements in the area, and the construction of the camp at Halton.

Tring

In normal years local gardeners would be able to compete for prizes in events such as the Tring Agricultural Show, but many had been cancelled, However the Daily Mail had announced a grand show of vegetables in London in September, and Arthur Dye, of Tring Park Gardens, was co-ordinating entries for the area.

On the religious front the Baptist Church at New Mill had meetings supporting the Baptist Missionary Society while the Baptist Chapel at  Wigginton celebrated the 10th anniversary of the Sunday school.  There was also the usual order of services for the Parish Church.

Easter was being celebrated in a different was by W. Brown & Co, auctioneers - who were inviting entries to the Tring Easter Fat Stock Show and Sale - and they were also to sell off a baker's tools and trade utensils - including a dough mixer, a cake making machine, and a waggonette and a useful tradesman's horse.

Surnames: Ariston, Bagnall, Baker, Birch, Brooks, Brown, Clark, Curtis, Dell, Downes, Dye, Eggleton, Fulks, Gomme, Groome, Hazell, Heading, Hemmens, Hutton, Kirby, Kirk, Lang, Locke, Longman, Mather, Mullins, Page, Rothschild, Rowe, Sait-Knight, Swann, Taylor, Thorne, Ward, West, White, Wilding, Williams, Winterton

Extracts from the Bucks Herald of 20th March, 1915

Edited from British Newspaper Archive

Is this a Lyre-Guitar? (Watford circa 1900)

Watford

I am trying to get as wide a range of pictures by Frederick Downer, of Watford, to illustrate the various ways in ehich photographs were used in the late Victorian and Edwardian period. 

My latest addition shows a group of musicians holding various instruments from the mandolin family. Most look normal but is this a special kind of mandolin - or is it a lyre-guitar?. 

And of course there is the question of the identity of the group. Were there a group of mandolin players in the Watford Area in the late Victorian period - or was it a group which was performing in the  theatre? If (when) the Watford Observer goes on line in the British Newspaper Archive it may be easy to answer this question, but in the meantime can anyone help.

A Group of Mandolin players photographed by Fred Downer of Watford.

I have seen a 1895 reference which suggests that Fred Downer might have had connections with the Watford Conservative Club Dramatic and Musical Society. Might this have been one of their productions?

Ephemera - Mr Nettleton's Concert, St Albans, 1883

If you are going through boxes of old family papers you will sometimes find ephemera - i.e. documents which would normally have ended up in the waste paper basket. It is worth wondering why they have survived - as to be in the box one of your ancestors must have thought they were worth keeping.

In this case three names are mentioned, George Nettleton, George Gaffe, and William Cartmel. But who were the instrumentalists, and if the concert was reported in the local newspaper it might have listed the people involved, including some to the leading citizens who attended. Maybe one of your ancestors was involved.

So if you find a very old document that you don't understand I suggest that you try and work out why it was kept in the first place - and you might discover some new information for your family history.