Watford District, Schoolboy's Shield Football Team, 1905-6

Football

Football Team, Watford, 1905/6(Deacon)

Can anyone help identify any of the boys in this Watford team, many of which will later have served in the First World Was - and some may have died.

Xmas Challenge 5: Photographs by Percy Landon of Watford

Xmas 2014 Challenge - "Rules" - Link to Bigger Picture

An unknown soldier - but at least the cap badge should be identifiable. There is a message on the back in very poor handwriting - could this be a clue? Apart from the date (January 14th 1916) what does it say? This photograph, and the one below, were taken by Percy Landon of Watford.

Group, mainly ladies, circa 1910

Donate here

Football

In addition there are a number of other group photographs taken by Percy Landon including two football teams. All sensible suggestions (or dateable examples of Percy's work wiil attract a donation.  And of course if you want to make a donation yourself - because you like the challenge, or have found this site useful over the year just click on the donation box.

Walkern Club Football Team 1911/2 - another player identified

Walkern Football Club - Winners of the Greg Cup in 1911/12

Football

Ronald has written in to say that the player in the front row, far right, is William James Smith.

More Information

Please let me know if you can identify any other players

Brief Notes on Other Activities in September

Fewer posts upfront last month - but over 6,400 page views on the Newsletter and while the number of visitors to the main site is less than in September 2013, the number of pages views was higher. I was involved in a lot of activity in the background (see below), including some computer problems with upgrade to Windows 8.1 and entertaining our Australian visitor - with visits to Bletchley Park and the British Schools Museum.

Karaktus. I have acquired another card in this distinctive series by an unknown St Albans artist but half a dozen of the series still escape me.

Ben Tomlin discovered the page on the photographer Samuel Glendenning Payne, and we discover we share Rolls family ancestors, starting from William Rolls (1726-1798) and Mary Devonshire (1729-1804) of Bicester, Oxfordshire.

I have added an attractive post card of the Old Red Lion public house, High Street, Bushey, from about 1910 by a Watford stationer, Jackson & Co.

I have had several queries recently where people have asked for help who appear to have never read a general guide on family history, have never brought a birth, marriage or death certificate to check details, and have limited their activities to the indexes on one or two web sites. As a result they had made a very elementary mistake of assuming that is a name and date are approximately right it MUST BE MY ANCESTOR!!!! Perhaps I should insist that everyone should look at Right Name, Wrong Body" before asking me a question.

I have added a post card from about 1910 showing two thatched cottages in Widford.

I have added information about Grove School, Watford, in  1932

Gatward Clock

I have added a note about the 250 years booklet about Gatward, Jeweller, of Hitchin.

John has written that he has some post cards written to Mary Burrage of Abbots Langley and asks if anyone is interested.

I have updated the link to FreeBMD (no longer part of Rootsweb) and also the link to the Football Club History Database on the Apsley Football page.

To see what happened I have pinned a picture of the Apsley Football team on Historypin. As the picture has Apsley parish church in the background the location can be identified to be in one corner of the car park attached to Sainsbury's supermarket. As expected Historypin insisted in moving the pin from the correct position onto the London Road - demonstrating that the package is unsuitable for accurately recording historical data on a map.

There have been some additional replies and retweets on @HertsGenealogy

I have had several requests for high resolution images, which have been supplied and I have sent about half a dozen other emails on minor points ...

Watford Field School Football Team 1905/6

Football

Schools

I recently acquired this printed post card showing the Watford Field School Football Team taken by Harry Robert Cull, photographer, of St Albans Road, Watford, and published by the Acme Tone Engraving Co. Ltd., Watford, photo engravers & printers. The men at the back are probably teachers in the school and perhaps the one in the centre is the headmaster Walter John Toppin.

The date would suggest that many of the pupils later fought in the First World War. It would be wonderful if some of them could be identified. It would also be interesting to know if the school has a record of former pupils who gave their lives in the conflict.

Tug of War - are they Watford Footballers??

Tug of War - but who are they?

This post card was produced by Harry Cull, of 169 St Albans Road, Watford, probably shortly after the end of the First World War. The tuggers all have very distinctive matching shirts, with a "Z" in a shield, suggesting that they are part of a local football. The building in the distance on the right has a distinctive shape - so may be a clue to the location. Finally the distinctive numbering may be a clue and other cards from the same event might have the same numbering system. If I has more examples with similar numbering it should be possible to narrow the likely date and perhaps even identify the event  and the names of the teams competing in the tug of war.

Football

See other post cards

taken by Harry Cull, 

or of Hertfordshire football teams.

The Impossibles Football Team traced to Callowland area of Watford

Several years ago I posted the following post card image on the web site

The Impossibles 1920/1

Military

Football

The ball is inscribed ?VFC 1920/21 and the players are named on the back and called "The Impossibles."  I have received no suggestions since then about the proper name or location of the club. As the 1911 census is now available I decided to see if I could find any of the players. Because of the ten year gap between the census and the photographers many of the footballers could have been expected to move house  but I was in luck. In 1911 3 players were living in Leavesden Road, Watford, and three more were living in other roads in the Callowland area of Watford.

More Information

 

Report on July activities -and some quickie reports

The original plan was that I took the month quietly but there were 29 posts and over 5900 visitor views on this newsletter, and over 22,000 to the main web site. The real problem was that I spent too much time on the site, and with holiday breaks, etc., other matters got neglected. In the next few days I will posting provisional plans for the future of the site.

Quickie Reports of  Recent Correspondence and Updates.

Thomas MARRYAT, Barnet, 1760 & "A Happy Child"

Last year I was asked about the origins of an 18th century song which turned up in America and which had a specific reference to Barnet. Paul has written to say that when Thomas Marryat was in America between 1760 and 1766 he could not have met the Geyer family in Boston. I have contacted the original enquirer, Caroline, and reviewed what we know and where further evidence might turn up.

Hatfield Local History Society Publications

I have updated the contact information for people wanting to buy any of these publications.

Apsley Football Club

Anthony Taylor has provided some additioina information

AUSTIN, Berkhamsted, mid 19th century

Audrey asked about the shop occupied by Joseph Austin (a butcher) in the 1851 census - and also about records of the location of contemporary graves in Berkhamsted. I am only able to give limited advice - can anyone else help her?

Old Hertfordshire Recipies: Dunstable Larks

Anthony Carter pointed out that my original illustration was the wrong species - and I have replaced it with a more relevant picture.

An Unusual Uniform - So what did this man do for a living?

Jon suggests that the badge could represent the letters SGC and wondered if this could be the uniform of people who worked for the St Albans Gas Company. Can anyone verify this - or come up with an alternative suggestion?

A Wig-making Factory in St Albans in the 1930s

Brenda emailed me with some more information and I have added her note as a comment.

Name Variants in Find My Past

The latest edition of the Lost Cousins newsletter contains an article about the problems of searching for people with multiple given names which you might find interesting. Every online site has its searching idiosyncrasies and it is important to find out what they are.  .

The "Watford Loco" Football Club, 1904-5

Football

Watford Loco

I keep on finding early post cards of "unknown" football teams - in the hope that some of you might be able to add names to the faces. This one appeared on ebay, team unknown, but posted at Abbot Langley. In fact I have identified the team as the Watford Loco Football Club - for full details of what I found see Watford Loco Football Club 1904-05

If you can add information on the club - and the footballers in the picture, let me know.

Old News from Tring 1724-1900

Old News

As mentioned earlier I am giving a talk on Old Newspapers to the Genealogy group of the Tring U3A later this week and I am selecting a variety of stories from the British Newspaper Archive as examples, including the following:

1724: Tring saves money with a Workhouse  This is the earliest I found - and suggests that Tring, together with Berkhamsted, Watford and Aylesbury had been able to reduce Poor Rates by using workhouses.
1740: Fatal accident in Tring Park  The son of minister, Rev. Randolph, dies in riding accident in Mr. Gore's park.
1753: A Chancery Case involving Joseph Adkins of Tring   This frustratingly short report raises the question of how someone in the workhouse can fight and win a court case in Chancery.
1853: Sale of the Tring Grove Estate  Following the death of Viscount Lake this is sold in connection with a case in the Court of Chancery
1881: Sale of Farm Stock at Town Farm, Aldbury  A routine sale of stock on a Farm
1900: Football at Tring Grove

Over the next few days I will be adding more stories - and updating  the other Tring Old News stories which have been posted earlier.

Early days with Hitchin Football Club Founded 1865

Hitchin

Football

Following my earlier post, When was Football first played in Hertfordshire, Roger added a most useful comment about the origins of the Hitchin Football Club in 1865. He reported that they joined the newly founded Football Association in 1870, and played Crystal Palace in the first round of the first year of the F.A. Cup.

Using the British Newspaper Archive I decided to see what I could find about its early history and found several a detailed report of athletic sports put on by the club in 1867, and two match reports which named the complete team. For full details see Hitchin Football Club.

Pall Mall Gazette, 21 February, 1868

Note: The Genealogy in Hertfordshire site contains many miscellaneous lists of names, such as the Hitchin Football team listed on these cuttings. Click Here to search the site for a name of interest to you.

When was Football first played in Hertfordshire?

When was the first "football" match played in Hertfordshire? One of the problems is that the accounts that survive from the past often fail to mention the everyday activities of the ordinary people and football is no exception. The first description of what might today be called a football match was written by William FitzStephen in approximately 1170. While visiting London he noticed “after dinner all the youths of the city goes out into the field for the very popular game of ball.” He also pointed out that every trade had their own football team: “The fathers, and the men of wealth come on horseback to view the contests of their juniors, and in their fashion sport with the young men; and there seem to be aroused in these elders a stirring of natural heat by viewing so much activity and by participation in the joys of unrestrained youth.” Two centuries later a monk wrote that football was a game “in which young men ... propel a huge ball not by throwing it into the air, but by striking and rolling it along the ground, and that not with their hands but with their feet.” The monk claimed that the game was “undignified and worthless” and resulted in “some loss, accident or disadvantage to the players themselves."

Early in the 14th century Edward II banned the playing of football and several later monarchs took similar actions and we can be pretty certain that the game was played in Hertfordshire, but there are no early direct references to the game.

At the HALH Symposium on Sport in Hertfordshire David Short described a different approach - which was to try and track down old football fields by looking at old field names. He noted that a field in Ashwell listed in the tithe map was called "Football Close" and was able to trace the name to a terrier of 1628. Searching other similar records revealed another "Football Close" at Baldock mentioned in a 1568 deed.   However another term, dating back to Saxon times, may well indicate places where games such of football could have been played.  The name "Plaistowe" could well comes from the Saxon words for "battle place" and it would seem could be used for what we would now call a sports field. David found a "Plaistowe" in Hertford dating back to 1461, Another at Yardley dating back to 1630 and one is listed in Norton's Survey of Barley which dates to around  1600. In listening to the talk I got the impression that most were or the order of two acres and close to the parish church.

An unknown Football Cup won by a Watford? club circa 1910

An Unknown Football Club

I have been collecting information on two Watford photographers Jesse Landon (photographer circa 1895-1906) and his brother Percy Landon (photographer circa 1908-1929). So far I have only traced a few examples of their work but one of them is a photograph of an unknown football club showing off the football cup that hey have obviously won. The first stage in identifying the club is probably to identify the cup - so have any of you any good ideas. Can you help?

For more information (and another Watford area football club waiting to be identified) see The Landon Family of Watford Photographers.

An unknown Watford Football Club

Redbourn Memories - The Football Club and much more

I have just added a copy of Redbourn Memories by Geoff Web to my reference library. Like his other book The Character of Redbourn it contains a large number of photographs including people - with names. For instance the Redbourn Football Team is pictured in 1899, 1906/7, c 1909, c 1910, 1912/13, c 1920, 1923/24, c 1925, 1930/31, 1935, 1937, c 1948, c 1950 and 1955. There are many other group pbotographs - of the schools and the boys football team, and also of Redbourn Cricket Club (earliest picture c 1890).

Redbourn Football Club - 1899

Back Row: ? Carke, ? Belshaw, J. Holtham, --, Walter Hyde, Sam Skillman, Perce Jarman, ? Arnold, John Sansom, ? Rose

Middle row: ? Halsey, T. Squires, Tom Jarman, F. Pratt

Front row: C. Purdey, Dick Quick

While this is (and its companion books) are excellent sources for pictures showing named inhabitants of Redbourn in the first half ot the 20th century there is, unfortunately no index!

Better Access to Earlier Posts on this Newsletter

When I started this blog I didn't make use of the labels facility - which allows you to quickly look at other posts which use the same keyword as the post you are currently looking at. 

This is changing and I am now using labels on all new posts (except temporary topics -such as notification of meetings). Each new post will contain the relevant place names as a label, and also the more important surnames. There are also topic labels such as "Football", "Royalty", "Brickmaker" and "Medieval Fields".

I am currently scanning the old posts and have already labelled some 200 posts - with another 200 to go - hopefully by the end of the week.

To use the facility simply click on the desired keyword at the bottom of the post. For many posts you will then need to click through to the main web site to seen even more information.

The Mayor of St Albans supports local Football Team

In the past I have posted photographs of a number of  football clubs from about 100 years ago - with requests for information about the clubs and/or the players.

Maureen has come up trumps in that she has identified the well dressed gentleman in the back row of a 1897-8 photograph of the Stanville Football Club. There can be little doubt that he is Thomas Oakley, the owner of a large provisions store in the centre of St Albans, who was Mayor of St Albans in 1897/8. To celebrate the discovery I have created a new page containing a short biography of Thomas Oakley - with links to a useful list of St Albans councillors.

However it would be nice to know the identity of the footballers themselves - and in fact there still a number of old photographs waiting for an identification in the Rogues Gallery.

Did your ancestor play football for Batford Juniors?

This team is Batford Juniors, the ball carried the words "Batford Jnrs 1922/23" and they come from Harpenden.  The youngest was not much older than my father - so there must be some people still alive who knew some of these footballers. So can you help put a name to any of them - or provide other information about the club. A larger image is available in case it helps you to identify a face. The photo is in black and white - so what colour was their strip?

In fact this is only one of the football club pictures that are crying out for identification on this web site. Do you know anything about the Berkhamsted cup-winning football team at the end of the 19th century? We know the names of The Impossibles - but apart from the fact the the picture was taken by a Watford photographer we don't know where they played. The Walkern Football Club won the Greg Cup in 1912 - but we only know the name of one of the team. There are also some St Albans Clubs about which little is known, such as the Stanville F.C., the Adult School F.C. and the Glenfield F.C.

Football - Apsley Charity Cup Badges

Earlier this month I posted information about Frank Foskett on the Berkhamsted Football Club Team page, and now Clive has provided photographs of the Apsley Charity Cup Winners Medal of 1900, and the Finalists medal (pictured here) of 1902. 

      It is perhaps worth reminding readers that the original club records appear to have been lost, and any football related information you can provide on any of the players shown in the pictures would be helpful.

A Post Card with surprising Football and Princely Connections

Les is the webmaster of the Hadley Common web site and he sent me this post card of a house called Ludgrove in the Parish of Monken Hadley. He asked me if I could date it and I could have easily dismissed the request on the grounds that it was only in Hertfordshire for a period of 60 years during the early 20th century. However the immediate task was simple - The card was a KROMO card by the famous post card pioneers Blum & Degan. They published many views of Hertfordshire and the KROMO card series was started in 1905. Unfortunately for them, but helpfully for answering the question, they went bankrupt in 1908 - so the card can easily be dated to about 1906.

       My first reaction was that the house looked like many others that were springing into existence in Middlesex and South Hertfordshire a century or more ago and I really needed to say something more about it before posting details in this Newsletter, or writing a special page on the main web site. So I decided to dig for some background and the more I dug the more interesting the house became.

Frank Foskett & the Berkhamsted Football Club

Frank Foskett

Clive's grandfather played for the Berkhamsted Football Club at the time they won the Apsley Charity Cup in 1900, and I have been able to supply an enlarged picture of his Frank Foskett - and some background on the Foskett families of Berkhamsted.

There are already details of a number of football clubs on the site, with players waiting to be identified. I am also interested in any other early football photographs which can be linked with Hertfordshire teams.