Anyone for tea?
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A recent new acquisition for the Museum’s collection is this four-piece silver-plate tea set. Each piece is engraved with the initials H.J.T. and the teapot’s base has been engraved “Presented to H.J. Taylor Esqr. by Fellow Townsmen Bradford-on-Avon May 20th 1931”.
Harold John Taylor was a member of a family...
Read MoreShadrach Byfield: the story of a Bradfordian in the War of 1812
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The War of 1812-1815 is little known in this country, but more important in Canada and the USA, where the action happened. It took place during the period of the bigger Napoleonic War that was raging in Europe and ended with the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, so became regarded as something of a sideshow. Probably the only vague memory of it, for...
Read MoreNew Acquisition: Holt Football Club
. Among recent items that have entered the collection of Bradford on Avon Museum is this photograph. It is a group record of members of the Holt Football Club and was taken after they won the Trowbridge District League in the season 1906-1907. The club was the earliest to be formed in Wiltshire under Football Association rules, in 1864 and still...
Read MoreBradford People: Canon Jones
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The Rev William Henry Rich Jones MA, FSA (1817-1885) was the Vicar of Holy Trinity Church from 1851 until his death and a Canon of Salisbury Cathedral. He was an antiquarian and historian, who is chiefly remembered as the man who recognised the Saxon Church in Bradford for what it is, in 1856. He wrote what is more-or-less the...
Read MoreBradford People: Clarence Goff
Thomas Clarence Edward Goff (1867-1949) was the great-grandson of King William IV. He served in the army, becoming Captain in the 4th Battalion, Royal Scots Regiment. He was a London County Councillor, Justice of the Peace and High Sheriff of Yorkshire, with his seat at Carrowroe Park, Co. Roscommon in Ireland. He married Lady Cecilie Heathcote Drummond...
Read MoreBradford People: Sports
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William David Charles (Will) Carling, OBE was born in Bradford’s Maternity Hospital on 12 December 1965. He played Rugby union for Harlequins and was the Captain of England from 1988 to 1996, the youngest ever at 22, winning 72 caps.
Philip Ranulph (Phil) de Glanville, the rugby...
Read MoreBradford People: Admiral Tothill
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Bradford on Avon, Wiltshire
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Admiral Sir Hugh Henry Darby Tothill KCB, KCMG, KCVO (1865-1927).
He was born in Clifton, Bristol, son of Francis Tothill, barrister. His grandfather was William Tothill, a Bristol industrialist who married Hannah, daughter of...
Read MoreBradford People: Dr John Beddoe
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John Beddoe (1826-1911) was a physician and anthropologist.
He was born in Bewdley, Worcestershire, became a Doctor of Medicine in 1853 and served as a surgeon in the Crimean War and then travelled widely in Asia Minor and Europe before settling into a practice in Clifton, Bristol in 1857. He was Physician to the Bristol Royal Infirmary from...
Read MoreBradford People: William Taunton
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William Leonard Thomas Pyle Taunton (1780-1850) was the son of Rev Dr Robert Taunton (c1742-1797) and Frances (c1752-1819), daughter and co-heiress of Leonard Cropp of Hampshire. Rev Taunton purchased the Great Cumberwell estate in 1787 and was a signatory to a petition of Bradford residents in 1789. There is a memorial in Holy...
Read MoreBradford People: Septimus Henry Palairet
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Septimus Palairet (1807-1854) was an army Captain in the 29th Regiment, who retired and moved to Woolley House (now called Woolley Grange Hotel) in Bradford in 1846. Septimus was instrumental in getting his friend Stephen Moulton to set up his new rubber company in Bradford in 1848, putting money into the venture himself. The...
Read MoreBradford People: William Charles Bonaparte-Wyse
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Bradford on Avon, Wiltshire
.. William Charles Bonaparte-Wyse(1826-1892) was an Anglo-Irish-French poet who wrote in provençal and was one of those who campaigned to maintain it as a literary language. He was a grandson of Napoleon’s brother Lucien. He lived at Woolley Hill House in...
Read MoreBradford People: Sir John Cam Hobhouse
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Sir John Cam Hobhouse, Baron Broughton (1786-1869) was the son of banker Sir Benjamin Hobhouse and Charlotte, daughter of Samuel Cam of The Chantry, Church Street in Bradford. As a young man he became a friend of Lord Byron and together they travelled in Greece, Albania and the Balkans. His radical writings earned him a spell in...
Read MoreBradford People: John Hodder Moggridge
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John Hodder Moggridge (1771-1834) was born in Bradford, son of clothier John Moggridge, whose father Michael had come from Topsham, Devon. The Moggridges were in partnership with other clothiers, including the Yerburys and John Hodder’s mother Ann was from that family. They were also, like the Yerburys, involved in the...
Read MoreBradford People: Rev Richard Warner
. Rev Richard Warner BA, FLS (1763-1857) was Rector of Great Chalfield from 1809 until his death. He was an antiquarian who wrote many books on topography and history, including Hampshire Extracted from Domesday, History of the Isle of Wight, History of Bath, and History of the Abbey of Glastonbury. He had an interest in...
Read MoreBradford Hundred People: Rev Edward Spencer
Wingfield, Bradford on Avon, Wiltshire
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Monument in St Mary’s church, Wingfield erected by his pupils
Rev Edward Spencer had been the Rector of St Mary’s, Wingfield for 43 years when he died on 9th February 1819 in his 80th year. He was succeeded as Rector by his son Thomas, who died in 1842 at 68. Besides...
Read MoreBradford People: Lord Westbury
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Sir Richard Bethell, 1st Baron Westbury (1800-1873) was born in what is now called Westbury House in St Margaret’s Street, the son of Dr Richard Bethell (1767-1827). He became a lawyer, was made Queen’s Council in 1840 and Solicitor-General in 1852, when he was also knighted. He was MP for Aylesbury from...
Read MoreBradford People: General Shrapnel
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Lieutenant-General Henry Shrapnel (1761- 1842) was a soldier whose name has passed into the English language as the word for pieces of metal thrown out by an explosion. He was born in Bradford as a member of a family of clothiers, many of whom have memorials in the parish church. As an officer in the Royal...
Read MoreBradford People: Lord Fitzmaurice
Edmond George Petty-Fitzmaurice, 1st Baron Fitzmaurice (1846-1935) was a son of the 4th Marquis of Lansdowne and a Liberal politician, an MP from 1868-1885 and 1898-1906. He retired to Leigh House in Bradford and is remembered for his involvement in many local organisations, especially for the school which became named Fitzmaurice Grammar School in his...
Read MoreBradford People: Hon. Mrs Victor Bruce
Mildred Mary Petre (1895-1990), better known by her married name of the Honourable Mrs Victor Bruce, was a pioneer female aviator. She was born in Chelmsford, Essex, but lived in Newtown, Bradford from 1950 to 1985. She was attracted by speed and mechanical transport from an early age and was the first woman to be prosecuted for speeding,...
Read MoreBradford People: the Moultons
Stephen Moulton (1794-1880) was the man who brought rubber production to Bradford on Avon. He was born in Whorlton, County Durham, but was living in New York in the 1840s when he met Charles Goodyear, who had discovered a method of vulcanising rubber -a process which turned rubber from a substance that was sticky when warm and brittle when cold into a...
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