It’s been so long since I blogged, but I’ve had a project bugging me for ages. It’s a real privilege to live in an old house and to know the names (and profession!) of all its principal inhabitants since it was built. So I want to write about some of the people who lived here in the Vicarage, whose stories I’ve learnt about in the years we’ve lived here (fifteen in the middle of February!). And I want to write a little about the history of our church too. When we arrived in the parish, the then churchwarden was undertaking that enormous task and produced a book from his research, so I have an excellent resource to start from, but the internet gives opportunities to discover more since that project was completed.
So this year I’m going to write about those things, about Rev Arthur Irvine, who lived in the Vicarage with his wife and eight children for most of the second half of Queen Victoria’s reign. One of his daughters made some sketches of the Vicarage family and I have permission from their descendents to share them here. I’m going to share some exerts from our church magazines from the 1920s and 30s, and Rev Benjamin Willmore’s evangelistic talks given here in Lent in 1850, and all sorts of other scraps. I might also write about what’s happening here, now that this Vicarage is emptying of dependent children and taking on a new sort of character.
And to start off, today I have an extract that I found in the electoral roll that was kept from the 1940s to the 1950s. It’s an unusual entry, and gives a reason for removal from the electoral roll that I’m glad that we’re never going to have to log. There’s a modern block at 14 Florence Road now, alongside the Victorian terraced houses that make up the rest of the street.
The bombing is mentioned on the West Bromwich History Society site:
On the 19th November the Germans launched a nine-hour attack on the Midlands with wave after wave of bombers. In West Bromwich bombs hit, Richard Street South, Lombard Street, Constance Avenue, Florence Road, Paradise Street, the District Hospital in Edward Street, the Corporation Gas Showrooms next to the Central Library, Oak Road and the Corporation Bus Garage and the Palace Cinema in the High Street.
https://www.westbromwichhistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/WestBromwichBombing1940.pdf
Sometime around 7pm German planes first dropped thermite incendiary bombs that would set the town alight to guide in the next wave of bombers carrying high explosive bombs. German targets may well have been the railway sidings, surrounding factories and the large gas-holder at Swan Village.
In that same bombing, Edith Clare was injured in a house just along our road and died the next day, and Ernest Lamb, aged just 18, also from our parish, also died from injuries received that night. What an awful night for those families and for the whole parish. Rev Fred Sutton was the vicar then, and was still in post when some of our current church members joined – the connection to the past is close when you’re part of a community with memories.
We had a Ladies’ Craft Night. Dreamer had printed lovely fliers and told lots of people about the evening. And she and I had a meeting on Monday all about the crafts and plans for the evening. But then family illness meant she had to be away from the parish. So a couple of valiant church ladies stepped into the breach and helped me to set up and heaps of people helped to clear up afterwards. And somehow, by God’s grace, I managed to prepare the crafts AND a talk – all very simple, I hasten to add. And we had a wonderful night of chatting, creativity, delicious puddings and thinking about how Mary prepared for Christmas. Happily, the only problem was that there wasn’t enough time. So plans are now afoot for an Easter Craft Night – a great way to get church and friends together and share both the gospel and our lives.
The Vicar's Wife 