EVILLE
Rowland Joseph Bradshaw, the second child
and eldest son of Frank and Clara Bradshaw, was born on Friday 8
May 1896 in the Springfield area of Rowley Regis, Staffordshire,
about seven miles due west of the centre of Birmingham. He had a
sister born three years earlier and there were to be four more
children, one of whom died in infancy.
Rowley Regis is in the
Black Country, that area to the north and west of Birmingham
stretching to Wolverhampton that was the power-house of the
Industrial Revolution. It was an area so disfigured by the
rapacious demands of 19th century industrial enterprise that
Queen Victoria had the blinds of the Royal Train lowered when she
passed through it on her way north. Even as late as 1950, the
area was still a tangle of disused factories, furnaces, railway
lines, canals, coal mines, waste heaps, chimneys and dereliction
as far as the eye could see - the whole area blackened by smoke
and ash.
Before the Industrial Revolution this area had been pleasant agricultural country with hills, rivers and small towns. But it was sited on the South Staffordshire coalfield and there were plentiful deposits of ironstone, limestone and various clays. When the local iron-masters showed that iron could be smelted using coal instead of charcoal the fate of the region was sealed. It was to become the largest mining, iron working and manufacturing area in the world and remained so for well over 100 years. The economic and social values of the day conspired to plunder and exploit the area and the workforce without regard for the consequences.
The label "Black Country" conjures up an image of an industrial area completely filled with factories, houses and industry without a field, tree or blade of grass to be seen. But that is not so. The Black Country covers an area of nearly 100 square miles and there was, in 1896, open country between the growing industrial towns and villages, polluted though it was. This juxtaposition of industry and countryside had, by the time Neville Bradshaw was born, created a mosaic of industrial towns that had grown very quickly from small towns and villages set in a fast disappearing countryside. Some of these towns had retained many of their old features and institutions at their centres with the industrial and urban sprawl at their edges. The houses of the wealthy, churches, inns, market places and small old established grammar schools could be found in such towns as Dudley, Wolverhampton, Halesowen and Stourbridge.
In 1896 Rowley Regis was a small town with a population of about 40,000 that had grown from a mere village. The local industry was engaged mostly in wrought iron and steel manufacturing, coal production, brickmaking and quarrying. The area was studded with clay pits, brickworks, potteries, many small collieries and quarries, all well serviced with canals and the railway. The composite map below, at four different scales, shows where Springfield and Rowley Regis are located in what was then Staffordshire but today is the West Midlands.
Neville Bradshaw spent the first years 19 years of his life in Springfield, a small settlement on the north-western side of Rowley Regis along the Dudley Road. It had sprung up here because of the local abundance of easily worked coal and clay, ideal for brickmaking, and it was near to the Dudley Canal. There was also a quarry that was producing Rowley Ragstone - a very hard-wearing rock used for road-making. By Neville's time many of the local collieries and clay pits had been abandoned as no longer economically viable. The housing to accommodate the miners, labourers, brick workers and quarrymen had been built for renting by the local employers when the mines were in full production many years earlier. They would have been two-up two-down cottages of the most basic type commonly found in mining communities of the period. The area was riddled with old mine workings, and subsidence must have been common.
The Bradshaws lived at that time in Springfield Lane which, if you study the 1901 map below, is the lane marked in red. You will see that it was surrounded by clay pits, collieries and brickworks - and not the leafy suburbs of some prosperous town as one might have predicted. Note, however, that it is sparsely populated. At the time it would have seemed a rural area, albeit containing many industrial activities.
The Bradshaws lived in one of the cottages at the south-eastern end of Springfield Lane near the Hailstone Inn, not far from the quarry on Hailstone Hill. This small group of houses, inns, post office, church, chapel and school on the Dudley Road is known as The Knowle. Being situated on the western flank of Hailstone Hill it is some 600 feet above sea-level and commands views over the valley and canal area to the west.
At the western end of Springfield Lane (marked in red) the road goes over the Dudley Canal (marked in blue) to Windmill End where there was a railway station on the Dudley to Halesowen line just half a mile from the Bradshaw home. In those days this would have been the easiest and quickest means of getting to Dudley, Halesowen or Birmingham. There were no buses in 1901 and roads would have been in poor condition even by today's standards!
The Springfield area today shows few signs of the landscape of 1901. The old slum houses have gone, the clay pits landscaped, roads realigned, the ground stabilised and modern houses have been built to accommodate the rapid growth of population in more recent times.
However by sheer good luck and some detective work based on the information given in the 1901 census we have recently found that the Bradshaws' house has survived. It is the middle one of a terrace (green) of three houses, then called Hailstone Villas, still standing a few doors from the Hailstone Inn (blue) in what is now called Springfield Close but was originally the entrance of Springfield Lane at The Knowle. This particular house now has the name "Springfield Villa".
We can deduce from the census information that this terrace was built after the other miners houses had been built in Springfield Lane and given street numbers because this terrace does not fit into the main numbering sequence on the 1901 census. Therefore they were at that time the most modern houses in that part of Springfield Lane. Judging from their appearance they probably date from about 1880-1885.
The Bradshaws' house was the middle one that now has a brown front door and old slates on the roof. According to the 1901 census the Bradshaws had four main rooms, - a living room, front room, two main bedrooms, plus, no doubt, the "usual offices" of a kitchen/scullery/toilet at the back. There may well have been a tiny bedroom over the kitchen.
One can see from the front view the brown front door, and the front room and front bedroom windows to the left. The house stands on a bank somewhat above what was Springfield Lane but is now Springfield Close. The road terminates just to the right of the terrace. The photo was taken from a high grass bank that now occupies the position of a building opposite to the house as shown on the 1901 map.
From the 1901 census pages we find that the right hand end house was occupied by James East (37) and his wife Polly (35). He was a "Terra Cotta Model Maker" as was his 14 year-old son. There were also four younger sons. They had the advantage of slightly more bedroom space in their house than the Bradshaws. Their two houses shared a corridor to the back yard through the plain white door and the Easts had the bedroom space over it.
The left hand end house was occupied by Thomas (69) and Sarah (70) Masters. He is described as a "Stone Quarryman - Labourer". In those days, before old-age pensions, you carried on working until you became too weak to continue. Otherwise you would starve or be taken to the workhouse if you had no relatives willing to support you. They were grim times.
The
quarry has been in continuous use since 1901 and has consumed a
great part of Hailstone Hill - testimony to the prodigious
quantities of rock extracted in the last century for
road-building. The railway exists no longer but the Dudley Canal
is still there and is being restored in many places to serve the
growing interest in canal boating as part of the leisure
industry. The area at Windmill End known as Bumble Hole,
originally a complex of canals and heavy industry, is now a
nature reserve and industrial heritage site.
A recent aerial photo of the Springfield area shows it as it is today. The canal shows up in black, the Bumble Hole nature reserve is the green area to the left, and the Hailstone quarry is the scar at the right. The new housing can be seen at top centre. The present alignment of the old Springfield Lane is marked by red dots. The red arrow points to the terrace where NRB lived.
NRB's father John Joseph Frank Bradshaw, known as Frank, was, at the time of NRB's birth in 1896, employed by a pawnbroker. By the time of the 1901 census he was working as a clerk in a local nail warehouse. The nail industry in the mid-1800s was big business, exporting to all quarters of the globe, yet curiously it was a cottage industry. At the back of many small houses in this area there were tiny workshops each with a small forge where the family would "cut" nails on a piecework basis. The nails were then collected in a warehouse for onward sale. As can be imagined, most of the profit went to the owners of the warehouses, the workers being paid a pittance. By 1901 this cottage industry was competing with machine-made nails, so the wages of nail-makers went down as the machines became more efficient. Such was progress.
Frank Bradshaw, a clerk, would have been a few notches up the social scale compared with his immediate neighbours, most of whom were colliers, labourers, brickmakers or quarrymen earning their living by muscle power in very unpleasant conditions. A clerk was a white collar job that required the ability to read, write, calculate, keep accounts and handle money. He probably earned twice as much as a labourer and he would have worked in far better surroundings for fewer hours. While he would have enjoyed some advantages being a clerk and may have had social ambitions, he would not have been considered one of the middle classes; clerks had a status on a par with the skilled workers at the top of the working classes. The labouring masses were close to the bottom.
The house where NRB was born in Springfield Lane was no suburban villa. It was a terraced cottage that was probably built around 1880. It would have been rather better than the older miners cottages just down the lane. By the standards of the time it would have had a few facilities to make for a relatively comfortable lifestyle. So why did the Bradshaws live here? We can only guess that it was dictated by family finances, proximity to Frank's workplace and availability. Perhaps the fact that it was then relatively modern and had a semi-rural location with good views and plenty of fresh-air was considered more healthy than living in the town. To us today it would have seemed small for a family of six but by the standards of the day it was not unusual.
Curiously, the 1901 census records show that at that time, when NRB would have been approaching his fifth birthday, the Bradshaws had an 18-year-old live-in domestic servant. This might at first seem surprising but in those days when wages were very low and jobs for young women few in this area (unlike Lancashire and Yorkshire where the mills employed so many) it was common for girls to take such a position as a domestic help in return for little more than food, a roof and basic necessities. Girls from the poorest classes were frequently forced to move out of their own family home as young as 13 because they were regarded as an economic burden when there were younger mouths to feed and clothe.
It must have been quite a crowded household with only four main rooms. Certainly it was nothing like one might have imagined as NRB's birthplace. It was far from the middle-class family in a leafy suburb that had been imagined initially. Here was a working family struggling on a clerk's wage in a small dwelling with few amenities in a bleak landscape. After 1901 three more children were born into the family over the next few years - six in all. How did they manage?
In spite of this inauspicious beginning NRB survived, acquired a good education, became an army officer, went to Oxford and became a headmaster. His younger brother Ronald went to Cambridge and also became a headmaster of a grammar school, while two of his sisters became school teachers. How did this come about? Such a triumph of success over adversity in an era when class origins were all important seems quite extraordinary.
To make some sense of this we need to reflect on the backgrounds from which NRB's parents, Frank and Clara, came. They were both born in Burnt Tree, Tipton - a mile or so east of Dudley.
Frank Bradshaw, the son of Henry Bradshaw and his wife Sarah, was born in 1866. Henry was a brewer's clerk and we can surmise that he was able to pass on his clerical skills to his sons by example and by ensuring that they had adequate schooling - possibly at Dudley grammar school. The sons may well have taken the view that being a clerk, like their father, would provide all that they would need in life.
Clara Gillard, the daughter of Joseph and Eliza Gillard, was born in 1867. Her father was described as a "Millwright". It is possible that Joseph was in the iron and steel trade as a small businessman and had a more entrepreneurial attitude than the pen-pushing Bradshaws. As we saw earlier he had five daughters at home - aged 21, 19, 17, 15, and 13 - none of them, seemingly, employed, which would suggest that the Gillards were fairly well off and could afford to keep their daughters in occupations fitting for lower middle-class girls - such as teachers, governesses, piano tutors or whatever - until such time as suitable marriages could be arranged.
Unfortunately the choice of Frank Bradshaw for Clara had not proved a great success from the financial aspect, though he probably had other characteristics that made up for that. Clara proved to be a woman of determination and good sense. It seems unlikely that she would have chosen Frank for a husband unless he had something going for him.
Frank's parents, Henry and Sarah, do not appear in the 1901 census (they would have been 70 and 72) so they had probably died by then but both of Clara's parents (aged 64 and 65) were still alive and living in Tipton.
As time passed and it became obvious that Frank was unable to rise and provide the wherewithal for a better home and standard of living, it is entirely possible that the Gillards, who presumably had by that time married off their other daughters, made some provision for Clara (the youngest and possibly their most spoilt daughter!) to ease the conditions under which the family lived. Be that as it may, the Bradshaws stayed at Springfield Lane and struggled to raise their family as best they could. They were there for about 20 years.
As we have seen, there is evidence that some of the Gillard daughters were educated at a grammar school in Dudley and some had ambitions in the teaching profession. As the youngest daughter, Clara would no doubt have absorbed these attitudes and it is possible that she had followed her sister into teaching via the pupil-teacher system and had taught for some years before she had her first child. This would have given her a considerable advantage when it came to the primary school education of her own children.
Luckily for the Bradshaws, education for the masses was becoming available by the time they had children. A village school had been built some years before Neville was born and it was conveniently located about 200 yards from his home at The Knowle. It can be seen marked on the map above in yellow. We can guess that he started there in the September of 1901.
There are some log books of Knowle Infants School in the Record Office at Smethwick but unfortunately these do not name individual children unless some calamity such as death or scarlet fever occured. However these log books provide an excellent insight into the privations of a crowded village infants school of that era. As we shall see later from log books of Halesowen Grammar School at Worcester Record Office, one of the Bradshaw girls is named as having attended the Knowle primary school so it is virtually certain that the other Bradshaw children did so too - including Neville.
One can only surmise that in spite of the crowded conditions at the Bradshaw home there must have been considerable emphasis on self-education. It was a period when various cheap publications appeared from the Harmsworth Press and other publishing houses to satisfy the demand from the more intelligent and progressive families. With literate parents and a mother with ambitions for her children, the young Bradshaws were probably given much attention and encouragement to learn and excel at their school work.
At about this time another bigger more modern school
was built at Knowle just round the corner from the old one. The
reason for building another school so close to the existing
school is not known but it could well have been due to the dual
system of council schools run by the local authority and
"voluntary" schools run by the church that developed around this
time. Many non-conformist Black Country families objected to
sending their children to schools run by the Church of England.
The precise dates of its opening are not yet known but it would
have been much lighter and less claustrophobic than the older
Victorian school. This Edwardian school is still in use today as
the local primary school. The older school no longer exists. [Note 2010: The Edwardian school has now also been demolished.]
Meanwhile there were other developments about which the Bradshaws were probably unaware. As a result of Government legislation, particularly the Balfour Education Act of 1902, County Councils were ordered to set up Education Authorities with sweeping powers to reorganise and extend educational provision in the counties and raise money by taxation for the purpose. As will be seen in a later section of this biography, this led to the building and funding of better primary schools and also the provision of secondary education for selected children and the provision of free places for the promising children of poor families.
As it happened, the Bradshaws lived just on the Staffordshire side of the border with Worcestershire. Staffordshire had come to an arrangement with Worcestershire County Council (WCC) whereby they funded about a dozen free places for Staffordshire children at Hales Owen Free School (later Halesowen Grammar School) in Worcestershire.
By 1905 WCC had decided that the existing buildings at Halesowen were completely inadequate and came to an arrangement with the Free School to jointly fund an entirely new building to cope with the increased numbers of pupils, an enlarged syllabus and co-education! This caused something of a stir at the time. But building plans were put in place and the new school built. It opened in May 1908.
Neville Bradshaw probably sat an examination for a free place at the new Halesowen school in 1908. With his mother's coaching and encouragement Neville was able to meet the required standard for entry. We do not know if he won a free place or was a fee payer. The fees for a man of Frank's means would not have been excessive and maybe the Gillards paid - they were all in favour of further education. With hindsight one can see that this move to Halesowen Grammar School was the defining moment of his early childhood - the event that would allow him to rise above the limits set by his socio-economic background. He would be able to escape from a lifetime of drudgery as unremarkable as his father's and grandfather's.
And no doubt many OLs will say to themselves,
sotto voce: "That's just how it was with me! Getting to Lewes
County Grammar School was the most important event of my
childhood."
So it was that in September 1908, Neville Bradshaw, aged 12, began to travel daily the three miles to school each day in Halesowen. There were no buses in those days and the roads were poor. He would have walked down Springfield Lane, a distance of about half a mile to the station at Windmill End to catch the train to Halesowen, a distance of only three miles, and then walk the short distance from Halesowen station to his new grammar school.