What's New

Featured Archive

Our latest featured archive follows on from last month's talk based upon Sun and Blackbird Street. The Society holds a large archive of photos and documents relating to these streets which are possibly two of the oldest in the in the Parish.. The Socity is always happy to gain new items or to copy and return documents. Click on the right image to download the archive as a pdf. Alternatively for a full historic tour of Sun and Blackbird Street click to the right:- Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four.	Previous Archives

Philip Westmoreland has been logging weather data in Potton since the 1970s and his continuos record making makes fascinating reading. How did 2010 match up to previous years and did the great freeze of December 2010 match up to its ancestors? The maximum temperatures in degrees centigrade and rainfall (inches) in Philip's garden. Data on 2010 can be found in files one and two and comparisons year on year in files three and four. The picture to the right shows snows on Hatley Road in 1947. Please click to the right:- Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four.

Potton History Society Photo Archive

This month Potton Consolidated Charities are our 'Featured Photo Archive'. The photo album is number 09 out of the 188 the Society owns. The Society has been the grateful recipient of many grants over the years. For the full story of the charities please see our book on the subject in our Publications Page. The first slide is part of the Report of the Charity Comission (1815-1839). The second slide is from the 1930s and shows Mrs Pettifer and the Technical School plus Charity housing. The third slide is from 1978 and shows Trustees presenting a clock, play rocket and minibus. Click on the right image to download as a pdf. Please let us know if you have any photographs (ancient or modern) that we could add to our collection.	Previous Photographic Archives

This Month's Talk

Prisoners of War in Bedfordshire, Stephen Risby, 23rd Februuary.

The February meeting of the Potton History Society features the story of Prisoners of War in North Bedfordshire. Stephen Risby’s new book looks at why PoW’s were brought to Bedfordshire during the darkest days of the Second World War and how most of them came to be trusted and were allowed to roam unguarded as well as the murder of Private Hands.

Potton had its own PoWs’s at the Manor with about 100 prisoners living in tents in the grounds. If you have any memories of Pow’s please bring them to the meeting on 23rd February at 8pm in the Community Centre where signed copies of the book will be available. There will also be a small display of items relating to PottonPoW’s held in the Society Archives. Visitors are always welcome.

The talk will take place as usual at 8pm in the Community Centre, Brook End. Admission £2.00 Non-members. Members free.

Why not join one of Bedfordshire's most active Local History Societies?

2011 membership available now.

Please see the 34th Programme for a full guide to our talks in 2011.

PHS Newsletter

Please click on the image to download the latest newsletter as a pdf file to catch up on news and many interesting articles.

Newsletter 49 contains a very interesting article about various enquiries made to the Society from people seeking information about their ancestors, by pure coincidence this year some of these enquiries have overlapped on a global scale. This has been a truely unlikely coincidence in some cases and many of the articles in this edition cover these individual cases. There is also a 'guess what it was used for' quiz, an article on Potton & District Working Men's Club, the continuing story of Potton Flower Show and the find of a glass seal marked 'Jn. Atkinson, Potton, 1726' matching one found in 2002.

Previous Newsletters

Clive Mankin has contacted the Society. This is what he wrote...

I’ve read with great interest the Potton History Society website and enjoyed looking at the photographs.

I’m currently researching the Home Guard in Bedfordshire and was discussing this recently with my mother-in-law Jean Greaves nee Theobalds. She has seen the Potton images and commented that one of your photographs doesn’t have her father labelled.

In photo Album 144 World War Two Part 1 with a reference of PA 144 World War 2. 144-07-dopx-1941 at the bottom of the page is a Home Guard group photo. The gentleman sitting in the second row on the end and close to the beer crates (7th from the left) is Arthur William Theobalds not N Arnold as labelled in the photograph. A close look at the photograph labels reveals an N Arnold as number 6 in the front row and there’s an N Arnold as number 7 in the second row which is a mistake.

On the back of the original photograph in Jean’s collection, it says ‘Photograph By The Biggleswade Chronicle and Bedfordshire Gazette’, there’s a serial number of 8525 and appears to be dated 1940.

Arthur like his father before him was a saddler for many years in Potton with a shop at No2 Market Square, from about 1920-1953.

A copy of Jean’s photograph is included above.

I also wonder if there’s any way we could obtain a digital image of the other Home Guard photograph on the same page with the men all seated for a meal, labelled ‘Reunion Dinner’. Unfortunately, I can’t see a way to enlarge the image from the webpage to make the faces visible.

I hope this information is of use for your photo archive.

Solomon Brown of Sutton:- Sole survivor of Australia’s worst shipwreck.

We now have many people who have contacted us from overseas whose ancestors set
off from their poverty stricken lives to find themselves a new life in far-off places
such as Australia. Four familes from Sutton left our shores on 20th April 1845.
Solomon Brown and his family left Liverpool bound for Melbourne on the emigrant
ship “Cataraqui” or “Cataraque” which was wrecked on rocks off King Island near
Melbourne in 1845. On board were 369 emigrants of whom, 21 were from Sutton, 10
from Eyeworth and 23 from Guilden Morden. The only emigrant to survive was
Solomon Brown from Sutton, the older brother of Charles Brown. Also on board
were three other families from Sutton: Gilbert and Anne Daisley with 2 children,
George and Ruth Daisley and William and Maria Waldock with 7 children.

To find out more please go to the Families Page and click on the Soloman Brwn link.

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