A load of blokes in a charabanc

I do not know who these people are or what the occasion is. I presume it is workplace-based, as the passengers are all male. Many of them are conspicuously brandishing short rods. Maybe they have been involved in the manufacture of this device, whatever it may be. They all seem to be wearing overcoats, so it is not exactly the best weather to be riding in an open-topped vehicle. The name on the side of the charabanc looks like "C.G. Lewis".

The picture came from the "Crown Lane" archive, so possibly Albert Mackie is here somewhere. If so, this could be a party from the Royal Arsenal, Woolwich.

Update

I have now made contact with Chris Lewis, nephew of Charles George Lewis and suggested a possible connection with Woolwich Arsenal. Chris has provided some interesting further information.

A little research and the vehicle in your photo is a Karrier KL type. One of the very first forward control vehicles ever built. Reg no. YN7601. New June 1926 and cost £1250.
In 1927 C. G. Lewis’ phone number had a 0 added to the front making it Greenwich 0220. In your photo it still reads 220. Since all his vehicles were re-varnished every year, I think the year could be 1926-27 as photos of this vehicle in 1928 show the new number.

The full company title at this time was C. G. Lewis safety coaches. With the name in a triangle base side down, later wings were added to this as the wings of speed (28 mph legal speed limit). He also did a lot of work for Ministry of Defence: - RN stores Deptford, Royal Naval College Greenwich, Royal Artillery Woolwich, & Royal Arsenal, so possible.

Chief Inspector of Mechanization, Chislehurst

This is a set of passport-size photos. Surnames are written in pencil on the back. These are:
Top row l-r: Arrow, Barnard, Blanchard, Lawton
Middle row l-r: Mayo, Prior, Shotbolt
Bottom row l-r: Way, Wetherell, Williams

Some carry a rubber stamp, as shown at the bottom. Stamped photos with dates are:
Arrow 13FEB1941
Barnard 21FEB1941
Mayo 7-MAY1941
Shotbolt 8-FEB1941
Wetherell 8-FEB1941

They are contained in the envelope below.



So what exactly did the Chief Inspector of Mechanization do? According to this site http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/lsm/dhmg/mahon1.html he/they authored a document entitled "Self-Changing Gearbox for Matilda" in 1941. This site http://www.awm.gov.au/firstopac/bin/cgi-jsp.exe/shelf1.jsp?recno=39653&userId=&catTable= shows authorship of another document about Matilda. So who or what was Matilda, you ask? It was an infantry tank, designed at Woolwich Arsenal and produced between 1937 and 1943. See, for example http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matilda_tank

This site http://www.kcl.ac.uk/lhcma/cats/stern/st30-03-.htm lists a document "STERN: 4/11 1942 - Booklet prepared by the Department of the Chief Inspector of Mechanisation, Chislehurst, Kent, containing specifications and illustrations of armoured fighting vehicles, including Cruiser Tanks, Infantry Tanks and armoured cars."

Here is an interesting bit from Hansard, February 1948 http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1948/feb/02/electrical-and-mechanical-department From here, follow the link to the previous section and you will learn that - at the time - "manure forks are practically unobtainable in Devonshire".

Frank Tyler update

I contacted Southwark Local History Library to see if they could tell me anything about Frank Tyler & Co Ltd. Here is the response:

"I looked in the London Directory for 1885 and found the company was not listed. They are listed as ‘Clothier, 119 Newington Butts in 1888, and in 1889 as Miscellaneous Dealer at 109 and 119. In the 1890 directory they are listed as ‘Miscellaneous Dealer at 109 Newington Butts. In 1910 they are listed as ‘Furniture Dealer’, 107, 109 and 111, Newington Butts and 14 lower Kennington Lane. They were still there in 1950, and at 14 and 16 Kennington Lane. The last time they were listed was in 1971, at the Newington Butts addresses."

The latest listing in 1971 is coincidentally the year in which the clock tower was demolished.

This website includes a view of Newington Butts in 1860, together with a map showing the viewpoint. Of course this predates the establishment of Frank Tyler & Co. It gives an idea what the area would have looked like, but 107-111 would have been a bit further north. http://www.partleton.co.uk/AnnRebekahGeorge.htm

These people sell prints of old photos. They have a couple of pictures of Newington Butts in 1905 and 1906.
http://www.oldstreetscenes.co.uk/?act=images&cat=78&PHPSESSID=057327974f35e6abe2c0061c8f803d9f

In both cases, I think 107-111 would have been just a bit further up the road on the right, just past the horse and cart in the 1906 picture. But it is possible we can see something of No. 119.

This is about the best picture I have found of the clock tower. It was taken in 1961 http://webapp1.dlib.indiana.edu/cushman/results/detail.do?pnum=P12190

Scrips - Where Is It?

Ada Mackie's identity card shows she moved to Scrips, Coggeshall, Essex in November 1951. As far as I can trace, this must be:

Scrips Farm, Cut Hedge Lane, Coggeshall, Colchester, Essex, CO6 1RL

Obviously she would not have been the sole occupant here. A Google seach indicates Scrips is now in the hands of the Bardrick family. This link takes you to their Christmas 2006 newsletter and includes some pictures of the grounds http://www.bardrick.com/christmas/2006/

Frank Tyler and Utility Furniture

Following on from the enquiry I received, I looked again at the "Bought of" list to see if I remembered any of the items and whether any of them might still be around. The first entry appears to begin with the abbreviation "Ut." which I presume stands for "Utility". Utility furniture was very much a feature of Britain in the 1940s and early 1950s - try a Google search if you want to know more.

Many of the items sounded like the furniture I grew up with - we had a sideboard, dining table and four chairs and a desk which could be the same thing as the "writing table" in the list. By the time I was born, grandfather Albert was dead and grandmother Ada was no longer living at Red Hill, Chislehurst. So it is always possible that some or all of this furniture could have passed on to my parents. Below is a photo of a dining table, chairs and desk which appear identical to those I remember. I do not recognise the location. It is not Basildon Road, Abbey Wood where I grew up, so perhaps it is Red Hill. If you look carefully at the right hand corner of the table top, you will notice a slight indentation on the edge. Beneath the table top itself were retractable leaves which could be pulled out to extend the surface.

Most of the furniture has now gone the way of all things, but I still have one of the dining chairs.

Frank Tyler & Co Ltd

I have previously posted a couple of items of correspondence from the above firm.

I heard recently from a lady in the USA. She has a vintage cabinet which still has the original 1910 receipt showing it had been bought from Frank Tyler. She had been researching the company, found my blog and contacted me to ask if I had any more information.

A search on Google showed various retail outlets at 91 to 105 Newington Butts (now SE1, not SE11 as shown in the Frank Tyler letterheads). I then took myself off to the site and found Sherston Court, a six storey building with commercial premises at ground level and apartments above. I would guess it is of late 1950s or early 1960s origin. Judging by the scaffolding, some sort of rennovation work is under way. I could not find 107-111, but William Hill is at 105 and the entrance to the apartments is immediately adjacent. It is apparent that the shops within Sherston Court have re-used the numbers of previous buildings, so caution must be exercised about saying I have found the precise location of Frank Tyler's premises. Here is what I found:

The letterheads had given the location as "exactly opposite the clock tower". Across the road is park on the site of St. Mary's churchyard. A plaque there tells that the clock tower was demolished in 1971 and a memorial stone (which I did not manage to find) now marks the site.

A walk to Kennington Lane found that numbers 14-16 which housed the upholstery and cabinet works are gone and the site is now occupied by a builders' merchant.

As a footnote, a Google search revealed a WikiPatents entry showing that a Dennis Guy Farnsworth, then of 14 Kennington Lane, had lodged a patent in 1950 for "Apparatus for determining the position of pistons in an internal-combustion engine". (He later moved to Chingford and lodged another patent for towing apparatus.)

http://www.wikipatents.com/gb/0669902.html

News from E.J. Fleming

On 21st March, I posted a card from Ethel where she gives her address as 6806 Hollywood Boulevard. I did a Google search on this address and it led me to The Movieland Directory site http://www.movielanddirectory.com/ - to quote "This site is based on E.J. Fleming's Movieland Directory, which contains the largest and best researched guide to Movieland locations on Earth. Our primary focus is on the people and places, including homes, film locations, and other points, associated with the entertainment business. " I contacted the website and gave them a link to this blog, and very soon received the following very detailed reply from E.J. himself.

"Thanks for your note to the site re; Blanche White. I love that kind of stuff and loved the pics and her notes. Judging from the cars in the photos, most of them seem to be early-mid 1940's. She also mentioned that Bobby Bolter died a few years earlier and he died in 1937.As to the address, coincidently I've been doing a TON of research during the past year and Tony (my brother and web king) is getting ready to upload an updated database. I’ve gathered another 27,000 or so addresses that will put it at about 57,000 (with no end in sight… it’s a sickness…) Coincidently I’ve spent a good bit of time during the past month reviewing old L.A. voter registration records from 1922 through 1940 and have a ton of addresses from Clark Drive. Nothing on Blanche/Ethel, sadly, but I had uncovered an address for her from 1930 to go with the one for Leo.

First of all, there is a Clark Drive and a Clark Street. They aren’t terribly far apart but are distinctly different and since she mentioned “Clark Drive” specifically it’s pretty strong to assume she would not have gotten it wrong. Clark Street is in West Hollywood near the border to Beverly Hills (just east of Doheny on a map) and runs north off of Sunset. It’s a pretty schmaltzy area actually. Big money and stars’ houses. The pictures are taken in the "flats" so I'm sure it's not Clark Street.

Clark Drive on the other hand is south about a mile from Clark Street and runs north/south. It is a block west of Robertson Boulevard and runs from Beverly Boulevard on the north down past Wilshire Boulevard. It is technically in Beverly Hills but isn’t ritzy by any means. During the 1940’s the neighborhood – which was blocks of really nice stucco or California mission style bungalows – was a working neighborhood. Lots of movie people lived there but it’s not mansions or anything like that. Most bigger name stars lived and still live north of Santa Monica. Workers still live south. So I’m pretty sure that she lived on Clark Drive between Wilshire and Beverly. Many people like her and Bobby Bolder lived in that area.

Unfortunately I’ve not come across any listing for Ethel in the dozens of Clark Drive forms I’ve been through (but I’ll keep looking). I’ve got them all indexed so I know where blocks are and rechecked tonight but found only a few Ethels and none with occupations that matched.

Coincidently, I did dig up someone who I believe to be Ethel in the 1930 census when I searched for Ethel White. At the time of the 1930 census, there was an Ethel C. White living at 1819 North Kingsley (the Hedvig Apartments, a nice 8-10 unit apartment building over in the Los Feliz area at the eastern end of Hollywood. It’s between Franklin Avenue and Sunset Boulevard on a north-south street. In 1930 the area was very nice, very clean and full of movie people of all types. Beverly Hills was still the place to be for the super stars, as were the Hollywood Hills (streets north of Sunset in Hollywood). But the neighborhoods like Los Feliz were very popular because they weren’t crowded. Often the streets were only half full of buildings.

At the time of the April, 1930 census, there was a listing was for Ethel C. White, b. 1893 in England, immigrating to the U.S. in 1910, age (looks like) 37 but it was scratched out. She was 18 at the time of her first marriage, which puts it sometime during 1911-1912. Dates can be tricky because the census was in April so you can only confirm a 2-year range unless you know the specific date of an event as it applies to April. Ethel had two sons, Leo H. (age 18, b. 1912 in New York) and John F. (age 15, b. 1915 in Illinois).

There are several circumstantial things – aside from the obvious name matches – that tie in as well. In 1912, when Leo H., Jr. was born in New York, Leo, Sr. was making movies for [it looks like there is some text missing in E.J.'s original. Leo was working for Power Picture Plays in 1912, but I do not know where they were based - Phil] In 1914-1915 when John F. was born in Illinois, Leo, Sr. was making movies in Chicago, Illinois, for Essanay. Also his age at first marriage – 29 – mentioned on his census form (he was apparently already separated from her as early as April, 1930) and his age – 47- means he was in 1911-1912, matching that of Ethel.

Coincidently, director Claude Fleming lived at the Hedvig at the same time.

During the same census I found Leo H., Sr. (listing on the site already) at 5724 Sunset (a larger apartment building; don’t know the name). He gave his age as 47 (b. 1893) and birthplace as Germany, immigrated in 1899. He was still listed as married (as was Ethel) and “actor – stage” as occupation.

No idea who her “Bob” is, which must be terrible frustrating for you. If you can find out, let me know and I’ll do some research. In one of her postcards she mentioned “Bob” was working in a film so he was in the business. There was a Robert “Bobo” Cannon (b 1909, Ohio d 1964 in L.A.) who was a director and animation guy in the 1940’s-1950’s but that’s the only close thing I could find from the information she left.

Her 6806 Hollywood Blvd. address was the Bonnie Briar Hotel Apartments, a very large building at Hollywood and Highland in the heart of Hollywood. It is next to the new Academy Award complex and the Hollywood/Highland development. Very cool area. In the 1930’s-1940’s tons of interesting people lived there; here’s the list I have now:

[Sorry I have not been able to include the list of names. It was in a table and the formatting went haywire when I tried to copy and paste it here. If you would like to see the full list, please contact me (see my profile for e-mail address) and I'll forward the original message on to you.]

Not there any more I’m pretty sure…

Again if you come up with any additional information about Ethel or “Bobo” please let me know and I’ll see what I can find.

E.J. kindly provided me with copies of the 1930 census data for Ethel and Leo. They are in pdf format so I cannot post them here, but e-mail me if you would like copies.

If Ethel went to the USA in 1910, she would only have been 17 or 18 at the time. The census data also shows she first married at 18. So this still leaves a question mark over whether she met and married Leo before or after she emigrated.

Leo's age is consistent with the IMDb website database which says he was born in 1882. But if he immigrated to the US in 1899 he would only have been 16 or 17, which seems a little young, especially as some sources state he was already an established music hall performer in the UK before he went to the US. Possibly 1899 was the year he left Germany, not necessarily when he arrived in US. The census data also contradicts the birth year of 1873 shown on his gravestone.