Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee

It was lovely to see the Diamond Jubilee Celebrations earlier this month. There has only been one other Diamond Jubilee Celebration in the past and that was held on the 22nd June, 1897 to celebrate the 60th year of Queen Victoria's reign.
On the 23rd September, 1896, Queen Victoria became the longest reigning monarch surpassing the reign of her grandfather, George III.
A diamond anniversary would normally celebrate 75 years but in the case of a monarch, it is celebrated in the 60th year. Originally, it was brought forward during Victoria's reign because she had been out of the public eye for so long after the death of husband, Prince Albert, in 1861.

Celebrations were held up and down the country for the Jubilee and there were gatherings on the Hoe and all over Plymouth. Back in a time when there was no television or cinema, everyone came out in their thousands to take part in the events.
Two of the photos here show the huge bonfires that were set up on Plymouth Hoe. Beacons were set alight all over the country to mark the celebration. The history of beacons being lit across the country spans back many hundreds of years and was once used as a means of communication between towns and villages. Beacons were also lit during Queen Elizabeth II's Silver Jubilee in 1977.

The other photos shown here show much activity taking place at West Hoe with many people taking rides on huge swing-boats erected there. Everyone has turned out in their finest clothes. The final photo shows Old Town Street decorated and festooned with flags.
Buildings in and around Plymouth that were erected to celebrate Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee include the Turnchapel Jubilee Hall and the Technical College in Paradise Road in Devonport.
Victoria Park was named after the Queen, as were many other streets and locations in the area. However, the park wasn't finished in time for the Diamond Jubilee and didn't open until 1905.

In 1887, festivities for the Diamond Jubilee lasted two days covering 20th and 21st June. It concluded with a procession through London which, according to Mark Twain who witnessed it, 'stretched to the limit of sight in both directions'.
Queen Victoria was born on 24th May 1819 in London and was the only child of Edward, the Duke of Kent, and Victoria Maria Louisa of Saxe-Coburg.

At the age of 18, she succeeded her uncle, William IV to the throne in 1837. She married her first cousin, Prince Albert, in 1840 and they had 9 children. When Albert died, Victoria never recovered from his death and remained in mourning until she herself died 40 in 1901 almost 4 years after her Diamond Jubilee. It'll probably be a very long time before another monarch celebrates their Diamond Jubilee so I hope you made the most of the celebrations earlier this summer!
(Photos courtesy of Chris Goddard and Plymouth City Council Libraries)

Plymouth's Prehistoric Past

Last month, I wrote about Plymouth's first car and this month I'm travelling even further back in time with a story about some of the area's earliest creatures and also the story of one of Plymouth's earliest men, dating back approximately 140,000 years.
It's hard to imagine that the area today known as Stonehouse once had prehistoric animals roaming across it. Deep beneath the streets of Stonehouse lie ancient caverns. A story in the Evening Herald of the 9th November, 1960 carried a report about the prehistoric caverns at Stonehouse. It read:
'Stonehouse's prehistoric limestone caverns, discovered in the 18th century and since lost to modern knowledge have, it is believed, been rediscovered by builders excavating foundations for a new warehouse in George Street. Directing a pneumatic drill into limestone boulders, a workman found the rock giving way to expose a 10ft shaft with two long fissures squeezing from it. Remains of prehistoric rhinoceroses, horses, oxen, deer and other animals were once found in the caverns but were destroyed when the Athenaeum was blitzed in the last war.'
I haven't been able to find any follow-up to this article but it's amazing that all this probably still exists beneath the streets of Stonehouse and it's such a shame that the remains found in the 1700s were destroyed in the war.

 

The story of Cattedown Man is well-known and his remains were discovered in limestone caves in the Cattedown area of the city in 1887. Excavated by local historian and naturalist, R N Worth, the finds were meticulously recorded and are considered to be one of the most important discoveries ever documented regarding the history of Homo Sapiens in Europe.
With Cattedown Man were the bones of 15 early humans together with the remains of woolly rhinoceros, woolly mammoth, deer and lion dating from the ice age. The remains are approximately 140,000 years old and are the oldest human remains discovered in the British Isles.
Other caves within Plymouth, containing ancient bones, have been discovered in the 125 years since the discovery of Cattedown Man. Prehistoric remains have been found in Ernesettle Woods, at Mutley and Keyham as well as at Stonehouse.

 

The surviving remains found at Cattedown are kept at the city museum in the city.
Fossil remains were also discovered at caves at Oreston but were never documented, although they are referred to in several scientific papers. The remains, incredibly, were thrown away as being of no great importance and because they 'contradicted the Biblical Account of Human origins'.
It's amazing what lies beneath our feet but also incredible that very little of this history ever seems to be mentioned. I certainly haven't read anything at all about the Stonehouse Caverns in the last 40 years.
The location of the Cattedown caverns is meant to be a secret, for fear of fossil hunters etc, but it's well-known that they are located close to the fuel depot there. It would be incredible to be able to visit them and it seems a shame that the area is off-limits to local residents.
When you think of prehistoric animals such as woolly mammoths, you imagine that they once inhabited areas such as Siberia or North America. It's certainly incredible that they once walked very close to where many of us are now sat reading this month's blog!

Plymouth's first car

It's hard to imagine today, with the endless stream of traffic, that Plymouth once only had one car. Dr Francis Pearse, who was a dental surgeon, was the first person to own a car in the town. The car was a German Benz which dated from around 1896. Pearse drove it for many years until it became outdated in the 1930s. He objected to having to pay £2 10 shillings a year in rates to garage the car so threatened to bury it.
Newspapers around the world picked up on the story and one, the Barrier Miner Newspaper, published in Broken Hill, New South Wales, Australia in 1931, read:

FIRST TO RUN IN THE STREETS OF PLYMOUTH
London, March 15.

Sooner than pay rates on a car shed, Dr Francis Pearse of Plymouth, decided to bury a famous old 4½-horse-power motor car. Dr Pearse bought the car in 1900. It was the first to be run in the streets of Plymouth, where it has since been a familiar sight at pageants and processions. It participated in the London to Brighton old crocks' race in 1926. Dr Pearse then spent £20 to win a 2/6 bet that the car would complete the distance. Dr Pearse offered the car to the Plymouth Museum which refused it. Unable to find a purchaser,he arranged to bury the vehicle near the cemetery, saying that he had only kept it out of sentiment, and therefore burial was the decent thing.

A later story reported that he had carried out his threat and the car had been broken up.

The Winsconsin State Journal of 3rd August 1931 read:

MAN BURIES CAR 30 YEARS OLD

Rather than pay taxes on the 'garage' where he had kept his thirty-year-old automobile, Dr Francis Pearse of Plymouth, England, has buried it. He drove it reverently through the city to the burial ground near the cemetery and had it broken up and interred. Dr Pearse bought the car in 1900 and had driven it until three years ago. He had paid no taxes on the old shed where he kept it but this year it was classed as a garage.

Somehow, the car ended up at the Brooklands racing circuit and the photo shows the doctor driving it to Friary Station so that it could be transported there by train. The story is told that he did indeed bury the car but it was later exhumed when a local motor dealer persuaded him to send it to Brooklands.
Another early car belonged to Marshall Ware who lived at the Kloof in Saltash Passage. At the time, it was the only car in the area and small boys would chase after it as it drove over the cobbles towards the Saltash Ferry which, back then, was only used by foot passengers and horses and carts.
The first garage in Plymouth for repairing motor vehicles was the Mannamead Garage in Elm Road. In 1901, it repaired its first 'horseless carriage' which, perhaps, was the one belonging to Doctor Pearse.

 Traffic has continued to grow steadily over the years. Nowadays, even the traffic of the 1960s seems minimal compared to today's busy roads.
Today, there are so many vehicles on the road that they're almost impossible to count. It's hard to imagine a far quieter time when the sight of a car would draw a crowd and would have young boys running after it chasing it down the road.

Plymouth Zoo

I'm sure that many people will have happy memories of Plymouth Zoo. I remember that we first went there when I was about 9 years old in the late 1960s. A pelican called Percy followed us all the way around the zoo, it was almost like he was giving us a guided tour! Over the years, I visited the zoo with my parents, my brother and friends from school.

It was a shilling to get in and there were many animals including chimpanzees, polar bears, seals, camels, giraffes and lions. The chimps were always my favourite but were obviously quite bored in their relatively small cage. The chimp cage was at the beginning of the zoo and if any smoker discarded a lit cigarette in their direction, one of them would pick it up and start smoking it. Unruly kids would chuck gravel at the chimps and the chimps would throw it back. I remember one school trip where the elephant took our teacher's umbrella!

It seemed a lovely place to start off with but got a bit run down and smelly towards the end. Amazingly, the zoo was only open for 16 years. It opened on Thursday April 19th 1962 at a cost of £30,000 and it had 13,000 visitors during the first three days. The zoo was owned by the Chipperfields and was a very popular attraction for many years.

There's a great movie on the Pathe News website showing the zoo in the 1960s and all the animals look very happy. I know that the keepers were very interested in their welfare and got quite attached to the animals. When you're a kid, a zoo seems a wondrous place but when you're older and with hindsight, it seems cruel keeping them all cooped up in cages. I used to watch the polar bears pacing up and down, doing repetitive movements and obviously being driven crazy by being locked up. Even as a naive kid in the 1960s, I felt sorry for them.

I remember the sweet popcorn that was sold at the cafe to feed the animals. All the kids always ended up eating it themselves although I'm sure it wouldn't have done the animals much good anyway. I remember once that there was a giraffe which was just about to swallow am empty popcorn packet. Luckily, the keeper managed to get it off him before he choked!

The cafe sold allsorts of souvenirs such as pendants, guide books, badges (I've still got mine) and my favourite, chimpanzee masks! I once wore a chimp mask all the way home on the bus and nobody said a word! As we got home, our next door neighbour was moving out and he shook my hand and said, 'Bye, Derek!' I still had the chimp mask on. That year, the mask ended up on our guy on Guy Fawkes night and ended up on the street's bonfire (in the days when you could build bonfires!).

The zoo also had a children's area with guinea pigs and rabbits and a huge tortoise which I believe was a gift from the Navy in the early 1960s. There were rides for smaller kids on ponies and mechanical giraffes.

The zoo closed on Sunday January 8th 1978 and was later converted into a skateboard park. Now, it's hard to work out where it once stood but probably forms part of Plymouth Argyle's ground.

Like many Plymothians, I had some great times at Plymouth Zoo in the 1960s and 1970s but today I'd be reluctant to visit any zoo as it now seems wrong, to me, to coop animals up in small, unnatural environments. It was all part of my childhood though and I've very fond memories of it.

The old oak tree in Saltash Passage

The old oak tree in Saltash Passage was cut down this morning (16th February 2012). It was probably well over 100 years old but has been dead for many years, maybe a victim of Acute Oak Decline which is caused by a bacterial infection.

The oak probably appears somewhere amongst these trees shown in a photo from about 1900. Many of the trees have been thinned or have disappeared completely over the years.

It's amazing to think that the tree was there before cars, radio and television. There have certainly been a lot of changes in the area in its lifespan. Trams would have rattled along the cobbled road beside the oak and church services would have been given in  the now long-gone St Peter's Church which would have stood across the way.

It's a shame to see it go and, for its long life, it was completely gone in little over an hour.

Three new books from Amberley Publishing

I've got three new books coming out from Amberley Publishing in the next few months. The first, 'Cornwall Through Time' will be published at the end of this month (February) and features old and new photos of Cornwall and includes photos of Saltash, Looe, Polperro, Antony, Hayle, St Germans, Sennen, Land's End etc.

The second book is 'Devon Through Time' which again features rare old and new photos from around the region.

The third book is 'Devonport Through Time' which shows the changes to the area over the last 100 years or so. It also shows the recent rejuvenation work and features Fore Street, Devonport Park, the Dockyard, Mount Wise, Mutton Cove and much more. All books will be available in bookshops such as Waterstones and WH Smiths as well at local Tescos and online.

Emmeline Pankhurst

Emmeline Pankhurst is well-known as being the leader of the British suffragette movement but her connection and arrest in Plymouth is perhaps less well-known.
Pankhurst was born in 1858. Her later political actions caused her to be arrested on many occasions. She founded the Women's Social and Political Union in 1898 and the group became infamous for smashing windows and assaulting policemen in their fight against political parties of the time. Pankhurst, her daughters, and other WSPU activists were sentenced to repeated prison sentences. Her arrest in Plymouth was carried in the Morning Post and read:

'THE MORNING POST DECEMBER 5 1913

MRS PANKHURST IN PRISON

DRIVE FROM PLYMOUTH TO EXETER

Mrs. Pankhurst was arrested on board the White Star steamship Majestic on arrival at Plymouth yesterday about noon from New York, and was subsequently taken to Exeter Gaol by motor car in charge of police officer and of detectives who had come from London. While at dinner on Wednesday evening she was informed of the action that the Government had decided to take, and when the Chief Constable of Plymouth, two officers from Scotland Yard and others instructed for the arrest went on board the Majestic Mrs. Pankhurst was asked to come to the Purser's office to see them. She refused to do so, and the police, going to the promenade deck, made the arrest in the presence of many of the passengers. There was no scene or demonstration. When the Chief Constable of Plymouth asked Mrs. Pankhurst to consider herself under arrest she demanded his authority, and was answered that a warrant, in the circumstances was unnecessary. Mrs. Pankhurst at first declined to move, but, after a short conversation with the police officers, went on board a special tender that they had chartered to take her ashore. At her urgent request she was accompanied by Mrs. Rheta Child-Dorr, an American journalist and personal friend.
The tender on which the police had embarked unnoticed, at a Devonport quay, proceeded on leaving the Majestic, not to the Great Western Docks, Plymouth, the usual place for ocean passengers to land, but steamed up the Hamoaze about three miles to Bull Point, the Government explosives depot for Plymouth Naval Station. There were in waiting two motor-cars. One was entered by Mrs. Pankhurst and her friend, the Chief Constable, and a Scotland Yard officer, and in the other travelled the Plymouth police matron and four police-constables. Mrs. Pankhurst had not been allowed to bring away with her any of her baggage.
On leaving Bull Point, from which the public are at all times rigidly excluded, the cars proceeded across country by way of Tamerton Folliot until the main road from Plymouth to London was reached. Then the route taken was through Yelverton and across Dartmoor, passing Princetown and Moreton Hampstead, and the cars arrived at Exeter at a quarter past three, Mrs. Pankhurst being lodged in the county gaol.
Anticipating that Mrs. Pankhurst would be landed at the Great Western Docks, a large crowd had assembled there. A Suffragist bank played, and Mrs. Flora Drummond and a bodyguard of about twenty Suffragists, with motor-cars waiting, were at the Ocean Quay, Devonport, to receive Mrs. Pankhurst in case she should be landed there. At both places considerable irritation was shown when it was realised that the enthusiasts had been outwitted by the police, but there was no hostile demonstration. Miss Grew, addressing the crowd at the Great Western Docks, said the plan which had been adopted was proof that a miserably weak Government dared not face the Plymouth public and arrest Mrs. Pankhurst ashore.'

Emmeline Pankurst's fight led to the Representation of the People Act in 1918 and, for the first time, women were allowed to vote.

Pankhurst died in 1928 and was commemorated two years later when a statue was unveiled in London's Victoria Tower Gardens.