Cardall's Corner - February 2019 - Pam McConnell
In February 1872 a meeting of farm labourers was held at Wellesbourne, Warwickshire. The meeting had been called to address the problems of the rural working poor. About 30 people were expected, but over 2,000 turned up, and this meeting led to the foundation of the National Agricultural Labourers Union …
Cardall's Corner - January 2019 - by Linda Doyle
An old adage describes fire as being a good servant but a bad master: fire provides basic needs for life, but can also destroy in an instant. Today the risk of fire is less than it was when houses had open fires and thatched roofs - sparks could cause disastrous …
Cardall's Corner - November 2018 - by Val Brodie
As a hundred years passes since the ending of the desperate war of 1914-1918, details continue to emerge in Southam of the men who died, who served and of what was done to assist the wounded here on the home front. This photograph was recently donated to Southam Heritage Collection. Southam people raised money ...
Cardall's Corner - October 2018 - by Pam McConnell
Whilst pondering the impact of the new housing estates that are springing up all around Southam I am reminded of my own family’s move to Southam in October 1960. I was six years old and we moved from an isolated tied farm cottage on the Fosse near Harbury, to a new …
Cardall's Corner - August 2018 - by Linda Doyle
Old Wills and probate make incredibly interesting reading when researching families and local places. Admittedly they will only be found for those of means, but for the more lowly of us, if we know who an ancestor worked for, then they are sometimes named in their employer’s Will as a beneficiary. The …
Cardall's Corner - July 2018 - By Linda Doyle
William Griffin (1791 -1861) was one of a large family of Griffins who lived near Southam and was a tenant farmer of mixed arable land and pasture at Stockton Fields. His family had been farmers in Fenny Compton before 1660 and had moved via Farnborough and Avon Dassett to Stockton in the early 19th century and there they stayed ...
Cardall's Corner - April 2018 - By Pam McConnell
The 13th April this year marks the 200th anniversary of a meeting held at the Craven Arms Inn that established Southam’s Eye and Ear Infirmary in Warwick Road. In the days before the NHS, all medical treatment had to be paid for, and this Infirmary in Southam was the first of its ...
Cardall's Corner - March 2018 - By Val Brodie
The story of the Bull family of Daventry Street is a complex, courageous and tragic one. Sadly in 1903 Ada Bull, died and her husband George, a baker, was left with four youngsters to bring up: Ida (15), Nellie (13), George (10) and John (8). George senior took the bold step of moving the whole family to Canada. ...
CARDALL’S CORNER - November 2016 By Val Brodie
After a hundred years, people across Europe are remembering the horrors of the Battle of the Somme. Amidst the tributes to the tens of thousands who lost their lives in those terrible months 1st July – 18th November 1916, it falls to all of us to remember the twelve men of Southam, then a very small town, who gave their lives. [...]
CARDALL’S CORNER - October 2016 By Alan Griffin
It has to be said that for lads like me growing up in Southam in the post-war years, there were few diversions. One long-established institution that was still thriving in the 1940’s and 50’s was the Parish Church Choir which in common with most church choirs of that era was an all-male body. [...]
CARDALL’S CORNER - July 2016 By Val Brodie
The Journal of Annie Eliza Bull - July 1874
In Annie Bull’s day, the journey time from Marton to Rhyl was six hours. Travelling with friends in a group including children, her train trip (change at Rugby, Crewe and Chester) was an adventure for a young single woman, in her early twenties. She wrote a journal each day and a copy [...]
CARDALL’S CORNER - February 2016 By Linda Doyle
I’m sure most of you will have heard about, or seen, the TV series ‘Mr Selfridge’ and what is implied as his ‘new invention’ of a London department store at the turn of the 20th Century. Perhaps what isn’t realised is that department stores were already very much ‘in fashion’ by then, and Southam had [...]
