Corporal William Amey VC, MM, 1881 – 1940
September 24, 2015
Corporal William Amey VC, MM, – the Man William Amey was born on the 5th March 1881 at Duddeston, in the Aston area of Birmingham, the last-but-one of the eight children of Charles & Elizabeth Amey. When he left school he worked as a chandelier maker for Verity’s Ltd, electrical manufacturers, so presumably had some
Henry Peach Robinson: pioneer Victorian photographer
September 24, 2015
Here is a presentation by Alan Griffin of Leamington History Group about Henry Peach Robinson: pioneer Victorian photographer. A blue plaque in memory of Henry Peach Robinson was unveiled at 60 Parade on 23rd September 2015 by Dr Michael Pritchard, Director-General of the Royal Photographic Society. He has written an article for the RPS Newsletter
Norman Painting 0BE, Academic, Actor, Broadcaster and Writer, 1924 – 2009.
September 23, 2015
Norman Painting was born at 28 Grove Street Leamington Spa on 23 April 1924, the son of a railway signalman. He was a gifted scholar who went on to win scholarships first to Leamington College for Boys, (September 1935 – July 1938), then King Edward VI School Nuneaton, Birmingham University and ultimately Christ Church College,
William Louis de Normanville (1843-1928)
September 20, 2015
William Louis de Normanville’s family originated in Normandy. His grandfather, the Marquis de Normanville had escaped from the Revolution in 1792, leaving his family behind in the sadly mistaken belief that women and children would be safe from revolutionaries. In England he married again and eventually dropped the title. As a young man William de
Rediscovering the Toovey Family, Leamington Artists
August 6, 2015
A few years ago, my dad brought home a dusty old envelope from the Town Hall, where he works. It was about to be put in the bin, so he brought it for me to look at. I was excited when I saw that the contents all related to one person, Richard Toovey. But who
Gilbert Lawford Dalton (1903 or 1904 to 1963)
August 6, 2015
A Comics Genius A man who lived in Royal Leamington Spa from 1945 to 1958 at 18 Milverton Terrace was probably the most prolific fiction writer of his time. He was Gilbert Lawford Dalton. He wrote several books but deserves greatest recognition for the stories in comics which he penned for many years for the leading publisher,
Josef Kalaś, 1912 – 2008
July 20, 2015
Josef Kalaś was born in Czechoslovakia and served in the Czech army before the outbreak of WW2. During the 3rd Reich Occupation, he fled via Poland and joined the French Foreign Legion. He was released to fight with his countrymen at the outbreak of war, and eventually, having survived the last battle to stem the
Memorial to Civilian War Dead
July 17, 2015
During the 1939-1945 war, Leamington experienced a number of air raids which caused the death of 13 people and severe injuries to 39 others. This information was not made public at the time, for fear of damaging morale, but it came to light when the Local Medical Officer of Health published a report after the
A Time to Remember
June 25, 2015
Thursday 18 June marked the 73rd anniversary of Operation Anthropoid and the mission of the seven Czech soldiers to assassinate the Nazi tyrant Reinhard Heydrich. The Friends of the Czech Memorial Fountain, including many living relatives of the 4000 soldiers billeted in and around Leamington in WW2, gathered in Jephson Gardens on Sunday 14th June to
Women in the Cricket Field
June 23, 2015
A trawl through back copies of the Leamington Courier in search of archive material relating to Leamington Cricket Club turned up an intriguing announcement by Mr W A Bezant in the editions of June 1890, – the forthcoming “Engagement, for one day only, of The Original English Lady Cricketers”, when two complete teams, Reds v.
