Leamington’s Basque Connection
February 19, 2015
As a result of the Spanish Civil War, over 4000 children, some only just over the age of six, were evacuated from Northern Spain to Britain in 1937. Suffering extreme hardship, violence, imprisonment without trial, and widespread poverty under the Franco regime, for the families of the Basque evacuees life had become an endless struggle
Sergeant FG Brown, Leamington Borough Police Force
February 19, 2015
Frederick George Brown was born in 1835 in Leamington Priors to John and Charlotte Brown. John was a local carpenter and had five surviving children, four sons and one daughter. Three of his sons became policemen – two of them, including Frederick, were sergeants in Leamington Priors Borough Police Force. After school, Frederick first became an
John Ruskin (1819 to 1900)
February 13, 2015
Was the remarkable life of this man saved by the mineral waters of Leamington Spa at the age of 21? John Ruskin was a writer, artist, art critic and polymath who was precocious at all stages of his life. He championed J M W Turner, the Pre-Raphaelites, Gothic architecture and the Arts and Crafts
The Hon. Alfred Lyttelton: Cricketer, Politician and MP for Warwick & Leamington
January 20, 2015
Two of the attributes of the late Victorians were large families and the multi-skilled “polymath”. There was more to Arthur Conan Doyle than the creation of iconic detective fiction, and to C B Fry who played cricket for Sussex and England who also held a world athletics record, won an FA Cup winner’s medal and
Thomas Dawkes, 1767 – 1835, Parish Clerk of All Saints
October 13, 2014
Thomas Dawkes, parish clerk of the original All Saints church during the early nineteenth century was a close neighbour of Benjamin Satchwell and witnessed first hand the metamorphosis of Leamington from a small village into a town. His real importance to the researcher lies in the fact that he made copious notes on what he
Elizabeth Anne Galton, 1808 – 1906
September 19, 2014
Elizabeth Anne Galton was a Victorian gentlewoman, the eldest of six daughters and three sons born to a wealthy Quaker banking family and related through her mother to the Darwin family. She was not a feisty high-achiever, explorer or philanthropist, but she played a significant role for future historians at least in recording her memories
William Thomas in Leamington
September 15, 2014
The Early Years William Thomas was born the second of four sons in 1799 in Suffolk. In about 1805, the family moved to Gloucestershire. William was apprenticed to the local builder as a a carpenter and joiner, and skills he learned then came in useful in his later career as an architect. All four of
From New York to Omaha beach
August 24, 2014
In October 1940, a fresh-faced young American named John Buccellato, just out of his teens, enlisted in the United States Army Infantry. His parents who were middle-class Sicillian immigrants lived in an apartment block facing Central Park in New York City. His mother was a milliner. Within two years ‘Butch’ Buccellato found himself in
Confederate nest in Leamington Spa
August 20, 2014
The photograph to the right, taken in Leamington in 1865, is of former crewmen of the Confederate naval ship, the Shenandoah. What circumstances brought these sailors to Leamington at a time when fellow Americans were celebrating the ending of the Civil War? Four years earlier, the Confederate President, Jefferson Davis, sent his representative, James M
Sam Lockhart, Elephant Trainer Extraordinaire
August 2, 2014
The world’s foremost elephant trainer began his working life as a circus acrobat and when he died was described by the Leamington Courier newspaper as a ‘retired giant of the entertainment industry’. The dapper little man with the magnificent white moustache was one of Leamington’s most recognisable residents in the years between the two world
