Some early aristocratic residents
July 9, 2013
The motives of those who visited Leamington Priors during the early years of its expansion were many and varied. Some came in the expectation of improved health from taking the waters and many others arrived to indulge themselves on the hunting field or to immerse themselves in the social round of fashionable balls and banquets
The Reading sisters: growing up in the Althorpe Arms
July 5, 2013
In the early 1970s, Kit and Ivy Reading were interviewed for the 1st edition of the Bath Place Times, painting a vivid picture of their lives and the area where they grew up. The Reading family kept the Althorpe Arms in Althorpe Street for 42 years, until the area became a trading estate in the
Thomas Timms 1855 – 1934 Leamington’s Last Bath-Chair Man
June 26, 2013
Leamington Priors was one of only four Spa towns in 19th century England to have Bath-chairs as a form of transport, and Thomas Timms played a major role in developing this form of transport. Towards the end of his life, he published a short memoir, detailing his early life and experiences. He was
Miss Alice Rosa Barker – A Bustle Abroad
June 24, 2013
Alice Rosa Barker, was born in Wolverhampton in 1843 and was possibly the child of her mother’s 20th pregnancy. She arrived into a world of great change, energy and creativity – only a month after the launch of Brunel’s SS Great Britain. With motion at the very heart of nineteenth century industrial expansion – wider
Leamington Spa Brass Bands: A Brief History
June 21, 2013
From its earliest days as a Spa town, Leamington has always hosted bands and their music. There used to be military bands playing in the Pump Room Gardens every morning in the summer season, – an unwelcome distraction in the early years of the 20th century, for the girls at the Grammar School, sitting examinations
Trooper Job Allwood
June 18, 2013
The British Army has engaged in many heroic actions over the years but few have achieved such legendary status as one during the Crimean War in October 1854. This action, described by The Times reporter present as ‘an atrocity without parallel’ came to be known as The Charge of the Light Brigade and moved the
William Goss, House Furnisher
June 18, 2013
The Leamington Business Directory for 1899 lists many hundreds of small businesses at a period that was arguably the heyday of the independent trader in Leamington Spa. Many of the entries relate to what we would today call service industries. Whether you wanted a paper hanger, a bill poster, a bone setter or a laundress
Dr Henry Jephson
June 18, 2013
The Leamington Priors mineral springs had been exploited by local physicians from the early eighteenth century but it wasn’t until the start of the nineteenth century that they were promoted on a commercial basis. Drinking health-giving mineral waters and regular bathing in them was a well established custom widely practised and known as ‘taking the
Sarah Kibbler, Poisoner
June 17, 2013
In1889, middle-aged Sarah Kibbler was a general servant at the home of Dr and Mrs Horniblow, 76 Clarendon Street, Leamington. Her duties included cleaning and taking care of the family, the doctor, his wife, their only son William – and of the family pet, a rat kept in a cage in the scullery. Mrs
How a Leamington ‘lad’ lost the Irish Crown Jewels and his life
June 17, 2013
Arthur Edward Vicars was born at Winton Lodge in Holly Walk in Leamington on the twenty seventh of July1862. He was the youngest of four children born to William Henry Vicars, a retired colonel in the 61st Regiment of Foot, and his wife Jane. The family lived in some style as befitted a retired Army
