The talented school kids whose artwork marked the arrival of Kimberley's first tram in 1913

on

 

The front cover of Arthur Plumb's book "Kimberley in old picture postcards" shows the very first tram to go through Kimberley. The time and date was 11:30am on August 6th 1913. We know the exact time and date thanks to a bunch of local school kids...

The children at the local British School on Newdigate Lane would have been very excited to see the tram as they had been carefully following the progress of the tram works. With the help of their teacher E.J.Henshaw, they produced a very detailed, hand-drawn poster of all the significant landmarks in the process. The full poster and close-ups of its details are shown at the foot of the article but this is the story it tells...

The school kids' poster from 1914
It is 110 years old!


Detail of the first tram as recorded by the school children...
"Aug 6 FIRST TRAM ran from from Langley Mill to Cinderhill,
passing through Kimberley at 11:30am"
Signed "E.J.Henshaw"

Some highlights from the poster
- Feb 3rd 1913 - Tram works start with the road being widened outside Dr. Northwood's house... "20 men at work." Dr. Northwood lived on Newdigate Lane opposite the Gate Inn. 
- Feb 19th - I wonder if the building on the left in the picture below was the "dangerous property" mentioned at the Toll Bar? "Parish Council meet and discuss the dangerous property at the Toll Bar and advise that it shall be demolished." It was demolished at some stage as today Kimberey's Toll Bar Square stands in its place. However in the Chapel Bar picture below the building is still standing and the tram lines are in place.

c.1914 The Gate Inn looking up Newdigate Street
sometime (shortly?) after the tram poles and wires were erected.
Dr. Northwood's house is in the centre of the picture behind the curved wall.

- Further down is the Great Northern Railway bridge. The road underneath had to be lowered for the trams on July 17th 1913. 

c.1900 - Kimberley Main Street before the tram works altered it.
The Gate Inn is just out of shot on the right.
The same corner building as in the previous picture can be seen on the right

- March 6th 1913 - Tram rails from Belgium arrived at G.N. station. [Great Northern, Kimberley]
- May 22nd - Overhead wires placed on brackets.
- July 6th - The height of M.R. [Midland Railway] and G.N.R. [Great Northern Railway] bridges measured. 
- July 17th - Lowering road under G.N.R. bridge. [which can be seen in the picture above]
- August 6th - first tram comes through Kimberley at 1130 heading to Cinderhill where the Nottingham city trams took over.
- August 7th - Trams open to the public

Tram works start on Feb 3rd 1913 with road widening "opposite Dr. Northwood's"
and demolishing "dangerous property" at the Toll Bar.

Fixing bracket arm on standard at Toll Bar
Kimberley Main Street outside The Gate Inn


The Ripley Rattlers
From the first tram in 1913 to the last one in 1933, the all-electric trams which became affectionally known as the Ripley Rattlers, ran precariously along a clickety-clack switchback track up and down the steep hills between Nottingham and Ripley in Derbyshire via Kimberley, Langley Mill and Heanor. There were plenty of accidents, one tram crashed into a church wall throwing passengers over into the graveyard after the brakes failed.


During WW1 when the "fit-for-service" men were away fighting, many of the roles were taken by women. Famously, the ticket inspectors, who local author DH Lawrence immortalised in his story "Tickets, Please!"...

"This, the most dangerous tram-service in England, as the authorities themselves declare, with pride, is entirely conducted by girls, and driven by rash young men, or else by invalids who creep forward in terror. The girls are fearless young hussies. In their ugly blue uniforms, skirts up to their knees, shapeless old peaked caps on their heads, they have all the sang-froid of an old non-commissioned officer. With a tram packed with howling colliers, roaring hymns downstairs and a sort of antiphony of obscenities upstairs, the lasses are perfectly at their ease. They pounce on the youths who try to evade their ticket-machine. They push off the men at the end of their distance. They are not going to be done in the eye — not they. They fear nobody — and everybody fears them."

As a modern-day Nottingham tram driver myself, I can attest that today's crop of ticket inspectors are not to be messed with either!

Annie Bronson, tram conductress of High Spannia, Kimberley was
onboard for a particularly dramatic tram incident. 
Fires on the trams were all too real, not just for 
DH Lawrence's stories...

Tram's on fire!
"To ride on these cars is always an adventure. The drivers are often men unfit for active service : cripples and hunchbacks. So they have the spirit of the devil in them. The ride becomes a steeplechase. Hurrah ! we have leapt in a clean jump over the canal bridges — now for the four-lane comer ! With a shriek and a trail of sparks we are clear again. To be sure a tram often leaps the rails — but what matter ! It sits in a ditch till other trams come to haul it out. It is quite common for a car, packed with one solid mass of living people, to come to a dead halt in the midst of unbroken blackness, the heart of nowhere on a dark night, and for the driver and the girl-conductor to call : "All get off — car's on fire."


More close ups of the kid's poster...

- firstly a shot of the entire poster...



- Sadly, a certain Mr. Matthews had his house demolished to make way for the tram. The children's poster had a before and after drawing of it. Demolition commenced 24th Feb 1913.




- A very rural looking Nine Corners is also shown in a picture...

The sub-station on James Street mentioned above was still in place until 2017 when it was demolished for new housing. You can just about read the faded signage on the side saying something like "Nottingham Power"...

James Street sub-station in 2017 just before demolition


- a blacksmith's shop/shelter was set up presumably to assist with working on the iron railings and raising of overhead line posts (or "standards" as they seem to be called...


- even the course of the Giltbrook had to altered to accommodate the tram and the road underneath the railway bridges lowered... 





Colourised version of the first tram to come through Kimberley.
11:30am on August 6th 1913 
Credit - Lance Brown and A Plumb

The British School boys in 1920
Headmaster Mr. Hobbs on the left
Credit - Jean Skinner

Kimberley's Main Street with tram lines looking towards Nottingham.
The war memorial and the Lord Clyde pub (now called The Dog)
along with its distinctive railings are still there.

The Kimberley war memorial, shown above, which originally cost about £1,500, was unveiled in 1921 by Sir Henry Dennis Readett Bayley, chairman of Giltbrook Leather Works and Managing Director of the Digby Colliery Company. It was dedicated by Reverend Frederic Hart BA, rector of Holy Trinity, Kimberley, whose son, Charles Crowther, was killed in 1917. The names of those who died in the Second World War have been added to one of the panels. It is apparently the only domed memorial in Britain.

------------- THE END -------------


Notes and sources


Carolynn Hobbs and her grandad John Hobbs, headmaster at the British School, who encouraged the school children in their tram project.

Midland Omnibus Company pages on the Ripley Rattlers

Arthur Plumb's postcard book series


Comments

Post a Comment