Category: Bainbridge

Ken Bainbridge & Hooping Day

On Hooping Day, all the horse drawn carts from the village and surrounding farms would queue at Oulston Bank, on the hill from the forge, in both directions awaiting their turn to have their hoops, aka tyres, replaced by the village blacksmith. Our great uncle, Ken Bainbridge, along with the boys from the village would be there to help! Blacksmiths...

BainbridgeComments: 0

De732f643a25702e9d4bafb06da277aa1ffecd28 Edited

Storwood & The Popplewells

In the mid 2000s I clearly remember a telephone call from my mother when she shared with pride and incredulity that a neighbour, Peter Popplewell, had introduced her as ‘local.’ It had only taken thirty years. Hagg Bridge House, Storwood, York, was our home from the mid 1970’s onwards. My parents had returned to England from South Africa with one...

BainbridgeComments: 3

Diamond Wedding Timothy McDonald Elizabeth Edgar

Lizzie Edgar & The Bottle Stopperers

Our Great Grand Aunt, Elizabeth Edgar (1870-1956), was born in Newcastle Upon Tyne, Northumberland, the third of twelve children. Aunt Lizzie relocated to York with her parents, Ann LUMSDOM and John Thomas EDGAR, who worked as an engine fitter on the railways, until she entered domestic service for a family on Coney Street. At the age of 21 she married...

Bainbridge/EdgarComment: 1

Ann, Christine, & Jonah, The Whale who came to York

On a cool spring morning in 1954, Ann & Christine were accompanied by their preparatory school classmates into St George’s Field. Displayed before them lay the largest creature either child had ever seen, Jonah the Whale! Strapped to the world’s longest lorry, their first impression was the pervasive smell of fish, formalin, and grease. Having just spent a month on...

BainbridgeComments: 0

Reg Bainbridge & The Steamroller

Charles “Reg” Bainbridge was born in the village of Newton on Ouse, North Yorkshire, to parents John Henry Bainbridge of Tollerton and Adelaide Edgar of York. The first of five children, Reg arrived in 1915 shortly before his father’s departure for WWI service with the Royal Ambulance Corp. His mother was left to raise a new born and run the...

Bainbridge/EdgarComments: 15

Wallace Scott & The Battle of Coronel

On November 1st, 1914, HMS Good Hope was sunk in the Battle of Coronel with the loss of all hands, including our 3rd cousin, Able Seaman Wallace Scott (1884-1914). This tragic loss was symptomatic of the disfunction of the Royal Navy and Admiralty during the early months of Word War One. The Battle of Coronel was Britain’s first naval defeat...

ScottComment: 1

Alfred Maddison & The Fleet Review

On this day in 1914 our 4th cousin, Boy 1st Class, Alfred Maddison participated in the Fleet Review at Spithead in the Solent, serving aboard the Royal Navy Cruiser, HMS Hawke. Alfred signed up, age 15, for twelve years service in 1913. He initially trained at the shore establishment, stone frigate, HMS Ganges. Upon achieving his Boy 1st Class rating,...

ScottComments: 3

Geoff Bainbridge & The Cuban Missile Crisis

Flight Lieutenant Geoff Bainbridge (1924-2022) served with the RAF from 1942 for the duration of the war. He ultimately pursued a successful career with the RAF and by 1962 Geoff was stationed with the new V-Force. Having completed flights tests beyond the sound barrier on the new Avro Vulcan, he served as a test pilot, flight instructor, and demonstrated the...

BainbridgeComments: 3

Ken Bainbridge & The Half Way Sign

“200 hundred miles from London, 200 hundred miles from Edinburgh” announced my grandfather as we drove past the sign in his new Ford Orion, on route to our next Swinsty Reservoir fly fishing adventure. It must have been 1987 or thereabout when Reg BAINBRIDGE showed me his brother’s handiwork on the Great North Eastern Railway line. However my memory is...

Bainbridge/OnionsComments: 5

Adelaide Edgar & The Last Onion

Adelaide EDGAR, our great grandmother, was the tenth of twelve children, born 2 August 1888, to John Thomas ONIONS and Ann LUMSDON, in the family’s Price Street tenement, York. She was raised at No. 3 Rosary Terrace, off Holgate Road, where the family moved in the mid 1890s. The Two-up two-down terraced home overlooked the railway tracks and engine sheds...

Bainbridge/EdgarComments: 7