Yorkshire – Page 2 – Haggbridge.com

Reg Bainbridge & The Steamroller

Charles Reginald Bainbridge, Reg to his friends, 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...

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...

William Porter & The Driffield Navigation

The Blue Bell Inn sits opposite River Head, at the northern end of the Driffield Navigation. The landlord in the mid 18th century was our 6th Great Grandfather William PORTER (1714-1790). William was one of several Gentlemen, Freeholders, Tradesmen, and others, of the County of Yorkshire who petitioned Parliament in 1767 to pass legislation to build a navigable waterway from...

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,...

Ronald Hardacre & The Commander of the British Empire

Central Chancery of the Orders of Knighthood St. James’s Palace, London, S.W.L The QUEEN has been graciously pleased, on the occasion of the Celebration of Her Majesty’s Birthday, to give orders for the following appointments to the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire. To be Ordinary Commanders of the Civil Division of the said Most Excellent Order (CBE): Geoffrey...

William Thompson & The Mounted Home Guard

Our Great Grandfather, William THOMPSON (1891-1964), led the charge! “England’s only mounted section of the Home Guard, which nightly patrols 100 square miles of the North Riding,” read the caption in the Yorkshire Evening Press. Well, that might have been a slight exaggeration, as there were at least three other mounted units in Devon, Glamorgan, & Warwickshire. It was the...

Thomas Hill & Raindale Mill

Raindale Mill was relocated from Raindale, near Pickering, to York in 1966 and reconstructed stone by stone at the Castle Museum. The mill was gifted to the museum’s founder in 1935 by the last owner of the now derelict building. As a child we visited the museum countless times and I’m sure I walked past the mill, entirely unappreciative of...

Gilbert Hardacre & West African Cocoa Trade

Gilbert Clapham Hardacre (1889-1959), our Great Grand Uncle on the Hudson side of the family, was our first ancestor to reach West Africa in his role a cocoa trader for York-based confectioners firm, Rowntrees. Gilbert’s travels were the inspiration for members of successive generations of our family to reach beyond the north of England and ponder the great yonder. In...

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...

John Thomas Onions & The Engine Wrights

John Thomas ONIONS, our great grandfather, was born in Gateshead to an unwed mother, Martha, 21 September 1842. He was 2 years old when his mother married but was still listed as John Thomas Onions in his grandfather’s last will and testament in 1845. Until the Legitimacy Act of 1926, illegitimate children had no legal kin except their mother, a...

Tag: Yorkshire