WILLIAM TILL - PHOTOGRAPHER OF MELTON MOWBRAY. (1856-1912) I really do like the simple photography of William Till, probably more than of all the local photographers who have passed this way from time to time. Uncomplicated and with scant attention to fussy style or technical know-how, personalised with his immature hand-written annotations usually placed carelessly and seemingly lazily along the bottom, they importantly for us today, offer information as to when and less often, where it was taken. The result was usually appealing and especially after a century has passed, his work serves still today to ever remind us of times long passed. William was an only child who grew up with his parents, namesake William Till, (1816-1871) and Hannah (Parr) who ran a hairdressers and perfumery business in Burton End, near to where the Colles Hall stands today and opposite the lovely twelfth century St Mary’s church. After his basic schooling - education then legally ended at age 14 - he w
A HIATUS AT THE HALL A century and a half ago, the summer of 1856 was reportedly an extremely good one in Melton Mowbray with dry and extended spells of languorous days and nights, a situation which was I am sure very much appreciated by the hard-working people of that town. But the long warm days of that high summer were to be rudely interrupted by a series of dark events which would create grounds for grim anxiety amongst many of its inhabitants and perhaps even amusement for others. Whilst an alleged murderer awaited trial for the vicious slaying of two people in the town and a local businessman was shot in the chest by a crazed young solicitor's clerk, members of the local high society were having domestic problems of their own in the form of an acrimonious domestic dispute in the nearby village of Goadby Marwood which would ensure that the town's magistrates were adequately engaged. In its Saturday edition of August 30th, 1856, the Leicester Chronicle publish