YESTERDAY IN MELTON MOWBRAY

CIVIC PRIDE (My pictures have all been electronically stolen by Google!) I wrote this small article on my blog some time ago now, but I have brought it up to date for the benefit of my local readers specifically, who might well know of where I am talking.   Written a little tongue-in-cheek perhaps, I hope that it fits into the local discussion and is relevant. _______________ Do you happen to know how many named streets there are in Melton Mowbray? Well officially, at today's date, [2013] there are 699 and I must confess that it is a much larger number than I would have ever dreamt of.  But, hold the front page, I have just discovered that there are now 700 and that that civic milestone was passed recently with the unheralded appearance of a brand new, shiny plate which proudly displays the name, 'Mucky Lane' near to the entrance of our swish new Council Offices at Burton End; Oh how twee - but not quite correct it seems. Locals 'argue' that

A Lack of  Accommodation Reported from its fortnightly meeting of the Local Board at Melton Mowbray in 1865, during which a vexed member brought to its attention a question which he deemed as being of the utmost importance.  The Grantham Journal , with tongue in cheek, reported briefly on the matter with this account. 'A MATTER FOR CONSIDERATION.  ' Mr LARGE said he wished to direct the attention of the Board to a question which before long must come to the front, and that was the provision of urinals in the town.  He thought that it was an important matter, and ought to be ventilated.  He was in Leicester the other day, and noticed the arrangement for one of these conveniences in Belgrave Gate, and what was in some towns very unsightly was there made a very nice affair.  He thought the adoption of the same idea, namely, a number of trees, would remove any objection that might otherwise arise in the fixing of such places at Melton.  Every market day there was often s

The Story of the Webb Family of Melton Mowbray      A time of Social growth At the arrival of the 20th Century in England when the long Victorian era was ready to hand over to the rule of King Edward VII, the small market town of Melton Mowbray along with the rest of the wider country, was passing through a phase of social extremities in that increasing poverty and a lack of resources amongst the working classes was reaching disturbing proportions.  This state of affairs was especially serious in the newly industrialised and crowded conurbations of the larger cities to where a great number of agricultural workers had desperately transferred in search o f paid work, but at the same time it is a contrary fact that the proliferation of a new professional and managerial class of people and a growth of the gentrified classes, was perversely creating an ever widening gap within the general population.  Melton Mowbray, unlike many other towns of its size was principally popu

William Morris Colles M.A. D.D. (1819-1899) The Revd. William Morris Colles M.A. (later to become a Doctor of Divinity - D.D.) succeeded Reverend Carr as Curate of St Mary’s Melton Mowbray in 1849 when he inherited sole charge of the living which was at the time sequestrated (i.e. not entitled to Church Revenues) as a result of the misdeeds of the then incumbent, but almost permanently absent, Reverend Robert Fleetwood Croughton, B.A..  As the young pretender to the occupation of the Vicarage, Rev. Colles valiantly held the fort until eventually, in 1867 and on the eventual death of Croughton, he was finally presented with the glittering prize of the Vicarage of Melton Mowbray after having been the Curate-in-waiting for some 18 long years.  William was an only son, born in May of 1819 at his family home of Wexford Castle in County Kildare, Ireland, the seat of his father, the late Lieutenant William Colles of Her Majesty’s 8th Regiment of Foot, possessor of considerable amou

FRAMLAND HOUSE  THE POWELL FAMILY By the early 1890's, the Johnson family were out of Framland House and out of Melton Mowbray. Annie Johnson, by now leading the life of a reasonably young and clearly wealthy widow annuitant, seemed to have had her future secured with an impressive pension.  Preferring life in the capital city she was soon to be ensconced in the sumptuous comfort and prestige of one of the best of London's leafy suburbs, where she would complete the raising of her children and ensuring that her only son Henry did not forgo his architectural studies.  She would also outlive her ancestors by reaching the grand age of 90 years before her eventual passing in Hampstead in December, 1923. But what of the old family home with its 11 bedrooms, stables and large garden standing in the grounds of the railway station at Melton Mowbray? It might have been a snip at around £500 when she left and in fact was valued at some £800 when it failed to meet its