YESTERDAY IN MELTON MOWBRAY

Expatriates both. Having been an amateur student of Melton Mowbray local history for more of my mis-spent latter years than I would wish to admit to, I recently came across this rather attractive gentleman and his lady wife whilst searching for a other things in the American newspapers.  Expatriates both, William and Hannah Mowbray - how could they be forgotten with a name like that - seem to have slipped out of the old town over 130 years since and today, almost without trace in their home town, whilst their celebrity appears to be lauded and lionised in the USA for their pioneer efforts in the settling of the then new and semi-wild red indian dominated city of Tulsa in the State of Oklahoma. George Mowbray George William Mowbray was the second child born to John and Catherine Mowbray in 1843. One of seven siblings born over a period of 20 years, the family began their life in Norman Street Melton Mowbray where his father, originally from nearby Lo...

Early Aviation around Melton Mowbray. The small market town of Melton Mowbray was once an important link in the aerial defence of these Islands, detached as they are from the mainland of Europe, at a time when even the concept of an airfield or aerodrome as we understand it today was but a mere whim in the fancy of an increasing number of enthusiasts who were tinkering with the mystery of the yet to be understood practicalities of the concept of powered flight, man in control of a dirigible machine which he could literally fly in the sky to wherever he wished to go.  But how forward looking were those daring young men at the time?  Around the turn of the last century, a non-stop saga of wars and related conflicts around the world were being created and exacerbated , often stirred by the increasingly confused politics of an expanding and competitive  Europe. Britain had ensured that Queen Victoria's red-coated troops were retained and widely  ens...