Tom Baker in Lincoln

Elm House, Upper Long Leys Road, Lincoln.

'ELM HOUSE

BIRTHPLACE OF

TOM BAKER (1911–1998)

WHO DEVOTED HIS WHOLE LIFE TO THE

STUDY AND PRESERVATION OF

LINCOLNSHIRE'S HISTORY'

George Boole in Lincoln

3 Pottergate, Lincoln.

 

'GEORGE BOOLE

LL.D., D.C.L., F.R.S.

1815 – 1864

GEORGE BOOLE, FATHER OF MODERN

ALGEBRA, AUTHOR OF "THE LAWS OF THOUGHT"

AND FIRST PROFESSOR OF MATHEMATICS AT

UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, CORK, WAS BORN IN

LINCOLN AND ESTABLISHED AN ACADEMY

IN THIS HOUSE C. 1840.'

William Logsdail in Lincoln

19 Minster Yard, Lincoln.

'WILLIAM LOGSDAIL

R.B.C., RSPP

THE ARTIST

WAS BORN IN THIS HOUSE

ON THE 25 MAY 1859.

SON OF GEORGE LOGSDALE

(1827–1905) HEAD VERGER

OF LINCOLN CATHEDRAL

1858 – 1902'

William Logsdail spent many years in Venice the last decades of the 19th century, and at the beginning of the 20th century spent two years in Sicily before returning to the United Kingdom. One of his most famous paintings is Saint Martin-in-the-Fields (1888):

 

T. E. Lawrence in Lincoln

33 Steep Hill, Lincoln, with plaque to the viewer's right of the bay window.

'LAWRENCE OF ARABIA

1888 – 1935

ON THIS SITE IN 1925 SOLDIER AND

AUTHOR T E LAWRENCE LODGED

WHILST SERVING AT RAF CRANWELL.

AROUND THIS TIME HE WROTE HIS

BOOK SEVEN PILLARS OF WISDOM

THE LEGENDARY ACCOUNT OF HIS

LEADERSHIP OF ARAB INSURGENCE

AGAINST THE TURKS IN SYRIA

DURING WORLD WAR I.'

My other posts on T. E. Lawrence:

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T. E. Lawrence in Moreton, Dorset
T. E. Lawrence at Clouds Hill, Dorset

The Kinema in the Woods, Woodhall Spa, Lincolnshire

The Kinema in the Woods in Coronation Road, Woodhall Spa was originally a farmhouse, then a concert pavilion, and later the cricket pavilion for the nearby Petwood Hotel (then called Petwood House), and has been functioning as a cinema since 1922. Kinema Too was added in 1994. It is open every day throughout the year.

'KINEMA IN THE WOODS

England's unique rear projection Kinema

Films have been shown

here continuously since

August 1922'

Alfred, Lord Tennyson in Somersby and Louth, Lincolnshire

Saint Margaret's, Somersby.

 

'IN GRATEFUL MEMORY OF

ALFRED, 1^ST LORD TENNYSON.

BORN 1809. DIED 1892.

––––––––––

THIS TABLET IS ERECTED IN THE CHURCH OF HIS BAPTISM,

AT HIS BIRTHPLACE, AND THE HOME OF HIS YOUTH.

––––––––––

                                     "Follow the Christ, the King;

Live pure, speak true, right wrong, follow the King."'

 

'With thanks to GOD, for HIS gift of song

and in Memory of the Centenary of the Birth

in the Old Rectory hard by, of Alfred

Lord Tennyson, Poet Laureate, this Church

was restored and a replica in Bronze of Woolner's

Bust of the Poet was placed within on the sixth

day of August 1911 by the Tennyson Centenary

Committee.'

 

The Old Rectory is now in private possession, and trees conceal much of the front, making photography from the street virtually impossible.

 

 

 

A small display case in the church includes two clay pipes and a quill pen, marked as having belonged to the poet.

 

The tomb of the poet's father lies very close to the church, to the south-west of the tower.

'To the Memory of

The Reverend

GEORGE CLAYTON TENNYSON,

L.L.D.

Eldest Son George Tennyson Esq

of Bayons Manor,

and Rector of this Parish,

of Bag Enderby, and Bennyworth,

and Vicar of Great Grimsby in this County.

He departed this life

on the 16^th day of March 1831.

Aged 52 years.'

 

 

The future poet underwent the harsh teaching of the grammar school in Louth for a relatively brief time, although this was not the same building as the present one.

 

'"An old wall covered with
wild weeds
opposite the school windows"
ALFRED LORD TENNYSON
1809 – 1892
at Louth Grammar School
1816 – 1820'

 

 

'FROM THESE PREMISES
WAS PUBLISHED IN 1827
ALFRED AND CHARLES An
TENNYSON'S
"POEMS BY
   TWO BROTHERS"

THIS TABLET WAS ERECTED BY THE
LOUTH MUSEUM COMMITTEE'

 

In Tennyson's time these premises in the centre of Louth were where Jacksons, the booksellers and printers, ran their business. An old drawing of the place looks quite similar to the building today.

Isaac Newton in Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, Lincolnshire

 

Isaac Newton (1642–1727) was born in Woolsthorpe Manor in Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, Lincolnshire. His father (also named Isaac) was a wealthy farmer who died a few months before the birth of his only child, and three years later his mother Hannah married Rev. Barnabas Smith of the nearby village of North Witham. She left her parents James and Margery Ayscough to look after Isaac, although she returned to Woolsthorpe on her husband's death in 1653.

 

Unfortunately, photography is not allowed in the birthplace.

 

 'In this Manor House
SIR ISAAC NEWTON Kn^t
was born 25^th December A.D. 1642'

 

The back and side of the manor facing west.

 

The manor again, showing the courtyard with outbuildings.

 

The National Trust claims that this is the legendary apple tree that inspired Newton.  It's a Flower of Kent and blew down in a storm in 1820, the wood being used for snuff boxes and other novelties. Fortunately the root remained and the tree grew again.

 

Fritillaries were growing nearby.

George Eliot in Gainsborough, Lincolnshire

The plaque on the front of the United Services Club, Bridge Street, Gainsborough:

 

'GEORGE ELIOT

The Novelist visited the town

in 1859 and renamed it St Oggs

in her novel, The Mill on the Floss

published 4th April 1840

Plaque erected by The Delvers'

 

Kathleen McCormack mentions George Eliot's 'three-day research trip' to Gainsborough in George Eliot's English Travels: Composite Characters and Coded Communications (New York: Taylor & Francis, 2005), in which she states that Eliot's short tours of the shires were for gathering material which she would directly include in her fiction. Eliot and her partner George Henry Lewes went by train from London to Gainsborough in 1859, when she was writing The Mill on the Floss: there, she found both a model for the town St Ogg's and for the River Floss (the Trent), which avoided comparisons with the recognizable models  in her native Warwickshire that she had used in previous novels.

In her novel, Eliot mentions the river's tide and flood, Gainsborough being a place where the river is noted for its tidal wave the Trent Aegir (or Eagre, as Eliot calls it). She also noted the wharves, and on returning to London made alterations to her work in progress, adding to the history of the town and making comments on 'the old hall' which make it evident that she could only have had Gainborough's Old Hall in mind.

 

 

 

Thomas Miller in Gainsborough, Lincolnshire

On the wall of 58 Bridge Street, Gainsborough, a small plaque:

'THOMAS MILLER
Author & Poet
Was born opposite this site in
Sailors Alley Yard
31st August 1807
Plaque erected by The Delvers'

 

I've published this shot before of the monument to Miller on the Nottingham Castle colonnade, but it's well worth showing again:

 

'THOMAS MILLER

NOVELIST - POET

BORN 1808 DIED 1874'

 

(Most sources normally give Miller's date of birth as 1807.)

Halford Mackinder in Gainsborough, Lincolnshire

Halford Mackinder (1861–1947)

 

Elswitha Hall, Caskgate Street, Gainsborough.

 

 'SIR HALFORD JOHN
MACKINDER, P. C.
GEOGRAPHER, ADMINISTRATOR, AUTHOR,
EXPLORER, POLITICIAN, PUBLIC SERVANT.
BORN IN THIS HOUSE
15th FEBRUARY, 1861'

 

The house bears another plaque:

'ELSWITHA
Daughter of the Chief of
The Gaini Tribe
married Alfred The Great
in the town in 868
Plaque erected by The Delvers'

A Wood by Karl Wood (?)

David Essom of Gainsborough, Lincolnshire, sends me this intriguing image of a windmill landscape painting which bears many of the hallmarks of the paintings by the artist Karl Salsbury Wood (1888–1958), who was born in Kings Newton, Derbyshire, and spent most of his life in Gainsborough.

 

The strange thing, though, is that the painting isn't signed the usual 'K S WOOD' (as in another example below) but 'A. WOOD'. But the above signature seems to come from the same hand, suggesting that Karl Wood was having a little joke by calling this 'a Wood' painting. This may well be a one-off, but if anyone is aware of any other paintings by 'A. Wood', then please let's hear of them. Maybe this is a tall order, but it would also be useful if anyone could identify the location of the painting.

 

More information about Karl Wood, particularly my biography, can be found be entering his name in the Blogger slug to the top left of this blog.

Karl Wood update

Carlton le Morland windmill, Lincolnshire

 

I've just added several photos to my biography (linked below), the most notable being the photo postcard Tom Sunderland gave me of the 1923 (or thereabouts) choir outing to Cleethorpes, Lincolnshire, in which a dapper Karl Wood makes a very rare appearance. I shall also get round to including the footnotes I left out.

 

It seems almost a lifetime ago that I initially carried out research for Karl Wood's biography, and my intention was to write another edition. However, for a number of reasons (the main one being the sheer lack of lives I can fit into one), I shall have to merely add things online in due course: the advantages of this are that far more people will be able to read this online (the potential readership being vast), and of course the internet is a wonderful palimpsest – things can be added and corrected ad infinitum.

Since Windmill Wood a large number of people have written to me, often only making a brief comment on their experience of Wood in the Gainsborough area, but it all adds up, and I shall be making a long post incorporating these observations, probably in a quite loose as opposed to structured fashion, although I shall certainly add a few short articles – one on Wood in Lincoln Prison, the other on Wood in Nottingham – that I published in small circulation magazines some years ago. That will not be for several more months as I have a busy schedule early next year, but it will certainly be in 2013.

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Windmill Wood

Thomas Cooper, Chartist and Writer, Lincoln

Thomas Cooper (1805–1892) by John Cochran.

Thomas Cooper was born in Leicester and died in Lincoln. Above are images from the Thomas Cooper Baptist Church, High Street, Lincoln, whose webpage on Cooper is headed:

'"Persecuted, but not abandoned" (2 Corinthians 4:9)"

Paul Halfyard begins the page with these enthusiastic words:

'Our church is named after one for whom the above text is certainly true: Thomas Cooper – shoemaker, journalist, prisoner, author, agnostic, evangelist, lecturer and champion of the poor and oppressed!'

He continues his brief biography here.

Cooper was buried in Canwick Cemetery just outside the city of Lincoln, the inscription on his grave reading:

'IN MEMORY OF

SUSANNA

THE BELOVED WIFE OF

THOMAS COOPER

(AUTHOR OF THE PURGATORY OF SUICIDES

AND LECTURER IN DEFENCE OF CHRISTIANITY)

SHE WAS BORN 7 APRIL 1801

AND DIED 1 FEBY. 1880

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

ALSO IN MEMORY OF HER SISTER

LETITIA

THE WIFE OF WM. SWANN

SHE WAS BORN 21 JUNE 1804

AND DIED 19 AUGUST 1879

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

ALSO OF THE ABOVE

THOMAS COOPER

WHO DIED 15 JULY 1892

AGED 87 YEARS.'

My thanks to Darron Childs, whose email attachment of the grave greatly aided my finding it.

Below is a link to a great deal of information on Thomas Cooper, including a number of his writings.

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Thomas Cooper and His Works