‘Knives and Vicars’ or the Church and the Steel Industry, a talk by Trevor Page

Trevor gave a very interesting talk about the growth of Sheffield from a Borough of 2000 people – most of these living in poverty – in 1616, to a population of 250,000 plus in 1881.

This was down to the production of steel for which Sheffield became famous throughout the world.  Sheffield was well placed for this industry having water supply from two major rivers, iron ore and coal under the ground and grit stone for grinding.

He took us to the eighteenth century, when Barker’s Pool was a pool in the centre of Sheffield which was released periodically to wash the town’s streets clean of the filth that had built up in the open drains.

The vicar at that time was James Wilkinson; he became vicar at the age of 23 and was vicar for 51 years. He was a bit of a character, as he was a big strong man and thought nothing of using his strength to enforce law and order.

The steel industry at this time consisted of ‘Little Mesters’ self employed knife makers.

As the steel industry grew so did the church. The connections between them were particularly marked by the Master Cutler Company an organisation established to maintain the standards and quality of Sheffield cutlery, but grew to include all steel production. Trevor who was at one time Chaplin to the Master Cutler told us that, each year a new Master Cutler was installed and a great procession of dignitaries walked to the Parish Church to perform the religious ceremony. He told many stories of Sheffield people, the steel industry and the church; these were delivered with wit and humour making it a very enjoyable evening.

Thursday 26^th January 2012

David Aveling presented ‘Our Village’ slides of Treeton in the 60s.

After a long wait, Treeton History Group has very kindly been been given the slides of Eddie Hinchcliffe - now deceased. These are photographs of Treeton in the sixties taken by Eddie Hinchcliffe and Lewis Thomas.

The presentation started with a picture of Eddie in the stocks outside St Helens church and then moved on to show several views from the top of the church tower showing the whole of the village as it was then. He then concentrated on village life, first the shops, the Reading Rooms, the school, the pit, the farms, the Miner’s Welfare club and the Station Hotel. The pictures evoked many memories of the past and everyone enjoyed spotting their relatives or friends and even themselves in the photographs.

There was so much discussion about who was who in the photos that there wasn’t time to see them all, but David has promised that he will show them again at a later date. Many thanks to go to David Aveling for transferring the slides onto computer and creating the Power Point presentation.