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SITE NEWS: With the release of The complete [surviving] British Army WWI Service Records on Ancestry.co.uk our details of those postmen listed on The Roll of Honour have now been updated.
Photo taken, circa 1938, in the top yard of the Sorting Office, Flatts Road, Barnard Castle - note the petrol pump over Tom Ireland's right shoulder.
Back row from left - P&TO George Stannard BEM (in suit); George Whitfield; Wilf Robinson; *Herbert 'Ab' Brown & Tom Ireland. The two telegraph boys in front row are Fred Robinson & Ronnie Lowe. [* More photos of Ab below left.]
George served in WW1 as a Naval Telegraphist on HMS Galatea transferring his skills to the Post Office as Postal & Telegraph Officer and is therefore not pictured in uniform.
Ronnie Lowe's son, Barry, has made contact and supplied us with the names of those pictured in the 'top yard' together with the following info:
The Teesdale Mercury 03/05/1989 identifies names to your above picture. It quotes: "Some of the Teesdale postal staff before World War II".
No. 11 The Bank, circa 1916, was formerly Ascough's now Connelly's toy shop. Apart from a change in the glazing the front is much the same today. Recruitment of soldiers, for the First World War, was of paramount importance at the time (as illustrated by the enlistment posters). The Post Office has been in five separate locations:- Bridgegate, Newgate, The Bank, Horsemarket and Galgate (currently at No. 2-4). Bands, on the left uniform breast, indicate degrees of seniority. The front row is seated on parcel baskets. Parcels Post was introduced in 1883 using these baskets loaded to horse-drawn parcel coaches. The last horse-drawn mail van left London ECDO on Sept. 24, 1949.
A 10"x8" of the original Elijah Yeoman print , as shown at the bottom of this page, can be seen in the Bowes Museum.
Readers boost postie photograph exhibition - from the Ehco archive, first published Monday 6th Feb 2006.
AN exhibition of photographs of postmen on their rounds in decades gone by has received a boost, thanks to a report in The Northern Echo.
Readers have sent in a batch of other old pictures to add to the display in the delivery office at Barnard Castle.
Dave Charlesworth, the delivery office manager, is now having them copied, and he hopes other readers will send in more to make the exhibition even more fascinating.
Trevor Ireland, who lives in Startforth, has taken in a number of photographs featuring his late grandfather, Tommy Ireland, who was a popular postman in Upper Teesdale until he died in 1943 at the age of 48.
One shows him standing in snow beside a small Royal Mail van, registration number BLH 485, which was a familiar sight in the dale for many years.
Tommy Ireland had a reputation for getting through snowdrifts in it to make his deliveries while other vehicles were halted.
Tom Ireland delivering the Middelton-in-Teesdale mail during the 1930's. (The other postmen are unknown at present.)
Details of Tom Ireland's mailvan from the Post Office Vehicle Club:
Dave
Yes, the vehicle illustrated is a pre-war Morris Minor 35cf. mailvan. It was part of a batch of six BLH 481-486 with serial numbers 5980-5 delivered in November 1934. The cypher illustrated is the George V one, used up to March 1936, suggesting the photograph was taken in the winter of 1935/6.
Do you know where the pictures were taken? Would there being any objection to me using the photographs in our magazine "Post Horn", please?
Regards, Christopher Hogan
Hon. Editor
In winter Tom Ireland used a horse and sledge to deliver mail to the top of the Dale. Years later they gave him a van. The date of these three photos is thought to be between 1930 - 1940.
In November 1933 BLH 485 was one of the first pre-war Morris Minor OMVs in Barney to replace the BSA Motor Cycle Combinations that were introduced in the 1920s. Anybody got any pics of the BSA MCCs in Teesdale ?
[Source: Chris Hogan, Hon. Sec. Post Office Vehicle Club.]
? ?
Hand cutting snow in the 1947 storm in Upper Teesdale.
Postman Tom Ireland with Joshua Beadle, Emily Tallentire
and Reg Wearmouth - taken in 1929 at Forest in Teesdale.
Postman J S [Selwyn] Smedley delivers the mail to Miss Dorothy Redfearn at Forest in Teesdale Post Office in February 1954.
Save driving awards circa late 1950's:
Jack Walton is the J Walton listed on the Roll of Honour.
Albert? Robinson
Ted Elliott
Stan Evans
Jack Porter
Tom Ainsley
Teesy Wright
Tony Raine, Postmaster and Salvation Army Captian.
Tommy Dolan
Photo courteous of Lance Nelson, Mickleton, BARNARD CASTLE.
The Head Postmaster, Darlington, 1955-1963, is Mr A W Sweet.
The Postmaster, Tony Raine, was also known as Tom. In the 1950s he lived with his family in the flat above the post office. (Dear Unknown - any more memories / photos to add of Tom's PO Career?)
BARNARD CASTLE, GALGATE WEST - 1892.
Can you solve the mystery behind the identity of the 'unknown postman'? [Could it be John Blenkinsop?] Please checkout the dedicated page for John ['Jack'] Blenkinsop to compare the pics we have of him. The above pic appeared in the Teesdale Mercury (Jan 2006) - 'Pictures keep history alive' by Naomi Bunting.
If it is 'Jack' then he's taken standing on the corner of Galgate West and John Street.
We were saddened to hear of the death, on Sunday March 11, 2007, of Naomi Bunting. It was her Teesdale Mercury article 'Pictures keep history alive' that led to many successful leads. She will be sadly missed.
There was a Post Office in Galgate (not at the present location) from August 1895 closing in 1933 when the main office moved to 2 - 4 Galgate.
Could this photo be another of our 'unknown postman'? It was taken on the north-west side of Galgate a few years later than that of the 1892 Galgate West. Stoddart's shop also doubled as the Galgate Post Office with a wall box in the left window and a Parcel Post plaque above the door.
... as it still is in the Dale!
A Postman Drivers 'best friend' in a Teesdale Winter.
The photo shows the Durham County Council JCB, from the Bowes depot, digging Stan Chape out of a snow drift.
G.W.A. Thorne heavily ladened with letters and parcels for delivery in, and around, Cotherstone circa 1900.
Ab (Herbert) Brown 2nd from left taken with his mates.
1902 Post Office Presentation:
Royal Engineer Ab Brown in France WW1.
Could number 3 be our mistery Postman taken 10 years earlier on the corner of John Street and Galgate West below?
View better image below.
Ab & Mrs Brown with kids.
This framed photograph by Elijah Yeoman, was presented to Miss Monkhouse on 4th January, 1902. It was given by her Fellow Officers in Barnard Castle Post Office, as a small measure of the esteem in which she was held by them, on her retirement after a service of practically a lifetime. This is a 10"x8" print.
Artist / Maker: Elijah Yeoman (1849-1930)
Place: Barnard Castle
Object Type: photograph
Period: Post Medieval
Broad Date: Post Medieval
Century: 19th - 20th century
Bowes Museum Accession Number: 1998.34.15/ARC
The above three photos of Ab Brown, together with the service details of Ab & George, were supplied by Margaret & Phil Steen of Ulverston, Cumbria.
Margaret (nee Stannard) is George Stannard's granddaughter. She married Ab Brown's grandson.
- SATURDAY July 4, 2009
1911 poster in PO window advertising the 3rd Battalion, DLI, Militia Training.
Call to the men of Teesdale
Types of horses in the British Army
(poster top left).
