Antley 1900 "Not missed once"

[Bob Dobson]

I haven't time to do this but it may bring results in..........Look at the website for the Lancashire Record Office. They may have material relating to Antley Meths which will contain names of pupils. Living in Leyland St, your pair may have attended St Andrew's CofE school and yety attended Antley chapel on Sundays. Look at St Andrew's also. Dont bother with Hyndburn Park School - it wasn't built. I will enquire if the chapel holds their own archive. If your family had attended Oak Street Cong, their names would appear in the anual list of members published as a booklet, so it is possible that Antley did the same.

[Tealeaf]

Being a good Catholic boy, I normally listen to the BBC Sunday service on Radio 4 at 8.10am before leaving my home for the serious business of the day. Yesterday, the broadcast was from a methodist chapel (although from exactly where I do not know - I missed the very beginning and end). About 10 minutes through, the sermon turned to non-conformist sunday schools around the 1900's and medals awarded for good attendance.

Not knowing 'owt about sunday schools - we learnt our religion with 40 Our Fathers and 60 Hail Marys at saturday night confession - something rang a bell with regard to this thread. But not only that - just after the broadcast, a guy from the BBC came on to say a said medal had been added to their 'History of the World' collection. Try a google on the BBC site and then try the same on Ebay (Wesleyan medal)- it's stacked with 'em for sale, all dated around 1890-1905.

All this suggests that this is indeed a Sunday School piccy following the fad of the time. On top of which, I've never heard of an Antley School. I think think this picture was taken at the back of what is now Antley Church.

[junetta]

I haven´t lived in Accrington since I was nineteen but I seem to remember that they built a new Antley Chapel on Blackburn Road when I was in my early teens.

It looked like a triangle and was well spacious inside............let me know if I´m wrong and if so correct me x

[earthdog]

Originally Posted by Bob Dobson

I haven't time to do this but it may bring results in..........Look at the website for the Lancashire Record Office ...

Thanks, I'll do that. You've got me quite excited about the possibility of the Records Office having some useful information. I'm just having some success at the records office in Records Office at Heverfordwest for a branch of my family. It's incredible how much stuff still exists.

[earthdog]

Originally Posted by Tealeaf

All this suggests that this is indeed a Sunday School piccy following the fad of the time. On top of which, I've never heard of an Antley School. I think think this picture was taken at the back of what is now Antley Church.

Fascinating. I think it went on all over, my family (as opposed to my wife's with her Accy connections) are from South Wales which is also littered with non-conformist chapels from the same sort of time (late 1800s to early 1900s). There was quite a revival in the valleys at that time.

[Tealeaf]

Originally Posted by earthdog

Fascinating. I think it went on all over, my family (as opposed to my wife's with her Accy connections) are from South Wales which is also littered with non-conformist chapels from the same sort of time (late 1800s to early 1900s). There was quite a revival in the valleys at that time.

Aye...very true. There was all sorts of radical stuff going on in the 1890/1900's...birth of the Labour Party, Temperance Movement, origins of the Welfare State (NI, Pensions)..and much of it coming from working class religious non-conformism and catholicism - the C of E still being the Tory Party at Prayer. One underlying theme was the notion of working class discipline and respectability, as seen in these medals and this picture.

[Tealeaf]

Originally Posted by junetta

I haven´t lived in Accrington since I was nineteen but I seem to remember that they built a new Antley Chapel on Blackburn Road when I was in my early teens.

It looked like a triangle and was well spacious inside............let me know if I´m wrong and if so correct me x

Yep..I think you're right. I think I'm a bit younger than you, but I have very vague memories of this chapel being rebuilt around 1960. The triangular shape you are referring to is the front/roof of the chapel. Still surviving at the back and sides of the building is the type of stone work seen in the background of the picture, which icontrasts with the facing stone seen in the schools built around the town circa1900 (Hyndburn Park, Peel Park, Church Kirk, St Andrews).

[Bob Dobson]

The original Antley school buildings were built following the first stone being laid in 1864. The wall in the photo's background would be of this period.In 1871 the chapel, fronting Blackburn rd, was opened. In 1873 the school buildings were enlarged. In 1875 the chapel caught fire, re-opening later that year after a rebuild. . The Day school, as separate from the Sunday one, was establ;ished in 1864. Additinal rooms for infants were opened in `1881

The chapel lasted until 1960 when it was replaced by the present building, opened in 1961

Another thought - in Manchester there is a Methodist library, whichj petrhaps houses some archived records. There is also a Methodist Historical Society. I am sure they will welcome a copy of this photo. It may be useful to write to the editor of the Methodist newspaper, the name of which escapes me.I feel some shame at that, me being an old boy of Union Street Sunday School, which also had ( as they all did I feel sure) meeting rooms separate from the chapel.

[Bob Dobson]

Writing in 1883 about Antley chapel's early days, Hargreaves described the land it was built on as being 'in Antley Lane'. I suspect this was a name of what is now Wesley Street or Tanpits Rd though it just could have been Blackburn Rd. Directly across Blackburn Rd is Antley Old Rd, parallel with Newark St. The land was given by Mr Steiner and the buildings funded with help from John Emannuel Lightfoot, Accrington's first mayor. He was a convert to Methodism from the Anglican church.

[Lost in Cornwall]

The methodist newspaper is The Methodist Recorder . I think the Methodist Historical stuff is all in the John Rylands Library at Manchester University

[earthdog]

Hello again, and apoligies for my absence from this thread. I've just got back from my hols. I'll follow up on some of the suggestions that have been made.

Thanks for all the input.

Alan