Mr John Tasker of 23 Taptonville Road

[tozzin]

 

 

 

The gate post in the photograph can be found on Taptonville road, In the year 1879 Mr John Tasker was the resident, John Tasker was born in the county of Devon in 1819, by trade he was a boot & shoe maker, I couldn’t say what made John Tasker to up sticks and move to Sheffield, everybody needs shoes or boots,  I would have thought coming here had better opportunities than living in a rural area of Devon, in the 1825 directory of Sheffield, John can be found as a shoe maker at number 2 Pond Hill, in the 1833 directory he’s still at the same address but he’s also living there too. His boots and shoes seem to have been very well made as by 1849 he’s listed at 88 Division Street, bigger premises and a bigger order book, just a year before his wife Emma gave birth to John Jnr, by 1851 John was employing 6 men, his family now had grown and along with  his wife  Emma 31, they had daughter Adela  5, son John Henry Royle  2  and baby William  2 months old.
1862 saw John listed as follows, India rubber & gutta percha merchant and worker, plumber, & patent pump manufacturer, at  32 Angel street, he in fact introduced gutta-percha and India rubber to Sheffield, from his premises on Angel Street, he had progressed to supplying leather drive belts for the many factories in the town, it was around this time he started to the engineering side of the business, which took off at an alarming rate, so much so they moved to larger premises on Station Road and eventually became Tasker`s Engineering Co, I should imagine fifteen year old John Jnr was now working alongside his father learning the business, as proof of his success he moved into 23 Taptonville Road around 1877. The same year he established one of the first telephone exchanges in the provinces, at his Angel Street store; this became the Sheffield Telephone Exchange but demand was slow to build up, 1875 saw him installed as the Mayor of Sheffield. In the true pioneering spirit he then continued to involved himself in telecommunications and his Angel Street store became one of the first telephone exchanges in the provinces. Becoming a name of importance in the telephone business he installed private exchanges for Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle and Balmoral. The greater resources of the National Telephone Company overcame the Sheffield Company and this came to a conclusion in 1888. The other private venture (electricity) came to an end when Sheffield Corporation purchased the electricity undertaking in 1898. Sadly his beloved wife, Emma,  died in 1892, the same year he retired, John died at his home in Lawson Road just three years later.
On the 14th of October 1878, John Tasker instigated the very first football match under floodlights anywhere in the world, the match was between Sheffield F.C. and Hallam F.C. to the delight of the committee the attendance was over 12,000 and the gate receipts amounted to £300, some say the crowd was nearer 20,000, many of whom climbed over the fence, the lights were more exciting than the match which ended in a boring 0-0 draw In fact the craze for floodlit football was short-lived it was ten years later in 1888 when it took off again and that was due almost entirely to the development of what was known as the Wells Lamp which was to prove both a reliable and effective source of illumination.
But to go back to the first game at Bramall Lane. I quote from Chris Hobbs website “The consensus was that the event had been a great success. - the gate at Bramall Lane that night was the highest ever for an association match in England but it must be noted that a fair proportion of the crowd were there to witness the artificial lighting and not the football. There is no doubt that the success was due to the careful planning and preparation of the event - the game coincided with a full moon providing a modicum of natural light - and the weather for once that autumn was favourable. The other factor that cannot be under-estimated is that the lighting was provided and arranged by a Mr John Tasker Sons and co of Angel Street Sheffield who were already forerunners in this new field of electricity”.
Adaptability, was John Tasker`s motto, and he turned his hand to almost anything from the invention of a bouncy ball to a way of mending galoshes using India rubber. His involvement with rubber opened his eyes to electricity via wire insulation, and he was particularly intrigued by the phone, once Graham Bell's invention arrived in England. This prompted him to open Sheffield's first telephone exchange with just 12 subscribers, using the Williams sliding spring-peg switchboard.
The telephone was just one element in Tasker's appetite for all things electric. He also helped build Sheffield's first power station and electricity supply network. A contemporary of John Tasker described him as The short, rather ungainly figure, so well-known in the centre of the city in the 'seventies and 'eighties, gave no indication of the busy, active brain which governed it, but a glance into Mr. John Tasker's keen eyes revealed something of the indomitable will, the almost dauntless courage which spurred him on to researches which have left undying marks on the story of Sheffield's progress. Today Tasker’s Engineering are one of Britain’s leaders in their field specialising in hydraulics based at Roman Ridge Road, a world away from making boots and shoes by hand. 

 

[Anna Tasker]

Hello Tozzin, I am new to this forum and joined precisely because I stumbled across this post of yours whilst researching my family history. I am the Gt Gt Granddaughter of John Tasker, Gt Gdaughter of John Henry Royle Tasker.  I am thrilled to see your post here and just how much information you have gleaned. However, there are a couple of immediate points I need to address. John Tasker Senior, was indeed born in Devon In 1818 but all his younger siblings were born in Sheffield from 1820 onwards. His father, also John who is the John listed in the 1825 directory at Pond Hill and his father’s brother, Richard, 8 years John’s senior, were members of the South Devon Militia who came to Sheffield for Military reasons: 
 

1812 Sheffield Food Riots: "The Royal Buckinghamshire Militia and reinforcements of Hussars were sent from Nottingham followed on April 25th by the South Devon Militia." (source: https://priorieshistoricalsociety.blogspot.com).
 

although John returned to Devon and was then engaged in military action at Waterloo in 1815, he married in Devon in 1818 the year our John was born.  Richard, however married a Yorkshire lass and stayed in Sheffield.
 

The fact that both John the elder and his brother and both went on to settle in Sheffield has resulted in many instances of confusion, as both had several sons and each named one John. The two lines really are only defined by the fact one was primarily engineering the other accountancy as time progressed. The brothers line did indeed produce a son who served as mayor, but not John Tasker of Shoe & Boot/ Telephone/Electric Light fame, it was the other line of the family.

 

in 1851 John Tasker the focus of your post was living at 88 Division Street, now The Frog and Parrot, from where he ran his shoe and boot business, emlpyong 6 men. He exhibited that same year at The Great Exhibition.

By 1861 he was residing at 32 Angel Street where his business was indeed as a Gutta Percha Dealer, employing 4 men.

1881 he and his much expanded family were living at his family home, Crookes House, his profession noted as a Strap Manufacturer, Gutta Percha & India Rubber Dealer.  Employs 8 men, 1 boy and 2 women, I believe at the Angel Street premises.

1891, still at Crookes House with Emma, his profession is: Managing Director & Principle Owner, Sheffield Telephone & Electric Light Company, India Rubber Merchant & Engineer.

You also mention him moving to 23 Taptonville. He in fact purchased Crookes House where he remained, cared for after Emma’s Death by his daughter, Catherine Emma, until he died. After his death she married her cousin, further complicating the two sides from a genealogical point of view. 23 Taptonville was the home of John’s son (John Henry Royle’s brother) Robert Charles at the time of the 1881 and 1891 Census. By 1901 RC had remarried and was residing at 13 Brocco Bank.

thank you so much for contributing this original post. It is so heartwarming to realise I am not the only person keeping his memory alive. There is a lot more I can add but will leave it here. Except to say that the company who purchased the Taskers Engingineering Co when my three uncles Sold the business have the photo of the John Henry Royle (as above) alongside the logo, one of the founder’s four sons. This is not a photo of John Tasker 1818.