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Paradise Square


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Jeremy,

Recently published book you may find of interest:

Where do I but this book please - seem to be struggling.

Also is anyone aware of a book called The Story of Paradise Square by Sheffield City Libraries, what year, is it available to purchase etc ?

Many Thanks.

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Where do I but this book please - seem to be struggling.

Also is anyone aware of a book called The Story of Paradise Square by Sheffield City Libraries, what year, is it available to purchase etc ?

Many Thanks.

and it's not this book,

http://www.sheffieldhistory.co.uk/forums/i...=3068&st=40

this one is 30 pages, the other one that I'm looking for is 92 pages (apparently); unfortunately I can no longer make enquiries of my original source.

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Guest Jeremy

Where do I but this book please - seem to be struggling.

Also is anyone aware of a book called The Story of Paradise Square by Sheffield City Libraries, what year, is it available to purchase etc ?

Many Thanks.

I got my copy from Orchard Square when I was in Sheffield in January. I guess that it might have been a fairly limited print run--Amazon are out of stock.

It appears that you might be able to get it here:

http://www.countrybookshop.co.uk/cgi-bin/s...=&go=Search

Jeremy

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1919 (White's) Miss L Jones — Matron, House of Help for Girls & Young Women

House of Help for Friendless Girls and Young Women

Originally opened in 1880 at No. 1 Paradise Square, the idea was to provide the poor women and girls of Sheffield with a comfortable home environment so that they could receive training for domestic service.

Many girls aged 13-14 entered the House of Help in the early days; low wages for their parents, drunkeness and disease all meant many children grew up neglected.

Girls abandoned at the Railway Station would be taken to the House.

There was also a "Preventative Branch" of the House of Help (Paradise Street) which helped longer term with reading, writing, clothing and getting a job.

Mrs Blakeney was President of the Rescue and Preventative Society, Arthur Davey was Treasurer. Both were at 1 Paradise Square in 1893.

Visiting agents from the House went to workhouses, hospitals, lodging houses and Courts to persuade girls to come to the House :

"to learn the error of their ways and to try and create new minds and characters".

The trustees were concerned with morality and wished to save girls from "moral danger".

1926 case history

A young woman of 24 came one night and asked to be taken in for a few weeks until she could be helped find a situation.

By her appearance she had sewn wild oats.

She had parents, but they refused to have her because she had given so much trouble.

She was told that if she remained in the Home she was not to convey any details of her past to the young girls.

---------------------------

The home moved to larger premises at No. 17 Paradise Square in 1908. Here there were 26 beds.

With the coming of the War fewer girls were admitted but :

women who had fallen on hard times because of the loss of a male relative

and those visiting their injured husbands in Sheffield Hospitals

were still in great need.

On the 12th December 1940 the House of Help was hit in the air raid.

---------------------------

http://www.wigandpensheffield.com/history

---------------------------

House of Help database

http://baseportal.com/cgi-bin/baseportal.p...s/House_of_Help

6 books 1888 to 1906 Index of Girls helped in Sheffield

Compiled by the Sheffield & District FHS members for Sheffield Archives.

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Where do I but this book please - seem to be struggling.

Also is anyone aware of a book called The Story of Paradise Square by Sheffield City Libraries, what year, is it available to purchase etc ?

Many Thanks.

I've seen it in WH Smiths in Meadowhall and behind the bar at the Kelham Island ( where the author drinks) . Which does't help you does it?

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This article first appeared in the Transactions of the Hunter Archaeological Society, Vol 6 p182, and is reproduced here by kind permission of the Society.

http://www.shef.ac.uk/archaeology/hunter/index.html

PARADISE SQUARE.

By IVOR GATTY.

PARADISE SQUARE, or Pot Square as it is colloquially called, was always a spot of great interest to Sheffielders during the last century. Perhaps this was because it had been for so many years the great meeting-place of the town, where from an exceedingly convenient, albeit fortuitous, rostrum evangelists might stir the hearts of the multitude to penitence, or politicians might inflame them to deeds that might presently call for a good deal of penitence.

The present writer's grandfather in the 2nd edition of Hunter's Hallamshire grows positively dythrambic in his note upon the Square.

"It is," he writes, "in short, to compare small things with great, what Palace Yard was to Westminster; what the Pynx was to the Athenian democracy and the Forum was to Rome."

Another point with respect to this spot seems to have been a veritable obsession with all good Sheffielders, that once, within living memory, it was a cornfield. Why this should have been regarded as such a remarkable fact it is hard to say; obviously it must have been something of the sort at some time or other; but in Leader's Reminiscences of Old SheffieId - imaginary conversations between Sheffield worthies in the year 1872 - Mr. Leonard is made to protest :

"Pray spare us the old story about somebody who knew somebody else who remembered the square as a cornfield."

Mr. Wragg : "Why should we? There are people still alive, or were a short time ago, who remembered it as a field of oats, entered from the top by Hicks' Stile."

And this, in face of the fact that Mr. Twiss had just stated that the earliest meeting in the square which he had been able to trace was 15th July, 1779, when John Wesley preached there to the largest congregation he had ever seen on a week-day.

So, since the date of the conversation is supposed to be 1872, had one of Mr. Wragg's people still alive been just 100, he would have been only seven years old when Wesley preached there, and the square would have had to be built prior to that.

Later, Mr. Twiss states that

"the lease of part fell in two years ago (not the other part, for it is built an two leases), and that shows that it is just over a century old, as the lease would no doubt be a ninety-nine years one:"

What then becomes of Mr. Wragg's people still alive ? or were so a short time ago ?

Anyone aged ten when the bricks and mortar obliterated the cornfield would have died about 1840, allowing him to have reached the respectable age of 80; thus Mr. Wragg's a short time ago works out at about thirty years. All of which goes to show how deep-rooted the tradition was.

Mr. Leonard then proceeds to make a further statement with regard to the leases.

"Dr. Gatty," he says, "in a note at p. 177 of his edition of Hunter, says that `Thomas Broadbent took a lease of the field in 1776, and built the houses on the east side.'

Now I happen to know that the lease to Thomas Broadbent - so far at least as concerns the land at the top of that side of the square - is dated 1736.He had five daughters, and he built the houses at the top - afterwards Bramley and Gainsford's offices and the adjoining ones - for them. On his death they came into their possession. The date 1776 must be a clerical or printer's error."

Actually we have here an error on both sides. Dr. Gatty was quite correct in stating that Thomas Broadbent took out the lease in 1776, but wrong in asserting that he built the houses on the east side; these were built on a lease dated 1736, as Mr. Leonard truly says, but this lease was not taken out by Thomas Broadbent, but by his father Joseph, who was also the father of the five daughters referred to.

Mr. Wragg in his ardent championing of the cornfield tradition was only following a hallowed fashion. In 1827 Mr. James Wills, a Sheffield poet, published one of his works entitled

"The Contrast, or the Improvements of Sheffield."

In this he grows rhapsodic about Paradise Square.

"You may form to your fancy a stile which once stood

Near the little Grape Tavern, and made up of wood,

On the side of the field then belonging to Hicks,

Where the children at that time have gathered sticks.

It was called Hicks' Stile Field where corn oft has grown,

But Paradise Row when the stile was took down.

Many years it continued with only one row,

But now 'tis a beautiful square as you know.

With a Free-mason's Lodge, and a flight of stone stairs

And under it houses for various wares,

But now 'tis a Johannes Chapel for prayers.

This square on the hill is a market for pots

That are sold some in odd ones, and others in lots.

A column in centre, with lamp of pure gas,

That lights all the square and the people who pass."

From the general tenor of the poem one would guess that Mr. Wills was an elderly man looking back over the improvements that he had seen during his life-time, and if this be so then it is very possible that he himself actually did remember corn growing in Hickstile Field, though that would mean that he would have been some 67 or so years of age when his poem was published.

The line about the children gathering sticks seems to have been dictated by the exigencies of a soaring Muse rather than prosaic pedestrian fact, since a cornfield is not a happy hunting ground for stick gatherers, and the fences, in conformity with the general practice of the district, would doubtless have been stone walls.

The lay-out of the hillside in 1736, according to Gosling's plan, was roughly as follows.

Starting from West Bar a narrow lane called Workhouse Lane (now Paradise Street) ran half way up the hill. On the east of it was a large orchard belonging to Andrew Wade, and on the west a field called Workhouse Croft belonging to the Town Trustees.

Above Wade's orchard and up to Campo Lane was a field known as the Near Jeoffrey Croft [There goes one of my questions, posted elsewhere - RichardB], which stretched back as far as Fig Tree Lane, and to the west of it another field, called the Far Jeoffrey Croft, or alternatively Hickstile Field.

Hicks' Stile stood on Campo Lane where the present entrance to the Square is, and from it ran two footpaths, one straight down along the eastern fence to Workhouse Lane and the other diagonally across to what is now Silver Street Head but then was a short cart track leading to Lee Lane (now Lee Croft).

Both the Jeoffrey Crofts belonged to the Trustees of the Shrewsbury Hospital. All along the northern side of Campo Lane there ran a row of tenements, probably of a very mean order.

In the year 1727, judging from the date embossed upon the massive rainpipe on the house, Nicholas Broadbent, a scissor smith, built himself the handsome mansion standing at the west corner of Hartshead and Figtree Lane. He does not seem to have lived in it however, for in his will, dated 19th April 1736, he describes it as

"now in the possession of Widow Justis."

He left the house to his wife, Rebecca, for her life and then to his son Joseph. Nicholas died soon after making this will, which was proved in July, 1736.

But on 10th February of this same year, 1736, Joseph Broadbent had been granted a lease of the Near Jeoffrey Croft by the Trustees of the Shrewsbury Hospital for 500 years at a yearly rent of five pounds, and he proceeded to erect five houses along the western side of it facing out over Hickstile Field. [RichardB - Western side, I thought it was the Eastern side - any comments ?]

There is no evidence as to the exact date at which the building took place, but from a map in the Shrewsbury Hospital records which is endorsed

"Surveyed by W. Fairbank sen. in 1749 and drawn by his son W. Fairbank in 1760,"

it is clear that the houses were all completed and named Paradise Row.

The remainder of the croft was devoted to enlarging the garden of the Hartshead house. This covered pretty well the whole of what is now St. Peters Close, and it may well have been the principal reason for taking out the lease, and the row of houses only built to use up unwanted space. North Church Street was not made until the first decade of 1800.

The tradition that Joseph Broadbent built the five houses for his five daughters seems to be a sentimental embellishment. He had five daughters it is true - Sarah, Ann, Susannah, Mary and Elizabeth - who are all mentioned in his will dated 1757, and who, together with his second son Joseph, were then all still minors.

Hence in 1736 not one of them would have been born, and so at all events the father did not take out the lease of the land with that purpose in view. In the will the houses are all called "Broadbent’s Buildings," and not Paradise Row.

One of these houses was left to his widow, Sarah, for her life with reversion to his youngest daughter Elizabeth; one to Joseph; and one each to Ann, Susannah and Mary, together with other legacies, the eldest daughter Sarah being otherwise provided for; whilst the residue of his property went to the eldest son Thomas.

The old gentleman lived another four years after making his will, and Susannah seems to have predeceased him, for on the margin of the will opposite her name are written the words "Susannah dead," so doubtless her share reverted to Thomas.

On a map of Paradise Square made by W. Fairbank in the year 1782, approximately, the five houses are shown held as follows counting down from Campo Lane:

No. 1, Joseph Broadbent

No. 2, Thomas Broadbent

No. 3, Thomas Bland

No. 4, Thomas Broadbent

No. 5, Elizabeth Broadbent's life interest subject to Sarah Broadbent.

So Thomas must somehow by this date have acquired his sister Mary's portion. since Ann is shown in a MSS. book of pedigrees in the Jackson Collection at the Reference Library as having married Thomas Bland, the marriage settlements being dated 19th January. 1755.

The compiler of this pedigree seems to have been unaware of the existence of the other four sisters, as he ascribes three children onlv to the elder Joseph Broadbent, Thomas, Joseph and Ann. This Thomas Bland was probably a cousin, since Mrs. Sarah Broadbents' sister "had married a certain John Bland of London, Virginia Merchant".

In 1771 Thomas Broadbent took it into his head to develop Hickstile Field, and evidently approached the Trustees of the Shrewsbury Hospital on the matter.

It all seems to have been curiously casual; somebody apparently told him that he could carry on with the work and that it would be all right, and so, either in person or through sub-tenants he proceeded to erect the other three sides of Paradise Square. Fairbank’s map published in 1771, shows the square complete but it is put in with dotted lines, showing that it was projected only.

In this plan an oval garden is to be seen in the centre of the square.

In 1776 the Hospital Trustees suddenly became aware of what was going on, and decided that it was about time they did something in the matter; so a 99-years lease was granted to Thomas Broadbent; but as the building had already been proceeding for five years, the actual length on the lease was reduced to 94 years, and a clause was added exempting Thomas Broadbent and his sub-tenants from any penalties for having already commenced work. Which clears up the discrepancy between Mr. Twiss's accurate statement that the leases had fallen in in 1870 and the equally accurate statement in Hunter that the' date of the lease was 1776.

Thomas Broadbent must have been a very wealthy man, for in 1773 he built for himself Page Hall.

In 1778 he and his brother Joseph opened a Bank at the family mansion in the Hartshead. This enterprise failed disastrously, and in 1780 they closed their doors. Page Hall was mortgaged to a Mr. James Milner of Wakefield and the Hartshead house was acquired by Mr. John Turner who died in 1794. Through his niece it passed into the possession of the Binneys who, as Leader tells in Sheffield in the Eighteenth Century, p. 289,

"besides having one of the best home trades as merchants, had large steel furnaces here remains of which could still be seen long after the house had began to be the offices of a succession of lawyers. (1825)."

It would be interesting to know how much, if any, of the building of the square was carried out by Thomas Broadbent himself. None of it seems to have been of the same high standard as the Paradise Row houses.

The dominating feature undoubtedly was the Masonic Lodge which was built in the centre of the north side for the accommodation of the Lodge 72B. The architecture of this building was somewhat odd. A large meeting-hall was erected on the first floor with underneath it, as Mr. Wills tells us, "houses for various wares."

Entrance to the meeting-hall was made from outside by a flight of stone steps which stuck out squarely to a distance of about 18 feet. It was the landing at the top of these steps that formed the rostrum from which Wesley preached and the various political speakers addressed their different gatherings, and in spite of the changes of fortune that beset the meeting-hall the steps remained unaltered until 1872 or there-abouts, when they were done away with and the old doorway converted into a window. The old pilasters of the doorway are still to be seen incorporated into the window.

Mr. Twiss says in Reminiscences of Old Sheffield that the room was built by a Mr. Nowill who had a shop in High Street, but the Fairbank map of 1782 shows it as in the possession of John Eadon.

I am informed that this name is well known in the history of Sheffield Masonry, and that he certainly was a Lodge Master; my informant could not say positively that it was Lodge 72B, but his association with the premises makes it extremely probable.

The history of Lodge 72B seems to be very obscure. The original Lodge 72 was a military one for the llth Regt. of Foot, which was formed in 1758 and had no connection with Sheffield. In 1767 it was disbanded and the number thus become vacant was assigned in 1772 to a newly-formed Lodge in Sheffield as Lodge 72B.

In 1776 it was re-issued as 72C, and this Lodge unquestionably met in Paradise Square. It is surmised that there had been some irregularity about the previous issue which was set right by a completely new allocation.

In 1796 72C was amalgamated with the Britannia Lodge, and in 1798 the Paradise Chapter was formed. The meetings continued to be held in the Square until 1811, when it was decided to migrate to more comfortable quarters at an inn in the Wicker.

After this the room became, as Mr. Wills tells us, "a Johannes Chapel for prayers," It was also used as a lecture hall where Mr. Wragg states he heard Robert Owen speak.

After that it became a school run by Mr. Edward Hebblethwaite, which closed down somewhere about 1868. In 1886 it was reopened by a Mr. Arthur Newell as "The Middle-Class School" which struggled on gallantly until 1927, but the competition of the Municipal Secondary Schools was too great and on 31st December of that year it came to an end. Mr. James Longstaffe was the last Head Master.

On the south side of the square, as early as 1782, the well-known firm of James Wheat had their offices. Apparently they did not build for themselves but merely adapted the three centre houses of that side. Later they moved to the lowest of the Paradise Row block, the one which Mrs. Broadbent had occupied.

No record can be found of when the pots invaded the square. It must have been somewhat of a shock, one would think, for the residents of what had set out to be a rather superior residential quarter. Perhaps it was "the houses for various wares" that Mr. Wills sings of that blazed the trail.

.

In Reminiscences o f Old Sheffield again we read :

Mr. EVERARD : "The pot market that was held in the square on market days has quite disappeared, or is only represented by the crockery shops on the north side."

MR. TWISS : "There was a sort of pot market formerly by the Church gates."

Perhaps here we have a clue to the date of the invasion of the square. When the old Town Hall that stood at the Church gates at the top of High Street was pulled down in 1808 and East Parade driven through, the stallholders (probably quite unauthorised) were given notice to quit, and so they removed themselves across the Churchyard to Paradise Square. This can hardly be very far out. The last remaining trace of the market passed away only quite a few years ago, when the solitary survivor of the pot-shops on the northern side of the square closed its doors.

To quote again from Reminiscences of Old Sheffield:

MR. EVERARD : "The lamp in the centre of the square has taken the place of the old cross shaft removed there from Snig Hill head; but the steps up to it are, I should think, unchanged. The stocks were removed there from the Church gates."

This cross shaft , as is later made clear, was the old Irish Cross which Mr. Twiss tells us stood at the corner of Angel Street and Bank Street. Bank Street was made somewhere between 1791 and 1793, according to Dr. Gatty in Sheffield Past and Present, and it is probable that the cross shaft was moved into the square when that was done.

At no time does the original plan of an oval garden in the centre of the square, as outlined by Fairbank in his 1771 map, seem to have been carried out.

Dr. Gatty also tells us : "A lamp-post of unusual thickness stands the centre of the square, as if to tempt the climbing street Arab on speech days."

Also we may note Mr. Wills's mention of it :

"A column in centre, with lamp of pure gas,

That lights all the square and the people who pass.”

His choice of the word column is significant. It is true he needed a two-syllable word, but one can hardly imagine him jibbing at "lamp-post" had that accurately expressed his meaning. So, in the face of these two witnesses we can only assume that Mr. Everard was wrong when he stated that the cross shaft had been replaced by a lamp-post; in fact it was the lamp-post.

The Sheffield Gas Company erected its works at Shude Hill in 1819, and mains were laid in the streets, so we can guess that this must have been the date when the "lamp of pure gas" on the top of the Irish Cross first burst upon an astonished world.

An extract from the Minutes of the Sheffield Municipal Council under date 30th September, 1889, tells us that

"the central steps around the lamp in Paradise Square were removed in order to make way for the laying of an improved and permanent roadway."

So, doubtless with the old steps the cross shaft too disappeared forthwith for ever.

With regard to the name, S. O. Addy in his Sheffield Glossary seems to favour the derivation from

"Paradise, formerly a name given to the pleasure grounds of large houses."

But there is no evidence whatever of any such pleasure grounds hereabouts; indeed, the tradition of the cornfield militates flatly against any such supposition.

One can only imagine that Mr. Broadbent was swayed by some romantic fancy when he chose the name. Perhaps it was the view, upon which these new houses looked out, that he felt was truly an earthly paradise.

Ruskin is said to have declared that the view from the Bole Hills was one of the loveliest in England; possibly, had he stood in the front window of one of the Paradise Row houses a century or so before, he might have admitted that the vista up the Don excelled even that of the Rivelin. However, Mr. Broadbent does not seem to have been very insistent upon the name, since he consistently called the houses "Broadbent’s Buildings" in his will.

Addy is guilty of another mistake. Speaking of the square he says : "Oughtibridge's View of Sheffield shows that trees were planted here." But these trees are those of Wade's Orchard, which are also shown meticulously in Gosling's plan. Hickstile Field is shown higher up the picture with a man walking across it, perhaps in order to make clear the right of way.

In conclusion, one might note that Hunter writing about the derivation of the name 'Campo Lane' in his unpublished manuscripts says :

"The Campa field occurs several times in the returns of their Sheffield estates by the Dukes of Norfolk, compelled as Roman Catholics to register their estates with the Clerk of the Peace. This proves that there was once a field in Sheffield appropriated to this sport [football] and what more probable than that it was the open space now called Paradise Square? Campo Lane, so called as leading to it - in full, the Camper Field lane."

Surely Hunter must have written this from a very imperfect recollection of the slope of the ground. With the exception of some of the steeper parts of Walkley, it would be hard to find a more unsuitable spot for football within the bounds of the town.

Moreover, the lane continues along past the field to Town Head, where there would have been far more suitable fields. Also it would pass by the Latin School with doubtless its "campus”. The cornfield is all very well, but the football ground takes a lot of swallowing.

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Guest yodabear

Hello, I have been looking at your posting re residents of Paradise Square.

I am researching our families ancestores and have found that in the 1901 census my wifes greta Grandfather George Walters was living in number 15 Paradise square, he was a Police Sargent and lived there with his wife Sarah & 8 children.

Do you have any record other than the census?

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Hello, I have been looking at your posting re residents of Paradise Square.

I am researching our families ancestores and have found that in the 1901 census my wifes greta Grandfather George Walters was living in number 15 Paradise square, he was a Police Sargent and lived there with his wife Sarah & 8 children.

Do you have any record other than the census?

No sign of him here http://www.sheffieldrecordsonline.org.uk/

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House of Help for Friendless Girls and Young Women

Originally opened in 1880 at No. 1 Paradise Square, the idea was to provide the poor women and girls of Sheffield with a comfortable home environment so that they could receive training for domestic service.

Many girls aged 13-14 entered the House of Help in the early days; low wages for their parents, drunkeness and disease all meant many children grew up neglected.

Girls abandoned at the Railway Station would be taken to the House.

There was also a "Preventative Branch" of the House of Help (Paradise Street) which helped longer term with reading, writing, clothing and getting a job.

Mrs Blakeney was President of the Rescue and Preventative Society, Arthur Davey was Treasurer. Both were at 1 Paradise Square in 1893.

Visiting agents from the House went to workhouses, hospitals, lodging houses and Courts to persuade girls to come to the House :

"to learn the error of their ways and to try and create new minds and characters".

The trustees were concerned with morality and wished to save girls from "moral danger".

1926 case history

A young woman of 24 came one night and asked to be taken in for a few weeks until she could be helped find a situation.

By her appearance she had sewn wild oats.

She had parents, but they refused to have her because she had given so much trouble.

She was told that if she remained in the Home she was not to convey any details of her past to the young girls.

---------------------------

The home moved to larger premises at No. 17 Paradise Square in 1908. Here there were 26 beds.

With the coming of the War fewer girls were admitted but :

women who had fallen on hard times because of the loss of a male relative

and those visiting their injured husbands in Sheffield Hospitals

were still in great need.

On the 12th December 1940 the House of Help was hit in the air raid.

---------------------------

http://www.wigandpensheffield.com/history

---------------------------

House of Help database

http://baseportal.com/cgi-bin/baseportal.p...s/House_of_Help

6 books 1888 to 1906 Index of Girls helped in Sheffield

Compiled by the Sheffield & District FHS members for Sheffield Archives.

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#18 & #20

1893 (Kelly's) Arthur Newell Sheffield Middle Class Schools

1911 (White's) James Longstaff Principle Middle Class School (h. Geer Farm, Rdgeway)

1919 (White's) James Longstaffe Principal Middle Class School (h Ingelby, Dronfield Woodhouse)

1925 (Kelly's) James Longstaffe Principal, Middle Class Schools (h Ingelby, Dronfield Woodhouse)

Sheffield Middle Class School

-------------------

John Heiffor

1893 (Kelly's) John Heiffor Razor Manufacturer

1911 (White's) John Heiffor Razor Manufacturer

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#18 & #20

1893 (Kelly's) Arthur Newell Sheffield Middle Class Schools

1911 (White's) James Longstaff Principle Middle Class School (h. Geer Farm, Rdgeway)

1919 (White's) James Longstaffe Principal Middle Class School (h Ingelby, Dronfield Woodhouse)

1925 (Kelly's) James Longstaffe Principal, Middle Class Schools (h Ingelby, Dronfield Woodhouse)

Sheffield Middle Class School

-------------------

John Heiffor

1893 (Kelly's) John Heiffor Razor Manufacturer

1911 (White's) John Heiffor Razor Manufacturer

Missed one ...

Walter Mountain, Teacher of Middle Class School (Paradise Square), home 112 Grimesthorpe Road (Kelly's 1893)

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17th July 1824

A MEETING of Creditors of James Beaumont, late of Sheffield, Yorkshire, Cordwainer, now a prisoner in the Fleet Prison, London, an Insolvent Debtor, will be held at the Office of Mr. Broomhead, Solicitor, Paradise-Square, Sheffield, on 7lh August next, at Eleven in the Forenoon, to assent or dissent from Mr Greaves, Assignee of the Insolvent, compounding with Joseph Langton, or the Assignees of his estate, to takie less than 20s. in the pound for the taxed costs, incurred by Mr. Greaves defending an ejectment at the last Yorkshire Assizes, intituled " Doe on the demise of Joseph Langlon against John Greaves," and also to determine commencing proceeding in equity or otherwise against Joseph Langton and his Assignees, or such person or persons as may be then named to recover the title deeds of the property the subject matter of said ejectment; and /or other special purposes.

----------------

[meaningless gibberish]

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Paradise Square

From Kelly's 1905 Sheffield Directory

Campo lane

HOUSE OF HELP FOR GIRLS & YOUNG WOMEN ; Miss S. Thackeray & Miss E. Fyffe, matrons

3 Heiffor John, razor manufactr. See advertisement

5 Brookes Brothers, printers

5 Provident Free Home Assurance Co. Limited

7 & 9 Harrison Hugh W. surgeon

11 POLICE INSTITUTE ; Richard Hopkins, caretaker

13 Eagers Walt. & Son, rent bailiffs

17 Ward Arthur E. vict

Silver Street head

---------------

4 Gould & Coombe, solicitors

6 Bramley& Son, solicitors

6 Bramley Edward M.A. solicitor

6 Sheffield Crematorium Co.Lim.; Edward Bramley, hon. sec

6 Bramley Fras. Herbt. architect

8 Wheat John James, solicitor

8 Wheat Jn. Bristowe M.A.solicitr

10 Darwent Jsph.Arth. accountant

10 SHEFFIELD (THE) & DISTRICT CONFECTIONERS' ASSOCIATION ; Joseph Arthur Darwent, sec

10 Wells, Empson & Co. tea mers

10 BRITANNIC ASSURANCE Co. LIM. ; J. W. Drake, director

10 Woolman Mark, tailor

12 Ryves William Edgar, surgeon

Wheat's lane & Paradise street

----------------

14 Fisher & Co. glass & china dlrs

16 Arundel Printing Co. printers

18 & 20 MIDDLE CLASS SCHOOLS FOR BOYS, GIRLS & INFANTS ; Mr. & Mrs. Arthur Newell, principals

22 SHEFFIELD HEBREW SCHOOL ; Saul Harry Finklestone, head

24 Wardle Thomas, bookseller

26 Hattersley W. & Co. merchants

Silver Street head

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More to add from 1837

Thomas Batty, Accountant, auctioneer and appraiser, 5 Paradise Square

John Jepson and Son, Accountants, 11 Paradise Square

William Binney, Attorney, 12 Paradise Square

Brookfield and Gould, Attornies, 22 Paradise Square

Henry Broomfield, Attorney, North Church Street and 19 Paradise Square

George Greaves, Attorney, Paradise Square (no number given)

Joseph Haywood, Attorney, 21 Paradise Square

Thomas Pierson, Attorney, 1 Paradise Square

John Ryalls, Attorney and Nottingham & Derbyshire Fire & Offices & Agents, 18 Paradise Square

James & John Wheat, Attornies, 20 Paradise Square

Willian Henry Clayton, Auctioneer and Appraiser, Paradise Square

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Many thanks for all the additions Richard. I've been collecting some more myself too. I'll update the main post with all the additions over the next week or so.

Jeremy

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From 'The songs of Joseph Mather' by John Mather and John Wilson, 1862.

Google Books: http://books.google.com/books?id=RNkIAAAAQAAJ

SONG XXXVII.

THE BLIND FIDDLERS.*

Last market day even,

John Gibbons, blind Stephen,

And two other fiddlers that never could see,

They fought battle royal,

An hour by the dial,

Before that each party'd consent to agree,

The landlady cries out,

They'll knock all their eyes out,

A speech by a bystander not to be bore.

So down Sykes did toss her,

And laid the sack across her,

And there she remained till the battle was o'er.

* Sheffield seems to have been famous for its blind fiddlers.

Blind Stephen was quite a character, and possessed a large share of broad humour. The "Q in the Corner," in Paradise square, was a famous resort for fiddlers. The landlord, Samuel Goodlad, claimed the right to play the first fiddle on all public occasions, and used to boast that he got all new tunes from London before anyone in Sheffield. This was probably true, because Mr. and Mrs Goodlad had the entire management of the "Assemblies" those fashionable gatherings of the elite of Sheffield, in the Assembly Rooms, Norfolk-street (the Council Hall).

On one occasion Samuel performed a selection of new music for the gratification of his customers, some of whom put blind Stephen in a sack, and carried him to the "Q," where he heard the mellifluous music of "Mien Host," who boasted after the performance that no fiddler in Sheffield could play that particular tune, which he only obtained the day before. While some of the company were congratulating Samuel, others carried out the sack and liberated Stephen from durance.

He soon made his appearance with his fiddle, and wished to play for the amusement of his friend. On being asked if he could play the same tune that only Mr. Goodlad knew, Stephen declared that he could, better than any man in Sheffield. The landlord being positive that Stephen did not know it, offered to fiddle him for a

"leg of mutton and trimmings"

if he would play first. The offer was accepted, and Stephen was declared the victor, to the astonishment of his competitor, who greatly wondered where his rival got the tune. In due time the supper was prepared and ample justice done to it.

But, as the immortal Tam O'Shanter found it necessary to ride home, though he had to pass the haunted ruins of Kirk Alloway at the Midnight hour, it was equally necessary for Stephen to go home, though he had to pass the Parish Church-yard at the same witching time.

Stephen said he was not afraid of seeing a ghost; but as it was a dark night he asked if the kind-hearted hostess would lend him a lantern. This was a favour she could not deny. She told the servant girl to get one, and put a good light in it.

Thus equipped, the jovial fiddler set off to Pinstone-lane; but he had scarcely got up the steps which led into the church-yard (it was a thoroughfare then, and not pallisaded.) when some of the company asked Mrs. Goodlad why she lent a lantern to a blind man ? She quickly bade the girl run after him and fetch it back, as the thing would be known all over the town. When the maid overtook Stephen and demanded the lantern, he refused to give it up, because Dame Goodlad had lent it him to go home. The girl said that a lantern was useless to a blind man, on which Stephen laughed, and said,

"Does tha think I borrowed it for me sen ?

Tell thy mistress that there are so many drunken folks in the streets, and if one knocked me down and smashed my fiddle I should be ruined.

I am much obliged to her for the lantern, and although I can't see it other folks can."

On the 3rd of May, 1810, six resident blind musicians had a benefit concert at the " Assembly Rooms." Vide Local Reg., p. 124

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Main listing updated with Richards additions and additional data from Robson's 1839 directory. I've also added an indication of when the numbering scheme changed.

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