Heritage & History

Image: Oscar Wilde by Napoleon Sarony, albumen cabinet card, 1883 Reproduced courtesy of and © National Portrait Gallery, London One autumn evening in 1883 Sutton Coldfield was visited by a rising figure in the literary world.  He had been born in Dublin.  His father was a solicitor and his mother was a poet and translator.  […]

Image: William Kirkpatrick Riland Bedford was president of the Sutton Coldfield Institute. His rectory – pictured here – was sadly demolished in 1936 (ref 339) Reproduced with the permission of Sutton Coldfield Library During the early decades of the nineteenth century there existed no literary, scientific, philosophical or musical societies in Sutton Coldfield.  Those educated

Image: Geoffrey William Geoffrey-Lloyd, Baron Geoffrey-Lloyd of Broomfield Reproduced courtesy of and © National Portrait Gallery, London It has always been the Conservative candidate who has been returned for Sutton Coldfield since the constituency was created in 1945. For nineteen years, from 1955 until 1974, the town was represented in the House of Commons by

Image: The churchyard at Holy Trinity where the Revd. Joseph Mendham was interred in 1856 (ref 159a) Reproduced with the permission of Sutton Coldfield Library Anglican clergymen in the nineteenth century were often of a scholarly disposition.  Holding degrees from Oxford, they produced essays or books not only about religion, but also about a range

Image: Sutton Coldfield Town Hall, where Audrey Wilson was refused permission to hold a public meeting in 1950 and where the count took place (ref 369) Reproduced with the permission of Sutton Coldfield Library  Of the 51 people who have come forward as parliamentary candidates in Sutton Coldfield since the constituency was created 75 years

Image: Sutton Park, as it would have been known to J.E. Bagnall in Victorian times (ref 393) Reproduced with the permission of the Sutton Coldfield Library In 2014 I marked the centenary of the death of Sir Benjamin Stone by bringing out a biography of him. The first mayor of Sutton Coldfield had many interests

Image: Interior of St Michael’s Church, Boldmere showing the organ installed by John Banfield in 1876 (ref B24) Reproduced with the permission of the Sutton Coldfield Library In December 1940 a very elderly man died at the home of his daughter, where he had been living in his later years, in Victoria Road, Sutton Coldfield. 

Image: Sir John Serocold Paget Mellor, 2Bt Reproduced courtesy of and © National Portrait Gallery, London The parliamentary constituency of Sutton Coldfield came into existence in 1945.  Up to that point Sutton had been part of the Tamworth constituency.  In the last seventy-five years Sutton Coldfield has been represented by just four MPs – all of

Image: Wyndley Lane, 1892 Photograph reproduced by permission of Sutton Coldfield Library This charming photograph of Wyndley Lane in the late nineteenth century was taken by Sir Benjamin Stone (1838-1914).  If you have ever heard of Sir Benjamin Stone, it will probably be as a photographer.  Stone was in fact the most famous amateur photographer