The "Memorial" (Petition) of 1889: Difference between revisions

The details of reasons given in the Memorial for the urgency to construct an entrance from Hoole to the General Station are expressed in very robust prose in beautiful copperplate formal handwriting. The more informal sheets of the signatories were then glued together and attached to the formal statement. The whole document is approximately 40cm wide and 2m long. It is heavily stained with what looks like soot where it has been folded and is dog-eared in places. It is easy to imagine that it had lain in a Railway Companies’ file for over one hundred and twenty years.

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What is significant about the signatories, is that they are the prominent, successful, affluent inhabitants of the township of Hoole and outlying districts. Examples are given in the files, but notable are: Charles Brown, six times Mayor of Chester, and one of the founders of Browns of Chester; Lieutenant Colonel J.H. Hamersley, Chief Constable of Cheshire; the Rev. Frederik Anderson, the first and long-serving vicar of All Saints’ Church, Hoole; Earl Kilmorey; Claud Hamilton Vivian, landowner, of Hoole House; and Eliza J. Ewing of Golden Grove (now the Dene Hotel). Readers can hunt out many more at their leisure.