26 – Newlands School in Hoylake: 23 September 2024

If there are plenty of signs urging you to visit Chester, the signs pointing towards Hoylake are not really designed to attract tourists.  Hoylake lacks most of the features that help create a tourist magnet.

These photos show one of the most attractive features of Hoylake.

 

The Postcard sent on 14 August 1914 to Eliza Hankin was addressed to “Liz Hankin, Newlands, Clydesdale Road, Hoylake.”

I went to Hoylake today looking for traces of “Newlands”. 

Although the houses which were once called Newlands still exist, they are no longer home any school.

****

I found all three of the houses which once carried the Newlands name.  They are at 37 Trinity Road, 49 Trinity Road and 3 Clydesdale Road Hoylake.  They are all within easy walking distance of each other.  The day was filled with rain and gusting winds, but it was obvious why Eleanor Edwards and her husband Richard Reece Roberts chose to live in this area.  Visually, Hoylake is a very pleasant location.  It is not beautiful in the manner of Cwm Penmachno and Penmachno, but if you MUST live in a city environment, Hoylake is a much better place to live in than most streets in most suburbs of most cities.

I think the order in which Newlands began life and then moved locations twice was as follows

·       49 Church Road – now called Trinity Road

·       37 Church Road/ Trinity Road

·       3 Clydesdale Road.

****

 

Here is a photo of 49 Trinity (Church) Road) today.

When Eleanor and Richard moved from Birkenhead to Hoylake, they lived at first at 49 Trinity (Church) Road.  I think they may have owned the house rather than merely having a lease, but I cannot be sure.  The house shown above may have been modernized inside, but it is certainly the same house that stood on this site about 100 years ago.

 

****

This is 37 Trinity/ Church Road today.

I am certain that Eleanor and Richard owned 49 Trinity/ Church Road because this is the address shown on Eleanor’s electoral enrolment in 1911.  Even though women were still not legal permitted to vote in national elections for the Parliament at Westminster, they were able to vote in local council elections if they satisfied the “Property Franchise” requirements.  Essentially, this meant they needed to have enough property to be classified as wealthy enough to be permitted to vote in local council elections.

Eleanor was enrolled to vote in 1911 and her address was 49 Church (now Trinity) Road, Hoylake.

The house currently at 49 Trinity Road is clearly the same house as that which existed on the same spot in 1911.

 

****

 

Later in 1911, Eleanor changed her address from 49 Church Road to 3 Clydesdale Road, Hoylake.

Even the street signs in Hoylake indicate a more prosperous strata of society than exists in nearby Birkenhead or Liverpool.   This is the sign for Clydesdale Road.  The local council in Hoylake obviously has the ability to spend more than the bare minimum on street signs.

Finally, with the rain pouring down and doing its best to drown the camera, I arrived at 3 Clydesdale Road.  It too seems to be in its original condition although presumably it has beeb]=n updated and modernized on the inside.

The UK Ordnance Survey Map for Hoylake in the early 20^th century indicated once substantial building which was divided into two separate dwellings.  Number 3 Clydesdale Road is still part of a substantial building that is divided into two separate dwellings.

I do not know whether or not my relative Eliza Hankin worked for Richard and Eleanor at 37 or 49 Church Road, but she definitely worked at 3 Clydesdale Road when it was the location of Newlands School

I know this because the Postcard was addressed to her at Newlands in Clydesdale Road, Hoylake.

 

****

I first received the Postcard a few days after Margaret was diagnosed with terminal cancer and told that she would probably be dead before Christmas 2020. 

I initially tried to translate the writing on the Postcard to try and divert myself from the news of Margaret’s impending death. 

As she kept defying death and refusing to die, I kept widening my search about the origins of the Postcard. 

I researched the origins of Eliza Hankin, tracing her family tree back to the early 1700s. 

Thinking that the signature on the Postcard might possibly be “Dobson”, I desperately looked for some called Dobson who might have sent the Postcard to Eliza.  After thorough searching, it became clear there was no one called Dobson who could have sent the Postcard.

Having hit a complete dead end in my search for “Dobson”, I then commenced a forensic examination of the signature on the Postcard.  I did a grid containing every possible letter that each scrawl in the signature might perhaps represent.

This finally revealed that perhaps the Postcard was signed by ”A Pearson” – so I went looking for someone called A Pearson who was close enough in age to Eliza Hankin to have fallen in love with her and written the Postcard to tell her he was doing his patriotic duty and joining the Army to fight against Germany in World War 1.

I eventually found Alfred Pearson who enlisted in the King’s Own Liverpool Regiment on 1 September 1914.

Alfred was blown to pieces by a shell on 2 July 1916 on day 2 of the Battle of the Somme – one of the vilest and most deadly of all battles in a war that had zero battles which were not vile and deadly.

Number 3 Clydesdale Road Hoylake is a very special place because this is where Eliza Hankin and Alfred Pearson fell in love.

Although she lost her lover so cruelly, Eliza Hankin never forgot him.  Her granddaughter still has the Postcard she got from Alfred in August 1914.

They may be gone, but they are definitely not forgotten.

The Postcard from the Moon was finished before Margaret died.