Grains

1. Wolverhampton Walsall and Midland Junction Railways Act 1872 (Act of Parliament 35 & 36 Vict.)

Plans, sections, published map and book of reference of the Wolverhampton, Walsall and Midland Junction Railway
Engineer: John Addison
Staffordshire Record Office Doc Ref: Q/RUm/414

Fine Grain:

Wolverhampton Walsall and Midland Junction Railways
Midland Railway
Sutton Park Line
35 & 36 Vict
John Addison
1 July 1879
18 January 1965


2. World War II

Fine Grain:

1st PBO Sutton Coldfield
1 July 1942
15 November 1945
Holland Barracks School
Sutton Park
GPO baskets
6th October 1942
Main Sorting Building
German P.O.Ws
mail call


3. Main Sorting Building

You only start to understand context when you notice 'Deceased Section' and 'Casualty Section'!

Fine Grain:

Administration
Parcels Sorting (Section C)
Letters Sorting
Directory Service
Salvage Section
Deceased Section
Casualty Section
Watch Gallery
Loading Decks
two million people
ten tons of letter mail per day


4. Boundaries

Sutton Coldfield is sub-divided into four districts: Sutton Four Oaks, Sutton Trinity, Sutton Vesey, and Sutton New Hall (see attached plan). Our site is where Sutton Four Oaks meets Sutton Trinity. This is only interesting when you know:

"Edmund Cradock-Hartopp...developed the [Four Oaks Park] estate further and in 1827 persuaded the Corporation to allow a further incursion into Sutton Park in order to create a more pleasing oval shape to his deer park...Hartopp agreed to exchange 93 acres (38 ha) he owned adjacent to the Park near the town for 65 acres (26 ha) of Sutton Park and also to build a new entrance to the Park (Town Gate) and a new road (Park Road) linking the new entrance with the town."

It was probably this development of Town Gate and the related Park Road that led to the cutting of Richmond Road, Tudor Hill, et al later in the 19th century.

On the death of Henry Pudsey of Langley (1677), the ancient Langley Estate (a couple of miles east of our site) was split between two daughters, Elizabeth and Anne. Four Oaks Park was built by Elizabeth with her husband Henry Folliott, 3rd Lord of Ballyshannon. The architect was William Wilson, student of Christopher Wren, who had married Elizabeth's widowed mother Jane. [note: Wilson also built Moat House (as his home with new wife Jane who had been forced to leave Langley Hall by her daughter Anne) on Lichfield Road (now part of the Anchorage Road Conservation Area...this building became the School of Art and is next door to BV Grammar School].

Anyway, in 1879 Four Oaks Park was acquired by the short-lived Four Oaks Racecourse Company, who built a racecourse which opened in 1881 but had failed by 1890. The estate was finally sold to the Marquess of Clanricarde who developed it as a new residential district between 1895 and 1915.

In terms of fine grain:

Langley Hall
Four Oaks Park
Pudsey family
Sir William Wilson
Jesson family
Holte family of Aston
Bracebridge family
Anchorage Road Conservation Area
Tudor Hill

5. Francis J. Field

Because of what FJF was doing with first day covers and air mail, we have a precedent for a mail art project. That he lived on near-by Richmond Road and became the world expert on air mail, also gives us two important things:

- site-specific content for the museum; and
- a 'postal' lens through which we can see/connect some of your existing fine grain stuff (like the royal visit, the scout jamboree, Sutton Park, postal etiquettes, etc..

Two examples of this attached. Firstly FJF's Scout Jamboree cover (attachment 'Field_Jamboree') which shows that he designed this commemorative cover (he is credited at the bottom of the image). So whilst the Scout Jamboree 'belongs' to the history of Sutton Park, we can play a 'claim' game based on the equation 'Scout Jamboree + FJF + air mail + Sutton Coldfield postal services = site specific content/museum'.

Secondly, the attachment 'can30' is a letter addressed to FJF. When you read the description of this letter, you start to understand the game he was playing with air mail (his use of the ½d stamp):

"This cover is postmarked in Christchurch on 26 July 1930 and is addressed to the UK with the routing via Canadian Air Services. It left New Zealand for Vancouver on 29 July. The likely route is that it was then sent by rail to Calgary, flown from there to Winnipeg, then to Toronto by rail before being flown to Montreal. From 1927, the Canadian postal authorities had inaugurated a summer airmail service from Montreal to Rimouski which is in the St Lawrence Estuary. Mail was transferred at Rimouski to trans-Atlantic steamers and that is likely to have happened with this cover. The cover had arrived in Sutton Coldfield by 27 August. It was Francis Field's practice to affix a ½d stamp and get it postmarked to prove the arrival date. It should be noted that both the air mail label and the manuscript have been crossed out by two parallel purple lines. This was applied after the last air mail leg to indicate that the rest of the journey was by surface mail."

Interested in the "two parallel purple lines" that indicate the switch from air to surface mail, and wonder whether this could be a planting device to the embankment to the southern edge of the site.

To frame the museum offer as 'WW2 US postal services' PLUS 'Francis J. Field' gives us a very rich basis to work from.

So the fine grain here could be:

Francis J. Field
Richmond Hill
history of aerophilately
Francis J Field Ltd
The Aero Field Journal (the 'house magazine' of FJF Ltd)
FJF other publications*
commemorative covers
etiquettes
world and local events
Scout Jamboree/Sutton Park

Biographies:

FIELD, Francis John 1895-1992. For seventy years a student of airpost history and aerophilately. In 1921 he founded the firm of Francis J Field Ltd, dealing specially in air stamps. At Birmingham, in May 1923, he gave the first British philatelic talk on radio. He compiled 'A Commercial and Historical Atlas of the World’s Airways’ [1925], and was co-author, with NC Baldwin, of ‘The Coronation Aerial Post 1911’ [1934]. Works published by his firm included : ‘British Air Mails - A Chronology of the Air Posts of Great Britain and Ireland’ [1935], ‘Air Mail Labels (Etiquettes)’, ‘The Blitz Book’ [1942], ‘Great Britain and Ireland - Catalogue of Internal Air Mails 1910-41’ compiled by NC Baldwin [1942], ‘World Air Posts - A concise priced summary of the Air Post and Aviation Souvenirs of about 200 countries’ [1948], ‘British Air Mail Society Souvenir’ [1971], and from 1926 the house magazine ‘The Aero Field’. President Aerophilatelic Federation and Streetly P.S. Named in Roll of Honour of Birmingham P.S. RDP 1968.

Here's a list of FJF publications (from the British Empire to The History of Rocket & Jet Posts).

• Artic Air Mails: Field, 1968
• Atlantic Mail FLIGHTS, Fifty Years of by Baldwin,
• Australia: External Air Mails of: Baldwin, 1965
• Australia & New Zealand to Great Britain (War time services 1939-45): O. R. J. Lee
• Qantas Empire Airways Comes of Age
• Austria; An Air Mail Digest: Field
• Bermuda, Air Mails of: Baldwin
• B.E.A. Helicopter Mails: 20 Years of by Baldwin
• B.O.A.C.'s. Silver Jubilee: Baldwin
• Bridging the South Atlantic by Air Mail: A.L.Leon • Bridging the Pacific, Priced Chronology of Projected, Attempted, and Successful Pacific Flights 1919-1951: Field
• Post-War Bridging the Atlantic, 1945-50: Baldwin
• British Commonwealth Air Mail Digest 1-10: Field (updated information), 1953
• Ceylon 1873-1950: Field
• COMET-1: Baldwin (List of Flights)
• COMET-4: Baldwin
• East Africa Governors Conference Report of a Committee Appointed to Prepare a Scheme for Post-War Local Air Services in East Africa 1943. (Routes, Mileage, Tariffs)
• Ethiopia Air Mail Flights to 1934
• Air France, History of the Development of the Air Mail Services: Baldwin
• Deutsche Luft Hansa and Luft Hansa: Field
• Fanco-German War 1870-71, Balloon Builders Cachets on Letters Entrusted to Aeronauts: H.Cappart
• British Mails of The Graf Zeppelin: Field, 1987
• Great Britain, Air Letter Stamps and Services: Baldwin, 1966
• Great Britain and Ireland, Catalogue of Internal Air Mails 1910-1941: Baldwin
• British Air Mails 1946-1951: Baldwin (Priced supplement), 1955
• Fifty Years of British Air Mails 1911-1960: Baldwin
• British Inland Air Mail April 1933-April 35: Phillips
• Royal Air Force Reconnaissance Flights, Delhi to Singapore 1930: A.H.Frost
• Railway Air Services, British Inland Air Posts: Baldwin
• Hong Kong Air Post History, Priced Check List: Baldwin & Field
• Imperial Airways & Subsidiary Companies, History and Price Check List of Empire Air Mails: Baldwin
• Japan Overseas and International Flights: Field (Valuation guide)
• Libya, Air Mail Postal History of the Fezzan: N.Davies
• Malaya, Air Mails of: Baldwin
• New Guinea, Air Mail In, Includes Papua: Gisburn
• Norwegian Air Mails, A Check List of: Baldwin
• Pan American Airways: Baldwin
• Royal Air Force Covers of: Field
• Rhodesia's and Nyasaland, Air Mail History of: Baldwin
• Rocket & Jet Posts History of: Field
• British Africa, Air Mails of 1925-32: Baldwin
• South Africa, Air Posts of: Check List 1911-1956: Baldwin & Stern.

You will note that his main collaborator was Baldwin. This was:

BALDWIN, Norman Cecil 1890-1975. Company director. Specialised in airmails, and stamps with ecclesiastical designs. Wrote manual on South West Africa, ‘Abyssinia 1929-31’, ‘Air Mails of British Africa 1925-32’, ‘Malaya - Check List of Air Mail Flights’, ‘British Airmails 1946-51’, ‘Bridging the Atlantic’ [1946], ‘Post-War Bridging the Atlantic 1945-50’, ‘Great Britain and Ireland Catalogue of Internal Airmails 1910-41’, and compiled ‘Imperial Airways - A History and Priced Check List of the Empire Air Mails’ [1950]. Co-author with Francis J Field of ‘The Coronation Aerial Post 1911’ [1934].