1903: Today saw an extension to Peterborough's growing tram network when the service to Newark began, the trams travelling along the Eastfield Road. The driver - the motorman - had to stand in an open area to drive the tram and was exposed to all weathers. He worked a ten-hour shift, six days a week, at a rate of 5d an hour, which provided him with a weekly wage of 25s. (Peterborough Advertiser)
Taken from The Peterborough Book of Days by Brian Jones, The History Press, 2014.
The Town played a vital role with industry, airfields and a major railway centre. The flat landscape meant there were many airfields including RAF Peterborough, Westwood, which was a major RAF training centre.
Local people volunteered for Military Service but those in ‘reserved occupations’ (jobs important to the war effort), were not conscripted but often spent their spare time in Civil Defence e.g. Home Guard and Auxiliary Fire Service. Businesses set up their own firewatchers while first-aiders and plane spotters were essential. National Service became compulsory for unmarried women aged between 20 and 30, then up to 50 in 1943, unless they had children under 14. Many joined the various women’s forces and nurses were attached to all the Services. Women worked in factories making war machines, ammunition, clothing or parachutes. Engineering industries such as Perkins Engines and Baker Perkins switched to wartime production supplying engines, guns, torpedoes and manufacturing machinery. Amidst this, dancing at local hotels and cinema-going were popular and there were several cinemas, showing films three times a day. Foreign servicemen became familiar sights on the street. They included including Americans, French and Poles, many of the latter remaining in the city at the end of the war.
Peterborough was not a prime target for bombs, so the city received 1496 London evacuees. Brick air raid shelters were built in the city centre. There were 644 Air Raid Alert warnings and bombs were hitting Bridge Street and the Lido. Raids of high explosive and incendiary bombs continued to 1942.
Peterborough Cathedral was hit by incendiary bombs but damage was limited by the quick reaction of the fire-watchers.
The rich fertile lands around Peterborough have drawn people to the area for centuries. Similarly, the city and soke has offered a safe haven to migrants fleeing persecution, war or economic hardships. The Huguenots arrived in the Peterborough area, specifically around Thorney, during the seventeenth century. They were part of a group of people who had been subject to religious persecution in France for following Protestant Christianity in a country that was mainly Catholic.
They fled France and were welcomed in many countries in Europe thanks to high rates of literacy and their skilled craftsmen. In Thorney they worked under the leadership of Cornelius Vermuyden to assist in draining the flat but boggy lands of the fens and were rewarded with fertile farmland.
Records of the Huguenot population can be found in church records from Thorney. They were said to be the force behind the reuse of the Thorney Abbey church of St Andrew and St Botolph, with services beginning in 1652 and records in 1653. The Huguenots continued to speak in French for many years, so the church services and their records were also in French
Many French surnames are still common in and around the area, and include Fovargue and Lefevre References to the Huguenots can also be found in local place names including French Drove.
Thorney Museum is a good place to learn more about the Huguenots and view transcripts of their records.
References:
Thorney Society, 17th Century: The Earls of Bedford and early settlers, Thorney Museum <http://www.thorney-museum.org.uk/17th-century> [accessed 4 March 2021].
The Huguenot Society, Huguenot History <https://www.huguenotsociety.org.uk/history.html> [accessed 4 March 2021].
The Town played a vital role with industry, airfields and a major railwa…
The rich fertile lands around Peterborough have drawn people to the area…