Frank Baker's Paintings

Frank Baker moved his family into No. 78 Selby Road, a brand new house in 1936. He was the Art Editor of the Nottingham Evening Post. He is listed as a commercial artist in the Kelly's directory. As the house was being built he had a studio built over the garage. This had a drop down/pull up ladder so that he could retreat to paint and not be disturbed.

Walter Foster moved his family into No 83 Selby Road in 1953. The two men worked together as Mr Foster was Chief Overseer of Photography at the Nottingham Evening Post.

When he was being interviewed Mr Foster's son produced a folder of Frank Baker's watercolour paintings. He asked if Frank's daughter would like the paintings back. She was delighted to be offered some of her father's work.  He handed over the paintings and they had a long talk and are meeting again.
    
Here are a few paintings from the folder.

More about The Archive Project

At the beginning of the year we collected information about Selby Road from the Kelly's & Wright's Directories* held in the Nottinghamshire Archive. These covered the period 1913-1956. We were able to present a huge spread sheet showing the head of household for every property, as it was built and included in the Directory, at the Royal Wedding Street Party, [about 200 residents attending] and at Selby Road Open Gardens 2011. The latter raised £3,329:52p for Friary Drop-In the local Support Centre for the Homeless.

*Note: These Directories document the people living in Nottinghamshire in a similar way to a telephone directory- but started before the invention of the telephone.You can trace people by their name, road or business.

In October  we leafleted Selby Road about the Archive and put a small article in Local News, a local free paper. To date we have had 20 direct contacts from past and current residents. In  addition we have had other 11 contacts passed on to us from christmas card lists and the sending on of leaflets. Today we had a contact from a couple who moved to Bristol some years ago. We are now working with the electoral rolls to find out the names of everyone on Selby Road who was eligible to vote since 1956. These records allow us to add first names and the record of wives, servants and children over 21 and later 18 to the Archive.

We still need contact with anyone who has lived or lives on Selby Road, or had relatives or friends here even if was only for a short time . We have 132 houses and hundreds of occupants to track. Please help if you can.

Personal stories will be added to this blog only when they have been double checked and cleared for publication.

During WWI for the first time it was possible for people to vote in Elections [If they were male and over 21] even if they were not living at home.  At this time there were only 10 houses on Selby Road and the following residents were listed.
The Absentee Voters List -Rushcliffe Division 1914-18
Selby Road
No.11  BOYES            Robert William        Sec. Lieutenant        2nd Leinsters
No.17  BERRY            William Ernest         86720 Cadet 3rd Battalion Machine Gun Corps 20
                                                                                      Officers Cadet E. Company
No.2    NEWTON        Frank Oscar
No.7    JONES             Frank Ernest           75368 Sapper D.D. Signals
No.1    BUTTRUM       Frank Peet             Acting-Sgt. Royal Army Medical Corps.

Sadly Clifford Prosser [No.15] lost his life in this war and is commemorated on the War Memorial. See previous post.

No 19 Selby Road in WWI

Owned by the Gisborne Family

Archive information provided in this post by Gary Wood  and Gerald Gisborne.

Remembrance Day

                                 West Bridgford War Memorial

                           

                                           




Clifford Gregory Prosser:  Lieutenant Corporal, Leicestershire Reg. aged 27 years
15th July 1916
Recorded at Thiepval Memorial, Somme, France.
15 Selby Road, West Bridgford, Nottingham.




John Arthur Finking  Trooper, Royal Tank Reg.
 aged 39 years
22nd March 1945
Grave in Hanover War Cemetery, Niedersachen, Germany
5 Selby Road West Bridgford, Nottingham. 
                                                   


Information provided by David Mellor in an article in Aspects of West Bridgford 2. WB Historical Society

                                                                                                         

Welcome to the Selby Road Archive

West Bridgford is situated across Trent Bridge from the City of Nottingham. We have Trent Bridge Cricket Ground and Nottingham Forest's Football Ground on our side of the River Trent.

With the industries of Boots, Player's, Raleigh and Nottingham Lace creating prosperity, people moved out of the city to West Bridgford which quickly expanded from a village to a town.

Estate Agents both past and present acclaim it as the perfect place for both families and the elderly. It has all the required facilities and was originally promoted as 'five minutes from the Town and five minutes from the countryside'.

It was called 'Bread and Lard Island' by the people of Nottingham. It was supposed to be a place where those who bought the new, large houses there, lived without the money to eat properly. Another version of 'Pride, poverty and pianos' or 'Fur coat and no knickers'.

Selby Road was part of the planned expansion of the area. In 1912 two pieces of land, next to and parallel to, the 1870s railway line to London, were sold for about £1200 to local builder Jesse Gray [1845-1927] and his Mortgagee, Mary Simmons, widow.

The original road was to be called WATCOMBE ROAD, but it's name was changed to SELBY before building started. Note: There are no 'Streets' in West Bridgford, only 'Roads'.

In 1912-13 Jesse Gray built Nos. 1, 3, 5, 7 and 9. In the next couple of years, the odd numbered side of the road extended up to and including No. 19. These houses then stood alone on an unmade road facing a vista of nothing but fields, with steam trains on a 30 foot embankment at the end of the gardens, for the next seven years.

1n 1955-6 the last of the original houses on the road was built, taking a total of 43 years to complete one road. No. 19 had a double plot and a final house, 19a, was added much later in the 1980s.

As Selby Road nears its 100th birthday, a group of residents have decided to archive its development and the changes that it has undergone. No house or road history is complete without recording the lives of the people who have lived in it. We are therefore asking anyone who lived on, lives on, or who had relatives or friends living on, Selby Road to contact us with their memories, stories, and hopefully photographs, so that this can become as full an account as possible of an ordinary road in the East Midlands. This Blog will keep an update of some of the photographs and stories that come to light.

Fred Collingwood
Chartered Accountant and Tobacconist
Original owner of No. 23 Selby Road

Frank Baker
Art Editor of the Nottingham Guardian  newspaper
Original owner of No. 78 Selby Road

Elsie Baker
English teacher
Wife of Frank Baker

The Baker family in the garden at No. 78
Mr & Mrs Baker, Alan, Alwyn, Betty, Philip & Ian