The month of November is popularly associated
with the ‘Movember’ craze (the growing of moustaches to raise awareness of
men’s health issues), so we have listed our Top Ten ‘Taches from the archives…and
taken a light-hearted look at the men
behind the moustaches who all featured prominently in Sheffield life a
century ago or more from varying spheres of interest…
‘The
Historian’ - Thomas Walter Hall (1862-1953), Solicitor
As well as leaving behind the memory of a magnificent
moustache…Thomas Walter Hall has left us a hugely important legacy through his
tireless efforts to preserve and promote Sheffield’s history and cultural
heritage. He was born in 1862, the son of John Hall of Victoria Street,
Sheffield, who worked as a surgeon.
In his younger days, T. W. Hall practised as a solicitor
before retiring in 1910 to immerse himself in historical and antiquarian
pursuits. Scouring the vaults of Sheffield solicitors’ firms and the muniment
rooms of local landowners, crucially Hall helped to unearth, transcribe and
catalogue hundreds of centuries-old manuscripts which now form the bedrock of
key collections held at Sheffield City Archives.
Hall was a founder-member of the Hunter Archaeological
Society (and its first chairman) and a longstanding member of the Public
Libraries Committee. He lived at 6 Gladstone Road, Ranmoor.
Surprisingly perhaps, for such a handsomely hirsute
fellow, Hall remained a bachelor. He died in Sheffield on 11 November 1953,
aged 91.
‘The Architect’ – Charles Burrows Flockton
(1867-1945), Architect and Surveyor
You might
expect an architect pictured in the late Victorian era to have a well-sculpted
moustache…and Charles Burrows Flockton does not disappoint! Born in Sheffield
on 8 June 1867, he was from a well-known dynasty of Sheffield-based architects,
the son of Thomas James Flockton (1823-1899) and grandson of William Flockton
(1804-1864).
Charles
Burrows Flockton was educated at Blidworth and was articled with the family
firm of Flockton and Gibbs in 1886 and became a partner there in 1895. He
succeeded his father as surveyor to the Sheffield Church Burgesses in 1899.
Alongside his partner, Edward Mitchell Gibbs, he was also appointed surveyor to
the Sheffield Town Trustees, Birley’s Charity and the Sheffield Royal Grammar
School.
Although he
worked in Sheffield, Flockton spent much of the early part of his career living
in Worksop before moving back to Sheffield where he resided at Kenwood Knoll,
Nether Edge and later at 67 Stumperlowe Crescent Road, Fulwood.
Flockton died
in Newcastle General Hospital on 25 July 1945, aged 78.
‘The
Strongman’ - William Hutchinson (1873-1949), Practical Exponent and Teacher of
Scientific Physical Culture
Whilst his moustache is perhaps not his most striking
physical feature…William Hutchinson was a distinctive moustachioed male who
stood out from the crowd on the streets of Sheffield in the early 1900s,
wearing his moustache in the style befitting an Edwardian strongman.
Hutchinson was born in Birmingham in 1873. He grew up in
the Aston district of the city and was the second oldest of ten children of
Thomas Hutchinson who worked as a ‘drysalter’. By the 1890s, William Hutchinson
had relocated to Sheffield where he married Charlotte Ada Hunt in 1896. The
couple had two daughters Violet and Lilian.
By the turn of the 20th-century, Hutchinson was a ‘Sandow
medallist’ in bodybuilding (the medal named after the pioneering German body
builder Eugen Sandow). Hutchinson displayed his muscular physique in various
‘physical culture competitions’ designed to find the ‘most perfectly developed
man’. As a well-known ‘physical culture expert’, Hutchinson ran a ‘Physical Culture School’ at 33
Ecclesall Road, offering tuition in health, strength and conditioning, boxing
and even roller skating! He also trained wrestlers and offered private
treatment ‘for the cure of nervous ailments, indigestion, constipation and
obesity’. He later worked at the Grecian Gymnasium on Broomhall Road. Ever
looking for new ways to promote health
and fitness, in 1936 Hutchinson came up with a pioneering scheme of
establishing a ‘sun-bathing club’ in Sheffield ‘designed to meet the needs of
fatigued business-men in need of a midday rest’, claiming how ‘sunshine is
essential to bodily fitness’ (See Sheffield Independent 8 June 1936).
Hutchinson lived at 17 Cliffefield Road, Meersbrook and
later at 61 Wath Road, Nether Edge. He died in Nether Edge Hospital in April
1949, aged 75.
‘The Brewer’ - Duncan Gilmour (c. 1852-1937), Brewery Company Head and
Sheffield City Councillor
Many of the councillors serving on Sheffield City Council
in the early 1900s boasted fine
moustaches (e.g. Herbert Hughes, George Addy, Robert Styring, George Luther Wood,
Harry Parker Marsh, H. B. Sandford, W. C. Fenton and Wilfred Lawson Angel to
name but a few…). Arguably the finest
moustache to grace Sheffield City Council Chambers was that donned by Duncan
Gilmour. Gilmour was a Conservative representative of Upper Hallam Ward and
later sat for St Philip’s Ward. On the Council, he was particularly noted for
his contributions to the Education Committee.
Outside of local politics, Duncan Gilmour (born in
Kingstown, Ireland c. 1852) also headed the well-known family brewery firm in
Sheffield which bears his name (founded by his Scottish-born father Duncan
Gilmour [senior]). The younger Duncan Gilmour also helped to found and chair
the Sheffield Brewery Association. He was also a longstanding member of St
Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Sheffield, serving as church organist there for
some 40 years.
Gilmour married Lizzie Blanche Toyne in Sheffield in
1881. They had a daughter Dorothy and a son Duncan (junior). Gilmour died at
his home of Highbury, Sandygate Road, Crosspool on 12 July 1937, aged 85.
‘The Steel Magnate’ - Henry Barnsley (1847-1922), Steel and File Manufacturer
Henry Barnsley was born in Sheffield in 1847, the
7th child (and 4th son) of George Barnsley, founder of the steel and file
manufacturing-firm George Barnsley and Sons of Cornish Works, Sheffield.
Henry Barnsley joined the family firm and was well
respected in business circles. Having not taken much interest in civic affairs,
he was not as prominent a public figure as his father (who served on Sheffield
City Council for many years) or his older brother George (who was master cutler
in 1883-1884) but he was certainly able to rival his better-known family
members with his rather marvellous moustache!
Barnsley resided at Summerfield, Broomhill and
later at Oak Vale, 33 Collegiate Crescent, Broomhall, Sheffield. He was
twice-widowed, having married Mary Thackray in 1873 (who died in 1877, aged 30)
and then Annie Tyzack in 1879 (who died in 1880, aged 37). Barnsley had three
sons, George, Thomas and Percy.
Henry Barnsley died in Sheffield on 2 March 1922,
aged 74.
‘The
Military Man’ - Colonel George Ernest Branson (1860-1940), Solicitor and former
Lord Mayor
A list of prominent moustachioed men from Sheffield’s past would not be
complete without a representative from the city’s military fraternity, who were
renowned for the proud displays of facial hair ornamenting their upper lips!
George Ernest Branson was born in Sheffield on 20 May 1860, the son of
Charles Anthony Branson and his wife Henrietta. He was educated at Wesley
College and afterwards joined his father in the family solicitors firm of
Branson and Son of Bank Street, Sheffield.
Branson received his commission in the Hallamshire Rifles in 1880, being promoted to captain in 1884, and hon. lieutenant-colonel in 1900. He served as Lord Mayor of Sheffield 1913-1914. During his time as mayor, Branson oversaw the acquisition of Endcliffe Hall for use as the new headquarters of the Hallamshire Rifles, thereby saving the historic former home of Sir John Brown from demolition. Branson’s mayoral term also coincided with the outbreak of World War One, where he was instrumental in the formation of the Sheffield City Battalion.
‘The
Aristocrat’ - James Fitzalan Hope (1870-1949), Conservative MP for Sheffield
Brightside and Central
Several Sheffield Members of Parliament in the
early 1900s had notable moustaches. Whilst perhaps not having quite the finesse
of those exhibited by fellow Sheffield MPs around the same period such as John
Tudor Walters (MP for Brightside), the Right Hon, C. B. Stuart-Wortley (MP for
Hallam) and Colonel Sir Charles Edward Howard Vincent (MP for Sheffield
Central), James Fitzalan Hope certainly possessed a moustache almost unrivalled
in its bushiness!”
Hope was not a native of Sheffield but was a direct
descent of the Dukes of Norfolk, the historic ‘Lords of the Manor’ for
Sheffield. He was born in London in 1870, the son of J. R. Hope-Scott of
Abbotsford House (in the Scottish Borders) and Lady Victoria Alexandrina
Fitzalan-Howard, eldest daughter of the 14th Duke of Norfolk. He was educated
at The Oratory School in Birmingham and at Christ Church, Oxford.
Hope served as Conservative MP for Sheffield
Brightside from 1900 to 1906 and later Sheffield Central Division from 1908 to
1929. He was later raised to the peerage and became the 1st Baron Rankeillour
of Buxted, Sussex in 1932.
Hope married Mabel Helen Riddell in London in 1892
and they had four children: Arthur Oswald, Henry, Joan Mary and Richard. After
the death of his first wife, Hope later married Lady Beatrice Kerr-Clark in
1941. Hope’s main residence was Heron’s Ghyll, Uckfield, Sussex. He died at St
Mary’s Hospital, Paddinton on 14 February 1949, aged 78.
‘The
Working Class Hero’ - Joseph Pointer (1875-1914), Labour MP for Attercliffe
Joseph Pointer was renowned for being an assiduous
MP and similar diligence and care and attention evidently went into grooming his
moustache! His background was diametrically opposed to that of fellow
parliamentarian James Fitzalan Hope above. A ‘working man’ and avowed
socialist, Pointer was born (in June 1875) and bred in the Attercliffe district
of Sheffield which he later served as MP. He was educated at a local council
school before finishing his education at the Sheffield Central Secondary
School.
Aged 15, Pointer was apprenticed as an engineer’s
patternmaker. He became involved with trade unionism in 1895 when he joined the
United Patternmakers Association and he also joined the Attercliffe Independent
Labour movement. He struggled to obtain regular employment as a patternmaker
after taking part in strike action and preaching socialism on street corners in
Sheffield. In spite of his employment difficulties, he became chair of the
Sheffield Trades Council and, in 1908, was elected to serve the Brightside Ward
on Sheffield City Council. In 1909, following the death of the Liberal MP for
Attercliffe, J. Batty Langley, Pointing stood for the Labour Party at the
ensuing by-election and won a narrow victory, thereby becoming Sheffield’s
first Labour MP. In parliament he became a Labour Party junior whip and a
spokesman for the colony of Trinidad.
In 1902, Pointer married Jane Annie Tweddle,
daughter of a sub-postmaster in Middlesbough, and the couple had a son Harold
and two daughters, Dora and Ruth. Pointer’s promising political career was
sadly cut short when he was struck down by sudden illness in 1914, which led to
his death at his home of 84 Stafford Road, Sheffield on 19 November 1914, aged
just 39. Pointer was universally esteemed by those on all sides of the
political divide and Labour, Conservative and Liberal representatives joined a
lengthy line of over 300 mourners at his funeral cortege in Sheffield.
‘The Scientist’ - Alfred Russell Fox
(1853-1910), Medical Botanist and Chemist
Alfred Russell Fox had the immaculately styled moustache
of a man of scientific precision. He was born in Sheffield in 1853, the son of
Mr William Fox, medical botanist and chemist of Snig Hill and Castle Street. He
was educated at Milk Street Academy and Elmfield College York.
Fox entered into partnership with his father before
becoming principal partner of the business of William Fox and Sons, medical
botanists and family chemists of Castle Street, Sheffield.
An ardent botanist, Fox travelled all over Europe in his
studies of the medicinal properties of plants and was one of the oldest members
of the Sheffield Field Naturalist and Microscopical Societies. He became
president of the Sheffield Chemical and Pharmaceutical Society and also served
as a Liberal Councillor for Crookesmoor Ward on Sheffield City Council. He was
also past master of the Britannia Lodge of Freemasons.
Fox married Mary Shipman in Sheffield in 1877 and they
had six children: Mary Violet Maud, Alfred Russell (junior), Gertrude, William,
John Walter and George Shipman. The Fox family lived at Ingleton House, 360
Crookesmoor Road, Sheffield. Fox died in Sheffield on 5 December 1910, aged 57.
‘The Sportsman’ - Sir William Edwin Clegg (1852-1932), Solicitor and Former Lord Mayor
Sportsmen pictured in the late Victorian and Edwardian
period were often noted for ‘sporting’ impressive moustaches and Sir William
Edwin Clegg was no exception.
Clegg was born in Sheffield on 21 April 1852, the son of
William Johnson Clegg (1826-1895), respected solicitor, alderman and former
Sheffield Lord Mayor of Cliff Tower, Ranmoor.
William Edwin Clegg was educated at Sheffield and Gainford (near
Darlington).
Clegg, along with his older (and equally impressively
moustachioed) brother John Charles Clegg (1850-1937) was a gifted athlete and
both excelled at athletics, football and cricket. Both brothers played
international football for England and both followed in their father’s
footsteps by becoming highly regarded public figures in Sheffield. Both became
solicitors at the family firm of Clegg and Sons (of Bank Street, later Fig Tree
Lane, Sheffield) and both were elected to serve as Liberal members on Sheffield
City Council. As a solicitor, William Edwin Clegg notably defended Sheffield’s
notorious criminal Charles Peace at the trial which led to Peace’s execution
for murder in 1879.
William Edwin Clegg became leader of Sheffield City
Council, a J.P., Alderman, Lord Mayor and Freeman of the City. He chaired the
Sheffield Education Committee and Tramways Committee and also became
Pro-Chancellor of Sheffield University and a director of Sheffield Wednesday
Football Club. He was knighted in 1906.
Clegg married Viola Carr in 1873 and they had three
children: Ernest William, Maud Violet and Cecil Edwin. Latterly, Clegg lived at
Loxley House, Wadsley. His first wife Viola died in 1910 and in 1922 he married
Lucy Jonas (the widow of another former Sheffield Lord Mayor, Sir Joseph Jonas,
who died in 1921). Clegg died on 22 August 1932 at Trevethicks Nursing Home,
Broomhall Place, aged 80.
Additional portraits and further information about
such memorable moustachioed men of Sheffield and their contemporaries can be
found in the historical sources held at Sheffield City Archives and Local
Studies Library. See, for example: the local newspaper collection, Sheffield
‘Red Books’, yearbooks and directories, census records, parish registers,
cemetery records, www.picturesheffield.com and publications such as Sheffield
at the Opening of the 20th Century: Contemporary Biographies by S. O. Addy and W. T. Pike (1900) and Sheffield and District Who’s Who (1905). Images © Picture Sheffield.
