News

Heathcoat Amateur Operatic Society following the excellent initial performance on Wednesday were patronised by crowded houses on Thursday, Friday and Saturday evenings and a matinee on Saturday. There were many encores including a treble recall for the ‘Dance a...

‘The present year should be more successful from the motorists point of view than any of its predecessors. Never has the prospective buyer had so wide a range to select from..........  Reliability too has been appreciably improved. Journeys of 60 miles and upwards can...

The first edition of the Tiverton Gazette in 1923 included several ‘look backs’ at the year just ended. ‘It cannot be said of 1922 that it was a year of prosperity - certainly not in Tiverton. For agriculturalists it was an exceptionally lean year. So also was it for...

December 1922 continues with more adverts from the Gazette in the couple of weeks leading up to Christmas. They show the variety of loose goods on sale in a Cullompton grocery and an Exeter toy shop hoping to attract customers from the Tiverton district. ‘ Peter Pan’s...

In late October 1922, 45 traders met in the Town Hall to plan for Tiverton ‘Shopping Week’ which was to take place in early December. There was already £150 worth of advertising pledged towards the production of a handbook to promote the week. Three sub-committees...

Cloth seal for George Lewis, Tiverton. George Lewis was exporting cloth between 1748 - 1776. The seal features a lion on one side and the number 56 1/2 on the other. This number means it is likely to have been used on a type of cloth called a drugget. This seal was...

BROADCASTING BEGUN was the headline in the Gazette when the news and the weather forecast were ‘sent out’ from the BBC station in Marconi House, London on the 14th November 1922, and from Birmingham and Manchester as well the following day. The Gazette reports ‘In...

In November 1922, an article appeared in the Gazette outlining the, then fairly recent, development of the Women’s Institute (WI). Founded in Canada in 1897, it was brought to this country by a Canadian immigrant. The first WI in the UK was founded in 1915, during the...

In late October 1922 the Gazette reported:  ‘ A storm of protest has disturbed the peaceful atmosphere in which recreations in People’s Park have hitherto been conducted. The Bowling Club have erected a fence around their greens, and it is of such a design that...

This press cutting leads to a train of events which began in 1898. Amy Oxley Wilkinson was an Australian nurse and missionary. She had been in China only a few years when she founded a school for boys with little or no sight in Foochow (now written Fuzhou). Amy also...

Kodak opened its first factory outside the USA in Harrow, Middlesex, in 1890. Initially it concentrated on developing film but later produced film rolls and photographic paper. It was also the European Research and Development Centre. At its peak, in the mid-20th...

In late September 1922 ‘winter’ sports were already underway but Thorne’s were touting for custom. Lacrosse ‘bats’ are now called ‘sticks’. Blundell’s didn’t play lacrosse at that time, where was it played? We’d love to know, please let us know if you've got any...