Browse Items (534 total)

St. Paul's Schools, with master's house attached were built by John Walter III on land that he purchased from Mr. Palmer of Holme Park in December 1864. The projected cost of the new school to accommodate 325 mixed children and infants was £ 1,000.…

St Paul’s Church was built in 1864 due to the rapid growth of Wokingham after the railway came. It was funded by John Walter III of Bear Wood, who owned the Times Newspaper and donated two acres of land to accommodate the Church and Churchyard. John…

William (known as Billy) Thomas Martin was mayor of Wokingham in 1911, 1912 and 1919. Billy was keen to provide an open air swimming pool for the people of Wokingham but was unable to acquire funding from the council so in 1932 he decided to build it…

Keith was born on 10th July 1945 in Maidstone, Kent to John and Eileen Mary nee Adams, was educated in Maidstone and, after a spell as an apprentice printer he joined the Royal Navy as an aircraft artificer in 1961. He served for 24 years in the…

Michael was born in Yorkshire and his parents were Alfred and Rhoda. Alfred was a leading seaman in the Royal Navy during the Second World War sailing with the Atlantic and Russian convoys.

The family moved to Stafford and Michael attended a local…

Ann Rosemary Wenbourne was born on 21st April 1934 at St. Mary’s Hospital, Paddington, London to Percival Joseph Wenbourne and Gladys Elizabeth, nee Pratten.
Her family eventually settled in Staines and it was here that she married Heslop Arnold…

Emmbrook House which was situated on the Wokingham Road just past the Oxford Road turning was owned by Samual Norman in 1779, who gave the house to his daughter Elizabeth and William Gaisford Peach on their marriage. The property then had an orchard,…

One of the great industries in Victorian Wokingham was the production of bricks. The most prolific was that of Thomas Lawrence’s New Yard which was based west of Molly Millars Lane. By 1893 he also had brickworks at Swinley, Easthampstead, Warfield…

Richard was born in Anfield, Liverpool in 1923, the eldest of three children to Richard James Jones. He won a scholarship to Liverpool Central School, leaving at the age of 15 to become a clerk in the Liverpool offices of the largest paper merchants…

Born in 1928 in South Croydon, the only child of Edward Butler (1893-1965) and Florence nee Whitaker (1895-1953). The family moved to Potters Bar in 1933 where Nigel was educated . In 1944 he became a junior clerk in the Clerk's Department of the…