Denis: Investing the King’s shilling

Oct 9 2009 By Denis Kilcommons

If a member of the public needed a copy of any certificate, a clerk would nip downstairs and write one out.

“The Upper Agbrigg office was in St George’s Square at the corner formed by the end building in Railway Street and the Square itself, and as you said, the Upper Agbrigg covered a large area.

“Weddings were conducted there, but births and deaths could be registered at outposts like Honley. However, all these records had to be in one place, and when war broke out, St George’s Square was not deemed a safe enough place to house them.

“So all this mass of records was removed and stored in a huge safe inside a mill at … wait for it, Thongsbridge.

“Yes, right across the road from the Royal Oak still stands the mill, which has been a bit of all sorts since its textile days, and just inside the doors lay the records of all the births, deaths and marriages in that part of Upper Agbrigg.

“Whilst the clerks at Ramsden Street had only to pop down the steps to access all their records, the one man (a charming fellow) in the Square had to either lock up his office, use up precious petrol coupons and take his car, or trek off on the bus to Thongsbridge, if someone wanted a copy of a certificate.

“Unless, of course, he knew a young office boy whom he could trust, who could write in a fair hand, and lived about 200 yards away from the mill at Thongsbridge ...”

Someone like Austin, perhaps?