The Growth of a Township

The History of Maltby was researched and written about by the late Cannon Clifford Auckland in a book. On this website formerly, that history was reproduced and published here courtesy of David Auckland, the son of the late Cannon Auckland who gave his permission for the republishing of the book on this site.

Preface

My thirty years as Vicar of Maltby – challenging, satisfying, arduous and often deeply moving – determined me to write some account of Maltby’s changing pattern of life over the centuries. I believe it is a story worth recording from the tiny beginnings in pre-Norman Conquest times to the present, large and mixed community Maltby now is. Through the years Maltby’s story has reflected the rising and falling of economic and social patterns.

 

The story is concerned with people and their reaction to the world in which they lived. Many of them come to life again in the unfolding of the story. They all “speak for themselves” and are part of Maltby’s fascinating changes and developments.

 

The possibility of weaving the stories of so many Maltbeians into the writing of Maltby’s history came because of the readiness of people to share their lifeexperiene with me. Another invaluable help has been the availability of a surprisingly large number of sources about Maltby in the and the present.

I am indeed thankful for all the conversations I had with many Maltbeians during my time in the parish. I am especially indebted to my dear friends the late Tom Fisher (a Maltby Colliery Official) and the late Richard Oddy, for may years Maltby’s Senior Public Health Officer and a Maltby Churchwarden.

 

Tom Fisher gave me valuable notes about life of his uncle, the legendary Alderman Ted Dunn. Tom also gave me a copy of the diary meetings of a University Tutorial Class held in Maltby in 1914. Dick Oddy provided me with copious notes and statistics about his work in the desperate years 1930-1939. He also gave me a copy of a large and valuable collection of newspaper cuttings, relating to the beginning of industrial Maltby. The published notes of a WEA class held in Maltby some years ago have also been of great value.

 

I am grateful to the 12th Earl of Scarbrough. He supplied me with excellent notes about his family, ‘The Lumleys of County Durham’, notes about the 10th Earl, (his great-uncle) and the 11th Earl, (his Father). The Earl also gave me some important notes from the 10th Earls Estate Diary. I acknowledge the elp I have received in the reading of Tom Beastall’s fine study – ‘A North Contry Estate’.

 

I thank my friend and neighbour Percy Parramore for reading through and correcting errors and various mistakes in my MSS. Any mistakes, errors or mis-statements still remaining are mine! I also thank my friend Barbara Snowden for typing the MSS and my son Stephen for photocopying and binding together the pages at his Coral Press, St. Albans.

Also I would like to thank Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council for publishing the book and the staff at the Department of Libraries, Museum and Arts for all their help.

 

Finally, I dedicate my modest telling of Maltby’s story to my family – my wife Muriel, and my sons David, Richard and Stephen. They marvellously understood me and upheld me in the large task I had for thirty years in so big and ever-changing a parish. The graciously and patiently accepted the limitaions to family life imposed on a Vicarage in a large and demanding parish of 14,000 people, which increased to 20,000 where callers and telephone enquiries were numerous dail from 8 am to 10.30 pm and beyond.
Clifford Auckland