Romans knew the area well

The presence of a Roman settlement at the top of Crawley Hill and the almost certainty that the road along the ridge of Stinchcombe Hill was used by Romans from their settlement near Kingscote to journey to Iron workings in the Forest of Dean as well tesserae found at Chestal and elsewhere locally show that Romans knew this area.

It is probable though that it is due to Saxons that the settlement we now know as Dursley came into being, the name Dursley being thought to be Saxon for Deorsige's (Durs) clearing. This settlement was almost certainly near the pool we know as the Broadwell - its holy place, a sacred tree maybe, perhaps on the rising ground where now stands St James's Church. St James's is mentioned in 1221.

Saxon nobleman, Roger de Berkeley, built a castle in about 1154, probably in the area of Dursley Tabernacle URC. It was constructed largely of light weight, but very strong, tufa stone quarried from extensive deposits in the valley at the bottom of Long Street. The castle became ruinous and was demolished by 1540 and the stone taken to Dodington to build the predecessor of the present mansion. A bridge built of Dursley's castle stone still stands in Dodington's grounds.

In time the randomly placed thatch and wood houses of Saxon times were town planned in to the current "T" shaped town of Long Street and Parsonage Street and Silver Street. At the centre of the "T" was a preaching or market cross, the focus of farmers buying and selling as Dursley became increasingly important as a market town. The cross was replaced by the present town hall in 1738.

Records show that by the early 1800s twice-weekly markets saw Dursley bustling with activity - farmer's wives selling cheeses, butter, eggs and poultry in the market place, the streets and alley-ways in all directions around full of cattle, pigs, sheep and horses. With the coming of the Bristol-Gloucester Railway this activity fell, the live-stock market moved to Berkeley Road for Gloucester's market and then closed. Today we have the welcome appearance of street traders to continue the market tradition.\par

We know little of Dursley in its early days but Edward Fox was important. Born in the town, he became Bishop of Hereford and a prominent and active supporter of Henry VIII in his conflict with the Pope. Bishop Fox's lasting memorial is the great screen he built in Kings College, Cambridge. Reminiscent of a Roman triumphal arch it could be construed as Fox's tribute to Henry VIII.

The Reformation brought changes to St James' Church, one being the abolition of masses said for the dead. The three chantry priests who said these were pensioned off and The Chantry in Long St, where it is believed that they lived, eventually became the site of Lister's Club. Folk law says that an underground passage links this site with the church but it is difficult to understand why effort would be made to dig through solid rock!

The upheaval of the Reformation shattered monolithic control of religious belief by 'the Church' and dissent against priests and prelates grew. The main Dissenters were Baptists, Congregationalists and Presbyterians and these, nationally, played a major part in the lead up to the Civil War between Parliament and King Charles I. Though Gloucestershire saw much conflict and Prince Rupert was once at Stinchcombe, Dursley escaped with only a skirmish between the two sides.

In the Interregnum that followed, a Presbyterian, Joseph Woodward, was appointed Minister (1647-1662) to St James's Church, replacing the then incumbent, Hugh Robinson, who, regarded as scandalous for neglecting the spiritual welfare of his parishoners, was sent to Gloucester riding a horse and facing backwards - or so it is said!

Joseph Woodward is credited for transforming Dursley, which had a reputation for drunkenness and trickery in trading. Following the restoration of the monarchy in 1660 Dissenters were persecuted by the Anglican Church and Dursley's Presbyterians went underground to re-emerge later and build the chapel of Cam Meeting in 1702. Its first minister, Joseph Twemlow, set up a school in 1718 in Water Street for poor children. It closed in 1887 but his name continues in the Twemlow Trust which now exists to give educational grants to students with non-conformist connections.

For some 300 years after the Reformation, Roman Catholics were largely invisible in our part of Gloucestershire but in 1845 William Leigh bought Woodchester Park and soon afterwards provided a small Catholic Chapel in Nympsfield to which people went from miles around, including Dursley. By 1915 Mass was being said in a barn in Water Street which later was converted in to a Catholic Church for refugees from Belgium. In 1933 Sunday Masses bgan to be said at the YMCA hut at the bottom of Long Street and Evelyn Waugh, living at Piers Court, Stinchombe, recorded in his diary his disgust at having to worship among cigarette ends left from the previous evening's activities. The present Church of St Dominic's was opened in 1939.

For a long time, wool from Cotswold sheep was exported, wool cloth making being largely confined to home needs. In Tudor times it was decided that the country would benefit more from exporting cloth rather than raw wool. Experts in weaving super-fine cloth came over from the Low Countries, fleeing from wars in Europe and some settled here giving us family names such as Webb, Malpass and Clutterbuck. One of the first named is said to have built the priory at the bottom of Long Street.

As the cloth trade grew so local mills prospered.At one time there were 7 in Dursley parish including 3 on the Ewelme running out of the Broadwell. The prosperity the trade brought can be seen in the fine buildings in Long Street and Lower Woodmancote - and in the fact that The Dursley and Uley Bank was established in Long Street in 1815 which issued its own bank notes, examples of which still exist. It was founded by the Bloxsome family who lived at Ranger's House in Woodmancote, demolished after World War II.

Wool cloth making required a multitude of processes and many of these were undertaken by out-workers, notably weavers. In general such workers were never well-off but they were used to being independent and dissenting/non-conformist chapels, in which life centred round local management and not hierachy, suited them well.

As a consequence, there flourished the Tabernacle URC, founded in about 1742, as Calvinistic Methodist, through the preaching of George Whitefield, who visited Dursley three times, and the Wesleyan Methodist Church, formed as a chapel in 1799. The two became of major importance in the town, providing not only religious instruction but secular education and clothing and benefit societies for working people. In about 1778 a Sunday School begun at the Tabernacle, one of the then few - but which with others inspired Robert Raikes, owner of the Gloucester Journal to begin a campaign for the provision of such schools everywhere.

In the 1820s the Tabernacle school saw some 400 young people walk in from miles around for worship and 'reading,writing and casting accounts' Also of note was the Methodist day school, begun on church premises, which moved by way of Boulton Lane Chapel in 1865 to purpose built premises next to the Methodist Church in 1898.

The Parish Church also played a part in social work, prominently through the generosity of solicitor Henry Vizard who lived at Ferney Hill and whose portrait hangs in the Town Hall. He provided money for a parish school behind St James's which opened in 1833; for St Marks (1844) in Woodmancote, built for poorer people, and for almshouses (1853) for 3 aged men and 3 aged widows of the Church of England. The last were replaced by the present Vizard Close in 1973.

The Anglican and Methodist founded schools combined on the one site at Highfields in 1971.

Captain Graham is of international interest because of his part in saving from extinction the Irish Wolf Hound. These dogs he bred in late Victorian times on his estate which he called Rednock - "Red" for the colour of the dye used in the wool cloth mill below his house and "nock" meaning hill and reflecting his Scottish ancestry. The Rednock estate was sold on his death in 1909 and bought eventually by Sir Ashton Lister.

In 1921 the premises passed to Gloucestershire County Council to become a much needed town secondary, later grammar, school. The building of Dursley Secondary Modern School began before World War II but its opening was delayed by the war until 1949. The two schools, grammar and modern, amalgamated in 1971.

The wool cloth trade reached its peak at the beginning of the 1800's, much blue and scarlet cloth going for soldiers in the Napoleonic Wars. Once these wars were over, and coupled with other reasons, the demand for fine cloth declined. In the 1820's many mill owners reduced the wages of employees. Strife, led by the weavers, ensued in 1823 and to restore order the military, in the form of the Royal Irish Dragoon Guards, was billeted on the town. These not only kept the peace but left behind an increased number of one-parent families at a time when bastardy brought great shame on the mother and her relations.

Eventually the cloth trade collapsed, mills closed and many folk were reduced to destitution. A Government report in 1839 revealed that 52% of Dursley's population was classified as paupers. Some families exisited only on potatoes with a little salt with all furniture sold except perhaps for a bed. The population of the town dropped from 3226 by 25% between the census years of 1831 and 1841 due to death and migration. Some sailed to the new colonies such as Australia, some found work in Bristol's cotton mills or as navvies on the new railways - Brunel's London to Bristol line was constructed between 1837 and 1841. Dursley must have become something of a ghost town.

Some of those who stayed in Dursley found themselves in the new and very harsh Union Work House at th top of Union Street. It was called 'Union' because National Government decreed that all parish work houses within a certain area had to close and the inmates transferred to one large central establishment in order to reduce costs. Dursley's former poor house had been situated in Silver Street where now are the steps up to St James's Church.

Nationally at this time there was great concern about crime and transportation was an often used as punishment. Between 1819 and 1837, 27 men from Dursley were tranported to Australia. The youngest was 15 years. The most common period was for 7 years but some went for 14. An interesting case was that of the Davis brothers who were transported to Tasmania for seven years in November 1824 on board the prison ship The Princess Charlotte. George, 17, rope and twine maker, and Edward/Edwin, 19, barber, were both sentenced for stealing a brass pot and some meat; John, 21, shoemaker, for stealing lead piping. All three had been in trouble before, the first two for poaching. In 1983 it was interesting to meet Josh Davis, descendent of George who had come over from Australia to see Dursley.

It was in these depressed times that in 1867 Robert Ashton Lister set up a small business in Water Street repairing farm machinery. Such was his enthusiasm and imagination and the business acumen of his wife, Francis Box, that his firm soon began to manufacture products and expanded first up the valley and then down, absorbing mill sites in the process. The increasing need to house workers led his company to build Rosebery Terrace, then out in fields, to be followed by Garden Suburb. Under Sir Ashton - he was knighted in 1911 for services to the community - and his five grandsons expansion continued worldwide until after World War II - everything for the dairy, sheep shears, petrol engines, autotrucks, teak furniture, diesel engines. At one time it was said that 90% of the world's sheep shears were of Lister make and in North America 'the Lister' was as synonymous with small boat diesel engines as 'Hoover' was with vacuum cleaners.

By 1931, Dursley's population finally returned to its 1831 level and the growth of Listers played a major part in this. Many Welsh people came to Dursley in the 1930s to escape the depression in the coal industry and found work in the company. After World War II the company actively sought workers among Poles and Ukranians, displaced by the war, and then went to Italy to recruit there. Dursley became a greatly enriched town of mixed nationalities, and hearing such as Polish and Italian still being spoken today, the town should perhaps take pride in the fact that so many have felt accepted and welcome and have stayed.

R.A.Lister ceased to be a family concern in 1965 when it was sold to Hawker Siddeley. Sales of diesel engines, by then almost its only poduct, remained high but competition in world markets began to make selling increasingly difficult, causing the company to retrench to its present position.

R.A.Listers had a hugh success at the end of the 1890s with its Alexandra Cream Separator. This was the invention of a Dane, Mikael Pedersen. In 1893 he came over to settle in Dursley bringing with him another invention - a triangulated bicycle. This design was made in a factory in Water Street for twenty years until the outbreak of World War I and, today, originals are keenly sought after by veteran cyclists. In Germany, where replicas are made, it has become almost a cult machine. In World War I itself Mikael Pedersen played an important part. Until the war, the magnetos used in aircraft had been provided by the German 'Bosch' company. This source stopped and Mikael was asked to design a replacement - which he did on much simpler lines and it was marketed as the ML (Morris Lister) Magneto. He died in 1929 in Copenhagen where he was buried. When his burial site was about to be used for other purposes, his bones were lifted and brought to England to be interred in Dursley's cemetery in 1995.

World War I saw the exodus of many young men to fight in France. A report from 1915 comments that Mawdsleys were at full capacity poducing motors and dynamos for the war and Listers was working night and day making shell cases and fuses. The vaste majority of workers were women - but at the end of the war they lost their jobs as men began to return. The report went on to say that all territorials who had volunterred for foreign service (and most had) had gone to France.There had been great rush to join Lord Derby's Scheme.Dursley's enlisting officers had been unable to keep up with demand and many men were to be seen with armulets indicating that they were awaiting call up. "Nearly every able-bodied man between 18 and 40 is now a soldier - 'slackers' are few and have an unenviable time." \'a3200 had been collected for Christmas parcels for soldiers and sailors.

George Lister, Robert's father, came to Dursley in about 1817 and soon settled in the one-time paper making "Rivers Mill" on the Uley Road. Here he made machinery needed for manufacturing wool cloth, at one time employing Edwin Budding who invented, in Chalford, the first lawn-mower, ancestor of all of today's cylinder machines. George took shares in the new gas works, opened in 1836, and a special pipe was laid to his mill. It is interesting to note that the first town supply was to 45 public lamps lit each night except on 7 moonlit nights per month in summer. In 1838 shop keepers were fined for using gas lamps out of hours behind closed shutters and a church (perhaps the Methodists, who were connected by 1838) was charged for extra time due to prayers going on longer than usual.

Ever with an eye to business, George Lister became Deputy Chairman of the Dursley to Coaley Junction railway which opened in 1856. Taken over by the Midland Railway Company, at one time excursion trains ran from Dursley to Weston-Super-Mare. The last passenger train was on 8th September 1962 with carrots tied to the engine's funnel - a sign of affection for the old "Dursley Donkey".

In late Victorian times "Rivers Mill" began making electric motors and dynamos. The electrical side of the business was bought by H.St.Hill Mawdsley in 1907 and his company remained a key player in local employment until its recent move to Stonehouse.

Dursley had its first sight of public electric light in 1896. A generating set at Bristol House - opposite St James's steps - was connected to 32 lamps inside the shop and a big swans neck lamp outside. Lighting-up was greeted with amazement and excitement. The end of lamp bracket can still be seen on the wall over the now empty shop.

Mains electricity came to Dursley in 1925 when a 33,000 volt cable was strung over the River Severn to connect Lydney Power Station to a transformer in Coaley. At first current was fed just to Lister's but quickly achieved wide distribution. In 1902 Dursley was connected to the network of the National Telephone Company Limited with 16 subscribers. The exchange was in the residence of George Parker in Parsonage Street with George Ayliffe of the "Old Bell" listed as Dursley No:3.

Another recent removal to Stonehouse has been "Bymacks" makers of upholstered furniture. Mr Mack and his company came to Dursley in 1965 and began manufacturing in the old Champion's carpet works of Boulton Lane, before moving to the bottom of Long Street.

Rope and twine have long been important commodities in life and Dursley is said to have been, at one time, a great rope making centre in the Cotswolds. Old maps clearly show the presence of several rope walks. One was behind the properties of Parsonage Street, stretching from the present "Wildwood Flowers" shop" to May Lane. This was set up by Samuel Champion in the 1770's. Later he began to make canvas and then sometime after moving in 1860 to Long Street, went on to manufacture carpets. Champion's reversible carpets and rugs (pile on both sides) became famous and found their way into such as the liner "Queen Mary". Champions split in 1909 and another carpet factory was created in Boulton Lane on the site of a brewery. This factory closed in 1930 and in World War II the premises were occupied by "Parnall's" of Yate to make gun-turrets. "Bymacks" followed then the present Champions Court housing complex. The Long Street work closed in 1957.

Another rope works - Harrold's - was at the top of Union Street. In recent years, under the name of P & S Textiles, endless webbing has been produced and is now in world-wide distribution for the manufacture of biscuits. Look under your biscuit and the pattern may have come from this local firm, which two years ago moved to Cam.

World War II saw many changes for Dursley and amongst them was the arrival of evacuees from Birmingham and Harwich. To accommodate these for schooling, church halls had to be used. Many evacuees later returned home but some stayed, married local girls, and have settled here. Then there was the arrival of exhausted soldiers evacuated from Dunkirk, brought direct by train from Dover anf Folkestone. Later came American soldiers - still remembered for their gifts of silk stockings and chewing gum. One soldier remembers how they realized quickly that rationining allowed pubs to open only one bottle of whisky and gin a night but that each pub did this at a different time!

The Town Hall was used as a "British Kitchen" where cheap nourishing meals were cooked. Queen Mary visited both Mawdsley's and Lister's, then again making munitions, and in 1944 went to Ferney to congratulate the local WI ladies on their jam making and fruit canning war effort. German bombing raids set Bristol burning and the glow in the sky was easily seen from Dursley.

Some food-stuffs were in short supply including sugar in grocer's shops However, one confectioner managed to secure a supply of 10 tons which arrived by rail at Dursley station. This could only be delivered in half-ton loads because only a horse and cart were available. The drayman, to rest the horse, backed the cart each delivery in to the curb half way up Long Street, outside the grocer's shop of Charlie Wintle who was driven to distraction!

In the side of St James's Church, facing Long Street, is a blocked up doorway. The blocking is said to have been the action of the then Rector, irate at the use of the church by parishoners as a short cut when collecting water from the Broadwell and when taking "night soil" for disposal in the Broadwell. Since early times the Broadwell and the Ewelme were both sources of much of Dursley's drinking water and the repositories of much of its sewerage. Some properties or groups of properties had wells, a few of which survive to the present. As medical knowledge about diseases increased it became obvious that the town needed proper water and sewage systems. A bore hole was sunk at Caswell and the public supply of water began in 1903. Initially the piping was so defective that trenches had to re-opened so that all joints could be inspected! The pumping station of this first supply still stands in the fields beyond Highfields.

There was much discussion about the provision of a sewage works at about the same time but little progress. In an attempt (successful) to get action Mrs Eyre of Kingshill House offered to pay \'a31000 towards costs - about 10% of the cash needed - and work began in 1902, to be completed three years later.

Mrs Eyre was a great benefactor to the town and another of her gifts was to pay the cost of a new clock in the tower of St James' Church - with an added carillon which played a different hymn tune each day of the week at 3 hourly intervals. All this was dedicated in March 1905. She died in September of the same year.

As a community of people, Dursley needed government. At some time in the past was begun the arrangement of sharing most administration between the Vestry Meeting of the parish church and the town's chief citizen, called the Bailiff, who was assisted by Aldermen. This system was abolished in 1883 and replaced by an elected parish council, headed by a chairman. This changed slightly in 1972 when legislation made it possible for Dursley to claim the status of a town and to designate its leading citizen mayor. Over the years some responsibilities have been taken by District and County bodies but the Town Council is still a very important part of local life.

Up to 1991 whenever a coat of arms for Dursley was needed those of the Escourt family were used. The Escourts were "Lords of the Manor" of Dursley until 1840 and their insignia can be seen on the side of the Town Hall. In 1991 the town was granted its own coat of arms.

Life in Dursley has not been all work and in the past, as now, there have been a tremendous variety of recreational pursuits.

An important lung for local people has been Stinchcombe Hill and records reveal many games, day and Sunday school outings and the like. As well were major events such as torch-lit processions up to light beacons on great occasions such as coronations and royal jubilees.

There were also huge meetings like the thousands of weavers on strike in the 1820's and the thousands who gathered in 1839 on the 100th anniversary of visits by George Whitefield. (At one time it seemed possible that there would be monuments on the hill to both Whitefield and William Tyndale but in the latter case, though foundations were laid, it was eventually erected at North Nibley).

On the hill there was also horse-racing for which excursion trains were laid on from Gloucester and Bristol, and Volunteer Rifle Brigade manoeuvres.

These included a yearly week's camp to which brigades from all around came - much to the despair of school-masters whose log-books during these weeks often read "many boys absent on the hill"!

For the above glimpses of Dursley's history, my thanks go to all those, past and present, who have provided information.