Bloxham Broadsheet

On 17 March Linda Haynes will talk about the Shipton on Cherwell Railway Disaster  of 1874 in which 34 people died. This was the biggest railway disaster to date, five years before the Tay Bridge disaster. Linda Haynes works at the Oxford Record Office and recently mounted an excellent exhibition there on the subject.
In January Liz Wooley gave club members a fascinating and often grim account of child labour in Oxfordshire in the 19th century. People think of children being exploited in factories but life was just as hard for them in rural industries such as lace-making – ten hours a day from the age of five; or glove-making, in sweatshops like the ones in Woodstock. Then there were the long hours spent harvesting, cutting reeds or stone picking.
If you would like to hear some of these interesting talks, join us on the third Wednesday of the month at 7.30pm in the Jubilee Park Hall. On 21st April Graham Sutherland will remind us of the fifties with a talk about ‘Drainpipe Trousers and Rock and Roll’.  Visitors £2.50
For more information contact ……the Secretary, Annie Radford, or our website bluebellweb.co.uk