Farnworth Grammar School

House Photo, 1937

Contributed by Arnold Percival

This photograph was published in the Bolton Evening News some years ago. It was owned by the late Vera Hudson (nee Whitehead), who appears in it, and the available names were transcribed from her tiny handwritten notes on the back of the photo. Unfortunately there's some confusion as to who's who in the three back rows (can you have three back rows?).

The names given for the back row are: Woodruff; ......?; Toze; Cropper; Grundy; Botham; Vowe; Charlton; (i.e. eight names, nine people)

For the next row down: Naylor; Helme; J. Wedgwood; S. Worthington; E. Morgan; M. Collier; E. Nelson; M. Thornley; D. Craske; M. Hope; N. Richardson; F. Brew; D.Fletcher; J. Robson; L. Hodgson; K. Seddon Snr; J. Durose; H. Timmis; J. Settle; Parker; Kilby; Howarth and Hoyte (23 names, 22 people).

...and for the third row down: J. Walmsley; J. Howarth; E. Watts; M. Ormerod; V. Antrobus; G. Collier; M. Whatmough; J. Unsworth; G. Unsworth; V. Whitehead; B. Mitchell; K. Seddon Jnr; F. Gillibrand; M. Halliwell; L. Nicholson; C. Williamson; S. Yates; J. Helme; E. Cooke; J. Seddon; J. Sharples; Walker; Isherwood; Haydock. (24 names, 25 people)

Such pop-up names as do appear are by courtesy of Arnold Percival, who thinks the house was Athenians and who originally suggested that the year may have been 1935. However, John Aldred says it would have been 1937; that's the year his older brother Bill started at FGS — and Bill's in the front row.

The coloured/black/Negro/African-American* boy at the R/H end of the second row down was D.A.N. Hoyte, who qualified as a doctor and eventually, it is thought, became Minister of Health in a West Indian government (Jamaica?). Apparently when this photograph was taken he was one of only three coloured (etc.) lads in the whole of Farnworth.