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Transcription of Malvern (Midlands) Telephone Directory 1902

Summary

The earliest Malvern phone book we have come across is for 1902. Only businesses, professional people such as doctors and solicitors and wealthy individuals were subscribers then, unlike today when nearly everybody, including schoolchildren, has a mobile phone. People without a phone could however make calls from public call offices in Church Street and Malvern Link.

Here is a transcription of the 1902 National Telephone Co Ltd telephone directory for the Malvern (manual) exchange. We don't know for certain where the first switchboard was located but we think it may have been in the building which had been a piano shop at the top of Church Street.

Click to read more about the telephone on our web page  Public utilities then and now.

Some businesses such as Cridland and Walker (butchers) survived until recently whilst others such as Sharpes the ironmongers and Nott the grocer disappeared a long time ago.

You will find photos of some of these shops in Brian Iles book, Images of England, The Malverns, published by Tempus, 2005, old postcards and other local history books.

Malvern was in the Midlands directory area and follows Worcester. Colwall had a separate exchange.

In 1912 the goverment owned Post Office took over the private telephone companies.

Public call offices

National Telephone Co Ltd ........... Church Street

Malvern Link ................................ C Boorman & Co

Directory

Occupations of subscribers

In some cases the telephone directory simply listed an individual but no occupation so we looked in the census to find out more. Not everyone could be found, but here is more information about some of the subscribers.

Broad, CC was a builder of Cecil Lodge in Avenue Road.

Browning, John was a corn merchant of Woodland Lodge.

Cock, Charles Hornblower was a tanner or leather merchant of Tannachie, West Malvern. This may be the house in Harcourt Road the gardens of which were described in an article in the Malvern Gazette in 2018:

 A BEAUTIFUL Victorian garden with breathtaking views has been restored to its past grandeur. These one-and-a-half acre gardens on the western slopes of the Malvern Hills command spectacular views of Hay Bluff.

A book shows a 1927 photo of a mansion then named Tannachie Court in Hanley Road, Malvern Wells which is now Sherbourne Tower Care Home. We wondered if Charles had once lived there.

Charles Hornblower Cock's dauther, Ruth, married publisher Gerald Arthur Miller; Ruth and Gerald were the parents of art historian Sir Oliver Nicholas Millar (1923 - 2007).

Cox and Painter was a department store at Warwick House on the Wells Road, The building was built for George Warwick about 1830. In the 1980s part of the store was occupied by Gieves and Hawkes. Circa 2000, the premises was developed into apartments.

Dobbs, T G was a solicitor.

Joshua, Francis W was a General Medical Practicioner of Abbotsmead in Avenue Road.

Moerschell, Frederick Anton was born in Bavaria, Germany, about 1845. Kelly's directory of 1896 lists him as Hotel Manager, Imperial Hotel, Great Malvern The London Gazette records his naturalization on 15th Feb 1898 and change of name to Marshall in 1915. Visitor numbers dwindled after the Great War and in 1919 he sold the Imperial Hotel when it became Malvern Girls' College.

His listing in the 1902 telephone directory at the Belle Vue Hotel is puzzling. We wondered if he owned both?

Nevile, Ralph Henry C was a Justice of the Peace of Hill House. Crown Lea in Barnards Green.

Smith, Edward Capel was a school master at Fairfield in Worcester Road. Most likely he was the headmaster of the boys boarding school. He was born Thruxton, Herefordshire about 1857 and died at Fairfield 2nd Feb 1923.

Towndrow, Richard Francis of Commercial Buildings, Malvern Link is listed as a grocer, but his main interest was in botany. He contributed to various publications including 'The Botany of Worcestershire' published in 1910.

A plaque near the entrance to Malvern library from Como Road reads:

Ginko Bilboa Tree, planted by Malvern Field Club in memory of Their Beloved President Richard Francis Towndrow Oct 1845 - Dec 1937

Plaque in memory of Richard Francis Towndrow

RF Towndrow's father, William Towndrow, had been instrumental in fund raising and the building of Lady Huntingdon's Connexion (Methodist) Chapel in Malvern Link which opened about 1835.

Later there was a general store named Towndrow and Holbrook in Malvern Wells, but of course by then the business might have been sold on to another family.

Tramp Wards on Link Common suggests there was accommodation for tramps and vagrants passing through the town. Do you know where this was, what form it took, and who ran it?

Trigg, E at the Unicorn Hotel ran a carriage hire business.

Urwick, Henry Sir was a glove manufacturer of St Quentin's in Tibberton Road, born Battersea, London about 1860. He married into the Fownes of Worcester glove making business and was later a Justice of the Peace and served on a parliamentary Justice of the Peace advisory committee in 1925.

St Quentin's in Tibberton Road is now a residential home for the elderly.

Much has been written about Henry Urwick's only son, Lt Col Lyndall Fownes Urwick who was born March 3rd 1891, had a distinguished military career, and became a well known management consultant.

If you are interested in reading more about Lyndall Fownes Urwick's early life, and glove-making, try clicking this link to download an Oxford University Press pdf file (9 Mb). This will open a new window and the file will take about one minute to download using 'broadband'. A biography, Lyndall Urwick, Management Pioneer was published by Oxford University Press in 2010.

Woodward, Alfred Edward was described in the 1901 census as Managing Director of Edwin Nichols, Worcester, living at Rusland Lodge which is situated in an eleveated position on the Wyche Road (see photo opposite).

His daughter Iris sadly died aged 2 in 1902.

In November 1907 The Edinburgh Gazette reported his bankruptcy describing him as a Wine and Spirits merchant's agent. He was born at Besford Court, near Pershore in Worcestershire about 1866. 

Another source relates that Walter Rodney Wilson was born at Rusland Lodge in 1912 who was the son of Major Walter Gordon Wilson who was born Dublin 1874.

Walter Gordon Wilson is not a man most Malvern people will immediately call to mind, but he has a place in history. He studied mechanical sciences at Cambridge and became an automotive engineer. During WWI he was involved in the development of the first British Tank 'Little Willie' and after the Great War he designed the epicyclic automatic gearbox which was later used in the Armstrong Siddeley Sapphire and other cars.

Younger, Mary Harriett a single lady, born Camberwell, London about 1853 was Hotel Keeper at the Foley Arms Hotel from 1891 to 1911. She was the niece of Robert Marshall who in 1881 was Hotel Manager at the Trafalgar Hotel, London.

References

Drake Daphne, The Story of Malvern Link, Worcestershire, published Great Malvern, about 1980 (reprinted by First Paige)

England and Wales Census

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