‘Australian PM flew to Staffordshire Just to open a garden party’
Historian MERVYN EDWARDS looks back at the history of an aerodrome once visited by famous flyers and politicians...
IF you look at the development of our towns and villages in North Staffordshire, you’ll find that many advanced in fits and starts – but in the 1930s, one area of Stoke-on-trent really did grow wings. And that was Meir.
Following the Great War, the rather prosaically-named Air Council had advocated with increasing vigour that the chief towns and cities across the country should consider establishing municipal aerodromes.
They would, it was urged, be just as important as railway stations, harbours and garages.
Manchester, Newcastle upon Tyne, Leeds and Sheffield had already risen to the challenge and the fledgling city of Stoke-on-trent now considered doing likewise.
Land at Meir was being suggested for the new aerodrome certainly by 1928, though there was eyebrowraising opposition from local Socialists.
At one council meeting, Mr J H
Dale said that the Socialist Party was not satisfied that the benefits of an aerodrome would justify the expense in building one.
Arthur Hollins, MP for Hanley, grumbled that the Socialist Party felt that the establishment of a network of aerodromes across the country was ‘part of a war scheme’ – although he seems to have changed his tune somewhat on becoming Lord Mayor in 1933.
Following much discussion, land at Meir was chosen as the site for the city’s aerodrome, which enjoyed its civic inauguration in 1935, connecting Stoke-on-trent to the likes of London, Belfast and Glasgow by air. During Christmas of that year, the aerodrome saw a tragic death when an aircraft attempted to land in a snowstorm. The female pilot escaped unhurt but her cousin, who was the passenger, perished.
The coming of the Second World War triggered changes at Meir, it being announced in the House of Commons that it was proposed to establish a depot for RAF purposes ‘near Meir aerodrome.’
It was anticipated that the depot would employ 2,500 men, which prompted The Sentinel to welcome the plan ‘for the substantial employment it would provide.’
In due course, a Royal Air Force
Flying School was established at the aerodrome, followed by an aircraft factory.
Developments at Meir triggered much interest in those magnificent men in their flying machines.
In June, 1932, distinguished pilot Sir Alan Cobham staged an aviation display at the aerodrome with demonstrations of an autogyro and a glider thrilling onlookers.
The North Staffordshire Aero Club held their first pageant at Meir in July, and the members are remembered as owners of private planes such as the Miles Magister and the Tiger Moth. The Aero Club’s vice-chairman, by the way, was none other than Tunstall’s very own George Barber, cinema pioneer, former Lord Mayor and a capable pilot himself.
We might add that another huge Potteries character, H K Hales, also caught the flying bug and after meeting pioneer French aviators Roger Sommer and Louis Bleriot, even invented an experimental flying machine himself.
In the wider sense, the new aerodrome was seen as a new development that would boost the growing status of muscle-flexing
Meir – whose community leaders were evidently very proud of it.
When the Broadway Cinema opened in 1936, it incorporated an impressive café.
It was described as a pleasant room, whose “three main windows look away over towards the Aerodrome.”
By 1939, Stoke-on-trent’s Official Handbook was able to boast: “The Aerodrome at present contains 275 acres and the Corporation are considering purchasing additional land.
“It is recognised as regards general conditions as being in the first four provincial aerodromes in the country, and in point of fact, no damage has yet been done to any aircraft landing there.
“Special staff is engaged to keep the ground in its present excellent condition and there is a runway in every direction of over 1,000 yards. The approaches to it are good.”
The aerodrome in its time saw many important dignitaries and figures touch down, including the Prime Minister of Australia and his wife in 1935.
Remarkably, he had wished to keep his promise to open a garden party at St Gregory’s Roman Catholic Church in Longton.
A little digging by The Sentinel’s nostalgia columnist John Abberley confirmed that famous female flyer Amy Johnson also flew from Meir aerodrome.
She and her husband Jim Mollison were both ferry pilots who flew planes from Meir to RAF bases during the early years of the Second World War.
Molly Barks, of Barlaston, told John that her uncle, Bill Rushton, was the landlord at the Station Hotel in Meir and that the couple sometimes stayed overnight. The aerodrome’s visitors also included Santa Claus, whose visit, one year, was announced in a notice that read: “Father Christmas comes by air!”
He would be travelling from Iceland and touching down at Meir, it was advertised, ahead of his journey by special coach to Lewis’ store in Hanley.
It has been suggested that with the advent of more housing near to the aerodrome, its location became increasingly unsuitable as a commercial enterprise.
Local people would certainly have been aware of the potential for accidents or worse as the Aviation Age unfolded.
The unscheduled aerobatics of an airplane – which was “looping the loop” and performing other stunts over a May Day celebration on Wolstanton Marsh in 1939 – would have unnerved many local residents.
Also, Sentinel readers have previously told about the plane crash that occurred in Meir during the Second World War.
Mrs Ivy Layland, of Meir, wrote to the newspaper in 2010: “The lady that pulled the pilot clear from the plane was my mother, Mrs Beatrice Hope of Kingsmead Road, Meir. She was badly burned herself.
“We have two letters from the
Royal Air Force and one from the Air Ministry Department commending her bravery.”
It has been posited that the haze over this pocket of Meir – created by coal-fired homes or perhaps local industry – made visibility difficult for pilots wishing to land.
It continued, however, to be popular with the members of the Potteries Gliding Club.
Reported to be deteriorating by 1958, the aerodrome closed in the 1970s, the site later becoming occupied by the Meir Park housing estate, some of whose street names acknowledged the aviation history of Meir.
The final official flight took place on August 16, 1973 when Fred Holdcroft piloted a Piper Tri-pacer – with a Sentinel journalist as passenger – to Manchester.
Not long afterwards, there was an unofficial flight by Eric Clutton in a Heath Robinson style folding machine known as FRED – standing for Flying Runabout Experimental Design.
Fascinatingly, Eric was not the only man to build a plane – like Johnny Cash’s famous motor car – “one piece at a time.”
In 2011, Sentinel reader R Martin of Werrington conveyed: “Lionel Plant, from Weston Coyney, built a Luton Minor – a single-engined, single-seat, high-wing monoplane – and a grand job he made of it.
“The Sentinel had a feature back in the early 1970s of the Luton partly built in his garden.
“Lionel told me once that he’d got the Luton up to 12,000 feet. One day he took it to the Long Mountain at Welshpool, allowed several people to fly it and so by the time he arrived back at Meir, it was pitch dark.”
One other reminder of Meir’s aviation history was a pub in Sandon Road. Who remembers the Tiger Moth?