100 years of change (From York Press)

100 years of change

12:04pm Monday 23rd January 2012 in History articles By Stephen Lewis

ERNEST Sanderson was a railwayman through and through. The son of a crossing keeper, he was born in 1912 in York’s Leeman Road area – home to many railway families. He worked on the railways for 50 years, as a track relayer and renewer, retiring in 1977.

His other great passion was photography – he once had a book of his railway photographs published in the Railway Memories series.

One of his prize possessions was a series of glass plate photographs, taken by a Mr Rowley in about 1906, showing towns and communities in and around York.

Stories differ as to how he came into possession of these plates. According to Mr Sanderson’s friend and fellow railwayman Bob Ashton, he was a friend of Mr Rowley, and the plates were given to him by Mrs Rowley when her husband died.

Mr Sanderson’s daughter, Ann Rimmer, has a slightly different tale. “I was told that he got them in lieu of payment for a debt,” said Mrs Rimmer, who recently moved to live in Gloucestershire.

However he came to have them, Mr Sanderson kept the plates for many years in the bedroom of his home in Copmanthorpe.

Before he died, knowing that his daughter was interested in them, he passed the plates on to her. She in turn, fearing that they would become damaged or broken, passed them on to the archives department at City of York Council.

But not before Mr Ashton, her father’s friend, had taken prints of five of the plates.

Those are the photographs we reproduce today. Mr Ashton is convinced they were taken in 1906.

According to the History of the County of York East Riding: Volume 3, Heslington Mill lost its sails in about 1910. The stump was finally demolished in 1941. Mr Rowley's photograph is a valuable record.

The original glass plates are still with the city archives department where they are, according to archivist Victoria Hoyle, an important addition to the city’s photographic records.

“These images show us York as it was before the clearances and development of the 20th century,” she said.

“They strip away 100 years of change, and show us a different side to familiar streets and landmarks.” So thank you Mr Sanderson and Mrs Rimmer, for making sure they were preserved for posterity.

Dringhouses before major development in the 20th century took place