Exhall

Thank you

From the Midland Daily Telegraph. Sergt. W Danks, son of Mr and Mrs Danks of the Bull and Anchor Inn, Exhall gained the Military Medal for conspicuous gallantry and good work on 21st March 1918.

With the mention of Bill Danks I felt it was time to return to contributing to the site. The Bedworth Society is currently in correspondence with Nuneaton and Bedworth Borough Council about the name for a new housing development on what was Danks' Farm in Burbages Lane. For some reason the developer wants to call it The Ridings as a reference to the riding school at the farm. This seemed to be totally wrong as the Danks family ran the Bulls Head at the top of Burbages Lane whilst Bill ran the farm for decades. Two sons went to war, one was lost on the Somme in 1916 whilst William won the Military Medal. It seems to make more sense to name the development as Danks' Piece or something similar. The council finally agreed but I understand the developers are refusing to change. I am attaching pictures of the brothers and one of the old Bull and Anchor from 1926 which should be of interest.

Thanks for all the responses My relative, Ada Mary Sadler, married Charles William Danks, who I believe to be the William awarded the Military Medal, and to be the brother of Albert Edward who died in the Somme - they were sons of William, pictured above

My mother, now 94, trained at Exhall College and went on to teach for 39 years. I have a photo of her with a fellow student but no photo of the place itself or its history. If anyone has info or photos I would be grateful. Thanks. S McLaughlin, daughter.

Welcome to our friendly forum and thanks for your post - let's hope someone can help with your query

In the newspaper it appears to have opened in 1945 and then in 1950 they are talking about the building being purchased by Warwickshire County Council for a residential special school.

If her mother is 94 that makes her a 20 year old in 1944? In 1944 we still had blackout, and the trams stopped running past Longford in 1940 but I believe the buses ran through Exhall at the time. The most outstanding thing about Exhall in those days was the American Army camp in Blackhorse Road - in 1945 I was gone, so had the Yanks, so I can't help her.

To rectify teacher shortages immediately after WWII, did not the government designate Exhall and Canley Training Colleges to act as emergency teacher training centres for returning war time personnel to bring teachers numbers back up to pre war levels? The arrangement only lasted for a couple of years. The subject of my recent thread, Robert Leslie Hawkey, was one of those who attended Canley.

From Coventry Evening Telegraph 21st July 1945 Meeting the Nation's Demand for More School Teachers The Minister of Education, Mr. Richard Law, yesterday visited Exhall Grange Training College, where over 200 women from all walks of life are preparing to take their place amongst the many thousands of extra schoolteachers required to carry out the vast scheme of expansion envisaged by the Education Act. Exhall Grange has been admirably adapted from its former use as a war-time workers' hostel. There are amongst the students a number of former Land Army Girls, munition workers, nurses, N.F.S. personnel, and war widows. Many them have long felt they had a vocation for teaching, but for various reasons it is only now, with the help of generous Government grants, that they have been able to take it up as a career. The course of study upon which they have embarked will last exactly a year, and it is hoped that the great majority them will then be ready to take their places in the schools. EDUCATION MINISTER'S VISIT. The principal of the college is Miss Helen M. Simpson, formerly vice-principal of Leeds Training College, who has gathered round her a staff of 20 assistants, specially chosen for their past experience and qualifications. Yesterday the Minister of Education spent some time inspecting the comfortable conditions and happy environment! in which the college is being conducted. Afterwards he addressed the students and a number of visitors, who included Sir William Dugdale, Chairman of Warwickshire County Council, Mr. W. S. Howard (Vice-chairman of Warwickshire Education Committee), Mr. W. H. Perkins (County Education Officer) and Canon Hugh Price. Mr. Law said that the provision of additional teachers to make effective the Education Act was a challenging task, but there was cause neither for despondency nor alarm. He was sure that the raw material would be forthcoming, first-class in quality and adequate in quantity. Indeed he had no doubt that the teaching profession would benefit greatly by the injection into it of young men and women with a wide experience of life behind them. He knew that this was view of the teachers themselves and it was certainly his own view. THE TRAINING SCHEME. There remained the question of training. The skill of teaching was a highly specialised one, and no one, however intelligent, could become a teacher unless trained for it. It was the purpose of the Emergency Training Scheme to provide training for those who were coming out of the services or who had been engaged, in other spheres, in the national war effort. Until now the candidates for the Emergency Training Colleges had come in the main from the civilian forms of national service, and it was hoped that at the end of the year between 3,000 and 4,000 such candidates would have been accepted. By then, the first candidates from the Forces would have begun to come through, so that the total number of accepted candidates from all services would amount to some 5,000. MATERIAL FROM THE FORCES. So far as the Forces were concerned, however, there would be no substantial flow of recruits into the colleges until the younger age groups were released in 1946 or later. When the time came he had no doubt that there would be a flood of first-rate material from the Forces. Mr. Law said that the principal difficulty to be overcome was the finding of suitable buildings. It would clearly be wrong to divert labour from the housing programme in order to build new training colleges. Fortunately it was also unnecessary. Now that the war in Europe had ended the pressure on accommodation for direct war purposes had begun to ease considerably, and it was the policy of the Government to make surplus war-time buildings available for reconstruction purposes as quickly as possible. By January, 1946, it was hoped that at least 20 emergency colleges would be open and at work. That, at any rate, was the immediate target.

Dead Lane has come up on my family tree and I am just curious as to where it is/was. I assume, looking at the 1939 register that it would be around St Giles Parish Church, Exhall. But where? Many thanks.

Looks like it was the original name for St Giles Road - or it certainly followed most of its line -

Wow that was very quick! Thanks very much for responding. D

In 1938 there were no homes and it was called Dead Lane. By 1948 there are a load of houses and it's called St Giles Road. I wonder why the name change Terraces to the south and semis to the north end. What look like an unfinished set of six semis nearest to the church. St Giles Rd in 1948

I'm guessing they thought no-one wanted to live in 'Dead Lane!' Be good for Halloween though