| Edward John
Burtt is listed in Kelly's Directory for 1889 as
a beehive manufacturer in Stroud Road, Gloucester
and by 1894 he is also listed as a coal merchant
with an office in Stroud Road and a depot at the
Midland Wharf. In
February 1889 a repairing contract was taken out
with Gloucester RCW for three 6-ton wagons over
seven years suggesting that Edward John Burtt was
already running wagons in his own name and that
they possibly came from a different manufacturer.
This repairing contract was renewed in January
1896 for a further seven years and again for a
similar term in January 1903.
In January 1890 a
secondhand 7 ton wagon was taken by Burtt on hire
from Gloucester RCW while in November 1892 a
secondhand 6 ton was taken on simple hire for
three years with the note that the hire cost was
a reduction suggesting that this was a renewed
hire. This vehicle was also the first in the
fleet with sprung steel rather than wooden
"dumb" buffers.
In December 1893 the GRCW
order books refer to a new 10 ton wagon bought on
seven years deferred purchase - most likely fleet
number 5.
The next order came in July
1899 for one new 10 ton wagon on seven years
deferred purchase. This was most likely Burtt
fleet number 6, a five planker with raised fixed
ends photographed at Bristol Road in October
1899. The livery was yellow lettering shaded red
on black and it was registered with the Midland
Railway in addition to carrying the Gloucester
RCW owner's number 34988. it survived until 1948.
10 ton Burtt fleet number 4
was acquired from Gloucester RCW in September
1900 on a seven years deferred purchase
arrangement and was fitted with a lifting top
plank above the side doors. Registered with the
Midland Railway as 34317 on 17 September 1900,
Burtt 4 also carried the Gloucester RCW Owner's
Number 35781 and was the subject of a repair
contract taken out in October 1907 for 7 years.
A similar repair contract,
taken out in December 1900, probably referred to
fleet number 5 and it would seem that this was
renewed again in December 1907 for 7 years and
one month.
A further order came in
September 1903 with the acquisition of wagon 7.
It does appear that there was some logic to
Burtt's wagon numbering system as it is possible
that the three 6-ton wagons owned pre 1889 were
1-3 and that hired in 1890 became number 4. Then
came number 5 in 1893 and 6 in 1899. The new
number 4 acquired in September 1900 could have
replaced the hire wagon. Then came fleet number 7
in September 1903 for which a repair contract was
renewed in 1910.
After 1903 it is impossible
to ascribe numbers to the wagons acquired. In
November 1906 a single 10 ton secondhand wagon
was taken on 7 years hire while in December 1909
an 8 ton wagon was bought secondhand on 7 years
deferred purchase. A repair contract for this
wagon was renewed for 7 years in 1916. A
secondhand 8 ton wagon was bought on deferred
purchase in February 1918 and finally, as far as
the existing records of Gloucester RCW are
concerned, in January 1920 a 10 ton wagon was
purchased secondhand on five years deferred terms
at £24 10/- per annum plus £70 cash.
Burtt & Son were
mentioned in Railway Clearing House lists for
1926 but not 1933 and in 1935 the company was
listed in the Gloucester edition of Kelly's
Directory as "bee appliance
manufacturers" and also advertised their
services as picture frame manufacturers.
In 1992 I had the great
fortune to meet Mr Michael Burtt of Leonard
Stanley, grandson of Edward John Burtt, and he
was able to tell me a great deal more about this
family and its unusual trade.
Quakers by religion, the
Burtt family can be traced back to 1490 when they
were farmers in Fulbeck, Lincolnshire, while the
distinctive spelling of their name is thought to
be the result of a mistake made when filling in a
register.
John Bowen Burtt, born in
1833, was a chemist by trade however and moved to
Gloucester via Kettering. He is first recorded by
contemporary trade directories in 1882 as living
at Fawsley House, 5 Stroud Villas, Parkend Road
and it is highly likely that his move from
Northamptonshire was to be near his in-laws. He
had married Ann Bevinton Brown, daughter of Mr
Hubert Gopsill Brown ( see also Bernard Edwards
and Brown, below ) who owned the sack hire
business in the Lock warehouse in Gloucester
Docks. John Bowen Burtt later made Kingston
Villa, 50 Weston Road, the Burtt family home
before his death in 1902.
John and his wife Ann were
blessed with eight children, the eldest of which
- Edward John - had been born in Kettering in
1860. As a young man, Edward Burtt worked for his
maternal grandfather's sack hire business but
became interested in bees at a time when modern
bee keeping was in its infancy. Indeed, so strong
was his fascination that in 1886 he founded the
company of beehive manufacturers that was to bear
his name for a century.
Fortunately he timed his
venture well as it became one of only four
beeking appliance manufacturers in Britain,
covering the West Country while other firms in
Uxbridge, Welwyn and Dundee supplied the South,
East and North of England and Scotland
respectively.
Also making his name as one
of Britain's best known beekeepers, Edward John
Burtt was approached for advice by apiarists
living as far away as India and America. he was a
Gloucestershire County Council lecturer in his
chosen field and one of the founders of the
Gloucestershire Beekeeper's Association, rising
to the rank of honorary vice president at the
time of his death in 1938.
Away from the hives,
"EJ" was a champion of the adult school
movement and the temperance cause while in 1892
he married Mary, the daughter of Mr Thomas Fox JP
of Devizes, Wiltshire. The couple's only daughter
grew up to be a lecturer at the University of
Peiping in China while of their two sons, Graham
joined the family business in 1919. he had been
occupied with relief work during the Great War
but by the time of his father's death in
Nailsworth he had attained the post of honorary
librarian with the Gloucestershire Beekeeper's
Association.
In 1889 Edward John Burtt
had rented a yard at 16 Stroud Road from George
Peters but in 1904 he acquired 22-24 Stroud Road
as his own. This site later expanded to include
numbers 20-21 while both the Southend Mission
Hall and 31 Weston Road were purchases in July
1920. The former was used up to 1950 as Burtt's
packing and despatch department and store while
the latter, next door to a Mrs Jennings and
partly sublet to a house decorator named Philip
William Berry, held the timber stocks, metal
working facilities and stock breeding hives of
the company until 1939.
Prior to 1953, Burtt made
most of its beehive components in-house and could
also supply customers with all types of
equipment, bees themselves and honey. Indeed, by
1939 the company had 500 bee colonies dispersed
around Gloucestershire including installations at
Churcham, Minsterworth and Sapperton.
The latter site was on the
spoil heap of the famous railway tunnel and was
rented for £1.00 a year from the Great Western
Railway. Although they did not hire out hives
purely for pollination purposes as bee keepers do
today, the Burtt colonies at Sapperton were close
to fields of sainfoin which gave nourishing food
to the bees in return for their work of
fertilisation.
The years 1918-1939 also
yielded some fine summers, which helped maintain
the interest in bee keeping which had boomed in
the Great War. However, the main memories that
Michael Burtt has of those times at Sapperton is
being able to watch the Great Western freight
trains being banked up toward the summit!
Although EJ Burtt and Son
were successful as bee keeping appliance
manufacturers the seasonal nature of their
business forced the company to diversify from the
outset. During the winter months coal was bought
from Ansley Hall, Kingsbury and Cannock Chase
collieries in Staffordshire as well as from
Cannock and Rugeley collieries, Granville
Colliery, Messrs Bolton and Co., the Hockley Hall
Coal Company and the Speech House Coal Company in
the Forest of Dean.
As well as hive production
the Burtts extended their carpentry skills to
picture framing and the making of furniture and
Sunday School equipment. A surviving catalogue
from 1913 - printed by Burtt Brothers of Hull,
like much of their other literature - shows
chairs for superintendents, adults, seniors and
children as well as cupboards, collecting boxes,
chalk boards, sand trays and models of buildings
from the Holy Land. A Burtt's drying rack was
even offered along with EJ's leaflet " A
Simple Way of Drying and Airing Clothes"!
Coal, wood, beehives and other finished products
were transported in the firm's wagon fleet up to
1933.
By 1945 Edward John Burtt's
widow Mary was still resident at 22 St Paul's
Road and bee keeping was enjoying its second boom
of the 20th Century. Unlike sugar, honey was
never ratuoned during the Second World War and
the Burtt's produce was in demand. 1947 also saw
Graham Burtt's 23 year old son Michael join the
firm following a period of wartime relief work,
just as his father had done after the conflict
with the Kaiser.
Sadly though, times were
soon to change. The demand for honey dropped when
sugar came off ration in the 1950s and changes in
agriculture - such as the increased use of
pesticides and destruction of hedgerows - made
life hard for bees.
As well as converting their
premises at 32 Weston Road to garages, the
Burtt's began a screwdriver approach to their
hive construction, using some components made by
outside firms rather than making everything
themselves. An excursion into poultry keeping
appliances was also made at this time although
this earned little cash and was soon abandoned.
More seriously though, a run of bad summers in
the 1960s coincided with the rise of the DIY
movement and the result that the few apiarists
needing hives were likely to be building their
own.
EJ Burtt and Son ceased
trading in Gloucester in 1974 but, like the
figure of eight dance that a worker bee makes on
returning to its hive, a series of coincidences
was to being the firm full circle to its roots.
Although Michael Burtt kept a limited trade in
bee keeping appliances from Regent Street,
Stonehouse, between 1974 and 1986, the remains of
the Gloucester operation were transferred to
Messrs E.H. Thorne of Wragby, Lincolnshire: less
than 30 miles from where the Burtt's originated.
Michael's son Colin has also gone back five
generations jobwise and now works in market
gardening in Devon - although he does still keep
some bees. Most amazing of all though was the
fate of 20-24 Stroud Road. From 1974 to 1980 the
first lessee of the site was Mr Chris Cook, who
went on to run Gloucester Antique Centre in the
Lock Warehouse formerly used by Hubert Gopsill
Brown!
The first Slaters model
kits of Burtt wagons in 0 and 00 gauge were
spotted in the April 1979 edition of Model
Railway Constructor by mr Holmes, deputy branch
manager of Lloyds Bank in Bristol Road and a keen
model railway enthusiast who broght the Slater's
advertisement to Michael Burtt's attention. Mr
Burtt then got in touch with the Derbyshire firm
and was subsequently presented with examples of
these kits, the models being assembled by
Slater's technical director Neil Jury, who wrote
back to say that he and his wife had just taken
up bee keeping and would like some details about
hives.
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