Formby Civic Society is a registered Charity (No. 516789) -
2021 NEWS
MARCH 21
“The History of Human Influence on the Sefton Coast”
Dr. Phil Smith has provided an updated and fascinating (44 page) report
supported with a wide variety of fascinating images for our Civic Society pages.
Please click here (pdf opens in a new tab) or it can be found on our ‘Wildlife Notes’ page click here
If you are interested in joining us and becoming a member please contact us at: membership@formbycivicsociety.org.uk
The cost of membership has been held at £10 per individual or £15 per couple, and the cost of our full-
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Meetings -
Talks take place at Ravenmeols Community Centre and begin at 7.30 p.m. Members are encouraged to invite friends and family to join them for our Talks.
Visitors are always very welcome. We ask for a small voluntary donation of £2 for each visitor.
Due to the ongoing problems caused by the pandemic, we have held back from drawing up our annual programme of Talks between September and May as well as our Summer Programme of walks and other activities. We have let our members know that as soon as is possible we will set that to rights and set up a programme for this year
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MAY 2021 -
Dr Phil Smith's Wildlife Notes added monthly and the notes for April 2021 are now live -
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RECENT PROJECTS AND PUBLICATIONS
The ‘Formby Folk Community Heritage Project’
We developed a project for use by local community groups with funding provided by the Redrow Community Fund.
It is called the ‘Formby Folk Community Heritage Project’.
It is aimed at bringing people of all ages together to better understand their local heritage and to record and make easily available to others the contributions made by so many Formby people – ‘Formby Folk’ – over the past century and more.
We give local people -
Through this project we will create a valuable bank of materials for use by Formby residents so they can themselves be involved and play an active role in remembering and recording the lives and contributions of Formby Folk both in the past and in times nearer to our own. Findings will be placed on this website.
We will also transfer previously inaccessible maps from the 19th century into a format all of our local people can access, handle and research.
It will also involve the creation of materials for activity sessions in discovering local history and people involved,: this will include large reproductions of old photographs for use in presentations as stimulus and starting points for discussion and research; sheets reproduced from national Census returns, pages from old Trade Directories and maps to identify detail from our community in the past.
An example of a meeting for a group can be seen below.
ACTIVITY – ‘Chapel Lane’
Today we will look at:
- a set old photographs of Chapel Lane in Formby from the 20th century – in A2 size
- some map extracts from the 19th and 20th centuries
- extracts from the 1901 Census, and
- entries for Chapel Lane in the 1914 Street Directory
We will use the A2 photographs in 3 groupings:
a) Shops
b) Chapel Lane 1900 to the 1950s
c) The Old Post Office and its staff
We will split in groups so that we can all spend some time with each group of old photos.
Maps, census figures and Street Directory entries will be used as and when deemed applicable. Use them if you wish.
WHAT DO WE AIM TO DO?
- What can you see / recognise / remember?
- What questions might we ask about each group of images?
- Are there any memories or stories that you can share?
- Is there anything we can learn about Formby people in the past?
- Is there anything we can learn about ways of life in Formby in the past?
What could we do to find out more about our way of life in the past?
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"The Village that was Formby" by Joan A. Rimmer, a member of the Formby Civic Society.
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Barbara Yorke JP, MBE 5th April 1930 – 11th January 2021
Barbara was someone remembered by Civic Society members for her commitment to the community and the quality of her work in so many areas over so many years. Together with her husband of many years, Dr. Reg Yorke, she played a leading role in researching and writing the history of Formby as well as supporting and running social and community activities through first the Formby Society and later the Formby Civic Society. Barbara first appeared in the records of the Formby Society on their Committee in May 1984 as Vice-
Her family described her many talents and branches of interest as: “teacher, mentor, magistrate, charity worker, school governor, environmentalist, historian, bibliophile, author and the recipient of a well-
Together with Reg she was the author of a number of books, but probably the work for which she would have been most proud was that of writing “Britain’s First Lifeboat Station 1776-
trategically placed at Formby offered the chance of rescue to the crews of stricken vessels for the first time. This important, very human story would have gone unknown but for the researches of Reg and Barbara Yorke. Besides its national significance, the lifeboat service is part of the history of Formby and its old families ...”
In their book they provided very clear documentary evidence from the Liverpool Municipal Archives that shows there was a station established by the Corporation of Liverpool, at Formby, ten years before that at Bamburgh on the North East coast. They wrote, “Here on Merseyside before the term ‘lifeboat’ had ever been coined, a boat had been set aside for the sole purpose of saving life from shipwreck.”
I have been told a number of times from people close to Barbara and Reg that what began as an historical interest and puzzle became a determined and ultimately successful piece of research and published writing because someone said to Barbara that the story of the Formby Lifeboat was ‘insignificant’. Barbara was a keen and determined historian who described herself at the time of publication as “proud to be considered a ‘native’ of Formby”. She saw herself as “combining an active role in local affairs with rearing a family of seven children, yet still finding time to ‘stop and stare’.” Reg described her as having an “unnerving knack of getting to the root of things”, which somehow helps to sum up their success in setting the record straight on the Formby Lifeboat.
This very popular and informative coffee table book -
Its ongoing success has proved its value to any reader of any age whether long-
This would make a perfect present for any Formby residents.
Photo is the award winning Joan Rimmer with her new edition of “The Village That Was Formby”
“A Community in Wartime -
Copies of this Formby Civic Society book are still available at Derbyshire’s on Chapel Lane at a cost of £5 each
To view an excerpt of the book please click here (opens in a new tab)
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Local History Resources
Our resources are often used by local students and are available to all bona fide researchers, but particularly our members. Offers of practical help in our work with research and archive management are very welcome.
We get quite a number of enquiries on local history via e-
Please click here or on the local history navigation tab at the top of the page for articles, online resources ceramic models and others
The Society would welcome any additional images of old Formby.
Arrangements can be made to collect these, make digital copies and return them with a CD/DVD. Please contact the Society (see below).
To donate resources, access any of the resources, purchase any of the images, please contact Tony Bonney via email -
Phone: 01704 872862
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OUR COLLECTION OF PHOTOGRAPHS AND IMAGES OF FORMBY
We have an excellent archive of digital images of our community from the early days of photography to the present.
This collection of photographs is held on Flickr. It is available to view at our site by clicking here
We invite you to delve through the collection and enjoy walking through our village at different times in its history. If there is any image you would like for a small charge to purchase an image in digital format, please contact us at: chairman@formbycivicsociety.org.uk
Using these assets, Society members have carried out research on the history of many local subjects such as:
- the Formby Lifeboat Station (the first in the world, as demonstrated by Reg and Barbara Yorke in their book),
- asparagus cultivation, having played a major role in developing the ‘Asparagus Trail’ with the National Trust
- the Home Front in Formby 1914-
1918 - walks down Chapel Lane, in conjunction with the Formby Business and Community Partnership
- early flying at Freshfield (1910 -
12), and - ‘sand-
winning’ in Formby during the first half of the 20th Century.
Other than helping to develop the Asparagus Trail, we have worked in partnership with Sefton Council to produce two walks along the Ravenmeols shoreline for local people and visitors alike:
- The Devil’s Hole, with its fascinating wealth of flora and fauna
- The Lost Seaside Resort of Formby-
by- the- Sea
We are also available to give Talks and Presentations on topics of local history for local community groups, as well as Talks and Walks for children in our local schools.
In addition we have arranged and presented occasional historical exhibitions or displays such as early flying from Freshfield beach (then officially designated an aerodrome!), 1910 – 1912. We have conducted historical and environmental, research and published several local history books, including:
- “A Community in Wartime: Formby 1914-
1918 ” by John Phillips and Tony Pawson (2011) - ‘Formby, Then and Now’, by Reg and Barbara Yorke, 2012
- “Viking Village” by Edith Kelly, 1973
Duke Street Library holds the unique 'Formby Tapestry', created by founder member, Lilian Rushton. This provides a visual record of Formby's history from the Vikings to the 20th Century. Our collections also include a unique collection of ceramic models of old local cottages here and in full here.
We have introduced a programme to raise Blue Plaques in Formby to recognise and celebrate former residents who have made significant contributions.
The first three Plaques were dedicated to Thomas Fresh, Beryl Bainbridge and Percy French.
We work with people of all ages across the community and are always open to fresh ideas and imaginative projects in order to preserve our culture and our heritage whilst also recording it both digitally and in print forms for the benefit of our community members in the future. We continue to seek ways of making local people more aware of the information we hold and ways of developing our bank of information in text to add to and support these images.
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