It is often said that the local station master was the ‘first citizen’ in his local community and George Wakefield (1822-1889), station master at Blythe Bridge 1873-1889, certainly lived up to the ideal. George was born in Uttoxeter in August 1821, the son of George Wakefield, a joiner, and his wife Margaret. He had a twin sister, Hannah. According to the 1841 Census George Wakefield was an ‘apprentice shoemaker, living with his parents in Carter Street, Stafford. In 1844 he married Sarah Ann Kidd at Marchington and gave his occupation as a cordwainer, ie shoemaker. George also became active in the Chartist Movement during 1842 and would continue to hold reforming political and religious beliefs until his death, no doubt further shaped by being a Wesleyan Methodist. Ten years later, he was still making shoes and by this time he had four children: two girls and two boys (twins). Yet, within the decade he would be station master at Bromshall and later at Sudbury.
According to his obituary,2 c1850 (aged 29 or so) George became a ticket collector at the Uttoxeter station of the North Staffordshire Railway. Whilst employed as a porter at Uttoxeter he was assaulted in November 1856 by one Harry Tomlinson who was fined 10s and 16s 3d costs.3 He is also described as being a ‘Night Watchman’ on the London & North Western Railway at Stafford around the same date.4
Quite why he left the profession of shoemaker is unclear, but his promotion on the railway was certainly rapid, becoming station master at the age of 39 at Bramshall and later by W. S. Allen Esq MP for his “uniform kindness in the discharge of his onerous public duties”.5 George threw himself wholeheartedly into the communities he served; when station master at Froghall he was “mainly instrumental in raising a Primitive Methodist chapel at Kingsley Holt” and at Blythe Bridge “he commenced a most energetic and meritorious work amongst the lowly and poor, being a Wesleyan and a total abstainer of twenty-five years’ standing at that time”.6 The corner stone of Kingsley Holt Primitive Methodist Chapel was laid on Monday 19th September 1870 by W. S. Ellen MP and the service of dedication was led by the Rev. J. J. Parker of Cheadle. As was usual at these events, a ‘tea’ was held in a nearby field which raised the handsome sum of £21 10s – a quarter of the building cost. The chapel was opened on 4th December 1870 when the opening service was led by Mr. E. Tomlinson; collections on the day raised £5 toward the building cost of almost £100. A new building was erected in 1937 but the chapel sadly closed in 2019 and is today the ‘Kingsley Holt Centre’, a community hub.
