CHARNEY HALL The Gill, Duncan and Hirst Families

Updated 14 April 2024: Conrad Podmore’s portrait added

 The Gill, Duncan and Hirst families and their connection with Charney Hall

Most old boys who remember Barbara Duncan and Alison Hirst, the wives of Maxwell Duncan and Raymond Hirst, will recall that there was a rumour that they were in some way related - they were sisters!

The Gills were Fylde Coasters. The 1901 England and Wales Census records Barbara and Alison’s grand parents living at no.106 Hornby Road, Blackpool, a street running at an angle behind Blackpool Tower. Today it is a busy thoroughfare with many hotels and guesthouses which blossomed during the Lancashire Wakes weeks when Cotton was King. No.106 now forms part of the Beechfield Hotel which has evolved from a terrace of houses. Some of the original terrace appears to have been demolished to provide guest car parking, leaving the Gill’s house exposed gable end to form the end of the hotel block.

John Gill, their grandfather was an ironmonger, born in Blackburn in 1840. His wife Elizabeth was also 61 at the time of the census and came from Bolton. They had three children then, Ernest 25yrs (Barbara and Alison’s father to be), Norman 23 and May 21 yrs.

3 servants were scheduled. However one was 65 years old, was born in Bolton and had independent means and was Mary Colman, Elizabeth Gill’s mother. The two remaining servants, 22 and 18 years old, came from Peel Island and Carnforth and were listed as cook and housemaid/domestic.

The 1911 census finds Ernest Gill living in Marton with Helen Gill (Eccles) his wife. They had been married for almost 5 years and were 35 and 28years old. Ernest had continued his father’s trade as an ironmonger and they had two children, Barbara who was 4yrs old and Joan Elizabeth 2.

Great Marton is a suburb of Blackpool, just south of Stanley Park, where the girls were born. Earnest and Helen were eventually to have three more children, Alison, John and Walter.

In 1911 they had 2 servants who were the Jones sisters from Croesor, Merionethshire, North Wales.

It would be another 20 years before Ernest died prematurely in 1921 aged 46. Helen would live on till she was 67 in 1950.

Years later when Barbara ran Charney Hall School with Maxwell Duncan, she had developed a domineering personality and we called her ‘the Dragon’ but here she is seen as a young girl before life had chance to make its mark.

By 1939, in the England and Wales Registry, Maxwell Duncan is shown as being the ‘headmaster of a preparatory school’ - Charney Hall. He was 31 years old. His wife Barbara was listed as a salaried housekeeper. Lucy Clark was a child’s nurse, Katherine Hodgson 

aged 52 was school matron and Mary Johnson was described as a lady cook.

Near the top of the list is a familiar name, Arthur B K McCullagh, born 20th October 1926. He was ‘at school’, attending Charney Hall as a student aged 13!

Maxwell and Barbara were married on the Fylde coast in January 1934, just 5 years before what must have been the largest and most risky purchase of real estate in their entire lives - Charney Hall Preparatory School.

Raymond and Alison Hirst whose marriage took place in June 1935 at Crosby when Alison was just 21, were partners in the venture. Although Conrad Podmore, the founder’s son, died before the sale, he wrote a letter in January 1937 advising the boys’ parents of the proposed change in ownership (see below).

Incredibly Mr Hopkins was also teaching at Charney at that time and was appointed ‘acting head’ until the sale was completed. He must have been at least in his mid 50s even in those days! Here must be the reason why Maxwell and Raymond supported him in his old age as a senior master at the school until 1953.

It is not known what inspired these two men to embark on such an ambitious project at a comparatively young age but their common grounding at Oxford University and their marriages to the two Gill sisters must have been determining factors.

£13,500 in 1937 equates to almost £1M in 2020
Credit: Alison Lebègue

In retrospect they were ideal business partners, complementing each other in many ways. Maxwell Duncan majored in mathematics and Raymond Hirst was a linguist being fluent in both French and German. Maxwell appeared to be the administrator and Raymond the sportsman. Maxwell was a disciplinarian - there was no nonsense with him - you jumped when ordered to - and Raymond, whilst there was still no doubt about his senior position, had a more affable and likeable nature.

Raymond Hirst

Maxwell Duncan

Maxwell Duncan’s authoritative signature

The differences were reflected in their dress style and demeanour. Maxwell preferred a plaid sports jacket, suede brogue shoes and smelled of an intoxicating mixture of nicotine and gin whilst Raymond sported a mid-brown woollen jacket with a silk handkerchief stuffed in his jacket pocket, wore french cologne and strutted around in Oxford leather with a steel tipped gait.

 

References : https://cplhs.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/podmore-family.pdf

With thanks to D. Clapp and Frances Limbrey.

By 1967 Charney Hall was only 6 years from closure and demolition. Maxwell Duncan was 59 and would shortly reach the age of retirement. In the school photograph above he looks preoccupied, somewhat distracted, perhaps older than his 59 years. There is no doubt that being headmaster of a preparatory school for over 30 years would have taken its toll.

Messrs McCullagh and Fawcett, masters who were soon to become the prospective owners of Charney, sit either side of Maxwell and Barbara.

The rest as they say, is history. The school was bought, closed and sold on to a house builder who thereafter demolished the school buildings and developed the site with ‘mediocre bungalows’. 

Whether ‘skulduggery’ was involved (one of Mr Fawcett’s favourite expressions) we will probably never know.......

Messrs Philip Fawcett and John McCullagh