Citylife in Rugeley and Cannock Chase March April 2021

The Great Haywood
Motor Fatality of 1905
By Jono Oates
............................
Great Haywood is a peaceful and picturesque village set in
lovely Staffordshire countryside and close to the
Shugborough Estate. In 1905 the village was in shock after a
tragic motor accident which resulted in two deaths - and reports
that the ghost of one of the victims still wanders the streets around
the village today.
In the early 1900s motor cars were still relatively rare, with only
23,000 cars on the roads in 1904, and due to the low speeds, accidents
were rare. One tragic accident occurred in Great Haywood on 9th March
1905 when a car plunged into the mill pond by the River Trent, throwing
two of its passengers into the murky depths.
The driver of the vehicle was James Roper, a chauffeur, who was taking
his passengers, Mrs Challinor and her 20-year-old niece Dorothy Notely,
from their home at Little Ingestre to Great Haywood. The car, a Frenchbuilt
Gladiator, was new and was owned by Mrs Challinor’s husband who
was the Deputy Town Clerk of Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent.
As Roper approached the bridge crossing the River Trent there was a
sharp bend, and he turned the steering wheel accordingly. He quickly
realised that the steering assembly had broken and, despite his best
efforts, the car turned towards the bridge wall which was low and poorly
constructed. As the vehicle was about to strike the bridge Roper leapt
out of the car, it went straight through the wall, somersaulted and fell into
the deep waters of the mill pond, with the passengers still trapped in the
back street of the car. Roper ran to the nearby mill house and raised the
alarm and, returning to the scene, he saw Mrs Challinor in the water and
he was able to help her out. There was, however, no sign of her niece. Mrs
Challinor explained that she had gone under the water twice and on the
second time she heard her niece cry out twice… but she could not see
her anywhere in the water. More rescuers arrived and they all searched
around the mill looking for Dorothy but to no avail. It soon became
apparent that she must have drowned in the mill and, after underwater
divers had failed to find her, the Police decided to completely drain the
mill pond. Five fire engines, and dozens of volunteers, helped to pump the
water out of the pond but all that could be seen in the bottom of the
pond basin was a handful of bricks from the bridge – but no body.
A large crowd had gathered to watch the spectacle from the banks of
the pond and, as the crowds looked on, another tragedy was to strike the
scene. Mrs Henry Payne, of the nearby Haywood Brewery, was watching
16
Dragging the Mill Pond*
Fire engine draining the pond*
the pumping taking place when a frightened horse, attached to a furniture
van, bolted and knocked her to the ground. The van ran her over and she
was kicked by the horse which killed her instantly.
Three weeks later a village grocer, Reginald Gibbs, was walking along
the banks of the Trent to fetch corn from the mill, when he spotted a
body in the river, caught in the roots of a tree. Fetching the village
policeman, they dragged the body from the river which was then
identified as that of Miss Notely.
At the inquest the coroner ruled that the driver, James Roper, has acted
as many people would in that circumstance and that by throwing himself
clear he had managed to raise the alarm and save the life of Mrs Challinor,
if not Miss Notely. The fault on the steering gear was found to have been
a broken bolt which was confirmed by a representative of the Gladiator
Motor Company, although there was no claim for compensation, the
coroner ruled death from accidental drowning. After the inquest the road
was straightened and the bridge over the River Trent was rebuilt. Later
the mill was demolished and the mill pool permanently drained.
That, however, is not the end of the story as several local people have
witnessed the ghostly figure of a young lady, dressed in Edwardian clothes
and carrying a posy of flowers, seen by the nearby Essex Bridge and along
the riverbanks. Is this the ghost of young Dorothy Notely still trying to
find her way out of her watery grave?
The Great Haywood Motor Fatality of 1905 is one of the most tragic
and shocking accidents in the early years of British motoring history and
one that is still remembered in the village more than one hundred years
later.
Sources: The British Newspaper Archive; Staffordshire Past Track website;
Liverpool John Moores University Research Online.
*Photographs courtesy of Staffordshire Past Track at the Staffordshire County
Museum