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  1. #1
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    Default Ashburner family Narborough Leicestershire

    Would anybody have access to newspaper records for Leicestershire 1959 that would be able to look up a family for me please.
    Harry Ashburner born 1912 Hereford Herefordshire England
    Ethel Stone born about 1913
    They married 1932 Leicestershire
    Jane Lesley Ashburner born 1944 Leicestershire.
    William James Ashburner born 1947.
    This family all died 1st July 1959. Leicestershire I have the death certificate for Jane she was shot murdered. The death certificate for Harry Ashburner a hosiery manufacturer killed himself gun shot to the head.
    Harry's probate was to Michael Ashburner a farmer and Ethel, Jane and William probate to Arthur stone engineer. Residence 12 Desford Road Narborough I would like to know if this tragedy was recorded in the newspaper at the time. Thank you for reading this and for any help you may give me.
    Dorothy

  2. #2
    Brick wall demolition expert!
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    I have had a look the British Newspaper Archive which can be searched for free and can't see anything. For future reference:

    https://www.
    britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/

    It might be worth contact directly the local newspaper - the Leicester Mercury:
    https://www.
    leicestermercury.co.uk/contact.html

    or the local archives office:
    https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/a...ails.asp?LR=56

  3. #3
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    Thank you Megan for your response to my query I will check out the leads you have given me and hope I am able to find something about these deaths. Thanks again it is appreciated
    regard Dorothy

  4. #4
    Veronicam
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    Hello Dorothy,
    William Ashburner was in the same class as I was. We attended Narborough Junior School, and then went to Enderby Brockington Secondary Modern School. In July 1959, I had just turned 12 (I believe William was still 11) when we were told that William would not be at school as he had died.
    My father told me his father was financially responsible for a hosiery company, which had gone bankrupt.
    On the morning of July 1st, Harry Ashburner shot his wife, his daughter Jane, and his son William. He then called the police and, before anyone arrived at the house, he shot himself.
    William was a really nice boy, and was taking piano lessons where I was taking singing lessons.
    Hope this information is of help to you.
    Kind regards, Veronica

  5. #5
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    Hello Veronica thank you for your message regarding William Ashburner. It was quite sad to read about William but lovely also that somebody remembered him. Such a sad story a family to die that way every time I look on my family tree I just ask why. Harry left nearly ten thousand pound so there was money perhaps not enough to save the company. I guess Harry must have lost his mind. I have not been able to find details of the company. Thank you again for remembering Willam
    Regards Dorothy

  6. #6
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    Harry Ashburner was my great uncle-such a tragic event...

  7. #7
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    I found a reference to the shootings in the Coventry Evening Telegraph of 1 July 1959 stating that they had happened "today". The paper was clearly having production difficulties at the time and the format appears to be short pieces cut from larger pages and stuck together to give brief bulletin type news. There is probably nothing new in the article that isn't revealed above but that's not surprising as it was a report on the same day. I'll keep looking.
    "People will not look forward to posterity who never look backward to their ancestors.” Edmund Burke

  8. #8
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    A similarly short piece was in the Daily Mirror (a national newspaper) the following day. Not much to add.
    "People will not look forward to posterity who never look backward to their ancestors.” Edmund Burke

  9. #9
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    The Daily Herald of 2 July has slightly more information and speculation. Mr Ashburner was described as a hosiery factory owner dubbed the "Stocking King" and reports on rumours that the "luxury bungalow" owned by the family was on the market. The business was reported to be in trouble.
    "People will not look forward to posterity who never look backward to their ancestors.” Edmund Burke

  10. #10
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    Maybe I can also add some possible context from personal experience. A year or two after this happened I left school and became a trainee surveyor with a Leicester firm of Auctioneers and Estate Agents. They dealt with many of the factory closures taking place in Leicester and the surrounding towns and villages i.e. selling by auction the machinery and buildings. The Leicestershire area had been one of the main centres of hosiery manufacture in the country for decades. For example one large Leicester manufacturer was the main supplier of hosiery to Marks & Spencer. But from the late 1950s onwards this once very profitable industry began to suffer competition from cheap imports made in low wage countries like so many other industries. Retailers moved their supply chains overseas. The inevitable result was the death of the industry in Leicestershire.

    I well remember going with my boss to measure up a stocking factory near Hinckley for subsequent sale. Hinckley is not far from Narborough. It seemed to have shut down very suddenly in the middle of a shift or between shifts because the massive hosiery machines still had part-made un-dyed stockings on them. It was almost surreal to imagine each of those machines in action making an enormous noise and being 'manned' by hundreds of chatty, cocky men and women (I knew what it would have been like because I had also visited factories still in operation and was embarrassed to be heckled by women operators as I walked by). Many more factories like that shut down in that period, not because of bad management as such, but because they could not compete with low wage economies abroad. My experience would have been in 1963 or 1964 so I suspect that Mr Ashburner's factory may simply have been an early casualty of the death of the hosiery industry in the East Midlands.

    It is easy to imagine the distress of someone who had once lived in the style that comes with ownership of such a business in it's prime only to lose it all with no realistic prospect of turning things around. He had also had to sack hundreds of workers who not only relied on the wages from his business but whose skills were no longer relevant. How would they find work elsewhere? We tend to think about heavy industries like mining and steel making when industrial decline is discussed these days but many other industries such as the textile industries of the North and the Midlands also suffered dreadfully from competition overseas. The consequences for the workforces were equally disastrous even if their closures did not make the headlines so much.

    While I realise that without more information I do not know whether this is what happened in this case, I think that it is a very possible scenario.
    "People will not look forward to posterity who never look backward to their ancestors.” Edmund Burke

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