Tunstall Building Society : Offices Organisations and Positions - Stoke-on-Trent & Newcastle
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Tunstall Building Society

 

Ward records "A Building Society, begun in 1816, and of which many of the working Potters were members, gave rise to forty small houses, and the formation of two new streets, called Paradise Street, and Piccadilly, extending from the market-place westwardly." 

The Articles of Agreement show that the society was formed on the "twenty second day of May in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixteen.." ... the society originally met at "the house of Mr Richard Walley, the Swan Inn Tunstall"

The society acquired land from the Sneyd family in the early 1820's and the houses were built between 1821 and 1823.  

The picture below shows the houses in Piccadilly Street in about 1955. The houses built of brick and tile with sash windows and separate with privies and ashpits were far superior to the cottages which most of the inhabitants of the town lived in the early 1820s. 

Houses in Piccadilly Street in about 1955

Analysis of the 1839 tithe award for the parish of Wolstanton shows that the most of them were owned by local tradesmen and skilled workmen and let out for rent. 
The owners included Joseph Capper. the blacksmith a later noted Chartist The houses set the standard which was adopted for the hundreds of similar terrace houses which were constructed the the adjacent streets of Tunstall. 

Virtually the houses have been demolished. Two however have Survived in Paradise Street as the Paradise Inn. The narrow alleyway between each row of houses is also still dearly visible at the back.

Also see: | Paradise Street | Piccadilly Street | Chartism | Tunstall |

Sources:
Ward "The Borough of Stoke-upon-Trent - 1843"
Andrew Dobraszczyc notes.

27/08/2001