Newspaper Archive: 1950s

Monday 19th February 1951 The Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer (page 4)
Education Committee
Totley Hall Training College of Housecraft
A resident assistant domestic bursar is required for the above training college for teachers of Housecraft to take up duty as early as possible.
Candidates should have successfully undertaken a recognised course in institutional management and have had some experience. Salary scale £240 per annum together with free board, residence and laundry.
The post is pensionable and candidates should be not more than 40 years of age or if over that age should have had previous pensionable service with a Local Authority.
Application by letter stating age, qualifications and experience and enclosing not more than 3 recent testimonials, should be made to the undersigned as soon as possible.
Stanley Moffett Director of Education Sheffield.

Friday 7th December 1951 The Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer (page 4)

City Of Sheffield - Education Committee
Totley Hall Training College of Housecraft.
A Domestic Bursar is required as soon as possible to be responsible for the catering and general supervision of the domestic arrangements of the above Training College. There will eventually be 144 students in residence at present, while extensions to the College are being carried out there are 50 students.

Women who are well qualified in Institutional Management and who have had suitable experience are invited to make application for this appointment by letter to the undersigned, stating age qualifications experience and the date on which they could begin duties if appointed and enclosing not more than three recent testimonials.

Salary £350 x £15 - £400 per annum plus free board residence and laundry.The post is pensionable and candidates should be not more than 40 years of age or have had previous pensionable service with a Local Authority.

Stanley Moffett, Director of Education, Education Office, Sheffield. 1.

Monday 29th June 1953 The Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer (page 2)
Totley Hall Training College of Housecraft.
Head Cook (resident) required for the above College in September or as soon as possible. Institutional qualifications essential some experience desirable. Well equipped modern kitchen numbers 100 Wage £5. 9s 6d per week if holder of recognised diploma, less £1 13s for board residence in accordance with Whitley Scale.
Letters of application with two testimonials and names of two referees to be sent to the Principal at the College, Totley Sheffield.

Friday 9th July 1954 Sheffield Star
Sisters - in Gay Abandon - Travel On
Whilst most women are content to stay quietly at home, two ? sisters are still eager travellers. Miss Winifred Plumbe, who was a missionary in India for 36 years, will be 77 in three weeks time, but she has just returned from a holiday in the south of England. Miss Hilda Plumbe, 15 months her junior, went to the Orkneys and Shetlands this year, and three years ago had a holiday in Iceland which included a plane trip over the Arctic Circle.
"We take our holidays separately, and then come back and exchange experiences," said Miss Winifred.
Secretary 41 Years
"We a travelling family. I suppose we are active for our age but we have good constitutions and many interests to keep us up. You can't let yourself go these days when you have to run a house and garden."
The sisters live in Furniss Avenue, Totley Rise, and do most of their own housework, with Miss Winifred as cook and her sister as cleaner. Miss Hilda has just resigned after 41 years as secretary of Dore and Totley Union Church Dramatic Society, which began as a literary society in 1914. 
India and Canada
Knowing her love for crossword puzzles, fellow-members gave her a dictionary, and made her an honorary life member of the Society. After teaching at Vancouver and in India she joined Sheffield Transport Department when the first world war broke out, and was put in charge of the women bus conductresses. When they were disbanded after the war, she was appointed superintendent of the ticket department, and did not retire until the last war.
After graduating in mathematics from Girton College, Cambridge, Miss Winifred was in Calcutta from 1902 to 1938, teaching first in a high school and later in a training college for Indian women graduates. During that time she watched many of the social developments which culminated in the country achieving independence.
Still Remembered
"Girls were given more freedom, and women were appointed to important positions," she recalls. "There was no sudden freeing of women, as there was in Turkey, but a process began which I think will continue." Would she like to return to India? "In a way, but it would mean leaving it again." Many of her old pupils now hold important posts in India. Some are head teachers, one is in charge of a training college, and one is leader of the "Blue Birds," part of the guiding movement in Bengal. Another is married to the Governor of Bengal, whom Miss Plumbe knew when she was an inspector of colleges. She still receives letters from many of them, and she knows that those who come to England will not fail to visit her.

Friday 5 September 1958 Sheffield Telegraph and Star

A Blind Man's Cup is Prize

A cup won by a man who continued gardening, though blind for at least 35 years, is a new trophy which will be offered in Sheffield Corporation Housing Estate Gardens Competition.

It is the "Thomas Glossop Memorial Cup," a tribute to a man who not only liked his garden but was also well known in cricket circles. The cup, nearly 50 years old, is of sterling silver, weights 14oz. and with its plinth is contained in a plush lined case.

Only Man
It was offered to the Corporation by Mr. Arthur H. Glossop [Arthur Austin Glossop], the oldest surviving member of the family. It was presented when the Rev. J. Jokerfoot [Rev. J. A. Kerfoot], Vicar of St. John's Abbeydale, started the Abbeydale Amateur Gardening Society and Mr. Ebenezer Hall, of Abbeydale Hall, gave the cup for the most points scored.

When the 1914-18 war broke out, Mr. Glossop was the only man who had ever won the cup. At the time of his death in 1940 he had been gardening the same piece of land at Abbeydale for 69 years, and for the last 35 years of his life was blind.

Sense of Touch
Yet he did all his own gardening, raising from seed, pricking off, and bedding out, his rows were always straight, and he could keep his garden free from weeds by sense of touch. Now it is suggested that the cup he treasured should be for the runner-up to the the winner of The Kemsley Cup, presented by The Star.
"My father always had a lot of sympathy for the man who was 'just pipped at the post,' and I am delighted to think that his cup would be a consolation to such a competitor," said Mr. Arthur Glossop.

If the Corporation Gardens Competition is ever dropped, it is suggested, the cup should be passed over to the Sheffield and District Allotments Federation.