This picture of a tram outside The Wedgwood Big House, on Moorland Road Burslem, was taken by my Grandad, W. T. Vickers.
I still have the original plate glass negitive and Grandad wrote on it, in pencil, that it was taken in 1925. I don’t know the exact date, but it was 1.30pm according to the Town Hall clock.
This is now 100 years ago and Grandad would have been 18 years old when he took it!
The picture has been published many times both in print and online, but it was first printed in Ernest Warrilow’s famous book “A Sociological History of Stoke-on-Trent” in 1960.
The first image is one I scanned directly from the negitive a few years ago and is a better scan than Hanley Library took not long after Grandad died. This one has been floating around online for a while now (hence the watermark on mine as people don’t credit Grandad).
The second image is a scan of a print I have that is hanging on my wall. This was printed in 1948 and I found it in a bundle of prints Grandad had done but not displayed. The print has a different feel as it’s sepia.
The last one is an AI generated one I found recently on Facebook. I think it’s from the Hanley Library scan. If you look closely, you can see that the AI has screwed up a bit! It’s having issues with the spelling of “Andrews”, there is a second, vertical trolley pole at the front that has appeared and the middle window seems to disappear!
I think it’s amazing such a clear and well detailed photograph was taken 100 years ago by my then 18 year old Grandad. It wasn’t all point and shoot in those days!
I have no idea why he took this, as this is the only photo of a tram, that I know of, that he took (if you exclude the one in the background).
The Potteries Electric Traction Company’s trams ran for another three years until they were withdrawn in July 1928. The PET continued as Potteries Motor Traction, PMT, First Potteries and now First Bus.
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