History

James Montgomery (4 November 1771 - 30 April 1854)

Editor of the Sheffield paper The Sheffield Iris, imprisoned twice for writing political pieces but remembered for the Christmas Carol Angels from the Realms of Glory.

Born at Irvine in Scotland in 1771, Montgomery was a member of the Moravian Church, a small Protestant denomination which had no church in Sheffield, so he worshipped regularly at both Nether and Queen Street. From 1794 to 1825 he edited the local newspaper, The Iris - which is the Greek for ‘Rainbow’, which may be seen on the banner heading of the accompanying photocopy of the newspaper. He suffered two terms of imprisonment (and narrowly escaped a third), one of which was for criticising the way the authorities had dispersed an assembly causing two men to be shot dead.

He leaves a great legacy of poems and hymns, many of which are radical even by today’s standards. Several of his hymns are still sung, perhaps the best known being the Christmas hymn ‘Angels from the realms of glory’; other well known ones include ‘Hail to the Lord’s anointed', ‘Stand up and bless the Lord’, and the communion hymn ‘Be known to us in breaking bread’.

He died at his home, The Mount in Broomhill, in 1854 and was given a public funeral. There is a plaque at the end of Aldine Court on the corner of the the Sheffield Newspapers building commemorating his work there and in 1962 a statue was erected at the side of the Sheffield Cathedral with his remains reinterred nearby from the General Cemetery.

Samuel Plimsoll

Plimsoll’s family were descended from the Huguenots, French Protestants who had fled to England to escape persecution in the late 17th century. He was born in Bristol and moved to Sheffield where he worked as a clerk in a brewery in Pond Street and, as a Protestant, attended Nether. Later he was elected as MP for Derby and was largely responsible for the Merchant Shipping Act of 1876 which, among other things, regulated the loading of ships, including the introduction of the Plimsoll Line, the well known marking on the side of a ship which indicates the depth to which it may safely (and legally) be loaded.

Henry Coward

Both Henry Coward’s parents were musical; he was born in 1849 in Liverpool and, on the death of his father (who had been born in Sheffield), he and his mother returned to Sheffield when he was 8. He had to become the breadwinner and joined George Wostenholme’s as an apprentice cutler, leaving when he was 20 to set up on his own making penknives - which often appeared in exhibitions and won prizes. He also began a systematic self-education, took an appointment as a pupil teacher, and began to teach singing in Queen Street. This was the beginning of a notable musical career and the gist of a Queen Street church meeting resolution (the rest is flowery 19th century embellishment) dated 24 October 1889 reads ‘We have much pleasure in congratulating Mr Henry Coward on his success in having won the distinction of Bachelor of Music, as announced in the Oxford Congregation today’.

Later he was awarded a doctorate of music, was knighted in 1926, and made a Freeman of Sheffield; nevertheless he still kept in touch with his roots and remained a dedicated worker in his church. He composed the music for several hymns, some of them for the Whitsuntide sings in the Sheffield parks; the tune ‘Norfolk Park’ is still used for the hymn ‘Saviour, blessed saviour, listen while we sing ...’ and other tunes also had local names, for example ‘Brocco Bank’ and ‘Iris’ (the name of James Montgomery’s newspaper). He was perhaps most well known for his Sheffield Festival Choir which performed throughout the world and gained a high international reputation.

He also conducted the Whitsuntide sings in Norfolk Park on many occasions and in 1937, at the age of 88, did it so vigorously that he fell from the platform - but was quickly reported as ‘quite well’ in the Sheffield Star and is pictured the following year in that paper playing bowls. He died in 1944 at the age of 95.

Henry Dixon

You do not have to be all that old to remember Dixon’s Mint Rock – and you can still buy it as well as all the traditional types of boiled sweet which are still made by the family firm, now called ‘Maxons’. All the information below is taken from

Down the Years 1860 to 1944 which was written by Henry Dixon himself.

Henry Dixon’s father was a silversmith at James Dixon (his great uncle) & Sons Ltd Cornish Works but later moved to a house in Arundel Street where he started his own workshop. Here Henry was brought up in a religious atmosphere but showed his commercial abilities very early; he could read by the time that he was about three and quickly earned the 2d that his mother promised him when he could recite the 23rd Psalm.

While in this house he fell and damaged his right eye; he was sent to Moorfields Hospital but remained blind in that eye for the rest of his life. However his business abilities rose to the occasion; patients were allowed a gill of porter a day and ‘I soon found a customer for my daily portion’.

More commercial talent was shown when the family went to live in Morecambe; ‘for pocket money I acquired a barrow and carted luggage from the station for visitors’. He was 13½.

The family returned to Sheffield and, after a spell with his father, he went to work for Wilson & Son, toy merchants of Snig Hill; the hours were 8 to 8 Monday to Friday and 8 to 10 Saturday.

About 1882 he met a young lady at a friend’s 21st birthday and ‘courted her for 62 years: 57½ married ones’. At the same time, ‘having a little money’, he became a partner to a baker and confectioner but ‘got back many times with full order book to find that [his partner] had been drinking all day and made nothing’. So he left to set up his own shop at 87–89 West Bar and later opened another in St Philips Road.

Throughout the years Henry Dixon was active in his church, Queen Street, and ‘At the age of 36 I was elected a deacon together with my friend Allan Hastings. We were two of the youngest ever elected. My mother thought I was too young for so serious an office’; he also served on many local and national Congregational organisations. It is interesting to read his comment that ‘In those days letters were delivered on Sundays, but not wishing to be tempted to do business on that day, refused to accept delivery’.

The shops prospered; he began to make ‘children’s novelties and cheap toys’ at a factory in Spring Street and moved to a house in Wood Lane, Stannington, but later sold this house and bought one in Wilkinson Street; he also bought a factory in Love Street which he renamed Britannia Works and began to ‘make and fill Christmas Stockings and Christmas Novelties’. At about this time he sent his son, Henry, as an apprentice to ‘a Scottish firm because Scotland was noted for its high class goods, especially boiled sugars’.

The actual beginning of Dixons as we knew it is a bit vague but somewhere between 1902 and 1904 ‘my son returned from Glasgow and we commenced the manufacture of sweets under his supervision’.