Page 2 - Haldenby

Originating from the village of North Cave near Hull, Yorkshire, his father Thomas Shaw Haldenby was born there in 1886 and married at St. Saviour’s, South Hampstead, London in March 1913, a Daisy Margaret Wilson, described as the daughter of a “gentleman,” living locally at Haverstock Hill, Hampstead. Thomas, or Tom as he was known, was aged 26, a motor engineer, of 57 Wilson Street, Derby, the son of John Haldenby, an “overseer.” Before settling in Derby, Tom had gained a good technical education at Manchester and went on to become a member of the Institute of Mechanical Engineers, after beginning work at Rolls Royce as one of the very first apprentices in 1900. In time he rose to occupy a number of senior posts and by 1918 was chief technical officer of the Aero-Engine Department. He also undertook several journeys to America on behalf of Rolls Royce in the 1920s, sailing on Aquitania and Laconia, describing himself as an engineer with Rolls Royce, living first at 292 Burton Road, Derby, and then finally Farley Road, Littleover. Tom made his last trip aged 65 in 1951 and died in 1965. He left behind two sons, Alan born in 1916 and Peter, born in 1921, and a daughter Kathleen (“Kay”) (1915-2001). Both boys went to Derby School.
Alan’s school career can be unearthed via the pages of The Derbeian and being a bright boy, he took the usual course of sporting and academic achievement, in what might be called the cursus honorem, leading to the sixth form and a profession. Beginning in the preparatory department aged nine in 1925, the pages of the school magazine chronicle his career, noting his persistence with cross-country and cricket and his joining the Officers Training Corps (OTC) in 1929. He won a Rowland Scholarship in 1931 and entered the sixth form in 1932. It was in this year that he was one of eleven Derby School pupils who took part in a Mediterranean Summer Cruise organized by the White Star Line, along with hundreds of other pupils from 19 senior UK schools.
The tour lasted from 17th August to the 29th and was aboard the 25000 ton SS Adriatic, leaving from Liverpool and proceeding to Gibraltar and then Algiers in Morocco, then returning home via Lisbon in Portugal. Shore excursions were available at all ports for the pupils and their adult escorts. The Derby School party commenced its odyssey from the LMS station on Midland Road at 9.45am and reached Liverpool Riverside Station in time for a hot luncheon on board the ship. Luggage was limited to just one large case which had to be labelled with the name of the scholar, plus cabin and deck number. Great emphasis was made by the trip organizers of the fact that the ship was fitted with the latest Marconi wireless transmitters and receivers, plus the very latest radio compass – a wireless direction finder – and that two of the lifeboats were also equipped with radio transmitters and receivers operated by a generating plant in each lifeboat.
Alan kept a diary of the cruise which later found its way into the OD archive, and contains an entry for Sunday 21st August, stating that an adult male passenger “fell overboard trying to commit suicide.” There are no further entries, so one presumes he was unsuccessful! Back in 1932, a trip like this would have been a rare occurrence,
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