Madeley: Time Line 
History & Dates.

By Chris Machin

The Second World War

1940 - Brian O’Neill is killed when his troopship, the ‘Chobry’, is sunk returning from Norway.

1944 - Shane O’Neill is killed in action in Italy. He was second in command of the Irish Horse.

(Both brothers are named on ‘The Monument’ along with all the other fallen of the two World Wars)

1944 - Terence O’Neill is wounded and taken prisoner at Arnhem.

1944 - Colin Crewe-Dodds is taken prisoner during the Anzio landings.

Sometime during the Second World War, a lorry carrying stork margarine overturned into a field on the A531 near Heighley Castle Road. People came from miles around to try and salvage some of the margarine. The corner is known thereafter as Margarine Corner.

Local girls work at Swynnerton Munitions Factory. They catch buses to and from the factory. They work shifts as the Factory works around the clock. Some have a yellow tinge from working with the explosives. Some are injured in accidental explosions. The story of the workers is told in the musical ‘I don’t want to set the world on fire’.

The Offley Arms was used as the headquarters of the Local Defence Committee.

The Dignus Tileries in Madeley Heath was used to station foreign troops. Land opposite contained captured enemy troops within prisoner of war Camp 193.

1944. A Mk1 Lancaster was on a training flight on the 4th of October 1944 when it broke up in mid air over Stockdale Moor. The pilot – Flight Officer S. H. Hayter had a lucky escape when the cockpit broke off and he deployed his parachute. His crew of six were not so fortunate, all died. Among them was - Sgt Arthur J Pearce RAFVR, aged 20 from Madeley he was buried in the village.

Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be hanged in Britain, in July 1955, was a child evacuee to Madeley Heath. She was born in 1926. She was a waitress and nude model. Her boyfriend was a racing driver, David Blakely. Neither was faithful to the other. On Good Friday, 1955, Blakely stood her up. On Easter Sunday, she went in search of him and found him outside The Magdala Pub, in London. She pulled out a .38 handgun and emptied it into him. An Old Bailey Jury found her guilty within a matter of minutes and she was executed on 21st June 1955. 27 years later her son, Andria committed suicide. In 1985, a film, Dance with a Stranger, was made about the incident.