Victorian Tamworth : The Next Generation
Peter Argyle
Punished 2025 Peter Argyle Publshing
www.peterargyle.com
ISBN 978-0-0369-6558-7
546 pages, soft back
15.2 × 22.8cm
Reviewed for Volume 4 Issue 2 Spring 2026
The Review
This is the second volume, the first being The Life of Thomas Argyle that we reviewed previously. However if you just see this volume without knowing about the first it might be a confusing title.
This volume continues on with Thomas Argyle’s two sons who were also leading solicitors in Tamworth and another son who developed the midlands Railways from Derby. It’s not all sons as should become clear in the third volume.
This is a weighty book being over 540 pages, and a few pictures, though a lot more than the first volume. The problem is photography didn’t actually become easily useable until the 2nd half of the 19th century and most pictures were formal poses. However the author is a trained journalist with a lot of experience. Therefore this is not only well researched but written in a readable style rather than that of an academic treaties. The lack of pictures is not really a problem as the text does paint the scene well and in an engaging way.
As the author said that as he researched his family history it turned out to be a history of Victorian Tamworth because as a family of solicitors who were also involved in the town council, and many societies in the town, they touched many parts of life in Tamworth and interacted with people at all levels. Though, some of the people in this volume extend into the early 1900s past what is strictly Victorian Tamworth.
This book, like the previous one, follows the Holloway Society motto Persequimur allecibus rubrum in cavernis leporisand leads you into all sorts of interesting places and corners of Tamworth history and its people.
Whilst the Argyle name is familiar to many, because it crops up here and there, in the newspapers as “the Solicitor” in a court case or sale of property or in a Council report, or a Charity announcement or a in some society documents, it is not a name that rings like Peel, like Athelstan or his aunt but as you delve into the history the name underpins a vast amount of 1800s Tamworth.
The one complaint I do have is there is no index. It does take a lot of skill and effort not to mention a lot of time to make a good index after the book is written, and the author is exhausted. That said the contents pages does sub divide the chapters in to up to 15 sub sections which should suffice for most people. Otherwise it is back to sticky tags and a pencil!
I suspect these three books, when the next one gets here, will be essential for anyone interested in anything in Tamworth from the 1830s to the 1930s. It was a busy century with a lot happening! Oh yes, and of course, anyone interested in the Argyle family too!
