OLD DEVONPORT . UK
www.olddevonport.uk
 

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ABOUT THE WEBSITE

This new website is in part a replacement for the Plymouth Data Website which I operated between January 7th 2002 and June 16th 2014.  It was launched on February 1st 2016.

I came into this world in the Alexandra Maternity Home at Stoke, to a household amongst the devastation that was Warleigh Avenue, in Keyham, and to parents who were both born, educated, married and cremated in Devonport.  Although Grandad Moseley came from Birmingham he married a Devonport girl who was born facing the Dockyard wall.  

My ancestors had strong links to the Royal Dockyard and the Royal Navy.  I received my primary education in Devonport, got my first employment in Devonport and did my train-spotting at Keyham and Ford Stations.  My only experience of old Plymouth was when I attended secondary school there between 1958 and 1963.  In 1964 the family moved to Pennycross, within the area absorbed by the Borough at the end of the nineteenth century, to what I now describe as the Devonport New Territory.

Although I had published several booklets on local subjects from 1964 onwards, I published my biggest, and only hardback book, "Vanishing Plymouth" in 1982.  Between 1985 and 1993 I published six volumes of the paperback "Plymouth Through the Lens" books.  I transferred my publishing activities to the internet in 2002, when I started the Plymouth Data Website.

Much of the information and images on this website come from the old site, this one is being newly built so it will take time to cover all the aspects of Devonport.  Start at the "A-Z Contents" button above.  While I hope you will find something of interest now, I can only ask you to come back again from time to time as what is not there today may well be there tomorrow.  None of my websites are supported financially by any other body than my pension.

For my personal memories, and a bit of history, of Keyham Barton in the 1950s click here.

I perhaps should mention that I do not give talks.  My last one on a Plymouth subject was in 1971.  There are several reasons for this.  Firstly, I have always concentrated on getting information about a subject rather than illustrations of it.  I thus have very few images that I can use in presentations.  Secondly, I have spent most of the years since 1971 engaged in research work, particularly in clarifying the dates of events and the statements made by previous historians of the Three Towns.  Most of them were journalists by trade, to whom getting the facts right was secondary to writing a good story.  Thirdly, I have now become totally deaf and even with the best hearing aids I have great difficulty in hearing and understanding things said to me in public environments.  This has caused me to give up attending other peoples' talks.  My "voice" is now my three websites (see also Old East Stonehouse.UK and Old Plymouth.UK), upon which the fruits of over half a century of research are freely available to the world at large and which can be reproduced freely subject only to an acknowledgment to either myself or the websites themselves.

Also, I do not do research for other people as I am fully and totally occupied doing research for my websites.  If you need someone who is both locally based and very knowledge able about Plymouth and Devon's local history, and about family history in general, then I highly recommend you get in touch with Mrs Debbie Lister, formerly Watson, on www.dwresearchservices.co.uk.  Her fame stretches throughout Devon and Cornwall and she is full of energy so your response will probably come much quicker than you are expecting.

On December 2nd 2022 I celebrated my 61st anniversary of becoming involved in researching Plymouth history.

Finally, please return from time to time to the websites because what might not be there today could well be there tomorrow.

Happy browsing.

Brian Moseley