JOHN Harper is the only person I am aware of who had a road named after them which now forms part of the official address of where they once worked.

He was headmaster of North Street School in Colchester when it opened on November 12 1894 – the first in Colchester funded from local taxation. It cost £8,000. Mr Harper remained as head until his retirement in 1922. He died three years later.

The small road leading to the school was originally called Princess Street North but because of confusion with another road called Princess Street (roughly where the police station off Butt Road is now) it was agreed in 1933 to change the name to John Harper Street which is off North Station Road.

The reason why the school was called North Street, and retained this name for seven decades although there is no road with this name, is another story which I shall explain in my article next week.

Other interesting snippets of Colchester history are:

  • As part of the European twin town movement, designed to create greater understanding between the people of Western Europe at a time of the Cold War with the Communist East, Colchester is twinned with Wetzlar (West Germany as it was then) from June 18 1969. It also twinned with Avignon in France on April 16 1973 and Imola in Italy on December 6 1997. They share with Colchester a Roman heritage.
  •  Until 1963 only local telephone calls could be dialled directly in Colchester – all other calls had to be connected by telephonists at the Telephone Exchange in West Stockwell Street. At 3.30pm on May 21 the mayor of Colchester, Walter Porter, made the town’s first STD (Subscriber Trunk Dialling) call to the Master Cutler of Sheffield. This was from the then Telephone Exchange (not the monstrosity built next door later that decade). The installation cost £54,000 and gave direct dialling from Colchester to 667 other exchanges across the UK.
  •  The first election to the newly-established Essex County Council was held on January 15 1889.
  •  In April 1966 Colchester architect Norman Downie declared his opposition to building a theatre on land near Balkerne Gate. He proposed a housing development for old people. Three years later he was commissioned to design the Mercury Theatre, which opened on May 10 1972. Mr Downie then designed a near identical theatre for Salisbury which opened in 1976.
  • Keir Hardy MP, the famous Labour leader, spoke on July 13 1912 to a meeting of the Colchester Independent Labour Party held at the Co-op Hall, Victoria Place. Labour had 42 MPs at that time.
  •  In 1911 and again in 1912 East Donyland Parish Council requested it become part of the borough of Colchester. The borough formed a committee to consider this, also possibly to include Wivenhoe. The question of including Stanway was also raised. However, nothing came of this. On April 1 1974, however, all three were merged with the borough we have today along with almost 40 other villages.
  •  Older residents may recall Colchester company E N Mason and Son which had large premises off Cowdray Avenue, built in the 1930s, originally known as Arclight Works. The business was started at the Mason family home at 2 Winsley Road, and is listed in Cullingford’s Colchester Directory of 1910 as The Arclight Printing Dept at 1 Queen Street. Later the firm moved to Maidenburgh Street and then to the purpose-built factory next to the newly-opened Colchester bypass (the section known as Cowdray Avenue).
  •  The clock on Colchester Town Hall was donated by Charles Hawkins, which is why it is called Charlie according to a report in the Essex County Standard on March 22 1963. A four-line rhyme is quoted: “My name is Charlie, I keep good time, Some people grumble, Because I chime.” This coincided with a successful campaign to silence the clock which used to chime throughout the night.

SIR BOB RUSSELL