Mexborough and Swinton Times, November 21.
Council Clerk is to leave Conisbrough.
After 11 years as clerk to Conisbrough Urban Council, Mr R.F.Edwardson is to return to his home county of Durham.
Notice of his resignation was “received with regret” at last Wednesday’s meeting of the Finance Committee when it was announced that Mr Edwardson had accepted the post as clerk to Brandon and Byshottles Urban Council, near Durham city.
Mr Edwardson, age 49, was appointed to the Brandon post from a shortlist of six out of a total of 19 applicants. He will take up his new post on February 14.
Mr Edwardson said he tendered his resignation, “With many feelings of regret” as he had “enjoyed the challenge of the situation at Conisbrough over the past 11 years.”
He has served on the executive committee of the West Riding District Councils Associations National Executive.
Like his wife, Mrs Margaret Edwardson, the retiring clerk is a native of South Shields. He is a fellow of the Corporation of Secretaries, a member of the Institute of Local Government Administration, and holds the final diploma of the National Association of Local Government Officers.
Mr Edwardson began as a junior cleric with a North East firm of solicitors and in 1989, entered Local Government as a conveyancing and committee clerk in the Durham Town Clerk’s office.
On the outbreak of war he was appointed Deputy Food Officer for Durham City, until joining the Royal Army Pay Corps in 1940. He served in Accra, Ghana for a time.
On demobilisation he rejoined the Durham Town Clerk’s Department until in 1948 he became deputy clerk at Bellingham on Tees for five years before coming to South Yorkshire.
Both Mr Edwardson, who is a member of Conisbrough Youth Council and his wife have taken a full part in local activities. Mr Edwardson is a local preacher in the Methodist Church and a circuit steward of the Doncaster South Circuit. His wife has been a teacher at Conisbrough Station Road School for approximately 9 years. For some years she was also responsible for the senior Department of the Methodist Church Sunday School.
The couple, both on the committee of Denaby Tom Hill Youth centre, have three sons; Geoffrey (21), an ex-pupil of Mexborough Grammar School, where his brother Stewart (14) is now at present in the Lower Six, has now completed his final year of a Bachelor of Law Honours Degree at Manchester University. He has in mind a career in local government. The youngest son, Richard (8) is at Station Road Junior school