Showing posts with label Boroughbridge. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Boroughbridge. Show all posts

Tuesday 8 September 2020

Bishop William Stubbs (1825-1901): a devout Yorkshireman

This is something I meant to write before, but it got lost in other work.  I'm afraid the alignment of text in this is a little haphazard - Google Blogger was not co-operating!  


William Stubbs by Hubert von Herkomer
William Stubbs, scholar, clergyman, Regius Professor of History at Oxford and finally Bishop of Oxford, was much loved.   A contributor to the Bucks Herald on 18 January 1802 in a column looking back over the year in the diocese of Oxford wrote 
The one death which marks and makes a loss to diocese, Church, country, and literature is that of good Bishop Stubbs, kind Bishop Stubbs, grand Bishop Stubbs, of the winning face, fatherly heart, humorous fancy, fine nature, wide and magnanimous tolerance, keen sympathies.  
William Stubbs was born in Knaresborough in 1825 and his roots in Yorkshire were of importance to him to the end of his days.  "So long as I last, I continue a devout Yorkshireman," he wrote not long before his death.

He grew up in a place rich in historical associations with important national events.  All around him were places where his forebears had lived for generations – in the written records the Stubbs family can be found, farmers and yeomen, in the Forest of Knaresborough from the mid 14th century.  In Bishop William Stubbs & Knaresborough, an article by Robert M Koch in the Yorkshire Archaeological Journal (Vol 82, 2010), you can find an evocative account of how the layers of history with which he was surrounded laid the foundation for William's career as a pioneering mediaeval historian.

He was drawn to the study of history very early on in his life and he recommended local and personal history to others as a way of connecting with the social and political history of the country.

His biographer W H Hutton (the biography can be read here) wrote that in 1886 William gave a talk in Crewe in which he took himself as an example.  Hutton doesn't give his source for his quotation and there are errors which William would not have made – perhaps it was an early draft or a newspaper report.

I wonder if the talk was at the Crewe Mechanics' Institute.  He presented prizes there on at least one occasion when he was Bishop of Chester and you will see that at the end of this quotation he encourages them with his own example of success, saying "please to remember that I am just as much a working man as any of you":
You do not mind my taking myself for an illustration.  
Where was I born? Under the shadow of the great castle where the murderers of Thomas Becket took refuge in 1170, and where Richard II was imprisoned in 1399.  My grandfather's house stood on the site where Earl Thomas of Lancaster was taken prisoner in 1322.  My first visits were paid as a child to the scene where Stephen defeated the Scots and where Cromwell defeated Prince Rupert; my great-grandfather had a farm in the township where King Harold of England defeated Harald Hardrada;  and one of my remoter forefathers had a gift of land from John of Gaunt in the very same neighbourhood where I was born.   
As you can see, William is referring to some famous battles fought in the North and West Ridings.  His forefather John Stubbs had a grant of newly cleared land at Birstwith in the Forest of Knaresborough from the prince and soldier John of Gaunt, the Duke of Lancaster, on 27 February 1387.  I think it wasn't his great-grandfather who farmed at Stamford Bridge, but his 3xgreat-grandfather, John Wright.  Further on, it was his great-grandfather who was out in the Gordon riots.

Now he turns – he was a precociously clever little boy – to events that happened when he was four and five: the arson at York Minster in 1829; the death of the King on 26 June 1830; the July Revolution  of 1830 in France when Louis Philippe, Duc d'Orléans, overthrew Charles X; and the election of the statesman Henry Brougham in 1830.  Brougham was a major force in the passing of the 1832 Reform Act and the 1833 Slavery Abolition Act.  
What do I remember first?  Well, perhaps the first thing I do remember was the burning of York Minster – then the death of George IV, then the second French Revolution, then the election of Lord Brougham for Yorkshire, then the Reform Bill and the Emancipation of the West India Slaves. What sort of connection had I with soldiers and churchwardens, and such like?  Oh, my grandfather was out in Lord George Gordon's Riots; and all of my ancestors, so far as I can trace, served the office of churchwarden in their time.    
You may smile at this – perhaps I was lucky in the circumstances of birth and associations – but mind you, on every one of the points that I have mentioned hangs a lot of history to which my mind was drawn by the circumstances that I have jotted down, and from which the studies began which, not to speak of smaller successes, have landed me in the dignified position to-night of having to advocate the study of history before an audience of the most intelligent people in England!  
You like, I dare say, to be told so.  As I am flattering myself as you see, I may give you a little of the overflow of my self-complacency; and please to remember that I am just as much a working man as any of you, every step of the life which is now drawing to an end having had, under God's blessing, to be worked out by my own exertions, so that to some extent I may put myself forward as a precedent for you.
He had indeed worked his way through life by his own exertions.

Saturday 14 March 2020

Thomas Redmayne of Taitlands

Thomas Redmayne of Taitlands has appeared on this blog before (you'll find him first mentioned in July 2014 and on several later occasions – here and here, for example), because he was married to the aunt of John Richard Stubbs.

(John's early life can be found at A Boroughbridge Boyhood in the 1850s: Introducing John Stubbs.  He became a solicitor in the new industrial town of Middlesbrough and his diaries from 1853 to 1907, though succinct, are of interest to students of Middlesbrough history because of the people he knew.  There are photographs of the diary pages, with some transcriptions,  from here onward.)

I had hoped, when I wrote about the Settle and Stainforth part of John Stubbs' life, that I would find out more about it from a local historian, so I was very pleased to be contacted by Catherine Vaughan-Williams.  And I was even more pleased to find that she was researching the life of Thomas Redmayne.  

Her article on Thomas Redmayne is appearing in this year's North Craven Heritage Trust Journal and should be available online before long.  In it you will find the story of his family, how he made his money, the personal tragedies that befell him and the fine country house he built, Taitlands, which Catherine describes here:
a luxurious country residence 'with spacious drawing, dining and breakfast rooms and nine bedrooms with dressing rooms', lavishly furnished with 'rosewood and spanish mahogany furniture, Brussels and tapestry carpets' and the usual accoutrements of early Victorian fashion. Attics, kitchens, scullery, butler’s pantry, cellars, and outbuildings, stables and coach house with pigeon loft, not to mention fourteen bee boles, completed the establishment. 


Thursday 10 October 2019

Taitlands near Settle, home of Thomas & Jane Redmayne

If you've ever read about John Richard Stubbs and his family on this blog – A Boroughbridge Boyhood in the 1850s introduces them – you might remember his visits to Taitlands, the country house near Settle where his mother's sister Jane Henlock lived with her husband Thomas Redmayne (c1797-1862) and their children.  

Jane was Thomas's third wife – the first two died young, probably in childbirth – and she brought up his daughter Jane and her own two children, Mary and Henry.

And now you can see photographs of Taitlands, which was for many years a youth hostel and has,over the last decade been lovingly restored to glory.  I'm sure the estate agents who are offering it for sale won't mind if I reproduce one of the photos here – perhaps it will prompt a reader to buy this beautiful house!

Taitlands, near Settle
John Stubbs describes visiting Taitlands several times in his diaries.  The house was barely twenty years old when he first knew it, as Thomas Redmayne had only begun building it in 1831, and so it must all have looked very new and grand to John.  When he was a teenage boy at Giggleswick School he used to visit the family.  In 1853 for example:
Saturday 29 January 1853  Went to Taitlands Aunt was poorly rode the horses came home with Uncle
One Friday, he went out there with a schoolfriend without telling Mrs Stubbs, with whom he was lodging, where he was going.  Mrs Mary Ann Stubbs was another of his aunts, the widow of his father's brother William Morley Stubbs.  She helped her sister Miss Isabella Henlock keep a school at The Terrace, Settle.  They also took in boys who attended Giggleswick School as lodgers:
Friday 30 September 1853
In the evening walked with T Bramley to Taitlands on the sly   Mrs Stubbs & Co knew not
After John left school, he visited the Redmayne family there on several occasions.

In August 1856 he stayed there for three weeks and described in his diary driving his aunt and cousins in the Phaeton – going shooting – taking a shot at a rabbit in a field "where I ought not" – visiting old schoolfriends – and enjoying "a little dance" when visitors came to Taitlands.

In 1857 he travelled there with his aunt Miss Isabella Henlock (not to be confused with her second cousin Miss Isabella Henlock of Settle).  Aunt Bell was there to visit her sister Jane Redmayne, and John was there to combine business with pleasure.  He went shooting with his cousin Henry Redmayne ("shot 2 hares"), went to Skipton Sessions from Settle station, and enjoyed the social life of Settle.  "Lots of folks" came to tea at Taitlands after calling on on his friend Thomas Stackhouse of Stainforth, who had recently married.

On Wednesday 13 January 1858 he travelled there for the wedding of his friend Dr Leonard William Sedgwick to Thomas Redmayne's daughter Jane.  John was one of the groomsmen and he stayed with Thomas Stackhouse.  I describe the customs of the weddings in rural Yorkshire in A Boroughbridge Boyhood in the 1850s: “Helped to arrange about the Wedding Breakfast”.  This was quite the grandest affair that John attended in those years:
Wednesday January 13
Went with Leonard & Mary Sedgwick to Taitlands to Leonards Wedding he paid my fare Tom Sedgwick joined us at Leeds   Fanny Stubbs met us at Settle Station   Had a Fly to Taitlands   Had tea there   Tom Sedgwick Wm Nixon & I went to sleep at Stackhouses Leonard went to Richardsons
Thursday January 14
Went to Taitlands to 1st breakfast & helped Uncle to arrange. Went back to Stackhouse’s got dressed   Took Leond to Church & they got wed.  Tom Sedgwick I Wm Stubbs Wm Nixon & Hy Redmayne were Groomsmen   Miss Nixon Mary Redmayne Mary Sedgwick Fanny Stubbs & Margaret Ingelby were bridesmaids. Went to Taitlands Sat down 30 to breakfast at ½ past 12  Bride & Groom started about 2. We some of us walked to Stainforth Foss & on to the rock in front of Taitlands went & had a 1st tea at Stackhouses Went to Taitlands we were above 50 of us Had a splendid dance Got to Stackhouses about ½ past 3 Went to bed about 5 Everything passed off firstrately
In September 1859 he left the office in Boroughbridge at about 2 o'clock taking three ferrets with him and arrived at Settle station at about 8 o'clock.  He visited friends and family in the area and he and his cousin Henry went about with guns and with the ferrets.  He spent his 21st birthday at Taitlands, going morning and afternoon to Stainforth Church – went with his aunt around Giggleswick and Settle as she made calls on friends and acquaintances – and went with the Redmaynes to Clapham to visit their relations the Marriner family at the vicarage and to have fun at Clapham Fair.  He and Henry went to a circus at Settle, went rabbiting about Horton, and shooting in Austwick Wood.  His stay lasted nearly three weeks.

And then in 1862 Thomas and Jane Redmayne died within days of each other.  Their son-in-law Leonard certified that Thomas died of "Chronic softening of the Brain 12 months" and of bronchitis, from which he had suffered for four weeks; Jane died of cancer.  

Their son Henry was only twenty years old, and the executors looked for tenants for Taitlands:
Yorkshire Gazette, 5 April 1862
To be Let, and may be Entered upon forthwith, Taitlands, a desirable Residence ... in the midst of very Romantic Scenery, with the Gardens and Grounds, and Seventeen and a Half Acres of Rich Grass Land.  The House comprises Entrance Hall, Dining, Drawing, and Breakfast Rooms, Eight Bed Rooms, besides Man Servant's Room, and Attics, Butler's Pantry, good Kitchens, Scullery, and excellent Cellars.  The Rooms are spacious and lofty.  The House is in good Repair, and in every respect a suitable Gentleman's Residence.  Good Coach House, Stables, Harness Room, and other convenient Outbuildings adjoining ...
The following year Henry's sister Mary married Dr James Sedgwick of Boroughbridge .  He was Leonard's younger brother and they were married in London, presumably from Leonard and Jane's house:
Morning Post 19 February 1863
Sedgwick - Redmayne.  On the 14th inst., at St Thomas's, Portman-square, by the Rev W Richardson, incumbent of Stainforth, Yorkshire, James Sedgwick, Esq., of Boroughbridge, to Mary, younger daughter of the late Thomas Redmayne, Esq., of Taitlands, Settle, Yorkshire
Five years later, Henry died at Taitlands:
Yorkshire Post & Leeds Intelligencer, 19 March 1868
Redmayne - March 13, at Taitlands, near Settle, aged 26, Henry Redmayne, Esq
Yorkshire Post & Leeds Intelligencer, 21 March 1868
Stainforth - Military Funeral - At Stainforth, on Wednesday, the members of the North Craven Rifles attended the funeral of Ensign Redmayne, who died on the 13th inst., aged 26 years.  The mournful procession, headed by the rifle corps, the band playing the "Dead March," proceeded from the deceased gentleman's residence, at Taitlands, to St Peter's Church, Stainforth, where his body was interred in the family vault.  The funeral service was read by the Rev Mr Hearnley, after which the accustomed number of three volleys were fired over the grave by the members of the corps
The Taitlands estate was offered for sale by Messrs Hirst & Capes of Knaresborough on 4 April 1868.  Hepper & Sons of Leeds sold the contents of the house.  A couple of their auction advertisements in the Yorkshire Post that June give us a flavour of the life that the family had known:
The Cabinet Furniture of Drawing, Dining, and Breakfast Rooms, in rosewood and Spanish mahogany; Chimney and Pier Glasses, Window Furniture, superior Brussels and Tapestry Carpets, Hearth Rugs, a number of Engravings, a few Books, a small collection of old China, Entrance Hall and fittings, a valuable Eight Days' Clock, which chimes every quarter and strikes the hours: cases of Stuffed Birds, Fire and Side Arms, the mahogany and other appointments of nine Bed and Dressing Rooms, Cut Glass, and transparent and stone China, in services; excellent Kitchen, Scullery, Laundry, and Dairy requisites
The Library of Books, loose Engravings, contents of bedrooms Nos. 5, 6, and 7, valuable guns, superior double brougham, two sets superior harness, Green's lawn mower, and various other effects.
John's friend Thomas Stackhouse bought the house.  He died on 1 April 1872, aged 38, leaving his widow and children to live in the house for many more years.

Friday 3 March 2017

Richard Carass

Another photograph from John Carass.  He comments, "A well-dressed gentleman complete with billy-can!"  I think Richard carries himself well; there's a confidence about that stance!  The photo probably dates from the 1920s.
Richard Carass 1843-1934
Richard Carass was a few years younger than John Richard Stubbs, who predeceased him.  I noticed Dr Dagget in the list of people attending Richard's funeral - he was married to John's niece.

Thursday 2 March 2017

Richard Carass, butcher & farmer of Boroughbridge

John Carass has very kindly provided me with this photograph and transcriptions of newspaper articles about Richard Carass.  A lovely glimpse of the past in Boroughbridge.

From l. to r., Richard, William & George Denis Carass
The Carass butcher's shop on St James Square
Richard Carass is on the left, his son William is centre, and William's son George Denis is on the right.  Photograph taken about 1918.


BOROUGHBRIDGE'S OLDEST MAN 
Daily Walks at 90 
MEMORIES OF MR R. CARASS

A wonderfully active nonagenarian is Boroughbridge's oldest inhabitant, Mr Richard Carass, who, although he will be 91 in June, still likes to take a stroll of three or four miles every day, and is a familiar figure about the old township. The Carass family have been butchers in Boroughbridge for many generations, and the shop in St. James Square, where Mr. Carass was born, has been a butcher's shop since 1770. It is the only one in Boroughbridge that has remained in the same name for such a great number of years. Mr. Carass retired from active participation in the business about 16 years ago, and it is now carried on by his son. Mr. William Carass.

 "More Townlike"

He recalls that in his grandfather's time, St James Square used to be the butchers' shambles, and said he could just remember the days when Boroughbridge was an important coaching centre, and the post-horses were changed amid great bustle at the 'Crown'. Before the coming of the railway, which was first extended as a branch line from Pilmoor, he could remember barges coming up from York with coal and other supplies. Mr. Carass is the oldest member of Boroughbridge Methodist Chapel, with which he has been associated all his life.

[Copied from a newspaper cutting dated around May 1934. John Carass. Jan 1995,] 


 FUNERAL OF MR R. CARASS 
OLDEST INHABITANT OF BOROUGHBRIDGE 
Long Service for Methodism 
WELL-KNOWN BUTCHER

The funeral of Mr. Richard Carass of Holme Lea, Boroughbridge, who died at the age of 91, took place on Tuesday. Mr. Carass was the town's oldest inhabitant, and up to 17 years ago carried on business as family butcher, cattle dealer, and farmer, and was a familiar figure in the Leeds and local cattle markets. The shop in St. James' Square has been in the Carass family since the business was established in 1770, and in now carried on by the son, Mr. Wm. Carass. 

All his life he has been associated with Methodism, and was at one time a Sunday school teacher and member of the choir in the Wesleyan Church. He remembered the present church being built, and was Chapel Steward when the fiftieth anniversary was celebrated. Up to the last, he attended the Sunday evening service. 

He is survived by four sons and a daughter. 

The funeral service in the Methodist Church was conducted by the Rev. W. H. Pritchard, and the hymns "Jesu, Lover of my Soul" and "Rock of Ages" were sung. Miss A. E. Jebson officiated at the organ, and played "Be thou Faithful unto Death" (Mendelssohn) before the service, and "I know that my Redeemer Iiveth" (Handel) as the cortege left the church. The interment followed at Boroughbridge cemetery. 

The chief mourners were :-  Miss Carass (daughter), Mr. Wm. Carass (son), Mr. H. Carass (Leeds, son), Mr. and Mrs. R. Carass (son and daughter-in-law), Mr. A. Carass (Leeds, son), Mr. D. Carass (grandson), Misses M. and V. Carass (grand-daughters), Mr H. Carass (Leeds, grandson), Mr. and Mrs.Walker (Green Hammerton) Mrs Hodgson (Leeds,Niece) Miss Webster (Leeds, niece), Mrs F.Fawell (Sand Hutton, niece)  

Others present were Mr Wm Bacon and Miss Bacon, Mr. H. Hawking, Mr J.J. Webster, Mr. D. Green, Mr. J. Smith (Scriven), Mr. and Mrs. E. Kitching (Knaresborough), Dr. H. I. Daggett, Mr. and Mrs. S. G. Pagett, Mr. and Mrs. W. Campbell, Mr. and Mrs. Jebson and Miss Jebson, Mrs. J. Stevenson, Mr. R. and Miss Hawking, Mr. Webster; Mr. C. Clarke, Miss Lockwood, Mr. B. Johnson, Mr. D. 
Johnson, Mr. Westerman (Leeds), Miss Harrison, Mr. A. Pickering (Scriven), Mr. J. Wilkinson, Mr. and Mrs. T. A. Pickering (Kirby Hill), Mr. J.K. Pickering, Mr. Willis (Cundall) Mr and Mrs. Gill, Miss Parlour, Mr. and Mrs. Winpenny, Mr. and Mrs, R. Dearlove Dishforth, Mr. T. Reed., Mr. Curry, 
Mr. B. Dickenson, Mr. H. Crayke (Tanfield), Miss M. Knowles, Mr. and Mrs. W. A. Knowles (Broom Close), Mr. and Mrs. Palmer, Mr. and Mrs Topham, Mr. A. Ramsdale, Mr. Crispin, Mr. and Mrs. W. Steele, Mr. T. Walker (Knaresborough), Mr. H. Mawtus, Mr. E. Mawtus, Mr. Ellis, Mrs. Summers, 
Mrs. Darnton, Mrs. E. Umpleby, Mr. Rust, Mrs. Pritchard, Mr. Morris, Mr. Nicholson (Minskip), Mr. Clayton, Mr. Buckle, Mr. and Mrs. F. Buck, Mr. S Smith, Mr. W. Mudd, Mr. Monkman, Mr. Nicholsnn. (Aldborough), Mr. R. Bentley (Roecliffe), Mr. Wynne, Mr. G. Sadler, Mr G. Dean, Mr. W. Roe, Mr. Waid, Mr. W. Dickenson, Mr: Clayton. Mr H. Reed Mr. W Robinson, Mr. Kershaw, Mr. H. Sixty, Mrs. Waterhouse, Mrs. Lofthouse, Mr. Lumley, Mr. J. Pickering, Mr. Skaife, Miss. Robinson. , 

There was a beautiful floral wreath from "The Family," and a cross from Dennis, May and Vera. Other tributes were from Alfred and Annie; Mrs Fawell; Jennie and Annie; Fannie; Emest; Mr and Mrs Jebson and daughters; Mr and Mrs Westerman; Mr and Miss Bacon; Mrs Stephenson; Mrs C.H. Knowles; Mary and Carrie; Mr and Mrs J . Wilkinson; Mr and Mrs J . Palmer; Mr and Mrs S.G. Pagett; Mr and Mrs Topham and Family; Mrs Brewer; Mr and Mrs Cambell; Mr and MrsE.B.Morten; Mr and Mrs W. Steele; Mr and Mrs G.W.Mudd: Kelly Brothers; Mr and Mrs G.H.Sixty; Mrs Beedham; Methodist 

[Copied from a newspaper of November 1934.  John Carass (Great grandson)]


Yorkshire Post & Leeds Intelligencer, 12 November 1934
CARASS. - November 11, at Holme Lea, Langthorpe, Boroughbridge, aged 91 years, RICHARD CARASS.  Interment at Boroughbridge Cemetery to-morrow (Tuesday), November 13.  Service at Methodist Church at 2.30pm.  Friends please accept this (the only) intimation 

Friday 13 November 2015

Papers deposited at NYCRO

I have now deposited all the papers relating to John Richard Stubbs with the North Yorkshire County Record Office.

The deposit includes his diaries and also family letters mainly from the 1870s.  The letters from Ellis Macfarlane of Helensburgh written during their engagement and in the early years of their marriage are particularly lively and interesting, as are the letters from John's mother.

Anne Weatherill's diary from 1863 – which is such a tiny scrap of a document that over the years the family has had several moments of fearing we had lost it – is now also safely at NYCRO, I'm glad to say!

Saturday 25 July 2015

Days of plenty in Redcar: a middle class household before the First World War


In old age, Mrs Katharine Isobel Ellis Hill (1905-2005) looked back to the golden times before the First World War broke out ... when she lived with her parents and her brothers in the little hamlet then called Nunthorpe Station, and they went to visit her father's parents in Coatham ...

Her memory of the end of those happy times was very vivid and painful:

King's Head, Newton-under-Roseberry
On Aug 4th 1914 my godmother had a picnic for the young people staying with her & about 12 of us walked 3 miles across the fields, climbed Roseberry, had tea at the King's Head & walked 3 miles back.  
As I ran across the last field & the others went away I crossed the road & saw my father in his Territorial Uniform (khaki) vanish round a bend on his motor bike – I called after him but he did not hear – 
I rushed into the house & asked why? & someone said, 
"There's a war with Germany, so be a good girl."   
I never see that corner of the road without seeing my father on his way to Ypres & the Somme.  7 weeks later Duncan was dead; our house was closed for the duration & I was parted from all my little friends, pets, the garden (& all sense of security forever) & the servants who were old friends.
Katharine's brother, Duncan Stubbs
(Her father's account of the day is here and an account of the death of her brother Duncan is here.)

But to return to life before the War ... 

Katharine looked back across the decades to meals at her grandparents' house, 7 Trafalgar Terrace, Coatham.

7 Trafalgar Terrace, Coatham, in 1904

Her grandfather John Richard Stubbs, had grown up with the open hospitality of his mother and her neighbours in Boroughbridge.

Her grandmother Ellis Macfarlane grew up on the west coast of Scotland, in Helensburgh.  Her father Duncan Macfarlane was a Canada merchant; her mother Mary (also a Macfarlane) was the "lovely little girl" mentioned in Three Nights in Perthshire; with the description of the Festival of a 'Scotch Hairst Kirn' (1821).

This little book, several times reprinted, recounts the author's visit to Mary's childhood home – Ledard, "a large, beautiful farm-house" near the head of Loch Ard.

Mary's father, Donald Macfarlane, had himself taken the great Sir Walter Scott to inspect the nearby waterfall, which Scott described to great dramatic effect in Waverley and Rob Roy.

(Sir Walter hasn't been in fashion in England for many years – this post on Louis Stott's literary blog will put you in the picture).

The book describes the harvest festivities, with plentiful accounts of the food and drink:
sweet and ewe milk cheese, some of the delicious trout for which the neighbouring lochs are famous, basons of curds, with bowls of sour and sweet cream, and piles of crispy oatcakes, together with rolls and butter. 
So we can imagine that, with that sort of family background, food played a significant part in John and Ellis Stubbs' daily life.

Monday 27 October 2014

John Richard Stubbs' diary for 1907

This is the last of the diaries.

John retired the following year.  He and Ellis left Park End, Ormesby and returned to live again in Coatham, at 7 Trafalgar Terrace.  He gave his law library to Middlesbrough Town Council in 1908.

These diaries probably survived because they were stored in the office.  In the 1990s they were discovered again in old deed boxes in the offices of the successor firm in which John's grandson, great-granddaughter and great-grandson-in-law worked for most of the 20th century: Meek, Stubbs & Barnley of Albert Road, Middlesbrough.

John died on 6 December 1916 at Coatham.

All John's diaries & papers are, as of 10 November 2015, at the North Yorkshire County Record Office.