Showing posts with label lythe. Show all posts
Showing posts with label lythe. Show all posts

Saturday 5 March 2022

The Atkinsons of Scaling Dam in the 17th & 18th centuries

This is the sort of thing that one always hopes for – in 2013 I posted the Whaling Journal 1774 of Thomas Atkinson of Kirkleatham and articles about the Atkinson family of Scaling Dam.  And recently I was contacted by Stella Richmond Sterry, a descendant of Thomas's sister Jane Galilee (as I am myself) – but she has the family Bible!

And so, armed with all that lovely information, I've been able to do more research on the family.  I hope it's (a) of interest and (b) of use to people who are trying to disentangle their own Cleveland Atkinsons.  

An extra bonus for me is that I get to go back again to the Civil Wars, which I left reluctantly after finishing work on Alice Wandesford in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms 

………

The young Thomas Atkinson who took the whaling voyage in 1774 (you can find it here) was the eldest son of Thomas Atkinson (1722-92), Master of Sir William Turner's Hospital at Kirkleatham.

In 1788, towards the end of his life, Thomas Atkinson senior repaired his father's family Bible, which had been damaged after his father's death in 1755.  And in it, very wisely, he left a written record which he entitled "From Oral Tradition".  He began with the story of his great-grandfather Atkinson, who was a soldier in the Parliamentarian Army during the Civil Wars – the Wars of the Three Kingdoms – and who lived afterwards at Scaling Dam.

Scaling Dam was (and is) a hamlet more or less half way along the moors road between Guisborough and Whitby.  Then, the North Riding of Yorkshire was thinly populated and the moors were wide and empty.  The antiquarian Ralph Thoresby, F.R.S., (1658-1725) took the moors road in November 1682 and didn't like it at all, recording in his diary that he travelled "over the rotten Moors for many miles without anything observable."

O.S. map 1888-1913
CC-BY-NC-SA National Library of Scotland

The hamlet's name doesn't come from the reservoir which was built there in the 1950s – it appears, for example, as Skallingdam in the 1675 map of John Ogilby.  I suspect the hamlet was given its name to show it was a sort of outpost of the village of Scaling but near the dam – the Dam Bridge can be seen on the map above.  It was, of course, a very practical place for a settlement, being on the moors road at the junction with the road to Staithes.  It isn't surprising to see that the 1888-1913 map shows both a pub and a smithy, both of which must have been there for very many years.  Both Scaling and Scaling Dam were in the parish of Easington in Cleveland.

Atkinson the Parliamentarian Soldier

The family didn't remember the Soldier's Christian name, but knew that he had been at the battles of Marston Moor (1644), Naseby (1645), Preston (1648) and Dunbar (1650).  The fact that Marston Moor seems to be his first major battle suggests the Soldier was a Northerner, and the fact that he spent the rest of his life in Scaling Dam seems to me to show that he was almost certainly an East Cleveland man.  It's hard to think an outsider would find his way to Scaling Dam in the middle of the 17th century.

The Soldier used to talk of the battle of Dunbar, Oliver Cromwell's miracle victory.  The histories say that when the right wing of Scottish cavalry broke under the English attack, Oliver Cromwell and General Lambert didn't allow the English troopers to go in pursuit and, as the troopers regrouped, they sang the 117th Psalm

O praise the Lord, all ye nations:
praise him, all ye people.
For his merciful kindness is great toward us:
and the truth of the Lord endureth for ever.

When the Soldier looked back on the battle, Thomas wrote, he used to say of the singing

their Notes were more pleasing to Him who is the Giver of all Victory than the Clashing of Swords and roaring of Canon.  

The Soldier was very probably a member of one of Cleveland’s Trained Bands, the local militias made up of householders and their sons, who were obliged to turn out when summoned for training and action.  The ability to read and write was spreading fast among the common people at this time, but the sort of family that was liable for Trained Band service would certainly produce a literate man like the Soldier, whose constant reading of Scripture led him to have, as Thomas wrote, "the Bible and Testament almost by Heart".

Soldier Atkinson was in the minority in the North Riding of Yorkshire, which was almost entirely Royalist in sympathy – though many, if not most, people didn't want to choose a side at all and simply wanted to be left in peace.  The North Riding gentlemen who supported Parliament had a difficult time raising troops and the troops, when assembled, weren't keen.  Sir Henry Foulis reported that a Cleveland foot regiment that had mustered 500 men at Yarm had rapidly dwindled to 80 at the approach of the enemy.  (see War in Yorkshire: 1642-1643)

Parliamentarian gentry included the Foulis brothers, whose father Sir David Foulis had been put in the Fleet Prison for several years because he opposed the King’s man, Sir Thomas Wentworth (the story can be found here) but their family estates were at Ingleby on the western escarpment of the moors.

A Parliamentarian gentleman from the close neighbourhood of Scaling Dam was Nicholas Conyers.  In fact he came from the parish of Easington itself, being the son of Nicholas Conyers of Boulby, and, like Soldier Atkinson, he was at Marston Moor.  Two of his brothers died fighting for the King.

Nicholas Conyers was in the Scarborough garrison under Sir Hugh Cholmley of Whitby when Cholmley changed sides and took the town over to the Royalists in 1643.

Cholmley first made sure that anybody wanting to leave Scarborough before it became Royalist had left the town.  Many did, including Nicholas Conyers.  If Soldier Atkinson was there with Sir Hugh's forces, he too will have left for the Parliamentarian garrison at Hull.

Atkinson the Soldier was clearly one of the Godly – a Puritan – and committed to Parliament's cause.  This makes him an interesting figure in the overwhelmingly Royalist North Riding.  Perhaps there were many more like him among the ordinary men of Cleveland, but we only know about the gentry and we don't know how many of the Soldier's neighbours and relatives shared his views.  And we don't know what his views were – how ardent a Puritan he was, how radical a Parliamentarian.

Thomas describes the Soldier as a subaltern.  I've checked with Phil Philo (do not miss his new blog Of Things Trent-North) and this was not a term used at the time.  I think all we can say for definite is that his family remembered that he had men under him.  So he could have been a junior officer, or a sergeant or a corporal.  Nor do we know if he fought in the foot or the cavalry.

Pikemen.  Photo by John Beardsworth

In the same way, Thomas thought that he lived to a very great age "being near a hundred before he died".  This isn't any help in identifying him, as the Easington parish registers for the time are fragmentary and don't record the age anyway.  But we can certainly say that he was notable in the area, with his past history of bloody and brutal warfare, his command of the Bible and his great age.  

After the fighting stopped, everyone must have had to learn to live together and mend the divisions within families and neighbourhoods.  It can't have been easy after so many deaths and so much destruction. 

We don't know how the Soldier made his living before and after the wars, but we can guess that if his father was a farmer then he wasn't the eldest son, because then he would have been needed on the land.  So he would have had a trade.  At some point the Soldier married and had at least one son, whose name was John, who was "brought up to the business of a Tanner", so perhaps the Soldier was a tanner himself.  

Tanning was a vital industry at this time, with leather necessary for so many things, from boots, shoes and gloves to horse collars, and Scaling Dam was a good place for the tanning process, with water from the Dam Beck nearby.  Tanning was done in pits lined with timber.  The bark of young coppiced oaks was used, or lime, and the process took time, hard manual labour and skill.  Most villages had a leather worker and they were to be found in much larger numbers in towns.  Tanners often farmed on the side.

Saturday 6 February 2021

On the Sea Cliffs of Cleveland: 1864

A more appreciative and detailed account of the walk taken by J.G. in 1866 (see last blogpost) is that described by William Stott Banks in On the Sea Cliffs of Cleveland, which appeared on 1 October 1864 in the Wakefield Free Press and West Riding Advertiser [1] .  In his voice we hear someone with an acute eye for the landscape, someone deeply interested in places and people, their language and their lives.

William Stott Banks (1820-72) was a self-taught, self-made man.  He only had a few years of formal education and that was in the Wakefield Lancasterian School – in the Lancasterian system, the teacher taught the top pupils and they taught the younger or weaker pupils, so saving the cost of paying more teachers and ensuring that in large classes a child got at least some personal attention.  He started work at the age of 11 as office boy for a local solicitor and when he was 18 he kept his family with his wages.  So it was by self-education and by hard work that he became a solicitor, clerk to the Wakefield Borough Magistrates, and mainstay of the Mechanics' Institute.  Never forgetting his own past, he was impelled by a strong desire to help the education and well-being of others.

He was also the author of the acclaimed Walks in Yorkshire, which began in 1864 as a series in the Wakefield Free Press and in 1866 appeared in book form – I have listed the articles in the Notes below under [2].  

He had a deep interest in dialect and wrote one of the earliest glossaries of a Yorkshire dialect in his List of Provincial Words in use in Wakefield, so he is always attentive to how placenames are pronounced and the variety – though he found it had lessened with more widespread education – of local accents.  And so he noted in his articles on Cleveland that Cringley [Cringle] Moor and Cold Moor End were pronounced "Creenay and Caudmer End", that Chop Gate was Chop Yat and Slaethorn Park in Baysdale was Slaytron.

He had an appreciative eye for distinctive features of the landscape, describing Roseberry Topping as "that sweet green cone" and Freeborough Hill as "peculiar, round topt Freeburg".  And he liked facts and figures, so in this article he includes, for example, details of the number of cobles at Staithes.

In On the Sea Cliffs of Cleveland, Banks begins by outlining the extent of Cleveland, which was the name given to the ancient wapentake of Langbaurgh.  (I've relegated my explanation of 'wapentake', local government and how the names Cleveland and Langbaurgh have been used over the years to footnote [3]).  

The litany of names in his opening paragraph has a lyrical quality:

Cleveland is bounded by the Tees and Sea Coast from near Newstead Hall, two and a half miles above Yarm, to East Row Beck the same distance N.W. of Whitby; then by this beck for a mile inland, whence the boundary, turning south, crosses Swarth Howe to the Esk opposite Sleights; follows the Esk and the Murk Esk and the beck below Hazle Head to Wheeldale Howe; runs westward along the high tops of the moors, Shunner Howe, Loose Howe, White Cross, Ralph Cross and Flat Howe, and by Stoney Ridge, over Burton Head; continues by Hasty Bank, Coldmoor End and Cringley Moor; bends south at Carlton Bank for above two miles and then again goes west over Arncliff, north of Mount Grace, and down the Wisk, and turns round Appleton up to the Tees again – thus taking in a good deal of moorland and sea coast, beside the broad level of the Cleveland vale.

This is a picturesque and valuable tract of country, has lands good for farming, fine woods, much ironstone and alum shale – the former fast altering the aspect of many parts – numerous country mansions, villages and towns and enterprising fishing population, places for sea side visitors, a large centre of iron smelting (Middlesborough), two or three alum works, passenger and mineral railways completed and in progress.  It is now more interesting to holiday tourists than it probably will be after further development of its mineral wealth, when others of the hitherto quiet dales shall be busy with furnaces and black with their smoke.

He and his friends began this stretch of their Yorkshire walks by making for the coast:

Travelling after dark towards Redcar, the glare of successive furnaces accompanied by clouds of smoke, alternating with the gloomy breaks that come in between, give a striking appearance to the iron-smelting country.

The works were within 4 miles of Redcar but the locals assured him that the smoke didn't reach them.  He calculated that at the end of August 1864 there were 250 lodging houses and inns in Redcar and Coatham, catering for above 1,000 visitors, and as for fishing, there were only 8 or 10 cobles, carrying 3 men a piece.

From Saltburn by the Sea, 

a new place so called to distinguish it from the little old village of two or three houses, lying just below in a hole near the level of the seashore
they climbed Huntcliff and went on through fields.  A farmer had advised them

"gang doon t'gress an you'll get t'liberty o' cuttin off a vast o' gains" and so [we] came to Skinningrove by tortuous footways over the wasting sea cliffs, some cut down to mere gables of soft soil and destined soon to fall under the influence of sea and wind.  Timid people would find the narrow tracks difficult in a strong breeze with the rough sea beneath.

Harvesters were busy with "machine as well as scythe and sickle" cutting the wheat.  They followed the path along the cliff edge to Boulby Cliffs

In many parts we find no more space between the boundary wall of the fields and the edge of the upright cliff than is needed for the feet, and some of us were led for assurance of safety to hold by the wall ... 
These cliffs, partly from their perishable nature and partly from alum workings – extensive at Boulby – are continually falling; but for folk with steady heads this is one of the finest walks in the county

They walked down to Staithes, passing the Boulby alum house "half way down the long steep bank which ends at the Staithes hollow".  He writes appreciatively of Staithes, of its situation and its people: 

The ordinary tides come almost up to the houses and the sea is continually making breaches.  On ground now covered by shingle, houses and shops and a sea wall stood fifty years back.  There was the drapery and grocery shop kept by Saunderson whom Captain Cook served for eighteen months in his youth, but about 1812 the sea broke in and Mr Saunderson's successor removed stock and furniture and took the stones of the building and rebuilt the shop in Church street where it may still be seen.  

The fishermen of Staithes are strong, brave men ... and the women are helpful and as handy as they ...

Sixteen yawls belong to Staithes each carrying ten men and boys, and in the same months when these are employed twenty cobles manned by three men each are used.

He discusses how much they might earn – the large boats at least £20 a week an the cobles £6 a week – and he describes how, having stayed the night at the Black Lion

One of the party went in the morning to see what herrings were in but the wind was blowing strongly from the north-east and only the large boats could go out and catches were down.  A fish buyer said

"Neen at t'other 'ed neen; bud ah 'eerd somebody saying as ah coom doon t'street Mark ed six or seven thoosan – oo monny es eh?"  "About five unerd ah 'eerd!"  "Shotten uns?"  "Ahs seer ah deen't knaw"

(Shotten herring were fish that had spawned)

He describes the fish – which "comes to several West Riding towns" – "salted and drying in the air, long white rows of it stretcht on rods upon the cliffs".  There being no safe anchorage for the yawls, from Saturday morning to Sunday evening and when unemployed, they were taken into the Port Mulgrave harbour.  As they walked over to Rosedale Wyke, they saw 15 yawls sailing round to Staithes.

He was struck by Runswick – 

a fine bay ... the sloping banks, furrowed by streams, are large enough to hold a town of 5,000 people; but the village is stuck on ledges in a nook not unlike (in relation to available space) a corner cupboard in a room ... They say there is no horse and cart in the place and only ten fishing cobles and the population is about 410

... In the shale across the bay are the caves called hob-holes; and at the corner of a deep furrow which has a little beck through it the footpath goes up the steep and slippery Claymoor Bank and thence through fields to Goldsboro' and Lyth.  Climbing Claymer bank was found a serious business by some of us.  We were told by a farmer it was a road that did not please anybody, but we all got up and I hope those who likt it least may live long to remember it.  
We had pleasant views on our way of the broad blue sea with numerous ships, for the wind had changed and was now off the land, and we passed several tumuli, one remarkable for its size and position, on which stood a quiet horse patiently enjoying the splendid outlook over land and sea

Towards evening we strolled into Mulgrave Park by the Lyth gate and walkt through the grounds to the ruins of the old castle, a mile or so from the present house; saw the fine prospects down the slopes to the sea and to Whitby, with its abbey and lighthouses, and lookt into the deep and woody glens that cross the Park ... We stayed that night at the Ship Inn at Lyth and were very comfortable

Lythe, he wrote

stands on a hill which ends in the alum shale rocks of Sandsend Ness where are alum works.  The alum house is at Sandsend, the last sea side village of Cleveland, a tidy place contrasted with Staiths and Runswick, most of the residents of which are employed in alum making.  A little further on is East Row Beck, the Cleveland boundary, and stepping across that we entered the liberty of Whitby Strand opposite Dunsley Bay, and from there followed the new highway to Upgang and thence the cliffs into Whitby.

Do those examples of William Stott Banks' attractive, easy evocation of familiar scenes invites you to read more of his work?  You can find the volume Walks in Yorkshire: the North East, comprising Redcar, Saltburn, Whitby, Scarborough and Filey, with intervening places; and the Moors and Dales between the Tees, the Derwent, the Vale of York, and the Sea by W.S.Banks (Pub. London and Wakefield 1866) for free in Google Books [4].  Or you can buy a modern reprint.  The companion volume for the North West of Yorkshire evidently hasn't been scanned but secondhand copies of the original 1866 edition of Walks in Yorkshire: In the North West & In the North East can be found via online booksellers.

Notes

[1]    The Wakefield Free Press was a newspaper of eight pages, published every Saturday and costing one penny.  It ran from 1860 to 1902 and was owned by William Rowlandson Hall, a master printer aged 30.

[2]    The articles that appeared in the Wakefield Free Press:
27 Feb 1864  Walks in Yorkshire I. [an account of a walking tour with friends] Malham II 
5 March 1864  Ingleburg Cave, Chapel - Dent - and King's Dales III
12 March 1864  Wensleydale - Chapeldale - and Ingleburgh IV.
26 March 1864  Up Swaledale and across Wensleydale into Ribblesdale V
16 April 1864  Nidder - Langster - and Litton Dales.  Penyghent. VI
14 May 1864  Sedberg - Through Garsdale to Cotterfoss and Hawes - by Greenside, Dod and Cam Fells to Selside.  Past Moughton into Clapdale VII
25 June 1864  Upper Teesdale - Greta Dale and intervening Dales VIII., concluded on 
2 July 1864     do.-
16 July 1864  Cleveland - Upper Eskdale - over moors to Lewisham Station IX
20 Aug 1864  Bilsdale - Ryedale - Hambleton Hills X
10 Sept 1864  Western Slopes of the Cleveland and Hambleton Hills XI
1 Oct 1864  On the sea cliffs of Cleveland XII
12 Nov 1864  Ilkley to Simon Seat - Burnsal and Rilston to Cold Coniston XIII
17 Dec 1864  At and about Pomfret XIV
31 Dec 1864  The Howgill Fells XV

In February 1866 the walks were published in book form
1 The North-West: Among the Mountains and Dales, from the Wharfe, Aire, and Ribble, to the Western and Northern limits of the County
II The North East: On the Moors and in the Dales between the Tees, the Derwent, and the Sea

In 1871 he published Walks in Yorkshire: Wakefield and its neighbourhood

[3]    Short(ish) and slightly tedious explanation of wapentakes etc:

A wapentake was a sub-division of the North Riding of Yorkshire; both wapentake and Riding are names that date back to the Danelaw – Yorkshire was divided into three Ridings (= thirds).  

For centuries, the wapentakes were a unit of civil administration (including justice) but the rapid and radical social change of the 19th century meant reform was needed and so in 1889 the administrative county of the North Riding came into being, governed by a County Council with Middlesbrough being a Borough Council.  

Then in 1967, local government in the area around the River Tees was reorganised and the short-lived unitary County Borough of Teesside was created.  It lasted until 1974 when a reorganisation of local government in England created another short-lived authority, the two tier Non-Metropolitan County of Cleveland (which lasted from 1974 to 1996).  At the same time, it was decided that Langbaurgh would be the name of one of the four districts of the new Cleveland authority and that it would be pronounced Langbar.  I can't remember why they came to that decision; perhaps someone will tell me.  Previously, the name was pronounced Langbarf, as can be seen from the Victoria County History (published 1923), which can be found on British History online here

Cleveland was replaced by unitary authorities in 1996: Redcar and Cleveland, Stockton-on-Tees, Middlesbrough and Hartlepool.  Now, together with Darlington, these authorities are members of the Tees Valley city region (that is, a combined authority with a directly-elected mayor) administered by the Tees Valley Combined Authority.  The current Mayor is Ben Houchen.

Cleveland was also the name of the Parliamentary constituency created in 1885; it was replaced by the Redcar constituency and the Cleveland & Whitby constituency in 1974.

[4]    Blogger won't let me edit the hyperlink for Walks in Yorkshire: the North East, comprising Redcar, Saltburn, Whitby, Scarborough and Filey, with intervening places; and the Moors and Dales between the Tees, the Derwent, the Vale of York, and the Sea, so here it is in full

Biographical notes on William Stott Banks

There is a wikipedia entry for him and he appears in the Dictionary of National Biography, which notes of his books, "Both works are remarkable for their completeness and happy research".  He was a good friend of the parents of the novelist George Gissing (1857-1903). 

He married Susanna Hick of Wakefield, daughter of Matthew Hick, watch maker, on 5 January 1850.  They lost four children as babies or in early infancy: William Henry; Oliver; Godfrey (died aged 3); and Alexander.  

William Stott Banks died at home in Northgate, Wakefield, at about 3 o'clock in the afternoon of Christmas Day 1872.  He was 52 years old.  His health had begun to fail some time earlier and in August he left for a tour of the Continent in the hope of recovery; he had been home a few weeks when he died.  He left his widow Susannah and two children, Dorothy aged 7 and Roland Campion aged 4.  Susannah died little more than a year later on 18 February 1874, and on 21 February 1880 Roland died.  Only Dorothy survived and she married in 1888 and had a family.  Her husband was the Revd Thomas Alexander Lacey, M.A, later Canon of Worcester Cathedral.  I think she may have been living with her mother's sister Arabella, who had married Joseph King.  They lived in Clifton, near York, and it was there that Dorothy's wedding took place.

The Sheffield Independent of 28 December 1872 recorded William's death:

Death of Mr W S Banks, of Wakefield

Mr W S Banks, of the firm of Iansons, Banks, and Hick, solicitors, Wakefield, died at his residence in Northgate, about three o'clock on the afternoon of Christmas Day.  Mr Banks, who was a self-made man, was well known amongst the legal profession.  He was the author of 'Walks in Yorkshire' and some other similar works.  His health gave way some time ago, and in August he started for a tour on the Continent.  He returned home a few weeks ago, and gradually sank.

And the Wakefield Express of 4 January 1873 described how the funeral procession started from his home in Northgate at 11 o'clock.  There were members of the Borough Police Force, headed by the officers, marching in double file, and six feet apart and then followed between forty and fifty gentlemen (councillors etc).  Behind came the mourning coaches carrying his widow and members of her family, including her sister Mrs King.  There were magistrates, the mayor and aldermen were there.

It was observable that several of the principal tradesmen along the line of route to the Cemetery had caused two or three shutters to be put up as a token of respect, and a great number of persons were to be seen as the funeral cortege passed along, notwithstanding the gloomy weather, witnessing the last of one so highly esteemed.

He was interred in the vault where his four infant children lay.

The Wakefield Express of 18 January 1873 carried a report of the Borough Magistrates' meeting.  They appointed a new clerk in Mr Banks' place and one of the magistrates, Dr Holdsworth, paid this tribute:

... Mr Banks was a self-made man – he was one of those gentlemen who had to work his way up in the world almost from obscurity.  

He was brought up in the Lancasterian School, and the only education he received in early life was in that institution, which he appears never to have forgotten.  He had devoted an amazing amount of time in past years to the cause of education, the value of which he could well appreciate; and after personally struggling very hardly with those difficulties which will ever beset the path of self-educated men, his great anxiety was to promote the intellectual and social well-being of others.  

By assiduous application to business and study, at the early age of eighteen he attained such a position that he became the support of his family; and, like a truly worthy young man, he maintained the, saving them from the bitter experience of poverty, and rendering happy an otherwise perchance needy home.  

As a public man, we know that for the past twenty years he has been connected with the Mechanics' Institution, which, in a great measure, owed its origin to his exertions, and to which he rendered invaluable assistance in the capacities of librarian, treasurer, and secretary; whilst he assisted other institutions in a variety of ways.  Nor must we omit to express our regret at the loss of a public official of this court – who both in his capacity as a lawyer and as clerk to the magistrates has performed his duties most efficiently.  

Having seen a very great deal of Mr Banks in his capacity as the clerk to the magistrates, I personally acknowledge the good advice and counsel I have always received from him.  So far back as 1862 and 1863 – upon the occasion of the marriage of the Prince of Wales, when there were many regulations necessary to be made – when his services were especially called into requistion – I personally received great kindness and assistance from Mr Banks.  His legal knowledge then proved, as in other cases of emergency, to be very extensive; indeed, he could be looked up to for sound advice upon all occasions of difficulty.



Saturday 12 December 2020

Runswick: a tale of landslips – and the cholera of 1866


The cliffside village of Runswick Bay 
[Photograph by mattbuck, reproduced under Creative Commons licence]
 
Runswick (the 'w' in the name is silent) lies on the coast a few miles north of Whitby.  Much loved for holidays and days at the seaside, to our sight it offers a charming view of red-roofed cottages nestling under the cliffs of a sandy bay.  But it was only after public taste changed with the Romantic Movement that it began to be considered pretty – and its existence, and the lives of its inhabitants, were for centuries very precarious, not just because of the dangers of the sea but also from the unstable shale cliffs ...  


Here we have the antiquarian Ralph Thoresby, F.R.S., (1658-1725) on a northern journey in the last years of the reign of Charles II – the sight of moorland in November is not one to cheer his heart, and his account reminds us that Roseberry Topping had a long while to go before it would acquire its famous profile:

Mon 13 November 1682

Morning up pretty early; ferried over the river at Stockton, thence to Acklam, where Sir William Hustler has a pretty seat, thence through a blind cross-road, to Marton, a church-town, and thence over the bad moors to Gisborough, famous for a stately abbey ... 

thence over the rotten Moors for many miles without anything observable; the sea at a small distance upon the left; and upon the right hand, hills, whereof a round one, called Roseberry Topping, is a mark for sailors; within a few miles of Whitby, we passed not far from Runswick, the place where, near by the sea-side, stood a little village of six or ten houses the last spring, of which I find from credible persons, the report we had of its being swallowed up of the earth, too true, though blessed be God, all the inhabitants were saved, they happening to be at a kind of wake (as the old manner is) at the house of a person immediately deceased, where observing the earth to crack and gape, made all their escape; shortly after which, the chinks grew suddenly wide, and the houses fell into the gulf. 

On the right hand we left Moulgrave [Mulgrave] Castle, that ancient fabric, and passed through Lith [Lythe], a pretty country town; thence over the Sands to Whitby. [1]

I think the original little village of Runswick stood a little to the north of the village today, which is described here by the Revd John Graves in his History of Cleveland (1808), who quotes from the 18th century naturalist and antiquarian Thomas Pennant [2]

Runswick ... is situated near the sea, and consists of a few scattered huts, inhabited by fishermen, and grouped irregularly together on the declivity of a steep and rugged rock; the projecting top of which juts forward in an awful manner and threatens at some future period to overwhelm the inhabitants.  The situation of the place is singular and must excite the curiosity of strangers; when in winding along the narrow paths between the houses,  they may on one side enter the door of one dwelling, and from thence look down the chimney of another in front.  Pennant observes that, 

"the houses here make a grotesque appearance, scattered over the face of a steep cliff in a very strange manner, and fill every projecting ledge one above another, in the same manner as those of the peasants in the rocky parts of China."  

The houses are sheltered on the north and north-west, and command a pleasing prospect into the bay, which is upwards of a mile in extent, – with Kettleness alum-works about a mile to the north-east.  The lower part of the town is almost choaked with sand, which fills up every passage; and in wet weather is dirty and unpleasant.

The Revd Graves was rather behind the times – for sensibilities formed by the Romantic Movement, Runswick could only be described as picturesque.  By the 1830s the village was becoming beloved of artists and tourists.  Some enterprising person, seeing commercial possibilities, decided to build a hotel at the Bank Top, equipped with all mod. cons. including a Water Closet.  

I wonder if it was completed on the generous scale originally intended and if it was initially as successful as predicted in the advertisement below; in the early years it changed hands with some frequency.  In the early 1860s it was run by a Mr Ivison, but in 1865 Mrs Wardale took it over.  It evidently looked an attractive prospect to people coming from outside because by the time of the 1871 census, George Marshall from Nottingham had taken it on.  He and his family had been in Felixkirk near Thirsk three years earlier – that was where his little daughter had been born.  By 1877 the Marshalls had gone and William Brown from Loftus had the hotel; he was still there in 1891.  

In the spring of 1860 the still unfinished hotel was up for sale:

Yorkshire Gazette, 21 April 1860 
All that New, Commodious, and Delightfully-situated Inn, known as the Albert Hotel, situate at Runswick Bank Top, in the Parish of Hinderwell, in the County of York, lately occupied by Jonathan Ramshaw.  This Property comprises a good Front Kitchen, Back Kitchen, Wash-House, Roomy Bar, Smoke Room, Commercial Room, Private Rooms, an excellent suite of Bed Rooms, Water Closet, Attics, Coach-house, Stabling, and all other suitable Out-Offices. 

Although the Premises are not entirely completed, they are in such an advanced stage that, with the bright prospect of an increasing Business, a Purchaser may confidently rely on his Purchase-Money with any small additional outlay being amply secured.

This is one of Mrs Wardale's advertisements:

Whitby Gazette 3 November 1866

The Sheffield (late Albert) Hotel, Runswick Bank Top 

Is delightfully situated, amidst the most romantic scenery of the Yorkshire Coast, and is fitted up with every comfort for the reception of Tourists and Visitors.  It is modern and very commodious, and the utmost attention and quiet may be relied upon.  Mrs Wardale, Proprietress.

The hotel was highly praised by one J.G., in an account in the Yorkshire Gazette of 14 July 1866 of the walking holiday he had taken along the coast:

as the accommodation is good and the charges moderate, it is desirable to remind the future tourists that there did not appear to be a house on the coast at which to stay where cleanliness, and civility, and comfort, and cheapness were to be had in combination so well as in this house.  Mrs Wardell is a widow, a middle-aged person, and has, so she said, lived in her early days with some of the aristocratic families in the west end of London.  The house was taken by her last year.  Persons desirous of enjoying the sea and the beautiful and romantic scenery in and around this locality cannot do better than secure accommodation here.

On the cliffside below the new hotel lay the thatched roofs of the village – the "town of Runswick" as the census enumerator described it in 1861 when he listed its inhabitants.  In 97 cottages, 430 people were living and there were four cottages standing empty.  The little low cottages would have blended into the cliff face, as they were all thatched (ling was used for thatching in moorland districts).  One thatched house has survived, the one that used to be occupied by the coastguard.

Roughly half of the population was aged 23 years and younger, which isn't surprising because it's only in recent years that the UK median age has risen to 40½.  (In 1911, it was 25 and it was 34 in 1975).  So Runswick was a place with many children.  Of the 430 people there, just 46 were aged 60 and over – and they included a 90 year old, who was the blind uncle of one of the fishermen.  

Like Staithes, further up the coast, Runswick was a self-contained and inter-related community with its own customs, superstitions and habits.  The name Calvert was by far the most the common surname in the village in 1861, followed by Patton, Taylor, Hutton, Beswick and Clark.  Its needs were served by a grocer & draper, four dressmakers and a tailor, two innkeepers, two joiners, three blacksmiths, and a painter who had been born in Chester.  

The vast majority of the population had been born in Runswick and the hundred or so people born outside the village were mostly from further along the coast or a little way inland, and some of those may have had family ties to the place.  The coastguards were appointed from outside the area – how could a local be trusted to deal with smugglers? – and in 1861 he was from Sheffield.  Of the Runswick-born who had left their birthplace, most had not gone many miles or had left for the towns of Stockton, Middlesbrough or Hartlepool.  And of course there were the Runswick-born men who were at sea.

The people of Runswick knew all too well the dangers of the sea.  In 1866, 650 lives were lost on average from shipwreck on the shores of the United Kingdom.  The likelihood of raising the funds for a lifeboat station at Runswick had looked remote – but then came an amazing offer from the people of Sheffield, who raised the money to donate a boat to the village.  It only remained to raise the money locally for its upkeep and for a boat house.  And so, in May 1866, 'The Sheffield' arrived in Whitby by train (carried for free by the railway companies) and was towed by the steamboat 'Rover' to its new home.  Mrs Wardale must have renamed her hotel in its honour.

The people of Runswick were tough and resilient.  For generations the men had been fishermen – at Runswick it was mainly the inshore fishery – and the women played a crucial role alongside them.  They had a hard life.  They got the bait, cleaned and baited the long lines, mended the nets, filleted the fish and packed it in salt.  They launched and hauled the cobles ashore and some of them carried heavy baskets of the catch to sell in outlying villages rather than to a dealer.  They fetched water from the beck and bread from the communal bakehouse, looked after the house and children and knitted for the family.  The children lent a hand alongside them.  

In 1861 there were 50 fishermen in the village and 5 men who described themselves as mariners, and they were all born in Runswick.  But alongside the fishing, mining – another dangerous occupation – was growing in importance and the men working in the mines were mostly from outside. 

There were ironstone mines a little way up the coast at Port Mulgrave.  At Kettleness, at the southern end of the bay, there were alum works which were still operating in the first part of 1866 but would close before long [3].  The jet works at Kettleness were certainly in operation only a few years before the 1861 census, because it was there in 1854 that a labourer at the jet works, Dalton Taylor, accidentally fell from the top of the cliff on to a piece of broken rock and was killed on the spot.  In 1861, 16 men worked in the ironstone mines and only one of them was born in Runswick.  Of the 18 men who worked as labourers, either at Port Mulgrave or Kettleness, 10 were Runswick-born men.

The sea, the mines, the precarious nature of Runswick's hold on the cliff edge – it isn't surprising to find that spiritual needs were not ignored.  As in Staithes, the villagers' independence of mind (and the Church of England's history of ignoring them) can be seen in their strong Nonconformism.  A Congregational Chapel was built in 1829, which had a Sunday School and a Day School – perhaps the 40 year old schoolmistress Miss Mary Agar from Danby, who lodged in the village in 1861, was the teacher there [4].  In 1854, a Primitive Methodist chapel was built.  The sand and lime together with 140 loads of stone had been carried to the site on the heads of the women of the village – which was how they carried heavy baskets of fish, mussels and baited lines, their heads protected by their distinctive bonnets – while the men had carted the heavier stone in handbarrows.  It was too steep for any horse and cart [5].  It became known as the High Chapel while the Congregational Chapel was the Low Chapel.

And it was among these strong and determined people that, in November 1866, an outbreak of cholera led to deaths – and then to a damning report on the state of the village.

Monday 8 July 2013

John Buchannan and the Isle of Skye

In 1840 John Buchannan was thirty years old, a widower with a little girl aged three.  His parents and his sister had died more than twenty years earlier.

In that year, he applied to the Court of the Lord Lyon in Edinburgh for a Grant of Arms.

Was he looking for a more secure social status?  Did his immediate family seem a little too ordinary for a young man who was rubbing shoulders with people from more privileged backgrounds?  His mother’s sister Jane Ayre (Arr/Aar) was married to the sailor James Pyman; they lived with John’s much younger cousins in the industrial hamlet of Sandsend.  His father’s sister Esther Buchannan had married master mariner William Hawksfield and had a large family; they lived in Church Street, Whitby.

Perhaps his imagination had been caught by the romance of his grandfather’s Scottish origins.  John was a man of a romantic turn of mind, a poet since his teens.  A connection with the world of Sir Walter Scott may have been irresistible.

Or possibly he was spurred to make contact with his father’s family because of the rumours of illegitimacy that seem to have dogged his life, fuelled by his physical resemblance to the family of the Earl of Mulgrave.  His mother’s fidelity to her marriage vows is guaranteed by her membership of the Silver Street chapel, which dismissed the banker John Holt jnr “for bad conduct,”  but gossip persisted; it seems very likely that rumours derive from her own birth.

John’s search for his Buchanan roots produced details of Buchanans living on the Isle of Skye in the 18th and 19th centuries, which may be of interest …

Friday 5 July 2013

Cousins from Sandsend: John Buchannan & George Pyman

In March 1808, a young married woman called Sarah Buchannan of East Row, Sandsend, was admitted as a member of the Silver Street Congregational Chapel in Whitby.

The Silver Street Chapel was built in 1770 for the Revd James Brownfield.  It was a thriving Calvinistic Congregational chapel with a prosperous middle-class congregation.  The chapel records (held at the North Yorkshire County Record Office) include well-known Whitby surnames such as Holt, English, Langborne and Scoresby and show that members came from far afield – from Northallerton, Newcastle, Huddersfield, London and Rotherham – and that there was a sister church in Guisborough. The minister between 1804 and 1819 was the Revd John Arundel (1778-1848.)

In the church book for the period can be found Sarah Buchannan’s account of her conversion experience, on the basis of which she sought admission as a member. The “Experiences” recorded in the book dwell particularly on sin, righteousness and the fear of hell.  They also show that some members had come to the chapel from the Methodists, and that most had listened to a variety of preachers before coming to Silver Street to hear the minister, Mr Arundel speak.
The Experience of Mrs Sarah Buchannan, admitted March 1808 
Sirs,
For 24 years I lived in a state of sin and wickedness although often reproved yet I did not see the misery of it until going with some friends to hear Mr Arundell preach he observed that he saw such a beauty in religion that he would not change if he was shown there was no hereafter       this somewhat alarmed me as I always thought it the gloomiest thing in life.  I pondered this in my mind for some time and one Sunday evening after leaving my companions and sitting alone I began to think in what an unprofitable manner we had spent the day in regard to [our] Poor Soul[s]        no sooner had the thought ceased in my mind than it pleased God to open my eyes to see myself in such a dreadful state my sins all rushing in upon me so that I began to despair of ever finding mercy for I was terrified day and night that I had committed the unpardonable sin and when I prayed I thought I only provoked God      in short I was so tormented in my mind that I thought hell itself could not be worse and was often tempted to take away my own life         but it pleased God he spared me a little longer and continuing in prayer to God to keep me from this evil it often came to my mind my grace is sufficient for others 2 Cor.12.9     And being in great distress of mind one day sat down to read and open'd in the 7th chapter of Matthew and reading the 7th he saith ask and it shall be given you, seek and you shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you for every one that asketh receiveth.   This was a comfortable passage to me as I was brought so low, so that I thought that if the Lord would spare me to recover that I would never sin again           but I had no sooner recovered than I fell away again as bad as ever and it is a mercy that I was ever called again          but the Lord opened my eyes again to see that I could do nothing of myself so that I may say that it is grace alone that made me seek so for God and not of myself so that I have ever enabled to rest my salvation in the merits of Christ and no further trust in any works of my own and it has been my supreme wish for to become a member of your church and to be united with the people of God I have ventured to ask admission.
Sarah Buchannan
Sarah’s younger sister Jane was also admitted a member, explaining in her ‘Experience’ that
for 19 years I run the race of the wicked but was insensible of although daily warned of it by a tender parent until being led by curiosity to hear Mr Arandale [Arundel] ordained

Henry Lord Mulgrave
Sarah and Jane were the daughters of Alexander Ayre (also spelt Aar and Arr).  He is said to have been a tenant of the Earl of Mulgrave, and to have come to the Whitby area from Renfrew.  He had himself been a member of the chapel from 1804 until his death in June 1806.

The sisters were to be the mothers of two remarkable Whitby men.  Against Sarah’s Experience is written in a later hand "mother of the late John Buchannan", and against Jane’s name "afterwards Mrs Pyman and the mother of the late George Pyman of Raithwaite".  John Buchannan (1810-91) was a prominent Whitby solicitor, his cousin George Pyman (1822-1900) was a shipping magnate and Mayor of West Hartlepool.

Quite a journey from their beginnings in the industrial hamlet of Sandsend, amongst the burning heaps of alum shale.

Sarah, who was born in 1784, was the wife of John Buchannan.  Some sources say that they married  on 5 February 1805.  John was a master mariner, born in Lythe.

Two children were born to Sarah and John Buchannan:  John, who was born at East Row, Sandsend, on 11 July 1810 and his sister Jane Elizabeth, who was baptised on 10 September 1812 at the Silver Street Independent Chapel in Whitby.  Young John hardly knew his parents – before his sixth birthday, his father was gone and his mother and his sister had both died. 

One family story tells that John Buchannan was lost at sea, drowned on the Haisbro Sands.  Another version holds that his ship was called the Pearl.  Years afterwards, however, his son John stated that that his father "left England and died abroad", a turn of phrase that suggests that perhaps he deserted his family.

While her husband was at sea, Sarah kept a shop in the house that she owned in East Row, Sandsend.  She had a sad life, and her Experience indicates that she was always of a sensitive and perhaps melancholic turn of mind.  A stanza of her son’s poem My Mother's Grave speaks of her grief following the loss of husband and baby daughter:
My Mother! whilst imprison'd here,
Thine was a life of melancholy;
When all which thou hadst deem'd most dear,-
The treasur'd feelings pure and holy,
The lov'd one who had cherish'd thee,
In sunny hours or days of gloom,-
The little bud whose infant glee
Was buried in the silent tomb,-
Were snatch'd away, and only I
Was left to soothe thy misery!
Sarah made her Will on 10 May 1816.  Her health was failing fast and her signature is shaky; she died on 20 June, aged 32.  She entrusted her little son to the Silver Street Chapel.  Mr Arundel, the minister, witnessed the Will, and Sarah named chapel members as her executors.  She left her "money, household Furniture and effects of every nature particularly my dwelling house … at Sandsend … together with the Gardens and everything thereto belonging" to her executors Edward Nettleship, baker of Whitby, Francis Norman, famer of Ruswarp, and Christopher Colthurst, dyer of East Row, Sandsend, in trust for her "dear son" John.

Sarah’s plan was that her young unmarried sister Jane should move into her house and shop and carry on with the business in order to provide a home and an education for John.  The house and the furniture were not to be sold until John reached the age of 21, unless Jane and the executors were agreed that it was necessary "for the improvement of my effects and the maintenance of my Son."

Sarah died in June 1816 and her Will was proved by Mr Nettleship and Mr Colthurst on 19 September 1816.  Her effects were sworn at "under £100" (under the system of banding that was in operation at the time); it did not include the value of the house.  The Death Duty Register shows that the value of the personalty bequeathed to John was £36.

In My Mother’s Grave, John, then aged 17, remembered his mother’s death:
Day after day I saw thee pine,
Till neither health nor strength was thine;
The hue of death was on thy cheek,
But now and then a hectic streak
Would tinge it with a deeper dye,
As if in solemn mockery.
I stood beside thy dying bed,
And strove to raise thy feeble head;
I gazed upon thy sunken eye,
And wept, but yet I knew not why, –
I dreamt not what it was to die.
His own health gave his guardians serious cause for alarm – his obituary writer recorded,
"When I was young," we once heard him say, "it seemed likely that I should die of consumption.  I went into the dales to stay a while with a good old Wesleyan called Willie Sinclair."
We don’t know how long John stayed in the dales with Willie Sinclair, whether he grew up with his aunt, or where he was educated (Whitby was proud of its schools), but two years after her sister Sarah’s death, on Boxing Day 1818, Jane Arr married James Pyman at Lythe and began a family of her own. 

James had been a crew member on a man o' war  and came from a family of seamen.  In the 1841 Census he was described as a mariner but in 1851 he is recorded as working in the local alum works.  This must have been temporary work, as by the time of his death in 1861 he had returned to the sea. 

Jane and James Pyman had four children: Sarah Ann Pyman, George Pyman, Thomas Arr Pyman and Alexander Pyman.  They, like their cousin John, grew up in the congregation of the Silver Street chapel.

While Jane Pyman’s boys went to sea young, John Buchannan stayed at school until he was 14 or 15, when he was sent to work as a clerk in a solicitor’s office.  He was a poet and deeply involved in the literary life of Whitby, where he became a prominent solicitor.

George Pyman (1822-1900)
George Pyman, on the other hand, excelled at business, and became a hugely successful Victorian entrepreneur.

He first went to sea at the age of ten, when he took the place of an ailing uncle in the crew of a fishing smack.  At twelve, he went to work in a shop in Lythe, but soon was back at sea, and his Master’s Certificate of 1850 describes him as “Apprentice, Mate and Master 15 years in the coasting and foreign trade”.

He left the sea in 1850 or 1851 and went to the new port of West Hartlepool.

Viscount (Walter) Runciman, in his book Collier Brigs and their Sailors (1926) wrote:
"The generation ahead of me, and of some even ahead of them, graduated from leaky old collier brigs to that of shipowners at the north-east coal ports.  
The late George Pyman, father of many sons, went to sea in an old collier brig belonging to Whitby, became a captain and owner, and traded successfully from Hartlepool to London for a number of years; unlike many of his contemporaries, he instinctively saw that this class of vessel was nearing its end, and at once threw all his resources of mind and capital into the new order of transit by contracting for a steamer.  He rapidly went from one success to another, until he became the largest steamship owner on the north-east coast, and continued as long as he lived a most influential and popular man of affairs, with advanced ideas that contributed to the making of the Hartlepools into a great centre of shipping enterprise."
John Buchannan (1810-91)
George Pyman married fellow chapel member Elizabeth English of Raithwaite (1821-93) in 1843; they had nine children. 

Both George and John had an acute sense of public duty and a strong religious belief.  One of the most interesting divergences between their careers can be found in their religious allegiance.

John Buchannan seems to have been a seeker all his life, perhaps marked by the bereavements he suffered.

He lost his parents and sister while he was still a child, his first wife died in childbirth, his second wife died aged 32.  By the age of 40, he was a widower with five children under the age of 12.  His son Hugh died eight years later, aged eleven.  John did not remarry.

As a young man John had been a very active member of the Silver Street Congregational chapel in which he had grown up.  He sometimes conducted services there and was warmly received as a religious speaker.  On the death of his first wife, Sarah Margaret Holt, in 1837 a “neat marble tablet” was erected to her memory in the Primitive Methodist Chapel in Church Street, either by John or by Sarah’s parents.  He was made a Deacon of the Silver Street Chapel in January 1838, but in 1859 he formally withdrew from membership.  It seems likely that for a while he attended Anglican services, and there seems to have been considerable surprise in Whitby when it was realised that he had converted to Roman Catholicism on his deathbed in 1891, aged 81. 

His cousin George Pyman, meanwhile, remained a prominent member of Silver Street Chapel, continuing to worship there whenever he was at Raithwaite.  He was a founder member of the church in West Hartlepool and was an influential Nonconformist all his life.

George Pyman was an open-minded man.  When Ralph Ward-Jackson stood as a Conservative candidate for Parliament in the first elections held for the Hartlepools, George actively supported him out of gratitude for Ward-Jackson’s achievements in establishing West Hartlepool, although he himself was a Liberal – and while he was Mayor of West Hartlepool (1888-9) he visited every Sunday school in town, without reference to denomination.

He died at his home, Raithwaite Hall, on 23 November 1900, aged 78.  Sadly, he had not lived to see the completion of his recent gift to Sandsend – the Pyman Institute, which was built on the site of the cottage where he was born.


Skinner Street, Whitby © Copyright Colin Grice
West Cliff Congregational Church (formerly Silver Street Chapel), from geograph.org.uk (and licensed for reuse under their Creative Commons Licence).  The chapel originally known by John Buchannan and George Pyman was rebuilt; these buildings date from 1867.

The Pyman Institute © Copyright wfmillar
Early morning suns lights the Pyman Institute (from geograph.org.uk and licensed for reuse under their Creative Commons Licence)


Notes:

For more on George Pyman, his business and his family, see The Pyman Story by Peter Hogg & Harold Appleyard (pub. 2000)

Henry Lord Mulgrave's portrait is from the engraving by H. Meyer from the original by J. Jackson

There is a link between the Pyman family and Hutton Rudby – George's son Thomas English Pyman lived for some years at Linden Grove.



Tuesday 2 July 2013

Sandsend & Lythe in 1823

Baines' Directory 1823: 

Sand's End, in the parish of Lythe, wap. and liberty of Langbargh; 3 miles NW of Whitby, situated on the face of a rocky cliff near the sea.  Here is an extensive establishment for making of alum, the property of Lord Mulgrave.  There is also an abundance of terrace-stone, which is burnt and used for cement ; the soil abounds with limestone.  In the rocks here, and other places along the coast, black amber or jett is frequently found, of which Solinus says, "in Britain there is a great store of Gagetes or Jett, a very fine stone; if you ask the colour, it is black and shining; if the quality, it is exceedingly light; if the nature, it burns in water, and is quenched with oil; if the virtue, it has an attractive power, when heated with rubbing.


Lythe, in the wap. and liberty of Langbargh; 4 miles WNW of Whitby.  Lythe is pleasantly situated near the eastern extremity of Cleveland, about 1 mile distant from the sea.  Peter de Mauley, III. in the 38th of Henry the Third, obtained a licence for a weekly market, and a fair yearly, to be held on the Eve of St Oswald, but being in the vicinity of Whitby, both the fairs and market have long been discontinued.  The lord of the manor is the Earl of Mulgrave, who resides here, in a stately mansion, which stands a little South of the village, upon the brow of a gently rising hill, commanding a pleasing and extensive prospect of the country and the sea.  The Church, dedicated to St Oswald, is an ancient structure, but owing to a thorough repair, which it received in 1819, has rather a modern appearance at first sight … There is also a Methodist Chapel, built in 1822.  Pop. 1,134

Letters are despatched to, and received from Whitby every day at 1 o’clock.

Champion Mrs. gentlewoman
Long Rev. Wm. officiating curate
Porter Rev. Thomas, vicar
Sowerby John M., land & alum agent for Earl Mulgrave
Stonehouse Thomas, master mariner

Academies
Chapman John
Ward John

Blacksmiths
Jackson John
Newholm Wm.

Farmers
Bean John
Hoggart Wm.
Humphrey Philip
Laverick Francis
Laverick Wm.
Stanghow Mrs.
Stonehouse Robt.
Taylorson Wm.
Ward John

Grocers, &c
Leonard Geo.
Mackenzie John

Joiners, &c
Davison James
Thirlwall John

Shoemakers
Elland Wm.
Leonard Geo.
Rountree John
Ward Thos.

Stonemasons
Watson Leonard
Watson Richard

Wheelwrights
Taylor Clement
Thompson John
Thompson Thos.

Duck Mary, vict. Red Lion, (post office)
Frank John, gamekeeper
Hill James, weaver
Huntrodes Wm. tailor
Naggs Thomas, vict. Ship
Readman John, tailor
Tyas James, butcher

Friday 1 February 2013

Violent robbery on the footpath from Seamer to Stokesley, 1806

Having read how Thomas Wilson and William Orton escaped hanging in 1805 and 1821, the result of this local crime may come as a surprise.

The report gives a vivid glimpse of life in Cleveland during the Napoleonic Wars.

It is very likely that the victim of Thomas Richardson's assault was Matthew Milburn, rather than Melbourn, and that the place recorded by the reporter as 'Life' is in fact Lythe.  Similarly, 'Kilden' is probably a mishearing for Kildale (the final syllable of Kildale being unstressed in the dialect).

Country bank notes (that is, local bank notes) again feature in this story ...