Northumbrian (North Riding) Heavy Battery RGA

More snapshots from Major Stubbs' album:

Aldershot 1917

Major Stubbs was posted at Aldershot for some months in 1917 and 1918

RAMC Newcastle 1915

RGA 4,7 gun 1915

RGA in training 1915

Major Stubbs, Newcastle 1915

Major Stubbs i/c Siege School, Aldershot c1917

'The Silver King', Eastbourne 1915

Trumpeter Jones on Taffy

Northumbrian (North Riding) Heavy Battery RGA before the War

Snapshots from Major Stubbs' album.
Unfortunately they are not dated and only a few names are recorded, but they are thought to be from a pre-War Camp some time in 1913 or 1914.

George W.W. Barnley (Middlesbrough solicitor) is second from left.
Francis Dalrymple (adjutant) is seated on the gun

Major Stubbs' daughter has added (years later) a note to this photograph:

"The Hairy Heels" (Horselines) (eight of these to each gun)

War Horse

Major Stubbs' horse, Jess.

Jess joined the North Riding Heavy Battery August 1914 at Monkseaton as the Battery Commander's Charger at the outbreak of war.
She went overseas with the Battery in April 1915.
She was wounded by a splinter of shell in May 1918.
She died at the Veterinary Clearing Station in May [or June, according to the note on the reverse of the photo] 1918.
Photo was taken at St Omer, February 1917

Driver J.F.S. Wallace was her groom.  He took her down to the Clearing Station and stayed with her till the end.

Nunthorpe in the early 20th century

Photographs and a sketch map of old Nunthorpe (Station - not old Nunthorpe Village) can be found on the Nunthorpe History Group website.

The sketch map identifies the houses of Duncan Stubbs and Gerald Cochrane, while the surrounding area can be seen more clearly on the old maps page of the site.

War begins - Nunthorpe, 1914

Thomas Duncan Henlock (“Duncan”) Stubbs was a 42 year old Middlesbrough solicitor when war broke out.  He lived with his wife and family in the little rural hamlet that had grown up around Nunthorpe railway station.  As a Captain in the Territorial Army in the Northumbrian (Heavy) Battery, Royal Garrison Artillery, he was called up immediately.  

He began to keep a diary.  It begins on Tuesday 4 August 1914 and it is written in ink and pencil on lined foolscap paper.  It appears to be a fair copy, with additions and alterations, presumably (given the detail involved) from notes made at the time.  He was a methodical man.

Extracts from the first ten days of the diary follow.  They give a vivid picture of public reaction at the beginning of the War, on Teesside and Tyneside.


It begins with a summary of events in Europe:

1914.
Tuesday 4th August

For a week past there has been talk of war.  Austria’s declaration of War against Servia has started the ball rolling […]

Britain calls upon [Germany] to declare that the neutrality of Belgium shall be preserved.  Germany declines stating that to do so would disclose an important part of her plan of campaign […] 

The British fleet is fully mobilized, the reserves, even the Dartmouth cadets, are called up and about 7pm on Tuesday 4th August 1914 the order goes forth for the general mobilization of the whole British Army.

and then Duncan Stubbs begins to document his own experiences:

This is a purely personal account of my own doings as Captain in the Northumbrian North Riding Heavy Battery, which Battery I have had the honour of commanding for about 12 months past.

Remembrance Day in Hutton Rudby 1927

From Miss Winifred Blair's green album:

12 Nov 1927:

By Lantern Light 

Moving Night Scene at Village Shrine

Snow was falling heavily when Hutton Rudby’s ex-Servicemen, proceeding in three sections through the village, converged on the war memorial at 8 o’clock last night.

They formed in a crescent in front of the memorial and behind them took their stands a number of inhabitants who had been attracted by the storm lanterns carried by the ex-Servicemen as they came through the village. 

The ceremony which followed was brief and simple.  Major Williams, the senior officer on parade, called the names.  Those present and then those of the 29 men whose names are inscribed on the war memorial. 

Silence followed.  This was broken by the Vicar (the Rev. Arthur L Leeper), who, facing the memorial, recited the following lines from the Toc H ceremony. 

With proud thanksgiving let us remember our comrades.
They shall not grow old as we that are left grow old.
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn;
At the going down of the sun and in the morning we will remember them. 

To this the men on parade responded “We will remember them.” 

A brief prayer by the Vicar that Light perpetual might shine upon the fallen ones, and then the ex-Servicemen faded silently away. 

It was an impressive ceremony and some of those standing round the memorial were visibly affected.

Hutton Rudby & parish in 1872

Rudby parish as described in the Post Office Directory of 1872:

RUDBY-IN-CLEVELAND is a township, parish, and small village, 4 miles south-west from Stokesley, and 6 south-east from Yarm, in the west division of Langbaurgh liberty, Stokesley union and county court district, rural deanery of Cleveland, archdeaconry of Cleveland, and diocese of York, situated on the northern bank of the river Leven.

The church of All Saints is an old Gothic stone building in good repair, with a tower, nave, aisle, chancel, porch, and 3 bells; the interior contains a sarcophagus, with the date 1423, to the memory of Robert Wyclyft, rector of this parish; also a monument to the Layton family, dated 1594, and marble tablets to the memory of the Honorable George Cary, son of Lucius Henry Viscount Falkland, who died April 11, 1792, aged 81; also his wife, Isabella Cary, who died the 12th day of April, 1799, aged 81.  The register dates from the year 1584.

The living is a vicarage, with Middleton and East Rounton annexed, joint yearly value £270, with residence, in the gift of Viscount Falkland and held by the Rev. Robert Joseph Barlow, M.A of Trinity College, Dublin.  The vicarage is a neat modern building, situated on a commanding eminence about a mile from the village, erected by the present incumbent in 1843.

Adjoining to the churchyard, to the west, is a school-house, erected and endowed about the year 1740, at the expense of Charles Bathurst, esq., for the education of boys and girls.

The charities, bequeathed by Lady Amherst, are of £10 yearly value.  Viscount Falkland is lord of the manor and chief landowner.

The soil is loamy; subsoil, strong clay.  The chief crops are wheat, beans and oats.  The population in 1861 was 69, and in 1871, 61; the area is 880 acres; gross estimated rental, £1,341; rateable value, £1,222.

Parish Clerk, Spencer Holmes.

The nearest post office is at Hutton Rudby.-  Henry Willins, receiver.  Letters arrive from Yarm at 9.35 a.m; dispatched, 4.15 p.m.  Yarm is its money order office.

CARRIERS TO - 
MIDDLESBROUGH – James Sidgwick, Friday
STOCKTON – John Bainbridge, Wednesday and Saturday; William Richardson & James Sidgwick, Wednesday
STOKESLEY – William Richardson, Saturday