Rev Malcolm Buchannan (1880-1954)

Malcolm Buchannan was one of Whitby's characters. 

An energetic High Church Anglican priest, his obituary from 9 July 1954 gives a full story of his remarkable life.  I am not sure where, in his far-flung ministry, this photograph was taken – possibly the Transvaal.

Rev Malcolm Buchannan

FAITHFUL PARISH PRIEST

Rev M Buchannan's Notable Life

By the death of the Rev Malcolm Buchannan, which occurred on Sunday night at his home, St Hilda's Terrace, Whitby, the town lost a man who defied ill-health to continue his vocation almost to the end. 

A native of Whitby, Father Buchannan was educated at Hallgate's School at Whitby, and subsequently attended Durham School and Durham University, where he gained prominence as an oarsman, rowing in representative events for the Varsity. 

He was a son of Mr Charles Buchannan, and a grandson of Mr George Weatherill, the famous artist, and he felt the call to the work of the Church, and as a priest of the Church of England did an outstanding service to his fellow men, not only in England, but in Canada, South Africa and Trinidad.

A man of great personal charm, Father Buchannan's chief characteristic was his sincerity.  He was ordained curate in 1903 at Durham and his first appointment was as a curate at St Mark's, South Shields, where he remained for three years, being priested in 1904. 

'George Weatherill – his family, and their art' by the Rev Malcolm Buchannan

This is the text of an address given by the Rev. Malcolm Buchannan, M.A., grandson of George Weatherill on October 7th, 1949.

It is a delightful talk, particularly such stories as his grandfather walking from Yarm to York as a teenager to attend a court case for his employer, and walking back again the next day – and how he used to get up at 5 o'clock in the morning to paint the sunrise from East Cliff.

The artist George Weatherill (1810-90) and his children

George Weatherill was born in Staithes in 1810 and died in Whitby in 1890.  His delicate, subtle watercolours of the Whitby area have always been widely known and loved – he has been called the "Turner of the North".

One of the largest and most important collections of his work was that of County Alderman Robert Elliott Pannett (1834-1920).  His devotion to the welfare of Whitby and its people led him to many acts of generosity, and in 1902 he bought land near the centre of the ancient, crowded town because he believed that both residents and visitors would benefit from a park where they could enjoy fresh air, trees and flowers.  He bequeathed the land to the town – it is now Pannett Park.

There you will find the Pannett Art Gallery.   This was another gift to Whitby from Mr Pannett, built to house his art collection.  It opened on 1 August 1928, with one gallery devoted entirely to the display of 148 paintings by George Weatherill.  (I think the Art Gallery website is very new and still under construction – I look forward to more appearing on their Galleries page.)

George taught all his children to draw and paint, but their work is less widely known. 

The Weatherill family tree: compiled by Richard Weatherill (1844-1923)

Excerpt from Richard Weatherill's manuscript

Richard Weatherill (1844-1923) compiled a family tree from the memories of his father, the artist George Weatherill (1810-90). 

He supplemented it with further research, particularly in the Parish Registers of Easington and in the Easington, Whitby, Hinderwell and Guisborough churchyards.  A copy of his manuscript (missing one page) is held by the Whitby Literary & Philosophical Society.

Another copy is owned by descendants of the Guisborough Weatherills; this copy has later amendments by Charles Buchannan (Richard Weatherill's nephew) and others.

The information below is taken from both manuscripts.  Passages marked in quotations are taken directly from Richard Weatherill's manuscript. 

Changing Guisborough market day: 1813

From the Day Book of Thomas Jackson (1775-1834), farmer of Lackenby:

June 10th 1813    I was sumas [summonsed] to appear at Guisbro on the Above Day a few Days before as a Jury man upon altering Guisbro Market Day from Friday to Tuesday when after hearing witnesses on boath sides the Jury came to give there Verdict out of 18 Jury Men 9 was for Friday and 9 for Tuesday they sat 16 Hours upon it and neither party would give way.  It was agreed upon Thos Rood of Marton for Tuesday men and Thos Nesham of Stockesley … on Friday Men to [de]cide the [Business] Thos Nesham return and said they had agreed for it to be altered to Tuesday to which where all sd to agree by us passing our word before whe would agree to what they did
        Thos Jackson

Guisborough Priory
from an old picture in my possession

This text, of the last known market charter of Guisborough, seems to be the charter issued as a result of that acrimonious meeting:

Cleveland
GUISBROUGH
Markets and Fairs

Notice is hereby given, that Robert Chaloner, Esq. Lord of the Manor of Guisbrough, has obtained His Majesty's Letters Patent, licensing him to hold a Public Market in Guisbrough aforesaid, on TUESDAY in every Week, instead of Friday in every Week: And also Two Public Markets annually, one on the Last Tuesday in the Month of June in every Year, for the buying and selling of LONG WOOL; and the other on the Last Tuesday in the Month of July in every Year, for the buying and selling of SHORT WOOL.  Also a Public Fair on the several Days following:-

The Last Tuesday in APRIL instead of The Third Tuesday after 11th Apr
The Tuesday before WHIT-SUNDAY instead of Whit-Tuesday
The THIRD Tuesday in AUGUST instead of 27th August
The THIRD Tuesday in SEPTEMBER instead of 20th September
The SECOND Tuesday in NOVEMBER instead of The First Monday after 11th Nov

And a Public Fair on the Last Tuesday in the Month of March, annually.

The FIRST FAIR, agreeable to the above alteration, will be held on Tuesday, the 26th of APRIL; and the FIRST MARKET, on Tuesday the 3d of MAY, 1814

Christopher & Jennett, Printers, Stockton

The late Miss Grace Dixon noted that later in the 19th century the question of the market and fair dates

"became much less formal and the town made various alterations of dates as it suited them.  The dates of fairs remained in spring and autumn until mid 20th century"

Mrs Lydia Metcalfe of Yarm, in 1784

Yarm Town Hall, built 1710

A Deed donated to the Hutton Rudby History Society may be of interest to people looking for ancestors in Yarm and to members of the Metcalfe family.

The Deed, dated 10 July 1784, records the repayment of mortgages by Mrs Lydia Metcalfe of Yarm.


The main points are as follows:

In 1745 Lydia Smith owned property in Yarm.  On 7 December 1745, shortly before her marriage to Henry Loughhead, she settled her property on trustees to hold it on her behalf, free from the control of her husband.  (It was not until the Married Women's Property Act 1882 that married women could hold property in their own right.)

Her trustees were Jonathan Hedley and Benjamin Flounders.

Tom Brown of Kirkleatham & Yarm, hero of Dettingen

William Hutton, in his A Trip to Coatham, gives a wonderfully vivid account of the story of Tom Brown, the hero of the battle of Dettingen 1743. 

While he was at Kirkleatham in 1809, Hutton went to find the site of Tom Brown’s birthplace and to visit the hero’s nephew (see p 166 of the scanned book):

It never occurred to my thoughts, when Tom’s exploit blazed over the world, that, sixty-six years after, I should see his portrait, handle his sword and record the fact.

Tom Brown was born in Kirkleatham, apprenticed to a shoemaker at Yarm, and enlisted in the Inniskillen Dragoons. 

He was five feet eleven, and well made, rather bony.  At the battle he was twenty-eight years old.

He served with outstanding valour at the Battle of Dettingen in 1743 in the War of the Austrian Succession - the last battle when British forces were led into action by their King.

Tom was terribly wounded – as can be seen from his portrait (to be found in this full account of the battle)

As William Hutton observed, the portrait

exhibits two wounds in the face; one is a cut, seemingly with the point of a sword from the top of the forehead to the corner of the left eye.  The other, across the upper part of the nose, which obliged him to wear a plate of silver; now lost.

He retired to Yarm with a pension of £30 a year from the King, and died there in 1746.

His grave is marked by a memorial erected by the Queen's Own Hussars in 1968. 

Do see Bob Scotney’s account, with details of the painted sign that used to be attached to Tom Brown’s house in Yarm – and a transciption of the Song of the Silver Nose.

Kirkleatham in 1809

Kirkleatham, as described by William Hutton in his A Trip to Coatham 1809:

Three thousand five hundred acres, the property of Sir Charles Turner.  I am now in the centre of this most delightful valley.  Sir Charles, it is said, wishes to part with this estate, which proves that even beauty itself cannot always please; were it mine, it would cost a tear at parting.  The eye dwells upon the view, but cannot be satisfied.

The village is a groupe of Palaces, fit for the reception of Royalty.  The church is neat, and what a church ought always to be, not tawdry.  The organ is rather too strong for so small a place. 

There is an hospital which brought to mind an expression of King William’s, when he saw Greenwich, “There are, in England, Cottages for Princes, and Palaces for Peasants.”

This superb building was erected and endowed by the Turner family, with lands, said to be worth £1500 a year, for the support of ten old men, ten old women, ten boys and ten girls, with proper officers.  In the centre is a most elegant chapel, in which is a transparent painting, of great value, representing the first founder, who was Lord Mayor of London ...

Hutton continues his account (on p165 of the scanned book), marvelling at the “collection of rarities” in the “shew-room” and the library:

I cannot think its value less than seven or eight thousand pounds.  I saw many books worth twenty or thirty guineas each …

More about Thomas Atkinson, surgeon, of Kirkleatham

This was revised and rewritten 30 January 2022 with many thanks to Stella Sterry for her information

Thomas Atkinson, the writer of the Whaling Journal of Thomas Atkinson of Kirkleatham, 1774, was a young man of 21 when he made the voyage to Davis Straits.

He was born in the spring of 1753 in Kirkleatham, a North Yorkshire village a couple of miles from the mouth of the River Tees. 

His father Thomas was Master at the Hospital founded in Kirkleatham in 1676 by Sir William Turner for the relief of ten "poor aged" men and women and the relief and upbringing of "ten poor boys and ten poor girls". 

The "poor boys" and "poor girls" usually entered the Hospital at the age of eight and left at sixteen.  At this time most of the boys came from the North Riding, from Scarborough to Askrigg, but some came from much further afield – from Ticknall in Derbyshire, Bristol and Hertfordshire.  They included the sons of a local clergyman, a Darlington bookseller and a Northallerton attorney, which must indicate that, in addition to the poor children, the school was taking paying scholars.  This was usual in schools that began as charitable foundations. 

Thomas Atkinson's mother was Elizabeth Featherstone (c1720-1805).  His parents were married in Westerdale in 1749, so Elizabeth may have been the Elizabeth, daughter of Peter Fetherstone, who was baptised in 1720 at Danby in Cleveland.

It seems very likely that Thomas Atkinson's sons were taught alongside the boys of the Hospital.  Wherever they went to school, he and his brothers clearly received a good education; Thomas's second son William was to become a Doctor of Divinity and Fellow of Christ's College, Cambridge. 

The career chosen for young Thomas may have been influenced by the surgeon employed at the Hospital (at a salary of £50, compared to the £45 paid to the Master), but the Hospital was also in contact with the York Infirmary whose surgeons pronounced one boy's "scrofulous disorder" as incurable in 1773.  

In his mid-teens Thomas's parents sent him to Ripon to be apprenticed for 6 years to William Chambers of Ripon, described by Thomas's father in the family Bible as "an eminent Surgeon and Apothecary".  

Then on 27 February 1774 at the age of 21, he went to sea as a surgeon on the Hope of Whitby, on a whaling voyage to the Davies Straits.

We don't know why he decided to make the trip.  Perhaps it was a hankering for adventure; perhaps he wanted to find out how he would cope in harsh conditions.  We don't know how he came to choose the Hope, but it's interesting to see that at this time one of the boys at the school was Thomas Peacock, son of the Revd John Peacock, curate of Stainton in Cleveland.  Perhaps they had a family connection to Captain Robert Peacock of the Hope.

It is clear from young Thomas Atkinson's journal that it wasn't the sea that took his interest, but the strange new lands he encountered and, above all, the Inuit. 

So it isn't surprising to find that, the following year, his curiosity and love of adventure led him to work for the Hudson's Bay Company.

At the beginning of June 1775 he took up his post as a surgeon at Moose Fort (now Moose Factory), the Company's oldest settlement in Ontario, established in 1673 about 11 miles from the mouth of the Moose River on the shore of James Bay.

This was the home of the Cree and Anishinaabe peoples, but from the 17th century it was where the British and French fought over the fur trade.  

In 1776 the Company was planning to establish a post on Lake Superior.  So they sent out a party of 5 men – Thomas was one of them – with two Indian families and instructions to "Build a Halfway House".  They set out on 16 October 1776 from Moose Fort and travelled about 200 miles by canoe along the Moose River, and by sledge, until on 11 December they reached "Wapuscogamee" Creek.  

Thomas chose a site for the Company's post – it was half a mile or so from the mouth of the creek, on the west bank of the Missinaibi River, which flows into the Moose River.  On 14 December they began to build a log tent in which they were to spend the rest of the winter.

When the spring came, they laid the foundation for the post and by early August 1777 Wapiscogamy House was ready for occupation.  Thomas was in charge there until 31 May 1778.

I hope he was a good doctor, because he wasn't very good at choosing a place for a trading post, or at planning its building.  

A report to Edward Jarvis, chief at Moose Fort, in 1781 described a site vulnerable to attack with no way of seeing the attackers coming.  There was a large creek within 200 yards of the back of the house and a ridge of high land within 100 yards, and at one end of the small, inconvenient house (it measured 26 feet by 18 feet) there wasn't a window or a port hole.  

The foundations were laid direct on the ground, so it wasn't possible to dig a cellar without undermining either the chimney or the frame of the house.  They  couldn't find anywhere to keep the gunpowder except "directly under the fireplace" and the summer heat spoilt their "Salt Geese".   Edward Jarvis decided it would be better to build a new post somewhere else.

By this time, Thomas Atkinson had been moved on to Henley House, a transit post on the junction of the Albany and Kenogamy Rivers.  He was Master there for 3 months from September to December 1779.  Perhaps he was filling in for the arrival of another man because he dropped down to Assistant for the next few months.  From June 1780 he was Assistant at Albany, the company fort on the James Bay, and then he left for home on the Royal George on 21 September 1781.

On 21 September 1788, when his father repaired the family Bible and recorded the most recent details of his children's lives, he wrote proudly that his eldest son had been "sometime Governor" of one of the Company Forts and was now "Surgeon at the English Settlement in Honduras Bay".  

So Thomas, having experienced the extremes of heat and cold in Northern Ontario, had taken a post in Central America, where the British were cutting logwood and mahogany.  There had been a British settlement in Belize for over a hundred years.  

An undated entry in the family Bible records that it was there that Thomas died. 

The manuscript is a contemporary fair copy of Thomas Atkinson's original journal and may not be in Thomas's own hand.  It is possible that it was transcribed by a relative.  It bears a strong resemblance, particularly in the decoration and flourishes, to his father's graceful hand.

By the end of the 19th century the journal was in the possession of his sister's granddaughter, Miss Margaret Langborne of Whitby, who gave it to one of her great-nieces.

Further posts on Thomas Atkinson and his family:

Jane Atkinson of Kirkleatham, wife of Captain Thomas Galilee (1744-97)

Captain Thomas Galilee (1744-97) and his family

Sources

Parish Registers of Easington and Kirkleatham
Turner Hospital Records (Teesside Archives and NYCRO)
The Will of the Revd William Atkinson, TNA (PROB 11/1771)
The Will of Thomas Galilee, TNA (PROB 11/1296)
'Biographical Register Volume II 1666 – 1905', Christ's College
Venn Alumni cantabrigienses, Cambridge 1940
(with thanks to Suzan Griffiths, Librarian of St Catharine's College, and Ruth Waite, alumni officer of Christ's College, Cambridge)
Hudson's Bay Company Archives online at the Government of Manitoba's Culture, Heritage, Tourism and Sport website: Biographical Sheet for Thomas Atkinson

Tracing the History of Northern Ontario at the British Library by Shaelagh Cull 

Whaling Journal of Thomas Atkinson of Kirkleatham, 1774

In 1774, Thomas Atkinson was a young surgeon of twenty-one when he took ship in the Hope of Whitby, on a whaling voyage to the Davies Straits.  This is a fair copy of his journal, full of accounts of the fish, the wild cold weather, and his first encounter with the Inuit:

Aerial photos of Stokesley in 1929

The new website, Britain from Above has 4 aerial photographs of Stokesley in 1929.  They centre on the church, West Green, the Market Place and Commercial Row.

The site was launched in June 2012 and is part of a programme to conserve, catalogue and digitise the Aerofilms Collection of images.  The team running the programme wants plenty of input from the public: 

The Britain from Above website features a high degree of interactivity and is designed to encourage wide public participation. Users can download images, customise their own themed photo galleries, share personal memories, and add information to enrich the understanding for each of the images. They are also invited to identity the locations of a number of “mystery” images that have left the experts stumped.

The number of images available to view on the website will continue to grow, and by 2014, some 95,000 images taken between 1919 and 1953 will be visible online.

It's very easy to use, especially through the map on the advanced search option.

Stokesley station & a Skutterskelfe farm: 1950

On 31 December 1950, the coldest day of the year, the entire stock of a Skutterskelfe farm was moved by railway from Stokesley station to Hartfield in Sussex - and it was recorded on film.

Farmer Moving South is a beautiful British Transport Films short movie, lasting 16 minutes.  It's now on youtube, but I find (on revisiting this post on 1 March 2013) that the version I originally uploaded is not available.

It's a great pity, because it was the best quality version on youtube - instead, I shall insert another version.  This one is in two halves.

The farm's name is recorded as Skutterskelfe Hall Farm - we now know it as White House Farm, Skutterskelfe.  The farmer was a son of the Ropner family, who owned the Skutterskelfe estate in the first half of the 20th century.

A time line for Stokesley

I've taken some dates from my notes to make a time line for Stokesley (which is pronounced Stowsla or Stowsley in the Cleveland dialect). 

Quite a few of the sources are now available online, so I have added links to them - and also some extracts, to inform or amuse!

1086 Domesday Book

before 1066
Stokesley had a mill and a church.  Hawarth was its lord.  Value of manor: £24

1086    
Uhtred, the King’s thegn, held the manor.  Value of manor (after the Harrying of the North): £8

1090s
Balliol family hold the manor

1224 
granting of the right to hold a yearly fair on the eve and day of St. Thomas the Martyr
(presumably 7 July – the Feast of the Translation of St Thomas the Martyr marked the day when the bones of the newly canonized Thomas à Becket were moved to a shrine in Canterbury Cathedral)

1497  Testamenta Eboracensia p 128

June 23, 1497.  I, Nicolas Conyers, being in gude and clene mynd, ordeyn and makes my testament in this wise.  To be beried in the qwer of Stokesley kirk, at the grece befor Saint Petyr.  To the high alter ij torchis, price vj s. viij d., to be lightid at the lavacion tyme while they last; and upon my herse v serges of thre pownd wax ...

Wars of words in Stokesley in the 1840s

In the 1840s, another print war broke out in Stokesley - and this time it was a war of newspapers.

The political opponents were George Markham Tweddell with his Stokesley News & Cleveland Reporter and his former employer William Braithwaite with The Cleveland Repertory & Stokesley Advertiser.

Visit the Tweddell history website and the George Markham Tweddell hub for more on the fascinating life and works of George Markham Tweddell and his wife Elizabeth, whose poetry appeared under the pseudonym Florence Cleveland.

You will also find there information on George Markham Tweddell's link to Hutton Rudby - the Rudby schoolmaster, William Sanderson, was his inspirational teacher.

Well worth a look!

Radicalism in Stokesley in the 1820s

In the turbulent 1820s, Stokesley was riven by a bitter debate between radicals and traditionalists.  Admirers of the revolutionary activist Tom Paine were at loggerheads with local conservatives and clerics.  It culminated in a war of pamphlets - the Stokesley Paper War.

The opening salvo of the Paper War

On Monday 2 June 1822, the Stokesley tradesman and employer Thomas Mease gave a speech at a Wesleyan Methodist Missionary meeting in which he attacked (without naming him, but quite unmistakably) one of the town's booksellers, Robert Armstrong.

Mease was so pleased with the reception of his speech by his fellow Methodists that in spite of his "secret feelings of considerable reluctance" he gave in to their "earnest and repeated solicitations" and arranged for it to be printed; it appeared as The Substance of a Speech soon afterwards.  The "few satyrical remarks" he had made at Armstrong's expense probably appeared to even greater advantage in the published text.

"I was exceedingly amused, Sir, by the way in which the birth-day of Paine was lately kept in this Town,"

Mease declared, comparing the usual celebratory banquets of the day with Mr Armstrong's tea party.

"What abstruse and pithy subjects were discussed on the occasion, or what powers of elocution were displayed by the motley speakers, I have not been told, nor have I given myself any trouble to learn.  The principal objects embraced by their vain, but anxious wishes, it is probable, were, the subversion of Christianity and Monarchy, and the substitution of a Republican government, together with what they strangely reckon a scientific morality.  Now, to think of such a Tea-sipping assembly of pompous literati, so tenacious of the dignity of human nature, and meditating purposes so vast, is almost enough to produce a smile of contempt in pouting melancholy herself before she is aware. And are these pedantic things to be our guides instead of Priests, and our rulers instead of Kings?"

The Stokesley Paper War had begun. 

Stokesley in 1823

As described in Baines' Directory of 1823 (the 16 pubs are listed near the end of this blog post):-

Stokesley in the wapentake and liberty of Langbargh: 9 miles from Guisborough; 9 from Yarm; and 16 from Northallerton. 

A small market town of Cleveland, consisting chiefly of one broad street, running east and west, and washed on the south by a principal branch of the river Leven, which is a remarkably fine trout stream. 

The buildings are neat, and for the most part in the modern style. 

The market is held on Saturday, and is plentifully supplied with provisions on reasonable terms.  Of the fairs which are held here, an account will be found appended to the first volume. 

The lands near the town are chiefly in grass, and occupied in small allotments.  The surrounding lands are rich and fertile, and being a fine sporting country, the situation possesses all the advantages of rural sports and agreeable retirement. 

The beautiful and majestic chain of mountains, called the Cleveland hills, including Roseberry Topping, range at a distance of from four to six miles from the town, with a peculiarly bold and romantic outline, and form a sort of semi-circular amphitheatre, of which Stokesley is the centre. 

The Live Bait Squadron 1914 - survivors from Whitby

This photograph was printed in the All Our Yesteryears section of the Whitby Gazette on 31 August 2001.  It had been brought in by John Hartley of Hinderwell, who hoped to find out more about the men pictured.  I am posting it here because I don't think this report, or the photograph, are available online.

According to the Whitby Gazette:

On 2 August 1914, a great send-off was given to the men at Whitby and news that some of them were missing plunged the fishing community and the town into grief.

A number of Naval Reservists had left town to join the Navy and 28 were believed to be on the cruisers torpedoed by submarines.

James Hall was one local man saved from the Aboukir and other men rescued were brothers Thomas, George, Harry and James Murfield, William, George and Matthew Winspear, James Wood and Thomas Dryden. 

Four brothers from one family and three from another escaped the sinking.

Mr Hall said afterwards: "I saw a lot of the Whitby lads when I was in the water and they were all right.  We were floating for about six hours but I'm no worse and I thank God for it.  We will be ready for the Germans again shortly and they will get hit back."

The following week, All Our Yesteryears was able to publish the names of the men in the picture, identified by Syd Barnett, Whitby Museum's head librarian.

From left: back, TB White, JW Hill, G Walker, G Gash, J Murfield and JR Hind; middle, G Winspear, J Hall G Murfield, W Winspear, J Wood, S Eglon, W Dryden, T Murfield; front, J Elders, H Murfield, W Hodgson, R Ventris, H Harrison and W Hall.
Matthew Winspear, another survivor, was in hospital at the time of the photograph.

I understand that reservists, including some of the Whitby men, who were posted to Chatham at the outbreak of War were followed by their wives and families, who moved to the town to be able to see more of their men when they were not at sea.  The women were able to get well-paid (though dangerous) work in the munitions factories there - this was to prove of enormous value to those who found themselves widowed and struggling to bring up their families alone.

The Live Bait Squadron, 1914

Midshipman Duncan Stubbs

Major Stubbs' fifteen-year-old son Duncan died on 22 September 1914.  There is a brass tablet in his memory in St Cuthbert's, Ormesby, and he is commemorated on the Nunthorpe War Memorial.

Duncan and fellow naval cadets had been taken out of Dartmouth Naval College at the outbreak of war and posted to armoured cruisers patrolling the area of the North Sea known as the Broad Fourteens.  When HMS Aboukir, Hogue and Cressy were torpedoed by a German submarine in an action which lasted only 75 minutes, 13 of the 28 cadets lost their lives.

Survivors from the cruisers were picked up by Dutch and British trawlers - 837 were rescued, but 1,459 died.

Many of the men who died that day were reservists, who left young widows struggling to bring up small children.  Their families were to feel their loss for many years; indeed, in some cases the difficult circumstances they suffered left effects that are still felt today.

The wreck sites of the three cruisers are now highly valued, not only by the families, maritime archaeologists and historians but also by divers and ecologists, as they provide a vital habitat for sea life.

There was great concern recently when it was realised that the wrecks were under threat from salvage companies, sparking outrage and a protest campaign from the public in Holland and Britain.

The wrecks are also vulnerable to the debris left by fishing, and divers working with the Dive The North Sea Clean project regularly visit the wreck sites to rescue crabs, lobsters and fish trapped by fishing lines and nets.  A film showing their work can be seen here.

In September this year, Dutch author Henk van der Linden's excellent new book on the disaster Live Bait Squadron: Three Mass Graves off the Dutch coast was published in English and the book launch was held at Chatham, following a memorial service in Rochester Cathedral.  A very moving occasion.

And now a documentary film is being made about the wrecks, their history and their ecological importance today - visit the facebook page for details!

Nunthorpe-in-Cleveland War Memorial

The First World War Memorial for the village of Nunthorpe, south of Middlesbrough, stands near the Stokesley road.

It was unveiled on Saturday, 27 August 1921 by Sir Hugh Bell, Bart., C.B., the Lord Lieutenant of the North Riding.

The pencil notes in the right hand corner were made by Mr T.D.H. Stubbs, who had served as a Major during the War and lived with his family in Nunthorpe.  He was Company Secretary of Dorman, Long & Co and a friend of Sir Arthur Dorman.

He has sketched the positions to be taken by those participating.  Guides and Scouts were to stand on the left.  'Buglers' is written beside the small square.

Prayers were led by the Archdeacon of Cleveland, and Sir Arthur Dorman and Mr Burton spoke.  Another prayer followed the Unveiling by Sir Hugh Bell - and a prayer was inserted into the order at this point, according to the pencil note.  Buglers of the 4th Yorkshire Regiment played the Last Post.  

The hymns were 'O God, our help in ages past' and 'Onward, Christian Soldiers'.  The Rev. J. W. Roberts gave the blessing.  The buglers played the Reveille and the assembled company sang the National Anthem.

On the back of the service sheet, the names of the dead are listed.  They include Major Stubbs' 15 year old son, Midshipman John Duncan Stubbs.

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

Walking from Swainby to Faceby - the video

An effortless way to visit the Faceby area:

This video, from Walking With The Taxi Driver, follows a walk in early spring from Swainby to Faceby and back, returning past Whorlton Castle - more photographs of which can be found on wikipedia.

The video walk takes a few minutes to download - it isn't on the Taxi Driver's youtube channel.

Later arrivals join the Faceby Mormons in Utah

Family and friends had been left behind when the Faceby villagers left for America in 1855.  Some of them were able to make the journey themselves much later.

James and Isabella Stanger travel to Utah 1869

The home of James Stanger and his wife Isabella had been the centre of Mormon missionary activity in Faceby, but in 1855 when their three youngest children left for Utah, they stayed behind with their sons James and John.

James Stanger junior(1815-98), a farm labourer, had married Ann Elliott of Hutton Rudby in 1839.  Their eighth child, Henry, was baptised in Faceby in May 1855 - his uncles and aunt had, by then, arrived at Mormon Grove in Kansas Territory.  James and Ann did not become Mormons.  By 1861, James was farming 45 acres at Faceby on his own account, and within a few years he moved his family to Kirby Sigston, where he farmed 75 acres at Sigston Lodge.  From there he went to be at the bedside of the Revd Robert Barlow of Hutton Rudby during his last illness, and registered the death recording his relationship to Mr Barlow as 'cousin'.  He and his wife Ann are buried at Faceby.

By the time the Mormon missionaries arrived in Faceby, John Stanger (1819-98) and his wife Anna Winter were living about ten miles away, at Landmoth-with-Catto near Leake.  They were farming 100 acres at 'Marrigold Hill' (later Marigold Hall, and now Marigold Farm) - this had been Anna's father's farm.

In 1852, their daughter Isabella was born, and in 1854, Anna gave birth to Mary Ann. But within weeks, Anna was dead and John was left with two small children.  It seems very likely that his parents moved to Landmoth to help John after their younger children left for Utah.  Within weeks of the departure of the Faceby Saints, John's baby daughter also died.

The Faceby Mormons settle in Utah

Most of the Faceby villagers settled in Weber County, which lies between the Wasatch Mountains and the Great Salt Lake.  It had been the home of the Ute and the Shoshone, and was well-watered, said to have rich soil, winters not too severe for the area, and plenty of game.  The main settlement was Ogden, where many of the Faceby pioneers are buried. 

They lived through eventful times. 

Faceby Saints in Captain Ballantyne's Company: July to September 1855

The 4th Company was under Captain Richard Ballantyne.  He was 37 years old and Scottish by birth.  He had lived in America for many years and was now returning home from mission in India.

The 4th Company was a train of 46 waggons and 414 people, three horses and a mule.  To each waggon there were ten or eleven people, a yoke of oxen, and a yoke of young steers or cows.  Nearly all the people were funded by the Perpetual Emigration Fund.  They were therefore travelling comparatively light compared with the self-funding 2nd Company, as they were obliged to obey the P.E.F's baggage restrictions.  These were necessary to reduce the burden on the Fund of the expense of transporting goods across the plains.

In this company travelled:

• George Stanger, aged 22 (already secretly married to Mary Etherington)

• Thomas Stanger, aged 25, his wife Jane Wilson, and their toddler

• Jane Wilson’s brother Thomas

• Charles Hogg, aged 24, and his now very pregnant wife Ann Stanger, aged 27, and their son James, aged 2

The Company’s cattle were wild – the “wildest cattle that I had ever seen”, wrote George Mayer, Captain of a Ten.  He had to break them in by having them drag logs round the camp before they set off – and, he remembered,

“the teamsters were as wild and ignorant of oxen and how to yoke cattle as the oxen were, and I found I had my hands full.”

The Etherington family cross the Plains: June to September 1855

John and Elizabeth Etherington, aged 61 and 56, were travelling with four of their children: their two youngest, Thomas (19) and Mary (20); Elizabeth (28) and her husband John Pugh, with their toddler and six month old baby; and Ann (25) with her small son and new baby. 

Ann's husband Thomas Heslop had remained behind in Liverpool and Mary was keeping secret her marriage to George Stanger.

They travelled in the 2nd Company led by Captain Jacob Secrist, a 36 year old who was returning from mission in Germany.  The Captain of the First Ten was Osmyn Merritt Deuel, with whom they had travelled on the Siddons.

There were 368 people in 54 waggons.  More than half of the travellers were Danish. These were self-funding people who had been able to buy up their own supplies for the journey and their new life.  Consequently their problem was not that they were short of provisions, but rather that they were overloaded.

They set out on Thursday 14 June, but they soon encountered difficulties.  There was cholera and measles in the camp and on the 11th day, at Elm Creek on the way to the Big Blue River, they met with disaster.

The Faceby Mormons make ready for the Plains: May & June 1855

Atchison in Kansas Territory was a new town, still under construction.  The people of Atchison were glad to welcome the Mormon emigrants because they provided a workforce while they waited to set off for the west, and because they bought supplies in the town for their journey.

Camping at Mormon Grove

Charles Hogg remembered:

"We moved out on to camp ground May 14; about ten had to occupy one tent. The one we got was not finished. The first night came up a very heavy storm of wind, thunder, lightning, and rain. It blew many of the tents to the ground. The screams of women and children were painful to hear. We passed through three such nights in succession. We had never witnessed such awful storms as were so common in this country. We moved camp (after staying here a few days) to Mormon Grove, about eight miles west of Atchinson."

There was an old Mormon campground near the levée, and they had bought 150 acres on the high prairie some five miles off.  It was well watered and had a grove of hickory trees, and had been named Mormon Grove.  There were high hopes for Mormon Grove – but unfortunately it had to be abandoned after 1855 because of the cholera.

The emigrants, arriving there with ox-drawn waggons from the levee, were surprised by the appearance of this vast tent city, set out in orderly rows.  There they were to spend May and June 1855 planting crops and making preparations for the journey across the Plains.

The Faceby Mormons leave Philadelphia for Kansas Territory

More than half the Mormon emigrants on board the Siddons were stopping in the eastern states, to earn money to make the rest of the journey later – the Wake family from Faceby among them – but the rest of the Faceby Saints were going through to the Valley that season.

President Fullmer took the advice of the Elders in Philadelphia and arranged for the travellers to go by train on the Pennsylvania Central route to Pittsburgh, intending to take a packet ship from there.  They were able to negotiate a price for the travellers, of $4.50 per adult, with 80lb baggage free.

So on Monday 23 April, the emigrants got up at 5 am to get their baggage ready for the Customs inspectors and at last reached the railway station at 11 o'clock.

They would be travelling throughout Monday and Tuesday, arriving at Pittsburgh at 4.15 in the morning.

Henry Stocks wrote:

“I may say that we are nearly all the time traveling through woods, thousands & thousands of acres of timber… I viewed the engine … Not so neat as the English engines, they seem great & clumsy.  Carriages is about 18 yards long, same width as English … Inside there is a passage from one end of the train to the other & seats with backs two feet high.  A stove & potty (or necessary) & a water barrel …”

The Faceby Mormons cross the Atlantic: February to April 1855

1855: Faceby to Liverpool

In the bitter cold of early February 1855, the Faceby Saints made ready to leave.  Charles Hogg

"delivered up books with Branch record to Elder Smith, traveling elder in that part.  Left this part of the world Feb 14, 1855, with a conscience void of offence toward God and all men, free from debt to anyone.  I visited father, mother, and what family there were at home here at Deighton … I could not stay with my beloved father and mother but a few minutes, bid them goodbye, off to catch the train." 

Ann Stanger Hogg's descendants record that,

"it was extremely difficult for them to leave their home and bid their loved ones goodbye, never to see them again, and depart for a strange new land.  It was only their firm belief in the Gospel that gave them such strength."

At the Mission Office in Liverpool the Faceby Saints registered to travel on the Siddons, a sailing ship bound for Philadelphia.

Mormons in Faceby: 1852-55

With Mitt Romney in the final days of his campaign to be President of the USA, this seems the ideal time for the story of the villagers of Faceby who became Mormons and left Yorkshire for America in 1855.

I came across the Faceby Saints when researching my book on the 1832 cholera epidemic in Hutton Rudby and the vicar, Robert Barlow.  When I realised that the Revd Barlow was related to Mormons in Utah, I couldn’t resist finding out more.

View from near Mr Barlow's vicarage towards the hills & Faceby

Luckily the internet provided me with Charles Hogg's account of his own life and the biography of Ann Stanger Hogg written by her granddaughter Katheryn Hart Conger, which enabled me to begin to piece the story together.  I've just looked up those links again for this post, and was delighted to find they now include photographs of Charles and Ann.

More information came from descendants.  After I gave a talk on the subject to the Swainby History Society, I was put in touch with Mrs Dorothy Jewitt, a descendant of William Wilson, and posting an article about the Faceby Saints on my (now defunct) website www.jakesbarn.co.uk brought me contacts from descendants in the USA and the UK.  Each time I've given a talk on the subject it has prompted me to do a bit more research, so I have revised and expanded the original article for this blog.

Faceby, North Yorkshire

In February 1855 a large party of people left the small Yorkshire village of Faceby.  It was the beginning of a long journey to America.  They were Mormons – the members of the Faceby Branch of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and most of them belonged to two extended families, the Etheringtons and the Stangers.

The War Memorial to the 50th (Northumbrian) Division

Not far from Ypres and near the cemetery on the Oxford Road, stands a memorial dedicated ‘to the enduring memory of all ranks of the 50th (Northumbrian) Division who fell in the Great War’.  An inscription below commemorates ‘their comrades of the same Division who gave their lives in the War of 1939-1945 for the liberation of France, Belgium and Holland’.

This was a first line Division of the Territorial Force, drawn from Northumberland, Durham and the North and East Ridings of Yorkshire.  It was sent to the Western Front in April 1915 and soon saw action in the Second Battle of Ypres.

The memorial is a plain white pillar in a green enclosure, standing beside a farm on a windswept hillside.

How had the design been chosen?  Amongst the papers of the Middlesbrough solicitor Major T.D.H. (“Duncan”) Stubbs are documents that provide some answers.