7. A Boroughbridge Boyhood in the 1850s: “Got out at the back door & went to the Newsroom”

Tuesday January 29th 1856
Went to Office   at Noon had a walk with Jane & Lizzy & Joe a mile up Topcliffe road & round by Milby   At Night went & read Blackstone at H Carrass’, before tea   After tea went again to Carrass’ with Joe had a rubber at wist   Uncle Hirst came for Sophy.   Joe & I got out at the back door & went to the Newsroom

The Subscription Newsroom at the White Horse Inn was a favourite place for John to read the papers – the lurid details of the Palmer poisoning trial, perhaps, or a little of the Tory periodical, the Quarterly Review – to meet friends or even, as in May 1856, to clean his gun. 

Saturday January 3rd 1857
Went to Office   Returned to Breakfast.   At Noon went to Capes’.   At Night I went to Newsroom Met Leond  Tom & Jim Sedgwick there   Leond & I had a regular split because our Tom called at their house once when he was here & would not go again because he was not asked in  he did not see the Doctor.   Called at Henry Carass’  Read Shakespeare

John’s older brother Tom had been home for a few days over Christmas, and clearly John was very angry with the Sedgwick brothers for the breach of hospitality – Tom had not been asked in to the house when he called on the Sedgwicks during his brief stay.  Perhaps the doctor’s household was in some disarray – Dr Roger Sedgwick died in early April.  At any event the “regular split” did not impair their relationship – they remained friends for life.

6. A Boroughbridge Boyhood in the 1850s: "Enjoyed ourselves extremely"

Tuesday January 15th 1856
Went to the Office   Mrs Workman  Mr Robert W  Mr Henlock & Mrs dined with us at 2 o’clock   I left the Office at  2  returned at 4   Went to the Doctors [Sedgwicks’] in the Evening   Danced   had supper & enjoyed ourselves extremely   A Family party  Leonard’s birthday

Breakfast was after a little bit of studying or opening the post at the office.  Dinner was the main meal of the day – whenever it took place – but here in rural Yorkshire it was generally in the middle of the day or the early afternoon.  Tea was in the early evening, supper later on.  Dinner, tea and supper – all were opportunities for parties and gatherings in this gregarious, sociable world.

Mr Robert Crawshaw Workman farmed at Arksey, near Doncaster.  The Workmans were connections of the Henlocks, John's mother's family – Margaret Henlock married William Workman.  Mr and Mrs Henlock were John’s uncle and aunt from Great Ouseburn. 

Tuesday January 22nd 1856
Went to office.   Retd to Breakfast   felt rather tired.   At Noon walked with Jane up the Topcliffe Road   Had tea with Aunt Hirst   went to a small party to supper at Aunt Bells.   had my fortune told by her.   Got home about ½ past eleven.   Uncle Hirst & Dora came home from London & Ann Stubbs came with them

No wonder John felt tired – he had been up till 4 o’clock in the morning waiting for the cow to calve.  Jane was his elder sister, who would soon marry young Mr Capes of her uncle Hirst’s office.  Dora was his cousin Dorothy Hirst, who died unmarried aged fifty-one.  She led a quiet life of useful works to the community and her family and is commemorated by a stained glass window in Boroughbridge church.  Ann Stubbs was one of the London relations.

5. A Boroughbridge Boyhood in the 1850s: Holidays

If the working day in the 1850s was a great deal less frenetic than today, holidays were fewer.  John’s parents would generally go to a seaside resort, often Redcar, for a week or two.  They went in a large party of family and friends to stay in lodging houses – in 1856 they went twice, in July and in October.  John went on Saturday 18th October to meet them there:

Saturday October 18th 1856
Went to Office.   At Noon about home   At Night I went to Redcar   left at ¼ past six   got there ½ past nine   Mr Clark of Ellinthorp went at Noon   Father & Mother  Aunt & Uncle Redmayne  Sarah Sedgwick & Miss Cunnyngham were there   Mr Clark & I slept and had breakfast on Sunday & Monday   he pd my exps at the Inn

Heaton Clark of Ellenthorpe Hall married Miss Jane Hewit Cunynghame in November 1857 – the groom was sixty seven years old and the bride aged thirty seven.  Sarah Sedgwick married John’s brother Joe in 1857.

Sunday October 19th 1856
Clark & I went on the Sands before breakfast   Uncle R & I went to Redcar Church   the rest went to Coatham  Had a walk in the afternoon   Sarah  Aunt & I went to Coatham at night

Monday October 20th 1856
Got up had breakfast at the Inn   Saw Clark off by the 7.50 train to Yarm Fair  Saw Uncle R & Aunt & Miss Cunnyngham off by 11 train   Had a bathe in the Sea   Father & I walked to Coatham  had some porter at the Lobster   Walked about all day   Set off for home at 5.20.   Had a very jolly visit

4. A Boroughbridge Boyhood in the 1850s: "Went to office"

From 1855 John was a clerk in his uncle Hirst’s office, entering into articles later – he wrote to the legal stationers’ Butterworths in May 1857 with a postal order for fourteen shillings and sixpence for a copy of Wharton’s Manual for Articled Clerks.  He was paid £10 a year in two instalments and kept a careful account of his money: in January 1855, his expenses included a Coat for 1 shilling and Trowsers for ninepence; in May 1855 he spent threepence on a haircut and sixpence on Braces; and in June 1855 he spent five shillings on Powder & Shot.

His working day began with sorting the post, as his uncle Hirst was the Boroughbridge postmaster.  He had a break at noon, when he often records taking a walk, reading a book or calling on friends or family.  It seems to have been an hour’s break as he often writes of ‘leisure hour’ and he seems to have gone home to dinner:

Friday November 7th 1856
Had dinner at Uncles   Just went home to say I should not be at home to dine & then went back to the Office.   Had a very hard day   After tea went home & read law.   Came back to sup & looked thro’ some of the Library books.   Joe had tea with us.

Friday January 16th 1857
Went to office.   At Noon just went home & got dinner  returned immediately as we were very busy today.   At Night Aunt Bell had tea at our house  I went with her to sup at Jane’s  Joe & Tom Sedgwick walked to Ouseburn today.   They got home 12 at night

3. A Boroughbridge boyhood in the 1850s: The Yorkshire Volunteers

Some of the young men belonged to the Territorial Army of the day, the Yorkshire Volunteers.  John’s father had been a Volunteer himself in his youth.  This letter survives, written by Thomas, then aged twenty nine, from Bradford.  The dry summer had closed mills across Yorkshire and the Volunteers had been sent to Bradford where the introduction of steam power to John Garnett Horsfall’s worsted mill had triggered unrest.  Thomas and Mary had been married eighteen months and Mary was heavily pregnant with her first child, Jane:

Bradford 3 May 1826
My Dear Mary,
I cannot at present say when I shall be able to be at home.  Lord Grantham arrived here last night, and has given orders for the whole Regiment to assemble here, I fancy to relieve those who have been on duty since Saturday.  It will please you to hear that we shall not go to York or elsewhere on permanent duty this year as our attendance here will make up for that, which makes me think that Lord Grantham will keep us the number of days we should have been at York, respecting the particulars of our marches &c I will give you by word of mouth.
Bradford is very still, and not a disorderly person to be seen in the streets, we have not had occasion to be on horseback since we arrived and if we stay some time longer it will be the case, there has not been the least disturbance but on Thursday night last, and that only the windows of Mr Horsfalls mill broken, the Inhabitants think nothing of it.
You cannot now find fault with me for not writing.  I wish I had something worth writing to you about, however I know this that a letter softens the pain of absence.
You will have seen Mr Stead before you receive this he will tell you the news and the battles we have fought.  I long to see you, if Stead returns I should like to hear from you, by him, I am now going to receive orders for our Troop, and by the time they are finished the post will have left which obliges me to conclude with best love to my dearest Mary, and all relations at Bbridge,
believe me to remain as before your loving Husbd T Stubbs

2. A Boroughbridge Boyhood in the 1850s: "Good sport"

Monday January 21st 1856
…  Sat up till 4 o’clock in the morning expectg cow calving   She calved about an hour after I got to bed …  Calved red & white Heifer Calf.

The Stubbs family had once been more prosperous – in the days before the railways, when the Great North Road was filled with traffic, Boroughbridge had been a thriving, bustling town and there had been plenty of business for the wine merchant and grocer at the Bridge Foot.  The house had even featured on the five guinea note of the Boroughbridge Bank established by John’s father, together with Thomas Dew, Hugh Stott (the doctor who owned The Crown Inn) and Humphrey Fletcher of Minskip.  By 1856 trade had dwindled and the family’s fortunes with it – but they still owned a little land at Langthorpe, necessary for the house cow and the pony needed for deliveries.

Wednesday February 20th 1856
Went with Mr Roger [Buttery] to Brafferton to Murfits to see a pig which was expected to weigh 60 stones   Had breakfast   Dick [Hirst] came with me to the Station came home by 9 o’clock train

Tuesday afternoon, at the office – a letter came for John from his cousin Sophy Hirst, staying with the Buttery family at Helperby, inviting John to a party that night.  He enjoyed it “very fairly”, stayed the night and was up in time to visit the giant pig before taking the train back to Boroughbridge.  The Butterys – Mr and Mrs Roger, Mr Thomas and Mr William, were relatives of the Stubbs.  To the Butterys again in March, where his cousin Dick Hirst was learning farming:

Sunday March 16th 1856
Went twice to Brafferton Church   saw the Smiths   called at Thos Buttery   went with Dick Hirst to chop turnips for the Sheep.   At night we sat in the house

Years later, established as a solicitor in Middlesbrough and living first in Coatham and then in Ormesby, John always managed to keep a few farm animals himself – even though, as his mother reminded him, amateur farming does not pay.

1. A Boroughbridge Boyhood in the 1850s: Introducing John Stubbs

Saturday January 1st 1853
Stayed at home in the morning & helped to clip the pony & had a ride in the evening on the pony

John Richard Stubbs was fourteen years old when he made his first entry in his new diary.  He lived beside the River Ure in Boroughbridge, opposite the Crown, once a famous posting house.  His home was called the Bridge Foot, where his family had lived, kept their warehouse and run their business since his grandfather’s day – wine merchants, grocers and tea dealers since 1790. 

Monday January 3rd 1853
Rode the pony to Knaresboro to the Sessions dined at the Royal Oak & rode back at night & went to Uncle Hirst’s to supper

John’s eldest brother Joseph, now aged nearly twenty-four, would take over the firm.  He had learned his trade from his father and in London and was back at home working in the business.  Eighteen-year-old Thomas was away, apprenticed to a Master Vintner.  John was destined for the law.

A Boroughbridge Boyhood in the 1850s: the diaries of John Stubbs

The next series of posts will be an account of John Richard Stubbs' boyhood in Boroughbridge. 

John Richard Stubbs was born on 2 October 1838 at five minutes past three o'clock in the morning at the Bridge Foot, Boroughbridge.  His parents were Thomas Stubbs (1796-1867) and Mary Henlock (1803-91).  John was one of six children.  His brothers and sisters were Jane (1826-1902), Joseph (“Joe”) (1829-1906), Thomas (“Tom”) (1834-66), Mary Elizabeth (“Lizzy”) (1842-1914) and Alice (1844-1921).

John married Ellis Macfarlane on 13 April 1871 at Claremont House, Helensburgh.  They had three children:  Thomas Duncan Henlock (1872-1931), Mary Kathleen (1874-1948) and William Henlock who died in 1886 at the age of seven.

John qualified as a solicitor in May 1860 and started in practice in the newly incorporated borough of Middlesbrough in February 1861; he was one of the earliest solicitors in the town.  His entry in the 1903 Contemporary Biographies of the North & East Ridings of Yorkshire reads:

John Richard Stubbs, J.P., Park End, Ormesby, near Middlesbrough; son of Thomas and Mary Stubbs (née Henlock); born at Boroughbridge, October 2nd 1838; educated at Giggleswick.  Solicitor; Notary Public; Commissioner for Oaths; Clerk to the Justices for the Division of Langbaurgh North; Official Receiver in Bankruptcy for the Middlesbrough, Stockton-on-Tees, and Northallerton Districts; Justice of the Peace for the borough of Middlesbrough.  Married, April 13th 1871 at Helensburgh, N.B. [North Britain], Elizabeth Grace Ellis, daughter of Duncan Macfarlane.

John must have initially retired from practice in 1908 when he gave his law library to Middlesbrough Town Council, but it seems that the pressure of war and the absence of so many of the younger men brought him out of retirement in January 1915.  However, he was now an old man and had suffered the loss in 1914 of his fifteen-year-old grandson, a midshipman on HMS Aboukir.  His health failing, he died on 6 December 1916 at Coatham, aged 78 years.

Alfred Pease of Pinchinthorpe Hall wrote to John's son:

… When a father dies no matter what his age it makes a gap in the family that is never filled again and in your case I am certain the loss will be deeply felt, for few men by their qualities compare with your father.  In the days when I constantly met him I learnt his worth and held him in honour and I may say too in affection – a most just, kind, gentleman …

His widow Ellis died on 30 April 1922 at Scriven Lodge, Knaresborough and was buried at Coatham on 3 May.

For much of his life, John kept a diary noting the main events of his day.  The entries for the 1850s are generally written in small pocket diaries, 4½ by 3 inches in size, with a week to a page.  They are not reflective or introspective, but offer a picture of the daily life and surroundings of John, his relatives, neighbours and friends.  As this may be of interest to local and family historians, I have tried to reflect this in my account of John's early life.

Unfortunately, as nobody remembered to write the names under the photographs in the family album, my choice of illustrations was limited!

John Richard Stubbs (1838-1916), Boroughbridge-born Middlesbrough solicitor

John Richard Stubbs (1838-1916) came to Middlesbrough in February 1861 as a newly qualified solicitor some eight years after the new town was incorporated as a borough in 1853.  An active and gregarious man and an excellent shot, he soon took his place in the social, professional and sporting life of the area.

John was born in Boroughbridge, the son of Thomas Stubbs and Mary Henlock.  His family tree is set out in The Genealogical History of the Family of the late Bishop Stubbs (1915, Volume 55 of the Yorkshire Archaeological Society).  John and Bishop William were cousins on both their fathers' and mothers' sides – their fathers were brothers and their mothers were second cousins. John's immediate family is to be found on page 71 with one error.  His sister Alice did not die in 1891 but survived until 1921.

His diaries cover the years 1853, 1855-7, 1858/9, 1860, 1862-74 and 1876-1907.  The entries are not descriptive or reflective, but consist of short notes of his activities.  They give us a glimpse of the daily life of his home town of Boroughbridge and the nearby villages, his school days in Settle and his adult life in Coatham and Middlesbrough, but the principal value to Teesside historians must lie in the record they provide of the circles of professional connection,  friendship and kinship which lay behind the municipal and business life of Middlesbrough.

I plan to begin on John Stubbs' papers next and to post pieces from research I did some years ago – one result of this can already be seen in the article on Branwell Brontë's Honest & Kindly Friend.  I have decided that the best way to make the contents of the diaries available to fellow local historians is to photograph the pages and add a note of the names mentioned to each blogpost so that they will be found by a search engine.

We shall see (eventually) how this new project goes!

Ledgers of the Stubbs business in Boroughbridge, 1790-1830

The Stubbs family business has already appeared in this blog in the account of the Five Guinea Note from the Boroughbridge Bank.

Ledgers of the Stubbs business for the years between 1790 and 1830 are held at the North Yorkshire County Record Office [NYCRO ZGB].  What follows are the notes I made for NYCRO in 2008, when the ledgers returned from conservation:-

These ledgers relate to the business established by Thomas Stubbs (1761-1838) at the house and premises known as the Bridge Foot, Boroughbridge. 

Thomas Stubbs was the grandfather of Bishop William Stubbs of Oxford, the eminent historian.   Stubbs “recommended the following up of local and personal history as leading to a connexion with the greater streams and lines of social and political history that is full of direct interest, which a man can have all to himself” [1].  He used his own family history as an example:

“... My grandfather’s house stood on the ground on which Earl Thomas of Lancaster was taken prisoner by Edward II, on the very site of the battle of Boroughbridge; he, too, was churchwarden of the chapel in which the earl was captured....” [2]

The Bridge Foot was a house the Bishop knew well.

Thomas Stubbs  was born in Ripley, the son of Thomas Stubbs (born in Hampsthwaite, 1735-1805) and Elizabeth Walls of Milby (1743-99) [3].  His father had chosen to leave Nidderdale, where the family had lived and farmed for many generations, to become a grocer in Ripley. 

In his turn, Thomas junior left Ripley for the thriving town of Boroughbridge, where he set himself up as a grocer, tea dealer and wine and spirit merchant living and working at the Bridge Foot. 

Boosbeck Steam Saw Mills Co Ltd, 1874

This is rather hard to read! (The triple dots mark the point where I have given up for the moment.)  But I can't think that much can have survived from this company, which was wound up a couple of years later, so I think it is worth posting here.  Here is my (partial) transcription:

Boosbeck Steam Saw Mills Company Ltd

7 Sept 1874 

to JR Stubbs Esq Middlesbro 

Dear Sir
At a meeting of the Directors of the above company the following minute was entered
"That Mr Stubbs & Mr Macfarlane draw up a report to present to shareholders, and that the report be embodied under the following heading" viz.
"That proper machinery in first instance having been obtained, consequently the house to be taken down and suitable machinery erected in its place, thereby entailing extra cost - The dullness arising from recent strike, and the great difficulty in obtaining lathes, saws &c owing to the disturbed state of the trade [...] and the want of system in keeping the accounts and separating them under their proper headings"
"The Books have now been remodelled and all the proper machinery processed and the Directors hope to be able to write off this loss by next year"
I may add that the meeting of shareholders was fixed for Saturday September 19th at Boosbeck at 3 pm.  You will however receive due notice of this shortly.  The above resolution was proposed by Mr Walker & seconded by Mr Anderson
I am yours faithfully [...]

John Richard Stubbs was Official Receiver in Bankruptcy.

The War Department requisitions The Manor House at Carlton-in-Cleveland, 1940

The War Department requisitioned many large houses across the country in the Second World War. 

The paperwork for the requisition of the Manor House at Carlton-in-Cleveland has survived.  This is the Agreement with the War Department and the Notice of Requisition.  You can see that Robert Raby is employed as gardener, maintaining the ornamental grounds:

Old picture postcards

More from Ellis Stubbs' postcard album:

Guisborough Priory and Lily Pond

Old Ormesby

Roseberry Topping

Trafalgar Terrace,Coatham

Loch Katrine

High Row, Reeth

Sandsend

(Sorry about the sloppy photography - I was watching the Tour de France in the Dales at the time!)

John Macfarlan Charlton, 21st Northumberland Fusiliers

John Macfarlan Charlton 1891-1916

Jack Charlton was the son of the artist John Charlton (1849-1917) and his wife Catherine Jane Macfarlane (known to family and friends as Kate).

John Charlton senior was born at Bamburgh, and was a celebrated painter of historical and battle scenes.

Kate died in 1893 at the age of 31 leaving two little boys.  She had grown up at Gunnergate Hall and Ugthorpe Lodge – she was the daughter of Catherine Jane Macfarlane (1839-1903) and Thomas Vaughan (1834-1900), the less successful son of ironmaster John Vaughan.

John Macfarlan Charlton was killed on his 25th birthday.  His brother Hugh Vaughan Charlton had been killed the week before.  Their names are recorded on their mother's grave in Marton-in-Cleveland and at Lanercost, where their afflicted father died the following year.

The 'Recent Wills' notice published in the Yorkshire Post on 10 November 1916 noted that John was "an enthusiastic naturalist [and] had written and illustrated several short works on ornithology".

This card is from the postcard album of Elizabeth Grace Ellis Macfarlane (always known as Ellis), the wife of John Richard Stubbs.  Kate Vaughan, the young officer's grandmother, was Ellis's cousin.

Joseph Beresford Shields 1879-1918

I don't know how these papers came to survive in a Deed Box from Meek, Stubbs & Barnley, solicitors, Middlesbrough.

A small envelope contains a letter from Joe Shields to his mother, his birth certificate and a letter from his mother to Mrs (or Miss) Wilson, his friend.  Joe's letter is dated 17 August 1916 and is sent from B Company, 9th Bedfordshire Regiment, stationed at Sittingbourne, and it's about the food he is looking forward to enjoying on a short leave:

His mother was Emily Julia Shields, née Mullen, and Joe was born in Stockton:

In July 1918 Mrs Shields wrote to a Mrs (or Miss, the title is altered in pencil) Wilson at Leigh-on-Sea, Essex.  The letter was forwarded to the Victoria Naval Hospital, Southend:

Joe has been reported missing, although his mother is still hoping for good news.  Her letter shows no address but one has been written in pencil on the reverse:

Sadly, there was to be no good news.  Joseph was killed in action on 24 May 1918; his grave is at Pozieres Memorial Cemetery.

It seems likely that the Mrs or Miss Wilson to whom Mrs Shields wrote this touching letter is the Miss Elizabeth Ann Wilson named as an executor of his Will.  She kept the boarding house in which he lived in Leigh-on-Sea.

His last address as a civilian (and the address given in the National Probate Calendar) was 19 Southend Southsea Avenue, Leigh-on-Sea.  He was living there at the time of the 1911 Census, which shows that the boardinghouse keeper was Mrs Elizabeth Ann Wilson, aged 46 and born in Boosbeck, Cleveland, and that Joseph was then 31 years old, unmarried and a draughtsman at the Marine Engine Works.

So it seems probable that Mrs Shields is addressing this Elizabeth Ann Wilson when she writes

I always felt my Dear Son had a good friend in you which I can assure you has taken a load off my mind.  I shall always count you as one of my dearest friends always write to me dear it will be such a consolation to me 

If there are any members of Joe's family out there who would like this letter, do please contact me ...

Jacques-Emile Blanche

I've just added this update to the post on The 'Skirt Dance' of the two Savile Clarke girls:

Update 4 July 2014: for information on Jacques-Emile Blanche, see Artist in Focus (July 2014) on the Public Catalogue Foundation website

Letters Patent of James VI & I

This is a Licence to Alienate.  These Letters Patent of King James VI & I gave Ralph Stowpe permission in 1616 to sell to Robert Layton a cottage, toft & croft, 2 oxgangs & 19 ½ acres of land in the area of Marske, Upleatham and Redcar.

The Great Seal is a little battered. This is the reverse of the deed and the seal:

At some point this deed came into the hands of Middlesbrough solicitor Thomas Duncan Henlock Stubbs.  He took it to the noted scholar and antiquarian Thomas McAll Fallow at Coatham House.

Mr Fallow was born in 1847 and educated at Brighton College and St John's, Cambridge.  He originally intended to take Holy Orders but instead divided his time between parish work and scholarship.  He acted as layhelper to his cousin the Rev R B Kirby at Chapel Allerton, Leeds between 1872 and 1885, and then moved to Coatham where again he was active in the parish but primarily devoted his time to archaeology.  He was editor of The Reliquary and The Antiquary, and died in 1910.  Here is his letter to Stubbs:

And this is his transcription of the Letters Patent: