Thomas Mease & John Wesley's umbrella

A chance find reveals that Thomas Mease of Stokesley (1792-1862) was once the owner of John Wesley's green silk umbrella:

Northampton Mercury, 31 December 1870

Kettering

CORN EXCHANGE, - On Tuesday evening a tea meeting, with a Christmas tree, took place in connection with the Wesleyan Society.  There was also in the room John Wesley's umbrella, with a leather case.  The umbrella was made of strong green silk.  Mr Wesley gave it to James Rodgers, and his son presented it to Mr Thos Mease, of Stokesley, who gave it to the Rev James Everett, of Sunderland by whom it was lent to Mr H Heighton as an attraction on this occasion.  A goodly number was present both at tea and at the sale of the various articles on the Christmas tree during the evening.  The proceeds were upwards of £20, which is to be devoted to the liquidation of the circuit debt.

For Thomas Mease's colourful life, start reading here

Thomas Redmayne of Taitlands

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

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

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

Her article on Thomas Redmayne is appearing in this year's North Craven Heritage Trust Journal and should be available online before long.  In it you will find the story of his family, how he made his money, the personal tragedies that befell him and the fine country house he built, Taitlands, which Catherine describes here:

a luxurious country residence 'with spacious drawing, dining and breakfast rooms and nine bedrooms with dressing rooms', lavishly furnished with 'rosewood and spanish mahogany furniture, Brussels and tapestry carpets' and the usual accoutrements of early Victorian fashion. Attics, kitchens, scullery, butler’s pantry, cellars, and outbuildings, stables and coach house with pigeon loft, not to mention fourteen bee boles, completed the establishment. 

Then & Now: Asiatic Cholera & Covid-19

Listening to the news of the coronavirus, it seems timely to look back on another rapidly spreading disease – the pandemic of Asiatic Cholera that reached Hutton Rudby in 1832.  

This was a very frightening pandemic, not because it was terribly contagious – it was noted in 1876 that out of nineteen people drinking from a infected vessel, only five contracted the infection – but because nobody knew how it spread or what caused it and because without treatment it is fatal in half the cases.  Nowadays it is very treatable; the website of Médecins sans frontières explains that it "can be treated simply and successfully by immediately replacing the fluids and salts lost through vomiting and diarrhoea – with prompt rehydration, less than one per cent of cholera patients die."  

The arrival of the cholera in Hutton Rudby was to prove pivotal in the life of the new vicar, the Revd Robert Barlow.  The story of the cholera and Mr Barlow is told in my book Remarkable, but still True: the story of the Revd R J Barlow and Hutton Rudby in the time of the cholera which I posted on this blog in December 2012.

Here are a few excerpts from Chapter 11. 1832: The year of the Cholera to entice readers back to the chapter itself (just click on that hyperlink to get there), with its account of the dilemmas faced by the authorities and the reactions of business interests and ordinary people:

Cholera had always been endemic in pockets of India, but now, perhaps spread by the new conditions of greatly increased trade and British troop movements, it broke out explosively, and soon produced on the minds of the medical attendants the strong conviction that it was a new disease – a most fearful Pestilence.   

It swiftly passed its usual boundaries and spread widely and rapidly along the trade routes of Asia.  An exceptionally severe winter prevented its further spread into Europe, but a second pandemic beginning in Bengal in 1826 spread rapidly across Asia and the middle East. 

By August 1830 it had reached Moscow, and helped by large numbers of refugees from a savage military campaign in Poland, it travelled rapidly along the complex of busy trade routes across Europe.  It carried with it a terrifying reputation, and even though its impact in Britain was far less damaging than had first been feared, it would cause over 31,000 deaths in England, Scotland and Wales in the years 1831 to 1832. 

The British quarantine regulations were developed from those devised to combat plague and yellow fever.

The 31,000 deaths were from a population of 16.54 million (this website explains the figures from the 1831 census).  I think the population of England, Scotland and Wales is now about 65.4m people.

Dr Simpson [who studied the 1832 outbreak] wrote in 1849: 

If quarantine could be strictly enforced, there cannot be the slightest doubt that it would be successful.  The difficulties, however, of enforcing quarantine, between countries where extensive commercial intercourse is constantly going on, would appear to be quite insurmountable.

Internal quarantine was considered:

The Board of Health had considered the possibility of internal quarantine to limit the spread of cholera once it arrived, but it was obviously impracticable.  Given the terrifying nature of the disease reported in Asia and eastern Europe, they recommended local isolation of the first cases and the separation of the sick from the healthy.  This was to be done by a network of local Boards of Health.  The Board envisaged the removal of the sick into cholera hospitals, and thence into convalescent homes, while their contacts would be taken into isolation houses; if all three buildings could be in the same enclosure, this could be conveniently guarded by the local military.  Their homes would be purified with chloride of lime and hot lime wash; the dead would be buried swiftly in ground close to the house for the infected.  Their first circular, published in the press, called for local Boards to be established,

There should be established a local board of health, to consist of the Chief and other Magistrates, the Clergyman of the parish, two or more Physicians or Medical Practitioners, and three or more of the Principal Inhabitants…

The Central Board advised the magistrates to prevent, as far as possible, intercourse with any infected town.  Magistrates and clergy were asked to improve the conditions in which cholera spread:

the poor, ill-fed, and unhealthy part of the population, and especially those who have been addicted to the drinking of spirituous liquors, and indulgence in irregular habits, have been the greatest sufferers from the disease…. 

This circular was published on 20 October 1831 shortly before the news of the first official case of cholera was confirmed in Sunderland in late October. 

Cholera came to Hutton Rudby at nine o'clock in the evening on Tuesday 2 October 1832, when the weaver John Cook came back from Newcastle to his home in the Bay Horse Yard.