In Spring 1880, this advertisement appeared repeatedly in the Yorkshire newspapers:
The Daily Gazette for Middlesbrough, 15 April 1880
Desirable Country Residence
To be sold, and may be entered upon immediately, EDEN VILLA, within eight miles of Stockton, near Hutton Rudby, and one mile from the Potto Station on the Whitby Railway. The House is most favourably situated, commanding magnificent views of the Cleveland Hills, and in the midst of a fertile country.
The House contains Drawing and Dining Rooms, Front and Back Kitchen, Scullery, Larder, Wash-house, Cellar, &c., and five good Bedrooms and W.C. The Outbuildings consist of two Coach-houses, 2-Stall Stable, Cow-byre, etc.
There is Hard and Soft Water on the premises.
The premises are well and substantially built, and are in first-class order; they stand upon one-and-a-half acres of Land, well stocked with Shrubs, Ornamental and Fruit Trees. There is also eight-and-a-half acres of rich Pasture Land adjoining the House, making in all ten acres of splendid Land.
Applications to be sent in to the owner, William W. Carter, Eden Villa, Hutton Rudby, Yarm. Further particulars may be obtained from
EUGENE E. CLEPHAN,Architect and Surveyor,Stockton-on-Tees.March 16th, 1880.
Eden Villa was the house built by William Surtees when he came back from Australia in 1868 with his son, the only survivor of his first marriage, and his Australian wife and their little girls. He built them a house in the fields beyond the edge of the village and he called it Eden Cottage after his grandmother Eden Dodds.
He was a stone mason by trade and now he established himself as a builder and contractor. But he had more adventurous plans. First he set up the Albion Steam Crushing and Cutting Mills in Middlesbrough and then he bought land at the corner of Doctors Lane and began work on his new project – the Albion Sailcloth Works, equipped with a horizontal steam engine driving six looms. And then, before the Works had really begun, he died in 1877 aged 53. His widow sold up and took her children back home to her family in New South Wales. (The whole story is to be found in Hutton Rudby 1876 to 1877: the Albion Sailcloth Mill)
I always wondered when Eden Lodge, as it is now called, took on its present appearance. It seems to me that William Surtees' Eden Cottage must have been a modest building because he needed his money for his business ventures.
The advertisement from the spring of 1880 reveals the answer. William Surtees very probably had outbuildings for his tools and equipment but I suspect he was far too busy a man to have time to stock an orchard and put in shrubs. The hard and cold water may well have been his work – a well drawing hard water from an aquifer and a rainwater collection system for the soft, ideal for washing.
It was William Carter who must have enlarged the house, perhaps converting the outbuildings into coach-houses and stables. He bought more land and, with the assistance (I would guess) of the architect Eugene E Clephan, he created an idyllic miniature country estate. In fact, in his brief ownership he had gentrified Eden Cottage.
The story of William Weldon Carter, to give him his full name, is one of steady success and sudden failure in the retail trade and of the parting of the ways between brothers. It's also the story of a long-running Stockton drapery firm, which must have been very frequently visited by people from Hutton Rudby; there were close ties between town and village.
In 1841, two brothers called William Weldon and George Richardson Weldon from Beverley were doing well as drapers in Stockton-on-Tees. Living with them on the shop premises, as was usual at the time, were two assistant drapers and three apprentices. Business may have been getting on well, but William and George evidently were not – in the spring of 1842 they ended their partnership and each struck out on his own. William's business was now William Weldon & Co at 32 High Street [1]
By 1850 William had shops in both Stockton and Middlesbrough and had taken his sister's son William Weldon Carter into partnership with him. William Weldon Carter was still a very young man, born in Hull in 1827 to Margaret Weldon and Richard Carter, a commercial traveller. His younger brother Thomas Vincent Carter had joined him by the spring of 1851 and they lived with their uncle, three shopmen, an apprentice and three servants at Todds Buildings, which seems to have been on Yarm Lane. It was a thriving concern.
Meanwhile, George Richardson Weldon was in a much quieter way of trade at 62 High Street. Eventually he retired from business to farm 40 acres on Oxbridge Lane.
But William Weldon's partnership with his nephew William was not long lasting – it ended in July 1852. It looks as though young William, on his travels for his uncle's business, had fallen for a girl and on 7 August 1852 he and Elizabeth Whistler were married in London. She was the daughter of a draper, which was perhaps how he had met her. (In the marriage register, he described his own father as a gentleman). It seems he had ended the partnership with his uncle in order to emigrate.
The young couple went to Australia – as did William Surtees and his wife half a dozen years later – but, just as for William Surtees, their voyage ended in tragedy. Elizabeth died in Collingwood, Victoria on 10 March 1853 after only seven months of married life.
By 1861 William Weldon was doing very well. William Weldon & Co had expanded into the four buildings of numbers 30 to 33 High Street and William had pulled them down and replaced them with a single four-storey building. He no longer lived at the shop but in great style in West End House on Yarm Lane, in the fields outside Stockton [2]. The house was set well back from the road in its own grounds and the entrance to the drive was flanked by two gate lodges. His pleasant and quiet nephew Tom [3] was still living with him and working alongside him. His nephew William, who had returned from Australia a few years earlier and had been married since 1858 to Mary Ellen Ellison, was running the Middlesbrough branch in East Street. (Middlesbrough began as a town on the north side of the railway line and that was where the middle classes then lived.) William and his wife lived on the premises with seven staff, both male and female, aged between 14 and 40.
At around this time William Weldon took both his nephews into partnership with him and the firm became William Weldon, Carter & Co.
And then William Weldon Carter's luck took a downturn again when he fell ill. In February 1863 William Weldon instructed a Manchester accountant to dispose of the "stock-in-trade, fixtures and goodwill of his branch drapery concern". Such a sale in the booming new town of Middlesbrough was expected to have a broad appeal and this advertisement appeared in the Liverpool press:
Liverpool Mail, 28 February 1863
... The shop is large, modern and well lighted, having been built expressly for the business, and occupies the first situation in the town. The trade is a first class and profitable one, and the returns average £10,000 per annum. Present amount of Stock £3,000 or thereabouts. A clever business man, or two active young men, who know how to buy and sell, may make a fortune in a few years. The business at Middlesbro has hitherto been managed by the proprietor's nephew, who is unable from ill health to conduct it any longer, and hence the reason of its disposal.
It isn't clear to me whether William Weldon actually sold the business. At any rate, William Weldon Carter and his wife and baby son returned to Stockton. It was a busy few years for the family. William and Tom's widowed mother Margaret died aged 59 at her brother's house and the following year it was from there that her daughters were married, Agnes Sarah to the shipbuilder George Craggs and Margaret Ann to the Bishop Auckland metal merchant Henry Kilburn. Perhaps William Weldon found he missed the female company because at the end of 1865, he married. He was 59 years old and his new wife Elizabeth Ann Benson was 30.
Five years later, on 24 July 1870, William Weldon retired from business to live out his retirement in comfort and dignity at West End House and William and Tom Carter became Carter Bros. They branched out, buying an interest in Robert Gray & Co, a big drapery concern in Blyth.
So in 1871 the younger generation was in charge. Tom had just married and he and his new wife Jane Robinson Dickin lived at 4 Barrington Crescent. William had bought a house at 2 West End Terrace for his family of three young children.
Everything was looking promising. The brothers sold their share of Robert Gray & Co back to Robert Gray, had their shop at numbers 34 to 37 High Street demolished and new premises built on the site. In early June 1874 they celebrated with a ball for their employees. The Daily Gazette for Middlesbrough reported on 13 June that over 500 people were present and that
The dances took place on the ground floor, and the show room was metamorphosed into a supper-room. Dancing was kept up with great spirit till an early hour in the morning
The new buildings were heralded by an enormous advertisement in the Gazette on 3 July 1874 ("Great Extension of Business Area") and we can see the extent of the goods they sold in an advertisement in early December that year.
Daily Gazette for Middlesbrough, 2 December 1874
Carter Bros.,Wholesale & Retail DrapersStockton-on-TeesDesire careful and special attention to the undernoted Departments, which certainly contain by far the Largest, most varied and fashionable, together with the Cheapest Stock in the District of Cleveland.
They listed Costumes ("Fifty Homespun, at 29s 6d, ticketed in the town at 39s 6d"), Skirts, Jackets, Shawls, Flannels and Furnishing, which included carpets, matting, hearthrugs and paperhangings.
In the winter of 1875 they led the area in Early Closing for the winter months. The Daily Gazette thought all the town's tradesmen could "advantageously and profitably" follow their example. It doesn't mention the shop assistants. These were the days of punishingly long working hours. It wasn't until 1886 that the number of hours were restricted to 74 just for the under-18s and, with staff living on site, unpaid overtime was common. The reduced opening hours meant that Carter Bros would close on Saturdays evenings at nine and on other weekdays at 6 o'clock. (One early polemic against the system, Death and Disease behind the Counter, was written by the barrister Thomas Sutherst in 1884 and can be read here. The cause of the shopworkers was later taken up by The Lancet).
And then in 1879 William and Tom's partnership came to an end.
By this time, Mrs Surtees and her little daughters had left Eden Cottage and William Weldon Carter had bought it. Was it intended as an investment or did he intend to live comfortably in the country? We don't know. He still owned 2 West End Terrace and he must have spent a good deal of money on Eden Cottage to turn it into Eden Villa. And he had plans for his future ...
Meanwhile in Stockton, it was the end of an era. William Weldon died at home on 5 June 1880 aged 74. The Daily Gazette for Middlesbrough reported on 8 June that
There was a large following at the funeral, most of the leading tradesmen and inhabitants of the town being present to show their respect for the memory of the deceased gentleman. Mr Weldon was the founder of the old established firm of Weldon and Carter, drapers, now known as Carter and Co, and was generally esteemed for his strict business integrity and general uprightness.
Over the road from the Oxbridge Lane cemetery where William was buried, his brother George now lived in one of the recently-built large houses called The Ferns. Five years later, he too would be buried in the cemetery.
William Weldon Carter must have had high hopes for the future at the beginning of 1880. He was living at Eden Villa, his little country paradise. In March his son William Weldon Carter junior passed the preliminary examination of the Law Society and his proud parents had announced the fact in a notice in the Daily Gazette for Middlesbrough. And then something began to go wrong with the finances.
Eden Villa was repeatedly advertised for sale but there were no buyers. The mortgagee lost patience and both properties were ordered to be auctioned on 30 September 1880 at the Vane Arms in Stockton. This must have been a very unwelcome moment for William's brother Tom who was at that point renting 2 West End Terrace from his brother. The auction notice described the house as
a very comfortable and commodious House, and conveniently situated
while the description of Eden Villa ("a very desirable country Residence") now included a Croquet Ground.
(The mortgagee's solicitors were Hirst & Capes in Harrogate, and if that sounds familiar to keen readers, it's because it features here in A Large family in 19th century Harrogate and in the story of John Richard Stubbs, which begins on this blog in July 2014)
This advertisement at the beginning of December shows that William's new plans were maturing:
Sunderland Daily Echo, 3 December 1880
New Drapery Store212, High-Street, Sunderland(Two minutes' walk from the Station on the right)William Weldon CarterWishes the General Public to know,without giving a Long List to read,they will find all their requirementsat Prices undoubtedly the BestValue in the North
He and his family now lived comfortably at Oaks West in Sunderland, where William Weldon Carter junior, in spite of his Law Society examination success, was an apprentice draper and the two daughters had the benefit of a governess living in the household. Eden Villa was empty; before long it would be the home of the Thorman family.
A few months later, William Weldon Carter announced the opening of a new shop selling "General Drapery Goods & Paper-Hanging" at 50 & 51 Church Street, West Hartlepool. He advertised heavily. It would be a cash only business, he explained in a long notice in the Hartlepool Northern Daily Mail, 2 August 1881. The goods would be marked at
fixed and unalterable prices, and will be sold strictly for cash across the counter, thus saving bad debts, and deferred interest, so that cash buyers will be supplied with goods at such prices as would prove utterly ruinous to credit-giving houses.
Was this a public-spirited policy or did he need immediate payment for his cash flow? He was hoping to "meet many of his old Stockton connection and friends" and he had an offer to make that might help poach customers who would otherwise go to his brother's business in Stockton:
Buyers from the country travelling by rail or carrier will be allowed their fare one way on purchases of one pound, and return fare on two pounds
No wonder relations between him and his brother Tom were strained. A notice had appeared in the Hartlepool Northern Evening Mail, 22 July & Hartlepool Northern Daily Mail, 23 July 1881
Messrs Carter & Company, Drapers etc, Stockton-on-Tees,Beg to inform their Customers and the Public that they have no connection with the Carter from Sunderland who is opening Sutton's old shop at West Hartlepool.
and directly below it was another notice
Note this – William Weldon Carter wishes the public in general to know that he has NO CONNECTION whatever with Carters' of Stockton nor has he any desire to be connected with them in any way whatever
On 20 August another advertisement appeared in the Hartlepool Northern Daily Mail – William Weldon Carter would be delaying the opening of the Hartlepool shop until 27 August
In consequence of the enormous pressure of Business in connection with his SUMMER CLEARANCE SALE now going on at Sunderland
But financial disaster was looming and it arrived all too soon:
Daily Gazette for Middlesbrough, 22 September 1881
LOCAL FAILURE – William Weldon Carter, hosier, draper, and milliner, late of Hutton Rudby, North Riding, but now of 50 and 51, Church-street, West Hartlepool, and of 212, High-street West, and of The Oaks, Sunderland. Debts, £5,000; assets not ascertained. The solicitors are Messrs Dodds and Co., Finkle-street, Stockton. Mr F H Colison, public accountant, Cheapside, London, has been appointed receiver
An end to all his dreams.
In Stockton, Tom was quietly prospering. This advertisement from c1893 shows the extent of his business, which had become Carter & Co when Carter Bros was no more
And after that ...
William Weldon's widow Elizabeth married Dr Thomas William Fagg the year after her first husband's death. She continued to live on at West End House while the town steadily built up around it. She certainly lived in comfort, as can be seen from an advertisement in the Daily Gazette for Middlesbrough 20 October 1891 for "2 Vine Houses of Black English Grapes." She died, again a widow, in 1914.
William Weldon Carter makes a brief reappearance in the newspaper advertisements in the first three months of 1891. He was the manager of the Darlington Mills shop in Dovecot Street, Stockton – this was the large and well-known woollens and worsted company of the Pease family in Darlington – and so he was once more in direct competition with his brother. After that he disappears from the record. He died in late 1904 at the age of 79 and was buried in the Oxbridge Lane Cemetery. His son William died in 1912 aged 49 and was also buried there.
Tom Carter died at home at 8 West End Terrace in December 1896, leaving a widow and seven children. In his obituary, William's role in the early years of the business is quite forgotten:
Northern Echo, 28 December 1896
Death of a Stockton tradesmanThe death took place on Saturday morning, at his residence, West End-terrace, Stockton, of Mr Thomas Vincent Carter, the founder and chief partner of the firm of Messrs Carter & Co., drapers, High-street. The deceased gentleman took an active part in the management of the business until about three and a half years ago, when he was seized with a stroke, and since then he has been in a helpless condition and under the medical care of Dr Hind.
Mr Carter was a native of Beverley, Yorkshire, and was about sixty-three years of age. In 1874 he built the present extensive premises, after having carried on a smaller business adjoining for some time, having succeeded to it on the death of his uncle, Mr Weldon, and about ten years later three other gentlemen joined him in partnership. He leaves a widow and a family of seven. The elder of his two sons is in a large drapery establishment in London, and the younger Vincent, is in the Stockton business, which has been under the direction of Mr H G Robson, the managing partner since Mr Carter's illness. The deceased gentleman was of a genial but quiet nature, and was highly esteemed amongst a large circle of business and private friends.
Carter & Co became D. Hill, Carter & Co Ltd after his death. They were a presence on Stockton High Street until just before the Second World War. Nowadays, the new buildings that the Carter brothers opened with such a fanfare in 1874 are occupied by the Enterprise Arcade:
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| The Enterprise Arcade is on the far left |
[1] I have drawn a great deal of information, above all on the buildings themselves, from this ECM Heritage report and this Heritage Stockton article. Other sources: London Gazette entries relating to the partnerships; digitised newspapers.
[2] For West End House, see photograph and comments on the the Stockton picture archive
[3] Thomas Vincent Carter is referred to as Tom in the notice placed in the press by Robert Gray on the occasion of the Carter brothers buying a share on Gray's drapery business. Tom's obituary in the Northern Echo, 28 Dec 1896, given at the end of this piece, describes him as "quiet".
