New & Good Things: Alfred Hopkinson, 1930

Alfred Hopkinson (1851-1939)

When Alfred Hopkinson, barrister, academic, MP and keen alpinist, wrote his memoirs in 1930, he ended one chapter with three lists.  He was 80 years old and looking back over the changes he had seen since he was a boy.  Here are his lists – perhaps readers will be inspired to make their own.

New & Good Things

Electric Lighting
New Universities
Short Skirts
Third Class on Express Trains
Telephones
Typewriting
Bathrooms with Hot & Cold Water
Underground Electric Tubes
Trained Nurses
Merciful Administration of Criminal Law
Mixed Bathing
Improved Sanitation
Woollies for Children
Boy Scouts
Girl Guides
Taxi-cabs
Afternoon Tea
Spring Wire Mattresses
The Salvation Army
Improved Anaesthetics
Antiseptic Surgery
Lawn Tennis
Sunday Opening of Libraries and Museums
Grape Fruit
Co-operative Holidays
Push Bikes
Lavatory Carriages
Flannel Shorts for Men
Charity Organization
Better Architecture
More Platonic Friendships
Wireless Telegraphy
Lighter Meals
Less Drunkenness
Workers' Educational Association
Wider Knowledge on Sex Matters
Garden Cities
Sun-bathing
Cushions in Third-class Carriages
More Daffodils
Pneumatic Tyres
The National Trust

Cockfighting in Hutton Rudby & Stokesley

In 1903 Richard Blakeborough (1850-1918), celebrated collector of North Riding folklore, wrote an article for a cheery weekly family newspaper called the Northern Weekly Gazette about cockfighting in the village of Hutton Rudby.

Cockfight in London: c1808

He had written on the subject before and he knew that cockfights hadn't stopped as soon as they were banned in England in 1835 (they haven't stopped yet), but now he had been contacted by Richard Robinson, a 68 year old retired farmer living in Old Battersby, who had anecdotes to tell him.

You can see from his article that Blakeborough enjoys the old North Riding dialect most of all.  He was a dialect enthusiast, well known for his recitations and writings.  

He begins

As late as 1850, many a main was fought in or near to that village on a good Sunday morning.  And one Robert Dorking, a weaver about that date, possessed a bird of such note that on many occasions it was matched to fight some of the best birds in the North.  These contests came off somewhere in Newcastle, whither Dorking tramped from Rudby with his bird. 

(Robert Dorking's name was actually Robert Dalking, so I'll alter the name accordingly from now on)

The people of Hutton Rudby always knew, even before Dalking got out of the bed the next morning, when his bird had won.

"It was like in this way," 

said Richard Robinson, 

"when Dalking's cocks lost, for he sometimes used to hug as many as four on his back – his missus used to come out with her head lapp'd up in a shawl, looking that dowly and never a word for nobody.  She used to creep along with her head down, an' were as cross as a bear with a sore head.  But when Dalking came home victorious, she was out with her best hood, fleeing all over the village to spread the good news; there was no ho'ding her back at such times."

Christmas recipes from Hutton Rudby, 1896

The Northern Weekly Gazette was a cheery weekly newspaper with editions published in Middlesbrough, Guisborough, South Bank, Stockton, Darlington and West Hartlepool.  Advertisements declared that

"The Northern Weekly Gazette is the most interesting and readable penny weekly paper in the North, and contains as much general reading as many shilling books"

It certainly was popular among Hutton Rudby families.  It only cost a penny and there was something in it for everybody – national and local news, local sports reports, household hints, recipes, jokes, serialised stories, pages for children, contributions welcomed and prizes to be won.

Mary Williams and her family were keen readers of the Gazette.  She was born in about 1856 in Hovingham and was married to a Welshman, Thomas Williams, who was coachman for the Blair family at Drumrauch Hall, their country house a little way outside Hutton Rudby.  Some time between the summer of 1895 (when their daughter Gladys was born) and the beginning of December 1896, the Williams family moved from Norton-on-Tees to one of the cottages by the entrance to the Hall on Belbrough Lane.  

Drumrauch Hall, O.S map revised 1911 
National Library of Scotland

These are two Christmas recipes sent in to the newspaper by Mrs Williams in 1896:

Northern Weekly Gazette, Saturday, December 5, 1896 

Christmas Mince Meat

Six nice apples, 2 lb currants, 1 lb Sultana raisins, 1 lb stoned raisins, 1½ lb moist sugar, ½ lb candied peel, 1 lb suet, 1 teaspoonful mixed spice, the rind of two lemons, the juice of one, 2 tablespoonfuls of orange marmalade, 1 teacupful of brandy; chop the apples and suet very fine, grate the lemons, mix all well together, press into a stone jar, cover air-tight; ready for use in a fortnight

A Good Family Christmas Pudding

1 lb breadcrumbs, ½ lb flour, 1 lb currants, 1lb Sultana raisins, 1 lb Muscatel raisins, 1 lb suet, 1 lb moist sugar, ½ lb mixed peel, 6 eggs well beaten, the rind and juice of a lemon, 2 oz powdered almonds, 1 teaspoonful of mixed spice, 1 teaspoonful salt, 1 teaspoonful ground ginger, 1 glass of brandy.  Mix all well together; boil for 8 hours.   

Mrs Williams, Drumrauck Cottage, Hutton Rudby, Yarm

Thomas and Mary spent the rest of their lives in Hutton Rudby.  They are buried in the churchyard there.

Dark nights in Great Ayton: 1889

This sad little story is a reminder of village life before street lighting.  We are so conscious of light pollution nowadays, we can forget the hazards of the past.

That admirable woman Mrs Annabel Dott wrote on the subject after her experiences among the rural poor of Dorset during the First World War.  She had been shocked and dismayed by their conditions and wrote about it in 1919 with great feeling.  Being a practical person, she saw where matters could be improved and one issue was lighting: 

Lighting is another important rural matter.  The dark roads make traffic difficult if not impossible after sunset, and during long evenings when there is no moon it is not an easy matter for old people, women, or delicate folk to get about.  One of the attractions of the town is the brightly lit streets ...

Joseph Longstaff was a Great Ayton man born and bred.  His father John had been a weaver and the parish clerk, and Joseph became parish clerk in his turn.  He began his working life as a tailor but for many years ran the village Post Office, with a grocery shop alongside.

In 1889 he was 69 years old and working as a tailor again and as assistant overseer for the parish.  He lived with his wife Mary and 11 year old son Edward on the High Street.

Northern Echo, 25 October 1889

Missing from Great Ayton

Considerable anxiety is being felt at Great Ayton on account of the mysterious disappearance of the Clerk of the Parish (Mr Joseph Longstaff).  

It appears on Friday evening he left home in his slippers and never returned, and nothing has been heard of him since.  The night was excessively dark, the weather tempestuous, and an unusual amount of water was rushing down the River Leven, which flows through the village.  It is very much to be feared that he has missed the bridge and fallen into the water, in which case the body would probably be carried for miles, so strong was the current at the time.  

Mr Longstaff was an old inhabitant of Ayton, and much respected.  He was for many years postmaster.  The village is in total darkness during the evenings of the winter months.

This wasn't the only tragedy that autumn, and the question of lighting was clearly on people's minds.  This happened less than a week later:

Daily Gazette for Middlesbrough, 31 October 1889

Another Fatality at Great Ayton

Some time during last night Henry Peacock, late stationer and newsagent, was drowned in the River Leven at Great Ayton.  His body was found early this morning under the stone bridge.  His death furnishes another sad argument for the necessity of lighting up the village. 

For a while the problem was solved and the village was lit by gas but, in the summer of 1896, the Friends' School changed to electric lighting, the gas works were discontinued and the village was dark again.  

At the beginning of the new century, several town councils were experimenting with a new invention called the Kitson Lamp, which was invented by Arthur Kitson, an Englishman who had moved to the USA.

His lamp used petroleum and a carbon mantle similar to those used in gas lamps.  The petroleum was held in a metal reservoir some distance away and drawn up to the lamp under air pressure through a very fine copper tube.  When it reached the part of the tube that was inside the lamp, the heat of the mantle vaporised it and was lit by an ingenious device that did away with the need to climb up to the lamp on a ladder.  As only a very minute quantity of oil was subjected to heat at any one time, even if the tube was broken there was no chance of an explosion.  

It was described enthusiastically in the press as a brilliant and beautiful light, the nearest approach to pure daylight and more pleasant to the eye than electric light.  Not only that, but it cost under a penny an hour and no underground plant or digging up of the streets was needed.  The gentlemen of Great Ayton decided to install one:

Daily Gazette for Middlesbrough, 6 March 1901

The Lighting of Great Ayton

Mr Henry Richardson and Mr Thompson, trustees to the manorial rights of Great Ayton, have, with other local gentlemen, aided Mr John Dixon to place on the High Green at Great Ayton a Kitson patent 1,000 candle-power lamp.  The lamp lights the whole of the green, and has been so successful that it is hoped that before long the whole village will be illuminated.  

Since the gas works at Great Ayton were discontinued on the Governors of the Friends' School having electric light instituted the village has had no illumination at all.  It is hoped by the tradesmen and inhabitants generally that a number of the lamps will be procured not only to light the road as far as the stone bridge, but also for California.

Defective bottles at Seaton Sluice: 1835

A chance find which has turned up among my family's papers – a furious letter about defective bottles.  No idea how it ended up in a solicitor's offices in Middlesbrough …

On Thursday 23 July 1835, a young man called John Latimer Nichol dashed off an angry letter to a Mr John Jobling of Seaton Sluice, the busy little port close to the village of Hartley in Northumberland.

John Latimer Nichol was a 28 year old merchant, born in Gateshead and working in the City of London.  Among their other business ventures, he and his father Anthony Nichol were in partnership with Ingleby Thomas Miller from Shincliffe, Co Durham as Nichol & Miller, bottle merchants in London.  New stock for their warehouses was shipped in bottle sloops to their premises at Dowgate Wharf on the Thames, near today's Cannon Street Station.  There was a booming market for bottles in the capital.

Nichol & Miller's bottles came from the North East, where the vast majority of glassmaking was carried out – there were bottleworks on the Rivers Tyne and Wear and the Northumbrian coast, supplying customers across the world.  

The region had all the advantages of cheap coal for the furnaces (glassmaking was a very convenient sideline for colliery owners) together with established shipping routes and easy availability of raw materials.  In 1790, the North East mostly made wine and claret bottles but when, during the 1820s, bottled beer began to be exported to hot climates, the manufacturers began to produce beer bottles.  

It's possible that Nichol & Miller dealt exclusively with the bottleworks at the bustling seaport of Seaton Sluice, acting as their London outlet.

John Jobling, who would soon receive this angry letter, came from a family that was of very considerable importance in Seaton Sluice.  He was the son of James Jobling who, in partnership with John Carr, had been running the Hartley coalmines since 1809.  They had prospered and, besides their collieries, brewery and malt kilns, Mr Jobling and Mr Carr had taken over the Hartley Bottleworks in 1820.  

The works had been founded at Seaton Sluice by Thomas Delaval in 1763 and had swiftly grown into a huge concern – production had reached 1,740,000 bottles a year by 1777.  The following year, the first of three cone-shaped bottle houses was built to replace the old square buildings, their more powerful draught enabling more efficient furnaces.  There would be six of them eventually, dominating the skyline for the next 150 years and useful as sea marks to sailors. 

Seaton Sluice:  OS 1896 
CC-BY National Library of Scotland

In 1835 John Jobling was agent for the bottleworks of Messrs John Carr & Company.  Aged 42 and unmarried, he lived with his widowed mother and spinster sisters at the large, thatched Jacobean house called Seaton Lodge.  

This was originally the home of the Delaval family and was later occupied by the Delavals' land agent.  It was a picturesque old house, described in John Robinson's Illustrated Handbook to the Rivers Tyne, Blyth, & Wansbeck in 1894 in glowing terms – this was 22 years after the bottleworks and its smoky chimneys stopped work:

The situation of the house is all that can be desired, sheltered on all sides from the storms of the coast, the views from its windows up the charming dene, the sheet of water flowing in front of its terraced walks; while behind is one of those old fashioned gardens which delight the eye of all lovers of romantic landscape gardening.

Seaton Lodge from A History of Northumberland 1893

John Latimer Nichol wrote in such haste that his handwriting is a scrawl and he made a mistake with the date, giving it as 23 June 1835.  (It looks as though a later hand, possibly that of John Jobling himself, has corrected this to 23 July).  The letter was posted that very day and is marked

Z

JY 23

1835

He had just returned from a meeting with an important customer, who had sent for him to explain why they wouldn't be buying from Nichol & Miller in future.  John Latimer Nichol couldn't blame him.  He had been shown the product of one of his major rivals, and the difference in quality between Jobling's bottles and those bought from Cookson & Coulthard of South Shields was all too obvious.  Jobling's goods were not only inferior in colour and finish, but they were noticeably lighter and they gave way "at the shoulder".  John Latimer Nichol wrote bitterly, 

It is of little use our holding a stock of bottles which is only saleable till Mr Coombs or Mr Coulthard walk in & shew theirs

This was the third large business house whose custom they had lost and he wasn't going to order from Seaton Sluice again unless John Jobling could assure him that they would match the quality of bottles from Cooksons of South Shields and from Ridleys of Newcastle.

 

He asked John Jobling to meet his father Anthony Nichol in Newcastle to see 

if some thing cannot be done to meet our opponents in this matter for I have no fancy for carrying on my business at a rivals sufferances

This is John Latimer Nichol's letter – in some places I have had to make a guess at a word, and I've marked this with square brackets.  

A Year's weather: 1895 by John Megginson

1895 – the year when Oscar Wilde was sent to gaol, when Middlesbrough Football Club won the FA Amateur Cup, Alfred Dreyfus was sent to Devil's Island, the future George VI was born and, in Bavaria, Adolf Hitler had his sixth birthday.

The year had begun, according to the pages of the Whitby Gazette, with the usual entertainments and concerts held by churches, chapels and societies.  In the months that followed, golf clubs opened at Whitby, Robin Hood's Bay and Goathland.  Ships were wrecked, lives were lost at sea and in the local mines.  Two men died in a thunderstorm at the Royal Show at Darlington, a father and son in a lightning strike at Kirkbymoorside.  The people of Helmsley were horrified to discover that the attentive young father, on holiday with his wife and baby, had murdered them both with a large carving knife and buried them a few miles outside town. 

And the year's weather on the North York Moors was recorded by John Megginson in verse.  He was a 52 year old farmer, woodman and local preacher who lived at Fryup Head with his wife Ann Frank and their large family.  Snowdrifts, floods and storms – here they are in lively verse: 

Original Poetry on the Year of Our Lord, 1895

John Megginson, Great Fryup, Lealholm, Grosmont

As long as we are all alive

We shall remember January of '95;

When it came in it was so coarse, 

It snew and blew with mighty force!

So those that had to go to preach

They had a task the place to reach;

And when they had to travel back

They were beat sometimes to find a track;

For down below, and on the moor,

The wind it made the snow to stoor;

And people round about the place

Could not get to the means of grace.

Mourning in Eston: 1877

A small sheaf of receipted bills, which had survived by chance in the offices of Meek, Stubbs & Barnley, has given me the material for this sad story.

It was on the afternoon of Tuesday 23 January 1877 that a jury met at the Talbot Hotel in the High Street of South Eston.  They had been called by deputy coroner James Dent to inquire into a death.

Some 25 years earlier, ironstone had been discovered in the Eston Hills.  Before the ironmaster John Vaughan and his mining engineer John Marley found that first thick seam on 8 June 1850, Eston was just a little village.  With the opening of the Eston Ironstone Mine, men began to pour in from across the country, and soon terraces of housing were thrown up and the little enclaves of South Eston, California and Eston Junction came into being.

The inquest on that January afternoon in 1877 had been called because of the death of James Scaife.  He had come to Eston from Nidderdale.  Born to linen weaver Thomas Scaife and Esther Metcalfe on 11 November 1831, he was baptised at the Pateley Bridge Wesleyan chapel.  By the time he came to Eston in the early 1860s, he had been at work for more than 20 years.  

When he was 9 years old, living with his family at the Little Kiln Hill Milestone near Glasshouses, he and his 12 year old sister Ann were working in one of the Nidderdale textile mills.  When he was 19, the family was living at Crags, near the Blazefield quarries, and he was working with his father as a gardener.  Mining was a local industry, but he hadn't chosen to work with his brother-in-law Henry Calvert, Ann's husband, who was a miner in one of the Nidderdale coal mines.  

In the 1861 census, James was 30 years old, living on his own in Pateley Bridge and driving a carrier's cart.  By the late summer of 1863 he was in Eston and had married a young widow with 3 small boys.

Elizabeth Fielding was born in 1828 to John and Jane Fielding in Skirbeck, a village on the east coast of Lincolnshire near Boston.  In the summer of 1848 she married Richard Earley, who was a few years her elder, born in 1820 to Charles and Mary Earley at Kirton in Holland, a few miles to the south of Boston.  

In the late 1850s, Richard moved to Eston to work in the ironstone mines, bringing Elizabeth and their little boy Richard.  It seems that Elizabeth had already known a good deal of grief in childbearing – after more than 10 years of marriage, Richard was her only surviving child.   

South Eston c1913:  CC-BY National Library of Scotland

There will have been familiar accents around them in their new home because a good many Lincolnshire men came to work in the Eston mines.  William Pett, a 41 year old platelayer from the same village as Richard Earley, was lodging with them in 1861.  He was probably an old friend or relation of Richard's, and they had called their new baby after him – little William Pett Earley was only a month old at the time of the census.  By then, the family was living at 71 William Street, South Eston.  It was one of the streets that led off the High Street towards the moors.

Lord Falkland fights a duel: 1809

This is the story behind this tablet in the chancel of Hutton Rudby church:

Tablet to Charles John Cary, 9th Viscount Falkland, his wife & daughter
Hutton Rudby Church

Captain Charles Cary RN, 9th Viscount Falkland, died of his wounds in the early hours of Thursday 2 March 1809.  It was about 36 hours since he had been shot in the lower part of his abdomen and the surgeon hadn't been able to find the bullet and extract it.  The autopsy would reveal the full extent of the damage – the pistol ball had wounded Lord Falkland's large intestine and lodged in his spine.  

He died as the result of a duel and he died in his opponent's house.  He was forty years old and he left a young widow with four small children.

The year 1809 had begun unpromisingly for him with a fire.

In January 1809, he and his wife and their little children were in London for the season and had taken the first floor at the fashionable Warne's Hotel in Conduit Street.  The hotel was made up of two houses – numbers 19 and 20 Conduit Street stand there now – and it stretched back towards the church of St George's, Hanover Square.  

St George's Hanover Square, by T Malton 1787

On 30 January 1809, Warne's Hotel went up in flames.  Some newspaper reports said that the fire started in Lord Falkland's dressing room because a poker had fallen from the grate.  Some said it was Lady Falkland's dressing room.  One report said that Lord Falkland rushed to the room hoping to save some cash in his writing desk, but was beaten back by the flames and that he had lost £300.  Another report said it was £200.  There were rumours that Lady Falkland lost all her jewels in the blaze.

When the alarm was raised, she was able to escape from her drawing room with the three children and the baby and take refuge in a friend's house in Oxford Street.  Meanwhile, men were dashing into the hotel to save as much of the furniture and contents as they could and servants were running up and down the stairs with as much water as they could carry.  Soon the horrified congregation in nearby St George's could see flames through the church windows.  There was a mass exodus for the door while someone, with great presence of mind, scooped up the church silver and took it to a place of safety.  The charity school children had been at the service as usual – they rushed out into the street, boys without their hats and girls without their cloaks and bonnets.  The road filled with people running in all directions.

Traffic came to a standstill as carriages four abreast blocked Bond Street.  The fire engines couldn't get through and the Earl of Chesterfield, who was Colonel of the Old St George's Volunteers, sent a party of troopers to clear the way.  Earl Percy sent his private fire engine from Northumberland House and the Duke of Portland – who was then Prime Minister and would before long die in office – helpfully sent a supply of ale to the firemen.  But first they needed water.  

When the engines reached the scene, water couldn't be had – one report said it was an hour before the firemen could get a supply.  The flames burst through the windows of the hotel with astonishing speed and the roof was soon destroyed.  

Sightseers gathered and had to be kept back by Horse Guards and Foot Guards while the wind, blowing a strong gale, blew red-hot cinders away, over and into Swallow Street and Vigo Lane in a shower of fire.  People climbed up to their rooftops to beat out the sparks.

A fire in London, 1808

In the days that followed the fire, while the hotel was rapidly being rebuilt, Lord Falkland and his family settled into Dorant's Hotel in Albemarle Street.  And now things began to look up for Lord Falkland.  While he was out and about enjoying Society life, his career prospects started to improve.  

All Saints, Hutton Rudby: who were the Cary family?

A short account of the Cary family, for visitors to All Saints' Church, Hutton Rudby who see the memorials on the chancel walls and wonder who these people were.  It includes new material, not before seen!

Sir Arthur Ingram (c1565-1642)

A few years before the outbreak of the Civil War in England, a wealthy man with a shady reputation bought the manor and lands of Rudby.  His name was Sir Arthur Ingram (c1565-1642).  A hundred years after his death, Rudby passed to his descendant Isabella Ingram and her husband George Cary.  For over 150 years, the Cary family owned both Rudby and Skutterskelfe.  They remembered their dead in memorial tablets lining the walls of the chancel of All Saints, Hutton Rudby – but only three of them were buried in the churchyard.

After Mrs Isabella Cary inherited Rudby from her father in 1742, her husband George bought the neighbouring lands and manor of Skutterskelfe.  They didn't make their home close by the river in Rudby Hall opposite the church, but chose to live on the high ground of Skutterskelfe, with views across to the hills.  They called their house Leven Grove.

Soldier
43rd Regt of Foot 

General George Cary was an army officer who served under King George II and King George III.  He became a general in the 64th Regiment of Foot and then, when he was in his fifties, was given the honour of being appointed colonel of the 43rd Regiment either because he had served his king so well or because of his status in society – he was the brother of the 7th Viscount Falkland. 

George died aged 81 in 1792 at the George Inn, the ancient posting inn in Coney Street, York.  The York branch of Next stands on the site today.  He was buried at Hutton Rudby.

The old George Inn in York
reproduced with kind permission
of the family of Joseph Appleyard 

Mrs Isabella Cary died peacefully at Leven Grove and was buried with her husband on 17 April 1799.  

She was 81 years old.  She had lived through eventful times.  She had seen the  reigns of three kings – all called George – the American War of Independence, the French Revolution, and the early years of Britain's long wars against Revolutionary France and Napoleon Bonaparte.  

When she was a little girl of eight or nine, living with her parents Arthur and Ann Ingram at Barrowby Hall near Leeds, she had kept a pet squirrel called Bun.  He was a great favourite and so, when he died, he was buried in the garden of the Hall and the spot was marked with a gravestone.  The inscription read

The sun that sets

the next morning gets,

But Bunne gone for ever.

The flowers that die

next Spring we espy,

But Bunne we shall never.

The estates of Rudby and Skutterskelfe passed to Isabella's 22 year old grandson.  He was the son of her daughter Catherine, who had married a baronet called Sir John Russell in Hutton Rudby church in 1774.  Sir John's mansion house was Chequers in Buckinghamshire – which is often in the news today because since 1921 it has been the Prime Minister's country home.  

Chequers today (by Cnbrb)

Catherine died young and Sir John died three years later, leaving their two little boys, John and George, to be brought up by relatives.  Then John died at Chequers in 1802 aged 25 after a long illness and George died two years later of tuberculosis in Dorant's Hotel in London, aged 22.

Their mother's sister Elizabeth now inherited Rudby and Skutterskelfe.  When she was 27 years old, she had been married to a 50 year old widower, Jeffery Amherst.  He was famous for his part in the Seven Years' War against France and had been commander in chief of the British forces in North America.  He built himself a large mansion house near Sevenoaks in Kent, where he had been born, and he called it Montreal Park after his most celebrated victory, the capture of Montreal in 1760.  A few years after his marriage to Elizabeth he was given a peerage, becoming Lord Amherst.  But today he is remembered for thinking it a good idea to try to infect the Native American tribes that were opposing the British with a fatal illness, the dreaded smallpox.

Lady Amherst in 1767

Lady Amherst had no children of her own but she was a mother to three – her husband's orphaned nephew and niece, William and Elizabeth Amherst, and a baby girl who was given the name Fanny Williams.  Fanny was the subject of fascinated gossip because nobody knew who her parents were.  People said she was left in a basket on Lady Amherst's doorstep, with a banknote and a letter written by an anonymous lady who appealed to Lady Amherst's great kindness to bring up her baby.  They thought Fanny must be the secret child of a high-born lady and her noble lover.  

Lady Amherst had a kindness for another girl – her cousin's granddaughter Emma Cary.  Emma is praised and her parents are remembered on a memorial tablet which Lady Amherst had placed in Hutton Rudby church after Emma's death in 1827.

Emma was the daughter of a Naval officer, Charles John Cary, 9th Viscount Falkland and his wife Christiana Anton.  Emma was born in 1805, a few months before Admiral Nelson's stunning victory over the French and Spanish fleets at the Battle of Trafalgar.  When she was 3 years old, her father was court-martialled and dismissed from the command of his ship because of "drunkenness and unofficer-like behaviour".  His career was beginning to recover when he fell into a violent quarrel with an acquaintance.  Both men had been drinking.  It led to a duel at 11 o'clock on a February morning in 1809 at Chalk Farm on the edge of London, and Lord Falkland was fatally wounded.  He died a few days later, leaving his young widow with little money and four small children – three boys and Emma.  

The poet Lord Byron was a good friend of Lord Falkland.  He wrote, "He was a gallant and successful officer; his faults were the faults of a sailor, and as such Britons will forgive them" and he did his best to help the family.  Unfortunately, Lady Falkland became quite obsessed with him, believing – as did other women who read his poetry – that she was the woman he adored.  The poor lady finally died in 1822 when Emma was 17.  Lady Amherst felt a good deal of responsibility for Emma and her brothers, as the eldest of them was her heir.  She bought him a commission in the Army and provided for them all, but Emma died at the age of 21 after four days of painful illness.  

Lady Amherst had a London townhouse in Mayfair, but her country house at Skutterskelfe and her estates in Cleveland were very dear to her.  She cherished her gardens and valued her gardener Arthur Douglas highly.  He worked for her and her family for over fifty years.  She liked her tenants to know their place – she will have expected a great deal of deference – but she made sure that her cottages were rented out with a plot of land attached to each.  It made a great difference to poor villagers if they could grow food and keep an animal or two.

Lady Amherst died at the age of 92 on 22 May 1830.  She had asked to be buried at Hutton Rudby but – we don't know why – she was buried instead in Kent with her husband.  Rudby and Skutterskelfe had belonged to a very old lady.  Now they would belong to a young man, the 26 year old Lucius Bentinck Cary, 10th Viscount Falkland.

Amelia Fitzclarence

A few months after Lady Amherst's death, Lucius married Amelia Fitzclarence in the Brighton Pavilion.  Her father was King William IV, who had come to the throne that year after the death of his brother George IV.  But Amelia was not a princess – her parents weren't married.  Her mother was the famous and much-loved actress Dora Jordan.  Actors were not socially acceptable and Dora had led a colourful life – she was not a suitable royal bride.

Soon after the wedding, Lord Falkland came north to mortgage his new estates and arrange for the old house at Skutterskelfe to be demolished and a new hall built.  This is the hall – now called Rudby Hall – that we see today.  In 1840, Lucius was appointed governor of Nova Scotia.  His three years in Canada were not successful, although he certainly looked the part of the representative of Queen Victoria – he had been described as intemperate and unforgiving, "a tall, distinguished-looking man with a stately bearing and a severe, disdainful countenance which mirrored his aristocratic conceit and sensitive self-esteem".  After Canada, he was appointed governor of Bombay and he and Amelia went out to India.

Amelia wrote a lively account of her travels in the East.  In 1858, the year after her book came out, she died in London at the age of 55 after a short illness. 

She had particularly wished to be buried in the churchyard in Hutton Rudby.  Her body was brought north by special train and on 10 July 1858 she was buried in the Falkland vault on the south side of the churchyard.  A great many people came to the funeral and many were in tears as the vicar Mr Barlow spoke of her generosity to those in need and her readiness to speak to everybody  – "no one was too lowly for her to address, no one was too much despised by the world for her to stoop to and think of."  She left one child, a son called Lucius.

Lord Falkland died in the south of France in 1884 aged 80.  He and his second wife had no children, and his son Lucius had died childless, so it was his younger brother who came into the title and inherited Rudby and Skutterskelfe.  

By this time, Plantagenet Pierrepont Cary, 11th Viscount Falkland was already an old man.  He had served in the Navy from the age of 14, and became an Admiral at the age of 64 through promotions on the retired list after many years on half-pay.  But he had married a very wealthy woman, so he had no need of money.  He died childless in 1886 at the age of 80. 

His nephew Byron Plantagenet Cary became 12th Viscount Falkland.  He had served 20 years in the Army, retiring in 1883 with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel.  In 1879 he had married a petite and energetic American heiress, Mary Reade, and for a few years in the 1890s he and his young family lived at Skutterskelfe Hall.  During that time they were generous and active in village life.  They set up a cottage hospital in Enterpen, Lord Falkland was a churchwarden and Lady Falkland was involved in all the village charities.  

But there is no memorial to either of them in the church because they were the last of the Cary family to live here.  Lord Falkland had to sell his northern estates in about 1895 because of financial difficulties caused by the business failure of his father-in-law Robert Reade.  Rudby and Skutterskelfe were bought by Sir Robert Ropner, whose family owned them for the next 50 years.

The sketch of the Old George Inn in York is reproduced with kind permission 

of the family of Joseph Appleyard

The Faceby Saints left today

It's 14 February and so it's Valentine's Day – and on this day in 1855 a party of 28 people left the little North Yorkshire hamlet of Faceby.  

They didn't expect to see their old homes again.  They didn't expect to see their loved ones again.  They were "gathering to Zion".  They were Mormons – the members of the Faceby Branch of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

They would travel by steam train, sailing ship, river steamboat, prairie waggon and on foot and they were going all the way from Yorkshire to Utah.

For the remarkable story of the Faceby Saints, how they came to be Mormons, their gruelling journey and what happened to them in Utah, begin here with my blogpost of 2 November 2012.  It's called Mormons in Faceby: 1852-55.

Wash-day drudgery gone forever!

A reminder of how much washing machines changed women's lives.  This one was a small, neat, quick machine.

Picture Post, October 30, 1948

THE BIGGEST WASHING NEWS OF THE CENTURY!

WASH-DAY DRUDGERY

GONE FOR EVER!

The NEW HOOVER ELECTRIC WASHING MACHINE – at a price that all can afford – of a size that will fit into every kitchen.

All those dreary, boring, exhausting washing days, probably in a steamy, unhealthy atmosphere – wearing yourself out, spoiling vour hands, making yourself old – are gone for ever!  The new Hoover Electric Washing Machine is here to set you free.  It's marvellously efficient in every way; does the wash for a large family in a fraction of the time taken by old-fashioned methods; is wonderfully gentle with the clothes; is suitable for every home, even the smallest; and yet costs only £25 (plus purchase tax).  Read all about it. It's the most important household development since the advent of the famous Hoover Cleaner.

MUCH MORE TIME FOR YOURSELF

You'll be amazed how quickly – yet how thoroughly – the Hoover Washing Machine will work.  You'll be through with your washing in a fraction of the time it takes you now and be free to get on  with the other jobs, free to play with the children, free to do whatever you want to do most.  You'll be delighted.  You'll no longer think of washing day with dread, you'Il take it quite happily in your stride.

NO MORE ROUGH, RED HANDS

"Washday hands", too, becomes a thing of the past.  Nothing spoils hands so much – nothing makes them look so rough and red – as constantly dipping them in hot water.  With the Hoover Washing Machine your hands get off very ligntly.  You just drop the clothes in the tub and leave the machine to do the hard work.  Right from the very first wash by this quick, new labour-saving method, you'll find your hands begin to improve – they'll be smoother, whiter, altogether more attractive.

MORE ENERGY LEFT FOR PLEASURE

After a day at the wash-tub you generally feel like slumping back in a chair and putting your feet up.  But not when you've a Hoover Washing Machine to do the hard work for you – and do it so quickly too.  Instead of washing being a long, hard job, it becomes quick and easy.  And afterwards you'll be fresh and full of go – ready to dance, go to the pictures or visit your friends.  You'll be astonished at the difference it makes, having a Hoover Washing Machine.

The gentlest way of washing clothes

No other way of washing clothes is so safe as with the Hoover Washing Machine.  It works on an entirely new principle. The "pulsator" (the device that keeps the water moving) is set in the side of the tub, thus agitating the water rather than churning the clothes – a big point when clothing coupons have to go so far.

Does the washing for a large family in record time

Besides being very gentle and very thorough, the Hoover Washing Machine is an exceptionally fast worker.  Whites and coloureds are washed in 4 minutes; woollens in 1 minute.  Even where there's a large family it does the job in a fraction of the time taken by old-fashioned methods.  It is equally successful with every type of washing – whites, coloureds, woollens, silks, etc.

Such an "easy-to-turn" wringer

The wringer, too, will absolutely delight you – it turns so beautifully easily, saving you so much effort.  It's extremely efficient, too.  The soft rubber rollers are amazingly gentle with delicate fabrics, and yet it handles easily large bulky articles such as sheets.

Low running costs – negligible electricity consumption

The Hoover Washing Machine in most cases uses less than ¼d worth of electricity to do the family wash.  It is economical with soap.  And of course, it makes an enormous difference to your laundry bills.

Hoover Dependability

Like the famous Hoover Cleaner, the Hoover Electric Washing Machine is guaranteed against faulty material and workmanship for one year.  In assition, to ensure that it continues to give washing efficiency, there is a Hoover Half-Yearly Inspection Plan.  Full details from your Authorised Hoover Dealer.

So quick … So gentle ... So thorough

and such a handy size – fits under draining board

The Hoover Washing Machine is so wonderfully compact that it can be tucked away under nearly all draining boards.  It is quite light in weight, stands on domed feet so that you can easily pull it out when you want to use it, and is just the right height for you.  It couldn't be more convenient.

AND IT'S MADE BY HOOVER

MAKERS OF THE WORLD'S BEST CLEANERS

And here's the same Hoover washing machine, but this time it's a toy dating from the late 1950s.  It's been very well used by a number of children, as its condition shows only too well.

It was a bit splashy to fill, involving jugs of soapy water from the sink, but it was very cheap to run.  In fact, it used no electricity at all.  Just child-power.

All the work is done by turning the handle, and the same handle works first the agitator in the tub and then the wringer.

This machine worked very well for a long time.  Admittedly, only a couple of handkerchiefs or a doll's dress or two would fit in, but they mangled beautifully.  The tub has finally developed a split and its working days are over ... what a shame!