19th century solicitors in Middlesbrough, Stockton and Darlington

In the second half of the 19th century when Middlesbrough – Gladstone's "Infant Hercules" – boomed from a farmhouse to an important industrial town in the space of decades, solicitors played a significant part in the business and private life of the borough.  

Among the solicitors of Middlesbrough, Stockton and Darlington were firms that, in 1990, amalgamated to make the present firm of Messrs Jacksons.  Their history up to the Second World War is set out below.

Their history up to 1990, together with deeds and documents relating to the constituent firms of Messrs Meek, Stubbs & Barnley and the Meek family, have been deposited at Teesside Archives.

The dates in brackets after the names of practitioners are the dates of admission as a solicitor.  I have set out some brief biographical details at the end of each section in which a solicitor first appears.  They come from a variety of backgrounds and from across the country. 

JACKSONS, MONK & ROWE

1876 Gilbert Benjamin Jackson (1876) first practising as Solicitor and Attorney at 42 Albert Road, Middlesbrough

1878 Gilbert Benjamin Jackson and his brother Francis Henry Jackson (1872) practising as Jackson & Jackson in Middlesbrough, Loftus and Saltburn

1892 Jackson & Jackson practising also at 61 Lincoln's Inn, London

1896 Gilbert Benjamin Jackson and Francis Henry Jackson with James Bell Stothart practising as Jackson, Jackson & Stothart at 23 Coleman Street, London and at Middlesbrough

1899 Philip Henry Monk (1898) with Jackson & Jackson in Middlesbrough and subsequently in London.

1901 Loftus practice sold to Henry Hoggart

1904 London office sold to Elwell & Binford Hole

1906 Philip Henry Monk a partner in Jackson & Jackson

1907 Gilbert Benjamin Jackson, Francis Henry Jackson, Francis's son Basil Jackson (1905) and Philip Henry Monk practising as Jackson & Jackson in Middlesbrough

Name of firm changed to Jackson & Monk

1920 Death of Basil Jackson from war wounds

1930 Death of Francis Jackson

1931 Retirement of Gilbert Jackson

1933 Herbert Edward Rowe (1928) partner in Jackson & Monk with Philip Henry Monk

1938 Firm became Jacksons, Monk & Rowe

(1989 Jacksons, Monk & Rowe merge with Cohen, Jackson with firm name of Jacksons)

Letters home from a travelling salesman: 1817-42

Anyone researching the life of a commercial traveller in the early 19th century may be interested in letters now deposited at North Yorkshire County Record Office.  

Among the papers of John Leslie ("Jack") Mackinlay of Pinchinthorpe Hall near Guisborough and Simonstone Hall near Hawes were letters written by his great-great-grandfather John William Nicholson Storr.

John William Nicholson Storr was born in 1781 and he married Elizabeth ("Betsey") Maine on 30 December 1816 at St Mary Magdalene's, Bermondsey.  The first of the letters was written the following August, when Betsey was staying in Margate, and the last of them dates from January 1842, with John describing a North Sea passage.  These are loving letters home, often written over several days, from a travelling salesman, recounting his news, his journeys, accounts of Betsey's family, and instructions for the home.  

The list below gives the date on which John Storr began his letter, the address to which he sent it, and a little excerpt from the letter:

• 31 Aug 1817:  to Mrs Jno Storr, at Mrs Fosters near the Jolly Sailor, High Street, Margate, Kent from Chester.  Betsey has gone by sea from London to Margate for a holiday:

"My love My dear Betsey.  I have just returned from walking on the Walls of this City, it being here a very fine day, I have only known the want of the Company of my Wife to have participated in my observations of this Curious Ancient City, and to have enjoyed the pleasure of Her expressing the delights I know she would have felt beholding the distant View of the Welch Mountains … My dear this City contains the Antientest [ancientest] looking Houses I ever saw and is all together the strangest place I ever saw … I am sorry to hear that you was so very unwell on your passage … pray Betsey do not bathe if you find yourself inclined at all to be unwell, as it will do you great injury ..."

Bishop William Stubbs (1825-1901): a devout Yorkshireman

This is something I meant to write before, but it got lost in other work.  I'm afraid the alignment of text in this is a little haphazard - Google Blogger was not co-operating!  

William Stubbs by Hubert von Herkomer

William Stubbs, scholar, clergyman, Regius Professor of History at Oxford and finally Bishop of Oxford, was much loved.   A contributor to the Bucks Herald on 18 January 1802 in a column looking back over the year in the diocese of Oxford wrote 

The one death which marks and makes a loss to diocese, Church, country, and literature is that of good Bishop Stubbs, kind Bishop Stubbs, grand Bishop Stubbs, of the winning face, fatherly heart, humorous fancy, fine nature, wide and magnanimous tolerance, keen sympathies.  

William Stubbs was born in Knaresborough in 1825 and his roots in Yorkshire were of importance to him to the end of his days.  "So long as I last, I continue a devout Yorkshireman," he wrote not long before his death.

He grew up in a place rich in historical associations with important national events.  All around him were places where his forebears had lived for generations – in the written records the Stubbs family can be found, farmers and yeomen, in the Forest of Knaresborough from the mid 14th century.  In Bishop William Stubbs & Knaresborough, an article by Robert M Koch in the Yorkshire Archaeological Journal (Vol 82, 2010), you can find an evocative account of how the layers of history with which he was surrounded laid the foundation for William's career as a pioneering mediaeval historian.

He was drawn to the study of history very early on in his life and he recommended local and personal history to others as a way of connecting with the social and political history of the country.

His biographer W H Hutton (the biography can be read here) wrote that in 1886 William gave a talk in Crewe in which he took himself as an example.  Hutton doesn't give his source for his quotation and there are errors which William would not have made – perhaps it was an early draft or a newspaper report.

I wonder if the talk was at the Crewe Mechanics' Institute.  He presented prizes there on at least one occasion when he was Bishop of Chester and you will see that at the end of this quotation he encourages them with his own example of success, saying "please to remember that I am just as much a working man as any of you":

You do not mind my taking myself for an illustration.  

Where was I born? Under the shadow of the great castle where the murderers of Thomas Becket took refuge in 1170, and where Richard II was imprisoned in 1399.  My grandfather's house stood on the site where Earl Thomas of Lancaster was taken prisoner in 1322.  My first visits were paid as a child to the scene where Stephen defeated the Scots and where Cromwell defeated Prince Rupert; my great-grandfather had a farm in the township where King Harold of England defeated Harald Hardrada;  and one of my remoter forefathers had a gift of land from John of Gaunt in the very same neighbourhood where I was born.   

As you can see, William is referring to some famous battles fought in the North and West Ridings.  His forefather John Stubbs had a grant of newly cleared land at Birstwith in the Forest of Knaresborough from the prince and soldier John of Gaunt, the Duke of Lancaster, on 27 February 1387.  I think it wasn't his great-grandfather who farmed at Stamford Bridge, but his 3xgreat-grandfather, John Wright.  Further on, it was his great-grandfather who was out in the Gordon riots.

Now he turns – he was a precociously clever little boy – to events that happened when he was four and five: the arson at York Minster in 1829; the death of the King on 26 June 1830; the July Revolution  of 1830 in France when Louis Philippe, Duc d'Orléans, overthrew Charles X; and the election of the statesman Henry Brougham in 1830.  Brougham was a major force in the passing of the 1832 Reform Act and the 1833 Slavery Abolition Act.  

What do I remember first?  Well, perhaps the first thing I do remember was the burning of York Minster – then the death of George IV, then the second French Revolution, then the election of Lord Brougham for Yorkshire, then the Reform Bill and the Emancipation of the West India Slaves. What sort of connection had I with soldiers and churchwardens, and such like?  Oh, my grandfather was out in Lord George Gordon's Riots; and all of my ancestors, so far as I can trace, served the office of churchwarden in their time.    

You may smile at this – perhaps I was lucky in the circumstances of birth and associations – but mind you, on every one of the points that I have mentioned hangs a lot of history to which my mind was drawn by the circumstances that I have jotted down, and from which the studies began which, not to speak of smaller successes, have landed me in the dignified position to-night of having to advocate the study of history before an audience of the most intelligent people in England!  

You like, I dare say, to be told so.  As I am flattering myself as you see, I may give you a little of the overflow of my self-complacency; and please to remember that I am just as much a working man as any of you, every step of the life which is now drawing to an end having had, under God's blessing, to be worked out by my own exertions, so that to some extent I may put myself forward as a precedent for you.

He had indeed worked his way through life by his own exertions.

A sea monster at Coatham, 1778

A newspaper report from this day, 240 years ago.  A most surprising find at Coatham!

Caledonian Mercury, 3 August 1778

Friday se'enight, was killed at Coatham, near Kirkleatham in Cleveland, a very extraordinary monster that resembled a crocodile.  It was seven yards long, and was thought, by a numerous company who assembled to see it, to be the most surprising creature ever seen on any coast in England.

John Richard Stubbs: death announcement 1916

For those of you who have enjoyed reading John Richard Stubbs' diaries, this is the announcement of his death in the local newspaper:- 

Daily Gazette for Middlesbrough, 8 December 1916

Death of Mr J R Stubbs

Doyen of the Legal Profession in Middlesbrough 

The death has taken place at his residence, Trafalgar-terrace, Coatham, Redcar, of Mr John Richard Stubbs, one of the best known and most highly-respected citizens in the North Langbaurgh Division, and also in Middlesbrough, for many years past. 

The deceased gentleman was admitted a solicitor in 1860, and was the oldest practising member of the profession in Middlesbrough.  At one time he was in partnership with Mr Fred Brewster, and later with his son, Mr T D H Stubbs. 

For nearly 30 years the deceased gentleman had been clerk to the magistrates in the Langbaurgh North Petty Sessional Division (South Bank).  He was also for a considerable time the Official Receiver for Middlesbrough. 

In his 78th year, Mr Stubbs had not been enjoying very good health for the past few months, never having completely recovered from the shock caused by the death of his grandson, Mr Duncan Stubbs, a midshipman, who went down with HMS Aboukir, early in the war. 

He leaves a widow, a son, and a daughter. 

His son is Major T D H Stubbs, of the North Riding Battery of Artillery, and who is a solicitor and Deputy Coroner for Cleveland. 

The interment has been fixed to take place tomorrow afternoon at Coatham.

York Herald, 2 May 1868: news from Middlesbrough and Redcar

York Herald, 2 May 1868

Middlesbro'

FATAL ACCIDENT - Yesterday week, an inquest was held at Middlesbro', on the body of Thomas Thompson, aged twenty-four, a painter, who, on the previous night, fell from a scaffold thirty-six feet in height, at the United Methodist Free Church, now being erected in Newport-road, Middlesbro', thereby fracturing his skull, from which injury he died.  A verdict of "Accidental death" was returned.  Deceased has left a wife and two children. 

CHORAL SOCIETY - The first concert of this newly-formed society was given before a large and fashionable audience in the Odd Fellows' Hall, yesterday evening week.  The band and chorus comprised 100 performers, under the conductorship of Mr Groenings, and the leadership of Mr John Wood.  The pieces selected were principally from the great masters, Beethoven, Handel, Gounod, and old English composers, and were ably executed.  The Hallelujah Chorus was given with great force and precision.  A violin solo by Mr Wood was rapturously encored.  The tenor solos were sung by Mr John Hart. 

THE IRISH CHURCH - A lecture on this subject was given before a tolerably large audience in the Odd Fellows' Hall, on Monday evening, by the Rev V H Moyle, curate of North Ormesby.  The Mayor occupied the chair.  The lecture was in substance the same as that given at North Ormesby and noticed in the Herald last week.  The lecturer encountered some little opposition from the Liberals present.  A vote of thanks to the lecturer concluded the proceedings. 

PETTY SESSIONS - On Monday, before the Mayor and H Thompson and J Harris, Esqrs., a number of sailors belonging to the Fatfold of Sunderland, were brought up on a charge of smuggling about five pounds of tobacco on board that vessel.  Thomas Bell, officer of Customs, proved the discovery of the tobacco, which all the men refused to acknowledge.  Ultimately, however, Henry Fish, fireman, owned to having smuggled the tobacco, and the other men were released from custody.  Fish was ordered to pay a fine of £3 18s, including costs. 

James Conway was summoned under the new Masters and Servants Act, for refusing to work as requested by his master, John Rushford, builder, on the 24th ult.  The case was proved against the defendant, who was ordered to pay a fine of 20s., or undergo fourteen days' imprisonment. 

Patrick Hickey, puddler, was summoned for assaulting his wife, on the 25th ult.  The latter proved that she had been subjected to gross ill-usage from her husband, who was committed to two months' hard labour. 

John Hallman, labourer, was charged with stealing a bag of potatoes, the property of John Pickersgill, on the 25th ult.  The case was fully made out and the prisoner sentenced to one month's imprisonment. 

Mary Wade was charged with stealing a quantity of coals from the works of Hopkins, Gilkes, and Company, on the 26th ult.  The bench were of opinion that the parents of the prisoner, who was only twelve years of age, were more to blame than their child, whom they accordingly discharged.

York Herald, 2 May 1868

Redcar

New Schools at Coatham 

On Saturday, Mr Arthur Henry Turner Newcoman [sic] laid the foundation stone of the Turner Free School at Coatham.  For many years, the Turner Schools at Kirkleatham Hall have been in an undesirable condition; in fact, they have fallen into a state of desuetude. Recently, the trustees of Sir Wm Turner obtained land at Coatham for new schools, and conveyed the old buildings at Kirleatham Hall to the present resident, Mr Newcomen.   

A large number of persons assembled on Saturday to witness the ceremony of laying the foundation-stone.  Immediately on leaving the Redcar Railway Station, persons were attracted to the site for the schools by flags flying in a field to the west.  At twelve o'clock, the proceedings were commenced by the Rev Robt Lay Page, incumbent of Coatham, offering up prayer.  A psalm was then sung by the church choir, after which a short service was intoned.  Mr Joseph Dodds, of Stockton, then presented Mr A H T Newcomen, Kirkleatham Hall, lord of the manor, and chairman of the trustees of the school, with a beautiful silver trowel, bearing an appropriate inscription. 

Mr Newcomen then formally laid the stone, after which he said he trusted that the building they had commenced so successfully would be completed in safety, and that, as an institution, it would long flourish.  The intentions of the founder, he trusted, would be carried out in their entirety.  A psalm was then sung, and the proceedings terminated.   

The schools will be erected in the Gothic style, and will be 103 feet 6 inches long, 52 feet wide, and four stories high.  There will be ample accommodation for a number of boarders.  The main front of the building will face Coatham Road, and at the gable end there will be a lofty tower.  A large dining hall and a covered play shed will be on the ground floor, immediately over which will be the school-room, with open timber roof, and class-rooms in the rear to the south.  There will also be a commodious residence for the master.  The entire cost of the building will be under £4,000.

Days of plenty in Redcar: a middle class household before the First World War

In old age, Mrs Katharine Isobel Ellis Hill (1905-2005) looked back to the golden times before the First World War broke out ... when she lived with her parents and her brothers in the little hamlet then called Nunthorpe Station, and they went to visit her father's parents in Coatham ...

Her memory of the end of those happy times was very vivid and painful:

King's Head, Newton-under-Roseberry

On Aug 4th 1914 my godmother had a picnic for the young people staying with her & about 12 of us walked 3 miles across the fields, climbed Roseberry, had tea at the King's Head & walked 3 miles back.  

As I ran across the last field & the others went away I crossed the road & saw my father in his Territorial Uniform (khaki) vanish round a bend on his motor bike – I called after him but he did not hear – 

I rushed into the house & asked why? & someone said, 

"There's a war with Germany, so be a good girl."   

I never see that corner of the road without seeing my father on his way to Ypres & the Somme.  7 weeks later Duncan was dead; our house was closed for the duration & I was parted from all my little friends, pets, the garden (& all sense of security forever) & the servants who were old friends.

Katharine's brother, Duncan Stubbs

(Her father's account of the day is here and an account of the death of her brother Duncan is here.)

But to return to life before the War ... 

Katharine looked back across the decades to meals at her grandparents' house, 7 Trafalgar Terrace, Coatham.

7 Trafalgar Terrace, Coatham, in 1904

Her grandfather John Richard Stubbs, had grown up with the open hospitality of his mother and her neighbours in Boroughbridge.

Her grandmother Ellis Macfarlane grew up on the west coast of Scotland, in Helensburgh.  Her father Duncan Macfarlane was a Canada merchant; her mother Mary (also a Macfarlane) was the "lovely little girl" mentioned in Three Nights in Perthshire; with the description of the Festival of a 'Scotch Hairst Kirn' (1821).

This little book, several times reprinted, recounts the author's visit to Mary's childhood home – Ledard, "a large, beautiful farm-house" near the head of Loch Ard.

Mary's father, Donald Macfarlane, had himself taken the great Sir Walter Scott to inspect the nearby waterfall, which Scott described to great dramatic effect in Waverley and Rob Roy.

(Sir Walter hasn't been in fashion in England for many years – this post on Louis Stott's literary blog will put you in the picture).

The book describes the harvest festivities, with plentiful accounts of the food and drink:

sweet and ewe milk cheese, some of the delicious trout for which the neighbouring lochs are famous, basons of curds, with bowls of sour and sweet cream, and piles of crispy oatcakes, together with rolls and butter. 

So we can imagine that, with that sort of family background, food played a significant part in John and Ellis Stubbs' daily life.

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

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.

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!

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!)

Local solicitors in 1886

from Waterlow Bros & Layton’s Legal Diary and Almanac for 1886

Extracted from:

List of Country Solicitors
Corrected by comparison with the Roll of the Incorporated Law Society; the list of Commissioners to administer oaths, and list of Perpetual Commissioners, and from direct correspondence

Perpetual commissioners were those appointed to take acknowledgments of deeds made by married women.  This finally became unnecessary after the Married Women's Property Act 1882.

The year stated against each entry is the date of admission to the Roll.  

The name in brackets is that of the firm, but it is not always stated.  

The name in italics is that of the firm of solicitors that acted as the solicitor’s London agents.

Coatham, near Redcar (Yorks.)

Meek, J M (M.A.) – 1872, p. com. and at Middlesborough ..... Adam Burn

Spry, S – 1876, com. oaths, and at Middlesbrough and South Bank ..... Williamson, Hill & Co

Wethey, R E – 1884, 5, Albert-road, and at Middlesboro' ..... Smiles & Co


Guisborough (Yorksh.)

Buchannan, A – 1870, com. oaths, clerk to lieutenancy of North Riding, coroner for Langbaurgh East district, clerk to guardians and rural sanitary authority, clk. to Guisbro’ local and burial bd., Guisbro’ school bd., Skelton local bd. and burial bd., and Brotton local bd., hon. sec. South Durham and North Yorkshire law soc., solr. to Guisbro’ and dis. bldg. soc ..... Pitman & Son

Carrick, W L – 1880 ..... Gray & Mounsey

Ord, C O – 1840, p. com., com. oaths ..... R M & F Lowe

Richardson, W – 1882 ..... Pitman & Son

Trevor, W C – 1866, p. com., com. oaths, deputy clk. of the peace for North Riding, clk. to mags. for div. of Langbaurgh East, and at Northallerton ..... R M & F Lowe


Hutton Rudby (Yorks.)

Kindler, A W – 1882, and at Stockton-on-Tees ..... H F Wood