Lewis Carroll & the Savile Clarke letters

At the top of my pile of new books waiting to be read is Lewis Carroll and 'Alice': the Savile Clarke Letters edited by Clare Imholtz and published this year by the Lewis Carroll Society of North America.

It is a beautifully produced book, I can see it is full of fascinating detail and I long to get started on it when I put away my current work for Christmas.  

Do look out for it, if you're interested in Lewis Carroll.  

And for the story of the handsome, clever Henry Savile Clarke, his elegant artistic wife Helen Weatherill and their three beautiful daughters, check out this series of articles.  It all began in Guisborough ....

Guisborough’s link to Lewis Carroll: Henry Savile Clarke (1841-93) and his family

Henry Savile Clarke (1841-93)

Helen Savile Clarke and her daughters

The 'Skirt Dance' of the two Savile Clarke girls

Henry Savile Clarke of Guisborough & Lewis Carroll's Alice

More on Guisborough's link to Lewis Carroll's Alice

A further detail to the story of Kitty Martineau

and lastly, a little background genealogical detail

The family of the Revd Henry Clarke of Guisborough (1813-61)

More on Guisborough's link to Lewis Carroll's Alice

In September, I picked up once more the story of Henry Savile Clarke of Guisborough & Lewis Carroll's Alice.

I mentioned in the piece Clare Imholtz' fascinating article on the child actress Phoebe Carlo.  She played Alice in the original production of Henry Savile Clarke's adaptation of the books for the musical stage.

Clare gave a talk at the Lewis Carroll Society of North America's (virtual) meeting in Autumn 2021.  It's entitled 'Alice Takes to the Stage: Carroll’s Letters to Henry Savile Clarke' and that link will take you to the talk on youtube.

It's a real treat and I enjoyed it so much.

Poor Henry Savile Clarke!  I hadn't realised that writing the drama and collaborating with the composer was only the beginning of his labours.  He was caught between the power of the theatre managers and Lewis Carroll's rather demanding – increasingly demanding! – requirements.  No easy task.

The unfortunate Edwin Orphan: 1832

In January 1832, a young man called Edwin Orphan came before the magistrates.  He had smashed windows in Guisborough parish church because, he explained, he needed a shelter.  He had no money and nowhere to sleep and he begged the magistrates earnestly to find him work.  They sentenced him under the Vagrancy Act to a month's imprisonment in the North Riding House of Correction – that is, Northallerton Gaol.

Edwin was aged 20, 5 feet 3 inches tall, with a ruddy complexion and brown hair and eyes.  His sightless right eye was turned outward and his nose, too, turned a little to the right.  He could read and write and had evidently received some education, and he came originally from Kent.  

He must have presented a forlorn spectacle when he came out of gaol because Mr William Shepherd, the Governor of the House of Correction, gave him three shillings as he left.  He couldn't find any work and that was all the money he had to live on.  He said he had been on the road for two years, mostly begging.

These were eventful times of disruption and change.  

Only two years earlier, riots had begun in Kent with the smashing of threshing machines.  Destruction and burning had spread across the south and east as farm labourers rioted in furious protest against low wages, harsh conditions and the mechanisation that was taking the bread from their mouths.  Letters threatening retribution for past wrongs or demanding money by menaces were sent to farmers, parsons and landowners; they were signed by "Captain Swing".  

By the beginning of 1832, a pandemic of Asiatic Cholera had been spreading across the country for several months.  This was a frightening new visitation.  Some Cleveland parishes, like Guisborough, had followed government directives and quickly taken measures to clear away dung heaps and the filth that flowed from privies, pigsties and cesspools – the "nuisances" that were to be found beside houses and along the streets of any early 19th century town or village.  Some villages – like Hutton Rudby – hadn't taken any action as yet.      

Meanwhile, political and public ferment were in the air as Lord Grey's reforming Whig ministry pushed ahead with parliamentary reform and a young Charles Dickens would very soon begin work as a parliamentary reporter – The Pickwick Papers was only four years in the future.

Edwin found his way to Stokesley, where he found a bed in Mr Fortune's lodging house.  The flax-spinning mill of Thomas Mease, the Methodist class leader and entrepreneur, was in full operation behind the High Street while work was underway on his New Mill beside the river, but Edwin turned his attention to Mr Fidler, whose house and water corn-mill stood on the eastern edge of the town.

Between 6 and 7 o'clock in the evening of 9 February, the miller left home to go into town.  As he passed a barn, Thomas Fidler thought he saw a man he knew standing there, so he went up to him to have a word.  He realised he was mistaken and didn't know the man at all so he remarked only that it was a fine night and went on his way.  Not long afterwards he was told that the man actually had a letter for him.  Meeting his servant Ann Garth in town, he sent her to find out.  Edwin Orphan hadn't moved from the spot.  She asked him if he had a letter for Mr Fidler?  He said yes, and he handed it to her.  Back at the mill, she gave it to Thomas Fidler junior.  He and his sister read it and, alarmed, sent it on to their father, who was still in town.  When Mr Fidler read it, he went to find the constables Mr Norton and Mr Hebden.  This is what the letter said:

Thursday, 9th Feb 32

Sir – The writer, being in want of the common necessaries of life, is compelled to adopt the alternative of demanding a sum of money from you, according to your ability.  Do not disregard this notice, for desperate extremity will be revenged upon society; and should you refuse your aid, your life may be taken, and your property destroyed by

SWING 

An answer is requested, directed, to A.B., Mr Fortune, Lodging-House, Stokesley, this day.
To Mr Thomas Fidler, miller, Stokesley

The constables immediately began to hunt for the man, searching every pub, beer shop and lodging house in Stokesley but could not find him.  They went back three times to Fortune's lodging-house, but he hadn't returned there.

At about 7 o'clock the next morning, Edwin Orphan went up to Constable Hebden and asked him if they had been searching for him last night?  Constable Hebden replied that they had been looking for the man who wrote the letter to Thomas Fidler and Edwin said, "I am the man who wrote the letter."  He told them he was nearly starved to death and had nowhere to go – and that at one point in their search they had actually touched his feet.

On Thursday 5 April 1832 he came up before the North Riding Sessions at the Court House in Northallerton.  He was charged with having written and sent a letter to Mr Thomas Fidler, demanding money of him with menaces and without any reasonable or probable cause.  It was a serious charge, a felony charge.

After the case for the prosecution had been heard and the evidence of the Fidlers, Ann Garth and Constable Hebden had been given, Edwin Orphan was called to make his defence.

How startled the court must have been at his response – so striking a response that the newspapers, including several beyond Yorkshire, quoted it in their reports:

Before the minister of justice strikes the blow he is about to hurl at my liberty, I would say a few words, yet such an awe pervades my mind at addressing you, in the midst of such a concourse of people, that I fear lest I should give utterance to any expression offensive to your better cultivated minds.  I hope to guard against it, but should I fall into the error, condescend to pardon it, and impute the fault rather to my ignorance than my wish to be irreverent.

This is the second time I have been confined within the walls of a prison.  Some of you, gentlemen, are acquainted with the nature of my first offence; you know the motive that actuated me to commit that offence, and my wish, entreaty, and prayer, during that confinement; but either I was deemed unworthy of the boon I sought after, or no plan could be devised, whereby you might rescue the wretched object before you from that condition which compelled him to commit actions, which, under other and happier circumstances, his heart would abhor – his soul revolt at.

However, the expiration of my confinement arrived.  Mr Shepherd, whose kindness I shall long remember, gave me three shillings; with that solitary exception, I had but this prospect before me, either to beg my bread from door to door, as I have oft before done, or to throw myself at once upon the laws and justice of my country, for protection and support.  I well know the misery and privations that attend a vagrant's life; and I resolved, in preference, to take those steps which have led me to your tribunal.

Gentlemen, from my earliest recollection down to the present moment, I have been the victim of treachery, deceit, and fraud.  Man, base man! has laid the foundation of my utter ruin.  'Twas man's villainy that robbed me of a parent's care – that deprived me of that situation in life in which Providence was pleased to place me.  

To detail all the events of my life would be too tedious for you to bear with me, too painful for me to relate; let it suffice to say, that I am indebted to mendicants for all the miseries I have undergone, and have yet to suffer.  Yes, gentlemen, it was mendicants that robbed me of a parent's care.  I left them at an early age, and went to London, where I was without a friend, and fell among a lot of swindlers, whose dupe I became, and was educated by them, and made an instrument of their villainy.  They dragged me through all those scenes of life which the imagination of man could conceive, or wickedness devise.

But when the Almighty imparted reason and understanding, whereby I might discern between good and evil, I forsook the path of the wicked, and resolutely determined to follow that which was good.  I left my companions, and for two years have I travelled about the country, crying out of wrong, but no man regarded, – no eye spared – no heart pitied – no hand would rescue me from my forlorn condition, and place me in any honest calling, where I might live in humble credit to myself, and no disgrace to the community.  No, I was spurned and persecuted from town to town, as a vagrant and scamp; while misery, affliction, and privation, followed hard after me, and pursued me to the gates of the grave.

At length desperation seized me, infuriated madness took possession of my soul, and forced me into the commission of offences, for one of which I have suffered punishment; for the other I await your decision.

And for what are you going to punish?  Not for a propensity to vice – not for a depraved disposition, but because I am poor, wretched, and forlorn.  Methinks this is strange humanity – hard-hearted charity.  But I will not endeavour to extenuate the offence I have committed, nor will I plead in mitigation of the punishment you may think I deserve.  

All I fear is, that you will not punish me in a way that will deter me from committing similar, or worse offences in future.  What will it avail me, should you confine me a second time in your jail, and then turn me out as a dog, and worse than a dog?  Believe me, it will do no good; it will harden my heart against the laws of my country, which I would fain respect and love.  It will render me callous to the vicissitudes of fate, and when again liberated, I fear I should become a confirmed Ishmaelite, – my hand would be raised against society, and every honest man's hand against me.  Then in the name of society and justice, on behalf of my wretched self, – yea, I would ask you in the name of Almighty God, that you will either find me a settlement, or send me out of the country.

I say, transport me from my native land, if nothing else can be done for me; for in it I am a misery and burden to myself – a pest and a nuisance wherever I approach.  If indeed you will do this for me, if you will hearken to my petition, and grant my request, in conclusion I will promise you this, – when the law of England is wreaking its vengeance on extreme misery, when the justice of my country is sporting with the pangs of the afflicted, then, even then, will I pour forth my fervent supplication to a throne of grace, that blessings may descend upon each individual of my country, far different to any I ever enjoyed: and that none of your posterity may suffer similar sorrows to those experienced by the unfortunate, afflicted, and friendless Orphan.

So the unfortunate Edwin had no "settlement", which was the basis of the old Poor Law and where a pauper could claim relief, and he couldn't conceive how he could escape the life of a vagrant and an outcast.  But the Jury wasn't in the job of giving him an occupation and he had admitted to the felony already.  

The sentence was a foregone conclusion and Edwin Orphan was found guilty.  But the Chairman of the Jury, after commenting upon the enormity of the offence, sentenced him to be transported, not for a term of years, but for life.  On hearing the sentence, Edwin collapsed in the dock – "evidently exhausted", one newspaper wrote,  "completely overpowered" wrote another.

If Edwin's impassioned speech sounds as though it was inspired by the stage, that isn't surprising – the authorities in New South Wales recorded Edwin's occupation as "Strolling Player" and it can only have been Edwin who gave them the information.  

Edwin's story is rather mysterious and leaves a lot of gaps.  Who were his parents?  What was the "situation in life" into which he had been born?  When he says "mendicants" does he really mean beggars or is he referring obliquely to a travelling theatre company?  Did he run away from home to go on the stage?  Or was he born into a theatre company and learn his eloquence, not through reading, but through acting?

Dickens knew very well the world that Edwin described and perhaps Edwin's sad story comes to life for us, nearly 190 years later, because it reminds us of Dickens' novels.  When Edwin speaks of the swindlers who used him as their dupe, we can't help but think of 'Oliver Twist', which Dickens began to write in 1836.  Edwin's dramatic speech seems to belong to 'Nicholas Nickleby' (1838) and the world of Vincent Crummles' theatre company.  But there was no kind author to give Edwin a happy ending.  No wonder the Nottingham Review, when it picked up the story, called it a "Singular Case of Misery and Misfortune".

A fortnight after his trial, Edwin was taken from Yorkshire to the prison ships.  On the Hulk Ganymede at Woolwich, it was noted that Northallerton Gaol reported his character as "Indifferent – consorted with vagrants".  On the Leviathan at Portsmouth, they recorded that he was healthy and of orderly conduct.

Convict ships in the East India Docks in 1851

On 23 July 1832, the Parmelia set sail for New South Wales.  Edwin was one of the 200 convicts on board.  They arrived on 16 November after four months at sea.  And so he achieved his wish – if he really did wish to be transported.  

In 1841 he applied for a Ticket of Leave, which would allow him to work for himself on certain conditions – he would have to stay in a specified area, report regularly to local authorities and, if at all possible, go to church on Sundays.  He was unsuccessful but he tried again seven years later and on 1 June 1848, after 16 years in the colony, his Ticket of Leave was granted.  And after that point I can find no more about him.

......

Back in Cleveland, Mr Thomas Fidler and his family continued at the mill for many more decades.  Fidler's Mill itself was demolished in 1983 in spite of strenuous efforts by the Stokesley Society.  They saved the mill wheel however, and that can be seen in the carpark near the bridge.

Mr William Shepherd had followed his father Thomas Shepherd in the post of governor at Northallerton.  Being a governor was a family occupation.  William had two brothers, James and Thomas.  In 1832 James was Governor of the Castle of York and Thomas was governor at Wakefield, having succeeded James to the post.  Thomas died of cholera not long after the Parmelia took Edwin Orphan from England.

When James retired because of ill health in 1840, the post of Governor of the Castle fell vacant.  The men who put themselves forward for election were: William Shepherd; Edward Shepherd, who was either William's son or his nephew; and the under-gaoler at the Castle, John Noble, who was married to William's sister.  John Noble was elected.  In 1842, when William's mother old Mrs Shepherd died, the notice inserted in the newspapers by the family proudly stated that her son-in-law was Governor of the Castle, her son William was governor at Northallerton and her grandsons were governors at Wakefield and Beverley.  

William stayed at Northallerton for the rest of his career.  He had been kind to Edwin Orphan in giving him three shillings, but the prison under William Shepherd did not have a good reputation at all.  The 'Northallerton Hell' was the name given to it by the Chartists (see The Treadmills of Northallerton)

William retired to Whitby where he died at home at Normanby Terrace in 1867, aged 80.

Notes

For more on the cholera pandemic 1832, see Chapter 11. 1832: The year of the Cholera

For more stories of transportation and convict life, see 
Hard labour & transportation to Tasmania: Northallerton, April 1841 
William Orton, forger of Hutton Rudby 

and
Hutton Rudby 1876 to 1877: the Albion Sailcloth Mill

Henry Savile Clarke of Guisborough & Lewis Carroll's Alice

A few years ago I wrote about Henry Savile Clarke of Guisborough (1841-93), who produced the first stage musical of Lewis Carroll's Alice.

Phoebe Carlo 1887

Over a series of blogposts, I told the story of Henry Savile Clarke, his artist wife Helen (also from Guisborough) and their daughters Clara the novelist, Maggie the beautiful "skirt-dancer", and Kitty the society beauty.  They moved in high artistic circles, knew Oscar Wilde and Aubrey Beardsley and died young and rather tragically.

The Lewis Carroll Resources website gives an amazingly full account of Savile Clarke's production, with the rave reviews, details of the parts and performers and even links to the original music (you can listen to 1941 recordings of some of the songs on youtube).

And for the history of the surprising career of young Phoebe Carlo, the first child actress to play the part of Alice, go to Clare Imholtz' article in December 2020 edition of The Carrollian.

Phoebe in the photographs of the time doesn't really suit our ideas of a child star and we might think they can't possibly do her justice.  She was Lewis Carroll's choice (readers today might find the descriptions of his interest in her a little unsettling) and she was a terrific hit, the reviewers commenting on her vivacity, drollery and wonderful ability.  

She had a remarkable and rather mysterious life after she left the stage.  She won a 'Smartest Lady' competition in 1903, was described by the Chicago Tribune as "famous for her smart dresses and graceful carriage", and was, Clare Imholtz writes, "a walking advertisement for diamonds"!

5. War in Yorkshire: 1642-1643

In Chester, the Wandesfords found a welcome and were treated with kindness and friendship by the gentry families.  Within the strong walls of a city well-stocked with muskets, garrisoned by Royalist troops and with armed watchmen night and day guarding the gates, Mrs Wandesford must have felt she had reached a safe haven for her family and especially for her convalescent daughter and troubled son Christopher.  Refugees like themselves from Ireland were coming into the city, and lawlessness in Cheshire was driving people there, but Sir Thomas Danby was able to relieve her of the care of her grandsons and her twenty-year-old son George was safely in France with his tutor.  

She had many anxieties to deal with.  Besides the health of Alice and Christopher, there were matters from her husband's estates in an increasingly chaotic Ireland to settle, and she was short of money because rents from Yorkshire weren't arriving.  She didn't like to accept the offers of help from friends in Chester, but she had the invaluable support of her brother Sir Edward Osborne.  

Sir Edward Osborne (1596-1647)

He, poor man, had never recovered from the death of his eldest boy Edward in 1638.  Sir Edward had taken the place of Strafford as President of the Council of the North and was living at York Manor in York, the official residence, at the time.  A violent storm brought down a chimneystack which crashed through the roof, killing 17 year old Edward and sparing 6 year old Thomas only because, when the disaster happened, he was looking under a table for his pet cat.  Now Sir Edward was busy as a Commissioner of Array for the King, charged with mustering troops.

York Manor (now King's Manor).  [Tim Green CC by 2.0]

Outside Chester the situation was bad.  

The Wandesfords knew that Scottish troops were no longer in easy reach of their Yorkshire estates – they had left England in August – but now dreadful news kept coming in from Ireland of cruelties and massacres.  Even more appalling versions of the same news, of much larger numbers of Protestants dead, of rapes and tortures and murdered babies, came from the London printers and propagandists.  Anglicans like the Wandesfords were shocked to hear of the desecration of the cathedrals of Winchester and Chichester by Parliamentary troops who smashed the stained glass and the memorials.  Alice shared the opinions of everyone she knew – the King's Scottish and English opponents were men who had wantonly tired of a lawful and peaceable government, the Irish nakedly thirsted after the blood and lives of the English, the religious grievances of the Calvinists and Catholics were nothing but pretence, and the Earl of Strafford was a martyr.  

Yorkshire and the Battle of Piercebridge: 1642

Beyond the walls of Chester – and even within the walls – conflicting loyalties were dividing families, towns and villages.  

London grew too dangerous for the King and he set up his Court in York on 19 March 1642.  The city found itself the capital of the kingdom for six months, housing foreign ambassadors, nobles, the important men of state and a committee sent by Parliament to keep an eye on the King.  

Rival Puritan and Royalist groups fought each other in the streets.  Terrifying stories of massacres in Ireland began to reach Yorkshire and wild fears of Catholic Irish invasion took root.  Having two Catholic priests executed – the head of Father Lockwood, aged nearly 90, was put on Bootham Bar, and the head of young Edmund Catterick of Carlton near Richmond, on Micklegate Bar – couldn't convince doubters that Protestantism was safe in the King's hands.  And it was no use the King decreeing that no Catholics could join his army – at the muster, anyone could see that nearly half the Royalist colonels were Catholic.  Recruitment for Parliament surged among the lower classes in the West Riding.  As time passed and the hope of finding an agreement between the two sides faded, the city authorities began to strengthen York's defences.  

On 22 August 1642, the King marched southward and raised his standard at Nottingham Castle.  He was now at war with Parliament.  

On 23 September, the Wandesfords will have seen the King being enthusiastically welcomed into Chester with great civic ceremony.  He was there because it was an important strategic stronghold, the main port for Ireland and the gateway to Royalist North Wales and he spent a few nights in the city, reviewing the troops of his supporters, before moving on to Wrexham.  A month later, his forces and the Parliamentarians met in battle for the first time.  It was at Edgehill, a dozen miles south-east of Stratford-upon-Avon, and both sides claimed victory.

And what about Yorkshire, where Alice's sister Catherine must now have been in great anxiety for her husband, who had gone to join the King's army?

Hull was held for Parliament by Sir John Hotham and Scarborough by the Whitby landowner Sir Hugh Cholmley, and the independently-minded weavers and small farmers of the West Riding were mostly Puritans, but the North Riding was for the King and the few Parliamentarians there had a poor time of it.  They included men like the Earl of Mulgrave, the three sons of Sir David Foulis of Ingleby – their father had spent seven years in prison because of Strafford – and their cousins Thomas and James Chaloner of Guisborough.  The Robinsons of Rokeby near Greta Bridge were ardent Parliamentarians.  John Dodsworth of Thornton Watlass, a kinsman of the Wandesfords, was raising a company of dragoons for Parliament.

Parliamentarian captains met at Bedale in October 1642.  They tried to organise the Trained Bands and they held a public meeting in Richmond to raise funds.  But the fund-raising wasn't very successful and the Trained Bands weren't at all keen.  Very many people wanted to keep out of this argument and in some places communities made neutrality pacts with each other.  Before long, force and threats were being used to get recruits.  Hugh Cholmley of Tunstall near Catterick first tricked his neighbours into mustering for his son's troop of Royalist horse and then forced them to stay in the troop, threatening he would have them hanged and their houses burned if they didn't.

Both King and Parliament needed control of the crossing places on the River Tees.  The Royalists were bringing in supplies of arms from the Continent into the River Tyne.  They were needed for York, which was threatened from the west and from the Parliamentarian ports of Hull and Scarborough to the east.

William Cavendish, Marquess of Newcastle, was the Royalist commander-in-chief in the North East.  His army of about 2,000 horse and dragoons, together with 4,000 foot soldiers and ten pieces of cannonry reached the narrow mediaeval bridge at Piercebridge on 1 December 1642.  On the other bank of the Tees was Captain John Hotham with about 120 horse, 400 foot and two small cannons.  

William Cavendish, Marquess of Newcastle

An advance guard of Royalist dragoons and foot under 36 year old Colonel Sir Thomas Howard forced its way onto the bridge and fierce fighting followed.  Finally unable to hold the bridge, Hotham withdrew his men towards Knaresborough with, he said, only three wounded.  The attackers will have suffered more in their onslaught on the bridge and their leader Sir Thomas Howard was killed.  He was buried the next day at High Coniscliffe while the Marquess of Newcastle and his forces marched on to York.   

Battles at Guisborough and Yarm: 1643

The loss of Piercebridge and the arrival in York of the supplies was an enormous blow to the Parliamentarian gentry of the North Riding.  Their goods and estates were confiscated and they couldn't help their friends in the West Riding because the men of the Trained Bands, who had turned up so reluctantly, simply melted away.  Sir Henry Foulis of Ingleby reported that a Cleveland foot regiment that had mustered 500 men at Yarm had rapidly dwindled to 80 at the approach of the enemy.  

Meanwhile, someone the Wandesfords had known in Dublin had returned home to his estates at Hemlington, just south of the Tees.  This was 32 year old Guilford Slingsby, who had been Strafford's loyal secretary to the end and who had since been secretary to the young Prince of Wales in Holland.  

Slingsby had no military experience himself, so he had brought back with him a few mercenaries to train the troops he intended to raise for the King.  They were needed to protect the arms convoys crossing the Tees and to threaten the Parliamentarians in Scarborough.

Sir Hugh Cholmley in Scarborough learned that his distant kinsman Slingsby had orders from the Marquess of Newcastle to occupy Whitby – which was his own territory, where he had his great house beside the ruins of the ancient Abbey.  Picking up two troops of dragoons in Malton, he took his men on the hard, wintry march across the moors towards Guisborough.  He had with him 80 horse, 170 dragoons and 130 foot – some 380 men in all.

On 16 January 1643, Cholmley's men came down from the moors.  Slingsby's forces – some 100 horse and 400 foot, mostly raw recruits – were so confident that they came about a mile out of Guisborough to meet the Parliamentary troops and they placed their musketeers under the hedges in positions of advantage.  They were able to hold their ground for a couple of hours but they were gradually forced back and defeated.  Slingsby, badly wounded by artillery fire, was taken prisoner.  The surgeons tried to save him, amputating both his legs above the knee, but he died three days later.  He was buried in York Minster.  

When Sir Hugh Cholmley, who had moderate religious views and was becoming ever more unhappy with his choice of allegiance, reported the battle to Parliament, he wrote

I am forced to draw my sword not only against my countrymen but many near friends and allies some of which I know both to be well affected in religion and lovers of their liberties.

He withdrew his men to Scarborough, and he ordered 400 foot, 150 horse and two cannons to Yarm to hold the narrow bridge over the Tees.  

A few weeks later, a very large convoy of 120 wagons and 140 packhorses, guarded by perhaps 2,000 men, was on its way south to the Marquess of Newcastle.  The Parliamentary forces at the bridge had no chance.  On 1 February 1643 the Royalists fell on them and in a very brief time most of them were taken.  The Battle of Yarm was soon over.  The prisoners were taken to Durham Castle, where they were badly treated.  The Royalist convoy left engineers at Yarm to stop future Parliamentarian attempts on the bridge – they broke down its northern arch and put a wooden drawbridge in its place.  

Within weeks, Sir Hugh Cholmley had changed sides.  The King now held Scarborough.  On 30 June, the Marquess of Newcastle won a victory at the Battle of Adwalton Moor, five miles from Bradford.  The North was now almost completely Royalist.

6. Chester: smallpox, siege and travelling home: 1643 

Runswick: a tale of landslips – and the cholera of 1866

The cliffside village of Runswick Bay 
[Photograph by mattbuck, reproduced under Creative Commons licence]

 

Runswick (the 'w' in the name is silent) lies on the coast a few miles north of Whitby.  Much loved for holidays and days at the seaside, to our sight it offers a charming view of red-roofed cottages nestling under the cliffs of a sandy bay.  But it was only after public taste changed with the Romantic Movement that it began to be considered pretty – and its existence, and the lives of its inhabitants, were for centuries very precarious, not just because of the dangers of the sea but also from the unstable shale cliffs ...  

Here we have the antiquarian Ralph Thoresby, F.R.S., (1658-1725) on a northern journey in the last years of the reign of Charles II – the sight of moorland in November is not one to cheer his heart, and his account reminds us that Roseberry Topping had a long while to go before it would acquire its famous profile:

Mon 13 November 1682

Morning up pretty early; ferried over the river at Stockton, thence to Acklam, where Sir William Hustler has a pretty seat, thence through a blind cross-road, to Marton, a church-town, and thence over the bad moors to Gisborough, famous for a stately abbey ... 

thence over the rotten Moors for many miles without anything observable; the sea at a small distance upon the left; and upon the right hand, hills, whereof a round one, called Roseberry Topping, is a mark for sailors; within a few miles of Whitby, we passed not far from Runswick, the place where, near by the sea-side, stood a little village of six or ten houses the last spring, of which I find from credible persons, the report we had of its being swallowed up of the earth, too true, though blessed be God, all the inhabitants were saved, they happening to be at a kind of wake (as the old manner is) at the house of a person immediately deceased, where observing the earth to crack and gape, made all their escape; shortly after which, the chinks grew suddenly wide, and the houses fell into the gulf. 

On the right hand we left Moulgrave [Mulgrave] Castle, that ancient fabric, and passed through Lith [Lythe], a pretty country town; thence over the Sands to Whitby. [1]

I think the original little village of Runswick stood a little to the north of the village today, which is described here by the Revd John Graves in his History of Cleveland (1808), who quotes from the 18th century naturalist and antiquarian Thomas Pennant [2]

Runswick ... is situated near the sea, and consists of a few scattered huts, inhabited by fishermen, and grouped irregularly together on the declivity of a steep and rugged rock; the projecting top of which juts forward in an awful manner and threatens at some future period to overwhelm the inhabitants.  The situation of the place is singular and must excite the curiosity of strangers; when in winding along the narrow paths between the houses,  they may on one side enter the door of one dwelling, and from thence look down the chimney of another in front.  Pennant observes that, 

"the houses here make a grotesque appearance, scattered over the face of a steep cliff in a very strange manner, and fill every projecting ledge one above another, in the same manner as those of the peasants in the rocky parts of China."  

The houses are sheltered on the north and north-west, and command a pleasing prospect into the bay, which is upwards of a mile in extent, – with Kettleness alum-works about a mile to the north-east.  The lower part of the town is almost choaked with sand, which fills up every passage; and in wet weather is dirty and unpleasant.

The Revd Graves was rather behind the times – for sensibilities formed by the Romantic Movement, Runswick could only be described as picturesque.  By the 1830s the village was becoming beloved of artists and tourists.  Some enterprising person, seeing commercial possibilities, decided to build a hotel at the Bank Top, equipped with all mod. cons. including a Water Closet.  

I wonder if it was completed on the generous scale originally intended and if it was initially as successful as predicted in the advertisement below; in the early years it changed hands with some frequency.  In the early 1860s it was run by a Mr Ivison, but in 1865 Mrs Wardale took it over.  It evidently looked an attractive prospect to people coming from outside because by the time of the 1871 census, George Marshall from Nottingham had taken it on.  He and his family had been in Felixkirk near Thirsk three years earlier – that was where his little daughter had been born.  By 1877 the Marshalls had gone and William Brown from Loftus had the hotel; he was still there in 1891.  

In the spring of 1860 the still unfinished hotel was up for sale:

Yorkshire Gazette, 21 April 1860 

All that New, Commodious, and Delightfully-situated Inn, known as the Albert Hotel, situate at Runswick Bank Top, in the Parish of Hinderwell, in the County of York, lately occupied by Jonathan Ramshaw.  This Property comprises a good Front Kitchen, Back Kitchen, Wash-House, Roomy Bar, Smoke Room, Commercial Room, Private Rooms, an excellent suite of Bed Rooms, Water Closet, Attics, Coach-house, Stabling, and all other suitable Out-Offices. 

Although the Premises are not entirely completed, they are in such an advanced stage that, with the bright prospect of an increasing Business, a Purchaser may confidently rely on his Purchase-Money with any small additional outlay being amply secured.

This is one of Mrs Wardale's advertisements:

Whitby Gazette 3 November 1866

The Sheffield (late Albert) Hotel, Runswick Bank Top 

Is delightfully situated, amidst the most romantic scenery of the Yorkshire Coast, and is fitted up with every comfort for the reception of Tourists and Visitors.  It is modern and very commodious, and the utmost attention and quiet may be relied upon.  Mrs Wardale, Proprietress.

The hotel was highly praised by one J.G., in an account in the Yorkshire Gazette of 14 July 1866 of the walking holiday he had taken along the coast:

as the accommodation is good and the charges moderate, it is desirable to remind the future tourists that there did not appear to be a house on the coast at which to stay where cleanliness, and civility, and comfort, and cheapness were to be had in combination so well as in this house.  Mrs Wardell is a widow, a middle-aged person, and has, so she said, lived in her early days with some of the aristocratic families in the west end of London.  The house was taken by her last year.  Persons desirous of enjoying the sea and the beautiful and romantic scenery in and around this locality cannot do better than secure accommodation here.

On the cliffside below the new hotel lay the thatched roofs of the village – the "town of Runswick" as the census enumerator described it in 1861 when he listed its inhabitants.  In 97 cottages, 430 people were living and there were four cottages standing empty.  The little low cottages would have blended into the cliff face, as they were all thatched (ling was used for thatching in moorland districts).  One thatched house has survived, the one that used to be occupied by the coastguard.

Roughly half of the population was aged 23 years and younger, which isn't surprising because it's only in recent years that the UK median age has risen to 40½.  (In 1911, it was 25 and it was 34 in 1975).  So Runswick was a place with many children.  Of the 430 people there, just 46 were aged 60 and over – and they included a 90 year old, who was the blind uncle of one of the fishermen.  

Like Staithes, further up the coast, Runswick was a self-contained and inter-related community with its own customs, superstitions and habits.  The name Calvert was by far the most the common surname in the village in 1861, followed by Patton, Taylor, Hutton, Beswick and Clark.  Its needs were served by a grocer & draper, four dressmakers and a tailor, two innkeepers, two joiners, three blacksmiths, and a painter who had been born in Chester.  

The vast majority of the population had been born in Runswick and the hundred or so people born outside the village were mostly from further along the coast or a little way inland, and some of those may have had family ties to the place.  The coastguards were appointed from outside the area – how could a local be trusted to deal with smugglers? – and in 1861 he was from Sheffield.  Of the Runswick-born who had left their birthplace, most had not gone many miles or had left for the towns of Stockton, Middlesbrough or Hartlepool.  And of course there were the Runswick-born men who were at sea.

The people of Runswick knew all too well the dangers of the sea.  In 1866, 650 lives were lost on average from shipwreck on the shores of the United Kingdom.  The likelihood of raising the funds for a lifeboat station at Runswick had looked remote – but then came an amazing offer from the people of Sheffield, who raised the money to donate a boat to the village.  It only remained to raise the money locally for its upkeep and for a boat house.  And so, in May 1866, 'The Sheffield' arrived in Whitby by train (carried for free by the railway companies) and was towed by the steamboat 'Rover' to its new home.  Mrs Wardale must have renamed her hotel in its honour.

The people of Runswick were tough and resilient.  For generations the men had been fishermen – at Runswick it was mainly the inshore fishery – and the women played a crucial role alongside them.  They had a hard life.  They got the bait, cleaned and baited the long lines, mended the nets, filleted the fish and packed it in salt.  They launched and hauled the cobles ashore and some of them carried heavy baskets of the catch to sell in outlying villages rather than to a dealer.  They fetched water from the beck and bread from the communal bakehouse, looked after the house and children and knitted for the family.  The children lent a hand alongside them.  

In 1861 there were 50 fishermen in the village and 5 men who described themselves as mariners, and they were all born in Runswick.  But alongside the fishing, mining – another dangerous occupation – was growing in importance and the men working in the mines were mostly from outside. 

There were ironstone mines a little way up the coast at Port Mulgrave.  At Kettleness, at the southern end of the bay, there were alum works which were still operating in the first part of 1866 but would close before long [3].  The jet works at Kettleness were certainly in operation only a few years before the 1861 census, because it was there in 1854 that a labourer at the jet works, Dalton Taylor, accidentally fell from the top of the cliff on to a piece of broken rock and was killed on the spot.  In 1861, 16 men worked in the ironstone mines and only one of them was born in Runswick.  Of the 18 men who worked as labourers, either at Port Mulgrave or Kettleness, 10 were Runswick-born men.

The sea, the mines, the precarious nature of Runswick's hold on the cliff edge – it isn't surprising to find that spiritual needs were not ignored.  As in Staithes, the villagers' independence of mind (and the Church of England's history of ignoring them) can be seen in their strong Nonconformism.  A Congregational Chapel was built in 1829, which had a Sunday School and a Day School – perhaps the 40 year old schoolmistress Miss Mary Agar from Danby, who lodged in the village in 1861, was the teacher there [4].  In 1854, a Primitive Methodist chapel was built.  The sand and lime together with 140 loads of stone had been carried to the site on the heads of the women of the village – which was how they carried heavy baskets of fish, mussels and baited lines, their heads protected by their distinctive bonnets – while the men had carted the heavier stone in handbarrows.  It was too steep for any horse and cart [5].  It became known as the High Chapel while the Congregational Chapel was the Low Chapel.

And it was among these strong and determined people that, in November 1866, an outbreak of cholera led to deaths – and then to a damning report on the state of the village.

Hard labour & transportation to Tasmania: Northallerton, April 1841

Each one of these cases brings us a little glimpse of the past.  I think the information might also prove useful to family historians.

These are the details of people brought before the North Riding Sessions in Northallerton in April 1841 at the same time as John Dale, Simpson Adamson and Sarah Adamson.  The story of Dale and the Adamsons can be found in Frederick Cator's trunk goes missing.

You can see that prisoners were still convicted even when they abandoned the item they were trying to steal.  In young Henry Richardson's case, he threw back on the hedge the stockings that he had planned to steal, but when that charge was put together with a previous conviction for felony, it earned him 7 years' transportation.  And of course the felonies are all crimes against property, while the grandfather who tried to rape his little granddaughter was tried for a misdemeanour.

And what was "hard labour"?  The treadmill.  For a description of Northallerton Prison – the "Northallerton Hell" as the Chartists called it – see The Treadmills of Northallerton and the wikipedia description of the Penal treadmill.

From the Yorkshire Gazette, 10 April 1841

Misdemeanant

William Best (71) – charged with assaulting on 7 March at Thirsk Mary Ann Storey "a child only 8 years of age" with intent to commit a rape.  The prisoner is grandfather to the child.  2 years' hard labour

Felonies

Jacob Granger (18) of Dalton – charged with having stolen a sovereign from G Robinson of Dalton, labourer.  1 month's hard labour.

Thomas Adamson (22) and George Stockton (39) – charged with having on 20 January stolen 2 pigs' heads, 8 pigs' feet, 7 hens and 1 cock, from a barn belonging to George Fawcit of Hawsker-cum-Stainsacre, farmer.  Adamson pleaded Guilty, Stockton Not Guilty.  Both 6 months in the House of Correction

John Carrol (24) of Middlesbrough – charged with having on 13 January stolen a shovel from a cart of manure belonging to Robert Barron of Middlesbro', cartman.  Carrol was seen working with the shovel on which was branded "R Barron".  Some time afterwards it was seen that the name was cut off the shovel, which Carrol still kept.  6 weeks' hard labour

Stephen Moody (15) – charged with stealing a sixpence and seven pennies from James Stewart, keeper of a beer-house in Middlesbrough.  Prisoner was caught by Stewart with the money in his hand.  The jury found him guilty but recommended mercy because "We think it is his first offence".  Chairman said he was afraid it was not.  Prisoner had been convicted of rioting in Middlesbrough the year before.  6 months' hard labour and to be once severely whipped.

Harriet Newill Horsley (18) – charged with stealing 9½ yards of printed cotton from Mary Easterby of Whitby.  Mary Easterby had bought some cotton of a travelling man and took it to Margaret Burton's house, who put it in a basket.  Harriet Horsley was there.  A few days afterwards Mary Easterby went to Mrs Burton's house but the cotton was gone.  Horsley told the constable that she had pawned it with James Appleby, where it was indeed found.  In her defence, and to the amusement of the court, she said repeatedly that there were nearly 10 yards, not 9½.  She said Mrs Burton had sent her to do it and had drunk some ale bought with the money.  1 month's hard labour

John Bennison (24) of Fryup – charged with having on 15 March stolen oats belonging to Mr W Keld Agar, farmer of Fryup, for whom he had worked.  Mr Agar had suspected thieving was going on, had kept watch and seen Bennison taking oats from the stable.  2 months' hard labour

Joseph Barker (22) of Great Smeaton – charged with stealing hay from Daniel Hossick Alderson of Linthorpe, gentleman on 24 February.  Alderson was a gentleman farmer living at Marsh House near Linthorpe (Marsh House Farm was demolished in about 1937).  Mr Alderson also occupied a farm at Great Smeaton.  The prisoner had a stable near Mr Alderson's cow-house, one of whose hinds (labourers) had suspected theft and had therefore marked a quantity of his master's hay with a stick. The hay was missed and found in the prisoner's stable, with the stick, and there were bits of hay strewn between the cow-house and the stable.  Prisoner said he'd bought it from a man from Osmotherley.  2 months' hard labour

John Hewison, out on bail – pleaded guilty to having stolen wheat from Mr Gordison, a respectable farmer living near Thirsk.  Mr Gordison had winnowed a quantity of wheat from the barn beside his house and on 8 January he took some wheat to Thirsk market.  One of his servants saw someone hiding a sack among some chaff which was in a stackyard.  The servant found the sack in which was some wheat.  In the evening they saw Hewison take the sack and begin to make off with it.  When challenged by Mr Gordison, he threw it down and ran off.  He was taken into custody a few days later.  1 month's imprisonment.

George Theasby, out on bail – pleaded guilty to stealing £3 19s 9d from Ann Sotheran of Newton-upon-Ouse near Easingwold.  Also charged with stealing £2 15s from her.  He was clerk and confidential servant to Mrs Sotheran, lime merchant at Newton, and the money had been paid to him on her account.  Sentence delayed.

Sarah Wilcox (40) of Rowton – pleaded guilty to stealing 1 iron chain, back band and other articles from William Fawcitt.  6 months' hard labour

John Batty (17) of Leeds – pleaded guilty to stealing 1 pair of boots belonging to Thomas Green of Mansfield, labourer, from a stable at Mansfield.  Batty was a chimney-sweep and had been called in by Green to sweep his chimney.  While the family weren't looking he took the boots from the stable where they were hung up.  1 month's hard labour

William Bradley (19) of Stokesley – charged with stealing a quantity of iron from the mill of James Blacket of Stokesley.  1 month's hard labour

Daniel Barker (52) and Daniel Barker the younger, of Appleton Wiske – charged with stealing 1 great coat, 1 horse's head brush and 1 pair of gloves from Robert Atkinson of Swainby, carrier.  Not Guilty.

Sarah Garth (41) and Jane Garth (13) both of Guisborough – charged with stealing lambs' wool yarn from John Smith of Guisborough, druggist.  Each to serve 1 month's hard labour

Henry Temple (57) of Borrowby – charged with stealing 8 bushels of barley and 2 sacks from Mr Thomas Rose, farmer of Boltby, who had put in his barn on 13 March 6 sacks, each containing 4 bushels of barley, slightly mixed with oats.  Next day 2 of them were gone.  In the road near Temple's house were the marks of a horse's feet matching the shoes of a horse in Temple's stable.  When Constable Little of Thirsk searched the house, he found the barley and also 2 sacks from which the marks had been cut out.  Also charged with having been convicted of a felony in Co Durham.  7 years' transportation

I haven't been able to find a record of Henry Temple arriving in Australia, so I wonder if he died on the voyage out.

Henry Richardson (16), late of Hutton Rudby – charged with stealing a pair of cotton stockings belonging to Thomas Sterling and a cotton shirt belonging to Joseph Coates of Thirsk.  The stockings had been washed and hung on a hedge to dry on 11 February.  A carrier saw Richardson take them off the hedge, roll them up and put them in his pocket but, seeing he was watched, throw them back on the hedge and run away.  Guilty.  Further charged with having been convicted of a felony at the last Sessions.  The prosecution then said that the charge of theft of the shirt would be dropped.  7 years' transportation.

This record in convictrecords.com.au shows that Henry Richardson was taken from the hulks to the convict ship John Brewer, which set sail from Sheerness in December 1841 to Tasmania. We can see from the record in the Digitalpanopticon.org that Henry said he was born in "Stously" workhouse (the old dialectal  pronunciation of Stokesley, often spelt Stowsla) and the details on Foundersandsurvivors.org show that he said he had no relations.   

His conduct record shows that he was 5 feet 5½ inches tall, with a fresh complexion, an oval face, brown hair and hazel eyes.  He could neither read nor write.  He had been convicted for vagrancy and theft, his character was "very bad" and the record shows he was in constant trouble in Tasmania.  It is a sad catalogue of solitary confinement and hard labour.  His record (see Image 164) shows he was again convicted of stealing and was sent to the harsh conditions of the penal settlement on Norfolk Island, where he was found dead on 30 October 1850.

Yorkshire Gazette 5 June 1841

Convicts

On Wednesday morning, the following convicts were removed from York Castle in pursuance of their sentences, to be delivered on board the Fortitude hulk, Chatham.  For life, John Mitchell, and Wm Kenworthy.  For fourteen years, Wm Bean, George Sayers, and Joseph Day.  For ten years, Edwin Pinder, John Moore, John Scofield, and James Naylor.  For seven years, Henry Temple, Henry Richardson, Nathan Hart, Samuel Fletcher and George Taylor

This paper by Hamish Maxwell-Stewart and Rebecca Kippen is a fascinating study of Sickness and Death on Male and Female Convict Voyages to Australia 

Hutton Rudby 1876 to 1877: the Albion Sailcloth Mill

This follows the post Hutton Rudby 1859-1908: the Cleveland Sailcloth Mill

It has always been remembered that William Surtees, who lived in Eden Cottage at the time of the 1871 census, established a linen manufactury in Albion House, at the corner of Doctors Lane and Garbutts Lane.

This is his story.

I have come to the conclusion that William was the grandson of the William Surtees and Eden Dodds who married on 7 December 1797 in Hutton Rudby – not least because he used the name Eden for his house and as the middle name of one of his daughters.

William Surtees and Eden Dodds had several children (see here).  Their daughter Margaret Surtees married Edward Hansell of Kirklevington in 1830, while daughters Jane and Sarah had children outside marriage.  The Guisborough registers record the baptism on 15 August 1825 of William & John, illegitimate sons of Jane Surtees of Guisborough.  This was the William of Eden Cottage.  

By 1832 Jane was back in Hutton Rudby where her daughter Elizabeth was baptised on 25 July.  The Memorial Inscriptions transcription shows that Jane died the following year aged 34.  Eden and William Surtees were left with the care of Jane's 7 year old twin boys and baby daughter.  William died four years later and was buried at Hutton Rudby on 12 March 1837, aged 66.  The 1841 census shows Eden was still at work – though she was now 70 years old, she was listed as an agricultural labourer.  With her were Elizabeth, aged 10, and John, a stonemason's apprentice aged 15.  Her house must have been at the top of Enterpen; it appears directly after Hutton House in the enumerator's round of the village.  

The twin boys had both been apprenticed as stone masons.  While John was with their grandmother, the 1841 Census found William in the household of John Souter in Stockton; there was a family called Souter in Hutton Rudby, so John Souter may have been a friend or relation (see here).  Ten years later, in 1851, William Surtees, stonemason aged 25, birthplace Guisborough, was visiting Henry Fletcher in Hartlepool.

Meanwhile, his grandmother Eden lived on in Hutton Rudby.  She was still alive and still working as a farm labourer at the time of the 1851 census, but she was also described as a pauper and she was living on her own.  She died in 1854 aged 84.

By the early 1850s William was in partnership with Robert Todd of Marton-in-Cleveland.  This was just before the village was changed by the building of Marton Hall by Henry Bolckow; at the time of the 1840 White's Directory it "had in its parish 363 souls".  Marton Lodge ("a large stone mansion") was still in ruins after a fire in 1832, and St Cuthbert's church had not yet been modernised and was described as a "small ancient structure".   

Robert Todd was born in about 1820 in Shadforth, Co Durham.  He had married a Marton girl called Jane Ord of Marton and settled there.  The 1851 census shows that they had three small children and were living with her widowed father William.  

The Todd-Surtees partnership ended in 1853:

Yorkshire Gazette, 4 June 1853 

NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN, that the Partnership heretofore subsisting between the undersigned WILLIAM SURTEES, of Hutton, near Rudby, in the County of York, Stonemason, and ROBERT TODD, of Marton, in the same County, Stonemason, carrying on business as Stonemasons and Contractors at Marton aforesaid, under the firm of "ROBERT TODD," was this day DISSOLVED by Mutual Consent. 

All Debts due and owing to or by the said Partnership will be paid and received by the said ROBERT TODD, who will complete all existing Contracts on his own account.  As witness our hands this Twenty-Seventh Day of May, 1853. 

(Signed) WILLIAM SURTEES
ROBERT TODD
Signed by both parties in the presence of
J PEIRSON HOLT,
Solicitor, Middlesbro'

After the end of his partnership with William Surtees, Robert and the family moved into the new and growing town of Middlesbrough, to live in Corporation Road.  

William must have gone to work somewhere near Darlington, because when he married in the spring of 1856, it was registered in that district.  His wife was Hannah Thorburn.  I think she is the girl who can be found in the 1841 Census for Haggbeck, seven miles from Longtown, north of Carlisle.  She was then aged 8, the youngest child of Hannah & Thomas Thorburn, a joiner.  My conjecture has some support from the fact that the record of her death states that her father was called Thomas and that the birth of a William Surtees was registered at Longtown at the end of 1857.  As was quite common, Hannah had been near her family for the birth of her first child.

A little more than a year later William and Hannah had come across the Pennines to Hutton Rudby, where their second son Thomas was born on 14 January 1859.  William's occupation is given on the birth certificate as stonemason.

Before very long, William, Hannah and the two little boys had sailed for Australia.

They must have hoped and planned for a successful new life there.  It began with a birth, when another baby boy, Elijah, was born to them on 28 March 1862 – but the bright start did not last long.  Elijah died only weeks later on the 9 May.  His death was registered at Newtown, New South Wales and he was buried in the Camperdown Cemetery, Newtown, City of Sydney 

On 6 May 1863, less than a year later, Hannah died.  She too was buried in the Camperdown Cemetery.  And then, only a few months later on 20 January 1864, six year old William died.  His father buried him in the same cemetery as his mother and baby brother.  Only William and Thomas remained.

On 22 August 1866 William remarried.  His second wife was Clara Susan Louisa Graham of Liverpool, New South Wales. 

Clara – as can be seen from her obituary at the end of this piece – came of a family that had lived in Liverpool for a long while; their oldest family tombstone was dated 1809.  Her mother was a sister of the Lieutenant Wilson who first sighted the promontory on the southern coast which was named after him (Wilsons Promontory?).  Her brother George Graham was a Sydney solicitor; her cousin George Smith was the first Mayor of Manly.  Clara was born in Liverpool in 1834 and her memory stretched back to the dark past.  She could remember "when the present asylum was used as a military barracks, and the stocks and triangles were employed to punish rebellious convicts".  The last convict ship had arrived in New South Wales from London on Christmas Eve 1849, a dozen years before William Surtees and his family arrived.

Collingwood Paper Mills

William is described in Clara's obituary as having "built the Liverpool paper mill."  This was the Collingwood Paper Mill which, according to the website of the developers who are even now working to turn it into Liverpool's new premier destination, could produce 20 tonnes of paper per week and was the biggest employer in the Liverpool district.  

William and Clara had a little girl, Eva Eden, born in 1867.  Then, the work on the paper mill finished, William and his little family left for Yorkshire, sailing from New South Wales for London on La Hogue at the beginning of January 1868.  The passenger list in the Sydney Morning Herald of 8 January 1868 names "Mr and Mrs Surtees and child"; I expect Eva was too young to be counted.  

William returned, local boy made good, to Hutton Rudby.  Perhaps he longed for the familiar; perhaps he felt the need to show how well he had done.  He built himself a house beyond the edge of the village, in the fields between the Station Hotel at the corner of Doctors Lane and the Vicarage on Belborough Lane, and named it Eden Cottage.  There is no sign of a house on this spot in the 1861 census, so I think we can safely assume that William built it and named it after his grandmother. 

Eden Cottage & the Thorman family, 1880s
Courtesy of Sue & Bob Hutchinson

In 1869, Clara gave birth to another baby girl.  She was baptised Amy Louisa Victoria on 29 March by the Revd R J Barlow, and her father's occupation given as Builder.  The 1871 census finds them all at Eden Cottage: William, Clara, Thomas (now aged 12), Eva (aged 3) and 2 year old Amy.  Clara was by then pregnant with Laura Adelaide, who was born a short while after the census was taken and baptised on 7 August.

In the 1871 census William described himself as a builder, and in the 1872 Post Office Directory as a builder and contractor.  We catch a glimpse of his activities in this advertisement which appeared through the months of June and July 1873 – in it we can see that, having come home from Australia, he named his business Albion, the ancient name for Britain:

Daily Gazette for Middlesbrough, 24 June 1873 

For Sale by Private Contract,
The Albion Steam Crushing and Cutting Mills, occupying the space between Boundary-road and Dale-street, Middlesbrough, in full work, and open to inspection.
Apply, by letter, in the first instance, to William Surtees, Eden Cottage, Hutton Rudby, via Yarm.

Perhaps he was selling his Steam Crushing and Cutting Mills to finance his new scheme.  He was going to set up a sailcloth manufactury to rival the Wilsons' Cleveland Sailcloth Mill.  Why did he decide to sink his capital into this rather unlikely business?  Was he really likely to succeed?  Nobody now knows.

He called it the Albion Sailcloth Works and built it on land he had bought on the edge of the village at the corner of Doctors Lane.  This was not far from the village pond (on the opposite side of Garbutts Lane) and it had a good water supply.  Malcolm McPhie, when a boy, was shown the well that supplied a house on that corner – when the lid was lifted, he could see running water at the bottom of the well.  Surtees equipped his mill with a horizontal steam engine driving six Parker's Patent Mathematical Looms.  This was a loom for weaving Navy sailcloth and other heavy fabrics; it was developed by C E & C Parker, Dundee and was exhibited at the Great Exhibition of 1851.

As for his other activities in the village, there is an interesting report from the magistrates' court in Stokesley in early January 1876:

York Herald, 15 January 1876 

Stokesley Petty Sessions
William Surtees, of Hutton Rudby, stone mason, was charged by Police-constable Thompson with being drunk on licensed premises, occupied by Eliza Raney, of the Wheat Sheaf Inn.  Defendant said that he was quite capable of talking on scientific subjects and transacting business.  Fined 5s. and costs

What can have been going on?  Mrs Elizabeth Raney was an experienced publican.  Aged 64 at the time of this incident, she had been running the Wheatsheaf since her young husband Jeremiah died in 1842.  William's scientific discussion and business transactions must have been getting rather noisy if she had to call the village policeman!

That summer, on 14 August 1876, William's son Thomas became a Merchant Navy apprentice, bound for a term of four years.  (He can be found in the Register of Apprentices available on Ancestry.co.uk).  Perhaps the voyages to and from Australia had inspired him; perhaps a love of heavy machinery was kindled in him by the equipment his father was buying.

Then, eighteen months later on 3 September 1877, William Surtees died at the age of 53.  Thomas, who was able to be at his deathbed, went to the registrar Joseph Mellanby Mease to register the death.  He gave his father's occupation as Contractor.  The cause of death was certified by Dr M C Hopgood as "Anasarca".  This is a general swelling of the whole body, probably caused in William's case by liver, kidney or heart failure.

He had hardly had time to get his enterprise up and running.  The machinery was scarcely used.

His widow Clara and Thomas Milestone, the gardener at Skutterskelfe, were his Executors and they took out Probate promptly on 28 September.  Clara then put the business up for sale – and the solicitor she chose was John George Wilson, brother of Allan and Thomas, who ran the rival business at the Cleveland Sailcloth Mill.

This notice of an auction sale to be held on 25 October 1877 gives us a great many details of this fleeting business:

Northern Echo, 13 October 1877 

Hutton Rudby, in Cleveland – Albion Sailcloth Works and Freehold Land 

TO BE SOLD BY AUCTION, at the Wheat Sheaf Inn, Hutton Rudby, in the County of York, on Thursday, October 25th, 1877, at Two for Three o'Clock in the Afternoon (subject to such conditions as shall then agreed),
Mr J J HANSELL, Auctioneer 

All that newly-erected FREEHOLD SAILCLOTH FACTORY, situated at the north end of the village of Hutton Rudby aforesaid, together with the adjoining Field of Old Grass LAND, containing 1a. 1r. 15p., or thereabouts, be the same more or less. 

The Factory comprises a large Manufacturing-room, measuring 64ft by 24ft 9in, together with Office, Storeroom, and Engine-house, and contains Six Parker's Patent Mathematical Looms, with all the necessary Preparing Frames and Finishing Machinery; also Paper Calendar, Horizontal Steam Engine, Boiler, and Cold Water Pump.  The Machinery is of the best description; it has all been recently fitted up, and is in good condition, having been but little used.  There is a capital supply of Water. 

The Land is known by the name of the "Town End Field," and is splendidly situated, with a commanding view of the Cleveland Hills and surrounding district, and having extensive frontages to high roads on the North and East boundaries thereof, it may be easily sub-divided into excellent sites for the erection of Villas or other Residences. 

Potto Station, on the North Yorkshire and Cleveland Branch of the North-Eastern Railway, is within the distance of One Mile from the Property. 

A considerable portion of the Purchase Money may be left on Mortgage of the Premises on terms to be stated at the time of sale. 

The Property will in the first instance be put up for sale in One Lot, and, if not sold, it will then be offered in such Lots as may be agreed upon. 

Further particulars may be obtained on application to Mrs WILLIAM SURTEES, Hutton Rudby, near Yarm, Yorkshire; or to 

Mr JOHN GEORGE WILSON, Solicitor,
Hutton Rudby and Durham.
Hutton Rudby, October, 1877

The Sailcloth Works came to an end and it is said that the buildings were used as a laundry and a dyeworks before being converted into the Albion House and Albion Terrace that we know today.  In a decorative detail above the windows of the Terrace is the date 1881, so this happened within a very few years of William Surtees' death.  Perhaps the conversion was the work of the builder Matthew Bewick Bainbridge, who lived in Albion House at the time of the 1881 census.

Albion Terrace in the 1930s

Clara went back to Australia with her three little girls.  I wonder when she sailed – probably as soon as she could sell up, as all her family were in New South Wales and there was nothing to keep her in England.  Thomas stayed behind, but he saw Sydney again at least once.  The crew list of the Parramatta out of London shows that he came back into Sydney harbour on 8 December 1879.  One would think he must have gone to see his stepmother and half-sisters.

His time served, Thomas can be found in 1881 working as a fitter and boarding with his father's cousins, Margaret, Thomas and William Hansell, middle-aged unmarried siblings living together at 32½ Brunswick Street, Stockton.  He married Margaret Adamson in the spring quarter of 1881 soon after the census was taken, and worked as a Marine Engine Maker.  He might well have worked for Messrs Blair & Co, the company founded by George Young Blair of Drumrauch Hall, Hutton Rudby.  By 1891 he and Margaret were living in Mount Pleasant Street, Norton-on-Tees and had four children between the ages of three and nine.  By 1901 they were at 6 Trent Street, Stockton-on-Tees with their children Annie, William, Thomas, Margaret and Eva.  William was apprenticed to a joiner and young Thomas was a junior clerk.  Thomas died in the April-June quarter of 1907 aged 49.

His stepmother Clara outlived him.  She died in 1922, the oldest resident of Liverpool, and her death merited a piece in the Sydney Morning Herald:

Sydney Morning Herald, 11 October 1922 

MRS C SURTEES
Mrs Clara Surtees, Liverpool's oldest resident, died suddenly at her home, George-street, Liverpool, on Thursday last, at the age of 87 years and was buried on Saturday.  

She remembered Liverpool when the present asylum was used as a military barracks, and the stocks and triangles were employed to punish rebellious convicts.  Among her recollections were the scenes when hundreds of Chinese were to be seen marching through the town on their way to the diggings; another was the time when George's River was navigable as far as Liverpool.  She had seen steamers conveying supplies to the town and unloading at wat at present is the dam.  

Her husband, Mr William Surtees, built the Liverpool paper mill.  He was a Yorkshireman, and after completing that work he went with his wife and one daughter to England, residing there until his death.  Mrs Surtees then returned to her native town of Liverpool.  

Her eldest brother, the late Mr George Graham, was a well-known solicitor of his day in Sydney, and took a team of aboriginal cricketers to England so many year ago that the occurrence is well nigh forgotten.  His son, George Graham, lately retired from the position of secretary to the Government Printing Office.  Mrs Surtees's mother was a sister of Lieutenant Wilson, who first sighted the promontory on the southern coast which was named after him [Wilsons Promontory?].  A cousin, Mr George Smith, of Undercliffe, Manly, was the first Mayor of that borough.  In the Liverpool cemetery the oldest family tombstone bears date 1809.  When Mrs Surtees was 81 years of age she sustained an attack of double pneumonia, and although she recovered from it, her health was permanently impaired.

Eden Cottage, Albion House and Albion Terrace remain – a reminder of an unusual man.  The Mease brothers, the Blacket brothers and George Wilson all came from backgrounds that gave them advantages that William Surtees never had; his achievements were hard-won and cut short by his untimely death.