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)

Mourning in Eston: 1877

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

South Eston c1913:  CC-BY National Library of Scotland

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

William Weldon Carter & Eden Lodge, Hutton Rudby

In Spring 1880, this advertisement appeared repeatedly in the Yorkshire newspapers:

The Daily Gazette for Middlesbrough, 15 April 1880 

Desirable Country Residence 

To be sold, and may be entered upon immediately, EDEN VILLA, within eight miles of Stockton, near Hutton Rudby, and one mile from the Potto Station on the Whitby Railway.  The House is most favourably situated, commanding magnificent views of the Cleveland Hills, and in the midst of a fertile country. 

The House contains Drawing and Dining Rooms, Front and Back Kitchen, Scullery, Larder, Wash-house, Cellar, &c., and five good Bedrooms and W.C.  The Outbuildings consist of two Coach-houses, 2-Stall Stable, Cow-byre, etc. 

There is Hard and Soft Water on the premises. 

The premises are well and substantially built, and are in first-class order; they stand upon one-and-a-half acres of Land, well stocked with Shrubs, Ornamental and Fruit Trees.  There is also eight-and-a-half acres of rich Pasture Land adjoining the House, making in all ten acres of splendid Land. 

Applications to be sent in to the owner, William W. Carter, Eden Villa, Hutton Rudby, Yarm.  Further particulars may be obtained from 

EUGENE E. CLEPHAN,

Architect and Surveyor,

Stockton-on-Tees.

March 16th, 1880.

Eden Villa was the house built by William Surtees when he came back from Australia in 1868 with his son, the only survivor of his first marriage, and his Australian wife and their little girls.  He built them a house in the fields beyond the edge of the village and he called it Eden Cottage after his grandmother Eden Dodds.  

He was a stone mason by trade and now he established himself as a builder and contractor.  But he had more adventurous plans.  First he set up the Albion Steam Crushing and Cutting Mills in Middlesbrough and then he bought land at the corner of Doctors Lane and began work on his new project – the Albion Sailcloth Works, equipped with a horizontal steam engine driving six looms.  And then, before the Works had really begun, he died in 1877 aged 53.  His widow sold up and took her children back home to her family in New South Wales.  (The whole story is to be found in Hutton Rudby 1876 to 1877: the Albion Sailcloth Mill)

I always wondered when Eden Lodge, as it is now called, took on its present appearance.  It seems to me that William Surtees' Eden Cottage must have been a modest building because he needed his money for his business ventures.  

The advertisement from the spring of 1880 reveals the answer.  William Surtees very probably had outbuildings for his tools and equipment but I suspect he was far too busy a man to have time to stock an orchard and put in shrubs.  The hard and cold water may well have been his work – a well drawing hard water from an aquifer and a rainwater collection system for the soft, ideal for washing.  

It was William Carter who must have enlarged the house, perhaps converting the outbuildings into coach-houses and stables.  He bought more land and, with the assistance (I would guess) of the architect Eugene E Clephan, he created an idyllic miniature country estate.  In fact, in his brief ownership he had gentrified Eden Cottage.

The story of William Weldon Carter, to give him his full name, is one of steady success and sudden failure in the retail trade and of the parting of the ways between brothers.  It's also the story of a long-running Stockton drapery firm, which must have been very frequently visited by people from Hutton Rudby; there were close ties between town and village.

In 1841, two brothers called William Weldon and George Richardson Weldon from Beverley were doing well as drapers in Stockton-on-Tees.  Living with them on the shop premises, as was usual at the time, were two assistant drapers and three apprentices.  Business may have been getting on well, but William and George evidently were not – in the spring of 1842 they ended their partnership and each struck out on his own.  William's business was now William Weldon & Co at 32 High Street [1]

By 1850 William had shops in both Stockton and Middlesbrough and had taken his sister's son William Weldon Carter into partnership with him.  William Weldon Carter was still a very young man, born in Hull in 1827 to Margaret Weldon and Richard Carter, a commercial traveller.  His younger brother Thomas Vincent Carter had joined him by the spring of 1851 and they lived with their uncle, three shopmen, an apprentice and three servants at Todds Buildings, which seems to have been on Yarm Lane.  It was a thriving concern.

Meanwhile, George Richardson Weldon was in a much quieter way of trade at 62 High Street.  Eventually he retired from business to farm 40 acres on Oxbridge Lane.  

But William Weldon's partnership with his nephew William was not long lasting – it ended in July 1852.  It looks as though young William, on his travels for his uncle's business, had fallen for a girl and on 7 August 1852 he and Elizabeth Whistler were married in London.  She was the daughter of a draper, which was perhaps how he had met her.  (In the marriage register, he described his own father as a gentleman).  It seems he had ended the partnership with his uncle in order to emigrate.

The young couple went to Australia – as did William Surtees and his wife half a dozen years later – but, just as for William Surtees, their voyage ended in tragedy.  Elizabeth died in Collingwood, Victoria on 10 March 1853 after only seven months of married life.  

By 1861 William Weldon was doing very well.  William Weldon & Co had expanded into the four buildings of numbers 30 to 33 High Street and William had pulled them down and replaced them with a single four-storey building.  He no longer lived at the shop but in great style in West End House on Yarm Lane, in the fields outside Stockton [2].  The house was set well back from the road in its own grounds and the entrance to the drive was flanked by two gate lodges.  His pleasant and quiet nephew Tom [3] was still living with him and working alongside him.  His nephew William, who had returned from Australia a few years earlier and had been married since 1858 to Mary Ellen Ellison, was running the Middlesbrough branch in East Street.  (Middlesbrough began as a town on the north side of the railway line and that was where the middle classes then lived.)  William and his wife lived on the premises with seven staff, both male and female, aged between 14 and 40.

At around this time William Weldon took both his nephews into partnership with him and the firm became William Weldon, Carter & Co.

And then William Weldon Carter's luck took a downturn again when he fell ill.  In February 1863 William Weldon instructed a Manchester accountant to dispose of the "stock-in-trade, fixtures and goodwill of his branch drapery concern".  Such a sale in the booming new town of Middlesbrough was expected to have a broad appeal and this advertisement appeared in the Liverpool press: 

Liverpool Mail, 28 February 1863 

... The shop is large, modern and well lighted, having been built expressly for the business, and occupies the first situation in the town.  The trade is a first class and profitable one, and the returns average £10,000 per annum.  Present amount of Stock £3,000 or thereabouts.  A clever business man, or two active young men, who know how to buy and sell, may make a fortune in a few years.  The business at Middlesbro has hitherto been managed by the proprietor's nephew, who is unable from ill health to conduct it any longer, and hence the reason of its disposal.

It isn't clear to me whether William Weldon actually sold the business.  At any rate, William Weldon Carter and his wife and baby son returned to Stockton.  It was a busy few years for the family.  William and Tom's widowed mother Margaret died aged 59 at her brother's house and the following year it was from there that her daughters were married, Agnes Sarah to the shipbuilder George Craggs and Margaret Ann to the Bishop Auckland metal merchant Henry Kilburn.  Perhaps William Weldon found he missed the female company because at the end of 1865, he married.  He was 59 years old and his new wife Elizabeth Ann Benson was 30.

Five years later, on 24 July 1870, William Weldon retired from business to live out his retirement in comfort and dignity at West End House and William and Tom Carter became Carter Bros.  They branched out, buying an interest in Robert Gray & Co, a big drapery concern in Blyth. 

So in 1871 the younger generation was in charge.  Tom had just married and he and his new wife Jane Robinson Dickin lived at 4 Barrington Crescent.  William had bought a house at 2 West End Terrace for his family of three young children.  

Everything was looking promising.  The brothers sold their share of Robert Gray & Co back to Robert Gray, had their shop at numbers 34 to 37 High Street demolished and new premises built on the site.  In early June 1874 they celebrated with a ball for their employees.  The Daily Gazette for Middlesbrough reported on 13 June that over 500 people were present and that

The dances took place on the ground floor, and the show room was metamorphosed into a supper-room.  Dancing was kept up with great spirit till an early hour in the morning

The new buildings were heralded by an enormous advertisement in the Gazette on 3 July 1874 ("Great Extension of Business Area") and we can see the extent of the goods they sold in an advertisement in early December that year.  

Daily Gazette for Middlesbrough, 2 December 1874 

Carter Bros.,

Wholesale & Retail Drapers

Stockton-on-Tees

Desire careful and special attention to the undernoted Departments, which certainly contain by far the Largest, most varied and fashionable, together with the Cheapest Stock in the District of Cleveland.

They listed Costumes ("Fifty Homespun, at 29s 6d, ticketed in the town at 39s 6d"), Skirts, Jackets, Shawls, Flannels and Furnishing, which included carpets, matting, hearthrugs and paperhangings.

In the winter of 1875 they led the area in Early Closing for the winter months.  The Daily Gazette thought all the town's tradesmen could "advantageously and profitably" follow their example.  It doesn't mention the shop assistants.  These were the days of punishingly long working hours.  It wasn't until 1886 that the number of hours were restricted to 74 just for the under-18s and, with staff living on site, unpaid overtime was common.  The reduced opening hours meant that Carter Bros would close on Saturdays evenings at nine and on other weekdays at 6 o'clock.  (One early polemic against the system, Death and Disease behind the Counter, was written by the barrister Thomas Sutherst in 1884 and can be read here.  The cause of the shopworkers was later taken up by The Lancet).

And then in 1879 William and Tom's partnership came to an end.

By this time, Mrs Surtees and her little daughters had left Eden Cottage and William Weldon Carter had bought it.  Was it intended as an investment or did he intend to live comfortably in the country?  We don't know.  He still owned 2 West End Terrace and he must have spent a good deal of money on Eden Cottage to turn it into Eden Villa.  And he had plans for his future ...

Meanwhile in Stockton, it was the end of an era.  William Weldon died at home on 5 June 1880 aged 74.  The Daily Gazette for Middlesbrough reported on 8 June that

There was a large following at the funeral, most of the leading tradesmen and inhabitants of the town being present to show their respect for the memory of the deceased gentleman.  Mr Weldon was the founder of the old established firm of Weldon and Carter, drapers, now known as Carter and Co, and was generally esteemed for his strict business integrity and general uprightness. 

Over the road from the Oxbridge Lane cemetery where William was buried, his brother George now lived in one of the recently-built large houses called The Ferns.  Five years later, he too would be buried in the cemetery.

William Weldon Carter must have had high hopes for the future at the beginning of 1880.  He was living at Eden Villa, his little country paradise.  In March his son William Weldon Carter junior passed the preliminary examination of the Law Society and his proud parents had announced the fact in a notice in the Daily Gazette for Middlesbrough.  And then something began to go wrong with the finances.  

Eden Villa was repeatedly advertised for sale but there were no buyers.  The mortgagee lost patience and both properties were ordered to be auctioned on 30 September 1880 at the Vane Arms in Stockton.  This must have been a very unwelcome moment for William's brother Tom who was at that point renting 2 West End Terrace from his brother.  The auction notice described the house as 

a very comfortable and commodious House, and conveniently situated

while the description of Eden Villa ("a very desirable country Residence") now included a Croquet Ground.  

(The mortgagee's solicitors were Hirst & Capes in Harrogate, and if that sounds familiar to keen readers, it's because it features here in A Large family in 19th century Harrogate and in the story of John Richard Stubbs, which begins on this blog in July 2014)

This advertisement at the beginning of December shows that William's new plans were maturing: 

Sunderland Daily Echo, 3 December 1880 

New Drapery Store

212, High-Street, Sunderland

(Two minutes' walk from the Station on the right)

William Weldon Carter

Wishes the General Public to know,

without giving a Long List to read,

they will find all their requirements 

at Prices undoubtedly the Best

Value in the North

He and his family now lived comfortably at Oaks West in Sunderland, where William Weldon Carter junior, in spite of his Law Society examination success, was an apprentice draper and the two daughters had the benefit of a governess living in the household.  Eden Villa was empty; before long it would be the home of the Thorman family.

A few months later, William Weldon Carter announced the opening of a new shop selling "General Drapery Goods & Paper-Hanging" at 50 & 51 Church Street, West Hartlepool.  He advertised heavily.  It would be a cash only business, he explained in a long notice in the Hartlepool Northern Daily Mail, 2 August 1881.  The goods would be marked at 

fixed and unalterable prices, and will be sold strictly for cash across the counter, thus saving bad debts, and deferred interest, so that cash buyers will be supplied with goods at such prices as would prove utterly ruinous to credit-giving houses.

Was this a public-spirited policy or did he need immediate payment for his cash flow?  He was hoping to "meet many of his old Stockton connection and friends" and he had an offer to make that might help poach customers who would otherwise go to his brother's business in Stockton:

Buyers from the country travelling by rail or carrier will be allowed their fare one way on purchases of one pound, and return fare on two pounds

No wonder relations between him and his brother Tom were strained.  A notice had appeared in the Hartlepool Northern Evening Mail, 22 July & Hartlepool Northern Daily Mail, 23 July 1881

Messrs Carter & Company, Drapers etc, Stockton-on-Tees, 

Beg to inform their Customers and the Public that they have no connection with the Carter from Sunderland who is opening Sutton's old shop at West Hartlepool.  

and directly below it was another notice

Note this – William Weldon Carter wishes the public in general to know that he has NO CONNECTION whatever with Carters' of Stockton nor has he any desire to be connected with them in any way whatever

On 20 August another advertisement appeared in the Hartlepool Northern Daily Mail – William Weldon Carter would be delaying the opening of the Hartlepool shop until 27 August 

In consequence of the enormous pressure of Business in connection with his SUMMER CLEARANCE SALE now going on at Sunderland

But financial disaster was looming and it arrived all too soon:

Daily Gazette for Middlesbrough, 22 September 1881 

LOCAL FAILURE – William Weldon Carter, hosier, draper, and milliner, late of Hutton Rudby, North Riding, but now of 50 and 51, Church-street, West Hartlepool, and of 212, High-street West, and of The Oaks, Sunderland.  Debts, £5,000; assets not ascertained.  The solicitors are Messrs Dodds and Co., Finkle-street, Stockton.  Mr F H Colison, public accountant, Cheapside, London, has been appointed receiver

An end to all his dreams.  

In Stockton, Tom was quietly prospering.  This advertisement from c1893 shows the extent of his business, which had become Carter & Co when Carter Bros was no more

And after that ... 

William Weldon's widow Elizabeth married Dr Thomas William Fagg the year after her first husband's death.  She continued to live on at West End House while the town steadily built up around it.  She certainly lived in comfort, as can be seen from an advertisement in the Daily Gazette for Middlesbrough 20 October 1891 for "2 Vine Houses of Black English Grapes."  She died, again a widow, in 1914.

William Weldon Carter makes a brief reappearance in the newspaper advertisements in the first three months of 1891.  He was the manager of the Darlington Mills shop in Dovecot Street, Stockton – this was the large and well-known woollens and worsted company of the Pease family in Darlington – and so he was once more in direct competition with his brother.  After that he disappears from the record.  He died in late 1904 at the age of 79 and was buried in the Oxbridge Lane Cemetery.  His son William died in 1912 aged 49 and was also buried there.  

Tom Carter died at home at 8 West End Terrace in December 1896, leaving a widow and seven children.  In his obituary, William's role in the early years of the business is quite forgotten:

Northern Echo, 28 December 1896 

Death of a Stockton tradesman

The death took place on Saturday morning, at his residence, West End-terrace, Stockton, of Mr Thomas Vincent Carter, the founder and chief partner of the firm of Messrs Carter & Co., drapers, High-street.  The deceased gentleman took an active part in the management of the business until about three and a half years ago, when he was seized with a stroke, and since then he has been in a helpless condition and under the medical care of Dr Hind.  

Mr Carter was a native of Beverley, Yorkshire, and was about sixty-three years of age.  In 1874 he built the present extensive premises, after having carried on a smaller business adjoining for some time, having succeeded to it on the death of his uncle, Mr Weldon, and about ten years later three other gentlemen joined him in partnership.  He leaves a widow and a family of seven.  The elder of his two sons is in a large drapery establishment in London, and the younger Vincent, is in the Stockton business, which has been under the direction of Mr H G Robson, the managing partner since Mr Carter's illness.  The deceased gentleman was of a genial but quiet nature, and was highly esteemed amongst a large circle of business and private friends.

Carter & Co became D. Hill, Carter & Co Ltd after his death.  They were a presence on Stockton High Street until just before the Second World War.  Nowadays, the new buildings that the Carter brothers opened with such a fanfare in 1874 are occupied by the Enterprise Arcade:

The Enterprise Arcade is on the far left

[1]    I have drawn a great deal of information, above all on the buildings themselves, from this ECM Heritage report and this Heritage Stockton article.  Other sources: London Gazette entries relating to the partnerships; digitised newspapers.

[2]      For West End House, see photograph and comments on the the Stockton picture archive

[3]      Thomas Vincent Carter is referred to as Tom in the notice placed in the press by Robert Gray on the occasion of the Carter brothers buying a share on Gray's drapery business.  Tom's obituary in the Northern Echo, 28 Dec 1896, given at the end of this piece, describes him as "quiet".

On the Sea Cliffs of Cleveland: 1864

A more appreciative and detailed account of the walk taken by J.G. in 1866 (see last blogpost) is that described by William Stott Banks in On the Sea Cliffs of Cleveland, which appeared on 1 October 1864 in the Wakefield Free Press and West Riding Advertiser [1] .  In his voice we hear someone with an acute eye for the landscape, someone deeply interested in places and people, their language and their lives.

William Stott Banks (1820-72) was a self-taught, self-made man.  He only had a few years of formal education and that was in the Wakefield Lancasterian School – in the Lancasterian system, the teacher taught the top pupils and they taught the younger or weaker pupils, so saving the cost of paying more teachers and ensuring that in large classes a child got at least some personal attention.  He started work at the age of 11 as office boy for a local solicitor and when he was 18 he kept his family with his wages.  So it was by self-education and by hard work that he became a solicitor, clerk to the Wakefield Borough Magistrates, and mainstay of the Mechanics' Institute.  Never forgetting his own past, he was impelled by a strong desire to help the education and well-being of others.

He was also the author of the acclaimed Walks in Yorkshire, which began in 1864 as a series in the Wakefield Free Press and in 1866 appeared in book form – I have listed the articles in the Notes below under [2].  

He had a deep interest in dialect and wrote one of the earliest glossaries of a Yorkshire dialect in his List of Provincial Words in use in Wakefield, so he is always attentive to how placenames are pronounced and the variety – though he found it had lessened with more widespread education – of local accents.  And so he noted in his articles on Cleveland that Cringley [Cringle] Moor and Cold Moor End were pronounced "Creenay and Caudmer End", that Chop Gate was Chop Yat and Slaethorn Park in Baysdale was Slaytron.

He had an appreciative eye for distinctive features of the landscape, describing Roseberry Topping as "that sweet green cone" and Freeborough Hill as "peculiar, round topt Freeburg".  And he liked facts and figures, so in this article he includes, for example, details of the number of cobles at Staithes.

In On the Sea Cliffs of Cleveland, Banks begins by outlining the extent of Cleveland, which was the name given to the ancient wapentake of Langbaurgh.  (I've relegated my explanation of 'wapentake', local government and how the names Cleveland and Langbaurgh have been used over the years to footnote [3]).  

The litany of names in his opening paragraph has a lyrical quality:

Cleveland is bounded by the Tees and Sea Coast from near Newstead Hall, two and a half miles above Yarm, to East Row Beck the same distance N.W. of Whitby; then by this beck for a mile inland, whence the boundary, turning south, crosses Swarth Howe to the Esk opposite Sleights; follows the Esk and the Murk Esk and the beck below Hazle Head to Wheeldale Howe; runs westward along the high tops of the moors, Shunner Howe, Loose Howe, White Cross, Ralph Cross and Flat Howe, and by Stoney Ridge, over Burton Head; continues by Hasty Bank, Coldmoor End and Cringley Moor; bends south at Carlton Bank for above two miles and then again goes west over Arncliff, north of Mount Grace, and down the Wisk, and turns round Appleton up to the Tees again – thus taking in a good deal of moorland and sea coast, beside the broad level of the Cleveland vale.

This is a picturesque and valuable tract of country, has lands good for farming, fine woods, much ironstone and alum shale – the former fast altering the aspect of many parts – numerous country mansions, villages and towns and enterprising fishing population, places for sea side visitors, a large centre of iron smelting (Middlesborough), two or three alum works, passenger and mineral railways completed and in progress.  It is now more interesting to holiday tourists than it probably will be after further development of its mineral wealth, when others of the hitherto quiet dales shall be busy with furnaces and black with their smoke.

He and his friends began this stretch of their Yorkshire walks by making for the coast:

Travelling after dark towards Redcar, the glare of successive furnaces accompanied by clouds of smoke, alternating with the gloomy breaks that come in between, give a striking appearance to the iron-smelting country.

The works were within 4 miles of Redcar but the locals assured him that the smoke didn't reach them.  He calculated that at the end of August 1864 there were 250 lodging houses and inns in Redcar and Coatham, catering for above 1,000 visitors, and as for fishing, there were only 8 or 10 cobles, carrying 3 men a piece.

From Saltburn by the Sea, 

a new place so called to distinguish it from the little old village of two or three houses, lying just below in a hole near the level of the seashore

they climbed Huntcliff and went on through fields.  A farmer had advised them

"gang doon t'gress an you'll get t'liberty o' cuttin off a vast o' gains" and so [we] came to Skinningrove by tortuous footways over the wasting sea cliffs, some cut down to mere gables of soft soil and destined soon to fall under the influence of sea and wind.  Timid people would find the narrow tracks difficult in a strong breeze with the rough sea beneath.

Harvesters were busy with "machine as well as scythe and sickle" cutting the wheat.  They followed the path along the cliff edge to Boulby Cliffs

In many parts we find no more space between the boundary wall of the fields and the edge of the upright cliff than is needed for the feet, and some of us were led for assurance of safety to hold by the wall ... 

These cliffs, partly from their perishable nature and partly from alum workings – extensive at Boulby – are continually falling; but for folk with steady heads this is one of the finest walks in the county

They walked down to Staithes, passing the Boulby alum house "half way down the long steep bank which ends at the Staithes hollow".  He writes appreciatively of Staithes, of its situation and its people: 

The ordinary tides come almost up to the houses and the sea is continually making breaches.  On ground now covered by shingle, houses and shops and a sea wall stood fifty years back.  There was the drapery and grocery shop kept by Saunderson whom Captain Cook served for eighteen months in his youth, but about 1812 the sea broke in and Mr Saunderson's successor removed stock and furniture and took the stones of the building and rebuilt the shop in Church street where it may still be seen.  

The fishermen of Staithes are strong, brave men ... and the women are helpful and as handy as they ...

Sixteen yawls belong to Staithes each carrying ten men and boys, and in the same months when these are employed twenty cobles manned by three men each are used.

He discusses how much they might earn – the large boats at least £20 a week an the cobles £6 a week – and he describes how, having stayed the night at the Black Lion

One of the party went in the morning to see what herrings were in but the wind was blowing strongly from the north-east and only the large boats could go out and catches were down.  A fish buyer said

"Neen at t'other 'ed neen; bud ah 'eerd somebody saying as ah coom doon t'street Mark ed six or seven thoosan – oo monny es eh?"  "About five unerd ah 'eerd!"  "Shotten uns?"  "Ahs seer ah deen't knaw"

(Shotten herring were fish that had spawned)

He describes the fish – which "comes to several West Riding towns" – "salted and drying in the air, long white rows of it stretcht on rods upon the cliffs".  There being no safe anchorage for the yawls, from Saturday morning to Sunday evening and when unemployed, they were taken into the Port Mulgrave harbour.  As they walked over to Rosedale Wyke, they saw 15 yawls sailing round to Staithes.

He was struck by Runswick – 

a fine bay ... the sloping banks, furrowed by streams, are large enough to hold a town of 5,000 people; but the village is stuck on ledges in a nook not unlike (in relation to available space) a corner cupboard in a room ... They say there is no horse and cart in the place and only ten fishing cobles and the population is about 410

... In the shale across the bay are the caves called hob-holes; and at the corner of a deep furrow which has a little beck through it the footpath goes up the steep and slippery Claymoor Bank and thence through fields to Goldsboro' and Lyth.  Climbing Claymer bank was found a serious business by some of us.  We were told by a farmer it was a road that did not please anybody, but we all got up and I hope those who likt it least may live long to remember it.  

We had pleasant views on our way of the broad blue sea with numerous ships, for the wind had changed and was now off the land, and we passed several tumuli, one remarkable for its size and position, on which stood a quiet horse patiently enjoying the splendid outlook over land and sea

Towards evening we strolled into Mulgrave Park by the Lyth gate and walkt through the grounds to the ruins of the old castle, a mile or so from the present house; saw the fine prospects down the slopes to the sea and to Whitby, with its abbey and lighthouses, and lookt into the deep and woody glens that cross the Park ... We stayed that night at the Ship Inn at Lyth and were very comfortable

Lythe, he wrote

stands on a hill which ends in the alum shale rocks of Sandsend Ness where are alum works.  The alum house is at Sandsend, the last sea side village of Cleveland, a tidy place contrasted with Staiths and Runswick, most of the residents of which are employed in alum making.  A little further on is East Row Beck, the Cleveland boundary, and stepping across that we entered the liberty of Whitby Strand opposite Dunsley Bay, and from there followed the new highway to Upgang and thence the cliffs into Whitby.

Do those examples of William Stott Banks' attractive, easy evocation of familiar scenes invites you to read more of his work?  You can find the volume Walks in Yorkshire: the North East, comprising Redcar, Saltburn, Whitby, Scarborough and Filey, with intervening places; and the Moors and Dales between the Tees, the Derwent, the Vale of York, and the Sea by W.S.Banks (Pub. London and Wakefield 1866) for free in Google Books [4].  Or you can buy a modern reprint.  The companion volume for the North West of Yorkshire evidently hasn't been scanned but secondhand copies of the original 1866 edition of Walks in Yorkshire: In the North West & In the North East can be found via online booksellers.

Notes

[1]    The Wakefield Free Press was a newspaper of eight pages, published every Saturday and costing one penny.  It ran from 1860 to 1902 and was owned by William Rowlandson Hall, a master printer aged 30.

[2]    The articles that appeared in the Wakefield Free Press:

27 Feb 1864  Walks in Yorkshire I. [an account of a walking tour with friends] Malham II 

5 March 1864  Ingleburg Cave, Chapel - Dent - and King's Dales III

12 March 1864  Wensleydale - Chapeldale - and Ingleburgh IV.

26 March 1864  Up Swaledale and across Wensleydale into Ribblesdale V

16 April 1864  Nidder - Langster - and Litton Dales.  Penyghent. VI

14 May 1864  Sedberg - Through Garsdale to Cotterfoss and Hawes - by Greenside, Dod and Cam Fells to Selside.  Past Moughton into Clapdale VII

25 June 1864  Upper Teesdale - Greta Dale and intervening Dales VIII., concluded on 

2 July 1864     do.-

16 July 1864  Cleveland - Upper Eskdale - over moors to Lewisham Station IX

20 Aug 1864  Bilsdale - Ryedale - Hambleton Hills X

10 Sept 1864  Western Slopes of the Cleveland and Hambleton Hills XI

1 Oct 1864  On the sea cliffs of Cleveland XII

12 Nov 1864  Ilkley to Simon Seat - Burnsal and Rilston to Cold Coniston XIII

17 Dec 1864  At and about Pomfret XIV

31 Dec 1864  The Howgill Fells XV

In February 1866 the walks were published in book form

1 The North-West: Among the Mountains and Dales, from the Wharfe, Aire, and Ribble, to the Western and Northern limits of the County

II The North East: On the Moors and in the Dales between the Tees, the Derwent, and the Sea

In 1871 he published Walks in Yorkshire: Wakefield and its neighbourhood

[3]    Short(ish) and slightly tedious explanation of wapentakes etc:

A wapentake was a sub-division of the North Riding of Yorkshire; both wapentake and Riding are names that date back to the Danelaw – Yorkshire was divided into three Ridings (= thirds).  

For centuries, the wapentakes were a unit of civil administration (including justice) but the rapid and radical social change of the 19th century meant reform was needed and so in 1889 the administrative county of the North Riding came into being, governed by a County Council with Middlesbrough being a Borough Council.  

Then in 1967, local government in the area around the River Tees was reorganised and the short-lived unitary County Borough of Teesside was created.  It lasted until 1974 when a reorganisation of local government in England created another short-lived authority, the two tier Non-Metropolitan County of Cleveland (which lasted from 1974 to 1996).  At the same time, it was decided that Langbaurgh would be the name of one of the four districts of the new Cleveland authority and that it would be pronounced Langbar.  I can't remember why they came to that decision; perhaps someone will tell me.  Previously, the name was pronounced Langbarf, as can be seen from the Victoria County History (published 1923), which can be found on British History online here

Cleveland was replaced by unitary authorities in 1996: Redcar and Cleveland, Stockton-on-Tees, Middlesbrough and Hartlepool.  Now, together with Darlington, these authorities are members of the Tees Valley city region (that is, a combined authority with a directly-elected mayor) administered by the Tees Valley Combined Authority.  The current Mayor is Ben Houchen.

Cleveland was also the name of the Parliamentary constituency created in 1885; it was replaced by the Redcar constituency and the Cleveland & Whitby constituency in 1974.

[4]    Blogger won't let me edit the hyperlink for Walks in Yorkshire: the North East, comprising Redcar, Saltburn, Whitby, Scarborough and Filey, with intervening places; and the Moors and Dales between the Tees, the Derwent, the Vale of York, and the Sea, so here it is in full

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=UKwKAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA15&source=gbs_toc_r&hl=en&pli=1#v=onepage&q&f=false

Biographical notes on William Stott Banks

There is a wikipedia entry for him and he appears in the Dictionary of National Biography, which notes of his books, "Both works are remarkable for their completeness and happy research".  He was a good friend of the parents of the novelist George Gissing (1857-1903). 

He married Susanna Hick of Wakefield, daughter of Matthew Hick, watch maker, on 5 January 1850.  They lost four children as babies or in early infancy: William Henry; Oliver; Godfrey (died aged 3); and Alexander.  

William Stott Banks died at home in Northgate, Wakefield, at about 3 o'clock in the afternoon of Christmas Day 1872.  He was 52 years old.  His health had begun to fail some time earlier and in August he left for a tour of the Continent in the hope of recovery; he had been home a few weeks when he died.  He left his widow Susannah and two children, Dorothy aged 7 and Roland Campion aged 4.  Susannah died little more than a year later on 18 February 1874, and on 21 February 1880 Roland died.  Only Dorothy survived and she married in 1888 and had a family.  Her husband was the Revd Thomas Alexander Lacey, M.A, later Canon of Worcester Cathedral.  I think she may have been living with her mother's sister Arabella, who had married Joseph King.  They lived in Clifton, near York, and it was there that Dorothy's wedding took place.

The Sheffield Independent of 28 December 1872 recorded William's death:

Death of Mr W S Banks, of Wakefield

Mr W S Banks, of the firm of Iansons, Banks, and Hick, solicitors, Wakefield, died at his residence in Northgate, about three o'clock on the afternoon of Christmas Day.  Mr Banks, who was a self-made man, was well known amongst the legal profession.  He was the author of 'Walks in Yorkshire' and some other similar works.  His health gave way some time ago, and in August he started for a tour on the Continent.  He returned home a few weeks ago, and gradually sank.

And the Wakefield Express of 4 January 1873 described how the funeral procession started from his home in Northgate at 11 o'clock.  There were members of the Borough Police Force, headed by the officers, marching in double file, and six feet apart and then followed between forty and fifty gentlemen (councillors etc).  Behind came the mourning coaches carrying his widow and members of her family, including her sister Mrs King.  There were magistrates, the mayor and aldermen were there.

It was observable that several of the principal tradesmen along the line of route to the Cemetery had caused two or three shutters to be put up as a token of respect, and a great number of persons were to be seen as the funeral cortege passed along, notwithstanding the gloomy weather, witnessing the last of one so highly esteemed.

He was interred in the vault where his four infant children lay.

The Wakefield Express of 18 January 1873 carried a report of the Borough Magistrates' meeting.  They appointed a new clerk in Mr Banks' place and one of the magistrates, Dr Holdsworth, paid this tribute:

... Mr Banks was a self-made man – he was one of those gentlemen who had to work his way up in the world almost from obscurity.  

He was brought up in the Lancasterian School, and the only education he received in early life was in that institution, which he appears never to have forgotten.  He had devoted an amazing amount of time in past years to the cause of education, the value of which he could well appreciate; and after personally struggling very hardly with those difficulties which will ever beset the path of self-educated men, his great anxiety was to promote the intellectual and social well-being of others.  

By assiduous application to business and study, at the early age of eighteen he attained such a position that he became the support of his family; and, like a truly worthy young man, he maintained the, saving them from the bitter experience of poverty, and rendering happy an otherwise perchance needy home.  

As a public man, we know that for the past twenty years he has been connected with the Mechanics' Institution, which, in a great measure, owed its origin to his exertions, and to which he rendered invaluable assistance in the capacities of librarian, treasurer, and secretary; whilst he assisted other institutions in a variety of ways.  Nor must we omit to express our regret at the loss of a public official of this court – who both in his capacity as a lawyer and as clerk to the magistrates has performed his duties most efficiently.  

Having seen a very great deal of Mr Banks in his capacity as the clerk to the magistrates, I personally acknowledge the good advice and counsel I have always received from him.  So far back as 1862 and 1863 – upon the occasion of the marriage of the Prince of Wales, when there were many regulations necessary to be made – when his services were especially called into requistion – I personally received great kindness and assistance from Mr Banks.  His legal knowledge then proved, as in other cases of emergency, to be very extensive; indeed, he could be looked up to for sound advice upon all occasions of difficulty.

Cholera: glimpses of the pandemics of the 19th century

In the 19th century, the usual yearly epidemics of frequently fatal infectious diseases in Britain were eclipsed by successive waves of a frightening newcomer: Asiatic Cholera.

It first arrived in 1831.  You can read about it in 'The year of the Cholera', Chapter 11 of Remarkable, but still True: the story of the Revd R J Barlow and Hutton Rudby in the time of the cholera .

There I describe how, in York, Dr Thomas Simpson and the surgeon J P Needham not only treated patients but also investigated the spread of cases.  They both believed cholera was contagious and Needham wrote a monograph on the subject in 1833, after the pandemic had subsided.  Dr Simpson, who thought it was an air-borne disease, published his Observations on the Asiatic Cholera: and Facts regarding the mode of its diffusion after the next pandemic, which happened seventeen years later in 1848.

In 1848, as in 1831, cholera was firmly associated with "nuisances" – sewage and filth – and it was still thought that it was the "unwholesome exhalations" and poisonous vapours from nuisances and decaying vegetable matter that spread the disease.  The theory may have been erroneous but the practice was helpful, because cholera is spread through water contaminated by faeces; this was the beginning of improvements in better drainage and public health.  

Cholera isn't easy to catch but without the correct treatment it is fatal in half the cases.  Nowadays it is treated by rehydration – which has to be begun without delay – and sometimes with antibiotics.  In the 19th century, careful nursing might pull a patient through but unfortunately doctors very often used purges and emetics on their patients, which would only have dehydrated them further.  

Meanwhile, there were plenty of advertisements for patent medicines.

William Hardcastle advertised his "Cure for Asiatic Cholera" and "Grand Preventive of Cholera" extensively in the Northern press.  Born in Sunderland, he had learned his trade as a chemist in Stockton-on-Tees and now had his own shop in Finkle Street – and I'm glad to say the interior of Hardcastle's is preserved at Beamish Open Air Museum (photographs here).  He was a man in his late thirties and evidently very enterprising.

At this time anxiety was all the greater because diarrhoea was thought often to precede cholera – of course there was a good deal of diarrhoea around – and it was believed that stopping diarrhoea would stop cholera developing.  William Hardcastle's advertisements proudly proclaimed that 

having witnessed the great mortality by Cholera which took place in Stockton, 17 years ago, when about 130 persons died in a very short time, Mr H. directed his earnest attention to discover some more efficient Preventive and Cure than were at that time employed, and has succeeded in compounding the "Diarrhoea Powders" and "Cholera Drops", which has rescued many from premature graves.  Their great efficacy has caused them to be so much esteemed in Stockton and the Neighbourhood, that the Proprietor has now made arrangements for extending their sale to other places.

The Drops could be sent by Post to any part of the UK on forwarding 12 Postage Stamps, and they cost a shilling and a penny halfpenny or two shillings per bottle.  I expect the chief ingredient was laudanum.

More useful in preventing cholera were products such as Sir William Burnett's Patent Disinfecting Fluid, which was advertised as "a deodorizing and purifying agent" and was a chloride disinfectant.  

When nothing seemed to help, the only answer was prayer:

York Herald, 22 September 1849

Cholera – The authorities of Middlesbro' have issued a notice to the inhabitants to set apart Friday, the 21st inst., as a day of humiliation and prayer to God to remove that desolating pestilence, the cholera, which has lately been so fatal in that place.

Then a third wave of cholera reached Britain in 1853.  It was at this point that Dr John Snow of London  (1813-58) demonstrated that cholera was a water-borne disease by removing the handle of the Broad Street pump.  He published his findings in his work of 1855, which drew upon the careful observations of Dr Thomas Simpson.  But it took many years for public health authorities to act to ensure a clean water supply and Snow had been long dead when the Chief Medical Officer for Health acknowledged the significance of his work.

We can see that keeping the streets clear of nuisances and encouraging better cleanliness was well established as a priority for the authorities:

York Herald, 15 October 1853

Cholera – On the 24th of Sept last, this devastating disease broke out in one of the low parts of Stockton, and since that period to the present time, 13 deaths have occurred, but all in that particular locality, which is said to be in a very indifferent state of drainage, and where many of the inhabitants are not of the most cleanly description.

In Darlington, the local board of health and the board of guardians held a joint meeting.  They decided to carry out the recommendations of the medical superintending inspector of the General Board of Health to set up a system of house to house visiting as the only effectual safeguard against the spread of the epidemic.  (This might remind us of recent events described in this story on the BBC News website in which Professor John Wright, Head of Bradford Institute for Health Research describes the work of the local test and trace teams, sending testers door to door in neighbourhoods with high rates of infection).  They resolved to employ more scavengers to clear away the nuisances, to set up a more general distribution of disintectants such as chloride of lime, and to supply water for free to the poorer districts, "in order that greater facilities for cleanliness might be afforded".   

And, then as now, there were plenty of conspiracy theories.  In some countries, the swiftness with which the disease spread led the people to think their water supply had been poisoned:

Huddersfield Chronicle, 2 September 1854

News has arrived in Palermo of the appearance of cholera in that city.  The Sicilians, it seems, are under the impression that the cholera is a poison which has been communicated by human means.  The people have surrounded the Governor's palace, and shouted "We will not have the cholera here!"  The Lord Lieutenant immediately issued orders prohibiting the people to speak of poison.  The city is in a very excited state.

In 1865 the cholera returned yet again to Britain.  

It reached Yarm on 8 October 1866 and when doctors Robert and Christopher Young, the town's medical officers, made their report on 13 November, they hoped they had seen the back of it.  There had been 23 cases of cholera, 12 of which were fatal, and 5 cases "approaching cholera", of which 2 were fatal. In the same period they had seen 87 cases of diarrhoea.  

A few days before cholera came to Yarm, it had already reached Hutton Rudby and Potto – but luckily not with the virulence of the 1832 outbreak, when there were 45 cases and 23 deaths at the east end of the village green:

York Herald, 6 October 1866

The Cholera – We regret to state that a fatal case of Asiatic cholera has just occurred at the small rustic hamlet of Potto, in the parish of Whorlton, near Stokesley.  Elizabeth Mary Cawthorn, the wife of a brickmaker, was attacked on Saturday afternoon last, and was visited the same night by Mr A A Boyle, assistant to Mr J H Handyside, surgeon, Stokesley, and he at once perceived that she was prostrated by a malignant attack of cholera.  Mr Handyside attended on the following morning, and Mr Boyle was present when she died on Sunday night, medical skill being of no avail.

Richmond & Ripon Chronicle, 13 October 1866

Thompson - On the 6th inst., at Hutton Rudby, Cleveland, of Asiatic cholera, aged 60 years, Mr George Thompson, brickmaker

Nearly twenty years and many cholera deaths later, people across the world were electrified to hear that the German scientist Dr Robert Koch and his team had discovered the "cholera germ".  

Dr Koch had carried out his researches in India.  This fact spurred Professor Edwin Ray Lankester (1847-1929) to write a trenchant criticism of the British government's approach to scientific research that appeared in, among other papers, the Pall Mall Gazette of 2 November 1883.  He was the son of Edwin Lankester (1814-74), surgeon, naturalist, the first public analyst in Britain, the first medically qualified coroner for Central Middlesex, a man who made a major contribution to the control of cholera in London.  So his son had, in a way, a family interest in the fight against the disease.  

He deplored the fact that

when a dire disease broke out in a country occupied by British troops, and, for the time being, controlled by the English Government, no steps were taken by that Government to initiate a thorough study of the disease in the light of modern science, but that, on the other hand, independent Commissions were sent to the plague-stricken country by the Governments of France and Germany for the express purpose of making the investigations which the English Government had omitted to set on foot.

The French and German scientists were from 

the State-supported laboratory of M Pasteur; they were his assistants and pupils.  The German Commissioners came from the Imperial Sanitary Institute of Berlin, the workers in which are drawn from the twenty-two State-supported laboratories of pathology which are scattered throughout the German Empire

Britain should be following the examples of France and Germany in training scientists and funding research bodies and laboratories like those in France and Germany.

By July 1884 the "discoverer of the cholera germ" Dr Robert Koch was known to everyone and admired by all.  The Pall Mall Gazette of 11 July 1884 noted that "in the last five years he has succeeded in identifying the germs of cattle disease, of consumption, and of cholera" – he was the benefactor of humanity.

Two years later, the Sanitary Congress – the annual meeting of the Sanitary Institute of Great Britain, founded in 1876 – was held in the Museum in York (now the Yorkshire Museum).  

The Leeds Mercury of 25 September 1886 carried a report of the proceedings.  The president, Mr William Whitaker, read a paper about water-supply in which he said two of the chief problems in sanitary matters were getting good water and getting rid of bad water.  Percy F Frankland, associate of the Royal School of Mines, spoke on the filtration of water.  They had known for many years that the real danger in sewage-contaminated water lay not in the organic matter to be found by analysis but in "the presence of minute living organisms, capable of producing zymotic disease".  Largely thanks to the genius of Robert Koch they now had "beautiful methods of bacteriological investigation" and this had enabled the great advance made in water purification.  Surgeon-Major Pringle described his system of collecting and storing rain and drinking water. Another debate clearly centred on the role of government.  Enforcement or education?  The West Riding County Surveyor, J Vickers Edwards, took what might now be called the libertarian approach to achieving "a healthy house", arguing that sanitary science would not progress through the actions of local authorities nor by legislation, but by educating people to act for themselves.  

Over the next fifty years the Sanitary Institute was to become the leading public health organisation in the UK, with a world-wide reputation.  It is now the Royal Society for Public Health.

Public health reform was truly on its way.

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 

Thomas Redmayne of Taitlands

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

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

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

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

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

Local newspapers report the news of the Armistice in 1918

The North-Eastern Daily Gazette 12 November 1918

A DAY OF REJOICING 

The rejoicings which began in Middlesbrough yesterday morning over the news of the armistice continued without interruption till nearly midnight and the town has seldom passed through fourteen hours of such joy.  In the afternoon the streets were a seething mass of humanity, and Linthorpe-road has seldom been so congested.  All the works were stopped by mid-day, and as the day wore on the neighbouring communities poured their thousands into the town to swell the huge crowds who had already congregated in the main thoroughfares.  Owing to restrictions of all kinds which could not be entirely removed with a wave of the hand, the illuminated display was not on such a scale of grandeur as might have been possible on an occasion of rejoicing in the halcyon days of peace; but the people did their best with the lights at their disposal, and the brighter streets were a pleasant reminder of a time which seemed almost to go down into the distant past.  The sky was lit up at intervals by the pyrotechnic display, and the jubilant note which prevailed throughout seemed to be well controlled.  In the days to come when Middlesbrough spreads its wings it will probably be better able to accommodate such huge crowds on a day of national rejoicing, but it may never again have an occasion when the circumstances so thoroughly justified such an explosion of pent-up exuberant patriotic feelings. 

STOCKTON'S REJOICING
In the long history of Stockton there have been many enthusiastic gatherings in the High-street opposite the Town Hall, but never one so large and so lively - and yet well behaved - as assembled yesterday afternoon when the Mayor and a number of other public men delivered short speeches of congratulation upon the great event of the day.  The band of the Bowesfield Ironworks played, and the people, with all their hearts, and with all the powers their lungs could give, sang the National Anthem, and then sent up cheer after cheer for the King.  "It is a memorable occasion, an occasion which has never before occurred in the history of the country," said the Mayor (Alderman J Harrison) "and we rejoice in it.  After four years of terrible war we have broken the terrible German menace, and we are confident that we have broken it in such a way that Germany will never again be able to make war.  This is not yet a declaration of peace, but we thank God that the armistice has been signed, and that we can see the end of the war."  

PAST AND FUTURE
There followed loud cheers, and with cheers were also greeted the other speeches in the High-street, Stockton.  Alderman Bainbridge said we had fought a good fight, and won, and he hoped that everyone would feel the responsibility of doing his or her share in the work of reconstruction which lay before the country.  "Whilst," said Alderman Nattress, "we rejoice in victory, and whilst we think of those men who have won the final victory, let us not fail to remember those who have fallen on our behalf."  "It is a victory for the forces of democracy and freedom over autocracy and militarism," said Councillor Bollands.  Councillor W Reed said in the great fight we had proved that might is not right, but that right is right, and that the God of Righteousness had been on our side.  Councillor I Robson and the Vicar of Stockton also addressed the gathering, and the company broke up with the singing of the National Anthem.  Similar proceedings took place from the balcony of the Town Hall, Thornaby. 

A solemn Te Deum will be sung at All Saints' Parish Church, Middlesbrough, tonight at 3pm, in thanksgiving for the end of the war. 

THANKSGIVING SERVICE
During the afternoon yesterday, the No 1 South Bank Boys' Brigade paraded South Bank, calling the people to a United Thanksgiving service at the Wesleyan Church.  There a good and representative company, which was presided over by the Rev M P Evans, President of the Free Church Council, and addressed by the Revs H W Pates, J Rutherford, C Allwright, and Councillor Vaux.  National hymns were sung, and the thanksgiving of the assembly voiced by Councillor T Bosher, Mr T Peacock, and others.  It is intended to continue the rejoicing on Sunday evening next in the Baptist Tabernacle.

The Yorkshire Post carried reports of rejoicing across the region, including

The Yorkshire Post, 12 November 1918

Cheering soldiers were in great evidence at Richmond, and at the Market Cross there was a great crowd, where, on the motion of the Mayor, it was decided to send a message of congratulation to Marshal Foch, Sir Douglas Haig, and the Prime Minister.  At Catterick Camp a general holiday was proclaimed 

At Whitby the band of the Hunts, Cyclist Battalion paraded the town, and the gaily decorated streets were thronged with happy people.  

There were scenes of intense enthusiasm at Darlington, but happily unmarked by any touch of rowdyism.