A Year's weather: 1895 by John Megginson

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

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

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

Original Poetry on the Year of Our Lord, 1895

John Megginson, Great Fryup, Lealholm, Grosmont

As long as we are all alive

We shall remember January of '95;

When it came in it was so coarse, 

It snew and blew with mighty force!

So those that had to go to preach

They had a task the place to reach;

And when they had to travel back

They were beat sometimes to find a track;

For down below, and on the moor,

The wind it made the snow to stoor;

And people round about the place

Could not get to the means of grace.

Frightful Accident at Sleights Station: 1 August 1901

On 2 August 1901, the Whitby Gazette carried a shocking headline:

Frightful Accident at Sleights Station

A Whitby Lady Cut To Pieces

This is the story – two elderly ladies – and a busy railway station in the age of steam.

Sleights station by Maniac Pony at English Wikipedia, CC BY 2.5

On the evening of Thursday 1 August 1901, two old ladies, the Misses Emma and Harriet Williamson, had walked down to the station after spending a couple of hours calling on friends in Sleights.  Emma was the elder, at 84 years of age; Harriet was 81.  They wanted to catch the 7:36 home to Whitby.  It would come from the Grosmont direction and there was indeed a train coming that way – they thought it was theirs, and that they were just in time.  But first they must cross the line to the down platform.  

There was a level crossing where the road to Whitby crossed the railway track and the station buildings and its platforms lay between the old ladies and the oncoming train – they thought they would have time to get across as the train drew to a halt at the station, so they went through the little gate at the level crossing.  

The signalman shouted, "Keep back!" 

George Wilkinson, a 53 year old builder and joiner from Sleights, who had gone to the down platform for some parcels and had been held up at the gates as he set off back home, saw the old ladies – he knew them quite well – and he shouted.  

James Moor, aged 51, gamekeeper for Mr Robert Yeoman at Grove Hall, Woodlands at Aislaby was waiting at the station too.  He saw the ladies crossing – he thought if it was stopping at the station they might just catch the train – he shouted to them as hard as he could, telling them to get along.

The ladies didn't seem to hear.  

It wasn't their train.  It was an excursion train from York, which had taken people on a day's outing to Whitby, and it was on its way back to Whitby to pick up the tired and happy holidaymakers for their journey home.  The crew had spent the last four hours at Grosmont – plenty of time for a cup of tea – because there wasn't enough room for the empty train to wait in the sidings at Whitby.  It wasn't due to stop at Sleights at all.

The excursion train – six carriages and two vans – had rounded the sharp curve about 170 yards before Sleights station.  It had come into view of the station.  Now it was whistling continuously.  

John William Pearson, aged 43, was the driver.  He had already shut off steam and slowed up on the approach to Sleights because the distance signal had been against him, but it had been lowered as they passed through and he had picked up steam again.  He had obeyed the directive to all drivers to whistle as they came within 200 yards of Sleights station. 

Now he saw a lady about to cross the line.  She hadn't yet reached the metals – the rails.  Seeing she was in danger, he shut off steam, he applied the brakes, he was pulling on the whistle all the time.

And then he saw that there was a second lady about to cross behind the first.  He had a good view – he was coming in tender first, which he felt gave him a far better view than if the engine had been first, under the circumstances – and he thought he was doing about 25-30 mph at the time.  

The guard Harold Clough Emmerson, aged 42, said at the inquest that he thought they were going rather slower, at 20-25 mph.  He couldn't see the ladies himself because the train blocked his view – all he could see was "an old gentleman on a trap waving for them to stop".

As the engine arrived at the level crossing, John Pearson lost sight of both ladies.  

George Wilkinson, waiting at the gates, saw the younger of the two make a little rush forward and just manage to clear the rails – he thought for a moment that the elder lady was going to get across – but the train struck her and whirled her round so that she went under it.  He didn't think she ever saw the train or heard it.  All the train went over her, and the lady was literally cut to pieces.  

John Pearson feared both ladies had been killed when "he felt something like a thud" on impact.  He brought the train to a standstill just after passing the crossing, "the last vehicle," he said at the inquest, "being near the bridge."  He had done everything he could.  The train had stopped in about 80 yards, little more than its own length.  

He got down at once, leaving the fireman on the engine, and then he saw Miss Emma Williamson.  The engine and all the carriages must have passed over her.  "She was terribly cut, and mangled most fearfully – the scene was dreadful."  He didn't know how the first lady had escaped.  

Miss Harriet thought that her sister was crossed the tracks just behind her.  She didn't see what happened and she must have stood there wondering at the scene, with the men gathering about the train in alarm.

John Pearson spoke for a while with Watson Bulmer, the 38 year old station master.  And then he got back in the cabin to attend to his duty – he had to take the train to Whitby for the return journey to York.

And it was only when the train had left the station that Miss Harriet saw that her sister had been killed.  She was in a most dreadful state of shock – someone must have taken her home to No 8 Park Terrace in Whitby.

Watson Bulmer organised the removal of poor Miss Emma's remains to the station buildings to await the coroner's instructions.  In the early hours of the morning they were taken "in a shell" to her home in Park Terrace.

Everyone who had seen the accident must have been very much shocked and shaken.  The driver and guard went home to York – John Pearson to 11 Drake Street, off Nunnery Lane, to his wife Rose, and Harold Emmerson to his wife Zillah and their four children – the youngest was only a baby – at 13 St Ann Street in Walmgate.  George Wilkinson went up to Sleights to his wife Jane and the family – six children, with Stanley the youngest at 10 years old.  James Moor would go home to Aislaby, to his wife Hannah and their children.  The men would all be wanted the following week to give evidence at the Coroner's Inquest.

The next afternoon, the coroner George Buchannan, a Whitby solicitor, opened the inquest at the County Hotel just to hear Miss Harriet bravely give her very brief evidence.  The coroner was a familiar figure to her – he was her cousin Ann Langborne's son.  She told him that she did not blame the driver of the train or any one else in the least – the blame, she said, was their own.

The accident shocked and horrified the area.  The Misses Williamson had many friends and relations and they were well known for their charitable work.  So when, on the afternoon of Saturday 3 August, Miss Emma was buried in Sleights Churchyard, it was amid great sympathy and sorrow.  

St John the Evangelist, Sleights by Nigelcoates at English Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0

It must have been a very well-attended and solemn funeral.  Three clergymen took the service and signed the burial register – the Revd Hugh P D Walker, vicar of Sleights, the Revd George Austen, the Rector of Whitby, and his curate the Revd Michael A Horsfall.  The church bells rang a muffled peal.

On Wednesday 9 August, George Buchannan resumed the inquest.  

John Pearson – he always gave his name in official documents such as census forms as John W. Pearson, but the Whitby Gazette's reporter caught his name as William Pearson – explained the actions he had taken.  

"So far as you were concerned," asked the Coroner, "you did everything in your power?" – "Yes, everything, Sir."

Harold Emmerson and James Moor testified.  George Wilkinson explained to the coroner and jury that the last accident at that level crossing had happened 30 or 40 years ago.  He thought the danger at Sleights crossing was chiefly because so many trains were timed to meet there together, and because of obstructed sight lines.  The railway line in the Grosmont direction was on a curve and the view towards Whitby was blocked by a house, which belonged to the railway company and occupied by a platelayer.  People at the station had a very limited view in either direction.  He thought it would be quite practicable to make a bridge.

The District Superintendent of the Traffic Department, Mr John Bradford Harper, said a footbridge would make crossing safer, if only the public would use one.  They found that it was hard to stop people from crossing the rails and where, as at Sleights, there had to be a "sleeper crossing" for luggage, then the public would use the luggage crossing rather than a bridge.  As there was a rule prohibiting putting up a fence within 4 feet of a running line, it was virtually impossible to stop them doing this.

The Jury returned a verdict of accidental death by a passing train.  And they requested the Coroner to communicate to the North-Eastern Railway Company their opinion that a footbridge should be provided and that the cottage which obstructed the view towards Whitby be removed.

Miss Harriet decided on a fitting and beautiful memorial to her sister, and to her mother and brother.  She engaged the celebrated designer Charles Eamer Kempe (1837-1907) to create a stained glass window for the church of St John the Evangelist at Sleights.  On 13 March 1903, the Whitby Gazette reported this generous gift had been installed.  The window showed John the Baptist indicating Christ as the Lamb of God and the inscription was  

In the reverence of God, and in loving memory of Elizabeth, William and Emma Williamson, this window is dedicated, AD MDCCCCIII

Miss Harriet Williamson died three months later aged 83 on 13 June.  She was buried at Sleights with her mother, brother and sister on 17 June 1903.

Thomas Barlow Allinson writes a letter: 1836

Thomas Barlow Allinson's letter of 1836 was among the small collection mentioned in The Revd William Atkinson of Kirkleatham & Cambridge (1755-1830). These letters survived apparently by chance, but very probably because of the intervention of Mr John Gaskin, MBE, of Whitby.  He was a solicitors' clerk for many years with Buchannans of Whitby and may have come across the letters in their offices and thought them worth preserving – possibly for their unusual postal markings, as he had a keen interest in philately.  The collection is now in the Northallerton Archives.

This is the story of one of those letters, as far as we can make it out.  I say "we" because I'm indebted to my collaborator for contacting me in the first place and for all the research she has done.  I hope this chance survival from 1836 might help the people who are trying to disentangle their Allinson forebears.  The Allinsons you will meet in this blogpost lived in Whitby and near Penrith, in the parish of Dacre in Cumberland.

I'm quoting below from a transcript and I have made some alterations for readability's sake.

It's a story which begins with Dickensian echoes and goes to darker places …

Billiter Square: O.S. 1840s-1860s.  National Library of Scotland

It's 4 April 1836.  The writer of the letter is a 24 year old solicitor's clerk called Thomas Barlow Allinson.  He's an unhappy and worried young man, marked by a series of disappointments and trapped in a job he doesn't like.  When he came to London from Staffordshire in 1830, he had thought that his uncle Josiah Allinson would help him to a clerkship in a trading or banking house.  Six years later, he's still with Messrs Druce in Billiter Square off Fenchurch Street in the City of London, in a job that was supposed to be temporary.  It's the Easter vacation for the law courts, and he's writing a personal letter from his employers' offices in the City.

Thomas is only a few months younger than Charles Dickens, who is now beginning his startling career as a writer – the first instalment of The Pickwick Papers appeared in print only weeks before Thomas started his letter.  But Thomas's story has echoes of Dickens' much later and darker novels and the dark and dirty London of Bleak House is the one that Thomas knew.

Thomas is writing to a relation he has never met, a Miss Nanny Ellerby Allinson of Whitby.  He is offering her information she wants and he has carried out a favour she has asked for – and between these two sections of his long letter, he has sandwiched a tactful and carefully-written account of the financial difficulties and disappointments beneath which he, his mother and his 7 siblings are labouring.  Miss Allinson is now under something of an obligation towards him, and she might be able to help them.

Jane Atkinson of Kirkleatham (1751-1817), wife of Captain Thomas Galilee

I've revised an earlier post of May 2013 and, as it belongs with the preceding posts, I'll post it here as well.  

The two letters quoted below were among the small collection of letters referred to in the previous post about the Revd William Atkinson.  I have made some alterations to spelling and punctuation for readability's sake.

Jane was born in 1751, the daughter of Thomas Atkinson of Scaling Dam (a hamlet on the Whitby to Guisborough road) and his wife Elizabeth Featherstone.  She grew up at Kirkleatham where her father was Master of the Blue Coat Boys at Sir William Turner's Hospital.  Her younger brother Thomas  Atkinson was a surgeon who wrote a journal of a whaling voyage to the Davis Straits in 1774

Jane married Thomas Galilee on 4 June 1775.

The Newcastle Courant of Saturday 17 June 1775 records: 

Last week at St Mary’s Church, Rotherhithe, London, Capt Thomas Galilee of Whitby, to Miss Atkinson of Kirkleatham 

St Mary's Rotherhithe by Rob Kam

Jane and Thomas spent many years in Rotherhithe, where their daughters were born and baptised, living in a house that Thomas owned in Princes Street.  They were living there in 1788 when he wrote to his wife from Narva in Estonia on 21 May.  At the time, the main trade with the Baltic was in timber and Thomas was taking on a load of sawn boards ("deals").  

Narva, May 21st 1788

My Dear Jane, 

I have now the pleasure to acquaint you that I am all Loaded except one pram of deals which I hope to get on board to night.  We have had a very troublesome time of it in the Bay and very cold weather that several of my people is laid up.  I hope in God this will find you in good health and all my dear children as bless God I am at present and I hope soon to have a happy meeting.  I have no news to tell you as this is the first time I have been in town since I arrived – it seems to be a poor place and every thing is very dear so that I have not bought you anything.  Please to acquaint Mr. Richardson of my being loaded and not to forget the Insurance 

I hope soon to have the pleasure to see you, pray give my love to my children &c, I am your ever affectionate and

Loving Husband

Thomas Galilee

It seems he had two passengers with him – perhaps they were there for the experience – but they hadn't enjoyed the trip much.  He ends his letter

My Two young Gentlemen is very well but I fancy this Voyage will make them sick of the sea.

It seems very likely that, when the Ship News in the Kentish Gazette on 20 June 1788 reported that the "Amphion, Gallilee, from Narva" had passed Gravesend on 16 June, it was Captain Thomas Galilee returning home. 

Thomas Atkinson, surgeon (b1753) of Kirkleatham, Canada & Honduras Bay

This replaces a piece about Thomas Atkinson posted in November 2012.  As it belongs with the preceding posts about the Atkinsons of Scaling Dam & Kirkleatham, I thought I'd publish it here too.  

With many thanks to Stella Sterry for her information

Thomas Atkinson, the writer of the Whaling Journal of Thomas Atkinson of Kirkleatham, 1774 was a young man of 21 when he made the voyage to Davis Straits.

He was born in the spring of 1753 in Kirkleatham, a North Yorkshire village a couple of miles from the mouth of the River Tees. 

His father Thomas was Master at the Hospital founded in Kirkleatham in 1676 by Sir William Turner for the relief of ten "poor aged" men and women and the relief and upbringing of "ten poor boys and ten poor girls". 

The "poor boys" and "poor girls" usually entered the Hospital at the age of eight and left at sixteen.  At this time most of the boys came from the North Riding, from Scarborough to Askrigg, but some came from much further afield – from Ticknall in Derbyshire, Bristol and Hertfordshire.  They included the sons of a local clergyman, a Darlington bookseller and a Northallerton attorney, which must indicate that, in addition to the poor children, the school was taking paying scholars.  This was usual in schools that began as charitable foundations. 

Thomas Atkinson's mother was Elizabeth Featherstone (c1720-1805).  His parents were married in Westerdale in 1749, so Elizabeth may have been the Elizabeth, daughter of Peter Fetherstone, who was baptised in 1720 at Danby in Cleveland.

It seems very likely that Thomas Atkinson's sons were taught alongside the boys of the Hospital.  Wherever they went to school, he and his brothers clearly received a good education; Thomas's second son William was to become a Doctor of Divinity and Fellow of Christ's College, Cambridge. 

The career chosen for young Thomas may have been influenced by the surgeon employed at the Hospital (at a salary of £50, compared to the £45 paid to the Master), but the Hospital was also in contact with the York Infirmary whose surgeons pronounced one boy's "scrofulous disorder" as incurable in 1773.  

In his mid-teens Thomas's parents sent him to Ripon to be apprenticed for 6 years to William Chambers of Ripon, described by Thomas's father in the family Bible as "an eminent Surgeon and Apothecary".  Then on 27 February 1774 at the age of 21, he went to sea as a surgeon on the Hope of Whitby, on a whaling voyage to the Davies Straits.

Whitby whalers in the Davies Straits (from Richard Weatherill's book)

We don't know why he decided to make the trip.  Perhaps it was a hankering for adventure; perhaps he wanted to find out how he would cope in harsh conditions.  We don't know how he came to choose the Hope, but it's interesting to see that at this time one of the boys at the school was Thomas Peacock, son of the Revd John Peacock, curate of Stainton in Cleveland.  Perhaps they had a family connection to Captain Robert Peacock of the Hope.

It is clear from young Thomas Atkinson's journal that it wasn't the sea that took his interest, but the strange new lands he encountered and, above all, the Inuit. 

So it isn't surprising to find that, the following year, his curiosity and love of adventure led him to work for the Hudson's Bay Company

At the beginning of June 1775 he took up his post as a surgeon at Moose Fort (now Moose Factory), 

the Company's oldest settlement in Ontario, established in 1673 about 11 miles from the mouth of the Moose River on the shore of James Bay.

This was the home of the Cree and Anishinaabe peoples, but from the 17th century it was where the British and French fought over the fur trade.  (For more, see Tracing the History of Northern Ontario at the British Library by Shaelagh Cull)

In 1776 the Company was planning to establish a post on Lake Superior.  So they sent out a party of 5 men – Thomas was one of them – with two Indian families and instructions to "Build a Halfway House".  They set out on 16 October 1776 from Moose Fort and travelled about 200 miles by canoe along the Moose River, and by sledge, until on 11 December they reached "Wapuscogamee" Creek.  

Thomas chose a site for the Company's post – it was half a mile or so from the mouth of the creek, on the west bank of the Missinaibi River, which flows into the Moose River.  On 14 December they began to build a log tent in which they were to spend the rest of the winter.

When the spring came, they laid the foundation for the post and by early August 1777 Wapiscogamy House was ready for occupation.  Thomas was in charge there until 31 May 1778.

Early C19: Trading at a Hudson's Bay Company Trading Post, by Harry Ogden

I hope he was a good doctor, because he wasn't very good at choosing a place for a trading post, or at planning its building.  

A report to Edward Jarvis, chief at Moose Fort, in 1781 described a site vulnerable to attack with no way of seeing the attackers coming.  There was a large creek within 200 yards of the back of the house and a ridge of high land within 100 yards, and at one end of the small, inconvenient house (it measured 26 feet by 18 feet) there wasn't a window or a port hole.  

The foundations were laid direct on the ground, so it wasn't possible to dig a cellar without undermining either the chimney or the frame of the house.  They couldn't find anywhere to keep the gunpowder except "directly under the fireplace" and the summer heat spoilt their "Salt Geese".   Edward Jarvis decided it would be better to build a new post somewhere else.

By this time, Thomas Atkinson had been moved on to Henley House, a transit post on the junction of the Albany and Kenogamy Rivers.  He was Master there for 3 months from September to December 1779.  Perhaps he was filling in for the arrival of another man because he dropped down to Assistant for the next few months.  From June 1780 he was Assistant at Albany, the company fort on the James Bay, and then he left for home on the Royal George on 21 September 1781.

On 21 September 1788, when his father repaired the family Bible and recorded the most recent details of his children's lives, he wrote proudly that his eldest son had been "sometime Governor" of one of the Company Forts and was now "Surgeon at the English Settlement in Honduras Bay".  

So Thomas, having experienced the extremes of heat and cold in Northern Ontario, had taken a post in Central America, where the British were cutting logwood and mahogany.  There had been a British settlement in Belize for over a hundred years.  

An undated entry in the family Bible records that it was there that Thomas died. 

The Revd William Atkinson of Kirkleatham & Cambridge (1755-1830)

This account of a quiet life is thanks to information from Stella Sterry, and to letters that were found years ago in a house clearance in Leeds.  They seem to have survived by chance, possibly because of Mr John Gaskin, MBE, of Whitby.  He was a significant figure in organisations in the town in the first half of the 20th century.  He was very interested in local history and philately and for several decades was a solicitors' clerk with Messrs Buchannan and Son, and then with the successor firm Buchannan and White.  However he came across the letters and whatever his reason – local history or the unusual postal markings – he kept the letters and they are now to be found at Northallerton Archives.  I'm quoting below from a transcript and I have made some alterations for readability's sake.

William Atkinson was born on 16 May 1755 at Kirkleatham, where his father Thomas Atkinson (1722-92) was Master of Sir William Turner's Hospital.  Perhaps he was named for his father's brother William, who died only two months later in the fever epidemic that swept through Scaling Dam.

William's elder brother Thomas went out to look for adventure, and worked as a surgeon in Canada and Central America.  His brother Daniel died in New York and his brother John on the coast of Africa.  But William Atkinson was a studious young man.  He became an academic and clergyman.

Bookplate of Revd William Atkinson

At the age of 21, on 10 October 1776, he was admitted to Catharine Hall, Cambridge as a sizar.  At a time when attending Oxford and Cambridge was only for the very well-to-do, this was how someone from a humbler background could go to one of the universities.  Originally a sizar paid his way by doing fairly menial tasks; as the centuries went on colleges might offer small grants.  But it was essentially for the poor and deserving, and it was a lowly social position.

William matriculated in the Michaelmas term 1778.  He was made a deacon in 1778 and priested in 1781.  He took his B.A in 1781, his M.A in 1784, and his B.D in 1792.  

These were eventful times in the outside world.  In 1783, King George III was forced to accept the loss of Britain’s American colonies.  In January 1788, the first convict fleet arrived in Botany Bay carrying 1,480 men, women and children.  The Greenland whale fishery was in full operation, with 21 vessels leaving Whitby that season.  Across the Channel, France was in the grip of runaway inflation and ever increasing economic turmoil and on 14 July 1789 the storming of the Bastille would mark the beginning of events that would shake Europe.  Meanwhile, back at home in North Yorkshire, Whitby was a major centre of shipbuilding, ranking third after London and Newcastle in the early 1790s.  Along the coast and the escarpment of the Cleveland Hills, men were mining alum, a valuable commodity and vital to the textile and leather industries.  

St Catharine's, Cambridge (called Catharine Hall until 1860)

Meanwhile, William was elected Fellow of Catharine Hall in 1781 and in 1807 he was a curate at Sawston, 7 miles south of Cambridge.  But from 1790 William became involved in a feud among the Fellows.  It lasted 20 years and involved petitions to the College Visitor, exchanges of acrimonious letters and finally a pamphlet war.  William and his friends were pitted against Dr Procter, the Master of Catharine Hall, and his supporters.  William's friend Dr Browne, Master of Christ's College, was also involved.  In 1808 William left Catharine Hall.  

Then on 2 July 1808 William was elected Fellow of Christ's; it was the first election in the time of his friend Dr Browne's Mastership.  It is all very convoluted.  William Jones, in his A History of St Catharine's College, Cambridge (CUP 1936) comments that  

One finds it difficult not to suspect that much of this feud was due to sheer idleness.  The Fellows at St Catharine's at this period were not busy with research.  They had no undergraduates, or practically none, to teach.  Unmarried, they had no home interests.  Satan, indeed, found work for idle hands to do

At the time of the feud, William wasn't living in College.  By 1788, he was living in the village of Whaddon, a dozen miles south-west of Cambridge.  By 1806 he had moved to Stapleford, about 5 miles south of Cambridge.  There he lived at the Grove at the fork in the road near Sawston Bridge.

1888-1913 O.S. Stapleford
CC-BY-NC-SA National Library of Scotland

Apart from being Mildmay Preacher between 1816 and 1818, Christ's has no record of him holding a College office, or a benefice, or being resident in College, though he never missed a meeting until his last five years.  

Christ's College, Cambridge: Fellows' Garden, showing rear of Fellows' Building

How did he spend his time (apart from taking part in the College feud)?  He must have lectured, perhaps he had pupils and he seems, on occasion at least, to have taken duty for another clergyman.  He certainly farmed.  He had his library, which was a typical middle-class collection judging by the inscribed volumes that have passed down through the years – and Jane Austen would have been pleased to see that he didn't disdain novels.  He had Samuel Richardson's Sir Charles Grandison.  We can imagine him working away at the system of shorthand that he invented.  It was a quiet life.

The Atkinsons of Scaling Dam in the 17th & 18th centuries

This is the sort of thing that one always hopes for – in 2013 I posted the Whaling Journal 1774 of Thomas Atkinson of Kirkleatham and articles about the Atkinson family of Scaling Dam.  And recently I was contacted by Stella Richmond Sterry, a descendant of Thomas's sister Jane Galilee (as I am myself) – but she has the family Bible!

And so, armed with all that lovely information, I've been able to do more research on the family.  I hope it's (a) of interest and (b) of use to people who are trying to disentangle their own Cleveland Atkinsons.  

An extra bonus for me is that I get to go back again to the Civil Wars, which I left reluctantly after finishing work on Alice Wandesford in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms 

………

The young Thomas Atkinson who took the whaling voyage in 1774 (you can find it here) was the eldest son of Thomas Atkinson (1722-92), Master of Sir William Turner's Hospital at Kirkleatham.

In 1788, towards the end of his life, Thomas Atkinson senior repaired his father's family Bible, which had been damaged after his father's death in 1755.  And in it, very wisely, he left a written record which he entitled "From Oral Tradition".  He began with the story of his great-grandfather Atkinson, who was a soldier in the Parliamentarian Army during the Civil Wars – the Wars of the Three Kingdoms – and who lived afterwards at Scaling Dam.

Scaling Dam was (and is) a hamlet more or less half way along the moors road between Guisborough and Whitby.  Then, the North Riding of Yorkshire was thinly populated and the moors were wide and empty.  The antiquarian Ralph Thoresby, F.R.S., (1658-1725) took the moors road in November 1682 and didn't like it at all, recording in his diary that he travelled "over the rotten Moors for many miles without anything observable."

O.S. map 1888-1913

CC-BY-NC-SA National Library of Scotland

The hamlet's name doesn't come from the reservoir which was built there in the 1950s – it appears, for example, as Skallingdam in the 1675 map of John Ogilby.  I suspect the hamlet was given its name to show it was a sort of outpost of the village of Scaling but near the dam – the Dam Bridge can be seen on the map above.  It was, of course, a very practical place for a settlement, being on the moors road at the junction with the road to Staithes.  It isn't surprising to see that the 1888-1913 map shows both a pub and a smithy, both of which must have been there for very many years.  Both Scaling and Scaling Dam were in the parish of Easington in Cleveland.

Atkinson the Parliamentarian Soldier

The family didn't remember the Soldier's Christian name, but knew that he had been at the battles of Marston Moor (1644), Naseby (1645), Preston (1648) and Dunbar (1650).  The fact that Marston Moor seems to be his first major battle suggests the Soldier was a Northerner, and the fact that he spent the rest of his life in Scaling Dam seems to me to show that he was almost certainly an East Cleveland man.  It's hard to think an outsider would find his way to Scaling Dam in the middle of the 17th century.

The Soldier used to talk of the battle of Dunbar, Oliver Cromwell's miracle victory.  The histories say that when the right wing of Scottish cavalry broke under the English attack, Oliver Cromwell and General Lambert didn't allow the English troopers to go in pursuit and, as the troopers regrouped, they sang the 117th Psalm

O praise the Lord, all ye nations:
praise him, all ye people.
For his merciful kindness is great toward us:
and the truth of the Lord endureth for ever.

When the Soldier looked back on the battle, Thomas wrote, he used to say of the singing

their Notes were more pleasing to Him who is the Giver of all Victory than the Clashing of Swords and roaring of Canon.  

The Soldier was very probably a member of one of Cleveland’s Trained Bands, the local militias made up of householders and their sons, who were obliged to turn out when summoned for training and action.  The ability to read and write was spreading fast among the common people at this time, but the sort of family that was liable for Trained Band service would certainly produce a literate man like the Soldier, whose constant reading of Scripture led him to have, as Thomas wrote, "the Bible and Testament almost by Heart".

Soldier Atkinson was in the minority in the North Riding of Yorkshire, which was almost entirely Royalist in sympathy – though many, if not most, people didn't want to choose a side at all and simply wanted to be left in peace.  The North Riding gentlemen who supported Parliament had a difficult time raising troops and the troops, when assembled, weren't keen.  Sir Henry Foulis reported that a Cleveland foot regiment that had mustered 500 men at Yarm had rapidly dwindled to 80 at the approach of the enemy.  (see War in Yorkshire: 1642-1643)

Parliamentarian gentry included the Foulis brothers, whose father Sir David Foulis had been put in the Fleet Prison for several years because he opposed the King’s man, Sir Thomas Wentworth (the story can be found here) but their family estates were at Ingleby on the western escarpment of the moors.

A Parliamentarian gentleman from the close neighbourhood of Scaling Dam was Nicholas Conyers.  In fact he came from the parish of Easington itself, being the son of Nicholas Conyers of Boulby, and, like Soldier Atkinson, he was at Marston Moor.  Two of his brothers died fighting for the King.

Nicholas Conyers was in the Scarborough garrison under Sir Hugh Cholmley of Whitby when Cholmley changed sides and took the town over to the Royalists in 1643.

Cholmley first made sure that anybody wanting to leave Scarborough before it became Royalist had left the town.  Many did, including Nicholas Conyers.  If Soldier Atkinson was there with Sir Hugh's forces, he too will have left for the Parliamentarian garrison at Hull.

Atkinson the Soldier was clearly one of the Godly – a Puritan – and committed to Parliament's cause.  This makes him an interesting figure in the overwhelmingly Royalist North Riding.  Perhaps there were many more like him among the ordinary men of Cleveland, but we only know about the gentry and we don't know how many of the Soldier's neighbours and relatives shared his views.  And we don't know what his views were – how ardent a Puritan he was, how radical a Parliamentarian.

Thomas describes the Soldier as a subaltern.  I've checked with Phil Philo (do not miss his new blog Of Things Trent-North) and this was not a term used at the time.  I think all we can say for definite is that his family remembered that he had men under him.  So he could have been a junior officer, or a sergeant or a corporal.  Nor do we know if he fought in the foot or the cavalry.

Pikemen.  Photo by John Beardsworth

In the same way, Thomas thought that he lived to a very great age "being near a hundred before he died".  This isn't any help in identifying him, as the Easington parish registers for the time are fragmentary and don't record the age anyway.  But we can certainly say that he was notable in the area, with his past history of bloody and brutal warfare, his command of the Bible and his great age.  

After the fighting stopped, everyone must have had to learn to live together and mend the divisions within families and neighbourhoods.  It can't have been easy after so many deaths and so much destruction. 

We don't know how the Soldier made his living before and after the wars, but we can guess that if his father was a farmer then he wasn't the eldest son, because then he would have been needed on the land.  So he would have had a trade.  At some point the Soldier married and had at least one son, whose name was John, who was "brought up to the business of a Tanner", so perhaps the Soldier was a tanner himself.  

Tanning was a vital industry at this time, with leather necessary for so many things, from boots, shoes and gloves to horse collars, and Scaling Dam was a good place for the tanning process, with water from the Dam Beck nearby.  Tanning was done in pits lined with timber.  The bark of young coppiced oaks was used, or lime, and the process took time, hard manual labour and skill.  Most villages had a leather worker and they were to be found in much larger numbers in towns.  Tanners often farmed on the side.

Long hours at the Stokesley drapers' shops: 1856

In the shopping season, a story with echoes of our time? 

In the middle of the 19th century, Stokesley had up to half a dozen drapers' shops.  The 1854 Directory listed four; the 1867 Directory listed six.  

On 10 May 1856, a letter appeared in the York Herald under the heading "Early Closing at Stokesley":

To the Editors of the York Herald

Gentlemen,

I am glad to observe that the Helmsley shopkeepers have adopted the early closing movement, and are requesting their town's people to make their purchases at an early hour.  The drapers' assistants, &c., have just cause of complaint on account of the late hours they are detained in most of the establishments at Stokesley.  I should, therefore, be glad to see the tradesmen of our pretty little town adopting the same principle, as, by so doing, they would allow the young men in their employment an acceptable hour, for recreation and mental improvement, after the hour of closing, viz, eight o'clock; but, as it is, I regret to see, it is generally near nine o'clock before the principal shops here are closed.

I trust the young ladies especially will kindly take the hint, and contrive to make their purchases before seven o'clock; and, if they do so, no doubt their praiseworthy conduct will be copied by their seniors, and be duly appreciated by the young gentlemen who attend to their wishes, behind the counter, from "morning dawn to dewy eve."

I am, Gentlemen, yours respectfully,

A Friend of Young Men

Stokesley, May 6th, 1856

It was a tactful appeal in a campaign that had already been running for nearly 20 years.  

In the 1830s, shopkeepers in some towns and cities had agreed between them to close up an hour early in the winter months.  Drapers' assistants in Leeds "respectfully invited" their employers to look at the drapers in York, Sheffield and Halifax, where the shops had begun to close at 7 o'clock.  

In 1842, the Bradford Observer hailed the decision of the grocers to close at 8 o'clock – the extra hour for themselves gave the young men a chance of "improvement both of mind and body".  On 28 October 1843, "A Linen Draper" wrote to the Leeds Intelligencer pointing out that it had been possible even in the busiest time of the summer to close at 8 o'clock, so why not close at 7 o'clock for November to February?  Saturday closing could be brought forward too, to 10 o'clock. He thought it was only long-established custom that held back the change because, in those four months, business was very nearly always over before 7 pm.  He thought both employer and employed would benefit by earlier closing.

In the late 1840s, Early Closing Associations began to be formed.  The Manchester and Salford Association copied the London association's rules.  Their motives were high-minded: reducing the hours of business "with a view to the physical, moral, and intellectual improvement of those engaged therein."  

Their aims were 

(1) to appeal to the public not to shop in the evenings, by a PR campaign of meetings, sermons, lectures, pamphlets and through the press

(2)  to get employers to realise the advantages to be gained from earlier closing

(3) to make sure that shop assistants understood the importance of using the extra time to improve their minds by attending literary institutions, lectures and libraries – and the advantages they would gain by working hard, behaving correctly and learning

(4)  by only using peaceful, persuasive means with employers, however hostile to the movement the employers might be

There were to be committees for each branch of the retail trade.  Each committee would send members to a general committee.  Employees were to be Ordinary Members of the Association and they would pay four shillings a year membership.  Employers and others could choose to pay the minimum of a guinea (one pound and one shilling) a year or make a donation of five guineas.

Like a trade union, but without any teeth …

In October 1851, the London Weekly Chronicle reported the Association's claim that most employers wanted to close their shops earlier, but that they were frustrated in some districts by a few tradesmen who wouldn't join in.  The Association appealed to the public to stop shopping in the evenings.  The article gave the example of some of the insurance companies, which were copying the large East India firms and the Stock Exchange by closing at 2 o'clock on Saturdays.  A piece in the City column of The Times had reported that this had given satisfaction all round – and that condensing work into the reduced opening hours had been found to produce more economical and efficient results.  (Echoes of the debate today on "presentism" in the office and on productivity in the UK?)

In the winter of 1871, the argument had moved on to half-day closing.  Some towns had already adopted the practice of having a half-day holiday one afternoon of the week.  Battle was raging in Whitby – should the town do the same?  As it was, the assistants only had Sunday off and so they used it for recreation and having fun instead of going to church.

A draper signing himself "W" wrote to the Whitby Gazette on 25 November.  In a long letter, he laid into the "mania" for early closing.  He said the Early Closing "movement" was the "work of draper lads, upstart journeymen, and small tradesmen" and he declared himself disgusted with it.  "Laziness" was all that lay behind it.  The youths wanted more time to be idle, to play cards and to go to the pub.  His description of their working day brought a flood of indignant letters to the Gazette, insisting that most drapers' assistants had to be at their posts at 8 o'clock in the morning and they didn't leave until 7 o'clock at night.  If they lived on the premises, their three meals a day were squeezed into those hours and would take up only 45 minutes or an hour.

Meanwhile during the 19th century there was also the battle of Sunday Observance.  On the one side were those desperately keen to preserve Sunday for worship and rest.  On the other side were all the people whose only day off was Sunday.  Charles Dickens fought this battle fiercely, seeing nothing but cant and hypocrisy in well-to-do men with comfortable homes and private clubs attempting to pass laws that would take from the people their only day of recreation.  

And then, towards the end of the century, the question of the health of young men and women kept on their feet in shops and warehouses for long hours became a major matter of interest.  Death and Disease behind the Counter was written by the barrister Thomas Sutherst in 1884 and later The Lancet took up the cause.  

At last, towards the end of the century, the Shop Acts began to be passed.  It had been a long campaign.

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 

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.