This follows the post Hutton Rudby 1859-1908: the Cleveland Sailcloth Mill
It has always been remembered that William Surtees, who lived in Eden Cottage at the time of the 1871 census, established a linen manufactury in Albion House, at the corner of Doctors Lane and Garbutts Lane.
This is his story.
I have come to the conclusion that William was the grandson of the William Surtees and Eden Dodds who married on 7 December 1797 in Hutton Rudby – not least because he used the name Eden for his house and as the middle name of one of his daughters.
William Surtees and Eden Dodds had several children (see
here). Their daughter Margaret Surtees married Edward Hansell of Kirklevington in 1830, while daughters Jane and Sarah had children outside marriage. The Guisborough registers record the baptism on 15 August 1825 of William & John, illegitimate sons of Jane Surtees of Guisborough. This was the William of Eden Cottage.
By 1832 Jane was back in Hutton Rudby where her daughter Elizabeth was baptised on 25 July. The Memorial Inscriptions transcription shows that Jane died the following year aged 34. Eden and William Surtees were left with the care of Jane's 7 year old twin boys and baby daughter. William died four years later and was buried at Hutton Rudby on 12 March 1837, aged 66. The 1841 census shows Eden was still at work – though she was now 70 years old, she was listed as an agricultural labourer. With her were Elizabeth, aged 10, and John, a stonemason's apprentice aged 15. Her house must have been at the top of Enterpen; it appears directly after Hutton House in the enumerator's round of the village.
The twin boys had both been apprenticed as stone masons. While John was with their grandmother, the 1841 Census found William in the household of John Souter in Stockton; there was a family called Souter in Hutton Rudby, so John Souter may have been a friend or relation (
see here). Ten years later, in 1851, William Surtees, stonemason aged 25, birthplace Guisborough, was visiting Henry Fletcher in Hartlepool.
Meanwhile, his grandmother Eden lived on in Hutton Rudby. She was still alive and still working as a farm labourer at the time of the 1851 census, but she was also described as a pauper and she was living on her own. She died in 1854 aged 84.
By the early 1850s William was in partnership with Robert Todd of Marton-in-Cleveland. This was just before the village was changed by the building of Marton Hall by Henry Bolckow; at the time of the 1840 White's Directory it "had in its parish 363 souls". Marton Lodge ("a large stone mansion") was still in ruins after a fire in 1832, and St Cuthbert's church had not yet been modernised and was described as a "small ancient structure".
Robert Todd was born in about 1820 in Shadforth, Co Durham. He had married a Marton girl called Jane Ord of Marton and settled there. The 1851 census shows that they had three small children and were living with her widowed father William.
The Todd-Surtees partnership ended in 1853:
Yorkshire Gazette, 4 June 1853
NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN, that the Partnership heretofore subsisting between the undersigned WILLIAM SURTEES, of Hutton, near Rudby, in the County of York, Stonemason, and ROBERT TODD, of Marton, in the same County, Stonemason, carrying on business as Stonemasons and Contractors at Marton aforesaid, under the firm of "ROBERT TODD," was this day DISSOLVED by Mutual Consent.
All Debts due and owing to or by the said Partnership will be paid and received by the said ROBERT TODD, who will complete all existing Contracts on his own account. As witness our hands this Twenty-Seventh Day of May, 1853.
(Signed) WILLIAM SURTEES
ROBERT TODD
Signed by both parties in the presence of
J PEIRSON HOLT,
Solicitor, Middlesbro'
After the end of his partnership with William Surtees, Robert and the family moved into the new and growing town of Middlesbrough, to live in Corporation Road.
William must have gone to work somewhere near Darlington, because when he married in the spring of 1856, it was registered in that district. His wife was Hannah Thorburn. I think she is the girl who can be found in the 1841 Census for Haggbeck, seven miles from Longtown, north of Carlisle. She was then aged 8, the youngest child of Hannah & Thomas Thorburn, a joiner. My conjecture has some support from the fact that the record of her death states that her father was called Thomas and that the birth of a William Surtees was registered at Longtown at the end of 1857. As was quite common, Hannah had been near her family for the birth of her first child.
A little more than a year later William and Hannah had come across the Pennines to Hutton Rudby, where their second son Thomas was born on 14 January 1859. William's occupation is given on the birth certificate as stonemason.
Before very long, William, Hannah and the two little boys had sailed for Australia.
They must have hoped and planned for a successful new life there. It began with a birth, when another baby boy, Elijah, was born to them on 28 March 1862 – but the bright start did not last long. Elijah died only weeks later on the 9 May. His death was registered at Newtown, New South Wales and he was buried in the
Camperdown Cemetery, Newtown, City of Sydney
On 6 May 1863, less than a year later, Hannah died. She too was buried in the Camperdown Cemetery. And then, only a few months later on 20 January 1864, six year old William died. His father buried him in the same cemetery as his mother and baby brother. Only William and Thomas remained.
On 22 August 1866 William remarried. His second wife was Clara Susan Louisa Graham of Liverpool, New South Wales.
Clara – as can be seen from her obituary at the end of this piece – came of a family that had lived in Liverpool for a long while; their oldest family tombstone was dated 1809. Her mother was a sister of the Lieutenant Wilson who first sighted the promontory on the southern coast which was named after him (Wilsons Promontory?). Her brother George Graham was a Sydney solicitor; her cousin George Smith was the first Mayor of Manly. Clara was born in Liverpool in 1834 and her memory stretched back to the dark past. She could remember "when the present asylum was used as a military barracks, and the stocks and triangles were employed to punish rebellious convicts". The last convict ship had arrived in New South Wales from London on Christmas Eve 1849, a dozen years before William Surtees and his family arrived.
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| Collingwood Paper Mills |
William is described in Clara's obituary as having "built the Liverpool paper mill." This was the
Collingwood Paper Mill which, according to the
website of the developers who are even now working to turn it into Liverpool's new premier destination, could produce 20 tonnes of paper per week and was the biggest employer in the Liverpool district.
William and Clara had a little girl, Eva Eden, born in 1867. Then, the work on the paper mill finished, William and his little family left for Yorkshire, sailing from New South Wales for London on La Hogue at the beginning of January 1868. The passenger list in the
Sydney Morning Herald of 8 January 1868 names "Mr and Mrs Surtees and child"; I expect Eva was too young to be counted.
William returned, local boy made good, to Hutton Rudby. Perhaps he longed for the familiar; perhaps he felt the need to show how well he had done. He built himself a house beyond the edge of the village, in the fields between the Station Hotel at the corner of Doctors Lane and the Vicarage on Belborough Lane, and named it Eden Cottage. There is no sign of a house on this spot in the 1861 census, so I think we can safely assume that William built it and named it after his grandmother.
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Eden Cottage & the Thorman family, 1880s
Courtesy of Sue & Bob Hutchinson |
In 1869, Clara gave birth to another baby girl. She was baptised Amy Louisa Victoria on 29 March by the Revd R J Barlow, and her father's occupation given as Builder. The 1871 census finds them all at Eden Cottage: William, Clara, Thomas (now aged 12), Eva (aged 3) and 2 year old Amy. Clara was by then pregnant with Laura Adelaide, who was born a short while after the census was taken and baptised on 7 August.
In the 1871 census William described himself as a builder, and in the 1872 Post Office Directory as a builder and contractor. We catch a glimpse of his activities in this advertisement which appeared through the months of June and July 1873 – in it we can see that, having come home from Australia, he named his business Albion, the ancient name for Britain:
Daily Gazette for Middlesbrough, 24 June 1873
For Sale by Private Contract,
The Albion Steam Crushing and Cutting Mills, occupying the space between Boundary-road and Dale-street, Middlesbrough, in full work, and open to inspection.
Apply, by letter, in the first instance, to William Surtees, Eden Cottage, Hutton Rudby, via Yarm.
Perhaps he was selling his Steam Crushing and Cutting Mills to finance his new scheme. He was going to set up a sailcloth manufactury to rival the Wilsons' Cleveland Sailcloth Mill. Why did he decide to sink his capital into this rather unlikely business? Was he really likely to succeed? Nobody now knows.
He called it the Albion Sailcloth Works and built it on land he had bought on the edge of the village at the corner of Doctors Lane. This was not far from the village pond (on the opposite side of Garbutts Lane) and it had a good water supply. Malcolm McPhie, when a boy, was shown the well that supplied a house on that corner – when the lid was lifted, he could see running water at the bottom of the well. Surtees equipped his mill with a horizontal steam engine driving six Parker's Patent Mathematical Looms. This was a loom for weaving Navy sailcloth and other heavy fabrics; it was developed by C E & C Parker, Dundee and was exhibited at the Great Exhibition of 1851.
As for his other activities in the village, there is an interesting report from the magistrates' court in Stokesley in early January 1876:
York Herald, 15 January 1876
Stokesley Petty Sessions
William Surtees, of Hutton Rudby, stone mason, was charged by Police-constable Thompson with being drunk on licensed premises, occupied by Eliza Raney, of the Wheat Sheaf Inn. Defendant said that he was quite capable of talking on scientific subjects and transacting business. Fined 5s. and costs
What can have been going on? Mrs Elizabeth Raney was an experienced publican. Aged 64 at the time of this incident, she had been running the Wheatsheaf since her young husband Jeremiah died in 1842. William's scientific discussion and business transactions must have been getting rather noisy if she had to call the village policeman!
That summer, on 14 August 1876, William's son Thomas became a Merchant Navy apprentice, bound for a term of four years. (He can be found in the Register of Apprentices available on Ancestry.co.uk). Perhaps the voyages to and from Australia had inspired him; perhaps a love of heavy machinery was kindled in him by the equipment his father was buying.
Then, eighteen months later on 3 September 1877, William Surtees died at the age of 53. Thomas, who was able to be at his deathbed, went to the registrar Joseph Mellanby Mease to register the death. He gave his father's occupation as Contractor. The cause of death was certified by Dr M C Hopgood as "Anasarca". This is a general swelling of the whole body, probably caused in William's case by liver, kidney or heart failure.
He had hardly had time to get his enterprise up and running. The machinery was scarcely used.
His widow Clara and Thomas Milestone, the gardener at Skutterskelfe, were his Executors and they took out Probate promptly on 28 September. Clara then put the business up for sale – and the solicitor she chose was John George Wilson, brother of Allan and Thomas, who ran the rival business at the Cleveland Sailcloth Mill.
This notice of an auction sale to be held on 25 October 1877 gives us a great many details of this fleeting business:
Northern Echo, 13 October 1877
Hutton Rudby, in Cleveland – Albion Sailcloth Works and Freehold Land
TO BE SOLD BY AUCTION, at the Wheat Sheaf Inn, Hutton Rudby, in the County of York, on Thursday, October 25th, 1877, at Two for Three o'Clock in the Afternoon (subject to such conditions as shall then agreed),
Mr J J HANSELL, Auctioneer
All that newly-erected FREEHOLD SAILCLOTH FACTORY, situated at the north end of the village of Hutton Rudby aforesaid, together with the adjoining Field of Old Grass LAND, containing 1a. 1r. 15p., or thereabouts, be the same more or less.
The Factory comprises a large Manufacturing-room, measuring 64ft by 24ft 9in, together with Office, Storeroom, and Engine-house, and contains Six Parker's Patent Mathematical Looms, with all the necessary Preparing Frames and Finishing Machinery; also Paper Calendar, Horizontal Steam Engine, Boiler, and Cold Water Pump. The Machinery is of the best description; it has all been recently fitted up, and is in good condition, having been but little used. There is a capital supply of Water.
The Land is known by the name of the "Town End Field," and is splendidly situated, with a commanding view of the Cleveland Hills and surrounding district, and having extensive frontages to high roads on the North and East boundaries thereof, it may be easily sub-divided into excellent sites for the erection of Villas or other Residences.
Potto Station, on the North Yorkshire and Cleveland Branch of the North-Eastern Railway, is within the distance of One Mile from the Property.
A considerable portion of the Purchase Money may be left on Mortgage of the Premises on terms to be stated at the time of sale.
The Property will in the first instance be put up for sale in One Lot, and, if not sold, it will then be offered in such Lots as may be agreed upon.
Further particulars may be obtained on application to Mrs WILLIAM SURTEES, Hutton Rudby, near Yarm, Yorkshire; or to
Mr JOHN GEORGE WILSON, Solicitor,
Hutton Rudby and Durham.
Hutton Rudby, October, 1877
The Sailcloth Works came to an end and it is said that the buildings were used as a laundry and a dyeworks before being converted into the Albion House and Albion Terrace that we know today. In a decorative detail above the windows of the Terrace is the date 1881, so this happened within a very few years of William Surtees' death. Perhaps the conversion was the work of the builder Matthew Bewick Bainbridge, who lived in Albion House at the time of the 1881 census.
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| Albion Terrace in the 1930s |
Clara went back to Australia with her three little girls. I wonder when she sailed – probably as soon as she could sell up, as all her family were in New South Wales and there was nothing to keep her in England. Thomas stayed behind, but he saw Sydney again at least once. The crew list of the Parramatta out of London shows that he came back into Sydney harbour on 8 December 1879. One would think he must have gone to see his stepmother and half-sisters.
His time served, Thomas can be found in 1881 working as a fitter and boarding with his father's cousins, Margaret, Thomas and William Hansell, middle-aged unmarried siblings living together at 32½ Brunswick Street, Stockton. He married Margaret Adamson in the spring quarter of 1881 soon after the census was taken, and worked as a Marine Engine Maker. He might well have worked for Messrs Blair & Co, the company founded by George Young Blair of Drumrauch Hall, Hutton Rudby. By 1891 he and Margaret were living in Mount Pleasant Street, Norton-on-Tees and had four children between the ages of three and nine. By 1901 they were at 6 Trent Street, Stockton-on-Tees with their children Annie, William, Thomas, Margaret and Eva. William was apprenticed to a joiner and young Thomas was a junior clerk. Thomas died in the April-June quarter of 1907 aged 49.
Sydney Morning Herald, 11 October 1922
MRS C SURTEES
Mrs Clara Surtees, Liverpool's oldest resident, died suddenly at her home, George-street, Liverpool, on Thursday last, at the age of 87 years and was buried on Saturday.
She remembered Liverpool when the present asylum was used as a military barracks, and the stocks and triangles were employed to punish rebellious convicts. Among her recollections were the scenes when hundreds of Chinese were to be seen marching through the town on their way to the diggings; another was the time when George's River was navigable as far as Liverpool. She had seen steamers conveying supplies to the town and unloading at wat at present is the dam.
Her husband, Mr William Surtees, built the Liverpool paper mill. He was a Yorkshireman, and after completing that work he went with his wife and one daughter to England, residing there until his death. Mrs Surtees then returned to her native town of Liverpool.
Her eldest brother, the late Mr George Graham, was a well-known solicitor of his day in Sydney, and took a team of aboriginal cricketers to England so many year ago that the occurrence is well nigh forgotten. His son, George Graham, lately retired from the position of secretary to the Government Printing Office. Mrs Surtees's mother was a sister of Lieutenant Wilson, who first sighted the promontory on the southern coast which was named after him [Wilsons Promontory?]. A cousin, Mr George Smith, of Undercliffe, Manly, was the first Mayor of that borough. In the Liverpool cemetery the oldest family tombstone bears date 1809. When Mrs Surtees was 81 years of age she sustained an attack of double pneumonia, and although she recovered from it, her health was permanently impaired.
Eden Cottage, Albion House and Albion Terrace remain – a reminder of an unusual man. The Mease brothers, the Blacket brothers and George Wilson all came from backgrounds that gave them advantages that William Surtees never had; his achievements were hard-won and cut short by his untimely death.
