William Weldon Carter & Eden Lodge, Hutton Rudby

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

The Daily Gazette for Middlesbrough, 15 April 1880 

Desirable Country Residence 

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

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

There is Hard and Soft Water on the premises. 

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

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

EUGENE E. CLEPHAN,

Architect and Surveyor,

Stockton-on-Tees.

March 16th, 1880.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Liverpool Mail, 28 February 1863 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Daily Gazette for Middlesbrough, 2 December 1874 

Carter Bros.,

Wholesale & Retail Drapers

Stockton-on-Tees

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

a very comfortable and commodious House, and conveniently situated

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

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

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

Sunderland Daily Echo, 3 December 1880 

New Drapery Store

212, High-Street, Sunderland

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

William Weldon Carter

Wishes the General Public to know,

without giving a Long List to read,

they will find all their requirements 

at Prices undoubtedly the Best

Value in the North

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

and directly below it was another notice

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

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

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

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

Daily Gazette for Middlesbrough, 22 September 1881 

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

An end to all his dreams.  

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

And after that ... 

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

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

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

Northern Echo, 28 December 1896 

Death of a Stockton tradesman

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

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

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

The Enterprise Arcade is on the far left

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

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

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

North Yorkshire dialect – & the White Horse of Kilburn

As I said in On the Sea Cliffs of Cleveland, my last blogpost, one of William Stott Banks' great interests was Yorkshire dialect.  

He began his walks in Cleveland rather disappointed:

16 July 1864  Wakefield Free Press

Walks in Yorkshire X:  Cleveland - Upper Eskdale - over moors to Lewisham Station

A first journey anywhere is always open to doubt; but it is necessary to begin somewhere, and so we decide upon starting off with Roseberry Topping in Cleveland, that sweet green cone, from childhood believed to belong to Margery Moorpoot and associated in one's head to a broad north Yorkshire dialect supposed to be spoken by men and women with laughing mouths opening from ear to ear across great red cheeks; but, sad to say, our little-boy's dream will not come true, for these things will seem to have quite gone out if they ever were in; nobody will as a matter of course call Ayton "Canny Yatton," though many still think Roseberry "b'biggest hill i' all Yorkshur, aboon a mahle an a hawf heegh an as cawd as ice at t' top on't i' t'yattist day i' summer," which it is not; nor will any peculiarity of face be seen, nor the farmers be found in any sense to come under the denomination bumpkins.

Margery Moorpoot was a character from farce who, when asked where she came from, declared 

Ah was bred and boorn at Canny Yatton aside Roseberry Topping

and when asked where that was, replied

Ah thowght onny feeal hed knawn Roseberry. – It's biggest hill in all Yorkshire. It's aboon a mahle and a hawf heegh an' as cawd as ice t' top on't i' t' yattest day i' summer; that it is. 

And that is why William Stott Banks writes of a "little-boy's dream" and "great red cheeks".  He must have been remembering going to a theatre to see a farce played, complete with heavy stage makeup and comic country 'bumpkins'.  

Margery Moorpoot was the creation of a Stockton man, the playwright and poet Joseph Reed (1727-83).  

There is a wikipedia entry for Reed, drawing on the Dictionary of National Biography entry, and there is an account of Reed, with his own comic description of his early life, on page 85 of The Local Records of Stockton and the Neighbourhood by Thomas Richmond (1868), which can be read online here. 

Joseph Reed succeeded to his father's business as a ropemaker, but was always devoted to literature and in 1757 he moved his business and family to London.  In 1761 he made a great hit with 'The Register Office: a Farce' in which Margery Moorpoot, a Yorkshire servant looking for work at a register office in London, featured and which was popular for years.  In one revival, the part of a female author called Mrs Doggerell was played by the celebrated comic actor Mrs Jordan – mistress of William IV and mother of Amelia Fitzclarence, wife of 10th Viscount Falkland, whose memorial can be found in Hutton Rudby church, (see The People behind the Plaques)

The text of dialogue between Gulwell of the register office and Margery Moorpoot can be found transcribed here on Genuki.  It's from Specimens of the Yorkshire Dialect (1808) *.  

Roseberry Topping – from this angle it still looks like a cone

William Stott Banks deplored the loss in Yorkshire of the old ways of speech and dialectal words.  He might not have come across anybody referring to Canny Yatton, but he did find that Snick Gate was pronounced Snek Yat, Stokesley was Stowsleh and Raindale was Raindil, and on the next walk he was reassured:

20 August 1864 Wakefield Free Press 

Walks in Yorkshire X: Bilsdale - Ryedale - Hambleton Hills 

To answer a doubt which lately arose and moreover not to overstate things, we have been under obligation of inquiring whether the striking peculiarities of dialect, not heard on our last walk, but put down in books as characterising Cleveland 30 or 40 years ago, have ceased to the extent supposed; and it may be said, so far, that while what was noticed before is generally true, there are here as all over persons whose manners and speech have not yet undergone the changes that schooling, quick travelling and more extended intercourse with other places and people are everywhere bringing about.

And in that walk he included pronunciations such as Wainstones (pronounced wean or wearn) and he reported the speech of people he met.  

At the end of the walk he reaches Gormire and the White Horse of Kilburn.  As the wikipedia article on the White Horse explains, while some say that the horse was made by the schoolmaster, his pupils and some volunteers, a tablet near the carpark gives the credit to one Thomas Taylor.  

The tablet was put in place after a restoration following a public appeal in 1925.  The Horse had been renovated after a public appeal a generation earlier:  

29 June 1896 Bradford Daily Telegraph 

The notable Yorkshire landmark, the White Horse of Kilburn ... was originally completed on the 4th of November, 1857, by the projector, Mr Thomas Taylor, a native of Kilburn and for many years a resident in London ... The projector dying something like a quarter of a century ago, the figure was neglected and got from bad to worse, and at the commencement of the year was so overgrown with weeds that it was found necessary to ask for outside aid for its renovation, or otherwise to allow it to become obliterated altogether.

In 1925 it was the Yorkshire Evening Post that raised the funds and on 15 August 1931 the newspaper proudly reported – along with an account of the money spent on the 'grooming' of the horse that year – that it was in "fine fettle" and that 

The history of the White Horse is set forth in the following inscription on the tablet which is let into the ground near the back of the statue:- 

The Kilburn 'White Horse'

This figure was cut in 1857,

on the initiative of 

Thomas Taylor,

a native of Kilburn.  In 1925

a restoration fund was subscribed

by readers of 

The Yorkshire Evening Post,

and the residue of £100 was

invested to provide for the 

Triennial 'Grooming' of the figure.

The wikipedia article quotes Morris Marples in his book White Horses and Other Hill Figures (1949 and still available secondhand from a 1980s reprint) as giving the credit to Taylor, a native of Kilburn, who was a buyer for a London provision merchant.  "He seems to have attended celebrations at Uffington White Horse in 1857, and he was inspired to give his home village a similar example."

A report in the Northern Echo of 2 July 2004 reveals that both schools of thought are right – the horse was the idea of Thomas Taylor and it was carried out by his friend, the village schoolmaster John Hodgson with the schoolchildren.  The newspaper's source was one of the Hodgson family – and he held a copy of the original drawing, with all the measurements, that Thomas Taylor sent to John Hodgson.  It had been passed down in the family over the generations and the only other copy is in the Yorkshire Museum in York.  There is a photograph of the drawing on this website.

When William Stott Banks and his walking companions came to the White Horse it was less than 10 years since it had been cut.  He begins by describing the scene.  The white mare he refers to can only mean White Mare Crag.

Just below Whitstone cliff is the lake Gormire covering about sixteen acres, and here, as in Berkshire, we have a white horse newly chalk't every year, and a white mare too.

There they encountered a Kilburn woman who lived between Whitstone Cliff and Roulston Scar, and what she told them is interesting, not only for the dialect, but also for the details she gave them of the creator of the White Horse.  

T'wite mare is under Wissuncliff an' t'wite 'orse is just a back at'bank facin t'toon o' Kilb'n.  T'wite 'orse wodn't shew itself aboon as it wod below.  It's clean'd a' brack'ns ivery year and chalk't oot.  Tommy Taylor at's gone tuv Australia 'ed it pick't oot for a memorandum not so very monny years sin; may be ten years mebbe.  Taylor wur born at Kilb'n an 'e got a taumst'n put up for all t'family livin an' deead an' put their names on, a particular sort of a man.  Ther's none on 'em left noo.  Ther's 'unerds an' thoosans comes to Gormire.  I's gawin that rawd in a minit.

I think that Thomas Taylor must be the cheesefactor (that is, he would be buying cheese from the makers to be sold in the London markets) who is to be found in the 1851 census living with his wife Ann and their six children at Kilburn Cottage, Central Hill, Lambeth.  He was born in Kilburn in about 1808 and we can see his attachment to his birthplace in the choice of a name for his house.  As to whether they all went to Australia at some point, I don't know!  In the 1861 census Thomas and Ann and two of the children were in Central Hill, Lambeth, but I know no more than that.  As to the tombstone that Thomas Taylor had made, I have no idea!

Dialects constantly change and language adapts over time and place.  There has been noticeable 'levelling' of dialects across Europe and in North Yorkshire I expect we have all noticed the slow disappearance in some areas of the old ways of speaking.  So William Stott Banks' transliteration of the people he heard as he walked in North Yorkshire in 1864 is to be treasured, and it is always a joy to listen to the old lilting speech to be heard in the voice of the late Maurice Atkinson in the videos on the Hutton Rudby and District Facebook page.

And, with words dating from long before Banks' time, the Yorkshire Historical Dictionary of historic terms from early documents (1100 to c1750) is great!

*There is an ebook of Specimens of Yorkshire Dialect or you can read it online from this link, which Blogger won't let me edit so it is very long:

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=sTJAAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA1&lpg=PA1&dq=%22specimens+of+the+yorkshire+dialect%22+1808&source=bl&ots=mNcq-4HSbt&sig=ACfU3U0rtJc_BJ1v7dre2dXXZ5PhaJb7Cg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjmv_nXsILtAhVyt3EKHdOPDh44ChDoATAFegQIBhAC#v=onepage&q=%22specimens%20of%20the%20yorkshire%20dialect%22%201808&f=false 

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.

Walk the Cleveland Way – in 1866

An ideal trip back in time for anyone planning to walk the Cleveland Way when lockdown is over, or for people who know it well.  Actually, this isn't actually the whole Cleveland Way but only a section of it.  It's an account written in 1866 of a two day walking holiday along the coast from the newly-built and select resort of Saltburn by the Sea to the ancient town of Whitby.  The writer, who styles himself J.G. (in those days, newspaper articles were anonymous), is drawn by the prospect of a hearty walk and the scenery, but it's the industry and geology that really capture his attention:

Yorkshire Gazette, 14 July 1866

A visit to the Sea Cliffs of Cleveland

The Yorkshire sea coast is upwards of 100 miles in extent, and is, more or less, interesting to the tourist.  The coast of the East Riding begins at Spurn Head, and ends near Filey, and that of the North Riding from near Filey to the Tees mouth, near Redcar.  Desirous of spending a couple of days on the sea coast, and of seeing some of the ironstone districts of Cleveland, about which much has been said, we happened to look into a little book styled North Yorkshire by John Gilbert Baker, lately published, and at page 148 it is stated 

Now that the railway runs to Saltburn on the one side, and to Whitby on the other, this grand sweep of craggy coast is brought within the range of easy access to tourists, and it is to be expected that it will be more visited, and become better known than it has been.

The tide is often inconvenient for paying a visit to the crags from below, and to skirt their upper edge necessitates 

a good deal of rough scrambling, but to those who are able to make it, and who care for either magnificent scenery or geology, the walk between Saltburn and Whitby will richly repay the exertion.

Here is the very tract of country mapped out for a two days' trip, embracing in its range everything that is requisite for healthy exertion and for a general knowledge of the ironstone strata of the Cleveland hills.

The train which left York at 6 a.m. arrived at Saltburn at 9.30 on Tuesday, the 26th of June.  The Zetland Hotel, not far from the station, was built by the Stockton and Darlington Railway Company at a cost of £30,000, and on each side, with a southern front, are built rows of handsome lodging houses and shops and detached villas.  On the sands were ten bathing machines, and besides the usual comforts of a popular sea-bathing town, there is the two mile romantic walk of Skelton Glen, the entrance to which is opposite the beautiful range of lodging houses.

Zetland Hotel today
by Donnylad, licensed by CC BY-SA 2.0

The Vassal Singers in Nunthorpe before the First World War

This was written many years ago by Kay Hill (1905-2005).  I think it must have appeared in some publication but I don't know which.  She was born Katharine Isobel Ellis Stubbs and she lived with her parents and two elder brothers at Red Croft (now 113 Guisborough Road) in the little hamlet called Nunthorpe Station.

Katharine Stubbs c1914

The Vassal Singers

They were known throughout the North Riding as the Vassal Singers, although they chanted rather than sang, and learned writers spelled the word "wassail".

They came every November, a group of boys and girls, aged between five and fifteen years old, carrying a deep, oblong, cardboard box containing a doll tucked up in bed.

I saw them first when I was six years old and never forgot the doll.  She had a china face and blue staring eyes that never closed.  Her head was on a pillow and her body covered with a counterpane of white cotton sprinkled with faded flowers, probably a scrap of material from a well-washed summer frock.

They chanted, rather than sang, on one note in our broad, delightful North Riding dialect that so clearly reflects a Scandinavian origin.  The verse, as my mother taught it to me afterwards, went, as I remember, something like this:

God bless the Maister of this hoose

And the Mistress alsaw.

And all the pretty childer

As round your table gaw.

And all your kith and kindred

As dwells both far and near.

We wish you a Merry Kissimuss

And a Happy New Year.

We gave them pennies and biscuits, cakes and apples.  My mother told me I must always keep up the custom, as she had heard that townspeople coming into the village were turning them away unkindly, believing them to be carol singers arriving far too early, just a nuisance.

They never came again after the First World War and I am told that the name of the leader, a shy, gangling boy, is alongside that of my brother on the village War Memorial.

I was enchanted by the word "Kissimuss" and taught it to my brothers when they came home from school for Christmas, until it became a family word that I am quite capable of using to this day.

I wish you a Merry Kissimuss and a Happy New Year.

.............

Kay Hill lived to be 100 years old.  More of her recollections of life before the First World War can be found at Days of plenty in Redcar: a middle class household before the First World War

More of her writing can be found here 

The Poltergeist at Moor Farm, North Yorkshire: 1940 to 1950 

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

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

 

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

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

Mon 13 November 1682

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yorkshire Gazette, 21 April 1860 

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

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

This is one of Mrs Wardale's advertisements:

Whitby Gazette 3 November 1866

The Sheffield (late Albert) Hotel, Runswick Bank Top 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cholera: glimpses of the pandemics of the 19th century

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

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

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

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

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

Meanwhile, there were plenty of advertisements for patent medicines.

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

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

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

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

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

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

York Herald, 22 September 1849

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

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

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

York Herald, 15 October 1853

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

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

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

Huddersfield Chronicle, 2 September 1854

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

In 1865 the cholera returned yet again to Britain.  

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

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

York Herald, 6 October 1866

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

Richmond & Ripon Chronicle, 13 October 1866

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

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

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

He deplored the fact that

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

The French and German scientists were from 

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

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

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

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

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

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

Public health reform was truly on its way.