Who were they? A guide to the memorials & stained glass of Hutton Rudby church

I'm revisiting The People behind the Plaques: memorials in All Saints', Hutton Rudby to add my most recent research.  This is a slightly shorter version, it's got more illustrations – I hope it's written in a more accessible, less formal style – and I hope it will be useful for families and visitors to the church!

This is a guide for anyone who has ever wondered about the people commemorated in the tablets, memorials and stained glass of All Saints', Hutton Rudby.

All Saints', Hutton Rudby

You've come into the church by the south door.  

If you turn to the right, you will see an alcove in the wall.  Under a trefoiled arch lies a stone slab on which is carved the figure of a mediaeval priest holding a chalice. 

Monument to a priest, Rudby-in-Cleveland 
from Church Monuments Gazetteer

This is the earliest memorial in the church, dating from between the 12th and early 14th centuries, and – tantalisingly – we don't know who the priest is.  Suggestions include Thomas de Werlington, rector of the parish in the first decades of the 14th century.  Or it could represent Walter de Kirkham, Bishop of Durham.  Or King Edward I's friend Peter of Chester – he was rector when the lord of nearby Whorlton Castle was accused of four murders and arson.  Or possibly the deeply unpleasant Hugh de Cressingham, King Edward I’s Treasurer of Scotland, who was killed in 1297 at the Battle of Cambuskenneth.  He was so loathed by the Scots that they stripped the skin from his body – accounts say his body was fat and his skin fair – and it is said that William Wallace asked for a piece large enough to be made into a sword belt.

Another ancient survival can be seen to the left of the south door – a window with a border of fragments of mediaeval glass, in which can be seen a shield with the motto of a Garter Knight: "Honi soit qui mal y pense".  The arms on the shield are those of Sir John Conyers of Hornby.  Sir John acquired the manor of Hutton by marrying Margery, daughter and co-heiress of the last Lord Darcy and Meinell whose family had been given the manor by William the Conqueror.  

It was the Meynells and Darcys who built the first church on this site in the mid 12th century.  That was in the time of King Henry II, whose lands stretched across England, much of Wales, the east of Ireland and the west of France.  In about 1300, this early church was replaced by the present building.  The tower was added 100 years later.

Until the 1530s when Henry VIII split the church in England from the Church of Rome, the scene inside the church was very different to the one we see today.  There was a rood loft – a candle-lit wooden screen – separating the chancel, where the priests ministered at the main altar, from the nave where the people gathered.  On the walls all round the nave were paintings of angels, the Last Judgement and scenes from the Bible, and images and statues of the Virgin Mary and the saints.  All round the nave were side chapels – there was an altar to St Christopher, patron saint of travellers, and another to the great Anglo-Saxon saint of the North East, St Cuthbert.    

Sir John Conyers of Hornby was one of the great survivors of the Wars of the Roses (1455-1487).

Edward IV (1442-83)

After the Yorkist victory in 1461 at the Battle of Towton, the bloodiest battle ever fought on English soil, Edward Duke of York made himself King Edward IV in the place of King Henry VI.  But Edward's marriage to the beautiful Elizabeth Woodville led to a rift between Edward and his powerful cousin the Earl of Warwick, who was known as Warwick the Kingmaker.  So Warwick plotted to put Henry VI, then in the Tower of London, back on the throne.  

In the spring of 1469, North Country rebels under a mysterious captain called "Robin Mend-All" or "Robin of Redesdale" rose against Edward IV.  Redesdale, in the Debatable Land of the Scottish Borders, was the hideout of Henry VI's supporters, but it was clear that the rebels' centre of operations was Richmondshire in Yorkshire – and it is said that Robin was in fact Sir John Conyers of Hornby, steward for the Earl of Warwick at his castle at Middleham.  Warwick was behind the rising and he and his allies went on to defeat Edward's men at the Battle of Edgcote Field in Northamptonshire.   

Frail and bemused, Henry VI was made king again.

Warwick the Kingmaker

Then Edward IV made a savage comeback, Warwick died in the Battle of Barnet, and Henry VI was quietly murdered in the Tower.  

But Sir John Conyers was able to make his peace with Edward IV. Twelve years later, Edward's sudden death was followed by his brother Richard taking the throne in 1483, becoming King Richard III.  Sir John was so much in the new king's favour, that Richard made him a Knight of the Garter.  Two years later, Richard III was killed at the Battle of Bosworth Field and Henry Tudor took the throne as Henry VII.  Yet again Sir John managed to be greatly in favour at court.  He became a knight of the body to the new king and died, laden with honours, in 1490. 

At the base of the ancient font, you can see the arms of the Conyers family carved on a stone shield.  The wooden font cover is a much more recent gift to the church.  It was donated by the brothers and sisters of William Chapman, who farmed at Old Hall, Sexhow and was a churchwarden and Superintendent of the Sunday School for many years.  He died aged 66 in 1916.

Interior of Hutton Rudby church & the window to Sir John Henry Ropner

The nearby window on the west wall shows St Nicholas, patron saint of sailors and children, and St Francis of Assisi, patron saint of ecology and the environment.  It's the only window in the church to commemorate a man – all the others are dedicated to women – and it was the last window to be created.  When it was cut into the wall in 1937, the church looked much as it does today.  The last major alterations, outside and inside, were carried out in 1923.

The window was given to the church in memory of Sir John Henry Ropner (1860-1936) of Skutterskelfe Hall by his surviving daughter, Mrs Mary Enid Stroyan.  She and her sister Margaret had married brothers, the sons of Scottish industrialist and businessman John Stroyan.

Sir John Henry Ropner's father Robert (1838-1924) was one of the many Germans who took part in the great expansion of industry on the River Tees.  He was a shipbuilder, shipowner and Conservative MP for Stockton.  In 1882 he bought Preston Hall and Park in Eaglescliffe for a family home conveniently near to his businesses and the railway station, and he bought the country estates of Skutterskelfe and Rudby a dozen years later.  Sir Robert was knighted in 1902 and made a baronet in 1904.  He was very active in public life and he and his family were generous benefactors of Stockton and Hutton Rudby and generous donors to this church.  

When Sir Robert died in 1924, he left Preston Hall to his youngest son Leonard and Skutterskelfe Hall (nowadays called Rudby Hall) to his eldest son John, who inherited the title of baronet.  Preston Hall is now the Preston Park Museum and much more information about the family can be found there.

Facing the window to Sir John is the window above the altar of the Lady Chapel.  It was given in memory of a young mother – Sir John's elder daughter Margaret.  It shows the Blessed Virgin Mary with Jesus in her arms, the martyr St Catherine of Alexandria, and St John the Baptist.  Margaret Ropner was married to a young barrister, Captain John Stroyan.  In 1927 Margaret and John were staying with his father at Lanrick Castle in Perthshire, when their car left the road and went over an embankment into Loch Lubnaig.  Captain Stroyan escaped with minor injuries but Margaret was killed.  She was 32 years old and left two young children.  

In the south wall nearby is a window to the memory of Margaret's mother, Lady Ropner.  Born Margaret MacGregor, she married John Henry Ropner in 1888 and died in 1932 aged 69.  The window shows Faith, Hope, and Charity.  Charity is in the centre, with a child in her arms and children at her feet.  Faith has a lamp, the light of faith, and Hope is blindfolded, with only one string to her harp.

The best way of examining these windows and seeing all the tiny details – especially in the east window – is to go to Dave Webster's flickr page and zoom in to the pictures 

East window, Hutton Rudby church

At the east end of the church behind the main altar can be seen the fourth window given to the church by the Ropner family.  It is the largest and finest of all – the east window by J C Bewsey.  His design expresses the worship of Christ by the whole company of saints, apostles, prophets and teachers of the church and it is filled with figures, from tiny angels at the very top of the window to the saints gathered on either side of the Cross.  You can see St George with his banner on the left and St Joan of Arc with her banner on the right.  St Oswald, King of Northumbria, is on the far right with his sword.  Beside him kneels St Cuthbert, carrying St Oswald's head.  This is because the king's head is buried with St Cuthbert in Durham Cathedral.  

The window commemorates Sir Robert Ropner's wife Mary Anne Craik of Newton Stewart, who died at Preston Hall in 1921.  She and Sir Robert had been married for 65 years and had nine children. 

Elsewhere on the walls, you will find memorial tablets to Sir Robert and Mary Anne, to their youngest daughter Elsa, who had lived quietly at home with her parents and died aged 22, and to their son Sir John Henry and his wife Margaret.  The Ropner family vault can be found in the churchyard.  The family sold their estates at Skutterskelfe and Rudby after the Second World War.

On 14 May 1933, the vicar dedicated both the new east window in memory of Lady Ropner and the newly-built lych gate given by Allan Bowes Wilson.  It is hard now to imagine the church without them.  

Allan Bowes Wilson and his brother Thomas were the sons of George Wilson (1810-76), who founded the Hutton Sailcloth Mill, which stood on the Hutton side of the river.  On the photograph below, you can see the Hutton Sailcloth Mill on the other side of the bridge.

The newly-installed lych gate at Hutton Rudby church

From the mid 19th century until after the Second World War, the Wilsons were influential in the village as employers and property owners and were active in village celebrations and organisations.  Thomas Bowes Wilson, his wife and their three children lived at Enterpen Hall; Allan Bowes Wilson, who never married, lived at Hutton House with his unmarried sister.  Allan was very generous to All Saints', giving not only the lych gate but also a large donation towards the 1923 restoration and the panelling round the east end of the church.  He died in 1932 aged 93.

In the south wall of the Lady Chapel is a window showing Christ's Ascension.  It was given in memory of Maria Hutton, wife of Thomas Bowes Wilson.  She died in 1904 aged 55.  In the photograph below, which shows the south side of the church before the altar was restored to the Lady Chapel, you can see the window to Maria has been installed but the other windows are plain glass. 

Interior of Hutton Rudby church, early C20

Nearby are brass tablets to her husband Thomas, who died in 1929 aged 84, and their two sons.  

George Hutton Bowes-Wilson was a Middlesbrough solicitor who was also a Captain in the Territorials when the First World War broke out in 1914.  He died aged 38 from a sniper's bullet in 1915.  His two year old son had died only months earlier.  His younger brother John had joined the regular army and served in the Boer War.  He was a Lieutenant Colonel of 37, a married man with two little daughters, when he was killed in action in 1917. 

On the other side of the church, on the north wall, you will find a memorial to the other young men of the village who died in the war.  They came from all walks of life – stonemason, farm worker, teacher, railway porter, bank clerk … Brief biographies can be found in Fallen Leaves, a Millennium Project by the parish, on the Hutton Rudby History Society Facebook page.  

Among the young men was 21 year old George Young Blair, the only son of Mrs Mary Young Blair of Linden Grove.  

The west window, whose clear glass lights the church, commemorates Mrs Blair, a generous donor to the church and village, who donated the land on which to build the Village Hall in 1927.  She died in 1935.  She was the daughter of the Stockton industrialist George Young Blair (1826-94), who built Drumrauch Hall on Belbrough Lane as his country house.  In 1895 his family gave the church an organ in his memory – he was a man with a passion for music – which will have made a great change from the harmonium music of the previous 35 years.  (Before the harmonium was installed in 1860, a small orchestra of bassoon, oboe and strings used to play from a gallery built against the west wall in the 18th century).  The Blairs were generous donors to the village and church.  During the church restoration in 1923, the villagers were taken by bus to Drumrauch Hall where services were held in the music room.  

Nearby on the north wall is a plain white marble tablet to the memory of John Mease and his wife Hannah Geldart.  

It was John Mease who built the mill which was later developed by George Wilson and his sons into the Hutton Sailcloth Mill.  John Mease and his brother Thomas were entrepreneurs in the chancy world of the newly industrialising textile business of the early 19th century.  Together they set up a steam-powered flax-spinning mill behind Stokesley High Street, and Thomas built the New Mill (now Millbry Hill country store) beside the packhorse bridge on the River Leven.  

Hutton Rudby church and the Hutton Sailcloth Mill

In the mid-1830s, John set up his own water-powered flax-spinning mill in the field beside the Hutton Rudby bridge.  When the business didn't prosper, he moved his family to London where he was a hop factor, buying hops for the huge London brewery market, and he leased the mill buildings to George Wilson.  He kept Leven House, his home in the village, as a country escape.  It stands not far from the church, at the bottom of Hutton Bank.  His wife Hannah died in London in 1851, when their two children were aged 12 and 14.  John died at Leven House in 1876 at the age of 77.

Pulpit, Hutton Rudby church

The pulpit is a particular treasure of the church.  It was the gift of Thomas Milner of Skutterskelfe, a man who lived through the turbulent Tudor period.  He was born in 1525, the year in which King Henry VIII began to fall for the charms of Anne Boleyn.  He was 11 when Henry VIII began the dissolution of the monasteries and the religious houses of England were disbanded, and he was 14 when the monks had to leave nearby Mount Grace Priory.  At the age of 21 he inherited a one-third share in the manor of Skutterskelfe from his mother Elizabeth Lindley, and it was in Skutterskelfe that he spent his life.  He died on 7 November 1594, six years after donating the large sum of £25 to the defence of the country against the Spanish Armada.  

By the time he made his Will on 28 June 1589, the candles, images and chapels were long gone from All Saints', destroyed or removed following Henry VIII's split from the Church in Rome.  But Thomas Milner was a stout Protestant and had no regrets for the past.  He now planned to make his mark on the bare walls of the church.  His tomb was to be built into the stonework of the wall at the end of the stall where he usually sat.  It was to match the trefoiled arch in the south wall with the slab depicting the priest holding a chalice.  There was to be an inscription in copper or brass above it 

"with my grandfather’s name, my father, and mother, wife and daughter with my own name declaring the day of my death and year, and more as shall be thought good by my executors (whom I do in God’s behalf require to perform this my request)"  

The tomb is hidden now behind the organ installed in 1974, but you can see the inscription on the wall.  The family tree begins with his grandfather Thomas Lindley and ends with his grandson Sir Thomas Layton of Sexhow.  It must have taken the family some time to install it – Thomas Layton wasn't knighted until 1614.  This is the text:

"Thomas Lynley esquier married Margery the second daughter of Sr Thomas Newport knight and had issu Elizabeth marryed to Joseph Sorthwait ale [alias] Mylner esquier who had issu Thomas Mylner who marryed Frances the daughter of Willyam Baytes esquier who had issu Mary who was marryed to Charles Layton esquier and had issu Sr Thomas Laiton knight Here lyeth the body of Thomas Mylner deceased the 8oe November 1594"

Thomas Milner's surscription, Hutton Rudby church

Having dealt with his tomb, Thomas Milner left a legacy of 20 shillings (£1) to the church for the building of "a comely new pulpit for the preaching of God's word".  A pity, he said, that for the past 40 years there hadn't been better doctrine preached in the church.

In the 18th century, when the church interior was plain and white, and a flat ceiling had been installed and the arched windows replaced by sash windows such as you would have in a house, the pulpit was whitewashed as well.  It must have looked very unimpressive.  It was only during the restoration work done in 1860 that they found once more the beautiful marquetry and the name Thomas Milner underneath five coats of paint.  

Thomas, unlike his grandfather Thomas Lindley, wasn't entitled to a coat of arms of his own, so the shield bears the three griffin heads of the Lindleys and the three talbot dogs of the Gowers.  The Lindleys had acquired their lands in Cleveland through the marriage of a Lindley in the 15th century with one of the daughters of John Gower of Sexhow and Skutterskelfe, whose family had held these lands for 200 years.

The lectern, in the shape of an eagle, was carved by Alexander Park, a gentleman farmer who lived at Leven House with his elderly spinster sisters at the end of the 19th century.  Mr Park was for years the honorary secretary of the Hurworth Hunt, and was said not to have made a single enemy during all his time in office.  On his last day out with the hounds he and his old black horse had a combined age of 99.  He and his sisters were very generous and active in village and church life: the choir stalls and altar rails were given to the church by the family.

View to the chancel, Hutton Rudby church

The chancel lies beyond the pulpit and the organ.  While the plaster was stripped from the walls of the nave in the restoration of 1923, the walls of the chancel are still plastered and on them you can see the memorials to the people who owned the manors of Rudby and Skutterskelfe before the Ropner family.

Isabella Ingram inherited the manor of Rudby, which her forebear Sir Arthur Ingram had acquired in about 1634, and her husband then bought the adjoining estate of Skutterskelfe.  She was born in the early 18th century and died in 1799, so she saw the reigns of George I, George II and George III, the American War of Independence and the French Revolution.  She was married to General the Hon. George Cary, the younger son of the 6th Viscount Falkland, and they had two daughters.  George and Isabella replaced the old manorial hall at Skutterskelfe with a new mansion house, which they called Leven Grove.  

George Cary died in 1792 and Isabella put up a tablet in his memory – "an honest and charitable man and a generous friend."  On Isabella's death seven years later, her daughter Elizabeth added a marble tablet with a tribute to her mother: "meekly wise and innocently chearful."

Elizabeth, Lady Amherst
by Reynolds, 1767

The estates of Rudby and Skutterskelfe came to Elizabeth after her mother's death.  She was by then about sixty years old.  In 1767 when she was 27, she was married to a 50 year old widower, Jeffery Amherst.  He was made a peer in 1776, becoming 1st Baron Amherst.  While commander of the army during the Seven Years' War (1756-63), he wanted to exterminate the Native American tribes that opposed the British and supported the policy of infecting them with smallpox.  In his later years, he was commander-in-chief of the army and was criticised for allowing it to go into decline and for refusing to give up his position until nearly senile.  He had no children, so on his death in 1797 at the age of 80 it was his great-nephew who inherited his title.  

Elizabeth, Lady Amherst died in London in 1830 aged 90, and was buried at Sevenoaks where she and her husband had lived.  Her father had bought Skutterskelfe when she was 16 years old and she must have known the area well.  She was particularly fond of a hawthorn tree at Tame Bridge on the road to Stokesley and had it protected by a railing, while the size of her legacy to her gardener shows how keen she was on her gardens and hothouses.  She left her estates to a young relative, Lucius Bentinck Cary.

Besides the tablet to her mother, Elizabeth had also erected a memorial to Lucius Bentinck Cary's parents and his sister Emma.  His father was Charles John Cary, 9th Viscount Falkland.  He was a Naval captain and a friend of the poet Lord Byron.  He died in 1809 aged 40, two days after he was fatally wounded in a duel, the result of a quarrel with another man while both were the worst for drink.  He left a young widow Christiana and four children – his heir, Lucius, was only 6 years old.  Unfortunately, Christiana became obsessed with Lord Byron and harassed him with letters until he had to put the matter into the hands of his solicitors.  

Christiana died when her son Lucius was 19 years old.  He served for a time as Captain in the 7th Foot Regiment but when he was 27 he inherited Rudby and Skutterskelfe from Elizabeth Lady Amherst.  This was a piece of great good fortune as his title had brought him little by way of money.  A month or two later, immediately after Christmas 1830, he married Amelia Fitzclarence in the Brighton Pavilion in the presence of her father the King.

Amelia Fitzclarence (1807-58)

Amelia was the youngest of the ten children of the actress Dorothy Jordan and William Duke of Clarence, son of King George III and brother of King George IV.  Amelia was too young to know the happy family life that Dora and William had once enjoyed.  Her mother was so short of money that she had to go back onto the stage when Amelia was a baby, and she died when Amelia was 11.  The Fitzclarence children were in a difficult position, socially.  Their mother, a fine actress, was illegitimate herself and had several illegitimate children before she became the Duke of Clarence's mistress and gave birth to Amelia, her brothers and sisters.

After King George IV's only child Princess Charlotte died in childbirth in 1817, a crisis in the monarchy loomed.  If one of his brothers couldn't produce an heir, the crown would pass to a distant relative.  The unmarried brothers had to find wives.  Amelia's father William made a marriage that was suitable for a Royal duke and married a German princess, Adelaide.  In her, his daughters found a truly kind stepmother but there was to be no heir to the throne – Adelaide's two daughters died within weeks of birth.  In 1830 George IV died, and William and Adelaide became king and queen.

Soon after Amelia's marriage to Lucius Cary, Lucius came north to mortgage his new estates and arrange for Leven Grove, Lady Amherst's house at Skutterskelfe, to be demolished and a new mansion house built to the design of the architect Anthony Salvin.  He and Amelia were not to live in their beautiful new house for long.  When her father died in 1837 and his niece Victoria became queen, Lucius Cary took up the posts of Governor of Nova Scotia and then of Bombay.  

Skutterskelfe Hall, designed by Salvin

In 1857 Amelia published Chow-chow: Being selections from a Journal Kept in India, Egypt and Syria.  It's a lively and attractive account of her travels in the East and it can be read online today.  On 2 July 1858, she died in London at the age of 55 after a short illness.  She had particularly wished to be buried in the churchyard in Hutton Rudby.  Her body was brought north by special train and on 10 July she was buried in a vault on the south side of the churchyard.  A great number of people attended the funeral.  The Rev Robert Joseph Barlow spoke her eulogy: 

"no one was too lowly for her to address, no one was too much despised by the world for her to stoop to and think of.  Her fervent charity, embracing the wants of all, was limited only by the extent of her ability."  

He was much moved himself and many of his listeners were in tears.

In November the following year, Viscount Falkland remarried.  His new wife Elizabeth was the daughter of General Joseph Gubbins and the widow of the Duke of St Albans.  They lived in the south of France, possibly because it was cheaper, and he died there in 1884 at the age of eighty.  His only son died childless, so his brother Plantagenet Pierrepont Cary came into the title.  He was already an old man.  He had entered the navy at the age of fourteen and served in the Burmese war, rising finally to Admiral in 1870.  Naval prize money may have come his way and he married a very wealthy woman, so he left a substantial estate.  He died childless in 1886 and on his death his nephew Byron Plantagenet Cary became the 12th Viscount Falkland – and, by his uncle's Will, came into much-needed funds.

Byron Plantagenet Cary (1845-1922) had entered the army at eighteen and served twenty years, chiefly with the 35th Foot, before retiring in 1883 with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel.  He married a petite and energetic American heiress in 1879, and for a few years in the 1890s he and his young family lived at Skutterskelfe Hall.  During that time they were generous and active in village affairs.  There is no memorial to the 12th Viscount in the church although he was a churchwarden here for a while, because the financial difficulties caused by the business failure of his father-in-law Robert Reade of New York obliged him to sell his northern estates in about 1895.  

Skutterskelfe and Rudby were bought by Sir Robert Ropner, whose descendants were benefactors of the church and village until after the Second World War.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Long hours at the Stokesley drapers' shops: 1856

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

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

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

To the Editors of the York Herald

Gentlemen,

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

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

I am, Gentlemen, yours respectfully,

A Friend of Young Men

Stokesley, May 6th, 1856

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

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

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

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

Their aims were 

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

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

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

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

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

Like a trade union, but without any teeth …

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

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

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

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

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

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

The unfortunate Edwin Orphan: 1832

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

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

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

These were eventful times of disruption and change.  

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

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

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

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

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

Thursday, 9th Feb 32

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

SWING 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Convict ships in the East India Docks in 1851

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

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

......

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

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

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

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

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

Notes

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

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

and
Hutton Rudby 1876 to 1877: the Albion Sailcloth Mill

Henry Savile Clarke of Guisborough & Lewis Carroll's Alice

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

Phoebe Carlo 1887

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

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

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

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

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

The Eland family of Hutton Rudby

 I've just made a correction and added extra information to the entry on the Elands in People of Hutton Rudby in the C18/19: Easby to Emerson (my blogpost of 22 March 2013).

I particularly like the portrait of a child by John Shenton Eland and the Eland connection to the Wall Street Journal – many thanks to Gill Whitehouse for this! 

14. Epilogue: 1688

Alice had lived through many changes in her long life – and the restoration of King Charles II in 1661 wasn't the last of the political convulsions that she saw.  Charles II had no legitimate children, so when he died in 1685 it was his Catholic brother James who came to the throne.  His brief reign went downhill quickly.  

James II

Seven influential Protestants wrote to the Protestant prince William of Orange – who was James' nephew and married to his daughter Mary – inviting him to invade and promising they would rise in support.  One of the seven was Alice's first cousin Thomas Osborne, Lord Danby.  

He was the boy who survived the roof collapse in York in 1638 because he was looking for his cat under the table.  He had a long and chequered career as a stateman – he was impeached twice.  He had led the government of Charles II during the 1670s and been made Earl of Danby in 1674.  He was a fierce opponent of Catholics and Nonconformists, and a keen supporter of an alliance with the Dutch Republic.  In fact, he had negotiated the marriage of William of Orange with Charles II's niece Mary in spite of her father's opposition.  But he didn't have a talent for friendship.  Pale, lean and sickly looking, he needed his government position to make money and he stayed in power by corruption.  People said he was proud, ambitious, false, revengeful and greedy.  He had been brought down in 1678 and ended up in the Tower of London for five years.  But he was back in the House of Lords for 1688.

Thomas Osborne
1st Duke of Leeds (1632-1712)

William of Orange landed at Brixham in Devon with a large army on Guy Fawkes' Day 1688.  Lord Danby kept his word.  As William began to advance east, Lord Danby and his men – including Henry Belasyse, the son of Sir Richard Belasyse of Potto – took York and Hull.  (Lord Danby's reward was to be made Marquess of Carmarthen in 1689 and Duke of Leeds in 1694).

James' support collapsed and William and Mary became joint rulers of England and Scotland.  But the Catholic Irish stood out for James and for two and a half years, until William secured victory over James, Ireland was once again submerged in bloody conflict.  

The war in Ireland ended in October 1691.  The three kingdoms were now under a constitutional monarchy and Ireland would be dominated by a Protestant élite for the two centuries that followed.

William of Orange
(William III of England) (1650-1702) 

Note 

These events are known as the Glorious Revolution and the Williamite War.

For sources of this series of blogposts, see Alice Wandesford in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms