Wednesday 21st January 2015
9 members and a guest attended the meeting held on 21st January, the theme of which was ‘old family photographs’.
Several members brought along exhibits from their family albums, which ranged in age from one of the earliest photographs taken in the 1800’s right up to the present day. We heard stories and asked questions about ancestors exploits in the Navy in the late 1800’s, an American adventurer who settled in North Shields in the 1850’s and who ended his days in Tynemouth workhouse, a 1912 family wedding in South Shields, a WW1 soldier awarded the Military Medal, followed by Merchant Navy Officers and a ladies day ‘charabanc’ trip, both of which were believed to have been taken in the early 1930s.
An interesting and lively discussion, one of the aspects of which brought to the fore the many characteristics we inherit from our fore-fathers
Wednesday 11th December 2013
Phil Thirkell – The Victoria Tunnel
The December meeting of the South Tyneside Branch took place in South Shields St Hilda’s parish Church Visitor Centre on Wednesday 11th December and was attended by about a dozen members. Phil Thirkell gave us a fascinating talk, illustrated by slides, about the Victoria Tunnel.
This brick-lined tunnel, which runs under Newcastle from the site of Spital Tongues Colliery to near the mouth of the Ouseburn, was created in the 1840s to carry coal from the colliery to staithes on the river. It was built remarkably quickly, through boulder clay, and only operated for a short while, yet it was so well designed and built that much of it is still upstanding today, a great tribute to local engineers and builders. It has been put to several uses since it ceased to carry coal, amongst them its conversion into an air-raid shelter, complete with blast walls, chemical toilets, seats and bunk beds, during WWII, a use for part of it as a short-lived mushroom farm and, the lower part, its present-day capacity as a visitor attraction – though visits must be pre-arranged with the right people. A visit to the tunnel looks like a distinct possibility next summer – the branch was reminded that we have already visited it, but that was around 20 years ago and, on the whole, by a different set of members.
The interest aroused by Phil’s talk was apparent in the discussion afterwards, which, as these post-meeting discussions often do, was continued later in the Steam Boat Inn!
Wednesday 15th January 2014
Some ten members turned out to participate in our “members’ evening”, which was a fairly informal chat about significant items in members’ own family histories.
One member showed us a vey rare and valuable Naval General Service Medal, dated 1848. That was the year such medals were first introduced but the man to whom it had been issued was by then quite elderly and had had his naval service a long time before. Indeed he had served at the famous Battle of Camperdown, the same in which Jack Crawford of Sunderland fame had performed his heroic deed.
Another member showed a rare metallic photograph, a very early type, dating apparently from just after the daguerrotypes. It was, unusually, close to A4 size, although normally they were taken with cameras having twelve lenses, producing twelve small images, so the subject could send a copy to lots of friends and relatives. The winsome lady in the photo turned out to have had a very interesting background and although she was shown as grimacing terribly, it was pointed out that that was probably the result of having to hold her pose for a long time!
Among other “exhibits” were two (modern copies of) marriage certificates for a couple who married each other twice, one wedding being three years after the other, in 1868 and 1871. The theory was that he was a serving soldier and as such would not have been allowed to marry without his CO’s permission. Possibly he had not got that and, in the eyes of the Army, was therefore still a single man. He would therefore not have received a married man’s pay and would not have qualified for married quarters. That seems to have been corrected by a “posh” wedding, in the Royal Chapel of the Tower of London, no less! Quite something for an ordinary Private Soldier!
Wednesday 19th February 2014
A dozen members and guests came to hear Catherine Wright speak on “Northumbria Paper Mills”, a subject on which she is obviously very knowledgeable. Her well-illustrated talk kept everyone absorbed, especially as she concentrated on those on the Tyne and its tributaries. She therefore mentioned not only those in South Shields and Jarrow but those at Scotswood, Teams, Lintzford, Shotley Bridge and elsewhere. She confessed that the Shotley Bridge Mill was the one which had sparked her interest because her husband, who was present, was a descendant of the Annandales who had owned it.
Mrs Wright also told us a lot about the process of making paper and showed us some equipment with which it would be possible for anyone with the correct chemicals etc, to make their own paper. She referred to the frequent fires, which were a major problem for any factory containing large amounts of raw materials (rags, wood pulp, esparto grass, etc), together with the furnaces needed to raise steam with which to drive the machinery. Some of the surnames and individuals who were mentioned kept cropping up again and again and it became apparent that a small group of families came to control a lot of separate mills.
It was also interesting, as always, to see how our local industries were inter-related with colliers returning to the Tyne for another cargo of coals bringing in, as ballast, bales of esparto grass, imported from abroad, which was highly suitable for paper-making.
All in all, this was a talk which gave us all plenty of food for thought!
Wednesday 21st March 2014
March meeting – The Caped Crusaders, by Anthea Lang
Whether it was Anthea herself or the interest aroused by her subject, a larger than usual audience was attracted to hear her talk. She gave us the general background to the Jarrow Crusade – how the whole town depended upon one employer, Palmer’s shipyard, and associated iron works, and the inevitable devastation which resulted when the collapse in the demand for new ships caused it to close. The idea of a “Crusade” or March on London to petition the government was not unique to Jarrow – other towns in similar situations had had the same idea. Nor was the idea of the Crusade confined in Jarrow only to those of a left-wing attitude. Both the Labour Party Agent and the Conservative Party Agent were involved, and both played a part in the considerable amount of preparation which went into organising the March.
Almost all the able-bodied men of Jarrow wanted to take part but, to be practical, it was confined to 200 men, plus one woman (Ellen Wilkinson, the local MP) and one dog (an interloper which just decided to “tag along” and was “adopted” by the marchers). An old bus had been bought and that accompanied the March, to give lifts to any whose blisters got the better of them, and carried a doctor to attend to the others.
We were told of the varying quality of the welcomes given to the marchers in the many places they spent the night. In Leicester the services of local shoe repairers were provided, as some of the men’s boots were getting into a sorry state. They did about 12 miles per day and took some four weeks to reach London. Once there they held a rally in Hyde Park, though, disappointingly, it was poorly attended by the public. Their petition was also disappointingly received, as the government had decided not to take any notice of it, the excuse being that if they acted specifically for Jarrow then they would also have to act for any other town which decided to do the same thing. The Prime minister, Stanley Baldwin, certainly thought that, and he probably also was a great believer in “self-help” and thought the Jarrow people should have done more to help themselves. However, all they really could have done was to move away from Jarrow – but all other industrial towns were in poor situations, if not as bad as that of Jarrow, so they were unlikely to have been much better off doing that.
Anthea’s talk sparked off comments about the marchers themselves – who they were, etc – and reference was made to several who had been known to those present. The last survivor died only a few years ago. All in all, it was a most interesting evening, providing a great deal of food for thought. The comparison with the situations arising from the end of coal mining in the region in more recent times, was made, but with the advent of the Welfare State, the impact of pit closures was much less, even though Durham County Council’s initial reaction, classifying pit villages as “Category D” (no further development), was unacceptable, and if they had had that policy in the 1930s it might well have been applied to Jarrow.
Wednesday 16th April 2014
Our April meeting was more than a little unusual, in that it concerned witchcraft. However, Dr Bath made it a very acceptable and understandable topic. It is also one, apparently, which might well have concerned our ancestors very much, since, as she put it, in the more remote districts of NE England, Christianity was often little more than a thin veneer on top of the old beliefs of much of the population. Her examples were taken mainly from court records, both civil and ecclesiastical, but they don’t always give us the full story. For instance, she explained many of the “potions” recommended by those accused of witchcraft as really just herbal medicines, which were as likely to cure an ailment as anything else then available, and to a public used to hearing church prayers recited in Latin, a language most would not understand, even the most obscure spell of a witch would seem no less likely to produce the desired result. Cases where witches were actively persecuted are comparatively rare, and often had a political or sexual element, not lost to us, underlying them. Among the many misconceptions Dr Bath dismissed was the one about witches being ducked in the village pond. That never happened, although some women were ducked from time to time – but not for witchcraft. Even the well-known “witch’s hat” was not particularly worn by witches but, with a flat top, was just that habitually worn by 17th century puritans. Dr Bath arrived wearing one, which she demonstrated to us – the pointed top was a much later addition, first noted in comparatively recent cartoons. The main message of the evening was – don’t be afraid of witches, or of finding a reputed one in your own family: every village had one but they were usually just what they were often called – a “wise woman”, who was a cross between an apothecary and a psychiatrist, with a strong element of what in a male could be called showmanship.
Please note that the Branch AGM will take place at the May meeting, where it is likely that the speaker will be yours truly (Geoff Nicholson), probably on “Crime and Punishment”.
Wednesday 21st May 2014
The May meeting began with the Branch Annual General Meeting, at which the Branch Committee reports were received and the previous committee were all unanimously re-elected. They are: Chairman, Geoff Nicholson; Secretary and NDFHS Council rep, Gerry Langley; Treasurer, Hilary Tewari.
The speaker for the evening next followed. This was myself (Geoff Nicholson), on the topic of “Crime and Punishment”. My theme was that undoubtedly most of our ancestors broke the Law on many occasions: some were caught, even though most probably got away with it. What happened to those who were caught? A great deal of information is available, in The National Archives, in local County Record Offices and in local libraries. Thanks to the work of our own members in the past, a lot of relevant material has been published by this society.
Although most published material dates from the 19th and 18th centuries, I was able to show that there are cases available to us, thanks to eg The Surtees Society and the Northumberland County History, dating from at least the 13th century (a 1256 case concerning a dispute as to whether two men from Bamburgh were villeins, ie more or less serfs, or free men, and for which most of the evidence on both sides was genealogical in nature). I also mentioned the cases from the Ecclesiastical Courts at Durham in Tudor times, dealing with, amongst others, anything reflecting on anyone’s spiritual standing – defamation, accusations of witchcraft, marriage within the church’s “Table of Affinity”, etc – or anything at all concerning a member of the clergy.
With 18th and 19th century cases people tend to be most interested in examples where the offender was punished by transportation – of which, thanks to the late George Bell, a lot is available, in the NDFHS Library and in other places – or by execution.
We often hear of people being transported, apparently for very minor offences – stealing a handkerchief, for instance. I gave as my opinion that such cases might have been only the latest of many offences by a habitual criminal and that the offence for which they were tried might have only been a sample case out of many possible charges – that is, he might have stolen a large amount of goods, of which the handkerchief was just an example. It was deemed very desirable for magistrates to send a steady supply of fit, tough young men to the colonies, to further the process of settlement and to push back their frontiers.
With respect to executions I referred to a paper by John Smith in Durham County Local History Society’s Bulletin of 1977 in which he analysed what happened to people indicted at Durham for capital offences in the18th century. He found that in only 4.7% of such cases was the case proceeded with, the accused found guilty and sentenced to death and the death sentence is known to have been definitely carried out. That is far different to the popular impression of lots of people being hanged for trivial offences.
Judging by the “inquest” afterwards in the Steamboat Inn, members seemed happy with what I had told them and interested to hear more. They were particularly interested in the various books I was able to show them as samples of what I had been talking about.
Wednesday 11th June 2014
Our June meeting, as is often the case in June, took the form of a visit to a local place of interest. This year we followed up the story of the Victoria Tunnel, about which we had received an interesting talk earlier in the year, by visiting the tunnel itself, in the Ouseburn district of Newcastle.
The dozen members and guests who attended had two knowledgeable guides who took us into the tunnel and through it from the “Ouseburn” entrance to another (blocked), which we were assured was underneath the roadway at the top of Stepney Bank. On the way up one guide concentrated on the tunnel’s use as an air-raid shelter during WWII and, going down, the other told us about its original use as a conduit for a colliery waggonway. We had quite a long walk through the tunnel, including negotiating several sets of blast baffles, put there just before the War and had the details of the chemical toilets used at that time explained to us – in rather more detail than we really required! Given that after the War the tunnel was cleared out of all easily-moveable fittings such as bunk beds, seats, etc, and then abandoned to nature, rust and decay, there is a remarkable amount of detail left, though the reasons for many of the markings on the walls and holes, missing bricks, etc, still had to be explained to us. There was rather less to say about the waggonway for which the tunnel was built, though some of it was tragic indeed, such as when some people were killed by an uncontrolled waggon when inspecting the structure before it was sold when the colliery went out of business.
All in all there was a lot to absorb and a lot to discuss at the “informal” part of the meeting afterwards up the road, on what was a beautiful summer’s evening, sat at the benches outside the Ship Inn, whose Tapas are also to be recommended!
The branch will now take its usual summer break and we intend to re-commence with a “member’s evening”, centred on your own research, on the third Wednesday (17th) of September.
Wednesday 20th November 2013
A dozen members and guests managed to brave the appallingly wet weather to attend the meeting. Unfortunately our speaker, Dr Jo Bath, did not show up. Enquiries reveal that Dr. Bath did make every effort to attend, although a few minutes late because of the weather. She tried all the doors she could find but was unable to gain access. We hope she will join us later in the season.
Several of those who were present were complete beginners so I gave them a brief introduction to the Society in general, followed by an even briefer little talk on “How to get started”, and they all seemed satisfied that their journey had, after all, been worthwhile.
Our December meeting will be a talk by Phil Thirkell on “The Victoria Tunnel”. As usual in December, it will be held on the SECOND Wednesday evening, 11th, as our usual meeting night, the third Wednesday in the month, is too close to Christmas for many. More details later.
Wednesday 16th October 2013
About a dozen members braved the pouring rain to hear Wendy Stafford give a talk on “The Parish Chest”. After explaining what the chest actually, physically, would be she went on to tell us a great deal about what was to be found inside it. This material, now usually to be found in the EP/ deposits in County Record Offices, would contain items such as the records of the church’s administration of the old Poor Law – the accounts of the Overseers of the Poor, with items such as Settlement Certificates, together with the records of people paying their church rates, from which the funds came to provide for the poor. Also in the Parish Chest might be tithe records and churchwardens’ accounts of money they had spent on church administration and repairs, including the names of the village tradesmen who carried out work. A huge variety of information about village life can be found in the parish chest by anyone willing to search through the information given there. As almost none of it has ever been transcribed or placed on-line, this is yet another case where there really is no substitute for referring to the original documents and doing one’s own research.
We now have access to the facilities at St Hilda’s for making coffee and tea and have agreed to charge the same amounts for them as the church does when the Visitor Centre is open as a tea room/coffee bar on market days, all amounts taken to be left behind for church use. Some of our members, however, still prefer to go off to the pub afterwards, but at least there is now a choice, and another reason to attend the meetings.
We look forward to meeting even more members next month when Dr Jo Bath will give her talk on “The History of Witchcraft in the North-East”. This went down very well indeed recently at our Gateshead Branch. I am sure it will be a similar hit at South Tyneside!
Wednesday 18th September 2013
The meeting did not get off to a good start as the speaker and 11 members found themselves once again locked out of our meeting place in St Hilda’s church. The person who usually lets us in did not turn up. However, resourceful as usual, we soon made our way to the nearby Steamboat Inn, to which several of us have been in the habit of retiring after meetings. There we found the back room to be (almost) empty and so we held the meeting there, quite successfully.
Richard Calasca’s tale was a highly frustrating one of a very large sum of money, probably worth many millions of pounds in today’s terms, being taken into the “care” of the Court of Chancery in the late 18th century – and still being there, although the latest indications are that legal charges have by now exhausted the capital. The case is said to have been the one upon which Charles Dickens based his novel “Bleak House” and the outlook for those involved certainly became bleak as matters dragged on and on. The case hinged mainly on identifying the heirs of the original testator and then deciding which of them was next of kin. As time went on, more and more heirs seem to have “come out of the woodwork”, thereby creating in the case papers a mass of useful information for the family historian, even though none of it seems to have been taken as conclusive by the lawyers concerned. The moral of the story was definitely – keep all matters connected with your own Will as simple as possible, leaving no room for any legal arguments and making it very clear who you heirs are to be.
Since the meeting it has emerged that the fault with our non-admission to the church lay with the church authorities and not with the S Tyneside Branch of the NDFHS. It is hoped – and expected – that there will be no such problems next month.