South Tyneside

The Charles Dickens Room (1st floor),
The Word,
Market Place,
SOUTH SHIELDS,
South Tyneside, NE33 1JF
Contact: Ann Franklin
Email: southtynesidebranch@ndfhs.org.uk

BRANCH MEETINGS

Meetings on 3rd Wednesday in the month at 1.30 p.m.
(No meeting in July & August)
Visitors are always welcome

Branch Reports

October 2024

The meeting held on the 16th October was attended by 11 members plus one apology. The Speaker was Ann Clouston who spoke on the Tyne Pilots. Ann is both Chair of the ‘Friends of Westoe Cemetery’ and a Newcastle City Guide and her talk was based around a walk she had devised on behalf of the City Guides.

Dating back to Roman times, a Pilot is a master mariner, an occupation which historically was handed down from father to son. The Tyne Pilotage was originally under the control of Trinity House in Newcastle but in 1856 this was transferred to the Tyne Pilotage, the old Pilot Office being located in Greens Place, overlooking the River Tyne.

Starting at the South Shields transport hub the walk continues up Mile End Road to St Stephen’s church, built in the 1840s and which has always been known as the ‘Pilots church’. Inside the church is a brass plaque which commemorates two lifeboat disasters; the first in memory of 20 pilots from a crew of 24 who were lost on the 4th December 1849 when the pilot cutter ‘Providence’ upturned going to the aid of the brig “Betsey”. Also, the loss of the pilot crew aboard the “Protector” which hit a mine in the mouth of the Tyne on the 31st December 1916. Only one body was ever found being that of 71 year old Robert Phillips. Many of the South Shields pilots were buried in the grounds of St Stephens but sadly a number of graves were destroyed in bombing raids during WW2.

The Lawe in South Shields is synonymous with mariners and many of the Pilots lived in this area, which commands views over the mouth of the Tyne. As well as the Pilot office, there were beacons to aid navigation, Lawe House which was a meeting place for the Pilots as well as Trinity Towers, a watch house for the Pilots and which later became a training station for the Marine College. All of these buildings have now been demolished.

September 2024

The first Branch Meeting after the summer break was held in the Charles Dickens Room at The Word on the 16th September 2024. 9 members were in attendance plus 4 apologies.

The meeting commenced with the Branch AGM when the current Chairman expressed a wish to standdown and one of the NDFHS longstanding members volunteered to take over the role. The Secretary and Treasurer agreed to stand for another year.

Following the formalities a Members Forum was held, the main purpose of which was to put forward ideas and discuss options the Branch could contribute to the 50th Anniversary Conference to be held in June 2025; the theme of which is ‘Mining’. South Tyneside was once home to several coalmines and notable disasters, as well as housing a Cokeworks in Hebburn and of course South Shields, being a seaport, saw many a ship transporting coal, not only to ports in the UK but also Europe and further afield. Therefore, a number of options for further research.

The meeting concluded with a general discussion and help with ‘brickwalls’.

June 2024

The talk at the meeting held on the 19th June 2024 was by Blyth Branch member Chris Killen on the subject of ‘Herring Lasses’. 12 members were in attendance and with one apology.

Chris began by explaining how the trade in pickling herring began with the Danes in the 12th century but in the 18th and 19th centuries the industry was dominated by the growing fishing industry in the UK. The population of Blyth increased and it became a thriving town due to the development of the coal industry and shipbuilding was well as fishing. The ‘herring lasses’ tended to follow the fleet, with many of them coming from the Scottish Iles down to the east coast of England.

Work was seasonal, highly skilled and demanding, the lasses having to work until all of the day’s catch had been gutted and salted. They travelled with a ‘kist’ which held their clothes, knives and bandages etc. used to protect their hands. They worked in teams of three – two gutters and one packer. For all of their hard work they received an allowance and somewhat basic accommodation. Herring lasses loved to sing and to knit.

After reaching it’s peak around 1907, the herring industry began to decline after the end of WW1 and by the 1950s overfishing began to take it’s toll. In the 1970s the Government placed a ban on herring fishing in the North Sea to allow stocks to recover. These days there are strict quotas on all North Sea fishing which resulted in many fishermen opting to de-commission their boats.

In 2023 a statue by Ray Lonsdale was unveiled at North Shields Fish Quay in tribute to the ‘herring lasses’.

May 2024

The Speaker at the meeting on the 15th May was David Hastings whose talk “The Real Heroes of the Sea” was enjoyed by 12 members and 1 apology.

David is a prolific fund raiser for the RNLI and he started by giving us an insight into how the RNLI came into being with the first lifeboat station believed to be at Bamburgh Castle, where they made use of a coble. Following a tragedy in the mouth of the Tyne, the first lifeboat was designed and built by Messrs Henry Greathead and William Woodhave in 1790.

The talk highlighted acts of bravery such as the well-known tale of Grace Darling who rescued passengers and crew from the s.s. Forfarshire off Bamburgh in 1838, and Henry Freeman who was the only lifeboat crew member who survived a storm off Whitby in 1861; his life being accredited to the fact he was wearing a cork lifejacket. Other heroic events mentioned were in 1907 when 456 lives were saved in Cornwall, 1962 saw 17 lives lost in Seaham attempting to rescue a fishing coble and the Solomon Browne, the Penlee lifeboat, where 16 crew were lost in 60ft breakers. Henry Blogg was the most decorated lifeboat man who received his third gold medal in 1941 and who saved some 873 lives. The presentation ended with a short video showing how the lives of residents on the Orkney Isles had been affected by the loss of the Longhope lifeboat and its crew in 1969.

As always a very well presented talk by David which is recommended to other Branches and organisations.

April 2024

The meeting held on Wednesday 17th April 2024 was attended by 16 members who enjoyed a talk given by Ben Haddon on the life of “Bobby Thompson – the Little Waster”.

March 2024

Julian Harrop, Archivist at Beamish Museum, was the speaker at the meeting held on the 20th March, which was attended by 10 members.

His talk “A Treasure of Memories” was an insight into some of the 35,000 glass negatives of Co. Durham which have been acquired by the museum, originating from the old Durham Advertiser offices. The images are currently being catalogued and digitised by staff and volunteers at Beamish covering the period 1930 to 1960. We were taken on a ‘trip down memory lane’ with excellent quality photographs of sporting events, cinemas, Elderado ice creams, Royalty visiting the area, and the story of Lord Lawson of Beamish who started work in the coalmines but, through study, reached the dizzy heights of becoming a Baron and also Lord Lieutenant. Despite all this he continued to live in a two-up, two-down house in Beamish.

Julian concluded with an update into what was happening with Beamish Museum. A thoroughly enjoyable presentation which is recommended to other branches.

February 2024

The meeting held on the 21st February was a Members Forum which was attended by 11 members plus 1 apology.

The theme was “How did our Ancestors arrive in the North East and Where did they go to”. One member’s research took him to Madras, India where an ancestor was a prominent medical doctor who, when he returned to the North East, was knighted only days before Queen Victoria came to the throne. This story also led to much discussion on the validity of Wills. Another member was born in Barbados and how her parents had ‘criss-crossed’ the Atlantic through the course of their work. As well as Irish ancestry, there were connections to the USA and Canada. We also discussed a family of ‘travellers’ who had settled in South Shields at the time the fairground became a permanent fixture, plus there were links closer to home with Earl Grey and Chillingham Castle.

We closed the meeting with suggestions of where and how to research and one thing became very clear which is something we all agreed on, our research into our ancestry is never finished.

January 2024

The meeting on the 17th January was attended by 11 members, when our guest speaker was Pete Hampson. ‘The Angel of Comical Corner’ is a novel and a play written by Francis Daniel in the late 19th century and it was on this that Pete had based his research.

Francis Daniel was born in Staffordshire in 1864 but by the time of the 1881 census he is a plumber age 16 living in Hebburn. Having held several jobs, including an actor, he becomes publican at the ‘Stirling Castle’, located in Wapping Street, South Shields. Although originally an area of prosperity, the rich moved out and the area along the riverside deteriorated into slum housing. It is believed Francis Daniel drew inspiration for his book from the characters who resided in such streets as Wapping Street, Long Row, Shadwell Street and Pilot Street. There are a number of theories as to how Comical Corner got its name, and although the slum housing was demolished in the 1930s, there is a name plate for Comical Corner attached to a building which is now the home of the Sea Cadets. Francis Daniel married twice, he became the landlord of the Queens Head, High Shields, and died in April 1919, buried in Harton Cemetery, South Shields.

This was a thoroughly interesting talk which, although more local history, certainly brough to life the area and conditions our ancestors were living in.

November 2023

We had 11 members attend the meeting on 15th November plus 3 apologies, when the Branch Secretary gave a presentation entitled “The Stowaway”. From a literal ‘find in the attic’ Ann researched the life of Edith Williams, a young English woman who, having lived in Melbourne, Australia since childhood, she wanted to return to England. Unable to afford the passage she stowed away on a Swedish windjammer, the C.B. Pederson. This turned out to be a somewhat epic voyage as not only was there a stowaway on board, but instead of the usual cargo of grains, there was a selected group of fare paying passengers, plus Captain Dalstrom decided to navigate the notorious Torres Straits, a somewhat ‘graveyard’ for sailing ships.

The find in the attic mysteriously linked Ann’s father to this tale from his days as a Radio Officer in the Merchant Navy. Having spent time in South Shields with the Franklin family, Edith returned to her native Bootle where she married in 1938. On the 20th December 1940, in an attempt to destroy the Atlantic fleet moored in the docks, intensive bombing took place over three nights which became known as the ‘Christmas Blitz’. On the first night of these raids, Edith was among many civilian casualties who sadly lost their lives.

The meeting concluded with a very active discussion on family history research in general.

Last updated: 12th December 2024