Tynedale

The Bates Room,
Hexham Golf Club,
Spital Park,
HEXHAM,
Northumberland, NE46 3RZ
Contact: John Parker
Email: tynedalebranch@ndfhs.org.uk

Meetings on 2nd Thursday in the month at 2:30pm ( No meeting in August )
Visitors are always welcome

Reports of meetings

April 2025

Group meeting held at 2.30pm on Thursday 10 April 2025
Attended by : 7 Members + 1 Guest

Members’ Forum – Prizes, Awards and Medals

The most notable awards we heard about were the CBE and the Knighthood awarded to the late husband of one member : he had twice been recognised for services to the nation in his role as a senior civil servant in the Department of Employment. The investitures had taken place at St James’s Palace and had been carried out by the (then) Prince of Wales – now HM King Charles III – who, in the absence of his mother HM the Queen had done the honours. (Pun intended).

Several members had brought war service medals and other items associated with family members. A World War I Service Medal awarded to the cousin of a member’s father who had died young was circulated, along with photographs and documents. One member’s grandmother had provided nursing assistance on the Home Front during World War I as part of the Voluntary Auxiliary Detachment. Another medal was the Good Conduct Medal issued to a member’s Great Great Grandfather after serving in the Royal Artillery from 1847 to 1870.

On the sporting front, another member recalled that the only award she could remember being given to a family member was a Golf competition trophy. Another member had brought along a trophy from 1981 which her father had won as part of a pub Darts Team in a local league.

A member who grandfather had been Head Teacher at Kimblesworth School passed round a perpetual desk calendar and pen holder presented to his grandfather on his retirement in 1951.

Having been unable to find the items she had hoped to bring, another member had her mother’s School Certificate from the 1930’s : her mother had gone on to be a nurse in Hartlepool and there she had met the man who would become her husband, and our member’s father.

All these disparate items had one thing in common – that they brought to life part of the story of our family members. In the context of our meeting, each item sparked a lively, interesting and often wide-ranging conversation.

March 2025

Group meeting held at 2.30pm on Thursday 13 March 2025
Attended by : 7 Members

David Butler :- Gibside : Grandeur and Magnificence
David Butler is (among other things) a volunteer for the National Trust at the Gibside site, specialising in leading guided historic walks around the estate.

He gave the group a fascinating illustrated talk on the history of the Gibside Estate and the members of the Bowes family who developed what may well have been ordinary agricultural land into the grand park and associated buildings which it became in the eighteenth century.

It is known that the land belonged to the Marley family, and then the Blakiston family, before Elizabeth Blakiston married William Bowes in 1690. Their son George Bowes (1701-1760) was the man who created the landscape of the estate we can see today.

Gibside sits on a coalfield which had previously only been exploited for local, domestic use. Newly developed technologies – Newcomen’s steam engine to pump water from mine shafts and waggonways to enable transport of coal down to the Tyne – enabled George Bowers to make an enormous fortune by exploiting the coal deposits under his land.

Bowes set about creating a home and estate designed to emphasise his wealth and enhance his status. The “grandeur and magnificence” of the completed works was recorded by a visitor. As well as a 3-storey hall, Bowes had a banqueting house, impressive stable buildings and a column topped with a statue of Liberty constructed. These structures are located in such a way that the approaching visitor would pass a series of impressive buildings separated by stretches of woodland so as to maximise their visual impact. George Bowes’ final commission was the chapel, only a year before his death : work was not completed until some 52 years later.

After Bowes’ death, the estate passed to his 11-year-old daughter. This was Mary Eleanor Bowes, an only child who marital choices were fairly disastrous. Her first marriage was unhappy with adultery by both partners, while her second husband tricked her into marriage with an elaborate plot and proceeded to squander his wife’s wealth.

It was only after Mary Eleanor managed to divorce her second husband and regain control of the estate that Gibside could recover. The restoration was largely carried out under John Bowes, 10th Earl of Strathmore, Mary Eleanor’s eldest son from her first marriage.

In the early 19th century the main house was re-modelled, being reduced to 2 storeys with the addition of the crenellations we see today. Subsequent generations of the Strathmores neglected Gibside in favour of their Scottish seat, Glamis Castle. Paintings, furniture and even fireplaces were removed to Glamis. The house was used by the Home Guard during World War 2, then the roof was removed. This led to the complete destruction of the interior, leaving the shell which remains and is now a Grade I Listed Building.

February 2025

Group meeting held at 2.30pm on Thursday 13 February 2025
Attended by : 9 Members
John Parker :- Using Family History as a work tool

Branch member John Parker gave a talk and slide show based on his experience over the past couple of years doing occasional research work for a friend and former colleague. The scope for doing paid work involving family history research is very limited – it is a narrow, niche field. However, John had been approached to carry out archival and desk-based research by a Heritage Consultant who provides professional planning and conservation advice on major restoration and construction projects.

Using the access to the British Newspaper Archive provided by FindMyPast, it had been possible to unearth stories about the specific buildings under scrutiny and their owners, builders, residents and business occupiers. This information is useful in Heritage Reports as it adds a touch of human interest to what can be a rather dry list of dates and events in the Time Line which forms a minor part of the content, alongside the comprehensive discussion of the historic and architectural features of the building.

On occasion, it has also been worthwhile to use Ancestry to build small family trees in order to put together a picture of the people involved with a particular building. Two such projects related to Benwell Dene House (later the Royal Victoria School for the Blind) and the Stephenson’s Locomotive Works at Forth Street. As well as Ancestry, Wikipedia also proved useful for background information about the people who commissioned these buildings.

Having completed the research work on these two projects, John had a nagging feeling that there might be some connection between the two because the surname “Pease” cropped up in both pieces of research. Curiosity then led him on an (uncommissioned, unpaid) piece of follow-up research using Ancestry and Wikipedia. Starting with Thomas Hodgkin (a banker, historian and philanthropist who gave Hodgkin Park to the Town Council) – for whom Benwell Dene was built – a family tree emerged which included the Pease and Backhouse banking families from Darlington, the Fox shipping family in Cornwall, the Fry chocolate manufacturers from Bristol and the prominent Victorian architect Alfred Waterhouse.

As well as giving him an enhanced appreciation of the Built Heritage (particularly in Newcastle), this occasional paid work – enjoyable and interesting in itself – led to John being in the unusual position of being able to find some of the subjects of his family history researches on Wikipedia and also sparked an interest in the history of the Quaker movement in the nineteenth century.

January 2025

Group meeting held at 2.30pm on Thursday 09 January 2025
Attended by : 9 Members
John Harrison :- DNA Workshop

Branch Member John Harrison distributed a handout which explained, step by step, how to take a list of DNA matches provided by the DNA testing company and analyse the results so as to maximise the value of the information in our family trees – either by validating the results of our researches or by providing new information to research around.

Using his own Ancestry DNA test results and the list of his own DNA matches, John showed how each matching person can be identified as belonging to either the Maternal or the Paternal side of the family tree, and then how each person can be attributed to a particular set of Great Grandparents.

The information resulting from this analysis can then be recorded in a tabular format on a spreadsheet which embodies the principle of the Leeds Method (named after its creator’s surname, rather than the Yorkshire City) for analysing family data.

Once the chart has been filled in – using a manageable number of the DNA matches listed, which tend to run into the thousands – it can be used to further your research. For those matches who have a public family tree available online, this is a matter of looking at their trees to find out how they are related to you. Those without trees can still be resolved by looking at their relationships to other people in the list of matches.

Once you have added new people to your tree, you may feel that is enough. However, you may wish to make contact with them – which is facilitated by Ancestry and other DNA testing sites. John suggests that the best approach is to give the person plenty of information about how you think you are related and to offer to share information with them. This line of approach is more likely to elicit a response than just saying you seem to be related and not offering your new-found distant cousin some kind of benefit in replying.

After the meeting, John emailed a copy of his Leeds Method Chart spreadsheet to all branch members so that those who are interested can follow through the process with their own list of DNA matches. He also expressed a willingness to provide further advice and guidance to any group members who would be welcome to email him with their queries.

Several members expressed an interest in trying out these techniques in order to make more sense of their own DNA test results, so there may well be scope for a follow-up workshop in the future, if John is willing to take that on.

November 2024

Group meeting held at 2.30pm on Thursday 14 November 2024
Attended by : 12 Members

John Heckels :- Chirupula Stevenson : Tyneside’s African Explorer

John Heckels introduced Chirupula Stephenson – born John Edward Stephenson in 1876 – to whom he was connected by the marriage of his aunt to Edward Stephenson. The Stephenson family were ships’ chandlers in North Shields, but at the age of 20, John Edward was a telegraph operator and he headed to Africa.

Having heard from his uncle back in 1972 about this this family member who had “gone native” and to whom many colourful tales were attributed, John Heckels researched John Stephenson over the years.

On arrival in Africa, Stephenson found employment with the British South Africa Company. As he progressed within the company, he was given the responsibility of taking part in, and later leading, expeditions to areas further North in Africa. For about 20 years he was in and around what is now Zambia as a senior figure in the British South Africa Company which was, in effect, the British Empire. But far from being an imperialist despot, it seems that Stephenson was very diplomatic and sympathetic to the local peoples and their traditions and culture. At the same time, he introduced European ways and the Victorian social order : Stephenson is recognised as the founder of the town of Ndola in the Zambian Copper Belt.

After resigning from the BSAC, Stephenson set up as a citrus farmer and remained in Africa until his death in 1957. By that time, his assimilation into local society was so deep that his funeral was attended by hundreds of Africans, as well as dozens of Europeans. Stephenson had managed to retain his standing as a man of substance in European eyes while at the same time being accepted by the African society within which he lived.

As is so often the case, the stories that had been passed down were mostly based on fact, but had been amplified and distorted when re-told. It was certainly true that John Stephenson had acquired names in native languages – “Chirupula” from his time as a Commissioner and Justice of the Peace, and “Luchere” from his initial encounters with one of the indigenous peoples he came across on his travels. It is also true that he had three native African wives, with whom he had a total of nine children : however, it appears that these were genuine partnerships with all the domestic rewards and tribulations which would be associated with conventional marriages back in England.

This was a fascinating story, told in a very entertaining way and backed up with a huge amount of research. There was also an unexpected, unlikely postscript to the tale which made this example of family history research even more rich and enjoyable

October 2024

Group meeting held at 2.30pm on Thursday 10 October 2024
Attended by : 10 Members + 2 guests

Elizabeth Finch – The Rise and Fall and Rise Again of Seaton Delaval Hall

Elizabeth Finch, a volunteer speaker from the National Trust, gave a thoroughly engaging and very interesting presentation covering the history of Seaton Delaval Hall and the families who had built it and lived there prior to the property coming in to National Trust ownership in 2009. She also described and illustrated some of the restoration work which has been undertaken to date and outlined future plans for further works.

The original Delaval family had been minor nobility who had arrived in England with William the Conqueror. Little is known of them until the 17th century, when salt and coal production provided their living. Sir Ralph Delaval’s invention of a sluice gate to facilitate the loading of commodities into ships created what we now know as Seaton Sluice, and the family’s fortunes grew. However, financial problems arose when Sir Ralph’s widow married a member of the Blackett family and he lost most of her money.

The estate was bought up buy a cousin, Admiral George Delaval, who engaged John Vanbrugh to demolish the existing Jacobean hall and replace it with the basis of what we see today. No expense was spared in the construction of the Hall between 1719 and 1721, but George Delaval’s death in a riding accident led to Francis Blake Delaval inheriting the property and subsequently adding extension wings. His family were the “Gay Delavals” of the Georgian era, and many examples were given of their frivolity and their lavish – if eccentric – entertainments at the Hall.

The last of the Delavals was John, who died of tuberculosis aged 19. On his death in 1821, the hall was inherited by the Ashley family from Norfolk, who were connected to the Delavals by marriage. In January 1822 the Hall was consumed by a fire which started in a chimney. In the 1860s, the Astley family appointed John Dobson to demolish the remains of the extension wings and to restore the main hall. The hall remained empty until the 1950s, when Edward Astley (later Lord Hastings) moved in and remained there until 2009, when he passed the property on to the National Trust.

September 2024

Group meeting held at 2.30pm on Thursday 12 September 2024
Attended by : 7 Members

Members’ Forum – What did your non military ancestor(s) – male or female – do for the war effort?

One member knew that her grandfather – who had been a salesman in Manchester in 1911 – had moved to Newcastle to work as a wharfman by 1914 and wondered if he had done so in order to move into a reserved occupation. Her uncle had joined the army in the 1930s and left the service by 1939.

Several examples were quoted of relations who were in reserved occupations (railwaymen, miners, nurses, printers, engineering workers at Vickers producing ammunition). Some of these people also did additional work such as driving electricity supply workers to carry out infrastructure repairs, acting as a cycle messenger for the ARP , working as a Land Army girl, or volunteering for the Auxiliary Fire Brigade.

One member’s mother had been “living in” in domestic service at the start of the war but was recruited to work in an armaments factory and was able to return to the family home and have a more enjoyable life as a result.

Another member recounted his mother’s experience of being a fire watcher on top of the tower of Durham Cathedral when it escaped enemy bombing as a result of the miraculous appearance of a mist which obscured the cathedral.

The Auxiliary Fire Service volunteer was almost court-martialled after the fire appliance he was driving on a training exercise crashed. His wife was nursing in a (pre-NHS) hospital in Leeds, where the staff were treated to the fish and game killed by the hospital owners, who were very active in the traditional pursuits of hunting, shooting and fishing – although the regularity of being fed salmon became too much after a while.

The grandmother of one member had been a teetotal non-smoker, but apparently always had a sideboard full of brandy, fruit, sweets and other hard-to-get rationed items. It is suspected that she might have been engaging in a little black market activity!

July 2024

Group meeting held at 2.30pm at the Black Bull Inn, Corbridge on Thursday 11 July 2024
Attended by : 9 Members

David Waugh – A walk around Corbridge through chronological time

The group met in the Black Bull, with the intention being to go on a guided walk round some of the historical sites of Corbridge. However, the combination of threatening weather conditions, concerns over members’ mobility and the occasion of a prayer meeting in the Parish Church resulted in a change of plan. David Waugh gave a fascinating talk in the comfort of the pub, with reference to an illustrated pamphlet, which gave a very good picture of Corbridge’s fluctuating fortunes over the centuries.

Originally established by the Romans as a military settlement around Corstopitum Fort, the town declined by about 400 AD along with the Roman Empire. A couple of hundred years later, the Saxons had built a new settlement in a better site, up the hill from the fort. A monastic church was founded and the town flourished until 1296 when it was sacked by the Scots under William Wallace. Further Scots incursions and the Black Death left Corbridge impoverished and de-populated, and it was the seventeenth century before the town’s fortunes revived. The village centre developed, but all the stages of its growth are still visible in the buildings, nearly all of which have been additions to the built environment rather than replacements for existing buildings. Although the mix of retail premises has changed dramatically in recent years, the major chain shops were always sited in nearby Hexham and so the village centre has an unspoilt quality.

When the talk had concluded, some members joined David Waugh on a walk to the Parish Church to see some of the points mentioned for themselves – particularly the various changes and additions to the original structure, which have taken place over several centuries.

June 2024

Group meeting held at 7pm on Thursday 13 June 2024
Attended by : 9 Members

Members’ Forum – Why did they leave and where did they go?

Not surprisingly, the majority of the histories and anecdotes related to economic migration. The need to find work, to survive economically, was the dominant theme of the discussions. Mechanisation of agriculture drove farm labourers into the newly-established industrial cities. As the demand for labour decreased in one industry or location, a new demand sprang up elsewhere. Our ancestors often lived a subsistence lifestyle and so they moved to wherever they could make a living, doing whatever was on offer the would keep a roof over their heads and food on the table.

One member cited the example of three brothers out of a 12-sibling family. Knowing that the family farm could not support them all, they had – at different times – emigrated to Australia and New Zealand, only for all three of them die in tragic and rather bizarre circumstances (although one of the three at least reached the age of 82 before drowning in a rainwater tank having fallen through the roof or lid while attempting to repair it).

Sometimes, skills were portable – a member whose family were overwhelmingly from the 4 Northern counties had one branch who had come to the lead mines of County Durham from the tin mines of Cornwall. The daughter of another member’s ancestor – who was a shipowner on the Tyne – had gone to Nova Scotia with her future husband (a mining engineer). She had later returned, having inherited a ship on her father’s death, with her daughter – but apparently without the husband.

From the other end of the economic migration story, one Tyneside-born member reflected that none of his grandparents originated in the North East – one was from Lincolnshire via Yorkshire (for work), another from Kent (a soldier stationed at Fenham Barracks, married a local girl and stayed), a third from France and the fourth from Germany (at the time, with the English royal family being the House of Hanover, some Germans were classified as British subjects).

Other reasons mentioned included religious beliefs (passengers on The Mayflower and, much later, Mormons making the epic journey from the UK to Utah) and members of the Armed Forces, whose offspring often made their own long-term lives in places where their fathers had been stationed.

May 2024

Group meeting held at 7pm on Thursday 09 May 2024
Attended by : 7 Members

Julian Harrop – A Treasure of Memories – A glimpse of images from the Durham Advertiser newspaper 1934-1961

Julian Harrop has worked at Beamish Museum for more than 30 years. His role includes responsibility for a photographic archive containing more than 2 million images as well as countless artefacts, many of which are the result of donations from organisations as well as the general public.

This evening’s talk concentrated on a specific donation. When the Northern Echo newspaper group were clearing the Durham Advertiser building they came across more than 35,000 photographic images held on the old glass plate photographic format. Over a period of more than two years, Julian and a group of volunteers have catalogued and scanned these images, which cover the period from 1934 to 1961.

The images displayed covered many aspects of public life during the mid 20th Century and encompassed subject matter from coal mining to coronation celebrations. Incidental to the actual subject matter illustrated, these images showed details of domestic and commercial life and changes in clothing styles, hairstyles, domestic decor and furniture at specific dates. As well of being of great interest from the social history point of view, this kind of visual record is invaluable in informing the work of Beamish Museum when they develop the site by re-creating homes and businesses from different time periods.

Because of the nature of the collection, the images are very particular to places in County Durham. However, this geographical specificity did not detract from the interest of seeing high quality images from an era within living memory. Julian mentioned that, when giving this talk in various places, several of the images had resulted in audience members knowing the names of people shown on the photographs – or even being present in the photos themselves, usually as schoolchildren in the 1950s or 1960s.

To round off a fascinating evening, the presentation concluded with some themed groups of images and some contemporary photographs of current developments at Beamish – including the cinema and the aged miners’ homes.

April 2024

Group meeting held at 7pm on Thursday 11 April 2024

Attended by : 10 Members + 2 Guests

Hilton Dawson – The Newbiggin by the Sea Genealogy Project

Hilton Dawson, Chair of the Newbiggin by the Sea Genealogy Project, gave a fascinating and entertaining presentation about the history of the project. The project started in 2012, with 65 people attending a public meeting.

Since 2019, the group have had shop premises at 82 Front Street, Newbiggin as a base for their activities. Monthly meetings of volunteers are held, which are shared globally via Zoom.

The aim of the project was to build a database of everyone who has ever lived in Newbiggin by the Sea using shared family histories. In just over ten years, the volunteers have constructed a complex structure of interlinked family trees which currently holds records for more than 39,000 people and includes more than 9,000 photographs. The group are supported in their work by MyHeritage, the company which hosts the database – which is thought to be the largest community family history record in the world.

The earliest recorded inhabitants of Newbiggin go back to 1200 A.D. The majority of the modern population of Newbiggin can trace their heritage back to the Robinson family in the 1620s – a 400 year anniversary celebration is planned for 2027. The population of Newbiggin in 2024 stands at about 6,500, but this figure has varied widely over the years – peaking when the village had a coal mine in the late 19th/early 20th century.

The project itself is centred on constructing a historical record, but the organisation and the process involved have contributed significantly to the local community. The volunteers – mostly local, but some far-flung – have been able to discover a great deal about their heritage, both individually and as a community

(Last updated 15th April 2025)