The Fat Ox (c.NZ355721)

 

This beauty was so famous in its day that the great engraver Thomas Bewick had an audience with it – if only to immortalise its image prior to the poor beast’s slaughter.

The famous eighteenth century quadruped – known variously as ‘The Fat Ox’, ‘The Whitley Large Ox’ or ‘The Whitley Great Ox’ – was the property of one Edward Hall, and was grazed up to its immense proportions upon fields now occupied by The Fat Ox pub in Whitley Bay. The engraving was produced for the owner, Mr Hall, and published on the 10th April 1789 – presumably to commemorate the animal’s demise.

The occasion of its death produced quite a stir, much as a public hanging might have, in fact. Truly a legend in its own lifetime, it was 5ft 9ins in height and an incredible 216 stone in its prime. It was so big and cumbersome – and presented such an awesome sight – that when it was due for slaughter it took seven days to walk it the ten miles or so to Newcastle through sizeable crowds.

 

John ‘Guinness’ Gilroy (c.NZ360720)

You may not have heard of him, but you will be familiar with his work.  For John Gilroy was the man behind the famous Guinness ads of the mid-twentieth century.  Still not sure?  Well, take a look at this lovely collage…

  

You all know him now, don’t you? And Gilroy, you’ll be pleased to learn, was a native of Whitley Bay.

Born into a large family in 1898, Gilroy followed his father William into the world of art. His dad was a marine landscape painter and technical draughtsman, and by the age of 15 young John was being paid for producing cartoons for the Newcastle Evening Chronicle. He went to school in Sandyford and Heaton (the family were by then living in the latter suburb) and ended up at Armstrong College Art School, Durham University.

He served in the Royal Field Artillery during World War I, and recommenced his studies at the Royal College of Art, London, in 1919. Prior to his graduation in 1923 he won many awards, prizes and scholarships, and went into teaching thereafter. He married his wife Gwendoline in 1924, with whom he was to have a son.

In 1925 he began his long-running association with Benson’s advertising agency. He worked on numerous commercial ventures (Bovril, Maclean's, Colman’s Mustard, etc) before his employers won the Guinness contract in 1928. Beginning with his first effort in 1930, he turned out more than 100 press advertisements and nearly 50 posters for the stout brewers over a 35-year period, the most famous being the ‘Guinness for Strength’ and ‘zookeeper and animals’ campaigns. From the 1940s he worked freelance.

Gilroy was also an accomplished painter of landscapes and portraits – including paintings of Churchill, the Royal family and the Pope. He exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy, and during World War II his work could often be seen via the Ministry of Information’s many campaigns. After his second marriage in 1950 he began an association with greetings card manufacturers, Royles.

He was appointed a Freeman of the City of London in 1981, and died in Guildford in 1985, aged 86.

If you’re eager for more, extended biographies can be found at
www.ncl.ac.uk/alumni/arches/page.htm?lovely-day-for-a-gilroy and
www.guinntiques.com/gilroy.aspx  

Name Changes and Funny Names (c.NZ360720)

The town now known as Whitley Bay seems as embedded in the popular culture of the North-East as any other place you care to name. It is as utterly distinctive to us locals for what it is and what is once was as anything else in the region’s rich history. And the splendidly named and beautifully formed landmark that is the Spanish City dome is unmistakable.

But the town’s name hasn’t always been as instantly recognisable. The name ‘Whitley’ goes way back, coming from the Old English wyt-leah, meaning ‘white meadow or pasture’; but it was for many centuries known simply as Whitley, and was a tiny place by today’s standards. In the Victorian era, however, it seems to have been known as Whitley-by-the-Sea, so as to distinguish it from Whitley Chapel and Whitley Castle in Northumberland. Then, in around 1902, the seldom used ‘by-the-Sea’ bit was dropped and replaced with ‘Bay’, allegedly to avoid confusion with Whitby in Yorkshire.

But wherever did the ‘Spanish City’ come from?

The answer is remarkably simple. In 1904, a merry band of entertainers known as the Toreadors Concert Party entertained visitors in an open-air theatre in Whitley Park. They had been brought there not from Spain, but from a few miles down the road by Mr Charles Elderton, who ran Hebburn’s Theatre Royal. For the occasion, the area was decorated in the Spanish style, and it became known as ‘the Spanish City’. It grew to be so popular that within a few years The Whitley Pleasure Gardens Company Ltd. was formed and a large fairground was established on the site. By 1910 the famous Dome was complete – in the Moorish style – and a legend was born.

 

St.Mary’s Island & Lighthouse (NZ353755)

St.Mary’s Lighthouse has adorned the coast of Northumberland for over a century. Brilliant white against an azure sky, it presents one of the county’s finest summer sights.

The rocky, tidal outcrop 2½ miles north of Whitley Bay, known as St.Mary’s, or Bates, Island, has been home to a light of sorts for the past 400 years. It was not until 1898, however, that what may be called a proper lighthouse was erected. Its light burned for 86 years, being decommissioned by Trinity House in 1984. It was then bought jointly by the local council and others for the benefit of the community, and soon reopened as a tourist attraction.

The island is linked to the mainland by a concrete causeway which is covered at high tide, leaving the island itself separated from the shore by a short strait. The island has been extensively used over the years. It is thought to have been home to hermits prior to the construction of a chapel dedicated to St.Helen in the late eleventh century. Mention is made even at this early time of the maintenance of ‘a light’ in the tower. A burial ground existed next to the chapel for 700 years, but by 1860 all remains of the building had disappeared. The occasional mention of the name ‘Bates’ Island is a reference to one Thomas Bates, who owned the small patch of ground in the 1580s as Surveyor for Northumberland under Elizabeth I.

In ‘Smugglers’ Creek’ on the north of the island was found, in 1722, the body of Anthony Mitchell, a customs man – he was presumably killed by smugglers. A few years later, in 1739, Michael Curry, a local glassworker, was hanged in Newcastle for the murder of Robert Shevil, the landlord of the inn at Old Hartley – and his body was hung in shame from a gibbet at what became known as ‘Curry’s Point’, where the causeway meets the mainland. A plaque now marks the spot.

The island has seen a good deal of action over the years. Shipwrecks a plenty, for one thing; and in 1799 the island was used to isolate cholera-stricken Russian soldiers on their way to fight Napoleon. In 1855 George McEwan and family built the present-day cottage, and even opened a pub on the island. However, following a dispute with neighbouring landowners on the mainland, the McEwans were unceremoniously evicted in 1895.

Soon after this Trinity House decided to site a new lighthouse on the island and, nearly three years later, on 31st August 1898, the famous 137-step beacon was officially opened. Its lights ran on paraffin (kerosene) – and continued to do so until 1977 – the fuel being delivered every six months to the storage tanks under the tower. The oil lamp was replaced by an electric equivalent in the late 1970s, and the lighthouse became fully automated in 1979. Upon decommissioning in 1984 most of the lighthouse’s internal workings were removed. However, the building – and island as a whole – continues to serve the local community as an important tourist attraction. And you can still climb to the top!

The Lighthouse was given a facelift during 2008, and now looks better than ever.

P.S. To learn more about the island – and for some nice pics – see here.

Note: This article, and many others besides, can be found in the author’s collection of local history material here (and scroll down to Aspects of North-East History, Vol.1).