Hunstanworth: the Thankful Village (NY950490)

The village of Hunstanworth, a little to the SW of Blanchland overlooking the valley of the River Derwent, holds a unique status among all the settlements of County Durham. It is the county’s only ‘Thankful Village’ – being the only community that did not lose a single serviceman during World War I.

There are only 50-odd Thankful Villages in the whole of Britain, which, when you consider how many such settlements there are across the nation, is a very small total indeed. Hunstanworth only sent five men to war during 1914-18, of which four of them, the Jamesons, were brothers. And they all made it back safely to their families.

In the village’s church of St.James’ can be found a carved alabaster memorial panel commemorating this blessed event, inscribed simply thus:

We thank thee

LORD

for bringing back

our soldiers

safely home

1914-1918

Note: Northumberland has only the one Thankful Village, too: Meldon.

Oddities of Howden-le-Wear (NZ160335)

Howden-le-Wear is only a little place. However, it has a healthy collection of strange bits and bobs…

1. The Australian Hotel – a pub with one of the most ‘out-of-place’ names in the North-East. It was established by local man William Walton on his return from an expedition to the Australian Goldfields in Victorian times. Apparently, he made his fortune out there (equating to around half a million pounds in today’s money), and set about spending it in the village. The story goes, though, that he wasted his money – drinking a good deal of it away – and died with next to nothing to his name. The title of the pub, however, stuck.
2. Hill 60 – a local pit heap from the coalmining era, named thus by soldiers returning from World War I. It was the fashion to name low-lying hills on the battlefields of northern France and Belgium (over which armies fought) according to their height above sea level. So, somewhere in northern Europe lies the original ‘Hill 60 (metres)’!
3. The Wurlitzer Organ – rescued from a theatre/cinema in Bradford by local enthusiasts and rehoused in the village’s New Victoria Centre (formerly the Trinity Methodist Chapel). Only a handful of these were ever made – and it is still occasionally put to use today.

Stannington’s Hospitals (NZ182810 & NZ188819)

Source: WellcomeLibrary blog (WI no. L0016013)

A couple of miles north-west of the Northumberland village of Stannington, pretty much in the middle of nowhere, there once stood two really quite extraordinary medical institutions. Until their closures in the 1980s and 1990s respectively, Stannington Children’s Hospital and St.Mary’s Asylum were two of the most interesting places in the North-East.

The former, known more commonly as Stannington Sanatorium, was the very first purpose-built children’s TB hospital in the UK. Opened in 1907, it was built specifically for the needs of youngsters suffering from the disease in the days before the use of antibiotics. Fresh air, exercise and good nutrition were the order of the day, as well as the use of cutting-edge medical techniques – and all done with remarkable frugality due to much voluntary support. It was originally known as ‘Philipson’s Colony’ after one Roland Philipson who had made a generous donation to the appeal for the campaign by the Poor Children’s Holiday Association for just such an institution. In the seventy-odd years of its (sometimes controversial) existence around 11,000 youngsters passed through its doors.

The nearby St.Mary’s Hospital was, somewhat strangely, Gateshead’s official lunatic asylum. Built to the designs of George Thomas Hine during 1910-14, it served as the home of the town’s mentally ill until as recently as 1995. Almost immediately after its opening it was requisitioned by the military for the duration of World War I, but was thereafter returned to Gateshead who added a nurse’s home in 1927-8 (and otherwise modified the site) – before adding yet more buildings in the late 1930s, making St.Mary’s a sizeable concern in its ‘heyday’.

The old asylum site is now disappearing fast under new (and ongoing) development – the old children’s sanatorium up the road having been obliterated several years ago.

Kirkley Hall Shenanigans (NZ150772)

© Copyright Andrew Curtis and licensed for 

reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

The man who would become the first (and last) individual to be known as Lord Kirkley was born as William Joseph Noble in Newcastle in January 1863. He married Margaret Dixon and they had four children. Noble made his name and his considerable fortune in shipping – primarily with the Cairn Line – and rose to serve as president of the Chamber of Shipping in 1920.

On his way to the top of his profession he also served on the Tyne Improvement Commission and acted as an advisor to the Ministry of Transport. He served on a number of national and local committees during World War I, and led the British Economic Mission to South Africa in 1930. By this time he was a Baronet and when, in 1928, he bought Kirkley Hall in Northumberland from the Ogles, he soon found himself bearing the title of Lord Kirkley.

He was to die, aged 72, in 1935, but the last few years of his life were eventful enough. First off, his wife, Margaret, died in September 1928 and was interred in Ponteland churchyard. Then his newly acquired mansion was almost completely destroyed by fire in 1929 – which he quickly rebuilt in much the form we see today.

Noble was a staunch Presbyterian and even had his own chapel at Kirkley. He was most vociferous towards the local C of E vicar at Ponteland, who is known to have warned his bishop of “difficulties ahead”. And he wasn’t wrong. Sir William was soon trying to poach worshippers from him by parking a bus outside the parish church at Evensong. But worse was to come…

Keen to do all he could to upset his rival, Sir William then hit upon the idea of exhuming his wife’s body from Ponteland churchyard and reburying her in the garden of his own little chapel … and in very much unconsecrated ground. When the old man himself died in 1935, he joined her. And with no surviving sons to inherit his title, that was the end of the Lords of Kirkley, too.

Jesmond Real Tennis Club (NZ253673)

(from Wikipedia)

Real tennis, the ancient forerunner of our more familiar racket sports, has been around since at least as long ago as the sixteenth century. It is now very much a niche, or specialist, sport, as is evidenced by the distinct lack of courts worldwide. Globally, there are less than fifty, with the UK being home to more than half of these.

One of the more noteworthy venues is that at Jesmond, to the north of Newcastle. It was built in 1894 as a private court for Sir Andrew Noble, who owned nearby Jesmond Dene House. Noble, a Scot, was a leading light at the famous Armstrong munitions works – and was a handy player himself (despite suffering occasionally from gout!). The architect responsible was local chap F.W.Rich.

The suitably-named Jesmond Dene Real Tennis Club now occupies and runs the curious set-up, though it enjoyed a chequered twentieth century existence. During World War I airships were said to have been constructed there; and, following a brief reversion to ‘family’ use after hostilities, the building moved out of private ownership and into the care of Newcastle Council in 1931. The formation of a tennis club on the site the following year helped maintain the historic links, but Badminton ran the roost at the venue for many years following WWII. Happily, though, the building eventually reverted to its proper ‘real tennis’ use in 1981.

It is now, quite rightly, a listed building.

More extensive historical info here.

Wittgenstein-upon-Tyne* (NZ251656, NZ245650 & NZ225645)

Ludwig Wittgenstein is universally regarded as one of the greatest thinkers of the twentieth century. Years ahead of his time, he worked primarily in the fields of the philosophy of the mind, mathematics and language. Born into one of the richest families in Europe in 1889, he began life in Vienna, moved around a fair bit, and died in Cambridge in 1951.

Wittgenstein was an odd sort. He gave away his inheritance when in his twenties and suffered the suicide of all three of his brothers at an early age. For the most part he made his own way in life – eventually finding himself studying under Bertrand Russell at Cambridge a little before WWI. During the war he served as an officer in the Austro-Hungarian army, and thereafter lived for several years in Austria.

He returned to Cambridge in 1929, where he spent most of the next decade or so, and, bizarrely, served as a semi-anonymous porter in Guy’s Hospital, London, during WWII. It was whilst working there that he fell in with Doctors Reeve and Grant who were interested in philosophy and the effect of shock on air-raid casualities. When, in November 1942, the two doctors moved their studies to Newcastle’s Royal Victoria Infirmary, Wittgenstein was offered a job as their lab assistant at £4 per week – a post he eventually took up in April 1943. He became a lodger at Mrs Moffat’s house at 28 Brandling Park, Jesmond, where Reeve and Grant also lived. After several months living here it seems that the landlady’s ill-health forced a move, with Wittgenstein transferring to Conyers House in Western Avenue, Benwell, where he lived alone.

By all accounts, Wittgenstein didn’t really fit in very well with his friends and colleagues. He was often chatty at the wrong times and unsociable at others – though he did like watching films, especially westerns. He was mechanically minded and proved to be a good technician in his lab at the RVI – though he only worked there for ten months until February 1944. He did no philosophical work of note during this period, though he did gatecrash a philosophical lecture being given by Dorothy Emmett in Newcastle in his typically difficult fashion!

Upon leaving the North-East he soon found himself back in Cambridge where he picked up his philosophical work. Plaques have recently been erected at both 28 Brandling Park and the RVI to commemorate the great man’s brief stay in the city.

Note: Incidentally, Wittgenstein visited Tyneside briefly in 1932 at the behest of his friend Maurice Drury, during which time he called in at Newcastle and Jarrow.

* My clever title has been stolen from the excellent article by Bill Schardt. More information can also be found here. Images of plaques here and here.

Bensham Tram Crash of 1916 (NZ246619)

(image from the iSeeGateshead website)

Private Edward Hutchinson was one of the many who dutifully joined up (with the Durham Light Infantry) during the First World War – doing so in mid-September 1914. In April 1915 his battalion was posted overseas, where he fought in (and survived) the Second Battle of Ypres. Returning home due to sickness or injury, he found himself in the Gateshead suburb of Bensham in early 1916.

Despite his major scrape with death in the trenches, Hutchinson had the ironic misfortune to find himself crushed to death under a runaway tram one chilly winter’s evening, in what became known as the Bensham Tram Crash of 5^th February 1916.

The vehicle in question was travelling up Bensham Bank, having just passed the junction with Saltwell Road, when the driver, 20-year-old motorman Leonard Jane, applied his brakes and left his tram to assist a colleague in an oncoming vehicle who had had to deal with a fight. In his absence, the half-full car filled with several more passengers and the extra weight caused it to trundle slowly backwards. On meeting the junction with Saltwell Road, it turned sharply and its momentum caused it to topple over.

All on-board survived (though there were several injuries, including a couple of broken legs), but the four pedestrians trapped under the hulk of the falling tram were all killed – among them our WWI veteran. The other three were all members of the Morrell family – a father, mother and a boy of seven. The distraught motorman was later acquitted of manslaughter.

Strangely, Gateshead tramcar No.7 was later repaired and pressed back into service – and it now enjoys a new lease of life at the National Tramway Museum in Derbyshire.  

The Great Gertrude Bell (NZ311564)

One individual more than any other helped spread British influence and drive its foreign policy in the Middle East in the early twentieth century. Moreover, that individual was a single, unmarried woman … and she was born here in the North-East of England. Her name was Gertrude Margaret Lowthian Bell.

Born at Washington Hall (now known as Dame Margaret Hall), a little to the south of Washington Old Hall, Gertrude entered this world in July 1868. She was the daughter of a well-to-do family whose general wealth enabled her to indulge her passions and interests across the globe to considerable effect. Although her mother died when she was three, she enjoyed a privileged upbringing and graduated from Oxford University before she was 20.

Thanks to her family contacts, she was afforded the opportunity of an early visit to Persia in 1892 – and stayed overseas for a decade, travelling widely and writing profusely. She was passionately interested in history, archaeology and languages – dabbling, too, in mountaineering – and began spending more and more time in Syria and Palestine in the years immediately before the First World War. The delights of the Ottoman Empire, Mesopotamia, Arabia, Babylon and many other exotic places were also devoured by her insatiable appetite for knowledge.

She served with the Red Cross in France in the early stages of World War I, before returning to the Middle East, where the British government used her in an official capacity to help shape and build their imperial ambitions. Her knowledge and relationships with local tribesmen paved the way for many a British success in their international manoeuvrings with the Arab nations. Gertrude worked periodically alongside the famous T.E.Lawrence during this period – essentially as a spy during hostilities.

From 1915 until her death in 1926, Bell spent most of her days in the country now known as Iraq, helping to establish its borders (among other things). For several years leading up to her death in Baghdad, she served in the Iraq British High Commission advisory group and was a confidante of King Faisal. She effectively acted as a mediator between the burgeoning Arab government in Iraq and the British government (who were keen to see Iraq established as a self-governing state). She was awarded a CBE for her considerable efforts in the region over many years.

In addition to all of this, Bell did much to preserve the new Iraq’s heritage and culture, thanks to her interest in archaeology and history. The setting up of the National Library of Iraq and the Iraqi Museum were largely down to her. The strain of her workload made her frail, and she eventually died, aged 57, soon after a bout of pleurisy in July 1926 – possibly from an overdose of sleeping pills. She may or may not have committed suicide. Such was her reputation that her funeral in the Iraqi capital was a major public event.

It is fair to say that the lines Gertrude Bell helped to draw in the sands of the Middle East during the creation of Iraq (and Jordan, in fact) have indirectly led to the troubles of late in the region. But Bell herself certainly foresaw these problems, and made the best of what may be considered an almost impossible job. In fact, if others since had been blessed with the diplomatic skills of the frail little spinster from Washington, Co.Durham, then things may have panned out a good deal better in this tender part of the world. 

Why not come along to...

The National Family History Fair

NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE

Saturday 7th September 2013

Dormanstown ‘New Town’ (NZ584238)

‘New Towns’ are often thought of as a twentieth century phenomena, but they have been a constant feature of the evolving British landscape – especially since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution.  Teesside is strewn with such Victorian creations, though several did not see light of day until later.

Dormanstown wasn’t even conceived of until the rush of industrial activity brought on by World War I. Dorman Long, the company made famous by its later construction of both the Tyne and Sydney Harbour bridges, was in urgent need of extra workers at the time, and decided to built a new settlement on its own doorstep at the very height of international hostilities.  The work began in 1917, and by 1920 was pretty much finished.  The marshy site went from a single building (Westfield House) to 300+ dwellings, as architects Adshead, Ramsey and Abercrombie literally ‘went to town’ on their fancy ‘garden village’ plans.

Most of the houses were built with steel frames and clad with concrete, but were modestly elegant affairs in the Georgian style – though most (all?) have now been demolished.  The town was added to further in the following decades, including the construction of what is believed to be England’s first purpose-built homes for senior citizens.

The town was, of course, named after Sir Arthur Dorman, the joint-founder of the Dorman Long company.

[The above image is taken from the ‘Historyof Dormanstown’ website – at which MUCH further information is available (click through to the extra pages, too)]

William Short VC (NZ555180 & NZ547210)

William Henry Short was born in Eston, Middlesbrough, on 4^th February 1885, to his (at the time unmarried) parents, James Short and Annie Stephenson.  He spent his early days at 11 William Street with his eight siblings.  In 1900, the family moved to nearby 35 Vaughan Street, Grangetown, and Will became a fairly well-known local footballer, with spells at Grangetown Albion, Saltburn and Lazenby United.

From the age of 16 until the start of the First World War he worked as a craneman at Bolckow, Vaughan & Co. Steelworks in Eston.  At the outbreak of hostilities, he joined the Green Howards and travelled to France in August 1915. 

During the long, drawn-out affair that was the Battle of the Somme (July-Nov 1916), Short saw action at an early stage around Contalmaison on 5^th and 10^th July.  Then on 6^th August, at Munster Alley near Pozieres, he conducted himself with such bravery that he was to be posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross. As the London Gazette officially declared:

For most conspicuous bravery. He was foremost in the attack, bombing the enemy with great gallantry, when he was severely wounded in the foot. He was urged to go back, but refused and continued to throw bombs. Later his leg was shattered by a shell, and he was unable to stand, so he lay in the trench adjusting detonators and straightening the pins of bombs for his comrades. He died before he could be carried out of the trench. For the last eleven months he had always volunteered for dangerous enterprises, and has always set a magnificent example of bravery and devotion to duty.

It seems that he lay in the trench for some time, dying the next day (7^th) before he could be moved.  He was buried at Contalmaison Chateaux Cemetery, though his name is recorded on memorials in both Eston and Grangetown.  The VC itself can be seen in the Green Howards Museum in Richmond, Yorkshire.

Willie Hornung (NZ504188)

Ernest William Hornung was born at what is now 404 Marton Road, Middlesbrough, on 7th June 1866 – a spot more famously known as Erdely Villa, which was for many years the Convent of the Holy Rood. Hornung is best known as the creator of the Raffles series of novels about the gentleman thief of Victorian London.

Hornung was the youngest of eight children born to wealthy Hungarian coal and timber merchant, John Peter Hornung (‘Erdely’ is the Hungarian name for Transylvania). Assured of a good education, he soon found himself packed off to Uppingham School in Rutland. In 1883, he was despatched to Australia on account of his asthma, where he worked as a tutor for a little over two years – a period of his life which had a major impact on his future writings.

Returning to England in 1886, he worked as a journalist for many years, and married Constance Aimée Monica Doyle, the sister of his friend Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, in 1893. Raffles first appeared in Cassell’s Magazine in 1898, and during the next ten years or so the character featured in 26 short stories and novels – and a play – bringing him considerable fame. Astonishingly, as early as 1905 the character featured in a 15-minute film.

His only child, Arthur Oscar, died in action during the First World War, and he himself visited the trenches – an experience which influenced of his later work. He died in France in 1921, aged 54.

Hornung was a keen amateur cricketer, and was once described as “a man of large and generous nature, a delightful companion and conversationalist”. The model for Raffles was supposedly one George Ives, a Cambridge-educated criminologist and talented cricketer (and gay rights campaigner).

At the risk of infringing copyright, I shall merely point you to a picture of the man himself, which may be glimpsed here. My thanks to Chris Twigg of the excellent 'Hidden Teesside' website for permission to use the image of Hornung's birthplace.

Cleadon Landmarks 2: The Windmill (NZ389632)

© Copyright DAVID ELSY and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence

Situated on its lofty perch atop the Cleadon Hills, this ruined windmill was probably constructed in the 1820s – though an earlier construction may well have occupied the blustery site. It is likely to have fallen out of use after it was damaged by a storm in the 1870s, for it is not mentioned in directories after this time.

During World War I it was used for target practice, though it has since been partially restored. In the late 1970s, what was left of the mill’s internal machinery was removed, and the entrances barred.

The ruin is said to be haunted by the ghost of Elizabeth Gibbon, a miller’s daughter who threw herself from the top of the mill tower after suffering a broken heart. The windmill was actually operated by a family of that name at the time of the 1870s storm, so maybe the story is true, if not the ghost.

Despite the structure being Grade II Listed, there is a threat that it may be demolished soon – if rumours on the Internet are to be believed.

For some beautiful images of Cleadon’s landmarks, see here.





 

RMS Mauretania (c.NZ301655)

 

 

RMS Mauretania is, or rather was, the most famous ship ever built on the Tyne. It emerged from the Swan, Hunter & Wigham Richardson Yard at Wallsend in 1906 – the largest and fastest vessel in the world at its launch. She was one of the most iconic ships in maritime history – the flagship of the Cunard Line and holder of the transatlantic Blue Riband for 22 years from 1907.

The construction of the ship took around two years prior to its launch on 20th September 1906. She sat in the river for a further year being fitted out to her famous high standards, and commenced trials in September 1907. She left the river amidst great ceremony the following month to be delivered to Liverpool, where the world’s largest moving structure embarked upon her maiden voyage in November 1907.

She plied her passenger trade across the Atlantic for several years, stacking up the speed and time records – making 88 perfect crossings of the ocean during 1908-11 alone at an average speed of over 25 knots.

During the Great War, Mauretania was requisitioned by the Admiralty. She was only ever armed during her wartime service towards the end of hostilities, but helped 10,000 troops on their way to the doomed Gallipoli campaign, narrowly avoided being torpedoed, and was latterly converted into a hospital ship. She also transported troops hither and thither as needs required, including taking many soldiers back home to North America after the war.

She returned to her Cunard service in 1919, but wear and tear soon began to show. An on-board fire then brought her home for a refit on the Tyne during 1921-22 – prompting great local celebration – before returning to her glorious transatlantic best. Cruises were also by then a part of her remit, carrying some of the world’s richest folk around the Mediterranean and further afield. A further upgrade to her machinery in 1923 at Southampton and Cherbourg provided a further boost to her career. She finally lost the prestigious Blue Riband to the German ship Bremen in 1929.

She spent her latter days cruising the Caribbean, where a repaint earned for her the nicknames “The White Queen” and “The Wedding Cake”. Finally withdrawn from service in 1934, she sailed back to Southampton, was stripped, and, in 1935, was taken to the breakers yard at Rosyth. As she passed the mouth of the Tyne on her way north, thousands of mourners lined the shore, a flotilla buzzed lovingly around her creaking bulk, and local dignitaries paid their last respects in an on-board ceremony. The Mauretania then disappeared out of sight and into history.

For more information see here.

Cramlington’s Airships (NZ254782)

In its pre-‘New Town’ days, Cramlington was a good deal smaller than it is today. It was essentially rural for centuries; and even after the first coal pit was sunk there in the 1820s it remained modest in size.

However, in 1916, the town was selected as the site for the establishment of the ‘No.36 Home Defence Squadron’, with the protection of the coast south from Cramlington all the way down to Whitby coming under its remit. There was already a small base on the site, so the move was more of an ‘upgrade’, and it did its bit during the Great War by bringing down a zeppelin over Hartlepool in November 1916. When the airships were withdrawn from the skies, the base reverted to a training camp and the squadron was disbanded in 1919. Though the outfit has been reformed and disbanded several times since, its base was never again to be sited at Cramlington.

But the town is perhaps more famously remembered in aviation history as the home of a British airship landing ground and shed, from the latter stages of WWI to the 1930s. At a time when Britain was looking for ways to provide additional aerial scouting cover over the North Sea at the height of WWI, a site near Nelson Village to the NW of Cramlington was selected as a landing/technical site for our ‘Submarine Scout’ airships. However, the facility was not completed in time to be of any use during hostilities, with the war coming to an end before the base was finished.

The site was still completed, though, and some post-war activity did take place. But the complex was eventually taken over by a private company, who themselves constructed a modest airship which did some aerial photography and advertising during 1929-30 – before being lost in a storm over Belgium.

And that seems to have been that, with the giant airship shed surviving until the 1960s when it was demolished as part of Cramlington’s ‘New Town’ development.

See here for further information and some pics.

 

Blyth Battery (NZ321794)

Blyth Battery is a decommissioned coastal defence artillery station on the Northumberland coast a little south of the town whose name it bears. It was originally built during WWI to defend two vital assets – namely, the port of Blyth and the nearby submarine base – and then upgraded for re-use during WWII. It has recently been re-opened as a military and local heritage museum.

One of the best survivals of its type in the country, Blyth Battery is, in fact, a complex spread over a small area, comprising gun and searchlight emplacements and associated buildings. Though the temporary structures which once adorned the site have disappeared, all the major buildings survive and are Grade II listed.

During the restoration project of the past couple of years or so, a clever colour scheme was employed to differentiate between the periods of contruction (based on samples salvaged from the structures themselves) – grey = WWI, pink = WWII, and white = alterations between and after the Wars.

If you fancy a visit – and it’s free – take a look at http://blythbattery.org.uk/



Shoresdean’s Claim to Fame (NT955465)

Shoresdean, an unremarkable housing estate some 5miles SW of Berwick, bears a history of little antiquity. A somewhat isolated spot for a coal mine, this little settlement nevertheless had one from the 19th century; and the cluster of houses which stand a little to the north of the old mine works are no more than a few decades old. However, the hamlet is famous as being the place where the famous ‘Piper of Loos’ passed away.

Daniel Laidlaw was born at Little Swinton, Berwickshire, in 1875. Joining the Army in 1896, he found himself in the 7th Battalion of The King’s Own Scottish Borderers on the outbreak of World War I. He and his comrades arrived in France in 1915 and by September were in the front line near Loos. On the morning of the 25th they were preparing for their first foray ‘over the top’.

At 6.30am, and under heavy German artillery fire as well as clouds of swirling gas (fired by the British but blowing confusedly back over their own lines), Laidlaw and his colleagues launched into battle. With chaos reigning, the commanding officer ordered Piper Laidlaw to “pipe them together”, which our man duly did by climbing into full view of the enemy and charging his pipes. To the tune of Blue Bonnets O’er the Border, the 7th Battalion rallied and rushed toward the German trenches.

Laidlaw continued playing with complete disregard for his own safety until, falling, wounded, just short of the enemy line as his fellow soldiers won the day. For his “conspicuous bravery” Laidlaw was recommended for, and awarded, the Victoria Cross – as well as the French ‘Croix de Guerre’, whose troops had been similarly inspired in neighbouring trenches by his actions.

Our hero survived the War, lived a full life, and eventually died at Shoresdean in June 1950, aged 74. Hundreds of mourners from all over the country attended his funeral. He lies buried in Norham churchyard, where a headstone was placed over his grave in 2002.

Our man, plus a little artistic licence