Newcastle

Room 3, Brunswick Chapel,
Northumberland Court,
NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE, NE1 7BJ
Contact: ELIZABETH BROOKS
Email: newcastlebranch@ndfhs.org.uk

Meetings on 1st Wednesday in the month at 2.00 pm (No meetings in August and December)
All visitors are welcome

Reports of meetings

April 2025

Report of the meeting held on 2 April 2025
Present: 20 Apologies 1

This month’s talk by Richard Bliss was about the Pease family of Pendower Hall, a branch of the large Quaker dynasty, which traced its roots to Yorkshire, then Darlington, becoming best known for its involvement in the wool trade, banking, railways, and coal mining.

John William Pease was born in Darlington in 1836. At Grove House School in London, he formed lasting friendships including with Thomas Hodgkin. Debarred from university, he was apprenticed as an engineer, however, his preference for finance led to him to play a role in banking history. He became a partner in the Newcastle private bank Hodgkin, Barnett, Spence, Pease and Co, which extended its operations by taking over joint-stock banks that had failed during the 1850 banking crisis. In 1880 the bank moved to a purpose-built Italianate building in Collingwood Street. In 1902 it merged with Lloyds, the midlands-based Quaker bank. John’s younger son, John William Beaumont Pease, became the first president, grew very rich in the process and was elevated to the peerage. His elder son indulged his interest in local history and folk tales, establishing the ‘Northern Counties Magazine’.

John William Pease married Helen Mary Fox in 1860, bringing him a large dowry. She was also from a large Quaker family, one that dominated industry and shipping in the South West, trading goods world-wide including, surprisingly for Quakers, enslaved people. In 1867 John bought a huge plot of land between the West Road and the future Elswick Road. The family moved from South Dene House, Low Fell, to a property John had built on the land as a gift to his wife. It was named Pendower, after her favourite beach near Falmouth.

With the decline in attractiveness of the West End, a house in Alnmouth became the family’s main residence. In 1919 most of their Newcastle land was sold to the City Council for working class housing, which at £37,500 was a sum below its market value. Five hundred houses were constructed, known as the Pendower Estate. Pendower Hall remains, and after different owners and uses, is now in private hands.

J. W. Pease was a nature lover with a passion for fishing. After his death in 1901, his collection of Bewick woodcuts was donated to Newcastle City Library.

March 2025

Report of the meeting held on 5 March 2025
Present: 19 Apologies: 1

This month’s talk, given by Theresa Brolly, had the intriguing title ‘When Bonaparte came to Bensham’. It had all the elements of a fascinating story: local relevance, a famous name, a family saga with instances of scandalous and reprehensible behaviour.

Louis Clovis, (1859-94) known also at various times by some of the names, Louis Clavering Clovis Richard Bonaparte, was born in Paris, the illegitimate son of Prince Louis Lucien Bonaparte and Clemence Richard. He was the great nephew of the Emperor Napoleon I. He was legitimised as Louis’ son when his parents were free to marry and inherited the title of Prince on his father’s death in 1891

As Louis Clovis, he arrived in Bensham as a premium apprentice at the NER (Loco Dept) becoming a qualified civil engineer. He also acquired the more distinctive sounding name Clavering, possibly inspired by the local Clavering Arms near Borough Cottages in Bensham where he lived for a time. After working in Gateshead, he became managing director of a light railway company in Stony Stratford which was declared bankrupt in 1889.

Described by Theresa as a rogue, in 1888 Louis married, bigamously, Rosalie Megone on the Isle of Man. After bitter court proceedings, the marriage was annulled enabling him to marry Laura Scott to whom he had already transferred his affections. He took Rosalie’s jewels.

Louis died of meningitis in Kensington in 1894, leaving claims against his estate and a dispute between his widow and mother about unpaid debts. He appeared to have no income from employment. He left a son, Valentine Clavering Gerald, born in 1883 to Nita Gerald, an actress with a vaudeville company, whose worldwide tours included Newcastle in 1881 and 1882, when Louis was living in the area.

A brief outline cannot do justice to Theresa’s detailed and hugely entertaining presentation.

February 2025

Report of meeting held on 5 February 2025
Present 20

This month’s talk by Pat Lowery had the title ‘Fun, Frolic and Football: Newcastle’s Town Moor’. Also included in the talk were the surrounding moors, among them Nuns Moor to the west, Little Moor to the north and Castle Leazes.

Joint ownership by the Freemen and the City Council, governed by Statute, has ensured the survival of the largest urban public space in Britain, since neither can sell land for development.

The right of freemen to graze their cattle on the Moor predates the Norman conquest and was included in the establishment of the rights of the Freemen by King John in 1216. The Freemen saw off an attempt at enclosure of part of the Moor by the Corporation (forerunner of the city council) in 1771 and the resulting Act of Parliament vested legal ownership in the Corporation and secured grazing rights to the Freemen.

However, the Act of 1774 permitted the Corporation to issue leases, with restrictions about the amount of land it could lease. The former Barracks, Leazes Park, the Exhibition Park, the Newcastle United Golf Club, St James’ Park football ground, and the RVI, for example, have all been constructed on Town Moor land. Structures that proved to be temporary are a smallpox hospital and open-cast mining 1944-7. Horse racing on the Town Moor began in 1721 but the Grandstand, constructed in 1800, became associated with drunkenness. Racing moved to a new site and was replaced by a temperance festival eventually known as the Hoppings.

The usefulness of the Town Moor for public executions and political meetings, thus keeping crowds and potential violence away from the town centre, and the loss of life during an attempt by the chemist John Mawson to dispose of nitro-glycerine, were all described in Pat’s entertaining and informative talk. Pat is a fluent speaker, always unfazed by questions during her presentation and happy to engage with her audience.

January 2025

NDFHS Newcastle Branch Report of the meeting held on 8 January 2025
Present 10 Apologies 4

This month’s speaker was Graham Soult, an architect and planner who writes and broadcasts about the retail industry. He has a passionate interest in Woolworths, which he admits amounts to an obsession.

His presentation covered the origins of the business, the spread of Woolworths in Britain, its swift demise and the fate of its buildings. The first store was opened in 1879 in the US by Frank Winfield Woolworth. Expansion of the business to the UK began with the opening of a store in Liverpool in 1909. Numbered in order of opening, the Newcastle store was number 27. Number 8, in Middlesbrough, was the first store in the northeast. Beginning in the larger cities, expansion continued, including in the North East even during the depression. At the time of its collapse Woolworths had 1,141 stores in the UK.

The first stores opened in existing premises. However, in the 1930s Woolworths developed a distinctive style: a symmetrical façade of brick with white render with a central pediment and narrow windows on either side.

Woolworths became a highly successful retailer for the mass market. Originally the price of items for sale did not exceed 6d. From the 1970s retailing was changing and attempts were made to change the model: Woolco hypermarkets, self-service, the acquisition of other businesses such as B&Q, small music shops were all tried. Trading difficulties were masked by the selling of freeholds but resulted in the payment of a huge annual rent. Faced with severe competition and falling profits, in November 2008 Woolworths went into administration. On 17 December 2008 the closure of the business was announced and by 6 January 2009 all stores had been shut with a loss of 27,000 jobs.

Graham’s interest in architecture and retailing has led to the identification and research of Woolworths buildings during the existence of the company, then tracking down and visiting the sites of most former stores and recording the changes in occupier. Showing us the remnant of a mosaic in a former Benwell Woolworths is an example of the level of his interest. He suggested most of his audience would have happy memories of Woolworths as the recipient of pocket money. Graham’s vast and fascinating collection of images is an important resource for the architectural and retail legacy of the company.

November 2024

Newcastle Branch Report of the meeting held on 6 November 2024
Present: 22 Apologies 2

This month’s talk was given by Hilton Dawson, a founding member of and passionate advocate for the Newbiggin by the Sea Genealogy Project (the Project). Founded on the assertion that “iverrybody in Newbiggin is related to iverrybody else” the Project started in 2012 with the aim of recording everybody who had ever lived in Newbiggin. Stretching back to the 1600s, it has become the largest community family history record in the world, comprising almost 40,000 names, with a team of volunteers adding names to the interlocking tree, so that “a jigsaw with a pattern is beginning to emerge”.

The Project is a community organisation with a constitution, a membership and a management committee. But it does more than simply establish pedigrees. It has a collection of 10,00 photographs, the archive of John Robinson, a historian and writer about Newbiggin, family documents, oral histories and videos uncovering stories of heroism and remarkable characters. It is “recovering and protecting history from the grass roots”. Members of the Project believe that “everybody is to be valued, everyone has a story to tell”.

Five years ago, premises were acquired at 82 Front Street as a research centre. The Project has a visible presence in the town, organising meetings, walks, information boards, even a musical. It aims to organise in 2027, for descendants, a 400th anniversary celebration of the marriage of the tree ‘founders’ Robert Robinson and Katharine Milburn in 1627.

Hylton Dawson said he felt Newbiggin was overlooked and drew our attention to prominent people who had been born in Newbiggin and to people from the arts world who had an association with the town. He wanted the Project to give people living in Newbiggin knowledge of and pride in the history of their community and, consequently, he believed, confidence and pride in themselves.

The community tree is linked to the genealogy website My Heritage https://www.myheritage.com/site-224055511/newbiggin-by-the-sea-genealogy-project-community-tree

October 2024

Report of the meeting held on 2 October 2024.
Present: 21

This month’s talk, given by Anthea Lang, was Those Capable Collinsons

John Collinson (1782-1857) was appointed as Rector of St Mary’s, Gateshead, in 1810, arriving with his wife, Amelia and three children.

Gateshead was a highly demanding parish [and continued to be throughout the 19th century]. John Collinson also had responsibility for King James’ Hospital and St Edmund’s and was instrumental in the establishment of the new parish and church of St John’s in 1825. He had to deal with the 1832 cholera outbreak in the town, and as clergyman and magistrate with striking miners in the ‘Battle of Friars Goose’. He had administrative obligations. St Mary’s owned a considerable amount of land, which included mining rights, from which Collinson derived an income. Until 1835 the Rector effectively ruled the town along with parish officers known as The Four and Twenty. In 1838 the Collinsons moved from the Rectory, now surrounded, undesirably, by industry and slums, to Cotfield House [still standing in Bensham Road]. In 1840 John Collinson, after 30 exacting years in Gateshead was given the easier parish of West Boldon. His obituary in 1857 revealed a man who had been admired and loved in Gateshead.

John and Amelia were reputed to have had 16 children. Of those who survived to adulthood, Richard (1811-1883), Julia (1812-78) and Thomas Bernard (1821-1902) were the most notable. Richard Collinson was a naval officer and Arctic explorer. Joining the navy, aged 12, he benefitted from further education while a midshipman and gained a reputation as a mapmaker. As a captain he surveyed the China coast, producing charts. In 1850 he was appointed to lead an expedition to renew the search for Sir John Franklin. A misunderstanding and the lack of an Inuit interpreter meant he failed to find Franklin’s ice-bound ships. Collinson was promoted to Admiral and greatly praised for his seamanship. Thomas Collinson had a military career, joining the Royal Engineers. He was also engaged in mapmaking, becoming known for his surveys of Hong Kong. In England he had an important role as superintendent of the ‘British side’ of the 1851 Great Exhibition. His final prestigious position was as architect to the Scottish Prison Commission. Julia Collinson, widowed after only nine years of marriage, began to publish novels, initially to support her family. Two were autobiographical, using her family in Gateshead.

We have the restrictions of Covid to thank for making Anthea research the Collinson family, resulting in her very interesting presentation.

September 2024

Meeting held on 4 September 2024. Present: 21 Apologies: 1

This month’s talk about Beamish Museum and Joe the Quilter’s cottage was given by Seb Littlewood, a senior keeper with 25 years’ experience at the Museum. He maintained that the Museum had to be more than simply a collection of buildings. It had to tell stories that represented the lives and experience of earlier generations living in the northeast. However, Frank Atkinson, [the founding director of the Museum], also wanted the Museum to show the past “within a generation’s memory”, so that memories could be shared by visitors. A consequence is the Remaking Beamish Project, adding buildings and reconstructing life in the 1950s. The project also includes work on an 1820s landscape, part of which has been the reconstruction of Joe the Quilter’s cottage.

Seb’s presentation concentrated on known facts about Joseph Hedley, the circumstances of his death, the reconstruction of his cottage and its wider significance. The following is a very limited outline. Joseph Hedley, born in about 1750, was by the 1820s living in a squatter cottage by a roadside in Warden parish. He was well-known and popular in the community and, though originally a tailor, had achieved some renown for the quality of the quilts he made to earn a living. In early January 1826 neighbours found him lying dead in his cottage having been brutally murdered. The murder shocked the nation and a reward of one hundred guineas was offered to anyone who would reveal the identity of the murderer. The culprit was never found. The only motive seemed to be a mistaken belief, that Joe had hidden wealth, though he was in receipt of parish poor relief and was probably sometimes paid in kind. The circumstances of his death produced details of his life and home in the investigation of the murder, in newspaper reports, a ballad, an etching and the auction of his effects. Using these details and maps, an archaeological dig revealed enough of the lower course of the cottage (demolished in 1872) to indicate its size and layout, enabling its reconstruction at Beamish using some of the stones and flagstones that had been uncovered. Reconstruction in the original local style involved the use of local materials (heather for thatching), traditional building methods and skills, and the participation of volunteers as well as staff.

Small cottage industries were common in the 1820s. Joe’s story is the cause of more than sensation. It is of national relevance showing living and working conditions in a stratum of society that would not normally have been recorded.

June 2024

Meeting held on 5 June 2024 Present: 16

This month’s talk was ‘The Horsekeeper’s Daughter’ given by Jane Gulliford Lowes, based on her published true story about the migration of a young woman from County Durham to Australia. Inspiration for the story came from letters and photographs in a box left by a family friend. A huge amount of research, culminating in a visit to Australia by the speaker, solved the mystery of the letter writers’ identity and their connection to a young woman from Seaham.

The young woman was Sarah Marshall, born in West Rainton in 1863, and by 1881 a servant in Seaton Village, near Seaham, a mining area with a reputation for explosions, accidents and difficult working and living conditions, sometimes leading to serious unrest. In 1886 Sarah sailed to Brisbane on the SS Duke of Sutherland, leaving behind her widowed mother and younger sisters. Her one-way passage was made possible by the Single Female Migrant Recruitment Scheme, which enabled the newly created State of Queensland to recruit domestic servants, who had fulfilled stringent acceptance criteria. In Brisbane Sarah married William Campbell, but the later financial crash there, caused the couple to leave for work on sheep stations until, eventually, they were able to buy a few acres of still uncleared rainforest in Tamborine Mountain, Queensland. Sarah died there in 1911.

Jane Gulliford Lowes’ passion for her subject and her wish to experience Sarah’s life, led her to retrace, where possible, Sarah’s footsteps in Queensland. Her fascinating account was an example of the rewards that can come from painstaking and persistent enquiry.

May 2024

Meeting held on 1 May 2024 Present: 23

The title of this month’s talk, given by Theresa Brolly, was ‘The Parsons – a family of Engineers

Most people of a certain age in the North East will have heard of Charles Parsons, may have had family members employed at C A Parsons Heaton Works or at Parsons Marine [Steam Turbine Company] in Wallsend and will know of his ground-breaking vessel, Turbinia. Theresa Brolly, by placing Charles’ family in a historical and social context, revealed the family to have been exceptional.

Charles Parsons (1854-1931) was the son of the Earl of Rosse, a member of the Anglo-Irish ascendancy. His father, an astronomer, engineer, mathematician, President of the Royal Society (1848-54), built a telescope which, until 1917, was the world’s largest. His mother had similar abilities as astronomer, blacksmith and photographer. Thus, Charles grew up in a learning environment in which he experienced the practical application of mathematics and engineering skills, influencing his future career. After studying mathematics in Dublin and at Cambridge, he became a premium apprentice at W G Armstrong’s engineering works. In the 1880s at Clarke, Chapman & Co Charles developed the compound steam turbine which revolutionised the propulsion of ships and the generation of electricity. He established his own engineering works.

Charles and his wife, Katherine, had a son, who was killed in action in 1918, and a daughter, Rachel Mary, born in 1885. Charles replicated his own upbringing, sharing his knowledge with his children, participating in mechanical projects at home with them and Katherine. Rachel, with a passion for engineering, was one of the first women to study engineering at Cambridge. During World War I, Rachel took her brother’s place as a director on the board of C A Parsons & Co. She had a role in supporting the training of women working in industry to replace men. The Pre-War Practices Act, 1919, meant that the employment of women who had not worked in industry before World War I, was terminated. Charles Parsons’ refusal to allow Rachel to continue as a director led to a permanent breach between them.

Rachel responded to this: founding, with Katherine, the Women’s Engineering Society, which still exists today, establishing her own engineering company, Atalanta, which operated for eight years in difficult economic times, becoming involved in politics. She was one of the first women to be admitted to the Royal Institute of Naval Architects. However, her inherited wealth led to a socialite lifestyle. She became a stud farm owner. Shockingly, in 1956, an isolated and eccentric figure, she was murdered by an employee, who was convicted of manslaughter on the grounds of provocation.

During his life Charles Parsons received several awards and honours. His wife, Katharine, who actively opposed the 1919 Act, and campaigned for women’s rights, and his daughter, Rachel, are now virtually unknown. Theresa Brolly’s most interesting and well-researched talk confirmed the social restrictions placed on women’s careers, but also hinted that Rachel’s character and her apparent inability to co-operate and compromise, may have prevented her from realising her true potential.

Last updated 7th April 2025