Whilst researching for my previous blog on Parish records, I came across a record of a couple getting married in St Mary’s Church Morpeth on the 13th of November 1943. They were Arthur James Turner aged 24, a soldier and a bachelor and Elizabeth Ann Hill also 24 and a spinster, so far not that remarkable. It gets interesting however when you note her address, which is given as St George’s Hospital, Morpeth.
St George’s Hospital was then the County Asylum, so was Elizabeth a patient there? Well after much searching through our patient records for the asylum no record of her could be found. We also searched their staff lists, but again found no record of her. We do not know of any other people living at the asylum who were married, whilst there either as a patient or as a member of staff, perhaps you know otherwise? If so, please let us know.
On their marriage record their fathers’ names and occupations and the names of the witness were also recorded. Elizabeth’s father was a Thomas Hill, a boilerman and one of the witnesses was a Daisy Hill. So, with this information I was able to do some more digging.
Using the 1939 Register, which is free to access via our computers, using the Ancestry website, I found Elizabeth, living at home with her father Thomas, Ethel (presumably her mother), Daisy (presumably her sister) and Cecil (presumably her brother).
As for the address, well this time it was Stannington Land Settlement number 29. I had no idea what this meant, so with a bit of ‘googling’ I discovered that the Land Settlement Association (LSA) was a scheme set up in 1934 by the then government to help unemployed workers, giving them a small holding, approximately 5 acres, to produce goods as part of a cooperative.
Turning to our own records [NRO 5702/1 Land Settlement Association file of correspondence], I was able to find some very interesting material relating to Northumberland’s only LSA site, Moor Farm at Stannington, near Morpeth. We are lucky enough to have information relating to the sale of the estate at the County Hotel in Newcastle on the 7th of January 1969. The sale catalogue lists the estate as comprising of
“The manager’s house with homestead and field. Eleven well-built semi-detached dwelling houses and 126.07 acres of highly productive arable land and 2.41 acres of scrub land.”
Lot number six of the catalogue relates to Elizabeth’s home (number 29 holding) and says the property consisted of a semi-detached brick-built house containing front entrance, living room, kitchen, larder, back porch, wc, coal house, 3 bedrooms and bathroom, an outbuilding suitable for conversion to a garage and a garden. Number 29 sold for £2,400.
Also included in our records are promotional pamphlets produced by the LSA giving information such as;
“All holdings are designed to provide a full-time occupation with pigs, poultry and horticulture, including glass (heated and cold) In no case are they suitable for dairy farming. The average rent is in the region of £75-£100. On each estate there is a central packing station where the tenants produce is graded, packed and sent to market. Capital of approx. £2,000 required to start and the Ministry for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food will loan up to three quarters of the cost on easy repayment terms for 15 yrs. Applicants must have some money to live on until the holding comes into production”
On each estate there was an estate manager and staff for small holders to consult with, although the requirement for previous horticultural or agricultural experience of min 5 years was stipulated.
According to Wikipedia between 1934 and 1939, 1,100 small holdings were established within 20 settlements. The allocation of settlements to the unemployed was suspended at the outbreak of the Second World War in order to increase food production. After the war the Association was incorporated within a County Council scheme for statutory provision of smallholdings designed as a first step for those going into agricultural production. In 1983 the scheme was wound-up, and all the properties were privatised, by which time it was producing roughly 40% of English home-grown salad crops. Quite an achievement!
There were other Land Settlement Association small-holding settlements around the country, situated at:
• Abington, Cambridgeshire
• Andover, Hampshire
• Broadwath, Cumbria
• Chawston, Bedfordshire
• Crofton, Cumbria
• Dalston, Cumbria
• Duxbury, Lancashire
• Elmesthorpe, Leicestershire
• Fen Drayton, Cambridgeshire
• Foxash, Essex
• Fulney, Lincolnshire
• Harrowby, Lincolnshire
• Newbourne, Suffolk
• Newent, Gloucestershire
• Oxcroft, Derbyshire
• Potton, Bedfordshire
• Sidlesham, Sussex
• Snaith, Yorkshire
• Yeldham, Essex
N.B. You may have noticed something strange about the photo of the 1939 register above. Our friend Elizabeth is initially recorded with the surname Hill, which was her name at the time, but this is crossed out and her married name of Turner is written above. We know that Elizabeth did not get married for another four years after the register, so how does her married name appear on the register?
The National Archives website explain that,
“The register was continually updated while National Registration was in force, when it was a legal requirement to notify the registration authorities of any change of name or address. This ended in 1952, but since 1948 the Register had also been used by the National Health Service, who continued updating the records until 1991, when paper-based record keeping was discontinued.
Changes of name for any reason were recorded; in practice this was mostly when women changed their surnames on marriage or re-marriage, but also includes changes of name for any other reason, such as by deed poll.
The majority of these name changes appear in the indexes so you can search for a person using either their name in 1939 or any subsequent name.
Worth knowing, happy searching!