BERWICK ADVERTISER, 100 years ago

BERWICK ADVERTISER, 12 OCTOBER 1923

A WELL KNOWN BERWICKER IN CANADA

We publish this week a photo of Mr and Mrs William Hogg, who, as announced in our columns last week, have founded in Canada a “Berwick-on-Tweed Association.” Mr Hogg was at one time a well-known in sporting circles. He was associated with his father and brother in the bill-posting business in Berwick and district and was one of the most enthusiastic workers on behalf of the Berwick Cycling Club, in which he held office. He was also keenly interested in football. Mr Hogg’s wife is a daughter of Mr T. Rule, Fenwick, and a grand-daughter of the late Mr Peter Rule, Tweedmouth, Berwickers in Canada who wish to get in touch with each other should communicate with Mr Hogg at 13 Reynold’s Place, Toronto, Canada.

THE BABY SHOW

There was great excitement amongst the proud mothers of Berwick on Monday when in connection with the Baby Show, officials from the County Council Medical Department attended at the Parochial Hall to examine no less than 107 bonnie babies who had been entered for the competitions. The work of examination was started at 10 a.m. and when the babies arrived with their mothers in relays of ten every half hour, the work went through without a hitch, being about 4.30.

Parochial Hall, Chapel Street, late 1960’s.
Ref: BRO 2103-4-4-12a

The examination was a very thorough one, the youngsters being judged in cleanliness, weight, limbs, digestion, and general health. As at other baby shows a number of rising generation objected strongly to be undressed, weighed and handled, and loudly protested, while others appeared to enter into the spirit of health week and posed like little statues of Greek gods.

THE PRESENTATION OF PRIZES

Thursday was of course the field day for mothers and not only those who were showing, but others who would have been likely competitors had the show been held thirty years ago, were lined up outside the Hall nearly an hour before the opening. In the centre of the hall a space had been reserved for the mothers of competing children, and the remaining floor space of the hall was utilised to the last inch, the crowd which was nearly wholly women extending out into Chapel Street. Even the yard was utilised by those wishing to see the babies, and through the open windows women could be seen struggling to get a look inside. At the back of the hall the heat was almost unbearable, nut there was a cool current of air I the centre of the hall from the open windows.

Ald. Wilson presided, and he was accompanied on the platform by Mr D. S. Twigg, Town Clerk; Dr P. W. Macglan, Mrs Redpath, Mrs De La Hey, Mrs Macaskill, Mrs Erskine, Mrs Jno.Gray, Miss Weir and Miss Makin, of the County Council Medical Service; Miss Chisholm, Tweedmouth.

Mrs De La Hey then graciously presented the prizes, and as each proud mother went up to the platform carrying her baby, the assembly cheered loudly. Some very bright children were amongst the winners and several when held up for the inspection of the audience, grinned broadly and one had the courage to wave its hand.  Girl prize-winners were in the majority, but the boys rather came in to their own in the twin classes. Ald. Wilson had a special word for Mrs Jefferson, 23 Walkergate, who was awarded a prize and also a special award as the mother who had reared a healthy baby under greatest difficulty. With a large family, said Mr Wilson, Mrs Jefferson has had her hands full, and we are all the more pleased to see her a prize-winner.

At the conclusion of the prize distribution, the Town Clerk moved a vote of thanks to the Chairman (Ald. Wilson), and in the course of a few remarks he said the show a “scream” as he had been led to believe from the advertisement. He noticed that girls predominated as prize-winners, and this pointed, he rather thought, to Berwick becoming in future years an ideal place for eligible bachelors to stay. (Laughter and applause.)

The following were the prize awards:-

Under 6 Months – 1, Mary Gordon, Mill Strand, Tweedmouth, and Janet Patton, 70 Church Street; 2, Elizabeth Johnson, 31 Woolmarket, and Nancy Guyan, 35 East Street; 3, Mary Johnson, 164 Main Street, Spittal.

Under 1 Year – 1, Isolda Wakenshaw, 13 High Street; 2, Margaret Logan, High Letham, Jack Gregg, 14 Quay Walls, Iris Robson, 30 Woolmarket, and Barbara Moffatt, 16 High Street; 3, James Cook, 15 Walkergate, and Charles James Menzies, 50 Castlegate; 4, Catherine Mavin, 76 Church Street.

Under 2 Years – 1, Emily I. C. Smith, Scotsgate House; 2, Harold Yardley, 10 Married Quarters; 3, William Dow; 85 High Street; 4. Thomas Spelman, 8 Church Road, Tweedmouth.

Under 3 Years – 1 Betty Trotter, 70 Church Street; 2. Margaret Horsbrough, 11 Scotts Place; 3, Eileen Swanston, 39 East Street.

Twins – 1 Douglas and William Craik, West End, Tweedmouth; 2 Douglas and Irene Cockburn, Castlegate, Berwick; 3, Norman and Nora Faill, 9 Coxon’s Lane, Berwick; 4, Ronald and Jean Heeley, Church Road, Tweedmouth.

Extra Prizes for Babies under 6 Months – Jessie Patterson, 5 Low Greens, James William Plummer, Married Quarters, George Abbot, married Quarters; Harry Jefferson, 23 Walkergate; George Manual, 16 High Street, Elizabeth Flannagan, 39 Chapel Street, Charlotte Blyth, 37 Chapel Street, and Susan Octon, 52 Church Street.

The Mother who has had the greatest difficulties and who has overcome them – Mrs Jefferson, 23 Walkergate.

Walkergate, dated 1934. REF: BRO 794-70-4-10

THE EXAMINERS’S VIEWS

Miss Weir, one of the examiners, said this was one of the best shows she had ever taken part in as an examiner. She was highly delighted with the way it had been taken up and the organisation was splendid. Both Miss Makin and herself had been particularly struck with the sporting manner in which mothers had received the results of the examination, and to the appreciation hearing they gave to any remarks made by the examiners. Even though many mothers had not the satisfaction of seeing their child a prize-winner they were not stinting in their praise of the examiners awards. “We were greatly impressed by the co-operation amongst workers on the Ladies’ spirit shown on the part of everyone to do their best. The babies on the whole were a very fine lot of youngsters, and we were very pleased with the high standard of mothercraft shown. the clothing of the children was generally good.”

ECHO OF BERWICK BURGLARY

At York Quarter Sessions on Monday Charles Arthur Benson, alias Bourne (21), motor mechanic, was sentenced to 20 months’ imprisonment for sealing a motor car. Benson, it will be remembered, was arrested at York when attempting to steal a motor car. He had previously broken into Springbank, Castle Terrace, and other places on his way south. He travelled on an old Indian motorcycle, and Alnwick and Gosforth both had his attention.

Indian Motorcycle, dated 1917.

It was stated that he was a native of Edinburgh. He received a good education and was apprenticed to a firm of motor engineers there. In 1916 he was sent to an industrial school for stealing a motor car, but absconded and committed a series of housebreaking offences in Edinburgh, for which he was sentenced to three months’ imprisonment. In 1917 he was sentenced to two terms of three months each at Berwick-on-Tweed for shop breaking at Mr Crisp’s premises, when he was singled out as the ringleader amongst some band boys of the K.O.S.B., and on completing his sentenced he returned to Edinburgh to his parents. In 1918, he committed a further series of housebreaking offences and was committed to a Borstal institution for three years, being released in 1920.

His parents sent him to a relative in Canada, but he stole a motor car there and was ordered a year’s imprisonment and deportation. On arrival home he was arrested and completed the Borstal term. Since September of last year he had resided with his parents a warrant out for him on further housebreaking charges.

Deed with a story to tell…..

One of the aims of the Northumberland Archives Charitable Trust is to improve and promote access to documents held within Northumberland Archives.  Projects have been funded to list collections as well as adding descriptive content to existing collections.  This additional information is added to our catalogue making the content available and searchable via the Online Catalogue on the Northumberland Archives website either at home or in the search rooms.  The current cataloguing project focuses on a collection of deeds relating to lands owned by members of the Clayton family in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. 

During the nineteenth century the names of women appear in deeds less frequently than men.  One deed in the Clayton collection stands out because of the female parties involved and the story the document tells.  On 21 May 1873 John Clayton bought land at Layside in the township of Henshaw. Two of the five parties involved were women; Margaret Bell of Brownrigg, Henshaw and Hannah Laing of Hill House, Henshaw. 

As is common with deeds, the first section details previous conveyances, wills etc. as a way of explaining the history of the ownership of the property (buildings, land etc).  In 1869 Edward Laing conveyed land to Margaret Bell subject to her receiving a payment of £200 plus interest.  If the payment was defaulted upon, Margaret had the right to sell the lands at either a public auction or by private contract.  When the sum was not forthcoming, Margaret “with approval of her husband” decided to sell the mortgaged property at a public auction held at the Sun Inn, Haltwhistle.  John Coats was the highest bidder and declared the purchaser of the premises at a price of £750, with £75 being paid to Margaret Bell as a deposit. 

The second women mentioned in the deed is Hannah Laing, she was entitled to ‘dower out of the same hereditaments’ that is she had rights to the property that she was able to inherit.  Hannah is recorded as being the wife of Edward Laing, and therefore has not inherited those rights at the time of the conveyance.  Edward Laing is an agricultural labourer, which also makes this deed interesting, the naming of a labourer in a legal document.  Is this the same Edward Laing that was party to the original 1869 transaction? It is difficult to answer with absolute certainty, but it may explain why Hannah has rights to the property.   

As part of the sale to John Clayton, Hannah agreed to release her rights to the hereditaments.  The price paid was £750, with £675 going to Margaret Bell and her husband Robert and £75 to John Coats (this indicates that he had paid only the deposit following the purchase at the Sun Inn).  Hannah Laing did not benefit financially.  The conveyance deed is signed by both women. 

Accompanying the document is a certificate relating to the Deeds by Married Women Act, whereby both Margaret and Hannah were examined to ensure that they “freely and voluntarily consented” to the sale.  Through modern eyes this appears demeaning; there is no such certificate to confirm that the men had the same understanding.  Was it intended to confirm that the women were not placed under any duress to agree to something?  The interviews were held apart from their respective husbands.  Regardless of the intention behind the certificate, the fact that it remains with the conveyance is unusual. 

Details of the documents can be seen via the online catalogue using Ref.No. ZCY/4/13* (the * will return the details of both individual documents) or at the Woodhorn Search Room. 

A Favourite Archive – well, sort of………

As part of a series of blogs and social media posts, staff at Northumberland Archives have recently been tasked with highlighting their favourite area of the archive’s holdings; whether this is a specific document, a particular series, or an entire collection. Needless to say, with strong rooms holding over 6 miles of records from a period spanning 1154 to earlier this year, the consensus in the office has been that this is a somewhat difficult task, and when it came to my turn, I found the question no less difficult to answer. When considering archival documents, it can be interesting to think about not only how the document looks and what information it contains, but also the context in which it was created, who created it, and why. And so, in a bid to conveniently sidestep the awkward question entirely, I’ve chosen to use this blog to highlight not a favourite archive, but a favourite archive characteristic.  

EP 184-274/01

As difficult as this may be to hear, archives were in most cases not created for your benefit. Try not to take in personally, but when quill, pen, pencil or typewriter were put to page in the distant or not so distant past, the document’s authors were unlikely to have your future research in mind. Neither were they seeking to entertain you, or even to simply offer you a glimpse into what life was like in a Northumbrian solicitor’s office in 1876. This is because the majority of archival material was not created for its own sake, but as a by-product of something else. In many cases this ‘something else’ was just a basic or standard daily function of a business or organisation. 

The creators of many records will have been aware of the likely permanence of the documents they were creating; they will have understood that the nature of their work or organisation demanded accountability and responsible record keeping, and the information they were recording would be retained past its immediate use. But for many of the documents in our care it would be safe to assume that the author likely gave little thought to the long-term future of the paper in their hands or on their desks. He or she had a job to, some instructions to pass on, and after that was done, they could move on to their next task. Below is a Royal Navy certificate of service from an individual from Blyth from 1917. This standard, regulatory document served an obvious administrative purpose, but due to its historic significance, over 100 years later, it finds itself within the holdings of a county archive. 

NRO 10331/1 

There are of course exceptions. Within our holdings we do have a significant amount of primary source documents that may or may not have been created with potential future readers in mind. Many diaries will have been written with the explicit intention to never be seen by any pair of eyes other than the author’s. But for many, perhaps slightly more egotistic writers, the idea of future researchers taking an interest in their thoughts and ideas may have been the motivation for writing in the first place. In 1829, Charles John Brandling undertook a grand tour of France and Italy with his wife and sister. Throughout their travels, he documented their experiences in a journal complete with accompanying sketches. His reasons for doing this may have been simply his own amusement, or perhaps he (quite rightfully) envisaged a day when future historians would be interested to learn of the sights and sounds of 19th century continental Europe. 

ZBG 23 
ZBG 23 

This travel journal is not only historically important, but also visually arresting and aesthetically pleasing. It was created to record the experiences of the author at a specific time and place, and the potential interest to people in 2023 is obvious. But there are many items within our collections that on the surface may appear nothing more than the trivial administration of common Northumbrian workplaces, which are of entirely equal fascination as the accounts of the sophisticated holidays of the gentry. Pictured below is an extract from a memorandum to superintendents sent by the Chief Constable of a Northumbrian police department on the 20th January 1939. These circulars tended to contain standard instructions to police officers relating to their daily operations and activities and this example contains the following section;  

The memo continues 

NC/4/I/8/1   

Although created for a very specific purpose – to convey important information to police sergeants in the short-term – this item immediately brings us into contact with several major historical issues in the course of it’s one page. Concepts around Irish/British history, the origins of the Troubles, British government attitudes to security and terrorism and the history of nationalistic or racial profiling by the police are all present in the text. In the space of one piece of A4 paper, we have been given a vivid, first-hand socio-political glimpse into a time and place which we can use to inform our understanding of the state of the country in 1939. 

When it comes to the interpretation of historic documents sometimes it might be preferable to let others do the hard work; researching and reading primary source material and then using that information to produce some manner of secondary output. This might take the form of historical text books, works of fiction or even big budget Hollywood films. Not only is this method of consuming history entertaining, but it is also a very convenient way for people to feel closer to the past without having to invest too much effort. But for all the entertainment value that books, films and podcasts can offer, we are always at the mercy of somebody’s else interpretation of the source material; somebody else down the line has at some point visited an archive to look through the sort of material we have in our strong rooms. As cliched as it may sound, consulting archival documents is literally the practice of holding the past in your hands, of being so close to history that you can (often literally) smell it. Archival documents are very often the by-products of history, and it is remarkable to remember that many of their creators were completely oblivious as to how interesting the papers on their desks would one day turn out to be.