A Week in the Life of a Cataloguing Assistant

08/03/2022 by Northumberland Archives

My role at Northumberland Archives is two-fold as I work as a Cataloguing Assistant and as an Archives Assistant. Add the split of working from home and working on site into the mix and it means that my working week is incredibly varied, interesting and there are never two days the same. To give you an insight into the type of work that gets done, this is what I got up to a couple of weeks ago.

The Cataloguing Assistant role is workload from one of the Archivists, while working from home it is predominately catalogue based. This can be adding some of the thousands of records typed up during lock-down to the catalogue, editing existing collections on the catalogue to make them more user-friendly at the front end or adding information that helps colleagues in the back-end system and also attaching photographs to the online records (this in particular I cannot do without the assistance of members of the digitisation team who scan the images first). Some of the collections added last week include copies of local verses including “Bellingham Show” by W. Bell; documents relating to Shoreston Hall; family photos from Acklington/Guyzance; school permanent files; deeds relating to Berwick-upon-Tweed; boxing brothers the O’Keefe’s; plans from Newcastle and Gateshead Waterworks and papers on the promotion of industrial development in the County.

I also get the opportunity to undertake research for social media and blogs; some topics I am asked to look into and others arise when I come across something interesting and, being curious, I want to know more. The most recent one I wrote was a short article after watching the episode of the Antiques Roadshow filmed at Woodhorn Museum.

When on site, the working day depends on whether we are open to the public (we are on Wednesdays and Thursdays for pre-booked sessions). Working in the searchroom involves opening up; making sure PCs, Reading Room and microfilm readers are all switched on. Names of researchers are checked against the booking system so we know who is booked in and for what, and pre-ordered documents are put out on desks. Researchers can request a further two items on the day, so when this happens, references are checked to find the correct location (strong room number, shelving unit and shelf number) and the document is retrieved. During half-term there were more people about than usual so we also had people come to the door asking for general advice on our service and also asking to register as a user and obtain an Archives Card. We close at lunchtime, so we clean work stations, return documents to the strong rooms and the new one’s are retrieved for the afternoon session.

On a Friday when the searchroom is closed, I work through some of the listing I have been asked to do, most recently this has included some photographic slides of the Corbridge area and marriage registers received following the change to procedures last year. Since re-opening we have been taking in deposits, on a Friday I will often help the Archivist with this; assisting the depositors bring items inside, re-packaging and boxing items so that they can be given a location in the strongrooms before they are listed, for more straightforward items I can assist with the listing or the paperwork for the accession. The last couple of Fridays’ I was asked instead to prepare documents for a group session that was being held. Retrieving in excess of 30 documents certainly is an afternoon’s work; lifting boxes, going up and down the step ladders meant by the end of my working week I definitely felt that I’d had a workout!

BERWICK ADVERTISER, 3RD MARCH 1922

04/03/2022 by Northumberland Archives

DEATH OF MR EDWARD WILLOBY

THE LAST INMALE LINE OF OLD

BERWICK FAMILY

The death of Mr Edward Willoby, which took place at the residence of his sister, Mrs Anderson, Dunbar, at the week-end, removes one of the few old “standards” of Berwick, and also the last of the male line of a family which has been resident in the town since the sixteenth century. Mr Willoby’s health has been steadily failing since the death of his sister last April. He sometime ago disposed of the furnishings of the house in Ravensdowne and went to live with his widowed sister to whom he was very much attached. The end was not altogether unexpected by his more intimate friends.

AN OLD BERWICK FAMILY

Mr Willoby was the second son of the late Mr Edward Willoby, solicitor and Clerk to the Borough and County Magistrates, Guardians and Rural District Council, who died in 1893. His great grandfather was Borough Treasurer in 1763 and Town Clerk in 17765 and 1800, his grandfather, Mr William Willoby, succeeded to the post. Mr Willoby’s mother was a Miss Jane Gray prior to her marriage and he had one brother William, who died in 1885, and two sisters, Miss W. Willoby, who died last year, Mrs Anderson, who still survives. A tablet to this branch of the family was erected in Berwick Parish Church in November last.

Mr Willoby’s forebears having been Freemen, he, as a boy, attended the Corporation Academy and in after life always maintained a kindly interest in it. He was made a Freeman of the town in July 1866, and from that date was never non-resident until recently.

The Corporation Academy, now The Leaping Salmon public house, Berwick upon Tweed. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/

AS ESTATE AGENT

Mr Willoby did not follow the legal profession of his forefathers, but set out on his own as an estate agent soon to cultivate an extensive business. He acted as local estate agent for the Duke of Northumberland and had supervision of the Magdalene Fields. Many will remember how at intervals he used to ride round the fields on horseback examining the fences. He was a great horseman and in connection with his business he used to make long journeys into Northumberland in the saddle. He had charge of the Coupland estate owned by the Culley family and was well-known in Glendale by the tenantry. For long too he has acted for the Askew family, when their estate was more extensive than now, and in the North Northumberland. Mr Askew and he were close friends. He never aspired to municipal honours or anything likely to take his mind off his business and that, no doubt, was the secret of his success as an agent.

A SPORTSMAN

From his earliest boyhood Mr Willoby was keen on sport. He had no particular fancy but if anything he had leanings towards rowing and fox hunting. He was one of the original committee of the Berwick Amateur Rowing Club in 1869 and an active member at the time when William Grey, Thomas Darling, and others trained on occasion late and early and could beat all comers at the regattas. Mr Willoby was most successful rowing in pairs. His brother William, who was also a good oarsman, was a member of the club at this time and between the two of them they won many prizes.

Berwick Rowing Club Boat House. BRO 0426-440

Readers who can take their memory back over twenty years will remember how keenly Mr Willoby followed the Northumberland and Berwickshire Hunt. If a meet was within riding distance of Berwick, he attended it in blue coat and white buckskin breeches. To see Mr Willoby coming up Hide Hill to his stables at the top of Woolmarket after the hunt, the horse tired and mudstained was as familiar a sight twenty years ago, as the old King’s Arms bus. He liked a gallop in the afternoons of summer days out by the Murton and Unthanks way.

BERWICK ADVERTISER, 17TH FEBRUARY 1922

18/02/2022 by Northumberland Archives

CAPTAIN COWAN’S TESTIMONIAL

TO THE MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE

EXPERIENCES AND SUGGESTIONS

(To the Editor)

Sir, – Having been one of the unfortunates who has had foot-and-mouth disease on his farm lately, I wish to state my experiences and conclusions.

I bought home 16 stirks from the local market on January 28, two of which showed signs of distress about mid-day January 30, and that afternoon the disease was confirmed by the local authorities, who communicated with headquarters. I had previously given instructions that these cattle should be completely isolated from all other stock for seven days after their arrival. Thus from the moment they came home they were never in contact with any other animals. The net result was that only that bunch of 16 were slaughtered on the morning of the third day after confirmation of the disease, thirteen of which were then affected – not wholesale slaughter of all the other cattle, sheep and pigs on the place as many of my neighbours thought.

The shed in which the animals were isolated was within 50 yards of the main cattle pens where there were 63 other cattle and 29 pigs. It is now eight days since the affected cattle were slaughtered, and there has been no further outbreak here, and I trust there will not be. On January 31 the Inspector of the Ministry of Agriculture took full charge of operations, and all his instructions were most carefully carried out and have so far been successful in checking the progress of the trouble.

I should like to contradict most emphatically what I have heard said in many quarters, namely, that the Ministry’s officials help to spread the disease through carelessness in moving from infected cattle to uninfected ones without proper disinfection. This is a libellous statement as far as my experience has gone, as the two officials I had the pleasure of dealing with in these distressing circumstances here, were most particularly careful, and did not enter uninfected areas after having been into the infected area, and whenever they came out of such places they washed their hands, oilskins coats and rubber boots most particularly all over in very strong Jeyes’ fluid.

I consider that if all cases are treated similarly the Ministry are doing the very best thing for the country in view of out great export trade in stock. Stock owners must co-operate and help officials to the utmost ability in fulfilling instructions to stamp out the disease.

My suggestion is – only import cattle from countries which can show a clean bill of health for a certain period of time, say, two years at least.

What about the Canadian embargo now? Put Ireland and Canada on the same basis. I hope our inspectors at ports and markets will use more care and discretion when performing their duties, as I am afraid somebody blundered at Newcastle, as apparently the bunch I bought on 28^th January were watered and fed there, a then infected area. – Yours etc., JAMES R. C. COWAN. Shidlaw, Cornhill-on-Tweed, February 10.

LOCAL NEWS

A curious incident happened on the Old Bridge on Friday morning. A flock of sheep refused to pass a large motor lorry on the narrow thoroughfare at the high arch. Evidently with the intention of taking them off the Bridge,

the shepherd signalled to his dog. Not realising where it was, the animal cleared the parapet in a bound and landed in the Tweed. For some time it swam round the pillar in an endeavour to get out, and eventually, in response to a further signal, swam up stream and reached terra firma at the Boathouse.

For some weeks large quantities of crude rubber have been washed ashore on the coast between Bamburgh and Boulmer. Where the rubber has come from a mystery, as no shipping casualty has been reported off this part of the coast. The rubber is on slabs and appears to have been baled. It is just possible that it may have formed part of the deck cargo of some vessel caught in the recent heavy weather.

Bamburgh Castle, c.1930’s Ref: BRO 426/0927

Fishermen at Craster, Dunstanborough, Newton and Ross Links, as well as at Boulmer and Bamburgh, have been salving large quantities.

A hen met with a curious death at an East Lothian farm the other day. The steading has lately been brought up to date with labour saving machinery, one of the most interesting of which is a threshing-mill having conveyers for straw and grain, and blow-pipes through which a powerful draught of air draws away the chaff, and ejects it into the chaff-house. The hen selected an unfortunate position for egg-laying purposes. It was close to the intake of the blow-pipe, and when the machinery was set in motion, she was irresistibly carried away by the force of the draught and killed.

FASHIONABLE MARRIAGE

HOLDSWORTH-HODGKIN

The marriage took place on Monday at the Friends’ Meeting House, Truro, of Mr John Holdsworth, of Swartmoor, Havelock, North New Zealand, son of the late Mr and Mrs J. Holdsworth, of Eccles, and Miss Lucy Violet Hodgkin, of Truro and The Constable Tower, Bamburgh Castle, eldest daughter of the late Mr Thos. Hodgkin, D.C.L., of Newcastle, and Mrs Hodgkin, of Treworgan, Falmouth. The bride, who entered the Meeting House leaning on the arm of her brother, Mr Robert Hodgkin, of Oxford, wore a beautiful gown of grey chiffon velvet, with soft lace fichu clasped with a spray of real orange blossom grown at Glendurgan. She wore her mother’s wedding veil and carried a bunch of violets, with sprays of white heather, myrtle, and the New Zealand Manuka. The niece of the bride, Miss Violet Frances Bosanquet, eldest daughter of Professor R. C. Bosanquet, of Rock, attended the bride, wearing deep violet velvet with trimmings of grey fur. Grey shoes and stockings and a grey hat completed the toilet and a posy of violets was carried. She wore a circlet of pearls in the form of a brooch, the gift of the bridegroom. Mr J. Oliver Holdsworth, of Bolton, cousin of the bridegroom, acted as best man.

The wedding was very quiet and no reception was held at Treworgan; but Mrs Hodgkin entertained near relatives, and a few intimate friends in a room adjoining the old oak panelled meeting house. Later, the bride and bridegroom left to spend their honeymoon at Highcliff, Lyme Regis, Dorset, kindly lent by the Misses Lister. Mrs Holdsworth travelled in a suit of Parma violet faced cloth, with vest embroidered in silver threads, a hat of slightly darker shade of panne. The bride and bridegroom had expressed a wish not to be given wedding presents, but that these might take the form of contributions to the Russian Famine Fund or to the recently-formed Friends’ School at Wanganui, New Zealand. Many cheques were received for both objects, and in addition some useful and beautiful personal gifts.

+ More