Berwick residents found themselves face to face with as sensational a “Mystery Story” as ever could be found in the Sunday papers last week when it became known that a man who had fallen down in Castlegate the week previously and had been taken to the Infirmary had suffered from loss of memory since 1917.
Engraving of Berwick Infirmary HB1-68 late 19th Century
Such was the statement made by a tall, refined and well-groomed young man giving the name Bert Templeton King, an ex-U.S.A. Airman. King was found in Castlegate by a man named Conway, suffering it was thought from a fit. He was taken to the Infirmary, where he was seen by Dr W. B. Mackay and others, who formed the opinion that he was suffering from lost memory. The matter was brought to the notice of Supt. Halliday, who had several interviews with King in all of which, while he talked intelligently, he professed to know nothing about himself since 1917.
KING’S STORY
His story was to the effect that his father was on the shipping line, a citizen of New Jersey, U.S.A., and he himself had been an artist prior to joining the American Air Force in 1917. He stated that he could remember events clearly up to that year and amongst other things he said he had been trained at Mineola Aerodrome, New York, and had taken his pilot’s certificate. This was found in his possession, along with an American Registration Card. He had two kit bags full of clothing with him and a number of letters, but no money, and the Police set out to see if anything could be done to lead to identification.
THE POLICE “HAE THEIR DOOTS.”
In passing, it may be said the police were suspicious of the medical theory of lost memory; at least, not from such a distant period as 1917, it being contended that no man could wander across the Atlantic and travel up and down the country for nearly four years without showing some abnormal traits, consistent with loss of memory. Subsequent events seemed to prove that the police theory was very near the mark.
Inquiries instituted proved beyond doubt that King had been employed as a chauffeur with a gentleman in Sussex more than a year ago, and had then travelled north to take up a similar position with a gentleman living at Davidson’s Mains, East Lothian. King had been normal enough to carry on an intelligent correspondence with a young Edinburgh lady with whom he was on friendly terms. He seems to have told her quite a different story to that which he had told to the police.
His father was a motor car manufacturer in New Jersey, he is alleged to have said, and he was across in this country acting as agent for his father’s cars.
After having kept company for some six months with this young lady, King seems to have announced his intention of going south to Southampton, it was believed with the intention of returning to America. How he expected to get there without money is not clear, but it is a fact that he had none when he was picked up in Castlegate on Wednesday week.
BRO 2103-4-2-71 Castlegate looking North mid 1900’s
It was explained to King by the police that he had told a different story to the girl in Edinburgh to that which he had given in Berwick, and he replied, “ What girl! I know no girl there, and cannot remember having said that.” Superintendent Halliday then showed him the girl’s photo. To this he replied, “I have never seen her before.”
THE MYSTERY MAN ADOPTED
Full publicity having been given to the “Mystery Man” in the daily Press, the police had several inquiries for people in different parts of the Kingdom who had lost touch with a relative of their own. On Saturday three ladies arrived in Berwick, one of whom proved to be King’s mother, who had travelled from Belfast, and the others were his aunts. They identified him without difficulty, and though King contended he did not know them, he said he would go with them.
It transpires that King’s parents read of the “Mystery Man” in the “Daily Mail” and immediately recognised that it referred to their son, who they had been in touch with up to two years ago. The parents are well-to-do people, the father holding an important position in Harland Wollfs’s shipyard, Belfast. They are of Scotch extraction, which does not tally with King’s story of being a native of New Jersey. It happens; however, he was in America prior to 1917 and did serve, as he says, in the American Air Force. His parents, with whom he had been in touch from 1917 to 1919, know of no period when he suffered from loss of memory, and his movements up to two weeks ago seem to show him to have been normal, and his lapse of memory can only be traced from the time he arrived in Berwick.
During his stay in the Infirmary he has been very popular with the medical men, staff and convalescents, and has been going messages from one ward to another evidently quite normally. Mrs King is staying on in Berwick until the medical men give permission for her son to travel home.
Northumberland Archives is a heritage partner to the The Village Halls Heritage project. The project was developed by Community Action Northumberland (CAN) and aims to preserve, record and share the heritage of many of Northumberland’s Village Halls. The project is funded by The National Lottery Heritage Fund. On 19 November 2021 a group of nine representatives of Village Halls across Northumberland visited our searchroom at Woodhorn to learn about sources to trace the history of their Hall and how to look after documents in their care. One of the group members, Alison Cowen, has written about her visit.
Twenty one years ago my husband and I moved into Newton on the Moor. We soon found ourselves joining in events held at the Jubilee Hall and when our son came along we used the hall to host his christening and birthday parties. When I found out about the Village Halls Heritage Project I jumped at the chance to delve into the history of the building. I love history, so the chance to visit the Northumberland Archives, at Woodhorn, as part of the Village Halls Heritage Project Training was right up my street.
As I stood outside the gates with several other members of the project I felt a shiver of excitement, or was it just the cold?
Once inside we were given a very warm welcome by head of the archives, Sue Wood. She explained Northumberland archives are split over two sites with the one at Berwick upon Tweed covering the area from Berwick in the north of the county as far south as Ellingham and takes in the villages of the Cheviots. If you are covered by the old Berwick upon Tweed Borough Council, then that’s where your records are held. Woodhorn covers the remaining county of Northumberland.
The archives collect a huge range of documents and photographs, sometimes given as a gift for example by a family or as a deposit by a particular body such as a social club. They receive these from both official and private sources with the aim of preserving them future generations and to make them available as a resource for people, such as ourselves, researching a particular topic or investigating their family tree.
We were then able to go ‘back of house’. This took us behind the scenes to the vast secure strong rooms. These are sealed rooms that have their temperature and moisture levels carefully controlled to keep the documents in as good a condition as possible. All the shelves were full of boxes, electronic and moved at the touch of a button. I couldn’t help thinking it would make a great setting for a murder scene, archivist squashed by shelving! (this can’t happen as there are safety features built in). Each set of shelves had a number and each box on the shelf a number. Finding something must be like a giant game of Battleships. Another interesting room was where, subject to copyright, documents, maps, photographs etc, can be copied for a small fee. Apparently TV production companies often use this facility for period detail such as posters.
Back in the public search room we learned how to use the catalogues and indexes which were all linked to the numbers on the shelves and boxes in the strong rooms. If you want to visit the archives you can book a session using the online form via their website. You explain the topic you’re exploring and a researcher will have several documents from the strong rooms waiting for you. It seems quite straight forward.
Sue had put on a display of images and other documents relating to village halls that were currently stored at Woodhorn. I was delighted that several related to my own Jubilee Hall in Newton on the Moor. We were shown how to use various online resources including Northumberland Communities and the British Newspaper Archives. The latter is a subscription service, however if you have a Northumberland Libraries card you can visit this site free of charge at any county library. My own village hall was used as an example as to what could be found and I was amazed to find that the hall had been used as the venue for a music event attended by some quite influential people at the time in the late 1800’s. Fascinating.
If you’ve got any records, pictures etc in your own village hall it may be worth depositing them at Woodhorn. It’s very easy and you still ‘own’ them and the copyright of them, so that if you don’t want them available to the public in a particular time frame because someone is still alive and may be upset by this if it was made public, you can say so. There a uncomplicated form to complete and the staff are both helpful and knowledgeable.
We were encouraged to think about the environment we store our village hall documents in. When you deposit them at Woodhorn they go to great lengths to clean dust and mould from everything storing them in acid proof boxes with brass fastenings. Julia (Plinston) is going to look at potentially buying suitable products in bulk so that each hall can purchase smaller quantities from her. Apparently one of the worst set of documents to clean came from the old Dickson, Archer and Thorp solicitors in Alnwick. The property was almost Dickensian and some of the documents were covered in pigeon poo!
I personally could have stayed all day and can’t wait to get started researching my own village hall in the New Year.
Copsay Hall, I am told, was just over one hundred years ago as picturesque a dwelling as one could see in the district, and was enclosed in a finely wooded glen at the foot of Copsay Hill, hard by the turnpike road leading from Lowick to Kyloe. It was a low ramified building; the walls were of extraordinary thickness- especially the east and west gables- and the roofs were covered with heather. The proprietor- or perhaps, more correctly speaking, the proprietrix- was a well-to-do lady named Catherine Copsay. Her husband was the heir of the Heddon family of Forest House, who adopted the name of Copsay on his marriage with Catherine of Copsay, as that lady was familiarly called. He was a madcap, who devoted most of his time to such pursuits as hunting, badger-baiting, cocking, dog-fighting, and card playing, and as well known in the district by the appellation of Hair-brained Dick.
LOWICK Ref: BRO 0515-163
The Copsays were devoted adherents to the Old Creed, and Catherine of Copsay was no less ardent in her support of that faith than her predecessors had been; whilst the Heddons espoused the Protestant Faith. A feud had existed between the two families for over three hundred years; therefore much surprise was expressed at the union of the House of Copsay with the neighbouring House of Heddon.
Previous to the union, and greatly against the wish of the Heddons, Richard Heddon espoused the Faith of Rome; he also gave up his wild habits and severed his associations with his hair-brained companions. However, after his marriage, he gradually cast aside his regard for religion and resumed his wild pursuits in a more wanton manner, and soon again he drew around himself a coterie of profligates. His wife was deeply grieved, for she saw to her sorrow the evil influence those wanton habits were having upon her young step-brother. Leonard, whose home was also at Copsay Hall, but all remonstrations they laughed to scorn. Such then was the course Richard Copsay pursued for ten years after his marriage, when an incident occurred which entirely changed the trend of his afterlife.
Before proceedings further, I must explain the tragic occurrence that caused the feud of long-standing between the two families, for on the affair hangs the sequel to my narrative. Sometime about the beginning of the sixteenth century the heir of Copsay was known in the district as Black Ralph of Copsay. He was a tall, tithe, dark-complexioned youth of a very amiable disposition, and had long sought the hand and heart of a daughter of the House of Hetton; but he had a rival in the person of the heir of Heddon, who was very wroth when the heir of Copsay became the affianced husband of the Beauty of Hetton, as the damsel was called. One night, at a party at Kyloe, the heir of Heddon evinced his displeasure at the presence of Black Ralph, high words were exchanged, and the rival lovers would have come to blows but for the timely intervention of some friends. Frustrated of his revenge, the heir of Heddon used some ugly threats, and on receiving a hint from the host left the party. Black Ralph left shortly after midnight; and, as was his custom on such occasions, he made to enter his home by a subterranean passage that entered the house underneath the east gable. When he had come to the small-arched chamber in the gable he was treacherously attacked and stabbed with a dagger, his assailant making his escape. In the morning a retainer heard a moaning sound proceeding from the secret chamber in the gable; quickly removing a panel in the wainscoting he entered the chamber and found his young master lying in a pool of blood. He called for assistance, and Black Ralph was got into the room and laid on a couch. The injured man only survived the removal a few minutes, and the only words he faintly uttered were: “Henry of Heddon.” The dastardly acct was not proved on the heir of Heddon, but he made a confession on his death-bed four years after he had committed the act, and all intercourse between the two families then ceased.
OS Map 1 INCH 1st Edition SHEET 4
Like many other houses belonging to that period, Copsay Hall was said to have its haunted chamber and ghost. The ghost was said to be the disembodied spirit of Black Ralph of Copsay, which nightly entered the subterranean passage shortly after midnight and moaned in the secret chamber. Those nightly wanderings of spirit had continued down to the time when Ralph, the grandfather of Catherine, made some alterations at Copsay Hall, and had the subterranean passage and secret chamber securely closed up. From that time the spirit had neither been heard nor seen, and the good people of Copsay had long concluded that the spectre had been banished from the place, but that they had deceived themselves the following will show:-
One Saturday afternoon in August, and just a few days after the tenth anniversary of his marriage, Richard Copsay entertained a number of his associates to an exhibition of badger-baiting, dog and cock fighting in the cockpit a short distance down the glen from Copsay Hall. A motley gathering of the leading fanciers from the neighbouring villages had brought their dogs and cocks to take part in the afternoon’s programme. Among the house party at Copsay Hall was a Roman Catholic priest, a cousin to Catherine of Copsay, who was officiating pro tem at the Chapel of Our Lady and St. Cuthbert. Father Brock was nown to be keen on such sport, and was appointed judge of the combats. Before a start was made with the events, and at intervals during the proceedings, the retainers of the host went round the gathering with flagons of home brewed ale, and soon the “crow of the victor” was drowned with the boisterous revelry around the cockpit.
The shades of evening were falling ere the hypaethral festivities were brought to a close, and after the noisy fanciers had departed, the host led those of his select companions, who seemed in no hurry to depart, to the parlour, where card-playing was indulged in. The punch-bowl was passed frequently around and the spirits of the players rose and fell with the undulations of their luck. The grandfather’s clock in the hall had chimed the hour of midnight; but still the card-playing and nocturnal revelry was continued. Catherine of Copsay came from another room and reminded the party that it was Sunday morning. “Cathy.” Said her husband, “Good Father Brock is with us, and when he gives up we shall reitre.”
“I am grieved to think that such a thing is taking place in my house on a Sunday morning; and, above all.” She said, rebukingly, “that Father Brock should be so willingly acquiescing. Such conduct.” She added, as she turned to leave the room, “ is enough to bring back the spirit of Black Ralph.”
“Black Ralph, indeed,” repeated her husband with sarcasm, an then in suaver tones he added, “Cathy, I never thought that you were given to superstitious ideas, but rest assured that should that ancient relative of yours favour us with a visit, I will graciously invite him to have a hand.”
“Father Brock, do you believe in ghosts and apparitions?” one of the party asked as the cards were being re-dealt.
“I don’t.” replied the worthy father. “When apparitions are followed up they are generally the superstitious beliefs of nervous and emotional persons, who imagine such things and then brood over their fancies until they believe then to be real. Since I came here I have heard much about spirits, ghosts, hob-goblins and such like spectral appearances. Being a descendant of the House of Copsay, I have, of course, long known the legend of Black Ralph of Copsay; but three days ago I heard for the first time the stories about the Spirit of Offa frequenting Kyloe Wood, the Bogle of Bogle House, the White Lady of Fenwick Wood, the White Hare of Barmoor, the White Calf of Slainsfield, the Witches of Goswick, the Lanthorne of Ladythorne, the Phantom Carriage of Broomhouse, and the Nun of Haggerston. No further gone than Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday nights I walked around the Bogle House to the spot where the Bogle appears; thence through Kyloe Wood, where the Spirit of Offa is said to roam at midnight; then down to Fenwick Wood, and along the Lady’s Walk, where the spectral lady is said to glide, but never a ghost nor spirit did I hear, see or feel.”
“Nor have I ever seen aught of the White Lady of Fenwick Wood, although I have passed that way hundreds of times at all hours of the night,” said Frank Middleton.
“Rev. Cousin,” said Ricard of Copsay, “I’m proud to think that you are a strong-nerved person like myself”; and, turning to his brother-in-law, he asked him to pass the punch-bowl around so that all might fill their glasses and drink to the confusion of the spectral group Father Brock had named.
The glasses were re-filled and the host raised his glass and gave the toast – “The confusion of all spirits, ghosts, bogles and hobgoblins in the Kingdom.”
The glasses clinked, “The confusion of all spirits, ghosts, bogles and hobgoblins, “ responded the party.
“Hark!” was the general exclamation as all turned and looked in the direction where the portrait of Black Ralph hung against the east gable, from whence a peculiar knocking sound was coming.
“Can it be the Spirit of Black Ralph?” several remarked uneasily.
“The Spirit of Black Ralph; forsooth, it is only rats that have found their way from the subterranean passage and have got behind the wainscoting,” said Richard of Copsay. He went and knocked on a panel and the knocking behind suddenly ceased. “I must have this attended to or the household will soon become alarmed should those brutes continue in there.”
“I told you.” Said Father Brock, “ that such occurrences come to naught when followed up.”
The party re-seated themselves around the large round table, and ahd resumed the game when there was a crash of falling glass. All looked towards the window as a tall, dark gentlemen stepped into the room and came towards them. “ Seize the intruder!” said Richard of Copsay, as he rose to intercept him. No one, however, seemed to have the power to lay hands on the stranger, who silently regarded them for a few seconds.
“Holy Mother! It is Black Ralph!” exclaimed Father Brock, and swooned.
The candles were extinguished and the cards taken from the hands of the players. “My deal,” said the spectre and vanished.
