An interesting and enjoyable dance arranged by the warrant officers, staff sergeants and sergeants at the K.O.S.B. Depot, took place in the Gymnasium Hall at the Berwick Barracks on Friday evening. There were some sixty couples present. Dancing commenced a eight o’clock to excellent music supplied by the orchestra under the leadership of Mr Wilson; the duties of M.C. being efficiently discharged by Sergeant J. Wallace. Besides a representative attendance of the K.O.S.B. Depot there was also a considerable number of officers, warrant officers and sergeants present from other regiments in the vicinity. The W.A.A.C. attended, and lent material assistance in the purveying of the refreshments. The interior of the Gymnasium was very efficiently decorated under the supervision of Sergeant Kater, while the perfect state of the floor greatly contributed to the enjoyment of the dance which was kept up till 3 a.m. on Saturday morning.
Information was received by Mrs David Borthwick, Low Greens, on Saturday that her son Seaman James Borthwick R.N.R. was lying seriously ill in Haslar Hospital Gosport. Mr David Borthwick the father of the lad was absent at the time, being at a southern port, and Mrs Borthwick and Mr Henry Cowe at once proceeded to visit the lad.
We now learn that news has come that Seaman Borthwick is progressing favourably after an attack of inflammation and we are sure we express the hope of his many friends when we wish him to soon be well and fit again. It is only a month ago since Seaman Borthwick joined up on attaining the required years of age, and it is believed that the changed conditions of life have been responsible for his illness. He is a fine lad, and a great favourite with all, and we trust although his life in the sea Service has started under unfavourable circumstances that he will yet prove a credit to the service and an honour to the family to which he belongs.
NORHAM
A flag day was held on Saturday in aid of Irish Regiments and their prisoners of war. The arrangements were carried out by Miss Head and the sum of over £3 was collected. The young ladies taking up the duty of the sale of flags etc., were Misses Rose Cowe, E. Young, Jean Smith, M Reid, R Muckle and E Foreman.
Lambing is now in full swing in the Norham District, and given favourable weather, this year should prove a very much better one both for ewes and their lambs.
There has been a very good run of salmon on the reaches of the Tweed at Norham lately and several gentlemen visiting the district and local residents have had good sport with the rod and line. Trout are not in the best of condition, but are improving rapidly and in this department of the gentle art, some excellent sport should be available soon.
We are sorry to learn that up to the present no news has come to hand concerning the fate of Second-Lieut, F. Gartside-Tippinge, Royal Flying Corps, only son of Captain Tippinge and Mrs Tippinge of Morris Hall. Lieut Tippinge has been missing since October last, when certain units of a flight failed to return to the base in France after a raid over the enemy lines.
An early Royal Flying Corps recruitment poster.
Extensive enquiries have been made but without result, and the sympathy of all goes out to the parents in their anxious time. Lieut. Tippinge who was studying for the Army joined the R.F.A., in the first instance and was later transferred to the R.F.C., where he successfully passed his course. He was only a short time in France before being posted missing.
GOSWICK
Good progress is being made with the new loop line between Goswick and Beal and we understand when the work is finished the gangs engaged will be transferred to the Belford area, a loop line being contemplated between that station and Grag Mill.
A gentleman who had recently occasion to visit the district has remarked on the excellent possibilities of Goswick as a summer resort and watering place.
The beach has not its equal in Northumberland, while there is the splendid natural golf course to provide a draw. A small “Hydro” and some boarding houses are all that are required to complete the stock-in-trade of a summer resort, and it is urged that here is indeed room for someone with capital to boom Goswick after the war.
As the Northumberland Summer Assizes assembled on the 18th July 1887 Elizabeth “Longstaff” stood trial charged with the larceny of two bed sheets worth three shillings. The bed sheets had been relieved from an Amble lodging house belonging to Obadiah Self; a coal miner with three daughters and a son. Obadiah testified to the assembled court that, on the afternoon of the 9th July 1887, he had made-up the lodging house’s ten beds. At 10:30pm, when he went to check on the beds, he found two sheets missing.
Case of Elizabeth Longstaff for the Prosecution. REF: NRO 11343/B/DAT
An Elizabeth “Longstaff” had been lodging at the house and her disappearance on the evening of the crime made her the most likely perpetrator. Having absconded from the scene she tried to rid herself of the evidence. She met Margaret Gilmore from Broomhill and told her that she “was hard up and … would sell the sheets for the price of a stone of flour and a bit of yeast.” Margaret then unknowingly bought the stolen sheets for one shilling and a loaf of bread. Obadiah had immediately reported the incident to the local Police Sergeant and, as Elizabeth returned from her dealings on the Radcliffe to Amble railway, Lewis Scaife, the local Police Sergeant, was able to identify and apprehend the suspect. Elizabeth immediately admitted her guilt to the Sergeant.
Elizabeth was further incriminated during the trial by the prosecution’s key witness Frank Mack; an Amble-based hawker of no fixed aboded. He had also lodged in the house that fateful night and told the court how he had innocently helped Elizabeth gain entry to the bedroom as she could not open the heavy door. She was eventually found guilty by the presiding Bench and the case made headline news in the Morpeth Herald as an example of “bad character.”
Elizabeth’s 1887 court appearance appears to be the first, and only, time the Dickson, Archer and Thorp firm were involved in the prosecution of a Mrs “Longstaff.” However, Mr Archer believed her crimes extended far beyond the parish of Warkworth. To prove his hunch Mr Archer sent various letters to contacts across the Durham county. A picture of Elizabeth soon emerged of a colourful character whom had carved herself a career in crime. Her previous convictions included indecent exposure, drunk and disorderly behaviour, the theft of money and food, passing of counterfeit corn, use of counterfeit coins and larceny of clothing. This extensive criminal record can be traced from 1887 to 1900 using newspaper articles, criminal registers and original documents produced for the aforementioned court case of 1887.
Witness statements in the 1887 case of Elizabeth Longstaff. REF: NRO 11343/B/DAT
Elizabeth Johnson
Elizabeth was born in 1857 as Elizabeth Johnson. She hailed from Sunderland in County Durham, and married Miles Longmires in 1876. Their marriage was a turbulent one; which Elizabeth yearned to escape.
On the 10th January 1879 reports were published in the Durham County Advertiser regarding a domestic assault which had occurred between the couple in the October of 1878. Miles Longmires, described as being a potato hawker, had assaulted his wife Elizabeth by delivering a strong blow to the back of her head. Elizabeth had pressed for charges immediately following the incident, but she subsequently dropped them. Whilst being questioned as to why she had dropped the accusations against her husband she changed her version of events to divert the blame. She claimed she was struck by someone in the dark passageway of their lodgings, and had blamed her husband. She then claimed she had been mistaken and, having been informed by her more knowledgeable “neighbours,” the assailant had actually been another resident at the Coxon Lodging house called John Jones. We will never know why Elizabeth changed her story but, having escaped to her mother’s home for a short time, she returned to her husband and in 1879 gave birth to the couple’s only child John William.
But the birth of their child did not lesson Miles’ temper, and his domestic abuse of Elizabeth continued. By the November of 1879 this behaviour had pushed Elizabeth to take drastic measures, and led to her first brush with the law.
A Poisoned Beer
John Lewis was a business acquaintance of Miles Longmires and known throughout the county as “Partridge Jack.” On the 5th November 1879 the elderly man had went to the Longmires’ household to conduct business, whilst there John gave Elizabeth one shilling to procure him something to eat. Upon her return all Elizabeth had purchased was beer, to which she added a brown powder claimed to be allspice. The concoction made John ill, and Elizabeth told the old man to lie down. John obliged and, as he was emptying his pockets, Elizabeth grabbed one of his satchels of money and “bolted out of the house, locking him in.”
Whilst John attempted to escape through a window, Elizabeth had retreated with her infant son to a neighbour’s home and told them that she had “cleaned Miley out.” This comment was a clear reference to having gained revenge over her abusive husband by ruining his business deal and escaping. She took the money, burned the satchel and fled with her son. However, she was soon caught a few days later at Spennymoor by PC Houlds. The policeman testified in court that, when found, she admitted to having spent the money on new clothes for herself and her child. John told the police that he had been carrying at least £10 but, when apprehended, Elizabeth claimed it had only been £3.
On the advice of her solicitor Elizabeth took responsibility for her actions and pleaded guilty when she then appeared in the dock with “an infant in her arms.” The infancy of her child and her honesty, which was to become a pattern in her court appearances, did not gain her mercy from the Bench. Instead, “the Bench considered this a very bad case, and the prisoner was therefore ordered to undergo the heaviest penalty in the power of the magistrates, six months hard labour.”
A Time Line of Crime
Elizabeth served her sentence but in the October of 1880, less than five months after her release, she was imprisoned again for “obtaining goods by means of false pretences after a previous conviction.” Perhaps Elizabeth actively sought to be imprisoned in an attempt to escape her turbulent home-life? However, as her criminal spree continued long after her husband died a premature death in 1882, it was more likely influenced by her economical situation.
In the 1881 census Elizabeth was residing in Durham Prison, here she is listed as being a “fish hawker” beyond the prison walls. Those who worked as hawkers were often loud and charismatic people; able to barter and manipulate a situation to gain a sale. Victorian hawkers often walked a thin line between legal trade and loopholes. Some operated with licences, but many sold a mix of legal and black-market items in an ad-hoc way. It was an unstable lifestyle, which didn’t always guarantee money, and often became a gateway to crime. Thus her tendency to steal items which she could easily pass on for a profit, such as clothing and material, may have been rooted in her “occupation.”
Following her 1880/81 stint in Durham gaol Elizabeth moved to Northumberland and developed her criminal repertoire. It was around this time that Elizabeth also began to use a collection of aliases whilst committing her crimes. This made it harder for her prosecutors to prove previous criminality – as Mr Archer experienced first-hand. These aliases included her married name of Longmires, her maiden name Johnson and two invented names of Longstaff/staffe and Clayton.
Letter confirming aliases. REF: NRO 11343/B/DAT
In January 1886 she was convicted at Northumberland’s Epiphany Sessions, held at the Moot Hall in Newcastle, for the use of counterfeit coins. She received a prison sentence lasting 12 calendar months, along with a three year police supervision order. It was following her release from this particular crime that Elizabeth stole Obadiah Self’s bed-sheets, for which she received two months hard labour.
The following year Elizabeth was free once more and returned to Durham, where she proceeded to commit two separate crimes of “simple larceny.” The first occurred in June, and she received a second police supervision order. However, by the October she had stolen another bedsheet (this time from an Edward Toole.) For this crime, and because she had broken the rules of her previous supervision order, she was sentenced to six months hard labour.
In September 1889 she returned to prison again for “14 days” having failed to report herself to her Police Supervisors in Auckland whilst on a “ticket of leave.” Then, in the December of 1889 at the age of 33, she returned to prison for five years having stolen:
“a piece of ham, a shoulder of mutton, a quantity of flour, six yards of black velvet, one hat, one pair of cotton sheets, one black skirt and two pairs of stockings, value £1 4s, the property of Margaret Crawford at Jarrow.”
Her lengthy jail time gained her some sympathy when she offended once again in 1894 for stealing a quantity of clothes belonging to William Liddell at Cowpen. During this trial it was noted that;
“The Bench were sorry to find she had spent most part of her life in prison, the last sentence she had undergone being five years’ penal servitude. She was even now out on ticket-of-leave. She would have three more years’ penal servitude after she had completed the unexpired one on which she was now out.”
Escape to Yorkshire
By the close of the century Elizabeth had spent extensive periods in a series of northern prisons. In 1899 she was charged once again, this time in Blyth’s Police Court, for failing to report a change of address whilst on another ticket-of-leave. It is assumed her new address was somewhere in Yorkshire as, later that year, she spent fourteen days in HMP Wakefield for the crime of “begging.” The admittance register for Wakefield HMP describes Elizabeth’s physical features as standing at just over four foot tall with grey hair. The register also notes that she was illiterate. Elizabeth was now 42 years old with twelve previous convictions.
Elizabeth’s story is difficult to trace from this point forward; she may have died or changed her name again. Her son, John William, seems to have grown up away from Elizabeth. Tracing him is also difficult; but there was a John William Longmires born in the county of Durham and working as a barber in the Alnwick workhouse in 1901.
Elizabeth’s adult life had been spent mostly incarcerated, and her petty crimes had kept the county’s magistrates busy. A mix of Elizabeth’s marital, economic and social situation forced her hand to crime. Her first serious crime against “Partridge Jack” seems to have been an attempt to escape a violent life. It is easy to fall for the Victorian rhetoric and see Elizabeth as an enterprising criminal but it was more likely that she was a victim of her time, sadly restricted by her social context.
The 20th March 1969 ‘The Berwick Advertiser’ ran the following story:-
Today was the day RAF Acklington was to send helicopters up the Ingram Valley and small hamlets along Coquetdale to drop fodder to the starving sheep. Plans had been made to drop fodder to High and Low Blakehope Farm in the Cheviots, but these were cancelled due to low cloud and snow showers.
Mr Harry Rutherford of High Blakehope and Mr R. T. Elliot of Kalemouth, Kelso who have some 1300 sheep on the two farms, had arranged for the helicopter to carry hay that had been brought in by road from Kelso to Hartside, but due to the weather the drop was shelved. Both farmers yesterday confirmed that the position was ‘Grim’ it could be desperate if today’s drop is binned as the sheep only have fodder for another day. A blizzard on Friday blocked roads, cut off electricity, closed schools and kept the North Northumberland fishing fleet in port.
The Primary schools at Milfield and Branton were closed because of the snow and lack of power. Pupils could get in, but there were no facilities to provide a hot midday meal. Only 13 of the 23 pupils made it in to Glanton School as the snow as 5 inches deep in the village. The 300 pupils at Glendale School also had the day off to play in the snow due to the conditions.
The weather affected the bus services on both sides of the border, a spokesman for United Automobile Service Ltd said that the Wooler – Newcastle bus route was blocked by snow at Longframlington Moor and buses could only get as far as Whittingham. A bus driver, conductor and passenger had to walk 2 miles to Coldingham village on Thursday night as the Berwick to Edinburgh bus got stuck in snow. Mountainous seas battered to coast and the seas at Eyemouth were said to be the worst in living history. At Berwick the water broke high over the pier and the lighthouse and this was the same story further down the coast at Seahouses.
Coastguards and Police were asked to keep a look out for 220 cases of gunpowder jettisoned in the sea 10 miles east of Longstone by the Dutch Coaster ‘Harry’. The crew dumped the cases when the deck cargo began to shift. It was the high winds which did most of the damage for; although it snowed on Thursday morning and again on Friday the majority of it turned to slush, but with the easterly gale came the drifts. In many parts of North Northumberland the drifts were 10 to 12 feet deep. The snowploughs and blowers were out for more than 24 hours, with men working shifts to keep the roads open.
The electricity cuts suffered by many were caused by clinging wet snow to the conductors. On Saturday, Sunday and Monday strong winds from the south east and with heavy showers of snow and sleet meant the temperature barely rose above freezing. On Tuesday as the region began to shake itself free of the weekend conditions blizzards swept in from the east and by lunchtime the workmen from Berwickshire and Northumberland County Council were once again working in a full scale battle against the snow. Swept in by the wind in clouds so thick visibility was only 10-15 yards in places and the snow piled up on the roadsides. Around Alnwick the snowfall was the heaviest of the entire winter.
A Greek cargo ship fell into difficulties off Longstone Lighthouse on Sunday and the crew had to be lifted to safety by a Danish Air Force helicopter. The 13 men and one woman from the ‘Kadiani’ were landed at RAF Leuchars. She was bound from Aalborg to Benghazi with a cargo of cement. She battled against the gale force winds in the North Sea for 3 days before the Captain radioed for help. At one time the English tug ‘Yorkshireman’ attempted to take the stricken ship under tow, but the tow rope broke.
Within the Berwick Advertiser story there was mention of John Russell. He was also mentioned in the Northumberland Gazette published 21st March 1969. With the headline “Unlucky 13th for Bus Crew from Wooler.” John Russell, was my grandad and 49 years today he was involved in the storm. He was the driver of the Wooler bus which was stranded in deep snow on the Wooler to Newcastle road. It was the first time in 25 years’ service, that United Bus Company driver John Russell of Oliver Road, Wooler, had been forced to sleep in a bus an experience also shared by his conductress Miss Esther Speirs of Milfield.
“It was without doubt the coldest and most uncomfortable sleep I’ve ever had” said John after his bus got back to Wooler depot on the Friday morning. Some 12 hours after setting off from Newcastle. He set off at 7.38pm from Tyneside, a blizzard was blowing, but conditions were not bad. They got the empty bus as far as New Moor House crossroads west of Alnwick then was turned back. Mr Russell said “I started back to Wooler and after about half a mile the bus got stuck. Just before Miss Spiers, saw a figure coming towards us from a stranded lorry. Suddenly, the man fell down and then got up again and came towards the bus. It was a Mr Alan Easton.” We got him inside and dried him down then he and Miss Speirs set off walking toward New Moor House to use the telephone. Miss Speirs later returned with Mr Mossman the occupant who brought sandwiches and blankets which were most welcome. A snowplough arrived and offered to pull the bus out, but Mr Russell lacked the necessary equipment for the tow. Later Police Sergeant Nairn from Wooler Station who had previously visited the bus returned with a tow ring.
Sergeant R. Nairn and PC A. Chicken had started looking for the bus after Morpeth reported that it had not got through. They found the bus and 2 cars as well as the lorry stuck near Moor House. The occupants of one of the cars Mr & Mrs Philip Malthouse of Wooler were brought back to Wooler by the Police and the occupant of the other car was an Australian who got a lift back to Glanton where he lived. The lorry was dug out, but the bus was stuck.
Mr Russell had only just received his Kings Medal for Loyal Service in the 1939 -45 War, that Monday, 26 years after serving with the Royal Air Force. The family story has it; Grandad didn’t leave the bus because he was carrying the mail. I’m proud to say that this was my grandad as are other members of the family and I welcome the opportunity to write this article and make people aware of what he did. I remember fondly, the time I spent with him in Wooler on my holidays, playing in the buses parked up in the depot as well as going down the inspection pit. Happy days! We still have the newspaper clipping of the event as well as his long service certificate, save driving bus medals and his Kings Medal.
