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This Week in World War One, 1 December 1916

08/03/201801/12/2016 by Northumberland Archives

BERWICK ADVERTISER, 1 DECEMBER 1916

TRAPPED BY THE TIDE

BUTCHER’S FATAL RISK ON HOLY ISLAND

The finding of a butcher’s van in which was yoked the dead body of a horse, on Holy Island sands on Sunday, brought to light the tragic end of Thomas Foreman, a well-known butcher.

The unfortunate man who belongs to Lowick, Northumberland, regularly crossed these dangerous sands to the island and was familiar with the perils attending a crossing with the flood tide.

bro-0515-127-blog — BRO 0515-127 (c) Berwick Record Office

It appears that having served his customers he left the island at 5 o’clock on Saturday night and although little enough time was left to cross in safety, no fears were entertained as to his regaining the other side.

The high tides, however, had not been taken account of and it is feared Foreman met his end while at least half-way across. Up to the time of writing no trace of the body has been found.

LOCAL NEWS

Feeding Stuffs and Milk Prices. – Although the price of milk is to be restricted there is no restriction upon the price of feeding stuffs for the cows. Some farmers, assert that unless some limit is imposed upon the price of the feeding stuffs it will be impossible for them, except at a loss, to continue supplying milk. It is stated that in some parts of the country farmers are disposing of their cows. To avoid any possibility of a shortage in the supply of milk from this cause, it has been suggested to Mr Runciman that he should summon a conference of farmers and manufacturers and importers of feeding stuffs to discuss the situation with a view to arriving at a voluntary agreement for the limitation of prices. The president of the Board of Trade, who is considering the suggestion, will be asked on Thursday, 30^th November, to indicate whether he is prepared to adopt it.

Steamer Refloated. – The large steamship Tredegar Hall, 3,764 tons gross register, which stranded on the sands at Monkhouse, Bamburgh, two months ago, has been successfully refloated. As the steamer stranded during spring tides fears were entertained that some time might lapse before she was salved, but the exceptionally high ide experienced at the week-end, allowed a large salvage tug to successfully tow the ship into deep water. It is understood the vessel is little the worse.

WOOLER

Christmas. – we are reminded that Christmas is again approaching, and the annual prize show and sale at the Wooler Mart is announced for Monday week. We are assured that an excellent display may be looked for. The quality of the stock presented by the Wooler Mart, Co., at their Christmas show is always equal to any, and that it will be up to the usual standard goes without saying.

Gifts for Soldiers. – A subscription list has been opened by the Vicar to provide the sailors and soldiers who have left the parish with a suitable Christmas parcel. Over £21 has already been subscribed and is expected to be still further increased. A chocolate service is to be held in the Parish Church on Sunday afternoon, when gifts of chocolate, etc., will be welcomed. The collection will also be for the soldiers and sailors gifts. The total number reaches over a hundred. The Presbyterian churches are also sending parcels to members connected with their places of worship.

SCREMERSTON

Concert for Soldiers’ Chritsmas Gifts. – A very successful concert, organised in connection with Scremerston Church with the object of sending a Christmas token of remembrance to all Scremerston men on active service abroad, was given in the large hall of the local Workmen’s Institute on Monday evening last. The concert had aroused a very general interest in the parish and neighbourhood, and the highest anticipations of the Vicar and those associated with him in the venture were more than fulfilled. The entertainment itself was of a very interesting and varied character. Through the good offices of Mr J. M. Dudgeon, a number of the Royal Scots now billeted in Berwick promised their assistance. During their stay here they have proved themselves most able and successful entertainers in various ways, and they repeated their triumphs on this occasion. Corpl. Dells, humourist, Private Cummings and Corpl. Howitt, vocalists, and Private Burnett, impersonator and soft shoe dancer, all justified the reputation they have gained. Mr Dudgeon’s ability is too well known to require description further than to say that he proved himself as popular as ever.

© Copyright Raymond Chisholm, and licensed for reuse under Creative Commons, Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-SA 2.0).

A cymbal dance by Miss Dormer and a tambourine dance by Miss Douglas were gracefully given and heartily received. A beautiful stage picture representing Britannia and the nine Allied Nations, devised and arranged by Mrs Lightfoot, was represented by Miss E. M. Lightfoot as Britannia and by members of the Church Girls’ Guild. The supplemental act saluting the British flag by the separate nations individually give the audience the opportunity of greeting each ally with welcoming applause. Part songs by Scremerston Church Choir as a body, and songs by individual members further associated the Church with this pleasing effort to send tokens of remembrance to the local men now serving in France, Egypt, Salonica, and on the high seas. The seating of the large gathering was looked after by Mr R. Thomson, ably assisted by his sons. Much of the success of the undertaking was due to the untiring interest and assistance given by Mr and Mrs W. J. Blackett, Scremerston Post Office, who also bore the cost of conveying the Berwick and Spittal vocalists to and from the concert. A goodly sum was realised by the venture, and the parcels thus secured will be despatched to the men at the Western front without delay; parcels have already been sent to those in Egypt and Salonika.

St Andrew’s day – Scottish law in Northumbrian manors

30/11/2016 by Northumberland Archives

As Northumberland is the most northerly English county the history of its manors is tied very closely to Scotland and its history. War has shaped the fortunes of many manors, but this is also the case with cooperation between the two countries. The connection between them is local, not just national, and Northumberland’s manors have played a role in that history. The whole picture is far too detailed and interesting to deal with in a short blog post, with so many wars, conflicts, rebellions and raids, but we can look at what impact the relationship had on the way manors were run and the terms they used.

Wark-on-Tweed manor has a fascinating cross border history, and has changed between being English and Scottish at different times in its history.

Early in manorial history many manors were owned by the Scottish Kings and noblemen. For example in 1279 the kings of Scotland rented two thirds of Bellingham Manor to the Bellingham family by a Serjeanty, or condition, where the Bellingham family acted as the king of Scotland’s forester in Tynedale forest. Eleventh and twelfth century conflict between the countries changed this ownership. The king of Scotland’s portion of the manor was seized by Edward I during war with Scotland and was later given with other lands to Edmund earl of Cambridge, later duke of York, by his father Edward III. Edward III forced the Scottish king and nobles to give up the southern counties of Scotland in 1334, and nobles forfeited their estates in England, including Patrick V earl of Dunbar whose manor of Middleton Hall was granted to Henry Percy.

Warfare damaged the crops in many manors, bringing no income for the lord of the manor and famine for the inhabitants. A number of manors were expected to provide soldiers and equipment in peace and war, such as Corbridge which had to provide one man! A lawsuit of 1579 over a small holding at Burton shows that land tenure in Northumberland still came with a requirement to serve in protecting the border. Peles and other fortified dwellings were often built by the lords of manors for safety. Even manors a good distance from the border were vulnerable, with Longhoughton described as ruined and waste after wars in 1368, and from cattle raids in 1573. Border reivers operated from both sides of the border, and watches would be kept for reivers in many places. One example from the Order of watches in 1552 shows a night watch was kept between Hitchcroft in Shilbottle to Rugley in Alnwick by ten men from Shilbottle, Whittle, Sturton Grange, Birling, High and Low Buston, Wooden and Bilton townships.

However it is the everyday business in manorial documents that show the connection – Scottish law and terminology was sometimes applied across the border. We have below a few Scottish terms we have found in the manorial records.

We found ‘Grassum’ was paid in what is known as the West Water manors (the manors of Melkridge, Henshaw and Ridley & Thorngrafton). This was paid every 21 years from 1758-1885 for some of the leasehold tenements, and recorded in one book for the purpose (ZBL 66). Looking at a few Scottish law sources this can be a sum paid by a tenant at a renewal or grant of a lease, or a single payment made in addition to a payment such as rent or feudaty. It might be comparable to the English term premium. It is hard to say why Grassum would have been paid there, or for how long the practice was carried out. The key may be right back in the early history of the manors, when they were owned by the Kings of Scotland and leased to a number of noble Scottish families such as the earls of Athol and earls of Badenoch.

As covered in a previous post, there were numerous jobs associated with the manorial court, and Scottish roles were similar to many in the English manor courts. For example in Norham, now a small English village on the banks of the River Tweed overlooking Scotland, we find the Scottish term ‘Land liners’ used. Within Scottish burghs, as in the English equivalent, Boroughs, the inhabitants (burgesses) were entitled to a ‘burgage plot’ of land. Whilst in an English manor a ‘fence-looker’ would check the legality of such boundaries, in Scotland and Norham, the term ‘land liner’ was used for this official who measured out and checked the size of the burgage plots.

Our project is continuing to compile the history of each manor at a time and through doing so will be continuing to post about the interesting terms and stories we find.

The Northumbrian County Histories Volumes I, V, and XV have been of great use in the preparation of this blog, as have The Concise Scots Dictionary and Law Basics: Glossary of Scottish Legal Terms (O’Rourke and Duncan).

First World War Stannington – John Atkin’s story

21/12/202029/11/2016 by Northumberland Archives

During the First World War Stannington Sanatorium continued to run, but there is no doubt the lives of those there were affected by it. We can gain an excellent insight into that time through the lives of a family closely connected with it, the Atkin family. Here we will look at the Philipson Farm Colony manager John Atkin’s wartime farm, and will follow this with another post that will look at his son Robert’s war and a project exploring the men of Stannington village in WWI, and unveil sanatorium nurse Hilda Currie’s (Robert’s wife) album of photographs.

John Atkin

John was born on the 28^th March 1858 in Rothbury. On the 1861 census we find him living with parents Robert and Joanna in Corbridge. Robert was a Blacksmith from Corbridge, and Joanna was from Rothbury. John had a sister, Isabella, and his 11-year-old uncle Adam lived with the family. This would be a big and busy household as Robert and Joanna would go on to have another six daughters and five sons, and apprentices and visitors also shown on the census. John followed his father into the Blacksmithing trade, and married Margaret. The couple are found on the 1881 census living in Stargate, near Ryton, with John working as a colliery Blacksmith. Their son Robert was born there in 1882, though the family had moved to Scotswood-on-Tyne by the birth of daughter Minnie two years later.

However the family were divided on the 1891 census. John was living at Newburn Hall, Lemington, the sole occupant of a house, and was working as a Blacksmith. Margaret is harder to locate, but it is likely she was a patient in the Royal Infirmary in Newcastle at the time. During her stay there Robert and Minnie had gone to stay with their grandparents Robert and Joanna in Corbridge, the house still busy with aunts and uncles Joanna, Minnie, Matthew, James and Jane, and three visitors.

A 1910 photograph of the Atkin family of Corbridge kindly sent to us by John's Great-granddaughter. John and Margaret are 4th and 5th from left at the back, with Robert on the far right. — A 1910 photograph of the Atkin family of Corbridge kindly sent to us by John’s Great-granddaughter. John and Margaret are 4th and 5th from left at the back, with Robert on the far right.

John became the farmer at Whitehouse Farm in 1900, and on the 1901 census Margaret, Robert and Minnie are all present at Whitehouse, with Robert employed as a farmer’s son. However John was not there. He was boarding with the Nylander family at Newburn Hall, and working as a Blacksmith. Perhaps this was a transition, or he was supporting the family while the farm was still being set up. Five years later the Philipson Farm Colony was established by the PCHA, and John was asked to remain and train the boys in agricultural skills. John grew crops, raised livestock, and he and Minnie kept hundreds of chickens, with the eggs sold to the sanatorium. They also supplied the sanatorium with milk, and sewerage from the sanatorium was used as manure on the fields.

John gave a talk to the Newcastle branch of the Rotary Club, published as an article in the August 1918 volume of the Rotary Wheel magazine, in which he described his endeavour to maximise yield from the farm. At the end of the First World War this was vital as the country became affected by food shortages. John argued these were caused by the farmers’ preference for producing only sheep or cattle, though he felt “they could hardly be blamed for adopting a system that pays them best”. A reliance on imported wheat meant:

“The doctrine of the cheap loaf has carried the day, and we are now paying for it in millions – the neglect of this most important industry has brought us almost within measureable distance of defeat.”

He then described how he had taken on and run Whitehouse farm. The first year’s profits were entirely used in rates, taxes etc., perhaps suggesting why John had found work Blacksmithing again. He turned over more fields to hay, and made a 100% profit on poultry farming. The fields, once drained, produced better crops, and in eight years the yearly value of the farm’s produce rose from £400 to £1200. This was with the help of the boys from the farm colony, and they took the ideas learned from John with them into their adult careers, and even overseas.

John felt that “Well-cultivated land is a national asset, and at any time like the present is equal in value to many Dreadnoughts”. He felt the war would revolutionise farming, and though it did not bring many ‘back to the land’ as he suggested it did bring about greater use of machinery: “In many farm operations the motor will supersede the horse”. However his most important argument for farming to help the war effort lay in the diversity of stock and crops he had introduced in his own farm:

“We scour the world for eggs that might be produced at home … Organisation, co-operation and modern appliances will, I am convinced, make the farming of the future an industry such as it has never been in the past in our country”.

This seems to have worked, as the National Farmers’ Union statistics show that only 50% of eggs and 19% of wheat consumed in Britain originated here in 1914, compared to 87% and 83% in 2013.

John beside an apple tree from Hilda Currie's photograph album (NRO 10361/1/233). — John beside an apple tree from Hilda Currie’s photograph album (NRO 10361/1/233).

The family moved to The Birches in Tranwell Woods, and John built the family a home there in 1910, named White House after the farm. The family lived there for many years. Robert’s granddaughter recalls her father’s memories of following John around his different pursuits, such as beekeeping (never wearing a hat) and growing apples for shows. He also won trophies for shooting with the Hexham Volunteers. His huge greenhouse in which he grew tomatoes and chrysanthemums was destroyed during the Second World War.

We will continue the story with Robert, Helen and Helen’s photograph album in a future post.

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