Northumberland Archives

This Week in World War One, 7 January 1916

08/03/201808/01/2016 by Northumberland Archives

BERWICK ADVERTISER, 7 JANUARY 1916

THE NEW YEAR

BERWICK

The celebration of the New Year in the streets of the ancient borough of Berwick appeared to maintained in much the customary fashion despite the effects of the war. The weather was dull and wet, but the streets bore an animated appearance, the khaki uniform predominating among the pedestrians. The lighting restrictions, combined with the weather exercised a damping effect on the majority of grown-ups, but the young idea moved about exchanging the compliments of the season in a hearty and hilarious fashion, while lively and popular songs added zest and variety to the proceedings.

The only place of public entertainment in the Borough, the Playhouse, drew large crowds, and the performances were very much appreciated. The shops drew large numbers in the making of seasonable purchases, and in laying in additional supplies to tide the householder over till Monday. As the evening advanced the thoroughfares assumed a more livelier air, the hum of voices and merry shout emphasising the fact that the old year was slowly vanishing, and that the majority were out for the night to witness the actual death. As usual a number seemed to give way to over indulgence, but as a reasonable latitude was for once allowed the police were not called upon to interfere, the result being that there was a clean bill on the first morning of 1916. Towards midnight large numbers assembled at the foot of the Town Hall to hear the knell of the old year and the peel that welcomed the new born year. The usual good wishes were exchanged and thereafter friendly visits were paid to the houses of acquaintances. For a considerable time after twelve o’clock the thoroughfares resounded to the shouts of the merry makers. Saturday was a general holiday. The weather continued dull and wet, and few people were to be seen in the streets. The special performances at the Playhouse were again well patronised. On the whole the New Year was quietly celebrated, all circumstances tending to have this effect.

EXHIBITION OF CAPTURED GERMAN GUN AT BERWICK

The Mayor of Berwick (Ald J. W. Plenderleith), has just been notified by the authorities in charge of the Scottish Command in Edinburgh that a captured German gun is being sent to Berwick for exhibition purposes. In making the notification it was enquired which would be the most convenient site to have the gun placed, and His Worship in reply suggested the Parade between the military huts and Wallace Green Church.

Army huts with the Berwick Barracks in background. Copyright Berwick Record Office. BRO-1944-1-149-1

The military authorities have expressed themselves pleased with the proposed site, and the gun will be exhibited in presence of a military guard. It is understood that the captured gun will be on exhibition for three days from nine a.m. till four p.m. and that it will be removed to the Barracks each evening. No definite date has yet been fixed for the arrival of the gun.

A PRETTY WEDDING

On December 27th, at Trinity Presbyterian Church, Sunderland, the marriage was solemnised of Mr E. Norman Chapman, York, to Miss Sadie Waters, daughter of Mr Thomas Waters, Wooler. The bride was given away by her father, and the bridesmaid was Miss M. H. Brand, cousin of the bride. Miss Allison James and master Reggie Waters, niece and nephew of the bride, acted as attendants. The best man was Mr E. Settle of York. Rev. R. L. Wiseman officiated. The bride was charmingly attired in a costume of saxe blue galardine, trimmed fur, with hat to match. She carried a lovely shower bouquet, and wore a brooch of rubies and diamonds, the gifts of the bridegroom. The bridesmaid wore a costume of navy blue and large white hat, and a gold bangle, the gift of the bridegroom. The bridegroom’s gift to Miss Allison James, who looked very pretty in a dress of pale grey, was a gold chain pendant, and to Master R. Waters a silver watch and chain. A reception was held at the house of the bride’s brother, Hunter Terrace, and later the new-married couple left for their future home in York. They were the recipients of a large number of useful and beautiful presents.

LOCAL NEWS

Bankhill Church Intercessory Services – The Rev. R. Leggat at the morning intercessory service on Sunday read the roll of honour of the young men attached to the congregation. He mentioned that 27 were on active service, while all the men of military age, with the exception of three who were exempts, had enrolled under the Derby Scheme. New Pipe Band – The first appearance of the Berwick Boy Scouts Pipe Band under Piper Major Lawrie, of the Royal Scots, took place at the Pier Field, on Saturday, the occasion on being a football match between the Boy Scouts and the Sea Scouts, in which the former won by four goals to one. The band made a very creditable appearance, and the selections were much enjoyed.

The Diary of an ‘Unknown’ First World War Soldier.

08/03/201806/01/2016 by Northumberland Archives

In September 2014, I heard that Northumberland Archives needed volunteers to delve into the experience of the First World War. As an amateur archaeologist I am interested in history and thought this would be a fascinating project to get involved in, and as I do freelance work, I would be able to do it when I was not working.
I went along to the training days which were very interesting. I was already familiar with the family history section of the archives at Woodhorn as we have been researching my husband’s family, the Lindsays of Alnwick. On completion of the training days we were each given a project to undertake and mine was to transcribe the diary of an ‘unknown’ First World War soldier which had been handed in to the Archives.
I found this to be utterly fascinating. The diary is very well written, full of humorous stories, heart breaking and vivid accounts of the writer’s experience of death and war, drawings, and even a theatrical programme! I actually found it a privilege to be one of very few people to read this diary since it was written. Some of his accounts moved me to tears and brought the whole experience of the war very close to me, and as a mother, I couldn’t help but be mindful that each account of a soldier dying such an awful and lonely death was somebody’s son. I was privilege to details of their deaths that their mothers probably never knew. The author reveals a loyalty to his country, respect for superiors and acceptance of ‘doing one’s duty’ which is rare today.

One of a number of drawings found within the diary.

I became so interested in this man’s stories that I really wanted to find out who he was. He gave some clues along the way, such as the fact that he knew a lot about sheep and farming. A German steamer had run aground near Cheswick Burn ‘to the south of our land’, and his brother had been in command of the coastguard at Berwick. From this it was clear that he had some connection with farming in an area I am very familiar with in Northumberland, and I thought that it would be easy using the internet to find out the name of his brother. I had no luck and emailed the RNLI and other organisations such as the website of the London Scottish, his regiment, but had no replies. I took my husband along to have a look at the diary and we read on further. The words jumped out from the page when we read that his ‘dear brother Cecil’ was killed whilst in command of the cruiser H.M.S. Bayano on 12th March 1915. This was an enormous clue. We went home and spent the evening in pursuit of our soldier and found him.
Using Google we found that his brother was called Henry Cecil Carr who was 43 when he went down with his ship. From this, I had his birth year so I then looked at census records and found Cecil in the 1881 census when he was 8, along with his father John Carr who was a Merchant and Justice of the Peace, five sisters and 4 brothers, Reginald E, George, Hubert and John E. Which one was our soldier? The census showed that they had all been born in Gosforth and were living at Roseworth Cottage, Coxlodge. I then found Cecil in the 1911 census living in Rochester, Kent, with his occupation as ‘Royal Navy Commander’ so I knew we had the right family.
With these clues, I googled and found that Reginald E was the coastguard, so that narrowed our unknown soldier down to George, Hubert or John E. Remembering that our soldier had mentioned ‘our land’, I decided to look at Kelly’s Trade Directory for 1914 for Berwick, and found one John Evelyn Carr on page 21 as Manager of Scremerston Coal Company, coal owners and merchants, brick and tile manufacturers and farmers. I strongly suspected we had our man! (It was midnight by this time).
I was about to do some double checking to make sure this was our soldier and decided just to put his name into Google to see if there was any more information on the net about him. I got a shock! Up popped an entry for Northumberland Archives about one John Evelyn Carr who had written 4 war diaries, and who had had a special study on him done by Emily Meritt in 2014. I read her work about the soldier and recognised from the information about him that my soldier and hers were one and the same person! There was even a photo of him, which I found fascinating I could now put a face to the person behind the diary. His words had also featured in a book called ‘Tommy at War 1914-18, the Soldiers’ own Stories’ by John Sadler, and I found another photograph and information that he had been a sheep breeder on ‘Historypin’. The mystery was solved but I was a tiny bit disappointed that my soldier had already been known about, and his diary wasn’t unique. He seems to have been a prolific writer! We have still to find out if my diary is part of the four already known about, or separate.

I found out that he had been married in 1900 at St Andrew’s, Newcastle to one Gertrude Isabella Moncriff Blair (obviously not a scullery maid). He had worked after the war as Managing Director of the Scremerston Coal Company and lived at Heathery Tops Scremerston and Spittal, where he died in 1958. I have recently found out that there is a farmer whose surname is Carr who farms at Scremerston today and am minded to get in touch with him to see if he is a relative. It would be interesting to know how the diary came to be in the Archives and not cherished by John Carr’s family as a precious heirloom.

One of a number of funny cartoon drawings found within the diary

I feel that I know this man. I think he descends from The Carrs of Etal who once owned Barmoor Castle where our family have a holiday home today. It is odd that he was born and brought up about half a mile from where I live, and that he lived and worked in an area I know well and love. I even know the road where he lived in Spittal. It was meant to be that I got to transcribe his diary, and I hope I can do justice to his bravery and brilliant storytelling, so that other people can experience the immediacy, humour and sorrow that I have felt while transcribing it.
We would like to express our sincere appreciation to Carole McKenzie for supplying this article for our Northumberland At War Project.

Beyond the court rolls – other manorial documents

27/01/201606/01/2016 by Northumberland Archives

In our first post we looked at some of the court rolls, and in the second how the courts worked. We will now explore some of the other documents that we commonly use to determine whether a place is a manor, and what else we can find out from them. From the documents we can learn more about agriculture and diet of the period, crime and the way criminals were treated, urban growth and industrial development, and land, house or property ownership. There is excellent scope for local history studies from these documents and the detail they give of land boundaries and the individuals who held them. There is also huge potential for genealogists – though you may think they would only provide information about the landed classes, some court rolls and other documents list the names of those renting or holding land by service. Here we have divided up the documents we use thematically.

Geographical documents

Surveys – as you would expect, these are descriptions of the manor and its boundaries. This can be very useful when trying to identify what land was owned by whom. They often also detail the customs of the manor, which often differed from place to place.

ZCR/M/2: Survey of demesne of Manor of Craster, Northumberland

Terriers – a survey arranged topographically, showing you the manor field by field or where open fields existed, strip by strip.

Maps – from the sixteenth century this survey information is commonly laid out in the form of maps. These marked out the boundaries, adjoining manors or parishes, and topographical features. Unlike the terriers these would be done to scale, and became increasingly accurate as time went on.

Boundary roll – Description of the manorial boundary, though not a full perambulation.

NRO 00452/E/3/3/1/2: Blanchland Bounder Roll, Northumberland.

Perambulation – A long description of walk around the boundary, detailing local landmarks.

Land holding and ownership

Rentals – the names of all the tenants of the manor, however they held it, with a description of what they held and how much they paid, and what form their payment took. Payments could be in the form of money or produce. If they were expected to provide services it would say what these were. These weren’t as frequent as accounts or court rolls and sadly don’t always survive.

Custumals – The survey of rents, services owed by the tenants to the lord of the manor, the rights of the lord, the obligations he owed, and the customs of the manor. These would need to be examined occasionally, and everyone reminded of what these were to avoid confusion. Often the customs or rents changed, for example if services or produce were exchanged for payments of money.

Extents – An often earlier form of rental, a valuation and description of everything on the manor, such as the manor house, mills, demesne land (much like a ‘home farm’, the land near the manor house farmed for the lord), tenant’s rents and services.

Surrenders and admissions – The transferral of copyhold land from one owner to the next was done by one owner ‘surrendering’ his or her claim to the lord, who then ‘admitted’ the next tenant. This would be written down in the court roll, and the new tenant would be given a copy of what was written, hence this being called ‘copyhold’.

ZCO IX/5/1: Enclosure Act for Ovingham, Bywell St Peter and Bywell St Andrew.

Enclosure Awards – Enclosure was the practice of taking areas of unused land, strip fields or common and dividing them into privately owned fields. This would be done through private act of parliament up until about 1800, after which public acts were made possible, and from 1845 Commissioners were appointed to oversee the process of enclosure and issue enclosure awards. The awards detail how the land was divided and who the owners were.

Court papers

Presentments – lists of the matters to be dealt with by the court, such as disagreements between tenants or disobeying the manor customs, often drawn up beforehand by the jury. They might often be included in the court roll. ZBL 2/13/21 has some interesting examples including those brought before the court for offences such as ‘speaking scandalous words’ of someone or ‘wrongful mowing’ of someone else’s meadow.

ZBL 2/13/21: Presentments at Melkridge

Suit rolls or Call books – like an attendance register of everyone who owed suit to the court or attended the court. In some places these could be resident books, not only of the tenants but of everyone who lived in the manor. They might be kept within the court books.

Customs of the manor – a list of the individual customs of the manor, such as how many animals an individual could feed on the common

Stewards’ papers

Accounts – These would be kept by the steward or bailiff of the manor, usually annually at Michaelmas (the 29^th September), and marked the income and outgoings of the manor. For example ‘charges’ or income from the rents, money from sale of produce or fines; and ‘discharges’ or expenditure from purchasing livestock, repairs or labour.

Appointment of bailiff – a bailiff was a manager for the day-to-day running of the manor appointed by the lord. In some cases the role would be unpaid, with one of the tenants being elected annually to serve as ‘Reeve’ or ‘Greave’. This document would detail the bailiff’s appointment in the role.

Notice of court – letter to the lord notifying him of holding the court, or a notice often posted on the church door, giving the date, time and location of the court.

Correspondence – between the lord and the steward over various court matters.

+ More