Maternity Care and More  

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NRO 2409/238

This blog has been written by Dee Love, one of the volunteers on our maternity care project. Project volunteers are researching maternity care in Northumberland with particular focus on Castle Hills Maternity Home, Berwick, and Mona Taylor Maternity Home, Stannington. The project is supported by the Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust Bright Charity and the Northumberland Archives Charitable Trust. We will be posting more blog content from the project over the coming months.

For a generation of women in Northumberland the name Mona Taylor was synonymous with maternity care. 

If you were born in the Mona Taylor Maternity Home in Stannington did you ever wonder who Mona Taylor was?  

The story begins in Anglesey where Maria Mona Waldie Griffith was born in 1852. She was the second child of Sir George Richard Waldie Griffith, the second Baron Munster Grillagh and his wife, Eliza Leader.  

 The title was created for Mona’s grandfather and became extinct when her brother died in 1933. Her brother, Richard studied at Cambridge with a certain Thomas Taylor and it’s likely that he introduced Mona and Thomas to each other.  Thomas Taylor was a mine owner whose business interests were in County Durham. Mona and Thomas were married in 1880 in  St George’s church in Hanover Square in London.  In 1881 they are living in Hexham, Northumberland and were the proud parents of a son, Hugh, born on Christmas Eve 1880.  They went on to have three more children Margery, Violet and Thomas George.  Both daughters inherited their mother’s interest in politics and were active in local politics in Newcastle. Thomas George joined the family business and was a director of The Ryhope Coal Company. The older son, Hugh joined the army and was a Captain in the Scots Guards.  

In 1900 Thomas inherited Chipchase Castle in Northumberland where their descendants still live.  

Mona was much more than a wife and mother. She went on to become a champion of Women’s Suffrage.  She attended her first suffrage meeting in London in 1872 aged 20 and joined the National Society for Women’s Suffrage. By 1890 Mona was active in the suffrage movement in Newcastle. She put her considerable organisational skills to good use organising a conference in Newcastle to appeal to MPs for women’s rights. At the end of the same year, also in Newcastle, she organised a conference for workers.  When Millicent Fawcett toured the region on behalf of The National Society for Women’s Suffrage Mona chaired the meetings.  In 1891 she was elected Vice President of the C.N.S.W.S. and around the same time she wrote a pamphlet “Why do Women want Suffrage?” Forty five thousand copies of the pamphlet were printed and distributed. In the pamphlet Mona summed up twenty- five years of agitation. 

“ And what chance, I ask you , have we of getting women’s suffrage or having numbers of women at elections pressing M.P.s for suffrage when all that we have is many unconvinced or unconcerned? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they are sent? This is our problem today.” 

Mona soon found some influential supporters who were tired of being treated as second class citizens. Among them were Lisbeth Simm who was married to an I.L.P. organiser, Florence Bell a school mistress, and two doctors, Ethel Bentham and Ethel Williams. Ethel Bentham went on to become a Labour M.P.  

The group met in the Drawing Room Cafe on Northumberland Street in Newcastle. Many groups of suffragettes across the country met in tea rooms as they were the only places respectable women could meet outside their  homes without their husbands. One such meeting at The Drawing Room was advertised in the Women’s Franchise on Thursday 21st January 1909. 

The National Union of Women’s Suffrage Society was originally dominated by Liberal women who didn’t want to embarrass the Liberal government in the early 20th century.  Liberalism in the North East could not afford to alienate the working class as there many miners who supported the Liberals in the years leading up to World War One. Post war the Labour Party came to dominate North East politics. When In  1909 Winston Churchill, then a minister in the Liberal government, was invited to Newcastle he received a telegram  from the Women’s Social Political Union saying  “Lest we forget.  Votes for women must be in the King’s Speech” 

Jane Addams an American activist, reformer, Social Worker and Socialist was in London  to speak at a conference of the International Women’s Suffrage Alliance on May 11th 1915.  Addams was advocating a Women’s Peace Crusade. Mona wrote to Addams saying that she believed that due to the current political situation and mood in England it was the wrong time to launch a peace crusade. She felt it should be a crusade against war.  Mona wrote “ There are over 50 Peace Societies in England, all run by Quackers  and Cranks, who have never made themselves felt.” Perhaps the death of her son Hugh in France in 1914 understandably jaundiced Mona’s  view of peace campaigns. 

She went on to tell Addams that, after 30 years at the fore- front of women’s suffrage, she knew every suffragist of any persuasion or value. She also knew the leaders of most of the large women’s organisations – Women’s Liberal Federation, Women’s Co-operative Guild and The Women’s Temperance Society and she had  got them all to work together for a Suffrage  Appeal in 1893. They had got a quarter of a million signatures in three months and she had been doing the same thing for the last three months to abolish war.  

In 1918 The Representation of the People Act allowed women over the age of thirty who met a property qualification to vote. This allowed 8.5 million women to vote  but this was only two thirds of the female population of the UK at that time. The act also gave the vote to all men over 21 to vote and serving soldiers could vote at 19 years old so there were still huge inequalities between men and women. 

It wasn’t until the Equal Franchise Act in 1928 that all women over the age of 21 were given the vote. This increased the the number of women eligible to vote to fifteen million. 

When Mona died in 1936 she had lived long enough to see universal suffrage for women and the fulfilment of a life of campaigning for Women’s Rights.  

Mona’s husband Thomas died in 1938 and in 1942 Aldermen Paton proposed that the Woodhouse Homes be renamed in recognition of the work Alderman Taylor had done in the service of the people of Northumberland. 

The Northumberland and Durham District Bank

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A project began earlier this year to add descriptive content to documents held at Northumberland Archives relating to the Lord Crewe Charity; this has been made possible by a grant the charity itself made to the Northumberland Archives Charitable Trust. 

In 1857 the Northumberland and Durham District Bank failed.  The first the trustees of the Charity would have heard about the event would have been the three items received in the post by Mr. Thomas Tuer, agent of Bamburgh Castle, on 27th November (NRO 00452/D/6/2/8/60-62).  Two letters were returning cheques that the recipients were unable to bank.  Mr. Jno. Kearton explained “I was duly in receipt of your cheque last night I am sorry I have to return it back, no doubt you will have heard before this [reaches] you the stoppage of the bank on Wednesday last”.  

A printed circular of the same date from the Acting Director of Northumberland and Durham District Bank, Newcastle upon Tyne reads, “I have to state that you may, with the utmost confidence, rest assured that every deposit and credit balance with the Bank will be fully paid”. 

The impact on the Trustees and whether they were shareholders in the failed bank is not known; the listing project is still ongoing and related correspondence may be uncovered.  Documents held elsewhere within Northumberland Archives gives an indication of the impact amongst other families in the County. 

The papers of the Carr-Ellison family of Hedgeley, near Powburn, reveal correspondence on the matter (ZCE/C/6/14; ZCE/C/6/17).  On 28th November 1857, at 11pm, John Sparks of Crewkerne wrote to Elizabeth Carr of Whitworth Parsonage, Ferryhill, discussing the situation states that, “The sum that this failure seems destined to produce appears quite frightfully extensive”.  This letter is forwarded to Ralph Carr of Hedgeley a few days later by Bessie Carr, the covering letter conveys that she is thankful that the situation is not worse, and they must bear the loss; a debt of £68 can not be paid ‘at present’ but she hopes to be able to do so soon. 

On 2nd December, Ralph Carr receives a later advising that Mrs. Carr holds 130 shares in the ‘unfortunate District Bank’.  The sender, Peregrine George Ellison of Newcastle upon Tyne, explains that, “Every existing Shareholder is responsible to the Creditors of the Bank to the extent of his or her property of every description [whatsoever] the number of shares held by such shareholder may be but as between the Shareholders themselves each cannot be required to contribute more than to the amount of his or her shares…A call of £5 per share is requested to be paid”. The words ‘of every description’ are underlined in the original letter, as if to emphasise the expected liability to be incurred. 

The papers of the Sanderson family of Eshott (NRO 04930/B12-B15) include copies of the Compulsory Order for winding up the Northumberland and District Banking Company and appointments of the official liquidators in April-May 1858; suggesting that the family were either creditors or shareholders. 

Finally, amongst the papers of E.W.S. Portnell & Sons, Solicitors, of Hexham (NRO 00467/39), are documents relating to the bankruptcy trust of Joseph Tingate a grocer and draper of Hexham.  A printed circular of 12th September 1868 refers to the pay out of the ‘seventh dividend’ of 2-pence in the £1, payable to Creditors only on production of the letter and an admission letter previously sent to Creditors.  The admission letter is also amongst these papers.  Whether the bankruptcy was because of the bank failure is unknown, but it does demonstrate that creditors were still receiving small sums towards their loss more than ten years after the initial bank failure. 

BERWICK ADVERTISER, 19TH JANUARY 1923

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DEATH OF “KING OF SHOWMEN”

Mr John Evans, known s “The King of the Showmen,” a native of Spennymoor, and one of the most prominent owners of roundabouts in the showmen’s business, has died at his residence, 1, Strainton Place, Portobello, at the age of 51 years. His father was also a showman, but of the old school and in a small way.

Salmon Hotel, Berwick-upon-Tweed. REF: BRO 426/322b

In his boyhood Mr Evans came with his parents to Byker and began his career as proprietor of a coconut “shy,” and eventually kept on buying and extending his sphere of operations until he became one of the largest owners of attractions for fair grounds in the country. It is stated that frequently he had 18 traction engines to draw his paraphernalia about different parts of the kingdom. Among the fair grounds in which he had a controlling interest was the Jesmond Dene show ground, and he held leases for stands at the Spanish City, Whitley Bay.

For a time, he held possession of the Salmon Hotel, Berwick, but disposed of the property recently to Mr J. Sharp. He gave freely to many charitable institutions. He leaves a widow, a married daughter, and four sons, three of the latter being assistants in the show business. The funeral took place at Rosebank Cemetery, Edinburgh, on Thursday afternoon.

LOCAL NEWS

Now that the groupings of railways is an accomplished fact, it is just possible several employees will be affected as a result. The Railways Act 1921 specifically protests those with five years’ service previous to the passing of the Act, and the National Union of Railwaymen is circularising its branches urging branch secretaries to safeguard the position of members by keeping in touch with the Head Office on any case where they have been transferred to an inferior position as a result of the grouping. This usually has taken place at exchange stations- that is stations where previous to grouping one Company met another. Here the N.E. and N.B. met, and we learn the secretary of the newly-formed loco. branch at Tweedmouth has had occasion to request that the benefit of the Act be extended to his members, some of whom have been reduced about 20s weekly. He is in touch with Head Office and awaiting development.

The Tweedmouth N.E.R. St. John’s Ambulance Association held a successful whist drive in the King’s Arms Assembly Rooms, Berwick, on Wednesday evening, 10th January. The object was to raise funds to enable their members to enter this year for the various challenge shields offered in connection with ambulance work. The first of these competitions is on the first Saturday in March, when the Newcastle and District shield will be competed for at Gateshead. On the first Saturday in April the Lord Wharton shield will be competed for at York, and in the second week in May a competition for the National shield will be held at the Crystal Palace, London, the shield going to the team judged the best in the national contest. The conditions under which the Company deals with the men is that each team pays their own expenses to the first competition at Gateshead. After that the Company pay the expenses of successful teams at the subsequent events. With this encouragement the men of the Tweedmouth class have worked hard to make their whist drive a success. There were 240 presents.

A house-to-house collection in aid of the National Children’s Home and Orphanage, London, was taken up in Tweedmouth by some of the teachers of the Tweedmouth Scotch Church Sunday School, this being the Church chosen for the Tweedmouth district. The amount collected was £9 16s 8d, this sum being handed over to Mr Buglass, Castlegate, who acted as Hon. Secretary. Thanks are due to the lady collectors for this gratifying sum for such a good cause. Some of the young boys in the Home belong to the county of Northumberland. The Church secretary, Mr J. Paxton, has received a letter of thanks from headquarters.

Owners of wireless sets in Berwick have been enjoying the operas broadcasted from Covent Garden, London, during the past week. The operas have also been picked up at Ayton. Berwick Wireless Club members are now engaged inbuilding up a three-valve set of their own. There are some 20 members of the Club and attendances at the weekly meetings on Wednesday evenings continue good.

Archibold Barton, alias William Wagstaff, a native of Derbyshire, who was wanted by the Kelso police for fraud and a contravention of the Aliens Order, was apprehended by Sergeant Middlemiss at Berwick Police station on Saturday, Berwick police were informed at 1.45 that the man was wanted, and by two o’clock he was under arrest- a really smart piece of work. We understand that a woman who had been in the wanted man’s company in Kelso has been taken into custody by the Kelso police.

Church Street, 1906. BRO 0426-338 Showing Berwick Police Station

Up to the time of going to press the goods sent in for Berwick Rangers’ free gift sale, which is held in the Corn Exchange on Thursday (this afternoon), were much below the expectations of the Committee. There were a number of bags of potatoes and a few hens, rabbits, etc., but the miscellaneous goods were not of a very high value. The view was expressed by one who has experience in such sales that the Committee would be lucky to clear £50 off the venture. The Committee were unable to secure the services of the Mayor to open the sale, but Mr H. M. Young, auctioneer, kindly consented to make a few opening remarks.

We have picked up what we believe is one of the earliest Berwick printed books, namely “The English Hero; or Sir Francis Drake Revived,” being a full Account of the dangerous Voyages, admirable Adventures, notable Discoveries, and magnanimous Achievements of that valiant and renowned Commander.” The book was printed at Berwick in 1760 and sold by R. Taylor. It consists of 183 pp., about 3½ inches wide by 5¾, is set in a beautiful type of the period, with artistic headings and sometimes tailpieces to the chapters. The last page is ornamented with an oval picture, an inch and a half wide, of an old-fashioned printing office. To the side two compositors are sitting on stools working at case; the centre is taken up with a large press with two pressmen with their hats on. One is inking the former with bladders, and the other has his hand on the frisket. From the roof on rails hang printed sheets.

THE LAST WOMAN HUNG IN BERWICK

Before the Recorder, Mayor and Aldermen, and a jury, at the Court of Gaol Delivery at Berwick on July 23-24, 1823, Grace Griffin was found guilty of the charge of murdering her husband, John Griffin, on 27th April by throwing him to the ground and beating, trampling, and kicking upon him with both feet and hands, and was sentenced to be hung by the neck until she died.

Court area within the Town Hall where Grace Griffin was found guilty.

It was a sordid case of drink and immorality but stripped of an immense quantity of evidence immaterial to the issue and which the Recorder paid little attention to, the persecution built up its case purely on circumstantial evidence. Statements by a woman of loose character who had stayed in a room above the couple were to the effect that she overheard the man saying, “Oh Grace, it was you that did this to me.” This was not a very damning thing to hear but taken in conjunction with other things there was a strong presumption that the woman had caught her husband sleeping drunk and had set about him. The jury found a verdict of guilty after twenty minutes’ adjournment, and after they had heard a summing up from the Recorder rather in favour of the prisoner.

After the trial Mrs Griffin expressed herself as satisfied with the verdict of the jury, which she said could not have been otherwise in consequence of the evidence; the witnesses had sworn as much, she said, as would have hanged twenty. She appears to have been kindly looked after by the ministers in the town before she was hung. The Vicar (Mr Barnes) urged her to confess before giving her the last sacrament, but she adhered to her story that she was innocent.

Stocks used in the time of Grace Griffin

At 3 o’ clock on Saturday, 26th July, the hangman arrived from Edinburgh and on seeing him entering her cell Mrs Griffin asked who he was. No answer was returned but when she proceeded to pinion her arms she submitted with calmness. Twenty minutes later she walked in deep mourning to the entrance hall of the Town Hall and when she saw the sea of faces looking up on her she remarked that she had often seen Berwick fair very thrang, but never anything like this.

Seated on a cart draped in black, she was borne to Gallows Hill and it is recorded that she waved her hand and nodded to acquaintances as she observed them in the crowd. She viewed the scaffolding without emotion and after engaging inprayer with the Vicar she mounted without movement. The bolt was drawn at 4 o’clock and with her hands clasped Mrs Griffin accepted human judgment.

Commenting on the execution the “Advertiser” of August 2nd, 1823, says “In short the whole proceedings were conducted with a solemnity and decorum suited to the awful occasion. In the crowd we observed many eyes bathed in tears, and several females who from curiosity perhaps pardonable of seeing the mournful procession, found the scene too overwhelming for their feelings and actually fainted.”

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