General

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. 

Thomas Taylor was the son of Hugh and Mary Taylor. Mary was the daughter of Thomas Taylor who owned Cramlington Hall. His father, Hugh,  was born in Shilbottle in Northumberland. Early in his life, Hugh was a mariner but soon gave up the sea faring life to become a partner in Coal Factor’s in London and a partner in several collieries in the North East of England including Haswell, Ryhope, Backworth, and East and West Cramlington as well as several mines in Wales.

When Thomas was born in 1850 Hugh was the Conservative M.P. for Tynemouth and the family were living in London. The 1851 census shows that Thomas had an older brother, Hugh and an older sister, Eliza. In 1862, Hugh acquired Chipchase Castle and the family moved North. In the same year the Hartley Pit Disaster saw the establishment of The Northumberland and Durham Miners’ Permanent Relief Fund. It was set up to provide financial support to the families of injured, permanently disabled and deceased miners. Hugh Taylor was a member of the first committee set up to receive and distribute the donations received by the fund. Many years later Thomas was elected president of the fund for twenty consecutive years.

Thomas was educated at Durham School and Cambridge University where he read for a degree in mining engineering.  For sixty five years from, 1871 until 1936, he was a member of the North of England Institute of Mining Engineers. When he married Maria Mona Griffith in 1880 the couple began their married life in Northumberland.  The couple had four children, Hugh who was killed in World War One, Margery who followed in father’s footsteps into public service, Thomas George who joined the family business and Violet who, like her mother, was involved in the Suffrage movement.

Thomas was elected to the County Council in 1889 and represented the ward of Bellingham. The following year he became a magistrate. Between 1897 and 1921 Thomas served on the Finance, Parliamentary, Trade and Traffic and Establishment Committees. By 1907 he was Vice Chairman of the Finance Committee and had added the Technical Education Committee to his portfolio. He was very much playing to his strengths as a businessman. He became an Alderman in 1919 and was, by then, the Chairman of the Finance Committee and Vice Chairman of the Council.

The introduction of National Insurance Act in 1911 heralded a change of focus for the County Council. The emergence of the Welfare State brought a greater emphasis on pensions, health care, midwifery and maternity care. The Northumberland Insurance Committee was set up in response to the National Insurance Act, the brain child of the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, David Lloyd George.

The Act created a national system of insurance to protect working people against loss of income relating to sickness or unemployment. Under the terms of the Act, workers could take sick leave and were paid 10 shillings for the first thirteen weeks of sick leave and 5 shillings for the next thirteen weeks. Workers were also given free treatment for tuberculosis and were eligible for treatment from a Panel Doctor. The National Insurance Act required councils to provide a list of doctors willing to attend those in receipt of medical benefit. Two and a half million workers in manual trades were covered by the act. Employees aged between 16 and 70 and who earned less than £160 per year were required to be insured. Men earning more than 2 shillings and 6 pence per week had to pay 4 pence a week and the employers’ contribution was 3 pence. Women paid less as their benefit package was lower. Maternity benefit was also introduced in 1911. A one-off lump sum of 30 shillings was paid to support the mother for the first four weeks after confinement.

An Executive Committee to deal with National Insurance was set up and Councils had to appoint six members to that committee. In 1927 Aldermen Thomas Taylor was appointed to the Executive Committee as were the Medical Director, Dr. Whitney, a woman to represent the Council (unnamed) and Miss M Taylor of Chipchase who was the daughter of Alderman Taylor. Dr. Dickie and Dr Anderson were appointed by the Ministry of Health. The members were appointed to oversee the work of doctors, dentists and opticians. For the first time people were able to go to the committee meetings and question the conduct of a doctor. Never before had an authority had such powers.

When his father died in 1900 Thomas inherited Chipchase Castle. He also inherited his father’s many mining interests. In 1907 Thomas leased a plot of land to the County Council so that a school could be built in Stobswood. The plot was a third of an acre and the original lease was for 30 years, the rent of £1.00 per year payable on 2nd February each year. The Council was required to fence off the land appropriately and construct buildings appropriate for use as a school. There had to be a play yard and a house for a School Master.

Thomas’s death in April 1938 ended a long and distinguished career with Northumberland County Council. In the Council minutes of  5th May 1938  “The Chairman references the loss the Council has sustained by the death of  Alderman Thomas Taylor who had been a member of the Council since its formation in1889.

He requested that there be recorded in the minutes the Council’s high appreciation of Alderman Taylor’s long and valued services and that the clerk convey to members of the family their sincere sympathy with them in their bereavement”

The Bishop of Durham’s obituary in the Durham School Magazine said of Thomas Taylor: 

“During his long career his public service was continuous and displayed influence, vigilance and sympathetic understanding in dealing with the finances of  Newcastle.

It was one of his claims as an employer that he never had an angry word with a Northumbrian Miner.”

In 1942 Councillor Paton proposed that The Woodhouse Homes in Stannington, Northumberland, be  renamed The Thomas Taylor Home and the Mona Taylor Maternity Home in recognition of  Alderman Taylor’s long career in public service. 

The Everyday Life in a Northumbrian Manor Project is now reaching the end of its first year. Within this time, we have been able to recruit 65 volunteers, across four volunteer groups, working both in-person and remotely to make Northumbrian manorial records more accessible. The groups have been working to transcribe records relating to their local manors, with documents from Tweedmouth and Spittal, Norham, Wooler, Morpeth, Hexham and Allendale transcribed so far. These documents contain a wealth of information, which will help us all to gain a better understanding of how Northumbrian manors functioned.

Manors could hold their own courts, have their own laws and customs, and they kept accounts of court proceedings. From the records, we can find lists of tenants, and their types of tenancy agreement. This gives us local names, and some ideas about the customs of the manor, which may also be detailed in the court rolls, alongside presentments of broken rules and surveys. In addition to this, as manorial records for some of the Northumbrian manors extend earlier than the Parish records, they can also be a useful resource for anyone with an interest in their family history. The records mention women, sometimes by name, but in other cases as the ‘the wife of…’, and this gives us some insight into the history of the ‘everyday woman’, though as these mentions are sometimes when women were brought before a manorial court, it is perhaps not the most favourable view!

The Everyday Life in a Northumbrian Manor Project has 1.5 years still to go, and in this time, we will be starting two more volunteer groups, producing more talks and workshops, and eventually introducing our manorial records into work with schools. It’s been fascinating so far, so watch this space for our future findings!

The modern process of applying for jobs can be an involved affair. It may include fashioning a slick looking CV that boasts of your many impressive accomplishments. You may be expected to upload a detailed application form to an online portal that outlines exactly how you meet the essential criteria outlined in the job advert. This may all be overseen by team of dedicated HR staff who will summon those luckily enough to be chosen to an interview, requiring preparation and a smartly pressed suit. However, if you were a fencer, mason or caretaker seeking to better your position in 1920s Northumberland, you could expect a somewhat more straightforward procedure. 

Within the uncatalogued records of the Baker-Cresswell estate archive at Northumberland Archives we recently came across three folders of applications for situations vacant at one of the family’s properties, Harehope Hall near Eglingham. Harehope hall was built in 1848 by the Cresswell family and originally served as a hunting lodge. On the 12th of January 1924, the Newcastle Journal published an advert for an Estate Mason for Harehope. Two years later, on the 12th of April, the estate required a Caretaker, and then two years later again, an ‘Experienced Fencer’ was required. The number of applicants varied for each job; there were between 20 and 30 applications for each of the positions of mason and fencer in 1924/1926, and in 1928 there were 47 applicants for caretaker. In each case, jobseekers were required to send a simple letter of application to the estate office. 

The letters in these files offer a fascinating insight into many aspects of life in 1920s Britain; how skilled labourers and the working class approached applications for employment and what were seen as attractive qualities for such positions in the eyes of those that applied for them. With the benefit of hindsight, we can also examine the material to look for evidence of the economic situation of the country in general.  

Although worse was to come in the 1930s, Britain experienced record levels of unemployment throughout the 1920s following the end of the First World War. For the period covering these letters of 1924-28, the unemployment rate remained at over 10% which was the highest level that the industrialised UK had yet seen, as many returning soldiers from the front struggled to find a means of income following demobilisation. There are hints at this economic uncertainty within the job applications, as several of the writers state they have been out of work for an extended period following military service and would be very keen to start work as soon as possible, even within the next few days. Although this heightened level of financial anxiety is certainly evident in some of letters, they rarely demonstrate an out-and-out desperation and, overall, this collection does not paint a picture of a country or region in the grip of economic turmoil; the majority of applicants are currently in employment at the time of writing and are mostly seeking to better their lot.  

All three of the adverts requested that applicants stated the wage they would require on application and for each position a similar range is evident. The most modest figure requested was a mere £1 a week, roughly equivalent to £40 in today’s money. At the other end of the scale, the highest that some applicants ventured was for £3 a week – roughly £123 today, with most requests at around £2 plus. It is worth noting that accommodation was provided for at least both the caretaker and fencer positions which may have had a bearing on the wages requested, but it does seem likely that there was a set salary band that this type or tradesman of the period would expect.  

For modern jobseekers, the ability to enthusiastically explain that you are the perfect fit for the vacancy in question is usually an important part of an application; setting out your skillset, boasting about your accomplishments or explaining how you have approached a challenging task with resourcefulness and ingenuity are all common exercises. However, for our Northumbrian skilled labourers of the 1920s, this was obviously seen as less of an essential part of the application. In terms of skills or abilities, most of the letters simply stated in plain language what the applicant did as a trade and where they had worked previously. Nearly all either included references or offered to supply them later, but very few candidates attempted to make themselves stand out from the rest of the field. One man suggested he was ‘always willing to do the best he can to satisfy [my] employer’ and another proudly promised his hours of work to be 7am to 5pm. However only one candidate gave what could be considered an example of his inventiveness; in a previous role, he explained, he had ‘fences to put up in land so soft you could not pull the wire and we had the joists to make especially for the job’. In fact, if a candidate did feel inclined to talk highly of themselves it was more likely to be on matters of character or moral fibre than practical ability; several of the letters bragged of being sober or a ‘total abstainer’ and a handful talked of their churchgoing habits. 

Although details of the duties involved in the three roles are relatively sparse, the advertisement for the role of caretaker at Harehope Hall offers an interesting glimpse into changing trends in British living conditions in the early 21^st Century. In 1919, 6% of UK homes had the luxury of wired electricity. By 1930, this had shot up to 75%. The ability to oversee the running of this new luxury was now seen as a core responsibility of the role of caretaker, and so the job advert specifically requested someone who could ‘run the electric light.’ Many of the applicants confidently stated they could manage this task without giving much in the way of evidence or experience. One man explained that he had worked with dynamos as a ‘sea-going engineer’ in the Navy whilst several others admitted they had had little experience with electricity but, optimistically, could ‘manage with a lesson or two.’ 

One aspect of the recruitment process which seems not to have changed much in 100 years is the wide range of suitability and employability of hopeful applicants. On paper, many of those who replied to the advertisements seem well suited to the positions, but it does seem apparent that several were likely chancing their arm. One applicant for the role of mason went to great lengths in describing his career in French polishing, another prospective caretaker had clearly spent a large part of his working life as a chauffeur, and an applicant for the fencing job was very keen to tell of his successes in local hedge-cutting competitions. Despite the number of seemingly suitable applicants, A.H. Ridley of the Cresswell Estate Office did try to head-hunt some preferred staff, offering the role of Fencer to a gentleman who politely turned it down due to being in contract at Eton Manor until 1929. However, Ridley did eventually land a suitable candidate; after requesting a reference from M.A. Coates of Haggerston Castle, the role appears to have been offered to a well-qualified applicant, who, according to his previous employer, was ‘a very good man. He is very good and laying thorn hedges and can also mend dry stone walls and do any work on the Estate.’ 

References 

https://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/objects-and-stories/everyday-wonders/electric-lighting-home#:~:text=It%20took%20time%20for%20the,the%20end%20of%20the%201930s.

https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/currency-converter/

https://escoe-website.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/17145130/Denman-and-Macdonald-LMT-1996-Unemployment-Statistics-from-1881-to-the-present-day.pdf