General

One of our customers came into the search room recently to enquire about the crew of the Steamer “Paris” that sunk off the Northumberland coast near Hauxley, South of Amble, on the evening of the 29th March 1901.

The archive didn’t have any records specific to the “Paris”, so we had to do some research. We started by identifying the parish that Hauxley belonged to in 1901, which was Warkworth parish. Having ascertained this, we could then search on “Reading Room” a piece of software available to use in the search room that has our collection of digital parish records. However not everything is on Reading Room and this particular record wasn’t, so we had to go to the microfilm parish records of St Lawrence church, Warkworth and look at the burial register. Sure enough there was an entry for the burials listed as “Five bodies cast up by the Lee at Hadston from the wreck of the “Paris””. They recorded the names as:

• A Thompson about 43 years old
• E Sawyers – 22 years
• R Felsed – 34 years
• Man Unknown – 37 years
• S Fergusen 22 – years

The date of burial was Aril 3rd 1901 and the ceremony was performed by Charles Baldwin.

A little more digging found a report in the Shields Daily News on the 3rd April 1901 listing:

• W Jennings, as the Able Seaman
• H Waterhouse, the Steward
• ? Bell, the Chief Engineer
• ? Tenby, 2nd Engineer

As the deaths were sudden and in suspicious or violent circumstances there needed to be an inquiry. The inquiry was reported in the newspapers and is available to view on the British Newspaper Archive (you can search for free in our search room). The Shields Daily Gazette on 3rd Aril 1901 reported the full list of the crew as obtained from a “pocket book cast up by the sea”. The list of the crew is as follows:

• W Hutton, Captain
• A Thompson, Mate
• T Bell, Chief Engineer
• ? Tenby, 2nd Engineer
• R Felsed, Boatswain
• W Jennings, Able Seaman
• Walter Smith, Able Seaman (survived)
• S Fergisen, Fireman
• E Sayers, Fireman
• H Waterhouse, Steward

As you can see the spellings differ somewhat, but eventually we found all the names of the crew recorded, albeit without the first initial of Mr Tenby, 2nd engineer.

Interestingly, Walter Smith, the only survivor of the wreck, appears on the 1901 census staying as a boarder with George Douglas a farmer at Bondicar in the Parish of Hauxley and unusually some additional information is recorded under “Profession or Occupation” recorded is “Sailor saved out of 10 men 29/3/01”. The census of 1901 was completed on the 1st April that year and, as the accident was just a few days before, the enumerator may have been sufficiently moved by the tragedy to feel the need to add the additional information.

The “Paris” was a screw steamer heading with its cargo of cement from Rochester to Leith when it struck the Bondicar rocks near Hauxley around 8 o’clock in the evening. The crew managed to get into the lifeboat but were capsized three times, each time less of the men were able to clamber back into the boat until Walter Smith was the only man left, the lifeboat eventually drifting him to shore.

All the bodies that were recovered from the “Paris” were buried at Amble East Cemetery. Perhaps you are related to one of the men, perhaps you can help us with some more information?

Hello I am the new Archives Assistant at Northumberland Archives. It’s my seventh week here and I can honestly say that I am enjoying the job more and more each week. Not only do I get backstage access to all the documents and other historical objects the archive holds but I also get to share these with our customers and share their joy when they find the record they were searching for.

Week one of my new job and my main task was to find my way around the building. It seemed labyrinthine, very similar looking corridors and strong rooms with more than one entrance/exit made for a confusing first few days. Having got the hang of that I was then looking to familiarise myself with the types of records stored here. OK that sounds like an achievable aim, I thought, how naïve I was! Last week I helped sort out our latest acquisition, as seen on TV, yes really, Look North filmed the acquisition and already the records are listed on our online catalogue and available for the public to view.

Week two I learned how to assist customers with their Archives and Records Association (ARA) card, what is that you may ask? Well all users of the archive have to register to use the service and whilst most have done so online before arriving some have not been able to and in all cases, users need to show the appropriate ID in order to complete their registration. Getting to grips with the technology was another lesson learnt.

Week three and an introduction the Ordnance Survey (OS) maps, originally produced to map Scotland in the wake of the Jacobite rising of 1745. The OS maps, of which we hold the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th editions covering the 1860s, 1890’s 1920’s and 1939 respectively can be really helpful to people wanting to research a particular village, farm or town. The archive holds many more maps of course and these can be found using our online catalogue. Just type https://northumberlandarchives.com/test/catalogue/ into google and search away.

Week four and by now I was starting to see returning visitors to the search room and I was lucky enough to be able to help one, the person was looking for someone who had been a miner and had died as the result of an accident. Having looked through the list of persons killed or injured in the mines we could not find him. So onto the Ancestry website and the 1911 census and The British Newspaper Archive website, which yielded some good results. The customer was delighted and so was I, having felt that I had actually helped someone and not just had to say “ Erm…I’ll just ask my colleague”.

Week five. One of the regular collections people ask for is the St George’s Records (Morpeth County Lunatic Asylum). These are the kind of records that give rare, detailed information to the family historian. Valuable information that can’t always be gleaned elsewhere, like their health at the time of admittance and throughout their stay, even their close relatives name and address may appear in the next of kin book. Obviously, some of this information can be troubling to read and it is worth preparing yourself for this, should you wish to request such records.

Last week I was fortunate enough to be asked to do some research for a blog. Into the search room came a customer interested in the Steamer “Paris” which sank at the start of the 20th century just off the coast near Hauxley. Whilst they knew about the sole survivor of the ship wreck they were interested to know about the ones who were not so lucky, so watch this space for a blog specifically on this soon.

This week and it is some local farm records that have to be unboxed, labelled and re-boxed in preparation for listing onto the catalogue. The range of deposits to the Archive is so varied and it is a real privilege to be part of the process, what treasures will we unearth?

The task of familiarising myself with our records is of course ongoing and will be for the time that I am employed here, that is what makes the job so interesting, there is always something new to see and new to learn. Having been a customer myself before applying for the job I know how satisfying it is to see records relating to your family. The quarter session papers are my next stop, why not come along and see if they hold any interesting information for you too!?

Come with me on a journey long ago. A coach and four strong horses, jolts and judders its way down the Great North Road.  Next stop is Morpeth, a fair market town, and there will be time to stretch your legs there. The coach stops at The Queen’s Head, a fine establishment with good fayre to revive the weary traveller. You are hopeful of a slice of their famous meat pie, as you breakfasted long before the sun rose, and your packed bread and cheese was gone by the time Belford was reached. Can you hear the horse hooves drumming? The drivers’ chatter above the crack of the whip and rumble of wheels? Can you smell the sweat of the horses? Can you taste the dust in your throat? Pull that thick travel coat tightly around you now, as even the expensive purchase of a cushioned seat inside the carriage, does not stop the cold northern winds from clawing at your bones. And your destination, still many miles down the hard open road, is Newcastle upon Tyne.

Catalogue reference B/DAT/9/2/ is a collection of carriage licences and permits covering the period 1812 to 1834. They provide a tantalising glimpse into the vast industry of passenger coaches and carriages that traded up and down the Great North Road. They are evocative of a time where steam was yet to mobilise the traveller and the horse and carriage was the principal means of movement between towns.    

The licenses were issued by a Mr Robert Thorp, Distributor of Stamps for Northumberland,  to run passenger services along the Great North Road between Berwick upon Tweed and Newcastle upon Tyne, taking in stopping points at Alnwick, Belford, Felton and Morpeth.  Those applying for license to run a carriage tended to be innkeepers, with a vested interest in bringing coach trade to their door. The document shown is the carriage license issued in 1834 to Mr. Joseph Henderson, innkeeper of Morpeth, to run a service between Morpeth and Newcastle upon Tyne on a Tuesday and a Saturday. Pigot’s Trade Directory of 1834 identifies Joseph Henderson as the proprietor of The New Phoenix Inn in Morpeth. Like the The Queen’s Head or The Black Bull, well beloved of more modern Morpethians, The New Pheonix Inn was one of many inns in Morpeth that thrived as a coaching hub in the Georgian era. Whilst the New Pheonix Inn is long gone, New Pheonix Yard still exists off Bridge Street in Morpeth, suggesting Mr Henderson’s establishment had a prime location for coaching, opposite the then newly built Telford Bridge over the River Wansbeck (built 1831).

The Great North Road that these travellers would have known is all but gone now, by-passed and built over in the ever-demanding needs of the motorcar. But atmospheric snippets of it are still to be found in our county back lanes. Across the hedge from the A1, just south of where Stannington Vale crosses the Blyth, is Shotton Lane. Where this old road skirts the grounds of Blagdon Hall, it very much retains the character of The Great North Road – a narrower, windier, greener route than the adjacent modern arterial road that replaced it. So perhaps….if you go there and listen carefully, hidden within the roar of passing traffic……you might just hear the gallop of horses, the rattle of carriage wheels or the crack of a coachman’s whip.