An act of parliament in 1856 made it compulsory for every county to have a police force. The force in Northumberland came into being in 1857. It was initially under the control of a Police Committee formed by the Quarter Sessions which included two Justices from each Petty Sessions division of the county. A small booklet was issued containing rules for the government of the new force.
The booklet stated that the Chief Constable needed to be recommended to the Secretary of State by the magistrates in whom the appointment was vested. It was imperative that he was a person of good character and conduct. The Superintendent and Inspector must not exceed 40 years of age and be at least 5 feet 7 inches tall without shoes. It was essential for them to be a man of general intelligence and be able to read, write well and keep accounts. They also needed to be certified by a medical practitioner to be free from bodily complaint and have a strong constitution. The same rules applied to the appointment of a Sergeant and Constable.
The Sergeant and Constable were to be provided with the following articles of clothing and equipment in addition to their pay:
Year 1 1 Greatcoat with cap and badge 1 coat with badge 2 pairs of trousers 1 pair of boots 1 pair of shoes 1 hat 1 stock
Year 2
1 coat with badge 1 pair of trousers 1 pair of boots 1 pair of shoes 1 hat
The clothing supply for the third year was the same as for the first year and the fourth year was the same as the second year, and so on for successive periods. The constables were also issued with a pair of handcuffs and a small cutlass. The cutlass was only to be worn at night or at times when attending a riot or serious disturbance.
The table below shows the pay scales of the officers in pounds and shillings.
CHIEF CONSTABLE
SUPERINTENDENT
INSPECTOR
SERGEANT
CONSTABLE
£250-£500 per annum
£75-£150 per annum
£65-£120 per annum
19s-25s per week
15s-21s per week
When it came to the appointment of constables, men were unable to join if they were a Gamekeeper, Wood Ranger, Bailiff or Sherrifs Bailiff. They were also forbidden to keep a public house or have any interests in any house that sold beer, wine or spirituous liquors.
Northumberland Archives hold a number of male and female patient case books and chronic case books for St. George’s hospital [1890-1949]. These volumes reveal why people were admitted and chart their behaviour and progress. Some patients were successfully released but sadly, many died in the asylum.
Many cases in the volumes involve an obsession with being watched or followed. One gentleman claimed the police were hovering in the air above him while one lady said serpents were watching her and wanted to kill her. Religious delusions also feature heavily with one lady believing herself to be the mother of God; her duty was to perform profound blessings on all that came near her. Another patient suffering from sunstroke, believed himself to be the second Christ claiming he once died but now lives again. His notes state that he believes that the wind cries for justice and cats bow before him. He talks wildly on religion and claims God has spoken to him in the form of a fiery bush.
Reasons for entering the asylum were split between moral & physical. The table below lists just some of them.
MORAL
PHYSICAL
Domestic Trouble (loss of relative/friend)
Intemperance in Drink
Adverse Circumstances (business anxieties)
Venereal Disease
Mental Anxiety and Worry
Self Abuse (sexual)
Religious Excitement
Sunstroke
Love Affairs (including seductions)
Pregnancy
Fright and Nervous Shock
Change of Life
Congenital Defect
Old Age
Epilepsy
Uterine and Ovarian Disorders
Fevers
Hereditary Influences
Lactation
Below are extracts from the case books showing some of the types of cases that were admitted.
Male [aged 50] Admitted December 1891 Diagnosis – Paralysis. This gentleman states his wife is constantly concealing men around the house and he needs to find them. He would like to put a knife in her as she is an adulteress and a fallen angel & he hopes for repentance. He is convinced that one of the men that his wife had in the house liked to dress up as a woman. This man was discharged in January 1892.
Female [aged 23] Admitted – May 1916 Diagnosis – Congenital Idiot This patient presents the appearance of a congenital idiot. She is stunted in her growth, is practically dumb, mouth always open and laughs for no reason. She is docile & good tempered with no unpleasant habits. She is unable to speak & exhibits no intelligence. This lady died in the asylum in February 1918.
Female [aged 33] Admitted – July 1920 Diagnosis – General Paralysis This lady claims she has been burnt, which is untrue. She is convinced that her husband’s friend gave her a drink which burnt her inside & out. She asks for water but won’t drink it. She is wildly maniacal & says whenever she is touched, she is burnt. She talks to imaginary people & shouts out “don’t burn me”. She also believes that her body is going to be burnt in boiling fat. This young woman was committed for 8 years and died in the asylum in February 1928.
Male [aged 26] Admitted – July 1892 Diagnosis – Unknown This gentleman is restless and asks for the whispering to be taken away from his face. He believes that Jack the Ripper wants to kill him and is always whispering to him as he is living inside of him. Jack’s whispering charm has taken this gentleman’s speech away so his tongue is not his own. This patients actions are strange and he likes to walk upon his hands rather than use his feet. This gentleman was transferred to West Riding Asylum in July 1895.
Male [aged 45] Admitted – January 1893 Diagnosis – Unknown This gentleman claims his wife is trying to kill him and that she feeds him on her own flesh. He believes he has been crucified and that there is a mouse living inside of him. Part of his body is dead and it has been for years. His wife states he has attempted to kill her several times proclaiming “one of them must die and if she were dead, then he would probably get better”. The patient believes his wife has queer people around her and that it is a foul shame. This gentleman was discharged and classed as recovered in January 1894
While resident in the asylum, many patients engaged in work. This was therapeutic but also beneficial to staff as patients could assist with day to day tasks. There were also options for the men to learn a trade and help with the making of furniture, clothing or shoes. Making items within the asylum was seen as a good way to help to reduce costs.
Buildings were split into a male and female side. The male side of the ground floor housed a flour store, bakehouse, bread room, shoemakers, tailors, plumbers & smiths. The female side contained a wash house, laundry, drying closet and female work room.
NRO 6218/1NRO 6218/1
Male patients worked in the gardens and also worked closely with the plumber, engineer, painter, joiner & tailor. They also worked in the kitchen where they assisted the baker and carried the coals. Some men were involved with domestic duties and would help with the cleaning of the wards. The women also cleaned the wards and assisted in the kitchen and laundry. They also mended stockings and were involved with binding boots and shoes. Other tasks included knitting & netting, sewing, quilting and working in the garden.
In an asylum report in 1861, the work done by male patients and hospital attendants was noted and their achievements highlighted. This included the making of 12 tables, 1 bookcase, 36 stretcher frames, 5 invalid chairs, 2 medicine cupboards and 1 rake for the kitchen.
Warning: this blog post includes images of eighteenth century documents which sometimes use words that we find offensive today.
Parish registers are the most frequently used documents in most county archives. Anyone who has done their family history and attempts to extend their tree beyond 1837* will dip into parish registers. If you have been lucky enough to trace your ancestors back before the nineteenth century, you will know that the information in the baptism, marriage and burial entries thins out the further back you go.** But, every so often, the parish priest added something extra to the record which can shine a little extra light on the lives of his parishioners.
Some vicars noted down when the people that they were baptising, marrying or burying were of African descent. A lot of research has been done on the Black Presence in London and other cities, such as Bristol, but little has been done on Northumberland. It would be easy to assume that Northumberland (with its current borders) would not have had any Black presence in the past. It is a vast, mainly rural county with no major city as an economic draw; even today, it is one of the least ethnically diverse parts of the country. But Northumberland’s parish registers tell a different story.
Without having done any sort of systematic trawl of the registers,*** we know of nine entries that document people of colour in Northumberland in the eighteenth century. The earliest is the baptism entry of George Sylla on 4 March 1767 in Carham. The parish priest noted that George was African and the servant of Ralph Foster, a merchant of Berwick.
Three of the other entries record that the man being baptised worked as a servant. Blackett Shaftoe (1 February 1778 in Ovingham) was the servant of William Shaftoe of Kingston, Jamaica. Later that year (17 April), Charles Reed son of Francis Reed of Virginia and servant to Captain Charles Ogle was baptised in Eglingham. A decade later (12 October 1788) William Mungo, “a black adult from the coast of Guinea in Africa” was baptised at Woodhorn. The register shows that he worked as a servant for S. Watson.
EP 102/5EP 22/2
None of the entries mention that these men had been enslaved, but it would seem likely. Virginia and Jamaica were both plantation economies that relied on enslaved labour to cultivate luxury crops such as tobacco, sugar and coffee for expanding eighteenth-century markets. During this period, ships sailed from London, Bristol and Liverpool laden with finished goods which they exchanged for people on the Guinea Coast of west Africa. The enslaved people were shipped across the Atlantic on the infamous “Middle Passage” to the West Indies and America. Blackett Shaftoe and Charles Reed might have been born in Jamaica and Virginia to Africans, but William Mungo seems to have been born in Africa – on the Guinea Coast.
It is possible that the men that George, Blackett, Charles and William served had purchased them and brought them to Northumberland. Men who lived worked or fought (Captain Ogle?) in British colonies often returned to England and brought their favourite slaves to serve them. Having a Black servant was even seen as a fashion accessory in eighteenth-century England.
Once the enslaved men (they were mostly men, as can be seen from our very small and unscientific sample) set foot in England, their enslaved status was unclear, especially once they had been baptised. Many felt that slavery was not English and that it was not possible to enslave a Christian.
The Yorke-Talbot opinion was an attempt to clarify these questions – a handwritten copy can be found in our collection (ZMD/114/261). It stated that baptism did not free an enslaved person and that bringing a slave to England did not change their status. However, this was an opinion that was sought for and given to a group of West Indian plantation owners after they had wined and dined Yorke and Talbot at Lincoln’s Inn Fields in London.
ZMD/114/261
It seems likely that the belief that an enslaved person could be freed by baptism persisted, in spite of Yorke and Talbot’s “opinion”. So, the baptism of these men represented something more than acceptance into the Church of England; some believed that this act emancipated them.
Not all the men that appear in the parish registers are described as servants. Peter and Samuel Blyth were baptised on the same day, 21 January 1798, in Earsdon parish. The baptism register records that they are of “riper years” indicating that they are not infants, as would usually be the case for baptism. It is unclear if these two men were related, although they both share the same surname. The fact that their surname is the same as a village (now town) within the parish might suggest that Peter and Samuel adopted a new name according to their new surroundings. It might even have been that they were runaways and were adopting a new name to hide from their former owners. Georgian newspapers often contained small ads for runaway slaves, generally offering rewards. (University of Glasgow project website: https://www.runaways.gla.ac.uk/)
Unusually, Malcolm Patterson does not appear in a baptism register, but in the burial register for Earsdon, the same parish as Peter and Samuel Blyth. His wife, Mary, was buried on 8 May 1780. It is noted that Malcolm was a labourer at Hartley Pans (now Seaton Sluice). It is almost impossible to trace Malcolm’s background – he might have been a freed slave, a runaway, or a free African, some of whom worked as sailors and may well have sailed into Newcastle (or North/South Shields). What does seem very likely is that he was attracted to the area by the economic opportunity that it offered. This might also explain why three men of African descent can be found in the registers for this area.
EP/6/A4
During the eighteenth century Blyth and Seaton Sluice developed as an economic centre in the county, due in large part to the investment and business acumen of the Delaval family. The production of salt was of long standing, but coal mining and shipping, glass production and shipbuilding all prospered in the 1700s.
As has been pointed out by David Olusoga, escaped slaves or men of African descent who rejected domestic service were likely to have found it difficult to make a living in eighteenth-century Britain. Most trades relied on the apprenticeship system and were therefore effectively a closed shop. New industries might have offered men like Malcolm, Peter and Samuel good opportunities with their mix of skilled and unskilled labour, coupled with new systems of employment.
The remaining two entries that have been found in the parish registers are baptisms; two that occurred on the same day (9 November 1784). John English and Robert Mouto were from Madras (now Chennai) in India, according to their baptism entry in the Bamburgh parish register. Both are defined as “a black or Mulatto boy” and their parents are said to be “unknown”.
EP 59/9
It is possible to speculate that John and Robert were orphans with some link to the British East India Company (BEIC), which had ruled Chennai since 1774. It may have been that they were brought over as servants by a BEIC functionary or a soldier, like the men of African descent who have been discussed above. Or perhaps they managed to work their passage aboard a ship.
The term “Mulatto” that the vicar of Bamburgh applied to these two boys was used in the eighteenth century to mean a person who has one white and one black parent. It is possible that these two boys had an English parent who then brought them back to Northumberland with them (although they have two different surnames). It seems more likely that the vicar made the assumption that their brown, rather than black, skin was the result of a mixed-race union. He fitted them into a category that he was familiar with, rather than one that necessarily described John and Robert’s background accurately.
We know a little about these nine men who came from Africa, America, India and the West Indies because they were recorded by vicars and uncovered by researchers. There may well have been other men and women of African or Indian descent living in Northumberland who are not obvious to us because they were not recorded in the registers. We hope that there are more to find. By digging deeper and looking more closely we can write a more rounded history of Northumberland, its people and its links to the wider world.
*Civil registration introduced for births, marriages and deaths.
