General

On reviewing an inventory of the contents of Bamburgh Castle dated 16-18 July 1792, I became intrigued by one of the entries. In the Surgery, alongside equipment that you may expect like knives, splints and needles, there was “1 Electrifying Machine”. I was aware that electricity was used for medical purposes, but the date was much earlier than I had imagined.

It was during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I that her personal doctor, William Gilbert, experimented with a range of materials to see which would generate an electrical charge. His work and observations were to influence numerous European inventors. Electrostatic machines, which generated static electricity in glass tubes, were invented in Holland and German and were forerunners to the inventions by the more famous Benjamin Franklin in the mid-eighteenth century.

But what would such a device be doing in Bamburgh Castle? In the 1700s Bamburgh Castle was owned by the Forster family, having been gifted the Castle by King James I in 1610. Upon the death of Dorothy, the last surviving Forster heir, her mournful husband, Lord Nathaniel Crewe, set up a charity to restore the now ruinous Castle and to support the villagers of Bamburgh. It was after his death that this money was placed into trust. It was under the Lord Crewe Trustees, and Dr John Sharp as trustee, that the Castle became a surgery for out-patients, hospital and free school. Dr Sharp died in 1792, the year the inventory was taken.

In the homes of the gentry, electricity had been used since the mid- eighteenth century for the amusement of guests; ‘friction machines’ would give shocks to male and female guests alike. However, the use for medical purposes was new. In 1747 John Wesley, founder of Methodism, suggested that electrical treatment could be a ‘universal panacea’ for all diseases, this was rejected by mainstream medicine at the time. The first recorded treatment with electricity in London was at Middlesex Hospital in 1767, with the use of specialised equipment.  The same machinery was also purchased a decade later by that other great London infirmary, St Bartholomew’s Hospital. 

What the first use of this electrifying machine was, or indeed, who was the first, rather brave, patient at the hospital in Bamburgh Castle, are perhaps now lost to history. However, the fact that such a machine was in a rural corner of Northumberland at this time, gives a fascinating insight to how the words “1 Electrifying Machine” can lead us to wanting to know a whole lot more.

References

NRO 00452/B/5/2 (‘An Inventory of Castle Furniture’, an inventory of Bamburgh Castle.

16 July 1792-18 July 1792)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrotherapy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin%27s_electrostatic_machine

http://www.history.alberta.ca/energyheritage/energy/electricity/electricity-through-the-eighteenth-century.aspx

https://thecozydrawingroom.com/2014/06/22/a-shocking-way-to-entertain-guests-during-the-regency-era/

https://www.bamburghcastle.com/castle/

http://www.lordcrewescharity.org.uk/history/dr-sharps-bamburgh-charities

https://www.thoughtco.com/history-of-electricity-1989860

Many myths and tales of folklore have obscure origins, one such appears to be the story of the Warkworth Hermit. 

Whilst obscure, much of the notoriety of the tale can be traced to the publication of the ballad published in 1771 by Bishop Thomas Percy. Percy was born in Shropshire and studied at Oxford, he was ordained in 1751 and eventually became Rector of Wilby in Northamptonshire, as well becoming the personal chaplain of the Earl of Sussex. Percy was a worldly man and had many varied and wide ranging interests, including reading on a huge number of subjects. This in turn led to his composing of verse with which he was to have some success. It was however, the discovery and collection of older verses which was to provide the greatest element of Percy’s success. 

While visiting his friend Humphrey Pitt at Shifnal in Shropshire, Percy noticed a battered volume lying on the floor, under a bureau in the parlour, pages of which were being used by the maids to light the fire. It proved to be a seventeenth-century collection, which Percy rescued from the flames. In due course, it provided the basis for Percy’s anthology, “The Reliques of Ancient English Poetry” which was published in 1765 and became the source of his enduring fame. Not only did the collection influence Percy’s own works, particularly his “Hermit of Warkworth”. The publication of it was to begin a fashion for the rediscovery of historic ballads, and for the revival of Ballads in general, which was to become a key element of the Romantic movement. One of Percy’s own compositions, simply entitled ‘Song’ was later set to music and described as ‘perhaps the most beautiful Ballad in the English language’ by none other than Robert Burns.

In 1765 Percy became the Chaplain and Secretary to Lord Northumberland and tutor to his son, Algernon. It might be in light of this move that he had begun to focus more on his adoptive home of Northumberland and so wrote the ballad of the Warkworth Hermit. It was certainly around this time that the spelling of his name, which had been ‘Pearcy’, then ‘Piercy’, became ‘Percy’, perhaps to copy the name of his illustrious patron. It was Lord Northumberland’s influence that allowed Percy to become Dean of Carlisle Cathedral and latterly Bishop of Dromore in County Down. It is in County Down that Percy died and it was in the Cathedral there that he was buried in 1811.

The manuscript collection that Percy saved now bears his name; it is known as the Percy Folio and is held by the British Library. Little is known about its origins, or who owned it before Humphrey Pitt. None of its owners appear to have treated it well; even Percy marked and annotated the pages. While it was probably compiled in the seventeenth-century, some of its contents date from the twelfth. Editions of the folio are available via the British Library’s catalogue online and the Internet Archive:

http://explore.bl.uk

http://archive.org/

Back in 2015, we started the “Northumberland At War” project with volunteers searching our collections for stories, about the home front and soldiers who served throughout the conflict. One aspect was the big task of transcribing the school log books, which was a job that Hilary, one of our volunteers, undertook. Five years on, and years after the project finished, Hilary is still working one morning a week extracting these stories.

A pattern developed; you can see the spread of epidemics and illnesses the children endured. We were always going to write a blog on this, but time has never allowed it. There was always something to prevent me from doing it. That is until now!  I have found a wealth of information from the log books and newspapers that I think will develop into a number of blogs.

This is what our ancestors had to endure just over 100 years ago. The name may have changed, the causes and prevention hasn’t though? We could easily have travelled back in time, the only difference, between 1918 and now is the internet!

The school log books show the children suffered a variety of illnesses; some fatal, others not. There were the usual cases of head lice and the nit nurse visiting the schools. Go on, some of you will remember them, I do! There were the odd instances of skin eruptions [sounds awful]: impetigo, chicken pox, the spotted fever, scarlatina, and scarlet fever. One of my favourites though is the ‘ITCH’. I’m sure you are now scratching, I am just thinking about it. [Definition – Many skin conditions itch, including dry skin (xerosis), eczema (dermatitis), psoriasis, scabies, burns, scars, insect bites and hives. This was prevalent in February 1917 in Red Row Infants School [Ref CES 283/1/]].   

There was a serious outbreak of ringworm in Seaton Terrace Junior School [Ref CES 130/1/1]; they had 25 cases in May 1914. They also reported the deaths of Joseph Graham who unfortunately, had been knocked down and crushed by the bakers van and Flora Burton who died of diphtheria, in January 1916. Plus a bad breakout of measles with 13 cases reported November 1919.

Whooping cough was also rife during those years. Stakeford Council School reported 25 cases in April 1915 [Ref CES 240/1/1]. Stannington School also had 35 cases of measles in May 1915 [Ref CES 242/2/2].

However, the biggest mention in these registers is influenza [‘flu]. There were various outbreaks which were isolated in the early years, but then there were the two outbreaks in July 1918 and later in the year into the early part of 1919. East Ord County Primary School [Ref CES 16/2/2] recorded this in their log book: 

12 July 1918 – The epidemic of Spanish Flu has arrived in the parish. There are 6 cases amongst the school and a large number of adults are affected by the disease, which fortunately so far has produced no fatal results. 

Later they recorded: “31 October 1918 the epidemic of influenza has broken out in the parish 20 scholars are absent.”

Branxton County Primary School [Ref CES 82/2/1], a school of only 32 children, reported that only 19 were fit for school on 4 November 1918. 

Heddon on the Wall Church of England School had gone through whooping cough epidemics from February to March 1914, when 20% of a school of 112 were suffering. Then on 22 November, the log book recorded: “The Influenza epidemic has broken out in the village this week and is spreading, 20 children are off with it.”

Wark County Primary School [Ref CES 91/1/2] recorded the following: “1 November 1918 – There are cases of cold here and there, but so far no influenza has been reported in the district.” However, by 8 November 60% of the school was off with the flu and by 11 November: “School closed owing to the unabated spread of Influenza. One of our scholars Christine Wilson died of pneumonia.”