The search room at Woodhorn will be closed on Saturday 6/6/26

General

Transported for Life: Northumberland to Queensland

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On the 28th May 1831 a chilling notice appeared in the Newcastle Courant. It read:

“Whereas the Public Bridges in the County of Northumberland have been of late much injured and rendered dangerous by Persons maliciously throwing down the Battlements thereof, (particularly Alnwick Bridges,) the Magistrates, in Order to caution persons from committing such Offences give this public Notice, that by the 7th and 8th George the 4th, Chap 30, any Person who shall unlawfully and maliciously pull down or destroy any Public Bridge, or do any injury with intent to render such Bridge, or any Part thereof, dangerous or impassable, shall be Guilty of Felony and subject to Transportation for Life. And the Magistrates give this further Notice, that they will prosecute to the utmost Extent any Person committing these malicious Offences.”

Robert Thorp’s chilling order, plastered on walls across the county.

The notice was given across the county by order of Robert Thorp, Clerk of the Peace.

This order was originally passed on May 17th 1831 – ten days after John Thompson and Samuel Pringle had ‘wilfully’ destroyed a part of the battlements on Alnwick Bridge. The two men were convicted ‘full damages and costs’ for their destructive crime, and the threat of transportation hung above them. It seems highly unlikely that Samuel was sent away; as a man by the same name was still living in Fenkle-Street, Alnwick in 1839. Interestingly a John Thompson, aged 24, was transported to Sydney, Australia on a hulk called Georgina in 1831. He was sentenced to 7 and a half years; a substantially shorter sentence then the life promised by Robert Thorp.

Transportation was used by  Britain’s law-keepers during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as an alternative to imprisonment or hanging. Originally served to those who had committed serious felonies, transportation was also rolled out to political criminals (rioters) and thieves. Transportation to Australia first began in 1787, it provided a cheaper penal solution then imprisonment and also benefited the state by supporting the establishment of colonial outposts.  Prisoners traveled to their new lives on huge hulk ships where the conditions were, unsurprisingly, terrible. Disease often broke out on-board, with cholera and typhoid being the most common, and many died before reaching their destination, often weakened by a four to six month long journey.

In the same year that Robert Thorp’s bloodcurdling notice was posted in the Newcastle Courant transportation was being used to punish other convicted Northumbrian criminals. Amongst whom were:

John Fletcher: found guilty of stealing 5lbs of mutton belonging to George Stevenson of Cramlington. He was sentenced to 7 years transportation.

George Turnbull: charged with stealing a ‘great coat’ belonging to James Tate of Alnwick. Mr Tate had hung his coat up to dry when it went missing, he later found it in the prisoner’s home. The prisoner claimed he had bought it the day before for 6s, but the jury found him guilty of theft. He was then sentenced to 7 years transportation but, as a repeat offender, a second charge of theft added another 7 years to his sentence.

William Kennedy and Peter O’Hara: convicted to life transportation for stabbing and cutting “officers of excise” (men who inspect customs and duties.)

 

We would like to thank the volunteer who carefully transcribed documents relating to the case of Thompson and Pringle.

 

 

 

 

Bibliography:

Victorian Crime and Punishment: 19th Century, Transportation (http://vcp.e2bn.org/justice/section2196-transportation.html)

Puzzling Photographs

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A group of mysterious nineteenth-century photographs were recently discovered within the Dickson, Archer and Thorp collection. They were found alongside a bundle of envelopes and a copper plate, both embossed with the letters J D C P. Following extensive research these mysterious initials are believed to have belonged to John de Camborne Paynter.

Born in 1845, John had previously resided at Clarence House, Penzance before moving to Belvedere Terrace, Alnwick. He worked as a solicitor’s clerk and, although widowed early in life, had two sons, Captain John de Camborne Stackhouse Paynter and Major William Patterson Paynter. For around twenty-five years he sat as Secretary of Alnmouth’s golf club and also acted as the churchwarden for St Paul’s, Alnwick. Upon his death he left a large sum of £23,658 to be divided between his children. He also made provision in his will for his long-term servant Jane Charters by ensuring a £50 annuity and furnished cottage.

Who the sitters were remains a mystery. Were these pictures the creative product of Mr J de C Paynter, whose name was found on both the envelope and copper plate? Or do these photographs depict Paynter’s own family members? Alternatively they may have been examples provided to Paynter by professional photographers, with the view for possible commissions.

The following images show the sides of the engraved copper plate, found alongside the pictures (REF: NRO 11343/B/DAT):

 

 

 

The mysterious pictures (REF: NRO 11343/B/DAT); 

 

A reverse side for one of the images, listing the details of the studio from which it originated. (REF: NRO 11343/B/DAT):

 

If anyone has any information regarding the production or identification of these images please contact us.

 

 

 

The Self-Styled Countess of Derwentwater

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In 1868 a stranger arrived in the ruins of Dilston Castle in Northumberland. The unknown Countess of Derwentwater, clad in an Austrian military cloak, had arrived to enforce her right to the Radcliffe family’s Derwentwater Estate. She claimed to be the granddaughter of John Radcliffe, son of James Radcliffe, the 3rd Earl of Derwentwater, an English Jacobite executed for treason in 1716. The Countess told authorities that John had not died at the age of nineteen in London, as was thought, but had in fact fled to Germany, where he had married and had two sons. Amelia Matilda Mary Tudor Radcliffe, the self-styled Countess of Derwentwater, presented herself as the only surviving heir to the estate.

Amelia assumed the title Countess of Derwentwater soon after coming to public attention. She continued to use it despite having no right to the title as it was not inheritable by a female line of decent. Her occupancy in the ruins of Dilston Castle fuelled her public campaign to reassert her personal claim to the estate. After the resident cows had been removed from the castle’s ground floor, the Countess had tarpaulins stretched across the ceiling to cover the crumbling roof and hung Radcliffe family portraits on the walls to legitimise her presence. At this time the castle and the estate was owned by Greenwich Hospital, having been given to the hospital by the Government after the death of John, Amelia’s supposed grandfather, the last heir to the estate.

On hearing of Amelia’s residence in the only ruins of the castle left standing, Mr Grey, the Receiver of Rents from Greenwich Hospital, arrived to interview his unusual trespasser. After days of requesting she quit Dilston and sending over cooked breakfasts in an attempt to maintain cordiality between them, Mr Grey was left with little choice but to have the Countess forcibly removed from the ruins of the castle. She did not make her ejection an easy one. Amelia declared that she would rather face death than leave Dilston and barricaded herself inside the castle. When Mr Grey’s men started to remove her belongings and the make-shift tarpaulin roof, the Countess began thrusting her sword at them. She was quickly disarmed and carried from the room in the chair she refused to move from.

Rather than accept this defeat, or the carriage that was offered to taxi her wherever she wished to go (presumably so long as it was away from Dilston), she instead chose to camp in a roadside ditch close to the ruins. Her temporary tent became a popular attraction for all classes of local society, drawing the likes of the vicar of Newcastle and Northumberland gentry, to villagers from the local pits. It was reported that the road adjoining tent was sometimes impassable due to the crowd. After a week in her tent, a wooden hut was erected for her, which concerned the local magistrates as is obstructed the road. They fined the Countess ten shillings and ordered her removal. She was as inclined to move from her ditch as she was to leave the castle. The hut was soon dismantled around her and she eventually left with her belongings. Amelia was well-treated by local residents around Dilston, even selling them personal items when she became short of money. Charles Herbert Lawrence Alder was sold a portrait of Mary Queens of Scots in prison, a Waterford cut glass toilet jar with stopper and pieces of cut Rock Crystal.

Countess encamped in a lane in Dilston

Soon after her removal from the ditch a new phrase in the Countess’s agitation began. The farm tenants on the Derwentwater estate, who paid their rents to the hospital, were encouraged to stop paying their rent to Mr Grey, and start paying the Countess, as the rightful owner of the estate. When rents were not paid to Amelia, one of her supporters rounded up the livestock from the farms and sold them at auction, with all profits going to the Countess. Another farm auction for Amelia’s benefit, in which she intended to sell farm equipment and property, descended into a riot when two-thousand of her sympathisers arrived at the sale. Despite the swell of public support that bolstered her cause when she first came to public attention, sympathies waned when it was found that Amelia refused to give a penny to support those who had been reprimanded or fined for their part in the auction. Innocent supporters were beginning to suffer for her cause.

Her public campaign had a financial impact too and in 1871 Newcastle County Court declared the Countess bankrupt and her possessions, which she claimed were Radcliffe family heirlooms, were put up for auction at Mr Sutton’s Sale Rooms in Newcastle. The sale attracted very little attention, partially due to Amelia’s dwindling popularity and the dilapidated and dubious condition of her belongings. Several bankruptcy examinations followed in which Amelia either refused to attend or refused to answer any questions. In 1872 she was imprisoned in Newcastle for contempt of court and in less than a year was released. In a wonderful act of consistency, the Countess of Derwentwater refused to leave her cell and had to be carried out of prison.

Amelia, the self-styled Countess of Derwentwater, died in February 1880 of bronchitis, aged 49, still claiming to be the rightful heir of the Dewentwater estate and rallying against the authorities. She died in poverty and was buried in an unmarked grave in Blackhill Cemetery, near Consett. In 2012 the Northumbrian Jacobite Society erected a small plaque on her grave to recognise the final resting place of the eccentric and determined Countess. The real identity of Amelia, Countess of Derwentwater has never been uncovered. Ralph Arnold, a biographer of the Radcliffe family, has suggested that Amelia was a school teacher from Yorkshire who was able to forge documents to support her claim in Latin and French and produce an imaged Radcliffe pedigree. Others have suggested that she may have been a governess in Germany to noble family. Some have said that she was simply an emboldened West Country servant girl with knowledge of the Radcliffe family. Whoever she may have been, the Countess of Derwentwater remains a fascinating mystery that continues to intrigue today.

Self portrait of the self styled Countess of Derwentwater

 

 

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