BERWICK ADVERTISER, 5 AUGUST 1920

07/08/2020 by Northumberland Archives

BERWICK TOWN COUNCIL

The members then sat as a Town Council, Mr W. J. Bolam, Land Steward, being also present.

THE WAR MEMORIAL

The Clerk submitted the resolution regarding the War Memorial for Berwick, forwarded from the public meeting last week, in the name of the Mayor as Chairman, and delegating the question of a Memorial to the Town Council.

The Mayor said he was very grieved and very sorry at the termination of the War Memorial Committee. After the meeting last week he had determined not to let one hour pass till the matter was taken up again. It was up to those of us who had been kept in safety to erect a worthy Memorial to the men who had fallen. He moved that the Berwick Aldermen and Councillors be formed into a Committee with powers to add to their numbers, and take the work in hand. Councillor Darling seconded.

Mr Brewis, who thought at first that the Mayor’s motion was that the Town Council should take up the work of the War Memorial Committee and set up a Committee of its own for the purpose, said that it was no part of the duties of the Town Council to take over the management and disposal of voluntary subscriptions to a War Memorial. Last week’s meeting was held for subscribers only, and only 32 out of 1100 attended. No wonder Dr Mackay was bitterly disappointed. So would be every Berwick man who fought in the war. Berwick had failed where Tweedmouth and Spittal had succeeded. The Berwick War Memorial Committee should have had an alternative scheme ready, because they could not know that the ratepayers would agree to the removal of the Scotsgate. The ratepayers so far as he had been able to ascertain were against its removal, and against the rates being used for Memorial purposes. He knew of no other Town Council that had been requested to take over the work of a War Memorial Committee, and as he had stated, they were under no legal obligation to do so, and certainly under no moral obligation. The work of the Council was quite onerous enough already. At the meeting of subscribers on Wednesday last of the 32 who attended, 11 voted for the Town Council to take the Memorial in hand, and 9 against, leaving 12 who did not vote at all. Could the Mayor tell him if those 12 subscribers wished the Scotsgate removed or not, because one of the principal speakers at the meeting had asked him (Mr Brewis) months ago to strongly oppose its removal?

The Mayor – I am not in a position at the present time to answer that question.

Councillor Campbell – What was the spirit in which the motion was sent?

The Mayor – I am not answerable for the motives of other people.

Councillor Campbell maintained that the contentious spirit shown at the War Memorial meeting was not right. Col. Mackay had shown a different spirit.The handing over of the Memorial question to the Council was an endeavour to exploit the Council, who did not carry the Committee’s scheme to take down the Scotsgate. They were throwing the onus on the Town Council. He considered this was a matter for the subscribers. The Council had enough in hand already. As regards his own position, as his term of office expired shortly, he did not consider he was justified in becoming a member of the proposed new Committee. The decision of the War Memorial meeting of a majority of 2 on a vote of 20, was unfortunate.

Ald. Short stated there had been immense difficulties in the question of a Memorial for Berwick. Feeling had reached a rather high point. He considered the Mayor had had no alternative but to make the suggestion he did. The motion met with his (Alderman Short’s approval, but he suggested they ought to go further and take in the whole Town Council. They were all equally sorry for the loss of the men, and would all subscribe. If by becoming a subscriber they were qualified to be on the Committee he for one would certainly qualify. There had been 40 men on the Tweedmouth Committee, and everything had been very harmonious. He hoped they would all go heart and soul into the matter, and work as hard as they could to erect some worthy Memorial to the men who gave their lives.

Councillor Brewis stated there was no question of wishing to have the best Memorial. We were all at one about that (Hear, Hear).

Councillor Blench suggested that the Council join the other Committee, and work along with them, not to take the responsibility on their own shoulders.

Councillor Brewis – There is no other Committee.

Councillor Blench thought that if the suggestion was put before the old Committee they would agree. They were all anxious to complete the Memorial. If it had not been for the men who gave their lives, there would have been no Scotsgate, no Berwick standing today.

The Mayor drew attention to the fact that his motion did not confine the matter to the Council.

Councillor Dixon suggested that the Mayor had made his motion to get out of a difficulty. He thought the old Committee might be called together by invitation.

Councillor Darling stated in seconding the Mayor’s motion, his idea had been that the Council would form a nucleus to make a fresh start.

Councillor Brewis – That is not the application made.

The Mayor – We are not here to discuss the application but to find out the best way to erect the Memorial.

Councillor Wilson stated that there was no question that the mover of the motion at the Memorial meeting and his supporters meant the Town Council to take over the whole matter of the War Memorial. Personally he quite approved of the Mayor’s motion. But that was not the intention of the meeting. The Mayor had taken a wise path. This question of a Memorial should be above squabble. (Hear, hear.) It was far too delicate and solemn a matter. He suggested that the men and women be asked to help in this matter. He regretted the lack of tone at the Memorial meeting. (The Mayor- We all felt that). He thought the Council should not put their responsibility to one side, but shoulder it and make the Memorial a success.

Councillor Brewis pointed out that the whole of the members had come there that night with the same interpretation of the action of the Memorial meeting.

The Mayor – We are here to take steps to carry on the Memorial, not to do as someone else tells us.

The motion was unanimously agreed to.

LOCAL NEWS

On Thursday morning last an accident occurred on the Old Bridge about 10.15 a.m. Two large motor wagons belonging to Messrs Johnson and Darling, and to Messrs Spring, fish curers, Berwick and Hull, colliding. There was very little damage done, but traffic was delayed for a short while.

A recent photogrpah of the Berwick Bridge (Old Bridge), where in August 1920 a number of incidents were recorded on the roadway. Copyright: Bill Harrison – (CC-BY-SA-2.0) – https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/5593766

On the afternoon of the same day, while a woman was wheeling a perambulator across the Bridge, a pony and trap passing knocked the perambulator over, upsetting the two children in it. Fortunately the children were little the worse. The most regrettable part of the incident was that the party driving the trap did not consider it worth while to stop and enquire what damage had been done. On Friday two motor lorries again collided on the Bridge one of them having been in the smash the previous day.

BERWICK SANITARY AUTHORITY

Ald. Richardson drew attention to the absence of a urinal and a water closet at the Carr Rock. In those days when men came from all parts with herring boats, he thought it was the duty of the Authority to put this matter right at once.

The Mayor pointed out that the proper course for Ald. Richardson to have followed regarding this matter, was to have sent a complaint to the Town Clerk. The question could then have been put on the agenda. Otherwise time was put off, and members did not know what was coming before them. The matter was referred to the Works Committee with powers.

A early 1900s photogrpah of the Carr Rock, where in August 1920, there were complaints brought up at the Town Council meeting as to the state of the urinals. Ref: BRO 426 SL 83

Ald. Short asked how it was that for days there had been no water in the urinals and closets in Tweedmouth. People had come into his office complaining that the closets were dry.

The Surveyor stated that was the first he had heard of it. A man was paid to look after these things, and he had heard nothing from the man.

Councillor Edminson – Why do not the officials go themselves and see about it? There are a great many abuses that are not attended to? With all the officials Berwick should have been a little Paradise by now.

Ald. Short – The Surveyor is seldom in Tweedmouth to my knowledge. It is a very hazy recollection I have of seeing him the last time.

A Berwick Borough Surveyor (Twixt Thistle and Rose)

03/04/201928/01/2019 by Northumberland Archives

It’s a popular belief that the older the record the more interesting it is – but records from any era can contain unique information that conjures up the times in which they were written.

Last week, as I was looking through some of the Urban Sanitary Authority records, I came across a rather plain notebook [Reference LB 27/2]. This outwardly prosaic book begins with detailed, handwritten water usage charts and is described in the Archives handlist as “An analysis of water supplies 1899-1944 (also contains an Old Bridge road traffic census of 1922)”. This is an accurate description of a large part of the book but, on inspection, it contains much more. It is a fascinating Day Book – a bit like Project Managers diary – that draws you into the mind of the writer with every turn of the page.

Traffic Census on the old bridge, Berwick-upon-Tweed 1922

The Urban Sanitary Authority was the product of a series of Public Health Acts in the first half of the nineteenth century that were passed to control and combat deadly diseases such as Cholera. Many of the statutory duties of the Urban Sanitary Authority eventually passed to the Town Council as clean streets, good housing and plentiful, pure water became the standard measures of civilization.

The Council Buildings on Wallace Green that were originally converted for the Urban Sanitary Authority

The Tweed is tidal and its water saline so Berwick, throughout its history (and as the records testify), was reliant on wells for its water supply. Ensuring water was fit to drink was a common concern. On establishing the Urban Sanitary Authority responsibility fell upon the Borough Surveyor and the Inspector of Nuisances to identify or create healthy water sources and to ensure that they were kept free of contaminants.

When I began to leaf through the pages of this volume I quickly noticed the writer was a skilled draughtsman who also liked to record informal notes about the works being undertaken. I had the sense that this was someone who took pride in and enjoyed his work. As a result, I wanted to know more about him. His technical drawings have an accomplished artistry that put me in mind of Leonardo da Vinci’s notebooks. It’s pure speculation, but the first comprehensive translation of those Notebooks was by Richter in 1888. I wondered if the Borough Surveyor might have seen them as a young man and felt he was part of a long line of inventors and engineers. Archives can be dangerously thought provoking!

Notes on the Spa Well, Spittal whose source had changed course in 1919

The notebook is almost entirely the work of Robert Dickinson, Borough Surveyor from 1890-1929. There is an oil painting of him (seated at a desk with a notebook) by the artist Frank Watson Wood in Berwick Town Hall .

Settling wells at Bondington, Castle Terrace

He was a local boy, a son of Robert Dickinson, a boot and shoemaker from Tweedmouth, and his Scottish wife Lillias. I found the family in the 1871 census living in Marygate. In 1881 the family had moved to 26 Castlegate. Robert was 19 and is described as a Town Surveyors Assistant – already pursuing his future career. He is Town Surveyor in 1891 and living with his wife, Margaret, at 46 Ravensdowne. Ten years later, a widower, he lives at 6 Wallace Green – opposite the Urban Sanitary Authority buildings. His colleague, the Inspector of Nuisances, also lived in the same street! Robert was there still in 1911, seems to have retired about 1930 and died, in Berwick in 1951 aged 89.

The book is mainly concerned with the works he commissioned or managed (some examples are included above) but he peppers it with facts prompted by curiosity or conversations. This includes a note that the specification for works was altered to preserve a Hart’s Tongue Fern found growing on the ramparts. He takes care to write down the botanical name of the fern – Scotopendrium Vulgaro – as given to him by Captain Norman.

Robert also copies extracts from academic journals on geology, colleagues findings from surveys and estimations and a list and planting plan of the roses outside the Urban Sanitary Authority buildings in Wallace Green. He makes a sketch of the timber structure underneath the plaster finish in his office and makes notes on an the removal of an old dolphin recovered from the river.

He is also interested in people – keeping lists of workmen employed and information about the introduction of the old age pension. He makes notes on those working in the Surveyors office – including some who joined up to fight in the Great War. The effects of war on prices, labour supply and so on are also recorded.

Thomas Evans – employment, wages and war record

Cover of a Wartime leaflet on the price of smithy work in the Berwick area

War Savings Shell erected near Scotsgate, 1920

This volume shows that a record has many layers – the information it contains, the person who created it, why they created it and why it was retained. A full description of content and context is essential when it is catalogued to make it available for the widest range of research.

It would be fascinating to compare five centuries of civil engineering in Berwick and there is plenty in the collection to research this aspect of Berwick’s history. Robert Dickinson is just one in a long line of inspectors, surveyors and workmen striving to ensure Berwick functioned as a prosperous and healthy place. The Guild, through their Works Committee, carried out many improvements before the Urban Sanitary Authority existed. This last drawing refers to an old dolphin that was removed in the time of Robert Dickinson. Much earlier records also refer to the protection of the Quay and old Bridge by the placement and replacement of such defensive structures in the river.

Robert’s work is also recorded in a series of records that were part of the Urban Sanitary Authority collection (summarized in the 1978 Handlist – E 1-30). Intriguingly, in volume E 7/1, there is a typescript report on road widening in 1912 at the junction of Chapel Street and Walkergate. It is signed by Robert Dickinson and it refers to the reconstruction of the Rose and Thistle Public House. If it is where we think it is (the present Cobbled Yard Hotel) – I am sitting opposite it as I write. More about that in a later post perhaps!

This Week in World War One, 30 July 1915

08/03/201831/07/2015 by Northumberland Archives

BERWICK ADVERTISER, 30 JULY 1915

HARBOUR REVENUE AND THE WAR

INADVISABILITY OF PUBLIC DISCUSSION

The restriction on East Coast shipping are being more forcibly impressed upon the ratepayers of our own immediate district by the short discussion which occurred at the Berwick Town Council meeting on Tuesday evening. The inability of the local Harbour Commissioners to meet the interest on a by no means large bond is sufficient testimony to the decline in shipping during the past year at the port of Berwick. It was a state of matters which no one contemplated this time last year, and it is satisfactory to learn, despite the intense difficulties placed on shipping and fishing, the trade at the harbour shows a tendancy to revive these last few weeks. There is no doubt whatever that with the advent of normal times activities at the harbour will resume their natural condition, and that the interest, temporarily advanced by the Town Council as guarantors to the bond, will be duly refunded. In the unusual circumstances the Town Council had no alternative but to meet the payment of the interest, and there is no reason why there should be any feeling in the community over what is only a very small item emanating out of the war. The appeal made by Alderman Short to regard the discussion as private might very well have seriously occurred to the Council earlier. Had the Council been unanimous in Committee, as they were to all extents and purposes in public, the whole matter could have been quite easily adjusted. In these strenuous days when every encouraging little item is faithfully served up to the reading public of the enemy on the other side of the North Sea, the less said about decadent sea ports on the east Coast the better. It is a line of action which would have undoubtedly met with the approval of the naval and military authorities who keep a very strict censor on items of such a nature. It may occur to the Council of Borough on the East Coast that there are other things quite as essential to safeguard as bright lights. A spoken word, and an admission on the part of a responsible body such as a Town Council that one of the ports is in a temporary insolvent condition is a grave enough concession indeed, and, garnished and magnified by Tuetonic ingenuity, it can be translated into language out of all proportion to the actual facts. But there is no use lamenting over spilt milk, though it may, and certainly ought to be, a warning to responsible authorities to exercise every degree of care and caution in these eventful days.

Berwick Advertiser 30 July 1915. J Smith Advert

LOCAL NEWS

Belford Church – the church has been enriched by the placing of two finely executed stained glass windows. They are, what is known in architecture, as the early English period, and are lancet in shape. In one window is an illustration of “Charity,” which is depicted by a large figure under richly-coloured canopy work, and standing on an ornamental base, with the following inscription: – “Erected

Belford Church © Copyright Peter Taylor - Creative Commons Licence. — Belford Church © Copyright Peter Taylor – Creative Commons Licence.

by her brother-in-law, the Vicar of Belford, in loving memory of Racheal Smale McLeish, a devoted church worker, who died on December 14^th, 1914; aged 58 years.” In the other window is a figure of St. Cecilia in the act of playing an organ, being patron of music, with the following inscription:-“Erected by her father, the Vicar of Belford, in loving memory of his beloved daughter Helen Katharine Ogilvie Robertson, who died on January 11^th, 1914, aged 37 years.” The windows were designed and executed by Messrs G. J. Bagnley and Son, artists in stained glass, Newcastle.

CROSS-COUNTRY

Splendid Military Run at Berwick

Thirty-Three Regiments Represented

The military cross-country race at Berwick on Saturday proved an eminently successful gathering, and the commontion and stir it occasioned in the ancient Borough will be an event to be remembered as an outstanding incident in the annals of the Great War. The weather was showery, and, though the ground was heavy underfoot, a more ideal summer afternoon could not have been desired. The thousands of spectators who lined the fine vantage ground on the overlooking Walls, as well as on the more expansive meadow where the race started and finished, were enabled to witness the ceremony under most comfortable atmospheric conditions. A sharp shower fell at the conclusion of the subsequent recruiting meeting, but it was short in duration, and it did not interfere with the pleasure of the spectators in witnessing the completion of a most interesting and finely contested race. No one could but be impressed with the sight of so many hundreds of fine specimens of young

WW1 Gymanastics at Aldershot. — WW1 Gymnastics wearing their competitors costume at Aldershot.

fellows in the perfect bloom of physical strength and manhood, all too, trained in the use of arms, and ready and willing to do their bit whenever the opportunity came. As they marched in gymnastic costume, in perfect swing and unison of step to the captivating strains of the pipe music to take up their allotted positions at the starting point it was a singularly charming spectacle. Not a few of the competitors felt the inspiration of the familiar Highland reels, and gave vent to their itch of foot by indulging in brief spells of a dance. To the thinking spectator there came a pang of intense regret to know of a certainty that so many splendid specimens of athletic manhood would ere many weeks were over have to face the terrible scenes of havoc and bloodshed which are being enacted on the plains of Flanders. The arrangements of the committee in charge were admirable. There was ample convenience for so many competitors dressing and preparing for the race, several large tents having been erected, while the course was well mapped out with flags. The start was given by Colonel Peterkin, and though at the finish there was great excitement and some crushing ample room was allowed to the runners to reach the goal.

The presentation of prizes by Colonel Peterkin in the evening in the Corn Exchange along with tea to the competitors was a scene of much enthusiasm and good hearted fellowship. The memory of the great race, and the stir and bustle it created in the streets will be pleasantly remembered by all the citizens, and the only feeling of regret is that so poor a response was made to the recruiting efforts at so imposing a military display.

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