Dickson

Ann Wilson – Widow, Pauper and Eloping Lover

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The Poor and the Law

During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries local parishes were made responsible for the care of paupers within their jurisdiction. This care was given in the form of poor relief legislated by a series of ‘Poor Laws;’ the most notable being the 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act. The concept of poor relief was a controversial one, attracting numerous critics. One its major flaws related to the notion of ‘settlement.’ Parishes naturally resented paying for paupers whom had originated beyond their jurisdiction, and would often try to forcibly return them to their ‘home’ parishes. Yet the fluid nature of society, especially during the industrial revolution, made it increasingly hard to prove where a “pauper” should be placed. Thus solicitors, such as the Dickson, Archer and Thorp firm, were often called upon to resolve settlement disputes.

This exact issue arose in September 1853 when two Overseers of the Poor from the parish of Saint Nicholas, situated within Newcastle Upon Tyne, began legal proceedings to forcibly remove two “paupers” from their jurisdiction. These Overseers signed themselves in the removal order as Sir John Fife and William Armstrong. The order directed the “paupers” to be moved into the northern parish of Bamburgh. Although it is not clear from archival documents as to why Bamburgh was chosen it is perhaps telling that Bamburgh’s own Overseers of the Poor fiercely disputed the removal order and so employed the legal aid of Dickson, Archer and Thorp.

Widowed Paupers

The two “paupers” facing removal from the parish of Saint Nicholas in September 1853 were the widow Ann Wilson, aged just 25, and her daughter Elizabeth, aged about two years. Sending widows away from a parish of settlement, previously adopted by their deceased spouses, was a common occurrence in nineteenth century Northumberland. The process often caused heart-breaking social and economic turmoil, as vulnerable women were removed from established networks of friends and family and placed in often unfamiliar areas without obvious employment or emotional support.

 

Order to remove Ann Wilson to Bamburgh 1853. REF: NRO 11343/B/DAT

 

It is therefore unsurprising that the potential move was also sternly opposed by Ann herself. Ann had already faced the stigma of possibly welcoming a child out of wedlock, braved her employer’s wrath to elope with her lover and tragically endured early widowhood – clearly she was not a woman who would be moved easily. Thus, whilst her experience of parish poor relief could be deemed atypical of a nineteenth century Northumbrian widow, her situation was far more complex and it made fighting the order a matter of survival and reputation.

Young Lovers

Ann was the daughter of a sailor, named in legal documents as Henry Pryle Gibson. He was recorded in ejectment proceedings as living near Forth Banks, close to Newcastle’s Quayside, but in Ann’s personal testimony he seems to have had little to do with her life.

Instead Ann had spent the majority of her youth working as a domestic servant. In this occupation she had spent almost 3 years living in Newton on the Moor whilst working for the publican-come-blacksmith Mr Wall. In her testimony, given to prove she had been legally married to her deceased husband, she tenderly recalled how it was during her first few weeks in Newton on the Moor that she met the colliery engine-man James Wilson.

 

Copy of James Wilson’s baptism certificate, produced as evidence of his existence. REF: NRO 11343/B/DAT

 

The young couple began a three year courtship which reached a decisive point when Ann became pregnant in the beginning of 1851. To have maintained a child out of wedlock would have put great financial pressure and reputational shame upon Ann; probably forcing her to give up domestic employment and seek the support of parish organisations. Thus, probably to avoid moral judgement, the young couple decided to elope to the Scottish borders and resolve their situation legally.

The Legality of Love

Marriages conducted by eloping couples on the border were clandestine in the eyes of the Church, this made them notoriously hard to prove in retrospect. Ann’s account of her elopement is lengthy, witty and fast-paced. It was recorded verbatim by the solicitors and had been carefully crafted to prove the legality of her marriage and, in turn, the legitimacy of Elizabeth – two facts which the Newcastle Overseers had questioned. Being a legal widow, and having a legitimate child, would have put Ann in a much stronger position to fight the parish removal order and lift the reputational slur the men of Saint Nicholas’ parish had placed on her. Ann’s account was also verified by a number of witnesses including her mother-in-law (even though her testimony infers that she may not have wholly approved of her new daughter-in-law.)

 

A letter containing extracts of Ann Wilson’s statement. REF: NRO 11343/B/DAT

 

According to these accounts Ann and James eloped to the Scottish border on the 6th June 1851, travelling via train from Newcastle to Berwick. Once at Tweedmouth Station they met with the man who was to marry them; Anderson Sommerville. Sommerville first took the lovers by horse drawn carriage to a public house in search of witnesses; here they met George Dobson and George Davison. The latter was a soldier tasked with recruiting in Berwick that day. The group then moved onto the Lamberton toll booth to conduct the ceremony.

The Lamberton toll house was a popular place for clandestine marriages. One of Lamberton’s previous toll keepers, John Foster, had even received lifetime banishment from Scotland for conducting clandestine marriages on his land in 1818. This punishment had little effect though, as Foster primarily lived in England and he would often ignore the notice anyway.

Within the toll house the Wilson’s were taken to a room with a table, bottle of whiskey and a prayer book. It was in this room where they exchanged their vows and signed the relevant documentation. After the brief ceremony all five drank a toast of whiskey to the marriage’s prosperity which was, unfortunately, to be short-lived.

Hanover Street and a New Start

Ann clearly thought she had embarked upon a whole new, exciting life following her elopement. When the couple returned to Northumberland it would appear James returned to Newton on the Moor, to tie up the loose ends left behind by their hasty departure, he then followed Ann down to Newcastle where she had found them a home in the city’s Hanover Street.

It was here that Ann gave birth to their daughter Elizabeth, on the 28th September 1851. But sadly, around the same time, James died following a short illness.

James’ death left Ann with a young child to feed and care for. It was during this painful, and probably traumatic, experience she found herself seeking poor relief from parish officials. Evidence also suggests she was possibly forced out of her new home. These circumstances therefore assembled to bring her to the attention of senior parish officials, whom questioned her marriage and associated right to remain in the area, and set in motion the removal order.

A Legal Success

Proving Ann Wilson’s right to settle in Saint Nicholas’ parish was dependent upon her having been legally married to her husband, however this was difficult to evidence due to the secret nature of their union. Nonetheless, through tireless county and cross-border investigation, solicitors at the Dickson, Archer and Thorp practice were able to successfully evidence an appeal against the removal order on behalf of Bamburgh’s Overseers of the Poor and prove the authenticity of a small marriage certificate, given to Ann on her wedding day. Officials from the parish of Saint Nicholas eventually revoked their removal order and Ann and Elizabeth appear to have found somewhere within Newcastle to stay.

 

Letter adjoining the Appeal notice accepted by all parties. REF: NRO 11343/B/DAT

 

Ann had asserted her right to remain within the Newcastle Parish, but it is unlikely she would have had the tools to fight the removal order on her own had she not also had the support of Bamburgh’s parish officials. Hence this is a story of two parties working simultaneously with the solicitors – if only for their own gains.

A final triumph for the unyielding Ann, and an appropriate end to this blog, potentially occurred on the 7th October 1854. When an Elizabeth Wilson, recorded as being the daughter of an ‘Ann Wilson” and born towards the end of 1851, was christened at Saint Nicholas Cathedral in Newcastle.

 

Warring Neighbours

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On the 23rd October 1829 a neighbourhood dispute brought two brothers, George and James Mather, before the law at the Alnwick Quarter Sessions. The brothers were presented on the following nuisance charge;

“On the first day of July in the tenth year of the reign of our own Sovereign Lord George the fourth ….. in and upon a certain street and King’s common Highway there, called Bondgate, unlawfully and injuriously did erect and build, and cause and procure to be erected and built, a certain wall made of stone, mortar and other materials of great height, … the height of fifty feet of the length of sixty feet and the breadth of three feet.”

The wall had been erected as part of a bigger building project to renovate an ancient property, which the Mather brothers had recently acquired on Bondgate Street. But neighbours and local residents resented the street’s new addition, labelling it unlawful and dangerous.

Using Quarter Session records, lifted from the Dickson, Archer and Thorp collection, as well as electoral rolls and contemporary maps one can trace seventy years of property history in the Bondgate area, and understand why a simple home renovation could cause extreme neighbourhood strife and personal tragedy.

 

The prosecution’s case notes. REF: NRO 11343/B/DAT

 

Bondgate’s Burgages

Using anecdotes from the testimony of court room witnesses, one can began to build a vivid picture of early nineteenth century Bondgate. The area was a vibrant and creative one, filled with artisan residents practising occupational crafts such as hat and breech-making.  Its main street was a busy common highway, and court witness James Simpson reminisced about how local residents Aaron Shanks and Nicholas Dune would sit and chat in it. The properties which lined Bondgate Street were referred to in court documents as “old burgages” essentially meaning they had been, at some point, rental properties.

The Mather’s controversial property, atypical to others on the row, was described in the prosecution’s brief as an “ancient” building boasting a traditional thatched roof and mud walls. James Mather was listed in electoral rolls as possessing an “undivided moiety of a freehold house,” thus it is likely the Mather brothers shared in the property’s ownership. We can also trace the property’s previous occupants using a list produced specifically for the October court case;

“[the building] formerly belonged to Aaron Shanks (Cooper), afterwards his two daughters, then Robert Patterson of Alnwick a draper, and then to James and George Mathers.”

When the Mather brother’s acquired their new property they set about demolishing its old external walls and erecting new ones. They were not the first amongst their neighbours to renovate the traditional street front. The Nesbit and Landell families had each altered their properties by removing the external walls, which appeared to be of a “temporary nature, to make the buildings sturdier. These necessary, yet subtle, changes were largely accepted by the community, so long as they respected public access to the street and complied with the row’s existing uniform design.

Yet the Mather’s renovation differed hugely, as the brothers had decided to demolish the whole front-facing external wall and rebuild it jutting out into the street. This new design blocked the public’s right of way to Bondgate Street, and broke the perpendicular line which had traditionally existed along the property row.

 

A court sketch of the Landell, Nesbit and Mather properties. REF: NRO 11343/B/DAT

 

Neighbours and community members were outraged at the new wall and the property’s new position; and reading their testimonies has highlighted similarities between this case and modern examples regarding the demolition or refurbishment of traditionally established buildings. While some neighbours called for nuisance charges to be brought others viewed the wall as being an outright public danger. This concern was especially illustrated in the testimony of Samuel Fairburn who;

“Had reason to complain for, in going up to his sisters, … about 3 weeks ago he knocked the side of his face against it [the new exterior wall], there was no moon and his eye sight is not good.”

The physical injury and inconvenience to local residents ultimately led to legal complaints and action. But, despite being issued with various indictments and warnings, the brothers refused to amend or remove the wall and thus presented themselves before the court on October 23rd 1829 to defend their boundary rights.

 

The Court Case – Memory Lane

The Mather’s radical act to move their external wall out into the street had thrown into question the land rights of all Bondgate residents, as well as the public’s right to access. The brothers sternly defended their actions by maintaining that the new wall still fell within their land boundary. They perceived this boundary to be marked out by several large rocks, from the property’s original foundations, which had surfaced in the street only metres beyond the original external wall.

The prosecution’s case therefore rested on being able to prove that these stones did not mark any land boundary but that it was the perpendicular line, which had existed for generations between houses, which decided boundary rights. Proving the Mather brothers had subverted these traditional property lines required strong witness testimony. Thus the prosecution’s witnesses were carefully selected from the community for both their knowledge of the area and their ability to remember the property’s state prior to 1795.

 

Notes from the prosecution on witnesses. REF: NRO 11343/B/DAT

 

Most of the witnesses were in their 70s when they stood before the court. Some of whom had been builders in their youth, and believed the Mather brothers were correct in their assertion that the surfacing rocks had been part of the property’s original foundations. These witnesses claimed that the rocks had surfaced beyond the property, and into the road, as;

“the original builder had sunk the foundation stones so deep they had crumbled and tumbled below the surface so when they re-emerged they were beyond the boundary”

These rocks therefore held no sway over property rights or boundaries; instead it was the original positioning of the Bondgate row burgages which marked land rights and property lines. This concept was described for the court using a small architectural model, presented by William Smith:

“The old burgage of Mathers was bordered by a burgage belonging to Mr Nesbit on the west, by a burgage belonging to Walter Landells on the east and by Bondgate Street on the north. The front wall of the Mathers old burgage into Bondgate Street was even both with the line of Landells old and new erected houses, and it sloped generally towards Nesbits….. but before Nesbits house was rebuilt as had just been stated, all these three houses were in their old state in a line with each other.”

 

The Mather Family – Triumph and Tragedy

Unfortunately documents from the Dickson, Archer and Thorp collection do not tell us the court’s decision on the case, although research into both census and electoral records has told us that George and James continued to live in the controversial property for at least two more decades.

In the 1840s the brothers can be found living in the Bondgate property along with their sister Margaret Mather and a second woman; Hannah Mather. It is thought that Hannah may have been James’ wife, or perhaps another sister. Research also revealed a boy was born into the Mather family around 1827 and, although his exact parentage is uncertain, he was named George and certainly grew up in the Bondgate property.

Twenty-two years after the court case, in 1851, Margaret and George are still listed as living in Bondgate, whilst Hannah and George Jn cannot be traced. However, in the same year, James Mather is tragically recorded as residing in the Alnwick Workhouse within St Paul’s Parish.

One can only guess as to why the family split up but, in perhaps the most tragic of twists, a map depicting 1820s Alnwick shows the Mather’s Bondgate property was adjoined to a poorhouse. This was a tragic end for James; a man who had fought the law to retain his property rights barely twenty years before and yet ended his life at the other end of the property spectrum.

 

A map showing Alnwick in 1827. If you double-click on the image, and zoom in, the Mather property can be found to the south of the map at the bottom of Bondgate Street

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