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William Wailes – Visionary, Creator and Artist

10/11/202308/05/2018 by Northumberland Archives

William Wailes was one of England’s most accomplished and visionary stained glass manufacturers. A key partner in the internationally renowned firm Wailes and Strang, William used his artistic flair to promote philanthropy, decadent design and religious adulation.

A William Wailes design for a stained glass window, *DN/E/8/2/2/173*

German Glass

William was born in Newcastle Upon Tyne in 1808, the youngest son of Thomas Wailes. He had at least three siblings; George, Margaret and Elizabeth Anne. In the early 1830s, whilst still a youth, William traveled to Germany to develop his skills in glass production. Glass production was a meticulous art to master, and contemporaries often commented upon Wailes’ dedication to his chosen trade and the long hours he sacrificed to producing unique and precise designs. Upon returning to the North East he gradually established his own business in manufacturing and designing glass, by creating his earliest designs in a low-budget kiln.

Wailes advertised his abilities through various regional and national newspapers, mixing European techniques with competitive pricing. His hard work eventually paid off and his company soon became renowned for their unique ability to harness the bright colour pigments in glass (a difficult feat in the mid 1800s). Soon his work was being incorporated into religious architecture across the world. These intricate designs can still be enjoyed in many places today including India, Newcastle and Low Fell.

The detail of a Wailes – Strang design, *DN/E/8/2/2/137*

The success of his firm led to the employment (at any one time) of between 60 to 100 persons. William had a good reputation as an employer and, when one of his employees died in 1852, journalists at the funeral commented upon the bond between Wailes-Strang workers. William also enjoyed a good personal reputation, becoming Overseer of the Poor in 1848 for the Parish of Newcastle and patroning pupils from the Institution of the Deaf and Dumb.

Keeping the Business Personal

In January 1834 William married his wife, Janet Elizabeth Carr, at Alnwick. The couple had at least four children; Margaret Janet born in 1834, Anne Kirwood born in 1836, William Thomas Wailes born in 1838 and John Carr Wailes born in 1841. Whilst their youngest son, John, died at the tender age of nine their other children all survived to adulthood.

The Wailes and Strang families were closely interwoven, both personally and professionally. Margaret (William’s eldest daughter) married Thomas Rankin Strang, a partner in her father’s firm and a celebrated stain-glass manufacturer. Together they would have one son, William Wailes Strang, who would continue the family’s glass making legacy. The Wailes’ own son, William Thomas, married Jane Ward and together they had two daughters Frances Margaret and Ann Elizabeth.

In 1861 William and Janet were living in South Dene Towers, Gateshead. Their household at this time was substantial; comprising of their daughter Margaret, their son-in-law Thomas Strang, their grandson William, the ageing Wailes sisters Elizabeth and Margaret, three domestic servants, a visiting widow called Isabella Le Berkeley and a Sarah A Pashley. Their neighbours at this time were the Peasel’s who had made their fortune from banking. Also living nearby, in a row called “Wailes’ Gardens,” were a dozen or so gardeners. These men most likely worked for William on his new vision – redesigning Saltwell Estate in Gateshead.

William’s creative legacy still lives on in some of Gateshead’s street names

Saltwell Park

William’s creative vision led to him purchasing the site in the 1860s and building of a decorative mansion (known as Saltwell Towers). The building, gothically styled, is still greatly imposing with its soaring towers and numerous windows. In 1861, shortly after purchasing the site, William is listed as owning ten acres and employing three men, fourteen boys and two women to care for his land. These individuals were most likely employed to help William realise his vision of cultivated gardens. Ten years later, in 1871, William owned 235 acres of land across the region.

However, almost twenty years after purchasing Saltwell Estate, William ran into financial difficulties and was forced to sell his dream to the Gateshead Corporation whom opened the gardens up as a public park. In the heart-breaking deal William was allowed to remain resident in the towers until his death in 1881.

The Will of Women

When William Wailes died in 1881 his will outlined how his personal estate, estimated in local papers to have been worth £25,403 3s 5d, should be divided between his family. This original document has been found amongst papers within the Dickson, Archer and Thorp collection and its date, late January, suggests it was hastily written on his death bed. The majority of William’s surviving blood relations were female, and it fell to them to both divide and claim his assets. These included his two daughters, two granddaughters, widowed daughter-in-law and two sisters.

An extract from the will of William Wailes. *REF: NRO 11343/B/DAT*

He had appointed his daughter Anne Kirwood, his friend John Gibson and his son-in-law Thomas Rankin Strang to be his executors and trustees. He left a watch, belonging to his previously deceased son William Thomas, to his only grandson William Wailes Strang. He left his recently widowed daughter-in-law £20 for mourning, but instructed that her daughters should remain in the care of their aunt Anne Kirwood. Anne was to therefore act as the girls’ live-in mother and trustee until they reached the age of 21. William also bequeathed to his trustees and executors any money still owed to him by the Gateshead Corporation for the sale of Saltwell Park, and assigned yearly allowances to various family members. He also bequeathed gifts to the institution of the Deaf and Dumb.

The signature of William Wailes Strang, DN/E/8/2/2/137

William may have been gone but his legacy continued through his gifts of philanthropy and his grandson’s development of the family glass making business. William was an exceptional force admired for being hard-working, charitable and upstanding – the ultimate Victorian gentleman.

We would like to thank the volunteer who carefully transcribed the last will and testimony of William Wailes, without which this blog would not be possible.

The Meeting, Marriage and Parting of Ways: The Scandalous Mr Hewgill

08/05/201825/04/2018 by Northumberland Archives

A Wedding Day

On the morning of the 4th March, 1851, Margaret Dawson was preparing for her wedding day. She was, at thirty-eight years old, about to marry the Reverend Francis Hewgill. Margaret had originally hailed from Yorkshire, although she had spent the last few years in Northumberland. Following her Northumbrian wedding she would move to join her new husband in his parish of Trowell, Nottinghamshire. But the bridegroom was not as sprightly as his bride-to-be, instead he was nearing almost seventy years old. Their marriage would only last seven years before Francis’ death left Margaret a hugely affluent widow.

Documents retrospectively analysing the terms of the Hewgill’s marriage settlement, which had taken place over forty years before. *REF: NRO 11343/B/DAT*

During the 1830s Francis, already nearing his sixties, had volunteered to take care for his nephew Henry Hewgill, aged twenty-two. Henry, despite his youth, already had a wife and infant son, who Francis also took on. The household Francis brought them into was one of order and substance. He had four domestic staff (a number which would slowly dwindle when he lived with Margaret) and he supported his nephew to the best of his abilities. This careful nurturing resulted in Henry following his uncle’s spiritual footsteps and becoming the curate in Crofton, Fareham Hampshire. But Francis’ efforts to raise a gentleman were marred with scandal when, in 1853, Henry Hewgill was dragged before the magistrates at Fareham charged with obtaining money by false pretenses. This conviction pierced the quiet and subdued existence Francis had been enjoying with his caring new wife.

Need or Greed?

Henry had used both his uncle’s good name and that of the Rev W. M. Cosser to persuade two local men to hand over large amounts of money. He claimed the first amount, taken from a shop owner called Thomas Watters, was requested by Rev W. M. Cosser to pay off debts. Henry had forged Cosser’s handwriting to support his story and tricked the shop keeper into believing him. The second amount was fraudulently received from a church warden, Daniel Bartholomew, supposedly on behalf of Henry’s uncle. Once again he claimed the money was part of an owed payment and copied his uncle’s handwriting. But why did Henry need the money? And what had drove a well-stationed man to criminal behaviour?

Intimate Dealings

Henry had married Frances Decoetlogon on the 22^nd August 1836, aged just eighteen years old. Five years later the young couple, and their infant son Charles Henry, were living with Henry’s generous uncle Francis Hewgill. Ten years later the couple, joined by two more children called Antonina and Ellen, had set up their own large household. Also living within this house was Henry’s mother, Harriet, and a selection of domestic staff. By 1853 the couple had added one more child to their growing family and had been settled in the area of Crofton for around eighteen months.

But the move to Crofton had not brought the couple joy, and Francis soon sought affection elsewhere. Retrospective newspaper reports claimed that, whilst covering for the local rector during a bout of sickness, Henry had been required to attend the local school more frequency. It was during these visits that a “close intimacy had sprung up” between the curate and the school’s mistress; Miss Macfarlane.

Henry concocted a desperate plan to elope with his lover; obtaining the money to do so by defrauding the aforementioned men. In the November of 1853 Henry and Miss Macfarlane “suddenly left Crofton” and their disgraced families with the stolen money and headed for Boulogne.

Following the couple’s disappearance their families found a secret diary written by the school teacher, and the scandalous entries were later published in the local newspaper. These entries described the dates, times and places of the couple’s illicit meetings and included notes such as “Dear Harry kissed me for the first time.”

During their absence in France the couple were reported to have been “living in the first style, and frequenting the theatre and other places of amusement”. They returned to London after a few weeks and, upon hearing an arrest warrant was out for his fraudulent tricks, Henry abandoned his lover with no money and fled.

When both were found Henry was apprehended to be placed immediately before the courts. He was convicted of having obtained money by false pretenses and imprisoned for six months. Ironically, upon Francis’ death in 1858, his uncle left a personal estate worth just under £6,000. Had Henry and his lover cooled their passions they may have received some of this legacy and been able to elope ‘legally’ but, instead, this money allowed Margaret to live comfortably on independent means until her own death in 1902. Whereupon, having resided in Ripon for the majority of her widowhood, she used the Dickson, Archer and Thorp firm to settle her legacy and effects totaling £10934 1s 6d.

We would like to thank the volunteers who have tirelessly transcribed the Hewgill’s marriage settlement and related documents. A document retrospectively concerning the original settlement, and Margaret’s assets, can be viewed along with its transcription here.

Elizabeth Longstaff – A Career Criminal

08/05/201819/03/2018 by Northumberland Archives

As the Northumberland Summer Assizes assembled on the 18^th July 1887 Elizabeth “Longstaff” stood trial charged with the larceny of two bed sheets worth three shillings. The bed sheets had been relieved from an Amble lodging house belonging to Obadiah Self; a coal miner with three daughters and a son. Obadiah testified to the assembled court that, on the afternoon of the 9^th July 1887, he had made-up the lodging house’s ten beds. At 10:30pm, when he went to check on the beds, he found two sheets missing.

*Case of Elizabeth Longstaff for the Prosecution. REF: NRO 11343/B/DAT*

An Elizabeth “Longstaff” had been lodging at the house and her disappearance on the evening of the crime made her the most likely perpetrator. Having absconded from the scene she tried to rid herself of the evidence. She met Margaret Gilmore from Broomhill and told her that she “was hard up and … would sell the sheets for the price of a stone of flour and a bit of yeast.” Margaret then unknowingly bought the stolen sheets for one shilling and a loaf of bread. Obadiah had immediately reported the incident to the local Police Sergeant and, as Elizabeth returned from her dealings on the Radcliffe to Amble railway, Lewis Scaife, the local Police Sergeant, was able to identify and apprehend the suspect. Elizabeth immediately admitted her guilt to the Sergeant.

Elizabeth was further incriminated during the trial by the prosecution’s key witness Frank Mack; an Amble-based hawker of no fixed aboded. He had also lodged in the house that fateful night and told the court how he had innocently helped Elizabeth gain entry to the bedroom as she could not open the heavy door. She was eventually found guilty by the presiding Bench and the case made headline news in the Morpeth Herald as an example of “bad character.”

Elizabeth’s 1887 court appearance appears to be the first, and only, time the Dickson, Archer and Thorp firm were involved in the prosecution of a Mrs “Longstaff.” However, Mr Archer believed her crimes extended far beyond the parish of Warkworth. To prove his hunch Mr Archer sent various letters to contacts across the Durham county. A picture of Elizabeth soon emerged of a colourful character whom had carved herself a career in crime. Her previous convictions included indecent exposure, drunk and disorderly behaviour, the theft of money and food, passing of counterfeit corn, use of counterfeit coins and larceny of clothing. This extensive criminal record can be traced from 1887 to 1900 using newspaper articles, criminal registers and original documents produced for the aforementioned court case of 1887.

*Witness statements in the 1887 case of Elizabeth Longstaff. REF: NRO 11343/B/DAT*

Elizabeth Johnson

Elizabeth was born in 1857 as Elizabeth Johnson. She hailed from Sunderland in County Durham, and married Miles Longmires in 1876. Their marriage was a turbulent one; which Elizabeth yearned to escape.

On the 10^th January 1879 reports were published in the Durham County Advertiser regarding a domestic assault which had occurred between the couple in the October of 1878. Miles Longmires, described as being a potato hawker, had assaulted his wife Elizabeth by delivering a strong blow to the back of her head. Elizabeth had pressed for charges immediately following the incident, but she subsequently dropped them. Whilst being questioned as to why she had dropped the accusations against her husband she changed her version of events to divert the blame. She claimed she was struck by someone in the dark passageway of their lodgings, and had blamed her husband. She then claimed she had been mistaken and, having been informed by her more knowledgeable “neighbours,” the assailant had actually been another resident at the Coxon Lodging house called John Jones. We will never know why Elizabeth changed her story but, having escaped to her mother’s home for a short time, she returned to her husband and in 1879 gave birth to the couple’s only child John William.

But the birth of their child did not lesson Miles’ temper, and his domestic abuse of Elizabeth continued. By the November of 1879 this behaviour had pushed Elizabeth to take drastic measures, and led to her first brush with the law.

A Poisoned Beer

John Lewis was a business acquaintance of Miles Longmires and known throughout the county as “Partridge Jack.” On the 5^th November 1879 the elderly man had went to the Longmires’ household to conduct business, whilst there John gave Elizabeth one shilling to procure him something to eat. Upon her return all Elizabeth had purchased was beer, to which she added a brown powder claimed to be allspice. The concoction made John ill, and Elizabeth told the old man to lie down. John obliged and, as he was emptying his pockets, Elizabeth grabbed one of his satchels of money and “bolted out of the house, locking him in.”

Whilst John attempted to escape through a window, Elizabeth had retreated with her infant son to a neighbour’s home and told them that she had “cleaned Miley out.” This comment was a clear reference to having gained revenge over her abusive husband by ruining his business deal and escaping. She took the money, burned the satchel and fled with her son. However, she was soon caught a few days later at Spennymoor by PC Houlds. The policeman testified in court that, when found, she admitted to having spent the money on new clothes for herself and her child. John told the police that he had been carrying at least £10 but, when apprehended, Elizabeth claimed it had only been £3.

On the advice of her solicitor Elizabeth took responsibility for her actions and pleaded guilty when she then appeared in the dock with “an infant in her arms.” The infancy of her child and her honesty, which was to become a pattern in her court appearances, did not gain her mercy from the Bench. Instead, “the Bench considered this a very bad case, and the prisoner was therefore ordered to undergo the heaviest penalty in the power of the magistrates, six months hard labour.”

A Time Line of Crime

Elizabeth served her sentence but in the October of 1880, less than five months after her release, she was imprisoned again for “obtaining goods by means of false pretences after a previous conviction.” Perhaps Elizabeth actively sought to be imprisoned in an attempt to escape her turbulent home-life? However, as her criminal spree continued long after her husband died a premature death in 1882, it was more likely influenced by her economical situation.

In the 1881 census Elizabeth was residing in Durham Prison, here she is listed as being a “fish hawker” beyond the prison walls. Those who worked as hawkers were often loud and charismatic people; able to barter and manipulate a situation to gain a sale. Victorian hawkers often walked a thin line between legal trade and loopholes. Some operated with licences, but many sold a mix of legal and black-market items in an ad-hoc way. It was an unstable lifestyle, which didn’t always guarantee money, and often became a gateway to crime. Thus her tendency to steal items which she could easily pass on for a profit, such as clothing and material, may have been rooted in her “occupation.”

Following her 1880/81 stint in Durham gaol Elizabeth moved to Northumberland and developed her criminal repertoire. It was around this time that Elizabeth also began to use a collection of aliases whilst committing her crimes. This made it harder for her prosecutors to prove previous criminality – as Mr Archer experienced first-hand. These aliases included her married name of Longmires, her maiden name Johnson and two invented names of Longstaff/staffe and Clayton.

*Letter confirming aliases. REF: NRO 11343/B/DAT*

In January 1886 she was convicted at Northumberland’s Epiphany Sessions, held at the Moot Hall in Newcastle, for the use of counterfeit coins. She received a prison sentence lasting 12 calendar months, along with a three year police supervision order. It was following her release from this particular crime that Elizabeth stole Obadiah Self’s bed-sheets, for which she received two months hard labour.

The following year Elizabeth was free once more and returned to Durham, where she proceeded to commit two separate crimes of “simple larceny.” The first occurred in June, and she received a second police supervision order. However, by the October she had stolen another bedsheet (this time from an Edward Toole.) For this crime, and because she had broken the rules of her previous supervision order, she was sentenced to six months hard labour.

In September 1889 she returned to prison again for “14 days” having failed to report herself to her Police Supervisors in Auckland whilst on a “ticket of leave.” Then, in the December of 1889 at the age of 33, she returned to prison for five years having stolen:

“a piece of ham, a shoulder of mutton, a quantity of flour, six yards of black velvet, one hat, one pair of cotton sheets, one black skirt and two pairs of stockings, value £1 4s, the property of Margaret Crawford at Jarrow.”

Her lengthy jail time gained her some sympathy when she offended once again in 1894 for stealing a quantity of clothes belonging to William Liddell at Cowpen. During this trial it was noted that;

“The Bench were sorry to find she had spent most part of her life in prison, the last sentence she had undergone being five years’ penal servitude. She was even now out on ticket-of-leave. She would have three more years’ penal servitude after she had completed the unexpired one on which she was now out.”

Escape to Yorkshire

By the close of the century Elizabeth had spent extensive periods in a series of northern prisons. In 1899 she was charged once again, this time in Blyth’s Police Court, for failing to report a change of address whilst on another ticket-of-leave. It is assumed her new address was somewhere in Yorkshire as, later that year, she spent fourteen days in HMP Wakefield for the crime of “begging.” The admittance register for Wakefield HMP describes Elizabeth’s physical features as standing at just over four foot tall with grey hair. The register also notes that she was illiterate. Elizabeth was now 42 years old with twelve previous convictions.

Elizabeth’s story is difficult to trace from this point forward; she may have died or changed her name again. Her son, John William, seems to have grown up away from Elizabeth. Tracing him is also difficult; but there was a John William Longmires born in the county of Durham and working as a barber in the Alnwick workhouse in 1901.

Elizabeth’s adult life had been spent mostly incarcerated, and her petty crimes had kept the county’s magistrates busy. A mix of Elizabeth’s marital, economic and social situation forced her hand to crime. Her first serious crime against “Partridge Jack” seems to have been an attempt to escape a violent life. It is easy to fall for the Victorian rhetoric and see Elizabeth as an enterprising criminal but it was more likely that she was a victim of her time, sadly restricted by her social context.

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