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Heaton History Group
Tag Archives: WW2
BBC at 100 and a Heaton choir boy at 14
Before her recent death at the age of 105, Lilian, the wife of St Gabriel's parishioner Herbert Dixon ('Dix') Hodgson, shared some memories of her husband. Among the stories about Dix's short but eventful life was one about a solo performance by him being broadcast on the opening night of Newcastle's first BBC radio station. She also said that, as a young girl, she was taken to a neighbour's house to listen to the historic launch. What she said she didn't realise was that, among the voices she heard seemingly magically beamed across the Tyne into her neighbour's living room in Whickham, was that of her future husband.
Dix and Lilian, March 1940 aboard SS Kirriemoor (Lilian borrowed one of the Mate's uniforms and the captain's cap!)
Chorister
Herbert Dixon Hodgson was born in October 1908. Records show that in 1911 he was living at 41 Tosson Terrace, Heaton with his father William, mother Margaret and his four year old sister Hilda Annie. Another sister, Nellie Blue (Blue was a family name) came later.
Young Dix became a member of the choir at St Gabriel's Church. He was soon recognised as having an excellent voice and starred as a soloist at church concerts. This seems to have led, as we have heard from his wife's account, to him being selected to sing solo to mark a momentous occasion, the opening night of Newcastle's first radio station.
There are, however, a number of unanswered questions around Dix's involvement. We wondered whether his performance was live. And when and where did it take place? How old was Dix? And the listening Lilian? What do the historical records tell us about the occasion?
Newcastle's first radio station was known as 5NO, its call sign. According to the BBC, its opening broadcast was a hundred years ago this year, on Christmas Eve 1922, so Dix would have been 14 years old. Incredibly the British Broadcasting Company had been in existence for only a couple of months. It had been set up by a consortium of wireless manufacturers, including Marconi, General Electric and Metropolitan Vickers, primarily in the hope of a commercial bonanza from the sale of radio equipment, although very few people at that time saw its full potential to 'inform, educate, entertain' as its first director, John (later Lord) Reith later put it.
Newcastle was just the 4th BBC station to open behind London, Manchester and Birmingham, set up by Marconi, Metrovick and General Electric respectively, all of which were a matter of months or weeks old. In fact, it was the first to be established by the BBC itself: the other three had been put in place before the national broadcasting company's formation. The British Broadcasting Company had been set up on 18 October and BBC broadcasting had officially begun on 14 November. John Reith had been appointed General Manager on 14 December and hadn't even started work that Christmas Eve. In fact he was to visit Newcastle on 29 December en route from Scotland, where he had spent Christmas, to London to take up his appointment.
The station Reith visited was set to become the first radio station to operate from new premises, independent of their parent wirelesss manufacturing company. They were in Eldon Square and had been kitted out by a small group of enthusiasts. However, there were technical problems on the 23rd, the night of the promised 'before Christmas' opening and so a decision was made to conduct proceedings as close as possible to the newly constructed transmitter on a tower at the Cooperative Society buildings on West Blandford Street. So, the opening broadcast of Newcastle's first radio station was from a 'donkey cart' in a stable yard. Very Chrismassy! And perhaps not surprising that the BBC chose to ignore this first broadcast in its official records.
The station manager was a man called Tom Payne. Tom was born in South Shields in 1882 and was an accomplished musician. But he was most famous for his feats during a competitive walking career which began in 1906. By 1916, he had broken world records for 12 and 24 hour duration feats and won three London to Brighton and six Manchester to Blackpool races. In the meantime, he had found time in 1910 to open Morpeth's first cinema, 'The Avenue', and then set up a business on Gallowgate as a wireless dealer and a music promoter. It was because he recognised the potential for his business that Tom got involved with 5NO and, at least according to Tom himself, financed the arrival of broadcasting in the city out of his own pocket. (You can hear him tell the tale on the podcast mentioned below this article.)
It isn't easy to tell whether later references to the opening night referred to 23rd or 24th December. But we know it was scheduled to last just one hour. There were live acts including Tom himself playing violin and a Mr W Griffiths playing cello. Miss May Osbourne sang 'Annie Laurie' but she couldn't be accompanied in the stable yard as intended by pianist, W A Crosse, because the piano Payne had borrowed for the occasion wouldn't fit on the cart. There may have been recorded music on both occasions, as well as other live acts whose names aren't recorded. There were no listings in the press ahead of the event. The first we have found date from the first week of 1923 but, as you'll see if you scroll right at the bottom of the image below, they weren't exactly comprehensive in Newcastle's case. The Radio Times didn't appear until 28 September 1923.
In the event, on that very first night a barking dog in the stable yard reportedly forced proceedings to end early.
It was because of these difficulties that John Reith was asked to break his journey from Scotland a few days later. Reith was unlikely to be of much help to Tom. He admitted that he knew nothing about broadcasting, he didn't own a radio set and, unlike Lilian, aged 5, hadn't even listened to a BBC broadcast. His diary entry for the day reads:
'Newcastle at 12.30. Here I really began my BBC responsibility. Saw transmitting station and studio place and landlords. It was very interesting. Away at 4.28, London at 10.10, bed at 12.00. I am trying to keep in close touch with Christ in all I do and pray he may keep close to me. I have a great work to do.'
Dix's Debut
So where did Dix's solo fit in? The truth is we don't know. It has been suggested that the full St Gabriel's Choir performed and that the concert took place in Newcastle Cathedral. Both are unlikely.
There certainly was no outside broadcast from Newcastle Cathedral. The first music outside broadcast nationally did not take place until January 1923 and was a high profile performance of 'The Magic Flute' from Covent Garden.
If St Gabriel's choir had performed on the very first night, it would have had to have been in the Co-op stable yard. Ensembles did perform in those early days but, even in a proper studio, a full choir would have posed enormous problems for the equipment and space available in Newcastle at the time. It certainly wouldn't have fitted onto a donkey cart!
Perhaps the choir had been recorded on a previous occasion and played on a gramophone on the opening night. But recording music was still an expensive and laborious process. In the early 1920s, the quality of the live music broadcast would be far superior to any recordings used. A search through the St Gabriel's parish magazine from that period yielded nothing.
This suggests that, if Dix did perform on that opening night, it was as a solo, probably unaccompanied, voice. Achieving the right balance between a singer and an accompanist or multiple voices had not been fully mastered at that point even if there hadn't been the issue with the borrowed piano.
What did Dix sing? Given the time of year, one could imagine him singing carols but the above poster for a St Gabriel's concert just a few weeks later on 13 February 1923 suggests another possibility. Then, Master Hodgson sang Handel's' Rejoice greatly' and 'Angels ever bright and fair' . There may not have been a dry eye either in the Coop stable yard or that Whickham living room.
Lilian would have been one of a select few listening to that first north-east broadcast. There were apparently only about 100 potential listeners in the Newcastle area at that time and only those within about 15 miles of Newcastle were expected to be able to hear 5NO, although a ship's radio as far away as Gibraltar reportedly picked up the signal. At home, many of the radio hams who had crystal sets or early valve radios at that time were ex-servicemen who had learnt how to use radio during the war.
However, there had been a huge advertising campaign for sets ahead of that Christmas. They weren't cheap (from about £4) but the audience was set to expand quickly.
Tom Payne did not last long at 5NO. There are conflicting accounts about his departure sometime in 1923. One account says that he was heard to swear on air and was fired, another that his quirky presentation didn't fit with the more formal style favoured by Reith. A petition to have him reinstated was unsuccessful.
But Tom's walking exploits continued to keep him in the public eye. Indeed on 15 November 1926, he delivered a lecture on athletics to members of Heaton Harriers at their headquarters in Armstrong Park Refreshment Rooms.
The headline of a local newspaper report of his death at Walkergate Hospital in 1966 said 'Champion walker dies' rather than the 'Broadcasting pioneer'.
Master Mariner
Two years after Newcastle's first BBC broadcast, aged 16, Dix signed indentures and became an apprentice to the Moor Line, the merchant fleet operated by Walter Runciman and Co. He attended college to gain qualifications, including, to obtain his Master's Certificate in 1936, at Nellist's Nautical College.
Shields Daily Gazette, 7 Nov 1936
Between 1931 and 1938, Dix's name appears on the Newcastle electoral register. He is still living with his father and mother but now at 31 Tosson Terrace, a few doors away from where he grew up. In 1938 and '39, a Leonard and Wilhelmina Runciman are registered at his childhood home at number 41. A coincidence? Were they part of the Runciman shipping dynasty and were they known to the Hodgsons? By 1939, the Hodgson family is registered at 305 Chillingham Road.
We don't know when and where Dix eventually met Lilian Mary Spittle. They lived on opposite sides of the Tyne but we know that Lilian had trained as a fever nurse and the Newcastle Upon Tyne Infectious Diseases Hospital was situated at Walkergate just up the road from Heaton.
Dix and Lilian were married in spring 1939, sixteen and a half years after that first broadcast, and Andrew their first son was born in late 1940. Douglas came along soon after.
By now, Dix was a master mariner, the highest rank in the merchant navy and what is usually referred to as a ship's captain.
But on 21 May 1942, he was in charge of the SS Zurichmoor as it left Halifax, Nova Scotia in ballast bound for St Thomas in the Virgin Islands.
SS Zurichmoor
Three days later while 400 miles east of Philadelphia, it was torpedoed by a German U-boat and sank within 90 seconds. Dix, his crew of 38 and six naval gunners were lost. Many of them were, like Dix, from north-east families.
Tower Hill Memorial Panel 121
They are all remembered on the Tower Hill Memorial, London, a war memorial to 'merchant seamen with no grave but the sea'.
Runciman and Co Moor Line Book of Remberance 1939-40
In Tyne & Wear Archives there is a Book of Remembrance commissioned by the directors of Walter Runciman and Company, owners of the Moor Line.
Angels ever bright and fair, take o take them to your care.
Researched and written by Robin Long of Heaton History Group with additional material from Chris Jackson; thank you to Andrew and Douglas Hodgson for their help and for the photograph of Dix and Lilian.
If you know any more about the people named in this article or about the launch of the BBC in Newcastle or the sinking of SS Zurichmoor especially as they relate to Heaton, we'd love to hear from you.You can contact us either through this website by clicking on the link immediately below the article title or by emailing chris.jackson@heatonhistorygroup.org
'Ancestry'
'The Birth of Broadcasting 1896-1927' by Asa Briggs; OUP, 1961
'British Broadcasting Century with Paul Kerensa' podcast series
https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-british-broadcasting-century-with-paul-kerensa/id1516471271especially Season 1 Episode 20 'The First BBC Christmas' and Episode 34 'Newcastle's Christmas Launch: Let it 5NO, Let it 5NO, Let it 5NO'.
'British Newspaper Archive'
'Into the Wind' / by Lord Reith, 1966
Other online sources
This entry was posted in Arts, Entertainment, Inter War Years (1919-1939), Memories, Research, War and Peace, What, When, World War Two (1939-1945) and tagged Chillingham Road, Herbert Dixon Hodgson, Tosson Terrace, WW2 on September 4, 2022 by oldheaton.
Elsie Tu: Geordie champion of the poor
She was awarded the prestigious pan-Asian honour, the Ramon Magsaysay Award, for 'Outstanding Contribution in Government Service' in 1976, one of the very few non-Asians to have been honoured in this way; in 1977, she received a CBE in Britain for her work against corruption; she was voted the most popular politician in Hong Kong in 1994 and, in 1997, was presented with Hong Kong's highest honour, the Grand Bauhinia Medal in the first year it was awarded.
Elsie Tu née Hume
She campaigned tirelessly against corruption wherever she encountered it and worked with and for the under-privileged for more than five decades. Hong Kong's three most senior politicians were pall bearers at her funeral and yet, in Newcastle, the city of her birth, and even in Heaton and High Heaton, where she lived and went to school within living memory, hardly anyone recognises her name or her face.
Elsie Hume was the second child of John and Florence Hume. In 1911, John and Florence, both aged 25 and married for just over a year, were living with John's two brothers and two sisters at 12 Sutton Street, Walkergate (across Shields Road from where Lidl is now). John had been orphaned aged 11 and his older sister, Janet, brought up her siblings. At this time, John described himself as a grocer's assistant and he and his young wife already had a young baby girl, Ethel.
Elsie was born in the house just over two years later on 2 June 1913 but said she had no memory of it because very shortly afterwards, 'Auntie Janet' and the extended family moved to 29 Chillingham Road. 'All my earliest memories centre on that gloomy flat, where for about seven years we occupied the front room.' Janet Hume lived in the flat until it was demolished in 1975.
Elsie Hume (right) with older sister, Ethel
By the time Elsie was born, her father was working as a tram conductor but the following year, he, like so many of his generation, joined the army. Elsie said that, until she was five years old, she knew nothing of him except his name. But John Hume's experiences during this period, during which he was gassed, had a profound effect upon him and indirectly upon Elsie. He developed an intense dislike of war and a compassion for all humans. Elsie said that, in turn, her left-leaning world-view was influenced by him. She recalled much later that when her father was encouraging her to make the most of her opportunities at school, it was not for the advantages that would give her in terms of her own career but rather he emphasised the many more ways to serve the poor that would be open to her. She enjoyed discussing and arguing about politics with her father and brother from an early age and said that her father's ambition for her was to become an MP and fight for workers' rights.
Schooldays
The family moved many times when Elsie was young and she attended several different schools including North View School in Heaton, Walkergate and Welbeck Road and, less happily, West Jesmond. Here she felt she was looked down on by both teachers and other pupils because she lived in the poor neighbourhood of Shieldfield at the time. In future years, she remembered how she had felt and said this influenced her behaviour towards others.
On the whole though, Elsie loved learning and was offered a place at Benwell Secondary School, where she spent three years, before her family became the first tenants of 8 Holystone Crescent on the newly built High Heaton council estate and she transferred to the recently opened Heaton Secondary Schools.
The King and Queen at Heaton Secondary Schools just after they opened in 1928
Elsie was able to shine there and was in the first cohort to matriculate, obtaining the best results in the school, along with a special history prize. This was a prize fittingly donated by Heaton social campaigner, Florence Nightingale Harrison Bell.
'The programme for the school opening ceremony had announced that 'Mrs Harrison Bell has very kindly endowed a history prize in memory of her husband, the late Mr J N Bell, who was elected in 1922 Member of Parliament for the east division of the city. The prize will be awarded in the boys' and the girls' school in alternate years.'
Elsie also loved sport. She won 'school colours in gymnastics, sports, lacrosse, rounders and netball' and wrote in her autobiography about how her father, brother and herself were 'mad about football', and how all her life she was a passionate supporter of Newcastle United.
In January 1930, however, a shocking event took place in the family home, which was witnessed by 16 year old Elsie. Elsie's brother in law, Leslie Aynsley, who had been living with the Humes since he married her older sister, Ethel, just a couple of months previously, attacked his young wife with a hammer one breakfast time and when John, her father, tried to intervene, he too was struck. It was Elsie who was next on the scene and summoned help. Aynsley said that he didn't know what had come over him. Ten days later both Ethel and her father were still in hospital with severe head injuries.
At Aynsley's trial, much was made in the press of the fact that the trial judge was Mrs Helena Normanton. She was the first women to take advantage of the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act 1919 and join an institution of the legal profession and the second woman to be called to the bar. As such, even in the circumstances in which they came face to face, she might have been another inspiration to young Elsie, who gave evidence to the court that Aynsley looked 'old and grey'.
Ethel Hume refused to testify against her husband and, under Normanton's guidance, the jury sentenced him to one year's imprisonment with the proviso that if he became insane during his time in jail, he could be removed to a lunatic asylum. Most of the press coverage, however, centred upon the judge's appearance and novelty value, something that is alluded to in a recent biography of her.
The Humes continued to live at 8 Holystone Crescent for at least three years after this traumatic event but then moved to various other addresses in Heaton, including, from 1935-37, 64 Balmoral Terrace; 1938, 20 Cheltenham Terrace and, from 1939, 26 Balmoral Terrace.
But Elsie was now ready to spread her wings,
She left school with a treasured testimonial from Miss Cooper, headmistress of Heaton Secondary Schools' girls' school, which read:
'Elsie Hume was always an exceptionally high-principled and conscientious student and was also a very keen athlete. She was Captain of the First Lacrosse and First Rounders Teams, and School Sports Captain in 1932. Elsie was always most public-spirited and energetic.'
Elsie (top left), Armstrong College netball team
Elsie* wrote later that she was inclined to join the civil service so that she could immediately start to earn money and to repay her family for the sacrifices they had made. Miss Cooper had other ideas and had not only decided she was university material but had persuaded Elsie's parents too. Elsie went to Durham University's Armstrong College (later Newcastle University), which she walked to every day from Heaton. She studied English and history and trained to be a teacher not, she later said, because she had a burning ambition to work in education but because she believed it was the only profession open to a girl from a poor background like hers, without the means to pay for further study.
It was at university that Elsie, to the surprise and even disappointment of her family, became a 'born again Christian' and then joined the Plymouth Brethren. She became clear about her future: she would teach for a few years to pay back her parents and those who had given her an education, then she would become a missionary and 'spread my new-found happiness to others'.
Despite having to take a year off her studies when she nearly died following an operation for a gynaecological condition which eventually meant that she couldn't have children, Elsie graduated in 1937 (and was in 1976 to be awarded an honorary doctorate in Civil Law jointly by the universities of Durham and Newcastle).
She had to look beyond Newcastle for a job teaching English and history and found one in an elementary school in Halifax, taking her away from home for the first time. She returned to Newcastle when war broke out.
Back home in Heaton, Elsie found a job teaching in Prudhoe and, when not working, she volunteered in civil defence. Her autobiography contains an emotional account of 25-26 April 1941 when 46 people were killed when high explosive devices and a parachute bomb exploded in the area of Heaton around Guildford Place and Cheltenham Terrace. The house (20 Cheltenham Terrace) where the Humes had lived only a couple of years before was badly damaged by the first bomb and two people who lived there were seriously injured.
Less than two weeks before, it had been announced in the newspapers that Elsie had successfully completed a certificate in home nursing and on this night, her newly acquired skills were used to the full. She helped a man who has been hurt by flying debris 'His head had been split open on one side and his eyes were filled with pieces of glass' and was about to walk him home.
Elsie spoke of meeting two brothers, fellow air raid wardens. They warned her and the injured man to return to an underground shelter as they believed more bombs would fall. The lenses had been blown out of the glasses of one of the brothers and they told her that their home had been hit. She later discovered that both of them were killed by a second bomb. They were almost certainly the Shaw brothers, Thomas and William, whose story has already been written about on this website by Ian Clough. Elsie also recalled the panic at a nearby dance hall (the one above the Co-op?) where her sister was caught in a stampede down the stairs, after the lights had gone out and the premises had been filled with soot and dust.
Elsie said that the impact of that night would never leave her and she spoke scathingly about politicians who approved the bombing of foreign parts and the killing of innocent people when they 'have never known what it's like to be on the receiving end'.
Later in the war, Elsie took up a post at Todd's Nook School and then accompanied Newcastle schoolchildren who had been evacuated to Great Corby in Cumberland, a period of her early life which she remembered with great affection.
During this time, Elsie received a surprise marriage proposal from Bill Elliott, one of the Plymouth Brethren she had known in Halifax. He told her that he intended to go to China as a missionary, something he knew she was interested in. Elsie had grave doubts about his fundamentalist religious beliefs and rejected his offer. Two years later, he repeated it, telling her that he would become more liberal and, this time, Elsie, despite knowing that she was not in love with him, accepted his proposal. The couple were married in 1945, after which they lived and worked in Hull.
She soon realised that she had made a mistake. She found that, simply because she was a woman, she wasn't allowed to take part in decision making or have an independent life outside work and she was restricted to friendships with those of the same faith and attitudes.
Nevertheless, in December 1947, the couple set off by boat to Shanghai and then travelled on to Nanchang in Jiangxi province where they were to stay for three years. Elsie soon became disillusioned with the racist and colonialist attitudes she believed the Christian groups in China exhibited but she enjoyed learning Mandarin and became interested in the country and its people.
However, when war broke out in Korea, the political situation in China became tense and missionaries were advised to leave. Elsie and Bill travelled to Hong Kong with the intention of moving on to Borneo. They found temporary accommodation in a small village near the airport called Kai Tek New Village, where their closest neighbours were refugees from Swatow (Shantou, China) living in a squatter village. She saw the many privations suffered by the people there, with skilled women working twelve hours a day doing embroidery for a pittance and their sick, ill-fed children packing matches or biscuits to enable their families to survive.
She and Bill set up a home clinic, using Elsie's smattering of Chinese and the basic first aid she'd learnt as an air raid warden in Heaton. She, Bill and a Chinese colleague, Andrew Tu, also set up a school but Elsie was becoming unhappier still in her marriage and disillusioned with missionary life, which she now described as 'arrogant racism'. She left the church and, when she returned to Hong Kong after a short break in Britain, her husband did not go back with her.
Elsie rented rooms in another squatter area while running a school for deprived children. At this time, she lived a extremely frugal lifestyle, taking on private teaching to subsidise the school while living in a small hut on the school site, spending and even eating as little as possible to enable the school to survive. It was during this time that she began to encounter corruption among the British police force and government and noted how British residents were treated much more favourably than the Chinese, particularly poor Chinese, and she began to help them in their dealings with the authorities.
In 1963, by which time Elsie and Andrew Tu had opened another three non-profit making schools at a time when there was still no universal free education in Hong Kong, Elsie was approached by the Reform Club, a quasi-political party loosely aligned with the British Liberal party, to stand for election to the Urban Council. It campaigned for a more democratic and just system of colonial government, causes close to her heart. This was a time when only rate-payers, property owners and certain professionals had the right to vote and, even then, they had a vote only for the Urban Council, which had comparatively few powers. The Legislative Council, the law-making body 'offered no elected seats and was dominated by British officials and rich businessmen'. Elsie was elected to the council, fulfilling at the age of 51 her father's ambition for her to become a politician.
Although the position on the council did not come with a salary, Elsie gave up her paid teaching. She continued to work at the school she ran with Andrew Tu by organising her timetable around the demands of the council and accepting only the bare minimum salary she needed to survive. It was only in the 1970s when councillors started to receive an allowance and government-subsidised free education was made available to all, that Elsie began to live more comfortably.
After her first term representing the Reform Club, Elsie successfully stood as an independent for 32 years. She fought the widespread corruption by pointing it out wherever she encountered it, to the departments concerned, the governor, the British government or the press. She later recalled how she wrote her first letter to a newspaper on the subject of free trade while still at school in Heaton. Her first letter to the 'Guardian', during her early days in Hong Kong, was about the long hours worked by Chinese people in Hong Kong. It was referred to by a British MP in the House of Commons, although he named the writer as Mr Elliott, and led to new employment legislation on the island. Elsie's campaigning is also credited with the eventual establishment in Hong Kong of the Independent Commission Against Corruption in 1976.
Elsie held regular surgeries where she tried to help people with their battles against injustice and with all kinds of personal problems. Her brave (particularly because there were close connections between the police and organised crime, the triads) and tireless work on behalf of ordinary people made her increasingly popular. She fought against the exploitation of workers, child labour and for universal suffrage, gay rights, better housing and public transport, along with many other improvements in poor people's lives.
One of the most famous cases associated with Elsie involved opposition in 1965 to price rises on the Star Ferry on which many working people relied. Via the newspapers, she canvassed public opinion, which was overwhelmingly against the increase both because it broke an agreement between the ferry company and the government and because it came at a time when people were facing particular economic hardship. Protests followed, illegal in Hong Kong at the time, which became known as the 'Elsie Riots'. A number of young people were arrested for violence and it was alleged that they were acting under Elsie's instructions, something she vehemently denied. It emerged later in court that the young people had been beaten up by the police and forced to sign statements saying that Elsie had paid them to throw stones. The following year, in the biggest ever turn out ever in the Urban Council elections, Elsie received over 80% of the vote.
Elsie worked with Andrew Tu from her earliest days in Hong Kong. He had arrived there fresh from university in Inner Mongolia, as a young, penniless migrant. They co-founded and ran schools for poor and refugee children and he ran her political campaigns, advised her and taught her Chinese. He also became a Samaritan and a campaigner on green issues and, like Elsie, became well known and respected in Hong Kong.
In 1963, when in London on business with the Samaritans, Andrew travelled to Newcastle to Elsie's sister's house to meet the Hume family. Despite the language barrier, they are said to have taken to him immediately and constantly asked why the couple weren't married. Elsie always replied that they felt no need to but they finally did tie the knot on 13 June 1985, when Elsie was 72 years old.
In her autobiography, Elsie described how, after their marriage, the couple first visited Andrew's family and friends in Inner Mongolia and then came to Newcastle to stay with her sister, Dorothy, and her husband. She describes visiting Whitley Bay in the fog, eating fish and chips on the prom, walking on the Roman Wall and going to Blanchland and Cragside.
In 1988, aged 76, Elsie was elected by the Urban Council as its representative on Hong Kong's Legislative Council or parliament. One of the successful battles she fought was for Chinese to be accepted as an official language of Hong Kong: she took on government departments which failed to provide Chinese translations and argued that court cases conducted in English disadvantaged local, Chinese speakers. She became increasingly accused by the establishment of being pro-Chinese and anti-British. However, she always claimed not to be connected to any political party and not to be a communist or for or against any country, but to be pro-democracy, pro-justice and anti-corruption: 'I'm not for China, I'm not for Britain. I've always been for the people of Hong Kong and for justice'.
She wasn't defeated in an election until 1995, aged 83. Even after the handover of Hong Kong to China in 1997, she continued to hold the government to account. In 2013, aged 99, she criticised the widening income disparity in Hong Kong, referring to 'rich men who have no conscience'.
Elsie Tu died on 8 December 2015, aged 102. All three men who had held Hong Kong's highest office, that of Chief Executive, Tung Chee-Hwa (1997-2005), Donald Tsang (2005-2012) and Leung Chun-Ying ( 2012-2017) were pall-bearers at her funeral. The current incumbent, Carrie Lam, recalls taking part in actions led by Elsie from her university days. She described her as an exemplary champion of social justice, who commanded respect for her valiant words and deeds.
Perhaps the last word on Elsie should come from her obituary writer in the 'Daily Telegraph', not a paper known for its empathy with people who threaten the British establishment: 'In truth, her politics were less coherent, and far less significant, than her burning concern for the poor and her fearlessness in challenging those she accused of exploiting them.'
Elsie Tu
Not only would her father, John, and old headteacher, Miss Cooper, have been proud, but so too would Helena Normanton, the ground-breaking judge before whom Elsie had given evidence as a teenager, and especially that other renowned Heaton campaigner and social reformer, Florence Nightingale Harrison Bell, whose history prize Elsie had been presented with over eighty years before. Like her, Elsie didn't only study history, she made it.
*We have referred to Elsie by her first name throughout this article to avoid any confusion caused by the three surnames she used at different stages of her life.
Researched and written by Peter Sagar, Arthur Andrews and Chris Jackson of Heaton History Group. Thank you to Tracey Cross, Elsie's first cousin once removed, for bringing the achievements of Elsie Tu and her connection with Heaton to our attention; to Heidi Schultz, Executive Office Team Leader, Newcastle University for supplying Elsie's honorary degree citation; to Ruth Sutherland, Northumbria University, for supplying newspaper articles about her.
'Colonial Hong Kong in the Eyes of Elsie Tu' / Elsie Tu; Hong Kong Press, 2003
'Crusade for Justice' / Elsie Elliott; Henemann Asia, 1981
'Elsie Elliot Tu, Doctor of Social Sciences honoris causa', the University of Hong Kong, 1988
'Elsie Tu, activist – obituary; social campaigner in Hong Kong regarded as a potential troublemaker by the colonial authorities' in 'Daily Telegraph', 15 December 2015
'Elsie Tu Doctor in Civil Law honorary degree citation' / Newcastle University, 1996
'Helena Normanton and the Opening of the Bar to Women' / Judith Bourne; Waterside Press, 2017
'Shouting at the Mountain: a Hong Kong story of love and commitment' / Andrew and Elsie Tu, 2004
British Newspaper Archives
If you know more about Elsie Tu, particularly her Heaton connections, or have photographs to share, we'd love to hear from you. You can contact us either through this website by clicking on the link immediately below the article title or by emailing chris.jackson@heatonhistorygroup.org
This entry was posted in Research and tagged Balmoral Terrace, Cheltenham Terrace, Chillingham Road, Co-op, Cook Street, Elsie Elliott, Elsie Tu née Hume, Florence Nightingale Harrison-Bell (1856-1948), campaigner and social reformer), Guildford Place, Heaton Secondary Schools, High Heaton, High Heaton estate, Holystone Crescent, Joseph N Bell, North View School, Thomas Shaw, W M Cooper, William Shaw, WW2 on October 19, 2021 by oldheaton.
Scrannin' on the Tip
The grandly titled City Stadium is a well-used green space at the south end of Heaton. In all weathers, you'll find runners, cyclists, walkers, outdoor gymnasts, playing children, allotmenteers and many others enjoying the fresh air and perhaps a coffee.
City Stadium, April 2021 (Copyright: Chris Jackson)
But it's not always been like this. We asked Heaton History Group's Keith Fisher to delve into the archives and his memory bank to tell its story:
'Having friends and associates on both sides of the water, I've always been rather impressed with the degree of separation caused by the River Tyne. Despite the arrival of the tunnel in 1967 and now that I live in North Shields, getting to friends' homes in South Shields still requires at least thirty minutes of driving (plus tolls) to cover no more than a mile as the crow flies.
What has this got to do with Heaton, you may well ask; well, even today, the Ouseburn valley presents a somewhat similar – albeit less severe – impediment. And 100 years ago it was a distinctly difficult obstacle during journeys east to west and vice versa. Between the city centre and Heaton there were few options that didn't require labouring first down and then up a very steep bank.
Uphill Struggle
A typical symptom of the enthusiasm to avoid Byker Bank for example can be seen by the number of people paying the pedestrian toll to cross the Byker Railway Viaduct (yes, folk paid to walk over) which was approximately 72,000 per year. So the first option was the building of the Byker Road Bridge in 1878 – you had to pay to use that as well, of course. Admittedly the toll was withdrawn in 1895 when the city corporation bought the bridge and it soon had to be widened because of increased traffic: a very familiar modern-day story.
The City Road route was relatively level, so you could bypass Byker Bank by crossing over Glasshouse Bridge and cutting across the western edge of Byker and Heaton with only the slope of Albion Row to contend with. OK, maybe we can consider that as an option, but if you needed to deliver anything by handcart from the town centre to Craigielea on Heaton Road then that was a long way out of your way on a cold and windy day.
I mention pushing heavy laden handcarts because my maternal grandfather, having retired as a lion-tamer in the circus, took to the variety theatre boards and would transport his props on a handcart. His sons, my uncles, were commandeered to labour on his behalf and they complained to me about it until they died.
Fortunately for the waggoneers, in the same year as Byker Road Bridge opened, another improvement arrived, as did so many, from Lord Armstrong: I never stop waxing lyrical regarding his unstinting benevolence, despite his motives being held to doubt in certain quarters. He had apparently bowed to the demands of Lady Armstrong – who was horrified by the sight of poor old horses dragging carts of coal up Benton Bank – and built Armstrong Bridge at his own expense, before giving it to the city council, insisting it remain toll-free.
Back in 1900, as far as the council were concerned, a more central route to all the new industries and residencies in Heaton from the town was desirable, but the best that was going to be achieved would still involve a steep bank.
Shieldfield, like the city centre, is far lower down than the centre of Heaton, and if we think that Warwick Street is steep today, imagine what it must have been like a century ago with a 30 metre deep Ouseburn Valley across its way. In mitigation, the new route would only be an uphill struggle in one direction; it would create new land for housing development; plus, it would provide a waste disposal facility in the centre of the city for 40 years.
During my youth in the '50s and '60s, everyone referred to the City Stadium as 'The Tip' because for the previous 40 years it had been the destination of both domestic and commercial refuse while the 100 foot deep valley was brought up to Shieldfield's level. We didn't generate much waste back then, did we? Couldn't afford to!
The council's plan to develop the infilled valley with houses never came to fruition because building regulations stiffened and residential development on infilled land was forbidden.
But first, culvert the Ouseburn. And to do that city engineer F J Edge decided that François Hennebique's system was the method of choice: what we know today as reinforced concrete. The French Hennebique system was pioneered in this country by L G Mouchel with offices in Jesmond; work was initially executed by engineering firm W T Weir and Co of Howdon.
Actually, my mention of Craigielea on Heaton Road was not without significance. Its first resident, Joseph Lish, was an early pioneer of reinforced concrete and has many buildings to his name: up here, the best known being the Dove Marine Laboratory in Cullercoats. As early as 1874, he had exhibited his own invention: 'Tilo-Concrete'. Lish was prominent in his profession both regionally and nationally. At one stage he was the President of the Society of Architects, whose Gold Medal he was awarded. He died in 1922 at the age of 80.
The Corporation might have saved themselves a great degree of trouble if they had awarded the contract to Lish, and we shall see why as we move on; although I suspect that the real problem was city councillors expecting the impossible by yesterday for no more than the price of a pint of beer and a bag of pork scratchings.
Ouseburn culvert, City Engineers drawing
Looking at the above plan it can be seen that filling up the narrowest portion of the valley came first ('WORK No.1'). This allowed an extension of Newington Road to link with Starbeck Avenue in Sandyford. It is also apparent that the burn had travelled a good way west before turning towards the Tyne in the south, slowly eroding away the bank and creating the large loop that the engineers by-passed by hugging the steep bank at the end of Stratford Grove. The shading and black bars are mine. The following picture shows the original river course in the foreground running left to right. Also apparent is the height of Newington Road above the valley floor, and it is at the foot of Warwick Street: hard going, even for horses.
Building the Ouseburn culvert
The tunnel is 2,150 feet long. Construction used 850 tons of steel and 17,000 cubic yards of concrete. It is 30 feet wide and 20 feet high; at its apex it is only 8 inches thick, supporting 90 feet – or 2·5 million cubic yards – of compacted waste material. Started in 1906, it was interrupted by flooding and old colliery workings and became a huge financial embarrassment to the corporation, resulting in a stoppage of work and a change of contractors very early on… sound familiar?
What did they do with the water in the meantime?
There were two pre-existing facilities: one was a large bore sewage pipe heading for the Tyne. Yes! Who remembers the smell of the Tyne on hot days before the interceptor sewer was built? Or what was worse, the smell of the Ouseburn which itself was an open sewer until the middle of the 1970s when a big pipe was buried running from one end of the valley to the other. It is not always 100% sealed, as many folk will probably be aware when walking past various manholes at certain times, but I still vividly recall, from my early years, the large, open, vertical grills of the outlet pipes choked with unmentionable material that was the norm back then.
The second was a weir and sluice gate in Jesmond Vale – as it happens, mere yards from the beginning of the future culvert – which diverted full-flow water into a mill-race that more or less paralleled the burn, passing alongside the original large lead works, then under the railway bridge where it powered a flint-mill. That mill does not look big enough to warrant construction of a 3,000 foot long race, so who contributed to the cost? Early maps show nothing definite, even though the race is in existence by 1859. It's curious: why take a mill-race all that distance to power a rather insignificant flint-mill that is only yards from the burn itself? There are many references in old newspaper accounts of 'washing tubs' and I suspect they are referring to the mill-race heading for the original lead works before it moved under the railway bridge and straddled the burn itself. Maps are full of interesting activity around the burn; there are all sorts of mysterious doings – both old and new; and also up the hill a-ways, where we find a huge brick-works I never realised had been there. The red rectangle on the OS map below indicates the point where the Ouseburn absorbs the Sandyford Burn, coming down the back of Portland Road from Lambert's Leap on Sandyford Road. It is now culverted under Grantham Road.
The above picture shows us the sewage pipe (bottom left) carrying its share of the burn while in the distance, top right, can be seen the original route of the burn and mill-race. All of the property visible was compulsorily purchased and demolished; much more, it would turn out, than had been initially anticipated.
The following pictures give us a good idea of the construction process. Reinforcing poured concrete with iron bars is a fairly common sight nowadays but back then it was relatively novel and the entire endeavour was officially photographed for posterity.
The next photo shows tipping activity; and the inset shows 'scrannin on the tip' (as it was known) by folks foraging for usable material. In the background can be seen the slowly submerging parabola of the culvert roof. Many people will remember the smell of the tip; I can certainly remember the smell of similar activity as they began to widen Lansdowne Gardens at the other end of Jesmond Vale; I believe that was still going on through the '70s: dreadful!
The Ouseburn tip while the culverting was still underway
All things considered, it was a relatively unsatisfactory project: original cost estimates spiralled out of control; work was halted; suggestions it be abandoned were voiced. The council had been anxious to get cross-roads established as soon as possible: that was achieved in the first six years; and having rapidly built heavily above the Jesmond Vale section, repairs soon became necessary in order to strengthen the walls.
If you look closely at this aerial photo from 1938 you can see how the extension to Warwick Street was accomplished; it is also apparent why getting an extension from Newington Avenue up to Starbeck Avenue was achieved so quickly as the valley is comparatively narrow at that point.
The white border on this 1945 photo shows the extent of the area being filled; these two aerial shots indicate the lack of progress during the war years, as it seems it remained untouched; so where was all the rubbish going?
Speaking of war: during my youth, many folk told me that the culvert had been an air-raid shelter during the war, as many of them used it – but most of us are completely unaware of the extent of the facilities provided.
Marian Jones describes what must have been the finest public air -raid shelter in existence: a concrete floor was laid across the tunnel sealing off the burn below and thick concrete blast-walls were installed across the entrances. Gangways accessed a space big enough to accommodate up to 3,000 people. As well as lighting, there were benches, bunk-beds, a canteen/shop and a well equipped and manned hospital room.
Susan Bright tells of an office for air raid wardens, a youth club, a religious space, and a staging area for musical performances. And, in 1943, a library and reading room were added. Entrances were under the railway bridge and at the foot of Warwick Street, with gangways giving access to the shelter.
Many people didn't even wait for the sirens and simply headed down there every night – with blankets, pillows, flasks of tea and cocoa etc – when the bombings were at their worst. In 1941 this unplanned and intense activity unfortunately led to a crack 100 feet long appearing in the wall of the tunnel and that section had to be cordoned off. Even so, this was as luxurious an accommodation as was possible during such fearful times; a lot better than those in Anderson Shelters in back gardens or even the Victoria Tunnel. Better again than the London Underground tunnels, as the culvert shelter was purpose built and exclusive… hence the extraordinary facilities.
Today's evidence of the culvert's existence is decidedly removed from the original construction. When I was a nipper exploring my vast dominion, the entrance to the culvert was mostly unchanged, except for the metal railings preventing access at the Sandyford entrance. You could see the construction but that was all. The exit under Byker Bridge, however looked like this in the early 1960s.
Ouseburn Culvert, 1960s
We little lads can find adventure wherever, along with wet shoes, muddy knees and diphtheria.
Now the picture is very different, most evidence of the entrance and exit has been obliterated, except what you see in my 2021 photos.
The first is the Vale.
Ouseburn Culvert images (Copyright: Keith Fisher)
The south exit is even more inaccessible, which has a lot to do with raves held there around 2017. Ubiquitous graffiti provides further disguise.
Ambitious Plans
With the war over and housebuilding on the tip forbidden, what could be done with the land created by the culverting and levelled by infill? How about a sports stadium? Here's an 'Evening Chronicle' sketch from the 1950s of the plans.
City Stadium plans from the 1950s
Seating for 86,000 people (Yes, eighty six thousand!) was augmented by a further space for 8,500 standing. Car parking was to be on three floors below the stands. Indoor sports, ice rinks (yes, plural), and badminton courts were also planned. T Dan Smith proposed spending £500,000 to prepare such a stadium for the British Empire Games. (Renamed the British Commonwealth Games by the time 1966, the year he was targeting, came round). 'The best intentions' right? We got a wooden hut and a cinder track, plus the grand name.
Build by Numbers
I passed our – so called – City Stadium on an almost daily basis riding the Number 1 or 2 bus to and from town during the '60s and early '70s, and remained mystified by the enormous forest of stone blocks, all numbered in white figures, scattered over the near corner of the unrealised City Stadium. It turned out they were the Royal Arcade waiting to be resurrected at some future time and place. I was equally mystified by their disappearance sometime during the '70s; at least I assume it was then because I was in and out of Newcastle throughout that decade and was gone almost for good by the '80s: just like the Royal Arcade, the prestigious City Stadium and our Empire!
Now, if you drop by 'the tip' you'll see the unmistakeable signs of gentrification, the most recent phase of the rich history of this patch of Heaton. What went before has almost, but not quite, been forgotten. But should we be making more of our heritage? The Victoria Tunnel has become a tourist attraction. Perhaps I'm biased but I reckon the City Stadium and Ouseburn Culvert has an even more exciting history. Conducted tours anyone?'
Researched and written by Keith Fisher, Heaton History Group. Thank you to Carlton Reid for information about the washing tubs.' Photograph of the Victoria Tunnel courtesy of 'The Evening Chronicle'.
If you know more this part of Heaton or have memories or photos to share, we'd love to hear from you. You can contact us either through this website by clicking on the link immediately below the article title or by emailing chris.jackson@heatonhistorygroup.org
The author's personal archives
'The Ouseburn Culvert and the City Stadium' by Marian Jones; 'The Newsletter of the Ouseburn Trust Heritage Group', Spring 2008.
'Bridging the Ouseburn' by Sue Bright; Ancestors Publishing, 2013
This entry was posted in Research and tagged Armstrong Bridge, Benton Bank, Byker Bridge, City Stadium, Craigielea, Heaton Road, Jesmond Vale, Joseph James Lish, Lady Armstrong, Lord William Armstrong (1810-1900), engineer and landowner, Newington Road, No 1 bus, Ouseburn, Stratford Grove, Warwick Street, WW2 on April 24, 2021 by oldheaton.
Gladstone Adams' Inspired Drive
As you wonder whether to venture out in the pouring rain, stop for a moment instead to remember a son of Heaton living when even car rides in rain and snow would barely be tolerable. In fact, it was such a car journey back to Heaton from London that led to an invention we all take for granted. To make matters worse it followed yet another cup final defeat for Colin Veitch's Newcastle United. But the subject of our research, one Gladstone Adams, was notable for much more than the inventor of windscreen wipers.
Gladstone Adams
Gladstone was born on 16 May 1880 and baptised at All Saints Church in the east end of Newcastle upon Tyne on 6 June 1880, one of ten children born to John and Agnes Adams. For many years the Adams family lived in St Ann's Row, Ouseburn. Although, John ran his own business, life was hard: at the age of 16, Gladstone contracted typhoid and almost died.
The family business of marine salvage seemed to offer little scope to an ambitious and bright young man and so, after school, Gladstone Adams became apprenticed to Matthew Auty, a well known photographer in Tynemouth. (Apparently many years later after the photography business had closed, renovation work revealed some writing on a beam that seemed to be a log of Auty's employees over the years. It included the name of Gladstone Adams, suggesting that he started work there in 1896, aged 16 and left in March 1901.)
Young Gladstone lived at a number of addresses in Heaton. At the time of the 1901 census, he was living with his mother and father and older sister, Grace, at 29 Eversley Place, Heaton.
Eversley Place home of Gladstone Adams and his parents
Gladstone's father died in 1902 and mother in 1909. They are buried together in All Saints Cemetery.
When Gladstone joined the Lord Collingwood Masonic Lodge in 1907, his address was given as 39 Lesbury Road (opposite pioneering Trade Union leader and MP Alexander Wilkie at number 36).
Adams' 39 Lesbury Road residence
At this point, aged 28, he was described as an 'art photographer'. A later electoral role shows him in 1913 at 82 Heaton Road.
Although he lived in Heaton as a young man, the photography business Gladstone set up in 1904 was based in Whitley Bay. Adam's reputation as a photographer was such that three years later, he was asked to take the official photographs of the newly launched 'Mauretania', leaving the Tyne. The image below apparently made him more than £1000 and has been acclaimed by 'Photography' magazine as a future 'Old Master'.
Adam's business expanded with several more studios opening. By the end of the 1920s he employed in the region of 90 people. His work was extremely varied and besides the usual family and wedding portraits, he produced postcards of local scenes, worked as a commercial photographer for newspapers, police records and industrial organisations, as well as being the official photographer for Newcastle United, hence that difficult journey back from the cup final.
Gladstone Adams' photograph of Newcastle's R W Thomas (who only played one game for the Magpies)
Adams (far left) at a meeting of Newcastle Photographic Society
Gladstone went on to be Chairman of the Professional Photographers Association. His business flourished for over 60 years until camera ownership became common and Whitley Bay had declined as a holiday destination.
And so it was in his capacity as successful businessman and official photographer to Newcastle United that, at the end of April 1908, Adams found himself driving back from Crystal Palace in his 1904, French made Darracq motor car. It was such an unusual sight that apparently the car was put on display while he was at the match.
A Darracq like that driven by Adams
As if watching the reigning champions unexpectedly lose to Wolverhampton Wanderers wasn't bad enough, the weather conditions for the journey home were atrocious with unseasonal snow falling. The only way Gladstone could clear his windscreen was with his hands, necessitating many stops. But much good came out of what must have been a miserable weekend. For it was on this arduous drive that Gladsone Adams said he came up with his inspired idea for a windscreen wiper (although it has to be admitted that in the USA, a Mary Anderson had patented a windshield wiper blade a few years earlier. These things are rarely straightforward!)
Adams' windscreen wiper at the Discovery Museum (courtesy of the 'Evening Chronicle')
The prototype of Adams' mechanism is on display at The Discovery Museum in Newcastle. Three years of development later, in April 1911, a patent was registered by Sloan & Lloyd Barnes, patent agents of Liverpool for Gladstone Adams of Whitley Bay.
In 1901, aged 21 Adams joined the Northumberland Yeomanry, which was a locally raised cavalry force. This enabled him to improve his horse riding skills and he won several competitions. He was about to have been sent to the Boer War but fortunately the war ended. Gladstone remained in the Yeomanry until 1910, retiring with the rank of Corporal and a good conduct certificate.
In 1914, aged 34, he volunteered to serve in WWI. Because of his photographic skills, he joined the Royal Flying Corps as a reconnaissance photographer with the 15th Wing in France. In April 1918 he was stationed at the front, close to where the German flying ace, Baron Manfred von Richthofen, was shot down and killed. Adams was given the unenviable task of photographing the deceased pilot to prove that 'The Red Baron' had really been killed. He was then involved in the preparations for the pilot's burial, with full military honours, at Bertangles Cemetery, near Amiens. After the war, Adams's military service was recognised by the award of the permanent title of 'Captain' on his discharge papers.
By the outbreak of WWII Gladstone was approaching 60 but he nevertheless he served as Flight Lieutenant with the 1156 Air Training Corps in Whitley Bay.
In 1914 at the age of 34, Gladstone had married the talented artist, Laura Annie Clark. He had served in the Royal Flying Corps alongside Laura's brother, Joseph, also, like their father, Joseph Dixon Clark senior, an artist.
Laura was a notable painter of miniatures whose work was exhibited at the Royal Academy and Paris Salon as well as provincial galleries, including the Laing. Her 1923 miniature on ivory depicting herself and her son, Dennis, entitled 'The Green Necklace' was given a place of honour at the 1923 Royal Academy exhibition between portraits of George V and Queen Mary. Laura was also a talented musician and composer. She worked as a colourist at Gladstone's photographic studio. The Adams' married life was mostly spent in Monkseaton. Dennis, born in 1920, was their only child.
in the 1950s, after hearing that a squad of Royal Marines were tragically run down by a lorry on a dark road, Adams developed a prototype fluorescent belt for pedestrians to wear at night. He and his brother also invented the 'trafficator', a forerunner of the car indicator, as well as the sliding rowing seat.
Adams was one of Whitley Bay's longest serving councillors, holding St Mary's Ward from 1937 to 1948. He also served in other wards in the 1950s and early 1960s, finally losing his seat in 1963. He was also a Northumberland County Councillor. Gladstone and his son, Dennis, were councillors together for a period of time.
Gladstone Adams died, after a very eventful life, aged 86, on 28 July, 1966,. A commemorative plaque is located on the west facing, gable end of the Ouseburn Mission building, very close to the house in which he was born.
Researched and written by Arthur Andrews, Heaton History Group.
If you know more Gladstone Adams, especially his early life in Ouseburn and Heaton, or have photos to share, we'd love to hear from you. Please get in touch either by clicking on the link immediately below the title of this article or by emailing chris.jackson@heatonhistorygroup.org
North Shields Library – Local History Section
'The Journal' 10 April 2008 Report by Tony Henderson that a significant amount of memorabilia belonging to Gladstone Adams was to be auctioned.
'The Artists of Northumbria' / Marshall Hall; 2nd ed, 1982.
'The Toon: a complete history of Newcastle United' / by Roger Hutchinson; Mainstream, 1997
Findmypast, Ancestry and other online sources.
This entry was posted in Research and tagged All Saints, Colin Veitch, Eversley Place, football, freemason, Gladstone Adams, Heaton Road, inventor, Lesbury Road, Northumberland Yeomanry, photographer, pilot, WW1, WW2 on October 1, 2019 by oldheaton.
Windows Shopping: 111 years of Tyneside music
We're all familiar with JG Windows' music store in the fabulous Edwardian Central Arcade.
J G Windows, 2019
Heaton History Group's Michael Proctor first knew it from searching for records on teenage trips to Newcastle and later from drooling over impossibly expensive hi-fi systems. Others may remember it as the place to buy tickets for almost any conceivable concert or event, from Shakespeare at the Theatre Royal to rock music at the City Hall and even the circus on the Town Moor, but when it first opened its doors it was to sell musical instruments and sheet music. The shop was opened by James Gale Windows, a long term resident of Heaton, so Michael decided to delve a little deeper.
James Gale Windows was born in October 1870 in Headington, Oxfordshire. He was the fourth son of Joseph Windows, a police sergeant and his wife, Fanny. The 1881 census shows the family still living in Cowley, with two more children, a fifth son and a daughter, with Joseph having been promoted to inspector. James' eldest brother, Alfie, had left home by this time, but William, 18, was a tailor's apprentice and Herbert, 14, a carpenter's apprentice.
In his late teens, James moved to Newcastle, where he started work as a music seller's assistant. The 1891 census shows him boarding with Annie Turnbull in Elswick.
In 1896 James returned home to Cowley to marry Maud Frances Hind, with the couple returning to Newcastle to set up home in Heaton. Maud, born in 1873, was the youngest daughter of Jonathon, a monumental mason, and his wife, Thirza. It seems likely that the families were close and James and Maud knew each other as children, as Jonathon's death in 1910 shows his address as 17 Princes Street, the former home of Joseph and Fanny Windows.
James and Maud's early family life seems to have involved a lot of movement between houses, but always in Heaton. In 1899, they were living at 57 King John Street; in 1902, they'd moved to 124 Warton Terrace; in 1905 it was 21 Stratford Grove; 1908 saw them at 69 Cardigan Terrace and 1914 has the family living at 8 Norwood Avenue, where they stayed until at least 1927.
The couple's first son, Maurice James, was born in July 1897 and their second son, Hedley Arnold, was born nine years later on 13 February 1906.
But it was in 1908 when the family's fortunes really changed and the family name became synonymous with music on Tyneside. That was the date when James opened his own store in the highly prestigious, newly opened Central Arcade.
The building itself had had a troubled history. The Central Exchange was intended to be the flagship of the Grainger town development. An unusual triangular shaped building it had facades on Grainger Street, Grey Street and Market Street and was intended to be the visual and commercial centrepiece of Newcastle's Neo-Classical streets. It was built by Richard Grainger and designed as a Corn Exchange, but by the time it was completed in 1838, there was no need for an exchange. Instead, it opened as a subscription newsroom, where the wealthy gentlemen of the day could come to read newspapers gathered from around the world. Coffee rooms occupied space in the corner drums and the building became a focal point for Newcastle's social elite.
Central Exchange newsroom
The fact that the building was not proving to be a great commercial success became apparent in March 1846 when a hand written share prospectus from Richard Grainger proposed to raise additional funds by selling 1,700 shares at £50 each. The prospectus notes that the news room had 1,300 subscribers paying 1 guinea each and produced an annual rent of £674 per annum. It then goes on to propose that a small increase in subscriptions of ½ guinea (50%) would allow the rent to increase to £1356. Grainger then set out the rent from shops, offices and coffee rooms as £1,340. However the premises were not fully occupied. As the additional rent he estimated would come from having the building fully occupied was £2,416, that suggests only about a third were occupied.
In the event, the share scheme was also a failure. Two years later, on 7 April 1848, the Durham County Advertiser reported that shareholders called a meeting with Grainger to hear the findings of a committee appointed to investigate the scheme. The committee recommended the immediate reimbursement of the shareholders. In the event, only 536 shares had actually been sold, with Grainger holding the remainder.
The first incarnation of the Central Exchange ended on Sunday 11 August 1867 when the building was ravaged by fire. When it reopened in 1870 the bulk of the building was occupied by the Institution for Promoting the Fine Arts and included an art gallery, concert hall and theatre.
Art gallery, Central Exchange, 1880
Central Exchange sign, 2019
This appears to have been more successful, but was again brought abruptly to an end by another major fire in 1901. This time, the building was completely redesigned to form an elegant shopping arcade with a barrel vaulted glazed roof, decorated using the full arsenal of Edwardian techniques with lustrous faience tiling, double arched entrances and a mosaic floor.
Towards the end of the 19th century, public concerns were raised about the safety, hygiene and moral integrity of the city. One response was to build shopping arcades exclusively to display luxury and novelty goods to the city's elite customers. The peak of arcade building was around 1890, so the new Central Arcade, which opened to the public in 1906, was unusual in being Edwardian rather than Victorian.
Central Arcade, 1906
This early photograph shows the arcade lavishly decorated for Christmas with an advert for a cafe on the balcony and even the latest technological advance, a public telephone.
It was into this luxury shopping arcade that James Windows opened the doors of his new business in 1908, just two years after the arcade opened. Originally, he appears to have had only the middle one of the three shopping units that the shop now occupies. Even so, this seems like a massive leap for a music seller's assistant to open his first shop in such an environment. It's not clear where he got the funding to do this as there doesn't appear to have been wealth on either his or his wife's side of the family that he may have inherited. By 1911, it is obvious that the shop was doing well as the census shows the family had acquired that most essential of Edwardian middle class assets, a servant, Maggie Calder. The census identifies James as a seller of music and musical instruments and an employer. In 1909, James joined the Novocastrian lodge of the Freemasons, further establishing his position within the middle class elite of Newcastle.
With the coming of the First World War, James and Maud's elder son, Maurice, signed up and fought as a private with the Cyclist Battalion. A vital part of the army that subsequently became the Signal Corps, cyclist battalions passed messages to and from the front line. His medal card also shows him having fought with the Northumberland Fusiliers. JG Windows' own website records that both sons also fought in the Second World War, but no details have emerged. Obviously by the time of the war, the business had branched out into selling gramophones (and presumably records), as the Newcastle Daily Journal of 29 September 1915 records the donation of a gramophone from JG Windows for the use of the troops. It continued to expand to include radios in the 1930s and even provided for music and singing lessons. (The Newcastle Journal on 1 November 1940 records the success of a child prodigy, Maurice Aitcheson aged 14, passing the LRAM Performer exam at the Sigmund Oppenheimer Pianoforte School at JG Windows.)
After the war, Maurice Windows joined his father in the family business, as did Hedley when he was old enough and, later, Hedley and his wife Marjorie's son, James Bowen Windows, who joined the business in 1961.
James Gale Windows died on the 21 June 1933 aged 63. His address is given as 43 Oaklands, Gosforth, having finally moved on from Heaton. He left £7,997 16s 4d (around £380,000 in today's money) to his widow, Maud, and to Percival Frederick Barras, Accountant. It's not clear who Mr Barras was, but as he clearly had a call on James' estate, it's possible that he may have provided some of the financial backing to set up the business.
James Gale and Maud Frances Windows' memorial at Gosforth Parish Church
The business continued to thrive, led by Maurice, Hedley and James Bowen, expanding ultimately to three shop units in Central Arcade over three floors. At one point, they also had stores in Darlington, York and the Metro Centre, although Darlington and York are now closed.
Maurice died on 12 February 1962 and Hedley on 13 February 1996. In 2006 the company was purchased from the Windows family by three current and former employees and long-time associates. Although the Windows family are no longer involved in the day to day running of the company, J G Windows Ltd has stuck to the principles which have kept the company central to musical life in the North East for more than a hundred years.
If you know any more about James Gale Windows or the Windows family and especially if you can help us find photographs of any of the people mentioned in this article, we'd love to hear from you. You can contact us either through this website by clicking on the link immediately below the article title or by emailing chris.jackson@heatonhistorygroup.org
Researched and written by Michael Proctor of Heaton History Group.
This entry was posted in Research and tagged Cardigan Terrace, freemason, James Gale Windows, King John Street, music dealer, Stratford Grove, Warton Terrace, WW1, WW2 on April 23, 2019 by oldheaton.
Tyneside's Home Front in WW2
To commemorate 80 years since the start of the second world war, local author Andrew Clark will evoke the days of evacuation, gas masks, the black-out, air raid shelters, identity cards, the Home Guard and VE Day as well as campaigns such as 'Dig For Victory' and 'Careless Talk Costs Lives'. Food rationing did not end until the 1950s so a few members of our audience may have tried bananas made out of parsnips or even chocolate potato cake. Andrew's talk will bring back memories for some and be entertaining and informative for the rest of us.
Denmark Street victory street party, 1945
Andrew is an author and publisher of North East local history books. He has written over 20 books and, through his company Summerhill Books, has edited and published over 150 books on communities throughout Tyneside, Northumberland and County Durham. Andrew has also worked on heritage projects in school and youth centres.
Our talk will take place on Wednesday 27 March 2019 at The Corner House, Heaton NE6 5RP at 7.30pm (Doors open at 7.00pm. You are advised to take your seat by 7.15pm). All welcome. FREE for Heaton History Group members. £2 for non-members. Please book your place by contacting maria@heatonhistorygroup.org / 07443 594154.
This entry was posted in Events and tagged Denmark Street, WW2 on January 6, 2019 by oldheaton.
Wrong Place, Wrong Time: Heaton WW1 civilian prisoners of war
They say that every picture tells a story, that it's worth a thousand words even. But, in this case, the few words on the board in the foreground of the photograph enabled us to look past the polished boots and smart suits and ties; beyond the forced smiles and resigned expressions into the sixteen pairs of sunken eyes and imagine what these men and thousands more like them, Heaton men and boys among them, were going through far from home.
SS Juno
The SS 'Juno' was a 1,311 ton vessel built in 1882 and acquired in 1904 by the Tyne-Tees Steamship Company, newly formed in a merger of the Tyne Steam Shipping Company, the Tees Union Shipping Company, Furness Withy and Co and the Free Trade Wharf Company. The new company's headquarters were in the building we now know as Hotel du Vin on City Road and it also had an office in King Street, just off the Quayside. You can still see a large advert for it on the wall of Sabatini's restaurant.
The company operated passenger and cargo services to Dutch, German, French and Belgian ports. SS 'Juno' had the misfortune to be in Hamburg on 4 August 1914, the day World War One started. The crew, almost all from Tyneside, were immediately arrested and interned at first in or around the port. Among them was John Rowe of Heaton.
Donkeyman
John was born in West Hartlepool in 1856, the son of John senior, a sailor, and Mary Ann Rowe of Stockton. In 1874, he married Cicely Jowsey of Hartlepool and by 1881 they had three children: Dorothy, Rose and Maude. By 1891, a further five had been added to the family: Jowsey, Cecily, Daisey, Jessie and John junior. John gave his occupation as stoker on a steamship. In 1901, John was absent and there was a younger daughter, Gladys. By 1911, John and Cicely and three of their younger children plus a grandson had moved to 5 Addison Street in Heaton. Cicely reported that she had been married for 37 years and had given birth to 11 children, nine of whom were still alive. Again John was away from home, presumably at sea once more.
In August 1914, John, by this time living at nearby 60 Addison Road, would have been 58 years old. He was the 'donkeyman' on SS Juno. His job would have been to oil and grease moving engine parts and to stoke the boiler. After their capture and a short time under arrest in Hamburg, John and the rest of the crew of SS 'Juno' were transferred to Ruhleben prison camp just outside Berlin.
Ruhleben
A prison camp to house Germany's civilian prisoners was established at the outset of the war on a harness racing track in Ruhleben, 10k to the west of Berlin. As soon as war was declared, nationals of the Allied Powers and anyone suspected of sympathising with them were arrested. Most of the 4-5000 prisoners were British, all were male but they came from all walks of life. There were merchant seamen, like John, but also fishermen, businessmen and sportsmen.
Among the detainees were a number of very famous footballers, including Steve Bloomer, who had starred for Derby County ( 291 goals in 473 appearances) and Middlesbrough (59 goals in 125 appearances) and had scored 28 goals in 23 appearances for England. He had begun a coaching job in Berlin just weeks earlier.
Composer Edgar Bainton was another famous prisoner. He was piano professor and principal of Newcastle upon Tyne Conservatory of Music and a leading figure in the Tyneside music scene and later nationally and internationally. He had travelled to Germany to the Bayreuth Music Festival, where along with other foreign performers and concert goers, he was arrested. Bainton is credited with introducing Tynesiders to composers such as Holst and Vaughan Williams. He is best remembered for his church music but he composed a wide range, neglected for a long time, but now increasingly heard.
Although life and conditions in the camp weren't easy, prisoners were allowed to administer their own affairs and were allowed letters, sports equipment, even a printing press. The prisoners organised their own police service, postal deliveries, magazine, library – even businesses. There were football, rugby, cricket and golf tournaments; concerts, opera and drama performances; lectures; a garden club affiliated to the Royal Horticultural Society and many other diversions. But there were also accounts of a class divide, racial segregation and other social problems.
Most prisoners stayed at Ruhleben, far away from their worried family and friends, for the entire duration of the war but a few were lucky enough to have been released early. Perhaps because of his age, illness or a swap with a German prisoner in Britain, John was freed on 22 December 1915 and so does not appear on the photograph, which was taken in the camp in 1916 or '17. From research carried out by Marcus Bateman and published on the MT9 Project website, we know the names of the crew members and their home address at the time of capture but not who is who in the photo.
John Rowe was awarded the Mercantile Marine Medal and the British Medal in 1921. He and Cicely continued to live in Heaton. He died in December 1929, aged 73.
Marine Engineer
Another former Heaton resident detained was John Cyril Vasey, a marine engineer on board the SS 'Indianola', a Liverpool registered ship. Records show that he was arrested on 16 October 1914 and, after a short period of confinement on the Hamburg hulks, was sent to Ruhleben.
Vasey was a Freemason: we have membership records from 1913 and he was one of 112 Ruhleben prisoners who signed a message of greeting to Sir Edward Letchworth, Grand Secretary of English Freemasons, postmarked 9 December 1914 and printed in 'The Times' on 28 December. He was also a keen footballer: his name appears in the 'Handbook of the Ruhleben Football Association, Season 1915'.
John Cyril Vasey's merchant navy ID card, 1923
John was born in Newcastle on 28 June 1885. By 1891, aged 11, he was living in Jesmond with his father Henry, a Londoner, part owner of Hawks, Vasey and Ridley, iron and steel merchants; his mother, Louisa, a Yorkshire woman; three older brothers, Henry, Arthur and Thomas and younger siblings, George, Frances and Nora, along with a servant.
In 1901, he was an eighteen year old marine engineering clerk, living at 192 Heaton Road with his mother Louisa, older brothers Henry and Arthur, both students, and younger siblings, George, Frances and Nora, along with a servant, Elizabeth Barnes. By 1911, the family had moved to Leyton in Essex, although John did not appear on that year's census. Possibly he was at sea.
John returned to the merchant navy after the war. He died in 1936 at Papworth Village Hospital, Cambridgeshire, aged 50.
First Engineer
And Edwin Henry Perry was First Engineer aboard the SS 'Sheldrake', a Sunderland built steamer, when it was shelled and sunk on 8 November 1916 by the German U-Boat, 'U 34', 20 miles WSW of Marittimo Island in the Straits of Sicily. The crew survived but two senior members, Edwin Perry and the Master, Charles Stanley Johnson, were taken prisoner and transported to a prisoner of war camp at Furstenberg, north of Berlin.
In 1911, Edwin was living with his wife, Leila, and their two young children, John (3) and Henry (2) in Catford, SE London. Edwin gave his occupation as 'seagoing engineer'. By January 1914, when he was admitted to the freemasons, he was recorded as a 'chief engineer'.
All the family were born in the London area but they were soon to move north to Heaton. At the time of his capture in 1916, Edwin's address was given as 18 Third Avenue, Heaton. Leila died in 1917, leaving three young children. Following the war, Edwin was married for a second time to Mary Elizabeth Gwinnett, with whom he had three more children.
Edwin was also awarded medals for service as a merchant seaman during WW2 at the start of which he would have been 60 years old. He died in 1950 in Poole, Dorset.
Our final Heatonian and the youngest, 17 year old William Martin Henry, was detained when the ship on which he was serving his apprenticeship, the 'French Prince', was captured and sunk by the German auxiliary cruiser, 'Mowe', off the coast of Brazil on 15 February 1917. This time, the crew were taken to Gustrow prisoner of war camp in Northern Germany, where William was interned for the remainder of the war.
William was born at 49 King John Street, Heaton on 8 July 1899, son of Aberdonian Robert Martin Henry and Banff born Isabella Robertson Henry (nee Farquharson). On census night 1901, aged 1, he was at the home of his widowed grandmother, Annie Henry, originally from Scotland but by now a boarding house keeper at 62 North View, Heaton. Also in the house on census night were her daughter, Mary, a 'contralto vocalist' and four boarders from around the country.
On census night 1911, aged 11 William was staying with his 16 year old brother, Robert Farquharson, a clerk, who was described as head of household; his 13 year old brother Norman Charles, a 'scholar' and a 21 year old servant, Annie Stephenson, at 64 Rothbury Terrace. (We haven't yet discovered where the brothers were in 1901 or where Isabella, William's mother was in 1901 or 1911. Please let us know if you can help.)
William Martin Henry's 1st Mate's certificate, 1921
After the war, William returned to the family home on Rothbury Terrace, where his mother and father lived until they died in 1924 and 1932 respectively. He was granted his Second Mate's Certificate on 29 December 1919 and his First Mate's Certificate two years later. (We know from this that he was 5 feet 8 inches with blue eyes, brown hair and a fresh complexion.) On 11 September 1924 William was granted his Master's Certificate.
We have found records showing that, after his release, he continued to enjoy a life at sea. On 8 July 1932 (aged 33), he sailed from Liverpool to Boston on the SS 'Nova Scotia' as a passenger. On Feb 1935, he was a crew member aboard the SS 'Javanese Prince', which sailed from Halifax in Canada to Boston.
We haven't found WW2 records relating to William but his older brother, Robert, is honoured on panel 29 of the Merchant Seamen's Memorial at Tower Hill in London, which commemorates losses in WW2. It names his ship as SS 'City of Canberra' (Liverpool) although he didn't actually die until 28 May 1947 in Withington Hospital, Manchester, aged 52.
William himself died at the former home of his brother, Robert, in Manchester in 1962. Probate was granted to Nellie Grace Henry, named as his widow. She had previously been married to Robert.
So a photograph that, as far as we know, doesn't include anyone from Heaton has helped uncover an often forgotten aspect of WW1, the detention of civilians by both sides, and the stories of a number of Heaton residents, caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.
If you know more about any of the people mentioned or in the SS 'Juno' photograph , have photos you are willing to share or can add to our list of Heaton WW1 civilian prisoners of war, we'd love to hear from you. Please either leave a reply on this website by clicking on the link immediately below the article title or email chris.jackson@heatonhistorygroup.org
Researched and written by Chris Jackson, Heaton History Group. Thank you to Colin Green of Water Orton, North Warwickshire, who kindly sent us the photograph along with others from his collection which he believes to be relevant to this area. And also to Marcus Bateman of the MT9 project for additional information about the SS Juno, John Vasey and John Rowe.
MT9 Project
The Ruhleben Story
Ancestry UK
and other online sources
This entry was posted in Research, War and Peace, What, When, World War One (1914-1918) and tagged Addison Road, Addison Street, Edwin Henry Perry, Heaton Road, John Cyril Vasey, John Rowe, Mary Henry, merchant navy, Norman Charles Henry, North View, Robert Farquharson Henry, Robert Martin henry, Rothbury Terrace, Third Avenue, William Martin Henry, WW1, WW2 on July 29, 2018 by oldheaton.
As you push your trolley round Sainsbury's, have you ever wondered what went on there before the supermarket and nearby car showrooms were built? The photographs below (courtesy of Historic England's Britain from Above project) show the area on 1 November 1938. The houses to the north, west and south east had been built over the previous decade or so but there was still open country to the east. On the extreme right of both photos, you can see Heaton Cemetery.
A S Wilkin Ltd Cremona Park (on the right) from the west, 1938
Cremona Park Confectionery Works, 1938
Cremona Park, the self-styled ' World's Garden Toffery' opened on what was then a green field site on Benton Road in 1920. It was founded by Albert Scholick Wilkin, the son of a Westmorland policeman. Wilkin had opened a sweet factory in Sunderland in 1908. It was an immediate success, especially its 'Wilkin's Red Boy Toffee', which featured a detail from Thomas Lawrence's famous painting, 'Charles William Lambton', later known as 'Red Boy'. By the end of WW1, Cremona had become a national brand.
Cremona's Red Boy Toffee tin
At about the same time, the old Royal Flying Corps site in High Heaton, Newcastle was no longer needed by the military. It gave Wilkin the space he needed to expand his business. There were many new flavours of toffee in ever more beautiful tins.
In 1939, Albert received a knighthood for 'political and public services in Newcastle upon Tyne'. He was a Justice of the Peace, Chairman of Newcastle Central Conservative Association, governor of King's College (now Newcastle University), an honorary freeman of the City of London and a Liveryman of the Feltmakers Company. During the war, he served on committees which oversaw the regulation of the confectionery industry. But in 1943, aged only 60, Albert Wilkin died.
Sons, Gordon and Frank, took over the running of the company and after the war, the export markets returned: Hong Kong, China, Syria, Gibraltar, South Vietnam, Puerto Rico, the West Indies, the USA, among others, all loved High Heaton toffee. But, by the 1960s, larger companies began to dominate and Cremona Park had become part of Rowntrees Mackintosh and soon afterwards, the Benton Road factory closed its doors forever.
Veronica Halliwell (nee Erskine) has vivid memories of Cremona Park in the 1940s. Living what must be every child's dream, she grew up in the grounds of a toffee factory.
Let Veronica take up the story: 'I was born in 1940 and lived with my mother and grandparents at 'The Lodge', Cremona Park, Benton Rd. Newcastle upon Tyne until I was 8 years old.'
Veronica with her doll's house and the Cremona chimney behind (not part of the doll's house!)
Veronica and her mother outside the Cremona Park lodge where they lived
'My grandfather was a commissionaire who checked transport at the gate of Cremona Park. He was also the office cleaner and a fire warden. My mother also worked in the factory – on the sweet machines. Meanwhile my father was a soldier on active duty with the Royal Northumberland Fusiliers. My grandmother looked after me. I have many very happy memories of this time.'
'Grandad had a very smart uniform with brass buttons which, as a child, I loved to polish with him. I had a toothbrush to collect the dampened solid block of brass polish and we polished it off when dry with a small duster at the dinner table in front of the black-leaded fireplace which always had a kettle on the boil.'
Veronica and her grandparents with Cremona Park canteen to the right
'When we had finished and the buttons were gleaming, grandad would toast me some bread on a long handled fork over the open fire. Then the tin bath would be placed in front of this fire and Grandad would have his weekly bath!
Now and again I was allowed to go to the offices while Grandad did his cleaning chores. With hindsight, the high, wooden desks were quite Dickensian in appearance with high stools which I couldn't reach! I used to play with the black telephones (probably Bakelite) and my Grandad lifted me up and I pretended to 'clock-in' at a very large ornate office clock.
The Boss's office was a different affair altogether with a green leather top, silver ink pots and a wonderful green leather chair which I could swivel away in to my heart's content. One day, the boss appeared and I am told that he was delighted with me. So much so that for Xmas 1945 or '46 he gave me my first hard-backed book, 'The Little Fir-Tree'. It gave me such pleasure that to this day, 70 plus years on , I still retell the story to all manner of children at Christmastime, even though the book has disappeared in the sands of time.
The fire wardens met in the canteen when they were 'on duty' but they never seemed to put out any fires, they just played cards and dominoes while I had a few rides on the 'dumb waiter' as a reward for singing 'You are my Sunshine.' No health and safety rules and regulations then!'
Sweet machine
'I can remember being carried into the factory to see my 'mam' at her sweet machine. The jewelled coloured wrapping paper seemed magical, as sweets slid down a chute at an alarming rate. When all the machines had shut down for the day I can still recall the hot, clean smell as the thick wooden slabs where the toffee was rolled were sluiced down with boiling water.'
We are lucky enough to have copies of postcards which show what the factory looked like inside, at every stage of the production process. They are undated but the first image suggests they were taken soon after the factory opened in 1920. So before Veronica's time but perhaps not her grandad's.
Veronica continues: 'We mustn't lose sight that it was wartime and my uncle made me my very own 'Tommy gun' which was almost as big as me. I played with the two sons of the boiler man at the factory but they were older than me and they were boys so I always had to be a 'Jap' and spent most of my time tied up in prison. They had an indoor shelter in their bungalow which was a great den until the siren went off one afternoon and we heard the drone of the German planes overhead. According to the grown-ups they had a different sound to our planes. We were told that the German bombers used the tall chimney of Cremona and the tall chimney next door of the Sylvan jam factory to navigate their way.
There was also a very large brick communal shelter which had slatted wooden benches where the adults sat or slept during an air raid. I slept in my pram, so I am told, but I can very definitely remember my mam running with me in my pram to the shelter and whenever it is a cold, crisp, clear night I swear I can smell the fresh, cold air there as if it were yesterday. The sound of the 'all clear' siren still haunts me and gives me goose-bumps.'
Even though it was wartime I was very lucky to have an uncle whose hobby was making toys-hence the doll's house you see on one of the photographs.'
When I was almost eight, we moved to a prefab in Wallsend but still continued to go to St Teresa's School in Heaton. When I was 11 years old we moved to a house just up Benton Rd. which was only a stone's throw from Cremona Park and, in my teens, St George's Methodist Church Youth Club paved the way to friendships and frequent visits to Paddy Freeman's Park and Jesmond Dene.'
Lovely memories and photos of what must have been a very exciting place to grow up.
If you know more about Cremona Park Toffee Factory or have memories or photos to share, we'd love to hear from you. Please either leave a reply on this website by clicking on the link immediately below the article title or email chris.jackson@heatonhistorygroup.org
Thank you to Veronica for her memories and photographs; additional research by Chris Jackson
'North East Life', January 2010. Article by Jackie Wilkin, Albert Scholick Wilkin's great niece.
This entry was posted in Benton Road, Food and Drink, Research, What, Where and tagged air field, airfield, Albert Scholick Wilkin, Benton Road, Cremona Park, Cremona Park Confectionery Works, High Heaton, Jesmond Dene, Paddy Freeman's Park, St George's Church, St Teresa's School, Sylvan jam, WW1, WW2 on January 9, 2018 by oldheaton.
10 Sefton Avenue: a time-line
It seems fitting that the first owner of 10 Sefton Avenue was the daughter and granddaughter of at least two generations of watchmakers who had lived in a place that, in the nineteenth century, was synonymous with monitoring the passage of time. For studying the history of buildings to help us understand those who have inhabited them fascinates the current owner of the house. Conversely the stories of those who have lived and worked in a building over time can breathe life into inanimate bricks and mortar.
The discovery in his loft of a large collection of objects and documents that had belonged to a previous owner aroused Jules Brown's curiosity.
10 Sefton Avenue, 2017 (undergoing a loft conversion)
What we came to call the 'Sefton Hoard', along with the deeds and other documents relating to the property were the starting point for our investigation. But we'll begin before the house was built.
Little Broom
Plan of Heaton which accompanies the deeds of 10 Sefton Avenue
In October 1894 Lord Armstrong had passed on his land in Heaton, including Heaton Town Farm, to his great nephew, William Armstrong Watson-Armstrong. In 1907, the plot which became 10 Sefton Avenue was sold by Watson-Armstrong to a local builder, Peter Grant Tulloh. By comparing the above plan accompanying the house deeds to modern maps, we have calculated this plot to have been part of Heaton Town Farm, somewhere in field 95, formerly pasture known as Little Broom.
Peter Tulloh had been born in Forres in Moray, Scotland in 1859 but had moved south as a young man, first to Bishopwearmouth and, by 1891, to 28 Falmouth Road in Heaton at which time he described himself as a 'traveller', which we think means what we later called a 'commercial traveller' or 'travelling salesman'. Ten years later, he described himself as a 'traveller's manager' and was living at 48 Heaton Road.
We don't know when or how he became a builder and property developer but he was soon successful. By 1912, he was living at 330 Heaton Road, a house later demolished for the building of the Coast Road, ending his days at Eastwood on Jesmond Park East. He died on 13 April 1939, leaving almost £30,000 in his will. Peter is buried in Byker and Heaton Cemetery with his wife, Isabella and young daughter, Olivia.
The time traveller's daughter
In January 1907, Peter Tulloh sold 10 Sefton Avenue to 32 year old Fanny Louise Baker. Fanny had been born in Newcastle in c1874 to parents who had moved from the midlands. Her father, William, had worked as a finisher in the watchmaking industry as did his father before him, at a time when the area around Spon Street, Coventry, where they lived, was one of the oldest and most important centres of the industry in the world. Old watchmakers' houses still stand in this historic quarter of the city and the Coventry Watch Museum tells the fascinating story of the industry and the people employed in it.
But specialist skills were also in demand in the rapidly expanding cities of the north and so William and his wife, Frances, were assured of a bright future when, around 1867, they set off for Newcastle, three young children in tow. (Fanny herself was born some seven years later.) The family settled in Elswick, where William continued to work as a watchmaker. He eventually died in September 1905 leaving £635 6s 9d in his will, a sum that would secure his family's future by enabling Fanny to buy the brand new house (10 Sefton Avenue cost her just £575 ) she was to share with her now 72 year old mother and her older sister, Elizabeth, a schoolteacher and the only wage earner in the family. By 1911, they had been joined by a boarder, Reuben Charles Salmon, whose rent would have been a welcome supplement to the household income.
So, what brought Reuben to Newcastle? He had been born in Bethnal Green, Middlesex in 1881 and by the age of 20, still at home, he was an apprentice electrical engineer. Ten years later and now in Heaton, he described himself as 'electrical engineer (electric supply)'. For an ambitious young man in Reuben's relatively new line of work, Newcastle, was the place to be.
As early as 1860 Sir Joseph Wilson Swan had developed a primitive electric light bulb. But it took him almost twenty more years to develop the incandescent electric light bulb, which would stand the test of time. He patented it in 1878 and a year later, Mosley Street in Newcastle became the first street in the world to be lit by electricity.
Cragside, the Northumberland home of Lord Armstrong, former owner of the land on which 10 Sefton Avenue was built, was famously the first house in the world to be lit by electricity. The picture gallery was illuminated by arc lamps by 1878. And in 1887, 45 of Swan's light bulbs were installed to light the whole house, the power generated by hydraulics, Armstrong's own speciality. But Armstrong was interested in physics more generally and he also worked with Professor Henry Stroud, who lived at 274 Heaton Road, on research into the nature of electricity.
But it was one thing generating the power to serve one wealthy person's home, another to produce enough to cost-effectively service heavy industry. But once again this area was at the forefront of developments. In 1901 Neptune Bank Power Station was built at nearby Wallsend by the Newcastleu pon Tyne Electric Supply Company. Servicing shipyards and other local industry, it was the first in the world to provide electricity for purposes other than domestic and street lighting. It was also the first in the world to generate electricity using three-phase electrical power distribution at a voltage of 5,500 volts. In 1902, two 1,500-kW Parsons steam turbine driven turbo-alternators, developed and made in Heaton, were added. They were the largest three-phase steam turbine driven alternators in the world, as well as the first of a revolutionary barrel type, rotary design. But they weren't enough.
In 1904 Carville Power Station was built, again using Parsons' steam turbine alternators from Heaton. The first electricity produced by the station was provided to the NER for the very early electrification of the railway line that passed through Heaton. Carville was extended in 1907 and, in 1916, with demand for electricity soaring because of the war, a second power station, Carville B, was built. This was the largest power station in the UK at the time and was considered to be the 'first major generating station in the world', as well as the largest and most economical in the UK. The power supply industry may have been what brought Reuben north. It was certainly where he made his living. However, he found more than work in Newcastle: in 1913, Reuben Charles Salmon married Fanny Baker, his landlady. They lived on Sefton Avenue for eight more years, before moving to Bristol.
Self-made
In October 1921, the house changed hands for the first time. It was bought by Henry Lowery, aged 35, variously described as a 'ship breaker' and an 'iron and steel merchant', whose business was based in Gateshead. Born in Newcastle on 16 June 1886, Henry had grown up locally – in Byker. Aged 4, he was living with his widowed mother, Mary Ann, described as a 'hawker', and three elder siblings. Aged 14, Henry was described as a painter. In 1911, he was married and still living in Byker but now working as a clerk in an iron and steel merchants.
His wife, like his mother, was called Mary Ann (nee Wilde). And they had daughter called? You guessed it: Mary Ann! Ten years later, now with his own business, he had done well enough for himself to buy a very nice house in Heaton, initially with the help of two sisters from Berwick, Isabella and Barbara Forbes Atchison, his relationship to whom we don't yet know.
Henry repaid the sisters a year later and lived at 10 Sefton Avenue for 28 years before retiring to Gateshead. When he died, aged 73, he left over £17,000 in his will, very much a self-made man.
The next owner, George Arrowsmith Barnet, had been born on 8 April 1911 in Bishop Auckland. He married Moira H Ashley in Lambeth, London in 1935 and by 1939 the couple and their three children were living in Portsmouth, where George was a cafe manager. Soon afterwards, however, they returned to Bishop Auckland before, in 1949, buying 10 Sefton Avenue from Henry Lowery. George was now described as a 'catering manager'. But the Barnet's didn't stay in Heaton long. Post-war austerity and rationing won't have made his job easy and Canada was eager to attract new workers: George and his wife, like another half a million Britons in the thirty years following WW2, made the brave decision to emigrate. After giving Moira Power of Attorney so that she could manage his affairs, including the sale of 10 Sefton Avenue, on 13 May 1953 George sailed from Liverpool to Quebec on SS Franconia. Four months later, Moira and their four children followed him. George Arrowsmith Barnet died aged 77 in White Rock, British Columbia, thirty six years after leaving Heaton.
Hoarder
The person who Moira Barnet sold the house to was Robert Edward Topping. He and his wife Greta (nee Gerner) moved the short distance from 10 Roxburgh Place to 10 Sefton Avenue in August 1953. And for the first time we have more than archival records to help us tell their story.
But first we need to jump ahead around sixty four years. Thinking of expanding his living accommodation, current owner Jules Brown, ventured up a ladder to survey the available roof space. To his amazement, as he arced his torch in the darkness, objects began to emerge from the shadows: some boxes but also individual items, large and small: once-treasured books, many of which were inscribed: some birthday gifts to a young Robert from his father and others presented to Greta for excellent attendance at Sunday School; photographs and personal letters; journals; home made tools, furniture and electric lamps; a canvas rucksack; toys and games, again some home-made; part of a lantern slide projector with slides and a couple of cine films; even a bike. Many of the items seemed insignificant, but clearly all had had meaning enough to become keepsakes for someone. All now black with the dust and soot of more than half a century.
Jules Brown examining the contents of his loft
Luckily for us, Jules works for Historic England and North of England Civic Trust as a conservation manager. Naturally, he was intrigued by the finds and what they might tell him about his home and those who had lived there before him. He invited Heaton History Group to help sift through the items and decide what had a historic value and who might appreciate it. He wondered whether it was fanciful to think descendants of the hoard's owners might be traced.
It soon became apparent that most of the objects in the loft had belonged to a Robert Topping and his wife, Greta. Some items were fit only for the tip. Time hadn't treated them kindly. But there was a small pile relating to C A Parsons, journals, engineering text books, pencils, a slide rule. They were gladly accepted by Siemens' Heaton Works historian, Ruth Baldasera. The North East Land Sea & Air Museum said they'd love the old BSA (Birmingham Small Arms) military bike.
Another group of items related to Heaton Presbyterian Church – Robert and Greta's religious conviction was clear: there were books about the church, tales from the New Testament, a prayer book but also sermons, hand-written in pencil. We remembered that the daughters of Olive Renwick, of whom we have written before, were parishioners. Would the church like the items and did they happen to know of a Robert Topping? Of course they did. Robert was only their uncle!
He was Olive's brother and the son of Isabella and Frank Topping, the railway signalman who featured in another article we've published.
Olive, Robert and Sybil Topping with their mother Isabella c1925
And so, over a cup of tea a few nights later, Robert's nieces, Margaret and Julia, put flesh on the bones of what we'd already pieced together about 'Uncle Rob and Auntie Greta' and were reunited with photos, letters, cine films and other personal effects.
Julia & Margaret, Robert Topping's nieces with Arthur Andrews & Chris Jackson of HHG
Robert was born on 5 March 1922. He worked as an engineer at Parsons for many years but he'd also served in the Royal Navy during and after the second world war. Jules' next door neighbour, who had known Robert as an elderly man, believed he had been a submariner. Robert had told Margaret and Julia that too. But his nieces also recalled that he had a vivid imagination and told many fantastic stories, many of which they suspected to be made up to entertain and impress them.
Amongst the documents in the attic were letters that showed Robert had been at a naval base in Virginia in the USA, a postcard addressed to him as an Engine Room Artificer (a fitter, turner or boilermaker) on HMS Queen Elizabeth and a telegram addressed to him aboard HMS Hargood at Rosyth naval dockyard, suggesting he served on ships in the Royal Navy rather than submarines.
Robert Topping in the Royal Navy
But there was also a ship's diary, hand-written in Spanish, in which the author recounted watching the German Graf Zeppelin in the sky above Reykjavik in 1931, on its way to carry out research into the Arctic. Robert would have been nine years old. 'Perhaps some of those fantastic stories of a life of adventure were true!', joked Margaret. Julia remembered with affection her uncle's sense of humour: 'He was the only one who could make Aunt Sybil laugh!' As we looked at family photos around Jules' kitchen table, we could feel his jovial, larger than life presence in the room.
Robert Topping in later years
Some of Robert and Greta's belongings have now been returned to the family and others donated to specialists who would appreciate them but Jules has kept a few items 'for the house'. He will restore the home made bird box and put it in the garden. And five books by Ramsay Guthrie will be cleaned up and returned to the now converted loft.
Ramsay Guthrie was the alias of John George Bowran (1869-1946), a Primitive Methodist Minister from Gateshead, who wrote many novels set on Tyneside. They feature miners, ship builders and other working class characters and were concerned with morality and redemption. They were written around the time the house was built and, like the lives of the house's former inhabitants, help to tell its story.
Post-script
Robert Edward Topping died in 2002, while still living at 10 Sefton Avenue. The house was then home to first the Kemptons and later the Kemps from whom Jules Brown bought it. Their life stories will add another layer to the fascinating history of 10 Sefton Avenue in due course.
Thank you to Jules for sharing his finds with us and to Julia and Margaret for supplying photographs of their uncle and adding to what the 'Sefton Hoard' had told us about him.
Researched and written by Chris Jackson and Arthur Andrews.
If you can add to the story of 10 Sefton Avenue and those who have lived there – or you would like us to look into the history of YOUR house, either leave a reply on this website by clicking on the link immediately below the article title or email chris.jackson@heatonhistorygroup.org
This entry was posted in Research, Sefton Avenue, Where and tagged Coast Road, Falmouth Road, Fanny Louise Baker, Francis Topping, George Arrowsmith Barnet, Greta Topping, Heaton and Byker Cemetery, Heaton Presbyterian Church, Heaton Road, Heaton Town Farm, Henry Lowery, Henry Stroud, Jesmond Park East, Lord William Armstrong (1810-1900), engineer and landowner, Olive Renwick, Parsons' Works, Peter Grant Tulloh, Railways, Reuben Charles Salmon, Robert Edward Topping, Roxburgh Place, Sefton Avenue, William Armstrong, WW2 on November 9, 2017 by oldheaton.
The Parish Church of St Gabriel Part 3: the war memorials
There is no central monumental public war memorial in the suburb of Heaton but you may be surprised to hear that there were, in fact, around 50 different memorials dedicated locally to the dead and injured of the two world wars. As elsewhere in the country, most were placed in churches, schools (eg Chillingham Road School and Heaton Grammar), work places (eg Parsons, the Post Office and Locomotive Works) and in the cemetery and took the form of plaques, windows, crosses and books of remembrance. But some are quirkier; there's Heaton Harrier's cup, still raced for annually and hearing aids, commemorated on a plaque at Heaton Methodist Church.
Heaton History Group member, Robin Long, has been researching the story behind those in (and outside) St Gabriel's Church:
There is an entry in the Chronological History of the Parish Church of St Gabriel, Heaton that reads 'A decision was made to adopt a design by Mr Hicks for a War Memorial to be placed in the North Aisle, recording the names of all those who gave their lives in the war and had belonged to St Gabriel's.'
The above appears in 1919 and in 1920 we read that at the 21st Annual Vestry Meeting held on 8 April it was unanimously agreed to apply for a faculty to erect a war memorial tablet in church.
At evensong on November 27 1921 the new war memorial was dedicated. It had cost £200. 'The enamelwork with two archangels, St Gabriel and St Michael were exquisitely worked and the alabaster border contains it and the Angel of Peace very well'.
WW1 memorial in St Gabriel's Church
The memorial was unveiled by Mr Angus who had lost two boys, Andrew and Leslie, in the war. Their names are the first two of the fifty six parishoners listed on the roll of honour. The memorial was then dedicated with prayers by the vicar.
We move forward to 1946 where we find a record that George Elliott returned for the forces. As an artist he replaced the typewritten list of the fallen with a more worthy book of remembrance. In it were the names of 75 who belonged to St Gabriel's before giving their lives for their country.
It was not until 1950 that an application was made for a faculty for the erection of a suitable war memorial to be inscribed with 78 names from World War II, consisting of two parts – one inside church and one outside.
Inside, in front of the existing 1914 – 1918 War Memorial, the lower part of the wall will be panelled, a dais laid down and a lectern placed on top bearing the Book of Remembrance, flanked by two candlesticks – all in oak.
St Gabriel's Church WW2 war memorial
Memorials to the fallen of both world wars in St Gabriel's Church
'Outside to the North West a large lawn will be laid out flanked with paths and backed by a shrubbery.'
ST Gabriel's Garden of Remembrance
The War Memorial and the Garden of Remembrance were dedicated on 10 February 1951.
This article was written by Heaton History Group member, Robin Long, who is now carrying out research into the names on the memorials.
Information taken from Chronological History of the Parish Church of St Gabriel, Heaton, Newcastle upon Tyne. Researched by Mrs Joan Brusey (1890 – 1992) and Denis Wardle (1992-1999). Typed by Mrs Jennifer Dobson and Miss Valerie Smith. Bound by Mr John Dobson.
North East War Memorials Project
Can you add to the story?
If you can help with information about those listed on St Gabriel's memorials or can help us tell the story of other war memorials in Heaton please contact us, either by clicking on the link immediately below the title of this article or by mailing chris.jackson@heatonhistorygroup.org
This entry was posted in Heaton Road, Religion, Research, St Gabriel's Church, War and Peace, What, When, Where, World War One (1914-1918), World War Two (1939-1945) and tagged Andrew Angus, artist, Chillingham Road School, George Elliott, Heaton Grammar, Heaton Harriers, Heaton Methodist Church, Hicks, Leslie Angus, Parsons' Works, post office, Railways, St Gabriel's, WW1, WW2 on September 27, 2017 by oldheaton.
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