Over the years, Heaton has been the home of many photographers, a number of whom we’ve already written about here: portrait photographer Edward Brewis, whose familiar half-timbered house on Heaton Park Road was built to house his studio and darkrooms; Gladstone Adams, official photographer to Newcastle United, as well as the inventor of the windscreen wiper, and once of Lesbury Road; Thomas Maitland Laws, one of a dynasty of photographers, who photographed the Prince and Princess of Wales’ visit to Newcastle in 1884 and was later a resident of Addycombe Terrace; Hungarian Laszlo Torday who lived in High Heaton and who has left us with thousands of photographs of Newcastle, and especially Heaton, in the 1960s and ‘70s.

We can now add three more names to the list, brothers-in-law who were the subject of a recent book ‘Photographers Three: three brothers-in-law, one love for Northumberland’ but who were also, to one degree or other, drawn to Heaton.

Harry

The oldest and first of the three to take up photography was Harry Ord Thompson. He was born on 16 February 1871 in Gateshead, the eldest son of Elizabeth and George Thompson, a barrister’s clerk. To help make ends meet, Elizabeth went into business first selling knitting wool and later photographs at the premises of Durham photographer, Frederick William Morgan, where, at the age of 14, her son, Harry, began an apprenticeship. On qualification, Harry went to work for Tynemouth photographer, Matthew Auty. It was while working for Auty that he was sent to the premises of a photographic materials’ supplier, where he met Beatrice Isabel Dudley Collier, who was to become his wife. 

The couple married in 1899. In 1901, they had a baby daughter and Harry was described as an ‘under-manager for a photographic view company’.  By 1902, the Thompson family were living at 74 Bolingbroke Street and, soon after, Harry had started his own business as a studio portrait photographer and photographer of artistic views, which could be turned into picture postcards. By 1908, he was described as a ‘technical, outdoor and publishing photographer’. He had now moved to a larger house in Portland Terrace, which had room for his business premises, and which was to remain his business base and the Thompson family home for the rest of his working life. 

By 1912, however, Harry had changed the emphasis of his business again. The trade directories now described him as a ‘commercial and industrial photographer.’

Harry had also been a long-time member of the Volunteer Force, a fore-runner of the Territorial Army so, on 12 September 1914, aged 43, he enlisted in the Army Service Corps, with which he served in France. He was posted to a section that processed aerial photographs of the front and made them into maps.  

In 1918, Harry returned home to his business in commercial photography, taking pictures for company brochures, journals and magazines. Customers included Heaton’s C A Parsons and Grubb Parsons. But he also continued to take photographs of Newcastle streets and buildings, including war memorials and churches, many of which were produced as postcards.

Another sideline was developing and printing amateur snaps for Boots the Chemists. He was a member of the Institute of British Photographers and exhibited several times.  

Harry was also a keen local historian and an active member of Newcastle’s Society of Antiquaries. He had a particular interest in Hadrian’s Wall. The negatives of the many photographs he took of excavations were donated to Newcastle University after his death. Somehow, he still found time to sing in church choirs, be vice-chairman of the Newcastle branch of the British Legion and restore grandfather clocks.

For his busy retirement, Harry and Beatrice returned to Heaton, to 15 Stratford Grove, where Harry died on 18 December 1950 aged 79.

Walter

Walter Percy Collier was the younger brother of Harry Ord Thompson’s wife, Beatrice. He was born on 20 July 1875 in Elswick, the son of draper, Walter Dudley Collier and his wife, Isabella. When Walter was just 16 years old and an apprentice draper, his father died and his mother left England to become a lady’s companion to a wealthy American, leaving the family in his sister, Beatrice’s care. By 1901, with Beatrice now married to Harry Thompson, Walter was working as a hosier’s assistant in Manchester, where he was living with his younger sister, Flora. Alfred, the youngest member of the family had been with them until, in 1900, he emigrated to New York. Soon afterwards, now in Bootle on Merseyside, Flora married John Samuel Hart with whom Walter went into business as a tailor and draper.

Soon afterwards, however, no doubt influenced by the success of brother-in-law Harry, the two men exchanged tailoring for photography. In 1905, Walter married Bootle girl, Catherine Florence Poynor and, by 1908, it was arranged that the two families (Walter and Catherine by now had two children) should move to Newcastle to join Harry in his business. 

The Collier family circumstances around the time of the move were tragic.  First of all, Catherine’s father became very ill so Walter left her and their two children on Merseyside to take up residence in Newcastle alone, firstly in Sandyford and then at 106 Chillingham Road. Not only did Catherine’s father die but her mother developed a condition which required constant nursing so Catherine was still on Merseyside when she gave birth to the couple’s third child at the home of her brother and his wife on 15 September 1910. Just a few weeks later she, the baby and the older children travelled to Heaton to join Walter but on 20 December, Catherine died of heart failure in the RVI. She is buried in Heaton Cemetery. 

Walter continued to work. On the day of the 1911 census, 2 April, he was at a hotel in Whalton, Northumberland while his sister-in-law, Flora Hart, was at 106 Chillingham Road, Walter’s four room downstairs flat, looking after her and John’s two children and Walter’s three. This situation could only be temporary and it was not long before the Collier children were taken back to Lancashire to be looked after by his wife’s relatives. Walter later conceded that he may have put work before his family.

Soon afterwards, with the professional and financial support of Harry, Walter left Heaton and Harry’s business to become an independent photographer, based in Bellingham, Northumberland. He set up as a general dealer but took photographs of rural Northumberland for sale in his and other village shops and post offices in the county. He may well also have done tailoring and drapery work, especially over the winter, when their were few tourists to buy cards or use his shop. Certainly when he enlisted in the Royal Flying Corps in 1917, he gave his occupation as ‘draper’s assistant (temporary)’.

After war service as an aerial photographer, Walter returned to Bellingham, where his daughter, Edith, also a talented photographer, joined him in the business several years later. Walter died on 7 September 1937 in the RVI, as his wife had done 27 years before. He is buried in Bellingham. His professional legacy is a superb collection of photographic plates which show rural Northumberland between the wars. You can visit a mock-up of Walter’s Bellingham shop and see his photographic archive at the Heritage Centre, Bellingham.

Sadly, postcards of his prints do not bear his name so, like many of those of Harry Ord Thompson and their other brother in law, John Hart, can be hard to identify. But Walter’s beautifully handwritten titles do often offer a clue.

John

John Hart, the youngest of the three photographers, was born in South Otterington, Yorkshire on 19 July 1881, the son of coachman, Samuel Hart and his wife, Annie. John joined the army in 1900 and, in 1902, was posted as a gunner to the Royal Garrison Artillery at Seaforth Barracks in Lancashire. One of his duties was to man the coastal artillery battery at Bootle, which stood at the end of the street where Flora May Collier, Walter’s sister was living at the time (possibly with Walter). John and Flora soon met.

Incidentally, there’s a connection between Heaton and Bootle in that Flora was living in Shakespeare Street in a group of terraces named after poets. (And a little over a mile away in South Bootle, there is now a group of newer roads named after Shakespeare characters – Macbeth, Othello, Beatrice, Benedict and many more.) At the same time, Harry, her soon to be brother-in-law, was living in Bolingbroke Street in Heaton’s ‘Shakespeare Streets’ and he would retire to Stratford Grove, another one.)

John and Flora married later that year and, in 1903, helped by a gift from Harry Thompson, John returned to civilian life. The following year he joined Walter Collier in business, firstly in drapery and tailoring and then in photography. Within a couple of years, the brothers-in-law had gone their separate ways, with Walter, as we have seen, concentrating on scenic photography and John, it seems, on studio and portrait work.

By 1908, however, as we have seen, both brothers-in-law and their families moved north to Newcastle to work first of all with Harry and then in their own businesses. At this time, John and Flora were living at 95 Rothbury Terrace.

Their stay in Heaton was short, however. By 1913, the Hart family had moved to Norfolk, where John continued to work as a photographer. That changed when war broke out. John enlisted with the Royal Field Artillery and served until he was medically discharged in 1917.

He did not find it easy to readjust to civilian life and did not return to photography or stay in Norfolk for long. He relocated to Kent but Flora and their two younger children did not follow him. They returned to Merseyside from where they sailed to the USA, where eventually Flora was reunited with her mother in Florida.

John remarried and had a series of jobs in building and driving. He died aged 69 on 21 November 1950, one of many people who survived the war but whose life was profoundly changed by it.

So, three brother-in-law photographers who were all living and working in our neighbourhood at one point. They all left behind a valuable archive of photographs. One of them in particular, Harry Ord Thompson, spent most of his adult life in or near Heaton and made a huge contribution to Newcastle and Northumberland life in photography and many other fields.

Acknowledgements

Researched and written by Arthur Andrews, Heaton History Group with additional material from Chris Jackson, also Heaton History Group. With thanks to fellow HHG member, Brian Hedley, who drew Arthur’s attention to an article in ‘The Journal’ which mentioned that Walter Collier had lived on Chillingham Road; the staff of Bellingham Heritage Centre who showed Arthur Collier’s photographic archive and the W C Collier exhibition; S F Owen for permission to use his books for reference and illustrations.

Can You Help?

If you know more about any of the photographers featured in this article 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

Sources

‘Photographers Three: three brothers-in-law, one love for Northumberland’ / S F Owen; The Heritage Centre, Bellingham, 2017

‘Postcards from Bellingham’ / S F Owen; The Heritage Centre, Bellingham, 2012

Ancestry, Find My Past and other online sources