Category Archives: Food and Drink

Heaton and Drinkin’: the 20th century onwards

Following our recent article ‘Town with No Cheer’, which examined the reasons for Heaton not having as many public houses in the 1890s as some nearby areas, we now bring the story of Heaton and the licensed trade into more recent times with some surprising continuity of earlier themes and passions.

The growth of Heaton around the turn of the twentieth century saw a marked rise in the number of applications for licences. Many applications to the Brewster sessions involved houses that were about to be built or had been recently constructed. The background context for this was also changing and becoming more of a political battle overlaid on the temperance landscape. This however did not stop a frequent procession of applications to the magistrates which indicates some existence of potential clientele and an associated entrepreneurial spirit.

It is certainly the case that some locations became frequent and continued focuses for applications to the Brewster sessions. For example, on 5 August 1896 the following applications were made with subsequent decisions announced on 1 September.

Tale of Two Turnbulls

Henry Grose Nichol seemed to be hedging his bets in applying for a variety of different licences (just beer and wine, full licence including spirits or merely a beer ‘off’ licence) for premises to be constructed on the corner of Eighth and Second Avenue. According to his solicitor, this endeavour was ‘not for the purpose of catching visitors to Heaton Park but for the purpose of supplying that great and populous district’. It was also observed that only the Chillingham Hotel (previously known as the East End Hotel) and two ‘inconveniently situated beer houses’ were in the vicinity when the population, it was argued, had multiplied four or five times.

Chillingham Hotel, 1966 (for a long time Heaton’s only public house)

300 local residents had voted for a licence to be granted but builder Richard Heslop said that one benefit that newly constructed houses on Balmoral Terrace displayed was the understanding that there were no licensed properties nearby. The application, in all its variety, was refused without any explanation given.

Alexander Turnbull, a Byker Hill brick manufacturer of 69 Rothbury Terrace where he lived with his wife and eight children, applied for a beerhouse licence for his proposed property, the Falmouth Hotel, which was to be constructed at the corner of Heaton Road and King John Street (currently the Butterfly Cabinet). We have already written about these premises at 200 Heaton Road and about Turnbull himself, who went on to become chairman of Newcastle United, in Rothbury Terrace: the Magpies’ nest .

It was pointed out at the Brewster sessions that Alexander and William Turnbull, who had set up firstly his Assembly Rooms and then the East End Hotel, were unrelated despite possessing the same surname. 514 out of the 900 ratepayers who had been canvassed supported the application with only 50 opposed to it. Mr Potter of Heaton Hall as well as a local builder, John Wilson, spoke in favour. Opposition was voiced by Rev Benjamin Gawthorp of Heaton Baptist church on behalf of his congregation. Mr Veitch of 40 Rothbury Terrace objected, arguing that the development would deliver ‘moral injury to the district and depreciate the value of his property’. This application was also refused after some banter about people being unwilling to indulge in a short perambulation for a drink but happy to walk to Gosforth to cross the ‘three mile limit’ which marked the extent of the City of Newcastle jurisdiction.

Although the Bench did refuse both applications, it went to the extent of providing a written response stating that the future need of Heaton and its surrounding areas for more facilities was probable but that only the surrendering of some licences within more ‘congested areas’ would enable this to take place. This decision was reported in the ‘Newcastle Weekly Chronicle’ of 5 September 1896.

Maria Allon, a widow, of Holly Avenue in Jesmond applied for a six day ‘off’ licence to sell beer from 96 Falmouth Road, the property of Samuel Kirk, a slate merchant of Ridley Villas on New Bridge Street. The Bench declared that they would look favourably in a week’s time if a signed six year lease agreement between the owner and tenant could be produced. It is interesting to note that the phenomenon of the ‘corner shop’ was alive and well in this time period. Mary Alice Bell wished to be allowed to sell beer from her shop at the junction of Mundella Terrace and Second Avenue. Alice Ward wanted the same for her property at the corner of Second Avenue and King John Street. John Wilson asked for a beer ‘off’ licence for a rival concern where Second Avenue meets King John Terrace. The rapid growth of Heaton was leading to an increase in potential demand and a concomitant entrepreneurial desire to satisfy it. All these applications were refused.

Many corner shops like this one on the corner of Heaton Park Road and Bolingbroke St applied for licences

Continued Opposition

The number of churches along Heaton Road and the proximity of a public park continued to exert an influence on public opinion. It is no surprise to find the Heaton Anti-Licensing Council state in 1897 that ‘with fairy lights the public house would tempt those passing by to turn aside from the path of rectitude’ and the fear that with more licensed premises ‘Heaton Road would become a bear garden’.

Just before the turn of the century on 2 Sept 1899 the following applications were made and, in most cases, refused. Fred Forster applied for a full licence for premises about to be constructed between 94 – 98 Falmouth Road and 61 – 63 Heaton Road which has seen a number of later commercial enterprises based there over the years. Mary Laws applied for an ‘off’ licence for the house at the corner of Heaton Road and Roxburgh place. John Wilson, the builder, applied for a full licence for his property, the Falmouth Hotel, at 200 Heaton Rd and 1 and 3 King John St. This was refused as was a subsequent application for a beer and wine licence for the Falmouth Hotel.

Falmouth Hotel, Heaton Road, which opened eventually

‘Off’ licence applications were continuing to be presented with Thomas Pickering asking for permission to sell beer from a shop on the corner of Heaton Rd and Guildford Place. William Pickering ran the Grace Inn on Shields Road. Cornelius Whillance of 32 Mowbray St (with Thomas Barker the Temperance missionary being a near neighbour at 36) was more fortunate in being granted a wine ‘off’ licence for 2 Heaton Park Rd. The magistrates may have been more positive due to Cornelius’ recent decorated service in the merchant navy.

Model Pubs

A more novel incursion into the nature of licensed premises marked the beginning of the twentieth century. Much of the opposition to licensed premises within residential areas was centred around the notion that the pursuit of profit would encourage the promotion of sales above any other considerations including health and wellbeing. To accomplish a more balanced and moderate context for drinking, on 3 June 1901 the Northumberland Public House Trust Company was established with a capital of £100,000 initially to take over the Grey Arms at Broomhill Colliery near Amble. The Trust aimed to ‘promote temperance by eliminating as far as possible the element of private profit from the retail sale of intoxicating liquors’. Any profits were to be administered for public benefit though the manager would be able to earn a personal commission on food and non-alcoholic drinks. Subscribers included Earl Grey, Lords Howick and Lesbury, as well as Andrew Noble of Jesmond Dene House, Charles William Mitchell of Jesmond Towers and William Henry Watson-Armstrong of Cragside.

In August of that year, Earl Grey published a statement declaring that the aim of the Public House Trust Company was to establish Trusts across the country before the forthcoming Brewster sessions began so that any new licences would be given to the local trust rather than to individuals. It was stated that this was ‘a national movement to manage new licences in the interests of the community’. This enterprise was based upon the People’s Refreshment House Association Limited formed by Francis Jayne, the Bishop of Chester in 1896.

Although the Trust movement gathered some momentum, with Durham and North Yorkshire Trusts being established before the end of the year, in reality they struggled to grow as rivals to the established trade. There was some increase in their chains of ‘model’ public houses — the Durham and North Yorkshire Trust had fourteen properties by 1909 — but profitability and further expansion seemed hard to achieve. The political climate at the time was also changing with a new emphasis seeking to limit the profitability of the licensed trade so as to discourage the more pernicious effects and its encouragement by the brewers and licensees. The desire for a greater link between licensed premises and the people that use them shares elements with David Cameron’s Big Society rhetoric as well as the current desire for more community pubs within the economic context of falling profitability, declining numbers and staff shortages.

Temperance

On 3 Sept 1901, the Brewster sessions evidenced the same arguments and often very similar properties and applicants! These include requests to extend the beershop licence at 98 Falmouth Road to encompass its neighbours at 94 and 98 as well as 61 – 63 Heaton Road. Mr Barker, the temperance missionary, had conducted a ‘plebiscite’ which resulted in 758 against and only 247 in favour. The application was refused though the continued canvassing of opinion in a somewhat unsystematic fashion meant that public opinion was often quoted without being arrived at in any impartial or balanced manner.

On 3 Feb 1903, a public meeting was held in the Presbyterian Hall on Heaton Road to protest about new licences in Heaton. T Cruddas and A Pascoe spoke against any new licences as this would increase drinking, criminal acts and, consequently, the rates. Guy Hayler, a nationally known career temperance campaigner who came to Newcastle to lead the movement here and who was, at this time, secretary of the North of England Temperance Society and living at 63 Rothbury Terrace, wished to add an amendment ‘to close the East End Hotel in Chillingham Road, and restore Heaton to the position it once held.’ (Laughter in the courtroom). Mr Hayler said that drunkenness in Newcastle was on the increase compared to other places and that Northumberland was ‘one of the blackest’

Subsequent applications later that year included a repeated attempt by the Northumberland Public House Trust Company to run premises about to be constructed at the corner of Chillingham Road and Trewhitt road on land belonging to William Armstrong Watson-Armstrong. This again serves to illustrate that the relationship between the landowners and licensing laws was more complex and circumspect than often assumed. Despite the reputable nature of those involved in this application the magistrates refused it on the grounds of lack of need as demonstrated by the small number of applications.

Restaurant licences

In 1891, Mary Laws and William, her husband, were living at 8 Holmside Place. After William’s death in 1897, Mary moved to Farne House on Stannington Avenue and, in 1903, made a second application for a restaurant licence for the Victoria Hotel, on the corner of Heaton Road and Roxburgh Place. The first unsuccessful application in 1901 for a licensed restaurant to be instituted in what was otherwise a temperance hotel was met with the expected gibe from the opposing solicitor, Mr Copeland. ‘Would it mean that anyone buying a half penny biscuit could get a drink?’ Although this application was refused, the request for a billiards licence was granted. Ward’s Directory of 1902 described the premises as ‘Victoria Commercial Hotel, superior accommodation for commercials and professionals; livery stables; moderate tariff’.

The determination to gain licensed status for hotel establishments was however a continued feature of this period. Two years later Thomas Blackett, wine and spirit merchant with a number of properties across the east end, applied for full licence for the ‘Falmouth Hotel’ from its current status relating to wines, spirits and liqueurs. Application had been made before and the Bench knew the house. This was opposed on behalf of local property owners and the application was refused.

Victoria Hotel

In the same year the manager of the Guildhall Restaurant, Spero Gosma, applied for a full licence for the Victoria Hotel, the property of Mrs Mary Laws. It was argued that the establishment had continued for eight years without a licence as a first-class hotel but that the management of Mr Gosma was much needed in the densely populated district which now totalled around 16,000 people. There had been no new licence for 13 years and to support the application a petition was presented of 656 residents and visitors as well as 45 property owners. Mr Dodds opposed on behalf of Co-operative Society, Presbyterian and Baptist churches with a supporting claim that a ‘plebiscite’ the previous year had indicated 3,305 individuals voting against any new licences. A meeting held the previous Sunday 5 February of around 800 people had been unanimous in their opposition. The application was then refused.

The Victoria Hotel was then the scene of a depressingly familiar story of crime and punishment. On 10 May 1906 John Henry Soppitt 25, (whose aliases included John Stobbart, Edward Henry Stoppitt, John Kennedy, and John Blake) plead guilty to stealing a number of joiners’ tools valued at £1 10 shillings and 6 pence, the property of John Ogle Haddon and others, from the Victoria Hotel. It was stated that the accused had obtained money by deceit especially from children who had been sent on errands. One example was that the accused had taken 3 shillings and 7 pence from a boy whilst giving him a jar of whisky and saying ‘Fly home, your mother is bad’. The accused admitted his guilt and ‘promised to be a better man’. Sergeant Dale noted that the accused had been before the magistrates 13 times across the North East. In June 1904 he had been sentenced to 9 months with hard labour at Durham for stealing a number of items and some money. Alderman Ritson sentenced the accused to 18 months with hard labour declaring that he was a ‘cowardly thief to take things from little children’. The sad story of an individual, despite their relative youth, being a habitual criminal is not unfamiliar to any age or period.

Corner House

In February 1934 James Deuchar applied for a provisional publican’s licence for a hotel on the corner of Heaton Road and Stephenson Road (before the building of the Coast Road). Although this was some years on from our earlier excursions into the Brewster sessions it is interesting that the proposal caused ‘a storm of controversy’ as reported in the ‘Evening Chronicle’ of 6 Feb 1934. The Chief Constable of Newcastle, F J Crawley, gave a survey of recent changes. He pointed out that prosecutions for drunkenness had increased from 693 in 1932 to 807 in 1933 and that this was reflected in both male and female figures. 21 people had been arrested for being under the influence of drink or drugs whilst in charge of a mechanically propelled vehicle. It is interesting to note that the newspaper headlines contained the line ‘Trade revival the cause’ though the article makes scant reference to this and brackets it with the availability of a higher gravity beer.

Magistrates were told that the plan was to ‘erect a hotel in the modern style with Georgian and Dutch touches…’ On resubmission in 1935, proceedings were dominated by barristers and clergymen. 6 February 1935 saw a provisional granting of the licence before confirmation on 26 March which led to a flurry of involvement and organisation.

Opposition was put forward by a lawyer representing 52 nearby residents who asked the magistrates to ‘visualise the possible effect on the minds of school children in the neighbourhood’. Rev Albert Brockbank of Bainbridge Memorial Methodist Church and the Dene Ward branch of the Citizens League vowed to continue the fight ‘trying to prevent people from an evil, just as you would try to prevent your children getting diphtheria’.

The churches were by no means united, however. A counter argument was put by Rev Verney Lovett Johnstone, vicar of St Gabriel’s, who complained that when he entertained friends for dinner, he had to go as far as the Chillingham Hotel to buy beer and that people did not realise how far the Cradlewell was. ‘My congregation certainly desire it. This is a free country and they want it on the grounds of the liberty of the subject’.

He continued by declaring that the opposition was confined to a dozen property owners and ‘some religious sects’. Unsurprisingly Rev Johnstone’s comments brought a flurry of letters into the Evening Chronicle, including from ‘Disgusted’ of West Jesmond. The sessions on 26 March were very well attended and attracted much notice in the local press. On his re appearance Rev Johnstone declared that the ‘quiet’ supper as reported previously was actually a ‘choir supper’ and that if he wanted a drink, he did not see why he should not have one. He also said that he had offered to meet his fellow clergymen but that they were not willing as ‘their minds were presumably made up.’ Within a few months Reverend Johnstone and his family had left Heaton for a new life in Australia.

The opposing view, given by the solicitor J Harvey Robson, stated that despite the growth in population and the nearby new estates there was no need for such premises in the modern world. ‘The time has gone by when the family puts on its hat and goes to the local public house for the evening. They now go to all forms of more modern entertainment.’ There was also the inevitable discussion of the distances needed to be traversed to purchase alcoholic beverages. Support given by a prominent local abstainer who lived nearby as well as a petition signed by 3000 voters may have helped to sway the magistrates who confirmed the granting of the licence despite the continued opposition of some clergymen who held protests in their churches on 7 April.

Corner House interior prior to opening, 1936

Permission was granted and the Corner House Hotel opened in 1936. The original seating for 263 was increased the same year to 283. It was observed that this was a ‘striking commentary on those criticisms offered by people saying there was no demand for licensed premises ……customers had to be served in an undesirable state of crowdedness’ .

Lochside

Although it may be a little outside our boundaries, in 1954 the Lochside opened via a transfer of licence by James Deuchar.

The name is a tribute to the sea coast steamers (Lochside and Lochside II) which brought beer from Deuchar’s Montrose brewery to Tyneside. This was still the case when the pub opened. There is a possibly apocryphal tale that the men who worked the river, ferry boat and tugboat men as well as the river pilots, would touch their caps when the Lochside was sighted in the Tyne on its return journey. This was augmented by the associated belief that the beer itself tasted better if it had suffered stormy weather on its 16-hour voyage down the coast.

Northumberland Hussar

Another addition to the local hostelries was added in 1955 with the Northumberland Hussar, which was a transfer of licence from the Gosforth Arms in Shieldfield. It was heralded as ‘the latest example on Tyneside of a new-style inn specially designed to offer the traditional atmosphere of the English hostelry with the requirements of present-day customers’.

Flamingo Club

Many older Heaton History Group members have spoken about the Flamingo Club at 130 Heaton Road. Its Grand Opening Night was on 11 October 1963. Advertised attractions included wining and dining as well as roulette, dancing and an all-star cabaret. As had been the case with other premises, the Flamingo was a members club where non-members would require signing in as guests and would need to pay a cover charge. According to the ‘Journal’, the club was founded by the owners of a garage on Back Heaton Road. It is interesting looking at the range of entertainments and attractions on offer. The club advertised its late licence until 2am as well as its panoply of exotic dancers including tassel, belly and striptease.

28 January 1972 saw the demise of the club when two police officers in plain clothes were served drinks without being signed in as guests. Their visits over four evenings also led to evidence of after-hours drinking. The manager, owner and waiter were all arrested and given a three-month suspended sentence, £200 fine and conditional discharge respectively. The Flamingo Club did not reopen its doors as a new buyer could not be found.

Flight

And nothing really changes. This article was on the brink of publication when it was reported in the ‘Evening Chronicle’ (1 March) that the owners of ‘the stylish Flight Bar’ on Heaton Road ‘were forced to appear before councillors on Tuesday in a dispute over the drinking establishment’s licence’. The owners had asked to extend the premises’ licensing hours and change its operating style so that it was no longer required to have a ‘substantial’ food menu.

Echoing arguments of the past, one local resident told the committee that the establishment’s substantial food offer comprised ‘pork pies, bowls of olives and chocolate brownies’. He pointed out that the Chillingham and Corner House were at Heaton’s extremities and told councillors ‘If you were to approve this, you could fundamentally change the fabric of Heaton and, I think, potentially create another Osborne Road’. In addition, the council’s planning department complained the owners had not obtained the required planning permission and the case was under investigation. In response, the owners said that the bar was ‘a high-end location, specialising in quality cocktails, beers and wines’ and that that there had been no complaints. They pledged that Flight would not be the kind of ‘vertical drinking’ venue seen in busy parts of Jesmond or the city centre’.

So, at a time when many licensed premises earn as much (perhaps most) of their income from food and non alcoholic drinks, suggesting that the ambitions of at least the more moderate Temperance campaigners may have been achieved, the debate continues.

At the same time, in Heaton and its environs, the number of micro pubs, ‘pop ups’ and mixed-use ventures seems to be evidence of an alternative and entrepreneurial character. Those of us who are inhabitants of Heaton are fortunate to live within such a lively and diverse neighbourhood. The slogan may not have yet taken off as it has in Portland, Oregon but perhaps this culture does go some way towards ‘Keeping Heaton Weird’.

Acknowledgements

Researched and written by Karl Cain of Heaton History Group.

Can you help?

If you know any more about the subject of 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

Sources

Ancestry

British Newspaper Archive

Drunkenness in turn of the century Newcastle / B Bennison; Local Population Studies (52), 1994

From Byker to Heaton – the origins and history of Heaton Methodist Church / N F Moore and W K Robinson; 2000

From Lochside to Tyneside – Montrose Port Authority

Heaton from farms to foundries / A Morgan, Newcastle City Libraries, 2012

Heavy Nights A history of Newcastle’s Public Houses Vol 2 The North and East / B Bennison; Newcastle City Libraries, 1997

Lodge Temperance 2557: Guy Hayler

Methodism in Newcastle upon Tyne 1742 – 2010 / G Fisher and Rev T Hurst; North East Methodist History Society, 2010

Other online sources

Christmas Fayre from Heaton Hall

Home Sweet Home

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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.

Home

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

‘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.

Wartime

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.

Can you help?

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

Acknowledgements

Thank you to Veronica for her memories and photographs; additional research by Chris Jackson

Sources include:

‘North East Life’, January 2010. Article by Jackie Wilkin, Albert Scholick Wilkin’s great niece.

Joseph Fagg Story – Food Prices and Impact on Wages

S in Ringtons, Tea in Heaton

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The imposing white brick Ringtons building on Algernon Road bears the date ‘1924’, indicating that the famous tea company has Heaton connections going back at least 90 years.

Simon Smith, son of Sam, and staff outside Algernon Road HQ, 1932

Ringtons staff outside the company’s Algernon Road HQ, 1932

In fact the story starts much earlier than that.

Samuel Smith was born on 22 June 1872 in Leeds and christened on 22 December of that year along with his older brother, George. His parents were both local. William, his father, earned his living as a fettler, someone who cleaned the machinery in a woollen mill.

According to Sam’s great granddaughter, Fiona Harrison, young Sam started work, aged eight, as a ‘butcher’s boy’ on Friday nights and Saturdays. Aged ten, he joined the staff of one of the country’s biggest tea-dealers, as a ‘half-timer’. He gradually worked his way up and was sent to various of the firm’s offices across Yorkshire to learn all aspects of the business.

By the time he married Ada Emmerson, daughter of a Leeds milk dealer, at the age of 25, he was a travelling salesman for the company and was based in Sheffield. The couple’s two oldest children, John and Douglas, were born in Sheffield but the next two, Elizabeth and Vera, started life in Bradford and by time the youngest, Samuel and Harriet, came along, the family were back in Leeds but preparing for a new life in Newcastle.

We are extremely lucky in that, not only did Sam keep letters, diaries, notes, photographs and mementos, but that his family have treasured them and Fiona has painstakingly combed through the family archive to help us piece together the story of the birth of Ringtons and its relevance to our ‘Heaton’s Avenues in Wartime’ Heritage Lottery Fund project.

The records show that Sam had become increasingly disillusioned with the firm he worked for in Leeds. He felt its staff weren’t treated well and he believed that he could both run a successful company and live true to his values. His friend and colleague, Irishman William ‘Will’ Titterington, was of the same mind and they decided to set up in business together under the name of ‘Ringtons’, which combined the last part of Will’s surname with the first letter of Sam’s.

Sam Smith, founder of Ringtons

Tea to Newcastle

As was common at the time, there was a clause in their contracts stipulating that if they left their current employer, they couldn’t set up within 50 miles of its Leeds headquarters. The two men weighed up their options and were initially tempted by Scarborough, but in the end they couldn’t ignore the excellent opportunities offered by industrial Tyneside, where, although there were already a number of tea dealers including Brooke Bond and Pumphrey’s, none of them delivered door to door, which Sam and Will planned to make their unique selling point, one which has stood the company in good stead right up to the present day.

Fiona has found a letter from William Titterington to Sam Smith, dated 17 July 1907, and written from 2 Fourth Avenue, Heaton, where William is lodging in what is clearly a tiny room that the two men planned to share:

‘I have arrived at the combined room… This bed will only hold me, and I am afraid by the look of it, my feet will be hanging over the foot of it.’

On the other hand:

‘I am on the spot to assist at the shop and see that the workmen are getting on with the cleaning. This house is at the other end of the same terrace as the shop.’

Extract from letter from Will Titterington, Fourth Avenue, Heaton to Sam Smith 1917

So it was in Heaton’s Avenues in 1907 that Ringtons was born. By 1908, the partners had two vans and four assistants and they were blending twice as much tea as a year earlier.

The first mention of the firm in the trade directories is in 1909-10 (which was probably surveyed in 1907-8). Ringtons was based at number 23 Third Avenue with Sam Smith, manager, living at 25. By 1911, the Smiths had moved to 129 Warton Terrace. Will Titterington and his wife Mary were living at 109 Tynemouth Road with their sons, William jnr and Francis, aged six and four.

By 1910 Sam Smith had bought Will Titterington’s share of the company and the firm itself had moved to more spacious premises on an abandoned rifle range at 392 Shields Road (where the Byker retail park is now).

Ringtons, Shields Rd c1912 with extension to the 1910 building in the first picture

Here, their neighbours included a coach builder, cart proprietor, horse keeper and horse shoer, all vital to the Ringtons’ enterprise. Sam had worked hard to make the business a success and it had gone from strength to strength. By this time, there were 11 vans and 11 assistants.

Struggle for survival

But then World War One broke out. It changed everything, as Sam recalled later:

‘Of my staff of 17, some of whom were married, 15 were called to the colours and I promised to do certain things for them so their families should not suffer too much while they were fighting. Of course, I agreed to keep their jobs open for them.’

What Sam hadn’t reckoned with were the severe food shortages and the resulting rationing and restrictions. There was a sugar shortage so people were only allowed to buy it where they bought their tea. Ringtons didn’t sell sugar and couldn’t get hold of it, so business plummeted.

To compensate, the firm started to sell any foodstuff it could lay its hands on: tinned and evaporated milk, dried eggs, canned meat and fish, saccharine, pickles etc. However, often as soon as Sam had bought a consignment, the price of the commodity would be fixed by government at less than he’d paid for it.

‘ Somehow I managed to keep my promises to my soldier staff’ remembered Sam. ‘And somehow managed to relieve a little the distress of the widows of the three who never came back. But it was a fight to be able to pay my own rent and the wolf came nearer and nearer my door’.

At the end of the war, the 12 surviving members of staff returned, ‘three of them wearing the Military Medal’ and, as promised, Sam took them back although the outlook for the company seemed bleak. But gradually, once people and retailers were free to buy and sell what and where they liked, customers returned.

When the ex-servicemen received their gratuities, they clubbed together to buy Sam a watch, which from then on he always wore. It was inscribed: ‘Presented to Mr Samuel Smith, as a mark of gratitude and esteem, from the staff of Ringtons Ltd, on their return from military service. December 1920′

Loyal servant

One of the returning servicemen was Robert Ernest Sturdy, who, in 1911 was living with his wife, Minnie, and their three year old son, Norman Leslie at 57 Spencer Street, Heaton. Robert described himself as a ‘superintendent, tea trade’ . By 1916, the couple had two more very young children, May and Ernest. Robert volunteered to join the army, aged 32, in December 1915, just before conscription was introduced early in 1916. He described himself as a ‘manager (drivers)’ .

On enlistment it was noted that Robert’s heart ‘seemed weak’. His letter of enlistment stated that he was invited to join the Army Service Corps(Mechanical Transport), ‘provided he has not attained the age of 46 and is found medically fit for Service‘ Despite his heart condition, Ernest was accepted and he served on the home front for just over a month before being sent to France in October 1916.

Throughout 1918, he was in and out of military hospitals with conditions variously described as ‘mild debility’, ‘TB‘ and ‘Bronchial catarrh’ before being transferred back to the UK in October 1919, at which time he signed a disclaimer to the effect that he wasn’t suffering from any disability which was due to military service.

Robert returned to Ringtons where, as Sam Smith had promised, his old job was waiting for him. He was still there in the position of sales manager in 1934 by which time he was 50 years old. On completion of 25 years service, he was presented with tea and coffee services. Robert died in 1956, aged 73. By this time his son, Norman, was himself described as a tea dealer, presumably (though we can’t be sure) also with Ringtons. Robert’s younger son, Ernest ,was sadly ‘lost at sea’ during WW2.

The Somme

In total there were 14 people in Heaton in 1911 whose occupation, as recorded in the census, included the word ‘tea’. One was Sam Smith, of course, by now living at 129 Warton Terrace, with Ada and their six children. We can’t be sure which of the others worked at Ringtons, as employer names aren’t usually recorded, but Robert Clapperton Mair, aged 15, who lived with his parents, two brothers and a sister, at 13 Charles Street, described himself as a ‘tea merchant’s assistant’. He joined the 10th battalion Northumberland Fusiliers and was posted to France. Robert was one of those who didn’t return, having been killed in action on the Somme on 25 September 1916, aged 20. His name is recorded on the Thiepval Memorial and also on that of Heaton United Methodist Church on Heaton Road.

Bravery award

Bothers Patrick and Thomas Sullivan were both ‘van salesmen (tea)‘. The family had moved from Dundee while the boys and their sister, Lizzie, were young and the family lived at 16 Fourth Avenue, just a few doors down from Will Titterington’s lodgings in 1907. When war broke out their father, Patrick, a tram conductor, was active in recruiting volunteers for the ‘Pals‘ regiments and we know that Tom enlisted very early on, in September 1914, at the age of 22.

Two years later, by now a sergeant, he was awarded the Military Medal and a Card of Honour for conspicuous bravery and devotion to duty. A full report of his actions appeared in the Newcastle Journal, reproduced below. (Despite what it says in the article, the family appears to have lived on Fourth Avenue, rather than Sixth, throughout the war).

Newcastle Journal 18 November 1916

So Tom was one of the three recipients of the Military Medal who returned to Ringtons after 1918 and was remembered by Sam Smith almost twenty years later. This was confirmed for us by Tom’s great great niece, Helen Wells, who told us:

‘My mam remembers talk of Uncle Tommy. We knew he’d been awarded the Military Medal but we didn’t know why. Tommy worked for Ringtons tea. He moved to Thornaby near Stockton to work for Ringtons there. He died in the 1940s and had no children. Patrick was exempt from military service because he was colour-blind’.

Post-war

A hundred years later, the personal stories give us a tiny insight into the suffering of Heaton and its people during World War One. But within just a few years, the firm, its staff and customers showed their resilience. Ringtons’ business picked up to such an extent that in 1924 a magnificent, modern building was commissioned on Algernon Road.

Ringtons, Algernon Road c1930

Work began in 1926 and it was finished in 1928. It still stands, of course, and is much loved, although the firm has since moved again. Not far though. Ringtons’, first managed from a cramped single bedroom on Fourth Avenue, is still very much associated with Heaton. Its headquarters remain on Algernon Road, next door to its impressive 1920s HQ.

Heaton Avenues in Wartime

This article was researched and written by Chris Jackson, with considerable help from Fiona Harrison, for Heaton History Group’s ‘Heaton Avenues in Wartime’ project, which has been funded by Heritage Lottery Fund. An exhibition, ‘’Tea in Heaton’, will be on display at the Chillingham pub from October to December 2015.

Find out more

This article and the exhibition at the Chilli concentrates on the early days in the Avenues and the impact of World War One but it’s just one chapter of the Ringtons’ story. To find out more, pay a visit to Ringtons’ museum in their Algernon Road headquarters and look out for a talk by Fiona in our 2016-17 programme.

Can you help?

if you have worked at Ringtons, know more about any of the people mentioned in the article and/or have memories or photos to share, please either leave a comment on this website (by clicking on the link immediately below this article’s title) or email chris.jackson@heatonhistorygroup.org