Category Archives: Sport

Heaton United 1909-10: the players’ stories

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When this rather battered photograph of Heaton United’s 1909-10 squad was taken Newcastle United were the League Champions (and had been in three of the previous five seasons) and were about to win the FA Cup for the first time in their history. You can understand why these Heaton young men would have chosen what appear to be black and white stripes for their own kit.

The photo was found by Jennie McGregor in the Norfolk antique shop where she works. It landed on the Heaton History Group doormat the day that the takeover of Newcastle United by a Saudi Arabian government led consortium was announced and Newcastle fans began to dream of the sort of success the club had enjoyed over a century earlier under the captaincy of Heaton’s Colin Veitch, who would have been a familiar figure to many of the players as he walked about their neighbourhood. Perhaps he sometimes paused to watch Heaton United play. Is the team posing for the photographer in Heaton Park just a stone’s throw from Veitch’s Stratford Villas home ? The fence looks very like that which borders Jesmond Vale Lane now.

The fortunate discovery led us to wonder about the lives of the young men in the picture and how different they were to ours today, let alone to the highly paid global superstars the media were now linking with the Magpies. You could be forgiven for assuming that most of those photographed were Geordies born and bred, that they mainly worked with their hands and that many would have gone to war a few years later, some never to return.

Luckily someone has neatly written the players’ names on the bottom of the photograph, so we could have a go at testing out these theories. There’s some educated guesswork involved as we don’t know anything apart from surnames and initials but, based on the assumption that they would have lived in or around Heaton, this is who we think they might be.

Back row, left to right:

B. HOIT Hoit isn’t a common name in the north east and there’s only one person in the 1911 census who fits the bill: Albert (probably known to his football pals as Bert) James Julian, who in 1911 lived with his father, also called Albert, who worked as an electrical overseer for the admiralty, his mother, Jessie and three siblings at 22 Tenth Avenue. Young Albert was born on 17 July 1891 and so would have been 18 years old when the photo was taken. He was an apprentice electrical fitter at a firm of electrical engineers.

The family weren’t local. They all came from Portsmouth.  Bert was born on Portsea Island, very close to the historic dockyards. They hadn’t been in Newcastle long: even Bert’s youngest brother was Portsmouth-born. And we know that Bert returned to his home town eventually and, in 1938, married a local woman, Constance Day. He died in 1949, aged 58.

R STOBIE We reckon this has to be Henry Robert Stobie.  He was just a few months older than Bert, having been born in Newcastle on 24 April 1891. In 1911, he was living with his widowed mother Margaret and two younger brothers at 89 Seventh Avenue and working as a plumber. By 1924, he had married and was living with his wife at 26 Amble Grove, Sandyford. Eleven years later, at the start of the second world war, the couple were still at the same address and Henry was still a plumber.  When he died, aged 71, in 1963, they were living at 70 Guelder Road, High Heaton.

A HUXHAM Arthur Reeby Huxham was also 18 and, like Bert Hoit, a southerner with a father who worked for the admiralty. He was born in Stonehouse, Devon and had moved to Newcastle with his parents, Samuel and Selina, older brother, Henry, and younger sister, Mabel. His father was described as an ‘admiralty overseer (blacksmith)’.  In 1911, the family was living at 28 Cheltenham Terrace. Arthur was an insurance agent. During the war, he bowled for Heaton Victoria but he died in 1926, aged only 34 years old.

A TURNER Unlike Bert Hoit and Arthur Huxham, Arthur William Turner was born in Newcastle but he wasn’t destined to stay here. Like the other Heaton United players mentioned so far, he was eighteen years old when the photo was taken, having been born on 10 March 1891. His father was from Yorkshire and his mother from Gateshead. In 1911, Arthur was an engineer’s apprentice and living with his parents, at 39 Cardigan Terrace.

Arthur married Cicie, an Essex girl, and in 1926 they had a young child, Audrey, who, was born in Tongshan, Hebei, China, where documents show that the family had been living. This may seem surprising but Cicie’s father, Henry Franklin, was a railway worker who, in 1899, had travelled to China, where he worked as a brake inspector and later, consultant, for the Imperial Railway of North China.  British managers and workers played a major role in the building of this railway, although they endured some turbulent times including the Boxer Rebellion, just as Henry joined, and the overthrow of the Qing Dynasty in 1911.

Cicie herself was born in England in 1901 but soon travelled with her mother to join her father in Tongshan. Both her younger brother, Philip, in 1903 and sister, Winifred, in 1908, were born in China. We can assume, therefore, that Arthur was helped find a job on the railway by his father in law. He certainly described himself at this time as a ‘railway engineer’. We don’t know precisely how long Arthur and Cicie spent in China but in 1927 they travelled to Canada, first of all as tourists, and then later that same year with the stated intention of emigrating. 

Sometime before 1939, however, the family had returned to England. Arthur became the proprietor of a filling station in Clacton on Sea. They were still in Clacton when Cicie died, aged 47, in 1948. Arthur outlived her but we haven’t yet found out any more about his later years.

T RODGER Thomas Rodger came from good footballing pedigree.

His father was one of many Scots who came south to play for East End United and Newcastle United. Thomas Rodger senior, a left back, made his debut against Liverpool on 25 November 1893 and played 24 games for the Magpies before concentrating on his career working as a print compositor for the ‘Journal’, where he was to stay for over 40 years.

Thomas’s mother, Martha, was born in Kamptee, India while her father was serving in the army. By 1911,  the veteran was living with his daughter’s family at 20 Edwin Street, Heaton.

Young Thomas was born in Perth, his father’s home town. He was the eldest of ten children, eight of whom were still alive in 1911. He was employed as an accountant’s clerk and would have been 17 when the team photo was taken. He married Olive M Hart in 1919. At this time, he was living at 71 Malcolm Street.

Thomas went on to have a successful career as an accountant, eventually running his own firm on Ellison Place. By 1939, he, Olive and son, Glen, were living in Monkseaton, where Thomas died in 1958, aged c 66. Glen followed his father into accountancy and the practice he established is still going strong, based at Cragside House on Heaton Road. 

P WHITE

This could be Peter White, eldest son of George, a joiner, and his wife, Margaret, who in 1911, was living with parents and his younger siblings, Jane and Joseph, at 83 Seventh Avenue and employed as a shipyard clerk.  The family had moved from North Northumberland sometime between about 1897 and 1901. Peter was born in Amble in c1894 and so would have been about 16 in the photograph.  But we haven’t been able to find out any more about him.

Middle row, left to right:

D SMART

There was a 16 year old Donald Smart living at 27 Coquet Terrace  in 1911,  with his mother, Amy Lavinia and his step-father, James Gray, a furniture salesman from Killochan, Ayrshire and two older sisters, Norah and Carmen. Donald was, at this time, an apprentice wholesale draper.

Donald and both of the sisters still at home had been born in ‘San Domingo in the West Indies’, which we now know as the Dominican Republic. Amy, his mother, who was born in Birmingham, had married John Smart in Derby in 1886. On their marriage certificate, John described himself simply as a ‘traveller’. We don’t know what took the couple to the Caribbean but it may have been the sugar industry.

By 1901, John had died and Amy and her five children had returned to England, to Moseley in Worcestershire. Amy was described as ‘living on her own means’. A major source of income appears to have been her lodgers. On census night, there were three boarders, one of whom was James Gray, soon to become her second husband.

In World War One, Donald served firstly a private then a sergeant with the Royal Fusiliers, which was known as the City of London or Stockbrokers’ regiment, as it recruited mainly from city workers. We don’t know whether Donald had moved to London, only that he died of wounds on 11 March 1917, aged 22, in Southampton War Hospital. He left his worldly goods amounting to £14 to be divided equally between his mother, two sisters and his brother, Herbert.

A GAULD

This name is difficult to make out but we think it must be that of Alexander Gauld. Alex was born in Gateshead on 6 March 1892 so would have been 17 years old when the photograph was taken.

By 1901, he was living at 12 Balmoral Terrace his mother, Elizabeth, and father, also called Alexander, who was a travelling salesman for a firm of stationers and a talented amateur artist, his older brother, John, and his aunt.

By 1911, with the family still at the same address,  Alexander Junior was employed as a clerk. His older brother, John Richardson Gauld, was now studying at the Royal College of Art in London and he went on to attend the London County School of Lithography. He went on to teach, served as President of the Manchester Academy of Fine Arts and exhibited widely. One of his watercolour landscapes is in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum and there are portraits by him in the Laing, Bolton Museum and Art Gallery and elsewhere.

Unlike his brother, Alexander stayed at home. In 1939, he was still living with his now widowed mother in the same house on Balmoral Terrace. His occupation was now given as a ‘Solicitor’s Managing Clerk.’

When he died in 1966, aged 73, he was, somewhat confusingly, living at 7 Balmoral Avenue in South Gosforth. 

R TROTTER 

This seems to be Richard Trotter, who in 1911, was living with his widowed mother, Jane, and two younger sisters at 12 Addycombe Terrace. He was working as an engineer’s apprentice at ‘Parsons Turbine.’

Richard was born in Bedlington on 11 April 1891. His father, James, a Scot, was a ‘Physician and Surgeon’ who came from  a long line of doctors.  ‘Burke’s Family Records’ traces the medical lineage back to Dr Robert Trotter of Edinburgh, who was one of the founders of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh and its second president in 1689. Another notable ancestor was Robert Trotter (1736-1818), an associate of Robert Burns who, like the poet, planned to emigrate to the West Indies but ‘missed his ship’. Robert’s successful treatment of his patients in Galloway made him famous far beyond the area and he treated patients from all over Scotland.

James and Jane had 14 children, 12 of whom survived beyond infancy.  The two oldest boys trained as doctors, as family tradition suggested they would, but Richard was only 8 years old when his father died. The bereaved family returned to Scotland for a while before Jane and the three youngest children came to Heaton, where Richard completed an apprenticeship at Parsons. 

In 1912, however, Richard was on board SS Waipara when it set sail from London to Brisbane, one of many British people who went to Australia under government assisted immigration schemes. He found work in the Australian government’s railway workshops. On 17 April 1913, aged 22, he married an Australian, Lucinda Sinclair, in Queensland. War broke out the following year.

By the time Richard  joined the Australian armed forces, the couple had two children. The British had asked the Australians to aid the war effort by recruiting battalions of railwaymen to move men and supplies on the Western Front. Now working for Westinghouse as a brake fitter, Richard joined the 4th Australian Broad Gauge Railway Operating Company on 10 February 1917.

From his war records, we know a little more about what Richard looked like. He was 5 foot 10 inches tall, weighed 10 stone 2 lb, had grey eyes and brown hair. He described himself as Presbyterian. He travelled back to England for training and then onto France.

Richard survived the war and returned to Australia to resume his life with Lucy and their children. Lucy died in 1943 and Richard in 1973, aged 82.

W SIMM William Simm would have been 15 when the photo was taken. A year later, he was living with his father, also called William, a manager in a leather and rubber factory, and his mother, Eliza, at 35 Simonside Terrace. William junior was a clerk in a tannery.

By 1939, William was living in Whitley Bay with his mother and brother. His occupation was recorded as a commercial traveller. It was noted that he was incapacitated. He died in Newcastle in 1966.

J TAYLOR There are a couple of possibilities for the identity of this player but the most likely seems to be James Lloyd Taylor, born 30 September 1893,  who, in 1911, was living at 54 Second Avenue with his Birtley-born mother, Ann, and his father, a railway passenger guard. Seventeen year old James was a railway booking clerk.

James stayed on Tyneside. In 1939, he was living in Jesmond with his wife, Frances, and still working as a railway clerk. 

He died in 1968 in Seaton Sluice.

N SKELDON In 1911, Norman (full name, John Norman), an apprentice pattern maker, was living with his father, John, a clerk from Berwickshire, his mother, Emily, and three younger siblings at 27 Ebor Street. Norman had been born in Tyne Dock on 5 October 1891 so he was about 19 years old in the photograph. 

He married Elizabeth in 1914. In 1939, he was still working as a pattern maker and living with Elizabeth and 22 year old daughter, Betty, in Warwick.

He died in 1947, aged 55.

Front row, left to right:

C BILLETOP This name was difficult to make out at first but we eventually realised  that the player on the left of the front row was Torben Christian Billetop who, in 1911, was living at 40 Lesbury Road with his mother, Helen Bell Dixon, a Glaswegian, his father, also called Torben Christian, a younger sister, Gladys and a servant, Annie Sanderson. There was also an older brother, Adolph, who was no longer living at home. Ten years earlier, the family had been at 3 Guildford Place.

Torben Christian Billetop senior, a Dane, had come to Newcastle via Robert Napier, a shipbuilding firm in Glasgow, and Vickers of Barrow to work for Henry Watson and Sons, an old established Newcastle company, which during the 19th century made hydraulic cranes and machines designed by William Armstrong. Billetop joined the company in 1896 and became managing director. During his thirty years there, he patented many improved designs for machinery. By this time, the company was based at Walkergate.

Torben Christian junior (known as Christian) was born in Glasgow on 1 July 1892 and so would have been 17 years old when the team photo was taken. In 1910, he passed exams at Rutherford College in machine construction, drawing and applied mechanics.  In 1911, he was an apprentice engineer and, in 1914, he graduated with a B Sc in Engineering from Durham University. 

When the world war one broke out, we know that there was a great deal of suspicion of foreigners so it is no surprise to discover that in 1916, Torben senior took steps to become a British citizen.

In 1918, Christian married Mary Dixon and the couple lived at 15 Norwood Avenue, where their eldest son, also Torben Christian, was born. They relocated to Leicestershire, where Mary came from and in 1939, the family home was in Barrow upon Soar, Leicestershire, where Christian was described as an engineering works director. He died on 18 May 1980, aged 87.

G JOHNSTON George Collin Johnston, who appears to be the Heaton United goalkeeper,  was born on 6 January 1892. In 1911, he was working as a ship chandler’s apprentice and living with his Scottish parents, Robert and Janet, six siblings and a lodger at 125 Tynemouth Road. On census night, the house was even fuller, as they had a visitor, Harold Battle, a marine engineer, staying with them.

By 1939, George was a dealer manager of a ships’ stores and living at 27 Swaledale Gardens, High Heaton with his wife, Alice, whom he had married in 1928. He died on 10 November 1968, aged 76. 

J BUCK Finally, John Robert Buck, born on 21 February 1893 and so 16 or 17 when the team photo was taken. In 1911, he was living with his mother, five of his siblings, his maternal grandmother, a brother in law and a nephew and a niece,11 people in total, at 19 Spencer Street, where the family had lived for at least 10 years. His father a railwayman from Thranderston in Suffolk, was absent on census night. He was serving a seven year prison sentence at Portland in Dorset. John was working as a butcher’s assistant at this time.

By 1914, John married Sarah Kennon in Willington Quay. Their daughter, Elsie, was born a year later. 

John is one of only three of the footballers for whom we have found war records. On enlistment, he described himself as a ‘horseman’. He served with the Army Cyclist Corps in Egypt and was wounded in action on 19 April 1917. In April 1918, Sarah wrote to his regiment to find out the whereabouts of her husband, from whom she had heard no news since February when he was ill with fever at a convalescent camp in Alexandria. By this time, he had also been diagnosed as suffering from mental illness or ‘monomania’. John’s employers, the Cooperative Society of 10 Newgate Street, had also written to the army. They applied for his discharge so that he ‘could resume his duties’ after being informed by the army that his condition would necessitate his doing outdoor work.

Immediately after the war ended, John  was discharged as ‘no longer fit for active service’. In 1939, he was driving a light lorry and his nineteen year old son, Walter, had followed in his father’s footsteps and was working as a butcher’s assistant, possibly also at the Co-op.

John died in October 1979, aged 86.

What next?

So, although some of our footballers were born in Newcastle and at least one, Robert Stobie, stayed here all his life, many of our footballers experienced places far beyond Heaton, whether that was because they were born in the Caribbean like Donald Smart, worked and brought their families up in China or Australia like Richard Trotter or Arthur Turner or served their country in Egypt like John Buck. Others, like Christian Billetop and Thomas Rodger had parents who were born overseas, Denmark and India respectively.

Their jobs were equally varied: there were engineers, shipyard workers and railway clerks, as you might expect, but also an insurance agent, an accountant, a solicitor’s clerk, a tanner and a butcher’s assistant.

Many moved away from Newcastle permanently to other parts of England like Portsmouth, Essex, Warwickshire and Leicestershire as well as further afield.

We don’t know how many of them served in World War One as many records have been destroyed but at least one, Donald Smart, died on active service and another, John Buck, was incapacitated as a result of the war. Arthur Huxham lived only to the age of 34. But others, like Christian Billetop, lived well into their eighties. 

Colin Veitch is holding the 1910 FA Cup in the centre of this newspaper page.

Heaton United was probably short lived – we haven’t yet found a reference to it in the local press – but I wonder how many of the young men continued to play and watch football. Were some at Goodison Park to see Colin Veitch lift the cup at the end of that season or in the huge crowd that welcomed the team home? And what would the Heaton United players have to say about Newcastle United winning only one more league title since they posed for their own 1909/10 team photo, let alone the way the club is financed today?

Can You Help?

If you know more about Heaton United or any of the players in the photo or have photographs of your own 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

Acknowledgements 

Researched and written by Chris Jackson of Heaton History Group. Thank you very much to Jennie McGregor, for taking the trouble to send us the photograph.

Sources

Ancestry

British Newspaper Archive

‘Newcastle United: the ultimate who’s who 1881-2014’ / by Paul Joannou; N Publishing, 2014

‘Newcastle United’s Colin Veitch: the man who was superman‘ / by Keith Colvin Smith; AFV Modeller, 2020

Mystery of a Knight on a Bike

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He’s conducted painstaking research into many topics of local interest but, in a quiet moment during lockdown, Heaton History Group’s Ian Clough decided to get to grips at last with a mystery that had literally been staring him in the face, a trophy on his own sideboard:

‘It is probably something that magpie, Uncle Jimmy Irwin, paid a few coppers for at a jumble sale long before charity shops appeared. It’s a bit battered and lost its wooden mount. I don’t even know how I ended up with it but I have always liked the penny farthing bicycles. If I took it to the Antiques Roadshow they would probably say it was worth a few coppers – “but if you could prove provenance …“‘

The scroll on the richly decorated trophy gave Ian his first clue: ‘Science and Art School Amateur Cycling Club’; a shield at the bottom is inscribed ‘Ellis Challenge Shield’ and, on two further shields at the top the name, ‘Robert Bolam’, alongside the dates, 1889 and 1890 respectively.”

To put the dates in context, local cycling hero, George Waller, who twice won the World Six Day Championship on a penny farthing, was nearing retirement and living in Heaton. In 1885, the Rover safety bicycle had been invented and three years later John Dunlop introduced the pneumatic tyre. Penny farthings were still ridden but their days were numbered. Incidentally in April 1889, a new cycle track was opened in the Bull Park on the Town Moor, where Exhibition Park is now. George Waller did a test run on it and pronounced it to be ‘one of the finest in the kingdom’. More than 140 years later, Newcastle no longer has a cycling track. The Olympic and Paralympic medallists all come from elsewhere. But we digress!

Schools

Ian first set about finding out more about the school. It was founded in 1877 by Dr John Hunter Rutherford, a Scottish  Congregationalist preacher, who qualified as a medical doctor at the age of 41. As well as running a medical practice, Rutherford campaigned for better sanitation, But he is best known as a pioneering educationalist. He founded Bath Lane School in 1870 and the School of Science and Art in 1877. A number of branch schools soon followed, in Gateshead, Shieldfield, Byker – and two on Heaton Road.

The first branch to open in Heaton was on 24 May 1880 in the Leighton Primitive Methodist Church Sunday School buildings, which, as has already been described here, stood on the site of the modern shops at the bottom of Heaton Road, just before you reach Shields Road.

In 1885, a further branch was opened at Ashfield Villa, Heaton Road to meet the local demand not just for elementary but also higher education. Ashfield Villa stood directly opposite the Leighton Primitive Methodist School, where Heaton Buffs Club is now.

Dr Rutherford died suddenly at the age of 64 on 21 March 1890. Amongst the extensive press coverage, the following appeared:

‘The announcement of the death of Dr. Rutherford has caused wide-spread regret…Yesterday the Bath Lane Schools, the Camden Street School, the Heaton Road School and the Science and Art School, Heaton were closed as a tribute of respect to the deceased gentleman.’

Benefactor

So we know something about the schools. But the Ellis Challenge Shield? A clue came in the British Newspaper Archive. On Saturday 13 September 1890, ‘The Newcastle Courant’ carried a report of the Newcastle Science and Art School sports day, which took place on the Constabulary Ground in Jesmond (now the home ground of Newcastle Cricket Club, the Royal Grammar School Newcastle and Northumberland County Cricket Club).

The article named one of the judges as Mr A M Ellis. Andrew Murray Ellis, another Scot, was headmaster of the Newcastle Science and Art School. On his retirement in 1905, it was stated that he had served the school for 28 years, which meant he must have been on the staff since the school’s foundation. The cycling shield surely bears his name.

Races

The article went on to list the first three in every race at the sports day. There, under the hoop race, the egg and spoon race and the dribbling race ‘open to members of the football club’ was:

‘Ellis Challenge Shield. Bicycle Race, one mile (open to members of the Science and Art School ACC).  Carries Championship of the club.  Holder,  R Bolam. Robert Bolam, 1;  Robt. Redpath, 2 ; Alf. Bell, 3.  Won by 12 lengths.’

But how could this Robert Bolam be identified? It’s quite a common name.  Luckily, there was a further clue to the identity of the winner:

‘Challenge Cup (presented by Councillor Cooke). Holder, Robert Bolam. Bicycle Race (mile).- [Result] Robert Bolam, 1; George T Easten, 2; Joe Bolam, 3. J Bolam and Easten made the running until the last lap, when Robert Bolam went to the front and won easily by ten yards. Easten finished second six yards in front of J Bolam.’

A further search revealed an announcement for the previous year’s sports day, due to take place on 31 August 1889. Again the Ellis Challenge Shield is specifically mentioned.  And on 17 June 1890, in the ‘Newcastle Daily Chronicle’, there was a description of the trophy and more information about the club:

‘One of the most unqualified successes among local cycling clubs has been the Science and Art School ACC, which, now in its third year, may claim to be one of the largest in the city.’

‘The Ellis Challenge Shield, a beautiful silver trophy, is competed for each year, in a one mile race, carrying with it the championship of the club – the present holder of the title being Mr R A Bolam.’ 

So now Ian knew Robert’s middle initial and that he perhaps had a brother called Joseph. He could look for census records.

Winner

Robert Alfred Bolam was born on 11 November 1871. In the 1881 census he is shown as a 9 year old scholar, the oldest son of John Bolam, a dispensing chemist, of 46 Northumberland Street and his wife, Isabella. He had three sisters and a brother. Yes, Joseph.

Seven years later on 31 July 1888, ‘The Evening Chronicle’ gave extensive coverage of the ‘Local Science and Art examinations’ and there, under the practical organic chemistry results advanced stage for Ashfield Villa, Heaton, is the name Robert A Bolam, ‘First Class and Queen’s Prize.’ Our champion cyclist had studied in Heaton and was 17 years old at the time of his first victory in the Ellis Challenge Shield.

A few weeks before his second victory, ‘The Evening Chronicle’  of 31 July 1890 gives the results of ‘Science and Art Examinations’ and among the entries:

’Framwellgate Moor Science Class examination. Hygiene – Advanced Stage, 1st Class and Queen’s Prize – Robert A Bolam.’ Still on track!

 And, so not to leave him out entirely, at ‘School of Arts and Science, Corporation St, Newcastle – Practical Organic Chemistry, 2nd Class – J H Bolam’ his younger brother.

By the time of the next census in 1891, Robert, now 19, was described as a ‘student in medicine’. He studied at Newcastle College of Medicine and Kings College London. In 1896, he won the Gold Medal at Newcastle College of Medicine, awarded to the best student in his year. By 1901, he was a ‘physician surgeon’, married with a baby and living on Saville Place. 

A young Robert Bolam

Witness

The next mention of Dr Robert A Bolam which is relevant to Heaton came on 5 July 1910 in the extensive coverage of the trial of John Alexander Dickman, then of Jesmond but previously of Heaton ( eg, in 1901 at 11 Rothbury Terrace), accused of the murder of John Innes Nisbet of 180 Heaton Road on a train between Newcastle and Alnmouth on 18 March that year. An expert witness was Dr Robert A Bolam, MRCP, Professor of Medical Jurisprudence in the College of Medicine at Newcastle. He had been asked to examine three items of Dickman’s clothing:  ‘a pair of Suede gloves, a pair of trousers and what was known as a Burberry overcoat.’ 

Bolam told the court that he had tested the garments ‘as regards solubility, chemically, microscopically and with a micro spectroscope’. He said that there were recent blood stains on the gloves and trousers and that attempts had been made to clean an unidentified stain on the coat with paraffin. Dickman was eventually hanged for murder. The case was controversial at the time and it continues to be the subject of books, articles and television programmes even today. (Unfortunately, a number of them refer to Robert Boland rather than Bolam.)

In 1911, now 39 years old, Robert Bolam lived in Queens Square and was married with 3 children and 3 servants, coincidentally one called ‘Margaret Isabella Rutherford’ . He described himself as a ‘consulting physician’. In fact, by this time Robert was already the first honorary physician in charge of the skin department at the RVI. Robert, our cycling champion, was in the fast lane.

War Service

During the WW1, Bolam served as major and acting lieutenant-colonel in the First Northern General Hospital. He was mentioned for distinguished service and awarded the rank of brevet lieutenant-colonel and the OBE (Military). He was commanding officer of the Wingrove Hospital, which specialised in venereal diseases and, a speech by him in 1916 to the BMA is credited with doing more to secure the passage of the Venereal Diseases Act of 1917 ‘than any other pronouncement’. The act prevented the treatment of the disease or the advertising of remedies by unqualified persons. After the war, when the Ministry of Health merged the clinic with the skin department at the RVI, Bolam was put in charge of both, a position he held until his retirement in 1931.

At Durham University, he was lecturer in dermatology, professor of medical jurisprudence, president of the University College of Medicine, a member of the senate and in 1936-7, vice chancellor.

National Figure

But Robert Bolam wasn’t just a major figure locally or regionally, he served as chair of council of the British Medical Association from 1920 to 1927 (‘which involved night journeys between Newcastle and London two or three times each week’). He oversaw the erection of the BMA’s headquarters in Tavistock Square, London and it was to him who fell the honour of welcoming King George V and Queen Mary in 1925, a year in which he was also awarded the association’s coveted gold medal.

He was a member of the General Medical Council from 1928 until his death, and elected President of the British Association of Dermatologists 1933-34. Robert Alfred Bolam was Knighted in 1926.

Distinguished

Sir Robert Bolam died in Newcastle on 28 April 1939 but not before, in February of that year, he had overseen the move of the King’s College Medical School to its new building opposite the RVI and received King George VI and the Queen on its official opening. Sir Robert was survived by his wife, Sarah, son, Robert, and daughters, Dorothy and Grace.

Sir Robert Alfred Bolam by Allan Douglass Mainds (Newcastle University)

On his death, the above oil painting, which is currently in store at Newcastle University, was commissioned by friends and colleagues.

Bolam’s obituary writer for the British Association of Dermatologists stated that the distinguished medical practitioner was also an authority on the Roman Wall, a first class rifle shot who regularly competed at Bisley and once shot for England, and had  ‘a large collection of prizes as a cyclist and swimmer’, which is where we came in.

When we first encountered Robert Bolam he was already in a lofty position atop his penny farthing and so it continued throughout his distinguished life. He certainly did ‘get on his bike’.

Postscript

But that’s not quite the end of the story. During the course of his research, Ian found the Bolam family tree on Ancestry. He contacted the owner, Wendy Cox, who turned out to be the granddaughter of Sir Robert Bolam and a proud, exiled Geordie. She told Ian that she hadn’t known her grandfather as he had died when she was just weeks old. Neither had she heard of the Ellis Challenge Shield or her grandfather’s cycling achievements. But when Ian told her that, much as he’d enjoyed owning it, the shield rightfully belonged with her and the Bolam family, Wendy was delighted. She says it’s already sitting on her mantlepiece next to a photograph of her grandfather and plans are afoot to display it in a frame with a fabric background. The pedalling future knight is home.

Robert’s granddaughter, Wendy, with the trophy

Acknowledgements Researched and written by Ian Clough, Heaton History Group with additional material by Chris Jackson. Thank you to Wendy Cox for photographs of herself and her grandfather. And to Uncle Jimmy Irwin for his crucial rôle in this story.

Ian’s uncle, Jimmy Irwin, who first rescued the trophy.

Sources

Ancestry

British Newspaper Archive

Obituaries of Sir Robert Bolam in the British Journal of Dermatology, British Medical Journal, Nature, The Times

Can You Help?

If you know more about Sir Robert Alfred Bolam 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

Heaton Olympians

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It’s late June 2021 and Team GB for the 2020 Summer Olympics has just been announced. Such are the strange times we’re living through. But amidst ongoing uncertainty about the next games, let’s celebrate Heaton’s distinguished past Olympians.

No 1 Harry Askew

Harry represented Great Britain in the long jump at the 1948 London Summer Olympics. 

Born in Barrow-in-Furness on 31 December 1917, he excelled in sports at school, particularly as a sprinter, only moving to long jump while at Cambridge University. Pre-war, he won the 1937 Oxbridge Sports long jump and 2 years later the UAU title and was second in the AAA Championships. The war interrupted Harry’s career. He spent six years in the army with the Royal Corps of Signals, achieving the rank of captain.  After the war, he moved to Jersey to teach.

The Olympic champion and world record holder in the long jump was famously the great Jesse Owens, who had won 4 gold medals in Berlin in 1936. Because of World War 2, it was to be 12 years before the next games and so the American didn’t get to defend his title. Harry was one of 21 competitors to take part in the qualifying round on 31 July 1948 and comfortably made the final in 6th place with a jump of 7.14. He was 9th in the final with a jump of 6.935m. The medal winners were all from the USA, the winner, Willie Steele, achieving 7.825.

Harry Askew

Harry’s son, Roger, told us that Harry stayed in Hammersmith during the games and travelled to White City, where the athletics took place, by bus, even on the day he was competing.

Askew went on to teach and coach in Essex. He improved his personal best to 7.29m in 1949 and in 1950 won the AAA title, the British championship, aged 32. In 1958, the Askew family moved north in order that Harry could take up a position as head of Heaton Grammar School, which is what makes his name so familiar to many older Heatonians. Despite being a vociferous opponent of comprehensive education, he was appointed head of Heaton School, Heaton’s  new coeducational comprehensive in 1967.

Askew achieved more national and even international fame than for his Olympic achievements in 1976 when his controversial response to the newly enacted Equal Opportunities Act was to announce  that, henceforward, girls would be subject to corporal punishment on the same basis as boys ie liable to receive it. Parents and pupils organised a protest and alerted the media. There was damage to the school, assaults, expulsions, court cases.

The dust settled, however, and Harry Askew eventually retired in 1979 after 21 years in post. On his retirement he told the ‘Journal’. ‘Do you know, I still have my jumping shoes, my England vest and tracksuit? I couldn’t bear to part with them, although today I can hardly get my feet off the ground unless it’s to put them up in front of the television set!’ 

Harry Askew and his wife moved south on his retirement to be closer to family. He was looking forward to having more time for his passion for jazz music – he was a talented pianist – and for gardening.  He died on 31 October 1986, aged 68.

No 2 Alan Lillington

Alan represented Great Britain in the 100m at the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki.

Born in South Shields on 4 September 1932, Alan grew up in Heaton and attended Heaton Grammar. His mother and father were steward and stewardess of Heaton Liberal Club at 25 Heaton Road, the building with the stone lion above the bay window. He continued to live there until he married local girl, Eileen Murray, in 1955. After their marriage, the couple lived with Eileen’s family at 14 Cloverdale Gardens, High Heaton. 

Alan was an all round sportsman and is reported to have played for Newcastle United as a junior as well as rugby for Northern. The first mention we have found of him in the local press, however, was in August 1949 when the ‘Evening Chronicle’ reported that the 16 year old Elswick Harrier, already the champion at 100 yards, had been set to miss competing for the Northumberland and Durham 220 yards title at Cowgate because of plans for a holiday in Portsmouth. He and a friend had seats booked on the night bus departing at 7.15 until his father stepped in with a more costly rail ticket, which left three hours later, allowing him to race earlier in the evening. In the article, Lillington was described as a ‘young sprint star’. The following July he won the All England Schools’ Silver Jubilee Intercounty AA championships in a time of 10 seconds dead and was in the victorious 440 yards relay team too. And in August he won the junior 100 yards at White City, London.

By 1952, Olympic year, Lillington, now a medical student at Durham University, was second only to Trinidad-born Emmanuel McDonald Bailey, the joint 100m world record holder, in the senior AAA Championship and so was deservedly selected for Helsinki, aged 19, as the ‘baby’ of the team.

Helsinki had originally been chosen to replace Tokyo in 1940 after Japan announced two years before that it would be unable to host the games because of the ongoing Second Sino-Japanese War. In the event, of course, the 1940 games were cancelled because of World War 2. London, which had been selected for the also cancelled 1944 event, was awarded the first games after the war with Helsinki getting its turn four years later.

None of the medallists from 1948 were competing in the 100m this time round and so McDonald Bailey, who finished 6th in London was favourite along with American, Art Bragg, and Jamaica’s Herb McKenley.

Young Alan Lillington was drawn in the first heat on 20 July, from which he qualified in second place behind Australia’s John Treloar, but in the quarter finals, he finished in 6th and last place to Lindy Remigino of the USA and so failed to qualify for the semi final or final. It was nevertheless a magnificent feat for a teenager.

The final on 21 July was one of the closest races imaginable with all six runners separated by only 0.12 seconds, hand-timed. A photograph showed Lindy Remigino to have finished first, Herb McKenley second with GB’s McDonald Bailey in bronze medal position.

Much later, Alan said the games brought back fond memories but that he was sorry that Great Britain recorded its lowest medal total with ‘its only gold medal winner a horse!’ (In fact, three horses and their riders in the team show jumping).

After the Olympics, Lillington continued to perform at a high level. He represented England in the 1954 British Empire and Commonwealth Games in Vancouver.

He remembered celebrating his 21st birthday at an event in Stockholm where he was carried around the room on the stroke of midnight by his mentor, Harold Abrahams (1924 Olympic Champion, whose story was told in ‘Chariots of Fire’) and Chris Chataway (5,000m finalist in Helsinki, pacer for Roger Bannister’s 4 minute mile and, later, minister in the Heath government). 

But soon, Alan Lillington’s mentions in the press were mainly in connection with his work as a doctor and for charity. He worked at Newcastle’s RVI and General before becoming a consultant paediatrician in Sunderland. He was also a director of St Benedict’s Hospice in Sunderland, as well as a committed Freemason, and he helped set up Sunderland Sports Council.

Alan Lillington (centre)

Lillington was appointed a Deputy Lord Lieutenant for Tyne and Wear and, in 1995, Sheriff. He was awarded the MBE for services to the community in Wearside in 2006.

Alan and Eileen’s son, Peter, played club rugby for Harlequins and toured New Zealand with Scotland in 1981.

No 3 Maurice Benn 

Maurice represented Great Britain in the 1500m at the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City.

Born in Wallsend on 9 November 1946, Maurice was a member of Heaton Harriers. The first mention of him we have found in the press so far was on 7 January 1966 when the  ‘Evening Chronicle’ reported:

‘Heaton’s boys proved their worth by finishing second team on Boxing Day and with Dick Balding, Joe Hawes and Maurice Benn in their senior line up, the ‘East Enders’ if they can find a couple of useful youths, must be among the medals again on Saturday.’

A month later, the future Olympian was referred to as having the best time for a youth over a Team Valley cross-country course and was expected to take his place in Heaton Harriers’ senior team in the race for the Royal Corps of Signals (coincidentally Harry Askew’s old regiment) Trophy over the same course.

But it wasn’t until 3 June 1968 that Maurice came to national attention during the inter-county finals at London’s White City. The Birmingham Post summed up the media’s surprise:

‘Perhaps the biggest shock of all was the entry of 21 year old Maurice Benn into the ranks of Britain’s sub-four-minute milers. An “unknown” from the north east, Benn had a previous best of 04:04.8 and he beat the established international, John Whetton of Nottinghamshire into third place.’ 

Benn’s time was 03:59.9. He was the first north-east athlete to achieve this feat. It transpired that he had recently teamed up with north-east based national coach, Peter Harper, after being coached for the previous two years by letter by the AAA’s travelling coach, who was based in Glasgow. No Zoom back then!

And so on 5 August 1968, Maurice Benn of Heaton Harriers, received a letter signed by Prince Philip inviting him to compete in the games. With the times he had achieved that summer, Benn’s selection was certainly merited but Maurice himself later said that he had really gone to Mexico for the experience. The Birmingham Post called his selection ‘controversial’.

Maurice struggled in the altitude of Mexico City. As he later recalled ‘I shouldn’t have gone to Mexico. I had a history of anaemia and didn’t acclimatise well… I trained with Ron Hill and I was panting like an old bloke’.

The reigning champion was New Zealander, Peter Snell, who had won in Tokyo four years earlier  with a time of 3:38.1, but he wasn’t competing in Mexico. Here, the favourite was the USA’s Jim Ryun, the world record holder. Maurice was drawn in the first heat on 18 October along with Ryun and, although the Heaton Harrier achieved a time of 3:56.43, a personal best, it was well behind the qualifiers. Ryun went onto win his semifinal ahead of Kenyan, Kip Keino, but in the final Keino, who was paced by his compatriot, Ben Jipcho, won gold in an Olympic record time. John Whetton, beaten by Maurice at sea level, just a few months earlier, was a creditable 5th.

Maurice Benn

After the games, Benn went to study in the USA where, representing the University of Nevada, he won the USA National Collegiate cross-country championship. The university won the team prize as well and they were welcomed home in style with banners, a motor-cavalcade and television interview. It was said to be the first national victory by any Nevada team at any time in any sport – and led by a former Heaton Harrier. But anaemia continued to dog him in the states – Nevada is at altitude too.

By 1970, Benn was back in Britain but had moved away from the north-east. He continued running for Cambridge Harriers. The following year he ‘surprisingly won the Southern Counties 10,000m’ in cold and blustery conditions with a ‘staggering time of 28:53:08, which is top international standard’ but by the time of the 1972 games his training had become spasmodic, his form had dipped and he was out of contention for Olympic selection.

Maurice went on to work as a finance worker for British Rail in London, where he represented Woodford Green athletics club for many years. He has a permanent place in the pantheon of Heaton sport.

No 4 Derek Talbot

Derek Talbot represented Great Britain at badminton at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich.

Heaton’s Derek Talbot (right)

Born in Newcastle in 1947, Derek grew up on Etherstone Avenue in High Heaton and attended Heaton Grammar, where he first played badminton.  He went on to study metallurgy at Newcastle University, where, after doing well with the British Universities’ badminton team, he was spotted by the England selectors. He then moved to London for five years to establish himself in the sport.

Talbot’s first major title was Commonwealth Games mixed doubles gold with Margaret Boxall in Edinburgh in 1970 and in April 1972, he again won mixed gold with Gillian Gilks and bronze with fellow Heatonian, Elliot Stuart, at the European Badminton Championships in Sweden.

Badminton had been chosen as a demonstration sport for the 1972 Olympics so medals did not count in official tables. The intention was to promote to a global audience a sport which was, and is, very big in some parts of the world but unknown, at least as a spectator sport, in others. Some years later, Talbot summed up the different levels of fame top players enjoyed in different countries:

‘In many parts of the far east, we were recognised in the streets and invited to meet presidents in their palaces. But I could always come back to Newcastle and be inconspicuous, which I prefer. So I got the best of both worlds’. 

The demonstration sports rules allowed for doubles partners of mixed nationality and the medals awarded were slightly smaller replicas of the official ones. The entire tournament took place on a single day, 4 September.

Derek competed in the men’s doubles, partnered again by fellow Heaton Grammar old boy, Elliot Stuart. They beat a German / Canadian pairing in the1st round before losing to the eventual winners, Indonesians Ade Chandra and Christian Hadanata, in the semi-finals. Thus they were bronze medallists.

In the mixed doubles, he again partnered fellow Britain, Gillian Gilks, one of the most decorated British badminton players of all time. The pair beat Japanese, West German and Danish opponents to win gold.

The Munich Olympics are remembered, of course, for the events of 5-6 September. Eight members of a Palestinian terrorist group, Black September, took nine members of the Israeli Olympic team hostage, killing two of them. Five terrorists and a German police officer were also killed during a rescue attempt.

Speaking some years later, Talbot said that he witnessed the  start of the incident first hand:

‘I went out on the town celebrating and came back at 4.00am to what seemed like fireworks just 20 yards away. I walked right past and thought how inconsiderate it was of people to let off fireworks that time of night when many others had important events the next day. It was only later that I realised that I had almost stumbled across the terrorist attack.’

He went on to represent his country 83 times and won a total of four Commonwealth golds, one silver and two bronzes; three European golds, three silvers and two bronzes medals. He also won three All England Open golds and three silvers; a gold with Elliott Stuart in the Indian Open; a silver in the World Championships and a bronze in the World Cup. 

Derek retired from international badminton in 1981 and became a successful businessman, running a sports shop and having his own brand of badminton racquets, alongside coaching, commentating and property development. He continued to serve his sport as a selector and an administrator.

He didn’t always speak well of Heaton, however. Having bought a £95,000 house in Jesmond Park East in 1986, he reportedly sold it a matter of months later, allegedly because ‘couldn’t make a right turn at the end of the street.’

‘It was impossible. If I wanted to drive to Newcastle I had to take a two mile detour to get on my way. I also found the neighbourhood lacking in facilities like shops, open space, a library, cinema and swimming pool’.

Perhaps Brian Johnson of AC/DC fame, who is said to have bought the house, found a quicker route west and also realised that High Heaton Library, Biddlestone Road baths and the shops of Heaton and Chillingham Road were just a twelve minute walk away and the open spaces of Jesmond Dene barely six.

After a spell in Jesmond, Talbot, who had had a longstanding interest in alternative medicine, moved to Ibiza in the early 1990s where he practised homeopathy. He later returned to Tyneside. In 2013, he received an MBE for services to badminton.

No 5 Elliot Stuart

Elliot represented Great Britain at badminton at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich.

Like Derek Talbot, Elliot attended Heaton Grammar. He lived with his parents on Kingsley Place and, after leaving school, also like Talbot, he studied metallurgy at Newcastle University because, he said,’dad worked in Vickers and Armstrong shipyards on the Tyne, and he thought it would be interesting – he was wrong.’

Stuart joined Barclays as a computer operator, later becoming a programmer, systems analyst and project manager. He said that he moved to London because he was on the verge of playing international badminton and ‘because it was easier to fly from Heathrow (regional airports barely existed then) to the many badminton tournaments throughout Europe and the world.’ In 1969, after he had been at Barclays for just a year, the company gave him ‘six months a year paid leave, without contractual obligations, except to spread the name of Barclays, whenever appropriate at events across the globe’.

In April 1972, Stuart won bronze with fellow Heatonian, Derek Talbot, at the European Badminton Championships in Sweden before representing Great Britain in the Olympic Games in Munich  some four and a half months later. Although, the bronze medal the pair won doesn’t count officially, it was nevertheless a great honour to be chosen to represent their sport in the biggest event on earth.

The Heatonian went on to win gold at the 1973 Indian Open with Derek Talbot, 1974 Commonwealth gold, again with Talbot, and bronze with Susan Whetnall. In 1975, he won the All England mixed doubles title with Nora Gardner. But he says that his biggest badminton success was marrying Swedish World Singles Champion, Eva Twedberg!

In 1996, aged 50, Elliot took early retirement so that he could help top level badminton transition from an amateur to a professional sport. He continued to coach and mentor and became Performance Director for English Badminton. After retirement. he went to live in Portugal. 

No 6 Jonathan Edwards

Jonathan represented Great Britain in the triple jump at the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona, 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta and the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney.

Born in London on 10 May 1966, Jonathan was the son of Jill Edwards and her husband, Andy a clergyman. He was brought up to have a strong Christian faith which included preserving Sundays as a special day. The family didn’t watch television, work or study on the Sabbath. Jonathan remembers watching his mother prepare the vegetables for Sunday lunch on Saturday evenings.

Jonathan went to school in Devon, before coming north to study Physics at Durham University. While a student, he began to be coached by Gateshead-based, Carl Johnson, and, after graduation, decided to remain in the north east so that they could continue to work together.

It was the faith that Jonathan had inherited from his parents that brought him to Heaton.  He began to worship at Heaton Baptist Church and took advantage of a book held at the back of the church listing local people with property available for rent.

His biographer writes of Edward’s  first impressions of Heaton when a prospective landlord took him to view the King John Street property that became his first Heaton home:

‘Edwards confesses that as the car drove into Heaton his heart missed a beat. As rain drilled against the windows, all he could see was street after street of dreary-looking terraced houses. For a young man spoiled by the wild, rural beauty of the north Devon coast and the quaintness of Durham, this urban landscape was a culture shock. Still, Edwards needed a roof over his head and the accommodation was clean and affordable. He was to discover that his first impressions did not necessarily provide a fair reflection of the area. He found a friendliness and warmth in Heaton and, with his wife Alison, later established their first marital home in the street that had provided him with such an unflattering view of the suburb on the day he came flat-hunting’. They went on to live at several other Heaton addresses including on Heaton Park View.

Edwards recalls his early days, newly unemployed and alone, in Heaton: ‘I cried my eyes out’.

‘I’d never experienced life, real life, like this. After I’d moved into the flat in Heaton, my first attempt at cooking involved making an omelette and putting it on a lettuce leaf. Grotesque.’

Soon, however, Edwards got a job as a maternity cover scientific officer in the cytogenetics laboratory at the RVI. After work, he would go to Gateshead to train and then catch a Metro back into town. From there, he’d catch the Number 1 bus back to Heaton or walk if one didn’t arrive. We’ve all been there!

But soon Heaton and particularly Heaton Baptist Church became the focus of a national media storm. Improving performances meant that Edwards was selected for the 1988 British Olympic trials. The first two in the trials were guaranteed selection for the games and there would be a third wild-card place. Unfortunately for Edwards, the triple jump event was scheduled for a Sunday and so the young, unknown Edwards declared that he could not compete. The media had already besieged the RVI and on the day of the event itself, television crews turned up at the church on Heaton Road hoping to film Edwards going in to worship. However, Edwards’ gamble paid off: he was selected for Seoul anyway. It was never expected that he would achieve a high place but he would gain valuable experience. In fact he finished 23rd in qualifying with a best jump of 15.88.  Bulgaria’s Khristo Markov won the final with a new Olympic record of 17.61.

By the time of the Barcelona games, 4 years later, Jonathan Edwards had married Alison Briggs, a physiotherapist at the RVI, at Heaton Baptist Church. Expectations, including his own, were high. His father was in the stadium to watch him qualify and his mother and Alison would be there for the final. Except, for Jonathan, there was to be no final. He fouled his first jump and messed up his next two as well. His position of 35th was worse than Seoul. His best distance of 15.76 almost two metres shorter than that of the eventual winner, USA’s Mike Conley, who achieved a new Olympic record of 17.73. Edwards was distraught.

By the time of the next summer games in Atlanta in 1996, Edwards was a full-time athlete, having been able to give up work at the RVI thanks to a grant from the Great North Run Trust. He had also changed his coach and adopted the jumping style of the Barcelona gold medallist, Mike Conley. And there were new names in the Edwards’ family, Alison having given birth to two sons, Sam and Nathan, in 1993 and 1995 respectively.  Most importantly from an athletics point of view, he was now world record holder.

In the European Cup Final in Lille on 25 June 1995, he had jumped a huge but slightly wind-assisted 18.43. A legitimate world record of 17.98 in Salamanca followed, and then on 7 August  two more massive world record breaking jumps of 18.16 and 18.29 metres during the World Championships in Gothenburg while his wife Alison was back in Heaton, trying to take her mind off things by gardening. When the media converged on our area again, a home made banner outside the Edwards’ flat read ‘Simply the Best’. That Edwards was now a sporting superstar was confirmed when he won the prestigious BBC Sports Personality of the Year. He went into the 1996 Olympics as hot favourite.

The triple jump event in Atlanta took place on 26 July. In qualifying, Edwards struggled, as he had previously, while reigning champion Mike Conley and former world champion, Kenny Harrison, both on home soil, along with Cuban Queseda, Bermudan Wellman, and Bulgarian Georgiev, all reached the automatic qualifying distance on their first jump. Edwards eventually qualified for the final in sixth place. 

In the final, Harrison set a new Olympic record with his first jump and bettered it with his fourth. Edwards struggled with two red flags before managing a legal jump which put him in third place and entitled him to a further three attempts. His fourth effort was the longest jump ever not to win gold but the Briton had to settle for silver. (This was Heaton’s first official Olympic medal!)

Four year’s later in Sydney, the now Gosforth-based Edwards was determined to better that. Harrison wasn’t competing and so when qualifying began on 23 September 2000,  the British athlete was favourite again. This time he achieved the required distance with his second jump, although his British team mates, Onochie ‘Larry’ Achike and Phillips Idowu, were in first and second place, both with personal bests, and Edwards in fourth going into the final two days later.

In the final, Achike led after the first round and Russia’s Denis Kapustin after the second but in the third round Edwards jumped 17.71m and took gold (Heaton’s first!) He was awarded a CBE.

Jonathan Edwards

Following his Olympic success, Edwards won gold at the 2001 World Championships. At one point he was the reigning champion in the Olympics, World, Commonwealth and European Championships. At the time of writing, he still holds the World Record with his jump of 18.29m on 7 August 1995 in Gothenburg and his wind-assisted 18.43m on 25 June the same year, while not counting in the record books, also remains unsurpassed. He is also Heaton’s most successful Olympian.

No 7 Freya Ross née Murray

Freya represented Great Britain in the marathon at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London.

Born on 20 September 1983, Freya grew up in Temple, Midlothian and was a successful runner as a schoolgirl, winning the Scottish Schools 3,000m title in 1999 and 2000 and Scottish Cross-Country Champion in 2001.

Her progress continued into senior athletics and she won the Scottish 10,000m in 2009 and the 5,000 national title in 2010. She represented Scotland in both the 5,000m and 10,000m the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi, finishing 7th and 5th respectively. 

In 2006, after studying structural engineering at Heriot-Watt University, Freya moved to the north east, initially to Sunderland where she ran for Chester le Street. She joined international engineering consultancy Cundall and able to work part time for them, while pursuing her athletics career. She describes how she often ran to and from their Regents Centre office from her home in Tosson Terrace. She has also described how she used to like running at Rising Sun Country Park and along the wagonways. The flexibility of her employer also meant she could train for part of the year in California. 

Freya didn’t originally originally make the London Olympics squad. She had been pipped to the final marathon place by Claire Hallissey who had beaten her in that April’s London Marathon and she was picked only when injury forced the withdrawal of Paula Radcliffe, the world record holder and one of the favourites. On 29 July, only a week before the event, Freya was at home in Heaton doing table plans for her wedding when she got the call to pack her bags. Nevertheless, the following day, she went into work as she ‘had a few bits to finish off’. It wasn’t until the Thursday that she flew down to London.

Freya Ross née Murray

The London Olympics women’s marathon on 5 August 2012 began and finished on the Mall and took in iconic sights such as Buckingham Palace, Trafalgar Square, St Paul’s Cathedral, the Tower of London and the Houses of Parliament. Unfortunately for both athletes and spectators, the race began in heavy rain and so Paula Radcliffe’s world record was never in jeopardy. It was nevertheless a dramatic contest. The eventual winner, Ethiopia’s Tiki Gelana, fell at around halfway, trying to negotiate a water station but fought back to power past the bronze medallist, Russian Tatyana Arkhipova and silver medallist, Kenyan Priscah Jeptoo. Freya was the best placed Briton in 44th place from 118 starters in a personal best of 2 hours 28 minutes 12 seconds.

Following the Olympics, Freya got married as planned, became a full time athlete for a while and moved back to Scotland. She continued to compete, winning the Scottish National Championships 5,000m in 2016. She now has two young children, works as an events coordinator, has written a recipe book ‘Food on the Run’ and coaches at her local running club. 

She has a permanent place in Heaton’s history as our first female Olympian.

No 8 Brazil, Spain and Gabon Football Teams, 2012 Summer Olympics in London 

The previous athletes all were either born in, lived in, worked in or represented Heaton. But we must also reserve a place for the footballers who trained here before and during the 2012 games.

It was announced a good year before the event that the Brazil and Spain football squads had been allocated training facilities at the Newcastle University sports complex at Cochrane Park. The facilities underwent a half a million pound revamp in preparation for their illustrious visitors, the most famous of whom was to be Neymar, who at that time still played for Santos in his home country but was the hottest property in South American football. There was disappointment as a high fence appeared around the sports ground but excitement as it was discovered that good views of the pitches could be obtained from the first floor café of the High Heaton Sainsbury store across the road. The Geordie public had a chance to watch him properly in the quarter final v Honduras where he scored a penalty and registered an assist in Brazil’s thrilling 3-2 win v Honduras.

On 17 July 2012, Gabon became the first team to train on the university facilities but it was their warm-up match five days later that has gone down in local folklore. Former Newcastle United star Nobby Solano’s agent was drafted in to help the African underdogs find opponents to play in a friendly. He’d tried the Magpie’s Under 21s to no avail so he got in touch with the Heaton Stannington manager requesting a game the very next day. It was July. Some of the squad were on holiday, none were in training but it felt like too good an opportunity to miss, especially as Gabon boasted another of the most promising players in the world, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, then of St Étienne in France but soon to sign for Dortmund and later Arsenal. A team of part-timers was scrambled together, word was put out on social media and the game was on.

But not before the Stan assistant manager had made two mercy dashes to the African team’s base at the Gateshead Hilton, firstly to reunite Aubameyang with the boots he’d left behind and then to pop back for the sort of match balls they’d be playing with in the tournament. Aubameyang was marked by captain Joe Wear who had run the Great North 10K that morning ‘so I was a bit tired’. He scored two first half goals in Gabon’s 4-0 win before being substituted at half time.

Pierre-Emerick Aubeyang at Grounsell Park. Photo: Simon Hobson/Newcastle Chronicle/NCJ Media

The Africans turned down the Stan’s offer of a pie and a pint after the game but hung around to chat and pose for photographs. Their signed shirt still hangs in the clubhouse. Four days later they stepped out against Switzerland at St James Park with Aubameyang scoring their only goal of the tournament in a 1-1 draw. Their next opponents Mexico beat them 2-0 and went on to win the tournament, beating Neymar’s Brazil in the final. 

Can you help?

So they’re the Heaton Olympians we have discovered so far. They all deserve a commemorative postbox! Please let us know if you know more about the Heaton connections of any of them. And we hope you can help us discover more Olympians or connections between Heaton and the Olympic Games more generally. 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

Updated on 15 July 2021 with details of a recently rediscovered Heaton Olympian, Alan Lillington. Thank you to Arthur Andrews of Heaton History Group. Updated on 20 July 2021 to include Heaton Park View as a Heaton address for Jonathan Edwards. Thank you, David Faulkner.

Sources

Ancestry

British Newspaper Archive

‘The Eastenders: Heaton Harriers 1890-1990’ by William Allen; Heaton Harriers, 1990

‘A Time to Jump: the authorised biography of Jonathan Edwards’ by Malcolm Folley; Harper Collins, 2000

Other online sources

Acknowledgements 

Researched and written by Chris Jackson with additional material supplied by Arthur Andrews. Thank you to Roger Askew for personal information and photos of his father and to Freya Ross and Jonathan Edwards for confirming their Heaton addresses.

Rothbury Terrace: the Magpies’ nest

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Rothbury Terrace is one of the oldest streets in Heaton, although on the First Ordnance Survey Map, surveyed in 1858, it boasted only a couple of buildings and no name. The groups of buildings either side are the farmhouses of two of Heaton’s farms.

First edition Ordnance Survey map, surveyed in 1858, showing what was to become Rothbury Terrace

Even by 1886, there were only 8 heads of household listed and the houses were not named or numbered. The residents were John Glover of Rothbury House; Thomas Hudson, a schoolmaster; Ralph Henry Probert, a grocer; Edward Fulton, a draper; Jordan Evens, a brewer’s traveller; William G Wodson, a brick manufacturer; John L Miller, a builder and contractor and Jacob Hume, whose occupation was not given.

Just four years later, half of these remained: Jacob Hume, now a carpet buyer, was at number 5; Ralph Probert, the grocer, at no 7; Thomas Hudson, still a schoolmaster, at no 9; William Wodson, the brick manufacturer was much further down at number 65.

Neighbours

But they now had many neighbours and it is on this newly developed residential street of the early 1890s that this article focuses.

The occupations of the 1891 ‘heads of households’ give us a flavour of the diverse social make up of the street as well as of the Tyneside economy at that time. Residents included Mrs Isabella Bunton, a fishmonger who had a shop on Shields Road;  Christopher Harborn, an iron merchant, whose business was on Dispensary Lane; John Nichol Rowell, a master mariner, and Andrew Tilston Dudgeon, a naval architect with offices on The Side.

There was also, at number 25, Benjamin Moody, a primitive methodist minister. A former miner from County Durham who performed his ministry throughout the north east, we learn from a contemporary obituary that he was a ‘man of well-built physique, had a good voice and [was] musical’  and ‘behind his somewhat brusque exterior was a kindly heart.’  From his own diary, we know that during his short time living on Rothbury Terrace, Moody suffered ill health.  On 1 January 1892, he wrote:

‘I am glad I am still alive and considerably improved in my physical frame; though seemingly not fully free from the effects of influenza I had in Heaton a year and nine months ago’. The Reverend Moody died just six month’s later.

Artistic Dynasty

George Blackie Sticks at number 67 was a painter. George was born in Newcastle in 1843 into a distinguished family of artists. His father, James, was one of the top designers at William Wailes’ stained glass studio. George also served an apprenticeship there, studying under William Bell Scott at the Government School of Design in Newcastle. But on qualification, perhaps inspired by Scott, he turned to painting, establishing his own studio. 

Sticks was a landscape painter and, as well as finding inspiration close to home, for example on the Northumberland and Durham coast, he travelled extensively on sketching tours of Scotland and the Lake District. His work was exhibited by the Royal Academy and Royal Scottish Academy. Locally it can still be seen in the Laing, Shipley, Hatton and South Shields art galleries, as well as in Newcastle’s Mansion House.

The Cliffs at Marsden Bay by George Blackie Sticks (South Shields Museum and Art Gallery)

In 1862, Sticks married Christine née Thorn and they had three children. Christina died in 1879. At the time of the 1891 census, George was living on Rothbury Terrace with his elder son, Christian, also an artist. George Blackie Sticks is reported to have died c 1900, though we haven’t yet located official records. Perhaps you can help.

Also living on the newly developed Rothbury Terrace next door to naval architect Andrew Tilston Dudgeon and artist George Blackie Sticks respectively were two men whose occupations did not define them but whose love of sport and business acumen led to the foundation of one of Newcastle’s greatest institutions.

Uncle Joe

Joseph Bell was born and bred in Newcastle. In 1891, aged 29, he lived, with his wife, Mary Alice, and three young children, along with a servant and a fourteen year old grocer’s assistant, at 43 Rothbury Terrace above the corner shop he ran. 

We know that he had been there for at least a couple of years before that and probably since the houses were first built as, in 1889, he applied for a licence to sell alcohol, an application which was approved despite a petition signed by 119 people and reported concerns about Lord Armstrong”s views on the matter.

The family was still in Heaton in 1901 but, by this time, Joseph was no longer a grocer but a self-employed builder and they lived at 2 Cheltenham Terrace. Apparently Bell retired from business early but served on the Newcastle Board of Guardians. He was described as a courteous and kindly man and politically a Liberal. 

Joseph Bell

Joseph Bell was, above all, a lover of football and, in 1890, one of the original shareholders and directors of East End FC.

Historic Summit

It is especially noteworthy in terms of the history of Heaton, and Rothbury Terrace in particular, that it was at Joseph Bell’s upstairs flat that, in May 1892, a meeting was held between the directors of East End and those of the recently folded West End.

43 Rothbury Terrace, where the meeting was held at which
the decision for East End FC to relocate to St James Park was taken.

It was at this meeting that a decision was made for East End to move to St James’ Park. The North East Railway Company had just increased the rent on its Chillingham Road ground to £50 a year, a sum the directors believed the club couldn’t afford. The prospect of a more central location, along with the opportunity to attract some of West End’s fan base, was an attractive one.

Detail of 2nd ed OS Map, surveyed in 1895, showing the proximity of Rothbury Terrace (top) to East End’s former ground

The East End directors at that historic meeting all had strong Heaton connections and would have been been reluctant to move their beloved club away from their own neighbourhood but they had the vision to see that it was the way to secure its future. Most continued to be instrumental in the success of Newcastle United, as it soon became, right through its Edwardian hey-day. The East End representatives were: Joseph Bell, the host; Alex Turnbull, his neighbour; T Carmichael; John Cameron and James Neylon.

Bell became treasurer of Newcastle United in 1893. He was then vice chairman from about 1904-8 before becoming  chairman of the club in 1908. During these very successful years, he was very close to the players, who called him ‘Uncle Joe’.

Bell died while still chairman of Newcastle United on 22 March 1909, aged only 47. Newcastle United directors, staff and players, local councillors, football men he’d known since East End days, Freemasons, friends and neighbours attended his funeral. The great Billy Hogg, who also lived in Heaton, represented Sunderland’s players. Joseph Bell is buried in All Saints cemetery.

First NUFC Chairman

Alexander (Alex) Turnbull was born in Scotland c 1858 but by 1881 had married Mary Ann Maun, a Geordie, and was working as a commercial clerk in the coal trade. In 1891, the couple lived at 69 Rothbury Terrace with their seven children, next door to George Blackie Sticks and up the road from Joseph Bell. In 1891, they were still there, now with nine children. Early on, he was was co-owner of the Byker and Heaton Coal Co until the partnership was dissolved. He was a property developer until, in 1901, his brick company at Byker Hill was declared bankrupt.

Turnbull served two spells as East End and Newcastle United chairman, during those formative years from 1891 until 1893 and and so, naturally, was at the May 1892 meeting at Joseph Bell’s at which the move to St James Park was approved. He also presided over the public meeting on 9 December of that that year at which another historic decision to change the club’s name to Newcastle United was made.

Alex Turnbull is on the extreme right of this photograph of East End, wearing a bowler hat. It was taken in front of the stand at the club’s Heaton Junction ground, just off Chillingham Road.

Turnbull served a second spell as chairman from May to August 1895 and was a director for 11 years in total, from 1890 to 1901.

Unlike Bell, Turnbull was an active Conservative. In fact, at one point he stood for the city council only to withdraw before the election took place. In 1895, he stood as a candidate for Newcastle School Board as ‘an advocate of sound education, close economy and generous recognition of the rights of private schools’.

Colin Veitch, in his autobiography, describes how he was approached at home just after Christmas 1898, when he was just seventeen years old. He was asked if he would like a game with Newcastle United and was told that two directors were available to meet him if he went immediately to the Conservative HQ at the corner of Wilfred Street and Shields Road ‘within a hundred yards of my home’. (It’s a little further than that!) The directors hadn’t had far to travel either. They were Joseph Bell and Alex Turnbull, both of Rothbury Terrace. Veitch played a number of friendlies for the club before signing permanently and becoming the captain and inspiration of its finest ever team.

The rest is history – and Rothbury Terrace’s place in the story of the city and in the birth and success of its football club secure!

Acknowledgements

Researched and written by Chris Jackson, Heaton History Group. With special thanks to John Allen, who always generously shared the results of his Heaton related football discoveries with HHG.

Sources

‘All with Smiling Faces: how Newcastle became United’ / Paul Brown; Goal-Post, 2014

‘The Artists of Northumbria’ / Marshall Hall; Marshall Hall Associates; 2nd ed, 1882

‘Newcastle United: the ultimate who’s who’ 1881-2014 / Paul Joannou; N Publishing, 2014

‘Newcastle United’s Colin Veitch: the man who was superman’ / Keith Colvin Smith, AFV Modeller Publications, 2020

‘Pioneers of the North: the birth of Newcastle United FC’ / Paul Joannou and Alan Candlish; D B Publishing, 2009

Ancestry

British Newspaper Archive

myprimitivemethodists.org.uk

National Library of Scotland

The Captain’s Medal

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Heaton was, as many readers will know, the home for many years of East End, the team that became Newcastle United. But in the 1880s and ‘90s East End was just one of many teams that played in Heaton. Recently we were shown a photograph that led us to research the early history of one of them.

Copyright: Stephen Maddison

This silver memento was found some decades ago among the possessions of a deceased relative of Stephen Maddison, who told us that the person whose name was engraved on it ‘W Donaldson, Captain, Heaton Rovers 1893-4’ was not, as far as he knew, a member of his family. It lay forgotten for many a number of decades until it came into Stephen’s possession and he asked Heaton History Group whether we could tell him anything about Heaton Rovers or W Donaldson.

Foundation

Luckily, contemporary newspaper reports have helped us build up a picture of the club’s early years. Although there is a single reference to a team called Heaton Rovers playing a match in March 1885, the club appears to have been founded in 1887, the year before the Football League was founded. The first of what would become regular references in the press to their matches was, in fact, to a game against Heaton Malcolm (presumably with a connection to the street of that name) on 19 March 1887 that was never played. It had been postponed in order to allow players to watch the Northumberland Cup Final between West End and Shankhouse, which was being played in Heaton on the same day. 

The club’s secretary, G W Greener, who at that time was living in Heaton’s Morley Street, confirmed this conjecture in an 1890 dispute about other clubs not fulfilling their fixtures. It is clear from appeals in the press for opponents that, at this time, Rovers was a club for boys aged 12 to 14 years. The following year, the secretary appealed for players between the ages of 14 and 15. 

Contentious

There were lots of disputes reported during the club’s early years, on and off the pitch and with the press. G W Greener regularly took opponents to task for the state of their pitch, for fielding unregistered, over-age or otherwise illegal players and wrote to the press to correct mistakes in their reporting. Games were also abandoned because of on field arguments. Remember this was at a time when the rules of the game were in their infancy. Even at the top level, referees and penalty kicks were not introduced until 1891. Even the duration of a match wasn’t fixed at 90 minutes until 1897, the same time as teams were formally required to comprise 11 players.

But the boot was on the other foot following Rovers’ one and only mention in the national press:

Under a headline ‘Extraordinary Goal Scoring’ the famous newspaper ‘The Sporting Life’ reported ‘On Saturday when the Heaton Rovers and Union Harriers (Byker) met, the former won by 22 goals to 2. Shortly after half time, Rovers scored 6 goals in 10 minutes.’ (7 April 1888).

Even in the current free scoring Premier League, we haven’t seen anything quite like that (but we are publishing before the Newcastle United attack takes on the leaky Manchester United defence).

However a couple of weeks later, ‘Newcastle Daily Chronicle’ issued a rebuttal: ’Union Harriers beg to contradict the score…. as the match was never played.’ (26 April 1888).

Fake news?

Travels

It’s interesting to track how far Rovers were prepared to travel for a fixture. Advertising vacant dates in the 1888-9 season for what was now an under 16 team, G W Greener (who was now living in Byker) cited a radius of ‘about eight miles’ (‘Newcastle Daily Chronicle’ 12 June 1888). Early season matches against Swalwell and Scotswood Harriers were within the specified distance  but, early the following year, a Rovers’ fixture v Gainsborough appeared alongside fixtures such as Everton v Wolverhampton Wanderers and Aston Villa v West Brom, both of which will grace the Premier League this season. (‘York Herald’ 26 January 1889).

It’s not completely clear where Rovers played home games during the early years. They boasted of having a home ground as early as 1888 but we don’t yet know where it was. Certainly by spring 1890, they were playing at least some of their matches on East End’s ground, which was roughly where Chillingham Road Metro Station is now. They also sometimes seem to have played at Millers Lane in Walkergate.

Success

The 1890-91 season was a good one for the club. In February, their record was: Played 23 Won 16 Drawn 4 Lost 2 For 75 goals Against 19. They boasted that no Northumberland side had beaten them, ‘only Felling and Washington’. In March, it was announced Rovers would  play Weetslade in ‘the final of the medals competition’. The match was played at the East End ground on the same day as senior teams played the final of the Northumberland FA Cup Final. There was an admission charge of 6d to watch both games. We are indebted to ‘The Morpeth Herald’ (18 April 1891) for a full match report of the final of ‘this new competition for players aged 18 and under’ – and the first Rovers’ team sheet we have seen: ‘Donaldson’ was one of the half backs. Heaton Rovers won the game 2-0, their first trophy that we know of. Presumably W Donaldson will have won a medal but evidently not the one Stephen has. Jubilant new secretary, Frank Purdy, expressed a hope that the team would stay together and announced that the club’s fourth anniversary would be celebrated with a grand dinner.

Soon after, we hear that Leighton Football Club had amalgamated with Heaton Rovers and it had been decided to form a reserve team. The club was going from strength to strength. There was great excitement in Blyth the following Christmas when it was arranged that a ‘Blyth young lady’ would kick off Blyth Star’s match v Rovers: ’This innovation will be such a novelty in the annals of football that the whole of the inhabitants should be in the field at 10.00m as play commences at 10.30 and give the twinklers a bumper gate’ (‘Blyth Weekly News’ 24 December 1892).

Medal

At the end of the 1892-3 season, a meeting was held to launch a new competition ‘open to players who have taken part in this season’s English, Northumberland or Durham Senior Cup ties’ and  ‘promoted by Wallsend NE Rangers’. It took place on 11 April 1893 at the Cafe, Wallsend with ‘Mr G W Greener of Heaton Rovers’ in the chair. The draw took place for the first round and, hopefully coincidentally, Heaton Rovers, received a bye. Intriguingly ’11 silver medals’ were explicitly mentioned as being offered in the competition. Unfortunately, we haven’t been able to find out any more details. Did the competition take place? How far did Rovers progress? Did they even win it? And is it the medal that W Donaldson received for captaining the team to glory now in Stephen’s possession? It’s tempting to think so.

However, there is some contradictory evidence. The following season, that in which the engraving states that W Donaldson was captain, was reported to be a much less successful campaign than those that had preceded it. At the club’s ‘8th AGM‘ on 16 June 1894, presided over by F W Purdy and held at Henderson’s Cocoa Rooms on Shields Road, it was reported that the first team had fallen back considerably, having played 19 matches of which only 3 had been won. The second team had won 12 out of 17. But the club had successfully obtained a place in the Tyneside League and they had a small balance in hand of 14s 5d. Interestingly, the club president was listed as C T Maling and  A Ripley was now said to be the captain. Presumably, he had replaced Donaldson at the end of the previous season. There was no mention of any trophies. Perhaps W Donaldson’s medal was in recognition of his one season as captain.

On the other hand, it could have been the case that the previously mentioned cup competition had taken place between the Wallsend meeting on 11 April 1893 and the previous year’s AGM, which presumably took place in June 1893 and so would have been celebrated then, making the contrast with the following unsuccessful year even more stark. We don’t yet know but feel that the answer is out there somewhere in football archives. If you can help, please get in touch.

Demise

Even if it was going through a comparatively lean time, the club still had plenty of life left in it. The last mention that we have found so far was on 6 December 1909 when they were heavily beaten 8-2 by Wallsend Victoria but that may be more to do with the lack of digitised local papers between then and the outbreak of WW1 than on it being the final straw for the club.

Major Players

But Heaton Rovers is only part of the story. What do we know about W Donaldson and some of the other key characters in its history?

C T Maling The club president referred to at the 1894 AGM was Christopher Thompson Maling of the famous pottery family. At this time he was almost 70 years old. The family’s Ford B factory at St Lawrence, Walker was the largest pottery in Britain when it was built in 1879 and Maling’s 1891 census return serves as an indicator of his wealth. A widower, he was living on Ellison Place in Newcastle with three grown up children, aged between 22 and 26 plus a ladies’ maid, a footman, two housemaids, a cook, a laundress, a kitchen maid, a professional nurse and a waiting maid. Hopefully, he had enough money left over after paying his staff to fork out for the odd football! 

F W ‘Frank’ Purdy We think the club secretary who succeeded G W Greener could have William Francis Purdy, an engine driver’s son, who in 1891 was an 18 year old clerk to a shipbroker. The family were living at 16 Chillingham Road, very close to Rovers’ ground. He spent his early married life in Byker but later returned to Heaton, living at 44 Sackville Road and 17 Swindon Terrace. He died in 1929, aged c 57.

G W Greener George William Greener, son of Frederick Cawthorn Greener, an iron forgeman, was born in Northumberland but in 1881, aged nine, was living with his parents and four siblings in Middlesbrough. When Heaton Rovers was founded in 1887 with him as secretary, the family were living in Heaton. He would have been only around 14 or 15 years old, the same age as the players he was trying to attract to play both in and against the team. The family soon moved to Byker but George didn’t stay in the area as an adult. He married Lillie in 1898 and by 1901 the couple were living in Gateshead and in 1911 in Hartlepool with three children. George described his occupation as a ‘forge clerk’. He died in 1928, aged 56.

What is striking about both the secretaries during Rovers’ early years is how young they were. G W Greener, in particular, was rarely out of the newspapers, taking every opportunity to promote the football club and also founding a cricket team. He also took on positions beyond the club itself. The youth of early football organisers has been noted elsewhere and is perhaps not surprising considering how few of their parents’ or teachers’ generation would have any experience of playing or supporting a team.

A Ripley Andrew Ripley was the captain who succeeded W Donaldson. Another engine driver’s son, born in St Anthony’s in 1874, Andrew would have been around 20 years old when he took over the captaincy. After getting married, he briefly lived in Cullercoats but by 1911 had returned to Walker with his wife and five children. He died in 1947, aged 74.

And so to the name on the medal, W Donaldson. Unfortunately, there are a number of possibilities for the identity of the Heaton Rovers captain living to the east of Newcastle, some of about the expected age, perhaps the most likely being:

William Richardson Donaldson, son of Thomas, a stonemason, and Annie, who was born in Amble in July 1873 but by 1891, aged 18, was living with his parents and six siblings in Harbottle St, Byker and working as a blacksmith. He married Isabella in 1899. Wallsend Freemasons’ records in 1908 list his profession then as a ‘contractor’. In 1911, the couple were still  living in Wallsend with their three children. Official records sometimes included William’s middle name and on other occasions, it was omitted. But maybe someone will be able to confirm this or tell us otherwise? It would be good to know more about an early figure in Heaton’s football history.

Acknowledgments

Researched and written by Chris Jackson, Heaton History Group. Thank you to Stephen Maddison for sending us the photograph of the medal and explaining how he came by it. Thank you too to Stephen for permission to publish the photograph.

Sources

Ancestry

British Newspaper Archives

Can You Help?

If you know more about W Donaldson, Heaton Rovers or anyone mentioned 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

King of Swing: Heaton’s champion golfer

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Asked to name the world’s greatest golfers and you’ll probably mention Tiger Woods, Jack Nicklaus and perhaps, if you know your sporting history, Bobby Jones. But did you know that a young Heaton man coached the latter and, before his untimely death, was known as one of the great golfers of his age? In fact, James Douglas Edgar still has a place in the record books, as a century ago this year, he won the Canadian Open, by a record 16 strokes, a margin of victory still unsurpassed for any PGA Tournament.

Google Edgar’s name and you’ll find plenty of information about this remarkable sportsman but what you won’t read is that he was a Heatonian. Now, thanks to the painstaking research of Heaton History Group’s Arthur Andrews, we can put that right.

Town Farm

The story of the Edgar family of Heaton Town Farm has already been published on this website. In 1871 two nephews, John and Thomas, described as agricultural labourers, were living at the farm. One of them, John, would later become the father of James Douglas Edgar, who was born on 30 September 1885.

In 1891, John Edgar (40), a foreman land drainer on Christopher Laycock’s Estate, his wife, Ann (38) and their four children, Margaret (17) a dressmaker’s apprentice, John (15) a cricket club assistant groundsman, James Douglas (6) a scholar and Edward, recently born, were living in an upstairs flat at 45 Seventh Avenue. All four children had been born at Heaton Town Farm, so the family may have moved to Seventh Avenue soon after Edward’s birth.

EdgarJDE45SeventhAvenue

The Edgar’s Seventh Avenue upstairs flat

James lived in Seventh Avenue until his mid teens when the family moved to Gosforth.

EdgarJD1HeatheryLane_res-1

1 Heathery Lane Cottages, the Edgars’ Gosforth home, 1901

Pro

From a young age Edgar had caddied and played golf on the Town Moor. By the age of 16, he was working at a golf club and a year later was winning competitions with the United Workmen’s Club. He caught the eye of J S Caird, the professional of the City of Newcastle Golf Club, based on the Town Moor. Caird saw potential in Edgar and took him under his wing, inviting him to be his assistant at the ‘City’ club. Part of the job would have been making and repairing the wooden golf clubs of the time.

EdgarCityGolfClubChimneyMills

City of Newcastle Golf Club HQ

In 1907 Northumberland Golf Club were looking for a new professional and J S Caird put forward J Douglas Edgar’s name for the post and so, in his 20th year, he took on this important role. By all accounts Edgar settled in well and was the complete professional – a competent player with a good swing and a powerful drive, a good teacher, golf club maker and golf club repairer. It is said that he was well liked but had a taste for drink – and women.

EdgarNorthumberlandGolfClub

Northumberland Golf Club

Edgar’s first big win as a professional was the 1914 French Open, which he  won in style with a score of 244 after 72 holes, beating some notable players of the time, including six time (still a record) Open winner,  Harry Vardon.

It was reported in The Journal of 10 August 1914 that Northumberland Golf Club presented Edgar with a gold half hunter watch, suitably inscribed and also a cheque from the members. At another presentation by South Gosforth Golf Club, Edgar was presented with another gold watch and a brooch for his wife in appreciation for his great achievement.

 WWI

But by this time, Britain was at war. At first, Edgar’s involvement was confined to playing in charity tournaments to raise money for soldiers but the following year, aged 30, he enlisted as a Private in the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC). He was based locally, attached to No 1 Ambulance section.

Later in the war, Edgar was released to carry out munitions work at William Dobson Ltd, the Walker shipbuilders. However, on 24 January 1918 in reply to a letter from the Regimental Paymaster, Dobson’s stated that, while J D Edgar was still employed at the firm, he had not been seen for over four weeks. Edgar had submitted a medical certificate stating he was unable to work suffering from adhesions of the tissues to his left hip. The doctor’s note also mentioned that he was developing arthritis of the left wrist. The following month, the RAMC enquired as to whether Edgar had been admitted to the military hospital at Newcastle Barracks but he appears not to have been. Finally, in March 1918, Edgar was discharged, having been deemed unfit to serve due to an arthritic left hip. At this time, he was living in Gosforth Park.

EdgarOldschoolHouse

School House, Sandy Lane, J Douglas Edgar’s home in 1918

On discharge, Edgar stated that he was a professional golfer but that his plan was to become a farmer at Brunton, Northumberland. At first, however, he returned to Northumberland Golf Club but after a dispute with members of the club’s committee following complaints about offensive behaviour, Edgar handed in his notice and he took the huge step of emigrating to America with his family. He sailed alone from Liverpool to St John, New Brunswick on 25 March 1919, arriving on 4 April. A surviving Alien Labor Certificate suggests he headed to New York before ending up in Atlanta.

USA

Edgar secured a job at the new Druids Hill Golf Club in Atlanta, where he settled in well, being popular and amenable with the men and women of the club. This was also a time of unprecedented tournament success. He won the Royal Canadian Golf Championship in  1919 (by 16 strokes, still a PGA tournament record).

Satisfied that he had a future in the USA, he then returned to England for his family.  J D Edgar, his wife and two children, Rhoda (10) and Douglas (9), emigrated to the United States of America on 16 December 1919. They sailed from Southampton on the SS Adriatic and in 1920 were lodging with the Morse family in Atlanta.

Douglas’s success on the golf course continued. He won the Canadian Open again in 1920, beating the great Bobby Jones. He also won the US Southern Open Championship and was runner-up in the American PGA Championship, losing only by one stroke (Jim Barnes had won in 1916 and 1919 but no Englishman has won it since).

Understandably Edgar was also in great demand as a coach. He was credited by the great Bobby Jones as a key reason for his own success. He was also mentor and coach to Tommy Armour, who later won 3 majors and Alexa Stirling, arguably America’s greatest female amateur golfer.

EdgarCoaching

James Douglas Edgar

And Edgar’s influence went far beyond those he was able to coach in person. His book ‘The Gate to Golf’, privately printed by Edgar & Co in St Albans in 1920,  had a big impact on golf instruction right up to the present day. In particular the abbreviated golf swing Edgar had perfected because he was restricted by his arthritic hip, became the norm.

Ever innovative, Edgar had invented a device that he called the ‘Gate’, consisting of two pieces of shaped wood, placed on the ground, one piece being a modified tee. The idea was to get the golfer’s swing ‘Movement’ to address the golf ball without hitting either side of the ‘Gate’. As the golfer’s swing and accuracy through the ‘Gate’ improved, the two pieces could be moved closer to each other so that the golfer’s swing was finely tuned and perfected.

EdgarGate (1)

Edgar’s ‘Gate’ invention

Unfortunately, despite Edgar’s success, his wife and children did not settle in the USA. After less than a year they returned to Newcastle while he stayed in America.

Early Death

Sadly, within a few weeks of winning his second Canadian championship and before he could have another shot at the PGA he had so narrowly missed out on the previous year, the golfing world was shocked to hear that James Douglas Edgar was dead at the height of his golfing career, aged only 36.

He was found near the steps of his boarding house late one night by his room mate, golf caddie and assistant, Thomas Mark Wilson (also from Newcastle). Edgar had blood gushing from a severed femoral artery in his leg, (probably by a knife wound). He died on 9 August 1921 before reaching hospital. It was reported that Wilson had said that Edgar had tried to tell him something before dying but he could not make out the words.

At first it seemed that the golfer had been involved in a car accident but there was no impact bruising on his body. It was surmised that he had been involved with a woman, possibly married, and some person or persons sought revenge. Nobody was ever charged with the murder.

J Douglas Edgar is buried in Westview Cemetery, Atlanta. His epitaph was quite an accolade from his peers in the world of professional golf.

EdgarGravestone

J Douglas Edgar’s grave, Atlanta

Had he not died in his prime and overseas, J Douglas Edgar would surely have been widely remembered as yet another Newcastle, indeed Heaton, sporting great.

Can you help?

If you know more about James Douglas Edgar or have photographs or anecdotes you’d like 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

Acknowledgements

Researched and written by Arthur Andrews of Heaton History Group. Thank you too to Jordan Cook, City of Newcastle assistant golf professional, for being so helpful on Arthur’s visit to City of Newcastle Club and arranging a meeting with David Moffat, winner of International and County Honours, as well as being five times Northumberland Champion. Also to the office staff of Northumberland Golf Club.

Postscript

Thank you also to Neil Browning, a descendant of Edgar, who kindly sent us the two photographs below. please get in touch if you know the identity of others in the bottom photograph or where either of them were taken.

Sources

  • ‘The Northumberland Golf Club Story’ / George Harbottle, 1978
  • ‘The ‘City’ Centenary 1891-1991’ – 100 years of Golf at the City of Newcastle Golf Club’ / John Sleight,1991.
  • ‘To Win and Die in Dixie: the birth of the modern golf swing and the mysterious death of its creator’ / Steve Eubanks, 2010
  • British Newspaper Archive
  • FindMyPast
  • Ancestry
  • https://archive.org/details/gatetogolf00edgagoog/page/n7
Does anyone know where this was taken?
J Douglas Edgar is seated second from the right. Can anybody identify the others in the photo or where it was taken?

Heaton Football Memorabilia Uncovered

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Heaton, of course, has a long and rich football history.

East End, the club, which went on to incorporate West End and form Newcastle United in 1892, played on Chillingham Road from 1884.

Perhaps its greatest player, captain and later director, Alec White (1860-1940, lived in Heaton, including 27 Cardigan Terrace and 48 Mowbray Street – he once scored seven or maybe nine goals (reports vary – there was no ‘dubious goals panel’ then) in a 19-0 victory. Local football historian, John Allan, recently found a rare photograph of him, which was published in a Newcastle United programme.

Article by Paul Joannou in the Newcastle United programme

Article by Paul Joannou in the Newcastle United programme

The Magpies’ most successful captain, the charismatic polymath, Colin Veitch (1881-1938), was also , of course, born locally and lived at 1 Stratford Villas:

Colin Veitch

Colin Veitch

Colin Veith's commemorative plaque

The plaque was made possible by the support of Newcastle City Council, the PFA, Chris Goulding and Keith and Sam Smith.

One of Sunderland’s best loved players and winner of four championship medals (including three Scottish titles with Glasgow Rangers), Billy Hogg (1879-1937), grew up on Spencer Street; not even Colin Veitch could match that!

Billy Hogg

Billy Hogg

And there are footballers, fondly remembered by supporters of other more distant clubs, who were buried in Heaton Cemetery, including John ‘Jock’ Smith (1865-1911), who played for Liverpool in their inaugural season in the Football League (1892-3), who tragically committed suicide aged 45, while living in Byker – he is buried in an unmarked grave.

Also buried in an unmarked grave is Bob Roberts (1863-1929) who won the cup with West Brom in 1888 and played not only in West Bromwich Albion’s first Football League game in 1888 but also the first ever recorded game of West Bromwich Strollers ten years earlier. (They changed their name to Albion in 1880.) Bob started as an outfield player for Strollers but was a distinguished goalkeeper for the Baggies. He also played for Sunderland Albion and, like Jock Smith, lived in Byker on his retirement.

Bob_Roberts_edited-2

Bob Roberts of WBA and Sunderland Albion, buried in Heaton Cemetery (Thank you to Paul Bridges for this photograph)

And, of course, there’s Heaton Stannington and other local teams, still making history.

1936 Ardath cigarette card - Heaton Stannington

1936 Ardath cigarette card

HeatonStanIMG_0866_edited-1resized

Heaton Stannington team, post WW1?

Christine Liddell sent us the photograph above, which she believes to be of Heaton Stan post WW1. She says her father, Tom Liddell (front row, far right) played in goal. Can anybody tell us any more about the photo?

Alan in Goals

And this photograph shows Alan Sidney-Wilmot in goal for the Stan v Crook in 1951. Alan still lives in High Heaton. (Thank you to Heaton Stan historian, Kevin Mochrie, for the photo).

And it’s fantastic to unearth new football teams and stories and so thank you to Heaton History Group member, Ian Clough, for unearthing medals belonging to yet another goalkeeper Henner Hudspeth , more famous locally as a dance band leader. Henner’s son, Michael, remembers his father pointing at what we now call Grounsell Park and telling him that he used to play football there. However, no record of him playing for Heaton Stannington has been found.  Recently rediscovered medals shows that he, in fact, played for another Heaton team, North Heaton in 1924-5.

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Perhaps they also played at the old High Heaton quarry ground.

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North Heaton c 1930? with Henner Hudspeth (back row, centre)

And, although it’s just outside our patch, we couldn’t resist publishing this photograph of the Maling Pottery football team, taken in the 1911-12 season, shown to us by Heaton History Group member, Paul Riding. His grandfather, Jimmy Gardner, was captain. We’re pretty sure that some of their players will have come from Heaton. Can you help us identify any? And how many will have fought – and died – in World War 1?

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Can you help?

Ruth Baldasera, who works for Siemens, would like to make contact people who played for any Parsons football team. If you can help, please get in touch with Chris at Heaton History Group. See below.

And we’d love to find out more about the football history of Heaton. If you can help us identify players with a Heaton connection, tell us more about the history or share photographs of local teams or  if you recognise anyone in or can add to what we know of the above photos, please get in touch either by clicking on the link immediately below the title of this article or by emailing chris.jackson@heatonhistorygroup.org

We are always interested to receive information, memories and photos relevant to the history of Heaton.

Acknowledgements

Written by Chris Jackson, with lots of help as mentioned in the text.

Swimming for Heaton

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Who remembers Heaton Pool aka Chilli Road Baths?

Heaton Pool

Heaton Pool, 1995 (Thank you to Newcastle Libraries)

It was situated on Biddlestone Road, where the doctors’ surgery is now. Heaton History Group member, Arthur Andrews, has fond memories of the pool and of Heaton Amateur Swimming Club (ASC), which was based there. Arthur takes up the story:

‘After learning to swim at a very cold open air pool at Hawkey’s Lane in North Shields, it was suggested by our swimming teacher, Mrs Richardson, that my brother Michael, sister Moira and I give competitive swimming a try. So every Thursday evening. we all began to catch the Number 11 yellow ‘custard’ bus to Heaton ASC at Chilli Road Baths.  Moira, although a competent swimmer, eventually decided that being competitive was not for her. But Michael and I stuck with it.

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Heaton Amateur Swimming Club membership cards

Bleached blondes

Dave Smith was our coach and taskmaster. His bark was worse than his bite, although it did not seem like it at the time. Training was hard work (as it should be!). No one had swimming goggles in those days so, after a long session, the chlorine really stung our eyes. On dark evenings the street lights seemed to have blurred haloes of light around them. Any contact with cigarette smoke on the bus made our eyes water. Those of us with fair hair ended up ‘bleached blondes’. The highlight of club night was tucking into fish and chips from Wallace’s on the corner of Benton Road and the Coast Road on the way home.

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The Andrews brothers and their trophies (‘mainly Mike’s!’), 1967

There were many swimming galas throughout Northumberland and Durham and not many people had cars to transport the swimmers. Dave Smith, our coach, ferried us round in a small, green Standard 8 and a handful of parents helped too.

Incidentally, the trophy that every club wanted to win was the Samuel Smith Perpetual Memorial Trophy, donated after the death in 1949 of Sam Smith Senior, founder of Ringtons in Heaton. The Smith family were staunch supporters of swimming locally: there was also a trophy in memory of his son Sam Smith Junior, who had tragically died in a plane crash and Malcolm Smith was Heaton ASC president.

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Samuel Smith Perpetual Memorial Trophy (Copyright: John Moreels, Ward Philipson Collection)

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National Championships

In 1966 and 1967, Michael and I, and a few others from Heaton, achieved the qualifying times to enter the National Swimming Championships at Derby Street (salt water baths) in Blackpool. This pool was 55 yards long, 30 yards longer than Heaton Baths. The length was daunting as was the competition! In my 110 yard freestyle heat I found myself on the starting block between English Champion, Bobby Lord, and international, A A Jarvis. Once the starting gun was fired I followed in their wake, finishing over six seconds behind them. It was all to get competition experience rather than have any chance of winning. Staying in a Blackpool B&B with four in a room was quite an experience as well.

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Arthur  with 100 yards Freestyle trophy, 1964 Arthur & Colin Feltoe competing in Germany, 1966

Chillier than Chilli Road

I once came in second in the Durham Long Course Championship, which was known as the Durham Mile. In 1967, Michael and I, along with several others from Heaton ASC, took part in this event on Elvet waterside along with approximately 90 other foolhardy souls. We changed in Durham City Baths across the road.There were no wetsuits, though the water temperature was a bracing 14 to16 degrees. We gingerly descended the steep, slippery riverbank and lined up in two rows across the river, our feet sinking into the squelchy, muddy riverbed. It seemed to take an age to for the starting pistol to be fired.

The course was up to the old bandstand and back with no goggles (we would not have been able to see anything any way!) Apart from the cold water and a mass of flailing arms and legs we had to contend with swimming through floating twigs, teasel and other debris hitting our bodies. Swimming too close to the riverbank meant scooping up handfuls of mud, which would slow you down as well as being unpleasant. The turn at the rope across the river near the bandstand was hazardous as the leading group just swam straight into the stragglers, so a black eye or other bruising was a distinct possibility. The hot shower and baths were most welcome after between thirty and sixty minutes in the Wear.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the event ceased in the early 1970s as the Wear was deemed too polluted.

Trophies

In the early 1970s a proposal was made to replace some of Heaton ASC’s older swimming club cups and plaques. Members and parents were asked if any would be willing to donate new trophies and good friends, Bill Allan of Plessey Terrace and Richard Jacobs of Jesmond and myself clubbed together to purchase a cup. We called it the Andrews, Allan and Jacobs Cup to be presented to the winner of the Senior Mens 200 yards Freestyle event. The first time it was competed for, although not at my peak, I entered the event to see if I could win my own trophy. I believe I was ahead for the first six lengths, but in the final two, I was overtaken by several fitter swimmers. I can’t remember who won the event or who presented the trophy. It may only have been swum for once.

Demise

Around this time it was proposed that a City of Newcastle Swimming Club should be set up to comprise the best swimmers from the other clubs in the city. The idea was that, rather than the local clubs only occasionally winning a national event, a centralised club would make a name for itself winning events and producing international swimmers. It would have a full time professional coach to improve standards. The new club was based at Northumberland Road Baths in town. So, in 1973, Heaton ASC ceased to exist. (But what happened to Heaton’s historic club trophies? I’d love to know.)

City of Newcastle Swimming Club’s first annual swimming gala took place on Saturday 15 December 1973. ‘Incorporating Heaton ASC’ is written in parentheses after the name of the new club. This suggests that the other city clubs had not yet relinquished their identities. Certainly Northumberland ASC, with its long tradition and history, continued for many years.

Chilli Road

There were many good times at Heaton ASC and Chilli Road Pool was always popular with competitive swimmers, as it was thought to be a fast pool. (Although the cockroaches in the changing rooms in the 60s seemed to spook a few!)

The pool itself had opened in April 1925, designed by prominent London architect, Alfred William Stephens Cross (1858-1932), who specialised in the design of public baths and wrote a book on the subject. Cross was vice president of RIBA (The Royal Institute of British Architects) and president of the Incorporated Association of Architects and Surveyors. Heaton Pool must have been one of his final designs.

It cost £42,000. Originally there were ‘slipper baths’ for individual bathing; they were practically covered and shaped like a – yes, you guessed! Remember, few people would have had a bath at home in those days. The communal swimming pool measured 75 feet by 35 feet and contained 65,000 gallons of water. Changing cubicles around the edge of the pool were removed in the 1960s.

The pool remained open to the end of the millennium. Generations of Heaton children learnt to swim there and many locals still remember the family sessions with inflatable toys.

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Heaton Pool, 1990

But in 2000, a ‘modern leisure facility’, East End Pool, was opened in Byker by Sir Bobby Robson, and that spelled the end for Chilli Road. Between 1990 and 2000, my sister Moira was a duty manager and adult swimming teacher there, continuing the family association until the very end.’

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Arthur, Brenda Falcus and Dave Smith in token effort to Save Our Swimming pool

Can you help?

If you know more about Heaton Pool or Heaton ASC or have memories or photographs to share, please either post a message direct to this website, by clicking on the link immediately below this article title, or email chris.jackson@heatonhistorygroup.org

We are always pleased to receive information, memories and photos relevant to Heaton’s history.

 Acknowledgements

Written and researched by Arthur Andrews, with additional research by Chris Jackson.

Sources

Heaton: from farms to foundries / Alan Morgan; Tyne Bridge Publishing, 2012

Public baths and wash houses: a treatise on their planning, design, arrangement and fitting: having special regard to the acts arranging for their provision: with chapters on Turkish, Russian and other special baths, public laundries, engineering, heating, water supply etc / W S Cross; Batsford, 1906

Bowlers in bowlers?

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This fantastic photograph, showing a group of men in front of the pavilion in Heaton Park, was taken by Edward G Brewis or at least his firm.

Edward lived from about 1895 to 1900 in ‘the photographer’s house’, the double-fronted house just a few doors up from the park, 190 Heaton Park Road. He ran his own photography studio in New Bridge Street, as well as from his Heaton home and he took the last ever photograph of Heaton Park Road champion cyclist, George W Waller.

By 1900, Edward Brewis had moved to Broomley near Bywell but he later returned to Jesmond Park East, High Heaton for a while. He died aged only 44 in 1908. (You can read more about him and the house by clicking on the link in the first line of this paragraph.)

Bowlers

Early 20th Century Heaton Park bowlers?

 

We are hoping that someone will be able to tell us more about the photograph. Who were the men? They are posing with bowls on the bowling green so that could be a clue? Is the man standing at the back and the one sitting on the grass to the left of the bowls a park keeper? They both have badges on their distinctive caps and one has what might be a money bag over his shoulder.

When might it have been taken? Do the array of bowlers, boaters, flat caps, even a top hat (held by the bare-headed man second from the right in the second row from the back) and what looks like a tam o’shanter (three to the left of the man with the top hat) enable anyone to date it with a degree of confidence? Perhaps the collars and neck ties can help us pin it down.

Or does the pavilion itself hold the answer? How long was the large fountain in place? And does the photo pre-date a later clock? When was this part of the park a bowling green? We know it was a croquet lawn at one point. We are sure that readers of this article will have at least some of the answers.

John Whyte

Ian Sanderson recently wrote from Sussex, telling us that he believes the man in the boater on the left of the above photograph to be his grandfather, John Arthur Whyte.

John, born in 1885, lived in Byker and Heaton all his life and in 1911 was presented with two medals by his bowling club, Heaton Victoria. John spent a long career with Newcastle Corporation, rising to the position of town clerk. He continued to bowl in Heaton Park and for the Portland Club into the 1950s. He also represented Northumberland.

Below is a detail from the above photograph and also photos, supplied by Ian, which show his grandfather in 1916 and the medals he won. Ian believes that the above photograph may show members of the Heaton Victoria Club in around 1911.

 

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Detail of photograph of bowlers in Heaton Park

 

 

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John Arthur Whyte, 1916

 

 

 

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Heaton Victoria Bowling Club medal

 

 

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Heaton Victoria Bowling Club medal

 

 

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Heaton Victoria Bowling Club medal

 

 

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Heaton Victoria Bowling Club medal

 

Thank you

Thank you very much to Ian and to Gary Walsh of Whickham, who kindly sent us a copy of the photograph.

Can you help?

If you can give us any leads or have any other information or photos of bowling in Heaton that you’re happy to share, we’d love to hear from you. Please either leave a message on this website by clicking on the link immediately below the article title or email chris.jackson@heatonhistorygroup.org We’d love to hear from you!

Billy Hogg

Heaton’s four times champion

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In Heaton, we rightly celebrate the footballing achievements of local polymath, Colin Campbell McKechnie Veitch, who won three championship medals with Newcastle United. But how many people know that Heaton was home to a contemporary, who also played for Newcastle (albeit briefly), was also capped by England, but who won FOUR championships. Some quiz question!

William (‘Billy’) Hogg was born in Hendon, Sunderland on 29 May 1879 to Catherine Hogg, of Sherburn Co Durham and her husband, John, of South Church near Bishop Auckland, a fitter. But while William was still a young boy, the family moved to Newcastle and by 1887 were living in a newly built house on Spencer Street in Heaton.  By 1891 the family  comprised mother, Catherine, father John Father, still a fitter, 15 year old sister Elizabeth a ‘pupil school teacher’ , with William, aged 11,  younger brother, John, aged nine and younger sister, Ann, eight, at school. The house was directly opposite the ground where Newcastle East End still played: they merged with Newcastle West End in 1892 and moved to St James Park. I wonder did young William see Alec White score seven goals in the club’s record 19-0 win in 1888? In any case, it was in Heaton that he received his football education.

First championship medal

We know that William was soon playing organised football, first with nearby Walkergate Rangers, then Rosehill and later with Willington Athletic up the road in Howden. He was also a notable cricketer, once capturing a prize for taking seven wickets for no runs. His heart lay with football, however, and although he later revealed that his boyhood ambition was to play for United, he was soon spotted by football scouts from the town of his birth.

Billy Hogg

He signed professional in October 1899 and marked his debut with a goal in a 5-0 victory over Notts County. He went on to score six goals from outside right in his first season, in which Sunderland finished third.

Billy married Martha Jane Smith in Newcastle in 1900 and, by 1901, was still working as a fitter (while also playing football) and living in Sunderland with his wife and young son. Robert.

He was an ever-present in the 1900-01 season with nine goals, as Sunderland finished runners up (denied the title by failing to win at St James’ Park in their final game) and ten the following year when they were crowned champions, a year in which Colin Veitch’s Newcastle United were third and Middlesbrough promoted. Heady days for north east football!

Hogg capped a brilliant year by being capped three times for England in the Home International Championships of that year. His second match v Scotland at Ibrox was marred by one of the biggest disasters in British football. 25 supporters were killed when, 51 minutes into the match, a newly-built stand collapsed following heavy rain. Remarkably the game was played to the finish but later declared void and the gate receipts of the replay at Villa Park, in which Billy also played, went to the disaster fund.

Hogg also played for the Football League three times, in two of which he scored a hat-trick and he played for the North v the South.

Hat-trick v Newcastle

Billy was, as you might expect, a great favourite at Sunderland. We know a little about his physique. He was apparently around 5’9″ and in 1902 weighed about 11 stone 11 lbs but he was heavier later in his career, when he was often described as ‘burly’. He was considered particularly good looking, with it once said of him:

‘When they cease to play Willie for his football, they may do worse than play him for his appearance!’

A career highlight came in 1908-9, when he scored two hat-tricks in a fortnight, the first to Woolwich Arsenal on 21 November and the second on 5 December in a 9-1 victory against Newcastle United at St James Park, a team that had only conceded 13 in its previous 15 games. The score was 1-1 at half time but Sunderland scored again early in the second half, when:

‘Newcastle became first dispirited and then disorganised’ (Sound familiar?)

It was maybe some consolation to his erstwhile neighbours that Colin Veitch’s Newcastle soon beat Sunderland at home, then knocked them out of the cup and finished the season champions (with Sunderland third) but might also explain why Billy Hogg’s Heaton connection has been largely forgotten in these parts.

Three Scottish titles

At the end of the 1908-9 season, with his career record at Sunderland reading Played 303 Scored 84 (mainly from outside right), the Wearsiders’ captain for the previous three years was transferred to Glasgow Rangers for a fee of £100. The signing was greeted with great excitement in Scotland:

‘This is undoubtedly the greatest capture made for a very long time.’

And with equal regret in the north east:

‘Billy Hogg… is to be honoured by his north of England friends tomorrow night at the Heaton Social Club, Newcastle. The gathering, which promises to be a memorable one, will be presided over by Councillor F Taylor, chairman of Sunderland FC, and the opportunity will be taken of presenting Hogg with a valuable presentation. It is seldom indeed that we hear of the leaving of any footballer from any team arousing such feelings of regret. He is at once one of the most popular players in the north of England. Possessed of a wonderful personality, he is also possessed of the necessary football skill which is essential to those who would reach the hearts of the people. Sunderland’s loss will be Rangers’ gain ‘

Billy Hogg

In his first season, Rangers finished third with Hogg scoring six goals from 29 appearances but in each of his next three seasons they were Scottish champions. In 1911-12, he scored 20 goals from 30 appearances. Injuries began to limit his appearances, however, and, although his popularity was undimmed:

‘His personality, unique mannerisms and happy-go-lucky disposition has endeared him to Ibrox supporters… Billy’s antics always gave real and unbounded pleasure’

in 1913 he moved to Dundee and the following year, he became player-manager at Raith Rovers.

Return home

Billy’s mother and father continued to live on Spencer Street and by 1911 his brother John (‘Jack’) was living next door with his wife, Florence and sons, William and Victor. (Jack had also been a professional footballer, first with Sunderland and then Southampton, but without Billy’s success.)

During WW1, it was reported that Billy Hogg had announced that he had returned to Heaton to work as a fitter and for the duration of the war, he would not play professional football only charity games.

We know that in November 1915 and May 1918 he guested for Newcastle United and that, after the war, he returned to Scotland to play for Dundee, Hibs and Montrose before returning to Sunderland as a publican and then in 1927 a coach, a position he held for eight years.

Billy died in Sunderland sadly prematurely on 30 January 1937, aged 57.  Like Colin Veitch and Alec White, he deserves to be remembered in Heaton and beyond.

Can you help?

If you can add to the story of Billy Hogg or of any other prominent footballer who was born, has lived or played in Heaton, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave a comment on this site (see the link just below the article title) or email, Chris Jackson, Secretary of Heaton History Group.

Sources

Ancestry UK

British Newspaper Archive

England Footballers Online

‘Hotbed of Soccer’ by Arthur Appleton, Sportsman’s Book Club, 1960

Personal correspondence with ‘Football John’ via Kevin Mochrie

Wikipedia