Category Archives: Women

Julia Darling: electrified the ordinary

Julia Darling was a writer who lived in Heaton’s Stratford Grove between 1995 and 2005. Among her many published works were several collections of poetry, two novels, two books of short stories and many works for stage, TV and radio. She was a major literary figure in the north-east until her untimely death.

Early life

Julia was born in Winchester, Hampshire on 21 August 1956 in the very house in which Jane Austen spent her final days and eventually died. Later in life, Julia spoke about the connection with Austen and how, when she was a teenager, the Austen Society had complained about anti-apartheid, pro-abortion and women’s lib posters she had put in her bedroom window.

Julia’s father, John, was a physics teacher at Winchester College (which owned the house the family lived in); her mother, Patricia, was a nurse and a Quaker. Julia attended Winchester High School for Girls, but was expelled at the age of 15, before going on to Falmouth School of Art.

To Newcastle

Julia’s connection with Newcastle began in 1980. She had just completed her fine art degree, when she visited friends in the city. She was so struck by it, still years before its Quayside renaissance, that she later told the ‘New Statesman’ that Newcastle was, ‘an overwhelming place with its soaring bridges, its black, oily river, and train lines that ran through ancient castles,’ before continuing ‘The moment I got here I knew I would never leave.’ She never did.

Early Works

It was around this time that Julia began her writing career. Between 1980 and 1988, she worked as a community arts office in the Pennywell area of Sunderland but at the same time she set up the Women’s Intellectual Group (Wig) and began collaborating with writer, Ellen Phethean, on a women’s political cabaret, Sugar and Spikes.

In 1984 Julia, married trade union organiser Ivan Paul Sears, with whom she had two daughters, Scarlet and Florence.

When, in 1988, Julia was appointed writer-in-residence by Newcastle City Council and Northern Arts, she gave up a regular wage in order to explore her potential as a writer. Newcastle City Library published her first pamphlet ‘Small Beauties‘ following the residency and, not wanting to read alone for the launch, a performance group, The Poetry Virgins was born, comprising Julia herself, Ellen Phethean, Charlie Hardwick, Fiona MacPherson and Kay Hepplewhite.

Ellen recalled: ‘We used to gather round Julia’s kitchen table with bottles of wine and nibbles, laughing and bouncing ideas for poems and performances.’ Julia observed that The Poetry Virgins were ‘a troupe of raucous women who liked a wild night out and who took poetry to the places that least expected it (and probably didn’t want it either!) like housing co-op AGMs and women’s refuge coffee mornings.’

Julia was always prepared to take on subjects that were controversial at the time, including teen pregnancy and homophobia. Indeed when looking back in 2005 at this early period of her writing, she wrote: ‘My early plays were all rather worthy. I wrote about patriarchy, single mothers, bad capitalists and nice socialists, rotten men and brave women trying to find themselves.’

But Julia’s early work in theatre also laid the foundation for her close collaboration with actors, directors and artists, which continued throughout her life. Tyne and Wear Theatre in Education brought her into contact with Live Theatre, where powerful new writing flourished. She felt proud that her writing fell into the tradition of men like C P Taylor and Tom Hadaway, but said that in the late 1980s-early 1990s she ‘did seem to be one of the only women on the landscape, which was odd’.

Julia and Ivan had separated in 1989 and Julia met her life-long partner, Bev Robinson. The 1980s had kick-started Julia’s career but it was arguably now that it really took off.

Wider Audience

The success of The Poetry Virgins had encouraged Julia and Ellen Phethean to set up a small press, Diamond Twig, in 1992. The original idea was to establish an outlet for work by The Poetry Virgins. Later the press went on to support other women writers from the north-east, publishing their poetry and short fiction.

In 1992, a theatrical partnership was established between Julia and Quondam, which was a small-scale Cumbrian professional touring company. Andy Booth, Quondam’s founder and producer, commissioned her to write ‘Rafferty’s Cafe’. This play toured England and was followed by two further historical plays ‘Head of Steel’ and ‘Black Diamonds’. In 1993 Julia won Tyne Tees Television’s Put It In Writing short story competition with her story ‘Beyond’. This was a spiritual tale, which was was published in her 1995 collection, ‘Bloodlines’. Now Julia’s stories were widely published, including ‘The Street’ which featured in ‘Penguin Modern Women’s Fiction‘ (1997); ‘Breast’ in the British Council’s ‘New Writing 6‘ (1997) and ‘Love Me Tender’ in ‘New Writing 10′ (2001). In 1995, ‘The Street’ from ‘Bloodlines‘, was recorded for broadcast on BBC Radio 4.

In 1998, Julia’s first novel, ‘Crocodile Soup’ was published by Anchor. It was long-listed for the Orange Prize for Fiction, which recognise the achievements of female writers. The novel went on to be published in Canada, Australia, the USA and across Europe. Later editions were published by Penguin and Mayfly.

Soon after this, Julia had a residency at the Live Theatre in tandem with Sean O’ Brien and five of her plays were developed into a series called ‘Posties’ for Radio 4.

But amidst this success, in 1994, Julia was diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of just 38. She was able to write about her illness, including in the play ‘Eating the Elephant’, in which the four female characters all are dealing with cancer diagnoses. Julia herself wrote: ‘I always thought that the four characters were parts of me, all in conflict, but trying to find common ground.’

After being awarded a distinction on her MA in Poetry Studies at Newcastle University in 2002, Julia was appointed an Associate Royal Literary Fund Fellow of Literature and Health at the university. Her room in the Percy Building was directly opposite the Royal Victoria Infirmary where Julia received treatment for advanced breast cancer. She called this time ‘the most creative year I have ever had’. It was at this time that she Julia began her popular blog, talking about books and exhibitions and about people she cared about. She said this about her reason for the blog: ‘Here I am, I want to say, still here, not that pale or insubstantial‘. When interviewed by The Crack in 2003, she also commented that, ‘it’s also a little box to stand on if I have an opinion about anything.’

Critical acclaim

2003 was the year in which, arguably, Julia gained most critical acclaim. That March, she won the Northern Rock Foundation Writer’s Award, worth £60,000 over three years. As part of this, Julia was able to take a trip to Brazil to research her unpublished novel ‘A Cure for Dying’.

And in August 2003, her novel, ‘The Taxi Driver’s Daughter’ was published by Viking and in paperback by Penguin the following year. It went on to be long-listed for the Man Booker Prize and short-listed for the Encore Award given by the Society of Authors.

It is, of course, a particularly loved work in Heaton, set as it is in places close to Julia’s heart and her Stratford Grove home and re-imagining, as a key part of the plot, the birth of Armstrong Park’s famous ‘Shoe Tree’. The book’s central character, Caris, has echos of her own young, rebellious self.

Shoe Tree, April 2021 (Copyright: Chris Jackson)

Unfortunately Julia’s success could not prevent her from being typecast as ‘Newcastle writer’ rather than simply a writer. Alfred Hickling, in ‘The Guardian‘ referred to the London-centric perception of Julia being based in the ‘provinces’. He observed: ‘Darling is routinely labeled a “Newcastle writer”, as though literate people on Tyneside were a breed apart. And though her novels of working class life undoubtedly belong to the great tradition of Sid Chaplin, Tom Hadaway and Alan Plater, Darling herself is not a native Geordie at all… But the great strength of her writing is its sense of place, which she often evokes with a few well-chosen smells.’

In early 2003, Julia was asked to contribute to the ultimately unsuccessful bid by Newcastle for the title of European City of Culture. She commented: ‘It sounds sentimental, but for many of us who live here, the city of Newcastle is like a person who we feel very emotional about. When I arrived as a young woman it was like falling in love.’ Julia developed her thoughts about her adopted city after traveling to Barcelona as part of a Northern Playhouse project about George Orwell’s ‘Homage to Catalonia‘. The trip resulted in Julia’s powerful poem ‘The Manifesto for Tyneside upon England’ which she described as ‘Luddite’ and which was performed a the Playhouse at a cabaret night of music and poetry called ‘Flying Homages‘.

In further recognition of her talents, in June 2003, Julia was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and in 2003, she was also invited to be part of a British Council trip to Mauritius, which she described as a ‘passionate, political place’. Julia also became a television star of sorts by agreeing to be filmed by the BBC ‘Inside Out‘ team for a documentary about her life. The programme gave a flavour of her family and working life, running workshops and reading poetry. ‘Inside Out‘ featured Julia’s own video diary which she had recorded over the summer. Writing in her blog about the TV broadcast she noted: ‘I liked the simple message of it although there were weepy bits, on the whole it showed what it’s like to have cancer with its good days and bad days’.

About Health

Julia continued not to shy away from writing about illness. Her collections Sudden Collapses in Public Places (2003) and Apologies for Absence (2005) explored issues around body, health and illness, including the experience of being treated for and living with cancer. Sudden Collapses in Public Places was set as a song cycle and performed by Zoë Lambert at The Sage Gateshead. Julia loved music and wrote: ‘There is something wonderful about having ones words interpreted by gifted musicians.’

Another piece about health issues featured a character called Rhona who sought solace on the Scottish/Northumbrian border after having finding out that she had multiple sclerosis. Poignantly, Rhona doesn’t find peace, discovering instead a noisy and restless spirit about which she comments: ‘My body is a debatable land. It is full of marauders who come looking for blood and wealth but I am going to shake them loose.’ Rhona eventually comes to the conclusion that: ‘All we can do in the face of fear is to become ungovernable.’ Gina McKee narrated the story when it was broadcast on Radio 4 in January 2005.

And there was a collaboration with the artist Emma Holliday. Julia’s ‘First Aid Kit for the Mind’ poems were exhibited alongside Emma’s paintings at The Rebellious Stamp Exhibition held at The Biscuit Factory and in waiting rooms around the country.

Julia was further inspired by her own situation to write about another character, Maureen, who had been given a diagnosis of an inoperable brain tumour. She then took on the role of The Guardian’s online poet in residence and also wrote a piece for Radio 3’s The Verb about waiting.

Despite her illness, Julia maintained a connection with her work and in her own words, ‘hoiked’ herself out of bed in March 2005, to see dress rehearsals for her final stage play, ‘A Manifesto for a New City’ , which Julia hoped would inspire people of the Newcastle to stand up for their city. The play was inspired by manifesto poems written as part of the earlier Home to Catalonia project at Northern Playhouse.

Last Days

In the month Julia died, The Poetry Cure, described as a ‘a significant anthology on the subject of illness’, edited by Julia and Cynthia Fuller was published. In response, Ruth Padel wrote that ‘this beautiful and humane anthology should be on the waiting room of every ward’.

Poignantly, Julia’s introduction included the words: ‘I believe that poetry can help make you better. Poetry is essential, not a frill or a nicety. It comes to all of us when we most need it. As soon as we are in any kind of crisis, or anguish, that is when we reach out for poetry, or find ourselves writing a poem for the first time.’

Julia died on 13 April 2005 in her beloved adopted city of Newcastle upon Tyne, having already chosen her burial plot in Jesmond Old Cemetery.

The inscription on her gravestone reads: ‘Mother & Writer; she electrified the ordinary; we all matter, we are all indelible; miraculous here‘, the words taken from her poems.

She wrote this poem about choosing her plot:

Old Jezzy

I went to old Jesmond Graveyard to find my plot, to mark a place.

Doug from Bereavement showed me a spot green and reflective, under a willow.

He apologised for the trimming of the weeds, he liked it messy overgrown, but the government had made stipulations for health and safety.

Things must be neat, in case of gravestones squashing children, so raggy old Jezzy was having a clean up.

But you know, said Doug, death isn’t tidy.

It’s a plague of knotweed, a bed of nettles, a path through thistles, that’s how it should be.

Reviews

In their obituary, The Guardian commented that Julia’s ‘love of the north-east informed much of her work‘

The Independent said this of Julia in their obituary: ‘Julia Darling was a writer of great gifts and versatility and, in recent years, an extremely prolific one. She wrote novels and short stories, plays and poetry, as well as collaborating frequently with painters, musicians and other artists. She was also an instigator and a teacher, though the latter word, which she viewed with suspicion, does not adequately suggest her power to excite and inspire a sense of possibility – in writing, in life – among the many who encountered her.’

Jules Smith for the British Council commented that, ‘Julia Darling’s work is brave, engaging, often funny; but above all, thoughtful.’

In its review of ‘Crocodile Soup’, a ‘Goodreads‘ review stated that the book is,‘a narrative studded with relentless humor and giddy self-deprecation, Julia Darling introduces an endearing cast of characters whose shared and wayward search for love is irresistible.’

Northern Stage revived A Manifesto for a City in 2015, saying: ‘There are so many ways to begin the story of Julia Darling and often it feels like there is just that one world-shatteringly sad ending. But even ten years after her passing, Julia’s voice is still as gripping as before. It manifests itself as a presence of a kind. The Manifesto receives a new production at Northern Stage this week, and one can’t imagine a more fitting moment than the one in the aftermath of Jeremy Corbyn’s victory as the leader of the Labour party. It is a time of renewed idealism which Julia and her Poet would certainly have relished. It represents an opportunity for a happier ending. In the run up to this production I opened an old box looking for the final version of the script, and I found one of those notes Julia used to write and leave around the place. And that certainly makes for a happier ending for me’.

Perhaps the most unusual review of Julia’s work was written by another cancer sufferer, Anthony Wilson, who in a blog entitled ‘Lifesaving Poems’, compared Julia’s poetry to Psalm 102, as both could be seen as cries for the light of life amid the dark pain of serious illness. Wilson said ‘I had come across Julia Darling’s marvellous poem “Chemotherapy” nearly a year before I fully understood what she was talking about. There is not much I need to add to it, except to say I think “the smallest things are gifts” sums up for me the entire universe of pain, gratitude, suffering, relief, anxiety and humour which the word “cancer’ registers in me.’

Julia was a woman and a writer who touched many people’s lives, with her wit and her courage, both in her life and in her writing. As she lives on in her writing, so may this continue.

Last Word

The last word goes to Ellen Phethean, the Heaton-based writer, who was a good friend of Julia’s for over a quarter of a century, as well as being a close colleague of hers in many writing ventures.

When asked for her memories of Julia, Ellen said:

‘I first met Julia when we performed together in the women’s political cabaret group Sugar and Spikes back in 1979/80. When Julia began to focus seriously on her writing, producing a pamphlet of poems, ‘Small Beauties’, she asked some women to perform with her and so began The Poetry Virgins, which I joined as another writer. The PVs were extremely popular, breaking the boundaries of traditional poetry readings, encompassing Trade Union Study Days, Women’s Aid AGMs and Literary Festivals, producing two collections ‘Modern Goddess’ (1992) and ‘Sauce’ (1994).

‘Julia and I also began our small press, Diamond Twig, with the aim of encouraging other women to write, a central tenet of our philosophy, and we ran all sorts of events and reading nights.

‘We inspired each other: ideas would bubble up, we’d bounce them around, coming up with some grand wacky ideas. Her humour and imagination meant she was a joy to work with. Her generosity of spirit brought writers together, she was at the heart of the vibrant, busy writing world of the north-east. Everywhere I go I meet women who tell me how important Julia was to their writing journey. Despite her cancer diagnosis, she was always busy living, not dying, believing that poetry gave her a language and control over her bodily experiences. Her openness in the face of death was inspiring, anticipating it as the beginning of a wild new adventure.’

Acknowledgements

Researched and written by Peter Sagar of Heaton History Group. Thank you also to Arthur Andrews and Ellen Phethean for their contributions.

Sources

http://juliadarling.co.uk/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julia_Darling

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2005/apr/14/news.sarahcrown

https://durhambookfestival.com/review/book-review-pearl-by-julia-darling/

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/julia-darling-489445.html

https://literature.britishcouncil.org/writer/julia-darling

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1013611.Crocodile_Soup

Can You Help?

If you know any more about Julia Darling or anyone or anything mentioned in this article, we’d love to hear from you. You can contact us either through this website by clicking on the link immediately below the article title or by emailing chris.jackson@heatonhistorygroup.org

Poetry in Action: Remembering Julia Darling

The Stoneys of Heaton: unsung heroes of the Parsons’ story

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Most people in Newcastle have heard of Sir Charles Parsons, the eminent engineer whose invention of a multi-stage steam turbine revolutionised marine propulsion and electrical power generation, making him world famous in his lifetime and greatly respected still. Parsons’ Heaton factory was a huge local employer for many decades. It survives today as part of the global firm, Siemens.

But, of course, Charles Parsons did not make his huge strides in engineering alone. He was ably supported by a highly skilled workforce, including brilliant engineers and mathematicians, some of whom were much better known in their life times than they are today.

Two that certainly deserve to be remembered were siblings, Edith Anne Stoney and her brother, George Gerald. Edith worked for Parsons only briefly but her contribution was crucial. Her brother worked for Parsons and lived in Heaton most of his adult life. This is their story.

Family background

Dr George Johnstone Stoney (1826-1911), the siblings’ father, was a prominent Irish physicist, who was born near Birr in County Offaly. He worked as an astronomy assistant to Charles Parsons’ father, William, at nearby Birr Castle and he later taught Charles Parsons at Trinity College, Dublin. Stoney is best known for introducing the term ‘electron’ as the fundamental unit quantity of electricity. He and his wife, Margaret Sophia, had five children whom they home educated. Perhaps not surprisingly, the Stoney children went on to have illustrious careers. Robert Bindon became a doctor in Australia; Gertrude Rose was an artist; Florence Ada ( awarded the OBE in 1919), the first female radiologist in the UK. But it is George Gerald and Edith Anne who have the Heaton connection.

Edith Anne Stoney

Edith was born on 6 January 1869 and soon showed herself to be a talented mathematician. She won a scholarship to Newham College Cambridge where, in 1893, she achieved a first in the Part 1 Tripos examination. At that time, and for another 50 years afterwards, women were not awarded degrees at Cambridge so she did not officially graduate but she was later awarded both a BA and MA by Trinity College Dublin.

After graduation, Edith came to Newcastle to work for Charles Parsons. There is, in Newcastle University Library, a letter sent by Charles Parson to Edith’s father, George Johnstone Stoney, in 1903. Parsons pays tribute to:

‘your daughter’s great and original ability for applied mathematics… The problems she has attacked and solved have been in relation to the special curvature of our mirrors for obtaining beams of light of particular shapes. These investigations involved difficult and intricate original calculations, so much so that I must confess they were quite beyond my powers now and probably would have been also when I was at Cambridge… Your daughter also made calculations in regard to the gyrostatic forces brought onto the bearings of marine steam turbines…’

It looks like the sort of reference someone might write for a perspective employer except that, a sign of the times, it doesn’t mention Edith by name and is addressed to her father.

Stoney Edith,_Florence,_Johnstone_Stoney

Edith, Florence and George Johnstone Stoney

After working in Heaton, Edith went on to teach mathematics at Cheltenham Ladies’ College and then lecture in physics at the London School of Medicine for Women in London. There she set up a laboratory and designed the physics course.

In 1901, she and her sister, Florence, opened a new x-ray service at London’s Royal Free Hospital and she became actively involved in the women’s suffrage movement as well becoming the first treasurer of the British Federation of University Women, a post she held from 1909-1915.

During WW1, both sisters offered their service to the British Red Cross to provide a state of the art radiological service to the troops in Europe. In the x-ray facilities at a new 250 bed hospital near Troyes in France, planned and operated by her, she used stereoscopy to localise bullets and shrapnel and pioneered the use of x-rays in the diagnosis of gas gangrene, saving many lives.

She was posted to Serbia, Macedonia, Greece and France again, serving in dangerous war zones for the duration of the war. The hospitals in which she worked were repeatedly shelled and evacuated but she continued to do what she considered to be her duty. Her war service was recognised by several countries. Among her awards were the French Croix de Guerre and Serbia’s Order of St Sava, as well as British Victory Medals.

After the war, Edith returned to England, where she lectured at King’s College for Women. In her retirement, she resumed work with the British Federation for University Women and in 1936, in memory of her father and sister, she established the Johnstone and Florence Stoney Studentship, which is still administered by the British Federation of Women Graduates to support women to carry out research overseas in biological, geological, meteorological or radiological science.

Edith Anne Stoney died on 25 June 1938, aged 69. Her importance is shown by the obituaries which appeared in ‘The Times’, ‘The Lancet’ and ‘Nature’. She will be remembered for her pioneering work in medical physics, her wartime bravery and her support for women’s causes. Although her time in Newcastle was brief, she deserves also to be remembered for her contribution to the work in Heaton for which Charles Parsons is rightly lauded.

George Gerald Stoney

But Edith’s elder brother had a much longer association with Parsons – and with Heaton.

George Gerald Stoney was born in Dublin on 28 November 1863, the first child of Margaret and George Johnstone Stoney. Like his sister, he was educated at home and gained a particularly good grounding in science. For example at a young age, he learnt about the silvering of mirrors which was to become very useful in his working life.

In 1882, when 19 years old, he went to Trinity College, Dublin. After four years he left with a first class honours in mathematics and a gold medal in experimental science. The following year he was awarded an engineering degree.

After working for a year with his uncle in Dublin, he came to England in 1888 to work alongside the more senior Charles Parsons for Clarke, Chapman and Company in Gateshead, earning ten shillings a week as an apprentice draughtsman. Here he first became acquainted with the compound steam turbine and did associated drawings for Parsons.

When, the following year, Parsons left the firm, after a disagreement on the pace at which work was progressing in the turbine field, to set up his own company in Heaton, Stoney was one of a dozen or so Clarke Chapman employees to follow him. He first worked as a fitter, earning £2 10s.

The 1891 Census shows Stoney living as a lodger at 69 Seventh Avenue, Heaton in the home of widow, Jane Beckett and her two working sons, John and William.

Key figure

There is ample evidence of Gerald (as he was known) Stoney’s importance to Parsons even in the early days.

In 1893, an agreement was made whereby Parsons agreed to employ Stoney who, in turn, agreed to work for Parsons for five years in the capacity of electrical engineer, ‘the duties which shall comprise the management of the mirror and testing departments, the carrying out of experiments and other such duties…’

A year later, he was given a share option. He put £200 into the company, which was matched by Parsons. And, in 1895, aged 32, he was named Chief Designer of the steam turbine department and Chief Electrical Engineer for high speed dynamos and alternators.

Stoney’s application, on 28 November 1895, to become a member of The Institution of Civil Engineers (his proposer was C A Parsons) states:

‘…appointed Manager of their Mirror Works for the manufacture of mirrors for search light projectors for English and foreign governments and is also manager for testing all dynamos and engines and technical adviser in the design and manufacture of all the steam turbines and dynamos made by the firm amounting to a yearly output of over 10,000 horsepower. These posts he now holds.’

He was elected Associate Member on 4 February 1896 when his address was given as 118 Meldon Terrace, Heaton.

Turbinia

It was around this time that Parsons was finally successful in his almost obsessive quest to apply the steam turbine to marine engineering. He had conceived and built ‘Turbinia’ which he was determined to make the fastest ship in the world. There were many trials of the ship in the Tyne and off the Northumberland coast at which Parsons and Stoney were always among the small group on board. After each trial modifications and improvements were made and the vessel was put to sea again. At every stage, Stoney was at the forefront.

Finally on 1 April 1897, as ‘Turbinia’, with Charles Parsons on the bridge and Gerald Stoney next to him as usual, made its way back up the Tyne after its latest sea trial , ‘at the modest pace allowed by local regulations‘ it was noted that ‘the river was nearly empty, the tide slack and the water smooth’ so Parsons decided to do a full power run along a measured nautical mile. A mean speed of 31.01 knots and a top speed of 32.6 knots was recorded, a record speed for any vessel. Charles Parsons had achieved his aim of adapting the steam turbine for marine propulsion.

Parsons’ first big opportunity to show his ship to the world was to come a couple of months later on 26 June 1897, when a review of the fleet to celebrate Queen Victoria’s diamond jubilee was held at Spithead off Portsmouth. A hundred and fifty vessels were present, in an orderly procession when, with Parsons at the helm and Stoney in his customary position alongside him, ‘Turbinia’ made the move, which was to secure its place in naval folklore.

As the ‘Times’ put it:

‘At the cost of deliberate disregard of authority, she contrived to give herself an effective advertisement by steaming at astonishing speed between the lines A and B shortly after the royal procession had passed. The patrol boats which attempted to check her adventurous and lawless proceedings were distanced in a twinkling but at last one managed by placing herself athwart her course… Her speed was, as I have said, simply astonishing.’ (27 June 1887).

In fact, Parsons denied deliberate lawlessness. He maintained that the watching Prince Henry of Prussia requested that ‘Turbinia’ be brought alongside his flagship and show a turn of speed. Permission was apparently given by the admiralty but there is no doubt that there were a number of close shaves as ‘Turbinia’ squeezed between other crafts at previously unknown speed.

Turbinia with Gerald Stoney below Charles Parsons on the bridge

Growing recognition

Stoney continued to be indispensible to Parsons. For all Parsons’ genius and drive, Stoney seems to have had the better understanding of theory and he could also apply it in practice. In fact, there is evidence that, on occasion, Parson’s intransigence even held Stoney and his own company back when he refused to agree to their suggestions. If a solution to a problem had been found by a competitor, especially a foreign one, rather than adopt it and move on, Parsons more than once insisted that his engineers found a different, original answer. For the most part, Stoney seems to have accepted this trait in his employer and risen to the challenges it posed.

In 19 December 1900, Stoney became a full member of the Institution of Civil Engineers. He was now General Manager of C A Parsons and living at 7 Roxburgh Place, Heaton. By 1902, according to the Electoral Register, the Stoneys had moved to ‘Oakley’, an imposing, three storey, semi-detached villa on Heaton Road.

‘Oakley’ on Heaton Road

In 1903 Stoney was involved in the establishment of the ground breaking Neptune and Carrville Power Stations, which were so crucial to the economy of Tyneside. And in 1904, Parsons again rewarded his trusted lieutenant. He opened a bank account for him into which he deposited £5,000. 4.5% interest could be drawn half yearly or yearly. If Stoney stayed at the firm for another ten years, the capital would be his.

Stoney was by now well known in engineering circles. He published many papers and submitted patent applications and he gave lectures throughout Britain and Ireland.

In 1905, George Gerald Stoney and Charles Parsons were joint recipients of the Institution of Civil Engineers’ Watt Gold Medal for excellence in engineering and in 1911 Stoney, by now Technical Manager of the entire Heaton works, was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) by his peers, evidence that his part in Parsons’ work was recognised outside as well as within the firm.

Temporary departure

But in 1912, ‘in a moment of extreme vexation’ as he later put it (rows between senior staff at the company seemed common), Gerald Stoney left C A Parsons. At first, he set up as a consultant and he was secretary of one of the Tyneside Irish battalions before, in 1917, being appointed to the Chair of Mechanical Engineering at the Victoria University in Manchester. Stoney’s eminence is shown by a photograph, taken at this time, being in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery.

George Gerald Stoney (courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery)

However, Stoney’s wife Isabella, was by this time an invalid and didn’t make the move from Newcastle. Stoney increasingly had to travel between the two cities and when, in 1926, Charles Parsons became aware of the toll this was taking, he offered his old employee the chance to return to Heaton as Director of Research. Stoney’s career had turned full circle as, in his new role, he found himself once again conducting experimental optical work, this time for the recently acquired Grubb Telescope Company, now called Grubb Parsons. He eventually retired in 1930 following the death of his wife.

George Gerald Stoney died on 15 May 1942 at his home ‘Oakley’ on Heaton Road. He is buried in Corbridge Cemetery alongside his wife.

The Stoneys grave in Corbridge

At the time of his death, he was the last surviving member of the original Turbinia crew. Obituaries and tributes show that he was widely appreciated as one of the pioneers in the development of the steam turbine and high-speed dynamo electric machines. We hope that by retelling his story here, Gerald Stoney, like his sister Edith, will be remembered once again in Heaton and beyond.

Can you help?

If you know more about Edith or Gerald Stoney including their connections with Parsons and the Heaton area, we’d love to hear from you. Please either leave a reply on this website by clicking on the link immediately below the article title or email chris.jackson@heatonhistorygroup.org

Acknowledgements

Researched and written by Arthur Andrews and Chris Jackson, Heaton History Group.

This article is part of Heaton History Group’s project ‘Brains, Steam and Speed: 250 years of science, engineering and mathematics in Heaton‘, funded by Heritage Lottery Fund, with additional funding from Heaton History Group and the Joicey Trust

Pupils from local schools will study mathematicians, scientists and engineers associated with Heaton and produce artworks, inspired by what they have learnt, some of which will be exhibited at the People’s Theatre in July 2018.

Key Sources

From Galaxies to Turbines: science, technology and the Parsons Family / by W Garrett Scaife; Institute of Physics Publishing, 2000

Scope (December 2013) ‘Edith Stoney MA; the first woman medical physicist’

and a range of online and local archival sources.

The Stroud Family of Cresta

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274 Heaton Road is one of Heaton’s more substantial Victorian villas, also known as Cresta. The first recorded conveyance of the house is 1902 and it seems likely that the first residents were the Stroud family, Professor Dr Henry Stroud, his wife Eva Mary Antoinette Stroud and their three children, Irene Elizabeth, Bessie Vera and Henry Clifford. All fairly unremarkable, except that in one house we have a man who was professor of physics at the age of 26 and a close research collaborator and personal friend of Lord Armstrong; a world war one war hero and early aviator; a Red Cross volunteer in WW1 and a possible member of the peerage.

Henry Stroud was born in Bristol in 1862, the second of three children to John and Mary Stroud. John was a pharmaceutical chemist and as well as his family had two apprentices and a servant living in his home.

On leaving school, Henry had a brilliant academic career at both the University of London, where he gained first class degrees in both Physics and Chemistry and later a Doctorate, and at Cambridge, taking a first class degree in the second part of the Natural Science Tripos.

Henry became a lecturer in physics at Armstrong College, then part of the University of Durham in 1886. In 1887, he married Eva Marie Antoinette Emmett, also from Bristol.

Also in 1887, Henry became Professor of Physics and head of the department, at the ripe old age of 26. The 1891 census shows the family, Henry and Eva, with two daughters, Irene aged two and Bessie, six months, living at 8 Grosvenor Place Jesmond, supported by two servants. By 1911, they were living on Heaton Road, with their three children Irene, 22, Bessie, 20 and Henry Clifford, 17, again with two servants.

Either a Physics Professor earned a great deal more in 1911 than they do today, or one of the families had considerable wealth, as they certainly lived a comfortable lifestyle. There is no doubt that Henry was a great success in his position, growing the department from one professor, one lecturer and 76 students in 1887 to two professors, four lecturers, two demonstrators and 244 students when he retired in 1926.

What perhaps better explains the family’s wealth is Henry’s research interest. Throughout his career, Henry collaborated with Lord Armstrong on research into the nature of electricity. Lord Armstrong conducted early experiments on electrical discharges, which Henry worked with him on. A room, the Electrical Room, was specifically set aside at Cragside, Lord Armstrong’s country home, for their research work. Next door to the Billiard Room, the National Trust has recently opened this room to the public to celebrate their research. At Lord Armstrong’s request, Henry completed this research, which was published in 1899 as a ‘Supplement to Electrical Movement in Air and Water with Theoretical Inferences’ by Lord Armstrong CB, FRS. Essentially, the research led Armstrong to propose the existence of two ‘electric fluids’ in air and water, what we now understand as positively and negatively charged particles.

The photographs of their research showing the effect of negatively and positively charged particles are quite exquisite.

Illustration of Lord Armstrong and Professor Stroud’s research on electrical discharges

A number of these are available on the Royal Society website. It seems likely that this research and Henry’s academic prowess made him a wealthy and famous man at a time when society revered knowledge. Certainly when he died in 1940, his estate was valued at £23,136/16/5, about £1.4m in today’s money.

Henry Clifford

The youngest of Henry and Eva’s children, Henry Clifford Stroud was born on 25 July 1893. He certainly followed in his father’s footsteps in terms of academic ability, although his passion was for engineering. He was educated at the Royal Grammar School, then gained his BSc in Engineering at Armstrong College in 1913, followed by a BA at King’s College Cambridge. He was a student of the Institution of Civil Engineers and a graduate of the North East Coast Institution of Engineers and Shipbuilders where, despite his young age, he read a number of papers and was awarded prizes. He was gaining practical experience at Sir William Arrol’s in Glasgow during vacations and had plans to become a civil engineer.

At University, Henry Clifford joined the Officer Training Corps, then the Territorial Force and in June 1912, at the age of 18, was gazetted a Second Lieutenant in the Northumbrian Royal Engineers then promoted to Lieutenant two years later.

Henry Clifford Stroud (Imperial War Museum)

When war broke out Henry immediately volunteered for service overseas and embarked for France with the Northumbrian Royal Engineers, First Field Company in January 1915. His career was tragically short-lived as on 8^th February he was severely injured in both legs and after immediate treatment in Versailles, he found himself back at Armstrong College, now converted into the No1 Northern General Military Hospital, where he had a long slow recovery.

Sadly his injuries made a return to front line service impossible, so he was posted to Otley as an Instructor in Field Engineering and Bombing, becoming a Captain in June 1916. However, this didn’t satisfy Henry and in July he was passed by the Medical Board to join the Royal Flying Corps, qualifying as a pilot on 22^nd August 1916.

In September he was posted to 61^st Squadron at Rochford Aerodrome in Essex (now Southend airport), engaged in the defence of London from air raids, often under the cover of darkness.

At around 11.30 on the night of 7 March 1918, Henry took off in a Se5a bi-plane to intercept a German plane. It was a moonless night, one of only two occasions when the Germans launched attacks on such nights during the war and there was obviously no radar or radio.

Plane like that piloted by Henry Clifford Stroud

At about the same time, Captain Alexander Bruce Kynoch of 37 Squadron took off from Stow Maries to intercept the same raider. With no means of communication and next to no light, the two aircraft collided in mid air over Dollyman’s farm in Essex at around midnight, killing both pilots. Henry Clifford was buried at St Andrew’s Church, Rochford and a permanent memorial of the accident was placed at the spot where the two planes crashed. The memorial is still there and consists of an aeroplane propeller.

Memorial to Henry Clifford Stroud

Professor Stroud endowed a physics prize in his son’s honour at the University. Newspapers show that the Henry Clifford Stroud Prize for Physics was still being awarded well into the 1940s.

Eva

Henry’s wife had been born Eva Mary Antoinette Emmett in 1862. Like her husband, she was born in Bristol, the eldest daughter and one of six children of Clifford and Laura Emmett. Her father, Clifford, started as an accountant, in 1881 was clerk to an iron merchant and subsequently took over the business.

Eva was well educated. In 1881, aged 19, she was recorded as a ‘scholar’ (and her name is given as Mary E), signs of an independent spirit or just a slip of the pen? Later documents refer to her as Eva Mary once more.

We don’t know much about Eva’s early adulthood other than that she married Henry in 1887 and had three children. But we do know that, soon after Henry Clifford’s death during WW1, she volunteered her services to the Red Cross and Victoria League, following in the footsteps of her daughter, Irene. Records show that they both worked in the ‘moss room‘. During the first world war, sphagnum moss was collected from peat bogs in industrial quantities, as it had mildly antiseptic properties. The moss was transported to depots where it was dried and made into dressings for use in military hospitals.

When Eva died on 3 March 1928, Henry endowed another prize in her memory, the Eva Marie Antoinette Stroud Prize for Physics.

Irene and Bessie

It’s relatively unusual to be able to track down what became of the daughters of a family, particularly post the 1911 census. However in the case of the Stroud family, the probate for Henry Stroud following his death in 1940 shows that his estate was to be divided between William Robert Gerald Wthiting and Ralph Oakley Whiting. Further research uncovered that Irene married William in the spring of 1911 and Bessie married his younger brother Ralph in September 1918.

The Whitings were the two sons of William and Marion Whiting. William was the Chief Constructor for the Admiralty. In other words, he was the person overall responsible for the construction of the naval fleet, which clearly influenced the careers of both sons.

William was born on 15^th May 1884 and in 1911 was a Naval Architect, boarding at 2 Larkspur Street Jesmond. After marrying Irene, the couple lived at Perivale, Nun’s Moor Crescent. On 26 January 1923 he joined the Institute of Civil Engineers, where the records show that he had an MBE as well as BA. At that time he was working as Personal assistant to the General Manager at Armstrong Naval Yard. He died at the age of 63 on 5^th September 1947 in Middlesex Hospital London.

Ralph was born on 16^th January 1893, graduating Cambridge Trinity with a BA in Mechanical Sciences in 1914, acquiring an MA in 1918. He immediately joined the Royal Navy, becoming an Instructor Lieutenant in 1921 and Commander (the rank below Captain) in 1949. He was clearly stationed abroad for some of his career as immigration records show Bessie travelling alone to and from Malta, Singapore and Gibraltar in the 1930s, no doubt to be with her husband on his overseas postings.

The couple had at least one son, Anthony Gerald Stroud Whiting, born in 1926 and died in 2008 and he had a daughter Anita Julia Whiting.

What is intriguing about Ralph, Bessie and the family is that they are listed on a website called the Peerage, a genealogical survey of the peerage of Britain. So far I have been unable to determine why exactly. I have however discovered that Anita married the Very Rev. Hon. Dr Richard Crosbie Aitken Henderson, son of Peter Gordon Henderson, Baron Henderson of Brompton in 1985. So at the very least, Bessie and Ralph’s granddaughter is married to the son of a Baron, but there may be more to it. Watch this space.

Acknowledgements

This article was researched and written by Michael Proctor, Heaton History Group. Thank you to Terry Joyce, who sent a photograph of Henry Clifford Stroud’s grave (reproduced below) and corrected a couple of errors in the article.

Can you help?

Terry Joyce is part of a group which is trying to restore the memorials to Captains Henry Clifford Stroud and Alexander Bruce Kynoch but which first needs to find out who owns them as the landowner denies that he does.

If you can help with this or know anything else about any of the people mentioned in this article, 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.

Henry Clifford Stroud’s grave (Copyright: Terry Joyce)

Kate Elizabeth Ogg Remembered

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On 21 April 1919, the day before what would have been his daughter Kate’s 32nd birthday, Newcastle’s John Ogg replied to a request from the Imperial War Museum in London for a photograph of her. Kate had died just eight weeks earlier.

In his letter, John apologised for the late response and promised that he would find something suitable and ‘forward it on with as little delay as possible’. Below is the photograph he eventually sent. It can now be seen on the IWM website along with his letters.

Kate Ogg’s photo held by Imperial War Museums

But why would the Imperial War Museum want a photo of Kate and what does it have to do with Heaton? We’ve been finding out.

Bolingbroke Street

Kate Elizabeth Ogg, the first child of John (a brass finisher) and Catherine Ogg was born in the west end of Newcastle on 22 April 1887. But by the time she was four, she and her younger sister, Maggie, had moved with their parents to 31 Bolingbroke Street in Heaton. Kate started at the nearby Heaton Park Road School in 1894.

By 1901, the family had grown (The now fourteen year old Kate had a younger sister, Edith, and a brother, John) and they had moved across the road to number 46 Bolingbroke Street.

Teacher

Kate was obviously an able scholar because after leaving school, she was employed as a teaching assistant and by 1911 was employed at Welbeck Road School in Walker. By this time, her father had set up in business as a newsagent and, still single, Kate had moved back to Elswick with her family.

Perhaps to make her journey to work easier, the following year Kate changed school too. The Wingrove Council School log book, now held by Tyne and Wear Archives, records that she began work there as a ‘certified assistant’ on 27 August 1912. And there, but for events hundreds of miles away and totally outside her control, she may well have stayed and so contributed to the learning of hundreds, if not thousands, of Newcastle schoolchildren for years to come.

Serving in World War One

But, in August 1914, World War One broke out and immediately millions of men volunteered for and later were conscripted into the armed forces. Schools were often short staffed and there were greater opportunities for women like Kate than ever before.

Indeed we know that Wingrove School was under pressure even in subjects traditionally taught by women. On 10 January 1916, it was recorded in the log book that there were ‘only two ladies on the staff at present – Misses Bone and Ogg have the whole of needlework between them – and accordingly the classes for needlework have been rearranged’.

But sometime before, in 1914, Kate had started training with St John Ambulance and on Saturday 5 June 1915 ‘The Newcastle Daily Journal’ reported examination results in which Kate’s name appears among those successful members of the Novocastria Nursing Division who had been awarded vouchers as prizes.

And the following year, Kate made the momentous decision not merely to contribute to the war effort outside her working hours but to give up her promising teaching career completely for the duration of the conflict. We know that Kate’s brother, John, had joined the Merchant Navy as a wireless operator. He was, for example, on board the SS Lapland, which sailed to New York on 23 June 1915. Whether his dangerous job was a factor in her wanting to devote herself full time to hospital work, we can’t be sure but on 16 April 1916, it was noted in the school log book that ‘ Miss Kate E Ogg ceases duty today (pro tem) to take Military (Hospital) Duty on May 1st’.

She was missed. When, on 1 May, the school reopened after the Easter holiday, the head wrote in the log book:

‘The vacancy caused by Miss Ogg’s departure has not been filled. This is awkward for it is thus impossible to assist at 1a where the ST (student teacher?) is in charge and is very weak in discipline’

As for Kate, Red Cross records show that on 28 April, eight days after leaving her teaching post, she was engaged as a VAD (Volunteer Aid Detachment) nurse, serving firstly in Fulham Military Hospital, London; then from 1 December 1916 to 31 January 1917 at Liverpool Military Hospital before returning to Newcastle to serve at the 1st Northern General Military Hospital from 10 March 1917.

Pandemic

The war officially ended, of course, on 11 November 1918 but many of those serving couldn’t immediately return to normal life. In the hospitals, there were still injured military personnel to care for and in fact the need for nurses became greater than ever when troops travelling home from theatres of war brought with them the deadly strain of influenza in which some 25 to 40 million people are estimated to have died worldwide. The virus spread quickly in cities like Newcastle and young adults such as the returning soldiers and the nurses like Kate who looked after them were worst affected.

Later that winter, on 23 February 1919, Kate Elizabeth Ogg died on active service. Her death was attributed to pneumonia, which was often the result of a serious bout of this deadly strain of influenza. She is buried in St John’s Cemetery, Elswick in a simple grave in which her parents were eventually laid to rest with her.

Detail of Kate Ogg’s grave

Kate is commemorated on Wingrove School’s war memorial

Wingrove School war memorial

and is among the 17 Newcastle teachers who lost their lives and are named in ‘The National Union of Teachers War Record: a short account of duty and work accomplished during the war’ published by Hamilton House in 1920.

She is also remembered on the St John Ambulance Brigade Number VI Northern District war memorial, which covers divisions from Northumberland as far south as Whitby, Bridlington and Hull. It is currently stored at Trimdon Station Community Centre in County Durham. You’ll find Kate’s name in the middle of the third column of the centre panel.

With permission of Derek Bradley and Trimdon Station Community Centre

And her name can be seen on page 44 of the St John Ambulance Roll of Honour.

Women in WW1

But why the letter to Kate’s father? The Imperial War Museum had been founded in 1917 and almost immediately put in place plans to ensure that the role of women in war would be recognised and recorded. By the end of the first world war, almost 700 women were known to have died and it is thanks to the diligence of the Women’s Work Subcommittee, even after Armistice day, that we have Kate’s photograph and read her father’s letters. Volunteers have recently digitised them so that they can be viewed online. Many, including Kate, have been researched as part of the Lives of the First World War project.

Finally, in the 1920s, money was raised for the restoration of a window in York Minster as a memorial to all the women of the empire who lost their lives as a result of the war. The Five Sisters window and oak panels list 1,400 women, including Kate. They were officially opened on 24 June 1925 by the Duchess of York in the presence of family members of many of the women commemorated.

Kate Elizabeth Ogg will never be forgotten.

Kate Ogg, commemorated in St Nicholas’ Chapel, York Minster

Postscript

Kate’s brother, John, happily survived the war and married Margaret W Hunter in 1918. In 1939, the couple were living in Newburn. John died in 1957, with probate granted to a Robert William Ogg (perhaps his son) who died in 1976.

In 1917, her sister, Maggie, had married William Robert Appleby who is buried in the family grave, though Maggie does not appear to be. And sister Edith married Robert T Hunter in 1918.

We hope eventually to make contact with descendants of the Ogg family.

Can you help?

If you know more about Kate Ogg or her family 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

This article was researched by Arthur Andrews and John Hulme, who drew our attention to Kate Ogg’s story, with additional input from Chris Jackson. Thank you also to Keith Fisher for his photo-editing. The research forms part of our Historic England funded ‘Shakespeare Streets’ project in which we are working with Hotspur and Chillingham Road Primary Schools to explore both Heaton’s theatrical heritage and the people of the streets named in William Shakespeare’s honour.

The Redoubtable Mrs Harrison Bell: campaigner and social reformer

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This photograph of Florence Nightingale Harrison Bell, who was born and bred in Newcastle and lived on Hotspur Street in Heaton for over 20 years, is held by the National Portrait Gallery.

NPG x47718; Mrs F.N. Harrison Bell by Lafayette (Lafayette Ltd)

Mrs F N Harrison Bell by Lafayette, 25 May 1929 courtesy of National Portrait Gallery

The gallery’s aim is ‘ to promote through the medium of portraits the appreciation and understanding of the men and women who have made and are making British history and culture’. What then was Mrs Harrison Bell’s contribution to our national life?

Tireless

Florence Nightingale Harrison Bell was one of the country’s leading socialist and feminist reformers in the early part of the 20^th Century. She was a member of the Independent Labour Party from its inception in 1893; the ILP’s first Federal Secretary; and the first woman member of the party’s National Administrative Council, replaced in 1908 by the much better remembered Emmeline Pankhurst. She was the first socialist candidate of the Newcastle Board of Guardians in 1893 and a Director of the Newcastle Co-operative Society from 1902.

She was secretary of the Newcastle branch of the Women’s Labour League and member of the National League’s Executive Committee from 1913. She was an elected member of the Labour Party National Executive from 1918-25; represented Labour on the Standing Joint Committee of Industrial Women’s Organisations; was part of the British Labour delegation to the Congress of 2^nd Internationale in Geneva in 1920, representing the TUC, Labour Party & the Fabian Society; and from 1921 was Treasurer of the International Federation of Working Women.

Yet none of that impressive CV even begins to describe the huge impact that she made on British social and political life throughout her life. She regularly spoke at local meetings and national conferences the length and breadth of the country, from Dundee to Truro, and was a tireless campaigner on issues including universal suffrage, women’s and child health, housing, unemployment and inequality.

She was born in Newcastle and until 1922 lived at 6 Hotspur Street, Heaton, yet today, despite the lasting impact of some of the changes she was instrumental in achieving and the currency of some of the issues she championed, she remains virtually unknown, without even a Wikipedia entry to her name!

Teacher

Florence Nightingale Harrison, named after Florence Nightingale, who was at the height of her fame, was born in Newcastle in 1865. One biography lists her father as a Dr Thomas Harrison, of whom we’ve been able to find no trace. However he seems to have died young, as by 1881 a 14 year old Florence is identified as the step-daughter of Thomas Thompson, an engine fitter of 87 Walker Rd, Longbenton. She lived with him, his wife Isabella and their two year old son, Alfred.

Florence studied English History & Economics at Armstrong College and in 1891 was still living with her mother and step-father at 30 Belvedere Street, Byker, where she is recorded as being an elementary school teacher.

On 28 July 1896, Florence married Joseph Nicholas Bell at St Augustine’s Church Newcastle, becoming Florence Nightingale Harrison Bell, widely referred to as Mrs Harrison Bell.

Joseph was born in London, but brought up, along with his older sister, May, by his grand-parents on a farm near Brampton in Cumbria, where his grandfather was a shepherd. As an adult, he moved to Newcastle, boarding in Elswick and working at North Eastern Railway’s Forth Banks Goods Yard, where he helped to organise the workforce into the National Amalgamated Union of Labour, of which he became General Secretary in 1896.

Although never as prominent in the life of the city as his wife became, Joseph was very politically active, chairing the Labour Party Conference in 1903 and unsuccessfully contesting a by election in Leith for Labour in 1914. In a rare interview for the Journal in April 1917, he expressed his grave concern about the potential impact that the number of women entering the workforce during the war would have on wages when the war was over. His solution was to ensure that the unskilled workforce would be properly represented, by bringing together the many disparate unions representing them and allowing wage negotiations to take place at a national level. This he achieved in July of that year, when he was elected vice chair of the Federation of General Workers, with a total membership of 500,000.

Activist

It’s difficult to say whether it was Joseph’s political activism that inspired Florence, or whether her own aspirations brought them into the same circle. However we do know that Florence was politically active before their marriage, becoming a member of the Independent Labour Party from its establishment in 1893 and the first socialist candidate for the Newcastle Board of Guardians. Responsible for the administration of the Poor law, Guardians were subject to annual elections.

The 1901 Census shows the Bells living at 6 Hotspur Street, where their son Edward Percy was born in 1902. Being a mother did not seem to slow Florence down. That same year, she became a Director of the Newcastle Co-operative Society and shortly afterwards her name began to appear regularly in the press as a speaker, first at local events – the Women’s Suffrage Committee at Bedlington; a meeting of Socialists at North Seaton Colliery; the Blyth Independent Labour Party, but soon spreading further to places as far flung as Portsmouth and Coventry. The main focus of her early speeches was female emancipation. Under the auspices of the Newcastle and District Women’s Suffrage Committee, she set up regular meetings in Fenwicks’ Drawing Room Cafe, where women would meet to hear speakers and discuss political issues. Among her fellow group leaders was Ethel Bentham, a local doctor who would become one of the first women Labour MPs.

Below is the 1915-16 programme of Heaton’s Bainbridge Memorial Church Ladies Literary Society. which shows Mrs Harrison Bell speaking on ‘The Women’s Movement: its Moral Aspect’.

Does she appear on this 1909 film of a suffragette demonstration in Newcastle, held by the BFI? We think we may have found her but can’t be sure. Let us know what you think.

However, women’s suffrage was far from her only interest. She spoke movingly about the importance of a home life, contending that neither those living in slums nor the aristocracy had a proper home life and that ‘the only party that showed any desire to deal with the emancipation of women was the Labour Party’. She also showed a keen interest in unemployment, speaking at a right to work rally in Portsmouth in 1908. Unemployment and the right to work were to become a more significant theme in her work during the depression of the 20s and 30s.

What is interesting, in reading the huge amount of press coverage of Mrs Harrison Bell’s political life, is that none of the articles feel the need to explain who she was, suggesting that her name was already well known in an age before today’s mass media. However, her appearance on the national stage, including membership of Labour’s National Executive Committee, Executive Committee member of the Women’s Labour league and membership of the Standing Joint Committee of Industrial Women’s Organisations, didn’t mean that she neglected local social issues. The Journal reported on 12 December 1916 that a meeting of the Newcastle Sanitary Committee received a deputation from the Women’s Helpers’ League, led by Mrs Harrison Bell. They urged the establishment of a municipal clinic for the treatment of infants. In 1917, she was co-opted to the Newcastle Food Control Committee Food Distribution Sub Committee, a wartime Committee established to manage the chronic problem of food shortages caused by the war. In 1918, the Coventry Evening Telegraph listed her among a list of women intimating their intention to stand for parliament, how far her bid progressed is unclear, but it was not successful.

Her husband Joseph, however, was more successful in his bid to become an MP, although his tenure was tragically short-lived. In 1922, the Bells moved to 90, Friern Park Road, North Finchley, London, in anticipation of Joseph becoming an MP. In the General Election on 15 November, he gained the seat of Newcastle East with a majority of 3,085. Tragically, he died a little over a month later on 17 December, aged 58, at Finchley Cottage Hospital, following two unsuccessful operations for Lymphadenoma, a tumour of the lymph nodes. His obituary noted that he had served on several Home Office committees of inquiry and on the panel of arbitration in industrial disputes and had been predicted to become the first Labour Home Secretary.

The Dundee Evening Telegraph reported several days later that ‘If Mrs Harrison Bell accepts the invitation of Newcastle East Labour to contest the seat so briefly held by her husband, she will stand an excellent chance of election.’ Going on to note that ‘so well known has she been indeed that it became the fashion in Labour circles to speak of the late J.N. Bell as husband of Mrs Harrison Bell.’ Florence clearly chose not to stand, as the seat was successfully contested by Arthur Henderson, General Secretary of the Labour Party.

Ahead of her Time

One might have thought that at the age of 57, having just lost her husband and having achieved her goal of women’s emancipation (women over 30 meeting a minimum requirement for property ownership gained the vote in 1918), Florence may have taken a lower public profile. Not so the redoubtable Mrs Harrison Bell. In fact the 1920s seem to have been the most productive time in her political career.

Just four days after Joseph’s death, the Ministry of Labour announced a ‘committee to inquire into the present conditions as to the supply of female domestic servants’ of which Florence was to be a member and by March 1923, she was back on the public speaking trail. In 1923 alone she was a delegate at the International Federation of Working Women Congress is Vienna; became Chairman of the Standing Joint Committee of Industrial Women’s Organisations and its subcommittee on birth control; represented the Standing Joint Committee on the Overseas Committee and a deputation on housing to the Minister of Health and presided over the Annual Parliament of Labour Women in York, where the Burnley Evening news described her as a ‘lady who combines a unique degree of womanly homeliness with a penetrating insight into the larger affairs of local and national government.’

Amongst the resolutions carried at the Parliament were:

– One condemning London County Council’s decision to dismiss women teachers on marriage as being ‘inimical to the cause of education’;

– A proposal of one person one vote at the age of 21, which came to be in 1929;

– A proposal that elections should take place on Saturday rather than Thursday and that municipal elections should take place in May not October.

The only one of these resolutions that did not come to be was the call for elections to be held on Saturdays. Remarkably, this pattern is followed in many of Mrs Harrison Bell’s other political and social crusades, where she was clearly far ahead of her time and the things she called for ultimately came to be, as the NHS and the welfare state developed over the coming decades. Sadly she did not live to see all of these changes.

The focus of her public speeches during this period was often the home – ‘we stand for a home in which family life can be lived; a home which is fit for children to be born in’ she said at a speech in Truro in March 1923. In that same speech she also called for provision of sickness benefit and nursery school provision for all children. So far ahead of her time was she that she was accused, in calling for universal nursery school provision, of breaking up the home!

Increasingly though, her focus was on unemployment, which became a growing problem throughout the 20s as the Great Depression started to build. In that same speech at Truro, she said ‘If women ran the home on the same lines as the Government was running the nation, there would be no home at all. An economical Government was paying one million pounds in unemployment benefit to the men in the building trade and had not a single house to show for it.’ She returned to that same theme the following year, when following a snap election, Labour was in power with a minority administration. Supporting calls for a Capital Levy, she said ‘I never realised the vulgarity of wealth until I went to London and saw little shops selling ladies’ handkerchiefs at £20 a dozen…. Those shop owners and the people who buy their goods are the people who will have to pay’. How little has changed!

Royal Commission

In 1924, with Labour in power, albeit briefly, Florence was drawn into two major government inquiries.

The first was an inquiry into child settlement in Canada. In what we’d now regard as a barbaric practice, Dr Barnardos, the Salvation Army and other charities routinely sent child orphans to Canada to live, effectively as slave labour on farms. She sailed to Canada on the Empress of Scotland in September 1924 along with Miss Margaret Bondfield, one of the first female MPs and Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour. They found that while the children were undoubtedly better fed than their counterparts at home, the farmers would prefer to have adults. As a result of their inquiry unaccompanied children being sent to Canada was stopped, although it appears that the practice continued elsewhere as in a speech in Portsmouth in 1930, she spoke of the continuing scheme for emigrating girls to the dominions for domestic work.

The second was a Royal Commission established to inquire into the National Health Insurance Scheme. This was a major piece of work which took two years to take evidence and make recommendations. The conclusion of the Commission, published in 1926, was that with a few minor changes the scheme, which was based heavily on the 19^th Century Poor Law, worked satisfactorily.

However, that was not the conclusion of all of the Commission’s members. A minority report was produced by four of the members, including Mrs Harrison Bell. This report called for, amongst other things:

– The abolition of approved societies – insurance companies that managed the scheme, with local authorities taking on their role;

– Recognition that investment in health care would repay itself through improved health of the workforce, rather than simply attempting to contain the scheme within the prescribed resources;

– The provision of a complete remedial and treatment service including access to consultant and specialist care;

– Dental, optical and maternity care;

– Medical benefit for the dependents of injured people;

– An increase in sickness benefit and a new benefit for disabled people;

– Maternity benefit;

– Co-ordination of maternity and child welfare services with local authorities; and

– Re-arrangement and extension of maternity care, in particular, addressing the high maternal death rate.

It would be another 20 years before this vision was realised in the birth of the welfare state

Florence would return repeatedly to the issue of maternal health over the coming years. In 1924, she called, at the National Conference of Labour Women for public health authorities to provide information and advice on birth control, despite being heckled by a mother of 11 who declared that she was against the general teaching of birth control to working women.

In 1928 she spoke at a meeting to discuss maternal mortality at Central Hall Westminster. The resolution, which was carried was – ‘To work in all ways for the reduction in continued high death rates of mothers in childbirth. Steps to include:

– Medical enquiry into each maternal death

– Training of medical students & GPs in midwifery

– Committee on training and employment of midwives

– Provisions of National Health insurance Act adjusted so that medical and midwifery services should be available for mothers ante-natal and after confinement.’

All of which ultimately came to be.

It’s not clear whether Florence continued to work as a teacher alongside her highly public campaigning and political work, but it seems unlikely that she would have had an independent source of income. Although she started her career as an elementary school teacher, she did at some point work in adult education and as a lecturer for the Co-op movement. While living in London, she was the Secretary of the Central London Branch of the Teachers Labour League, so it is possible that she was still in the profession.

A brief biography notes her hobbies as reading, walking and motorcycling.

Public Figure

Florence continued to be a prominent public figure throughout the 1920s and into the early 1930s, continuing to campaign on the issues of inequality, unemployment and maternal and child welfare. In 1927 as Director of London Labour Party’s Summer School for Women at Guildford, she said ‘They don’t send the fool of the family into the diplomatic service, for high qualifications are needed. The great fault with this service is that the upbringing of those in it prevents them from being in touch with the class whom they were sent to serve. They have no knowledge of working class conditions.’ In the early thirties, she also started to call for nationalisation of key industries, pointing out, in particular, the high death rates in coal mining as justification.

In 1929, at the age of 64, she stood unsuccessfully for parliament, in the first election where Labour formed a majority government. Standing for Labour in Luton, she came a poor third behind the Liberals and Unionists. Her son Percy also stood for Parliament in 1929 and again in 1931 for the seat of Wood Green. Both attempts were unsuccessful and he continued as a school teacher. However, in 1964, he become the Labour party member for Newham and later Newham South in the Greater London Council, a seat he held until the age of 79 in 1981, carrying on the family tradition. He died in 1987.

Legacy

Florence herself seems to have taken a lower public profile beyond the mid 1930s, or at least was less reported in the press. That doesn’t mean though that she didn’t continue to take an active interest in politics. In 1946, at the National Conference of Labour Women in Hastings, a gathering she had initiated, there was a call for equal pay for women amongst other things. The Western Daily News reported ‘As the conference ended the oldest delegate, 81 year old Mrs Harrison Bell said: “We get a good deal more space in the press nowadays. We are very grateful for the work they have done’.

Florence Nightingale Harrison Bell died two years later on 8 September 1948 at Whipps Cross Hospital London, having left a huge, and now largely forgotten, legacy to the causes of feminism, inequality, healthcare and her much loved Labour party. She left a total of £190 6s to her son Percy.

Amazingly, given her prominence during her lifetime, we have not, as yet, been able to find a newspaper obituary let alone any permanent local or national memorial. Perhaps now is the time for Heaton History Group to help put that right? We call on the National Portrait Gallery to set the ball rolling by giving her photograph the prominent position on its walls we believe she deserves.

Can you help?

If you have information, anecdotes or photographs of Florence Nightingale Harrison Bell or Joseph or Percy Bell, that you are willing to share or have any comments on this article we’d love to hear from you. Please either write direct to this page by clicking on the link immediately below the article title, or email chris.jackson@heatonhistorygroup.org.

Acknowledgements

Researched and written by Michael Proctor, Heaton History Group, as part of our Historic England funded ‘Shakespeare Streets’ project.

Inflammatory Incident in Heaton Park