Category Archives: High Heaton

Royal visit to Heaton Sec Schools

Heaton Secondary Schools: the beginning

You may be surprised to learn that Heaton Secondary Schools were officially opened  by the Right Honourable Grey of Fallodon, Chancellor of the University of Oxford. Surprised because a visit some weeks later by the King and Queen is often mistakenly referred to as the opening. Here’s what actually happened!

The schools. which had provision for 500 boys and 500 girls,  were erected at a cost of £140,000 and claimed to be the most up to date and best equipped in the country. The opening ceremony on 18 September 1928 was big news and covered in newspapers from Aberdeen and Belfast to Gloucester and beyond.

Quadrangle

The original plan, agreed before World War One, had been to build the school on 25 acres of land adjacent to Ravenswood Road but this project had to be shelved due to the war. Afterwards, a price could not be agreed with the landowner. Compulsory purchase was set in motion but eventually the council decided that this would mean unacceptably long delays so a site of equal size opposite the housing estate being built on the other side of Newton Road was negotiated.

The original buildings of what became Heaton Manor School

The original buildings of what became Heaton Manor School

The layout of the school was said to be reminiscent of a Cambridge college with the design of open loggias around a quadrangle.

HeatonsecWestGateway

Heaton Secondary Schools West Gateway

The classrooms were ‘of the open air type, with sliding partitions along the sunny side, the north side being used for science laboratories, gymnasiums etc.’

HeatonSecOpenAirClass

Heaton Secondary Schools’ ‘open-air classrooms’

There were two schools each with their own hall, dining room, library, labs, a commercial room, staff room and classrooms but the two halls were adjacent and so could be ‘thrown into one to form a great hall 80 feet long by 90 feet wide’. There was a craft room in the boys school and needlework and domestic science rooms in the girls’.

The first head teacher of Heaton Secondary School for Boys as it was first known was Mr F R Barnes, formerly of Barrow in Furness Secondary School for Boys. He started with a staff of 17 graduates and five specialists.  Miss W M Cooper, formerly of Benwell Secondary School, had 13 graduates and four specialists working for her in the girls’ school, Heaton High School as it became known.

As for pupils, initially there would be 291 boys and 414 girls, 455 of which would be free scholarship holders. The remaining pupils were fee-paying. At the outset, their parents were charged £8 a year. The programme for the opening event announced that ‘Mrs Harrison Bell has very kindly endowed a history prize in memory of her husband, the late My J N Bell, who was elected in 1922 Member of Parliament for the east division of the city. The prize will be awarded in the boys’ and the girls’ school in alternate years.’

Viscount Grey

At the ceremony, there were prayers and songs including ‘Land of Hope and Glory‘ and Northumbrian folk song  ‘The Water of Tyne’ and lots of speeches, not only Viscount Grey’s but also those of numerous local politicians, including the Lord Mayor, and presentations by the  architect, H T Wright,  and the contractor, Stanley Miller.

Viscount Grey is better known as the politician, Sir Edward Grey, who was Foreign Secretary from 1905 to 1916, the longest tenure ever. He is particularly remembered for the remark he is said to have made as he contemplated the enormity of the imminent World War One: ‘ The lamps are going out all over Europe. We shall not see them lit again in our time.’

ViscountGrey

Viscount Grey

In his speech in Heaton, Viscount Grey, a Liberal, said ‘The ideal system would be one in which the highest, most advanced and most expensive education was devoted solely to the youthful material of the country who were most capable by their abilities to profit from it. We have not reached that point today. A great deal of the highest and most expensive education in the country is given…. to <those> whose parents are able to pay for it… but… every school like that at Heaton is bringing higher education within the reach of those whose parents cannot pay for it. This is an advance towards a better system’.

And tackling another topic which has resonance today, the former tennis champion and keen fisherman and ornithologist spoke about the variety of entertainment available to young people, reminding the audience that  in his day, there ‘was no electric light, no motor cars, no telephones, no wireless and no moving pictures’. But he reminded his young audience that the things which interested people most through life were those in which they took some active personal part. ‘Take part in games, rather than be mere spectators’ he urged. ‘It will give you more pleasure than all the other entertainments that come to you without trouble.’

Live Radio

For any locals lucky enough to have one, the whole ceremony was actually broadcast on the wireless from 3:00pm until 4:30pm. Radio station 5NO had been broadcasting from Newcastle since 1922 and its signals could reach up to about 20 miles. With broadcasting still in its infancy, many newspaper listings came with detailed technical instructions on what to do if the signal was lost: radio was still far from being a mass medium but it was catching on fast and those early local listings make fascinating reading. You can view them here.

Royal Visit

Just over three weeks later, 23,000 pupils from all over Newcastle were invited to Heaton for the visit of King George V and Queen Mary to the school before the royal couple went on to open the new Tyne Bridge. And it’s this historic event which many people assume to have been the official opening. It was certainly a momentous occasion – and an excuse for more speeches!

King and Queen open Heaton Secondary Schools, 1928

King and Queen open Heaton Secondary Schools, 1928

‘Their majesties will drive round the school grounds where 23,000 children of the city will be assembled and on entering the school hall, the loyal address from the City of Newcastle will be presented by the Lord Mayor. Numerous public representatives will be presented to their Majesties, who will be asked to receive gifts from scholars.’

There were also displays of physical drills and country dancing by pupils.

HeatonSecRoyalvisit

Every school pupil present was given a commemorative booklet which included a photograph of the new school at the back but which was mainly about the opening of the new bridge.

‘To the boys and girls for whom these words are written, who have just begun their passage on the bridge of life, and who will go to and fro on the bridges of the Tyne, there is the lofty call to carry forward to future generations the progress which has brought them their own proud inheritance.’

A bouquet was said to have been presented to the Queen by the head girl and a book to the King by the head boy.

This made a lifelong impression on pupil Olive Renwick (nee Topping), who was 12 years old at the time, but at the age of 98 recalled;

We were all gathered in the hall and Miss Cooper, the head teacher, told us that the queen would be presented with a “bookie”. What on earth’s a bookie, I wondered. Only later did I realise she meant a bouquet!’

Olive (middle) & friends in Heaton High uniform, late 1920s

Olive (middle) & friends in Heaton High uniform, late 1920s

Again the event was broadcast on the wireless. A full day’s programming began at 10:50am with the ‘Arrival of the royal party at Heaton Secondary Schools’. And the excitement of arrival of the king and queen’s carriage pulled by four white ponies in front of thousands of handkerchief waving school children (along with hair raising footage of workers on the still incomplete Tyne Bridge) was captured on film by Pathe News.   

And it shows a girl presenting a book (rather than ‘a bookie’) to the royal party. A last minute change of plan or an extra for the cameras?

After World War 2, the boys’ schools was renamed Heaton Grammar School and the girls’ Heaton High School. The two schools merged in September 1967 to form Heaton Comprehensive School. In 1983, this school merged with Manor Park School on Benton Road to form Heaton Manor. And in 2004, after the building of the new school on the Jesmond Park site, the Benton Park site closed to make way for housing.

The next instalment of ninety years of school history will have to wait for another day.

Can You Help?

If you have memories or photos of any of the above schools or know more about notable teachers or pupils, 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 Chris Jackson, Heaton History Group. Thank you to Brian Hedley for a copy of the official opening programme and the family of Olive Renwick for the souvenir of the royal visit. Thank you also to Muriel La Tour (nee Abernethy) for correcting the subsequent names of the schools.

Sources

British Newspaper Archives

Heaton Secondary Schools: official opening Sept 18th 1928 programme

Visit of their majesties King George V and Queen Mary, October 1928 (souvenir booklet)

Miscellaneous online sources

 

The People of Heaton High Pit

Heaton High Pit (also known as the Far Pit or E Pit) was part of Heaton Main Colliery and was in High Heaton, opposite where Heaton Manor School is now. The mine lay just to the east of the Thistle Fault where the valuable, thick seam of coal known as the ‘Main Seam’ lay much further underground than in neighbouring areas to the west. Consequently, it was only towards the end of the 18th century that engineers had developed the technology to mine there.

Heaton Main

Heaton Main Colliery was technically one of the most advanced collieries in the world, attracting visitors from elsewhere in Britain and further afield, even America. Huge steam pumping engines drained the mine and a steam locomotive hauled coal along the colliery railway to the River Tyne. This was before George Stephenson built his locomotives for Killingworth Colliery.

We now remember Heaton Main Colliery for the 1815 disaster, in which  75 men and boys died. This took place about a mile from Heaton High Pit, approximately below the site of Saint Teresa’s Church. But there were problems  at Heaton High pit too; a fire in 1810; and in 1813 ‘creep’,  which caused the colliery floors to lift, meaning the pit was abandoned until 1816, one of the things that proves that this was not the site of the 1815 disaster.

What is particularly interesting about High Pit is that, unlike Heaton’s other pits, a small mining community, what we might call a ‘hamlet’, grew up around it. We’ve been researching the ten-yearly census records and newspaper reports relating to this community.

 

HighHeatonSpinneyCottageNCCPRT003_MFD-211_0889_001.jpg

Thank you to Newcastle City Library for permission to use this photograph.

 

The above photograph of cottages at Heaton High Pit was taken in 1922 just before the present High Heaton estate was developed around the wooded area immediately above the old pit head, which we now know as The Spinney. It gives an idea of what the hamlet might have looked like.

Mining village

In 1841, there were around 25 households. Almost all the men were coal miners and, although 70 year old William Fenwick was a horse-keeper and 15 year old John Hall an apprentice smith, they too would have worked at the pit. Theirs were important jobs in the mining industry.

The surrounding area was rural: 35 year old John Twizell and 30 year old Alexander Cairns earned their living as agricultural labourers. Only two young women are listed as having a job: 15 year old, Margery Anderson and Elizabeth were servants.

In 1851, a few of the families remained  from ten years earlier but many were recent migrants from other mining communities around Newcastle and the immediate area.  Most men were still colliers but 18 year old Septimus Widderington was an engineer,  26 year old William Gascoigne a gardener and 40 year old William Taylor an agricultural labourer. Several women and girls are recorded as working:  Elizabeth Clarke (18) as a dressmaker and  Ann Ayre (14), Sarah Bell (21) and Jane Stephenson (38) as household servants.

Whereas boys as young as seven were among those killed in the 1815 disaster, the Mines Act of 1842 had made it illegal to employ anyone under ten underground, so the youngest miner in 1851 was ten year old James Cross. Nevertheless,  siblings Anne, Mary and Christopher Roaby, aged four, five and seven, were the only children, among the many who lived in the hamlet, recorded as going to school .

Heaton High Pit was closed in 1852, the battle with floodwater having finally been lost,  but many men of the village continued to work at nearby Benton Colliery. This was situated on what is now Wych Elm Crescent by the tram track across Benton Road from the Newton Park pub. You can see how close they were and how rural the area was on the OS map below.

 

HighHeatonOS1stsurvey1858.jpg

Detail from 1st edition Ordnance Survey map, surveyed in 1858

In 1861, the village was still a mining community but some of the residents had come from further afield: for example, John Bowes, a cordwainer, had been born in Yorkshire; and Elizabeth Nichol in Cumberland.  The recent birth and expansion of railways was a possible factor.

A school is listed  in the census and 12 boys and girls, aged between 4 and 12 are recorded as attending. The youngest collier was 15 year old John Burdis. Ann Bell, a 50 year old married woman, recorded as the head of household, was a shopkeeper and her daughter, 24 year old Hannah Ramsay, earned her living as a dressmaker.  By this time though, there were also a number of uninhabited dwellings,  a sign perhaps that that the housing was now considered substandard and, with the local pit closed,  the village had become a less attractive place to live.

In  January 1862 miners, George Handy and Robert Minto, both  of Heaton High Pit village, were killed in an accident at Benton Colliery.

In April 1864, the auction of the materials of 21 cottages at Heaton High Pit was announced in the local press, although the 1894 Ordnance Survey map below shows a couple of cottages just to the north of the present Spinney. By this time, trees had been planted as was customary over disused pitheads. You can also see that, although Jesmond to the west was beginning to be developed, as was Heaton to the south, High Heaton was still very rural, the sight of Byker and Heaton Cemetery being the most obvious change from 36 years earlier.

 

highheatonos2view_-northumberland-lxxxviii-se-includes_-gosforth-longbenton-newcastle-upon-tyne

Detail from 2nd edition Ordnance Survey Map, 1894

And just before WW1, when the map below was published, not that much seemed to have altered. But after the war, things moved quickly and by the late 1920s, many of the houses we are now familiar with had been built and the Heaton Secondary Schools had opened. But more of them another time!

 

high-heatonos1913view_-northumberland-nxcv-nw-includes_-longbenton-newcastle-upon-tyne-walker-walls

Detail from 3rd edition Ordnance Survey map, 1913

 

Can you help?

If you know more about anyone who may have lived or worked at Heaton High Pit, 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 and written by Chris Jackson with Les Turnbull and Michael Proctor as part of Heaton History Group’s HLF-funded ‘Heaton Beneath Our Streets’ project.

High Heaton Infants School Pupils, 1935

Educating High Heaton

This photograph of pupils at High Heaton Infants School was taken in 1935.

High Heaton Infants School Pupils, 1935

High Heaton Infants School Pupils, 1935

Geoffrey Wedderburn, formerly of 60 Swaledale Gardens, is the boy at the end of the back row and he wonders whether anyone can help him out with other names. He remembers Dennis Hill, Leslie Fox and Tom Fineron from his schooldays but isn’t sure whether they’re in the picture.

The wooden school

High Heaton Infants School first opened on 20 August 1929 with 164 children on the roll. The school records are in Tyne and Wear Archives so we know the names of the first head, Mary L Ken, and her staff that day: Ethel Cooper, Joy Thompson, Alice Bertram Hodgson , Minnie Watts and Jeanie Richardson. Geoffrey remembers Miss Venters, Miss Hopkins and Miss Darling from his own schooldays. We found in the archives that Miss Caroline Isobel Venters joined the school on 7 April 1934.

The school was situated close to where the Spinney flats are now in a wooden building which later became High Heaton library. It was known simply as ‘the wooden school’. Geoffrey recalls that the buildings formed 3 sides of a square and that the open side gave access to a grassed play area. He remembers maypole dancing there on one occasion.

High Heaton in the early 1930s with the school in front of the trees of the Spinney

High Heaton in the early 1930s with the school in front of the trees of the Spinney

The wooden buildings which housed High Heaton Infants School and then, until 1966, the library

The wooden buildings which housed High Heaton Infants School and then, until 1966, the library

Geoffrey says that despite the fact the headmistress ruled by terror, he was ‘quite happy at the school and rather sorry when I had to leave’. The log book confirms it was considered a good school. An inspector is quoted in 1935 as saying ‘Good use is made of the adjacent hall for dancing and physical training and the neatly cultivated garden is a valuable addition to the amenities of the premises’.

In 1931 another inspector said ‘The children are of a good educable standard, thus some of the handicaps imposed by a poor environment are not felt here’.

Reading the entries in the log book, you’re struck by the number of days the children had off to commemorate royal occasions. The investiture of the Prince of Wales in February 1934 was especially noteworthy as the head teacher was invited to the ceremony at Buckingham Palace and was granted three days leave to attend. The lord mayor, director of education and chief ‘inspectress‘ visited the school the following week to congratulate it on behalf of the city on the honour bestowed on the head by the king.

Later in the year, the school shut again for the marriage of the Duke of Kent in 1934; in 1935 there was the wedding of the Duke of Gloucester and then the Royal Jubilee; and the funeral of King George V followed in 1936. All these on top of the usual general and local elections: it’s surprising any of the children learnt to read!

Cragside and war

But with the population of High Heaton growing as the city expanded and cleared inner-city ‘slums’, the ‘wooden school’ was too small to cope and it finally closed at midday on 25 March 1937 with Cragside Infants School opening its doors on 5 April. Geoffrey recalled that the opening ceremony ‘was carried out by the very young Princess Elizabeth’.

At Cragside, we read of a measles epidemic in 1938 and, of course, the disruption caused by World War 2. On 1 September 1939, the school evacuated to Morpeth. It reopened in High Heaton on 1 April 1940 but on 7 July some children were evacuated again – this time to Westmorland.

There were numerous air raid warnings ‘Children went to the shelter provided. No panic or fear or upset of any kind‘ (28 June 1940); ‘Air raid during the night from 1.10-3.00am. No school this morning’ (12 August 1940).

On 4 September 1940: ‘Air raid damage near school. Four window panes splintered. the three covered with net did not fall out’.

On 1 March 1941 a temporary headteacher was appointed ‘owing to the evacuation of the head mistress, Miss J S Nattress with the school party’. Miss Nattress returned a couple of months later. And in 1944 the school admitted evacuees of its own – from London.

Rain and snow

After the war, things slowly got back to normal. In 1946, the Education Committee granted the school £15 as a victory prize. Garden seats were purchased.

The following year brought one of the worst winters in living memory. On 26 February ‘Very heavy snowfall this week; snow drifting on the verandah makes movement very restricted’ On 14 March ‘Storm continues’.

And with normality, a resumption of royal occasions:

On 27 November 1952, children walked with teachers to Stephenson Road, where they saw HRH Princess Margaret passing on her way from launching a ship at Walker Naval Dockyard to Alnwick Castle.

But on 5 June 1953 the weather intervened: ‘a coronation celebration picnic on the school playing field was planned but impossible because of the rainy weather. Games were played in the school hall’. A familiar scenario to generations of Cragside children looking forward to sports day!

Children and Teacher at Cragside School by Torday

Children and Teacher at Cragside School by Laszlo Torday

Thank you

Geoffrey Wedderburn for his photograph and memories

Tyne and Wear Archives for their help

Newcastle City Libraries for permission to use the photograph by Laszlo Torday

The photos of the wooden school were taken from ‘Bygone High Heaton and district’ by William Muir, Newcastle City Libraries and Arts, 1988

Can you help?

We’d love to hear your memories and see your photographs of High Heaton Infants or Cragside School. Please either click on the link immediately below the title of this article or email chris.jackson@heatonhistorygroup.org

Detail from painting of Charles Hutton by Andrew Morton now in the Lit and Phil

Pit to Pi: the life of Charles Hutton

How many Cragside or Heaton Manor pupils, struggling with their homework, realise that, in High Heaton, they’re following in the footsteps of one of the greatest mathematicians who has ever lived? The remarkable story of the one time Geordie miner, who became one of the most famous and esteemed men of his time, deserves to be better known.

Detail from painting of Charles Hutton by Andrew Morton now in the Lit and Phil

Detail from painting of Charles Hutton by Andrew Morton in the Literary and Philosophical Society of Newcastle upon Tyne

Charles, the youngest son of Henry and Eleanor Hutton, was born in what was then called Side-Gate at the corner of what we now know as Percy Street and Gallowgate on 14 August 1737. He was expected to be employed in mining like his father who, by the time of Charles’ birth, seems to have been an under-viewer, which was in effect the deputy manager of a coal mine. But Henry died when Charles was just four years old and his mother married another colliery manager, Francis Fraim, an overman (the third person in the hierarchy of a coal mine). The older boys duly followed their father and stepfather underground but what Charles later viewed as a happy accident, at the age of about seven, changed the direction of the youngest brother’s life.

Street fighter

In a quarrel with some other children in the street, Charles’ right elbow was hurt. Being afraid to tell his parents, he apparently concealed the injury for several days by which time surgeons were unable to put the damage right. Charles’ mother, in particular, was said to have worried that her son wouldn’t be able to earn a living in mining as expected and to have ensured that he received a first-class education.

The first school Charles attended was in Percy Street, close to the family’s home. It was ‘kept by an old Scottish woman’. According to Hutton, she taught him to read but was no great scholar. Whenever she came to a word which she couldn’t read herself, she directed the children to skip it: ‘for it was Latin’!

To High Heaton

The family then moved to Benwell and soon after, according to contemporary and friend, John Bruce, to High Heaton. We don’t know exactly where they lived but Charles was able to go to a school across the Ouseburn valley in Jesmond. The school was run by Rev Mr Ivison and was an establishment at which Charles seems to have flourished.

Nevertheless, writing at the time of Hutton’s death in 1823, Bruce said that he had recently been shown paperwork which showed that in 1755-6, Charles did work in a pit albeit only briefly – as a hewer (a coalminer who worked underground cutting coal from the seam), at Long Benton colliery, where his step-father was an overman.

At around this time, however, Mr Ivison left the Jesmond school and young Charles, by now 18 years old, began teaching there in his place. The school relocated to Stotes Hall which, some older readers may remember, stood on Jesmond Park Road until its demolition in 1953. He then relocated in turn to the Flesh Market, St Nicholas’ Churchyard and Westgate Street in the city centre. There he taught John Scott, famous locally for eloping with Betty Surtees and nationally, after being elevated to the House of Lords with the title Lord Eldon, for his tenure as Lord Chancellor. Lord Eldon spoke glowingly of his old teacher as did many of his pupils.

‘As a preceptor, Dr Hutton was characterised by mildness, kindness, promptness in discovering the difficulties which his pupils experienced, patience in removing these difficulties, unwearied perseverance, a never-failing lover of the act of communicating knowledge by oral instruction’ Dr Olinthus Gregory

Charles Hutton by Benjamin Wyon, 1823 (Thank you to the National Portrait Gallery)

Charles Hutton by Benjamin Wyon (Reproduced with permission of the National Portrait Gallery)

Hutton was often described as ‘indefatigable’. One advert he placed offers:

‘Any schoolmasters, in town and country, who are desirous of improvement in any branches of the mathematics, by applying to Mr Hutton, may be instructed during the Christmas holidays.’

Bobby Shafto

Another interesting pupil was Robert Shafto of Benwell Towers, who originally hired Hutton to teach his children. He gave Charles the use of his extensive library and directed him towards helpful text books. In return Charles gave his mentor refresher classes. (There is considerable disagreement about whether this Robert was the ‘Bonnie Bobby Shafto’ of the well-known song. Robert was a traditional family name of more than one branch of the Shafto family so it’s difficult to be sure. One theory is that the song was originally written earlier about a previous Robert but that further verses were added over the years as it continued to be sung about a succession of members of the family who were in public life. This Robert was certainly Sherriff of Northumberland and may also have been the Robert Shafto painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds.)

On 3 March 1764, Charles published his first book ‘The Schoolmaster’s Guide or a Complete System of Practical Arithmetic’ . The book was praised for its clarity and precision and the second edition, published two years later, became a standard school textbook for at least 60 years.

Bewick Engravings

But it was in Charles Hutton’s next book on measurement, ‘A Treatise on Mensuration both in Theory and Practice’ that he ‘first eminently distinguished himself as a mathematician’. The book, published in 1770, is also notable for the diagrams, which were engraved by a 16 year old Thomas Bewick, at this time an apprentice wood engraver.

Extract from Hutton's book with Thomas Bewick engravings

Extract from Hutton’s book with Thomas Bewick engravings

This volume is evidence of Hutton’s growing reputation: the names of some 600 subscribers who supported its publication, are listed at the front: many are from the North East and include the Duke of Northumberland but others are from as far afield as Aberdeen and Cornwall, many of them schoolteachers.

Further evidence of the esteem in which Hutton was held came when the Mayor and Corporation of Newcastle asked him to carry out a survey of the town. A commission to produce an engraved map, based on the survey, followed and, after the terrible floods of 1771 in which Newcastle’s Medieval bridge was washed away, Hutton was approached to produce calculations to inform the design of its replacement. It included a brief to examine ‘properties of arches, thickness of piers, the force of water against them’. A copy of the original map can still be seen in the Lit and Phil.

And soon an opportunity arose to cement his reputation in London and beyond. A vacancy was advertised for the post of Professor of Mathematics at the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich. It appears that, at first, Hutton, who was at this time by all accounts a modest, shy young man, was reluctant to apply but his mentor, Robert Shafto, persuaded him. He was up against competition of the highest order but was appointed and moved to London. His wife, Isabella, and his four children, remained in Newcastle. Isabella, who died in 1785, is buried in Jesmond Cemetery.

Good company

A string of important works followed including ‘The force of Fired Gunpowder, and the initial velocity of Cannon Balls, determined by Experiments’ for which he won the Royal Society’s Copley Medal, still awarded annually for ‘outstanding achievements in research in any branch of science’ anywhere in the world. The list of winners reads like a ‘Who’s Who’ of the sciences and includes Benjamin Franklin, William Herschel, Humphrey Davy, Michael Faraday, Charles Darwin, Louis Pasteur, Joseph Lister, Ernest Rutherford, Albert Einstein, another adopted Heatonian, Charles Algernon Parsons and, more recently, Francis Crick and Stephen Hawking. Charles Hutton, our former pit hewer, is in good company!

Bust of Charles Hutton by Sebastian Gahagan now in the Lit and Phil

Bust of Charles Hutton by Sebastian Gahagan now in the Lit and Phil

But he didn’t stop there. Hutton’s discoveries, publications and positions of importance are too numerous to mention here but perhaps his greatest achievement was his series of calculations to ascertain the density of the earth.

‘The calculations… were more laborious and, at the same time, called for more ingenuity than has probably been brought into action by a single person since the preparation of logarithmic tables’.

Hutton made the calculations based on measurements taken at Mount Schiehallion in Perthshire by the Astronomer Royal, The Reverend Dr Nevil Maskelyne and his team. Although the result has since been refined, the methodology was a significant scientific breakthrough. A bi-product was Hutton’s pioneering use of contour lines: geographers, cartographers and walkers, as well as mathematicians, have reason to toast the name of Charles Hutton.

Legacy

Our knowledge of Hutton’s personal life is limited, but we do know that he married for a second time and fathered another daughter. Tragedy struck in 1793 when two of his four daughters died. One of them, Camilla, had married a soldier, who was posted to the West Indies. Camilla and her two year old son, Charles, accompanied him but her husband firstly was injured and then contacted yellow fever, a disease to which his wife also succumbed. Young Charles was both orphaned and a prisoner of war until he was rescued by an uncle and taken to his grandfather in London. Hutton, who was, by this time, 58 years old and his second wife, Margaret, brought up the boy as their own and ensured that he received a good education. Although Hutton did not live to see his success, Charles Blacker Vignoles became a bridge and railway engineer of world renown. He pioneered the use of the flat-bottomed rail, which bears his name. Neatly, one of the first lines in Britain to use the Vignoles Rail was the Newcastle – North Shields line through the area in which the grandfather, who was such an influence upon him, grew up.

Geordie to the Last

Charles Hutton himself never came back to Tyneside: although he often said he wanted to return, he suffered persistent ill health in his later years and, according to his letters, he was ultimately deterred by the extreme discomfort he had endured on the journeys of his youth. But he took a great interest in Newcastle’s affairs, regularly corresponding with friends here, remaining a member of the Lit and Phil and regularly supporting a number of local causes financially, among them the Jubilee School in Newcastle and a school teachers’ welfare society. The education of young people in the city of his birth was close to Charles Hutton’s heart right until his death on 27 January 1823 at the age of 85. He deserves to be remembered, especially by Heaton, where he spent some of his formative years.

Sources

Sources consulted include:

A memoir of Charles Hutton by John Bruce, read at the meeting of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Newcastle upon Tyne, May 6 1823

Brief Memoir of Charles Hutton LLD FRS from the Imperial Magazine for March 1823

(both held by the ‘Lit and Phil’.)

Charles Blacker Vignoles: romantic engineer by K H Vignoles; Cambridge University Press, 2010 9780521135399

Many thanks to the Literary and Philosophical Society of Newcastle upon Tyne for permission to publish the photographs of the Andrew Morton painting and Sebastian Gahagan bust, and to the National Portrait Gallery, for permission to reproduce the Benjamin Wyon medal.

Acknowledgements

This article, researched and written by Chris Jackson of Heaton History Group,  is part of Heaton History Group’s project ‘Brains Steam and Speed: 250 years of mathematics, science and engineering in Heaton‘, funded by Heritage Lottery Fund, with additional funding from Sir James Knott Trust and Heaton History Group.

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.

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Heaton Stannington, 1934 team photo

Heaton’s Favourite Football Team

Who are we? We play on Tyneside in black and white striped shirts. Easy! We played an national side in 2012. Mmmm? We won the treble in 2012-13 and have already won a trophy in 2014-15. It has to be… ‘The Stan’. We asked the Heaton club’s official historian (and programme editor… and press officer) Kevin Mochrie to tell us about the club’s long history. Over to Kevin:

The beginning

Although officially founded in 1910, recent research has discovered that Heaton Stannington were in existence by 1903 (and so no more than 10 years after the other local team that wears black and white) and playing at Miller’s Lane on the site of the current Fossway. The club name originates from its links with the Stannington Avenue area of Heaton. In 1903-04 they finished fifth in Division 2 of the Newcastle and District Amateur League. In December 1904 they resigned from the league and there is no further record of the team until 1910 which suggests that they might have folded.

The next match played by the Stan appears to have been on 24 September 1910 when they were beaten 4-1 by Sandyford. From at least 1913, home games were taking place at Paddy Freeman’s Park. The club played friendly matches until joining the Tyneside Minor League in 1913 and Northern Amateur League (NAL) Division Two in 1914. The club were elected to membership of the Northumberland FA on 10 September 1914, just over a month after the start of the First World War. The Stan stopped playing until 1919 as at a NFA emergency meeting on 24 November 1914 it was announced that the club were unable to take part in a cup replay ‘on account of not being able to raise a team as so many of their members had joined the army.’

Cup winners

The club spent the next 19 years in NAL Division One and gained their first trophies in 1934 and 1936 when they won the Tynemouth Infirmary Minor Cup and NAL Challenge Cup respectively. The first glory season came in 1936-37 when the club won NAL Division One, were Northumberland Amateur Cup winners and NAL Challenge Cup runners up. The reserves were also NAL Division Two runners up. For one season, 1938-39, the Stan participated in the Tyneside League and were runners up. By the 1930s the team were playing at the Coast Road ground which is now the site of Ravenswood School.

Heaton Stannington, 1934 team photo

Heaton Stannington, 1934

In October 1935, they started playing at Newton Park in High Heaton on the site of a recently filled in quarry. In 2007, the ground was renamed Grounsell Park in honour of the service given, both on and off the pitch, by Bob Grounsell.

High court ruling

The club were elected to the Northern League in 1939. They only managed one season before the league was suspended for the duration of the Second World War. It restarted in 1945 but Heaton Stannington were elected, until 1946, as a non-playing member as their ground was being used by the military. After 5 consecutive bottom three finishes, the club resigned at the end of the 1951-52 season and joined the Northern Alliance until 1956.

Action from a Heaton Stannington game in 1951

Action from a Heaton Stannington game in 1951

The next 16 seasons included involvement in the NAL, North Eastern League and the Northern Combination. In 1972 the club stepped up to the Wearside League and remained there for ten years. They were forced to resign in 1982 for financial reasons due to the club trustees, who had formed a limited company in 1968, putting the annual rent up from £400 to £1500. The company then tried to build a supermarket on the ground but the planning application was defeated. In 1983 the High Court ruled that the ground belonged to the football club and the company had to relinquish ownership.

Champions again

The team were not members of a league during 1982-83 but then joined the Tyneside Amateur League (TAL) for one season and achieved only their second league title up to this point. The next two seasons were spent back in the NAL where they were champions in 1985-86 as well as wining the Northumberland Minor Cup. For the next 27 years the club were in the Northern Alliance, which became a three tier league in 1988 and saw the Stan placed in the Premier Division. After two relegations to Division One, the Stan achieved stability by spending nine seasons in the Premier Division.

Olympics

The club won their highest level league trophy when they became Champions in 2012. Another highlight of the club’s recent past came just a couple of months later when the Gabon national team, who were about to play in the London 2012 Olympic tournament, sought an opponent for a warm-up game. Newcastle United old boy Nobby Solano was asked to help and, with just a couple of days notice during the close season, he approached Heaton Stan, who, despite a number of players (and the club historian, programme editor and press officer!) being away, they raised a team which gave an international side that included Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, then of St Etienne and now (2014) a star of the very successful Borussia Dortmund team, a good run out. The match drew a large crowd to Grounsell Park and the Stan’s very respectable performance seemed to inspire them because in 2012-13, they achieved a historic treble by not only retaining the title but by wining the Northern Alliance League Cup and the Northumberland Senior Benevolent Bowl.

Today

For season 2013-14, after a gap of 61 years, the Stan returned to the Northern League. They were in the promotion race throughout the season and finished a healthy fifth. Grounsell Park now boasts new floodlights and a stand to complement the other facilities, including a bar serving real ale. The first trophy of 2014-15, the Shunde Worldwide Friendship Association Cup, was won in July when the Stan beat Shunde of China 17-2. Another highlight this season was the visit of Peter Beardsley and his Newcastle United Under 18s team, which attracted a crowd of several hundred to Grounsell Park.

Heaton Stannington 2014

Heaton Stannington 2014

There’s no team in black and white that’ll bring you more pleasure this season. Support your local club: ‘Follow The Stan’! You’ll find their fixtures and other information here

Torday: Newton Road, High Heaton

Torday Photographs of High Heaton

Laszlo Torday (b. 1890 – d. 1975) was a chemical engineer, industrialist and a keen amateur photographer. He originally moved to Tynemouth from Hungary in January 1940 and later moved to Newcastle. His photographs, the majority taken in the 1960s and 1970s, reflect his interest in the streets and people of Newcastle. He took many in High Heaton.

Newcastle City Library bought 100 albums of black and white prints plus 16 boxes of colour transparencies from a local dealer after Torday’s death. 1,000 images from this collection have been digitised and this selection of pictures of High Heaton is from that set, published with permission. We are keen to find out more about them. If you recognise yourself or anyone in the photos, please inform Heaton History Group. We have included a number here but there are at least 1000 in total on this Flickr page.

Children and Teacher at Cragside School by Torday

Children and Teacher at Cragside School by Torday

Lollipop lady on Newton Road

Lollipop lady on Newton Road

Shopping on Newton Road

Shopping on Benton Road?

Shopping on Newton Road 2

Shopping on Newton Road

High Heaton Library

High Heaton Library

Postman on Jesmond Park West

Postman on Jesmond Park West

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