Category Archives: Shields Road

Two Davids: Grubb Parsons’ stellar double act

Heaton’s Grubb Parsons led the world in the design and building of high quality large astronomical telescopes for almost 60 years until the company’s untimely demise in 1985.

Grubb Parsons 98 inch Isaac Newton telescoperesized

Grubb Parsons 98 inch Isaac Newton telescope, 1967

For almost 30 years, from the late 1950s until the company closed, that success was driven by two very different men, both named David, whose skill and expertise complemented one another, driving the company’s success and world renown.

David Scatcherd Brown was an academic, with extensive mathematical insight, an expert on designing and testing telescopes, whose understanding and interpretation of test results was such that the quality and consistency of the firm’s products rapidly grew.

David Sinden on the other hand came from a working class background and learnt through doing. He became an expert in working with glass, producing the optically perfect mirrors essential to the large telescopes produced by Grubb Parsons.

Together they made a formidable team, both very different characters and backgrounds, but with a shared passion for astronomy. Although there’s no evidence that either David ever lived in Heaton, their work at Grubb Parsons certainly put it on the map.

Grubb Parsons

The firm of Sir Howard Grubb Parsons and Company was established in Heaton in 1925, although the roots of the firm in astronomy and telescope making go back to Dublin in the early 19^th Century, with the establishment of a telescope manufacturing company by Thomas Grubb. The firm quickly developed a reputation for the quality of its astronomical telescopes. When Thomas retired in 1868, his son Howard took over, moving the business to St Albans in 1918. The business struggled under Howard’s leadership and some seven years later was bought out by Sir Charles Parsons and the new firm re-located to Newcastle, where C.A. Parsons and Company already had its headquarters.

Grubb Parsons, Heaton works

That Charles Algernon Parsons should have taken an interest in telescope making when he already had a well established business making power generating equipment and steam turbines may seem unusual. However, his father William Parsons, the 3^rd Earl of Rosse, was a famous astronomer. Charles, along with his two older brothers, was privately educated at the family seat of Birr Castle, County Offaly, Ireland, where one of his tutors, Sir Robert Ball, was later to become Astronomer Royal for Ireland. So it’s hardly surprising that Charles had an interest in astronomy. Furthermore, the Irish connection almost certainly would have meant that he was familiar with the Thomas Grubb Company and would have wanted to continue its tradition.

Grubb Parsons was already well established and had a reputation for its large astronomical telescopes by the time the two Davids joined the company in the 1950s, but they would go on to achieve world renown over the next 20 years.

David Scatcherd Brown

David Scatcherd Brown was born in Coventry on 25 August 1927. The family were from Yorkshire, where his father was a headmaster. He attended Oldbury County School before securing a place at Queen’s College Cambridge to read Natural Sciences, specialising in physics and maths. The 2^nd World War interrupted his studies while he served in the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, gaining valuable engineering experience and skills, before returning to complete his studies.

David Scatcherd Brown

By that time, Brown was already interested in telescopes and astronomy, so it must have been a natural fit for him to take up post at Grubb Parsons straight from University in 1950. He was put to work with the optical team, under the leadership of George Manville, working specifically on the testing and manufacturing methods for the large mirrors and lenses needed for large telescopes. At the time the business was just picking up after the war and David was quick to adopt and adapt the latest testing technologies, making the whole process more objective and improving the quality of the finished product. It was on his advice that a testing tower was built allowing mirrors to be tested lying on their back, which greatly improved the process and perhaps explains the unusual shape of the Grubb Parsons building.

In 1950, David married Margaret Stephens, whom he’d met at Cambridge, when she was studying Natural Sciences at Girton. The couple would go on to have two children.

David Sinden

David Sinden was born on 31 July 1932 in Hartlepool and was a keen astronomer from an early age. At the age of 16 he built his first telescope, with the help of his father, Fred, causing a stir among the neighbours in Hood Street, Haverton Hill. By the age of 22, now living in a council house in Billingham, a story appeared in the Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer when David, already a member of the British Astronomical Association, applied for planning permission to build an observatory in his parents’ back garden. The observatory was to be made of galvanised steel sheets on a wooden frame with an 8’ diameter dome. The council, approving the plan, admitted that they didn’t have any precedents for planning applications for such buildings on a council estate! In the article, David admitted that he had to wait for the street lights to go out and that the heat from Teesside’s factories sometimes made the stars appear square, although he did say that they may just be flying snuff boxes!

Grubb Parsons D Sindon L with George Oliver and 72 in Helwan mirror

David Sinden (in the waistcoat) with George Oliver and the 72 inch Helwan mirror

Having been apprenticed as a fitter at ICI, the young David found that the work wasn’t to his liking and moved to work for a local optician, becoming an expert in optical instruments. It was while working there that he made a mirror, which he sent to Grubb Parsons on spec. So impressed were they that they offered him a job. So it was that David Sinden joined the firm in 1957, working for David Brown.

David subsequently married Helen, although we’ve been unable to confirm the date, and the couple were recorded in the 1980s as living at the Poplars, Coley Hill Farm, North Walbottle, far enough out of town to avoid the worst of the light pollution.

Polar opposites

In 1961, David Brown was appointed Optical Manager focusing exclusively on telescopes and a year later he appointed David Sinden as Glass Shops’ Manager, with control over scientific instruments as well as telescopes. As David Brown’s obituary notes ‘There could not have been two more different types working together, the one with a deep mathematical insight and ability to interpret obscure testing problems, the other with the instinctive feel for working glass, the hardness of the pitch, the construction of the polisher and methods of working.’

It seems that the two men were also polar opposites in terms of personality. David Brown was described as a quiet, good natured and unassuming man, whereas David Sinden was much more outgoing. Many of his friends and former colleagues posted tributes after his death, all speaking warmly of a friendly, generous, passionate man with an improbable number of outside interests which included, but were not limited to, photography, sculpture, motorbikes, steam engines, archaeology, marathon running and pistol shooting. An exceptional public speaker with a passion and enthusiasm for science, astronomy and anything even vaguely telescope-shaped, who could hold an audience entranced for hours and hours.

Their time working together at Grubb Parsons saw the company produce some of its finest work and arguably some of the best large optical telescopes ever produced. The list is extensive and includes:

48-inch reflector, Victoria, Canada, 1961
40-inch reflector, Pic du Midi, France. Optics only, 1962
The 40 inch Elizabeth telescope, South Africa,1963
74-inch reflector, Helwan (Kottamia), Egypt, 1963
30-inch reflector, Jungfraujoch, Switzerland, 1966
16/24-inch Schmidt, Castel Gandolfo, 1967
The 98 inch Issac Newton Telescope, Hestmonceaux, England, 1967
72 inch (182cm) Mirror for Padua, Italy, 1973
48/72-inch Schmidt, Siding Spring, Australia, 1973
154 inch Reflector, Siding Spring, Australia, 1974
48-inch reflector, Athens University, Greece, 1975
150-in mirror, UKIRT, Hawaii, 1976
60 inch Reflector, La Silla, Chile, 1976.

Many of them are still in situ.

Magazine cover featuring Grubb Parsons

Grubb Parsons, during their time there, was a curious mixture of the latest techniques and processes that wouldn’t have seemed out of place in the dark satanic mills of old. In one room David Brown might be working on the very latest in computerised testing and design processes, while in another a vast cauldron of pitch was being boiled. David Sinden always spoke of his work as dirty, grubby, grimy, filthy and gritty, although the results were world renowned.

Decline of Grubb Parsons

By the late 1970s, despite the obvious success of a series of large scale telescopes, Grubb Parsons was in difficulty. The scientific instrument side of the business, which had always supported the more impressive work on large telescopes, started to decline and being part of a much larger group of companies with different priorities saw a lack of new investment.

David Sinden was the first to leave, in 1976, to set up his own business, the Sinden Optical Company. David Brown, having been promoted to Technical Director in 1975, stayed on with the company, taking control of all of the optics work and completing a number of major projects, including the 4.2m Herschel telescope even as the works were pulled down around the glass shops.

Life after Grubb Parsons

In 1981, David Brown was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by Durham University and when Grubb Parsons finally closed in 1985 joined the Physics Department as the Grubb Parsons Research Fellow. As well as working on a number of major projects, he travelled extensively around the world to advise on the construction of large telescopes. He also lectured at both Durham and Edinburgh Universities, where his lectures were said to be stimulating, with many practical demonstrations. He maintained his lifelong interest in Astronomy, with his own observatory and active membership of the Newcastle Astronomical Society.

He died at the young age of 59 on 17 July 1987 after what is described as a short illness. Probate records show his address at that time as 17, Douglas Avenue, Gosforth and that he left an estate of £97,063.

In 1979, David Sinden established his own optical company in Raby Cross, Byker, although the firm eventually moved to Ryton after being plagued by repeated problems with vandalism. The company dealt with all types of optical work, including building quite a reputation for Camera Obscuras. Loved by the Victorians, the Camera Obscura projects images of the locality onto a large circular table in a darkened room. SOC’s first commission was to build one for the Gateshead Garden Festival, where it was set up in a large tent. They then went on to build others for places as far flung as Portugal, Spain and Cuba. After the garden festival the Camera Obscura was moved to the Foredown Tower in a Country Park in Hove, where it remains the only example of SOC’s work in the UK.

In addition to Camera Obscuras, the company began to specialise in restoring historic telescopes and even in building new large mirrors, the largest being 48”, using equipment bought from Grubb Parsons when it closed down.

In 1993, David Sinden was awarded an Honorary masters Degree from Newcastle University. Perhaps the greatest accolade for his lifetime’s work though was the naming of a minor planet in his honour. In June 2005, Asteroid 10369 Sinden was named in his honour, with a team from Armagh University visiting his workshop to present him with documentation about his own star.

Sadly, he died just two months later on 29 August 2005, at the age of 73 after being diagnosed with lung cancer some 18 months earlier.

Legacy

The Sinden Optical Company closed in 2005 after David’s death. Although Grubb Parsons has been closed for almost 40 years, the old telescope testing tower can still be seen behind Siemens on land owned by a company called Houghton International;. But the real legacy of Grubb Parsons and their two optical geniuses, David Brown and David Sinden lives on in the great optical telescopes they built, many of which are still in regular use in all five continents of the world.

Can you help?

If you know more about Grubb Parsons, including the work of Davids Brown and Sinden, 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 Michael Proctor, 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.

Castles of Heaton

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Heaton History Group member, Arthur Andrews, has been researching his family tree. Luckily for us, although Arthur lives in Whitley Bay, a number of his family members lived in Heaton, including during World War One, the period we’re researching for our ‘Heaton Avenues in Wartime’ project. Here is Arthur’s poignant account of the life of William Castle and his family.

‘My great-grandfather, William Castle was born in London on 24 July 1858. He was the third of the six children of John and Susan Castle. Susan came from Southborough in Kent and John from Letcombe in Berkshire. We know that by 1861, when William was two, his father was a domestic servant/valet and the family were living in Lillington Place, London. Ten years later, with William still a schoolboy, they were in Paddington.

William Castle

Country estate

‘However by 1878, for reasons I haven’t yet discovered, 19 year old William had moved to the other end of the country. He had followed his father into domestic service and was, at the age of 19, employed as a footman to a wealthy Northumberland couple, Watson Askew Esquire and the Honourable Sarah Askew. His new home was what can only be described as a stately home, Pallinsburn, near the Scottish border. A bit different from Paddington!

Pallinsburn, Northumberland

‘I managed to find records relating to William’s time at Pallinsburn in the Northumberland Archives at Woodhorn and so know that his starting wage was £26 a year but that within a year, he’d been promoted to the role of First Footman and earned an extra £2pa. The Askew family’s expenditure books show that he received an advance on his wages occasionally.

‘While at Pallinsburn, William was presented with a small, personally inscribed, leather bound bible, which I still have. The bible has gilt edging on all the pages and a decorative metal clasp and ornate metal corner protectors, which make it quite special. Expenditure records suggest it cost £3 to purchase, quite a lot of money at that time. The inscription says “William Castle, from honourable Sarah Askew March 10th 1880“. We can only speculate as to what prompted the gift.

Bible presented to William Castle

The 1881 census shows that William was still living and working at Pallinsburn but the final reference to him in the family expenditure records is in May of that year, when his annual pay of £30 is recorded.

Heaton home

‘The next I know of William, he was working as a tobacconist on Shields Road and living above the shop at number 145. On 31 July 1884, he married 22 year old Elizabeth Stanners, a shepherd’s daughter from the small hamlet of New Etal in North Northumberland. The wedding took place in a Primitive Methodist chapel in Milfield, a few miles north of Wooler, which is still used for worship today. The newly-weds seem to have immediately come to live in Heaton, which must have been as big a shock for Elizabeth as the move from London to rural North Northumberland had been for William.

‘Between 1886 and 1900, Elizabeth and William had four children, John, Eleanor Susan (known as Nellie), Winifred (‘Winnie’) and Ruth. During this period, the family lived at various addresses not too far from the Shields Road shop, including 172 Tynemouth Road and 5 Charles Street, before moving, by 1900, to 47 Tenth Avenue. William kept his tobacconist’s shop until September 1915, when he retired, receiving a silver fruit bowl from his staff. I still have the bowl.

Just before then we have found a reference to him in the local newspaper: On 25 March 1915, his gift of cigarettes to the sick and wounded of Armstrong College Hospital was publicly acknowledged.

John

‘The Castle children all attended Chillingham Road School, newly opened in 1893 to accommodate the growing number of children in the rapidly expanding suburbs of Heaton and Byker. Eldest boy John was among its first cohort. He was registered as pupil number 91 on 17 November 1893. He went on to the secondary school, which he left on 21 July 1899 to join his father’s business as a ‘tobacconist’s assistant’. I have at home, a lovely memento of John. In 1904, he was given a fine wooden smoking cabinet, with a small engraved plaque, which reads “Presented to J Castle for meritorious work, by the proprietors of The British Advertiser, Dec 1904″.

Sadly, less than two years later, John died at home in Tenth Avenue, aged only 20, of appendicitis, not a disease we normally think of as fatal today.

Nellie

‘Nellie also went to work in her father’s shop until, in 1912, she married a young Irishman, Arthur James Andrews, in St Mark’s Byker.

Nellie and Arthur on their wedding day

Her husband was a dentist who, at the time of their marriage, worked and lodged in Wallsend. They went on to have five children: Dorothy, Ronald William, Marjorie, Nellie and another Arthur, Arthur James. In 1931, however, seven year old Dorothy and her father died of meningitis within days of each other. Nellie, widowed with four children at the age of 31, left the family home at 137 Heaton Park Road to live in Whitley Bay. Youngest son, Arthur, who you might have guessed was my father, was brought up by his grandparents to ease the burden on his mother.

Winnie

‘Winnie married Frederick Justus Hurdle, a Canadian engine fitter, on 18 October 1916. Within three months, they left for Canada, perhaps to get away from the war, which was causing such distress and hardship at home. Perhaps Winnie found it hard to settle or maybe because the war was over, she and Frederick returned in June 1919 but, in yet another tragedy to hit the family, Winnie died of meningitis just three months later.

Winnie Castle outside her Toronto home

Her widowed husband returned to Canada. As I write this, we’re reminded that meningitis is still a killer, with a new vaccine for all babies having just been authorised.

Ruth

‘Youngest daughter, Ruth, is pictured here outside the family home at 47 Tenth Avenue, in the earliest photograph Heaton History Group has seen of the avenues.

Young Ruth Castle outside 47 Tenth Avenue

Ruth married Leslie Daykin Jeffcoat of 34 Third Avenue in 1925, if not quite the boy next door, then not far off. But theirs is a ‘Heaton Avenues in Wartime’ story which I’ll tell on another occasion.

Heaton resting place

‘After William’s retirement and with two of their four children having died prematurely, he and Elizabeth continued living on Tenth Avenue for another ten years, before moving in 1920 with youngest daughter, Ruth, to a much larger house in Shotley Bridge. Elizabeth died on 28 February 1929, aged 69 years and William a little over a year later on 5 May 1930, aged 72. William’s estate amounted to almost £10,000, showing how far the footman and the shepherd’s daughter had come.They returned to the area in which they’d spent most of their married life to be buried together in the family grave in Heaton and Byker Cemetery with John, the son, and Winifred, the daughter, who had pre-deceased them. It was to be less than a year before a son-in-law and granddaughter were to join them.’

Can you help?

This article was researched by Arthur Andrews.

Heaton History Group member, Arthur Andrews

It forms part of our HLF-funded, Heaton Avenues in Wartime project. If you have a story to tell about your family or would like to help us research the history of Heaton, please contact: chris.jackson@heatonhistorygroup.org Arthur would especially like to hear from anyone who has a photograph of William Castle’s tobacconist shop on Shields Road or has any information about the British Advertiser.

Meet me on the corner

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Not a detailed timeline but we couldn’t pass up the chance that the opening of the new pub on the corner of Heaton Park Road and Shields Road gives us to show pictures of the same building at different points in its history. Most people associate Beavan’s with the building on the opposite side of Heaton Park Road which still bears its name, but this lively street scene shows that it was previously on ‘High Main’ corner and seems to have extended down Heaton Park Road.

Thank you to Beamish Museum for letting us use this photo. It’s interesting to see the now demolished shops and houses further down Heaton Park Road. And notice that some of the children have bare feet. But can you help us date the photograph? The fashions should give us a clue.

And what about this one, showing Woolworth’s occupying the site? Sometime in the 1960s? Who remembers shopping or working there? Did anyone own one of those sidecars?

And, for comparison, the new pub.

And in case you were wondering where the name came from:

Thank you to Graham Soult for permission to use these two photographs.

There must be lots of people with information or memories of Woolie’s, Beavan’s (even if not in these premises!) or of other shops on Shields Road. We’d love you to post your comments here or email them to Chris Jackson.

The Prince of Wales’ visit 1923

185 Shields Road

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This photograph shows the premises at 185 Shields Road, now occupied by Fantasia Florist, a family business, which has had shops in Heaton and Byker for over twenty five years.

The first shop on the site of 185 Shields Road seems to have been Peter Hilton’s grocery store which occupied the site from 1886 to 1889. Its number at this time was actually 271. The road was renumbered around 1890, a not uncommon occurrence in those days.

Peter Hilton was born in Belford, Northumberland, and at the time of the 1881 census he was living with his Middlesex (Holborn) born wife, their son and Peter’s sister in Holly Avenue, Jesmond. Peter had been a grocer for at least 15 years before opening the Shields Road shop. After his retirement, he lived with his son and daughter in law in Third Avenue, Heaton (1911 Census).

German pork butchers

The first mention of number 185 Shields Road in the trade directories was in 1890 when, for a couple of years, the shop was George Pfaff’s pork butcher’s. George and his wife were born in Germany and lived next door to the shop.

German pork butchers were a feature of British high streets from the mid 19th century. Most of the first wave of immigrants came from a small area around the town of Künzelsau in the Kingdom of Wurttemberg. Nobody is entirely sure what brought so many to Britain but this part of Germany was affected by population growth, agricultural depression, crop failures and the traditional inheritance practice of primogeniture (excluding all but one sibling from taking over the family estate). Many people emigrated and news must have been relayed back home that there was a good living to be made as a butcher in the growing towns and cities of the newly industrialised North of England. Subsequent German immigrants in the 20th century continued the tradition. (See the story of Rudi Kuhnbaum here http://woodhornexhibitions.com/treasures/13.html).

185 Shields Road remained a pork butcher’s under Henry Abel, who like many pork butchers who settled in Britain, was born in Wurttemberg. His wife was also German born but they married in Newcastle in 1896. The Abels were proprietors for about 16 years but gave up the shop during World War One. There were many reports of persecution of Germans and specifically of German pork butchers at around that time including, in 1915, in Byker. The war is certainly a possible reason for Henry and his family leaving Shields Road.

Edgar Couzens

The next proprietor was also a pork butcher but Edgar Couzens (pictured below) was born in East Walton, Norfolk in 1887. In 1908, he and his brother, Bert, moved to Newcastle, where there were better job prospects, and Edgar trained to be a butcher. He soon opened his own shop on Heaton Road.

On 7 February 1916, Edgar joined the 6th Battalion Northumberland Fusiliers Army Veterinary Corps but he seems not to have been called up for active service until December of that year. In the meantime, he married Gwendoline, who’d also moved from Norfolk. They lived on Sefton Avenue and opened this shop at 185 Shields Road. After Edgar was called up, Gwen managed the shop until he returned from service. They later had shops in both Chillingham Road and on Raby Street in Byker. Edgar died in 1971 aged 83 while living at Charminster Gardens, North Heaton. Gwen died in 1986, aged 96. Their grandson, Mike Couzens, has provided us with fascinating information about the life of his grandparents and other family members. We are especially fortunate in that Edgar was a keen amateur photographer and over the coming months we’ll be featuring many of his photos along with information provided by Mike.

Mains’ grocery

In 1927 185 Shields Road is listed as Fisckhoff and Sons, egg merchants, but the following year Robert Mains’ grocery store, pictured above, was established. The poster on the left suggests the photograph dates from soon after it opened. It advertises the film Love me and the World is Mine, which starred Mary Philbin, Norman Kerry and Betty Compson and was released in 1928.

Robert was born in 1896 and in 1911, he was described as an office boy and was living with his father, a postman, his mother and two brothers on Mowbray Street, Heaton. (Census information for 1921 isn’t available for another 8 years so later biographical information is limited at the moment.)

The other name in the window is that of Charles Frederick Hunter. There were several people of that name living in the Newcastle area at this time, including more than one in Heaton itself. However, although the lettering between the two names is difficult to make out, it says ‘Ten’ (we think) ‘years with’ and so it seems most likely that it refers to a provisions merchant who lived in Smallburn, Ponteland. It looks as though Robert worked for him before setting up on his own and that Hunter’s reputation was such that it enhanced his own standing.

The address isn’t listed in the directories from 1930 until 1936. S Grossman (another German name), woodworker, was the occupier from then until 1940. It then seems to have been empty for a number of years. Did it just become dilapidated or was it perhaps damaged in the war? Either way it was eventually rebuilt.

Post war

From 1956 the shop was called Home Comforts and described as a linoleum merchants. The proprietor in 1959 was given as P Bransky (a name of Polish origin). Home Comforts seems to have been successful. It was still there in 1968, benefitting from greater post war affluence which led to more expenditure on the home.

Fantasia Florists

The shop occupying the premises is now Fantasia Florists, a family firm headed by Shirley Ovington. Shirley is Newcastle born and bred. The family has been running florists for twenty five years including, in the past, two on Chillingham Road, in premises now occupied by the Pine Shop and Subway. Shirley bought the lease of 185 Shields Road from a photographer and thinks that the shop was once a bakers, as there are still cooling vents for the oven at the back of the shop. In the picture below, you can clearly see that the shop building is more modern than its neighbours.

Sources

Sources consulted for this article included:

Karl-Heinz Wüstner: New light on the German pork butchers in Britain (1850 – 1950), http://www.surrey.ac.uk/cronem/files/conf2009papers/Wuestner.pdf

Your turn

Perhaps more than anything, the story of 185 Shields Road shows that migration to the East End is by no means a new phenomenon. The population of Heaton in the mid 19^th century numbered only a few hundred and so almost everyone who made it the bustling suburb it is now had origins outside the area – whether elsewhere in Newcastle or the North East or, as was often the case, much further afield.

And this is where we need your help. Can you add to the information here? Do you remember Home Comforts, a bakery or the photographer’s or any other shop there’s been on the site? Do you have any memories or photos of Heaton shops that you’d like to share? If so, we’d love to hear from you. Contact chris.jackson@heatonhistorygroup.org or leave a comment here.