Tag Archives: freemason

Gladstone Adams’ Inspired Drive

As you wonder whether to venture out in the pouring rain, stop for a moment instead to remember a son of Heaton living when even car rides in rain and snow would barely be tolerable. In fact, it was such a car journey back to Heaton from London that led to an invention we all take for granted. To make matters worse it followed yet another cup final defeat for Colin Veitch’s Newcastle United.  But the subject of our research, one Gladstone Adams, was notable for much more than the inventor of windscreen wipers.

Adams1GAPortrait

Gladstone Adams

Early life

Gladstone was born on 16 May 1880 and baptised at All Saints Church in the east end of Newcastle upon Tyne on 6 June 1880, one of ten children born to John and Agnes Adams. For many years the Adams family lived in St Ann’s Row, Ouseburn. Although, John ran his own business, life was hard: at the age of 16, Gladstone contracted typhoid and almost died.

The family business of marine salvage seemed to offer little scope to an ambitious and bright young man and so, after school, Gladstone Adams became apprenticed to Matthew Auty, a well known photographer in Tynemouth. (Apparently many years later after the photography business had closed,  renovation work revealed some writing on a beam that seemed to be a log of Auty’s employees over the years. It included the name of Gladstone Adams, suggesting  that he started work there in 1896, aged 16 and left in March 1901.)

Young Gladstone lived at a number of addresses in Heaton. At the time of the 1901 census, he was living with his mother and father and older sister, Grace, at 29 Eversley Place, Heaton.

Adams3GA29EversleyPlace

Eversley Place home of Gladstone Adams and his parents

Gladstone’s father died in 1902 and mother in 1909. They are buried together in All Saints Cemetery.

When Gladstone joined the Lord Collingwood Masonic Lodge in 1907, his address was given as 39 Lesbury Road (opposite pioneering Trade Union leader and MP Alexander Wilkie at number 36).

4GA39LesburyAvenue

Adams’ 39 Lesbury Road residence

At this point, aged 28, he was described as an ‘art photographer‘. A later electoral role shows him in 1913 at 82 Heaton Road.

Photographer

Although he lived in Heaton as a young man, the photography business Gladstone set up in 1904 was based in Whitley Bay. Adam’s reputation as a photographer was such that three years later, he was asked to take the official photographs of the newly launched ‘Mauretania’, leaving the Tyne. The image below apparently made him more than £1000  and has been acclaimed by ‘Photography’ magazine as a future ‘Old Master’.

AdamsMauretaniaLeavesTyneIcarus5GA1907

Adam’s business expanded with several more studios opening. By the end of the 1920s he employed in the region of 90 people. His work was extremely varied and besides the usual family and wedding portraits, he produced postcards of local scenes, worked as a commercial photographer for newspapers, police records and industrial organisations, as well as being the official photographer for Newcastle United, hence that difficult journey back from the cup final.

Adams6GANUFCJWThomas

Gladstone Adams’ photograph of Newcastle’s R W Thomas (who only played one game for the Magpies)

Adamsphotsoc_edited-1

Adams (far left) at a meeting of Newcastle Photographic Society

Gladstone went on to be Chairman of the Professional Photographers Association. His business flourished for over 60 years until camera ownership became common and Whitley Bay had declined as a holiday destination.

Inventor

And so it was in his capacity as successful businessman and official photographer to Newcastle United that, at the end of April 1908, Adams found himself driving back from Crystal Palace in his 1904, French made Darracq motor car. It was such an unusual sight that apparently the car was put on display while he was at the match.

Adams7GADarracqMotorCar

A Darracq like that driven by Adams

As if watching the reigning champions  unexpectedly lose to Wolverhampton Wanderers wasn’t bad enough, the weather conditions for the journey home were atrocious with unseasonal snow falling. The only way Gladstone could clear his windscreen was with his hands, necessitating many stops. But much good came out of what must have been a miserable weekend. For it was on this arduous drive that Gladsone Adams said he came up with his inspired idea for a windscreen wiper (although it has to be admitted that in the USA, a Mary Anderson had patented a windshield wiper blade a few years earlier. These things are rarely straightforward!)

AdamswiperMKR_NEC_141216gift_13

Adams’ windscreen wiper at the Discovery Museum (courtesy of the ‘Evening Chronicle’)

The prototype of Adams’ mechanism is on display at The Discovery Museum in Newcastle. Three years of development later, in April 1911, a patent was registered by Sloan & Lloyd Barnes, patent agents of Liverpool for Gladstone Adams of Whitley Bay.

Military

 In 1901, aged 21 Adams joined the Northumberland Yeomanry, which was a locally raised cavalry force. This enabled him to improve his horse riding skills and he won several competitions. He was about to have been sent to the Boer War but fortunately the war ended. Gladstone remained in the Yeomanry until 1910, retiring with the rank of Corporal and a good conduct certificate.

In 1914, aged 34, he volunteered to serve in WWI. Because of his photographic skills, he joined the Royal Flying Corps as a reconnaissance photographer with the 15th Wing in France. In April 1918 he was stationed at the front, close to where the German flying ace, Baron Manfred von Richthofen, was shot down and killed. Adams was given the unenviable task of photographing the deceased pilot to prove that ‘The Red Baron’ had really been killed. He was then involved in the preparations for the pilot’s burial, with full military honours, at Bertangles Cemetery, near Amiens. After the war, Adams’s military service was recognised by the award of the permanent title of ‘Captain’ on his discharge papers.

By the outbreak of WWII Gladstone was approaching 60 but he nevertheless he served as Flight Lieutenant with the 1156 Air Training Corps in Whitley Bay.

Marriage

In 1914 at the age of 34, Gladstone had married the talented artist, Laura Annie Clark. He had served in the Royal Flying Corps alongside Laura’s brother, Joseph, also, like their father, Joseph Dixon Clark senior, an artist.

Laura was a notable painter of miniatures whose work was exhibited at the Royal Academy and Paris Salon as well as provincial galleries, including the Laing. Her 1923 miniature on ivory depicting herself and her son, Dennis, entitled ‘The Green Necklace’ was given a place of honour at the 1923 Royal Academy exhibition between portraits of George V and Queen Mary. Laura was also a talented musician and composer. She worked as a colourist at Gladstone’s photographic studio. The Adams’ married life was mostly spent in Monkseaton. Dennis, born in 1920, was their only child.

Other achievements

in the 1950s, after hearing that a squad of Royal Marines were tragically run down by a lorry on a dark road, Adams developed a prototype fluorescent belt for pedestrians to wear at night. He and his brother also invented the ‘trafficator’, a forerunner of the car indicator, as well as the sliding rowing seat.

Adams was one of Whitley Bay’s longest serving councillors, holding St Mary’s Ward from 1937 to 1948. He also served in other wards in the 1950s and early 1960s, finally losing his seat in 1963. He was also a Northumberland County Councillor.  Gladstone and his son, Dennis, were councillors together for a period of time.

Gladstone Adams died, after a very eventful life, aged 86, on 28 July, 1966,. A commemorative plaque is located on the west facing, gable end of the Ouseburn Mission building, very close to the house in which he was born.

Adams2GAPlaqueOuseburnMission

Acknowledgements

 Researched and written by Arthur Andrews, Heaton History Group.

Can you help?

 If you know more Gladstone Adams, especially his early life in Ouseburn and Heaton,  or have photos to share, we’d love to hear from you. Please get in touch either by clicking on the link immediately below the title of this article or by emailing chris.jackson@heatonhistorygroup.org

 Sources

 North Shields Library – Local History Section

The Journal‘ 10 April 2008 Report by Tony Henderson that a significant amount of memorabilia belonging to Gladstone Adams was to be auctioned.

‘The Artists of Northumbria’ / Marshall Hall; 2nd ed, 1982.

‘The Toon: a complete history of Newcastle United’ / by Roger Hutchinson; Mainstream, 1997

Findmypast, Ancestry and other online sources.

Windows Shopping: 111 years of Tyneside music

We’re all familiar with JG Windows’ music store in the fabulous Edwardian Central Arcade.

Windows2019

J G Windows, 2019

Heaton History Group’s Michael Proctor first knew it from searching for records on teenage trips to Newcastle and later from drooling over impossibly expensive hi-fi systems. Others may remember it as the place to buy tickets for almost any conceivable concert or event, from Shakespeare at the Theatre Royal to rock music at the City Hall and even the circus on the Town Moor, but when it first opened its doors it was to sell musical instruments and sheet music. The shop was opened by James Gale Windows, a long term resident of Heaton, so Michael decided to delve a little deeper.

Beginnings

James Gale Windows was born in October 1870 in Headington, Oxfordshire. He was the fourth son of Joseph Windows, a police sergeant and his wife, Fanny. The 1881 census shows the family still living in Cowley, with two more children, a fifth son and a daughter, with Joseph having been promoted to inspector. James’ eldest brother, Alfie, had left home by this time, but William, 18, was a tailor’s apprentice and Herbert, 14, a carpenter’s apprentice.

In his late teens, James moved to Newcastle, where he started work as a music seller’s assistant. The 1891 census shows him boarding with Annie Turnbull in Elswick.

In 1896 James returned home to Cowley to marry Maud Frances Hind, with the couple returning to Newcastle to set up home in Heaton. Maud, born in 1873, was the youngest daughter of Jonathon, a monumental mason, and his wife, Thirza. It seems likely that the families were close and James and Maud knew each other as children, as Jonathon’s death in 1910 shows his address as 17 Princes Street, the former home of Joseph and Fanny Windows.

Heaton

James and Maud’s early family life seems to have involved a lot of movement between houses, but always in Heaton. In 1899, they were living at 57 King John Street; in 1902, they’d moved to 124 Warton Terrace; in 1905 it was 21 Stratford Grove; 1908 saw them at 69 Cardigan Terrace and 1914 has the family living at 8 Norwood Avenue, where they stayed until at least 1927.

The couple’s first son, Maurice James, was born in July 1897 and their second son, Hedley Arnold, was born nine years later on 13 February 1906.

But it was in 1908 when the family’s fortunes really changed and the family name became synonymous with music on Tyneside. That was the date when James opened his own store in the highly prestigious, newly opened Central Arcade.

Exchange

The building itself had had a troubled history. The Central Exchange was intended to be the flagship of the Grainger town development. An unusual triangular shaped building it had facades on Grainger Street, Grey Street and Market Street and was intended to be the visual and commercial centrepiece of Newcastle’s Neo-Classical streets. It was built by Richard Grainger and designed as a Corn Exchange, but by the time it was completed in 1838, there was no need for an exchange. Instead, it opened as a subscription newsroom, where the wealthy gentlemen of the day could come to read newspapers gathered from around the world. Coffee rooms occupied space in the corner drums and the building became a focal point for Newcastle’s social elite.

017196:Central Exchange News Room Newcastle upon Tyne Unknown c.

Central Exchange newsroom

The fact that the building was not proving to be a great commercial success became apparent in March 1846 when a hand written share prospectus from Richard Grainger proposed to raise additional funds by selling 1,700 shares at £50 each. The prospectus notes that the news room had 1,300 subscribers paying 1 guinea each and produced an annual rent of £674 per annum. It then goes on to propose that a small increase in subscriptions of ½ guinea (50%) would allow the rent to increase to £1356. Grainger then set out the rent from shops, offices and coffee rooms as £1,340. However the premises were not fully occupied. As the additional rent he estimated would come from having the building fully occupied was £2,416, that suggests only about a third were occupied.

In the event, the share scheme was also a failure. Two years later, on 7 April 1848, the Durham County Advertiser reported that shareholders called a meeting with Grainger to hear the findings of a committee appointed to investigate the scheme. The committee recommended the immediate reimbursement of the shareholders. In the event, only 536 shares had actually been sold, with Grainger holding the remainder.

The first incarnation of the Central Exchange ended on Sunday 11 August 1867 when the building was ravaged by fire. When it reopened in 1870 the bulk of the building was occupied by the Institution for Promoting the Fine Arts and included an art gallery, concert hall and theatre.

055870:Central Exchange News Room Newcastle upon Tyne Unknown c.

Art gallery, Central Exchange, 1880

WindowsCentralexchangesign 2019

Central Exchange sign, 2019

This appears to have been more successful, but was again brought abruptly to an end by another major fire in 1901. This time, the building was completely redesigned to form an elegant shopping arcade with a barrel vaulted glazed roof, decorated using the full arsenal of Edwardian techniques with lustrous faience tiling, double arched entrances and a mosaic floor.

Arcade

Towards the end of the 19th century, public concerns were raised about the safety, hygiene and moral integrity of the city. One response was to build shopping arcades exclusively to display luxury and novelty goods to the city’s elite customers. The peak of arcade building was around 1890, so the new Central Arcade, which opened to the public in 1906, was unusual in being Edwardian rather than Victorian.

046892:Central Arcade Newcastle upon Tyne unknown December 1906

Central Arcade, 1906

This early photograph shows the arcade lavishly decorated for Christmas with an advert for a cafe on the balcony and even the latest technological advance, a public telephone.

It was into this luxury shopping arcade that James Windows opened the doors of his new business in 1908, just two years after the arcade opened. Originally, he appears to have had only the middle one of the three shopping units that the shop now occupies. Even so, this seems like a massive leap for a music seller’s assistant to open his first shop in such an environment. It’s not clear where he got the funding to do this as there doesn’t appear to have been wealth on either his or his wife’s side of the family that he may have inherited.  By 1911, it is obvious that the shop was doing well as the census shows the family had acquired that most essential of Edwardian middle class assets, a servant, Maggie Calder. The census identifies James as a seller of music and musical instruments and an employer. In 1909, James joined the Novocastrian lodge of the Freemasons, further establishing his position within the middle class elite of Newcastle.

War

With the coming of the First World War, James and Maud’s elder son, Maurice, signed up and fought as a private with the Cyclist Battalion. A vital part of the army that subsequently became the Signal Corps, cyclist battalions passed messages to and from the front line. His medal card also shows him having fought with the Northumberland Fusiliers. JG Windows’ own website records that both sons also fought in the Second World War, but no details have emerged. Obviously by the time of the war, the business had branched out into selling gramophones (and presumably records), as the Newcastle Daily Journal of 29 September 1915 records the donation of a gramophone from JG Windows for the use of the troops. It continued to expand to include radios in the 1930s and even provided for music and singing lessons. (The Newcastle Journal on 1 November 1940 records the success of a child prodigy, Maurice Aitcheson aged 14, passing the LRAM Performer exam at the Sigmund Oppenheimer Pianoforte School at JG Windows.)

After the war, Maurice Windows joined his father in the family business, as did Hedley when he was old enough and, later, Hedley and his wife Marjorie’s son, James Bowen Windows, who joined the business in 1961.

Legacy

James Gale Windows died on the 21 June 1933 aged 63. His address is given as 43 Oaklands, Gosforth, having finally moved on from Heaton. He left £7,997 16s 4d (around £380,000 in today’s money) to his widow, Maud, and to Percival Frederick Barras, Accountant. It’s not clear who Mr Barras was, but as he clearly had a call on James’ estate, it’s possible that he may have provided some of the financial backing to set up the business.

WindowsJGW memorial Gosforth parish church

James Gale and Maud Frances Windows’ memorial at Gosforth Parish Church

The business continued to thrive, led by Maurice, Hedley and James Bowen, expanding ultimately to three shop units in Central Arcade over three floors. At one point, they also had stores in Darlington, York and the Metro Centre, although Darlington and York are now closed.

Maurice died on 12 February 1962 and Hedley on 13 February 1996. In 2006 the company was purchased from the Windows family by three current and former employees and long-time associates. Although the Windows family are no longer involved in the day to day running of the company, J G Windows Ltd has stuck to the principles which have kept the company central to musical life in the North East for more than a hundred years.

Can You Help?

If you know any more about James Gale Windows or the Windows family and especially if you can help us find photographs of any of the people 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

Acknowledgements

Researched and written by Michael Proctor of Heaton History Group.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Heaton Herbals

In the Newcastle trade directories from 1914-1923 the head of household of 2 Warwick Street, Heaton,  George Kingdon, was described as a ‘herbalist’. We decided to try to find out more about Mr Kingdon and the practice of herbal medicine in Newcastle and, especially, Heaton. Our research threw up some fascinating characters.

A bit of history

The practice of looking for therapeutic properties in plants dates back thousands of years, with the ‘Pen Tsao’ or ‘The Great Herbal of China’ dating back to c3000BC and the ‘Ebers’ papyrus, which listed around 700 herbal medicine used in Egypt, to about 2000BC. In ancient Rome, Pliny believed that there was a specific herbal remedy for every disorder, if only it could be found.

In Britain, Nicolas Culpepper’s ‘English Physician and Complete Herbal’ was published in the middle of the seventeenth century but, unlike in ancient China, Egypt and Rome, Culpepper incorporated magic and astrology into his work. When belief in magic faded, the popularity of herbalism waned too, although small herbal shops continued to exist, particularly in the north of England. In 1864 the National Institute of Medical Herbalists, was founded to improve standards, although old-style unqualified herbalists continued to practise.

Consumptive Cure

One of the most well known practitioners in Newcastle certainly wasn’t qualified. We might well consider him a ‘quack’ but his name will be familiar to anyone who lived in Newcastle before the mid 1980s. He’s George Handyside, who was born in Newton on the Moor, Northumberland in 1821. He started out as a shoe manufacturer and retailer in Berwick upon Tweed but soon had over 50 shops across north east England. By 1855, he had moved to Elswick in Newcastle and started to invest in property and, in 1888, he began a new business, as a ‘maker and vendor of medicinal cures’.

HerbalHandysidecartoon

Handyside’s most famous product was a ‘cure‘ for consumption but he also advertised ‘Blood Food’, ‘Blood Purifier’, ‘Blood Medicine’ and ‘Nerve Restorer’ (said to cure all appetite for alcohol), amongst other things. He’d hit on another successful business idea in the days before the NHS when, not only did conventional medicine not offer treatments for many common conditions, but also treatment by a doctor was beyond the means of many people.

George Handyside himself lived a long life. He died on 6 May 1904. His funeral was a huge affair with more than 1,000 mourners, mainly poorer people who believed they had benefitted from his medicines, along with those who remembered him as kindly neighbour. His biggest property development yet, an arcade on Percy Street, was still incomplete. It was finished after his death and named the ‘Handyside Arcade’.

Contemporaries

But Handyside was by no means the only herbalist operating in Newcastle during the 19th Century. Ward’s Directory of 1857-58, for example, lists six including a J Thomas (hopefully not wholly appropriately) ‘agent to Dr Coffin’ and James Wood, (‘dealer in British and Importer of Foreign Herbs, Barks, Roots etc‘).

HerbaladWood

In 1865, there were still six including James Wood still and now also Austin’s of Low Bridge, who promoted his ‘celebrated camomile, stomachic and aperient pills…’ .

HerbaladAustin

Twentieth Century

By 1900, Newcastle had expanded considerably and there were two herbalists on Shields Road: German, John James Reinecke, at 113 and Miss E Halsey at 42 Shields Road West. It is now that George Kingdon is first recorded in Newcastle. He ran Newcastle Herbal Medicine Stores at 110 New Bridge Street.

In Court

On 14 May 1901 George Kingdon appeared before Newcastle Police Court on a charge of keeping a refreshment house without a licence. Under the Refreshment House Act of 1860, refreshment houses were  defined as ‘all houses, rooms, shops or buildings kept open for public refreshment, resort and entertainment between 10pm and 5am not being licensed for the sale of beer, cider, wine or spirits’. The act required the keeper of a refreshment house that was open at any time between 10pm and 5am to apply for a licence. The Act was a way of monitoring establishments kept open at night for the sale of food or drink and ensuring that they weren’t operating as public houses, off licences, brothels etc.

In court, Police Sergeant Bestwick reported that he had entered Mr Kingdon’s premises in New Bridge Street at 12.10am on 3 March and bought a bottle of ‘botanic beer’ for which he paid a penny. Kingdon’s lawyer, Mr Parsons, drew the court’s attention to notices in the window of the shop which stated that tonics were sold, including one that read ‘Sarsaparilla, the great blood purifier’. When the prosecution asked Sergeant Bestwick whether the drink had a medicinal act, he replied that he’d only drunk half a bottle. The defence said ‘That wasn’t enough’.

When asked why the establishment was open at that hour, Mr Parsons said that it was not a refreshment house as covered by the act and that his client practised as a medical herbalist, selling spectacles etc, ‘everything that a chemist would sell except the scheduled poisons’. Furthermore he said that Mr Lucock, the Police-court Missionary, called regularly for a drink, believing that it did him good to which the Clerk of Court retorted ‘One needs a pick-me-up after leaving here!’

The role of the Court Missionary is interesting. It originated in London, funded by the Church of England, and was intended to steer criminals away from drink. Within a few years,  the idea had been adopted by more towns and cities and is acknowledged as the fore-runner of the probation service. Mention of the court missionary in this case appears to confirm the connections known to exist between herbalists and the temperance movement.

Despite the defence’s case, the bench’s decision was that the house was a place of refreshment under the Act and Kingdon was fined ten shillings plus costs.

George Kingdom

George Kingdon was born in Cardiff in c1866 but his early life remains  a mystery. What we do know is that by 1900 he’d moved to Newcastle and by the following year, he was described in the census as a ‘herbalist shopkeeper’ living with his wife Florence, who originated in Islington, London, at 32 Shields Road West, with a boarder called James Fielding Mattinson, aged 78, from Leeds, who was described as a ‘herbalist’s assistant’. Kingdon’s shop was downstairs at number 34. He no longer seemed to run a shop in New Bridge Street.

By 1911, George and Florence had a six year old daughter, Charlotte, and were living at 12 Stannington Avenue, Heaton, along with a domestic servant. George was still described as a ‘herbalist shopkeeper’ and he was still running the Shields Road West shop. From 1914 the couple lived at 2 Warwick Street.

We also know that George was a freemason, first at Lord Collingwood Lodge in Byker (He is mentioned in the ‘Newcastle Journal’ of 2 November 1914 as having donated £18 on behalf of the lodge to support Belgian refugees.) and then at Heaton Lodge. He died on 5 March 1923, leaving £8,183 8s 10d in his will. Florence outlived him. For a short time the Shields Road West shop continued with J W Young the proprietor but after World War 2 it became Oxteby’s Corn Stores and by the late 1960s a pet shop. It’s long since been demolished.

More Heaton Herbalists

By 1902, there was a herbalist practising in Heaton itself, Alfred Thomas Raper at 34 North View. Alfred was a former cartman from Yorkshire, who lived in Heaton with his wife, Sarah, and their six children before moving his business to County Durham. There was also a new herbalist in New Bridge Street, Alfred Salmon Barnfather’s at number 59.

Ten years later Bartholomew Westgarth, a local man who had previously kept a butcher’s shop at 65 Seventh Avenue and at 53 Chillingham Road and before that was a waterman,  was running a herbal medicine business from his home at 40 Rothbury Terrace. (Incidentally, Bartholomew was married to Elizabeth nee Hepple and on census night 1911, her nephew, John Wilson Hepple, a prominent local artist was staying with them.)

Also at this time Fred William Bernard was operating from 57 Heaton Road, a property well-known to older Heatonians as the ice-cream parlour.

Fred Bernard

Luckily for us in the early 1930s, F W Bernard published a book ‘The Rational and Natural Treatment of Disease by Medical Herbalism’, in which he promotes his products and gives a little information about himself. There is even a photo.

HerbalistBernard

Fred William Bernard

 

Fred was born in Bradford in c1882 and by 1911 was married with a seven year old daughter, Doris, and living in Heaton.

In his book, he says that he has been ‘connected with the herbal trade since a boy’ . He relates how some 15 years earlier, he had acquired the well established and previously mentioned New Bridge Street firm of J M Barnfather. He doesn’t mention possessing any specific qualifications or accreditation but asserts that ‘the various herbs, roots and barks stocked by me are gathered by trained botanists at the correct season and are dried and packed and are strictly hygienic conditions‘ and he quotes Taylor’s Chemists, Boots Cash Chemists, Principle Co-operative Stores and others as stockists of ‘Bernard’s Herbal Medicines’. He cites references from as far away as Inverness-shire and New Zealand.

HerbalBernard2

Fred died on 28 June 1941 leaving just over £11,000 in his will, with probate awarded to Second Lieutenant Leon Bernard and Frederick Bernard, herbalist. His knowledge lived on.

Sarsaparilla

Like George Kingdon thirty years earlier, Fred sold sarsaparilla (the roots of ‘smilax officianalis’, a perennial, trailing vine, native to Mexico and Central America.) as a ‘blood purifier’. His ‘finest Jamaica sarsaparilla’ cost 1s 6d per packer and was recommended for children and adults ‘for at least eight weeks every spring time’.

Herbalsarsrecipe

Thank you to G Baldwin & Co, still going strong on Walworth Road, London for permission to use this image

 

Sarsaparilla,  celebrated in the lyric in ‘Calamity Jane’: ‘Introducing Henry Miller, Just as busy as a fizzy sasparilla’  is still used as an ingredient in both herbal medicine and soft drinks. The sarsaparilla drinks you can buy today are mainly flavoured artificially but some, like those of Baldwin & Co, use a small amount of root extract.

With the advent of the National Health Service, the popularity of herbal medicine declined but it never fell out of favour completely and in Britain, and indeed Newcastle, was boosted by increased immigration from China and by a gradual realisation that conventional medicine didn’t have all the answers. And now increasingly universities, including Newcastle, and pharmaceutical companies are employing cutting edge scientific techniques to work out how to extract valuable plant compounds for use in mainstream medicine.

And you only need to call into Boots on Chillingham Road or any of our chemists and supermarkets to see how popular herbal remedies still are. Heaton’s George Kingdon, Fred Bernard and co might not have had formal medical qualifications but they knew a winner when they saw one.

Can you help?

If you have information, anecdotes or photographs of anybody mentioned in this article or herbalism in Heaton that you are willing to share, please either write direct to this page by clicking on the link immediately below the article title, or email chris.jackson@heatonhistorygroup.org

Sources

‘Fringe Medicine’ by Brian Inglis; Faber and Faber, 1964

‘George Handyside: Newcastle entrepreneur and quack vendor’ by David Robertson and Alan Blakeman; BBR Publishing, 2007

‘The Rational and Natural Treatment of Disease by Medical Herbalism’ by F W Bernard; 1932.

plus online sources.

Acknowledgements

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