Tag Archives: Heaton Cemetery

Major Bager’s Last Post

During the years immediately following World War One, the world very quickly became a smaller place. Developments were taking place almost on a daily basis in aviation. An international air mail service was becoming established and newsreels, introduced before the war, became a must-see bi-weekly feature of cinema-going. As a result of all of these, the events of 14 December 1920 and the name of a Heaton pilot were spoken about, not only across Britain, but around the world.

Growing Up

Robert Wilkinson was born on 27 June 1886 in Byker, the second son of Margaret Chambers, a single mother. Margaret went on to marry Lawrence Bager, a merchant seaman, and, by 1891, the family were living in Wallsend. Lawrence and Margaret had had a baby son together, while the older boys, Foster and Lawrence, were both recorded on the census under the surname ‘Wilkinson’ and as the stepsons of Lawrence, the head of household.

By 1901, the family were in Byker. Fourteen year old Robert was employed as a merchant’s clerk, as was his older brother, now listed as Fredrick. Both boys now had the surname ’Bager’ and were listed as sons of Lawrence, just like their younger siblings. Lawrence died in 1910 leaving Margaret at home, now 109 Tosson Terrace, Heaton, with her three grown up sons.

The older boys’ names had changed again by the time of the 1911 census to Robert William Moore-Wilkinson and Foster Moore-Wilkinson. Robert, now 25, was an engineer’s fitter at a firm of marine engineers. Apparently, prior to WW1, he made trips to Germany for Sopwith, a new company designing and building military aircraft and the ‘Bat Boat’, an early flying boat, which could operate on sea or land, one of which was bought by the German Navy Air Service.

War Hero

It’s no surprise, to find that, on the outbreak of war, Robert quickly joined the Royal Navy or that he was recruited to serve in the Royal Naval Air Service, the pioneering forerunner of the RAF. It is from Robert’s war records that we learn a little of what he looked like: 5 ft 91/2 inches tall, blue eyes and a complexion described as fresh. The photograph below is from the Royal Aero Club records.

Robert Bager’s Royal Aero Club Aviator Certificate

Robert was a member of No 7A Squadron (which, in 1917, became 14 Squadron) at first working as an aerial gun-layer. The squadron flew Handley Page Type 0 biplane bombers. In a report in the ‘Daily Mirror’ on 3 November 1917, headlined ‘Cavalry of the Clouds: honours for heroes who have been bombing foe docks’, Leading Mechanic R W Bager is listed as a recipient of a Distinguished Service Medal. We know too that he was wounded in engagements over Zeebrugge but was soon able to resume his duties. After the war, Robert joined the Handley Page Co, whose aircrafts he was so familiar with.

Airmail

Handley Page, founded in 1909, was Britain’s first publicly traded aircraft manufacturing company. During the war it built heavy bombers at its factory in Cricklewood. Having been narrowly beaten in June 1919 to the kudos of making the world’s first transatlantic flight by Alcock and Brown in a Vickers Vimy, on which there was a cargo of 196 letters and one letter packet with them, four months later Handley Page’s plane the ‘Atlantic’ won the consolation prize of carrying the first airmail from Canada to the USA.

The company had already launched a goods and passenger service between London and Paris and Brussels. The first Brussels service was advertised as three times weekly and the Paris service daily (except Sunday). A single ticket cost £15.15s and a ‘double journey’ £31.10 (No saving there then!) ‘Luncheon Baskets ‘ could be ordered in advance and passengers would be conveyed between the aerodrome and the respective cities by ‘landaulette cars’.

Just a month later on 11 November 1919, the first public overseas airmail service began, flying between London and Paris. This historic flight, captained by Lt Henry ‘Jerry’ Shaw, chief pilot of Aircraft Transport and Travel, flew the first commercial flight across the Channel, a de Havilland DH.9 biplane. The flight from Hendon to Paris-Le-Bourget took 2 hours and 30 minutes and cost £21 per passenger, the equivalent of more than £1,000 today. Pilots sat in unheated open cockpits before the age of reliable radio, often following landmarks such as railway lines to ensure they were on track.

The following year, Handley Page inaugurated its own air mail services to Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam. The Paris flight left daily at noon. The price was still £10 10s but there was now a discounted return fare available for £18 18s.

One of its pilots was Major Robert Bager of Tosson Terrace, Heaton.

Fateful Day

In mid-December 1920, England was experiencing severe weather. The headlines in the ‘Halifax Evening Chronicle’ on Tuesday 14th were typical: ‘Bolshevik weather: cold winds direct from Russia.’ ‘Iceland Warmer Than England’. The article went on to say that the Hebrides was the warmest part of Britain, while ten inches of snow was lying in Plymouth. The overnight temperature was ‘1 degree above zero’ FAHRENHEIT (-17 degrees Centigrade) in Peterborough. There were stories of happy polar bears in London Zoo and hardy swimmers in the Serpentine.

And below under the heading ‘Aeroplane Thrills’ was the story of the previous day’s Handley Page Transport flight from Paris. The pilot described his three hour flight across the Channel in a blizzard ‘Mine was the only machine to arrive in London today’ pilot Lt R H Macintosh is reported to have told the ‘Daily Mail.’ ‘The conditions were terrible, particularly on the English coast and the machine was covered with ice… when nearing London, I completely lost my bearings and flew about aimlessly until I succeeded in getting in touch with the aerodrome by wireless, which put me right and guided me home.’

As people read this in Yorkshire, other local papers from Portsmouth to Dundee were beginning to carry news of the crash of that day’s outward flight at Golders Green, very close to the Cricklewood aerodrome. In early editions there were just a couple of lines but, by late afternoon, news came through of fatalities.

By the following day, Handley Page Transport had issued a statement saying that an accident occurred to one of its 0/400 aeroplanes (G-EAMA HP-25) shortly after it left their aerodrome at 12.30pm for Paris.

It named the four victims: ‘Mr Salinger of London, an employee of a bristle merchant, passenger; Mr Van der Elst, of Paris, passenger; Mr Bager, pilot; Mr Williams, mechanic.’ Four other passengers survived: Mr Pierre Curioni of Lima, Peru and Mr E Rosenthal, a London shipbroker, were slightly injured; Mr Alexander Bona, an agent for Cinzano of Turin and Mr Eric Studd of Harley St, London, who was on his way to India via Paris, were unhurt. Mr Studd was said to have left for India by train later that afternoon.

The company pointed out that it was the first accident that had occurred in connection with its air services, which, it said, had been running since September 1919, during which time they had carried 4,000 passengers over a total distance of over 320,000 miles. The details of the passengers gives us some idea of the sort of people making international flights a century ago.

Some of the survivors were soon interviewed: Alexandre Bona, the Cinzano rep, who described himself as an ‘Italian balloon pilot’ is reported as saying:

‘It is only through our coolness that my friend, Curioni, and I survived.’ He said they broke windows and were able to jump out. ‘They’re easy to break these mica windows’. He said that those who died were seated in the front section of the plane.

There were eye witness accounts too: ‘Nursemaids, postmen, milkmen and policemen [were among the first to] rush to the scene’ . ’Many of them said that the ‘machine’ appeared to be in difficulty immediately after take off, swerved but hit a tree and then an outhouse in the garden of no 6 Basing Hill ‘the eight-roomed residence of Miss E Robinson’. The fire service responded to a telephone call from Miss Robinson, who said she was in her front room when she heard the noise, but by the time they arrived, there was only ‘the skeleton of the plane’ left. As time went on, the accounts became ever more graphic. One witness said he saw one person jump clear and make an attempt to help others. Others said they could hear the harrowing shouts of those inside.

By the end of the day, it had emerged that the pilot was from Newcastle. The local press had printed his address and interviewed his mother, said to be ‘overcome by the news’ but who proudly told journalists of her son’s many achievements and his award for gallantry.

And within a few days, cinema-goers in Heaton and elsewhere were able to see the scene of the crash for themselves in a British Pathe newsreel which survives. You can clearly see the snow falling.

Interest in the accident was unsurprising. Flying was in its infancy and fascinated the public. Landmark achievements seemed to occur almost daily but setbacks too were big news – and there were plenty of them: The previous year, Winston Churchill, the UK’s first Secretary of State for Air, having resumed flying lessons which had been interrupted by the war, had suffered severe bruising after crashing his plane, severely injuring his instructor; in the USA, airmail pilots had gone on strike after being forced to fly even in zero visibility, a policy which resulted in 15 crashes in a fortnight with two fatalities; a year ago almost to the day, Sir John Alcock of Manchester, the first person to pilot a flight across the Atlantic, had died after crashing in fog near Rouen on route to an air show; and just a few months before, actor and stuntman, Ormer Locklear and his flying partner were killed while filming a night time spin for a feature film ‘The Skywayman’ before a large crowd in Los Angeles.

But the accident on 14 December was the first ever fatal, commercial air crash on British soil and is widely considered only the third in the world. The first, in July 1919, was the crash of the Wingfoot Air Express, an airship, into the Illinois Trust and Savings Building in Chicago, killing one crew member, two passengers and ten bank employees. The second, and the first involving a heavier than air plane, occurred near Verona in Italy, in August 1919. Tullo Morgagni, the founder of many still important cycle races, including the Giro d’Italia, was among the 14-17 (reports vary) victims.

Inquest

The inquest heard that Major Bager was a very experienced pilot and that the machine had always functioned well. It had been examined before take-off by two ground engineers and, according to a Major Brockley, who said he had helped start the engine before the flight, it was ‘quite satisfactory’. The verdict was that the four victims died from the consequences of burns due to the crashing of an aeroplane to the ground after it had struck a tree and that there was not sufficient evidence as to how it crashed to the ground.

There appears to have been no allusion to the weather, the previous day’s dramatic flight, the design of the aircraft, communications with the ground or the commercial pressure to fly.

Funeral

Major Bager’s funeral was held on 20 December. The cortege left his family home in Tosson Terrace, accompanied by the chief mourners, his mother, brothers and sister, fiancé Ethel Gibbett of Cricklewood and representatives of Handley-Page and the Amalgamated Engineering Union, as well as many old friends and ‘sympathetic spectators.’ Reverend R Trotter, Vicar of St Gabriel’s, conducted the funeral at Heaton Cemetery where Major Robert William Bager rests still.

Acknowledgments

Researched and written by Chris Jackson, Heaton History Group.

Sources

Airline Timetable Images www.timetableimages.com from the collection of Björn Larsson

Ancestry

British Newspaper Archive

Three Photographers: their development in Heaton

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Over the years, Heaton has been the home of many photographers, a number of whom we’ve already written about here: portrait photographer Edward Brewis, whose familiar half-timbered house on Heaton Park Road was built to house his studio and darkrooms; Gladstone Adams, official photographer to Newcastle United, as well as the inventor of the windscreen wiper, and once of Lesbury Road; Thomas Maitland Laws, one of a dynasty of photographers, who photographed the Prince and Princess of Wales’ visit to Newcastle in 1884 and was later a resident of Addycombe Terrace; Hungarian Laszlo Torday who lived in High Heaton and who has left us with thousands of photographs of Newcastle, and especially Heaton, in the 1960s and ‘70s.

We can now add three more names to the list, brothers-in-law who were the subject of a recent book ‘Photographers Three: three brothers-in-law, one love for Northumberland’ but who were also, to one degree or other, drawn to Heaton.

Front cover of S F Owen’s book about the three photographer *brothers-in-law*

Harry

The oldest and first of the three to take up photography was Harry Ord Thompson. He was born on 16 February 1871 in Gateshead, the eldest son of Elizabeth and George Thompson, a barrister’s clerk. To help make ends meet, Elizabeth went into business first selling knitting wool and later photographs at the premises of Durham photographer, Frederick William Morgan, where, at the age of 14, her son, Harry, began an apprenticeship. On qualification, Harry went to work for Tynemouth photographer, Matthew Auty. It was while working for Auty that he was sent to the premises of a photographic materials’ supplier, where he met Beatrice Isabel Dudley Collier, who was to become his wife.

The couple married in 1899. In 1901, they had a baby daughter and Harry was described as an ‘under-manager for a photographic view company’. By 1902, the Thompson family were living at 74 Bolingbroke Street and, soon after, Harry had started his own business as a studio portrait photographer and photographer of artistic views, which could be turned into picture postcards. By 1908, he was described as a ‘technical, outdoor and publishing photographer’. He had now moved to a larger house in Portland Terrace, which had room for his business premises, and which was to remain his business base and the Thompson family home for the rest of his working life.

Harry Ord Thompson with his wife, Beatrice (neé Collier), daughter, Mabelle, and
his mother, Elizabeth, at the family home in Portland Terrace c 1906

By 1912, however, Harry had changed the emphasis of his business again. The trade directories now described him as a ‘commercial and industrial photographer.’

Harry had also been a long-time member of the Volunteer Force, a fore-runner of the Territorial Army so, on 12 September 1914, aged 43, he enlisted in the Army Service Corps, with which he served in France. He was posted to a section that processed aerial photographs of the front and made them into maps.

In 1918, Harry returned home to his business in commercial photography, taking pictures for company brochures, journals and magazines. Customers included Heaton’s C A Parsons and Grubb Parsons. But he also continued to take photographs of Newcastle streets and buildings, including war memorials and churches, many of which were produced as postcards.

St Barnabas, Goldspink Lane photographed by Harry Ord Thompson c 1909.
It was demolished in 1974.

The culverting of the Ouseburn photographed by Harry O Thompson c1907

Another sideline was developing and printing amateur snaps for Boots the Chemists. He was a member of the Institute of British Photographers and exhibited several times.

Harry was also a keen local historian and an active member of Newcastle’s Society of Antiquaries. He had a particular interest in Hadrian’s Wall. The negatives of the many photographs he took of excavations were donated to Newcastle University after his death. Somehow, he still found time to sing in church choirs, be vice-chairman of the Newcastle branch of the British Legion and restore grandfather clocks.

For his busy retirement, Harry and Beatrice returned to Heaton, to 15 Stratford Grove, where Harry died on 18 December 1950 aged 79.

Walter

Walter Percy Collier was the younger brother of Harry Ord Thompson’s wife, Beatrice. He was born on 20 July 1875 in Elswick, the son of draper, Walter Dudley Collier and his wife, Isabella. When Walter was just 16 years old and an apprentice draper, his father died and his mother left England to become a lady’s companion to a wealthy American, leaving the family in his sister, Beatrice’s care. By 1901, with Beatrice now married to Harry Thompson, Walter was working as a hosier’s assistant in Manchester, where he was living with his younger sister, Flora. Alfred, the youngest member of the family had been with them until, in 1900, he emigrated to New York. Soon afterwards, now in Bootle on Merseyside, Flora married John Samuel Hart with whom Walter went into business as a tailor and draper.

Soon afterwards, however, no doubt influenced by the success of brother-in-law Harry, the two men exchanged tailoring for photography. In 1905, Walter married Bootle girl, Catherine Florence Poynor and, by 1908, it was arranged that the two families (Walter and Catherine by now had two children) should move to Newcastle to join Harry in his business.

The Collier family circumstances around the time of the move were tragic. First of all, Catherine’s father became very ill so Walter left her and their two children on Merseyside to take up residence in Newcastle alone, firstly in Sandyford and then at 106 Chillingham Road. Not only did Catherine’s father die but her mother developed a condition which required constant nursing so Catherine was still on Merseyside when she gave birth to the couple’s third child at the home of her brother and his wife on 15 September 1910. Just a few weeks later she, the baby and the older children travelled to Heaton to join Walter but on 20 December, Catherine died of heart failure in the RVI. She is buried in Heaton Cemetery.

Walter Collier with children, Edith and Muriel, and brother-in-law,
John Hart with his son, also called John, in Jesmond Dene.

Walter continued to work. On the day of the 1911 census, 2 April, he was at a hotel in Whalton, Northumberland while his sister-in-law, Flora Hart, was at 106 Chillingham Road, Walter’s four room downstairs flat, looking after her and John’s two children and Walter’s three. This situation could only be temporary and it was not long before the Collier children were taken back to Lancashire to be looked after by his wife’s relatives. Walter later conceded that he may have put work before his family.

Soon afterwards, with the professional and financial support of Harry, Walter left Heaton and Harry’s business to become an independent photographer, based in Bellingham, Northumberland. He set up as a general dealer but took photographs of rural Northumberland for sale in his and other village shops and post offices in the county. He may well also have done tailoring and drapery work, especially over the winter, when their were few tourists to buy cards or use his shop. Certainly when he enlisted in the Royal Flying Corps in 1917, he gave his occupation as ‘draper’s assistant (temporary)’.

After war service as an aerial photographer, Walter returned to Bellingham, where his daughter, Edith, also a talented photographer, joined him in the business several years later. Walter died on 7 September 1937 in the RVI, as his wife had done 27 years before. He is buried in Bellingham. His professional legacy is a superb collection of photographic plates which show rural Northumberland between the wars. You can visit a mock-up of Walter’s Bellingham shop and see his photographic archive at the Heritage Centre, Bellingham.

Rochester, north of Otterburn by Walter Collier c1925

Sadly, postcards of his prints do not bear his name so, like many of those of Harry Ord Thompson and their other brother in law, John Hart, can be hard to identify. But Walter’s beautifully handwritten titles do often offer a clue.

John

John Hart, the youngest of the three photographers, was born in South Otterington, Yorkshire on 19 July 1881, the son of coachman, Samuel Hart and his wife, Annie. John joined the army in 1900 and, in 1902, was posted as a gunner to the Royal Garrison Artillery at Seaforth Barracks in Lancashire. One of his duties was to man the coastal artillery battery at Bootle, which stood at the end of the street where Flora May Collier, Walter’s sister was living at the time (possibly with Walter). John and Flora soon met.

Incidentally, there’s a connection between Heaton and Bootle in that Flora was living in Shakespeare Street in a group of terraces named after poets. (And a little over a mile away in South Bootle, there is now a group of newer roads named after Shakespeare characters – Macbeth, Othello, Beatrice, Benedict and many more.) At the same time, Harry, her soon to be brother-in-law, was living in Bolingbroke Street in Heaton’s ‘Shakespeare Streets’ and he would retire to Stratford Grove, another one.)

John and Flora married later that year and, in 1903, helped by a gift from Harry Thompson, John returned to civilian life. The following year he joined Walter Collier in business, firstly in drapery and tailoring and then in photography. Within a couple of years, the brothers-in-law had gone their separate ways, with Walter, as we have seen, concentrating on scenic photography and John, it seems, on studio and portrait work.

By 1908, however, as we have seen, both brothers-in-law and their families moved north to Newcastle to work first of all with Harry and then in their own businesses. At this time, John and Flora were living at 95 Rothbury Terrace.

A photograph of John Hart at Carter Bar taken by Walter Collier c 1910

Walter Collier, photographed by John Hart in Rochester, Northumberland c 1910

Their stay in Heaton was short, however. By 1913, the Hart family had moved to Norfolk, where John continued to work as a photographer. That changed when war broke out. John enlisted with the Royal Field Artillery and served until he was medically discharged in 1917.

He did not find it easy to readjust to civilian life and did not return to photography or stay in Norfolk for long. He relocated to Kent but Flora and their two younger children did not follow him. They returned to Merseyside from where they sailed to the USA, where eventually Flora was reunited with her mother in Florida.

John remarried and had a series of jobs in building and driving. He died aged 69 on 21 November 1950, one of many people who survived the war but whose life was profoundly changed by it.

So, three brother-in-law photographers who were all living and working in our neighbourhood at one point. They all left behind a valuable archive of photographs. One of them in particular, Harry Ord Thompson, spent most of his adult life in or near Heaton and made a huge contribution to Newcastle and Northumberland life in photography and many other fields.

Acknowledgements

Researched and written by Arthur Andrews, Heaton History Group with additional material from Chris Jackson, also Heaton History Group. With thanks to fellow HHG member, Brian Hedley, who drew Arthur’s attention to an article in ‘The Journal’ which mentioned that Walter Collier had lived on Chillingham Road; the staff of Bellingham Heritage Centre who showed Arthur Collier’s photographic archive and the W C Collier exhibition; S F Owen for permission to use his books for reference and illustrations.

Can You Help?

If you know more about any of the photographers featured in this article or have memories or photos to share, we’d love to hear from you. You can contact us either through this website by clicking on the link immediately below the article title or by emailing chris.jackson@heatonhistorygroup.org

Sources

‘Photographers Three: three brothers-in-law, one love for Northumberland’ / S F Owen; The Heritage Centre, Bellingham, 2017

‘Postcards from Bellingham’ / S F Owen; The Heritage Centre, Bellingham, 2012

Ancestry, Find My Past and other online sources

The Great Peace: a Heaton schoolgirl’s memento

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In summer 1919, every schoolchild in Newcastle was given their own, personally inscribed, copy of a booklet commemorating the ‘Signing of the Great Peace’ on 28 June.

Newcastle schoolchildrens’ Great Peace souvenir, 1919

The booklet was full of stirring words, such as:

‘This Victory has only been made possible through the heroism of, and the sacrifices made by, your Fathers and Brothers, the splendid men from our Colonies, and our gallant Allies, nobly assisted by the patriotism of our women.

You were too young to take part in the struggle, but your turn has now come – not to fight as your Fathers and Brothers did, but to prove yourselves worthy of the noble men who fought and suffered for you, and to do your share as Citizens of the great British Empire, so that you may be able to preserve and to hand down to the next generation the priceless heritage of Freedom which has been secured for you at so great a cost.’

One recipient was Dorothy Mary Flann who, aged 10 years old, had just started Chillingham Road Senior School. She saw fit to keep this memento until she died in 1983. Heaton History Group member, Arthur Andrews, recalls, ‘I probably bought her booklet for a small sum at Tynemouth Market several years ago because of my interest in WWI’. He has since looked into Dorothy’s family history and found out more about the ‘Great Peace’ celebrations in Newcastle and Heaton.

The Flann Family

Abraham Flann, Dorothy’s grandfather, an H M Customs Officer, and his wife had lived in St Helier, Jersey, where several of their children were born but by 1871 they had relocated to Willington Quay. By 1881 the family had moved to 6 North View, Heaton and by 1891 they had moved to 36 Heaton Road.

By the turn of the twentieth century, they were living at 45 Heaton Hall Road and, ten years later, Abraham was a 75 year old widower, at 34 Rothbury Terrace, with his single, 29 year old daughter, Caroline Amelia, a domestic servant and 2 sick nurses (who were probably visiting).

George Ernest Flann, a grocer’s manager, one of Abraham’s sons, continued to live at the family’s former home of 45 Heaton Hall Road, with his second wife, Charlotte Mary and children, William Henry, Jessy Emily and Dorothy Mary, whose commemorative booklet Arthur eventually bought.

GreatPeace45HeatonHallRoadwithStreetName

Flann family home on Heaton Hall Road

George’s brother, Edgar, who would have been 14, does not appear at home in the 1911 census, which was something of a mystery until Arthur found, in a Chillingham Road School admissions book, that he had been awarded a Flounders Scholarship, named after a Quaker industrialist called Benjamin Flounders. Flounders’ wife and daughter predeceased him so he left his fortune in a trust to help educate poor and needy children with their education in the form of schools and scholarships.

Evidently Edgar was the only scholar in the county to be awarded the scholarship, which was valued at £80, tenable for 4 years at the North East County School in Barnard Castle. When he left school, Edgar joined a bank as an apprentice. In 1916, he joined the Royal Naval Reserve and trained as a signaler, as can be seen from his surviving WWI records below:

GreatPeaceEdgarFlannGBM_ADM339_0146-FITZ_00060

Part of Edgar Flann’s military service record

In 1917, Edgar married Frances Lorna Skelton and they went to live in the west end.

The ‘Great Peace’ celebrations

According to the local papers, the form that the commemoration and celebration of the Great Peace were to take, was hastily agreed by Newcastle Council and put together, remarkably, within a month or two but it didn’t pass entirely without a hiccup: a travelling historic pageant was put together with the proceeds going to the St Dunstan’s Blinded Soldiers and Sailors charity. Unfortunately, there was a train strike with the result that the wood for the makeshift grandstand and theatrical scenery did not arrive and so the council had to spend its own money to ensure that the pageant took place. In the end the event, at Exhibition Park, made a loss and no monies at all went to the charity. Schoolchildren were also supposed to be given a commemorative mug but not enough could be produced within the short timescale.

GreatPeaceMugAlan2

Great Peace commemorative mug as given to the children of Stocksfield, Northumberland

But lots of events did take place. On Saturday 19 July 1919, a ‘victory march‘ was held. Various local regiments left the Town Moor at 11.00am and marched through the city. At 3.00pm there was a choir and band concert at St James’s Park. There was English folk dancing in Jesmond Dene, as well as bands in parks throughout the city. Other parks had dancing until 10pm at night. At 9.30pm, the Tyneside Scottish Pipe Band processed around the city streets and an illuminated tramcar seemed to cover the whole tram network, leaving Byker Depot at 5.30pm for Scotswood Bridge before returning via Barras Bridge, Newton Road, Heaton Junction before finally ending up back at Byker Depot at 11.15pm.

It was reported that children celebrated with ‘gusto’, thoroughly enjoying themselves even if some felt that the Great Peace was more for the grown-ups than themselves. That would have changed when they heard King George V announce that they would get an extra week’s summer holiday from school, making it five weeks in all.

In speeches, it was impressed on the children that the fight had not been for the winning of great lands but to free people from oppression and allow them liberty in their own countries. It was also said that while remembering the heroes who had returned from war, they must not forget those who had died in the fight for civilization. Many of the children were bedecked in red, white and blue ‘favours’ and schools flew flags of not only the United Kingdom but of the Allies as well.

Heaton celebrates

Over the next few weeks, street parties were held throughout Newcastle. One party in lower Pilgrim Street bedecked with flags, bunting and red and white chalked kerb stones, was painted by local artist, Joseph Potts. And there are reports in the papers of many such parties in Heaton, with each local politician, business and charity seemingly more generous than the last and, no doubt, enjoying the publicity that came with it.

GreatPeaceMayorSutherland1919MementoBooklet_edited-1

Arthur Munro Sutherland opened a victory tea in Hotspur St back lane

On 2nd August, it was reported that ‘a victory tea and fete was in the back lane between Hotspur St and Warwick St. The lane was gaily decorated and tables and chairs set down in the centre’. It was opened by the Lord Mayor, Arthur Munro Sutherland. ‘Games and racing followed arranged by Mrs W Wilson and Mrs D Robson.’

On 11th, ‘About 150 children of Malcolm St and Bolingbroke St were entertained by their parents and friends at a victory tea and treat. Sports and dancing was held and each child received a toy and, through the kindness of Mr George Black of the Grand Theatre, they each received a 3d piece.’

On 12th, the Illustrated Chronicle carried pictures of the above and events in Mowbray St and Heaton Park Road. ‘Coming soon, pictures of Chillingham Road…’

On 22nd, ‘137 children were entertained at a Peace tea in Simonside Terrace. Councillor Arthur Lambert opened proceedings and presented each child with a piece of silver. The children were entertained at the Jesmond Pavilion at the invitation of the manager.’ The organisers even managed to show a profit with ‘the balance of £2-1s-0d presented to St Dunstans’.

On 1 September, ‘children were entertained in one of the fields beyond Heaton Cemetery courtesy of the Manchester Unity of Oddfellows.’

On 9th, ‘150 children from Simonside and Warton Terraces were entertained at the Bungalow, Armstrong Park. They were afterwards given a free treat at the Scala Theatre.’

And, with that, the five week holiday appeared to be over.

Dorothy

As for Dorothy, proud owner of the Signing of the Great Peace souvenir that has prompted this article, in 1941, with much of the world embroiled in yet another war, she married Raymond Lancelot Donaldson, a merchant seaman. They lived together at 46 Coquet Terrace for many years.

Great Peace Celebration commemorative mug made by Maling

Can you help?

If you know more about either the Great Peace celebration or Dorothy Flann or her family or have photographs or anecdotes you’d like to share, we’d love to hear from you. You can contact us either through this website by clicking on the link immediately below the article title or by emailing chris.jackson@heatonhistorygroup.org

Acknowledgement

Researched and written by Arthur Andrews of Heaton History Group, with additional material by Chris Jackson. Thank you also to Alan Giles for the photograph of his Great Peace commemorative mug.

Sources

Ancestry

Findmypast

National Newspaper Archive

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

Alexander Wilkie Commemoration

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It was while living in Heaton that Alexander Wilkie became the first General Secretary of the Associated Society of Shipwrights.

WilkieAlexanderresized

He later became a city councillor and member of the Education Committee, then, in 1906, Scotland’s first Labour MP, representing Dundee. When he retired from national politics in 1922, Wilkie returned to his Heaton home and became an alderman for the city of Newcastle. Alexander Wilkie died on 2 September 1928, at his home, 36, Lesbury Road, Heaton, and was buried in Heaton Cemetery. You can read more about him here.

On 2 September 2018, the 90th anniversary of his death, a commemorative event will be held. We will meet at Heaton Cemetery gates at 3.00pm, visit the family grave, then go on to Heaton Community Centre for 3.30pm for a short talk and musical interlude by Peter Sagar from A Living Tradition and Heaton History Group. All welcome. This is not a party political event.

Memories of Eighth Avenue

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Reading Eric Dale’s series of articles in growing up in the Heaton’s Avenues was all the motivation one of our readers, Jean Sowrey, needed to put pen to paper. Here are her memories:

I was born Jean Rudd in 1936 In the front room of a two bed roomed flat in Eighth Avenue. I think a Dr Bell was in attendance and a midwife called Jean. For years to come we’d see midwife Jean around Heaton, Mam continually reminding me that she was the reason for my name Jean. At that time Dad was a postman and I had an elder sister, Margaret, who was 22 months old.

Eighth Avenue

Jean and Dorothy Rudd on the front step of their home in Eighth Avenue

Apart from the two bedrooms, our flat had a sitting room with a black leaded fireplace and the scullery with sink, gas cooker and a gas boiler No hot water so kettle boiled frequently and gas boiler used on Mondays (wash day) and for filling the tin bath. Latter used placed in front of the fire. Outside was the back yard where the mangle was stored and also the toilet, no toilet paper only newspaper squares. Washing was hung on a line in the back lane.

I think women had a hard life in the 1940s. Mam having to do all the house work: black leading the fire place, doing the washing with a poss stick, plus shopping etc. She also did a lot of cooking. A pretty regular daily menu, Mondays always being Sunday’s leftovers .Occasionally we had jelly having been left to set covered outside on a window sill. Having an abundance of relatives, we frequently had Sunday afternoon callers – the treasured tin of salmon opened.

Wartime

In 1939 Second World War started a month before my third Birthday. Margaret, my elder sister, was just about to start school. Alas Chillingham Road School had a glass roof so children were sent to North Heaton School. (Not sure if it was only the infant school?) . More work for Mam having to arrange blackout curtains etc. Dad in a reserved occupation didn’t need to enlist for military service but did so in 1941, joining the army Maritime Service as a Gunner. Previously from a young age, he’d served with the Royal Scots Fusiliers, giving it upon marriage.

In 1940 my sister Dorothy was born, our maternal grandmother, Frances Stephenson having died a week before. She was buried in Heaton Cemetery. The last of one of our grandparents

1941 and Dad went off to do military service. Women being required to work during the war, Mam started work at a chemists on Heaton Road, owners Mr and Mrs Bartle. They were excellent employers allowing Mam to take our younger sister Dorothy. How Dorothy occupied herself goodness knows!

Margaret, Dorothy and Jean Rudd with their mother taken at James Riddell, Chillingham Road c1943-4

046772:Chillingham Road Heaton City Engineers 1979

Who remembers Riddell’s, the photographer?

School years

That year I joined Margaret at Chillingham Road School. Memories are vague now although I do recall a teacher Mrs Whitehouse who absolutely terrified me and others. She used a belt to reprimand pupils. One incident I recall was when she used it on Cynthia Jackson, a girl who wore a calliper on her leg. Fortunately it never happened to me, a rather mild child! One memory I have is when we celebrated Empire Day, marching around the Union flag. Another memory is Air Raid Drill. Going to the air raid shelter where we sang songs: ‘Ten Green Bottles Hanging On The Wall’ and many more. If you were clever were top of the class you received a medal. Later my brainy young sister Dorothy was frequently a recipient. Some pupil names I recall are my best friend Dorothy Rogers who also had a sister, Margaret; Brenda Parker, Sheila Raine, John and Elisabeth Crowe, Gordon Winn, Dorothy Emily, Olga Hedley and, of course, Eighth Avenue children.

In Eighth Avenue my close playmates were Betty Kibble, Sheila Muir, Kathleen Flanagan, Freda Patterson, Joan Robinson, Eric Dale and Harold Charlton. Other children in the street were Moira and Brian Law, Teddy Masterson, Alan & David Hinkley, the Nicholson brothers, Ernest Wray, Lucy Aspinall, Joyce Munster. We played outdoors most of the time, hopscotch etc – and skipping ropes for the girls.

At home we spent a lot of time listening to the radio. Sunday lunch time ardently listening to ‘Two –Way Family Favourites‘ with Jean Metcalfe and Cliff Michelmore – a programme for families and members of the armed forces – Dad even sent us a message. Other indoor activities included knitting and letter-writing to Dad. My two sisters and I took piano lessons and the teacher would drop the shilling into a milk bottle: she also gave me dancing and elocution lessons gratis as she liked me. We also went to Heaton Swimming Baths and the library, and did a lot of walking to Jesmond Dene and Heaton Park, where I also played tennis. Occasionally we went to the cinema – The Scala and the Lyric.

Scala Cinema, Chillingham Road (where Tesco is now)

During air raids we would go across the road to the Taylor family air raid shelter. The camaraderie of Eighth Avenue neighbours was incredible. I believe their daughter, Lily, was serving as a Land Girl. The air raid I still recall was when Guildford Place was bombed and totally devastated. We felt the blast too, though luckily only windows shattered. That particular night Mam had taken Margaret and myself to the Taylors’ shelter. Baby Dorothy (5 months) sleeping peacefully in her cot, Mam decided unusually to leave her at home. Fortunately Dorothy survived unscathed even though glass was all around. .

At the end of Junior School girls had to go to North Heaton School whereas the boys went into senior school. A bit unfair really as we were about to sit the 11 plus exam which meant some of us were only there one year. Margaret and I passed for Middle Street Commercial School For Girls. Young sister Dorothy eventually went to Central Newcastle High School For Girls.

Dad didn’t come home in 1945 as he’d been involved in an accident in an army lorry in Greenock and suffered a broken femur. He ended up spending two years in Hexham General Hospital. He had been torpedoed twice during the war, luckily rescued and survived. However war finished and he had his accident whilst awaiting demob. Finally home in 1947 with a serious limp, he couldn’t go back to his Heaton postman job but was given work at Orchard Street Sorting Office.

Being an ex-Army veteran and because of Dad’s disability we were given a brand new council house at Longbenton and in 1948 left Eighth Avenue, but the first 11 years will always remain with me.

Acknowledgements

Thank you, Jean, for taking the trouble to write down some of your Heaton memories. Fascinating both for your contemporaries and for those too young to remember the thirties and forties.

Can you help?

If you know anything else about any of the people mentioned in this article, please get in touch either by clicking on the link immediately below the title of this article or by emailing chris.jackson@heatonhistorygroup.org

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

Heaton Football Memorabilia Uncovered

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

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

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

Article by Paul Joannou in the Newcastle United programme

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

Colin Veitch

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

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

Billy Hogg

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

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

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

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

1936 Ardath cigarette card

Heaton Stannington team, post WW1?

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

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

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

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

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

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

Can you help?

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

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

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

Acknowledgements

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

Fred Blenkinsop Robinson: teenage soldier who died of flu

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Frederick Blenkinsop Robinson was born on 19 March 1900 and lived his entire life on Sixth Avenue, Heaton. He was the third of four children born to Joseph and Margaret Robinson. Joseph was a commercial traveller, born in York. He married Margaret Jane Blenkinsop of Newcastle in 1895 and the couple lived at no 13 Sixth Avenue. The 1911 census shows Joseph, aged 39 and Margaret, aged 41, living with their four children: Margaret May, aged 15; Joseph, aged 13; Frederick Blenkinsop, aged 11; and Thomas, aged 9. The family also had a lodger, William Blenkinsop, a 26 year old railway porter, who must have been a relative of Margaret.

Young life

Fred would have been only 14 at the start of the war and, like his siblings, was a pupil at Chillingham Road School. After leaving school, he became an apprentice fitter at Henry Watson and Sons Engineering Works in High Bridge, Walkergate. The company made cylinder blocks for commercial and marine engines as well as specialist pumps. An article in Commercial Motor on 5 September 1912, notes that the London General Omnibus Company were using cylinder blocks and pistons from Henry Watson and Sons exclusively for their B-type buses. The article particularly praises the quality of the work produced at the Walkergate factory in a new foundry specially built to produce commercial vehicle engines components.

Fred was almost too young to have been involved in the war and certainly too young to have fought at the front (young men could join up at 18, but weren’t posted to the front until they reached 19). Yet he died on 1 March 1919, 18 days short of his 19^th birthday, some four months after the end of the war and is listed as a casualty of war, buried in a Commonwealth War Grave at Byker and Heaton Cemetery.

Fred Robinson’s gravestone

His is a particularly sad story among many such stories from the war.

Military service

It is likely that Fred’s older brother, Joseph, had joined the forces when he was 18, two years before although no record of his military service survives. We know that he survived the war and is mentioned in a list of family in Fred’s military record. Fred was obviously keen to sign up to do his military service, as he attended his initial medical assessment on 26 March 1918, one week after his 18^th birthday. He passed this and was enlisted on 19 April. On 19 August, 102540, Private Frederick Robinson of the 5^th Reserve Battalion of The Durham Light Infantry was called up and posted to Sutton on Hull in East Yorkshire for his initial training.

Fred was in hospital – the St John’s VAD Hospital in Hull – when the armistice was signed, having fallen ill with diarrhoea on 10 October, which he took 35 days to recover from. He might reasonably have expected that his time in the army would either be short or would at least involve less risk of death or serious injury. In Fred’s case, his discharge was rather shorter than he might have expected. By December, a process of discharge on the grounds of disability had started. On 13 December in a personal statement, Fred records that he has chronic discharge from both ears and resultant deafness. This had started about a month before he had joined up, but had got worse since.

When he examined Fred on 30 January, Lieutenant JD Evans of the Royal Army Medical Corps recorded that ‘there is a high degree of deafness and discharge from both ears. He says that this is worse since joining the army and he has certainly become more deaf since joining the unit. He is utterly unable to hear any commands unless they are shouted close to his ears and he is quite unfit for camp life.’ He recommended discharge on the grounds that he was permanently unfit. Today, we would think little of an ear infection which would be quickly and effectively treated with a course of antibiotics, but in 1918 it could be a permanent disability, leaving lasting damage even if and when the infection cleared up.

On 2 February, Fred was transferred to the OC Discharge Centre at Ripon to prepare for discharge. Six days later, he was admitted to the Military hospital at Ripon with influenza. The medical record notes that he was admitted unconscious, before going on to develop bronchopneumonia and late emphysema. On 26 February, an attempt was made to relieve the emphysema surgically, but to no avail. Fred died on 1^st March, with his family with next of kin with him.

Pandemic

The 1918 flu pandemic ran from January 1918 to December 1920 and was unusually deadly It infected 500 million people across the world, including remote Pacific islands and the Arctic, and killed 50 to 100 million of them: three to five per cent of the world’s population. Two factors made it particularly deadly. Firstly, the unique conditions of the war. While the location of the first cases is disputed, the crowded and unsanitary conditions at the front made an ideal breeding ground. What is more, cases of flu are often limited by having sufferers stay at home. During the war, the opposite happened, with those affected transferred away from the front to hospitals both locally and in the soldiers’ home country, spreading the disease around the world. Secondly, flu most often affects the weakest, killing the young and old and those with existing medical conditions. The 1918 pandemic killed mainly healthy adults. Modern research has concluded that the virus killed through a cytokine storm (overreaction of the body’s immune system). The strong immune reactions of young adults ravaged the body, whereas the weaker immune systems of children and middle-aged adults resulted in fewer deaths among those groups.

To maintain morale, wartime censors minimized early reports of illness and mortality in Germany, Britain, France, and the United States; but papers were free to report the epidemic’s effects in neutral Spain (such as the grave illness of King Alfonso XIII), creating a false impression of Spain as especially hard hit^,thus the pandemic’s nickname Spanish flu.

Commemoration

In his report of Fred’s death, Major PW Hampton noted that ‘in my opinion death was attributable to service during the present war, viz exposure and infection on Home Service’. By doing so, he ensured that Fred could be buried in a Commonwealth War Grave and that his family would be entitled to a memorial scroll and plaque as well as service medals. This must have been of some comfort to his grieving family. Fred’s service record includes a copy of the slip that accompanied the memorial scroll to confirm receipt. This notes that the plaque will be issued directly from the Government plaque factory.

After the end of the war in 1918, Britain began the long process of commemorating the service of those who had lost their lives during its course. As part of this, the government issued to their next-of-kin (in addition to any of the standard campaign medals an individual might have been entitled to had they lived) what was known as the Memorial Plaque and the Memorial Scroll. The plaque was a bronze disc, about 5 inches in diameter, and depicted Britannia holding a trident whilst standing with a lion, holding an oak wreath above a rectangular tablet bearing the deceased’s name cast in raised letters. Rank and regiment was not included, since there was to be no distinction between sacrifices made by different individuals.

WW1 memorial plaque

This was complimented by the Memorial Scroll, which provided additional information as to rank, branch of service or any decorations awarded.The scroll itself was a little smaller than a modern A4 sheet of paper, printed on thick card, and came in three main varieties. Those to the Army had a large blue H in the main text, with the rank/name/regiment hand-written at the bottom in red ink. Those to the Navy had a large red H, with the hand-written naming at the bottom in blue ink. Finally, those to the RAF had a large black H in the main text, with the hand-written naming at the bottom in both red and blue ink.

WW1 memorial scroll

Clearly there was some delay in the issuing of plaques as a letter from Fred’s mother, Margaret, dated 13 November 1921 enquires about a memorial plaque and medals.

Margaret Robinson’s letter requesting a plaque and Victory Medal for her son

Fred was also commemorated on war memorials at Chillingham Road School and St Gabriel’s Church in Heaton.

Chillingham Road School War Memorial

St Gabriel’s Church War Memorial

Postscript

Fred wasn’t the only young person from the Avenues or from Heaton known to have died of flu (or as the result an unnamed disease thought likely to be influenza) during the 1918-19 pandemic. They include:

Able Seaman John James Hedley of 12 Eighth Avenue, husband of Corrie Hedley and formerly a boot salesman, who died on 16 October 1918 and is buried at Saint Andrew and Jesmond Cemetery.

This list will be updated as our ‘Heaton Avenues in Wartime’ research progresses.

Heaton Avenues in Wartime

This article was researched and written by Michael Proctor, with additional input by members of our ‘Heaton Avenues in Wartime’ research team. The project is supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund. If you have further information about anything relating to the article, please get in touch either via this website (by clicking on the link immediately below the article title) or by emailing: chris.jackson@heatonhistorygroup.org