Tag Archives: Wilfred Street

Rothbury Terrace: the Magpies’ nest

Rothbury Terrace is one of the oldest streets in Heaton, although on the First Ordnance Survey Map, surveyed in 1858, it boasted only a couple of buildings and no name. The groups of buildings either side are the farmhouses of two of Heaton’s farms.

First edition Ordnance Survey map, surveyed in 1858, showing what was to become Rothbury Terrace

Even by 1886, there were only 8 heads of household listed and the houses were not named or numbered. The residents were John Glover of Rothbury House; Thomas Hudson, a schoolmaster; Ralph Henry Probert, a grocer; Edward Fulton, a draper; Jordan Evens, a brewer’s traveller; William G Wodson, a brick manufacturer; John L Miller, a builder and contractor and Jacob Hume, whose occupation was not given.

Just four years later, half of these remained: Jacob Hume, now a carpet buyer, was at number 5; Ralph Probert, the grocer, at no 7; Thomas Hudson, still a schoolmaster, at no 9; William Wodson, the brick manufacturer was much further down at number 65.

Neighbours

But they now had many neighbours and it is on this newly developed residential street of the early 1890s that this article focuses.

The occupations of the 1891 ‘heads of households’ give us a flavour of the diverse social make up of the street as well as of the Tyneside economy at that time. Residents included Mrs Isabella Bunton, a fishmonger who had a shop on Shields Road;  Christopher Harborn, an iron merchant, whose business was on Dispensary Lane; John Nichol Rowell, a master mariner, and Andrew Tilston Dudgeon, a naval architect with offices on The Side.

There was also, at number 25, Benjamin Moody, a primitive methodist minister. A former miner from County Durham who performed his ministry throughout the north east, we learn from a contemporary obituary that he was a ‘man of well-built physique, had a good voice and [was] musical’  and ‘behind his somewhat brusque exterior was a kindly heart.’  From his own diary, we know that during his short time living on Rothbury Terrace, Moody suffered ill health.  On 1 January 1892, he wrote:

‘I am glad I am still alive and considerably improved in my physical frame; though seemingly not fully free from the effects of influenza I had in Heaton a year and nine months ago’. The Reverend Moody died just six month’s later.

Artistic Dynasty

George Blackie Sticks at number 67 was a painter. George was born in Newcastle in 1843 into a distinguished family of artists. His father, James, was one of the top designers at William Wailes’ stained glass studio. George also served an apprenticeship there, studying under William Bell Scott at the Government School of Design in Newcastle. But on qualification, perhaps inspired by Scott, he turned to painting, establishing his own studio. 

Sticks was a landscape painter and, as well as finding inspiration close to home, for example on the Northumberland and Durham coast, he travelled extensively on sketching tours of Scotland and the Lake District. His work was exhibited by the Royal Academy and Royal Scottish Academy. Locally it can still be seen in the Laing, Shipley, Hatton and South Shields art galleries, as well as in Newcastle’s Mansion House.

The Cliffs at Marsden Bay by George Blackie Sticks (South Shields Museum and Art Gallery)

In 1862, Sticks married Christine née Thorn and they had three children. Christina died in 1879. At the time of the 1891 census, George was living on Rothbury Terrace with his elder son, Christian, also an artist. George Blackie Sticks is reported to have died c 1900, though we haven’t yet located official records. Perhaps you can help.

Also living on the newly developed Rothbury Terrace next door to naval architect Andrew Tilston Dudgeon and artist George Blackie Sticks respectively were two men whose occupations did not define them but whose love of sport and business acumen led to the foundation of one of Newcastle’s greatest institutions.

Uncle Joe

Joseph Bell was born and bred in Newcastle. In 1891, aged 29, he lived, with his wife, Mary Alice, and three young children, along with a servant and a fourteen year old grocer’s assistant, at 43 Rothbury Terrace above the corner shop he ran. 

We know that he had been there for at least a couple of years before that and probably since the houses were first built as, in 1889, he applied for a licence to sell alcohol, an application which was approved despite a petition signed by 119 people and reported concerns about Lord Armstrong”s views on the matter.

The family was still in Heaton in 1901 but, by this time, Joseph was no longer a grocer but a self-employed builder and they lived at 2 Cheltenham Terrace. Apparently Bell retired from business early but served on the Newcastle Board of Guardians. He was described as a courteous and kindly man and politically a Liberal. 

Joseph Bell

Joseph Bell was, above all, a lover of football and, in 1890, one of the original shareholders and directors of East End FC.

Historic Summit

It is especially noteworthy in terms of the history of Heaton, and Rothbury Terrace in particular, that it was at Joseph Bell’s upstairs flat that, in May 1892, a meeting was held between the directors of East End and those of the recently folded West End.

43 Rothbury Terrace, where the meeting was held at which
the decision for East End FC to relocate to St James Park was taken.

It was at this meeting that a decision was made for East End to move to St James’ Park. The North East Railway Company had just increased the rent on its Chillingham Road ground to £50 a year, a sum the directors believed the club couldn’t afford. The prospect of a more central location, along with the opportunity to attract some of West End’s fan base, was an attractive one.

Detail of 2nd ed OS Map, surveyed in 1895, showing the proximity of Rothbury Terrace (top) to East End’s former ground

The East End directors at that historic meeting all had strong Heaton connections and would have been been reluctant to move their beloved club away from their own neighbourhood but they had the vision to see that it was the way to secure its future. Most continued to be instrumental in the success of Newcastle United, as it soon became, right through its Edwardian hey-day. The East End representatives were: Joseph Bell, the host; Alex Turnbull, his neighbour; T Carmichael; John Cameron and James Neylon.

Bell became treasurer of Newcastle United in 1893. He was then vice chairman from about 1904-8 before becoming  chairman of the club in 1908. During these very successful years, he was very close to the players, who called him ‘Uncle Joe’.

Bell died while still chairman of Newcastle United on 22 March 1909, aged only 47. Newcastle United directors, staff and players, local councillors, football men he’d known since East End days, Freemasons, friends and neighbours attended his funeral. The great Billy Hogg, who also lived in Heaton, represented Sunderland’s players. Joseph Bell is buried in All Saints cemetery.

First NUFC Chairman

Alexander (Alex) Turnbull was born in Scotland c 1858 but by 1881 had married Mary Ann Maun, a Geordie, and was working as a commercial clerk in the coal trade. In 1891, the couple lived at 69 Rothbury Terrace with their seven children, next door to George Blackie Sticks and up the road from Joseph Bell. In 1891, they were still there, now with nine children. Early on, he was was co-owner of the Byker and Heaton Coal Co until the partnership was dissolved. He was a property developer until, in 1901, his brick company at Byker Hill was declared bankrupt.

Turnbull served two spells as East End and Newcastle United chairman, during those formative years from 1891 until 1893 and and so, naturally, was at the May 1892 meeting at Joseph Bell’s at which the move to St James Park was approved. He also presided over the public meeting on 9 December of that that year at which another historic decision to change the club’s name to Newcastle United was made.

Alex Turnbull is on the extreme right of this photograph of East End, wearing a bowler hat. It was taken in front of the stand at the club’s Heaton Junction ground, just off Chillingham Road.

Turnbull served a second spell as chairman from May to August 1895 and was a director for 11 years in total, from 1890 to 1901.

Unlike Bell, Turnbull was an active Conservative. In fact, at one point he stood for the city council only to withdraw before the election took place. In 1895, he stood as a candidate for Newcastle School Board as ‘an advocate of sound education, close economy and generous recognition of the rights of private schools’.

Colin Veitch, in his autobiography, describes how he was approached at home just after Christmas 1898, when he was just seventeen years old. He was asked if he would like a game with Newcastle United and was told that two directors were available to meet him if he went immediately to the Conservative HQ at the corner of Wilfred Street and Shields Road ‘within a hundred yards of my home’. (It’s a little further than that!) The directors hadn’t had far to travel either. They were Joseph Bell and Alex Turnbull, both of Rothbury Terrace. Veitch played a number of friendlies for the club before signing permanently and becoming the captain and inspiration of its finest ever team.

The rest is history – and Rothbury Terrace’s place in the story of the city and in the birth and success of its football club secure!

Acknowledgements

Researched and written by Chris Jackson, Heaton History Group. With special thanks to John Allen, who always generously shared the results of his Heaton related football discoveries with HHG.

Sources

‘All with Smiling Faces: how Newcastle became United’ / Paul Brown; Goal-Post, 2014

‘The Artists of Northumbria’ / Marshall Hall; Marshall Hall Associates; 2nd ed, 1882

‘Newcastle United: the ultimate who’s who’ 1881-2014 / Paul Joannou; N Publishing, 2014

‘Newcastle United’s Colin Veitch: the man who was superman’ / Keith Colvin Smith, AFV Modeller Publications, 2020

‘Pioneers of the North: the birth of Newcastle United FC’ / Paul Joannou and Alan Candlish; D B Publishing, 2009

Ancestry

British Newspaper Archive

myprimitivemethodists.org.uk

National Library of Scotland

The Grand Opening

In our previous article about Heaton’s Shakespearean heritage, we showed that, in the late 1870s, Heaton was home to an important local theatrical figure at the time when a number of streets in the area were given names connected with the bard. But we also claimed that this part of Newcastle’s connections with the Royal Shakespeare Company itself go back much further than the 1970s when the RSC’s made Newcastle its third home and its actors began to stay in digs in the east of the city. Here’s why:

On Saturday 21 December 1895, it was announced in the ‘Newcastle Courant‘ that the ‘accomplished and popular Shakespearian actor, F R Benson‘, had laid the foundation stone of a new theatre in Heaton the previous Tuesday.

NPG x96407; Sir Francis Robert ('Frank') Benson as 'Romeo' in 'Romeo and Juliet' by Alexander Bassano

Frank Benson as Romeo by Alexander Bassano, half-plate glass negative, 1886, courtesy of National Portrait Gallery

Francis Robert Benson wasn’t local. He was born in Tunbridge Wells in 1858 and after studying at New College, Oxford, he immediately took to the stage. Benson’s first recorded appearance at the Theatre Royal was in 1881, before he had officially turned professional, when he performed with the company of Charles Bernard and Miss Alleyn. Soon afterwards, Benson started his own company. From the outset, he concentrated on Shakespeare.

Stratford remembers

Surprisingly it seems that until 1864 (the year in which, you may remember, George Stanley our ‘tragedian‘ had served on the Newcastle Shakespeare Tercentenary Committee, made an impassioned plea to be allowed to practice his own art in his own building and put on his own tribute to the bard) there was little interest in putting on Shakespeare’s plays in the town of his birth. Stratford did, however, put on a successful festival that year, promoted and bankrolled by Edward Flower of the brewing family, who happened to be mayor at the time. The success of the commemoration gave momentum to attempts to raise money to build a theatre in the town specifically to put on the plays of its famous son, an appeal that was scoffed at by influential commentators in London, but officially supported by many in Newcastle including the council itself.

The Shakespeare Memorial Theatre, Stratford upon Avon opened its doors and launched its first Shakespeare Festival on 23rd April 1879, the year, you may remember, in which the plans for Heaton’s own memorial to Shakespeare, our ‘Shakespeare streets’ were first submitted.

In 1886, Frank Benson became the director of the Stratford Festival, which was effectively the forerunner of the Royal Shakespeare Company. Nevertheless he continued with a gruelling touring schedule.

Early in 1893, Benson played Richard III at the Theatre Royal with a temperature of 104 and what turned out to be typhoid. After the show, he collapsed on the train back to Stratford and was seriously ill for several weeks, missing that year’s Stratford Festival.

Grand opening

The Grand Theatre, where Benson laid the foundation stone, was, by the time of its opening, recognised by the press as being in Byker, although, on the north side of Wilfred Street (just west of where Morrison’s is today), it was only a couple of hundred yards away from the boundary with Heaton. It was designed by William Hope of North Shields and built by the firm of Samuel Ferguson Davidson. Both men were Freemasons, who specialised in theatre work, often in partnership, not only in the north east but much further afield.

Samuel Ferguson Davidson was from Heaton. We know that, in 1895, he was living at 53 Falmouth Road. Samuel was a Temperance campaigner as well as a Freemason. He worked on theatres as far away as Birmingham and Margate and, locally, perhaps most notably on Spanish City in Whitley Bay. He died on 12 February 1964, aged 97.

image

The Grand Theatre, Byker, was described as a very fine building, which could seat 2,500 people. The principal entrance was surmounted by an imposing turret, which you can see above. Inside the main entrance was a spacious vestibule. There was a large handsome marble staircase to the circle. The tip-up chairs were upholstered in ‘terracotta plush’.

The stage was large and could accommodate the largest shows, hence its suitability for Benson’s Shakespearean productions. It also had ‘a commodious suite of dressing rooms on each side fitted with every convenience for the comfort of the artistes’ which would no doubt also appeal.

The Grand was established, owned and managed by Weldon Watts, an Irishman who had previously managed the Theatre Royal in Sheffield and the Queens Theatre in Gateshead

Seven months after laying the foundation stone of the Grand, Fred Benson, brought his production of ‘The Taming of the Shrew’ to its opening night, which took place on 27 July 1896. Below is a silk VIP programme for that performance for which we are indebted to John Moreels of Photo Memories Organisation.

image

Programme from the Grand Theatre, Byker’s opening performance

Local critics were rather sniffy about the liberties Benson took with the text but conceded that the comedy had been well received by the audience, which must have comprised many people from Heaton, including from our Shakespeare streets, from which it was only a couple of hundred yards or so via the Elizabeth Street underpass below the railway.

The performance was just the first of Byker’s own Shakespearian festival that week. Benson’s company also put on ‘The Merchant of Venice’, ‘Hamlet’ and ‘As You Like It‘, with ‘Richard III‘ played al fresco at the Sandyford Park home of a Dr Gibb (See the Comments to this article for more on the interesting Dr Gibb).

Benson was back at the Grand in December 1899. His company had been at the Theatre Royal performing ‘Macbeth‘, the play famously considered by actors to be unlucky, when a disastrous fire destroyed the interior of the theatre and with it most of the company’s costumes, props and scenery as well as personal effects. They say in the theatre that the show must go on. So Frank Benson dashed to London to source replacements and the management of the Grand Theatre, Byker offered it as an alternative venue, not the last time Newcastle’s East End was to help out the Stratford company.

Services to Shakespeare

Benson’s contribution to the cause of Shakespeare can hardly be overestimated and was formally recognised a hundred years ago during the commemorations for the Tercentenary of Shakespeare’s death. He was playing Julius Caesar in front of an audience of nearly three thousand people, which included King George V and Queen Mary, when a telegram finally reached Benson informing him that he was to be honoured with a knighthood. A royal aid was informed that the message had just been received, a sword was sent for and Frank Benson was knighted on stage still wearing the blood-stained robes and ashen make-up of the dead Caesar.

Postscript

The Royal Shakespeare Company evolved out of the Shakespeare Festival that Benson ran in Stratford between 1888 and 1916. The debt that the company owes to him is acknowledged by a set of stained glass windows in the original Shakespeare Memorial Theatre.

The Grand, after struggling for many years to be profitable as either as a theatre or a cinema, finally closed its doors on August 1954. But Heaton got its own theatre in 1960, when The People’s moved here.

In 1961, the RSC itself was formed. The story of Shakespeare at the People’s and its ongoing links with the RSC is another story!

Can you help?

If you have memories of the Grand or can provide further information about anything mentioned in this piece, please contact us, either by clicking on the link immediately below the title of this article or by emailing chris.jackson@heatonhistorygroup.org

Shakespeare 400

This article was written by Chris Jackson and researched by Chris Jackson, and Peter Walker, as part of Heaton History Group’s project to commemorate the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare’s death.

We are interested in connections between Heaton and Shakespeare through its theatres, past and present; writers, actors – and of course, the famous brick Shakespeare on South View West.

We are also researching and writing about some of the people who have lived in the ‘Shakespeare Streets’: initially, we are looking at Bolingbroke, Hotspur, Malcolm, Mowbray and Warwick Streets plus Stratford Grove, Stratford Grove Terrace, Stratford Grove West, Stratford Road, and Stratford Villas.

If you would like to join our small friendly research group or have information, photos or memories to share, please contact us, either by clicking on the link immediately below the title of this article or by emailing chris.jackson@heatonhistorygroup.org