Clik here to view.
Jane Atkinson of Kirkleatham (1751-1817), wife of Captain Thomas Galilee
I've revised an earlier post of May 2013 and, as it belongs with the preceding posts, I'll post it here as well. The two letters quoted below were among the small collection of letters referred to in...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Thomas Barlow Allinson writes a letter: 1836
Thomas Barlow Allinson's letter of 1836 was among the small collection mentioned in The Revd William Atkinson of Kirkleatham & Cambridge (1755-1830). These letters survived apparently by chance,...
View ArticleLetters of Mrs Lucy Browne of Gorleston: 1835 & 1836
Two letters in the collection that I describe in The Revd William Atkinson of Kirkleatham & Cambridge (1755-1830) are filled with news from Gorleston in Suffolk. They were written from Gorleston...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Heart Echoes in late Victorian Stockton-on-Tees
A few keepsakes from late Victorian Stockton-on-Tees. They belonged to Miss Eleanor Bateson of 37 Skinner Street. Skinner Street, Stockton-on-Tees(running vertically down centre of picture)O.S. 1913...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Frightful Accident at Sleights Station: 1 August 1901
On 2 August 1901, the Whitby Gazette carried a shocking headline:Frightful Accident at Sleights StationA Whitby Lady Cut To PiecesThis is the story – two elderly ladies – and a busy railway station in...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Poltergeist at Moor Farm, North Yorkshire: 1940 to 1950
This is a record kept by Kay Hill of unnerving experiences in a moorland farm during and after World War II.In 1938 Kay had become – in the slang of the time – a Bolter. She had left her very...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A small tin box – a Teesside "garden city"– a house in Nunthorpe
Question: what is the link between the small tin box of sweets and cigarettes given to soldiers and sailors in World War I – the Redcar suburb of Dormanstown – and the 'Red House' on Church Lane in...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Wash-day drudgery gone forever!
A reminder of how much washing machines changed women's lives. This one was a small, neat, quick machine.Picture Post, October 30, 1948THE BIGGEST WASHING NEWS OF THE CENTURY!WASH-DAY DRUDGERYGONE FOR...
View ArticleThe Faceby Saints left today
It's 14 February and so it's Valentine's Day – and on this day in 1855 a party of 28 people left the little North Yorkshire hamlet of Faceby. They didn't expect to see their old homes again. They...
View ArticleClik here to view.
All Saints, Hutton Rudby: who were the Cary family?
A short account of the Cary family, for visitors to All Saints' Church, Hutton Rudby who see the memorials on the chancel walls and wonder who these people were. It includes new material, not before...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Lord Falkland fights a duel: 1809
This is the story behind this tablet in the chancel of Hutton Rudby church:Tablet to Charles John Cary, 9th Viscount Falkland, his wife & daughterHutton Rudby ChurchCaptain Charles Cary RN, 9th...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Mourning in Eston: 1877
A small sheaf of receipted bills, which had survived by chance in the offices of Meek, Stubbs & Barnley, has given me the material for this sad story.It was on the afternoon of Tuesday 23 January...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A Year's weather: 1895 by John Megginson
1895 – the year when Oscar Wilde was sent to gaol, when Middlesbrough Football Club won the FA Amateur Cup, Alfred Dreyfus was sent to Devil's Island, the future George VI was born and, in Bavaria,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Defective bottles at Seaton Sluice: 1835
A chance find which has turned up among my family's papers – a furious letter about defective bottles. No idea how it ended up in a solicitor's offices in Middlesbrough …On Thursday 23 July 1835, a...
View ArticleDark nights in Great Ayton: 1889
This sad little story is a reminder of village life before street lighting. We are so conscious of light pollution nowadays, we can forget the hazards of the past.That admirable woman Mrs Annabel Dott...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Christmas recipes from Hutton Rudby, 1896
The Northern Weekly Gazette was a cheery weekly newspaper with editions published in Middlesbrough, Guisborough, South Bank, Stockton, Darlington and West Hartlepool. Advertisements declared that"The...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Cockfighting in Hutton Rudby & Stokesley
In 1903 Richard Blakeborough (1850-1918), celebrated collector of North Riding folklore, wrote an article for a cheery weekly family newspaper called the Northern Weekly Gazette about cockfighting in...
View ArticleClik here to view.
New & Good Things: Alfred Hopkinson, 1930
Alfred Hopkinson (1851-1939)When Alfred Hopkinson, barrister, academic, MP and keen alpinist, wrote his memoirs in 1930, he ended one chapter with three lists. He was 80 years old and looking back...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Carrying coal by donkey
"There are those yet in Cleveland who can remember coals being conveyed into the country across the backs of donkeys."wrote John F Blakeborough in his newspaper column on 14 May 1904. Two Hutton Rudby...
View ArticleLetters home from a travelling salesman: 1817-42
Anyone researching the life of a commercial traveller in the early 19th century may be interested in letters now deposited at North Yorkshire County Record Office. Among the papers of John Leslie...
View Article