Canny lass

The General Erection is over! (No, that's not too much FHF). Actually, erection - election is not a bad analogy. The first churns out large quantities of sperm the second churns out large quantities of promises and it's only a miniscule percentage of either that ever come to fruition. I'm afraid I gave up listening quite some time ago but, if you are wondering, I DO use my vote. Women have died to obtain it for me. We'll soon have the American erection to cheer us up.

Part 3 To recap: After her husband’s death in 1846 Ann inherited the business, and her three sons Philip, James and Henry took on a managerial role in its running. Philip and James appear to have been involved in all aspects of the business, grocer, ironmonger and blacksmith, as well as chain and nail manufacture while Henry seems to concentrate only on the latter. It’s worth mentioning here that the Victorian ironmonger wasn’t necessarily the keeper of a shop serving the needs of housewives and every type of tradesman. The Industrial Revolution required mass production of goods and, according to Wikipedia, ”in the areas where ironware and nails were manufactured, particularly in the Black Country, an ironmonger was a manufacturer operating under the domestic system” (cottage industry) ”who put out iron to smiths, nailers, or other metal workers, and then organised the distribution of the finished products to retailers.” I haven’t been able to find any records of an ironmonger’s shop so the above type of ironmongery could be a possibility with Henry managing any forge/workshop and his two brothers running the cottage industry. However, that’s just speculation on my part. However, by 1861 Ann is employing 16 men in the business. Son, Philip, who had become an engineer and moved to Cumberland, died in 1858, leaving James and Henry to shoulder the management of Ann’s business. Ann herself dies just a few years later in 1868 and it is then we can start to see a move away from the iron industry. Looking at the two brothers individually, James in 1871 is still a manager of the family business of nail & chain manufacture and ironmongery, and is employing 17 men. However, he is no longer a Bedlington resident. Having married in 1863 he exchanges the parental home on Front Street East for a house on Malvin’s Close in Cowpen where he lives with his wife, Sarah, and six children. Besides the family business James has also acquired another string to his fiddle – ”comission agent, life and fire agent” which sounds like he’s possibly working for some sort of insurance company. James dies in 1878 aged 48 years leaving his wife with 7 children, 4 girls and three boys, aged between 1 and 14. He doesn’t seem to have done too badly for himself and is able to leave Sarah and the family with a regular income in the form of an annuity enabling them live in the fashionable Spring Garden House in Bullers Green, Morpeth after his death. It may well also have been James’ home prior to his death as his son Philip Edmund Gibson attended Morpeth Grammar School before going on to London University. Sarah and the family later moved to Elswick, Newcastle from where Sarah originated. At the time of James’ death his boys were between a few months and seven years old and couldn’t take over any part of his business and neither of them entered the business later in life. The oldest, Philip Edmund, became a bank clerk. His younger brother Stanley became an electrical engineer and moved to Warwickshire while the youngest of the brothers, Oswald, became a farmer and moved to Canada. So, it was now left to James’ brother Henry to carry on the family business. Henry, 44 years old at the time of his mother’s death, had married Mary Hedley in or around 1837 and left the parental home on Front Street East, living first at the top end of Bedlington, almost opposite the police station on the south side of the street and later on Front Street East, still on the south side and six doors down from the Black Bull public house. His occupation in 1871 is described not as manager but as ”foreman” in a ”nail manufactory” – presumably the family’s business. Shortly before, or shortly after, his mother’s death Henry and his family return to live in his former childhood home on the north side of Front Street east, the house known today as 34 and 36 Front Street East. Henry now gives his occupation as i”ronmonger” though, as I said earlier, I’m uncertain just what he means by this. Henry and Mary have six children, that I know of: Ann, born about 1937 Jane, born about 1842 Philip Hedley, born about 1847 Hannah, born about 1850 Mary, born about 1852 William James, born about 1855 The long gaps between some births suggest that there may have been others who may have died in childhood. However, Henry does have sons who can follow him into the business, Philip Hedley and William James, but will they do so or will they go in other directions? To be continued …

I'll just get my tap shoes out of retirement and I'll be right behind you!

Eggy, I see you had a question earlier about how the pit rows were named. My experience in researching the pit villages has shown that many of them have three names in common: Wood Row, Stone Row, Brick Row and the explanation, I believe, is that there weren't any 'official' street names until postal services were developed. Originally one row of wooden houses sufficed for the small pits and it had no name. Wood was cheap and houses could be quickly erected. Later, as production expanded, more houses were needed and a new row was built - in stone. Residents distinguished their place of abode as either the wood row or the stone row. Later houses were built of brick and these were referred to as the brick row. When postal addresses were introduced these names became 'official'. It's a pattern seen in many many collieries.

@7RIrF Hi James, Wood Row was located between Double Row and Chapel Row in Barrington Colliery. That part of the 1901 census you posted shows schedule numbers 127 – 130. If you move a long a few pages to schedule nr 143 (still on Wood Street) you’ll see that the Post Office was situated in that house (probably looked after by the lady of the house, Marg. Ross). This bit of info makes it easier to identify Wood Street on the 1898 map which Eggy posted above as the post office is clearly marked PO. On the map from 1924 Wood Row no longer exists - probably demolished because of its deplorable state.

I remember there being an attempt a few years ago to publish a newspaper 'without bias'. The publication was simply called 'i' and was, I think, started by The Independent. I gave it a quick Google today and it's still going strong but it is now said to have a centre-left political flavour.

Bleezer, there's a lovely word from my past. The bleezer was the cause of at least half - and possibly all - chimney fires in Netherton colliery, when it caught fire and ignited the soot in the chimney. I can't remember there ever being a chimney sweep in the colliery and chimney fires were a monthly occurrence.

Vic, you do right to administer great caution and to take into consideration any political bias when getting your daily dose of ’news’ (I use the last word loosely) but a non-biased news outlet is, I fear, also a non-existent news outlet. The reason for that is that the task of a reporter is not, as one might think, to report news it is to earn money for his/her employer. Ever since William Caxton introduced the printing press to the people of Britain printed news has been a part of the British way of life. In Caxton’s time, however, news reporting was sporadic. It coincided with events as they occurred, and which were deemed worthy of report and comment. The situation today is somewhat different with news being reported on a weekly, daily or even hourly basis, regardless of whether or not anything of importance has happened. The media, digital or otherwise, are committed to filling their columns and air-time with something or other and how that ’’something or other’ is presented is largely down to the intended readership. The BBC does not, of course, ’sell’ it’s news reports neither does it allow advertising – as do it’s many competitors – but it does have it’s viewing figures to think about. Awareness of the social grade of the readership is crucial to the survival of news outlets. In the west they exist within a free market system and if they are not successful commercially they will fail and lose their profit. So, news outlets operating within a free market system are not necessarily going to give us a full account of the news of the day but rather ’selected’ information on recent events, and this information may well be presented with an ideological ‘spin’ which thankfully most of us can recognise. News outlets fall with regard to readership into two main groups, the ‘quality’ press, and the ‘popular’ press, and that’s a division that’s been around since at least 1819 when they were referred to as the ”respectable -” as opposed to the ”pauper” press. Both share a need to condense information to fit the space/time available while, at the same time, retaining clarity and avoiding ambiguity. Both are concerned with presenting a certain number of facts in as interesting manner as possible BUT … to different readerships whose constitution they are very clear about, in particular their social and political standing. The latter fact accounts not only for the use of political bias in news outlets but also for many stylistic and linguistic differences in the two and all are well documented by language researchers. There is an abundance of research showing features of stylistic significance, in both the popular and the quality press, which reflect a certain social grade of readership. Thirty years ago the quality outlets used to give balanced news reports in a neutral language. However, recent research has shown that there are signs that some quality outlets are moving towards a more popular style. This is evident above all in their increased use of a more simple language, noticeably in their choice of words from the lower end the lexical register. - usually reserved for the popular press. Believe me, the popular and the quality press choose their words carefully to create an impression which is attractive to certain types of reader from opposite poles of the social scale and they have at their disposal a whole battalion of linguistic - and even paralinguistic – tools which ensure that their text is tailor-made for just their reader so if anyone isn’t liking what they are reading then they are probably subscribing to the wrong news outlet. Keep reading Vic and keep being aware of the bias in the text. It’s never going to disappear – from ANY news outlet - because this interest in profit is sufficient to ensure that the versatility of the English language will continue to be utilised to make newspapers more attractive to the different social classes for many generations to come.

He's welcome!

Computer says NO! Moi? Dropping clues? Very much depends on how one interprets the meaning of "shortly" ... and even "lady".

Re the fire which destroyed 1 Third Street, I was wrong to say that it was caused by the chip shop. The chip shop and Dr's surgery were destroyed by a fire in my early childhood and they were in a lean-to wooden building at the end of Third Street which I remember. However, the lean-to building, which I remember was not attached to Nr 1 Third Street but to number 2, as I've just discovered. My early research notes are hand written so instead of wading through them without a 'search engine' I did a new search and found that Nr 1 Third Street was destroyed by fire 31 March 1946, shortly before I lived there! The cause was the local Doctor smoking in bed!!

Here's one that Bob might appreciate more as his mother gets a mention. The Newcastle Journal was a bit quicker in reporting as it had a daily edition while the Morpeth herald only had a weekly.

Nr 1 Third Street needs a bit of investigation. There was a green, wooden, lean-to building on nr 1 which housed the unlikely combination of a Dr's surgery and a chip shop. The latter was, I believe, the cause of he fire. I know I've done a bit of research on it at some time. I'll have a rummage and see what I come up with.