20.5.13

Seghill Colliery Manager

Location of Seghill and Burradon Collieries (click to enlarge)

When James Fryer died at Blyth in Mar 1911 the Blyth News and Wansbeck Telegraph carried this family notice:
 Husband of late Margaret M Fryer and son of the late John Fryer of Burradon Colliery. Internment at Horton churchyard on Thursday. Cortege leaving residence at 2pm. All invited.
James' father John had died in 1888, but was still considered influential enough to be mentioned in this notice. John Fryer was born in 1822 the 4th generation of ordinary, Newcastle pitmen. By the time of his death in 1888 he had been the long-time manager of both Seghill and Burradon collieries, a licensee of the Ship Inn at Byker and a property developer of a shop and seventeen terraced dwellings in four blocks at Burradon.

Fryer's Terrace Burradon (part of) 1901 Now a Millennium Green
Alan Carr Unveils a Memorial on Fryer's Millennium Green  Oct 2011
John is the 3XG grandfather of the comedian Alan Carr, who was a subject of the BBC genealogy series Who Do You Think You Are? Eleven of Alan's ancestors perished in the Burradon Mining Disaster of 1860, where seventy-six men and boys died in an underground explosion. John Fryer was heavily involved in the relief efforts and shortly after the disaster became colliery manager (Viewer) at Burradon. The pit explosion was investigated by the WDYTYA? team, but the recording ended up on the cutting room floor. John Fryer was also researched by the team. It is clear he was an interesting character, rising from such a lowly position to great achievements. But after extensive searching, surprisingly, no newspaper obituary could be found to have been written about John. This would have quickly unlocked the secrets of his success, but it was not to be.

So, what could I actually piece together from available evidence as to how John became so successful?

In 1841 as a 17 year old he was living in a basic, and probably quite squalid, pitman's dwelling at the still fairly new Seghill Colliery, which was part of a row of terraced housing. Both he and his father are listed as coal miners. By 1851, although he was still living in basic pitman accommodation at Seghill, he was now married with with a young family and was enumerated on the census as an Overman. An Overman was a senior supervisor within the colliery and his father, living two doors away, was also listed as having this occupation. What stood out from the census returns, though, was that John was employing a 15 year old girl as a live-in servant. This was surely a highly unusual practice for an ordinary pitman living in basic housing?

Seghill Colliery Housing


Seghill Colliery c1860
John had married Alice Barrass in 1844, not at the local parish church, but the more prestigious St Andrews in Newcastle. He signed the marriage register, so was clearly literate  His bride was unable to sign and left a mark. Interestingly, John's signature was bold with lots of embellishments and right sloping, which the graphologists speculate is the sign of a confident, outgoing person. He was described on the register as a labourer, but his bride's father was a butcher. The Barrasses were upwardly mobile, entrepreneurial and had some useful connections. They soon after this date became publicans at the Blake Arms in Seghill and later still became ship owners. John had chosen a good family to marry into. Was this good fortune or ambition? By the late 1850s and early 1860s John was largely responsible for the day-to-day operations at both Seghill and Burradon collieries being titled resident viewer or underviewer.

It was not until 1872 that colliery managers (viewers) were required to take an exam before being issued with a certificate of competency. The situation prior to this date is described by Peter Ford Mason in "The Pit Sinkers of Northumberland and Durham":
The ‘viewer’ was the [owner’s] ‘eyes and ears’ who took care of his mining investment by daily inspections, with particular responsibility for ‘free communication of air through all the works’. Colliery viewers were trained as mining engineers, with under-viewers and apprentice viewers obtaining practical experience before promotion to the senior position. They often had a background in surveying in the coal industry, and were sometimes introduced to this position at an early age.
Newcastle Journal 11 Sep 1858
John's distant relation Thomas Fryar, born 1830 in Wallsend, kept a journal from the late 1830s until his death. He was enrolled at a school for poor children in Newcastle from the age of six until starting down the pit at age ten. The school was financed from donations from wealthy residents. During the long miners strike of 1844 he took advantage of the employment break to return to education and improve his literacy, enrolling himself at a school on Barrass Bridge, Newcastle. Miners were also beginning to give their children a basic education through the Methodist Church organisation. However, Thomas was probably more enlightened than most of his contemporaries. This self-education was to prove instrumental in Thomas' later success in pioneering new settlements in Australia. Perhaps John also followed a similar path to Thomas and showed an exceptional ability in academic subjects.

John Fryer Grave at Killingworth, St Johns
Charles Carr 1862
The viewer and part owner of Burradon and Seghill Collieries during the 1850s was Charles Carr who was from  an extremely well-to-do local family. We can only speculate that he saw talent, potential and ambition in John Fryer to promote him so rapidly, even trusting him to guide Prince Napoleon, cousin of the French Emperor, on an official visit to the local collieries. John does briefly appear in some contemporary publications: presiding over a concert in aid of the Hartley Pit victims in 1862, as one of the committee for prosecution of felons and in a legal dispute with an employee over payment of debts. It is difficult to surmise from these brief snippets as to John's character as they are often conflicting. His workers at Burradon Colliery actually presented him with an engraved watch in 1858 when he left to take up a new position, but presumably he would have had some amount of ruthlessness and would have not been universally popular.

We will probably never know the full story? 

13.5.13

Chibburn Preceptory

Location of Chibburn Preceptory (click to enlarge)


I have known about this site, lying halfway between Widdrington and Druridge, for some time and have meant to visit and explore more fully, but never got around to it. The guide books indicate that it was once a site of the Knights Hospitallers, a monastic military order, and were they not that mysterious lot featured in the "Da Vinci Code"?




So... a visit was recently made and for long-since abandoned medieval buildings my first impressions were that the ruins were in remarkably good condition. The site is protected by a fence and is not accessible. From a distance of fifty or so metres what is visible is a two-storey house with more ruinous out buildings to the east of this.

To summarise both the The Sites and Monuments record at http://www.keystothepast.info/Pages/pgDetail.aspx?PRN=N11884 and Nikolaus Pevsner in his Buildings of England series:
...a small farm owned by the Knights Hospitallers. The community in 1338 numbered eleven. It was first recorded in 1313, and it was abolished in 1540 and all its lands were taken over at the Dissolution. Today, there are two main buildings to be seen here: the chapel and the house, which form two sides of a courtyard. A moat, approximately 100 metres in diameter, enclosed the site but was destroyed by mining activity  Part of the chapel was used as a pillbox during World War Two (1939-45). The preceptory buildings have undergone a period of repair and restoration by Northumberland County Council. The site is now a Scheduled Monument. The house probably dates to the 1550s when Sir John Widdrington took over the site for a dower house. The only remains of the Preceptory are the ruinous chapel although the house is an interesting building in its own right.
Could I find out more of who exactly were the residents here, what were their daily activities and why did they choose this site?

The Hospitallers arose as a group of individuals who had founded a hospital in Jerusalem around 1023 to provide care for the poor, sick or injured pilgrims to the Holy Land. After the Western Christian conquest of Jerusalem in 1099 during the first crusade the organisation became a religious and military order and it was charged with the care and defence of the Holy Land. It was one of several military orders. The Knights Templar are another such military order and it was this group that is associated with the "Da Vinci Code". This order was disbanded in 1312. On the suppression of the Templars in 1308, efforts were made by the Hospitallers to get themselves declared heirs to the Templar possessions, their claim being supported by the pope. Chibburn Preceptory was, it would appear, an original possession of the Hospitallers, however, as it is not mentioned on a document concerning a land dispute on Widdrington estates from the early 14th century.

Hospitallers at the Siege of Acre 1291
The Hospitallers had gained great respect during the 12th century and were granted many parcels of land by which the organisation could support itself. The powerful Widdrington family had obviously granted a parcel of their Widdrington estate. This was not uncommon. Many such farms, although many of them smaller than Chibburn, were also granted to the Hospitallers. The organisation was comprised of combatant and non-combatant bretheren. The non-combatants under the supervision of a Preceptor would generate an income for the organisation through farming, fishing and mineral extraction. They would also deal with the administration and the religious duties of the monastic organisation. the preceptories were also used as training camps. English Heritage gives this information on its website regarding a similarly protected site at Sutton-at-Hone in Kent: http://list.english-heritage.org.uk/resultsingle.aspx?uid=1009021
A preceptory is a monastery of the military orders of Knights Templars and Knights Hospitallers. Preceptories were founded to raise revenues to fund the 12th and 13th century crusades to Jerusalem. [Preceptories] of the Hospitallers provided hospices which offered hospitality to pilgrims and travellers and distributed alms to the poor. Like other monastic sites, the buildings of preceptories included provision for worship and communal living. Their most unusual feature was the round nave of their major churches which was copied from that of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. Indeed their use of such circular churches was unique in medieval England. Other buildings might include hospital buildings, workshops or agricultural buildings. These were normally arranged around a central open space, and were often enclosed within a moat or bank and ditch. From available documentary sources it can be estimated that the Templars held 57 preceptories in England. At least 14 of these were later taken over by the Hospitallers, who held 76 sites. As a relatively rare monument class, all sites exhibiting good survival of archaeological remains will be identified as nationally important.
This is an interesting site and it was a surprise to me while researching this article that there isn't an easily accessible and simple guide to the site or better access as it is clearly of some importance.

6.5.13

The Witches of... Northumberland

Trawling through the dark recesses of my memory recently I recalled reading some time ago about a witch having been executed at Seaton Sluice. I never did get around to investigating this more fully, so today was the day.

North Berwick Witches from a contemporary pamphlet
An internet search revealed this from the Wallsend Local History Society website, which in turn is a facsimile of the Monthly Chronicle: North-Country Lore and Legend from April 1888:
We can therefore only give a plain, unvarnished, prosaic account of the affair, as it used to be told, doubtless with much more pith than we can put into it, by that extraordinary humorist and mystery-man, Sir Francis Blake Delaval.
At what definite period the witch adventure took place it is impossible now to tell. Sir Francis died in 1771, and already in his clay it was "once upon a time," and "one of the Lords of Seaton Delaval," without further specification as to when and to whom it occurred. The adventurer, whoever he was, is said to have been returning home from Newcastle after nightfall... 
The whole story is quite lengthy, but to summarise, Lord Delaval forced his way into Wallsend Church to find a bunch of "old hags" involved in a ceremony involving a naked young girl lying on a table and some knives. They fled, but Delaval managed to capture one, tie her up and transport her to Seaton Delaval. She was tried and found guilty of witchcraft. Her punishment was to be burned alive on Seaton Sluice beach. But there's more... Standing ready to be burnt at the stake she was granted a last request. To quote again:
...the witch requested to have the use of two new wooden dishes, which were forthwith procured from the neighbouring hamlet of Seaton Sluice. The combustibles were then heaped on the sands, the culprit was placed thereon, the dishes were given to her, and fire was applied to the pile. As the smoke arose in dense columns around her, she placed a foot in each of the utensils, muttered a spell, cleared herself from the fastenings at the stake, and soared away on the sea-breeze like an eagle escaped from the hands of its captors. But when she had risen to a considerable height, one of the dishes which supported her lost its efficacy from having been, by the young person who procured them, dipped unthinkingly in pure fresh water; and so, after making several gyrations, the deluded follower of Satan fell to the ground. Without affording her another chance of escape, the beholders conveyed her back to the pile, where she perished amidst its flames.
Sir Francis Blake Delaval
Now, in our enlightened times we wouldn't take this tale at face value. But could it, in fact, be based on a real event?

The 1735 Witchcraft Act, which made it illegal to accuse anybody of possessing magical powers is described in a Wikipedia article:
The law was "a heavy-handed piece of Enlightenment rationalism", designed by supporters of the new rationalist theories who believed that, contrary to popular belief at the time, "witchcraft and magic were illusory", and the law was therefore designed to "wean" the public out of a belief in them.
The peak of the witch hunts in Europe was between 1580 and the 1630s. There was "widespread hysteria that malevolent Satanic witches were operating as an organized threat to Christendom."

From the Special Collection of Newcastle University we learn:

Witch-hunters were often employed by a town council or minister when there were suspicions that witchcraft was taking place. Accusations of witchcraft were often based on limited evidence. In 1649, Newcastle upon Tyne employed a famous Scottish witch-hunter who was paid according to the number of witches he caught, meaning that it was in his best interests to find as many examples of black magic as possible. The local magistrates encouraged people to report suspicious behaviour, which provided an excellent opportunity to settle old grudges. In total, thirty women were brought to trial and twenty-seven were found guilty. The methods used to determine whether a woman was a witch were primitive and inconsistent. In the Newcastle trials a Lieutenant-Colonel Hobson expressed his doubts over the methodology used and demonstrated that the evidence was flawed:
…therefore he would try her; and presently in the sight of all the people, laid her body naked to the waist, with her clothes over her head, by which fright and shame, all her blood contracted into one part of her body, and then he ran a pin in her thigh, and then suddenly let her coats fall, and then demanded whether she had nothing of his in her body, but did not bleed, but she being amazed, replied little, then he put her aside as a guilty person, and child of the devil, and fell to try others whom he made guilty.
Lieutenant Colonel Hobson, perceiving the alteration of the foresaid woman, by her blood settling in her right parts, caused that woman to be brought again, and her clothes pulled up to her thigh, and required the Scot to run the pin into the same place, and then it gushed out of blood, and the said Scot cleared her, and said she was not a child of the devil.
In the Gateshead parish-books (1649) the following entry occurs:—"Paid at Mrs Watson's, when the Justices sat to examine the witches, 3s. 4d.: for a grave for a witch 6d.: for trying the witches £1, 5s."
"So soon as the witch finder had done in Newcastle, and received his wages, he went into Northumberland, to try women there, where he got of some three pounds a-piece; but Henry Ogle, Esq. laid hold on him, and required bond of him, to answer the sessions, but he got away for Scotland, where he was apprehended and cast into prison, indicted, arraigned, and condemned for such like villainy exercised in Scotland, and upon the gallows he confessed he had been the death of above two hundred and twenty women in England and Scotland, for the gain of twenty shillings a-piece."— Cardiner, p. 116, Newcastle Ed. of 1796.
Gardiner, in his "England's Grievance of the Coal Trade," printed in 1655, also gives a detailed account of this horrid affair.

So violent was the popular rage against these supposed wretches, who had sold themselves to the devil, that great numbers were burnt in Scotland; and in a village near Berwick, containing only fourteen houses, fourteen persons were punished by fire!
In 1590, in the Scottish village of North Berwick, the trials of more than one hundred suspected witches were held. One of the accused, Agnes Sampson was taken to Holyrood House and personally tried by the King. Under horrific torture she confessed and was executed. It is estimated from records that 3000-4000 witches were executed in Scotland between 1620 and 1680.

So did it really happen? Prior to 1604 and the passing of a witchcraft act of Parliament witches would have been tried in an ecclesiastical court of the parish church. Summary justice was often overlooked, but after this date witchcraft was tried at the Assizes which were held in Newcastle once per year by travelling judges directly accountable to the monarch. It was also common after this date for witches to be hung rather than burnt to death. A lord Delaval probably did not have the authority to carry out this death sentence unless it was perhaps at an early date. More investigation is needed on this one though...

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Update 12 November 2012

Ann left this comment:
Very interesting indeed. A few years ago I was told that "witches" were routinely taken onto the beach at Seaton Sluice,  tied  to stakes in the sand & left to drown. Haven't been able to find anything in the history books so would be interested to see any further revelations. I was told that in "olden times" a charnal house was located roughly where Astley Gardens now stands, but again have no evidence.  
 What more could I find out about justice, punishment and Seaton Sluice in former times?

The Stewartry Museum in Kirkcudbright, Scotland holds a document listing the accounts for the execution of  Elspeth McEwen, who was executed at Silvercraigs, a hillside overlooking Kirkcudbright, on August 24th 1698. A poor and old woman, she was condemned as a witch and sentenced to be burned to death. She was the last witch to be executed in Scotland after having being found guilty at a civil trial.

This was before the Act of the Union however, and England had its own legal system. The Wikipedia article "Witch Trials in the Early Modern Period" states: 
The sentence generally was death (as Exodus 22:18 states, "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live"). Nearly always, a witch's execution involved burning of their body. In England, witches were usually hanged before having their bodies burned and their ashes scattered. In Scotland, the witches were usually strangled at the stake before having their bodies burned—though there are several instances where they were burned alive.
A common perception regarding the execution of a witch, including mine, is of tying to a stake and being burned alive, but it seems this was not the norm. In fact, where this is the case the executions often gain some notoriety as in the case of the Belvoir Witches burned alive at Lincoln in 1617.  Campaigners are still petitioning the Government to have them pardoned. There were many different types of execution traditionally reserved for different types of crimes and different social classes. Pirates were sometimes hung in a gibbet and tied with chains at a place where the rising tide would submerge them. In the Wapping area of London there is a place known as Execution Dock where this practice was carried out. The pirate Captain William Kidd died here by this method in 1701. However, I can't find any mention of a witch being executed by this method.

Execution of William Kidd
The historian Ronald Hutton has calculated that between 300-1000 witches were executed in England and Wales. Only 228 were officially recorded.

Special places were traditionally reserved for executions and the Town Moor at Newcastle would appear to be one of these. They were often close to the gaol in which prisoners were held. However, the term gallows and gibbet can be used synonymously. It was sometimes the case where a body, after execution, was taken to a place and hung up on a gibbet. The place was sometimes in site of the crime scene, or a strategic place where the decomposing remains would act as a deterrent to passers-by. There is an example near Elsdon where a replica of Winter's Gibbet still remains as an eerie site on the hilltop. There are also many examples of fields named as Gallow's Hill on estate and tithe maps of the late 18th - early 19th centuries including one at Burradon, six miles north of Newcastle.

The story of the Seaton Sluice witch sounds like a one of mob rule and summary justice. The major landholding aristocracy had been handed powers to use capital punishment through their manorial courts during the Norman period. A huge range of offences were subject to capital punishment but at manorial level it was mostly stealing that carried this sentence. Major crimes were dealt with by justices of the peace or the central justices at the assizes.

From the 14th century until the early 17th century the unruly border area had some of its own separate laws and customs. Wardens were appointed to police and administer the area on behalf of the monarch. They had special powers to authorize capital punishment in certain circumstances. The Delavals, although a powerful family, were not wardens and could not carry out summary justice without fear of being held to account for any such actions.