Nunthorpe History Group

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1 Nunthorpe History Group Preserving and recording the heritage of Nunthorpe Nunthorpe History Group Newsletter No. 10 April 2014 Welcome to the Newsletter of the Nunthorpe History Group. We would be very interested to hear from any members who may wish to join our committee and also any member who wishes to research a particular subject or requires assistance in their research. Some of the members have already kindly loaned archival material, copies of which are to be retained for group use. This material includes old photos, ledgers, newspaper cuttings, maps and memorabilia and is to be made available to group members for research purposes or just general interest. A list of archived material is available from Bob Mullen ( request to b2mullen@hotmail.com) We would certainly appreciate adding to this archive if you have any material that may be of historical interest. Depending on the amount of material involved the loan period for scanning, photographing etc. would be from 2 to 4 weeks. The next NHG public event Richard Hill, ironmaster, his family and their houses A talk by Linda Polley previous MA Programme Leader History Department Teesside University Monday, 14 April 2014 venue The Dorman Suite, The Institute, The Avenue School, Nunthorpe starting 7:00 pm 1

2 Local history archive resources at our disposal. The NHG Archives listing has now become too long for the Newsletter. Please contact or telephone if you require the full listing. All documents and photographs are subject to the copyright of the original owners or Nunthorpe History Group. Hard copies of NHG archives - A considerable amount of the archives are archived in electronic form on computer. Recently a large quantity of this archival material was reproduced as hard- copy in a number of ring binders and is available for viewing by those members who do not have a computer. Newsletter back copies if you wish to receive any back copies of the Nunthorpe History Group Newsletter please contact b2mullen@hotmail.com or telephone Thanks - Many thanks to the January 2014 Newsletter contributors for their articles. If you have any interesting stories or reminiscences of an early Nunthorpe please contact me. Nunthorpe History Group Preserving the past for future generations Linda Polley, our next speaker Retired academic historian. Research interests: architectural history, urban and suburban history, local history. Latterly Programme Leader of Teesside University's MA History/Cultural History/Local History Since retiring: I continue to serve on the Committee of the Friends of Teesside Archives and edit their newsletter. I also work in a voluntary capacity at the Dorman Museum cataloguing the recently acquired Christopher Dresser archive. 2

3 Nunthorpe Brownies in the late 40s by Anne Morley If you d gone down to the woods on a fine summer evening you might have seen a bunch of small girls clad in brown cotton dresses and brown woolly hats scampering around making dens. Brown Owl would give a word and the girls would have to bring items with the initial letters making up that word, so learning the names of trees and flowers. The wood was a small triangle of trees at the junction of Church Lane and Stokesley Road, the girls were the Nunthorpe (St Mary s) Brownie Pack and their Brown Owl, Miss Margaret Potts, lived at Home Farm near Grey Towers. From the age of 7, I was one of those Brownies and recall the fun we had for 2d weekly subs (less than 1p). A Brownie uniform When the weather was not fine, we would stay in the canteen beside the Village School where some of the tables and benches had been pushed back so in our sixes we could dance round our rather battered toadstool. There were the Elves and the Fairies and to this day I remember the rhyme my six sang, We re the little Scottish Kelpies, Quick and smart and ready helpers. Much of what we learnt stood us in good stead and most was enjoyable but I m not so sure about the hours practising knots. Reef knots had to be tied behind our necks to keep those triangular ties in place, supposedly useful if you needed a sling or a bandage (woe-betide you if you tied a granny knot by mistake) then came the round turn and two half hitches, in case you needed to tie a dog to a post, and finally the sheepshank for shortening, to be used if your washing line broke! (The rabbit comes up the hole, round the tree and back...) Kim s game was a favourite together with singing games like The little elephant and In and out the dusky (or was it dusty?) bluebells. We took our Brownie promise seriously as each week with our two fingered salute we vowed, to serve God and the King (Queen Elizabeth s father) and to help other people every day, especially those at home and chanted, Lend a hand, lah, lah, lah. 3

4 There was trouble if our little brass Brownie badges were not shining both back and front when inspected, they were oval with an embossed dancing figure and had to be pinned just so on our ties. We worked to gain badges, one involved making tea: first warm the pot, then add a spoonful of tea for each person and one for the pot, pour on the boiling water and leave to stand for five minutes. We would also make items from felt, like embroidered egg cosies and needle cases for our sewing badge. An annual highlight was Brownie Revels for all the Brownies in the area. I particularly remember going to Mrs Penneyman s at Ormesby Hall one sunny summer s day. We followed a trail through the grounds to find a lady dressed as a gypsy in a Romany caravan and put foxglove flowers on our fingers, pure magic. Mrs Nielson who lived in Morton Carr Lane was a Commissioner and would visit the pack from time to time; Miss Margaret Mary Montgomery Smith, the Vicar s daughter, had run the Guides and took an interest in us too. Our meetings took place after school, which finished at 3.15, and probably lasted an hour and a half. I do not remember how or where we changed out of our school clothes but we walked home together, often in the dark, over a mile across the fields or round the road by Marton Moor corner to Nunthorpe Station whilst others had a similar walk to Nunthorpe Village. I left Brownies in 1952 when I left the Village School, later some of us went on to join the newly formed Guide Company run by Pat Eldridge in the old Methodist Chapel but that s another story. Anne Morley (née Ward) - January 2011 Memories of a Girl Guide in Nunthorpe by Anne Morley In the early 1950s, television was black and white with limited viewing hours, the term teenager was beginning to make itself felt, we had started to Rock around the Clock and the school leaving age had gone up from 14 to 15 years. So what did the young people of Nunthorpe do by way of entertainment? Well there was the Friday night Youth Club, Cubs and Scouts for boys in a hut at the back of the village school canteen and Brownies and Guides for girls. I was allowed to join the Girl Guides. Sometime in the early 50s the 2 nd Nunthorpe Girl Guide Company was formed. I am not sure what happened to the first company my Aunt Halcyone had belonged to but we had a gap between leaving the Brownies and joining the new Guides. Pat Eldridge was the Guide Leader and there were other 4

5 helpers, Margaret Walton may have been one, but time has blurred their names in my memory. We met weekly in the Methodist Church, not the present one but in the square, red brick building with its domed roof and arched windows that stood where the Gospel Hall is now in Rookwood Road. When the wooden chairs were cleared to the sides it gave sufficient space for the three or four patrols to meet. I began as a Robin but later transferred to the Swallows to become a Patrol Leader, I think another patrol was the Sparrows. A Guide s uniform We wore our navy school skirts and bright blue cotton blouses, the leather belts had the guide badge on the clasp and we proudly pinned a well polished trefoil badge on our red triangular ties, as in the Brownies tied at the back of the neck with a reef knot. Patrol Leaders sported a white lanyard with whistle attached. I think the air-hostess style hats came in shortly before I left. I remember practising drill, lining up and falling out, for when Mrs. Nielson, the Commissioner, came to inspect us, and working for badges to sew on the sleeve of our blouses. Someone from The Red Cross came to teach us First Aid so we were able to put our ties to good use as slings and bandages. It was before the recovery position had been discovered but we did learn to send for the ambulance from a public phone box by dialling 999 without having to put the pennies in the slot and press button B. For Child Care we went to Mrs Nielson s house, Nessfield in Morton Carr Lane. Then there was bed-making, we spent a lot of time perfecting out hospital corners, how I wish we had had duvets then! Our range of knot-tying grew to include the bowline (quite irrelevant as I have never needed to tie wet ropes) and the requirements for Cookery were a bit more interesting than the rice pudding I made as a Brownie. My friends at the High School who attended other Guide Companies in Middlesbrough were going in for the Sewing badge so I would join them with the Domestic Science teacher at lunch time what a failure, patches, darning and buttonholes were not for me! We were expected to attend monthly Church Parades alternating between St Mary s and the Methodist Chapel. If you were the one in the Colour Party to carry the flag in its leather holster, you had to be careful to avoid the low doorway in the Chapel. Sometimes a Guide would be chosen to read the lesson in Church. Anne Morley (née Ward) - January

6 Sir Arthur John Dorman, KBE, Baronet of Grey Towers. Arthur Dorman was born in Ashford, Kent. He was educated at Christ s College and was sent to work at a small ironworks in Thornaby, in which a distant relative was a partner. He worked at first on the puddling furnaces and his early duties included fetching beer for the puddlers. At 27 he went into partnership with Albert de Lange Long and they purchased the West Marsh Works from Sir Bernard Samuelson, for the manufacture of iron bars and angles. Requiring further production they leased Samuelson s Brittania Works in 1879, purchased them in 1882 and later, in 1886 commenced the manufacture of steel. In 1890 they commenced the fabrication of simple fabricated steelwork and it was from this beginning that the name of Dorman Long spread across the world. In 1902 Bell Brothers (whose offices in Zetland Road, Middlesbrough, are at the present time the subject of a preservation order) and Dorman Long merged in 1929 they absorbed Bolckow, Vaughan & Co. together with their structural subsiduary, Redpath, Brown & Co. Arthur Dorman was a member of Middlesbrough Council from 1880 to He had three sons and three daughters. One of his sons, Lt.G.L. Dorman was killed in the Boer War, while serving with the Green Howards and in 1901 as a memorial to his he offered to provide a Natural History Museum. The museum was opened in 1904 and later in that year he was honoured with the Freedom of the City. Sir Arthur and lady Dorman 6

7 Sir Arthur s home, Grey Towers, was built for W R I Hopkins, ironmaster, who in employed the London interior decorators Collinson & Lock to produce interiors designed by the architect E W Godwin. The Dorman family purchased the property in Grey Towers in 1931 In 1903 Arthur Dorman provided Nunthorpe with a new school and schoolhouse, in what is now known as Church Lane, the old school in the village built some 50 years previously having become inadequate to meet the needs of the expanding population in the area around the station. This new school continued in use until 1960 when it was replaced by The Avenue school. Dorman had strong views on the visual aspect of Nunthorpe and would not allow any shops of a conventional appearance, which meant that such shops as there were had no display windows or external fascias, and as such were reduced to being little more than the front rooms of private houses, adapted for such purposes. He even specified that only slate was to be used on the roofs of newly built properties, as opposed to tiles. Arthur Dorman was knighted in 1918 and became a Baronet in He was a keen Churchman and it was largely as a result of his efforts that the Church of St, Mary s was built. Sir Arthur died on the 14 th February,

8 In October, 1931, in the midst of the world depression in trade, his home Grey Towers, together with 77 acres of parkland was purchased by a syndicate of buyers for only 4,500. Grey Towers from the air In December, 1931, Alderman T.G.Poole, a Middlesbrough jeweller, purchased the house and land for 7,000, presenting them to Middlesbrough for use as a Sanatorium for Tuberculosis sufferers. The house was converted for use as a hospital and it was opened by Mrs. Poole on the 22 nd June, 1932, with accommodation for 35 adults and 15 children. In 1934 the hospital was visited by Princess Mary. As a result of discussions between Middlesbrough, Darlington, Gateshead, South Shields, Sunderland and West Hartlepool to consider the joint use of the hospital, a committee called The Poole Joint Sanatorium Committee was set up and following the success of the negotiations the Poole Joint Sanatorium Board was formed in Grey Towers was used as an administrative office and new buildings were to be built. The foundation stones for the new buildings were laid on the 19 th October, 1938, one by Lady Poole and the other by Alderman J. Cohen. The hospital was closed for a time and the first patients admitted to the new hospital on the 1 st may, The official opening was delayed, due to the war and was carried out by H.R.H. The Duchess of Kent on the 6 th October, The children s block was opened on the 6 th May,

9 The DORMAN family tree Sir Arthur John Dorman Iron and Steel Manufacturer Charles married? Arthur John married Clara Share Lockwood 8/8/ /2/1931 Arthur Clara F rances Alice Bedford George Arthur Charles Lillian Mary 3/4/1878 Lockwood Lockwood John 21/4/ /10/1875 7/1/1877 6/4/ /6/ /9/1881 diied1929 m. m. died1956 died Major Trevor- in Charles Roper Boer Bolckow Cook War (Dorman Museum, Middlesbrough built as a memorial to George) (SOURCE:- Parish registers of St. Mary's Church, Norton Dictionary of Business Biography Edited by D.J.Jeremy & C.Shaw Butterworth 1984) In 1901 Lieutenant George Dorman died in Kroonstad Hospital in the Transvaal. The youngest son of steel magnate Mr Arthur - later Sir Arthur - Dorman was serving as a subaltern in The 3rd (Militia) Battalion The Yorkshire Regiment, as The Green Howards were then called. He died not of wounds suffered in battle but of enteric fever, or typhoid. Polluted water, poor hygiene and inadequate sanitation caused this and the dysentery which ravaged British forces in the Boer War. Of the 22,000 British deaths in the campaign, which ran from 1899 until 1902, two thirds were caused by disease. The regiment had three battalions in South Africa and in The 1st Battalion 127 died of disease, predominantly typhoid. 9

10 Lieutenant Dorman died after just 12 months in theatre, but his death had unexpected benefits for the people of Middlesbrough. In memory of his son and his 49 comrades who also lost their lives in the war, Sir Arthur ordered the building of the Dorman Memorial Museum close to Albert Park. It was handed over on Thursday, June 30,1904. The Dorman Museum, official opening ceremony 1905 ============================================== Population of Nunthorpe versus Middlesbrough A comparison between the population of Nunthorpe and the growing population of Middlesbrough from 1801 to The latest (2011) population figures for Nunthorpe is 4,940, occupying 1960 households and for Middlesbrough is 140,990 occupying 58,300 households. Nunthorpe Middlesbrough , , , , , , ,767 10

11 The First World War centenary, Local History Societys and groups around the country are on a quest to honour those who served in the First World War is to mark the centenary of the war to end all wars. We hope to collect, borrow and copy photographs, newspaper clippings, documents, letters, keepsakes and family tales to build up a clear picture of what life was really like during those four years. The First World War may seem a long time ago but the world would be a very different place if these men hadn t sacrificed themselves for our freedom. If you have any family memorabilia relating to the First World War you would be willing to share with the Nunthorpe History Group please contact me on b2mullen@hotmail.com or via mail at 18, Chandlers Ridge, Nunthorpe, TS7 0JL ooooooooooo A few words from our local history expert, Bob Woodhouse, on his 2014 summer classes and walks. The Summer Term (starts 28 April) is composed of visits to locations covered in the previous terms - each week for the Thursday class and alternate weeks for the Monday class. For those interested to view the programme who do not have the Internet please call Bob on and I can send you a copy. For those on the Internet visit our website and select the relevant item on the left-hand sidebar. Learners may enrol before the term begins. Contact Karen Deen: Director of Extended Academy on , Bob Woodhouse on or at the first class of the summer term. Further details are also available from Karen Deen or from Bob. 11

12 Tailpiece A WW2 Air Raid shelter located in Rookwood just prior to its demolition. N.B. the glassed window and wooden door were post WW2 additions. West Side, Nunthorpe Village in the 1970s Photo by permission of Cliff Kitching 12