In this piece, local historian Peter Welsh summarises his extensive research into sports in the area, from Victorian times into the twentieth century. Some sports have continued their popularity, while others have disappeared into the realms of quaint historical curiosities. A fascinating read….
Matthew Rogerson and Potshare Bowling
Matthew Rogerson (occasionally Rodgerson) was born in South Hylton in 1847/8 to John, a miner and Isabella. By 1871 his widowed mother had moved into Fatfield Square and it was as a ‘Fatfield’ man that Matthew was first referred to in local newspaper coverage of ‘potshare bowling’. He had moved to Portobello, not far from the Board Inn, by 1881 and by 1901 had moved to Wood Row in Denton Burn. He’d married Ann Maria Todd in 1879 (Gateshead District), a widow with two children and had three children by her. Ann Maria died in 1886 and Matthew married again, this time Margaret Jane O’Hara, in Newcastle, in 1890. They had four children at Denton Burn and were living in Castle Ward, in 1913, when Matthew died.
These family details have been included because Matthew is the man most-often mentioned from Fatfield (later Portobello or Birtley) in connection with potshare bowling. As we shall see, he played the game regularly, travelling to Newcastle Moor, Black Fell or Gateshead, all the while working as a coal miner and raising two families.
Here’s a chronological list of events, with sources, in which he participated, the list giving some insight into the nature of the sport and its participants:
21/3/1863 Illustrated Sporting News – Town Moor Newcastle, a match between Thomas Saint, Champion, of West Moor and Robert Smith of Wreckington (sic) with 25 oz bowls, 13/4 miles round the race course. In the list of those men Saint had beaten – ‘M Rogerson’. This was the first of a significant number of mentions of Matthew Rogerson as a bowler
2/11/1870 Sporting Life – At Gateshead Borough Gardens – a bowling handicap, poor weather and attendance. Promoted by Thompson and Guthrie, £7 prize, then £2, then £1. Two throws each. M Rogerson, Fatfield, won Heat 3. Seven heats; to be concluded later.
7/11/1870 Newcastle Chronicle – at Gateshead Borough Gardens, M Rogerson of Fatfield took part – probably the event listed above.
20/2/1871 Newcastle Journal – BOWLING MATCH ON THE TOWN MOOR – Matthew Rogerson of Fatfield and Robert Coulson of Shiney Row, who had agreed to bowl across the mile, Rogerson with 20oz bowl and Coulson with 25oz bowl for £5 a side. Rogerson was made favourite, took the lead on the first ‘thraw’ and won by about 40 yards. The triggers were Septimus Cooper for Rogerson and Matthew Coulson for his brother.
13/3/1871 Newcastle Journal – BOWLING ON THE TOWN MOOR – A bowling match between Jos Robson of Ouston and Matthew Rogerson of Fatfield, over the usual course across the mile, with 25oz bowls, for a stake of £20. Robson led slightly on the first throw but was passed by Rogerson on the second heave and the latter maintained his lead until the last throw, when Robson threw past him and won a most exciting match by 5 yards. John Marley was the referee.
12/7/1872 Bell’s Life in London – At Newcastle Town Moor – M Rogerson of Fatfield and J Young of Pelton, played for £15 a side, the former using a 25oz bowl, and the latter one of 22oz. M Coulson trigged for Young and E Makepeace esquired the favourite, who, owing to the soft, bad state of the ground was very unfortunate. In the first heave Young had 13 yards the best of it and for the next three heaves maintained the advantage, but Rogerson then came with a grand one and came up almost level. Next time, however, the Fatfield man’s bowl alighted in a sump hole and of course did not travel and Young took a good lead. Young won by 20 yards.
2/8/1875 Newcastle Journal – 5,000 present in fine weather for ‘the pitman’s favourite pastime.’ The last event of the afternoon was a £10 sweepstake between Matthew Rogerson of Fatfield, Thomas Hope of Wrekenton and R Armstrong of Lambton. At the sixth and last throw Rogerson threw over and won by 60 yards.
18/9/1875 Morpeth Herald – M Rogerson of Fatfield and R Heron of Gosforth using 45oz bowls, Heron 60 yards ahead at fourth throw but on the last throw Rogerson bowled over the far gutter whilst Heron’s bowl hit a post and stopped short, so Rogerson won.
3/2/1878 The Referee – BOWLING AT NEWCASTLE – About 1,000 spectators on a cold and bright day for the Beehive Inn’s handicap with liberal prizes. In the second round M Rogerson came second, using 17oz bowls.
2/3/1878 Morpeth Herald – BOWLING ON NEWCASTLE MOOR – There was a lot of interest in the meeting between Sep Cooper of Newcastle and Matthew Rogerson of Fatfield, who played with two 40oz bowls, for £10 a side. The evergreen Sep had to give away a lot in years, being almost twice the age of Rogerson, who is a powerful young fellow. The result of the match, which proved an easy thing for old Sep, showed that he is still a dangerous customer, notwithstanding his advanced years, with ‘forties’. In the opening bowl Cooper led by 10 yards, increased his lead to 15 at the second, and won with ridiculous ease in the twelfth. Andy Best triggered for the winner and Thomas Hope for the loser. Lance Mordue was the referee.
14/9/1881 Newcastle Chronicle – Matthew Rogerson of Birtley refereed a match on the Moor between Richard Bell of Windy Nook and Peter Reay of Low Fell.
30/10/1882 Newcastle Journal – BOWLING ON TOWN MOOR – James Ritchie of Hebburn v Matthew Rogerson of Fatfield with 30oz bowls for £10. Ritchie won after 13th throw, Joseph Curley trigged for Rogerson.
4/11/1882 Morpeth Herald – BOWLING ON THE TOWN MOOR – Moderate attendance – bowling track soft and spongy. Matthew Rogerson v James Richey of Hebburn, with 30oz bowls, for £10 a side. Rogerson won at the thirteenth heave.
27/1/1883 Morpeth Herald – BOWLING ON THE TOWN MOOR – Edward Winter of Chester Moor (father and son 51 and 22, living at Chester Moor in 1881 Census) and Matthew Rogerson, of Fatfield, contended with a couple of ‘twenty eights’ for £10 a side. Winter led at the first, then Rogerson, but eventually Winter won at the thirteenth by six yards.
7/4/1883 Morpeth Herald – Newcastle Moor – Edward Winter of Chester Moor v Matthew Rogerson of Fatfield with 30oz bowls for £10 a-side.. Winter won by 50 yards at the tenth throw. John Cowell of Fatfield trigged for Rogerson and Robert Stewart of Chester Moor for Winter
17/11/1883 Morpeth Herald – BOWLING ON THE TOWN MOOR – excellent attendance to watch Matthew Rogerson and Jos Curley of Chester Moor with 35oz bowls for £20. Rogerson won on the tenth shot.
5/4/1884 Morpeth Herald – BOWLING ON NEWCASTLE MOOR – Matthew Rogerson of Fatfield and John York, Pelton Fell, matched with 30oz bowls for £10 a side. York was favourite but Rogerson led after the first throw by 16 yards and eventually won at the ninth throw by 60 yards.
13/2/1886 Newcastle Chronicle – BOWLING AT THE TOWN MOOR – Bowling Handicap on the new track, Matthew Rogerson being one of nine in the second heat and Rogerson was last at the time of the report being filed.
8/10/1886 Newcastle Chronicle – CHALLENGES – I, Robert Innes will bowl Matthew Rogerson, I at 26oz and Rogerson at 30oz across the new track. Meet at David Marley’s Turf Hotel Back Bar on Saturday 1st between 5 and 7 o’clock
26/2/87 Newcastle Chronicle – Matthew Rogerson of Fatfield and George Handy of Washington tried conclusions on the Town Moor, on the new track, for £5 a side. Rogerson won by 36 yards on seventh throw. (Shields Gazette 22/9/1888 – Washington Man Missing George Handy, aged about 22 has been missing since Wednesday; he had gone to Newcastle on business with his brother. It was at first assumed he had missed the train back to Usworth but it is now stated that he had about £60 with him and it is feared some disaster has befallen him. He is about 5ft 2, of stoutish build, fair complexion and a light moustache. On the 26th it was reported that two women had been arrested but both were released after ‘sharp examination.’ No further details….however, George Handy was taking part in bowls at Black Fell in September 1891.)
9/5/1888 Sporting Life – BOWLING AT BLACK FELL – Matthew Rogerson won his heat but came third in the final – promoted by John Dalton, Coach and Horses, Leybourne Hold, Birtley, in the presence of an excellent muster of the followers of potshare.
6/6/1888 Newcastle Chronicle – BOWLING – OXCLOSE YESTERDAY A bowling match for £6 a-side was decided yesterday over the old wagonway at Oxclose between William Savage of North Side, Black Fell and Thomas Hall of Fatfield, both using 20oz bowls. Business was rife with 5 to 4 on Savage. James Smith of High Washington trigged for Savage and William McMann of Fatfield for Hall. Matthew Rogerson of Portobello was referee and stakeholder. Hall was so far behind after the fifth shot that he ‘picked up’ ie conceded.
15/6/1888 Newcastle Chronicle – At Newcastle Moor – Joseph Curley of Fatfield took on John Patterson of Waldridge Fell with Matthew Rogerson of Fatfield as referee and stakeholder. Patterson won.
25/6/1888 Newcastle Chronicle – BLACK FELL – At Mr John Galley’s Bird Inn, New Washington, a further deposit was posted for a bowling match between Joseph Laws of Washington Staiths and Matthew Rogerson of Portobello at Black Fell, with 13oz bowls for £5 a-side. Final deposits to be handed in Friday with Mr Ritson, of Washington, stakeholder.
6/7/1888 Durham Chronicle – At the house of William Bush (Half Moon, Oxclose) the sum of £1 has been posted to bind a match over the old track, Newcastle, in a month’s time between Joseph Laws of North Biddick and Matthew Rogerson of Portobello, with 13oz bowls for £10 a-side.
11/8/1890 Newcastle Chronicle – TOWN MOOR Matthew Rogerson of Fatfield against William Thompson of New Herrington; by the fifth heave Rogerson was 80 yards behind and ‘picked up’.
19/11/1890 Sporting Life – BOWLING ON NEWCASTLE MOOR – Fine weather, large company to watch George Taylor and Joseph Matthews (both of Birtley) with 25oz bowls for £10 a-side, refereed by Mr Rogerson. Taylor won at ninth shot.
16/9/1891 Sporting Life – Matthew Rogerson of Birtley refereed the match between Richard Bell of Windy Nook and Peter Reay of Low Fell.
12/10/1891 Newcastle Chronicle – Matthew Rogerson of Birtley acted as stakeholder and referee in a match on a wet and miserable Town Moor, between Peter Reay and Henry Wardle of Pelton Fell.
1/10/1894 – Newcastle Chronicle – Bowling at Black Fell, promoted by John Watson at the Black Fell Bowling track. M Rogerson came third in Heat 3.
10/4/1899 Newcastle Chronicle – NEWCASTLE MOOR – John Willis (there were two in Fatfield in 1901, both early 30s, one in Long Row and one at Nicholson’s Buildings) and George Taylor (27, single, boarder at Cotia), both of Fatfield, with 10oz bowls for £10 a side. Taylor retired at the seventh. Rogerson trigged for Taylor, J Mason of Fatfield stakeholder and referee. This is the last mention of Matthew Rogerson re potshare bowling.
Given that this research has been done mostly through the newspaper archive, rather than through personal or official records, and is therefore probably somewhat sketchy in terms of following the career of one ‘hardy knight’, (the algorithm does not always pick out the entered name) we can only say that Matthew’s contests, as reported, amounted, in financial terms, to £40 of winnings and £45 of losses. On some occasions the amounts staked were not included and it’s by no means certain that all his competitions and activities were included in the local newspapers. The modern equivalent of £40 is around £6,000.
In terms of the bowls that he used, he either possessed, or accessed, bowls of 10, 17, 20, 25, 28, 30, 35, 40 and 45 ounces. His career having started, as far as can be determined, in 1863 or slightly earlier, he had apparently earned the reputation of being a man who could be trusted to referee, hold stakes or trig for other boolers.
In 1902-3 and 1904 ‘M Rogerson’ was playing lawn bowls for Castle Leazes Club – ah, was it the same, ‘our’, M Rogerson? Had the ‘powerful young fellow’ become an older, less powerful, but still enthusiastic, participant in a less strenuous activity – the knocking of wood on wood, having replaced the clack of stone on stone, the cries of ‘canny bool, Matty’ still music to his ears. There being no extant records of Castle Leazes Bowling Club, we shall never know but if you pass Leazes Park bowling green, now a picnic area, pause and listen for a moment……
Some of the first newspaper reports of potshare bowling can be found from the 1820s and they describe large gatherings on the Town Moor but, also, on the ‘highways’, the problems arising from the fact that ‘hardy knights of the black diamond’ were not always keen to interrupt their games to allow travellers to pass and trouble, arrests and fines often ensued. Other popular locations during the second half of the nineteenth century were Newbiggin Moor, Blyth Sands and Black Fell. Early heroes and stars of the game were Davy Bell of Benton, Harry Brown of Gateshead and Thomas Saint, of West Moor. Originally the matches were mostly challenges with two participants but later the number of handicaps increased. The development of the sport went hand in hand with reduced hours for miners (and working men in general) and the spare time that then needed to be filled, and times of economic depression saw the number of matches decline and then rise again, when better times returned.
So, what was potshare bowling and how was it played?
This, from the Newcastle Chronicle of August 1884, looking back on fifty years of ‘booling’. ‘The game consisted in throwing a stone bowl, [and shouting a warning ‘ware the bool!’] weighing from 25-30 ounces [even up to 50 ounces], a given distance in the least number of throws. The bowl itself was formed out of a piece of whinstone. [White Brick was sometimes used but it had to be agreed in advance or disqualification would occur and potshare, the crucible which glass is melted in was another possible material for the bowl.] Many hours of labour were required to chip at it with a small hammer and the edge of an old file before it assumed the perfect sphere [with an indentation for the thumb]. An aspiring bowler would devote his leisure evenings for weeks together in making his bowl and consequently it was an article much valued by him [they must have had a stable of bowls of different weights]. When a match was played the competitors, one or the other, threw [the action could be described as a ‘thraw’, a ‘hough’, or a ‘hoy’] their bowl from a starting line drawn across the road. If the bowler overstepped the line with both feet when he delivered his bowl, he was called back by the umpire/referee and had to renew his throw. From the spot where the bowl lay after being ‘spent,’ it had to be thrown the next time, whether that spot was in the road or the ditch [or in a sump hole]. However inconvenient, even when ankle-deep in water, from that spot or within a yard from either side, it had to be thrown. The bowler had a ‘trigger’, a man in advance who indicated the spot desired for the bowl to fall after delivery, thus the trigger ‘showed him the reet way’. The throws were continued in succession until they reached the goal,[often one lap of the mile course on the Moor, actually about 900 yards] when the player who had succeeded in the least number of throws was declared the winner. Muscular power was the principal factor to make an expert in this game but luck sometimes overcame physical strength. [A later article suggested the men could take a run at the bowling action. If a match was a ‘chooser’ it seems as if one or both contestants were allowed to choose their own weight of bowl.]
Not everyone thought it a wise way for miners to spend their time – in June 1865 The Miner and Workman’s Advocate argued that ‘Now you all know what bowling matches are. Those fools do not only fool away their own time and money, but they fool away the time and money of scores of other ‘cuddies’ too.’ In 1880 bowling was banned on the Town Moor. In January the Morpeth Herald, under the headline ‘BOWLING ON NEWCASTLE MOOR – POLICE PROCEEDINGS’ carried this piece – ‘The first police proceedings under the new bye-law prohibiting bowling on the Town Moor, were instituted on Friday the 13th, at Newcastle Police Court, before the sitting magistrates, Mr CH Young and Mr Henry Watson. The defendants were James Ritchie, miner, of Silksworth and James Wilson, miner, of Wardley Colliery, Durham. They were charged on separate summonses, that each on the 31st ult., ‘unlawfully played bowling on the Town Moor, in such a manner as was likely to endanger person being on the same, and use in such game certain bowls of a hard and dangerous nature.’ The defendants were fined 5shillings. Meetings of protest, such as the one at the Adelaide Hotel in Newgate St, were quickly arranged when word of the banning leaked out and the council came under pressure not only from bowlers and their fans but, also, the business people of Newcastle who quickly recognised the effect it was having on the city, as pitmen, and their wives, (who often came to Newcastle for shopping) took their spending power to Newbiggin or Blyth instead. And so…..
22/4/1882 Morpeth Herald – ‘NEWCASTLE FREEMEN AND THE BOWLERS At the Easter Guild of the Newcastle Freemen, held at the Guildhall, on Monday, the Vice-Chairman of the Stewards’ Committee, Mr William Wilson, stated, with reference to their petition against the Town Improvement Bill, that the Freemen had decided to withdraw their opposition after the proposal which had been made to them by the Town Clerk and which to a great extent met their requirements. To sum up – the Mayor had done his best to get the bowling question settled amicably and that in re-arranging the 35 acres of the park and recreation ground they would provide a proper and safe bowling ground on the site, which would be acceptable to all parties.’
So, what was the point of it all? Well, the competitive urge burns brightly, there was obviously a social aspect to spending time in the open air with your ‘marras’ after 50 hours in the dark, the heat and the danger of late nineteenth century collieries, and the opportunity to gamble and drink beer were, for many, strong pull factors. Behind it all were an army of publicans, bookmakers, backers and ‘sporting men’, with newspapers being avid reporters of the ’doings’ at the various meetings and sports grounds. Some, shall we say, were more ‘sporting’ than others and, where money, gambling and shifting odds are involved, there can sharp practice and exploitation be found. In December, 1867, the Newcastle Journal opined, ‘Few men are better losers than the miners; they certainly display an amount of feeling during a match but if they suffer vanquishment, they endure it as such and at once forget the factious prompting which the excitement of the contest occasioned. This truism is perhaps more remarkable with the pitman than any other class of sporting men.’ Well, possibly…..
‘When a match was played the competitors, one or the other, threw their bowl from a starting line drawn across the road. If the bowler overstepped the line with both feet when he delivered his bowl, he was called back by the umpire and had to renew his throw. From the spot where the bowl lay after being ‘spent,’ it had to be thrown the next time, whether that spot was in the road or the ditch. However inconvenient, even when ankle-deep in water, from that spot or within a yard from either side, it had to be thrown. The bowler had a ‘trigger’, a man in advance who indicated the spot desired for the bowl to fall after delivery ‘showed him the reet way’. The throws were continued in succession until they reached the goal, when the player who had succeeded in the least number of throws was declared the winner. Muscular power was the principal factor to make an expert in this game but luck sometimes overcame physical strength.’
Potshare bowling went on into the twentieth century but the watching, and playing, of football saw it decline in popularity.
Sources – Newspaper Archive.
Lynne Pearson – Played in Tyne and Wear
WD Lawson – Tyneside Celebrities (1873)
TWA – for access to a replica potshare bowl
Article – by Alan Metcalf (now of Dept of Kinesiology at Ontario Uni.) sourced through Julian Harrop at Beamish Museum.
And, to finish, another ‘Washington’ (really Springwell) man – Jack Cordner playing James Nicholson in 1906:-
5/3/1906 Newcastle Daily Chronicle – GREAT MATCH AT NEWCASTLE MOOR. The bowling match between James Nicholson, Burradon, and Jack Cordner of The Mount [Springwell] decided over the Newcastle mile on Saturday afternoon, created immense interest among bowlers all over the district. The attendance of spectators was a large one and there would not be less than 4000 people present, amongst the assemblage being many old veterans of the game who had not been seen on the Newcastle Moor for many a day. On all sides a great struggle was anticipated and the more knowing ones predicted that the younger man, Cordner, would give the famous bowler, Nicholson, a hard match, if he did not even prove the victor. The weather was fine and summer-like in character and the stiffish breeze which blew onto the bowling arm did not impede the contestants in the slightest. Bert Clough, Springwell, was referee; Roger Wright Burradon, trigged for Nicholson and Jacky Watson reckon performed a like office for Cordner.
A lot of time was cut to waste in the preliminary trials, and it was exactly 3 o’clock when the champion made the breakaway. For fully an hour previously speculation was indulged in, the closing price being 11 to 8 on Nicholson. The champion drove his ball away with great force. It got a fairly good first beat but the second beat was a bad one. Yet the bowl ran along splendidly, the throw being a satisfactory one. Cordner got a flying beat, the bowl sped along very fast and true. It stopped almost in touch with the champion’s, the referee’s verdict being only 2 inches in favour of Nicholson. The excitement now was at a great height. Cordner, by being behind, went on for the second try and got in a really fine effort but was recalled. Going on again, he put on another lengthy bowl but the trigger fetched him back once more. The next time of asking Cordner passed the trigger all right and made a wonderful throw, sending the ball fully 10 yards further than either of the two recall throws, and it also lay in a capital position. Nicholson lay four feet behind his rival but had to come back. He again had his ball recalled and this time it was for him a lucky one, as he was lying at least 20 yards in the rear. Albeit Nicholson appeared to slip when next he did away, the bowl was propelled with immense force and it got to within a yard of where Cordner’s bowl rested. It had taken an hour, all but five minutes to perform the two opening throws.
Nicholson, for the third end sent his ball along with great force but, unluckily, it received a bad stop at the second beat which caused it to rise up in the air. It was, however, a fine effort. Cordner, who was performing in masterly style did away, amidst loud cheering, and his ball stopped very close to the champion’s. Cordner, however, had to come back and go on again. This time he managed grandly, the bowl running swiftly and to the delight of his supporters, went exactly 10 yards to the front. At the fourth end, Nicholson was brought back three times but finally got in a capital one. Cordner, who continued to bowl in wonderful style, delivered a beauty and it did not stop running until it passed the champion’s by exactly twenty two yards. Loud cheering greeted this great performance. Nicholson, whose style of running into the trig and delivery was much admired, at the fifth go put in a fine one but Cordner, who has also an attractive style, likewise made a wonderful effort. From the time of reaching the ground until stopping his ball never rose more than eighteen inches from the surface and it did not come to a halt until it had gone some 35 yards in front. His backers were at this point on good terms with themselves and cheered loudly. At the sixth attempt Nicholson was fetched back once and ultimately lost fully twenty yards by next making a worse effort. He left-handed it past the sitter-on and the majority of the crowd now considered his chance a hopeless on. Cordner, on the other hand, made no mistakes, getting in yet another admirable delivery, and his bowl ran on its course with surprising swiftness, stopping exactly forty seven yards further ahead than Nicholson’s. Cordner was within 30 yards of hail, and there was still another throw, but Nicholson, seeing his chance hopeless, accepted a monetary consideration and left Cordner a splendid winner, loud cheers being given at his success. The match concluded at half past five o’clock – so it didn’t last quite as long as this article.
Famous Fives players, Northern version, starring William Bush of the Half Moon Inn, Oxclose (and some world champions)
If you enter “Fives” into Wikipedia it starts with, “Fives is generally considered to have originated from early forms of the French ‘Jeu de paume’. Games were most often played against the walls of the north ends of churchyards, or against the walls of belltowers. This often damaged window glazing, so many churches adapted their exteriors to protect against the game. This often came in the form of shutters and pintles inserted into walls, as well as latticework over the windows themselves.” The article goes on to discuss its banning by churches but, then, its existence in Wales and Somerset. It then quotes the Badminton Library, ‘The number of those who continue as Fives players after the age of twenty-five is very small; and, for obvious reasons, these veterans are usually schoolmasters. Again, Fives is entirely a game for amateurs. It has no professors who make their living and their renown as its teachers or exponents. It has no matches to be reported in newspapers with a minuteness of detail suitable to events of international importance. No Fives player, as such, has ever had his portrait published in an illustrated journal, or has had the meanest article of dress in the hosiers’ shops named after him. Indeed, the game is not one that tends to exalt the individual player.’ The Wiki article finishes with a description of regional variants and the development of the game in public schools like Eton, Harrow, Rugby, Winchester and Sherborne.
Nowhere in the article is there any mention of the game thriving among coal miners in the North East, County Durham in particular. Insofar as Northumberland was concerned, the local press mentioned Ball Alleys or Fives Courts at New Hartley, Walker, Seaton Delaval and Choppington. No doubt there were others but the game seems not to have attracted large numbers of players in the way it did in County Durham. A trawl through local newspapers shows that Fives was played regularly in Ball Alleys, often attached to public houses, for substantial amounts of money. The typical match was for “£10 a-side” – which in modern day terms is around £1,500 and some of the bigger games were for “£50 a-side” ie £7,500, giving the lie to the idea that there were no professionals. As with quoiting, rowing, pedestrianism and boxing, ‘trainers’ took men away from their families to prepare for big matches and looked after them, often in public houses, for two or three weeks so that their diet, physical fitness and skills could be improved. There may even have been discussions about how they would win….or lose.
What then, of Fives in County Durham? Well, in 1817, the Durham County Advertiser reported that, ‘At Windlestone, to the disgrace of that neighbourhood, several hardly contested matches at Fives were played by young men from there and Merrington. The former beat the latter so there is a great probability of fresh exertions and to offer further insult to the Sabbath.’ There had also been games at Stranton and Greatham. The main concern appears to have been the fact that the lads played on a Sunday but other concerns were that, as with Quoits or Potshare Bowling, the public highways were blocked and players weren’t always keen to suspend the games to let travellers pass. As ‘Viator’ complained in a letter to the Stockton Times, ‘the authorities should do something about Fives on the public highway, you cannot pass the Blue Coat School without running the risk of being struck by a ball’ and if you complain, ‘you are assailed with a volley of filthy and abusive language.’
By mid-century the game was sufficiently recognized and acceptable that it was a regular feature of the Stockton Whitsuntide sports and interest and participation grew as the years went by. Thus, in 1869, the Newcastle Journal carried the headline ‘MATCH AT FIVES FOR £100 (£15,000!) AND THE CHAMPIONSHIP’ and went on to say, ‘At Victoria Ball Alley, Willington, Mr John Rutherford (manager/owner), James Kelley, of Tow Law, contested with John Southeron, of Wingate. Southeron had beaten Kelley for £25 about eight weeks previously and his supporters were not happy, so another home and away match, for £50 a-side, was arranged. The men met at Wingate a fortnight ago, and in front of several thousand spectators Southeron won by 31 chalks to Kelley’s 26. About 4,000 turned up for the second half of the match. Each man had an innings or two without scoring but Kelley began to score heavily and led 45 to 34, then 50-38 and it finished 62-40. Willington High St was very animated on Saturday evening.’ Given the size of the crowd and the gambling, which all acknowledged was enthusiastic and heavy, it was no surprise that Willington was ‘animated.’
Anyway, Kelley went on to beat Thomas Barker, of Coxhoe, and then lost to him, in matches at Spennymoor and at Shincliffe in 1869 and 1871, the latter match attracting a crowd of 4,000. In 1872 two new names appeared in a match for the Championship and £50 – William Walker of Chester (or possibly Ushaw) Moor and Aaron Grafton of Willington; and in 1876 Thomas Barker beat Walker at Tudhoe. In July 1884 The Northern Echo reported that Pompey King, of Trimdon, and the then Champion, William Scott, played their much-talked-of match for the Championship of the World, a Fives Challenge Cup (provided by the tradesmen of Spennymoor), and £80, 33 chalks up, the conditions specifying a ‘home and home game’ – the first at Tudhoe and the second at Shildon, a fortnight later. Scott led 33-32 after the first game. In the second match Scott won 33-14. Jack Bessford, of Cassop, was another whose name often carried the distinction of ‘Champion’ and his career lasted from the mid-1880s until at least 1908, at which date there was discussion in the Newcastle Chronicle as to whether he or Jack Mordue, of Sacriston, was entitled to be called World Champion. (More of Mordue later). Pompey King, of Trimdon, was another well-known name in the area….
Of course, the question arises from the previously quoted headline; Champion of what, or where? As Arthur Greenwell, of Sacriston, pointed out in a letter, much later, in 1912, the difficulty was that there was no organized body to lay down rules or criteria. As in Quoits or Potshare Bowling, a man could issue a challenge (no doubt weighted towards his own particular skill-set) and if no one accepted the challenge he could pronounce himself World or English Champion and once the title had been (self) awarded it seems as if newspapers were happy to use the title, without any clear evidence of it actually being the case. Typical is this in Sporting Life, in 1892 – ‘I, John Bessford challenge Lewis of Pontypridd, or any man in the world, home and home, at Fives, 31 points up. Anyone wishing to take up the challenge should deposit £10 with Sporting Life.’ In 1896 Sporting Life – ‘For the first time for several years the Fives Championship of England was competed for at Tudhoe, the stakes being £100 and the challenge cup. John Bessford, of Cassop, who has held it for eleven years, contested with Joe Dolphin, of Coundon, for 33 chalks.’ Bessford won 33-31. In the return match at Tudhoe in June, for £100 and the cup, Dolphin won 33-24. 3,000 watched.
There are few entries in the newspapers in terms of international matches apart from this, in the Sporting Life in June 1897….. ‘in answer to John Bessford’s challenge I (Josse French) will match James Fitzgerald to play him, or any other man in England for the sum of £100 or £200 a-side, home and home, the first in England for 41 chalks and then 41 chalks in Killarney. Aggregate score to decide. Winner to take all the gate money. Sporting Life to be stakeholder; an Irish and an English referee. The first portion with the English ball and the second with the Irish ball. Both games to be played in accordance with the rules of that ball court. Each man to deposit a sample ball.’ He (French) enclosed a cheque for £25. Sporting Life confirmed that. I can find no evidence that this match ever took place.
……And this, in the Empire News, in September 1887 …’William Scott, the ex-Champion Fives player, who was defeated by Bessford, at Spennymoor, suddenly made up his mind to go to America on Tuesday and left with a party of miners. He intends to try his luck in the Far West. Good Old William!’ The same newspaper, on the same day, carried this cautionary tale, “Our English athletes think they only have to set foot on western shores in order that the pavement may turn to gold. But hold on! The day before came a cablegram to mater as follows ‘Cable me a draft of £50, immediately, or I can’t get back.’ Mater to son -‘Swim.’” In 1889, the Durham County Advertiser noted that Scott had ‘returned from USA where, in a few months, he achieved several victories in his favourite game.’ No further details could be found. Fives obviously was played in America but how often and under what conditions isn’t known……
…….And then, up popped an article from the Sporting Life, in 1890, under the heading ‘Handball – seeing that Alderman Philip Casey of Brooklyn USA, the champion handball player of America, has arrived in this country, Arthur Pitt of Market Inn, Barnsley, will match John Bestford of Cassop to play him in a match of 41 chalks with a 21/2 oz ball on August 30th for £100 a-side. To play at Tudhoe. A match can be made with A Pitt or S Heads, publican Spennymoor.’ Casey, who had been born in Ireland and returned with a number of other ‘Irish- Americans’ was on his way to Ireland for a tour of handball clubs. There is no record of his having accepted Mr Pitt’s challenge. Nor of his having taken on, again at handball, the Australian Champion, Farrell.
During the 1880s a lot of new Ball-Alleys were opened, often attached, as previously mentioned, to public houses. Though names varied, making identification more difficult, at least 56 can be identified in County Durham. In 1896, ‘George Graham at the Nimmo Hotel has added 6 feet to his wall making it one of the finest in East Durham. The Wheatley Hill fives alley is now 110 feet high and is plastered with good concrete cement, enclosed by a wood paling with an enclosure to seat 1000.’ Proof reading fails again – 110 feet high? Nor would it have been 110 feet wide but, clearly, George wanted to provide a top class facility.
Another of the 56 was the Oxclose Ball Alley, attached to the Half Moon Inn. At Oxclose there was only a farm and the pub and there was obviously space for both Quoits and Fives. The Oxclose Ball Alley was established in, it would seem, late 1886. The Newcastle Daily Chronicle, in November 1886, reported that, at the Half Moon Inn Ball Alley, J Bennison played a Fives match against James and John Query (or McQuery). The Querys won 21-17 and it seems like it may have been the first at the new alley, certainly one of the first. John McQuery/Query was involved in another match , in 1890, at Oxclose, when he took on the Josephs, Ball and Goulbourne of Usworth Colliery – they being tied together to add a little novelty to the contest. It was for 31 chalks and £10 a side.
What then, of William Bush, our local hero, the innovative publican at the Half Moon? There were regular matches there, following on from Bennison versus the Querys, for not insubstantial amounts of money. The 1881 Census records William Bush as a coal miner, living at Speculation Place with his wife and five children, one of them being Isabella Smith Bush, born 1877. In 1889, Mr Bush was found guilty of allowing men to be drunk on his premises. Two policemen testified to his guilt and he was fined 40sh and costs. He said he’d had a license for twelve years and had never been charged with any breach thereof. The 1891 Census noted that William Bush was the publican (and coal miner) of the Half Moon Inn, at 3, Oxclose. He was 45, born in Felling, married to Jane 35. They had eight children – Martin 18, William Mills 16, Sarah J 12, Margaret 10, John 8, Elizabeth 5, Andrew 3 and Mary 1. By 1901, William was living at Cottages, Mid Row, a coal miner, now a widower, with five of his children, Anne having been added to the family in 1893. It’s not obvious exactly when he gave up as a publican but in 1896 the Durham County Advertiser noted, in a report of the proceedings of Chester-le-Street UDC, that the Medical Officer of Health reported that the owners of the Half Moon had agreed to provide additional outhouses in accordance with the Council’s notice.
In January, 1902, the Sunderland Echo reported that ‘a daughter of William Bush, caretaker, Washington, for a great many years landlord of the Half Moon Inn, Oxclose, died yesterday from injuries sustained Friday evening last, through being knocked down by a hawker’s rolley at New Washington. Deceased, who was deaf and dumb, was 25 years old and highly esteemed in the locality.’ This must have been Isabella Smith Bush born 1877 who is recorded as having died in the first quarter of 1902. In 1911, William was living at 2, West View and he was employed as the caretaker for Usworth Miners’ Institute. In 1921, aged 77, he was still listed as the caretaker of Washington Lodge, Durham Miners’ Association. His son, Andrew, was still living with him, as was a married daughter, Anne Thomson, and her husband and child; William had a house keeper, a Mrs Ellison. William Bush died in 1925.
We have no idea what caused Mr Bush to change career and leave the ranks of publicans but, in 1898, the Newcastle Journal reported that Richard Cole had applied to the Gateshead Magistrates to cancel his license for the Half Moon in order to move to the (Black) Bush in Washington. Mr R Duncombe Shaftoe owned the Half Moon and JW Cameron & Sons the (Black) Bush. Cole stated that there was only a farm and a pub in the area so he didn’t need the license. The license having been ended it seems likely that that was the start of the decline of the Oxclose Ball Alley, though a game was played there, in front of a large company, in August 1908, between J Nutt, T Bolton and T Slowther, who played T Cole and Wm Marsden, all of Fatfield, for £5 a-side. Bolton and partners won 33-31.
There were several other Washington publicans who were, more or less, involved in the Fives ‘boom’ of the late nineteenth century. Often it was as recipients of the deposits which seemed to be an essential part of the process leading up to a match. Two or three deposits seems to have been normal and failure to lodge the deposit at the specified time and place would cause the non-payer to forfeit the match and any deposits already paid. Thus William Gascoine, (whose license at the Stile Inn lasted from August 1889 until his death in 1900) was a regular recipient of deposits and then his wife took over the license. Other pubs involved included The New Inn, The Bird Inn, The Miner’s Rest, The Victoria Bridge Hotel and The Guide Post. Whether there was any ‘agent’ payment to the publican from the Ball Alley isn’t known but it may have been that publicans were glad to be involved, in that men paying deposits would turn up with supporters and it was no doubt thirsty work, depositing, you know….
In terms of local, ie Washington players, there were games featuring Thos Charlton and Thos Hall of Fatfield; Robt Wood and Wm Robinson of Washington Staithes; William Ingleby of Usworth and Huddart and McLeary of Washington; Ball and Engleby of Usworth, Richard Geddes and Ryles of North Biddick; William Engleby and Joseph Taylor of Usworth; Joseph Taylor of New Washington and William Shaw of Usworth, against Joseph Ball of Usworth and M Goulbourn of N Biddick; William Shaw and Joseph Boggle of Usworth against WJ Goulbourne of N Biddick and Robt Wood of Wardley; George Smith of Usworth and Michael Kegg of North Biddick; Joseph Ball and Frank Aisbett of Usworth; Geo Smith and E McDermott to oppose J McQuery, Thomas Glover and R Huddart, all of Washington; Edward McDermott of Usworth Colliery to play Michael Queen of N Biddick; doubles match between brothers John and Andrew Willis of Fatfield and Robert Ridley and John Lemon of N Biddick; George Edgar and Robert Ellwood to play Thom Glover and John McQuerry – all of Washington; Robert Ellwood to play L Lemon of N Biddick; C Bush of New York and Thomas Glover, of Washington, against John Cook and Alex Baillie of New York (that’s a hamlet near Usworth); Joseph Ball of Usworth Colliery and Harry Dunn of Washington Colliery; A Willis of Oxclose and William Ingleby of Usworth Colliery; Harry Kegg and Joseph Aisley v brothers J and R Soulsby; Charles Docherty v Joseph Ball of Usworth; William Ingleby and Thomas Soulsby; P Reynolds and J Daglish, both Usworth;
R Fitzpatrick of Biddick v John Query of Washington; Thomas Wilkinson of Washington and Richard Fitzpatrick of N Biddick; Marsden of Fatfield.
As to the matches themselves they could be singles, doubles, two versus three, a man playing with his weaker hand, a weaker player given a start of say 5 or 10 chalks but, typically, they would be for 33 chalks and for money ranging from £10 to £40 a-side. (Repeat: £10 in 1880 was worth about £1,500 today.) Matches took anything from two to three hours and, given the amounts involved, were keenly contested with partisan, and no doubt well-lubricated, support, from several hundred spectators.
Rules? Well they aren’t ever described in the match reports and when they are they remain as impenetrable as the Schleswig Holstein question, of which Lord Palmerston famously said, ‘The Schleswig-Holstein question is so complicated, only three men in Europe have ever understood it. One was Prince Albert, who is dead. The second was a German professor who became mad. I am the third and I have forgotten all about it.’ The Sporting Life of 27/8/1883, in describing the match played between Scott and King at Tudhoe, – “King, who had won the toss, commenced with some strong play. Scott, however, made a splendid try at the line, but, getting low, allowed King to score. Scott then played one out of the boundary, giving King another chalk; the latter however, failing to reach a well-shot ball by Scott was compelled to retire. Some exciting play now took place but Scott, seeming to tire at the end of the ‘check’, let King in, who succeeded in scoring another chalk before letting the Champion in again, who took advantage of his possession and scored for the first time. With only one to his credit Scott had to retire, but his opponent was unsuccessful. The Champion then added another to his score but failed at a hard shot made a long way off the line, and King, however, failed to score and Scott, getting in again, added a couple; but, playing his next ball over-high, he let his opponent in. King, after his first delivery, failed to reach the return by Scott, who after scoring one, knocked the ball out of the ground, letting King in again, who, before he retired, added a couple and left the Champion in possession, who failed to score. The game was now 5-all and some give and take play was the order, but King putting in a lot of good work, in which he kept Scott pretty busy for a short time, augmented his score with an additional three and retired. The Champion followed with a barren innings and afterwards, knocking the ball over the top line, allowed King to chalk twice before he had another chance. Scott now showed some capital form and before having to give up possession of the rubber he succeeded in scoring four. King played a barren innings but the Champion kept on scoring, showing the game in its true form, and had increased his score to thirteen against King’s nine when he had to again retire. King once more was unable to increase his score and at this point of the game a great deal of the interest attached to it seemed to be gone, but after the Champion had added another three, King had a turn, adding four to his total, but playing a ball over the top was compelled to retire. Upon Scott again gaining possession King seemed to play very loose as he knocked several balls out of the boundary, while the Champion took every advantage, never throwing the slightest chance away and before he was compelled to hand the ball back to King he had raised his score from 15 to 20. King then added a single and gave place to Scott who scored a couple. After a single by both men, King showed some of his best form and succeeded in keeping the Champion out till he had put on half a dozen, the score then being Scott 23, King 21. The play on both sides now was of a cautious nature, both men putting in all they knew, but scoring was slow. Scott, however, showed too, if anything, the best advantage at the ‘line’ shots and this in fives is an important feature and one to which Scott no doubt owes his present victory. While the score stood Scott 32, King 26, with the former in possession, the Champion, on leaving his chair to deliver his ball received quite an ovation and this was increased tenfold when King played the ball over the boundary and lost the match, the scores being Scott 33, King 26. Two hours twenty five minutes.”
Got that? You may feel that ‘Schleswig Holstein’ is looking more straightforward all the time. I imagine that an innings may have been a number of serves and that on the front wall there were high and low lines and, perhaps the boundaries spoken of? In squash there is a high line on the side walls and this may have been the same in Fives – if there was a side wall. The type and weight of the ball might well be one of the specified arrangements – thus in the proposed match, 1887, between ‘William Scott of Kelloe, Champion and John Bessford of Cassop, ex- Champion, who agree to play with sixpenny blob ball, stamped hole, not to be under 21/4 oz or above 21/2 oz in weight, half minute time allowed between each check, all lines to stand as usual. The editor of Sporting Life is appointed Stakeholder and Richard Robinson, of Tudhoe Colliery, is appointed referee. His decision to be final. No appeal to law. Four balls each. If a ball is lost or burst it must be replaced in three minutes. Either party failing to comply with these articles forfeits all money down. Signed by Scott and Bessford and witnessed Robert Richley.’
While on the subject of John Bessford/Bestford/Besford of Cassop it appears that he was born, in 1864 at Pittington, to Ralph born 1839, died 1913 and Elizabeth (nee Stephenson) born 1838, died 1918. The 1871 Census locates the family at Thornley and then, in 1881 at Haswell Moor – with Ralph and Elizabeth, John 16, Ralph 14, and son William Stephenson. In 1891, aged 27, John was living in Front Street, Cassop, with his parents, Ralph and Elizabeth. I can’t locate him in the 1901 Census (though his parents, Ralph and Elizabeth were still in Cassop at New Cross St, with a grandson Ralph, 12, but by 1911 he was living at Coxhoe Rd, Cassop Colliery. His nephew, Ralph, aged 22, (killed in 1916 and buried at Dartmoor cemetery, brother of W Bestford of Iron St, Cassop) was the Head of the House and John’s parents, Ralph (died 1913) and Elizabeth (died 1918), now in their 70s, were also there. John Bestford died 4th December, 1918 and was buried in Cassop, St Paul’s graveyard on 8th December. I couldn’t find any mention of his death in newspapers other than this on 4/12/19 in the North Star ‘Bestford.- In loving memory of our dear Uncle, John Bestford of Cassop Colliery, late champion ball player who died Dec 4th 1918. In the bloom of his life God claimed him, In the pride of his manhood days, None knew him but to love him, None mentioned his name without praise. Ever remembered by his loving niece Janet Carter and nephew, William Bestford.’ I spent a couple of hours wandering (and falling down in) Quarrington Hill Cemetery, the no-longer-used part, in search of Jack’s grave but could not find a marker of any kind. Perhaps there never was one, perhaps his money had disappeared and the family had not the means to afford one…who knows.
Moving into the twentieth century the game (and references to it) was dominated by the aforementioned public schools, with their slightly different versions of Fives. However, deep in Sacriston, a family called Mordue was coming to the attention of Fives fans…. and others. Jackie Mordue, born Edmondsley, 1887 fifth son of Thomas and Elizabeth had brothers called Thomas born 1871, Joseph born 1875, James born 1882 and Michael born 1884. Jack(ie) was a good footballer, played for Spennymoor and joined Barnsley in 1906. He was sold to Arsenal for £450 and played 28 games for them, and was then transferred to Sunderland, for £750, in May, 1908. Famously (and, some think, diabolically) he scored in the 9-1 Sunderland win at St James’ Park in 1908 and was part of the Championship-winning team in 1913. In the same year, Sunderland lost in the FA Cup to Aston Villa, 1-0. Jackie played twice for England, once with his Sunderland team-mates, Charlie Buchan and Frank Cuggy. He played 294 games for Sunderland, scoring 80 goals. In the Great War he served in the Royal Garrison Artillery. Post-war, Jack was sold to Middlesbrough, in 1920, where he played for three years. He died in 1938 and Bobby Gurney and Raich Carter were among the pallbearers. As with Jack Bestford, though we know that he was buried (in Bishopwearmouth Cemetery) there is no marker at the (known) site of his burial.
The extended family Mordue were a power in Fives, as well as providing a number of professional footballers. In 1897, in the Blyth News – ‘Fives at Jarrow Ball Alley, Harold, Walton and Burns v Mordue brothers of Sacriston for £50, 33 chalks.’ In May 1906, the Newcastle Chronicle ‘Challenge – Michael [later killed in the Dardanelles] and Jacky Mordue will play any couple in the world for £25, at Colliery Inn Ball Alley.’ In August 1908 the Newcastle Chronicle reported, ‘Jack (English Champion), and Jim Mordue v Lloyd and McKenna at Tudhoe for £25’ – the Mordues lost 28-33. August 1911, the Sunderland Echo – ‘At New Herrington WMC, John Mordue (Champion of the World) and Greenwell v Hall and Westgarth for £100.’ The Newcastle Chronicle, January 1912 – a letter from Arthur Greenwell of Sacriston asserted that ‘Bessford is not the Champion Fives player but Jack Mordue is. Morally, because there is no Championship to play for, no governing body and no authorised rules. Since 1907 Jack Mordue has challenged the world, even offering 20 chalks start in 41 chalks and the offer is still open…but no one has taken it.’ (It is, perhaps, worth knowing that Arthur had once played a doubles match with Jack Mordue and so may not have been entirely unbiased.) The Sheffield Daily Telegraph stated that Jack was Champion until 1922-3 (actually 1921). There were 2,000 at the Robin Hood Ball Alley at Sacriston (and they paid 1/3d entrance plus an extra 6d for a seat) when he lost to Tucker Wilson/Gill, of Bishop Auckland. In fact, Tucker Wilson/Gill won, and then twice defended, the Championship of the World; and each of his opponents was a Mordue – ie Jack, Tucker and Bill. In 1933, Tucker Mordue defeated Tucker Gill at Horden Working Men’s Club. In July, 1916, the Sporting Chronicle stated that Jackie Mordue had held the English Championship for five years but was not challenged in 1914.
Draughts in Fatfield through the medium of John Goyne
John Goyne was born in 1853 at St Agnes, Truro, Cornwall to John 46, a copper miner, and his wife Elizabeth. John’s siblings were Lydia born 1852 and Thomas born 1855. In 1871 the same five people were living at the same address with John and Thomas both, now, tin miners.
John married Dorothy Ann (nee Dumble, aged 22, born in Sunderland) in Sunderland, in 1875 and by 1881 they were living at 5, Cross Row, Shadforth, County Durham, with their children – Emily 4, John Robert 2, and Isabella 3months (born Ryhope, Ryhope and Shadforth, respectively. Joseph was born 1884 in Sherburn, and Frederick 1887 in Fatfield, and Helen b 1890 Fatfield, Arthur born 1892 Fatfield, Margaretta b 1896 Fatfield and William born 1894 Fatfield. They’d had 11 children of whom eight were alive in 1911. )
The Census of 1891 shows them at 10, Low Row, Harraton with the addition of Joseph 7, born in Sherburn. John was a coal miner.
So far, so ordinary. John had presumably moved for work, though there might have been a thousand other reasons and circumstances, but from tin mining in Cornwall to coal mining in County Durham seems unexceptional, apart from the distance involved. At what point John became a draughts fiend isn’t known….
A Draughts Fiend, you say? A little context might be in order…and who better to provide it than the IDF – International Draughts Federation. “Draughts, as we know it, probably began as a game called Alquerque, or Quirkat. Alquerque boards and pieces have been found in archaeological digs dating as far back as 600 BCE, and images of Alquerque have been found carved into temple walls dating as far back as 1400 BCE. It was played throughout the Middle East and the Mediterranean basin. It was enjoyed by the Ancient Egyptians, mentioned by both Plato and Homer, and even made its way into India.” As Frank Eley, of Fatfield Draughts Club pointed out, after a match at Mr Gregg’s North Shields Cocoa Rooms, in 1888, ‘Plato had used draughts for philosophical illustration, Frederick the Great spent many hours over it, Lincoln and Garibaldi prized it highly and General Grant used it to ‘clean out the boys’ at West Point.’
An ancient game, then, and it had a resurgence in the nineteenth century. In 1828 you could buy from a show at the Queen’s Head, Durham, if you were a ‘Connoisseurs of Taste and Elegance’, presumably with some spare cash, ‘East India Productions including Chess and Draughts Men, elaborately carved. And in 1840 you could have watched a match, for £50, between Andrew Anderson, of Carluke, and Mr Wyllie the famous ‘Herd Laddie’, of Edinburgh, played at the Clydesdale Inn, Lanark. (Anderson won by seven games to five….which didn’t prevent Wyllie challenging the world in 1845!) The Newcastle Billiards Rooms in Market St had a special room where men could play draughts and in 1862 Chester le Street, just along the road from what was not yet John Goyne’s home, was putting aside a room in the Mechanics’ Institute. As the old saying goes – ‘Where Chester le Street leads, Harraton follows….’ but not necessarily immediately…rather, when John Goyne arrives….
In 1886, at which point he must have only recently set foot in Fatfield/Harraton, John participated in a draughts handicap at the Pelton Colliery Hotel. He didn’t win but, without being too fanciful over his part in all of this, things started to happen. February 1886, the West Lothian Courier included ‘match solution to Problem 141 by John Goyne of Fatfield.’ In May, Blyth News reported that, ‘Ten of Fatfield played ten of South Shields at Fatfield Reading Rooms. They had a break for tea and the Shilds men had travelled by brake. Fatfield won 19 games to 15 and a return match was planned. In the same month Blyth News printed that the winner of the Chester le Street Draughts Tournament, at the Liberal Club, was ….. John Goyne. Where Harraton follows….sometimes it overtakes….. Fatfield Draughts Club was established in 1886, with Joyn Goyne as secretary and the pastime was heading for a ‘crown’.
In March 1891, Henry Christie won the English Championship at the Polytechnic Institution, London. A month later he turned out for Fatfield against Mickley and, a month after that, appeared for Fatfield against South Shields in the Durham Cup final ….. but failed to win either of his games. Drafting in the English Champion may seem to be pushing the rules a touch but competition was competition and in the same match Fatfield claimed a game from Board 3 because Mr Bell was late from work and Mr Bawn didn’t turn up, which forfeited 4 games, Mr John Saxon, of Fatfield declining to play a substitute. ‘This was the first time the time rule had been implemented,’ noted the Sunderland Echo, sniffily.
Henry Christie (having won the English Championship in 1891) refused to go back to London to defend it (his letter in Newcastle Courant of June 4th 1892 said he was being expected to pay his own expenses and lose work and signed himself ‘The Only English Champion Draughts Player) and suggested that anyone who wanted to play him could come to Sunderland. Nor was he interested in attending the Chicago World’s Fair Draughts Congress and Tournament, in 1893, even though there was prize money of $3000 . He was, however, prepared to travel to London in 1894 as part of the English team to play Scotland. And, much later, he was the best scorer in the team that lost to the USA in New York in 1927. He may have been (mostly) content to make his living in local handicaps and tournaments.
Competitions were established for the Durham County Cup and the South Durham and Yorkshire Cup, representatives of clubs from Durham, Hartlepool, Fatfield, Darlington, South Shields and Framwellgate Moor, having met in 1891 at Shakespeare Cocoa Rooms in Durham. John Goyne as Secretary pro tem – and was instrumental in drawing up appropriate rules.
As clubs were formed and competitions began, ‘Places of Draughts Resort’, like those listed below, advertised their existence. So, this in the Newcastle Courant, in August 1895 – Bellingham Reading Room, Fatfield Reading Rooms, Hetton Downs, Croft Spa, Leeds Temperance Hotel, Mickley Commercial Inn, Newcastle Working Men’s Club in Nelson St, North Shields Lockhart’s Cocoa Rooms New Quay, South Shields Brown’s Cocoa Rooms and West Hartlepool Liberal Club.
Pubs, of course, were keen to attract ‘enthusiasts for the silent game’ and their money and were keen to sponsor matches and handicaps and be the venue of choice for local teams. The Bird in Hand, at New Penshaw became, by 1894, the home of Fatfield Draughts Club, several of whose players were actually from Herrington but other Fatfield home matches took place at the Ferry Boat Inn, as well as the Reading Rooms. In 1897 Fatfield Draughts Club changed its name to New Herrington and District Draughts Club.
Champions toured, at home and abroad. In 1886 James Smith, champion of England, visited Fatfield Reading Room – he won 25 and drew 4, losing only to John Goyne. In the same year John also played Robert Dover, the Northumberland Champion, but lost. In 1890 William Campbell of Glasgow, the champion blindfold player, fulfilled his engagement at Fatfield. The main attraction was four blindfold games, played simultaneously, in which he took on Goyne, Miller, Boll and McKinley, ‘the local cracks.’ Campbell won 31 games, drew eight and lost only 1, to Miller.
From the Newcastle Chronicle of 4th November 1895: ‘Mr John Goyne, (our agent) newsagent of Fatfield, died (of asthma and chronic bronchitis). His business was extensive and covered Fatfield, Brown’s Buildings, Harraton and New Penshaw.. He had been secretary of the Miners’ Permanent Relief Fund, honorary secretary to the Durham County Draughts Association and secretary to Fatfield Draughts Club. He leaves a sorrowing widow and seven children. He was born in Cornwall.’ John was buried in St George’s Churchyard, Harraton on 5/11/95, grave 598.
In May 1896, South Shields Draughts Club promoted an open handicap in memory of John Goyne and to raise money for his widow. Eight good prizes were offered. Entries were: South Shields 64, Fatfield 48, Stanley 32 and Hartlepool 32.
Henry Christie died in 1929 and is buried in Bishopwearmouth Cemetery.
…..And where there was working class draughts in Washington and elsewhere….there was likely to be middle class chess, in Washington and elsewhere. Wiki tells us that the first modern chess tournament was held in London, in 1851 held in London, in 1851. The winner was Adolf Anderssen, a German. Other early ‘stars’ were Paul Morphy and Wilhelm Steinitz; the match between Steinitz and Johannes Zukertort, in 1886, being regarded as the first official World Chess Championship. Steinitz lost his crown in 1894 to a much younger, also German, mathematician, Emanuel Lasker, who maintained this title for 27 years, the longest tenure of all World Champions.
What then of Washington and the wider district? The first meeting of Northumberland and Durham Chess Association was held in April 1866, at the Central Exchange Hotel, in Newcastle, and lasted two days – President: Lord Ravensworth. His Lordship had been unable to attend the meeting but, according to the Illustrated London News, there were ‘ a large number of amateurs attending’ and they played several tournaments and then drew up a list of rules and appointed a committee of nineteen. The next meeting was scheduled for North Shields at Easter 1867; it took place at the Commercial Hotel and four tournaments were played. In 1868, the AGM was at the Golden Lion, South Shields. I was unable to find further references to the Northumberland and Durham Association until the death of Lord Ravensworth, in 1878, at which point the Newcastle Courant stated that ‘when the Counties’ Chess Association met a few years ago’ … perhaps the game was more about the local clubs, or individuals, and their matches. The growth of chess in the 1880s saw the foundation of new clubs such as Washington, Durham, Gateshead, Boldon, Tynemouth, Spennymoor, Middlesbrough , Stockton, West Hartlepool, South Shields, Jarrow, North Shields, Beal and Hexham – or at least players from those towns participating in the tournaments.
The Northumberland and Durham Chess Association was, apparently, re-formed in October 1891, the Newcastle Chronicle printing letters from Mr Wallbank (Washington) and Henry S Wallace (Newcastle Art Gallery Chess Club), suggesting that a Northumberland and Durham Association be formed in the hours leading up to the Chess Fete of 24th October. The preferred venue seems to have been Newcastle, presumably because of the ability of the two clubs in that city to attract larger numbers of players, and the likes of JH Blackburne, British Champion in 1868, and in the world’s top five from 1871-1889, who played exhibition matches there.
Washington Chess Club seems to have been formed in the late 1880s, the first mention of it I can find being in the Newcastle Chronicle, of January 1888, when the paper reported on a ‘Chess Tournament at Washington Village, between Durham and Washington and District, at Mr Bainbridge’s Cross Keys.’ Mr Foggin of Biddick 2, Mr Walbank of Usworth 2, Mr Lee of Washington 2, Mr Nance of Usworth 2 – score 8-0. A great start. Other games were played at the New Inn. In December of the same year, Washington played the newly-founded Boldon Club and won by 101/2 – 31/2 and, in January of 1889, Washington visited the Mechanics’ Institute at Gateshead and beat Gateshead 10-6. Messrs William Foggin, Henry Watkinson Walbank, Robert Lee, Dr Nance, Rev Michael Maud(e) Simpson, Frank Threlkeld, S Gray, Joseph Percy Gray, Cook JJ, T Proud, JJ Hall, T Coates, Miller, Whittle, Dr (David) Wilson, F Snowdon, JS Turnbull, Dr Alexander McCune, Dr Charles Mann and Dr James Clark Gardner played in some or all of these games and in later matches.
The identity of some of these men isn’t known but, of those tracked down in the Census and other documents, five were medical men, either doctors or surgeons, one was a clergyman and four were teachers. Henry Wat(d)kinson Walbank was born in Bingley in 1852, his mother ‘Binns’, trained as a teacher at Lord Mayor’s Walk Training College, in York, married Ann Lee (born in York in 1849), in Chester Le Street in 1874 and, by 1881, was employed at Usworth Board School as an elementary teacher. Henry and Ann had two children, Annie and John, and a female elementary teacher was living with them as a boarder, in 1881. By 1891 Henry had been appointed Headmaster and they had added Irene (5) to their family and another daughter, Lilian Elizabeth, had been born and died, aged 1. The 1901 Census listed the family at Number 3, School House, with Annie, now an assistant teacher and Irene a monitress. William Jordison, attendance officer, lived, handily, next door. Henry died in 1916 and was buried in Usworth Churchyard. In 1878 he had produced for the North of England School Furnishing Company ‘A Penny Geography of County Durham.’
Henry was, apparently, the best of the Washington and District chess players, managing a draw against Joseph Henry Blackburne when that champion played seventeen simultaneous matches, at Newcastle in 1891. Known as ‘Rio’, Henry was top, by 14 clear points, of the Newcastle Chronicle ‘chess solutions table’ in July 1892. In Washington’s matches against other clubs Mr Walbank would normally win his two games and, on occasion, would turn out for Felling Church Institute in their matches.
Another star in the local chess firmament had visited Washington in 1890 when, ‘At the invitation of members Mr Louis Zollner, born in Denmark but, in 1891, living in Newcastle, a merchant in Icelandic produce and Danish Consul, paid a visit to Washington and District Chess Club on Saturday evening, when he played all-comers simultaneously. There was a contingent from Gateshead Club. Eighteen games were contested, of which Mr Zollner won 14 and lost to Dr Nance, while two were drawn by Mr Wallbank and Mr Thompson of Washington.
Anyway, back to the subject of teachers: Frank Threlkeld was another who sometimes played chess. He’d been born in Bradford in 1863, was married with a child and taught at an elementary school in Washington. He’d studied at the British and Foreign School’s Society, London, and lived at New Rd, Washington. In 1891 he was ‘Master of Elementary School’. By 1899 he’d moved to Manchester, as a Headmaster but, by 1921, he was a patient in Manchester Royal Lunatic Hospital, at Cheadle. He died, in 1922, at that hospital.
Frank Threlkeld died, apparently insane, in 1922, but, eight years before that, one of his colleagues in the teaching profession had met a more gruesome fate, at Washington Station. John Sewell Turnbull, born in Shildon in 1864 and married to Margaret (Bell Garthwaite from 1896, Margaret was a Head teacher at a Council School by 1911), was an elementary schoolmaster, according to the Census of 1911, and had become Head Teacher of Biddick Council School by 1911, living at School House, close to the Victoria Inn. He and George Arthur Patterson (57) a rate collector of 47, Station Rd, had gone to the station on 17th December to await the arrival of the 7.17 pm train; a Masonic meeting, at Penshaw, beckoned. As the train approached, Turnbull, standing with his back to the line, turned, appeared to stumble and, as Patterson grasped him, they both fell on to the line. The driver had no chance to stop. They were found under the first carriage, Turnbull’s legs having been amputated and Patterson having sustained severe head and arm injuries. Both were taken to Newcastle Infirmary, Turnbull dying on the way and Patterson soon after arrival. Robert Tower was the witness at the inquest, held at the Infirmary, and the jury recorded a verdict of ‘accidental death’.
Robert Lee, born 1856, was another chess-playing teacher and, by 1871, he was already Head of a Washington School. His brother, Henry, was also a pupil teacher, perhaps at the same school. In 1881 Robert’s address was given as National School House. By 1891 his daughter, Ada, had become a pupil teacher and, by 1901, another daughter, Annie, had qualified as a Certificated Schoolmistress. Robert had retired by the time of the 1911 Census; he lived until 1932 and on 23rd October 1933 the Sunderland Echo reported that a stained glass window had been erected in the south transept of Holy Trinity, Washington, by Alfred Lee to his father, Robert (died 1932), and his (Robert’s) mother, Mary. The paper noted that Robert had been an ex-student of Bede College and then Parish Clerk and organist, at Holy Trinity from 1868 – 1924, fifty six years. The service was carried out by Canon Lomax.
Of the medical men we can dispose of, so to speak, Dr Nance, very quickly. Though present at the Usworth Pit Disaster of 1885 and at various other inquests and accidents, and a leading light in the provision of a Reading Room in the Peareth Room at Usworth Institute in 1890, I am unable to track him down in any documents. Moving on: Dr Mann, was listed in the 1897 Electoral Roll as living at Glebe House and in the 1901 Census as Charles Mann. (36), born Scotland, a medical practitioner, with his wife, Ella (34) born Scotland, with Arthurina McKenzie (35) on her own means, born Scotland, as a visitor and William McLean (31) visitor, an iron monger born Scotland… and a servant. A book detailing the alumni of Aberdeen Univeristy states ‘Charles Francis Grant Mann, MB, CM, son of Alexander Mann, was born at Nairn, 4/3/65, and died at Washington 29/5/1904.’ Charles had earlier (1881) been a medical practitioner in Medomsley, living as a lodger with a coal miner at Dene Bank. He’d graduated from the University of Aberdeen. On 29/9/1893 the Consett Guardian noted his marriage to Ella, second daughter of Roderick McLean Esq, late Factor at Ardross, the wedding taking place at Grantown on Spey. Charles Mann (39) was listed in the Ross-shire Journal of 3rd June, 1904, as having died at Craig-Lutha, Dulnain Bridge, Strath on 29th May – Charles Francis Grant Mann, MB, CM of Washington, County Durham, youngest son of the late Alexander Mann (JP for Nairn and lessee of a salmon fishery employing 16 people) of Nairn and Ballintomb and the Sheffield Telegraph noted his will of £2,173. He was buried in Cromdale Churchyard.
Another chess-playing medical man was James Clark Gardner, listed by the 1891 Census at Glebe House. He was 39, a surgeon, born Benwell, and he was living with Henry Waddington (29), a surgeon’s assistant, born in Yorkshire and Ann Gawman (35) a servant. James was the son of Cuthbert Gardner, contractor, of Winlaton, and had been in Washington some 10 years. The Census does not mention James’ wife but he had married Kathleen Elizabeth Morgan at Islington in 1890 and she had a son in 1894, in Hastings, but her husband’s address was given as Washington. Dr Gardner died November 1893, at Glebe House, aged 40. The report of his death noted that he was a Lieutenant in 4th Volunteer Battalion, DLI, and that he had died of injuries sustained in a carriage accident on 28th October, near the Springwell Inn, at Wrekenton, thrown from his trap on the turnpike, on the way back from Newcastle. The horse had taken fright and bolted. On the Sunday he was attended by Drs Galloway, Davis, Wilson and (the untraceable) Dr Nance. The coachman was called Hamilton.
On 25th March 1896 The Globe noted the marriage of Edward Craig Hall to Kathleen, daughter of Captain RW Morgan of Mountain Ash, Ore, Sussex, the widow of James Clark Gardner of Washington, County Durham. Kathleen and Edward were living in Hove in 1901, he a timber merchant, with their two young children and his stepson, James Clark Gardner, aged 7.
Alexander McCune, who played chess and died young, died at his mother-in-law’s at Blackpool, on 19th January, 1909. Alexander was Scottish. He was in practice in Washington (and Dr Jacques sent a wreath) and died at his mother in law’s. Alexander was 42, born in Kilwinning, Ayrshire and had qualified in Edinburgh. (In 1890 he was listed as having a triple qualification at the Royal College of Surgeons in Edinburgh.) In 1891 he was described as a surgeon and was living as a lodger at Pegswood, with the family of a coal miner. By the time of the 1901 Census he had moved to 45 Speculation Place, Washington, and was lodging there with William Blenkinsop (56) a coachman, with wife, Catherine (both born Scotland) and Alex McCune, widower, no occupation (72) born Scotland, Alex McCune (34) being described as a boarder, single, surgeon, and Matt O’Halloran (39) boarder, surgeon, born Ireland was also present. Alex was a Vice President of Washington Cricket Club, played tennis in the Washington Hall tournament that was raising money for Dame Margaret’s, in 1894, and helped ‘christen’ the billiards table at the newly refurbished St Joseph’s Institute for Young Men, in 1899.
Alex, of New Washington, had married Dinah Ogden (23) in Fylde, in 1908. The marriage certificate stated that his father, by then deceased, was a missionary, and the marriage was witnessed by Wm McCune, probably a brother. Dinah’s father was a caretaker. Alexander, who had been in declining health, left £430. Dinah, if it’s the same woman, appears to have been a talented singer appearing in various musical events in the Blackpool area in the first decade of the 20th century.
The last of the medical ‘chessmen’ was Dr David Wilson, a surgeon, born 1852 in Scotland who, in 1891 was at Harpsdale House (two addresses away from the Red Lion) Birtley. David was a son of Bailie David Wilson, a draper and town councillor at Irvine. He was described as a General Medical Practitioner and was married to Elizabeth McGregor Wilson, born Irvine, Scotland. Their children were Elizabeth M (11), David (8), Agnes K (6) and in the same house were Jessie Holman (38) a Professor of Singing, a visitor born Aberdeen, Robert C Cruickshank (31), a medical assistant and student, born Torquay, and two servants. Dr Wilson and family, in 1901, were living at Brookside House, Birtley. Their servant was from a Mr Man story, Lily Tickle. In 1911, David Wilson and his wife were living in the same house but with a different servant. Lily had gone elsewhere to tickle or be tickled.
David’s medical career included the following: appointed as Public Vaccinator for the Chester le Street Board of Guardians from 1886 and then appointed briefly, in 1888, to the Board of Guardians (a problem arose because his brother, R.K.Wilson, was a member of the Board but it seems to have been overcome). He had qualified as a doctor at Glasgow in 1877, and then took over the practice of Dr McLish in Washington, before buying Dr Bain’s practice at Birtley. He kept both practices going until the one in Washington was bought by Dr Jacques. In 1908 he became Compensation Surgeon to Birtley Ironworks and Pelaw Main Colliery. He was also Chief Surgeon to the local ambulance division. Dr Wilson, ‘The Little Doctor’ died at Brookside House, in April 1915, and was buried in Birtley; his obituary pointed out that he had played football, refereed significant matches in the North but had also had a great interest in cricket and other sports – neglecting to mention chess! He used a ‘machine’ to get to some of his appointments and fell off it in 1894, breaking several ribs, while returning from Kibblesworth. A bicycle rather than a motor bike? At the time of his death his son and his daughter, Elizabeth, were both in Australia, while Agnes had married Captain Newton of the Army Veterinary Corps, who was then serving in France. Elizabeth, his wife, moved to Syson House, Tynemouth, to be cared for by Agnes and she died in June 1919. A cortege brought her body for burial in Birtley.
The story doesn’t quite end with their deaths because after his demise a memorial fund had been set up under a committee led by Philip Kirkup (manager of Craghead Colliery and Commander of 8th DLI during the Great War) and, what with one thing and a war, they found it difficult to decide what should be done with the £115 raised. A letter to the Chester-le-Street Chronicle, from ‘a subscriber’, asked about it in 1919. A drinking fountain was the suggestion but who would be expected to pay for the water – the Parish Council or the Water Company? In 1923 ‘a subscriber’, perhaps the same one, suggested the money ought to be returned. Finally, on 18th October 1928, a Reading Room was opened at the Joseph Hopper Aged Miners’ Homes, Leybourn Hold, Birtley, by Dr Wilson’s niece, Mrs BM Johnson of Hamilton. Philip Kirkup, as Chair of the Fund, was thanked for putting in £94.
Teachers, medical men and a Vicar…..The Reverend Michael Maud(e) Simpson (32) was listed as Rector of Usworth in the 1881 Census, living at the Rectory with his sister, Ellen G Simpson (28), his brother Basil C (18) and a servant girl, Margaret Potts. He had been born in Lincolnshire, son of the curate of Barton on Humber, later Thornley and then Tow Law, County Durham, completed his studies at Oriel College, Oxford, in 1874, and came to Usworth in 1879. He and his father were two of the very many clergymen who were invited to dine at Durham Castle when Bishop Lightfoot was enthroned in May 1879 – but no menu appears in the report of the event. Michael married Francis Elizabeth Lever, widow of Thomas Goldie Scott, in Edinburgh Cathedral, in August 1883 and was awarded an MA by Oxford, in 1885. In 1891, Michael was living at the Rectory with two servants, his wife not mentioned. Michael died at Ilkley, in January 1904, and left £964 gross. I can find neither he nor his wife in the 1901 census. Frances Elizabeth Simpson died 12th September 1904, in Edinburgh, and her funeral took place at Balmaclellan, New Galloway.
Having covered the medical men, the churchman and the teachers, all fairly easily identifiable, we can move on to the others. John Frederick Snowdon (son of John M Snowdon) was a farmer, at High Washington, as was Samuel Gray. The other names are so common in the Washington area that it’s problematic to offer details. JJ Cook (JP) may well have been Joseph Cook, the ironfounder, of North Biddick Hall, or indeed his son, (but on one occasion the newspaper called him John J Cook, so perhaps not, or did both men play?), William Foggin was a colliery engineer who lived, for a time, at Washington Villa, next door to Dame Margaret’s Hall. There was a James Percy Gray/Grey, a signalman at Usworth Junction whose two daughters went on to be pupil teachers – correct class? Who knows. About Messrs Proud, Hall, Coates and Whittle it would be merely guesswork.
Check…..and out.
Rowing in and around Washington to 1903.
Regattas in the North East are like buses – none for a while and then three come along at once – the three being Durham, Sunderland and Newcastle (there had been an Ascension Day regatta on the Tyne in 1830), in that order, all in the summer of 1834. According to Wiki, the first-ever regatta was at Chester, on the Dee, in 1819, and then Durham was the second, in 1834, but the definition of what was a regatta may vary because there were regattas on Keswick Lake in the 1780s and in Portsmouth in 1786, to name but two. Anyway, the North East regattas seem to have been pretty similar in character with prizes offered for a variety of craft. Sunderland regatta differed slightly from the river regattas at Durham and Newcastle, in that on the first day the action took place in the sea, rather than on the river, though the second day’s events were held between Deptford and Claxheugh Rock. Here’s how the Durham Chronicle described it – ‘BOAT REGATTA AT SUNDERLAND. On Monday and Tuesday last, a boat regatta was plied in Sunderland Roads on the river Wear, near that town, which, being previously announced, and the weather proving very favourable, an immense concourse of spectators of all classes attended on the occasion, many of whom were visitors from distant parts of the country. The regatta was got up by several gentlemen of Sunderland and the officers of the Eighth Depot, stationed in the town, on whom the arrangements and proceedings of this rational amusement and display physical exertion reflect the highest credit. It was also patronised by a number of ladies of the neighbourhood of Sunderland, who distributed metals to the winners of several boat races. On the first day the races were rowed a distance of about 3 miles, in cobles by three men each, viz from Sunderland Pier End round a boat stationed at anchor about a mile and a half in the Roads, and back to the pier end, for the different prizes. The scene presented numbers of boats, cobles, gigs, steam vessels, et cetera, all crowded with passengers, and the pier and the banks on each side of the harbour thronged with spectators. On Tuesday the races were with gigs of four and six oars from Deptford to Claxheugh Rock and back, a distance of about 3 miles. The banks of the river, as on the preceding day, were thronged with spectators, including nearly all the beauty and fashion in the neighbourhood, to whom the days’ sports game gave very great satisfaction; and we are glad to observe the not a single accident occurred to interrupt the pleasure of the assembled multitude.’ There were races for cobles, sailing cobles, four-oared boats and two-oared boats, some for amateurs and some for professionals.
The Newcastle Courant suggested that ‘as the Tyne Regatta had gone so well it is probable that it will become an annual event.’ Indeed it did and some superstars became famous for their participation and success – Bob Chambers (Champion World Sculler in 1863), Harry Clasper (part of the Four-oared World Championship crew in 1845) and James Renforth (World Sculling Champion in 1868). Durham and Newcastle continued with annual regattas but for Sunderland there was a gap. Indeed, when a regatta was held in 1856 the Essex Standard reported on it as shown – ‘SUNDERLAND REGATTA – the first regatta at Sunderland came off on Wednesday last. For some weeks the inhabitants of this populous port have been looking forward to the event with considerable interest. Upwards of 8,000 persons were present. The sports passed off remarkably well. The first prize was a splendid gold cup, value 80 guineas, which was won by the ‘Amazon’, London, AJ Young Esq. The second prize, a 30 guinea silver cup, was not sailed for as the race was not filled up. Third prize – a silver cup value 15 guineas, was won by the Allies of Hartlepool, 17 tons, William Gray Esq. Fourth prize, for life-boats, £25, won by the Sailors’ Sunderland Life-Boat and £5 for the second boat was given, being won by the Whitburn Life-Boat. Forty pounds was after given to coble races, steamboats and other minor sorts, which greatly added to the amusement of the large company present. In the evening there was a splendid display of fireworks which passed off happily, without accident. The Amazon was remarkably well handled by her crew composed of real Colchester natives (smacksmen); Captain Joseph Hazell was her pilot.’ You’ll notice that they thought it was the first of such regattas and, one assumes, the reason they covered it was because of Captain Hazell’s success. Surprisingly, there was no report in the Sunderland Echo. There was then another gap until 1876 and then the event was held intermittently until the end of the century.
That’s not to say that there wasn’t boat-racing on the Wear, just that the organisers of the regatta, gentlemen one and all, didn’t choose, for whatever reasons, to organise the events on an annual basis. Which was a pity…..since the report in the Echo, of the event in 1880, suggests a great time was had by all. July 1880 Sunderland Echo – ‘SUNDERLAND REGATTA the Sunderland Amateur Rowing Club Regatta was held yesterday over the Spa Well Course on the Wear, at Cox Green. For some years this event has had an intermittent existence, the last having been held in 1878, but not withstanding this the stewards were able to show a good entry list and their efforts to secure a good day’s sport were pleasantly aided by charming weather. Despite St Swithin and all the alarming prognostications of the weather prophets, there was not the faintest suspicion of rain all day, and by river, road and rail, Sunderland went pouring out to the scene of action, more we imagine to enjoy a day’s outing than as keen critics of aquatic sports. The bank of the Wear between Hylton and Cox Green are pleasant under any circumstances, but we never remember seeing them look more beautiful than yesterday. The woods were freshly green after the recent rains, and the winding walks by the riverside, albeit somewhat soft, were shady and attractive. The stewards and subscribers were conveyed by two steamers to the low end of the course, and from thence made their way to the enclosure. This year the enclosure was on the south side of the river, a decided improvement. In former years those who patronised it were unable to see the races for more than a third of the way, but yesterday they were perched on a rising ground, commanding a splendid view of the course, and splendid view also of the country roundabout. The scene from the enclosure was a remarkably lively one. The river was alive with steam launches and pleasure boats of every description, some of portly proportions and some so fragile that spectators of timorous disposition grew decidedly uncomfortable when they looked at them. Thousands of spectators lined the bank strolling about or perched in good positions for sightseeing, and many a family party might be detected, up the slopes, doing equal damage to the pasture and the provisions. Now and again the strains of the police band, under the leadership of Mr Lax, were borne faintly upon the ears, but more frequently the hum of laughter and holiday talk from the crowd of onlookers, or the sharp report that told that some scullers were dispatched on their way. Altogether the stewards are to be congratulated on having had a pleasant and successful meeting, and we hope that next year will not be allowed to lapse without another of the same.’
What then of more casual races and challenges? Well, let’s start with the ‘Champion of the Wear,’ Alexander Hogarth. Alex seems to have begun his rowing career in 1861, at the age of eighteen, but the first mention of him in newspapers is in 1863, when he took part in a handicap with nineteen other Sunderland rowers. In 1864 he won £1 by defeating William Stallard over 2 miles, from ‘Simpson’s, Pallion to Barron’s Quay’ and, a month later, he beat Thomas Hardy for £25. Being an employee of Wilson’s Saw Mills, he became known, if briefly, as the ‘Saw Mills Lad’; in 1867 he defeated George Young, ‘aquatic champion of the Wear,’ for £20 and the title of ‘Champion of the Wear.’ His career continued until around 1880 with successes at regattas on the Tyne and the Wear, at both Durham and Sunderland. He also raced at Leeds, Talkin Tarn, Manchester and Nottingham. Not only was he a great rower but he also saved several lives of those who might otherwise have drowned in the Wear. He was sufficiently well-known to feature, 1873, in the weekly conundrums produced for advertising purposes by AB Joseph, of 12 Grey St, Newcastle – “Why is Alexander Hogarth like AB Joseph’s suits. Because they have never been beaten for ‘Wear.’” He was invited, as a celebrated rower, to Harry Clasper’s funeral in 1870, the procession being watched by an estimated 130,000. In later years Alex was a referee of rowing challenges, a trainer and someone who had a pleasure steamer built to carry cruises up the river.
Alex died in March, 1896. ‘Death of a Wear Sculler – The death took place on Monday morning, at Sunderland, of Mr Alexander Hogarth, a famous oarsman, who for many years was champion sculler of the Wear. He was the son of a South Shields hotel-keeper, and in his 53rd year. His wife died about three years ago, and there are no children.’ And, from a different paper, ‘He was of a most genial disposition and his death will be regretted by a large circle of friends. Last September Mr Hogarth was out shooting in Cumberland and got drenched to the skin and had to be for some hours in his wet clothes. This seems to have sown the seeds of his fatal illness for he has frequently been ailing since and his death was due to consumption.’ Joe Wilson wrote a song about him in his heyday – here’s the ‘forst vorse’ and ‘Korus’,
There were, of course, plenty of other strong lads who fancied their chances on the Tyne, the Wear and the Thames but let’s stick to the Wear. The regatta of the late 1870s were held on the Spa Well course, that’s to say ending at Cox Green but there were also races to the west of that from the Victoria Viaduct to the Ferry Boat Inn, or Brown’s Boat House as it was sometimes known. In 1872 the Newcastle Journal reported that Emerson Ridley (a single mason living as a lodger in CLS in 1871) was to take on Curry, for £30, who had had the assistance of Mr Brown of Fatfield Boat House in his training. Curry rowed in the ‘Renforth’ and Ridley in the ‘Robert Chambers’. Curry won, the course ¾ mile from the Rifle Butts to Lumley Ferry landing immediately in front of the Castle.
‘ALECK HOGARTH – CHAMPEIN OF THE WEAR.
In Sunderland let’s sing,
What shud myek the whole hoose ring,
It’s a sang that’s sartin the lads te cheer,
For it gladdens ivry toon,
When thor natives gain renoon
An’ aw’ll sing ov one that’s deun se on the WearKorus
An’oh, me lads, it myeks me heart se glad
Te sing ye a sang te please ye here
Then, give a hearty cheer
For the Champein of the Wear,
Ay, a hearty cheer for Aleck on the Wear.’
In the same year, Bell’s Life noted that ‘J Earle and R [possibly David] Shields, men who hail from N Biddick and Fatfield, respectively, and who are old opponents, contended over the mile course between the Victoria Bridge and Fatfield boathouse, on the Wear for a stake of £20, Shields receiving five lengths. Mr T Humphrey acted as referee. A level start was effected by report of pistol but after rowing a few strokes, Shields went in front and before they had covered a quarter of a mile had obtained a good lead and eventually won a most interesting race by 10 lengths.’
11/8/1876 Durham Advertiser – James Curry’s Open Boat Handicap at Chester le Street. Mr Curry of Lumley Boat House – 22 entries, handicapping done by Mr Curry and Silver cup awarded by him. D Shields of Fatfield beat H Carr and then J Hall, Shields being among the best on the Wear. Shields then beat A Kell of Chester le Street. In the fourth heat Shields beat Dickinson and won the quickest race of the meeting by a couple of lengths. The final fell between D Shields and W Young. Shields was favourite and never left the issue in doubt as, after half the course had been rowed, he ran into Young who had taken his water and won by the foul. After the races everyone adjourned to Mr Thornton’s Hotel where the host gave out the prizes – Silver Cup to Shields and Gold Medal to Young
31/8/1885 Sunderland Echo – BOAT RACE ON THE WEAR – Between three and four thousand people witnessed a race in open boats between H Davison, a cartman who works for Messrs Short, shipbuilders, and F Patterson of Washington Staiths. The race took place over the old regatta course near the Spa Well, the stake being £20. Patterson won the toss and took the north station but after a dozen strokes Patterson was in the lead and steadily drew away.
29/9/1885 The Sportsman – section about rowing, J Dobson of N Hylton will row D Shields of Fatfield, one mile in 24 ft boats for £10 a side. A match can be made at the Earl of Durham, North Hylton, on Saturday night between 7 and 9 o’clock. David (Angus) Shields was a coal miner, born in Hetton le Hole in 1851, son of Joseph and Ann and living at Patchett’s House, Nova Scotia in 1871. By 1881 he was at Wood Houses, Penshaw, with his wife Margaret and daughter Jane Ann, 6. By 1891 he had moved to Witton Gilbert but his children, then aged 4,7,10 and 16 had been born by the Wear. In 1901 he was at Run Head, Ryton, in 1911 at Cuthbert St, Marley Hill and in 1921 at 110 Victoria Rd, Gateshead. He died in Gateshead in 1928. His son, also David Angus, had been born in Leeds in 1904 and died in 1970 in Gateshead.
4/10/1886 Sunderland Echo – Aquatics – On Saturday afternoon an open boat race for £10 took place on the Wear from the Chalky Banks, Middle Barmston, to the crane at Coxgreen, the competitors being Timothy Self of Hylton and James Allan of Coxgreen. Self started badly and Allan, improving the advantage he obtained, kept in front all the way, and won easily by three lengths
15/11/1886 Sunderland Echo – Open boat race at Spa Well, John Allan of Coxgreen v W Adamson of Low Lambton for £5. Large number of spectators, Allan won by a length.
14/7/1887 Newcastle Chronicle – MATCH FOR £20 ON THE WEAR – At Mrs Hunter’s Victoria Bridge Hotel £1 has been deposited in the hands of Thomas Hunter to bind a skiff race between David Shields of Washington Staiths and John Grieveson of Pallion on the Victoria mile course. Second deposits of £3 due this Saturday.
5/9/1887 Newcastle Chronicle – KEELBOAT HANDICAP ON THE WEAR – Promoted by Mr Hunter of Washington Staiths and John Rivett of Royal William Coxgreen, numerous spectators, Mr Todd referee and Mr Thomas Raffle pistol-firer. Eleven heats were rowed over Victoria Bridge course of a quarter mile and at the end George Garthorpe and John Garthorpe (sons of the Station Master at Coxgreen) and Thomas Robson agreed to share the prize, having already rowed three times to get to the final.
5/9/1887 Newcastle Chronicle – £1 a-side has been placed in the hands of Thomas Raffle to bind a match, in Broad’s open boats, between John Dixon of Coxgreen and Patrick Coonan of Low Barmston to row over the Victoria Bridge Course on the Wear for £10 a-side. Second deposit will be taken at the Oddfellow’s Arms, Mr George Hume.
12/9/1887 Sunderland Echo – SHAW and ALLEN on the Wear. At George Hume’s Oddfellows Arms, Coxgreen a further deposit was made for the match between Thomas Shaw of Hylton and John Allen of Coxgreen who row over the Spa Well Course on the Wear, in Broad’s boats, distance three quarters of a mile on Saturday 24th. The final deposit takes place on the day of the match, which is for £10.
28/11/1887 Sunderland Echo – BOAT RACE ON THE WEAR – On Saturday a race in keel boats was rowed on the Wear between J Allan of Coxgreen and Thomas Robson of South Hylton. The course was half a mile, just below Coxgreen and the stake was £10 a-side. Both men are well-known in the district and have taken part in previous matches. The betting ruled at 6 to 4 on Robson. Allan soon went to the front and maintained a length lead until within a hundred yards of the end of the course. He failed, however, to keep up the pace and Robson then went on and won by a length.
Judging by the lack of mentions in the press, local and national, there was a decline in boat-racing activity on the Wear, from the late 1880s, the only Sunderland regattas taking place in 1890 and 1891. This may well have had to do with the banning of all professionals, from their events, by the Southern-based Amateur Rowing Association. By the end of the century, according to Lynn Pearson, professionals were left with one main event, the Christmas Handicap, on the Tyne. There was a Sunderland regatta for the Coronation in 1902 but it didn’t include individual sculling and was more of ‘water carnival’ than a regatta, as indeed the event of 1903 was described. Both events drew large crowds, perhaps as a day out rather than as a particular interest in rowing. Durham Regatta, however, continued and is still an annual event and a small-scale South Hylton regatta became an annual event from 1897. Indeed it went on until 1977 and was revived in 1989.
Cricket piece
As Sir Henry Newbolt put it: –
There’s a breathless hush in the Close (Harraton) to-night —
Ten to make and the match to win —
A bumping pitch and a blinding light,
An hour to play and the last man in.
And it’s not for the sake of a ribboned coat,
Or the selfish hope of a season’s fame,
But his Captain’s hand on his shoulder smote
“Play up! play up! and play the game!”
‘Play the game’, indeed. Cricket. As CLR James, Trinidadian writer and Marxist philosopher, expressed it, ‘What do they know of (Harraton) cricket who only (Harraton) cricket know?’ I set out to write about cricket in Harraton and Fatfield but seem to have gone a bit further, partly to set events in context and partly because there is a limited amount of local written material available.
We have some pieces of a cricket jigsaw – there don’t appear to be any written histories of Fatfield or Harraton Colliery Welfare cricket clubs, so we are restricted to newspaper reports and, as neither club was of great significance or repute in local cricket, there is no abundance of them. Where were the grounds, and where are the scorebooks and records?….if there are any. I can say that the cricket pavilion ‘near the Colliery’ was used in May 1903 for a meeting of the Harraton Colliery Miners’ Lodge; the meeting was about the construction of a Miners’ Hall and Union Offices, the pavilion not being large enough. So; there was a pavilion and, there was a ground (the ground was used for outdoor meetings during the Harraton miners’ strike of 1908) and the ground was near the Colliery – it seems very likely that the ground was located where Washington CC play today ie in Rickleton. I have been supplied with a photograph of John George Lake, in full cricket gear, standing outside a house in Office Row, looking as if he was about to pop over to the ground to open the batting – the photo probably taken in the 1920s. Sadly, and coincidentally, his brother Jim was killed when his motor bike crashed into a car, outside that same ground, in 1930.
Where Fatfield played is, as yet, a mystery. In 1913 the Recreation Ground was opened by the river at Chatershaugh but, despite there being a bowling green, none of the regulations or parish minutes mention that cricket was played there.
Washington CW’s ground was, at various times, at Shafto Terrace (which was ‘laid out’ in 1895), perhaps on the field next to the Welfare Hall. Ex-players have told me that, after World War Two, Washington also played on the Grammar School Field, and on the field behind the Westwood Club. It’s also possible there was a ground for Washington Ironworks and we know the Chemical Works had a recreation area which was used for cricket. As early as 1860 Washington Chemical Works CC played Washington Colliery Welfare CC at the annual Chemical Works picnic. The match lasted 5 hours with the Chemical Works notching 42 and 30 and thus defeating, by 12 notches, the Colliery Welfare who managed only 33 and 27.
Anyway, the first reference to a cricket match involving a team from Fatfield came on 14th September 1850, when the Newcastle Guardian reported, briefly, on a match between Fatfield and Birtley Iron Works, played at Fatfield on August 31st. Fatfield won by three runs, having notched 52 and 20, against Birtley’s 25 and 44. No names were given, nor any indication of the exact location of the ground. Jack Chapman, in ‘Cream Teas and Nutty Slack,’ notes that there was a Sunderland Cricket Club in 1801, though there had been plenty of games in County Durham before that, including the first recorded one at Raby Castle in 1751, and there is, in the Lambton Archive, a scorebook, dated 1812-13, for the Lambton Cricket Club, founded by John George, later the First Earl of Durham. Playing alongside JG was Joseph Bonomi, the architect, who helped rebuild parts of the castle, William Beckwith (a Captain Henry Beckwith was Chair of Houghton le Spring Highways Board when Fatfield Bridge was opened in January 1891) and some estate workers whose names only appear as Robert, Charles and Ralph.
Ah, but where there are single-named sons of toil, there are other sons of toil who hear about what they’ve been doing and think, ‘I’ll have some of that sporting action, let’s set up a club, bonny lads.’ In October 1868, Birtley played Nova Scotia and Fatfield ‘on the Fatfield ground’. Birtley scored 32 with J Roscamp out for a duck. Novia Scotia and Fatfield scored 93, their ‘sons of toil’ being G(eorge) Hall, T(homas) Mawson, M(atthew) Spoors, T Brown, A(dam) Robinson (top scorer with 23), R(alph) Crow, A(ndrew) Alexander, T Hall, W Stoves, W Miller and H Blacklock, extras 12. Birtley started their second innings but time ran out.
In 1862 it was reported in the Durham Chronicle that local schools attended Lambton Park for tea and sports – specifically cricket, football and skipping. There were three cheers for the Second Earl, his wife, and those of their noble children who joined the throng, but probably not many threes for the batters. In 1868, Penshaw scored 83 and 95, at home, against Fatfield’s 56 and 31 and, a year earlier, at Lumley Castle, for the combined Lumley and Harraton Flower Show, part of the day’s entertainment had seen Lumley play Harraton, though no scores were given. One assumes scores were made. There was, however, good fielding in the evening in Lumley Castle when ‘a ball was held.’ Or perhaps it was a different kind of ball….
A later Lord Durham (John George, the Third Earl) presided at the second annual dinner of Durham CCC in Sunderland Co-op Assembly Rooms, Green St, in 1890. He was asked to persuade I Zingari, a famous travelling team, for whom his brother Claud occasionally played, to play a two day game at Norton and he presented gold medals to Philadelphia CC who won the Durham Challenge Cup. He made remarks about how cricket was organised and how there was a shortage of grounds and how MCC should organise a way for counties to become first class. He also said he’d been bowled first ball, was a left handed bowler but had once bowled 5 wides in an over and on another occasion had taken a hat trick….He’d probably had a good dinner…
By the middle of the nineteenth century the game was developing some momentum. The development of railways made it possible for more distant fixtures to be arranged and fulfilled and the gradual reduction in working hours meant working men had some time for sport.
Overarm bowling was legislated for in 1864, an England team, which included Julius Caesar (really) and John Wisden, toured the United States in 1859 but the first international match had taken place 15 years earlier, when Canada beat the USA by 23 runs in New York. It was not only the first international cricket match, but the first international match in any sport. In 1869, at Sunderland, an All England XI played Sunderland, England including Tom Hayward and no less than Alfred Shaw who, eight years later, bowled the first ball in Test Match cricket, to Charles Bannerman, an Australian, at the MCG. All England beat Sunderland by 91 runs. Australia beat England by 45 runs with Bannerman scoring 165. In 1873, a certain William Gilbert Grace played for the United South of England at Darlington, scoring only seven on the first evening of a three day game and causing the Shields Gazette to note that the size of the crowd on the second day was probably affected by that. In 1878 Australia played Eighteen of Sunderland…..and lost! Headline: SUNDERLAND (WITH SOME RINGERS) BEAT AUSTRALIA!! Sadly, local people did not get a chance to see Fred Spofforth, ‘the Demon Bowler’ because it was the last game of an arduous tour and he was exhausted. The Aussies attended a banquet at the Queen’s Hotel in High Street and there were toasts all round. They set off home from Liverpool the next day and played some games in North America on their way home.
When what Kipling later called ‘the flannelled fools at the wicket’ needed cricket equipment, they could buy Duke’s cricket balls (still used today) for 5/6d at Marshall’s of Saddler St, Durham, while John Wisden (yes, him of the Yellow Cricket ‘Bible’) ran his cricket equipment business from Leicester Square. George Angus and Co., sold gutta percha balls at St Nicholas Square, Newcastle. J&H Harrison of Grey St sold Cane Handle bats from 9shillings, wickets, leg guards, batting and long stop gloves as well as long stop nets.
‘All the gear but no idea?’ Well, scores were not high, but it was probably more to do with the ‘wickets’ on which they played and the length of the grass surrounding those wickets. When Fatfield played Wearmouth Colliery, at Fatfield in 1875, the highest score in four completed innings was 51 and the four innings together added up to 156, Wearmouth coming out on top. In 1892 the Newcastle Chronicle reported that Harraton II beat Washington II 69-8, at Harraton…and I’m guessing three of them were byes…..there were always byes and sometimes ‘byes’ was top scorer and there were specialist long-stops to prevent even more of the damned things. In 1876 when Fatfield played Harraton and Chester le Street, ‘the ground being hard and the bowling swift the united efforts of two long stops did not prevent 21 byes in Fatfield’s first innings, a third of their score.
Wickets cost money to prepare and a field was a field, whether it was flat or sloping, like the one in England Their England, where the village blacksmith, ‘having taken another reef in his belt, shaken out another inch in his braces and grasped the ball in his colossal palm, set off, breasting the slope like a mettlesome combination of Vulcan and Venus Anadyomene, to deliver a ball of such appalling velocity that a watching professor of ballistics began doing calculations’…..
In April 1883 the Sunderland Echo referred to the Millfield v Fatfield match as ‘the opening one of the season for these clubs.’ Ah, cricket seasons. Middleton, Carr and Davison played well for the losers, Millfield scoring 51 and Fatfield 44. In March the same year (but with an entirely different class of players) the Lambton Castle Club, was mentioned in the Consett Guardian; ‘The members met at the house (pub) of Thomas Brown (Fatfield) and presented their late captain, Mr WH Chatt, with a splendid diamond pin and sleeve links as tokens of esteem and regard for the faithful and upright manner in which he had discharged his duties in connection with the club for several years. The articles were purchased from Mr Caris, of Gateshead, and were much admired.’ The Chatts lived at Bowes House and played cricket at Burnmoor CC and tennis at Houghton le Spring. When Burnmoor (Patron, the Third Earl of Durham) re-opened after refurbishment, in 1898, Mr Chatt’s XI played the first match, against the home team.
Cricket regularly took its place among the activities that constituted a good day out and a chance to get away from the household grind or the thin seam, even if the quicker bowlers were not yet known as ‘seamers’. Thus, in 1881, both the Shotley Bridge Grand Gala (at Shotley) and the Chester le Street Church Temperance Society’s Day (at Lambton Park) featured cricket, or bowling at stumps, as a contest. Ladies at country houses played the game and there were a variety of novelty matches – Married v Single, One Armed v One Legged, Ladies v Gentlemen Who Bat With Broomsticks And Field Left-Handed, Smokers v Non-Smokers; cricket was played on the frozen-over Wear at Durham in 1878; there were also troupes of clown cricketers whose job it was to perform athletic stunts while playing. The Sunderland Echo carried an advert, in 1889, from such a troupe, based at Ann Street. Typically they dressed in motley and appeared at money raising events. Even the British Army in India had a clown cricket match at a gymkhana in Dinapore.
In 1891 Fatfield (White Star) had their fixtures (actually only three of them and they were for 16-19 year old players) printed in the Sunderland Echo and it was not unusual to see club secretaries asking for fixtures, since leagues were not thought acceptable. Leagues, it was thought, would (and, oh, did they ever?) lead to over competitiveness, not to say cheating and controversy…..but were somehow inevitable.
League structures began in the 1890s, the Durham County Senior League being the fifth to be formed in England, following Birmingham, Bolton, North Staffordshire and Lancashire. In 1892 Harraton II’s played Washington II ‘at the ground of the former’ and at their AGM in 1896 Harraton were able to reflect on having played 15 games, with Southerns (John the father, and son, Joseph Chambers Southern, managers of Harraton Colliery) as President and Secretary. John Roscamp (the Birtley duck-maker from 1868?) was the batting star with an average of 16.9. The members agreed to join North East Durham League, just about to be formed in Sunderland at the Minerva Hotel. (At the meeting Harraton were joined by Barmston, Silksworth Colliery, Penshaw Church, Ryhope Colliery, Monkwearmouth, New Seaham Mechanics Institute and Murton Colliery. Mr Southeran/Southern of Harraton was elected treasurer. By 1898 Hendon, East Rainton and Lumley Thicks had joined the league.)
S(amuel) Scott (son of John) and T Bell were elected as Captain and Vice-Captain of Harraton CW in 1892 with R Mauxwell and John Scott as Captain and Vice, respectively, of the Second XI. In 1898 Joseph Scott (son of Samuel), 16, a putter, was killed and the papers described him as ‘a prominent member at Harraton CC’ and wreaths were sent from club when he was buried in St George’s Churchyard.
Also, in January, 1898 the Sunderland Echo reported on a meeting at the Commercial Hotel, Stanley, of clubs from Burnhope, Burnopfield, Birtley, Craghead, Medomsley, Malton, Stanley and District, South Tanfield, South Moor, Tanfield, Whickham and Washington and these clubs decided to join the league already formed by Hetton Lyons, South Hetton, Littletown, Felling Temperance and Chilton Moor. Another meeting, for further discussion, was arranged for the Lambton Arms, Chester le Street, on January 31st.
In 1902 it was the typesetter’s nightmare cricket match – Harraton v Harton St Peter’s at Harraton, the two places being easily confused, despite there being plenty distance and a ‘ra’ between them. The scores weren’t included…perhaps because the typesetter had taken an extra day’s holiday?
In 1908 Harraton was one of eight teams in the Chester Le Street and District Cricket League, the others being Perkinsville Temperance, Heworth SS, Springwell, Gateshead Fell II, Usworth, Pelton Church, Barmston and Birtley II. On June 19th, 1908 Harraton (47) lost at Usworth (63). Harraton’s players were J Carr, J Brown, J Dixon, J Cumpson, T Snowball, T Hall, J Miller, T Davison, J Steel, E Jackson and G Forster.
We’ll end with a take on Francis Thompson’s poem, ‘At Lord’s’.
“It is little I repair to the matches of the Southron folk, (did he mis-spell the Southerns of Harraton CW?)
For the field is full of shades as I near the shadowy coast,
And a ghostly batsman plays to the bowling of a ghost,
And I look through my tears on a soundless-clapping host
As the run-stealers flicker to and fro,
To and fro: –
O my Cumpson and my Roscamp long ago!” (sorry, Hornby, sorry Barlow, you’re out)
Pedestrianism and James Stewart (not the most unusual name but all the below seem to be the same man – apologies if incorrect) with a dash of Deerfoot, a Seneca Indian.
In following the pattern of previous articles, I’ve chosen to follow the career of a local man. Not all sporting heroes are necessarily good men and there are some aspects of James Stewart of Usworth’s life that were far from wonderful (Stop that, now!)…….well, you’ll see….
James Stewart’s first appearance in the local press was not as a sportsman but, at Houghton le Spring Petty Sessions, in August 1860, as the ‘putative father of the illegitimate child of Jane Coxon of West Rainton.’ He was described as a pitman who lived at Usworth and the magistrates appear to have been convinced because an order was made for him to pay 2/6d per week to support the child.
A year later the Newcastle Daily Chronicle noted that, at the Victoria Running Grounds, ‘two men who have gained some renown in the pedestrian arena,’ James Stewart and Michael Mains, both of Usworth (wonder if this may have been Michael Minns of Easington Lane, see below) were to run 120 yards for a stake of £50. ‘A deal of mathematical calculation went into squaring the starting mark and then each party seemed to get reconciled and brought their pets to the scratch and after a little dodging Mains started with a long lead. Mains passed the handkerchief two yards in advance. So, although it was the first mention in the papers of James Stewart as an athlete, or ‘pedestrian’, he had clearly been involved in other races, which resulted in his having earned some kind of reputation.
[Victoria Grounds had opened in Low Elswick, very close to the current site of the Metro Arena, in 1858; it was a 444 yard track, with a grandstand for spectators. Sporting Life in January 1861, praised Mr Scott’s ‘speculative spirit’ in opening the grounds, by which he had, thereby, ‘obviated the nuisance of having to travel to the Three Mile Bridge, Wallsend, Benwell Rd, Boldon, Birtley or Lambton Park Gates’ in order to stage their races on public roads and the paper hoped sportsmen ‘would duly appreciate it.’ The Vic did not last long, the ground being bought by the North Eastern Railway Company and so Fenham Park Grounds was laid out, on Barrack Rd, opened in the Spring of 1862, and, by September 1863, Fenham Park, ‘now enjoys the sole patronage of pedestrian contests.’ The proprietor of the Victoria Grounds was James Scott, described in the 1861 Census as ‘formerly a corn miller’ of 4 Riddle Court, East Elswick Terrace, married to Jane, two children and 33 years old.]
We can assume James Stewart was undaunted by his loss to Mains because he contacted the Newcastle Daily Chronicle, in September 1861, to state that he, ‘thinks it useless for Younger of Shields to challenge him level when he knows Wildboar/Wildbore, (of Sunderland, it may have been a pseudonym since I can find no Census record for him at the time), wants to give him five yards in 120; but if Younger means business and not bouncing, Stewart will take six yards in 120 for £25 a side. An answer through the Chronicle will be attended to.’
In October 1861, Stewart took on Michael Minns of Easington Lane, over 120 yards for £50, scratch (ie the start) being slated for 1pm (starts were often delayed because of shenanigans by runners prior to the pistol being fired) and admission for this and three other races was to be 3d, with an extra 3d for those who chose the ‘comfort’, of the grandstand. For November 2nd, four races were advertised, including James Stewart, of Usworth, against Bart Dodd, of Coxhoe, for £30, over 150 yards. We don’t always get a full set of results of these races but, whatever the result, James was sufficiently confident to put out a rather pert set of challenges in the Newcastle Daily Chronicle on the 27th November. ‘Jas Stewart of Usworth will run any of the following men: Thackeray of Walker, Bowman of Jarrow, Minns of Easington Lane, Scaife of Birtley, or Bertram of Sacriston – 120 yards level; or Bart Dodds of Coxhoe, if he will allow one yard in 100 or two yards in 130; or he will take two yards in 120 of Storey of Dudley, two in 120 yards of Hunter of Shields, or he will give Cole of Low Fell two yards in 150. A month from the first deposit for not less than £25 a side. Above matches can be made at the Forester’s Arms, Washington between 7pm-10pm on Nov 30th. First come first served. “If you think you’re big enough, or quick enough…….money, mouth’ – I made that up.
James’ next opponents, in the Spring of 1862, were Peter Hart of South Shields, over 120 yards, for £30. John Scott of Willington Quay over 150 yards, for £30, Thomas Scaife, of Birtley over 120 yards for £25 a side and, again, Minns of Easington Lane, over 120 yards, for £30. The ‘Usworth pet’, as one of the papers referred to him, beat Scott and Scaife – other results not found. In the midst of this, in March 1862, the Victoria Grounds hosted a handicap to raise funds for the Hartley Pit Disaster, in which 204 men and children had been killed (in March 1862 the public subscription had reached £70,000). Entrance to the handicap was a shilling, acceptance was 1/6d and Mr Henry Wardle, Rose Inn, Pudding Chare, Newcastle, a local sportsman and regular promoter of all kinds of sporting events (an edition of The Newcastle Journal, in 1869, named him as a ‘leading bookmaker’) had delayed his handicap for this. In fact, Mr Wardle, was more than just a promoter and bookie, he was a participant as well (also in potshare bowling, greyhound racing and pigeon shooting) and was a very big man. The Newcastle Daily Chronicle noted, cheerily, that ‘his proportions were large enough to turn the scale against any two of his opponents, the greatest difficulty was in getting boots suitable; at last a pair were provided, said to belong to a 22 stone man and, by appearance, had been made from the last of a well-known scavenger. Burnup ran well for half the distance but it proved too far for him; in the meantime Harry was steaming away at high pressure and after he had run about 200 yards the expansion of his proportions was so much that he had to use the greatest exertions to persuade his running toggery to hold on for a few seconds. Towards the end of his heat he was leading by four yards but was obliged to resign and take ‘the proper restoratives, supplied by his Grainger Street friend.’ [Mr Wardle appears in the Censuses of 1861 and 1871 – in the latter as a victualler, confined at the time of the Census to the Newcastle Infirmary and in the former, also as a victualler, living at 103-105 Percy St, Newcastle with his wife, Mary, and sons Robert, John and George. Henry had been born in Willington and was 32 in 1861. His visit to the infirmary may have been a sign of his impending death because, though I cannot find his death listed, he is suddenly absent from the newspapers of the 1870s whereas in the 1860s he appears on several occasions.
After that ‘detour lap’ let’s get back to James Stewart of Usworth. Challenges issued by him in the Spring and early Summer of 1862 were as follows: ‘Jas Stewart of Usworth will run any of the following conditions for £15 or £20 a side: Storey of Dudley 100 yards level, or Dodds of Coxhoe 120 yards level or Westgarth of Hetton, or Simpson of Crook, if they will allow five yards start in 120’ and ‘Jas Stewart of Usworth will run any of the following: Bell of Murton 200 yards, Dodds of Coxhoe 120 yards, Welsh of Trimdon 300 or 400 yards, Craigs of South Shields 150 yards level; or he will give Minns of Easington one yard in 140 for £15 or £20 a side.’
Ready for another excursion? This time it’s on the subject of Deerfoot…..
In August of 1862, at Fenham Park, Deerfoot, a Seneca Indian, described by one newspaper as ‘tawney, not black’, took on Jackson (the American Deer), Brighton, Mower and Andrews over 4 miles. The organisers were Messrs Emmerson and Stirling and they hosted a crowd of 3,000; the band of the Newcastle Rifles entertained, there was a ball-gathering-into-a-sack contest and there was a sack race for added amusement. The Illustrated Sporting News noted that, ‘The Newcastle people seemed to be well pleased with the Seneca hero and repeatedly cheered him with ‘gan on Deerfoot,’ and ‘had awa’ Deerfoot,’ as the race was proceeding.’ He won by about 20 yards in 20 minutes 33 seconds. There was then a pole- leaping competition and the day ended with a mile race for amateurs. A day later the same events took place at Blue House, Cricket Ground, Hendon, Sunderland where the good folk were, according to Sporting News, ‘universally of the opinion that it was a ‘made-up thing’ who should be the winner.’ The circus moved on to Edinburgh where 10,000 turned out to watch at Bonnington Park. Sunderland folk, and others, may have been cynical about whether the results were fixed but the crowds, and money, rolled in.
According to Wiki, Deerfoot–Red Jacket, or Hut-goh-so-do-neh in his native tongue, was born into the Seneca tribe on the Cattaraugus Reservation in about the year 1828. Other sources claim his birth year was either 1830, 1826, or 1825. Deerfoot, also known as Lewis Bennett, was first recognized for his racing talent in 1856 when he won a five-mile race in Fredonia, at the Chautauqua County Fair, by running it in 25 minutes, cashing in on a $50 purse. Deerfoot sometimes raced under his fondly dealt nickname Red Jacket, a title that both referenced a celebrated Seneca chief and cited his colourful and often revealing racing outfits.
In a race in New York City, Deerfoot gained attention while running against the English national team, coached by his future manager, George Martin. He went to England in 1861, under Martin, to embark on a 20-month running tour, and was matched against the best long-distance runners in the world, defeating nearly all of them. In 87 weeks he ran 130 races and won the vast majority. He was a crowd pleaser for his running talent and also for his ‘otherness’. He, allegedly, maintained a rowdy nightlife off the track to back up his “exotic” persona.
The Morning Post reported, ‘Deerfoot is a fine made fellow of light brown complexion, stands 5‘10“, weighs about 11 stone 6lb, and is 29 years of age. When he made his entree on the ground he was attended by McDonald and others of his friends. His appearance created much interest. As on the previous occasion, the Indian was dressed in native costume and had a small red band trimmed with gold round his head. in which was a feather. He would not, so McDonald informed us, run in the regular running shoes, which he treated with contempt, but preferred his moccasins; nor could he be induced to rest on a bed, preferring to wrap himself in his bear skin and lie upon the bare boards.’ On one occasion he was supposed to have asked McDonald, his trainer, if he could be painted red and black. How much of this came from Deerfoot and how much was salesmanship by his entourage is hard to decipher.
After our digression re ‘several things Seneca’ let’s get back to Mr Stewart of Usworth. Given discrepancies in various documents relating to his family and background this seems like a reasonable, but perhaps not definitive, account of him …Born in 1833 in East Boldon to an Irish father and a Durham lass, the 1851 Census found him living as a lodger at Dog Bank Row, in South Shields, and working as a coal miner. By 1861 he had moved to Usworth but was still a lodger, living at Inkerman. He married
Ellen/Eleanor/Ellenor Walton, of Plawsworth, in Newcastle in 1862 and, by 1871, was at Railway Terrace, Usworth with his three children, all stated to have been born in County Down(!). In 1881 he was 48, living at 2 Railway Terrace, Usworth, with Ellen and, now six children (now listed as all being born in Usworth!). In 1901 the family were at Old Rows, Usworth, with three children, none of whose names appear in the earlier Censuses. Eleanor died in 1909 but James was listed in 1911, with two sons, one aged 9 (which seems a touch unlikely, possibly a grandson). A James Stewart died in 1917 in the Chester-le-Street area. This may have been him….(10a 599).
Those are the bare bones of his life – let’s get back to his pedestrianism. Before the end of 1862 Stewart had also taken on ‘Unknown’ for a lap of 440 yards, for £40, and W Brown of South Shields, over 300 yards, for £30. He was then advertised to take on George Hutchinson of Gateshead, over 440 yards, Stewart off two yards, for £40, and then James Drummond, Blue (House) Quarries, to run 50 yards, for £20, at Victoria Grounds. Admission was 3d and Stewart won by a yard, adding to his lustre and reputation as ‘one of the most successful runners that ever appeared in these grounds, and seems qualified for long or short distances.’ In January 1863, he took on James Percy of Newcastle – one lap around the Victoria Grounds for £50, off three yards, and it was estimated that 1,300 attended. For whatever reason, Stewart pulled up after about 400 yards and Percy did the distance in 56 seconds, timed by one of Mr Young’s improved lever stopwatches. (Helpfully, an advert for the watches appeared in the paper just underneath the adverts for Fenham Park events.) In the summer of 1863 he beat Bell of Murton over 130 yards for £40, Emsley of Fawdon for £20 over 130 yards and, described as one of ‘two great guns of the day’, he lost to Robert Storey of Dudley, over 100 yards, for £40. ‘After a few no- goes they were off and Storey won by a yard; pigeons were despatched to local villages.’ The Daily Chronicle noted that, such was his reputation, he was able to find ‘plenty of backers among the knights of the black diamond.’ Aall reet Jackie, wot fettle, me bonny knight of the black diamonds, like?’ ‘Canny, man, Canny.’
In the Autumn of 1863, described now as, ‘evergreen’, Stewart beat William Jackson of Newcastle, for £40, over 120 yards. The Illustrated Sporting News, in November 1863, noted that, at Fenham Park, ‘possibly the largest assembly ever on these grounds (arrived) for six matches, the first being Stewart of Usworth v J Younger of South Shields, over 200 yards, for £40, with Stewart off 3 yards.’ Both arrived late, had a preliminary canter and a good deal of rubbing and then toed their marks, the reporter finding the dodging a little tedious. Never mind, the race was given full and detailed coverage. Stewart led all the way until five yards out, at which point he turned his head to see how far Younger was behind and this error, described as being, ‘ridiculed by the spectators and mocked at by his backers’, led to the referee adjudging a dead heat, and the opposition, ‘giggling over their happy deliverance out of the jaws of what at one period resembled inevitable defeat.’
1864, and the first eleven months of 1865, were quiet for James Stewart, as far as running was concerned but his name was still to be found in the newspapers, just not in a good way. This, from the Teesdale Mercury, of April 1864, ‘Criminal Assault – At Gateshead police-court James Stewart, a young married man, a pitman, was charged with criminally assaulting Elizabeth Kay, a married woman of 20 years, on Sunday 3rd ult., on the road leading to Usworth. The prisoner, who is a well-known pedestrian, was remanded from last week as the prosecutrix was too ill to appear. He pleaded not guilty. Elizabeth said she’d been proceeding along the Usworth and Sunderland road to Washington Row when she’d been overtaken by the prisoner and two other men. The other two went away and he made improper overtures, which she repelled. He then seized her and after a struggle threw her to the ground to effect his purpose. Elizabeth reached her friend in Washington Row, very exhausted and informed the police. He was then apprehended and identified by Mrs Kay. The offence being fully proved he was sentenced to six months’ imprisonment.’ The Newcastle Guardian noted, more bluntly, that the offence was rape.
Well, the mores and standards of the time allowed James Stewart to return to running action in November 1865, with, as far as can be ascertained, no loss of reputation, or at least no reference to it in the newspapers. He beat Bell, of Felling, over 80 yards for £20 and then, though his running career would not be over for another seven years, he took a sideways move – first into refereeing and, later, his name was mentioned as a trainer. In what appears to have been another sideways move at that time, 1866, he had started potshare bowling; thus in January 1866 he was due to run G Laws of Choppington over 80 yards for £40 but, ‘owing to a private dispute between Stewart and James Wardle the latter appeared on Fenham Park and expressed his intention of stopping the race. Laws and Stewart retired, after a disturbance and drew the stakes.’ Illustrated Sporting News stated that it was ‘a bowler named Graham Wardle who climbed the palings and demanded 22/6d. A fight ensued and broken heads and bruised physogs were soon the order of the day – the runners skedaddled to the dressing rooms and the gate money went to the next race – a dog race.’ In the Sportsman they stated that the ‘men who interfered with the race were beaten down in a merciless manner.’ Wonder if Mr James/Graham Wardle was connected to Henry Wardle, bookmaker and sportsman? It would not be a surprise.
In 1866 Stewart beat Todd, of Anfield Plain. Bell’s Life describing Stewart as ‘an old stager’, noting that he had appeared 28 times winning 22 and losing six. Todd was only 19. He followed up with victories over W Hunter of Shields, over 80 yards, for £20 and then
J Archbold of Seaton Burn, over 105 yards, for £40. In June of the same year Stewart, as Bell’s Life tactfully put it, ‘now on the down-hill of life as a pedestrian but brought to scratch in splendid condition’ lost to J Lennon, of Usworth, over 100 yards, for £10 a side. Perhaps some measure of his perceived decline was that in the Sterling and Emmerson sponsored
All England 150 yards Handicap of June 23rd and 25th, H Wardle (Newcastle, the Champion) started from scratch and Stewart off 17 yards.
In another handicap, November 1866, again sponsored by Sterling and Emmerson, the 37 entries were placed into ten heats. Stewart won his but in the second round, ‘having showed so much temper that he had been put back two yards’ he came third and Archbold won the final. A couple of weeks later he beat Archbold over 100 yards for £40. Revenge? Or possibly a fix.
1867 was a blank year for James Stewart – injury, loss of interest, we are unlikely to ever know, but his next appearance was, again, before the magistrates. At the County Petty sessions, at Sunderland, John Smith, John Bell and James Stewart, all of Usworth, were summoned for trespassing at Barmston and using a ferret for poaching. The other two said they’d gone along the track with Stewart, a professional pedestrian, to assist him in training and knew nothing about the dead rabbit. Smith had been fined (just the) twelve times at Sunderland and Gateshead and Bell (just the) 15 times. Stewart was fined 20s and costs and the others 40s and costs.
Though what might be called a veteran, Stewart went on running (though there are no entries for 1869) until 1870. He beat A Stewart of Hylton over 80 yards for £20, and Laws of Choppington, over 50 yards, for £40, half an hour’s false starts being a tedious way to start the second of those races. He defeated Laverick of Hetton, over 100 yards, for £20 and lost to Barnfather of Easington Lane, over 80 yards, for £20. That was in December 1870 and is the last record, but one, of his pedestrianism.
And then James Stewart, ran off into the distance (after a number of false starts) to kill Liberty Valance with his Winchester 73. (I’ve warned you about this!) What he actually did was spend more time with his potshare bowls – for which there are half a dozen entries….up to 1872. His comeback in pedestrianism was in 1887, when he was persuaded to come out of retirement to run 50 yards against Coxford of Pensher (ex- Dudley), at the (new) Victoria Grounds, for £10 a side, stakes having been lodged with Mr Gascoine at the Stile Inn, Washington. Old runners never fade away – they take on other old runners in competition that might be foolish – there was a Coxford running back in 1866 but we’re unlikely to find out whether it was the same man. In any case they may not have run, there is no mention of it in the newspapers of 1887, other than the challenge. Perhaps someone had a word with them?
Copyright Peter Welsh, 2025