Introduction
I am working on a wee story of my ancestors. This is my mum's side of the family. I am working from secondary sources which are to a large part based on their diaries. I concentrate mostly on the men of the family, because that's what's available from the sources that have come to hand. The men kept diaries and 'did things in the world'. The voices of the women from this time, from the research done so far, remain quietly in the background or at least are harder to find.
This part is mostly about Edward & Joseph 4x and 3x Great Grand Father respectively I hope to add further blogs on -
Joseph Whitwell & Alfred (2xGreat Grand Father, Great Grand Father)
Lavender & Rosemary ((Grandmother, Mother)
and
The Falla Scott's (my Father's family)
It is probably a bit raw, not having had much editing, but I wanted to publish something for my 49th Birthday!
Happy reading.
Steve
A line through
time
Family trees can get really complicated, so to simplify
things, I’m going to take a line through time, a line through space, to tell a
short story of a family line and connection.
If you seek out the old Town Hall in Northgate, Darlington ,
just across from it there is a shabby set of buildings that house a Domino’s
Pizzeria and a kebab shop. If you take a good look at the façade, obscured by
dirt, there is a small plaque that reads ‘Edward Pease lived here, the founder
of the modern railway’.
A short walk from here, 200 yards or so, will get you onto
the A68, ‘The Great North Road’ that was and before that the Roman Road of Dere
Street. This was a main road even before the Romans arrived, an ancient British
way, or so they tell you at the Errington Arms, where the road cuts through what’s
left of Hadrians Wall.
If you follow this road into Scotland ,
just across the Border you come to the village
of Camptown
Willie is also Edward Pease’s Great, Great, Great, Great Grandson
and this is the story of that family line and connection and how this branch of
the family, over 250 years, moved the 200 miles or so ‘up the road’.
The Peases were a known as the ‘Quaker Pease’, their
adherence to this non-conformist, Christian sect, informed both who they were
and how they conducted their business, so a word about
Quakers.
The Quakers
The Quakers, or the Society of Friends, are a dissenting
Protestant group which came into being in England
around 1650. They based their religious belief on the idea that "Christ
has come to teach his people himself", stressing the importance of a
direct relationship with God, and a religious belief based on the universal
priesthood of all believers.
They rejected a hierarchical church, believing that the word
of God was available to everyone. Quakers emphasized a personal and direct
religious experience of Christ, acquired through both
direct religious experience and the reading and studying of the Bible.
Quaker meetings are
meetings of equals, with no priest and no hierarchy. They are often held in silence, but if
someone feels inspired by God to get up and talk, they can and do.
Quakers historically were known for their use of thou and thee as ordinary pronouns (as against using
the more formal form?). They refused to participate in war, wore plain dress and refused to swear oaths (believing that truth should be spoken
at all times). They are also known for their opposition to slavery and
abstention from drinking alcohol.
The Testimony of Simplicity and the Testimony of Integrity perhaps give a feel for Quaker beliefs and philosophy:
The Testimony of
Simplicity
A person ought to lead
a simple life in order to focus on what is most important and ignore or play
down what is least important, namely, a person should focus on the spiritual
life and the development of character rather than the accumulation of material
possessions. 2
The Testimony of
Integrity
Quakers bear witness
to their belief that one should live a life true to God, true to oneself and true
to others. In business this meant
setting a fixed fair price for goods, rather than setting a high price and
haggling over it with a buyer. 2
Today, most friends believe in continuing revelation, which is the religious belief that truth is
continuously revealed directly to individuals from God. Friends often focus on
trying to hear God, rejecting the idea of
priests, in line with a belief in priesthood of all believers.
Quakers in Business and politics
Some of the major banks and companies we know today have
Quaker origins. Lloyds, Barclays and Friends
Provident and manufacturers including Clarks, Cadbury, Rowntree and
Fry’s were all founded by Quakers.
The Quaker lifestyle was marked by frugality and abstention.
In business, capital was ploughed back into the business and bankruptcy avoided.
A cautious approach led to the accumulation of wealth over a number of
generations. The Quaker ‘web’, based on association, meetings and inter
marriage, provided access to credit and ‘mitigated the high risks and
uncertainty of eighteenth century business transactions’1.
In addition, Quakers were prohibited, because of their
beliefs, from parliament, the ancient universities and municipal corporations.
This non participation in political life led them to focus their energies on
business.
The Early Peases (Edwards and Josephs)
The Pease family are thought to have come north from Essex
originally. The name is thought to derive simply from peas, the original Peases being pea traders or pea farmers.
By the time of Henry VIII they are found farming at Pease
Hall in the West Riding of Yorkshire.
In 1706 Joseph Pease married Ann Couldwell, who was heiress
to a wool-combing business in Darlington . Edward Pease,
the second son of this marriage, became a Quaker and in time married a Quaker (Elizabeth
Coates). He also entering the wool combing business of his uncle. Edward developed the
woollen business from sorting and combing to include weaving and dyeing,
bringing more and more of this work into a mill or early factory complex. This
business was passed onto his oldest son Joseph.
Joseph expanded the woollen business and started a modest
banking business, known as Pease Partners’ Bank.
‘By integrating banking with
manufacture, Joseph could both advance credit to customers and receive it from
suppliers and so more easily sustain the expansion of his woollen business.’1
Joseph’s eldest son Edward was born in 1767.
Edward Pease(1767-1858) ‘The Father of the Railway’
Edward Pease Left school at the age of fourteen and, as was
the tradition, entered the family business in a lowly position.
In 1796 (aged 29) he married Rachel Whitwell of Kendal
(described as a ‘deeply serious woman who was to become a minister in the
Society of Friends’1).
Edward seems to have combined a keen business sense and a
deep religious sensibility. Joseph Pease and Sons, under his tenure would be ‘the
most influential employer in Darlington ’s leading
manufacturing industry’1. His business acumen, based on sound Quaker
principles, lead to the accumulation of wealth, which somewhat ironically may
have been at odds with his religious convictions.
‘the accumulation of
wealth in every family known to me in
our Society carries away from the purity of our principles, adds toil and care
to life and greatly endangers the possession of heaven.’ Edward Pease 1
The Stockton Darlington Railway
The Stockton and Darlington Railway would require two Acts
of Parliament and the coming together of technology, finance and political
influence to create a new vision of transportation. It would be one of the key
factors in the birth of the modern world. Edward Pease and his relationship
with George Stephenson were pivotal in this development.
In 1817, at the age of fifty, Edward curtailed his
involvement in the management of the family business and deepened his
involvement in philanthropic causes and anti-slavery agitation. He also took on
a leading involvement in an ongoing scheme to link both Darlington
and Stockton to the coal fields at
Bishop Aukland.
On the 19th of
April 1821 Royal Assent was granted for an Act of Parliament to
allow for the building of the Stockton and Darlington Railway.
This would be the twenty-first railway Act of the nineteenth
Century and the draft was largely
modeled on the Berwick-Kelso Railway Act of 1811.’ 4 What made the
S&D railway unique would be provisions made in a second Act, which would
come about through a fateful meeting between Edward Pease and George Stephenson
and which occurred on the very day the first Act received Royal Assent.
The edited diaries of Edward Pease record that –
One day in 1821 Edward
Pease was writing in his room when a servant announced that two strange men
wished to speak to him. He was busy, and he sent a message that he was too much
occupied to see them.
The door had no sooner
closed than he lay down his pen and wondered whether he had done right; then he
rose from his chair and went downstairs. He asked where the men were and was
told they were in the kitchen. Going into the kitchen he found them and they
gave their names as Nicholas Wood, viewer at Killingworth Colliery and George
Stephenson, an engine-wright at the pits. Mr Pease sat down on the edge of the
kitchen table to learn of their errand. Stephenson handed him a letter from Mr
Lambert at Killingworth, recommending Stephenson to the notice of Mr Pease as a
man who understood laying down railways. In Edward Pease’s own description of
this interview he says, ‘There was such an honest sensible look about George
Stephenson and he seemed so modest and unpretending, and he spoke in the strong
Northumberland dialect.’
During the
conversation Edward Pease agreed that Stephenson was right when he recommended,
for the purpose Edward Pease had in view, a railroad instead of a tram road.
Edward Pease had long satisfied himself as to the soundness of his idea “that a
horse on an iron road would draw ten tons for one ton on a common road” and to
use his own words, “I felt sure that before long the railway would become the
King’s Highway.” Then Stephenson told him that the locomotive that he had made
to run on the pit railway was worth fifty horses. “Come over to Killingworth
and see what my Blutcher can do, seeing is believing sir,” said Stephenson’3
This is how Nicholas Wood, Stephenson’s companion described
the visit –
During the time
Stephenson was employed as consulting engineer in constructing the Hetton
Railway and living in Killingworth, he had an application to survey a line from
the collieries in Aukland district to Darlington and Stockton Stockton Darlington
Railway.
This was the first
public line projected, which was in the year 1821, and was promoted by Mr Pease
of Darlington . Mr Stephenson’s first visit to the
gentleman is deeply impressed on my memory, by having accompanied him from
Killingham to Darlington and back to Durham; and having afforded him a
practical joke against me, which to within a few weeks of his death, and on the
occasion of the last time I saw him, he reminded me of. [..] The fact was, we
rode on horseback from Killingworth to Newcastle, a distance of five miles,
traveled from there by coach, thirty-two miles, to Stockton, then walked along
the proposed line of the railway, twelve miles, from Stockton to Darlington; we
had then the interview with Mr Pease, by appointment, and afterwards walked the
eighteen long miles to Durham, within three miles of which I broke down, (and
which constituted the joke against me) but was obliged to proceed, the beds
being already engaged at the “Travellers Rest.” 3
Edward Pease did indeed visit George Stephenson at
Killingworth, even mounting the the footplate of the Blutcher as it hauled
coals passed George Stephenson’s cottage. In a letter to Thomas Richardson on 10th
October 1821 , he wrote-
‘Don’t be surprised if
I should tell thee there seems to us after careful examination no difficulty of
laying a railroad from London to Edinburgh on which wagons could travel and
take the mail at the rate of 20 miles an hour…we went along a road in one of
these engines conveying about 50 tons at a rate of 7 or 8 miles per hour, and
if the same power had been applied to speed which was applied to drag the
wagons we should have gone 50 miles an hour – previous to seeing this
locomotive engine I was at a loss to conceive how the engine could draw such a
weight, without having a rack to work into the same or something like legs –
but in this engine there is no such thing...The more we see of Stephenson, the
more we are pleased with him…he is altogether a self-taught genius…there is
such a scale of sound ability.’ 4
It was the Quaker network which in the end financed the railway
project. Kirby1 describes it as ‘a public joint stock company with
capital of £100,000, which was in effect a close family partnership.’ As well
as the Peases and Backhouses (Quakers of Darlington) the project was supported
by other local Quakers, by the Gurney family of Norwich
and Thomas Richardson of London .
‘Quaker financiers in Norwich London Darlington relatives.’ 1
The Second Act received Royal Assent on the 23rd of May 1823 . It was based
on changes recommended by George Stephenson and was unique in that it made
provision for a loco-motive or
movable engine and in that it allowed for ‘the
conveyance of passengers’ 4 This is the basis upon which claims
are made that the Stockton and Darlington
Railway is the First Railway in the World.
Francis Mewbury noted
in his diary, apropos locomotives, that when he submitted the Bill to Lord
Shaftesbury’s Secretary, the gentleman ‘could not conceive what it meant; he
thought it was some strange and unheard of animal and he struck the clause out
of this Act’. It was reinstated when Mr Brandling, the MP for Sunderland and George Stephenson were sent to explain
the matter to him. 4
As in all such projects the proposed Stockton and Darlington
railway met with opposition, in this case particularly the landed interests, and
in particular Lord Darlington who had little interest in industrial activities. His real concern ‘almost to the point of obsession,’1 was the
damage the railway would inflict upon his fox covers. In fact the first
Stockton and Darlington Railway Bill had been defeated in 1819. An unidentified
member of the House of Lords
subsequently commented:
‘.. if the Quakers in
these times, when nobody knows anything about railways, can raise such a
phalanx as they have on this occasion, I should recommend the country gentlemen
to be very wary of how they oppose them.’ 1
Edward Pease was the driving force in getting the
appropriate bills through parliament and getting the railway built. When there
was a capital shortfall he put up additional funds to support the project and
in due course, it became known as ‘The Quaker line’.
The Stockton and
Darlington railway, opened in 1825. It was the first
public railway in the world and the first to use steam locomotives. Although
the locomotives were crude and unreliable at first and the project limited in
both conception and design, the Stockton
and Darlington line demonstrated what was possible and
paved the way for the more spectacular Liverpool and
Manchester Railway and all subsequent railways.
Edward Pease was also the main investor in the Forth Street
works of Robert Stephenson and Co, investing almost half the initial capital. This would provide a handsome return in the 1840’s, when the railway
construction boom was at it’s height.
Financially in the years 1825-1830, the Stockton and
Darlington Railway greatly exceeded the expectations of its investors; the
average price of a ton of Auckland coal at Stockton fell from 18 shillings to
8s 6d, a 'spectacular testament to the economies in transport costs brought
about by the railway.’ 1
In 1827 at the age of sixty Edward ended his active business
career, ‘with a resolution never to enter a railway meeting again.’ 1
The remainder of his life was dedicated to the affairs of the Society of
Friends. His wife, Rachel, died in 1833. He would survive her by 25 years. They
had three sons, John, Joseph and Henry.
Joseph Pease (1799-1872)
If you go back to the centre of Darlington ,
at the junction of High Row, Northgate and Bondgate, you’ll find a statue of
Joseph Pease. This statue was unveiled on the 28th September 1875 to mark the fiftieth
anniversary of the Stockton and Darlington
railway. Around the base of the statue four reliefs show the key themes in
Joseph’s life; Politics, The abolition of slavery, Industry, Coal and the Railway
and finally Education. He was a busy man.
Joseph and his brothers Henry and John came to dominate North
Yorkshire and Teeside, taking their inheritance and driving
forward the industrial expansion of the area. They remained Quakers, but were
much less inhibited and much more confident in the accumulation of wealth than
their father had been.
Like his father, Joseph Pease had been educated at Tatham’s
academy in Leeds , going on to finish his schooling in
the Quaker establishment of Josiah Forester at Southgate
near London .1 Joseph
began his career, under his father’s strict supervision, in the family woollen
business. At nineteen, he was involved in drawing up the prospectus for the Stockton
and Darlington railway and at the age of 28, in his
first independent business venture, became a colliery entrepreneur, leasing
various coal properties in County Durham
At this time, The Stockton and Darlington
railway was proving to be a great success. It hadn't been envisaged that Stockton
would become a coal shipping port, but because of the economies the railroad
had brought, by 1827 more than 50,000 tons of coal was being shipped. Stockton ,
with limited port facilities and being located too far up the Tees
estuary, was not suited to such a volume of trade. A new port was needed and Middlesbrough ,
further down the south coast of the estuary, was settled upon. At the time Middlesbrough
consisted principally of a ‘solitary farmhouse and an ancient burial ground.’1
In May 1828 a Bill to
extend the railway to Middlesbrough received Royal
Assent, in spite of powerful opposition
from Lord Londonderry and the Earl of Durham, land and colliery owning magnates
to the North. Again the S&DR interests were able to call upon influential
forces of their own, in particular Richard Hanbury Gurney of Norwich
-
‘who being known as a
hunting man in Leicestershire and his own country, induced a considerable
number of Norfolk noblemen and others to come down and support the railway.’
1
It was in October to December of the previous year that
Joseph began leasing coal properties in County
Durham Tees .
Initially he would contribute £7000 (of a £35,000 purchase price) for the 520
acre Middlesbrough Estate. Again the Gurneys were
influential. Joseph Gurney, who was Joseph Pease’s father in law, lent him the
£7000 he invested, at a rate of interest of 4%.
In 1828, Joseph took a boat and entering the Tees Mouth and sailed
up to Middlesbrough . He noted in his diary that he was
‘much pleased with the place altogether.’ 1 His diary entry for that
day concludes-
‘Who that has
considered the nature of British enterprise, commerce and industry will pretend
to take his stand on this spot and pointing the finger of scorn at these
visions exclaim that it will never be? If such a one appears he and I are at
issue.’ 1
The Middlesbrough estate was to prove
to be one of Joseph Pease’s most important and lucrative investments.
‘His vision of August
1828 was of a ‘busy seaport’ dependant for its prosperity upon the export of
coal. Little did he realise that by the time of his death in 1872,
Middlesbrough would be a booming manufacturing town with extensive
metallurgical industries and a thriving shipping trade based not on coal but
upon the export of iron manufactures.’ 1
In 1832 at the age of 33, Joseph was elected as a Member of
Parliament for South Durham . He was the first
Quaker to be elected as an MP and was not immediately allowed to take his seat,
because he would not take the oath of office. A special committee considered
the question and decided that Pease could affirm, rather than swear, and he was
accepted into the membership of Parliament.
He was also unusual in that, like most Quakers of the day,
he refused to remove his hat as he entered the House of Commons. Pease
supported the Whig governments of Earl Grey and Lord
Melbourne and he joined Thomas Fowell in the anti slavery movement.
He supported the removal of bishops from the House of Lords. He was also
in favour of shorter Parliaments and the secret ballot.
He retired from politics in 1841. 6
In 1833, at the age of 34, Joseph Pease replaced Jonathan
Backhouse as treasurer of the Stockton and Darlington Railway. This was soon
followed by his appointment as chairman of the management committee.
‘From this point
onwards he began to acquire a preponderating influence in the running of the
company both as a result of direct pecuniary influence and sheer force of
personality. It was due to his initiative, for example that his fellow
directors became involved in the promotion of the Great North of England
Railway in 1835 for the purpose of’ connecting Leeds and York with Newcastle
Upon Tyne and forming a continuation of all the proposed lines from the
metropolis towards Scotland. The rationale of the project was twofold: to
secure for the S&DR interest a strategic position in the developing rail network
from London to Edinburgh and to increase the company’s mineral traffic by
acquiring ‘a cheap and expeditious transit of coals into the heart of the North
Riding and to the City of York itself’. 1
In the 1830’s Middlesbrough boomed.
Joseph Pease again taking the initiative in the opening of the Middlesbrough
dock. The Stockton & Darlington Railway opened a facility for the repair of
Locomotives and other rolling stock and extended the line to the mouth of the Tees
at Redcar in 1846. Significantly, Pease was also
influential in attracting the iron foundry and rolling mills of Bolckow and Vaughan
to what was then an untried industrial location.
After 1847 there was a national decline in railway
construction and in 1847-8, a commercial crisis when the Bank of England raised
its discount rate to 8% in order to restore bullion stocks in the face of high
grain and cotton imports. The period 1847-1851 was one of severe crisis and
uncertainty for the S&DR. These factors combined to put the finances of the
Pease family under considerable strain. Edward Pease noted in his diary in June
1846 –
‘..from the family
business of the Coal Trade, Collieries and in the Woollen Mills there is no
income.’ And in his reflections on the year 1847 he concluded that ‘ in no preceding year have I passed through
such a depth of conflict and trial owing to the extended trading and mining
concerns of [my sons]’ 1
In 1847 at the age of eighty, Edward reluctantly agreed to
sustain Joseph’s credit as treasurer of the S&DR by giving him an unlimited
financial guarantee and in 1850 he commented that –
‘S. and D. shares once
deemed worth £360 have been sold at £30 so that property once deemed worth
£60,000 now worth £3,000.’ 1
‘As for Joseph, the
perpetual fear of bankruptcy began to affect his health; throughout the later
half of 1847 he was suffering from insomnia and depression, and by the early
months of 1849 the first symptoms of glaucoma which was to lead to total
blindness later in life appeared. 1
When things seemed at there darkest however, fortune smiled.
In 1850 major ironstone deposits were found at Eston on the north-facing side
of the Cleveland Hills.
Bolckow and Vaughan constructed three new blast furnaces at Middlesbrough
and another six at Eston.
In addition to transporting the ironstone, because of its
high silica content, large quantities of limestone were required for fluxing,
generating additional mineral traffic for the S&DR, which was above all and
always had been, principally a mineral railway. As the historian of the North
Eastern Railway Company put it -
‘…It practically put
£10,000 a year into the hands of the fortunate company. Dividends rose from 4
to 10 per cent and the holders of Stockton and Darlington stock became, as in
an earlier period in the history of the Company, the most envied of all railway
proprietors.’ 1
In 1851 Joseph Pease and his oldest son Joseph Whitwell
proposed a railway from Middlesborough to Guisborough with two branches into
the Clevland Hills. They also took a lease on the Cod Hill royalty at Hutton Lowcross,
near Guisborough. This was a very speculative proposal, to exploit ironstone
reserves of uncertain value both as to quantity and quality. Old Edward
expressed his reservations in his diary –
‘The prospective
scheme introduces my mind into many doubts as to the inviting of my family.’
1
The Peases had to financially underwrite the venture themselves,
providing a guaranteed dividend to investors. The Middlesbrough
to Guisborourgh line opened in 1853. Fortunately for the Peases it was a
commercial success. In this instance they were lucky. They had gambled and it
paid off.
Joseph Pease pushed for a branch line to be extended up the Tees
valley from Darlington to Barnard
Castle
‘ ..despite his
reputation for sincerity and purity of motive, to some sections of commercial
(and aristocratic) opinion in the north east of England
The Barnard Castle Pennines ,
linking up with the Lancaster and Carlisle
railway at Tebay.
This idea was taken up by Joseph’s brother Henry and there
were sound commercial motives behind it. Cleveland
iron ore, with a high silica content, was not of the best quality. The Teeside
iron makers wanted to mix it with richer hematite ores from Ulverston in south Cumbria .
‘The South Durham and Lancashire Union
Railway Act received the royal assent in 1857 and the resulting line, which was
completed in 1861, was one of the triumphs of mid-Victorian railway
engineering. The Stainmore summit was 1,374 feet above sea level and Robert
Stephenson and Co were invited to design a new and more powerful locomotive to
cope with the severe gradients. [..] When
the new line opened for mineral
traffic in 1861, six trains hauling 600 tons of Durham coal and coke left the
Aukland coalfield for Tebay, whilst 150 tons
of hematite ore reached Bernard Castle from the west.’ 1
Joseph commented to his brother –
‘If the busy,
bustling, whistling railway ever traverse Stainmoor’s wintery wastes, or the
inhabitants beyond be supplied with cheapened and exellent fuel..they that
profit thereby, and rejoice therein, will doubtless have much to thank thee for
in thy exertions and perseverance.’ 1
In 1863 the Stockton and Darlington Railway was smoothly and
amicably amalgamated into the North Eastern Railway (NER), whose headquarters
were based in York . The NER at the
time controlled 720 route miles covering Northumberland, Durham
and much of North Yorkshire and was at the time Britain ’s
largest railway company. There had been friendly relations and collaboration
between the S&DR and NER for some time and this together with competition
for mineral traffic with a larger company North of the Tees
and a perceived threat from the ‘extraordinary predatory’1 London and North West Railway Company, seeking to
expand northwards, convinced the boards of the respective companies to act..
In the negotiations the Darlington
delegation was led by John Pease, Joseph’s older brother and Joseph Whitwell
Pease Joseph’s son. Negotiations were amicable and it was agreed that two NER
directors should sit on the Darlington committee and
three members of the S&DR management would join the NER board.
In the midst of all this mining and transport development, Middlesbrough
continued to grow and prosper.
‘IN 1857 Joseph Pease
recorded in his diary, with evident astonishment, that in 1851 the Stockton and
Darlington Company had booked 61,319 passengers at Middlesbrough; in 1854 the
figure had risen to 89,679 and in 1857 it had reached 109,577.’ 1
In 1858 the original Middlesbrough
estate became the sole property of the Pease family.
By 1867 nearly 1 million tons of pig iron was being produced
on Teesside and by 1873, over 2 million tons, nearly 1/3 of the total British
output. Teesside at this time had become the most important pig-iron producing district
in the world. 1 One of, if
not the driving force behind this extraordinary growth and development was
Joseph Pease.
By 1870, the extensive interests of the Pease empire
employed 6000 people in the North East of England.1 All this development took place in
spite of intense rail and port competition on the north bank of the Tees .
Joseph Pease died in 1872.
He died a wealthy man, with a conservative estimate of his estate at
£320,0001. Most of Darlington closed on the
day of his funeral and he was described from one pulpit as ‘..the greatest of all the men of the North-East of England.’1
We catch a glimpse of him in old age from his grandson Alfred’s
diary, a glimpse which suggests that even for the most engaged and dynamic of
men, old age is never an easy cross to bear.
‘He could be peevish
& irritable in his home and latterly his ill health and blindness were some
excuse for this - He could not be called a very happy man, his piety had not
made him that, whatever joy and comfort it gave him, but with children his face
lighted up & he became playful with them..’ 5
