Amble Movers and Shakers
 

Further to Coquet's musings on some biographical notes for people influential in Amble's development or otherwise regularly popping up in the newspapers, here's a few possibilities:
Thomas Browne (Warkworth Harbour and Radcliffe Colliery);
Rev A O Medd, and Rev Fairbrother (Medd Memorial Schools);
Gibson, Town Surveyor (?Gibson Street);
John Henderson (Gas Works, ?Henderson Street);
Joseph Welch (Harbour Contractor, Welch's Buildings, Cliff House);
Sanderson (Railway builder, Sanderson's Buildings);
Captain Perry (Waterloo);
Ronald Robert Scott Martin DCM (Dep Head of Church School).
Carse (builder); Green (plumber); Ballantyne (undertaker); Young (painters and decorators); McInnes; McAndrews.
Any more?

Rev A O Medd,pretty sure this is the rev who signed my grandmothers confirmation prize prayer book i@1909 at St Nicholas cathedral in Newcastle.He was then I think vicar of St Aidans in Bamburgh.There is something else signed by him back in the family history box of stuff!!Cant get to to it as I am in OZ just now!!!

You'd better hurry back from Australia, Brownknees, and get in that box. The Rev died in 1894 at Rothbury, the schools were erected in his memory by the Rev James Fairbrother :D. Medd was the first vicar, then moved to Bamburgh and finally Rothbury.

Rev Medd
 

OK I see what you mean!!Memory again!Maybe my daughter can look it up for me!

Street names could be handy clues

below is a list of distinct places from the 1911 census enumerators book for Amble:
the bold ones suggest people that could be in the movers and shakers list?
[i'm only guessing here!]


Acklington Road
Acklington Street
Albert Street [Prince Albert]
Amble Hope Farm
Amble Link Farm
Bede Street [The Venerable Bede]
Blackwood Street
Bridge Street
Broomhill Street
Byron Street [Lord Byron, the Victorian obsession]
Cement Houses
Cemetery Cottage
Church Street
Cliff House
Coastguard Station
Congregational Chapel
Coquet Street
Cross Street
Dilston Terrace [Dilson or Dilstone -One of the Earl of Derwentwater castles]
Dovecote Street
Duncans Buildings
Edwin Street [King Edwin of Northumberland]
Gasworks and Cottages
George Street [???]
Gibson Street
Gloster Terrace
Gordon Street [General Gordon of Khartoum]
Greenfield Terrace
Henderson Street
High Street
Hope Terrace
House on the North Links
Ivy Street
John Street [???]
Kilnbank House
King Edward Street
Ladbroke Street
Lawson Street
Leazes Street
Lees Cottages
Lime Street
Link House
Marine Road
Marks Row
Middleton Street
Moor House Cottages (both sides of the road)
New Hall Farm
Newburgh Street
North Street
Nyberg’s House and Shop at Radcliffe [??? - this must have been in Amble parish?]
Oswald Street [St Oswald]
Panhaven Road
Percy Street [Duke of Northumberland]
Prospect Terrace
Queen Street [Queen Victoria]
Rectory
Salt Pans
Sandersons Buildings
Scott Street [Sir Walter Scott, Scottish novelist, poet etc.]
Small Pox Hospital
Smith Street
Station Masters House and Cottages
The Wynd
Turner Street
Victoria Street [Queen Victoria]
Wellwood Street
Windmill Cottage
Woodbine Terrace

And there's this one in Amble, never seen it mentioned anywhere. must have changed its name sharpish for some reason:

Who was the mysterious Stephen that gave Stephen Street its name???

http://www.coquetandcoast.co.uk/imag...hen_street.jpg

A Mr Ladbroke appears in some of the Radcliffe Colliery legal wrangles. 1840s

Lots of good names there, but where is that Stephen street sign? Turner Street is probably related to the Turner family which had significant land in Amble, Scott Street could well be after Walter Scott (another Victorian hero). I'm working on a theory that Marks Row, Marks Bridge have something to do with a Mark Douglas who seems to have had land at the top end.

Whereabouts is Duncans Buildings? Wasn't Peggy Aitcheson's daughter called Margaret Duncan?

That Stephen Street stone is in Newburgh Street next to Young's Newsagents

Duncan's Buildings - don't know - but looking at the list in the return it comes between Gibson Street and Greenfield Terrace:

Morpeth Herald 5 November 1892:
"House and shop to let at Nov. term. For particulars apply to Mrs Stephen, 28 Stephen Street, Amble."

Alnwick Petty Sessions, 6 May 1899: "Ejectments; Orders were made upon Michael Nevin, Pottergate, Alnwick and John Straker, 20, of Stephen Street, Amble, to quit the occupation of their premises, rented by them within 21 days."

Seems like Stephen Street was there for a while.

Light bulb just came on in my head. I'm certain it will be the group of red bricks that face down the Wynd. (now part of High Street?)

Duncans Buildings. Years ago I have a vague memory of going though an arch somewhere opposite Lambs Terrace and there were a few buildings either side of the alley. I wonder if that might be it. We used to got there to visit my sister's friend. I'll give her memory a tug :D It would be not far from Bob Aicheson's shop as well!

Cant find it in the 1891 or 1901 census, so your dates must be close to defining its lifespan? Bet that street was built in 1891/2?

On the subject of Lambs Terrace - why is that not in the 1911 list -surely must have been built pre 1911? .....or maybe not. :)

Lambs Terrace is on the 1896 map.

and those red bricks at the top of the Wynd are not yet built.

now what's that line of buildings south of the blue area joining on to Gibson Street? ....my mind's gone blank again.


http://www.coquetandcoast.co.uk/imag...buildings2.jpg

Like the map. I've a report of an Amble Council meeting in 1905 which is discussing stable manure in the same breath as Lambs Terrace:) And a member of the council is Mr J T Duncan?

There is also a discussion on a plan sent in by Mr J W Barsted for the erection of a small building at the back of his photographic studio, adjoining Coulson's gable end.

Alnwick Petty Sessions, 1 April 1893: "On the application of Mr G D Watson, solicitor, acting on behalf of Mr Wm S Duncan, an ejectment order was granted against James York, who occupied dwelling premises in Duncan's Buildings at Amble"

So we're looking for William Duncan.

So the buildings are not the Red Bricks at the top of the Wynd if they existed as far back as 1893. Back to the drawing board for me.
Good news is they should be on the map above.

The map on this thread shows Togston Square sitting somewhere near Eastgarth Avenue, I had it in my head that it was at the top of the Wynd at the end of the Togston lonnen. It had a smithy as part of it. I always assumed it was around Gibson Street.

Duncans buildings.
 

I have, for some reason, known Duncans buildings or Duncans cottages to be directly behind your "red brick buildings" at the top of the Wynd. There is only one of these cottages left now, used for storage and it is adjoined to the bigger house next door that may have been one of the farmhouses at one time. There seems to have been a row of them from the bottom of Greenfield Terrace to Gibson street.

And that row of cottages fits nicely with the number on the census return, and also logically how they have listed them; Gibson Street ----around the corner to----Duncans Buildings ----and around the corner to ----Greenfield Terrace.

The 1881 census shows DONKINS Cottages (4) between Greenfield Terrace and Gibson Street. The 1891 has them as DUNCAN'S Cottages The later censuses have DUNCAN'S Buildings in the same spot :(

"Donkin's" is just "Duncan's" in a healthy Amble accent. Just an error I would say Janwin ? :D

I can go with that one but I'm not sure that well known auction family of Donkin would have been impressed:)

I've tapped into my sister's cerebral silver mine about the arch and dwellings opposite Lambs Terrace but her seams are about as played out as mine :D

Anyway, a passageway ran down the side of the Bluebell. On the pub side there was a side entry to let you get your jug of ale without anybody being any the wiser in the pub and on the other there were a few flats. This is the 1950s, Mr Hume (of Cac fame) lived there as did the Douglas family with the Goldsteins upstairs.

She also reckons there was a blacksmith's up Acklington Street, above the Masons. Me, being so much younger, can't remember that one.

re Donkin
 

I'm playing the 'spring chicken' card to cover my ignorance too. :D We've had a few auctioneers in Amble I think? Might be a business model to consider again in these recessionary times?


I remember Cac Hume clearly though. According to my mother I was a sickly child and one day Dr. Robertson came on a home visit. I had a plastic model of General Custer by the bedside and the doctor asked "is that General Custer?" "No No!" I indignantly replied, "it's Cac Hume!"

http://www.coquetandcoast.co.uk/imag...buildings3.jpg

Do we have any information on the building at the end of Gibson Street - That must have been demolished and is now a public space with a seat & rose garden ? The original building was the biggest in Gibson Street - wonder if it had anything to do with the auctioneer? - or was it just a large house?

Acklington Street or Road?
1897
A few buildings on the road that could be candidates. All now gone whatever they were. Looks like an orchard or something there too. The Steet is not yet built on this map.

http://www.coquetandcoast.co.uk/imag...ngton_road.jpg

Were the closets for Marks Row on the other side of the road? :eek:

I don't think Dr Robertson would have been impressed with your response...he wasn't much taken with sick note charlies!

Water closets on Marks Row were definitely before my time. Still I don't think there would have been any danger of being mown down by Craiggs' bus in those days :D

Properties on Albert and Woodbine Streets.
 

1: There were flats in what is now the car park behind the Blue Bell and there was a shop, empty in my time,on the corner of the roadside, car sales now. This is also where there was a pub too at one time. Cliffwell garage was Thompsons Red Stamp Stores, I started there in 1956 as a 13 year old delivery boy, after school each evening and Saturdays, for 10s per week. They moved down to Queen Street in 1957 and I left school in 1958.
2: The blacksmiths shop was in the bungalow which stands at the entrance to Hope Terrace, before the block of two semis, it belonged to a Mr Pickard , Michael Howlistons grandfather, and Michaels mother had it made into it's present state after the blacksmithing finished.
3: The site on the corner of Gibson Street was originally a lodging house which was burnt down in the 1890's early 1900's leaving an open space which never seems to have been utilised.

Now my sister did mention Thompsons being there and then changed her mind. She will be pleased. I can only remember it as a long narrow shop down Queen Street. My friend's cousin worked there, Betty Clark. She also mentioned something about a kind of tank on the Cliffwell site that was drained and a goldfish was found in the bottom :D

fascinating stuff as ever guys.
The Gibson Street building that burnt down; I see the west facing wall has survived, and in now incorporated into the gable end of the neighbouring building.
I wonder if the conflagration gets a mention in the papers? (janwin , hint hint :) )


On the subject of the "Gibson" that gave his name to Gibson Street - this must be a diffrerent Gibson to the town surveyor commemorated at the west cemetery, as his active period seems to post date the "Gibson Street" name considerably?

http://www.coquetandcoast.co.uk/imag...t_cemetery.jpg



http://www.coquetandcoast.co.uk/imag...e_surveyor.jpg

the 4 panels.

si monumentum requiris circumspice = "Latin for 'If you seek a monument, look around you', from the epitaph on Christopher Wren's tomb at St. Paul's Cathedral" ...nice.



Gibson's grave is a few metres from the fountain (above)
Died aged 77, September 23 1913


http://www.coquetandcoast.co.uk/imag...bson_grave.jpg

Gable wall.
 

I too noticed the stone gable wall there yesterday. Looks unusual to have a stone wall on brick houses, seems to bear out the story of a previous building next door.

Maybe we shouldn't remind the council it's a brownfield site, they'll sell if off to build a block of flats on it :D

Definitely from the other building though, the stones on the face are angled differently to the red brick houses.

I can always respond to subtlety :) Ok I'm looking, but while I am, here's one, Morpeth Herald 11 March 1905: "For sale by private treaty, Gloster House, Amble, containing 7 rooms, and two tenemented houses of 4 and 3 rooms respectively. The property forms a corner site, being situated partly in High Street and Gibson Street. For further particulars apply to John Henderson, Railway Row, Broomhill."

That must be it, as the one at the other side was known as 'Sunlight House'

While we're on the subject of Gibson Street, here's a letter written by my G-G-Grandfather George Anthony Richardson (adopted by the Browns of Brown the plumber fame) The gentleman is pictured in another thread in his later years in Panhaven Road:


G.A. Richardson. Plumbers, Gas Fitters, Ironmongers and Tin-Plate Workers, etc.
No. 12 and 14 Queen Street, Amble.

To the Chairman & Members of the Amble District Council.

Gentlemen,

My Child having died from Diphtheria I am certain contracted through the insanitary conditions of the earth closets of the Gibson St. School - having examined the E.C.s myself I found them to be in a very unsanitary condition there being no ventilation in the roofs, & nothing but liquid filth in the boxes. There being no deodoriser put in such as ashes or lifted peat moss the smell from the closets would kill a horse, let alone a human being; & also the school itself, there does not seem to be any ventilation to the sides of the school or fresh air inlets such as lobentubes [?] to stand about 3ft above the children’s heads.
Your immediate attention to the above will oblige
Yours respectfully
G.A. Richardson.


The date is uncertain from the document, apart from '189x', but cross referencing to the east cemetery burial list, the dead child in question is
almost certainly Elizabeth Richardson aged 7 died 5th June 1895.

Burials have Elizabeth Richardson, aged 7, daughter of G A Richardson of Queen Street. The toilets sound choice :rolleyes: