James Liddle

(In the early days of James & Frances Liddle, you not infrequently find their name as Liddel.)

Some notes from Jack Gainford to daughter Edith about the Liddle family

May 1990, with corrections in late 2002

(Further notes about some of their family are recorded separately.)

Sources: certificates etc., Jack’s mother, Mollie Middleton, Ann Fry, (who supplied copies of manuscript by Fanny Liddle) and Jeanne Perry.

I am enclosing a chart for you as an interim measure. It was drawn by Jeanne Perry, chiefly to show her own descent from the Liddles. I hesitate to call it a "tree", because there are many things missing. However, the origins of the Bournemouth, Gainford and Bailey lines are indicated. Some day, I hope to be able to do the job properly, and some corrections may then be necessary.

Here follow some notes about some of the people appearing on the chart.

Frances Middleton, my great grandmother, was born in Colchester in 1847. Her father, William Middleton, was described as a cab owner on her birth certificate, but he had earlier been a coachman at Abberton Manor, outside Colchester. According to Bill Middleton, the family was later at the Osborne Hotel at Clacton on Sea, which he said was still extant in 1985. Abberton Manor is now a private nursing home, and Rena and I went to see it in 1997. We talked to the owners, and obtained their consent to taking some photographs of the exterior.

In 1867, at the age of 19, Frances (Fanny) moved north to work as a domestic servant to the Pease family. (By that time, the rail network was extensive, and employers often paid the first fare of a new employee.)

It is clear from what I have heard about her relationship with the Pease children that she was their nanny, but as she first went to the family when she was still quite young, it is almost certain that she would have to start as "children's maid", the person who had to do the skivvying for them, like washing and ironing, taking their food up to the nursery, and so on. After this kind of "apprenticeship", she would then be promoted to nanny. There is in this an element of supposition, as there often is when one is trying to clothe the bones of a family tree with some human story.

James Liddle - Liddell was an alternative spelling in the 19th century - was born in 1848, in Sadberge, a tiny village at that time, just to the east of Darlington. (Copy of O.S. map enclosed.) His father, Sydney, was a shoemaker. James came to work for the Pease family in 1871, at the age of 23, first as groom, and later coachman, which latter, I understand, was quite a prestigious position in the hierarchy of domestic servants. James and Fanny married at Darlington in 1875. Perhaps they did not have the money to return to Fanny’s home for the wedding - something on which we can only speculate.

Pease was a noted Quaker family, which made its money from wool, and later, coal and engineering. One of the family was the driving force behind the famous Stockton and Darlington Railway, but he must have been one if not two generations before the ones for whom the Liddles worked.

In 1864 the Pease family had built for themselves a mansion, Hummersknott, which at that time would be just beyond the western edge of of Darlington. A letter of 1990, (copy enclosed), reported that the house was still there, forming the core of a comprehensive school which has been built on the estate. The Liddles lived in five different tied cottages on the estate.

By the time their son Alix, and their daughter Winifred, were married, in 1914, they had moved to Middleton Lodge, Middleton Tyas, which is a small village not far from Scotch Corner, to work for another branch of the family. I suspect that the reason for this move was that the Pease children of the Hummersknott generation grew up, and a younger member of the family wanted a nanny for his children. In 1982 we were told by Mr Wilf Stead, an old man in Middleton Tyas, that Nanny Liddle had a reputation for being able to cure almost anything with old-fashioned remedies.

Middleton Lodge is no longer in the Pease family. In 1982 the then owners tried to make a bit on the side by having a CL, (a simple kind of caravan site), and Rena and I went there at June half-term with our van. On the roadside near the Lodge is a pair of semis, called Kneeton Cottages, which was built as tied houses, probably around 1910, by the Pease family for the Liddles. (Copy of O.S. map is enclosed.) The one nearer to Middleton Tyas was occupied by the Liddle parents, and the other by their son Percy. They are now in private ownership.

According to Mollie, James and Fanny’s last service for the Pease family was at Hill House, Richmond, and they retired in 1928, when he was 80 and she 81. He had worked for the Pease family for 57 years, and she for 61. They lived in retirement at 14 Gilling Road, Richmond, a house which, ‘they say’, was bought by their son Arthur for them and their unmarried daughter Rose. They called their house ‘Abberton’, the home of Frances’ parents. (Abberton seems to have been held in esteem in the family, since Bill Middleton’s father gave his house in Blackhill, Co. Durham, that name.) James died in 1930, aged 82, and Frances in 1942, aged 94. Both were buried in Darlington West Cemetery, in the same grave as their son Alix, (see below). There is a headstone, still easily legible.

You will see from the dates on the chart that I never knew my great grandfather, nor his son Alix, nor his daughter Frances Mary, who was my grandmother. I remember my great grandmother well, a sweet old lady, short in stature. In the 1930s our family made annual pilgrimages to Richmond. I also remember their daughter Rose, who looked after them in the family home until they died. She was tall, slim, and kind. She died in 1962 (think), at Arthur’s and Mabel’s house. Arthur and Mabel spent their lives in Darlington, and I remember them quite well. They had no surviving children. We called on them in 1963, during our tour in our bus/motor caravan, and we took our family to visit them in 1967, from the cottage we rented near Wigton.

Percy and Louie I met only a few times, at Betty Portmann's, when she and Edi lived in Ulverston. The ones I remember best were Auntie Winnie and Uncle Will, because as children we had several very happy holidays with them in North Shields, in the 30s. They too had spent their working days in domestic/catering work, and were joint Stewards of the Conservative Club at North Shields.

In 19th century domestic service, the master/servant relationship was still paternalistic in nature, and it is therefore not surprising that Liddle children would be offered employment by the Pease family. However, so far as I can discover, neither Frances Mary nor Winifred ever worked for them. Arthur and Alix worked in the offices of the firm Pease and Partner, who were big coal owners in the Northeast; Percy was the chauffeur, and Rose worked in the house - I think probably as a housemaid.

In 1982, we talked to the then owner of Middleton Lodge, Middleton Tyas, Mr Allison. He was a consultant mine surveyor, and his wife made a little on the side in summer by opening the dining room on Sundays for afternoon tea. We sampled that, in order to see inside part of the house; lovely hall and grand staircase. (We had earlier been able to see the former stables and coach house buildings, with staff accommodation above, though the Liddles would by then have their house, Kneeton Cottages.)

The house was built c 1780, by a Mr Hartley, who prospered on copper shares. The estate had 2,000 acres, and remained intact until 1946, when death duties caused it to be broken up and sold.