Reports

South Tyneside Meeting - May 2004 "Robert Ingham & Friends" by Ian Rogers A Report by Margaret Stafford

I do hope you weren't put off attending because it was our AGM-we pride ourselves on the speed with which we can deal with the formalities!! Yours truly continues as secretary, our treasurer is Philip Loads and our chair is Christine Davison. Then we were onto the main business of the night!

Ian Rogers brought his slides to tell us about Robert Ingham and friends, it could be subtitled streets of South Shields as you will see! Ian came as Consultant Surgeon to the Ingham Infirmary in 1978 and wanted to find out more about the man whose name the hospital bore. At first he thought he might have been a surgeon or doctor but after much burrowing in the Local Studies section of the South Shields library the following information emerged. The first slide was of the house in Westoe village which Robert Ingham called his home for many years. Robert was the first MP for South Shields and this talk is about him and the friends he came to know over the years in Shields until his death in 1865.

In the best traditional fashion the story starts with a journey and an accidental meeting. A young girl called Jane Walker, aged about 11, was living with a paternal uncle in Westoe Village in South Shields having been orphaned. She became ill and the eminent surgeon Richard Lambert was called to attend her from Newcastle. Either he was too tired or not sufficiently motivated to undertake the arduous journey to South Shields and in his stead he sent a deputy-William Ingham. William made the journey by horse and Jane duly recovered. William's visits continued and a romance developed. They married when she was 17 or 18 at the church in Westoe where William became a pewholder.

We saw a slide of a plaque in St Nicholas Cathedral in Newcastle commemorating William's mother-Alice Blackett of Whitby. His father, also William Ingham, was a surgeon in Whitby. He died young and son William was sent at 13 to be trained by Richard Lambert in Newcastle. Ian pointed out surgical training then was much different now as William had to pledge not to frequent public houses or commit fornication amongst other things, in return for food and lodging and training! William and Jane married and lived in Newcastle. Robert Ingham was their 4th child, born in the Big Market in Newcastle. He was an academic boy, educated at Ovingham where Thomas Bewick had been educated. He went on to Oriel College Oxford where he achieved First Class Honours in Classics and was offered a professorship but instead returned to Newcastle to become a lawyer where he practised in the Moot Hall.

In 1817 his father William, who had become a famous and well respected surgeon, died. Robert and his mother Jane came back to Westoe where she died shortly afterwards. Robert continued to live in the house in Westoe Village which became known as Westoe Hall.

By 1832 the feeling in the country was one of unrest, a wish for change. Only 2% of the population had the vote, society was very hierarchical. The 1832 Reform Act reorganised old voting areas, recognising the new centres of population. South Shields had become an important area and was the first place to apply to parliament to have the right to return an MP. Thomas Salmon, (recognise the street ?) South Shields' first town clerk, also a local historian, acted as agent and Robert Ingham stood as a Liberal candidate. There was great rejoicing in the streets at his election, including the lighting of tar barrels in the street. Others who stood as candidates included George Palmer, father of Sir Charles. One candidate withdrew after having been forced to fight a duel.

Ingham was chaired to the Market Place surrounded by banners of blue, the colour he was associated with, he was the "bright star of Westoe" and remained MP until 1841. We saw portraits of William Ingham from the board room at the Royal Victoria Infirmary as well as pictures of Salmon and Robert Ingham.

One of Robert's political opponents was James Mather (another street!). Educated at Edinburgh he was a wine and sprit merchant in Dean Street, opposed to slavery despite being married to a wealthy woman whose family had made its fortune in slaves. He had a scientific curiosity, interested for example in the design of a lifeboat, he was also concerned to discover why explosions occurred in coal mines and devised a ventilation system to assist.

One of Robert Ingham's fellow liberals (and another street name!) was John Twizell Wawn, offspring of a Twizell and a Wawn of East Boldon. He stood against Ingham in 1841 (Robert having been returned unopposed in 1837 as Victoria came to the throne) because rumour and innuendo suggested Ingham had acted dishonourably. The Newcastle Improvement Bill was enacted to improve the Tyne which was only navigable with difficulty. It proposed that customs duties from South Shields be passed to improve the Tyne at Newcastle-Shields' folks were unimpressed by this (nothing changes!) and angry that Ingham had not protested against this. It was alleged he stayed silent to gain personal advantage and he lost the election.

Wawn represented South Shields from 1841-52 and was particularly keen to promote shipping interests. In 1852 he decided to give up politics and again supported Robert Ingham, a decision prompted in part by the drowning of his son at Chollerford. At the 1852 election, one of Ingham's opponents was Lord Ravensworth, on the hunt for a safe seat for the Conservatives it was said. Ingham won a landslide victory and Ravensworth retired hurt, regretting he had ever set foot in Shields. The election was reported by a young James Cochrane Stephenson who went on to edit the Shields Gazette and become the town's MP.

Another of Robert Ingham's distinguished contemporaries was Dr Thomas Masterman Winterbottom, a neighbour in Westoe Village and in Ian's opinion one of the greatest benefactors South Shields has ever had. His father was a GP and the family lived near St Hilda's Church in the Market Place. He was educated by the curate and then went on to the University of Edinburgh as a medical student. There he came across a number of "unusual" teachers including one man who did his ward rounds accompanied by a pet lamb and a raven!

Money ran out and he transferred to Glasgow, much to Ian's chagrin as he himself trained there and did not like to think of it as being inferior to Edinburgh!. Dr Winterbottom was a very religious man. After qualifying he took himself off to London in the 1790s and after a year volunteered to serve as a doctor in the colony of Sierra Leone. This was known as the "white man's grave" because of the high mortality rate-about 50% after the first year. There was one naval ship which anchored to wait the required quarantine period and by the end of the time all aboard had died, the main cause of death in the colony being Yellow Fever.

In Sierra Leone Winterbottom met Zachary Macauley, father of the eminent historian. After Dr Winterbottom returned to South Shields he was visited by Zachary's brother who became ill during the visit, died and was buried in St Hilda's. After much searching Ian was able to locate the gravestone-lying face down in the churchyard, and spoke of the thrill we all recognised of that moment of discovery.

Winterbottom stayed 4 years in Sierra Leone and accomplished a great deal, including the production of a book about the language of the country which was later used by the British army. He returned to England in 1796 and in 1805 married a rich widow Barbara Wardle, whose family were wood importers. By the 1830s, as one of his main passions was to improve the education of seamen and he set up a trust to found the Marine and Technical College which was to become world famous. He was a generous man who ensured his sister's welfare had been taken care of before releasing the money for the college which only opened after his death. He set very strict rules eg the principal had to have a First Class Honours degree from Oxford or Cambridge in Maths or Astronomy. Any seaman who attended the college had to have served at least a year at sea. Dr Winterbottom survived into his 90s and as he suffered what proved to be his last illness, his main concern was to try and diagnose his condition.

Alderman John Williamson (yes, another street) was a friend of Robert Ingham. Along with James Cochrane Stephenson he was a manager of Templeton's Chemical Factory which had national success. He was also very interested in music and was a member of the Choral Union and donated many (musical) organs to the churches of Shields. He was present at the opening of the Ingham Infirmary in 1873. When he was in his early 60s he left to live on the shores of Lake Como where he died.

A slide which caused much interest was of Dolly Peel. Before we could hear her story one of the group had to be despatched to the bar, as a visitor to the Mission had been telling earlier in the evening of how he was related to Dolly Peel-sadly he had left for home but we will look out for him next month!! To return to Dolly, she hawked goods around the Market Place, often rumoured to be contraband. She was a great supporter of Robert Ingham who, although he remained a bachelor, used to attract the support of women. Dolly Peel, reputed to be a big woman with voluminous skirts, was said to have saved men from the press gang by hiding them under her skirts. When they came to press her husband, she kept the gang at the door of the house in Shadwell St long enough for him to escape. When they came back for him and caught up with him she volunteered to go with him, such was her attachment, and she was reputed to have become a very good fighter.

Ian also has a slide of an oil painting of Robert Ingham which had originally hung in the head office of the National Provident Institute in London, out of the blue they heard about the Ingham Infirmary and sent it to Shields. It now hangs in the Post Graduate Centre in Shields.

Interestingly Robert Ingham left little legacy of his years in parliament but was said to have been a very kind man. One story was of him regularly visiting a school on his trips from London where the daughter of a friend was being educated, always with flowers for the teacher and a cake. He bestowed many gifts in Westoe Village. A man of tradition, he made fine speeches. To commemorate him, the citizens decided an infirmary was needed and public subscription raised £5, 000. It was to be named in his honour and was opened in June 1873 with great fanfare. There was a slide of the staff at that time-all 12 -including the gardener! Trees were planted and the building had a grand facade. When Ian took up his post in 1978 the trees had matured, providing a link with the past. There was a family feel to the hospital, confirmed by a shot of the Race and Sports Day which apparently attracted eminent sportsmen and women. A picture of the ward glistened with cleanliness, the patients lying in an orderly fashion, watched over by the nurses, flowers only in the centre of the room-you could hear Ian murmuring "those were the days"!!! Although the building is now demolished its spirit lives on in the Ingham Infirmary Reunion which is held regularly, demonstrating the place of affection it still holds.