Fact of the Day - April

April 1st, 1948.

Fire brigades across country returned to local control after the war emergency. Tynemouth Fire Brigade was established. The first station was in Norfolk Street in the former police buildings, which later became the Bell and Bucket pub. In April 1974 the brigade was absorbed into Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Service.

April 2nd, 1909.

The Admiralty purchased a new steam trawler ‘Nunthorpe Hall’ from Smith’s Dock, North Shields for minesweeping on what would be the beginning of the relationship between the fishing industry and war duties. Many local fishermen later joined the Royal Navy Reserve (Trawler Section), serving and being lost in World War One. In early 1915 Smith’s Dock met again with Admiralty representatives and persuaded them that hunting whales and submarines were very similar. This led to the production of a pseudo ‘U’ boat hunter.

April 3rd, 1973.

A bright spot for North Shields Football Club during the 1972-73 season, when it suffered some disappointing results and injuries, was when player Dave Rutherford was capped for England in a match against Finland.

April 4th, 1938.

Tenders were invited for the erection of a further 214 houses on land around Waterville Road as part of the development of the Ridges Estate. The estate was built to house folk who had been moved from the Low Town (Clive Street, Liddell Street and Bell Street and bank side properties). The turf cutting ceremony was carried out on 31st October, 1932 by Councillor A N Park. The land was purchased from the Duke of Northumberland. The new estate would eventually provide 1,961 homes.

April 5th, 1824.

James Pringle, “a most profound mathematician”, died. For 22 years, he was treasurer of the Subscription Library in Howard Street and, for some time, was assistant for the ‘Nautical Ephemeris’ under Dr Maskelyne the Astronomer Royal at Greenwich Observatory. He had some education at Cambo, Northumberland but was mostly self-taught in French, Latin and Greek.

April 6th, 1870.

The remaining portion of the Chirton Estate was sold at the Commercial Hotel, Howard Street, North Shields. There were 12 lots including the Steam Corn Mill which sold for £500.

April 7th, 1966.

Joseph Robinson and Sons Ltd of North Shields, managers of the Stag Line announce that the shipping company has reverted to a partnership under its former title of Joseph Robinson and Sons. The three directors of the present firm will become partners: Mr. David M. Robinson, Mr. Nicholas J. Robinson, and Mr. R. Robinson-Pender.

The Stag Line was run by the Robinson family for generations and was one of Tyneside’s oldest family-owned shipping companies. From 1895 to 1980 it was based in the Maritime Chambers, Howard Street, now used as the North Tyneside Register Office. The distinctive Stag Line emblem is still on the south elevation - visible from below on Liddle Street.

April 8th, 1884.

Members of the Orange Blossom Lodge of Ancient Free Gardeners presented Brother P Martin with a gold medal bearing an inscription for his valuable services, in the Free Gardeners Hall, Prudhoe Street, North Shields. There were many such Lodges in existence over the years in North Shields. The oldest, St George's Lodge (formed prior to 1812), derived from a Lodge of soldiers from the Forfar regiment of militia. The Lodge, which had many members, met at the Nag's Head on Liddell Street. Free Gardeners were not Freemasons but shared some common principles.

April 9th, 1941.

There was a heavy air raid, the 14th bombing attack of the war, causing great damage over two days. During this time, Preston Hospital was hit, with two patients and three staff killed. The eastern end of the Fish Quay was attacked, resulting in the destruction of the RNLI boathouse, the RNLI lifeboat the John Pyemont and the Tyne Lifeboat Society boathouse and lifeboat, the James Young.

The John Pyemont was newly built, and this was the only time in the history of the RNLI that a lifeboat was lost before being in service. The intended target may have been the 12-pounder battery at the Fort. Chirton Primary School was also hit causing pupils to be relocated for duration of war. After the war, a new school - Collingwood Primary School, St Oswin’s Terrace - was built to replace it.

April 10th, 1910.

At the 11th annual meeting of Northumberland Park Bowling Club it was reported that the past season had been dry but bitterly cold. There were currently 58 members.

Mr. Jas Knot offered a cup for competitions among club members of the borough and Northumberland. Thanks were expressed to Mr. G. Taylor for the good condition in which the greens had been kept. The Mayor Coun J. Eskdale was elected President for the coming year.

April 11th, 1959.

The Shields Daily News celebrates 160 years of a Baptist Church in North Shields. Missionary Robert Imeary and 13 people who had been recently baptised at the Tuthill Stairs Church, Newcastle, formed the nucleus of the first North Shields church, with Robert Imeary in charge. The first building used by the Baptists for worship was at Harbottle Close on Stephenson Street (see building 16 on extract from John Wood 1826 map). The present Baptist Church, on Howard Street and designed by Shields born architect John Dobson, was not opened until 1846.

April 12th, 1969.

North Shields Football Club’s greatest achievement on this day when it won the FA Amateur Cup at Wembley, beating Sutton United. They returned home by train tired but jubilant. Crowds lined the streets to congratulate them. At a champagne reception at North Shields Town Hall, the Mayor declared: “You have brought honour and prestige to the town and county and put North Shields on the map.”

April 13th, 1909.

An informal meeting of the Tynemouth Conservative and Unionist party proposed the adoption of Edward George Spencer-Churchill as candidate for the 1910 General Election. He was a cousin of Winston Churchill, at the time a newly elected Liberal MP. He was adopted as the official candidate at a meeting at North Shields Christ Church School in December, 1909. He had been a prospective candidate for Derby in 1905. It is presumed he withdrew as a candidate for Tynemouth prior to the election as Charles Percy was the name on the ballot sheet.

He subsequently lost to the Liberal Herbert Craig by 167 votes. Edward George Spencer-Churchill was never elected to Parliament.

April 14th, 1956.

The Shields Daily News reports that the names of about 3,800 children have been submitted to the Ministry of Health following their parents having expressed willingness for them to be vaccinated against polio. The vaccinations began in May, although the amount of vaccine allocated to the borough was unknown beforehand. During the early 1950s, there were epidemics of poliomyelitis infections with as many as 8,000 annual notifications in the UK. Following the introduction of polio immunisation, cases fell rapidly to very low levels.

The Evening News reports the death in a bombing raid on 9th - 10th April of Arthur Thompson senior, aged 50, of 6 Cartington Road, North Shields, a well-known retail fish and poultry merchant of the town.

As a schoolboy he began bodybuilding and in his early 20s held the title of Junior World Weightlifting Champion. One of his world records, gained when he was 18, was for a two-hand back lift. Weighing only nine stone seven pounds, he lifted, with ease, 241 pounds, beating all previous records. For this feat he received an inscribed gold medal, bearing the date October 1909. He gave displays of weightlifting from the stage of the old Borough Theatre.

April 16th, 1941.

The Rex Cinema was damaged by a parachute mine. Built in 1936 to serve the Balkwell and Ridges Estate, it became a full-time bingo hall from February 1966, closing in 1995. The building lay vacant before being bought by the Co-op Funeral Service. It was finally demolished in August 1996 to make way for a new funeral home on the site.

April 17th, 1954.

Shields Daily News: The 100th Good Friday March had taken place with the crowd gathered around the platform in Northumberland Square for the open-air service, during the North Shields and District Sunday School annual Procession of Witness.

As this photograph from the mid-1950s shows, these annual processions were extremely well attended, usually including thousands of schoolchildren, their families, local churches and youth organisations.

April 18th, 1918

Lieutenant Ralph Eustace Smith, a director of Smith’s Dock Company, was killed in action flying with the newly re-named Royal Air Force.

A grandson of the late Thomas Eustace Smith, MP for North Shields & Tynemouth, Ralph joined a battalion of the Northumberland Fusiliers on the outbreak of war and was later transferred to the Northumberland Hussars, serving in France.

He joined the Royal Flying Corps and up to the time of his death had been an observer in a night bombing machine.

He left a widow and two children.

April 19th, 1870

John Clark died. A well-known eccentric character of North Shields, he ran a pub at Coble Dene and a business manufacturing whitening used as a cleaner, similar to ‘Blanco’.

In one of the rooms in his house he placed life-size coffins for himself, his wife, and some of his children, which he had made and exhibited to his customers. In each of the coffins was a small opening, into which people frequently dropped pieces of money. Clark said it would be used towards funeral expenses when he and his family had passed.

Sadly, he died in the North Shields Workhouse following the death of his wife and many of his children.

April 20th, 1954

The Rt Rev Professor Thomas Walter Manson, Moderator of General Assembly and a former member of Howard Street Church, North Shields, laid the foundation stone of the West Chirton Presbyterian Church in Verne Road. Three years later it took the name All Saints.

On the site is now All Saints Court, a self-contained development of nine one-bedroom and one two-bedroom flats set around a landscaped courtyard garden with gated off-street parking. The housing project was completed in 1993 by the Square Building Trust.

April 21st, 1891

Local aeronaut W. H. Shipley made his 30th ascent and descent at the Coach Lane grounds ‘in the presence of a large concourse o#northshields800

Shortly before seven o’clock, ‘the balloon having been fully inflated, the parachutist took his seat, and in response to the word ‘go’ the retainers released the balloon, which shot upwards like an arrow’.

At 17,000ft the parachutist was ‘barely discernible’ and the balloon looked the size of ‘a hazel nut’. Shortly afterwards, Shipley jumped from his balloon, ‘the parachute spread out its folds and descended with its human freight gracefully to mother earth’.

April 22nd, 1861

Hugh Taylor Esq having retired as MP for Tynemouth, the nominations of candidates took place on hustings erected in front of the new Town Hall, North Shields.

The polling was the following day, when the votes cast were Mr Hodgson 425 and Mr Otway 376.

Mr Hodgson, on leaving the town, was set upon by a mob and a force of 30 police officers ‘hardly sufficed to keep the crowd from doing him personal violence’. Missiles were thrown, including a half brick, hitting Mr Hodgson on the head and inflicting a serious wound. It was with great difficulty the police made a passage through to the railway station.

April 23rd, 1993

The IRA damaged an Esso oil terminal in North Shields, causing a three-foot square hole in a tank. The bombing leaked 600 gallons of crude oil, but it was contained in a channel designed to prevent leaks. A further attack was carried out on the terminal in June the same year.

April 24th, 1916

Robert Henry Dunn Hogg, aged 40, was killed in action. His officer sent a letter to his family with Robert’s last words – “my wife, my poor bairns”. Robert left six children under 16.

Husband of Sarah Anne, he enlisted in 1914. In August 1915 he went to France with the 9th Battalion Northumberland Fusiliers, some of the first ‘Kitchener Volunteers’ to serve on the Western Front.

Following his death his commanding officer wrote to his wife, informing her of his final words and adding: “He was loved here by every one of us and was surely the coolest and most cheery man in the trenches.”

April 25th, 1994

Sam Fender was born in North Shields. The well-loved local singer, songwriter and musician was educated at John Spence Community High School, worked at the Low Lights Tavern and is a well-known face around the town.

He is the recipient of three Brit Awards, releasing his debut single ‘Play God’ in 2017, marking the start of a successful career.

April 26th, 1793

Press gangs: most extraordinary preparations for impressing were made by the crews of the armed vessels lying in Shields harbour.

That night the regiment of Tynemouth barracks was formed into a cordon round North Shields to prevent any person from escaping.

The different press gangs then began, when sailors, mechanics, labourers and men of every description, to the amount of 250, were forced on board the armed ships.

April 27th, 1951

Death of Ellen Lee, the unsung heroine and air raid shelter warden, who saved more than 30 people, working through the night despite being injured herself, after a bomb hit the Wilkinson’s Lemonade Factory shelter in 1941.

On 18th June 1941 she was presented to the King and Queen on a visit to Tynemouth, in recognition of her bravery during the air raid that killed 107 people.

Despite her heroism, Ellen was not recognised with any award. Many feel she was overlooked because she was a woman.

The Comedy Picture Hall closed. It was on Saville Street West, originally built as the Oddfellows Hall and opened prior to 1866.

It was refurbished in 1899 and became The Comedy Palace of Varieties. One of the greatest music hall entertainers, George Robey was said to be a regular visitor and band leader Billy Ternent played piano there before forming his orchestra. The last picture shown before its closure was The Tall T starring Randolph Scott.

The building is the one with the white name board just along from the former Sir Colin Campbell pub.

April 29th, 1885

The steam trawler Flying Sylph of Middlesbrough landed a specimen of the ground shark at the North Shields quay. It had been caught in its net while the trawler was fishing off Whitby. The shark measured 14’ 10” and was described of being of great thickness. It was sold to Mr Ballard, a well-known local fish merchant for 14 shillings (70p).

It is likely it would have been a Basking Shark, due to its size.

April 30th, 1923

Paid for by public donations, the borough’s First World War Memorial was officially unveiled, at Hawkey’s Lane, by the Duke of Northumberland.

Two years later, almost to the day, the War Memorial extension to the Tynemouth Victoria Jubilee Infirmary was officially opened by the Mayor Alfred E Hill, again built by public subscription.

Like many towns, North Shields people felt practical initiatives were better than purely ornamental structures, for a community that had lost almost 2,000 men.