Woodhorn Archives Look Up Please

[JillJ]

Hi,

I have a death certificate for a Richard Taylor who died in hospital.  An inquest was held on 6 January 1922 but no records survive of the Inquest.  The death has been registered by the Coroner, giving no clues as to family and  I therefore have no idea if this is 'my' Richard Taylor or not - but he is the only one on the death indexes whose age ties up!

The only other clue given on the certificate is his address and occupation, given as "Of No. 8 Long Row Dinnington Colliery, a coal miner" - he died of 'Exhaustion due to his Mental Condition'.  'My' Richard should be a bricklayer and should not have died in Newcastle -  he forms the central part of what looks to be a scandal of some sort which involves his wife giving birth to a child supposedly 11 months after Richard's death!!   I am beginning to think he didn't die when they said he did but he left home, probably in disgust, and, if this is my man, then had a nervous breakdown or something!

I have been in touch with Woodhorn Archives who want to charge me £25 to look at the Electoral Register for that address.  If this was my man he was probably in lodgings, but if it was his home address and there are other family members there it would help to either identify or eliminate him.

Although the death was registered in Newcastle Upon Tyne I am told that Dinnington is covered by the Electoral Registers for Wansbeck, north of Newcastle and in Northumbria.  I am also told that the reference for the look up is ER/6/48 & 50 and the person will need some form of personal identification.

So...if anyone is going to Woodhorn I would be most grateful if they could take a look for me and maybe help solve my mystery!

Many thanks.

Jill

[Michael Dixon]

Jill,

I will visiting Woodhorn Centre soon and have a look for the Electoral Register in question.

But I also go regularly to Newcastle City Library.

You will wonder why I mentioned the last bit !

Here's why ...

I think we have a problem of hierarchy of places...

*First of all you mentioned " Northumbria"... There IS no such place... Northumbria exists only in historical terms or advertising terms.. Northumbria Plant Hire.

*Dinnington which was once in Northumberland, today lies within the metro borough of Newcastle. The Northumberland border lies about half a mile west of Dinnington Village. The relevant borough in Northumberland is Castle Morpeth.

* Wansbeck Borough, centred around Ashington, does not border Newcastle City at all ! So I don't know why it was mentioned to you ( Woodhorn Centre lies within Wansbeck Borough, but that is coincidental ! )

*Dinnington BMDs from 1837 to 1936 were registered in the Registration District of Castle Ward. ( There is no such town/village as Castle Ward, just name of an area.... a bit like Glendale RD, further north in Northumberland) The registration sub-district offices were at Gosforth, Newburn, Ponteland and Stamfordham. Ponteland one been the nearest to Dinnington.

*After 1936 Dinnington new BMDs were to be registered at Northumberland Central RD ( centred at Morpeth).

*Then in 1974 , in conjunction with the Local Authority reorganisation, Newcastle became the RD for Dinnington, and remains so today. And records for registrations made whilst Dinnington was in Northumberland will have been trasferred to Newcastle.

So what, you'll wonder.... and blame you, I do not.. well I think that Dinnington Electoral Registers may well be on the shelves in Newcastle City Library. ( or in Tyne & Wear's equivalent of a County Record Office, "Tyne&Wear Archives", Blandford House, Newcastle)

But I shall soon know !

Michael Dixon
Newcastle

[Michael Dixon]

PS.

Where did Richard die... not in Dinnington ?

MD

[JillJ]

Hi Michael and thank you very much for your reply and your offer - I do appreciate it.

I don't think I'm even going to try to get my head around all that information!  I don't know the area at all and this is the first time I've had to try and sort it out, but the phone calls I made yesterday would have been funny if they hadn't been frustrating!  Tyne and Wear Archives absolutely insist that they do not have the Electoral Registers - they passed me to Woodhorn, who said the same.  I went back to Tyne & Wear who said they were 'sick and tired of having this argument with Woodhorn'.  Back I went to Woodhorn who then informed me that they were closed on Mondays and Tuesdays and would get somebody to check it out and ring me back today.  Somebody rang within the hour and told me that they DO have the Registers and gave me the reference numbers!  They all tried to explain some of the geography involved but it meant nothing to me - and it was the woman at Woodhorn who kept using 'Northumbria' in her descriptions!

Having got that off my chest - back to Richard Taylor.

The death certificate states that he died on 6th January 1922 at 416 Westgate Road, Newcastle Upon Tyne U.D.  He was age 38 years, Of No. 8 Long Row Dinnington Colliery A Coal Miner. 

During my conversations with Tyne & Wear Archives I was told that 416 Westgate Road was in fact the address used to cover the stigma attached to the fact that the place was in fact Winn Grove General Hospital, formerly the Workhouse Infirmary and now known as Newcastle General Hospital.

I also asked where he would be buried if he was a pauper with no family present and I was told either St. Nicholas Cemetery, Newcastle, which they said is next to the hospital, or maybe St. Johns, Westgate, Elswick (wherever that is!)

The Richard I am trying to trace was a Bricklayer and lived in Norton (now on Tees), Durham.  He was born in Norton on 9 May 1884. 

Wherever you find the Electoral Registers I am most grateful for your time and trouble.  Thanks.

Jill

[Michael Dixon]

Ha Ha, what a chuckle I got... reading your reply...Did I send you too much info, on top of your trials with the neighbouring CROs ??
...little do you know how lucky you are... my message to you was originally twice it's final size, but I cut it down ..LOL.

(Reminds me of many years ago, when I was helping dtr with her homework.. " Dad, I don't want any explanations, just tell me the x@Jg* answer ! )

I lived in Stockton-on-Tees, (of which Norton is now part of) from 1974>2000. I should explain to you the history of Norton in relation to Stockton, and the creation and cancellation of County of Cleveland.... but only kidding.

Shall be at Woodhorn with next few days ( I favour Sundays)

Michael Dixon

[JillJ]

Michael - Feel free to give me as much information as you like.  Fortunately I have one of those brains which cuts off immediately upon overload!

Jill

[GRACELAND]

I have put this post on as i find this interesting and want to keep track 

Quote ,Jill

            A Scandal or something  Interesting !

Good Luck Micheal In finding something Good !! 

[Michael Dixon]

Jill,

I made it Woodhorn "Northumberland Museum Archives and Country Park " yesterday ( Sunday, slackest day)

To cut a long story short(ish), using your document reference and some of my own, I did not get my hands on Dinnington Electoral Register for 1920-1922 period.

I saw an acquaintance of mine, Ken,  who was there
"indexing" Electoral Registers for the authorities on a part time basis. He told me that "believe it or not", Dinnington ER went under the hierarchy of Hexham. Surprised me !

That did not necessarily mean that the records were only held at/in Hexham, but that whichever office(s) had them, they would held/filed etc "under" Hexham's authority.

So with the help of archivist Keith ( good man, helped me out big style in last 10 years) a volume was found and dusted off for me............ Dinnington alright, 1921... fine... but drat.. it was " absent voters"....

So then I went down your route... using the document reference numbers you passed to me....

This produced Hexham ER for Autumn 1920... sounds good... however it included only ER for Hexham and the areas I associate with Hexham, eg Haltwhistle, Haydon, Corbridge etc and dozens of mini communities... and unfortunately no communities from the county that borders the north-west corner of Newcastle.

So failed, but I think we are on the right track. And will keep at it.... Newcastle Library today and on next visit to Woodhorn.


Let me for a moment defend the authorities of today.... but just for a moment.. lol,...

The ER book I saw, printed just after 1920, is hopeless in that it has no index, no contents page, and no appendix etc, to help anyone discover and turn up what they want, and the communities were not in alpha order. An it was in surname order , not street order. Some ERs I have seen for bigger towns/cities have street order index, others have both name order and street order.

So todays archivists will be able to identify and reference such a book and retrieve it, but they will not necessarily know what is the breadth of it's contents, other than by clues from it's title.

This little trial reminded me of my failures in ERs in my home library of Blyth... missing years, " not held here", rumours of
wholesale destruction, rumours of gov withdrawl ( to deprive the invading Germans of good info of our admin/geography)

ERs are like cemeteries for me.... I never find what I am after..

Later...

Michael Dixon

[JillJ]

Michael,

What can I say other than a huge thankyou for all the time and trouble you are taking on my behalf!

This is the kind of story that really makes me wish this country would get itself organised into definite, logical, geographical areas - if not to help the likes of you and me to help our children!  For instance, I live between Lincoln & Gainsborough;  I have a Lincoln postcode but a Gainsborough telephone number and I pay my rates to West Lindsey District.  People who live in Gainsborough, although it is in Lincolnshire have a Doncaster (Yorks.) postcode.  The Gainsborough registration district takes in part of Nottinghamshire, so people living in Nottinghamshire register their BMD's in Lincolnshire. If I lived half a mile in the other direction I would still have a Lincoln postcode but I would have a Nottinghamshire telephone number and come under Nottinghamshire County Council, not West Lindsey or Lincoln.......!  Wouldn't life be simpler all round if we all knew where we belonged?!

And all this for a man who may not be the one I am looking for!

Jill