1891 - Coulson - South Shields - *The house, not the people*

[stanmapstone]

Two photos (5th and 6th)  of Tennant Street as it is now http://www.singleaspect.org.uk/?p=24397 

The link I gave to  "130 years ago - Hebburn.org" seems to be about the older housing near the river and not New Hebburn where Tennant Street is, which look to be good quality houses, although I can't see how 14 people squeezed into a four roomed house as shown in the 1891 census, although five of them are children. Just to say that Thomas Coulson is shown as the "Head" not Mr Forster.

Stan

[dtcoulson]

(Was away doing some errands for a few hours)

I am very impressed by your insights, Heywood and Ruskie.
A lot of simple things I never thought of.
For example, a hallway which runs past the front room and keeps that room private.
Also entering the house from the back door for easy access to the living space in the kitchen.
Also temperature. A cellar would be pretty cold too, for anyone thinking of sleeping down there. 
Open fireplaces in four rooms would make the house really dusty, I would think?
How about dampness? Thinking of food cooking in the kitchen on a winter evening, the damp air wafting through the house and settling on the walls and windows.

Oh yes, and what about bathing? Little shed out the back, maybe? Warm water carried by hand from the house?

I have been wondering about the wide streets too. This runs counter to the usual progress of city streets, which start just wide enough for pedestrians and carts and prove to be a challenge for two lanes of cars in the next century. Why would streets in Hebburn have been built so wide circa 1900?

-DC

[dtcoulson]

On the subject of old Tom being the head of the house, I assumed he probably moved in with his daughter and her husband after his own wife died, in which case the unspoken head of the house would be Mr Forster. He may have been called the head of the house simply because he was the head of the family. But then again, it could be that they moved into HIS house. The matter strikes me as important as it decides who has authority over how the rooms are used, whether for example he had the best room in the house or slept on a pile of cushions in front of the kitchen stove.

I wonder who he would share a room with? His unmarried namesake son, I suppose, but it would be a tough situation to share a room with a visiting sister in law or squeeze in with one of the married families. Whatever the case I think there was a lot of compromise where privacy was concerned. Maybe it didn't matter as much to folks back then as it does to us today.

I have enjoyed reading your stories.

-DC

[Ruskie]

Images posted by Stan at #18 above show how wide and open the streets were. Why would this be? I don't know. Who built the houses? That may offer an explanation. There were some people aware of how detrimental to health living in cramped conditions was, so maybe the person who built these terraces was one of them? Were they built by the landowner or local mine owner or other employer and leased to employees, or were they privately owned. There must be some information about them in a local library or archives.

I know in some wealthy areas that streets were wide to allow carriages to turn, but in a street like Tennant Street you would not expect to see this kind of transport, where most people would have walked to work.

[Ruskie]

If you can dig up some maps older than those on the NLS website, you might be able to work out a time frame for when the houses were built? (eg. the area was fields on one map but houses had appeared on the next map)

[dtcoulson]

Have you noticed, also, that the streets are usually deserted or nearly deserted in most pictures from that period and in that region. It reminds me of brand new housing districts I have seen where I live: slick looking houses and roads but very few people on the streets.

[dtcoulson]

Stan at comment #2 quotes that the area was relatively new, yet houses were usually packed with multiple families. The streets look new.

[dtcoulson]

I found this reference, which has been enlightening (re Hebburn history):

https://books.google.com.sg/books?id=hnWIAwAAQBAJ&pg=PT100&lpg=PT100&dq=shamrock+st+hebburn&source=bl&ots=rAU3GnwY-e&sig=TJc6CJUsH5K1ZUwkC1nKCr_VyaM&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjo2YHHmqjdAhVLr48KHb_fCP0Q6AEwCnoECAYQAQ#v=onepage&q=shamrock%20st%20hebburn&f=false

Hebburn Newtown - which I assume is the district we are referring to in this discussion - was built after the railway in 1872 so could not have been more than 19 years old in the 1891 census.

[stanmapstone]

From the Shields Daily Gazette - Friday 08 November 1872