My
family tree has a generation missing. No, not lost through carelessness, as
Lady Bracknell might have supposed, but because my closer ancestors cover a
long time span. Where most people have great grandparents, I have grandparents.
One of my mother's grandfathers was born in 1812, the other in 1817. The latter
lived until 1908 and my mother could remember him well. The reason for this is
that for three generations my forebears were the youngest children of large
families.
So memories
could go back a long way, and my mother often talked about her childhood in
Scarborough and the things which had made an impression on her. To my way of
thinking this is living family history.
She was
Norah Hopwood, youngest child of Joseph Lonsdale Hopwood, master grocer of
Queen Street. He was also town councillor and alderman and a leading member of
the Primitive Methodist Chapel in St Sepulchre Street. A very busy man, in
fact, as was pointed out in an article from the Scarborough Magazine of about
1895. "To find Mr Hopwood, one should first call at the shop (then in
Newborough) then at the Town Hall and then at the Chapel". However, the
interview with this man of public life does not tell us what my mother told me;
that her father's last job before bedtime was to go and see if
"Charlie" was alright. Charlie was the delivery van horse, and the
entrance to his stable can still be seen at the side of the Queen Street shop (now
Betta Motoring). A gentle side to this very strict man who was chairman of the
committee responsible for abolishing the famous and ancient Scarborough Fair.
He refused to allow his children to visit a theatre or any entertainment not
connected with the Chapel. Of course, the result of this was that Norah and her
sister would slip off to see a silent film for 2d when their parents were
otherwise occupied. The Pierrots too were frowned on; "low life
fellows" said father. But the family were much amused to hear father
revise his opinion after meeting Mr Catlin the Pierrots' proprietor. He was
admitted to be very pleasant and courteous.
In the
January 1995 issue of the Banyan Tree I was interested to read that on a
Scarborough walkabout Marie Belfitt described the burning of a house in Queen
Street, in which six children died. Although only seven years old at the time,
my mother remembered this vividly. But she told me an extension to the story.
Apparently many of the townspeople firmly believed that the fire was not an
accident, and that the father of the children was responsible for their
deliberate murder. There was so much feeling about this that a lynch mob of the
rougher elements from Dumple (that very rough street -no one went down Dumple
by night) set out to get the man. This gang was led by a Scarborough character
called "Giant Mary" and this huge woman carried an axe. Regrettably,
this is as far as mother's remembrance went. I would very much like to know if
the mob did catch up with the supposed arsonist, or if there was a
confrontation between them and the local police. I suspect the latter, and a
tame ending.
Happier
anecdotes were about summer days; Sunday school outings, perhaps to Forge
Valley, or Cayton Bay; going to the Strawberry Gardens where the fruit was
eaten off big cabbage leaves; and the thrill of seeing the first ever
aeroplane. While hanging out washing. This must have been the one which flew
over the town in 1912. Then there was the Shrove tide skipping on the
Foreshore, and always new clothes for Whit Sunday.
There
were day to day happenings. The house was cleaned from top to bottom twice a
year, Especially hated by the girls were the venetian blinds on the large front
windows (still there over the motoring shop) but Councillor Hopwood entertained
a great deal, and his wife Caroline insisted on everything being in spotless
order. Norah's only brother, another Joseph Lonsdale, but known as Lons was a
mischievous lad. One of his pranks was to put a dead mouse in the pneumatic
overhead change carrier in the shop, (probably only older members will remember
these), I have copies of advertisements for the shops in Newborough and Queen
Street, "Mr Hopwood is most solicitous to secure the confidence of his
extensive and high class clientele", I expect Tesco and Safeway feel
exactly the same way. but express themselves rather differently!
Norah's sister Ethel, a very clever needlewoman, was
apprenticed as a milliner at Rowntrees, the draper's establishment. An
apprentice in her first year received S5 a week. However, the workroom
manageress considered that "Miss Hopwood should forego the payment as her
family were comfortably off" .This caused deep offence. I have many
photographs of Norah, Ethel herself and other girls in the enormous, elaborate
hats so fashionable then.
Norah
remembered wearing mourning for the death of Queen Victoria in 1901. and again
for King Edward in 1910, Also of course, the 1914 bombardment of Scarborough by
German warships, in which a family friend, Mrs Merryweather. was killed while
helping someone into shelter, Then there was the occasion when Boyes Remnant
Warehouse was destroyed in a huge conflagration, just opposite the Queen Street
shop. I think the family found this more terrifying than the bombardment.
A few
doors away at 9 and 10 Queen Street Norah's uncle William Hopwood had a furniture
shop. We should probably now say antique dealer, as he certainly had some very
fine things. One of the rooms was called the Oak Room, being panelled and
furnished in oak. At the end of the cricket season Lord Londesborough, that
great patron of sport, would hire this room to entertain the Gentlemen Players,
the food being sent from Londesborough Lodge in the Crescent. Of course the
Hopwood girls heard all about the occasion; the footmen waiting at table; and
especially the sumptuous food provided. Fare at home was good but plain, a tin
of fruit out of the shop was a treat for Sunday tea only.
I
mentioned Norah's grandfather who was born in 1817. He was Thomas Bridekirk
Varey, a fishing boat skipper, He died in 1908, and his wife, another Caroline,
in 1906, They lived with the Hopwoods in Queen Street during their last years.
When Norah went to their room the old lady would say "Who's this? and her
husband would reply "Our Carrie's little lass., Strange that I can hear
those words so clearly, spoken 90 years ago by people I never knew, Grandmother
had lost her memory; sometimes she would wander off to look for the house where
she had lived as a girl in Merchant's Row. Mother often told this story. It was
some years after her death when I got interested in family history (one of the
deepest regrets of my life -she would have loved it) and eventually I looked at
the 1841 census returns for Merchant's Row. And there it was, 150 years of
personal memories handed down, abridged in a moment. "Caroline Flinton,
age 17". Just as my mother told me.
Miss C. Mosey,
Flat No.8, 7 St. Gregory's Road, Stratford upon Avon, CV 37
6UH
The Banyan Tree No
64 October 1995