Night of disaster at the 'furney'

But last week, when Echo Memories turned up to have a look at it, it had gone. A new steel fence barricaded its vacant site and a neat blanket of shingle covered its empty foundations. The North of England School Furnishing Company in East Mount Road had been demolished and obliterated.

Naturally for a Darlington firm, the beginnings of the "school furney", as the town knew it, can be traced to the ubiquitous Peases.

In the 1860s John Pease, who lived in the East Mount mansion, was concerned that there was not enough religious literature on sale in Darlington. He approached the town's two representatives of the British and Foreign Bible Society - WC Parker and Samuel Hare - and offered them help in opening a religious bookshop on the corner of Russell Street and Northgate (now beneath the inner ring-road roundabout).

At the same time, the Pease family mining firm was building a couple of schools for its colliery communities around Stanley. The schools needed desks and fittings - Parker and Hare knew of a workshop in Leadenhall Street and offered to knock some up.

At first, the two businesses ran hand-in-hand: desks were made and religious books were provided to go in them. Then came the 1870 Education Act which set up the state schooling system. Suddenly it was boom time in the school-fitting business.

In 1875, the North of England School Furnishing Company was formed properly. Parker was its chairman, Hare one of its directors. The other directors were Henry Brooks, who ran a private school in Milbank Road, J Dodds and George Marshall - both councillors who have streets named after them - and Henry Pease of Pierremont.

The formation of the company allowed it to finance a new factory. Land was bought in Kinross Street, a byway off East Mount Road which backed on to the Stockton and Darlington Railway. The factory began production in July 1876.

All was going well until disaster struck at about 9.40pm on Monday, January 28, 1889. Fire was spotted in the works and "telephonic communication" was made to the fire brigade.

The brigade was based in a cellar beneath the Town Clock off High Row. Its one engine was horsedrawn and called Southend as it had been presented to the town in 1870 by Joseph Pease who lived in the Southend mansion (now the New Grange Hotel).

Southend was kept in a state of readiness. As soon as telephonic communication was received, a "fuzee" or lighted match was dropped down its funnel and by the time it had been pulled to the scene of the blaze it was in full steam, ready to pump water.

To raise the firemen from their homes, the bell in the clock tower was rung and by 10pm firemen and engine had arrived in East Mount Road. However, the clanging of the bell had also alerted the whole town to the fact that there was a major incident under way.

With no television, as many as 3,000 people rushed to see the entertainment, and many were already in place before the fire brigade arrived.

Pumping water out of the Skerne about 600 yards away proved difficult for Southend, and the water supply from standpipes was very poor. By 10.30pm, only the west wing of the complex was not ablaze. The large brick wall of the west wing sheltered several hundred on-lookers from the heat and the splashes of the pitiful fire hoses.

The Northern Echo reported: "The firemen were still playing on the main body of the building, their operations being intently watched by the spectators, when, just after half-past ten o'clock, a flash of light was observed to momentarily illumine the interior of the west wing and then followed a report like that of a piece of ordnance. Almost simultaneously the gable end of the wall blew out and TONS OF BRICKS FELL ON THE PEOPLE BELOW."

Dozens of brave men dived into the wreckage. They pulled out two dead men. "Their heads and faces were totally unrecognisable, and their trunks had been beaten into a horrible misshapen mess," said the Echo. "Then came young boys with heads covered with blood and dangling limbs."

The fire had burnt itself out by the early hours of the morning, the furney all but destroyed. The houses of East Mount Road were full of the mutilated as the death toll rose.

An inquest was held a couple of days later in the Railway Tavern, in Northgate, into five deaths: Thomas Hogg, 36, a blacksmith, of 4 Ann's Terrace, who worked at the School Furnishing Co; Thomas Boddy, 27, of Law's Yard, Northgate, a married fellmonger in a tannery, who left a widow and a five-week baby; Robert Francis Thompson, 31, a single shoemaker, who lived with his parents in Jane Street, Rise Carr; George Wilson, 61, of Leadenhall Street, who worked at the factory; Lionel Stainsby, 18, who worked at Peases' Mill in Priestgate. His skull was fractured by the fall of bricks and he was taken to Darlington Hospital where an emergency trepanning operation was carried out - his skull being drilled into and sawn open. He did not survive the treatment.

At least 15 others were seriously injured - George Carter, 41, of Parkside had a leg amputated, for instance.

A number of positives came out of the "grave disaster which had turned into a tragic calamity that has thrilled the whole of the north of England". The Corporation was instructed to improve the water pressure.

It was also instructed to provide a proper mortuary - the bodies of Messrs Thompson, Hogg and Boddy were laid out in a stable behind the Railway Tavern. Sadly, the landlord of the Tavern mislaid his key to the door and the inquest was held up for 45 minutes while he turned out his pockets searching for it.

Finally, it was decided that the bell which had called so many to their deaths should never be rung again. Instead a runner was employed to dash to the firemen's houses.

THE North of England School Furnishing Company sustained £7,000 worth of damage in the 1889 fire. But it was rebuilt and thrived so that by the 1920s it was extending into Upper John Street.

In 1909, it patented "a blackboard of the type which is capable of swinging around a vertical rod upon which it can be raised or lowered, is pivoted about two sliding brackets which can be clamped in any position on a vertical rod". It sounds like you needed a maths or physics degree to work the blackboard, but it was known as "the Darlington Slateboard" and it went around the world: the Falkland Islands, Hong Kong, India, Burma and Syria.

By the 1940s, the company was employing 250 men in Darlington, and there were two factories in Newcastle and one in Newton Aycliffe.

After the war, the furney diversified from school goods into the new craze of fitted kitchens.

All was going well until early afternoon on Saturday, October 11, 1947. Another fire broke out. Fire crews from across Teesside dashed to the scene, and there were again fears that the East Mount elevation would collapse.

And, of course, there were rubber-neckers. "Clouds of dense black oily smoke and flames shooting up at twice the height of the buildings attracted large crowds of sight-seers and police reinforcements had to be called out to control them," reported the Northern Despatch.

Tens of thousands of pounds of timber was destroyed, but the following Monday it was business as usual.

Yet it was the beginning of the end for the furney.

The company struggled through the 1950s and although a new factory was built in East Mount Road in 1963, 180 jobs were lost. In 1970, Nesco (as the company was now called) slipped into receivership. A takeover ensured work for most of the remaining 188 employees, but during the decade their numbers dwindled. In 1981, the 50 remaining workmen were offered the chance to move to Peterborough as East Mount Road was closing.

Much of the site was then cleared, but the East Mount Road elevation remained until vandals took a liking to it.

It became so derelict and dangerous that a couple of weeks ago its owner, Topcram, agreed with the police and the council that it should be demolished on safety grounds.

If you have any Quakers' memorabilia, or have any information or memories about the North of England School Furnishing Company, please write to Echo Memories at the address below.

Published: 30/05/2002

Echo Memories, The Northern Echo, Priestgate, Darlington DL1 1NF, e-mail chris.lloyd@nne.co.uk or telephone (01325) 505062.