At each other’s votes

THEIR home was Woodburn – “one of the finest residential properties in the neighbourhood – which “commanded extensive views over the rich, fertile valley of the River Tees”. It was in Coniscliffe Road, beside its sister mansion of Elm Ridge.

As Memories 114 told, the pair were built as unidentical twins by Sophia’s father, John Pease. Elm Ridge – now a Methodist church – was to be John’s home, but he died before it was complete; Woodburn – now demolished – was his wedding gift to Sophia and Theodore.

They married on August 14, 1862, at the Friends Meeting House in Skinnergate, spent six weeks honeymooning on the Continent, and settled in Woodburn House in Bristol.

Bristol was Fry’s home town, where he was involved in his Quaker family’s chocolate and engineering businesses.

However, in 1866, their wedding present in Darlington was complete, and they journeyed north for a new life, taking the name “Woodburn”

with them.

They immersed themselves in the town. In business, Theodore formed Fry, I’Anson and Company, which grew to become the Darlington and Simpson Rolling Mills. The Rise Carr area of town grew up – its first street was called Fry Street – for the steelworkers.

This provides us with the usual dilemma about our Victorian industrialists; Rise Carr was a desperately poor area, and the hugely wealthy entrepreneurs cared desperately about the poor people without giving them what they needed most, which was money.

In 1870, Theodore, Sophia and her cousin, Arthur Pease, of Hummersknott, created the Hopetown Mission, in Harry Street. Sophia was very involved with the women, even running hands-on cookery classes.

The future of Woodburn Nursery is uncertain due to council cuts

“Many a sick room has been brightened by flowers and many a convalescent supplied with fruit from the Woodburn conservatories”, said the Echo.

In 1885, to celebrate the coming of age of Theo and Sophia’s eldest son, John, they treated 500 Rise Carr workmen to a great tea.

Woodburn itself became the centre of the town’s philanthropic scene, and the centre of Sophia’s successful campaign to raise £10,000 to open the town’s first general hospital, at Greenbank.

Opposite Woodburn, in 1872, Theodore and Sophia spent £4,200 on six acres of farmland.

They built two gardeners’ cottages there and opened Woodburn Nursery as a social enterprise, offering employment and training for the less advantaged.

Theodore threw himself into local politics. He was a councillor for 12 years, served as mayor in 1877, and in 1880 was elected as the town’s second MP, with a thumping majority of 1,334. Sophia followed him, becoming a leading national advocate for women in politics – even involved in the movement to get them a vote.

They were a very effective pair, and she helped Theodore become one of the great men of Durham of his generation – his other business interests included Bearpark Coal and Coke Company and the Weardale and Shildon Water Company. He was knighted in the 1884 New Years Honours list and became the First Baronet of Woodburn and the Lord of the Manor of Cleasby.

FOR generations, all Quakers had been Liberals.

Lady Sophia (1837-1897), the granddaughter of Edward “the father of the railways” Pease

But in the 1880s the question of Irish Home Rule split them asunder. Liberal leader William Gladstone and the Darlington MP Sir Theodore were in favour of granting the Irish more freedom; Conservative leader Lord Salisbury and the Darlington MP’s cousin-by-marriage, Arthur Pease of Hummersknott, were not. They were unionists.

In 1892, Fry and Pease went head-to-head at the general election, breaking family unity. The campaign was dignified but, as polling day approached, the undercurrent of bitterness grew. Sir Theodore squeezed home with a waferthin majority of 56.

Gladstone became Prime Minister, but, amid increasingly rancorous scenes, he was unable to get Irish Home Rule passed.

With another general election on the horizon, in May 1895 the Darlington MP and his wife prepared for the political fray with a relaxing holiday to the Alpine lakes of Switzerland and Italy.

It was, though, a disaster.

Sir Theodore Fry (1837-1912), MP for Darlington 1880-1895.

Their daughter, Gertrude, telegrammed the staff at Woodburn from the Italian town of Omegna with the details: “They were driving along the side of Lake Maggiore when the horse took fright and bolted, overturning the carriage down the bank of the lake. Lady Fry was thrown into the water and was much bruised. Sir Theodore fell underneath the carriage, dislocated his right elbow, broke a rib and severely damaged his shoulder. He suffered much pain and is unable to use either hand.”

It was many weeks before they were well enough to return, and they were immediately splashed straight into the election campaign. Kinsman Arthur was again standing against the battered Sir Theodore, and tensions must have been ripe.

This time, Pease won, with a 657 majority.

Arthur Pease (1837-1896), of Hummersknott, was Lady Sophia’s cousin. They acted together over social concerns in the 1870s, but were on opposite sides of a political divide in the 1890s

It must have been hard for Sir Theodore to take.

In March 1897, he and Sophia tried to get away from it all with a holiday in Madrid.

After a comfortable Channel crossing, Sophia’s condition deteriorated as they drove south through France. They checked into Le Grand Hotel in Biarritz, where Sophia unexpectedly died a couple of months shy of her 60th birthday.

Sir Theodore telegrammed the Woodburn staff to say “internal influenza and weakness of the heart” had carried her away.

Her body was repatriated to Woodburn and she was buried in the Skinnergate graveyard.

Without his lady, Sir Theodore never embraced Darlington in the way he once had. In 1902, he remarried – his bride was 40 years his junior.

Woodburn was shut up and he moved to Surrey, where he was troubled by the after-effects of being trapped beneath his carriage.

In 1911, for the sake of his health, he undertook a long sea voyage to South America; in February 1912, he died back in Caterham, Surrey, aged 75.

The gateposts to Woodburn can still be found in Woodburn Drive

WOODBURN was auctioned at the King’s Head Hotel on May 30, 1913. The estate agent’s catalogue made much of its spacious entrance hall – 23ft by 33ft – complete with “a noble stone fireplace”. A “massive staircase”, 4ft 6in wide, led up to the six family bedrooms with three dressing rooms, plenty of bathrooms and nursery rooms, and even a sewing room.

On the top floor was a large billiard room and five servants’ bedrooms.

The “excellent kitchen accommodation”

included larders, pantries, sculleries, a game store and “a safe for silver with trays”. In the basement were two laundries, wine cellars, a hot water furnace and the bottom of the lift shaft that connected every level of the house.

Outside were pleasure grounds and garden, tennis and croquet lawns, a terrace walk, woodland walks, and rock gardens, not to mention the glasshouses “including vineries, a fernery, a peach house and a large fruit wall”.

It was bought by solicitor Thomas Clayhills-Henderson, who died there aged 97 in 1933.

And this time, even though it was designed by Darlington’s most famous architect GG Hoskins, there was no reprieve for it. Woodburn was demolished in 1935, and about 20 substantial properties of Woodburn Drive and Coniscliffe Road were built on its site.

However, not all was lost. If you look carefully at the picture of the mansion, you will see that many of the pinnacles, roundels, and stone details were used as design features in the new houses.

Mike Hovington has one of those houses, which includes an extremely fine balustrade which once must have delighted Mr Fry.

BUT on the other hand, on the other side of the street, there are not such glad tidings of Woodburn Nursery.

It acted as a social enterprise until 1930 when the Fry family sold it to Darlington council for a knockdown £3,250 – Theodore and Sophia having paid £4,200 for the farmland 60 years earlier.

Under the council, it flourished as a nursery, producing the billions of blooms for the town’s award-winning roundabouts and parks, and continuing to have a socially-enlightened aspect to it.

However, last year, the nursery was deemed surplus to council requirements and was put up for sale – there is a suggestion that 15 family homes could be built there.

And last December, 14 adults with learning difficulties were redeployed as a training contract came to an end. After 140 years, Sir Theodore and Lady Sophia’s concept of philanthropic gardening was killed off by the cursed age of austerity.