Godliness and Good Learning – A History of Richmond Old Grammar School by Nancy Tanner and James Brightman (Solstice Learning, £8)

A NEW booklet produced to raise money for the Richmondshire Building Preservation Trust which is trying to find a new future for the old grammar school, on the banks of the Swale, now that it no longer has an education use.

In March in this space, we told how the grammar school had been founded in the late 14th Century, and for centuries had occupied a building in St Mary’s churchyard until, on September 27, 1850, the grand Gothic school overlooking the Swale was opened. It was known as the Tate Testimonial, after James Tate who had been its headmaster for 37 years until his death in 1843.

It was designed by George Townsend Andrews to complement the station complex and the Mercury bridge which he had completed in the mid-1840s.

As well as telling the story of the school, the new, well-illustrated booklet tells of some of its famous past pupils. Several, from Lewis Carroll in the 1840s to Baroness Hale in the 1950s, are well known, and some are extraordinary.

For example, Francis Nicholson, who was born in Downholme in 1655 went to the schoolroom in the churchyard. Francis may not genetically have been a Nicholson because it was rumoured that his father was Charles Paulet, the first Duke of Bolton, who built Bolton Hall, between Preston-under-Scar and Wensley, in 1678 to look after his Bolton Castle estate. Francis acted as a pageboy for him, and then Paulet bought him a commission in the army.

Francis served through Morocco, Spain and France, and by the time he landed in Boston in America in 1686, he was a captain. He was driven out of New York by the Glorious Revolution of 1688 only to find when he arrived back in England that Paulet had become a close advisor to the new king, William III. William sent him back to America as the governor of Virginia and then Maryland.

In 1709, Francis was going to launch an invasion of French Canada, but when that was aborted, he conquered Nova Scotia instead. After governing his new acquisition for a couple of years, he was sent to govern South Carolina for five years. He died in 1728, and is regarded as having been an extremely useful presence in America for various British monarchs.

Another fascinating story concerns the Bathursts. Two John Bathursts were both pupils and headmasters at the school, as was a third, Dr John, who represented Richmond in Parliament and became Oliver Cromwell’s physician.

Dr John acquired the leadmining estate of Clints, near Marske, and then, in 1655, bought Arkengarthdale. He treated his tenants harshly – threatening to send them to Ireland if they caused him trouble – but remembered the school generously. In his will of 1859, he left £12-a-year to allow two poor Richmond scholars to attend Cambridge University and to keep a third as an apprentice in the town.

Dr John’s grandson, Charles, built himself a townhouse in Richmond market place in 1720 – five years later it became the King’s Head Hotel.

Dr John’s grandson, another Charles, was a volatile character. He broke a leg of a King’s Head waiter by throwing him down the stairs, and he then killed his own butler – he claimed it was self defence.

However, this alumni of Richmond school is remembered like no other old boy. He became a successful lead entrepreneur and his name remains on the CB Inn in Arkengarthdale.

The booklet is available from the Station and Castle Hill Bookshop in Richmond, or through the shop on the solsticeheritage.co.uk site

From the Darlington & Stockton Times of December 7, 1918

THE area was trying to grapple with the end of the war, the hurriedly called election and the influenza epidemic.

The D&S said that the epidemic’s “death-dealing tentacles” had killed 12 the previous week in Northallerton, and the county medical officer had banned the two candidates for the Richmondshire seat from holding indoor meetings.

Therefore, the Unionist candidate, Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Murrough John Wilson, was at an open air meeting in Northallerton when he was asked: “If you are returned as an MP will you vote for or against the men – I beg pardon, I mean worms! – who call themselves conscientious objectors, ever being allowed to exercise the franchise?”

Lt-Col Wilson, of Cliffe Hall near Piercebridge, agreed that the “worms” should not have the vote otherwise it would put them on the same footing as men who had been prepared to shed blood.

His opponent was William Parlour of Monkend Hall, Croft-on-Tees, who was one of six candidates fielded by the National Union of Farmers. Mr Parlour addressed open air meetings in Bedale, Stokesley and Masham, and didn’t rise to the bait when Lt-Col Wilson tried to belittle the “agriculturist” by challenging him to a ploughing and hedge-cutting competition to decide the poll.

At the first Richmond Town Council meeting after the armistice, mayor GR Wade said that a substantial town hall should be erected in the market place as a memorial to the fallen.

Many councillors disagreed, and Mr H Blow said he would like something similar to Darlington’s South African War Memorial, or a captured German gun mounted on granite in the market place.

The council decided to call a public meeting to discuss the project.

Meanwhile, Rifleman Gordon Blades had unexpectedly returned home to his parents in Richmond having been wounded and taken prisoner near Metz on March 24. “For five months there was no news of him,” said the D&S. “On the armistice being signed, he and others were simply set at liberty to go where they liked. He says that had it not been for the Belgians, they would have starved.”

Rifleman Blades was the youngest of five brothers who served during the war. His brother, Oswald, of the Northumberland Fusiliers had been taken prisoner in May 1915 but “has not been heard of” since. However, as his name does not appear on the war memorial that was eventually erected in Friary Gardens, he too must have made it back.

In Aiskew, Maria Corps, landlady of the Malt Shovel Inn, was fined £5 for serving beer to three wounded soldiers who were wearing “hospital blues” – uniforms indicating that were still serving soldiers – three days after November 11.

The chairman of the bench, Sir Henry Beresford-Peirse (who had been at Lt-Col Wilson’s side at the open air meeting) said that “if it had not been the week of the armistice, when the regulations were somewhat relaxed, she would have been fined very heavily”.

There is a Malt Shovel Cottage in Aiskew, next to the Catholic church – was this the scene of the crime?

December 5, 1868

A FIRE had broken out in the early hours of Sunday morning in a lodging house in Bridge Street, Richmond, in the room of John Walker, “bezom-maker”.

“This man had little in the room besides straw, and by some means set the straw on fire,” said the D&S of the broom-maker.

Neighbours were quickly roused and used buckets of water to extinguish the blaze.

“There was fortunately not much damage done, beyond the window of the room sent in,” said the paper. “The occupier, however, met with a sound shower-bath by one who took an active part to put out the fire, who deemed it necessary to give Walker the contents of a few buckets of water over his person.”

There was also drama 150 years ago in Darlington. “A cow in a grocery shop may prove as disagreeable and destructive a customer as a bull in a china shop,” began the D&S’ report of the incident.

One of Mr Waller’s heifers which was being driven to the slaughterhouse had a sudden change of mind and rushed at the plate glass window of Mr Fox’s grocery shop on High Row, and thrust its head through it.

“Being seriously cut, it hastily withdrew, and then frantically dashed into the shop, to the dismay and danger of the ladies inside,” said the D&S. “The unwelcome visitor then leapt across the counter and, whilst thus situated, ropes were secured around its horns and it was removed.

“The damage committed by the brute is estimated at about £15, but the window is fortunately insured in the Plate Glass Insurance Company.”

December 7, 1968

THE D&S Times of 50 years ago was lamentably short on decent news, but at least the paper was full of Christmas adverts – records seem to have been the hot present of the year, and almost every town had its own disc shop.