ONE hundred years ago this week, in a typical North East terraced house, without the assistance of gas, air or an NHS midwife, Annie Thurgood gave birth to triplets: Gwen, Ena and Bert.
Annie went into labour, presumably surrounded by towels, hot water and several experienced ladies from Harrowgate Hill area of Darlington, expecting to give birth to one baby but ended up with three bouncing bundles of joy.
“She didn’t know she was having three and combined they weighed 16lbs, and she gave birth without gas or air and in her own home – it is unbelievable,” says her granddaughter, Joan Kirkbride.
Albert Thurgood with his three young triplets
All three of the Thurgood twins not only survived but lived healthily into old age.
Gwen once said: “We were a complete surprise to our mother, who already had two girls under five, and we were celebrities until we were 21.”
They arrived in Crosby Street on May 17, 1922. Surviving triplets were rare then, and the Thurgoods probably made it because they were so small – they each weighed a little over 5lbs. Gwen and Ena, who were identical, only grew to 4ft 11ins.
How the Echo's former sister paper, the Evening Despatch, reported the arrival of the Darlington triplets
Their arrival caused quite a stir locally. King George V sent Annie a “King’s Bounty” of £3, in a royal started by Queen Victoria in August 1849. She had been visiting Ireland and learned of a poor woman who had given birth to triplets and was struggling financially, so she sent three one pound coins – one for each baby.
It was then decided that to qualify for the “Queen’s Bounty”, a mother had to be a married British subject and had given birth to three or more live babies. The custom seems to have continued until the start of the Second World War.
As well as receiving the royal pound coins, the Thurgoods were presented with a suitably large pram by Thornleys, the famous pram shop in Northgate. The mayor, or perhaps his wife, presented the pram to them.
Annie, in the centre at the back, with Albert and the pram presented to her by Thornleys, who have stuck a "Darlington Triplets" notice inside it. Holding the three babies at the front is, we believe, the wife of the Darlington mayor, with a Thornleys' representative at the back right
The triplets’ father, Albert, died quite young, and so at the age of 14, Gwen and Ena found jobs in service at Neasham Hall working for the Wrightson family, of the famous Head Wrightson engineering company. Gwen was a kitchen maid while Ena worked upstairs, and because they lived in, their mother was able to take in lodgers in Crosby Street to help fill the coffers.
Gwen, Ena and Bert Thurgood in Crosby Street, Darlington
When war broke out, Gwen and Eva became Aycliffe Angels, working at the Royal Ordnance Factory.
Ena getting married to her husband, Jim Russ, with her identical sister Gwen the bridesmaid to her left. Bert, the third of the Thurgood triplets, is on the right
They married and had two children each – Joan and Alan; Norman and Brian – and both returned to work, Gwen at the Ministry of Defence works at Eaglescliffe and Ena in the crisp factory in Billingham.
The north end of Darlington was always their home, and where they enjoyed a degree of celebrity status because of their unusual beginnings.
Gwen, whose husband was Bob Stephenson, died in 1997, aged 75. Bert, a plasterer who never married, died in 2002, aged 90, and Ena passed away in 2019, just two-and-a-half years short of her century.
Between them they left four children, seven grandchildren, seven great-grandchildren – none of whom were multiple births.
Ena on the left and Gwen on the right with their mother, Annie, in the middle
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