Poignant record of a flight from poverty to new world

A NEW start in a new year. In January 1879, Jonathan Moscrop decided on a new country altogether, and swapped Darlington for Dunedin in New Zealand.

Jonathan was a member of an ironworking family from the Bank Top/Albert Hill area of Darlington.

He sailed from Greenock on the Clyde on January 30 and arrived in Dunedin on April 23 after an extraordinary journey which included painful seasickness and quite horrible suicide.

Jonathan recorded his on-board experiences in a little black diary which he dedicated to his brother, John, who remained in Darlington.

The diary now belongs to John's granddaughter, Jean Porter, who has kindly allowed Echo Memories to serialise it in the forthcoming weeks.

A quick flick through The Northern Echo of January 1879 shows why Jonathan might have left Darlington.

For the second year running, the neighbourhood was in the grip of severe depression, and the working class was suffering extreme poverty.

On Albert Hill itself, one of Darlington's most famous companies, the Skerne Ironworks - where Jonathan may well have worked - went bankrupt.

Some of Skerne's employees, possibly including brother John, set up their own concern in Neasham Road, which they called Cleveland Bridge.

In a letter in The Northern Echo, reader William Clapham reported on a visit to Albert Hill.

He had started at the schools - Gurney Pease school, which still stands, and the Catholic school, which does not.

"In one, several children had tramped over the snow with bare feet, the thermometer at 12 degrees below the freezing point," wrote Clapham.

"In another, so many were shoeless that I asked the teacher what proportion were without shoes. She said: 'I think about one-sixth this morning, but usually one-fourth are so; those who are not here are not only without shoes, but so thinly clad that they have been quite unable to come.'"

Mr Clapham then knocked on some houses.

"In household number three was a family of six," he wrote.

"Three of the children sat on a box shivering over a spark of fire. The father and a pale little thing (the youngest of the family) lay in their clothes asleep under a heap of rags. The man roused himself to tell of working two days a week on the strength of Indian meal porridge. The mother, suffering from rheumatism, had gone out to do a day's washing, though her husband said she was not fit to leave the house. This home was thoroughly comfortless, and its wretchedness was only equalled by the despair on the poor fellow's face."

Next door, Mr Clapham found another family of six.

The father had just had his eye taken out after getting a spark in it at the ironworks.

He had found light work, which was due to end soon, and the only sustenance he could afford was a pot of weak tea and part of a loaf of bread.

When Mr Clapham looked inside the bedroom, he was appalled.

"Within the four bare walls were six things - two books, two beds on the floor and one quilt under which lay a sleeping child," he wrote.

"One quilt for seven people, and the thermometer during the night within a few degrees of zero!"

Poverty was not just restricted to Albert Hill. Another letter in The Northern Echo came from Great Aycliffe. It read: "The limestone quarries, the staple trade here, are almost at a standstill, the men sometimes working one day per week, sometimes none at all.

"Last week, one gentleman was appealed to for help from a family of eight that had not tasted food for 30 hours - and this is not a solitary case. What is to be done?"

Another came from Witton Park: "Dear sir, no tongue can tell of the distress that is here but those who are suffering. Poor, weak mothers, with their children, sitting in their cold home with nothing to eat, no fire to warm their poor feet, no shoes to put on and nearly naked; their fathers standing about the street corners from morning till night, cannot stay in the house to hear their dear little ones cry for bread. It would break the hardest heart to see these men who have been used to hot work, and cannot bear the cold like farm or other labourers.

"Hoping this will meet the eye of some good Samaritan (if it was only a few tons of coal we would be very thankful). Yours, an Ironworker, Witton Park."

There were some Samaritans around. In Darlington, a Relief Fund was set up, and in January 1879, every day 326 families were receiving a little help from it. The Echo recorded that 1,361 pints of soup and 708lbs of bread were distributed daily.

On the day Jonathan Moscrop departed, an "amateur concert of classical music" was put on at Central Hall "in aid of the fund for the relief of the great distress existing in Darlington".

The concert, attended by "a fashionable audience comprising many of the leading local and country families", raised £60.

But by July 1879, the economic situation was so bad that B Wilson, of Bondgate House, cheekily announced she was having a clearance sale for the Whitsuntide Holidays, "and she intends offering such bargains in millinery as will tempt people to make themselves look as they ought to look at this usually gay season of the year - that is, light, happy and gay.

Such looks having departed from almost everybody's face by the long continued depression, she has determined to try and remove some of the gloom by offering gay-looking hats and bonnets at fabulously low prices".

Alongside the Echo's items about the distress was a raft of advertisements for shipping companies, most of whom had an agent in every town in south Durham.

Most of the companies sailed out of Liverpool bound for New York.

The cheapest fare was £6 (the equivalent of about £270 in today's money) in steerage, where cabins included pieces of steering equipment.

One agent, William Matthews, of Guisborough, would arrange transatlantic passage, transamerica railroad tickets and a large piece of land in Texas for under £200 - a complete new life for £9,000 in today's money.

The governments of Canada and New South Wales in Australia often chipped in and helped desirable emigrants to pay the fare.

Still, you had to be brave to take to the water. On one December day shortly before Jonathan set sail, The Northern Echo's Shipping Disasters column reported:

l The Ann Taylor brig bound for Hartlepool had run ashore near Hornsea because the look-out didn't spot the snow-covered land.

l The schooner Impetuous had arrived in the Tyne having been struck a "violent blow" by an unknown barque off Sunderland.

l The barque Bulnagurth, which was carrying guano, had run ashore near the mouth of the Tyne alongside steamship Amazonia of Sunderland which had been carrying coals. The tug towing Amazonia had also got stuck and, in the mayhem, the steamship Vauxhall had struck another stranded barque.

l Further afield, the Echo reported that a steamer from Dublin had made it into Liverpool safely having been struck twice in the bay, and that the State Line steamer State of Louisiana, which was sailing from the Clyde to New York, had run ashore near Larne. All passengers and crew had been saved.

l Such a catalogue of nautical mishaps was perhaps explained by the report of the wreck of the Princess Royal which went down with all hands at the mouth of Cork harbour in Ireland.

"The lifeboat was despatched but, owing probably to the fact that it was Christmastime and that the volunteer crew were strongly under the influence of drink, they did not proceed in the direction of the wreck but found themselves in another part of the harb our where they appear to have remained all night."

Bravely, then, Jonathan Moscrop took the plunge, swapping Darlington for Dunedin and a new life on the other side of the world.

Friday, January 24, 1879.

Left Darlington Bank Top at 4.28pm, in company with Mr John Matthews, Miss Sarah Matthews, Master John Matthews and Miss MA Matthews (we can assume he didn't know the Matthews too well as later in the diary Miss MA is referred to as Emma).

We reached Newcastle about 25 minutes to six o'clock, Edinbro about nine o'clock and Glasgow a little after 11 o'clock pm. We had a bit of a rhindy with the railway 'porters' as some of them had some drink and they did not care how they threw the boxes about, in fact they split one by letting it fall off the barrow, for which I gave them a good scolding.

We got lodgings at Wyatts Temperance Hotel where we were very comfortable, having the use of a very nice parlour, for sitting and dining.

Mrs Matthews and the rest of the family arrived on Monday the 28th about a quarter past 8am so that there is now a great number of us at the hotel.

Wednesday, January 29.

John Harris (who used to live at Albert Hill) is with us. He has shown us around Glasgow, which is a tremendous place for large buildings and traffic.

We left Glasgow about twenty past noon for Greenock where we embarked on board a tug and reached our vessel a little after one o'clock. While I am writing this there is a great bustle getting all things into shape; we have had some dinner, and such a game we had, looking after our soup, meat and potatoes. But we got over it and I think we shall soon get into the way of things.

I have been appointed captain of a mess (eight comprises our mess) and my duty is to get the provisions for the men, look after the utensils and keep things in order. Mr Matthews has been made captain as also has Miss Sarah Matthews, so that we shall all be cod gaffers.

Thursday, January 30.

We are still lying low as the surveyours have to come aboard and inspect the arrangements. We spent rather a queer night, as there were not plenty of beds for the men and some of them were walking about all night and the sailors were running about the deck all night, so that we had a lively time of it. This afternoon the surveyours and the last of the cabin passengers came on board, and all being square, we weighed anchor, and left our anchorage about 20 past five o'clock.

While I write we are being towed along by a tug boat, which is taking us a little nearer to our far-away home.

l More next week, along with the answers and results of our picture competition.

Published: 08/01/2003

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