Leeds in the 1870s

[grumpytramp]

Dakota wrote: But I also learned that the Earl was a bit of dare devil and hung out in a local pub and then went flying through the village in his Aston Martin with girls - sadly he killed someone while driving drunk and then died in a car accident while driving drunk. One of his daughter's died in a car accident and I can't remember about his wife, but it possibly might have been a car accident. His one daughter is still alive. But the title passed to a construction foreman that lives in Maine. He did come over to see what he got with the title and the Earl had passed everything of dollar value on to his daughter Regina, so he went back to his day job in Maine. Its a struggle to find much interest in the Wharncliffe family; to me they are just like their near neighbours the Fitzwilliam a bunch of aristrocrats that lived the life of the fat cat of the back of the colliers and their other workers that they ruthlessley exploited (as a case in point look no further than the Fitzwilliams involvement in infamous Kinsley Evictions http://www.wakefield.gov.uk/CultureAndL ... efault.htm )Oiii .......get down of the high horse, Grumpy!OopsRight the Earl of Wharncliffe you refer to here was the Fourth Earl of Wharncliffe, Alan James Montagu-Stuart-Wortley-Mackenzie who was by all accounts overly fond of the bottle, but he isn't your man as he was not born until 1935Thanks to the British aristocracy obcession with their own self-worth and breeding there are extensive online records of their lineage online. If there was an association with "Henry and Sarah" it would be with the Third Earl of Wharncliffe, Archibald Ralph Montagu-Stuart-Wortley-Mackenzie.His details can be found here: http://www.thepeerage.com/p6172.htmMore usefully if you find his fathers entry here:http://www.thepeerage.com/p6174.htm#i61735and think about your early comment about the event being a "Débutante" (which could only be for a girl) then the only siblings "coming of age" around that time would be:* The 3rd Earl of Wharncliffe, Archibald Ralph Montagu-Stuart-Wortley-Mackenzie in 1910* Ellen Rachel Montagu-Stuart-Wortley-Mackenzie in 1912* Lady Joan Margaret Stuart-Wortley in 1913Two Débutantes and one Coming of Age ........ take your pick!You might also be interested in their Wortley Hall (now by delightful irony is owned by the Co-operative Union) which has a splendid Walled Garden now being operated as an organic kitchen garden by an environmental charity. They have a very interesting website:http://sites.google.com/site/wortleywalledgarden/HomeI draw you attention to http://sites.google.com/site/wortleywal ... ographsand particularly the first images which appears to show some sort of social event in the gardens of the hall (possibly the sort of event that staff would be invited to, rather than passing into the big house)Now I am afraid I have to kill Fred Coultas association with the Earl of Wharncliffe ..........

[grumpytramp]

Dakota wrote: So I went to do some more searching and I think I've come up with a possible scenario. It has to do with Sarah's brother Fred probably being the mine manager of one of the Earl's mines and a big exposition that was held about the time Henry and Sarah went over and was related to a new business the Earl was launching in America. Sorry your Fred had nothing to do with the Wharncliffe Collieries.I can confirm that F Coultas was Colliery Manager at John Armitage and Son, Deepcar Collieries from at least 1896 to 1918. These worked a series of pits and adits on the northern slopes of the Little Don River between Deepcar and Henholmes. The pits were operational between 1869 and 1938.See for location and (poor) sketch plan http://www.aditnow.co.uk/mines/Henholmes-Coal-Mine/I am afraid that this was not a high status operation, by way example in 1896 the pit employed 30 men below ground and four at the surface. By 1918 when they had two operations underway at Deepcar and Henholmes they employed 19 and 7 respectively underground and 3 and 1 respectively on the surface [by way of contrast the aforementioned Wharncliffe Silkstone Pit at near by Tankersley employed in 1918 945 underground and 479 at the surface; the Wharncliffe Woodmore pit at Carlton was even bigger]See: 1896http://projects.exeter.ac.uk/mhn/1896-45.htm1918http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cmhrc/lom18york4.htmThe principal reason for the small operation was that coal was really a bi-product. John Armitage and Son were principally a producer of fireclay to produce sanitory pipes and enamelled wares. The company also made firebricks (for use in hearths and kilns). The mines extracted the White Car Fireclay (typically 3 feet thick) which formed the floor of the Halifax Hard Bed (typically 8" thick) [this is towards the base of the Coal Measures and much lower than any of the Fireclays worked in Leeds)I supsect that the Colliery Managers role here would be more that of a Works Manager. It would be relatively low production, but require a lot of supervision both underground (where as Colliery Manager he would have Statotory responsibilities for the safety of the men and maintaining a record of inspection - despite and because of its appalling safety record the UK coal industry led the world in forming health and safety legislation) and on the surface (where the fireclay was required to be screened, weathered, sorted etc)

[grumpytramp]

A quick check this morning reveals that he was probably working for Armitage in 1891 as the Census records that he was living at Stocksbridge and was employed as a colliery undermanager (the census usefully stating his employment as Undermanager [Coal/Clay]).It appears that he lived on Hunshelf(?) Terrace, which I suspect is on the north side of the Little Don Valley quite just up the valley from Henholmes and Deepcar. He was by now clearly aspiring middle class as he was sufficiently well provided for to employ a domestic servant. I could be wrong but I suspect that this is the Terrace:http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1321774He is also recoreded in 1881 living in New Lane, Cleckheaton where he was employed as a collier. Judging by the birth places of his children between 1882 and 1888 they had lived in Pudsey before moving to Stocksbridge.    

[Dakota]

Wow, that is amazing. I'm trying to figure out/remember how to attach the picture of ole Fred in front of his last home, Sycamore Villa. I know I've done it once before, but the paint fumes must have gotten to my brain........Anyway, what I had dug out before was that in 1912 or 1913 there was a big exposition at the Immigration Docks as the Earl was involved in the Central Railroad (Chair) and they had expanded business into america and were exporting coal to the continent and we were thinking that if old fred had worked as a mine manager for the Earl, that it was possible Fred had entry into some of the events and that if he had relatives over from the US that he might have been able to take them along. Not that they would have met the Earl, but that they might have been able to go to some of the festivities. So, we'll knock that probability off the list. This just keeps getting more and more interesting and I fear we'll never get the answer, but we'll learn a lot as we go through this. Which is almost better than knowing as once we know, we'll stop looking and learning.It may be as simple as the fact that the Exposition was going on at the same time that they were in the area and that created the memory and linked it to the visit. Sarah was described as being "Starchy" and supposedly Henry was cranky so I think of them as pretty simple people who didn't put up with much in the way of embellishment. I know my grandmother was loving but pretty tough and one of her sisters was living in a remote area and hauling her own water and chopping wood when she was in her 90s so I've always wondered how/what kind of an attachment they would have to an Earl. Just doesn't seem like he would be their kind of folks or that they would be particularly impressed.And also, what I heard about the last English Earl was that he liked his drink and young women and went to prison for causing a car accident and killing someone. One person that wrote said he used to see the Earl at the local pub and driving about in his Austin with young women and causing havoc. Another wrote that he had worked for a liquor distributor and that the Earl and his mother were their best customers. The current Earl is a construction foreman in Maine here in the states and I haven't heard much about him so I think he probably leads a quieter life.So thank you for all of the information, I've got a lot of reading to do.

[grumpytramp]

Another wee but very tangible link that might interest you about Fred Coultras; an example of his written word!Fred had been elected full member of the Institution of Mining Engineers somewhere around 1895. At this time it was probably the preeminent professional organisation for mining engineers in the coal industry around the world and was one of the leading professional institutions for engineers in the UK (along with the Institute of Mechanical Engineers and Institute of Civil Engineers). On the 29th May 1897 at a meeting of constituent branch, the Midland Institute of Mining Civil and Mechanical Engineers, held at the Bull Hotel in Wakefield Fred presented a paper entitled The Geology of Deepcar and its surrounding hills. The paper was then published in the Transactions of the Federated Institution of Mining Engineers XIII (1896 – 97). Thanks to the good services of The Internet Archive and Google you will find the paper here:http://ia351442.us.archive.org/3/items/ ... goog.pdfBe warned it’s a big file (30Mb or so) Paper is at pages 462-470 (in the PDF file and pages 341-347 on the actual pages). From my prospective it makes an interesting read !

[Dakota]

Okay - you continue to amaze! Thank you so much. Fred also ran for the local city council (not sure what it was called) and I have a picture of his campaign buggy - it's a cute little thing with his name on it pulled by a horse. Don't know if he rode around town in it or what, but it is cute.Off to read Fred's paper.Thanks so much.

[grumpytramp]

Going back to the original post: Dakota wrote: My great grandparents lived at several addresses in Leeds including 12 Glebe Street during the early 1870s. How would I go about findng out who would have owned the house and what rental policies were back in those days? In general, I'm trying to figure out how they got to the house - he was a coal miner and I was wondering if perhaps the house was owned by a coal company as there is quite a parade of family members living in the house during 1871. Between 1868 and 1871 they lived in three different houses and lost 3 children, all of whom are burried in common graves in the Beckett Street Cemetary. Would it have been common practice to continually move or would it be more likely that the houses were owned by the coal companies and if he changed companies that they would have moved? In the first instance I must congratulate you on unleashing a decent puzzle for Secret Leeds ........ one of the reasons I enjoy this site, particularly as the evenings draw in and the there are fewer opportunities to tempt any of the local brown trout to the fly!As you may have picked up from many of the response to your OP this area of Leeds was dominated at this time by high density terraced accommodation (including the traditional back to back). It is my understanding that most of this accommodation in Burmatofts and Harehills was constructed by private landlords to supply accommodation to support the rapid expansion of the textile and engineering industries in this part of Leeds. It was definitely not led by colliery companies. At this time the coal companies would only construct accommodation for new developments in areas that had no mining base, for example as the coal mining extended into the concealed Yorkshire coalfield to the east of Castleford, Wakefield and Barnsley to places like Doncaster. Frankly such was the moral standing of the colliery owners they would be been horrified at the idea of providing accommodation of such quality such as that available at Glebe Street. The colliery owners provided a much lower standard of accommodation well into the twentieth century (best described in a seminal Report of the Royal Commission on the housing of the Industrial Population of Scotland; Rural and Urban; see http://scottishmining.co.uk/63.html ......... conditions that would have embarrassed even Appalachian coal owners)I think that their arrival in this part of Leeds is linked directly to the demand for iron in the late 1860s and early 1870s linked to the use of the Bessemer process to produce Steel. It appears that any of remaining deposits of the local valuable and very high quality Black Bed Ironstone and its associated coal where subject to rapid exploitation in this area of Leeds. Considering that Henry originated from the Bowling area near Bradford , it is certainly more than a co-incidence that at this time (1869) the Bowling Iron Company were operating two mines in the immediate area at Cross Green (operated between 1854 to 1878 ) and at Ellerby Lane by Cross Green (operated between 1861 and 1875) directed primarily at exploiting the Black Band. It suggest to me that there is a good chance that he was acting as a supervisor or gang leader in workings of the Bowling Iron Company. As a separate lead of enquiry, and to spare my trawling t’internet what was his birth date?    

[barlickgirl]

[quotenick="grumpytramp"]Another wee but very tangible link that might interest you about Fred Coultras; an example of his written word!Fred had been elected full member of the Institution of Mining Engineers somewhere around 1895. At this time it was probably the preeminent professional organisation for mining engineers in the coal industry around the world and was one of the leading professional institutions for engineers in the UK (along with the Institute of Mechanical Engineers and Institute of Civil Engineers). On the 29th May 1897 at a meeting of constituent branch, the Midland Institute of Mining Civil and Mechanical Engineers, held at the Bull Hotel in Wakefield Fred presented a paper entitled The Geology of Deepcar and its surrounding hills. The paper was then published in the Transactions of the Federated Institution of Mining Engineers XIII (1896 – 97). Thanks to the good services of The Internet Archive and Google you will find the paper here:http://ia351442.us.archive.org/3/items/ ... fBrilliant link. I love this book. It was great for my Dad to read about his Gt Uncle Fred's engineering prowess, as he though he was the first engineer in the family and had no idea where those genes came from.Thanks so much Grumpy! Henry Wells' year of birth was 1847.

[grumpytramp]

Dakota wrote: Wow, that is amazing. I'm trying to figure out/remember how to attach the picture of ole Fred in front of his last home, Sycamore Villa. I know I've done it once before, but the paint fumes must have gotten to my brain........ If I am not very much mistaken that house remains to this day on Manchester Road, Deepcar situated a few hundred yards west of St Johns ChurchThanks to the wonders of Google Streetview:http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?hl=en&q=d ... 94,,0,-4It is clearly visible in the 1893 1:2500 plan [see old-maps.co.uk search Deepcar] as the second property west of the church on the south side of Manchester Road. It must have been a very convieniant location for Fred Coultas being equi-distant between the mines at Hen Holmes and Deepcar.I cannot see any significant difference between the two properties with the exception that the chimney stacks on the south side of the house appear to have been removed (which is not that unusual as homes have been fitted with central heating)

[SK22]

Quote: One thing I'm also trying to track down is whether or not there is a connection with Betty Tetley and the Tetley's that establed Tetley Tea or Tetley Ale. She was born in the Bradford area in 1812 and would be of the same generation as the Tetley Tea brothers. The Tea Tetley's Joseph and Edward Tetley were born in Bradford, but I can not see a link to Betty Tetley.Joshua Tetley my ancestor was from the Leeds Tetleys.Your Wells ancestors can be see on this link http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.anc ... 82.html#19 , and it seems their lineage goes back to Mary Brooke, and George Tetlow in the 1690s.More stuff on Tetley's http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.anc ... ~rftetley/