A sailor’s life - if you like it or not!
AND THE SEA GAVE UP...Whitburn Bents circa the First World War.
OLD photographs and paintings offer us a tantalising glimpse of what the old riverside town of Shields must have been like as a port in the 19th century.
But it piques the imagination further to realise how prolific the blue garb of the seafarer must have been.
There is an illustration of this is in a reference to the operations of the Press Gang – mentioned elsewhere on the page today – where a boat’s crew is described as coming ashore at Shields from the receiving ship.
They landed at the Coble Landing in Pilot Street “and, each armed with a cutlass, made a clean sweep of all the young and middle-aged men, wearing the blue jacket and trousers of the seaman, found in the Low Street, carrying them all aboard ...”
The passage came to mind after reading the latest genealogical data up-loaded by Durham Records On Line.
It includes details of more than a thousand baptisms and almost 800 burials at Whitburn St Mary’s between 1813 and 1852.
Among the interments is that of several victims of drowning, such as a 23-year-old man, Philip Carr, from Leith, who lost his life in 1834.
But most compelling is the burial, in 1820, of an unknown man, aged about 30, and also found drowned.
His description has a sorrowful immediacy – his dark brown hair, fresh complexion and garb of sailor’s blue jacket, Guernsey frock with blue spots in rows, and striped blue shirt with the initials FT on one side.
My first thought was that ‘frock’ might have meant a frock coat but it turns out that this is possibly just a reference to a Guernsey sweater.
As always, although the records are for Whitburn St Mary’s, they embrace a wider area that includes Cleadon (including the mill and quarries), Lizard Farm, Newton Garths and South Shields.
Among the baptisms, it’s also fascinating to see the ‘upstairs downstairs’ world of that era, such as little Alfred Farmer, born in 1842 to Thomas Appleby Farmer, gentleman’s servant, and his wife Sophia.
The picture here, another recent find by Kevin Blair, keeps us in the Whitburn area, with a view of Whitburn Bents, dated 1917.
* Visit www.durhamrecordsonline.com
* Did you know that you can now follow me on Twitter @Just_JanisB
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Weather for South Shields
Thursday 24 May 2012
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Temperature: 10 C to 23 C
Wind Speed: 16 mph
Wind direction: North east
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