Where Did the Tweddell's Live?

In May 1999, Paul Tweddell wrote an article called "Where did the Tweddell's live in Stokesley in the

Paul Tweddell

second half of the 19thC." of which he gave me a copy for use with the Tweddell websites.

We have already mentioned that George Markham Tweddell was born at Garden House, between Stokesley and Great Ayton. It seems that in his youth, while working as an apprentice printing at Braithwaites, George lived on the West Green. John Tweddell  (GMT's uncle) ran a grocery / draper's shop there and George's mother worked in the shop. It's not clear but he probably lived there until after his marriage to Elizabeth Cole in 1843 while he was still producing his radical newspaper.

Paul Tweddell begins his survey c 1855 - 

1st Ragged School

"GMT and Elizabeth moved to run the Industrial and Ragged School in Bury (1), Lancashire around 1855 - 1860. Whilst living there George seems to have adopted 'Markham' as his middle name publicly (2) (he'd been Christened just George Tweddell). The family returned to Stokesley in the middle of 1960 (3), because of the financial situation of the Ragged School and Elizabeth finding it hard to combine the duties of matron to the school with those of her growing family too onerous (4). By 1864 GMT had set up in business as a newsagent and printer at 87, Linthorpe Road (5) and lived at 11, Commercial street, Middlesbrough (6) (St. Hildas).

Their improvement in fortunes seems to have come about from a bequest from Frederica Heaviside, the wife of the late Captain Heaviside of Walthamstow, London.(7) Frederica was one of the daughters of  Dean Markham and, therefore, a sister of George Markham who was George Markham Tweddell's father.

This seems to have encouraged him to set up a second office in Stokesley and invite his son Horatio John Tweddell, who had learnt the trade from his father, to join as a partner. From then on the firm was known as Tweddell and Sons, although there is no evidence any other son took part in the business.(8) For a period, material for printing was being taken in both towns Middlesbrough and Stokesley. The Stokesley office was opened in 1870. The latter office was used for responses to an advertisement placed in Tweddell's Middlesbrough - Vol 1 1870 for a 'Register for Servants' by Jane Elizabeth Tweddell, Horatio's newly married wife who lived in the same area of Middlesbrough before their marriage.(9)

The last book published by the Tweddell firm in Middlesbrough (10) was in 1871 after which all books originated in Stokesley. For a period, George and Elizabeth were living with Horatio John and Jane in the High Street between Helm's shoe shop and The Shoulder of Mutton as the census enumerator notes. By 1875 they had moved to Rose Cottage (aka The Town House) in Commercial Street (now Bridge Street) where George and Elizabeth lived to the end of their days and where George died. Most people associate them most strongly with the cottage. (11)

It is not easy now to locate most of the places Elizabeth and George lived together during their lives but Rose

Rose Cottage (Town House)

Cottage is the exception. (12) When visiting the house it is surprising how small it is and raises the question as to how the family worked and lived in it. The answer comes from a small photograph in the collection of Maurice Wilson. There set between a large store and a bread shop is a small workshop, with the name TWEDDELL, PRINTER just discernable on the outside (13) wall. here, only a few minutes walk away from his home, the various tasks of the printing of the family business must have been carried out. Back in Rose cottage the everyday activities involved in bringing up children took place and the family correspondence received, as well, no doubt, where the couple studied and wrote. By the 1881 census, four people were living there, George and Elizabeth, their son George, a scenic artist, and an orphaned granddaughter Ann. (14) Across the road lived Horatio John and Jane with, at that time, their five children and an assistant woman from Broughton, a few miles south of the town, helping Jane's dressmaking business. Interestingly, to give birth to her latest child, Jane went across the road to her mother in law's house at Rose Cottage. (15)

Within a few years Horatio John, who had shared the work in the firm since he left school, left with his still

George Markham Tweddell, (Right) Rose Cottage

growing family to work in Mold, North Wales (16) and George, the artist, moved to London to work as a theatre scene painter,(17) leaving George and Elizabeth in Rose Cottage alone with only Annie. There was at least six more works published but there is no evidence whether George handled the work alone or took on help. Both sons travelled back to visit their parents from time to time, with son George helping out by 1891 with the couples' growing financial problems.(18) For a few years another son, Thomas Cole Tweddell, a house painter, who started his work in Middlesbrough, returned home to become one of the most active people in stokesley and stayed with them until he was married in 1894.(19) The last book to be published by the firm seems to have been George's new work Cleveland Sonnets in 1890 and a second edition of Elizabeth's popular Rhymes and Sketches to illustrate the Cleveland dialect in 1892. George continued adding notes for various planned books including two histories. One of  the Markhams, his father's family, in which he hoped to rework the radical views of his youth, and a second, about the other, more humble side of the family - the Tweddells.(20)

Tweddell and Sons (on right of the Hovis shop) Stokesley High Street.

Horatio John Tweddell's house / shop (now with scaffold)

Elizabeth's health became a growing anxiety to George at this time as she was often forced into bed for long

Annie with Elizabeth Tweddell

times. Before Elizabeth's death in 1899 at the age of 75, the burden of looking after her had become too much for him, despite the help he had from a local woman, Mrs Brown. His own health too was failing, suffering increasingly from what he called paralysis. (21) Elizabeth died whilst being looked after in Springfield House, formerly Stokesley Union Workhouse, what now would be termed ' respite nursing'. (22) The newspaper reports of her funeral mention a severe snow storm (it was late March) , which prevented many of her admirers  from attending. (23) George died in 1903 aged 80, tended by Thomas Cole and probably his wife Mary Ellen, who were the only offspring left by that time in Stokesley.(24) He was buried beside his well-beloved wife in the eastern corner of the New cemetery. The cortege carried his body part way back to his birth place, Garden House, along the same toute his mother carried back from his baptism in 1n 1823.(25)

Notes

1 Tweddell children born : Sarah Cole Tweddell 1853 in Stokesley (NRO Q2 9d.341), Thomas Cole Tweddell 1858 in Bury (NRO to find), Oliver Louis Tweddell April 1860 in Bury (NRO to be found). A copy of the Oddfellows' Reciter (1852) is inscribed 'Bury,  December 15th 1855 in George's hand in the Tweddell Archives.

2 The first known reference is probably an inscription in The Oddfellows' Reciter dated December 1855. Turner (see footnote above) says p3 "Until he had well reached manhood".

3 Oliver Louis Tweddell was baptised in Stokesley in November 1860 (NRO Q2 - the rest to be found) and the census of 1861 notes the family living 'off College Square'. Possibly with Elizabeth's family - the Coles.

4. Hull Miscellany 1886.

5 The letter of Thomas Cole Tweddell to the Gazette 23.03.37 (original Brian Clemmitt, a copy in Tweddell Archive - DOC640)

6 In Slaters Yorkshire Directory (1864) George Markham Tweddell is listed under 'Gentry and Clergy'.

7  In a newspaper Stockton (undated) without mentioning the source of the bequest, although frederica Heaviside died in 1863 and had been in contact with George before her death, sending him a front and back painting of 1860 Walthamstow Rectory, where she lived, with a dedication of the gift from her to him framed with the paintings. This now hangs in my house in Rye and copies rest in the Tweddell archives. Doc140.

8 Except, in one instance, Oliver Louis Tweddell writing a story in about 1885 (when he lived in Oxfordshire) and published as Tractates no 23.

9 For the marriage, NRO Stockton on Tees Q2 10a, 113, the writer's great grandfather.

10 1870-1 Tweddell's Middlesbrough Miscellany of Literature and Advertisements in 12 volumes (Tweddell and Sons, 87, Linthorpe Road Middlesbrough.). A copy is in Middlesbrough Public Library CO52 4207.

11 The preface to Rhymes and Sketches to Illustrate the Cleveland Dialect is dated 'Stokesley, February 1875' whilst the 2nd edition is dated Rose Cottage, Stokesley May 1892. The first reference to Rose Cottage appears in a book published by Tweddell and Sons is in Castillo's Dialect Poems date Rose Cottage, Stokesley, July 1878.

12 An early photograph of Rose Cottage may be seen in Old Stokesley (The Stokesley Society), Plate 18.

13 Old Stokesley, plate 12, the original is in the collection of  Maurice Wilson.

14 Census 1881. Ann Elizabeth (b 1878) was the daughter of their oldest daughter Elizabeth Georgina Hodgson (nee tweddell d 1880). Tweddell archives.

15 Verbal evidence from the writer - Paul Tweddell - from his grandfather, Thomas Clark Tweddell, who was the baby concerned (1879, NRO Q3 9d.631).

16 The last child to be born to Horatio John and Jane Elizabeth in Stokesley was Maria Elizabeth (b 1882 NRO Q39d.618) whilst the next child, Camilla Jane was born in Mold (1884 NRO Q4 11b.239).

17 A letter from from George Markham Tweddell to his son George dated 1891 (Tweddell archives).

18 Census 1891 for Horatio and the letter footnote 17.

19 Census 1891 for living with George and Elizabeth, & for marriage in Stockton on Tees see NRO Q2 10a      118. For his wide ranging activities for the town.

20 The Markham MS is referred to in the Tweddell Archives, The radical mention is: "I could write a treatise...as interesting as my history on romance, and if spared long enough will do so. It will smash to atoms the foolish Pride of Birth." Page 4.

21 Letter Footnote 16

22 NRO Q19a.414.

23 Tweddell Archives Doc 141 but the name of the newspaper is unknown.

24 NRO death certificate, Q49d.430.

25 What happened to Annie is rather shadowy. Although her birth in Whitby and entries for Stokesley in 1881 and 1891 are recorded, and there is also a photo of her aged about 5 standing beside her grandmother in the country near Stokesley, no one now remembers her, despite the fact that many living today remember her contemporaries. By the late 1890's she would have been old enough to marry, so perhaps, a record of this may emerge some time. The original photo is with Brian Clemmitt and a copy in the Tweddell archives.

Elizabeth Tweddell (aka Florence Cleveland) book.