January 2017 - Page 3 of 3 - Northumberland Archives

We have covered John Atkin’s life in our previous blog, but now will look at the younger generation of the Atkin family and their relationship with Stannington.

Robert Atkin

Robert was born at Stargate, near Ryton 1882, where his father John was working as a colliery Blacksmith. He followed his family in their various moves, though he and his sister Minnie lived with their grandparents during the 1891 census, and settled with the family at Whitehouse farm. He is described as a Gardener on the 1911 census. He served in the First World War, and there are two medals roll index cards that may refer to him, both showing a private in the Northumberland Fusiliers that received service medals. He met nurse Hilda Currie at the sanatorium, perhaps through the gatherings and dances that were held for staff.

Robert is one of the staff from Stannington Sanatorium and the Philipson Farm Colony who served in the First World War that are being researched in a new project. As part of the Stannington Parish Centenary Festival of Remembrance (8-11^th November 2018), Richard Tolson is producing a series of books looking at Stannington parish 100 years ago, and recording the story of the men who left the parish to fight in the First World War.

The festival is intended to involve the whole community and will include a flower festival, book signing, School trips, WW1 Re-enactments, village dance, brass band concert, a talk about the WW1 history of the village, displays of the research, and a special Remembrance Service. For more details, or to help out with any relevant photos or information contact Stannington History Group via stanningtonhistorygroup@gmail.com

Hilda Currie

Hilda Jane Currie was born in Percy Main or Willington-on-Tyne in 1892. Her father was Captain John Currie, a master mariner, and her mother was Georgina Margaret Robinson, recorded on the census as Meggie. She grew up with sisters Meggie, Ella, and Eva, and her brothers John (known as Jack) and James Herbert. The brothers served at sea in WWI, and they seem to have been a very close family, sending letters from the various parts of the world they travelled to. Jack became an engineer in the Navy, and was killed aboard the SS Whitgift 20^th April 1916 in a submarine attack, aged 32. James was a Mercantile Marine, 3^rd engineer on the SS Northumbria. On the 9^th Jan 1919 he was killed by a mine explosion at Newbiggin-by-the-sea, aged 29. Jack is commemorated on Tower Hill memorial, and James is buried at Wallsend (Church Bank) Cemetery.

Hilda in her uniform holding a kitten (NRO 10361/1/237)

In 1911 Hilda and her sister Ella are not recorded with their mother and other sisters, but were visiting Anne Isabella Richardson, perhaps an aunt, in Willington. She must have gone into nursing sometime after this, and from the album we know she would have been at Stannington around 1915. She was there when her brother Jack wrote to her from the SS Whitgift on the 24^th June that year, saying he was glad she was enjoying her new job. A photograph in the Album titled ‘London Hospital Nurse’s training home, Tredegar House, Bow’ suggests she may have learned her skills there. It is clear from her album that Hilda forged some very strong bonds with her young charges, and we see them in her photographs around the grounds, in costumes, and even photo postcards from after their discharge.

Hilda and Robert, photograph kindly provided by their granddaughter.

The Atkin family moved to The Birches in Tranwell Woods, and John built the family a home there in 1910, named White House after the farm. Robert and Hilda married in late 1922, and moved into the Birches, later moving into the White House after John and Margaret died. The family lived there for many years, with successive generations building and living around the two houses.

Hilda’s album

Hilda collected a fascinating album of photographs from her time at Stannington and her later, which has very kindly been deposited with us by her granddaughter. In it we see many snatched moments of quiet for the staff, and fun for the staff and patients. Below we have included some of our favourites such as the 1922 PCHA trip to Cresswell beach, Matron Campbell off duty, and a nurse riding sidecar on a motorbike. We think it shows a very personal view of Stannington around the time of the First World War, and if you would like to see more of them they are now available to search using the reference NRO 10361* through our online catalogue.

Staff, patients and adults paddling in the sea at the 1922 PCHA day out to Cresswell (NRO 10361/1/122).

The nurses and a brass band at the 1922 PCHA outing to Cresswell (NRO 10361/1/270).

Matron Campbell and another nurse during a break (NRO 10361/1/12).

A patient and nurse on a motorbike and sidecar (NRO 10361/1/105).

Northumberland Archives would like to say a huge thank you to Hilda and Robert’s granddaughter for depositing Hilda’s album with us, giving us permission to use the photographs in the blog, and supplying further information and photographs which have helped us to explore the Atkin family’s connection with Stannington.

When the PCHA created Stannington Sanatorium in a bid to combat Tuberculosis (TB) they were not alone in the fight against the disease. In 1906, the year before Stannington Sanatorium opened, the National Association for the Prevention of Consumption highlighted to local authorities that deaths from the disease of 60,000 people each year in England and Wales were preventable if they acted.

Northumberland County Council acted by urging district councils to notify them of cases of disease, punish spitting, appoint health visitors for sufferers and their families, and place strict controls on dairies. However they put great emphasis on the district councils to improve the major problem of sub-standard housing. As one County Medical Officer put it ‘Tuberculosis is a housing disease’.

A pamphlet from 1849 titled Report to the General Board of Health on a Preliminary Inquiry into the sewerage, drainage [etc…] of the borough of Morpeth and the village of Bedlington by Robert Rawlinson (NRO 2164) shows just how bad this could be. Rawlinson described the collier’s cottages of the area, where a flagstoned 14ft square room served as living room and bedroom for a large family, with a small bedroom in the roof space ‘open to the slates’. Other houses like the above in Morpeth, had a 16ft by 15ft bedroom in which 8 people slept. Worse however were the overcrowded lodging houses. He quotes the Town Clerk’s account of them, where beds were occupied by ‘as many as can possibly lie upon them’. When these were full others would sleep on the floor in rows. The Town Clerk added ‘nothing but an actual visit can convey anything like a just impression of the state of the atmosphere… what then must it be like for those who sleep there for hours?’ This description shows an atmosphere in which TB could easily spread, where the occupants of the lodging houses (often labourers moving between work) could then spread it at the next lodging house they came to.

However if you think this only happened in the mid-nineteenth century, think again. Dr Allison, who worked for many years at Stannington, described the inside of a house he had visited in 1905:

Dr. Allison’s story from the Yorkshire Post, 14th September 1905

In the five years leading up to 1914 it was calculated 92 people for every 100,000 in the county died of consumption. This was more than Scarlet fever, Diphtheria, Enteric fever, Measles, and Whooping cough combined, as these diseases together killed 70 people in every 100,000 (NRO 3897/4, 1914, p.26). Notification of cases became compulsory, and the County Medical Officer was under a lot of pressure when asked to assist TB sufferers, and so a full time post was created for a Tuberculosis officer from January 1914. Tuberculosis dispensaries with the TB officer and nurse were established in densely populated areas (NRO 3897/4, 1914, p.25). During the 1920s one in every ten deaths in Northumberland was caused by TB, and the County Council used around 75% of their health expenditure to tackle the disease.

Tables from NRO 3897 showing the condition in 1922 of adults and children treated in 1914 for different stages of TB.

The Council felt provision of sanatoria was vital, providing uninsured patients with 10 beds at the private Barrasford Sanatorium, 9 at Stannington Sanatorium, and housed insured patients at other sanatoria as well. However many patients shortened their stay and returned to work to keep a wage. Likewise many tried to avoid going to see doctors in the early stages of TB as they feared taking time off work. The Medical Officer’s report for 1922 noted that many were coming to see the Tuberculosis Officer at the dispensary in the late stages of the disease. Above are tables showing what condition patients who applied for treatment for TB in 1914 were by 1922, and many had worsened or relapsed.

The Medical Officer also feared that once the patients had left the sanatorium, without further help the disease would return. The Stannington Sanatorium patient files echo this reluctance to return their patients to poor living accommodation. The majority of files give us some idea of the living arrangements in each child’s home, who the family members were and whether they had had TB. Below is part of a letter written in 1953 between Dr Miller and the Whickham Chest Clinic, in which he describes a patient’s home conditions:

The patient was kept at Stannington longer than medically necessary because of this. Another patient was only discharged when their family moved into a council house. Though the longer treatment received by the children at Stannington Sanatorium gave patients a much better recovery rate, improved home conditions were seen as essential to their long term improvement.

In 1944 the TB After-care Sub-committee was formed from the Public Health and Housing Committee. The central committee met quarterly, and worked with local sub-committees and an almoner to look after patients discharged from the sanatoria and new patients in the community. The county was divided up into 12 of these sub-comittees based on the then existing dispensary areas: Wallsend; Gosforth and Longbenton; Whitley and Monkseaton; Seaton Valley; Blyth; Ashington; Morpeth; Bedlington; Newburn; Hexham; Alnwick; and Berwick (CC/CMS/PROPTBA/1). Cases were referred to sub-committees by the Tuberculosis officer through the dispensary or local health visitor. Patients’ needs were assessed after a visit by the committee members, who would provide additional medical treatment such as nursing, free milk, extra food, training for employment, and financial assistance such as with rent. They also helped families move to better accommodation, provided travel expenses for patients and their families, clothing, shoes, and importantly, bedding ‘to enable patients and contacts to sleep apart and thus prevent the spread of infection’ (CC/CMS/PROPTBA/1). They provided equipment, from beds to back supports and bedpans, sputum mugs and even deckchairs. Gifts of drinking chocolate, tinned fruit, and magazines also went through the sub-committees. As at Stannington occupational therapy was important (see our previous blog post) with after-care patients crafting everything from embroidery to fishing flies, leatherwork, and even cabinets.

An important function was to refer patients for help with different organisations too, such as the British Legion, Ministry of labour, and the Poor Children’s Holiday Association. A patient assisted by the committee to become a shorthand typist was provided with holiday travel expenses by the ‘BBC Children’s fund for Cripples’, likely describing a forerunner of BBC Children in Need. The County Council paid the PCHA to board out children from homes with a Tuberculosis case, and many of these children likely went to Stannington.

There are several references to individual cases, including one lady:

During the Second World War mobile mass radiography became a huge boon to diagnosing the disease, with factories and workplaces often used as bases, and later mobile vans with their own generator operated in the community. They were used across the world and even reached Alaska by dog-sled. The County Council paid a shilling to the Newcastle local authority for each Northumberland case x-rayed with their machine. The County Council knew they would require an adaptable and economic mobile unit, but first used Newcastle Corporation’s unit at Ashington Colliery, where radiographs were taken from the 30^th April 1947 (CC/CMS/PROPTB/2). By September that year 3,642 had attended in Ashington, with 23 referred to the Dispensary, and 1,780 attended the unit at Blyth, with 25 referred for treatment. Though the disease is by no means eradicated, improved housing conditions, the TB Vaccination, and early diagnosis with mass radiography made such a dramatic impact on the disease that sanatoria like Stannington were converted to other uses.

References:

Bynum, H., (2012) Spitting Blood: a history of Tuberculosis. Oxford: OUP

Taylor, J., (1988) England’s border county: a history of Northumberland county Council.

First World War Stannington – Hilda and Robert Atkin’s story

Killer in the community – the County Council’s approach to Tuberculosis