General

George Junior is the business’ namesake. The second son of Owl Pen and Hannah was born in 1864. The story of his elder brother, Thomas, is a sad and rather morbid one. In terms of our own passed down memories, nothing was really known of Thomas. Born in 1859, he disappeared from the census; his last mention was in 1881 age 22. He is detailed as being blind and then all trace vanishes. Rumour was he ended up in an asylum, but the reasons why were unknown, or at least not spoken of. After some digging at Northumberland Archives, he was discovered as having ended up in St George’s, Morpeth in 1891 aged 32.

It seems as well as being blind, he was epileptic, which is maybe why he ‘was violent, shouting, swearing threatening to injure others his father in particular…’  He died in 1903 aged 44 and was buried in Morpeth.

As with all family history, the truths we uncover are not always happy ones.

George Junior began his apprenticeship as a hairdresser with Mr Mark Patterson of Narrowgate, Alnwick. This then led to him opening his own Hairdressing business in Wellwood Street, Amble in 1883, later moving to a larger premises in Queen Street.

He married Charlotte Gibson in 1885, and, as well as starting a rather large family, George expanded his business portfolio to include tobacconists, sweetshops and penny bazaars, as well as a facility for charging accumulator batteries.  These were very heavy, plastic batteries full of acid. The acid gradually turned to alkaline as the battery ran down. When people bought a radio, it came with two batteries so that one would always be charged. This was a very popular service.

He opened new branches in Radcliffe, Broomhill, Red Row and of course, Alnwick. He and Charlotte had 14 children, only five of whom survived.

George’s eldest son, William, left to join the war effort in 1916, as a clerk in the Northumberland Fusiliers.

After a posting to Bombay, he contracted smallpox and malaria, returning home in 1919.  He joined the family business and began making radio sets for family and friends in the 1920s but realising the potential for this ‘wireless telegraph’, he began to go on to sell them. This was only the beginning as soon, with high demand, he had to source them from suppliers such as HMV and Columbia and thus, the family diversified into electrical goods.

In 1935, George Penrose died, six years after his wife Charlotte. They are buried together in West Cemetery, Amble.

After his death, George left the businesses in the very capable hands of William. However, his siblings were not too happy with this idea, and this then led to a rather big falling out. To combat the resentment felt, William gave his younger brother, Fred, the business in Amble and to his sisters, the other shops in the surrounding areas. The family house in Amble, Farndale, became the home of Fred and his wife, Dorothy (nee McKay). The name itself comes from a valley located in the North York Moors, a tribute, perhaps, to their Yorkshire ancestry. Fred’s business was passed onto his son, another George after his death in 1987. This George was a familiar face in Amble, known for his haircutting abilities and his frequent visits to the betting shop!

Of all the businesses left by George Junior, William’s shop in Alnwick outlasted them all. William met and married Jane Douglass in 1920. Jane took an active role in the business and was fondly remembered for always having a fresh vase of flowers on the countertop every day. They had one daughter, Jane, born in 1922, who affectionately became known as Penny.

Sophie Towers, x3 great-granddaughter of the ‘original’ George Penrose, looks back at the origins of her family name and the legacies they left behind.

In 2023, we said goodbye to a place that holds a mountain of memories for our family. 

George Penrose and Sons was taken over in 2017 when the final Penrose retired; Peter Lewis being the 2x great grandson of the original George. The name and business Penroses are still in existence, thanks to Guy and Sarah Filer, but the shop itself has a new owner as well as a new trade.

The family can trace their lineage back to 1195 with the first recorded spelling of the name being Philip de Penros, a then resident of Cornwall during the reign of Richard the Lionheart; the likelihood being that they had travelled over with William the Conqueror in 1066.

 The coat of arms (see below) has the motto Rosa sine Spina translated as ‘A Rose without the Thorn’.

The family eventually moved to Yorkshire in 1680, settling near Fountains Abbey fish pools where trout and eels were reared.

In 1833, George Penrose Senior was born in Aldborough, North Yorkshire. He grew up in The Aldborough Arms, his father Thomas being the Innkeeper there. He began work as an Innkeeper himself at The Ship Inn, Aldborough and as a shoemaker but his passion was in playing cricket. As a professional player, he joined Alnwick Cricket Club, moving to Alnwick and living in Painters Hill (now the site of St. Michael’s Church Hall), in 1860. He and his wife Hannah had four children, Thomas, Annie, George Junior and Mary Jane.  

In an article from The Alnwick Mercury, dated Tuesday October 1st, 1861, George’s prowess on the Cricket field is noted – ‘the two crack bowlers, Messrs. Dixon and Penrose, are both benedicts, and their splendid bowling told heavily on their opponents.’ It seems George Senior was quite the sportsman & was certainly deserving of his visit to the ‘Nags Head’ that evening!

In and around the 1880’s George Senior, affectionately named “Owld Pen”, suffered an unfortunate fate, finding himself gored and crippled when picking mushrooms. According to his obituary in The Morpeth Herald, George Senior ‘went over the hedge [in Washburn Field], to gather mushrooms, and a cow in the field charged at him and gored him severely, breaking his leg, and causing other injuries.’ It is also noted that ‘…only through his strength and determination…he escaped with his life’. He was undoubtedly a force to be reckoned with, even by bovines! He was an avid fisherman, spending time on the River Aln ‘plying his art’. After his accident, the then 6^th Duke of Northumberland granted him ‘permission to fish in the “Pasture”’, a privilege only granted to the Percys themselves.

We find him again mentioned in The Alnwick Mercury in 1873, having caught a rather large fish ‘below the “Sumph” – ‘[it] was 22 inches in length, 11 ½ inches in girth, 5 inches deep at shoulder, and a weight 4 ½ lbs.’

His exploits at his Painter’s Hill home brought him to court in 1875 due to ‘wasting the town water’. It seems George felt that there was a ‘very serious deficiency’ and took matters into his own hands, ‘tying up the handle of his water-closet so as to allow the water to run full tap’. He was fined 15 shillings, including costs for this misdemeanour. 

George Penrose Senior passed away in 1902 aged 69. He was then residing with his daughter, Mary Jane Charlton in Aston Stevenage, Hertfordshire.

This blog has been researched and written by Hilary Love, one of the volunteers on our maternity care project. Project volunteers are researching maternity care in Northumberland with particular focus on Castle Hills Maternity Home, Berwick, and Mona Taylor Maternity Home, Stannington. We are also researching in less detail some of the other Maternity Homes in the county. This blog provides a brief history of maternity provision at Hilcrest, Alnwick,Northumberland. 

Hillcrest was originally a private family home in Alnwick built for Charles Percy (1851-1929), a prominent Alnwick solicitor. Between 1918 and 1922 Charles Percy was M.P. for Tynemouth. The 1921 census lists the widowed Charles living at Hillcrest with three live-in servants. The census record notes that Hillcrest comprised 15 rooms. By 1939 Richard Simpson, a maltster, was living at the property.

In April 1952 Hillcrest was opened as a maternity home with eleven beds. The opening ceremony was performed by Helen, Duchess of Northumberland. The first child to be born there was a daughter to Mr. and Mrs. Deeble of Alnwick. The Duchess presented a mug to mother and child.

In the late 1980s there was a proposal to close Hillcrest and transfer maternity services to Ashington. There was much local opposition to the closure – women marched through the town in support of retention. In response, the Health Authority decided that, if local people could raise £100,000, a new unit would be built in the grounds of Alnwick Infirmary. A new 8-bed unit, attached to Alnwick Infirmary, was given the go ahead when the appeal total was reached.

Such was the success of the campaign that construction of the new unit began just eighteen months after Northumberland Health Authority proposed to refer all Alnwick patients to Ashington Hospital. The total cost of the build was £472,000 with £372,000 coming from the sale of the old Hillcrest Hospital. An article and photograph in The Weekly Courier of 17 May 1989, features work starting on the new unit. The photograph showed the Duchess of Northumberland on a mechanical digger laying the first turf. A donation of 20 tons of sand from their depot in Powburn, was received from a north-east company, Ryton Sand and Gravel. Mr. Bill Hugonin of Alnwick Castle Estates received delivery of the sand on behalf of the Hillcrest Committee. Mr. Hugonin praised the local and regional press for publicizing the work of the committee and for getting behind the campaign.

The new unit was officially opened was on 10 October 1990, although it was open to patients a little while before that. Maternity services continue to be delivered from the Hillcrest Unit today.