Durham County Local History Society has arranged a talk in the Lecture Theatre at Ushaw College at 11 am on Saturday 8th October 2022.
Professor John Tomaney of University College London will talk on Sacriston - A Biography of a Durham Village. John is a native of County Durham and London University has undertaken research on the village in 2021.
Sacriston is an ordinary Durham village, but it has an epic history. This lecture tells its story from the sinking of the Victoria pit in 1839 to the present. It is a tale of enterprise and endeavour, towering personalities and collective achievement. It shows how Sacriston emerged in the late 19th century as a ‘do-it-yourself’ community where most of the facilities in the village were built from the ‘pennies and sixpences’ of the miners and their families. It examines the fate of this community following the nationalisation of the coal industry in 1947 and the growth of the welfare state and ponders the future.
Durham County Local History Society & Spennymoor Settlement Association - Thursday 21 October 2021 at 7pm - Rewinding the Welfare State - A Social History of the North East on film from the North East Film Archive. At the Everyman Theatre O’Hanlon Street, off King Street, DL16 6RY
Saturday 9 November 2019 2:30pm - Andrezej Olechnowicz: The Spennymoor Settlement - unemployment,‘mass society’,and ‘the right use of leisure’. The Spennymoor Settlement established in 1931 is still going after nearly 90 years. It is famous for its impact on local art and culture. Under Bill Farrell, its warden of 23 years (1931-54), by 1939 it was known as the Pitman’s Academy and from then its Everman Players consistently presented an audacious and lauded programme of classics by Ibsen, Strindberg, Synge, O’Casey etc. After the war, Sketching Club artists, such as Norman Cornish and Tom McGuiness, and the writer Sid Chaplin made their names. In this talk, Dr Andrzej Olechnowicz of Durham University will consider the Settlement in a different context - the national debates within the voluntary movement, which founded and funded it (at least for the first years), and also among politicians, academics and commentators. What if unemployment was not temporary? What if mechanisation meant more and more people thrown out of work with no or little prospect of finding ‘work’ as it had been understood hitherto? How could social and political order be maintained in the face of this ‘enforced leisure’ of millions who lacked the educational or moral resources to use it wisely, and so would use it unwisely and destructively. Andrzej will ask if, in the face of the connection between economic dislocation and the rise of fascism, Spennymoor Settlement assumed the role of not only nurturing ‘miner-artists’ but also of making democracy safe through ensuring that the unemployed were equipped to make ‘the right use of leisure’. He will explore whether it succeeded and what obstacles it faced. Finally, as we move towards an economy based on AI and automation, he will reflect on what our answer would be to a new age of ‘enforced leisure’.
Saturday 12 October 2019 2:30pm - Richard Pears: Gothic survival and Gothic revival - architecture in Northern England 1600-1860 Dr Richard Pears will examine the continued appeal of medieval styles of architecture from the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries in this illustrated talk. Although this period saw the construction of numerous buildings in Baroque, Palladian and Neo-classical styles, the romantic and political messages of what came to be termed Gothic (and Gothick) exerted a strong influence, particularly after the turbulence of the Reformation, English Civil War, Hanoverian Succession and Napoleonic Wars. National architects including Vanbrugh, Adam, Wyatt and Pugin, and local architects such as Newton, Bell, Dobson and Bonomi employed Gothic styles for country houses, garden features, civic buildings and churches, emphasising in different contexts the contested views of history, political legitimacy, and lineage. Ultimately, Gothic style became synonymous with English identity in buildings housing Government, the Law, the Church and wealthy landowners.
Saturday 14 September 2019 3:00pm - Andrew Everett: Educating men on the railways. Andrew Everett, a retired senior lecturer at Northumbria University, specialises in railway and engineering history. He will be talking about the role of the North Eastern Railway (1854-1923) in educating its workers in the late nineteenth century.
Saturday 11th May 2019 2:30pm - Gabriel Damaszk: A lunatic and a dreamer - Paul Salvator Ridielski Piast and Robert Holmes Edleston of Gainford. Paul Riedelski-Piast was one of many pretenders to the Polish throne during the First World War, claiming to be descended from the ancient royal dynasty of Piast. He tried to convince politicians across the world to support Polish independence and befriended Robert Holmes Edleston, a vicar in Gainford. The pair remained in contact for over 30 years exchanging regular letters. Gabriel Damask, an archivist at Durham County Record Office, has uncovered a fascinating story from letters found in the Edleston of Gainford collection (D/Ed) and from material obtained from Swedish, Irish and Polish national archives.
Saturday 13th April 2019 2:30pm - Alan Heesom: Two soldiers, two diplomats, one girlfriend? War & friendship at the time of Napoleon. Alan Heesom is a longstanding member of the Society and his talk looks at the relationship between two Northern aristocrats, Lord Stewart (later 3rd Marquess of Londonderry) and Lord Burghersh (later 11th Earl of Westmoreland), 200 years ago. They both fought in the Peninsula War and later had political/diplomatic careers.
Saturday 16 March 2019 2:30pm - George Muirhead: The fishing industries of Sunderland 1800-1914 Dr George Muirhead is the former head of Locomotion at Shildon and this talk is based on his Ph.D thesis completed at Newcastle University in the 1990s. George looks at the age of sail from 1800 to 1877 and compares it to the age of steam from 1877-1914.
Saturday 10 November 2018 2:30pm - Dr John Banham: Behind The Lines: A film about a Great War nurse and the fight for survival. John Banham is the Society’s Secretary, who, as a member of Tudhoe & Spennymoor Local History Society, was responsible for commissioning a film funded by the HLF First World War Then and Now Programme. The 62 minute film tells the stories of four people from Spennymoor who made significant contributions to saving lives on the Western Front. Foremost among them was Sister Kate Maxey MM RRC. The film also features two miners, who joined the RAMC and won MMs, and a schoolmaster and conscientious objector who joined an Ambulance Train in France.
Saturday 6 October 2018 2:30pm - David Butler: Turnpike Trustee Tantrums: The West Auckland and Darlington Turnpike in the 1780s. David Butler is a former County Archivist and a well-known local historian in Durham City. This is his second talk to the Society about Durham’s roads which were turnpiked in the eighteenth century. This time he looks at the conflicts arising between Turnpike trustees using the example of the West Auckland to Darlington Turnpike.
Saturday 8 September 2018 2:30pm - Dr. Debbie Smith: Turnips to Gas - the James Losh diaries of weather from early nineteenth century Newcastle. James Losh was a well-known and much-respected figure in early nineteenth century Newcastle-upon-Tyne. He was a notable political reformer, benefactor to the city and leading member of the legal community. All of these aspects of Losh’s remarkable life have been well-publicised and discussed. Far less widely appreciated is his dutiful preparation of a 30-year detailed weather record for his adopted city. Debbie Smith explores Losh’s weather records from 1802 to 1833 and pays particular attention to the peculiarities of the climate of the time, especially to the infamous year without a summer - 1816.
Saturday 9 June 2018 1:15pm at County Hall - The David Reid Memorial Lecture. Sue Ward from the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle upon Tyne (SANT) will talk about their project Unlocking the Archives. Sue is a Vice-President of SANT, responsible for their website and News Bulletin. She co-ordinated the Heritage Lottery funded project, which focused on three volumes of eighteenth century material from the Society’s substantial archive.
Saturday 12 May 2018 2:30pm - Dr Alex Brown: Recession and Recovery in County Durham, 1400- 1640. Dr Alex Brown is Assistant Professor of Medieval Economic and Social History at Durham University, having first arrived as an undergraduate in 2005 and staying on to complete his postgraduate and postdoctoral studies. His first book was a study of how rural society in Durham adapted to the economic problems of the fifteenth-century recession and how this affected their ability to respond to the inflation of the sixteenth century. Alex is currently researching the fear of downward social mobility in late medieval England.
Saturday 14 April 2018 2:30pm - Adrian Green: New College, Durham - the conversion of Durham Cathedral into a university in the 1650s. Adrian Green is Associate Professor in History at Durham University and has written widely on the County in the 17th & 18th Centuries. He published Building for England: John Cosin’s Architecture in Renaissance Durham and Cambridge in 2016 and this year has jointly edited Economy and Culture in North East England 1500-1800.
Saturday 17 March 2018 2:30pm - Chris Lloyd: King Henry the Ninth and the Spark of Ingenuity: 150 Years of Darlington Borough Council. How a megalomaniac maverick took on the Quaker elite of Darlington and successfully won the town its own council and MP. He caused the Pease Party immense embarrassment as they resorted to underhand and corrupt methods to keep him out of Parliament. It may be subtitled "the Donald of Darlo"
Saturday 11th November 2017 2:30pm - David Butler: The Turnpike Roads of County Durham.
Saturday 7th October 2017 2:30pm - Kathleen Reynolds: ILL News: Gentry Health in the Eighteenth Century North.
Saturday 9th September 2017 2:30pm - Gill Parkes: Durham at War - 1917/18 Durham at War is a First World War Centenary commemoration project run by Durham County Council and supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund. Archivist Gill Parkes will introduce the website that is at the heart of this project and show how it has developed since 2014. Discover some of the remarkable stories contributed by a small army of volunteers and community groups, and how you can use the website to showcase your own projects and interests. Current plans are that the website will only be live until the end of 2018, so local historians now have just over a year in which to upload new stories.
Saturday 24 June 2017 11:00am - The David Reid Memorial Lecture - The Rites of Durham in Context by Dr Margaret Harvey.
June 2017 - The Society had a small exhibition in the Durham Museum & Heritage Centre at St. Mary le Bow. It provided general information about the Society and featured a summary about Durham in the 17th Century including the Civil War.
Saturday 20 May 2017 2:30pm - Dr. Stephen D. Shannon: Irish Nationalists in County Durham, 1860 - 1930: An Overview at the City Theatre, Fowler’s Yard, Back Silver Street, Durham City. For over 60 years, from the 1860s to the 1920s, Irish migrants in County Durham, and their children and grandchildren, were urged by Irish nationalist leaders to join political organisations that had as their aim an independent Ireland. Some, such as the United Irish League of Great Britain, sought this through peaceful, constitutional means, but others, most notably the Irish Republican Brotherhood, were prepared to fight for an Irish Republic. Once Irish nationalist leagues and associations met in village pubs and local halls across County Durham from Consett to Trimdon and from Jarrow to Bishop Auckland. For over a decade before the First World War, Irish nationalists held an annual gala in Wharton Park to demand Home Rule; whilst Catholic churches across the diocese said masses for the repose of the souls of Fenian dead. Steve Shannon’s talk will explore this almost forgotten element of the history of County Durham and of the history of many of the people living in County Durham today.
22 April 2017 2:30pm - Sarah Reay: The Half Shilling-Curate: A Personal Account of War and Faith,1914-1918 at the City Theatre, Fowler’s Yard, Back Silver Street, Durham City. Sarah Reay tells the story of her grandfather, the Reverend Herbert Butler Cowl, from Christmas Eve 1914 to the end of hostilities in 1919. Herbert Cowl was a Wesleyan Army Chaplain to the 23rd Infantry Division, 68th Brigade, of the BEF. Attached to the 68th Brigade were the 12th and 13th Battalions of the Durham Light Infantry and two Northumberland Fusilier battalions. Herbert Cowl arrived in Boulogne the day before 12 DLI and 13 DLI landed on 26 August 1915. He ministered to the battalions until severely wounded during an enemy bombardment and was repatriated to England for the remainder of the war. He was one of the first Wesleyan Army Chaplains to receive the Military Cross for exemplary gallantry.
18 March 2017 2:30pm - John McKinnell: Drama and Ceremony in Medieval Durham at the City Theatre, Fowler’s Yard, Back Silver Street, Durham City. John McKinnell is Emeritus Professor in the Department of English Studies at Durham University. His interests are Durham Medieval Drama and texts, Medieval acting style, Old and Middle English poetry, Old Norse literature (esp. mythological poetry) and the records of early English drama. The Society is very pleased to be able to host his talk in the modern city theatre.
26 November 2016 2:30pm - Leo Gooch: The Elizabethan Lord Lumley: Conspirator and Connoisseur at the City Theatre, Fowler’s Yard, Back Silver Street, Durham City.
29 October 2016 2:30pm - Tim Griffiths: Waggonways and Other Industry: Visitors to Tyneside, 1600 - 1850 at the City Theatre, Fowler’s Yard, Back Silver Street, Durham City. Tim Griffith’s talk is based on his book A Place Quite Northward, Visitors to Northumberland 1500-1850. In this Tim looks at the experiences of a wide range of travellers - lawyers, surveyors, industrial and political spies, actors, sportsmen, preachers, agricultural and penal reformers and antiquarians. His talk covers descriptions of industry from people visiting Tyneside and the north of County Durham.
17 September 2016 2:30pm - Philip Dyer : Children of the Pit Villages at the City Theatre, Fowler’s Yard, Back Silver Street, Durham City.
Based on his article published in the Society’s Journal in 2014, Philip Dyer will talk about the life led by children in some of County Durham’s colliery villages in the nineteenth century. Such villages often sprang up on a green field site round a newly opened coal mine with children as young as six or seven put to work underground. As defined by the 1842 Children’s Employment Commission report, working conditions were often terrible and Philip looks at how matters improved as the century progressed.
16 July 2016 2.30 pm - Dr Charlie Rozier : The Cult of St Cuthbert and the Story of Durham 995-1130 AD at the City Theatre, Fowler’s Yard, Back Silver Street, Durham City. Dr Charlie Rozier, who is the Arts and Humanities Cultural Engagement Fellow in the Department of History at Durham University, will use his talk to introduce the life and works of Symeon of Durham, a Norman monk. Symeon rewrote the history of St Cuthbert’s life and cult in his History of the Durham Church, which he completed in 1115. Symeon wove written and oral traditions from the Anglo-Saxon past into a new story which was more relevant to an Anglo-Norman present. Using images of manuscripts written by Symeon and artefacts which guided his views on the past, Charlie Rozier aims to explain our own views of St Cuthbert’s cult and its place in Durham’s history and engage with the narrative to be presented in the forthcoming Open Treasures exhibition, which is hosted in Durham Cathedral from 23 July onwards.
25 June 2016 1.15 pm - The David Reid Memorial Lecture - Alan Heesom : Buddle and Londonderry : An Unlikely Partnership? in the Council Chamber, County Hall, DH1 5UL. The lecture will be given by Alan Heesom, a long standing member of the Society and a former Editor of our Journal. Alan is now retired from the History Department at the University of Durham and is an Honorary General Editor for the Surtees Society, including Volume 217, Letters of John Buddle and Lord Londonderry 1820-1843, edited by the late Anne Ord. Alan has studied the Londonderry Papers held at Durham County Archives for over 40 years.
14th May 2016 2.30pm - Catherine Wright : The Annandale Family - 100 years of papermaking at the City Theatre, Fowler’s Yard, Back Silver Street, Durham City. Although papermaking is something of a forgotten industry there were once numerous paper mills in County Durham. These operated with varying degrees of success from some point in the 1670s, when paper was first made at Croxdale Mill, until the 1980s. The firm of John Annandale & Sons was one of the more successful papermaking businesses of the nineteenth century, with paper mills at Shotley Grove and Lintzford. The discovery that her husband is a direct descendant of John Annandale prompted Catherine Wright to investigate. Catherine’s talk will cover what happened to the Durham branch of the Annandale family, and to the business, in those 100 years. It will include a short general account of papermaking, and make brief reference to other County Durham mills.
9th April 2016 2.30pm - Marian Morrison : Colliery Health Care in 19th century North Durham at the City Theatre, Fowler’s Yard, Back Silver Street, Durham City. Marian Morrison of Lanchester Local History Society has won a 2016 British Association for Local History Publications Award for her short article on this subject in DCLHS Journal 79. In her talk she will look at progress in providing health care in North Durham colliery communities and the evidence of that contained in the 1842 Report of the Children’s Employment Commission.
12th March 2016 at 2.30pm - David Butler - Magnificence and Immensity even in Death – the death and funeral of George Bowes at the City Theatre, Fowler’s Yard, Back Silver Street, Durham City. David Butler, a well-known historical researcher and speaker, was formerly Durham County Archivist. David has been researching George Bowes for a number of years using letters in the Strathmore Papers held in Durham County Record Office. George Bowes (1701-60), an ancestor of the late Queen Mother, was one of County Durham’s first coal magnates as well as a local politician. Bowes was the crucial figure in the development of the landscape at Gibside. On his death in September 1760, he was first buried at Whickham parish church and then reburied in the chapel crypt at Gibside in 1813. This talk tells the story of George Bowes' death and two burials. Gibside Chapel can be viewed on a visit to the National Trust run estate but the crypt is only open on Heritage Open Days.
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