Out & About …

… on the North York Moors, or wherever I happen to be.

A photo looking uphill of a path through a sunlit beech wood. A walker ascends in the distance and, in the foreground, are two concrete bases, the remains of an aerial ropeway to the Ayton Bank Ironstone Mine.

I set out this morning intending to take a photo on the route that Dalton Taylor would have taken on his last day at work at Roseberry Ironstone Mine from his lodgings in Ayton

He would have climbed this path, probably before dawn, in 1913. I thought it was on this day, 110 years ago, he died from a roof collapse but have since found out that Taylor was actually killed a week earlier, on the 4th January, 19131Daily Gazette for Middlesbrough | Monday 06 January 1913 | British Newspaper Archive. Britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk <https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000159/19130106/055/0003> [accessed 11 January 2023]. It was reported in the Darlington and Stockton Times on on the 11th.

And I posted about that accident two years ago, ah well. So what happened to Taylor’s family?

Taylor’s wife, Emily, and family lived in Middlesbrough. He lodged in Ayton returning home at weekends. For Emily, prospects would have been pretty bleak, with the loss of the family’s major wage earner. Some benefit would have been available from The Miners Permanent Relief Fund but compensation would also be expected from the mining company, the Tees Furnace Company.

However, the Tees Furnace Company tried to evade payment of compensation claiming that Emily was not “dependent on her husband, she having cohabited with another man for about nine or ten years.” Emily had to resort to the courts2‘Did Husband Maintain Her? Curious Point Raised in Stokesley Compensation Case | Stockton Herald, South Durham and Cleveland Advertiser | Saturday 31 May 1913 | British Newspaper Archive’. 2023. Britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk <https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0002976/19130531/149/0006> [accessed 11 January 2023].

Emily’s case was that “although she lived at Middlesbrough, her husband went home at week-ends, and gave her £1 or 18s a week, and she and the children were entirely dependent upon him. She admitted, however, that a man, named Hewitson, lived in the house as a lodger, and paid 3s 6d a week for his lodgings.” Hewitson had left about a fortnight before Taylor died.

The Company called a Police-Inspector as a witness. He said he had known the family for 4½ years, visiting the house frequently, and knew that Hewitson lived there. “He had to warn her about the children being sent to beg, and one of them was convicted of begging.” “Mrs Taylor had also been convicted on one or two charges.”

“The witness further stated that the applicant told him, about four years ago, that she received 5s per week from her husband, this being as much as he could spare, having to pay 14s per week for his board and lodgings at Ayton. The Inspector said he had no doubt that Hewitson was cohabiting with Mrs Taylor.”

The next witness was Charles Mayhew, an Inspector of the N.S.P.C.C., who said “he visited the house on the 20th December last, and found that she was occupying one room with Hewitson, and he complained of the children being allowed to go out and beg. He warned Hewitson and the applicant, when the latter said she was only getting a few shillings from her husband weekly, and that he sent her what he could.”

The judge, in his summing up, “said the deceased had acquiesced in a strange practice. He had gone home at certain periods and given his wife what he could afford.

“In his opinion the children were entirely dependent on the father, and he made in order for the payment of £200. He would only, however, give the widow £20, the remainder being for the benefit of the children.”

That case was heard at Stokesley County Court. Later that year, in August, Emily was again in the County Court, this time in Guisborough as a defendant. .J. J. Pybus was the undertaker who had carried the funeral arrangements for Dalton. He sued Emily for the payment of £6 3s 6d to be made out of compensation awarded.

Emily argued that the Miners Permanent Relief Fund should bear the expenses, but the Judge “directed that the cost should come in equal shares out of the money awarded to the widow and children“3‘An Undertaker’s Claim. | Stockton Herald, South Durham and Cleveland Advertiser | Saturday 23 August 1913 | British Newspaper Archive’. 2023. Britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk <https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0002976/19130823/048/0003> [accessed 11 January 2023].

It is hard to assess, from these court reports, what sort of character Emily Taylor was. Do you pity her or think her avaricious?

Even less can be learnt of Dalton’s. But he did have an uncommon name.

In 1899, a charge against a Dalton Taylor for unlawfully assaulting and ill-treating Elizabeth Pearson, at Stanghow was thrown out by the court. This Dalton Taylor was a miner and aged 38, which puts him the same age as our Ayton miner. They must be one and the same. 4York Herald | Friday 20 October 1899 | British Newspaper Archive. Britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk <https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000500/18991020/010/0003> [accessed 11 January 2023].

Eight years later, in 1907, Ejectment orders had been granted on behalf of the Marquis of Zetland and Cargo Fleet Iron Company Ltd. against several miners of Loftus and Liverton Mines, including … Dalton Taylor5Whitby Gazette | Friday 15 November 1907 | British Newspaper Archive. Britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk <https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001103/19071115/090/0005> [accessed 11 January 2023].

Also in that year, 1907, a 17-year-old Dalton Taylor, labourer, of Middlesbrough “was charged with stealing a shirt, valued at 3s. 6d., … and was bound over for six months. His mother, Emily Taylor, was sent to prison for two months for receiving it, knowing the same to have been stolen.“6Tees-Side Weekly Herald | Saturday 22 October 1910 | British Newspaper Archive. Britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk <https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0004244/19101022/156/0008> [accessed 11 January 2023] So, ‘Dalton’ would appear to be a family given name. Which leads to …

“There is a newspaper report in 1854 of the accidental death of a labourer there, Dalton Taylor, who fell from the top of the cliff [Kettleness] on to a piece of broken rock and was killed on the spot.”7Barrigan, Alice. 2023. ‘Walk the Cleveland Way – in 1866’, Blogspot.com <https://northyorkshirehistory.blogspot.com/2021/01/walk-cleveland-way-in-1866.html#:~:text=a%20labourer%20there%2C-,Dalton%20Taylor,-%2C%20who%20fell%20from> [accessed 11 January 2023]

Finally in 1866, an outbreak of cholera hit Runswick Bay, “the Whitby Gazette reported that there had been no fresh cases but that Mrs Taylor, the 31 year old wife of D. Taylor, fisherman, “of whose recovery hopes were last week entertained”, had died. She was buried on 13 November.“8Barrigan, Alice. 2023. ‘Runswick: A Tale of Landslips – and the Cholera of 1866’, Blogspot.com <http://northyorkshirehistory.blogspot.com/2020/12/runswick-tale-of-landslips-and-cholera.html#:~:text=Elizabeth%2C%20wife%20of-,Dalton%20Taylor,-.%C2%A0%20She%20was%20the> [accessed 11 January 2023]

“This was Elizabeth, wife of Dalton Taylor. She was the mother of two children, Robinson and Ann Elizabeth, by her first marriage to Joseph Patton and with Dalton Taylor she had Dalton, Dinah and Elizabeth. When their mother died, her eldest child was 11 and the youngest was just 2. The Whitby Gazette reported that two children – it doesn’t say if they were Elizabeth’s – had, however, recovered.”

I better stop before I go any further down this rabbit-hole. All too coincidental?

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2 responses to “I set out this morning intending to take a photo on the route that Dalton Taylor would have taken on his last day at work at Roseberry Ironstone Mine from his lodgings in Ayton”

  1. Lucy Hodgson avatar
    Lucy Hodgson

    Looks a beautiful day

    Reply
    1. Fhithich avatar
      Fhithich

      It was until it turned!

      Reply

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