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George and Elizabeth Tweddell

This is a hub for the work of George Markham Tweddell and his wife Elizabeth Tweddell (AKA Florence Cleveland).

THIS POST REMAINS ON TOP AS AN INTRODUCTION.

Paul Tweddell in Rose Cottage Stokesley

This site dedicated to the memory of  Paul Markham Tweddell, who in 2005, became a valued friend and associate and unstinting in his dedication to recording and researching the history of his ancestors of  'modest fame' as he termed it.
Trev Teasdel

Notes For those visiting via Coastal view and Moor's News re- Holly Bush's article (page 33) on Captain Cook and the proposed pyramid on Roseberry Topping - The original article is here http://georgemarkhamtweddell.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/captain-cooks-monument-easby-moor.html

George Markham Tweddell - 1823 - 1903 was born in Stokesley on 20th March 1823 , North Yorkshire, and claimed he was the son of a Royal Navy Lieutenant, George Markham, who had been born in 1797 in the Rectory, Stokesley. His father, another George Markham (1763-1822), was the Rector of Stokesley, whilst also holding the post of Dean of York, and his grandfather was Archbishop Markham (1719-1807), famed for saving the walls of York from demolition in the first decade of the nineteenth century with the help of the author Walter Scott.

George's full history can be read on the Tweddell History site - here - http://www.tweddellhistory.co.uk/index.html

About George Markham Tweddell -

• Editor of Radical Newspaper - campaigning against the Corn Laws, Slavery and many other issues of the day.
• A printer, publisher and author of many books including Bards and Authors of Cleveland and South Durham, Shakespeare and his Times and Contemporaries, History of Stockton and Darlington Railway, and many more.
• A prolific, wide ranging and well published poet - world wide, in papers, magazines and anthologies and his own books - and more recently has a collected poetic works published recently by Paul Tweddell and myself Trev Teasdel - with pdfs posted on this site.
• The author of The People's History of Cleveland.
• A prominent member of  the Cleveland Lodge of Freemasons / Odd fellows who published his own 100 Masonic Poems in sonnet form.
• A preserver of the Cleveland dialect.
• A Chartist who had poems published in their paper - Northern Star along side those of Ebenezer Elliot - the Poor Law Rhymer whom Tweddell corresponded with and had poetical exchanges with.
• And much much more!

Elizabeth Tweddell (Aka Florence Cleveland)

Elizabeth Tweddell was the daughter of Thomas Cole (1787-1867) who was 34 years parish clerk of Stokesley in North Yorkshire and renowned for being the last person to toll the town's curfew bell. She was the wife of George Markham Tweddell and became a respected dialect poet herself under the pen name of Florence Cleveland. Her book - Rhymes and Sketches to illustrate the Cleveland Dialect - 1875 is still popular in the local area and recently a Stockton on Tees folk duo Megson achieved national notoriety with write ups in the Guardian, Independent with an album of songs whose title song - Take Yourself a Wife - was based on one of her dialect poems - listen below.

And on their second album Megson put music to Elizabeth Tweddell's dialect poem 'Twaa Match Lads' called here Two match Lads.
HERE

http://www.gazettelive.co.uk/news/teesside-news/2009/08/18/works-of-george-markham-tweddell-on-show-in-stokesley-84229-24467796/

The People's History of Cleveland by George Markham Tweddell

The People's History of Cleveland by George Markham Tweddell

Four Volumes 1872

George Markham Tweddell began writing up his People's History after he left Lancashire

(Bury), where he was headmaster of Ragged (Industrial) school in the 1850's.

"..I had left Lancashire to commence writing that History of my native Cleveland and its Vicinage for which i had long been collecting materials, - even before my friend Walker Ord had thought of his or indeed had studied it himself.."

The full works were to encompass 32 parts which, as was the custom, would eventually be made into a book. However only 4 parts were published for some reason and any manuscripts of the materials are presumed lost owing to the fact that after his death, much of Tweddell's notes and unpublished manuscripts (or those that are not in the Cleveland Archives) were lost in the Stokesley flood of the 1930. They were in the cellar of Rose Cottage in Stokesley and the relatives rescued the books but not is papers. Great shame!

A manuscript exists in Middlesbrough Reference library on Middlesbrough, going back long before the town existed, in a way not covered by other histories of the area, and giving a great description of early Middlesbrough, its staithes etc. Some of this material was used for an extended essay for the Middlesbrough Centenary and is on this site. The manuscript itself is above the Reference library where only staff are allowed, so you would have to ask to see this document. I would think this would have been part of later installments. Historian Asa Briggs consulted it for his Victorian Cities book and the essay on Middlesbrough. View the extended essay on Middlesbrough here -  https://georgemarkhamtweddell.blogspot.com/2012/12/tweddells-history-of-middlesbrough-1890.html

Click the arrow to read on Google docs in an expanded window or download the pdf.