George Markham Tweddell and the Markham Family

George Markham Tweddell and the Markham Family

The Markham Coat of Arms

This post is an attempt to bring together what we know of George Markham Tweddell's (GMT) relation Paul Markham Tweddell, who until is death in 2010, spent many years researching his ancestors, and in association with me, making much of that research available on the internet. His full genealogical book, unfinished at his demise, is currently being prepared for publication by Paul's wife, Sandra but may take a while as a lot of Paul's later research still needs to be integrated into the text. Paul's book covers the full Tweddell family history.
to his father's family - the Markhams. I pull together material from



From Paul Tweddell's website http://www.tweddellhistory.co.uk/

"George Tweddell (the name by which he was baptised) was born on 20th March 1823 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."

The Plantagenets and Cromwell
On one of our walks through Stokesley, taking me along his 'Tweddell Trail', Paul mentioned that through the

Sir Clements Markham's family history of 1913

Markham line, GMT was related both to Kings (the Plantagenet line) AND Oliver Cromwell! (GMT mentions the relation to Oliver Cromwell in Bards and Authors of Cleveland and South Durham  and in the page pictured here from Sir Clement's Markham's Family History of 1913, (link to this book on line below) it says "Sir John Markham was descended through John of Gaunt Duke of Lancaster (third son of King Edward 111)". Yet, although GMT was estranged from his father's family, brought up by his mother and living in relative poverty most of his life with no University education, he emerged as an impressive and energetic figure showing no lack of learning, wisdom and enterprise and leaving a large body of work - books, tractates, newspapers and poetry behind him. Long before modern communication systems and the internet, his regional, national and international network - often through the masonic craft, is still being unraveled and marveled at! Looking through Sir Clements book, it's noticeable that quite a few of the Markhams were also bards and it seems to me that GMT's 'lyre' as he would refer to his muse, fits neatly in with this.



GMT dedicated his inherited genes in the People's cause, firmly behind the Chartist movement, anti-slavery,  Cleveland News and Stokesley Reporter, established when he was only 19 and written about on this blog. Samuel Johnson wrote in 1775 "I never think I have hit hard unless it rebounds", Paul and I picked up a pamphlet in the Yorkshire store in Stokesley called the The Stokesley Trail in 2008 and found an entry about GMT on page 29 which amused us a little - in regard to Rose Cottage (the Town House with its 'fine sepertine bow), it reads -
anti Corn laws and much more and writing a People's history of Cleveland. His wide body of poetry reveals a man who cared about people and sound values regardless of their social or financial position and envisioned a better world through wider education, culture and progressive political change. Not everyone liked him - you have to look at reaction to his radical paper the
 "George Tweddell lived here in the 1800's, a man of many interests, poet, historian, stirrer-up of controversy, publisher etc." (My italics). GMT died in 1903 and his reputation still 'rebounds' today! Paul thought 'stirrer up of controversy' a telling expression and among other things, might be accounted for by his support of the People's Charter and other political concerns.

Lieutenant, George Markham?
Paul Tweddell tells us -
"Lt Markham had lived an adventurous life in the Royal Navy, had been mentioned in dispatches during the late Napoleonic campaign on the Mediterranean coast of France and was wounded in the Siege of Algiers in 1816. Obviously, one must imagine that his dalliance with Elizabeth Tweddell (1800-1841) while on leave in Stokesley during summer 1822 resulted in George Tweddell's birth the next year and must have been a typical event in the pre-Victorian period. So too was the way the child was welcomed by this mother's yeoman family without social problems; George would be perceived as an extra worker in the family's various enterprises and brought the added advantages of 'noble blood' to add it to the Tweddell line. Members of the following generations used to say George had 'aristocratic hands', by which they meant broad, long and powerful hands and fingers with slim wrists. But these same people found it difficult to accept the circumstances of George's birth, living as they did a generation later during Victorian and Edwardian times when the hypocrisy prevalent during the period (what they called 'respectability') had taken its grip on changed social norms. The family made up a story to rationalise George's illegitimacy presumably so they could continue to discuss George's literary exploits and the glorious history of their Markham ancestors (which stretched back through John of Gaunt to the pre-Norman thane, Claron of West Markham) whilst preserving their own 'decorum'."

"Lieutenant George is the subject of a brief chapter (§19) in Sir Clements Markham's family history of 1913, Markham Memorials, stating that, during the time of his relation with Elizabeth Tweddell (the author makes no mention of it, unsurprisingly), he was suffering from a head injury the result of a fight following a dispute during a gambling game at sea. Perhaps Elizabeth found him an attractive partner - prestigious and courageous but also in need of her feminine reassurance. Although he returned to sea, Lt Markham never recovered from the injury and died in 1834 tended by his second sister, Henrietta Montgomery, at her home, Nunton House near Salisbury where her husband was vicar. Documentary evidence of Lt George's death was available in George Tweddell's time in Foster's Pedigrees of the County Families of Yorkshire (1874), but one must assume he could not have found it, as he leaves a gap for his father's date of death in his notes, presumably hoping to fill it in when he found it." 
For further research see -
Sir Clements Markham's family history of 1913 - preview here -
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=B9s1AAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

GMT Makes Contact with Frederica Havisides née Markham.
Paul Tweddell tells us that "Whilst still in Bury (as Master of the Bury Ragged or Industrial School) c 1855 - 60), George made contact with a member of his father's family, Frederica Haviside (1798-1863), a younger sister of his father, who lived in the (then rural) Rectory Manor, Walthamstow. In 1859 Frederica sent him two paintings of her house with a dedication recording her gift to him, framed in gilt. By the time Frederica, now widowed, wrote her last will George and Elizabeth were living in Middlesbrough, and when she died in 1863 her will showed she had bequeathed an annuity of £100 per annum (perhaps in today's money something like £5 or 6000 (roughly £100 a week) for the term of their lives. On the early installments of the bequest the couple set up a business 'Tweddell and Sons' as newsagent and printers at 87 Linthorpe Road, Middlesbrough. In gratitude George penned a sonnet to celebrate Frederica's life. Frederica kept up a correspondence with her nephew before her death."

George Tweddell becomes George Markham Tweddell

Rectory Manor, Walthamstow 1860
From Paul Tweddell's book on the Tweddell's

In another bio Paul Tweddell tells us -  "Shortly after arriving in Bury, Tweddell took the opportunity to add Markham as his middle name; the first recorded mention being written in his hand: ‘Bury, December 15th, 1855’,[xix] (and from then on often appears abbreviated to ‘GMT’). Despite publicising the change in the national Freemason newspaper and what it signified, the Markham family seems to have accepted it. The reason why was to appear shortly after his return northward .

By 1861, as soon as he could set up a new printing and publishing company, the family moved into premises in Commercial Street in the nearby, rapidly expanding town of Middlesbrough. Fortuitously then, in 1863, a younger sister of GMT’s father, Frederica Haviside (née Markham), died leaving him a generous annuity, which gave him the opportunity to move the business into a better location at 87 Linthorpe Road. Between 1864 and 1876 the company of Tweddell & Sons reached its apogee and expanded with a branch opened in Stokesley before 1870. He put his second son and apprentice, Horatio John Tweddell (1848-1918), in charge of the long-established printing press his father had bought. This was situated on the north side of the High Street in Stokesley but is now demolished."

In his Tractates, GMT published a grateful obituary to Frederica Haviside (née Markham) as ‘Cleveland Sonnet No. X’ (p. 37).

Cleveland Sonnet

No. X [To my Father’s Sister]

Addressed to my Father’s sister Frederica,

daughter of the late Dean Markham

Lady! thy name is doubly dear to me,

And shall be, whilst this o’ercharged heart can feel;

For, like an angel, in my poverty

Thou hast appear’d, my rankling wounds to heal.

Then can I less than bow before my God, 5

And in lowly reverence I kneel,

Beseech each blessing promised in His Word—

Peace here on earth, and then eternal weal

In Heaven on high, where golden harps e’er peal

Th’ Almighty’s praise from every holy chord,— 10

“Glory to God, the holy God, our Lord,

The God through all the universe adored!”

Oh! can I less than offer up for thee

A fervent prayer that such thy lot may be?

George Markham Tweddell

From North of England Tractates No. 7
Cleveland Sonnets (1870)

"Sonnet 10 was addressed to my Father's sister, Frederica, daughter of the late Dean Markham. She was born at Stokesley Rectory, and ever cherished a strong love for Cleveland. An angel on her sojourn here, she is now one in heaven.George Markham Tweddell Stokesley April 23rd 1870"

..........................................

Elizabeth Frances Markham (Donkin)

Another of GMT's aunties on the Markham side was Elizabeth Frances Markham (later Elizabeth Donkin) "was born on 28  August 1790 to a clerical family. Her grandfather had been the Archbishop of York (The Rt. Rev. Dr. William Markham) and her father (Richard) was the Dean of York. 1815 was the year of the Battle of Waterloo, and it was in this year - on May Day - that she married Rufane Donkin at Stokesley in Yorkshire."

We can only speculate whether Elizabeth would have befriended GMT as Frederica did, as Elizabeth was tragically snatched from life at only 28, some five years before GMT was born. Her story is tragic but interesting and here memory lives on in a surprising way as we shall read - 

" Rufane Donkin was a Lt.-General, and he was soon called to go to India; his new bride accompanied him. By 1817 she was expecting their first child and gave birth to a son George David - on 24th December of that year. In the heat of India, she never fully recovered, and died of a fever in Meerut on 21st of August 1818. Rufane was devastated, conditions of the time necessitated a quick burial of his young wife, and he immediately left India to return to England, taking his baby son and Elizabeth's embalmed heart with him. At that time British interests in South Africa were in the Cape Colony, which was administered by a Governor - Lord Charles Somerset. Somerset was called to England for discussions - a long operation in the days of sailing ships - and Rufane was intercepted on his journey and asked to take the position of Acting- Governor until Somerset returned.
-

Whilst in the Cape he journeyed to Algoa Bay to supervise the landing of the organised British immigrants

(whom we refer to as "The Settlers" today). He immediately saw that a sea-port would be necessary if the new settlements in the Eastern Cape were to be viable. On 6 June 1820 he named the site of the landings, and the temporary "tent city", Port Elizabeth; and arranged land for those who could invest.

In August 1820 he selected the site of today's Donkin Reserve, as the position to build a memorial to his late wife. In the early 1800s pyramids were a not an uncommon memorial in both India and England, and the one he commissioned was based on that of an ancient Roman, Caius Cestius."
Read more From http://www.momentos.co.za/donstory.htm

Interestingly Fearon Fallows "was sent to Cape Town by the Royal Astronomical Society to start the Cape Observatory. This was to be the first Astronomical Observatory in the Southern Hemisphere (As well as the first Scientific establishment in the Southern Hemisphere). He was chosen for the post at the Cape because of his skills in mathematics and astronomy.  In Cape Town he was well received by the Acting Governor, Sir Rufane Donkin, and the Colonial Secretary,Colonel Bird. Fallows had to set up a temporary observatory to provide time signals and to set make a catalogue of Southern stars. Sir Rufane Donkin had some wooden houses for British settlers in Port Elizabeth. He kindly provided Fallows with a wooden house, which was to serve as a temporary observatory. Fallows was a Freemason at the Good Hope Lodge." Abridged from http://assa.saao.ac.za/html/his-astr-fallows_f.html

I've no idea if Rufane Donkin was a Freemason too but the idea of the pyramid may have been apt memorial to Elizabeth but coupled with his help to Fallows to set up an observatory seems to have similarities to the thesis around Captain Cook's monument, also on this site and sparked by researching GMT's masonic poetry and symbolism - here http://georgemarkhamtweddell.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/captain-cooks-monument-easby-moor.html

...................................

William Markham - Archbishop of York 1719-1807

William Markham was GMT's great grandfather, 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.

I won't comment greatly on William Markham as I would need to study him more closely, but i think this would be essential in any full study of the Archbishop's great grandson - George Markham Tweddell for the parallels and differences. The Archbishop was the son of major William Markham -

"Son of Major William and Elizabeth. He was born at Kinsale in co.Cork on 9 April 1719 and attended Westminster School and Christ Church, Oxford. After ordination he took up teaching and became Head Master of his old school in 1753. Later he held the post of chaplain to George II, and served as prebendary of Durham Cathedral, Dean of Rochester, Dean of Christ Church, Bishop of Chester and lastly Archbishop of York and Lord High Almoner. On 16 June 1759 in London he married Sarah, daughter of John Goddard a merchant at Rotterdam. Sarah was born in Holland 14 February 1739 and died 26 January 1814." http://www.westminster-abbey.org/our-history/people/markham-family

In relation to Archbishop Markham, I refer you to Sir Robert Clement's "A Memoir of Archbishop William Markham" which can be read on line or downloaded as a PDF on Open Library here http://archive.org/details/memoirofarchbish00markiala

It explains the family's loss of inheritance and the struggle to recover from it that affected the early life of the Archbishop. He and his father were Whigs and supporters of the 'Glorious Revolution' and although the principles of that were strong in the family, Archbishop Markham, the book explains, was a critic of Richard Price and the American Revolution on the grounds that the Glorious revolution was founded on the supremacy of law, while the American Revolution as deemed to be lawless. A full account of this and the reasons given are in the above book p 46-49.

I feel sure that Richard Price would have been someone GMT would have supported with his connections with the Unitarian Church and ideas on egalitarianism and although i haven't found anything yet, there may well be some reference to Price in Tweddell's work somewhere -

"Richard Price (23 February 1723 – 19 April 1791) was a Welsh moral philosopher and preacher in the

tradition of English Dissenters, and a political pamphleteer, active in radical, republican, and liberal causes such as the American Revolution. He fostered connections between a large number of people, including writers of theConstitution of the United States. He spent most of his adult life as minister of Newington Green Unitarian Church, where possibly the congregant he most influenced was early feminist Mary Wollstonecraft, who extended his ideas on the egalitarianism inherent in the spirit of the French Revolution to encompass women's rights as well. In addition to his work as a moral and political philosopher, he also wrote on issues of statistics and finance, and was inducted into the Royal Society for these contributions."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Price

Archbishop Markham was a poet, often writing in Latin (including a Latin version of Shakespeare's Seven Ages of Man) and a close friend and supporter of  Edmund Burke (as described in the book). Burke was a supporter of the American revolutionaries but not the French which led him to move to the right of the Whig party.

http://archive.org/details/memoirofarchbish00markiala

.............................................................

George Markham Dean of York - Rector of Stokesley 1763 - 1822

George Markham was GMT's grandfather, living at the Rectory in Stokesley until not long before GMT'sAlice Barrigan in her essay

George Markham - Dean of York

birth when he died in 1822. George was, according to local historian -
Radicalism in Stokesley in the 1820s - herehttp://northyorkshirehistory.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/radicalism-in-stokesley-in-1820s.html

Robert Armstrong - owner of a Zetetic bookshop in Stokesley, publishing the likes of Thomas Paine and involved in a Stokesley 'paper war', similar to the one GMT would be involved with 20 years later in regard to his own radical newspaper - is shown by Alice to have admired the Dean of York - George Markham as follows -
"The position of the Stokesley Deists was rather more nuanced and the rift between Church and chapel was growing. According to Robert Armstrong's third letter of 3 November 1822, he himself

"frequently derived both pleasure and improvement from the Sermons of our late Rector, the deservedly lamented Dean of York ; because I considered his Sermons true Deistical and moral compositions".
"I do sometimes go to Church","

GMT had planned to write about Robert Armstrong in his proposed 2nd volume of Bards and Authors of Cleveland and South Durham. No manuscripts of the 2nd edition have so far turned up and are presumed lost in the Stokesley floods of 1930 when many of his remaining papers were lost int he flood. Up until recently, any Deistical  tendencies in GMT are presumed to have come from the Tweddell side of the family and or the influence of his school master - William Sanderson but it looks like George Markham had such an influence on both Robert Armstrong and the community in Stokesley. Another thread for research!

Below is from Sir Robert Clement's Markham's family history of 1913 (Click link to view this book)

Tweddell And Sons

After a period in Bury as head of Ragged school and a period in Middlesbrough as a printer / publisher, Tweddell set up a print shop in Stokesley in the early 1860's with his son and compositor Horatio Tweddell. Below is a photo of the print shop in Stokesley (now replaced by flats) and some of  Horatio's print works sent to me by Paul Tweddell. Tweddell and Sons is the small building next to the Hovis sign.

Below Horatio Tweddell (GMT's son)

Another of Tweddell's commercial enterprises with Horatio. The shop was in Commercial Row (now Bridge Street Stokesley - next to what is now Fatso's but in the 1860's.

The Hobkirk Papers - Stokesley 1750

The Hobkirk Papers (Stories) - Stokesley 1750

Isaac Hobkirk was an innkeeper in Stokesley in 1750 and the Half Moon Inn features often in his stories.Daphne Franks, author of  Printing and Publishing in Stokesley 1984, that it 'was probably his house - One of the lost inns of Stokesley which has been located as Winscombe House, no 54, High Street."

Hobkirk's stories originally appeared in Tweddell's Yorkshire Miscellany in the 1840's (gathered I think from oral sources).

Daphne Franks continues - 

"The Stokesley of the stories is described for us in a letter of William Mason of Middlesbrough.

"When the markets were great gatherings of the rural folk and the farmers' wives rode pillion and butchers shambles were filled with meat. Coals stood for sale in front of the Black Swan and the turf graver brought his wares in donkey carts from Osmotherley.

When the Captains of the East India Company, the Whalers, sailors of the mercantile marine and Jack Tars of the Royal Navy, came back home to lay up for winter.

When the Handloom weaving was good and intelligence among that class of operatives was great.

When all these met at the hostelries (there were nineteen) to hear tales of adventure from the sailors, the sparkles of wit from the Literati of the town."

In the pdf file from Tweddell's Miscellany the following Hobkirk stories came be found - 

• Widow Hunting
• The Midnight Knell

And blow some other pieces also from Tweddell's Miscellany - 

An Introduction by Andrew Browne and another story - The Cock Fight.

Tasters - (full stories in the pdf file)

Sketches by Jess Gilgan

Widow Hunting

Sketch by Jess Gilgan

"It was on a fine, calm autumnal evening, as Mr Hobkirk was returning home, after a hard day's toil, with his dog and gun, that he encountered, as he passed over the Bence bridge, in the beautiful and picturesque vale of Cleveland, a stranger, who, apparently travelworn, had seated himself on the curb-stone of the bridge to enjoy a temporary repose. Overcome by fatigue......(see pdf file)

The Midnight Knell
From the earliest period of human history, a belief in supernatural agency has been current amongst mankind;

and sacred,  as well as profane records, adduce such innumerable instances of the operation of superhuman influence, as to place the reality beyond the subject of a doubt.....(see pdf file)










The Cock Fight
On the north side of the town of Stokesley there stood (until the rage for improvement and innovation appropriated its site to more fashionable residences) a snug and comfortable little Inn, known by the sign of the Half-Moon. The host - kind, cheerful, jovial Christopher Eden - was a true and unsophisticated specimen of English conviviality, equally respected by all who knew him...(See pdf file).

William Mason - Poet of Guisborough c 1840's

In 1844, George Markham Tweddell published his series Tweddell's Yorkshire Miscellany - 
An English man's Magazine. We present two separate articles from the series on Guisborough poet William Mason.

Tweddell writes "Should the Yorkshire Miscellany do nothing more than rescue the memory of this great, but ill-fated genius from oblivion; should it only make Yorkshiremen aquainted with the merits of one of themselves, over whose mortal remains the green grass has now grown for some years, whilst his countrymen were ignorant of the nobel spirit, the comprehensive mind, that once inhabited that frail tenement; should the Yorkshire Miscellany only achieve this one object, and then totally disappear from the literary world, we would not consider our humble labours altogether fruitless."

Well Dear Tweddell, over a 160 years later your article and the story of Guisborough poet William Mason is once again available, this time on the world wide web!

The two articles with examples of Mason's poetry are here below in this PDF file - which can be enlarged or downloaded free if you click back to Google Drive.

At the end of each article there is a poem by another poet -
Alone At Eve by Charles Swain and The Fair Lunatic by Edward Marsh Heavisides.

Tweddell Poetry Hub (New)

http://tweddellpoetryhub.blogspot.co.uk/

Paul Tweddell and I collected together all of George Markham Tweddell's together from his books, world wide 19thC newspapers, periodicals, books and his unpublished manuscript books and published them on line as  free PDF files.

His was far more prolific than anyone realised before and seeing the full extent in the collection with poems on so many themes, his beloved Cleveland, history, politics, religion, Freemasonry, family, nature and life itself, it was obvious we needed a re-appraisal of his poetic works. To get the ball rolling i wrote an introduction called A Poet's View looking at the differing styles, themes and exploring his position in the lineage of radical poets like Ebenezer Elliot, Wither etc and the emblematic / symbolic aspects of his work.

Apart from the downloadable full collect of poems in two main PDF's and the Intro and index and Paul's history of GMT, I've created some special collections on a series of blogspots. I've brought together all his Masonic poems / all his Cleveland (UK) poems (useful for the local history researcher) / his full collection of Sonnets of Flowers and Trees (which - following Wither ( major English Emblem poet) are both of nature and symbolic. More special collections will be linked on this poetry hub - his many wider historic and political poems for example. A huge resource.

Just follow the link about to find all the pages / links to his poetry on line. (Still work to do on it mind!)

Trev Teasdel

"Cleveland's Great Commoner" - George Markham Tweddell, Chartist and 'Friend of the People' who Spanned Two Centuries by Dave Walsh

Dave Walsh has published an article on his People's Republic of Teesside website based on the Tweddell history.

Dave begins with -

"A year or so back I made brief mention of an historic local individual who, I firmly believe, warrants and deserves a far higher degree of attention from local Socialists than is presently the case.

I refer to George Markham Tweddell - a man who spanned the decades of the 19th century that saw the birth of local radicalism, the growth of Trades Unionism and the development of the early socialist movement - and who only died in 1903, by which time what we know as today's Labour Party had been founded. Indeed, it can be said that Tweddell was unique in that he provided a local life-long link between Chartism, working class radicalism, involvement with the nascent workers movement and the beginnings of what we know as the modern Labour movement..."

Read the full article on Dave's blog here - 

http://republic-of-teesside.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/clevelands-great-commoner-george.html

Cleveland - Blank Verse Poem by John Reed Appleton 1882

Cleveland - A poem in Blank Verse by John Reed Appleton was published in Tweddell's North of England Tractates No 1 1882

http://stuarthodgson.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/wainstones-north-york-moors.html

 

This poem seems to be looking out from the Wainstones on the North Yorkshire Moors towards Roseberry Topping and Hartlepool etc.

Tweddell has written extensively of John Reed Appleton in his Bards and Authors of Cleveland and South Durham 1872 (book available as free download on this site) and was a close walking companion on the Cleveland Hills.

Howley Hall - John Ryley Robinson 1874

Howley Hall by John Ryley Robinson was published in

Tweddell's North of England Tractates 1874 and the tract also contains Ryley Robinson's poem about Roseberry Topping (North Yorkshire).

In ruins today

http://vivientomlinson.com/batley/e265.htm

Roseberry Topping - Near Great Ayton, North Yorkshire

Halifax Gibbet and Gibbet Law - John Ryley Robinson 1877

Halifax Gibbet and Gibbet Law by John Ryley Robinson was published in Tweddell's North of England Tractates No 8 1871

Pic from http://midgleywebpages.com/gibbet.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halifax_Gibbet

Halifax Gibbet.

by George Markham Tweddell

[Tractates No. 7 is a prose article on the same subject

written by John Ryley Robinson, Halifax Gibbet and

Gibbet Law, with a list of malefactors there beheaded.]

I

Up these old steps, how many a Thief has trod

Whose faltering feet ne’er press’d the worst of men,

’T is bad use to put the worst of men,

Sending them unprepared to meet their God.

But he well knows what circumstances make 5

The pliant youthful heart to Vice inclined;

Knows how well rightly has been train’d the mind,

Goodness is the result. He ne’er will take

Vengeance that we may suffer for the sake

Of satisfying Vengeance. They who here 10

Dragg’d Thieves to suffer death, without one tear

For those who at the uprising axe did quake

With horror, acted mercifully well,

Compared with those who preach an everlasting Hell.

II

They who in Hardwick Forest ever stole 15

One shilling and an eight value, then

Need seek no mercy from their fellow-men,

Who quickly did upon the Culprits fall

And, after short respite, did hither haul

The trembling Thieves to meet their direful doom. 20

Bright gleam’d the falling axe, and soon the tomb

Cover’d each mutilated corpse. Would that all

Who help to form the characters of those

Children, our future People soon to be,

And who must aid or mar prosperity 25

In our lov’d land—obey’d the unchanging laws

Of Nature, and taught others so to do,

Man then would never seek to lay his fellow low.

III

For Scottish “Maiden,” and for “Guillotine”

Of our French neighbours, each the idea took 30

From Halifax’s “Gibbet:” but I look

Forward with faith, and wiser men, I ween,

Will never sacrifice one human life,

Save in sheer self-defence. Our prisons can

Hold in safe keeping the poor brutal man 35

Whose liberty to others may be rife

With danger. Even as a mere machine,

An able-bodied man I’d not destroy:

Think what it costs to rear a single boy

From infancy to manhood! Let this scene 40

Of bygone bloodshed, now so peaceful, be

An emblem of advanced humanity.

IV

How marvellously Halifax has grown

In manufactures, commerce, liberty!

And when true education is made free 45

To every child, and Knowledge broadcast sown,

Crime with its parent Ignorance will flee,

And Capital and Labour so combine

As to make Earth an Eden more divine,

And man will be industrious as the bee, 50

Knowing that none will of the honey rob

Those who produce it. Think not, foolish man,

That we in civilisation never can

Surpass the Past. I tell thee that the Mob

Will yet arrive at Manhood, and that there 55

Will yet be happiness which all will share.

by George Markham Tweddell

Towton - Battle of England's Civil Wars - John Ryley Robinson

Towton - on the Battle of England's Civill Warres  (spelling as on the Tract) by John Ryley Robinson North of England Tractates No 18 in 1877.

was published by Tweddell in

JR Robinson had visited many European battle field but not an English one. This one of a few accounts of different battle fields that Tweddell published in the Tractates - the others will follow in due course.



"The Battle of Towton was fought during the English Wars of the Roses on 29 March 1461, near the village of the same name in Yorkshire. It was "probably the largest and bloodiest battle ever fought on English soil".According to chroniclers, more than 50,000 soldiers from the Houses of York and Lancaster fought for hours amidst a snowstorm on that day, which was Palm Sunday. A newsletter circulated a week after the battle reported that 28,000 died on the battlefield. The engagement brought about a monarchical change in England—Edward IV displaced Henry VI as King of England, driving the head of the Lancastrians and his key supporters out of the country."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Towton

I like this quote from the text - sadly just as relevant today - in fact worse given modern warfare -
Writing in 1877 - Ryley wrote
" About 400 years have passed since that time advancing civilisation should have long ago taught mankind that mutual extermination is not the way to establish right or do awy with evil But, alas! how far are we yet from the happy condition in which fighting will be unknown, when the spears and swords shall be converted into pruning hooks and ploughshares."

Saxon Cross Church at Dewsbury - John Ryley Robinson 1872

This history appeared in Tweddell's North of England Tractates No12 1872 (pdf below).

The Saxon Cross Church at Dewsbury was written by John Ryley Robinson (Tweddell wrote about him in Bards and Authors of Cleveland and South Durham 1972 (the original book can be downloaded from this site - find the post with the free download link in the side menu).



Dewsbury is a minster town in the Metropolitan Borough of Kirklees, in West Yorkshire, England. It is to the west of Wakefield, east of Huddersfield and south of Leeds. It lies by the River Calder and an arm of the Calder and Hebble.

This photograph shows part of a Viking grave marker of a type known as a 'hogback'. The name was given because the complete item would have had a curved upper ridge resembling the line of a hog's (a pig's) back.

A Voice from 'Flood and Fell' James Gregor Grant 1877

A Voice from 'Flood and Fell' was written by James Gregor Grant (J.G.Grant) c 1877 for the and published also in Tweddell's North of England Tractates No 17.

Newcastle Weekly Chronicle
It is presented here as a pdf file to read on line or download via Google Drive - from the Tweddell Family Collection.

Grant's narrative concerns a 'couple of days rambling in Teasdale - around High Force where the River Tees begins'

Tweddell had planned to write about JG Grant in a second volume of  The Bards and Authors of Cleveland and South Durham - which actually was never printed. However he did make Tweddell's Tractates. J.G. Grant was also author of Madonna Pia and other poems etc..
Rufus, Or, the Red King: A Romance. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Books/s?ie=UTF8&field-author=James%20Gregor%20Grant&page=1&rh=n%3A266239%2Cp_27%3AJames%20Gregor%20Grant

Facsimiles of  an original version of Madonna Pia can be see here on this site (priced £750) !!!

But there are copies on Amazon for about £17 ish! 

There is an on line version here but it may be hard to read http://www.ebooksread.com/authors-eng/james-gregor-grant/madonna-pia-and-other-poems-049/1-madonna-pia-and-other-poems-049.shtml

Here is A Voice from Flood and Fell by JG Grant published in Tweddell's North of England Tractates 1877 in pdf form (use navigation tools to expand or click back to Google Drive to download free.