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