After reading the recent Remember When on the history of the Black Horse, in Barnard Castle, I was reminded of research I did several years ago into the Harrison family who owned and ran the inn in the 19th century.
At the time, I was researching an unrelated family of Harrisons who also lived in Barnard Castle as part of my family history when I came across a gravestone in the Victoria Road cemetery, in Barnard Castle.
It was the grave of Richard and Elizabeth Harrison who owned and ran the Black Horse, according to the 1881 census.
The inscription read that Richard had died on June 3 1885 aged 72 years and his wife, Elizabeth, had died on November 26, 1889, aged 73 years. Also inscribed on the headstone was a memoriam to their daughter Annie, who according to the note, died on November 3, 1887, in Brisbane, in Australia, aged 28.
As an amateur local historian I was keen to find out how a young Teesdale woman had come to be in Australia and had met an untimely death.
In the 1881 census Richard and Elizabeth Harrison had four unmarried daughters living with them in the Black Horse – Margaret, 33, Lydia, 29, Jane, 27 and Annie, 21.
Youngest daughter Annie married Soulby Oswald Ullathorne from Whorlton, in Ormskirk, Lancashire, in 1884. Later that year they had a daughter named Annie who was born in Heaton, Northumberland.
The following year the family emigrated to Brisbane, in Australia. They travelled on the ship The Duke of Buccleuch and arrived in Australia on September 23 1885. Soulby Oswald and Annie were 25 and their daughter Annie was less than one.
They settled in Paddington in the suburbs of Brisbane, where Soulby Oswald got a job at the Grazier’s Butchering Company.
For the next two years they presumably got on with their new lives on the other side of the world. But in the autumn of 1887, Soulby Oswald was accused of embezzling money from his employer.
This prompted him to go “on the run”, leaving his wife and child behind, which ultimately led to his wife’s tragic death.
On the morning of Thursday, November 3, 1887, a milkman called at the family’s house. The milkman received no answer but could hear a child crying inside. With the help of a neighbour they gained access and found that Mrs Ullathorne had committed suicide.
The two year old Annie who had been locked in a bedroom was taken into the care of a neighbour after the police were called.
A suicide note had been written on several sheets of paper and had been written over many times, leading the police to believe that she was in an agitated state.
The note was printed in full in the Maryborough Chronicle. It tells how she was upset about the charges being alleged against her husband and thought she would be called to give evidence against him.
She mentioned going into town to see if she had any letters from home and had three newspapers (possibly the Teesdale Mercury?) She also said she had lost three pounds from her purse and explained how she had made a suicide attempt previously.
The note said that people will think her heartless for leaving an innocent child (who she calls Nettie) and asked someone to take care of her and “get her sent home.”
On reading of his wife’s suicide, Soulby Oswald gave himself up to the police and was subsequently charged with embezzling £1 9s 9d from his employer.
In the 1891 UK census, Margaret Harrison was running the Black Horse, in Newgate, along with her sister Jane. Living with them was their niece, Annie Ullathorne, aged six who had been born in Newcastle. I believe this to be the daughter of Annie and Soulby Oswald who had been returned from Australia to live with her aunts in the pub.
I have been unable to find out when and how she got back to England and whether her father returned with her.
However, I have found a legal notice in The West Australian newspaper from December 16, 1938, announcing the death of Soulby Oswald Ullathorne and asking for potential claimants on his estate to contact a solicitors firm in Perth. This would suggest he either stayed in, or returned to Australia.
In the 1901 census, Annie was 16 and still living in the Black Horse and in the 1911 census she was still there.
In 1916 Jane Harrison died and her obituary was printed in the Teesdale Mercury. Among the mourners was niece Miss Ullathorne and the obituary stated that “lovely wreaths were sent from Lydia, Meggie and Nettie.”
Jane Harrison left a personal estate of £6,743 said to be about £400,000 today. Beneficiaries were Henry York and Annie Ullathorne.
On October 9, 1918, the Teesdale Mercury reported that a wedding had taken place at St Mary’s Catholic Church, Barnard Castle between Lieut Leo F Veal, son of Florence and Charles Veal of Harrogate and Annie (Nettie) Ullathorne, only daughter of Soulby (youngest son of the late Ruth Ullathorne of Whorlton and Richard Ullathorne of London) and Annie (nee Harrison). The bride was given away by Private H York, RAF. The report went on to say that Lieut Veal had been awarded the Military Cross in 1917 for bravery in France.
After their marriage the couple seem to have settled in the Harrogate area, where Leo died in 1966 aged 77. Annie died the following year aged 82.
The two main families at the heart of this story – the Harrisons and the
Ullathornes – were prominent names in the area in the 19th century. The Harrisons, as already outlined, were proprietors of the Black Horse Hotel in Newgate for many years and were one of the oldest Teesdale families. The Ullathornes, although not originally from Teesdale, were the owners of Ullathorne’s Mill, in Startforth.
Soulby Oswald Ullathorne was the grandson of Francis Ullathorne who in 1798 together with four of his sons and his son-in-law, Owen Longstaff, set up the company of Ullathorne and Co.
The Ullathornes can trace their family history back to William the Conqueror in 1066.
Omitted from the Teesdale Mercury report on the wedding of Annie Ullathorne and Leo Francis Veal in 1918 was the fact that they were first cousins. Annie’s father, Soulby Oswald, and Leo Francis’s mother, Florence, were brother and sister, Florence’s maiden name being Ullathorne.
Another name that appears more than once in the story is that of Henry York. He, along with Annie Ullathorne, were the beneficiaries of Jane Harrison’s estate and he gave Annie Ullathorne away on her wedding day.
Henry York was born in 1874 and was the son of Sarah Errington and John Crispin York of Mortham Hall Farm, Greta Bridge. His mother died in 1874 possibly during childbirth and his father died in 1877. In the 1881 census he was living with his uncle, Thomas Errington, and his wife Eleanor (nee Harrison). Two older brothers of Henry were Frank York born 1870 and John Alfred York born 1871 and in the 1881 census they were living with another uncle Joseph Errington in Beaconsfield House, Galgate. Henry died in 1961.
And yet again we have another notable Teesdale family from the 19th century, the Erringtons. John and Jane Errington were publicans, at various times running the Red Lion, the Golden Lion and the Angel Inn, all in Market Place, Barnard Castle. Jane died in 1849, she was the first victim of the town’s cholera epidemic which killed 145 people. They had nine children, Barbara, Jane, Hannah, Robert, Joseph, Margaret, Thomas, William and Sarah. Robert emigrated to Australia to take part in the great Gold Rush around 1851 and he died Ballarat, Australia in 1859 aged 26. Barbara took over the running of the Angel Inn following the death of her father in 1852. Joseph left for London where he became a well known bookmaker, it is said he won a fortune on a horse called Beaconsfield and used the money to build Beaconsfield House. He bought the land from John Bowes of Streatlam Castle. He worked as bookmaker for nearly 60 years and amassed a huge fortune which he used to build a large portfolio of land. He died in 1913 leaving an estate of £123,662 now valued at around £14.4 million which was left mainly to his nephews and nieces including Henry and Frank York.
David Croom
