(Information for providers and teachers)
A PLACE OF PROSPERITY AND DESPAIR
THE QUAYSIDE IN THE MID-VICTORIAN AGE
If you had arrived in a modern Victorian city, you would almost certainly have arrived
by train. Railways were the pre-eminent symbol of the ‘modern’ age and Newcastle
was no exception. Indeed the city and its region had been at the forefront of the of
this revolution in transport. Beginning on the north-eastern coalfields at the opening
of the nineteenth century, this ‘child’ of the industrial age was rapidly growing in
stature to become the main means of fast travel around the British Isles. As with any
revolutionary change, railways were not without its critics. Prophets of doom
thundered against the destruction of the countryside, whilst others warned that
travelling at such dizzying speeds of 30 miles or more would almost certainly induce
suffocation!
(v. 1850s train steaming into central station. a. train whistle)
The Tyne had been recently bridged by the High Level crossing in 1850 and it was
now possible to travel uninterrupted from London to Edinburgh. Queen Victoria was
one of many delighted passengers for she could now more easily travel to her
beloved Balmoral castle in Scotland. The pleasure however, quickly turned sour. On
being invited to officiate at the opening ceremony, she was somewhat surprised to be
presented by the bill for the jollities from the canny burghers of Newcastle. She was
definitely not amused! Indeed, it was discreetly reported afterwards that every time
she crossed the bridge thereafter she pulled her carriage curtains tightly shut so she
did not have to look upon that impertinent city.
(v. Crossing the High Level Bridge. Q Victoria looking unamused. a. Train
whistle- curtains being pulled together.)
Having recovered from crossing the dizzying heights of the High Level Bridge,
visitors would have alighted onto a grand sweeping platform, walked across an open
concourse beneath a canopy of glass and steel and sheltered inside a magnificent
portico for the horse-drawn hansom cab to take them to their destinations.
(v. interior of the Central Station. a. clip-clop of horse’s hooves)
The prosperous lady and gentleman would no doubt have headed for the centre of
the city. Newcastle had undergone a magnificent transformation in the 1830s as
befitted the capital city of the region. The centre of gravity had moved from the
narrow steps and twisted ‘chares’ or alleyways and jumble of tumbling tenements
and factories of the Quayside to the wide boulevards that radiated from Grey’s
monument. Stunning classical buildings, housing shops and offices now stood to
attention along the city streets. There were covered markets bustling with trade and
customers, busy exchanges full of frock-coated businessmen, an imposing town hall
and clusters of banks. Fine theatres with elegant columns and new public houses
gleaming with brass and mahogany were places to attract the rich and the
prosperous.
(v. views from Grey’s monument. Theatre Royal. Views including people. a.
Hansom cab sound of hooves)
But suppose the visitors left fashionable Northumberland Street and threaded their
way down one of the dark alleyways to the poorer part of the city by the Quayside.
The timber houses, once the homes of rich Tudor merchants, had by the midnineteenth century degenerated into slums for the labouring classes. The prosperous
had fled. Here life was short and dangerous. You would have to pick your way
carefully through the piled-up filth and excrement, both human and animal, that
littered the narrow streets. Occasionally, the humdrum sound of daily life would be
shattered by a drunken scream or the whimpering of a child lying half-naked behind a
broken door.
(v. Dog leap stairs. Bessie Surtees house a. organ grinder, cries of market
traders)
In this part of the city life was a desperate struggle; a place of despair if you were
poor, a place to be avoided if you were respectable. Of the upper classes, only those
with a strong stomach and social conscience explored this unknown territory.
In the city of Newcastle upon Tyne, in 1845, Dr D B Reid submitted a report
describing such horrors to the Newcastle Corporation. It was part of a vast
government commission to review the condition of towns and cities throughout
England and Wales.
(v. picture of Dr Reid)
The streets most densely populated by the humbler classes are a mass of filth where
the direct rays of the sun never reach. In some of the courts I have noticed heaps of
filth, amounting to 20 or 50 tons, which, when it rains, penetrates into some of the
cellar dwellings.
(v. court dwelling. a. Sound of cartwheels over cobbles . a. Narration by Dr
Reid)
A few public necessaries have been built, but too few to serve the population. To take
a single example of one of the more extreme cases shown to me when visiting them
during the day, a room was noticed with scarcely any furniture and in which there
were two children of two and three years of age absolutely naked, except for a little
straw to protect them from the cold, and in which they could not have been
discovered in the darkness if they had not been heard to cry.
(v. Interior of one of the dwellings. a. Narration by Dr Reid)
Piggeries were also pointed out to me which added their offence to the causes
already mentioned.
The absence of dustbins was everywhere a cause of great annoyance, and no such
activity horrified me more that the attempt to keep the refuse of the privies for the
purpose of selling it to neighbouring farmers for manure. The landlords and farmers
encourage the practice and the authorities are reluctant to stop it for fear the poor will
lose this small source of income. They forget the much larger expense of disease
and death which occurs from this cause.
( v. Carter taking away human excrement for farmers. a. Sound of horses
hooves across cobbles. Narration by Dr Reid)
Stagnant ditches may be seen in the vicinity of most of the houses and part of the
ground in the lowest districts is apt to be flooded after heavy rains, and long open
sewers cross the public paths. House drains, where they exist, have not been
constructed properly and often become choked.
(v. stagnant pools in street. a. Narration by Dr Reid)
In numerous dwellings a whole family shares one room. But no circumstances has
contributed more to the injury of the inhabitants than the tax upon windows.
(v. blocked in window to avoid the window tax. a. Narration by Dr Reid)
The lodging houses for the extreme poor presents the most deplorable examples to
be observed in the whole of the city. They are badly crowded, dirty, badly managed,
ill-ventilated, where the sexes mix without control. They are generally favoured by the
vagrants and trampers, many without employment, and act as nurseries for
immorality as well as being a danger to public health. In one, there was neither
windows nor a fireplace. In entering the lodging house, the occupants were
attempting to remove a woman who had been attacked with fever. She was most
reluctant to leave without all her clothing, which I was told afterwards had been
pawned.
(v. Lodging House. a. Narration by Dr Reid)
The most intolerable nuisance is certainly one resulting from a slaughter house
situated in the very centre of the Quayside. The nuisance consists in the presence of
great quantities of animal matter, the offal of beasts heaped up in an ash-pit. There it
is left to rot until liquid streams run down the chares and fill the neighbourhood with a
fearful odour.
(v. View of abattoir. a. Narration by Dr Reid)
Dense black clouds of smoke from manufacturing prevail to great extent in Newcastle
and Gateshead. In the lower parts of the town the amount of black smoke is
extremely great and their position renders it prone to retain it and other offensive
smells. As much as 20 to 50 tons of acid are discharged into the atmosphere.
(v. General view of the Quayside showing smoke belching out from chimneys)
Little fresh water is available, being brackish, hard and sooty. Standpipes serve
whole communities, but some persist in also drawing water from the Tyne, where
sewers and manufactories discharge their waste.
(v. Picture of the water pants. a. Narration by Dr Reid.)
It was hardly surprising that infectious diseases broke out frequently and ravaged the
poorer parts of the city. One of the worst scourges was a disease called cholera
spread, although they did not know it at the time, through impure water supplies.
After first making its appearance in Sunderland in 1832, Newcastle, the business
centre of the northeast of England, quickly fell victim to the disease. The parish of All
Saints in Newcastle and St Mary’s in Gateshead, made up of warehouses and
overcrowded slums, was one of the worst hit areas.
(v. Picture of All Saint’s Parish Church. Scroll down the deaths and overlap.
Narration – reading out the list of deaths.)
Medical knowledge was primitive. Doctor’s generally believed that disease was
spread by a miasmic cloud and by burning barrels of tar the streets could be
disinfected. Nor did regulations by the town corporation halt the spread of disease.
As the first wave worked itself out, people could breathe again and feel safe. But
without removing the filth and poverty upon which the disease thrived, they were
fooling themselves that it would not strike again. And strike it did. In 1848 and again
in 1853, renewed outbreaks underlined the squalor in which the disease bred.
A place of industry
The river was the main artery that brought both trade and industry to the region.
Dominated by the coal trade, small craft ferried coal to the river mouth where it was
loaded onto colliers for the insatiable domestic consumption of London and industries
elsewhere. Coal also powered the growth of other heavy industries along the banks
of the Tyne. Iron and steel works mushroomed in the hinterland and shipyards
sprouted along the shores. This was a place of furious energy and hard and
unremitting toil.
Pity the Poor Pauper
The implementation of the Poor Law 1834 had been deeply resented in the north of
England. For many the harsh conditions under which help could be given were
tyrannical. If misfortune came upon the family and they could not support
themselves, then they were required to enter the workhouse. Having passed through
the gates, wife was separated from husband, children from their parents. Rules were
strict and all were expected to work, often on menial tasks, as recompense for the
charity meted out. The nearest workhouse to the Quayside was situated just behind
All Saints parish Church and, serving the poorest part of the town, had unsurprisingly
many applicants.
The Ragged School
Policing the Quayside
In such a place of poverty and despair it was no wonder that crime ravaged the area
as much as disease. Many of the crimes were petty, for the miscreants were driven
by hunger to steal or to drunken excesses to forget for a while the meanness of their
lives. It took a brave soul to police the area and as a consequence policeman were
only one step away from the criminals they policed. In the mid 1840s members of the
force were heavily criticised for drinking while on duty and excessive use of the
truncheon. There appeared to be no upper age limit as witnessed by the retirement
of PC Wilkinson on 14 March 1857 at the ripe but not very agile age of 61. To
underline his lack of physical fitness, he survived his retirement by only four days,
dying of heart failure after a fall.
Fighting Fire
In such densely packed neighbourhoods, outbreaks of fire were frequent, but they
were often extinguished by local people. Standpipes, owned by the water companies,
could also be counted on as supplies to fight fires. Any major outbreak however, had
to rely on the 10 – 12 horse-drawn fire engines that existed in the city. Only two of
these were owned by the Corporation of Newcastle. The remainder were privately
owned by the fire insurance companies and local manufacturies. It could take up to
ten to thirty minutes for the fire brigade to arrive at the scene and some while for the
water pressure to build up in the hoses.
Advice provided to the occupiers of the houses suggested that they should have a
piece of rope or chain long enough to be able to climb down from their window. It was
also suggested that it would be a good idea for the fire brigade to have a ladder with
a pair of wheels attached for transportation to the fire, supplemented to a light wicker
basket or cradle useful for lowering women or the sick and infirm from the windows to
the ground.
By the mid-1850s the Quayside was a bustling hive of industry and activity. It was
also a place of desperate poverty and squalor.