Hope Family

My father joined his brother, Walter, at the Coalite Plant at Askern in December 1929, at the age of 14 years, employed as a junior draughtsman.  He would take evening classes in engineering drawing at Doncaster Technical College and become the head draughtsman responsible for producing the plans for the expansion of the works.  He would work at the ‘Plant’ for 46 years until his death in December 1975 and eventually rise to become the General Manager of the works, knowledgeable in every aspect of its operation, responsible to Mr. Flack, the managing director.

“Coalite” was a brand of low-temperature coke used as a smokeless fuel. It is the residue left behind when coal is carbonised at 640˚C [1,184˚F]. The process involved heating the coal in vertical retorts for 4 hours. The retorts were arranged in groups known as batteries. Coalite was darker and more friable than high temperature coke. It was easier to ignite, burnt with an attractive flame, and was lighter in weight than coal, making it an ideal fuel for open domestic fire grates. Drawbacks were its tendencies to produce an excessive residue ash, to burn quickly and give off sulphurous fumes.

Coalite was invented by Thomas Parker [1843-1915] in 1904 and patented in 1906. British Coalite Ltd was registered in 1907, with Thomas Parker as a director, with the rights to acquired land, manufacture and deal in Coalite in the United Kingdom. After a great deal of searching, in 1914, British Coalite Ltd. reached an agreement with the Old Silkstone Collieries Ltd., which owned the Old Silkstone Collieries, near Barnsley, to erect the first ‘Coalite’ plant at Barugh, Barnsley.  Progress was slow due to labour shortages during the First World War and it would be 1919 before the Barugh works commenced operations. The Barugh works comprised 20 retorts with a capacity for dealing with 25,000 tons of coal per year. Every ton of coal produced 14cwt. of smokeless fuel, 3gals. of motor spirit, 16gals of oils for burning, lighting and lubrication, 7,000 cubic feet of gas and 20lbs. of sulphate of ammonia.

British Coal Ltd. was taken over by Low Temperature Carbonisation Ltd. in 1917. Charles Parker, the son of Thomas Parker, designed a new works at Barugh to rectify defects in the design of the plant and the inferior material used in the construction of the batteries, which was the best that could be obtained during the war. The existing batteries were entirely demolished leaving standing only the subsidiary plant, comprising the boiler house, gasometers, extractors, and cooling towers etc. Five new batteries were erected; four working and one in reserve, comprising 160 retorts [32 per battery], with a capacity of 75,000 tons per annum. Due to various circumstances, not least the General Strike of 1926, it was 1928 before the new plant came into operation, the same year that the company announced the proposal to erect a similar plant at Askern. The new Coalite plant at Askern, operated by Doncaster Coalite Ltd., a subsidiary of Low Temperature Carbonsation Ltd., was opened on Friday July 5, 1929 by Jenny Lee M.P., at the time the youngest female M.P, who would marry Welsh M.P. Aneurin Bevan in 1934.

Initially at Askern, four batteries were in operation, capable of carbonising 90,000 tons of coal per year. The crude oil, produced as a by-product, was of particularly high quality and was converted into diesel and fuel oil of a high standard. Other spirit was suitable for use in a variety of high efficiency engines. The plant utilised small coal and slack, on average amounting to 49% of the output of the coal mine. Initially, about 100 men were employed at the plant but this number quickly increased to 150. In 1934, four further batteries were added as demand for Coalite increased and uses for its oil by-products expanded. The capacity of the plant was doubled to 180,000 tons of coal per year, yielding 127,000 tons of smokeless fuel (Coalite), and 3,731,000 gallons of oil and petrol.

In 1936, a new manufacturing plant was commissioned at Bolsover, near Chesterfield in Derbyshire; production commenced in November 1936 and the plant was officially opened by the Duke of Kent in April 1937. It was the largest smokeless fuel manufacturing plant in the world. In the same year, another plant was opened at Werntarw, near Pencoed in South Wales. The seams at Werntarw were well-suited for smokeless fuel, aviation petrol and diesel fuel. However, during World War Two, the coal from Werntarw Colliery was requisitioned by the Government and directed to steelworks for use as blast furnace coke and the Coalite works closed, never to re-open after the war. By 1940, twenty squadrons of the RAF were fuelled by Coalite petrol and it was reputed that two battleships were propelled by Coalite diesel. The first petrol pump at a filling station serving petrol made from coal was opened on the Brompton Road in London.

The Coalite plants escaped nationalisation when the Coal Industry Nationalisation Act 1946 came into effect on January 1, 1947. In 1949, the company changed its name from Low Temperature Carbonisation Ltd. to Coalite and Chemicals Company Ltd. to reflect the diversified nature of the business. The demand for Coalite continued to increase through the 1950s as clean air became a priority following the smogs of the early 1950s and the passing of the Clean Air Act in 1956; ‘Coalite’ was licenced as an ‘authorised fuel’. Head Office, which had been in London since 1917, was transferred to Bolsover and there was major expansion of the Bolsover plant. Six new batteries were added at Askern bringing the total to eighteen.

The Barugh plant, inoperative since the end of the Second World War, closed in 1950 and production was concentrated at Bolsover and Askern. During the 1950s and 1960s, the Coalite and Chemicals Company Group consisted of several companies, with Francis Waring as managing director of the holding company. Mr. Flack was managing director of the subsidiary, Doncaster Coalite Ltd, and in charge of the Askern Plant. Expansion of the company continued and in 1965, work commenced on a new works at Grimethorpe colliery, near Barnsley [opened in 1966]. The company celebrated its Golden Jubilee in 1967 and the 1970s saw the Company reach it’s zenith in terms of smokeless fuel production. The Bolsover Plant comprised 24 batteries, Askern 18 batteries and Grimethorpe 36 batteries. A new works was opened at Rossington Colliery in 1972 with 20 batteries. However, there were warning signs with the discovery of North Sea Gas and the switch to gas central heating. In 1973, Grimethorpe’s production capacity was reduced by 12 batteries and production ceased at Rossington in 1975, after only three years in operation.

During the late 1970’s and early 1980’s the Coalite Group expanded and diversified its business. Businesses included builders merchants, car distributors, fuel and oil distributors, solid fuel distributors, specialist vehicle manufacturers (Dormobile Camper Vans), transport and warehousing companies, docks and shipping interests, instrument manufacturers, oil production and exploration and substantial interests in the Falkland Islands. This marked the zenith of the company’s fortunes and in 1989, the company was taken over by Anglo-United, a Chesterfield-based open cast coal mining and coal distribution group. However, the smokeless fuel side of the business continued to shrink through the 1980s and there were several waves of redundancies. The Askern plant closed in 1986, following the 1984-85 miner’s strike, which had major implications for the future of the coal industry. Grimethorpe closed in 1994.

The demise of Anglo-United accelerated through the 1990s, largely as a result of the fact that the smaller company, Anglo-United, had borrowed heavily in order to buy the much larger Coalite Group and had intended to service this debt by asset-stripping Coalite’s many subsidiaries, whilst retaining the core business of solid fuel production. The sell-off did not realise as much cash as was required and weighed down by this debt and with little money for investment the company declined as it faced outside competition in a downturned market. In 2002, Anglo-United was bought by a consortium of local Chesterfield businessmen. Viable assets were moved into separate subsidiaries under the Anglo-United holding company. The remaining debts were left with the much diminished Coalite Chemicals Ltd which went into administration and then receivership, and finding no buyers, closed down finally in 2004, leaving a considerable number of redundant employees with much reduced pensions. The ovens at the Bolsover works continued producing Coalite until the plant closed down in 2004.

My grandparents, John William and Margaret Hope, moved from Fairfields to Woodbine Cottage in 1917 with their five children: Eva (b.1908), Walter (b.1909), Elsie (b.1911), John (b.1913) and George (b.1914). Here, three more children were born; Douglas (b.1918), Margaret (b.1920) and Alfred (b.1922). Woodbine Cottage was a small holding located on the High Street just below the crossroads in the centre of the village [the Royal Corner].  Woodbine Cottage is the most probable location for the former George and Dragon Inn, which closed in 1878, and had then been occupied by a poultry farmer and a hirer of a pony and trap.  Here, they soon got to work erecting greenhouses on the attached land and created a market garden for the growing of vegetables, soft fruit and cut flowers.  According to the local press, my grandfather won the first of his many prizes at the local horticultural show in August 1920, the first in Norton following the First World War, where miners and farm hands competed against each other in 67 classes.  He won first prize in the horticultural section. According to the article: There were some remarkably fine potatoes, with peas and beans following close up.  Flowers were also good, especially the sweet peas and fruit was excellent in quality.

Finishing working at the pit following an accident at Askern Colliery, my grandfather built a shop next to the cottage, which soon became the most popular general store after the Co-op, which was further down High Street. Whilst he tended the market garden, my grandmother ran the grocers shop assisted by her eldest daughter, Eva, who would marry Arthur Heseltine, a bricklayer, in 1931 and live in Carleton, near Pontefract.  Their daughter, Margaret, would also help in the shop before her marriage to Lawrence [Laurie] Wild, Edmund Wild’s son, in 1942.  Laurie and Margaret would live first of all at Ryder’s Farm, at the bottom end of the village and then move to Schoolboy Farm, on the death of his father, Edmund Wild, who had acquired both farms in 1938 William Carter, who had purchased the properties from Campsmount Estate in 1919.  By the mid-1930s, their daughter, Elsie, was a bus conductress living in Bentley Road, Doncaster and would marry David Maclean, a Scotsman, in 1941, also employed with Doncaster Corporation.  They would move to Scotland later in the 1940s and live in Kennoway, Fife, where David would become a bus inspector with bus operator, W. Alexander & Sons Ltd.

Unlike my grandfather, and John, his father, none of my grandfather and grandmother’s five sons would work down the pit.  My father’s brother, John (Jack) would train as a butcher and marry Evelyn Bird, a miner’s daughter from Adwick-le-Street in 1941.  After the Second World War, Jack would take over Hall Farm, a dairy farm, from Arthur Sanderson and build a butcher’s shop on West End Road.  My father’s youngest brother, Alfred, would follow a career with British Railways as a carriage builder (joiner) at the carriage works in Doncaster. Their eldest son, Walter trained as a blacksmith and married to a local girl, Evelyn Hickman, lived in the row of semi-detached houses called ‘Mount Pleasant’ built by Hemsworth Rural District Council at Little Smeaton over the river Went.  In July 1929, at the age of 20 years, Walter went to work at the newly opened Coalite Plant next to the pit in Askern.  Until he left school, my father (George) would help in the market garden and cycle to the railway station at Little Smeaton to collect fish from the daily fish train that ran from Hull to Barnsley.  At the age of 14, in December 1929, he joined Walter at the Coalite Plant as a trainee draughtsman. He would take evening classes in engineering drawing at Doncaster Technical College and become the head draughtsman responsible for producing the plans for the expansion of the works and its maintenance. He would work at the ‘Plant’ until his death in December 1975 and eventually rise to become the General Manager of the works, knowledgeable in every respect of its operation, responsible to Mr. Flack, the managing director.

My father’s brother, Douglas (b.1918), followed in the footsteps of his uncles Robert and George and joined up as a professional soldier in 1937.  By the beginning of the Second World War (aged 21), he was a sergeant in the Royal Scots Greys (2^nd Dragoons), which was amalgamated with other battalions to form the Royal Armoured Corps in 1939.  I don’t know how or why Douglas came to join the Royal Scots Greys but, in the 1930s, the Scots Greys were in much the same position as the rest of the British Army with a depleted strength and they commenced a vigorous recruiting drive.  Perhaps it was his experience of horses either on the small-holding or delivering goods from the shop that led him to choose a cavalry regiment; the Scots Greys were still mounted on horses at the outbreak of the Second World War.

The Scots Greys were in Palestine from October 1938 until 1942, policing the Palestine Mandate and operating in the vicinity of Jerusalem.  Throughout 1941, horses were gradually replaced by tanks and men who had spent their careers on horseback were retrained as drivers, loaders and gunners for tanks.  At the end of 1941, the regiment was transferred to the Eighth Army in Egypt.  They were held back from the battle for Tobruk in the Spring and Summer of 1942 because it was thought that they were still not fully combat ready, but they were finally committed to the fighting at the First Battle of El Alamein in September 1942.  A month later, they were in action at the Second Battle of El Alamein, which turned the tide in the North African Campaign and ended the Axis (Germany & Italy) threat to Egypt, the Suez Canal, and the Middle East and Persian oil fields.  It was the first big success against the Axis and revived the morale of the Allies and marked the start of the recapture of North Africa.

Unfortunately, Douglas was killed in the opening skirmishes on the first day of the battle (24 October 1942).  His body was never recovered and he has no known grave.  His name is recorded on the Alamein Memorial which forms the entrance to the Alamein Cemetery in Egypt.  It is also recorded in the roll of honour in the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards Regimental Museum in Edinburgh Castle and on the war memorial in Campsall Cemetery.  Although Douglas died before I was born, I have a close connection with him. 

My father married my mother, Priscilla Ellis, in 1938 at Campsall Church; the reception was held in the Mission Room in Norton.  My Mother was from a long-standing Yorkshire family, the Ellis’s.  She was born in Thorne but at the time of their marriage, she lived in Bentley, her parents running a grocer’s shop at 43 High Street. My mother was “in service” for Mr. & Mrs. Warriner, proprietors of Warriner’s Garage located at the junction of the Great North Road (A1) and Bentley Road (A19) close to the bridge over the river Don. On their marriage, they bought one of the new semi-detached houses in Rycroft Avenue at the west end [top] of Norton where I was born in 1942, three weeks after the battle of El Alamein.  My mother and father had decided that, if their new baby was a boy, I was to be christened Paul but when news of the death of my father’s brother Douglas reached home, my grandmother pleaded with my mother to have me christened Douglas, in memory of him, and so I was christened Douglas George Hope (George after my father).  I never knew my Uncle Douglas nor my paternal grandfather, John William Hope, who also died before my birth, in June 1941.

The individual returns of every household in the 1921 Census were released in 2022 under the 100-year rule. It was the first census in the UK to ask about place of work and the name of the employer as well as occupation in addition to information about the age and marital status of every household member. Close to 38 million individuals completed the census in England and Wales. It was carried out on 19 June 1921, postponed from the usual census time of April due to industrial unrest. After the First World War, England and Wales was hit with a period of economic uncertainty, and by 1921 over two million people were unemployed leading to widespread industrial unrest. Coal miners led the charge.

In 1921 over a million people worked in the mines. Throughout the war, coal mines were nationalised but in 1921 control of the mines was due to return to the hands of the mine owners, who intended to cut miners’ wages. Miners rejected the proposed wage reduction and suggested that the Government should fix a levy on a ton of coal to raise a pool of money to provide all miners with a minimum wage regardless of how profitable the pit they worked in. The country’s largest union, the Miners’ Federation of Great Britain ordered a strike on 1 April 1921. The Triple Alliance, a coalition of miners, railwaymen and transport workers, created in 1914, announced a strike for 15 April, a date which became known as Black Friday 1921, but this was called off on 12 April. Nevertheless, miners who refused to accept the wage reductions were locked out of employment.

Amid the coal strikes and the threat of a general strike, the census programmed for 8 April was called off for the first time since the census began in 1841. The rescheduled date, 19 June, was announced on 4 May 1921 but by census day many miners were still on strike or locked out and no resolution had been found. Census returns show the continued effects of the miners’ strike with some miners reporting themselves as ‘out of work’ or ‘on strike’. Indeed, in the Norton Parish returns, 59 out of the 184 individuals classified as miners, described themselves as either ‘out of work’ or ‘on strike’. Many other miners, who did not add this description in their return, would also be unemployed at the time.

The 1921 Census indicates how Norton had drastically changed from the previous census in 1911. At the national level, the First World War and the outbreak of ‘Spanish’ Flu in 1918 had overwhelming effects on world population and that of the United Kingdom. Norton was not immune to the effects of the First World War; the war memorial on the wall of the Royal Hotel, erected in 1919, commemorates 17 casualties of WWI from Norton and surrounding villages. There is continuing debate as to where the ‘Spanish’ Flu pandemic, which lasted from 1918 to 1920, originated. Whatever its origins, it became known as the ‘Spanish’ pandemic because it was the Spanish press that first reported the outbreak amongst soldiers returning from the First World War. Unlike most of the European and American press, which was restricted in what it could publish, as a neutral country the Spanish press was not subject to the same reporting restrictions. The flu pandemic, which killed between 50 and 100 million people worldwide, killed more people than the First World War. It is estimated that some 228,000 people died in the UK. However, the absence of a Health Ministry meant that there was no national collation of deaths. In addition, flu was often not reported as a contributory cause of death when pneumonia, bronchitis, heart disease and tuberculosis were involved. It is known that the virus was disproportionately deadly to adults between the ages of 25 and 34, and to women in particular but the death of children drew most attention in the press.

It is difficult to assess the direct impact on small communities like Norton. An examination of the burial records shows that throughout the period leading up to the First World War, the number of deaths in Norton was less than 10 per annum. The number leapt to 16 in 1919 and 11 in 1920 before falling back to 7 in 1921 and 4 in 1922. An analysis of the deaths in 1919 shows that the vast majority of persons who died were over 65 years old [11 people; 6 male and 5 female]. Two were very young children, 3 and 4 months old; one was aged 14 years; one 18 years old and one 26 years old.  Thus, only one of the sixteen deaths related to the most vulnerable 25-34 age group. In 1920, only 3 of the 11 deaths related to persons over 65 years old. Four were aged 45-60 years old, one was aged 17 years, one was 2 years old, one was 4 months and one 3 months. None came within the most vulnerable 25-34 age group.

Perhaps of most significance in the development of Norton was the opening of the colliery at Askern. With the sinking of Askern Colliery, miners arrived from as far afield as Wales, Cumbria and County Durham; in 1923 the workforce amounted to 1,380 employees [1,150 below ground and 230 on the surface]. By 1933, it had increased to 2,650 employees [2,300 below ground and 350 on the surface] (see Norton at the beginning of the 20^th century). The impact of the opening of the pit in 1916 is clearly shown in the change in the population characteristics of Norton between 1911 and 1921. In 1911, there were 126 occupied houses in Norton with a population of 516 persons. By 1921, the number of occupied houses had risen to 236 with a population of 1142 persons; average family size had increased from 4 persons to 5 persons. Some families comprised more than 10 persons, accommodated in houses with only 2 or 3 bedrooms.

In 1911, there was no one living in Norton whose occupation was related to coal mining; the largest occupation was farming and related industries. In 1921, over 50% of the employed population of the village was employed in coal mining [184 workers out of 358 in total]. Whilst farming still employed a substantial number of workers [over 65 workers], other industries were also prominent, such as the brickworks in Askern.  The Coalite works did not start up until 1929. Relatively few people travelled beyond Norton and Askern to work; some journeyed to Doncaster, either to work at the railway engine and carriage works or in shops and offices.

Whilst Kelly’s 1922 directory lists 12 farmers in Norton, 17 ‘Farmers’ are identified in the 1921 Census [compared with 24 in 1911].                           

                      

                              Westfield Farm                  George Bramley

                              Cliff Hill Farm                    Henry Auty

                              Hall Farm                            Edmund Wild (Dairyman)

                              The Lilacs                           Alfred Hough

                              Manor House                      Edward Terry

                              Manor Farm                        Frank Lodge

                              Priory Farm                        Joshua Smith

                              The Priory                           John Milner

                              Wright’s Farm                    Herbert Asquith

                              Poplar Farm                        John Woodward

                              Vine House Farm               Frederick Bryan (Dairyman)

                              Southfields                         Frank Moulson

                              Schoolboy Farm                 unoccupied

                              Hollies Farm                       unoccupied

                              East End Farm                    Edward Sanderson

                              Travellers’ Rest Farm        William Saul (Small Farmer)

                              White House Farm             Samuel Warriner

                              Ryder’s Farm                     William Laycock

                              Norton Common Farm      John Kealey

A number of farms identified in the 1911 census are not shown as occupied in the 1921 census: for instance, Schoolboy Farm and the adjacent Hollies Farm. Schoolboy Farm (10 acres), described as a small-holding and tenanted by Charles Johnson, was purchased by Mr. W.N. Carter from Campsmount Estate in 1919 but, in 1921, Charles Johnson is recorded as occupying a property on High Street adjacent to North View, and described as a ‘grocer’. In 1921, in addition to the three pubs [inns] there were nine shops in the village: two butchers, the Post Office, the Co-op store, Waddington’s Cash Stores, three grocers [Hope’s, Charles Johnson’s and Annie Dickson’s] and a ‘sweet shop’ run by Annie Sawbridge at Greenside on West End Road. It is noticeable that three shops that would rise to prominence in the 1930s do not figure in the 1921 census: Allcock’s shop and Miss Child’s shop on Station Road and Kirkby’s at Fairfields. The West End Stores was not built until 1938 and Wardle’s shop would not open until after the Second World War.

The vast majority of the 100 or so new terraced houses built in the village were occupied by miners and their families who had come from other parts of the country, usually other mining areas. In 1911, more than half the population of the village had been born in the village or in the immediately surrounding villages, such as Stubbs Walden, Campsall, Little Smeaton and Womersley. Only 19 of the 126 families in the village originated from outside Yorkshire. By contrast, in 1921, less than 20% of the population had been born in Norton and surrounding villages; only 23 of the 236 families originated from the village itself. Miners and their families had been attracted principally from elsewhere in Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, Staffordshire, County Durham, Lancashire and Wales, and a range of other counties from Kent in the south to Scotland in the north.  Norton in 1921 was no longer simply a farming community with associated tradesmen but was a far more cosmopolitan community than it was prior to the First World War.

Norton would continue to grow and change throughout the 1920s and 1930s and by 1939 there would be some 375 occupied houses in the village with a population of over 1500 persons.

At the end of the 19^th century, Norton was still very much an agricultural village.  During the first ten years of the new century, the population of the village changed very little (from 512 persons to 516 persons).  However, the mechanisation of agriculture meant that the number of workers in farming continued to decline.  In 1911, about a third (45) of the 126 heads of households were employed directly in agriculture compared to half in 1901.  Half the heads of households (68) had been born in Norton or the immediately surrounding villages of Stubbs Walden, Campsall and Smeaton.  Only 15 heads of households were born outwith Yorkshire.

In the 1911 Census, twenty-two heads of households described themselves as ‘Farmer’.  Six worked small holdings on their own, without any employees.  Kelly’s directory of 1908 lists the main farms:

1. George Blakey                     Hall Farm
2. William Booth                      Travellers Rest Farm
3. Martin Charlesworth           Ryder’s Farm
4. John Kealey                          Norton Common Farm
5. William Lilley                       Hollies Farm
6. Frank Lodge                         Manor Farm
7. William Marshall                 Priory Farm
8. John Milner                           Norton Priory
9. James Moulson                    Southfield
10. Thomas Rockliffe               Hillcrest
11. Edward Sanderson              East End Farm
12. Edward Senior                      Poplar Farm
13. John Stanley                         Norton Priory
14. Taylor & Son                        The Laurels
15. Edward Terry                       Manor House
16. Samuel Warriner                 White House Farm
17. Edmund Wild                       Westfield Farm

The directory includes other related commercial businesses: Ralph Bateman (blacksmith), John Blackburn (potato merchant), Thomas Chester (maltster), John Dey (carpenter & joiner), John Denby (agricultural machine operator), Ernest Eskriett (carrier), Francis Eskriett (blacksmith), Francis Gill (market gardener), Alderson Thornton (miller), George Whiteley (painter) and George Woodward (wheelwright).  There were two boot & shoe repairers and three butchers in the village, located at The Lilacs, Manor Farm and at The Laurels.  There were three inns; the Forester’s Arms, the Royal Hotel and the Schoolboy Inn.  There were four shop keepers in the village: Annie Beale, who ran Norton’s first co-operative shop in a small property on High Street opposite Vine House Farm, George Lambert (draper & grocer), Hinslea Sanderson (stationer & post office, next to the Royal Hotel) and John Waddington (general grocer).

Whilst the mechanisation of agriculture reduced agricultural employment, it was the arrival of coal mining that really transformed the village.  It had a major effect on the population of the village, not only in terms of its size but also the nature of its inhabitants.  Rumours that a colliery was to be developed near the neighbouring villages of Kirk Smeaton or Askern led to the speculative erection of a number of rows of red brick terraced houses in Norton to serve the anticipated influx of miners.  Victor Bevan, a builder originally from London, arrived in Norton and took up residence in Norton House (previously called ‘West House’) at the top (western) end of the village.  Seeing the opportunities presented by the prospect of a new colliery nearby, Bevan commenced the construction of rows of terraced houses (Bevan’s Buildings) at the top [west end] and the bottom [east end] of the village.

After sinking trial pits to the north of Little Smeaton and around Askern, the decision was made to locate the new colliery on the higher ground to the north-west of Askern village centre, about a mile and a half from Norton.  In the late 19^th century, Askern rivalled Harrogate as a Spa resort with spring water with healing properties.  It had five bath houses around a lake and a Hydropathic Hotel.  The first bathing house was built alongside the lake in 1786 and was rebuilt in 1828 as the Manor Baths.  The Spa Hydropathic Establishment [the Hydro], erected in 1808 as a hotel and converted to a college in the mid-nineteenth century, opened in 1894 and was by far the largest bath house with over 100 rooms, including 60 bedrooms.  The Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway opened Askern Station in 1848 and operated a daily train service from Liverpool via Manchester and Wakefield.  Those “taking the waters” could stay at the Railway Hotel, the Swan Inn, the White Hart, the Crown Inn or the Red Lion Inn or in a variety of lodgings.  However, after the opening of Askern Colliery, visitor numbers declined, the baths gradually closed and the Hydro became the Miners Welfare Club in 1924.

The Askern Spa Coal & Iron Company was formed in July 2010, by a combination of the Bestwood Coal & Iron Company of Nottingham and the Blaina Colliery Company of Monmouthshire. The first sod for the new pit was cut on February 22, 1911 and sinking commenced in April 2011.  The site chosen came as a shock to the Askern inhabitants because instead of being somewhere on the lower ground between Askern and Moss to the east, the head works were set up by the picturesque road to Campsall.  At the same time, the coal company established a brickworks on the north side of Campsall Road to supply bricks for the construction of the colliery buildings and the associated colliery village.  Many of the houses built in Norton after 1911 would be constructed of bricks from Askern brickworks.  The brickworks was also a regular supplier of tiles, chimneys and other earthen-ware products until its demise in 1956, since when the site was buried beneath colliery spoil.

Due to difficulties with water penetration and the intervention of the First World War, the extraction of coal did not begin until 1913 when 1,000 men were employed at the colliery.  After five years of difficulties, with a shortage of labour, the Askern Spa Coal Company Ltd. was taken over by Messrs. S  Instone and Company Ltd. of London and Cardiff, a coal mining and shipping company.  By 1920, Askern was dominated by the new colliery and its associated new village of terraced and semi-detached houses.  Its reputation as a Spa resort had disappeared.  With the sinking of Askern Colliery, miners arrived from as far afield as Scotland, County Durham and Wales; the population of the village leapt from a little more than 600 persons in 1901 and 1000 persons in 1911 to almost 3,800 persons by 1921 [it reached 6,500 persons in 1931].  The ‘Model Village’, Instoneville [named after the chairman of the colliery company, Sir Samuel Instone], grew to over 1000 houses, terraced and semi-detached.  Many of its streets were named after board members of the colliery company; for instance, Instone Terrace, Llewelyn Crescent, Davis Road, Theodore Road and Airstone Road.

Over 100 new dwellings were constructed in Norton between 1911 and 1921 and the population of the village more than doubled from a little over 500 persons to 1142 persons.  The ‘Bevan’s buildings’ at the top of the village provided 26 houses in three terraces, whilst some 60 terraced houses were constructed on Station Road/New Road/Common Road/Hawthorne Avenue and Quarry Road at the bottom of the village.  In 1919, a site at the top of the village (Brocco Bank) was purchased from Campsmount Estate by Doncaster Rural District Council for the building of low rent council houses but no progress was made with house construction.  The vacant Brocco Bank site was sold in 1925 to Frank Lawton, a building contractor from Penistone, who had moved to Norton in 1922 where he ran the grocers shop in the property ‘Fairfield’ on Common Road at the bottom of the village.  Brocco Bank was the first attempt to build houses for owner occupiers in the village, the vast majority of houses at this time being privately rented from farming landholders (or held rent free as part of the employment in lieu of wages) or private landlords, such as Victor Bevan and the coal company.  No council houses had yet been built in Norton.  Frank Lawton died suddenly in July 1927, aged 49 years, and development at Brocco Bank ceased with only 20 semi-detached houses constructed at the top of the site.  The rest of the land was re-purchased by the rural district council but it would be the 1930s before 22 semi-detached houses were built there by the council.  A further 12 houses would be built at Brocco Bank during the 1950s.

Notwithstanding this building activity by Victor Bevan and Frank Lawton, Norton’s core buildings remained its farms and small-holdings, and associated rows of workers cottages along the main street.  Perhaps the most significant event in the parish, apart from the opening of the colliery in neighbouring Askern, was the sale of the majority of the Campsmount Estate in 1919.  George Bryan Cooke-Yarborough (1843-1915) had expanded the Campsmount Estate throughout the 19^th century with large farm holdings and properties in both Norton and Campsall.  By the end of the 19^th century, the Estate owned three quarters (1,050 acres) of Campsall Parish of 1400 acres and over 2,000 acres in total.  His son, George Eustace Cooke-Yarborough (1876-1936) inherited Campsmount on his death in 1915.  However, after the First World War, many estates suffered badly.  Prior to the First World War, Britain imported 80% of its grain and 40% of its meat and was in great peril when unrestricted U-boat warfare commenced in 1917.  The Corn Production Act 1917 brought stability to British farming after 40 years of decay, guaranteeing minimum prices for wheat and oats resulting in a million acres of land being added to wartime cultivation.  The Act was repealed in 1921 and, with the re-opening of peacetime trade, the price of wheat halved.  In 1919, 90% of farmland was tenanted and rents were fixed by the 1917 Act whilst death duties doubled in 1919.  As a result, at a time when land values were inflated by farming’s apparent new prosperity, many land-holders decided to shed tenanted land that yielded a lower return than almost any other asset and often needed significant capital investment.  Between 1918 and 1922 a quarter of land in Britain changed hands.  Owner-occupiers increased nearly four-fold after the war.  However, many owner-occupiers that bought farms in optimism in 1918-1920 subsequently suffered or sold the land on again thereafter at a loss.

In 1919, over 1,600 acres of the Campsmount Estate, comprising 55 lots, was advertised for sale by auction at the Danum Hotel, Doncaster; George Eustace Cooke-Yarborough retained Campsmount as his residence, together with some 450 acres of gardens, parkland, farmland and woodland.  As reported in the local press, 26 lots were disposed of privately.  In all, 1,059 acres were submitted for auction, realising about £35,000.  The highest price paid was for Cliff Hill Farm (323 acres), sold for £9,500 and purchased by the tenant, Henry Auty.  Westfield Farm (203 acres) and the adjoining Warren House Farm (187 acres), situated close to Barnsdale Bar, were sold to the tenant Thomas Bramley.  Part of Westfield Farm had already been sold to Frank C. Lodge, the occupier of Manor Farm in Norton, which became Highfield Farm with a new farmhouse, in due course the residence of his son, Alfred Watson Lodge.  A number of properties in Norton village itself were included in the sale: East End Farm (103 acres) was bought by the tenant, Edward Sanderson; Hall Farm (80 acres),tenanted by Edmund Wild, was bought by David Milner, who rented Norton Priory from the Master and Fellows of St. Catherine’s College; The Manor House (17 acres) was bought by the sitting tenant, Edward Terry; Schoolboy Farm (10 acres), described as a small-holding and tenanted by Charles Johnson, was purchased by Mr. W.N. Carter; White House Farm (11 acres) was bought by the sitting tenant, Samuel Warriner.  Interestingly, Frank Lawton, who would build at Brocco Bank, purchased nine acres of land at Quarry Road, Norton, which included the stone quarry (Bradley’s Quarry), no doubt with future house building work in mind.

Kelly’s directory of 1922, when compared with that of 1908, illustrates the changes in land ownership that took place over this period.  The directory identifies the chief crops in the parish as wheat, barley, turnips and peas (much of the former pasture land was now cultivated) and lists G. E. Cooke-Yarborough, Mrs. F. Bacon Frank, the Viscountess de Vesci [the owner of Womersley Estate] and the Master & Fellows of St. Catherine’s College as the chief landowners in the parish but adds that there were now several small freeholders.  The 1922 directory lists 12 farmers, compared to 17 in 1908:

1. Charles Johnson                  Schoolboy Farm
2. John Kealey                          Norton Common Farm
3. Frank Lodge                         Manor Farm
4. William Laycock                 Ryder’s Farm
5. John Milner                           Norton Priory
6. James Moulson                    Southfield
7. Edward Sanderson              East End Farm
8. Joshua Smith                        Priory Farm
9. John Stanley                         Norton Priory
10. Edward Terry                       Manor House
11. Samuel Warrener                 White House Farm
12. John Woodward                  Poplar Farm

The directory includes other related commercial businesses: Ralph Bateman (blacksmith), Victor Bevan (builder), John Birdsall (boot maker), Ernest Eskriett (carrier), Joseph Moorthorpe (scrap iron dealer), Arthur Robinson (cycle dealer), Alderson Thornton (miller) and George Woodward (wheelwright).  By the mid-1920s, the number of shops in the village had multiplied as new rows of houses were built for mineworkers and the village grew in population.  John Waddington had an established grocers shop below the cross roads in the centre of the village next to George Woodward’s blacksmith’s shop.  Norton’s first co-operative shop established by Annie Beale in a small property further down the High Street opposite Vine House Farm, had been replaced prior to the First World War by a new store, the Doncaster Mutual Co-operative and Industrial Society’s store, situated almost opposite Waddington’s shop.  The stationers and post office, located next to the Royal Hotel, at the cross roads in the centre of the village, was replaced by a new building on the opposite side of the cross roads in 1912; Elizabeth Green was the shopkeeper & sub-postmistress.  Ada Sawbridge had a grocer’s shop on West End Road and Elizabeth (Annie) Dickson had a small grocer’s shop on High Street.

With the construction of rows of terraced houses at the bottom of the village, corner shops opened on Station Road and Common Road; ‘Fairfield’ at 1 Common Road was one such shop, run by Frank Lawton, the builder, from 1922 to 1927 and then by the Kirkby sisters.  George Lund had a greengrocers at the other end of the terrace, at 9 Common Road, and would tour the village with his horse and cart selling fruit and vegetables.  Caroline Child’s general store was located at 1 Station Road and James Goodall’s shop was located further up Station Road opposite the row of terraced houses named ‘Hough’s Cottages’.  There were three butchers in the village: Alfred Hough on West End Road at ‘The Lilacs’, Alfred Dickson at the crossroads in the centre of the village and Robert Thomlinson on High Street at ‘The Laurels’ near the Schoolboy Inn.  Ernest Morton ran the Royal Hotel, Alfred Tooth ran the Forester’s Arms and Jane Arundel the Schoolboy Inn.  The existing three hostelries had been joined by the Norton Working Men’s Club & Institute, located in the former farmhouse ,‘The Laurels’.

My grandfather and grandmother, John William and Margaret Hope, together with their five children; Eva (b.1908), Walter (b.1909), Elsie (b.1911), John (b.1913) and my father, George (b.1914), arrived in South Yorkshire in 1916.  They spent a short time at Edlington, south west of Doncaster, where a new colliery Yorkshire Main had been recently sunk, before moving to Askern, where they lived in Kings Road (off Moss Road) for a few weeks, my grandfather working at Askern Colliery.  However, by 1918, they were resident in Norton.  They stayed at ‘Fairfield’ on Common Road for a short time and then took a gamble and bought Woodbine Cottage, a small-holding located on the High Street just below the crossroads in the centre of the village [the Royal Corner].  Woodbine Cottage is the most probable location for the former George and Dragon Inn, which closed in 1878, and had then been occupied by a poultry farmer and a hirer of a pony and trap.  Here, they erected greenhouses on the attached land and created a market garden for the growing of vegetables, soft fruit and flowers, and built a shop next to the house.  Three more children were born; Douglas (b.1918), Margaret (b.1920) and Alfred (b.1922).

Prior to the 14^th century, the concept of a surname, passed on from father to son, was not well developed.  In England at this time, there were only about 20 first names for children.  About half the population had first names from the New Testament, such as John, Thomas, Joseph, Mary & Elizabeth.  So distinguishing between the numerous Johns, Williams and Thomas’s, which were the most common boy’s names in a village, was a problem.

In the 1370s, the word “surname” begins to appear in legal documents and by 1450, most Englishmen had a fixed hereditary surname.  Most of the surnames that appear in England in the 15^th century evolved from four sources: occupation; nature of residence; father’s name or from some personal characteristic or physical feature, for example:

Occupation:                        Carpenter, Cook, Miller, Smith, Taylor, Butcher

Topography:                      Underhill, Brook, Wood, Hill, Marsh, Craig, Field, Forest

Father’s name:                   Williamson, Johnson, Robson, Dickson, Watson, Thomson

Characteristic:                   Little, Longfellow, Fox, White, Redhead, Brown, Stout

It is generally accepted that the word Hope is Anglo-Saxon (Old English).  It is recorded in Derbyshire well before the Norman Conquest.  The conventional wisdom is that the surname Hope is a topographical term describing someone who lived in a small, enclosed valley, usually a side valley such as the Hope Valley in the Derbyshire Peak District.  There are Hope valleys dotted throughout northern England and Southern Scotland, so there is no one geographical location for the origin of the Hope surname.

In the 16^th and 17^th centuries, my forebears were either lead miners or agricultural labourers (many men had dual occupations at this time) around Stanhope in Upper Weardale in County Durham.  Lead has been exploited in Weardale since Roman times.  From the thirteenth century, lead mining was encouraged by the Prince Bishops, who profited from the mining of the ore.  Weardale is closely associated with the ‘Prince Bishops’.  For many centuries, County Durham was virtually an independent state ruled, not by the King but by powerful Prince Bishops.  After the Norman Conquest in 1066, William the Conqueror soon realised that the very north of his territory, Northumbria, could not easily be protected from the Scots.  He, therefore, appointed the Earl of Northumbria and the Bishop of Durham to defend the north of England from the Scots.  The Earl of Northumbria had control of the area north of the River Tyne and the Bishop of Durham, the area between the rivers Tyne and Tees.  It was William the Conqueror’s son, William Rufus, who created the first Earl-Bishop, William St. Carileph, in 1081 and created him head of the ‘County Palatine of Durham’.  Carileph and successive bishops had nearly all the powers within the ‘County Palatine’ that the king had in the rest of England.  They became known as the ‘Prince Bishops’, with powers to hold their own parliament, raise armies, appoint sheriffs, administer their own laws, raise taxes and customs, create fairs and markets, collect revenues from mines, administer forests and mint their own coins.  The ‘Prince Bishops’ lived like kings in their castles or ‘palaces’ at Durham and Bishop Auckland.

Weardale made up the second largest hunting ground in England after the New Forest in Hampshire, which of course belonged to the King.  Westgate and Eastgate in Weardale marked the boundary of Stanhope Park, the Prince Bishop’s hunting ground where the famous ‘Great Chases’ (hunting expeditions), celebrated with much pomp and pageantry, were held.  All the inhabitants of Weardale were required to provide hounds for the hunt, along with enormous quantities of food, wine and beer for the hunters.  They were also required to assist with the construction of a large temporary hunting lodge, a chapel, kitchen and larder, which were purposely built for the annual chase.  An account from 1183 provides an insight into what was required of the local population of ‘Aucklandshire’:

“All the villeins of Aucklandshire, that is North Auckland and West Auckland and Escomb and Newton, provide 1 rope at the Great Chases of the Bishop for each bovate and make the hall of the Bishop in the forest 60 feet in length and in breadth within the posts 16 feet, with a butchery and a store house and chamber and a privy. Moreover they make a chapel 40 feet in length and 15 feet in breadth, and they have 2s as a favour and they make their part of the enclosure around the lodges and on the Bishop’s departure a full barrel of ale or half if he should remain away.  And they look after the hawk eyries in the bailiwick of Ralph the Crafty and they make 18 booths at St Cuthbert’s fair. Moreover all the villeins and leaseholders go on the roe hunt on the summons of the Bishop”

and under the entry for Stanhope:

“…all the villeins build a kitchen, and larder and a dog kennel at the Great Chases and they provide straw for the hall, chapel and chamber, and they lead all the Bishop’s supplies from Wolsingham to the lodges. “

The word ‘hope’ occurs in the names of a number of burns (streams) in upper Weardale, such as Kilhope, Welhope and Hope Burn.  Rookhope is a former lead and fluorspar mining community, originally a group of cattle farms in the thirteenth century.  The valley of the Rookhope Burn, which joins the River Wear at Eastgate, was the setting of the Rookhope Raid in 1569 when a large group of moss troopers from Tynedale raided Weardale whilst most of the men of Weardale were in Teesdale plotting against the Queen in the famous ‘Rising of the North’ [The Revolt of the Northern Earls or Northern Rebellion, was an unsuccessful attempt by Catholic Nobles from Northern England to depose Queen Elizabeth I and replace her with Mary, Queen of Scots].  Resistance to the raid was expected to be low but there were still a number of Weardale men left to defend the dale.  The raiders were pursued north into the Rookhope valley, as they made off with Weardale cattle and sheep, where a fray ensued in which four of the Tyneside raiders were killed.  The event is remembers in a 24 verse Weardale ballad called the ‘Rookhope Ryde’.

The ‘Rising of the North’ was led by Charles Neville, 6^th Earl of Westmorland, and Thomas Percy, 7^th Earl of Northumberland.  Seven hundred knights assembled at Raby Castle, south west of Bishop Auckland, and occupied Durham in November 1569.  From Durham, the rebels marched southwards to Bramham Moor, near York.  After abandoning the siege of York, the rebel earls, faced with a superior force led by the Earl of Sussex, retreated northwards and dispersed.  The Earls of Westmorland and Northumberland fled to Scotland.  Northumberland was captured and turned over to Elizabeth in 1572 and beheaded in York.  Westmorland escaped to Flanders where he died impoverished.  Queen Elizabeth declared martial law and exacted terrible retribution on the ordinary folk of the area, with a demand for at least 700 executions.  Were my forebears involved in this historic event and did the Hope family suffer the consequences of this debacle?

During the 17^th century, my forebears resided in and around the Wear Valley.  My seventh, great grand-father, John Hope (b.1655), was born at Toft Hill, near St. Helen’s Auckland. He was one of four children born to Thomas Hope (b.1627).  Thomas was one of at least eight children born to William Hope and Janet Rowles, married in 1619.  The earliest records of St. Helen’s, Auckland Church, which are in Latin from 1593-1635, record the baptisms of Henricus (1620), Jane (1622), Christopherus (1624), Thomas (1627), Guilielmus (1630), Mergareta (1633), Anna (1635) and John (1638) to Guilielmi [William] Hope.  William (born c.1597) was the son of William Hope and Margaret Howe, married in 1595.  William Hope (b. c.1570) was my tenth great grand-father!

During the 18^th and 19^th centuries, the Hope family formed part of that widespread migration in the north-east of England from the rural areas of the Pennines to the Durham coalfield further east.  The next post will describe this episode in the Hope family history.

Hope family