This photograph was taken in the paddock of Haswell House and shows Charles Norman Willson and his mother Sarah in the early 1920s. The buildings behind will be the stables and coach house block which ran along the line of Furness Lane where Haswell Avenue now stands. The building with the sloping roof on te right is POSSIBLY the Victorian bungalow which stands in Haswell Avenue today amidst the 1930s housing.
Donor : Robin and John Willson
Location
The house was originally built by Ralph Ward Jackson and was named Jackson's Lodge. Jackson built it for John Pile the shipbuilder to entice him to the new town of West Hartlepool. It was then the home of Thomas Furness a highly successful and affluent grocer with food factories in the town. Thomas renamed it Haswell House, the maiden name of his wife. He was mayor of the town and also brother of Sir Christopher Furness the shipbuilder.
In 1905 it became the home yet another business family, the Willson family and they were to be the last occupants.
In 1931 it was sold to be demolished and Haswell Avenue and Whitfield Drive now occupy the site.
More detail »George Willson was a successful Hartlepool timber merchant who died in 1920. He married three times and had a large family. From 1905 the family lived in Haswell House until the house was demolished in 1931.
This album is kindly donated by Robin Willson, grandson of George and his third wife Sarah. It was Sarah who preserved the family archive, passed it to her daughter in law Ann who in turn passed it to her son Robin Willson.
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