Jacob Cyrus Bowlt was born in 1882. Before WW1, he worked at Durham Paper Mills and was a musician in the Imperial Lads' Brigade. He also became a plater at Furness Withy.

The spirit of adventure took Cyrus to Canada where he worked his passage on a cattle boat and settled for a while in Saskatoon. In World War 1, he enlisted with the Durham Royal Garrison Artillery as first a bombadier and then as cook at Hartlepool Officers' mess.

After World War 1, he began his 25 year tenure as West Hartlepool mace bearer and caretaker of the Municipal Buildings in Church Square and he was held in great esteem by members of the council.

He formed an orchestra which played in every Hartlepool church and chapel. In retirement, he became secretary of Owton Manor Old People's Club.

There is an oil painting of Cyrus Bowlt, who died at 83 in 1965, in Hartlepool Civic Centre.

A dedicated and popular doctor who served the Headland area and was also a doctor in the RNVR.

The picure shows two men.  The name Tommy Trechmann is on the back of the photograph. We believe the elder man in the photograph to be Charles Taylor Trechmann. 

The two men in the photograph look very similar could they possibly be family members?

Douglas Ferriday, who was the town’s last non-elected mayor, from 2001-2002.

A year after his mayoral term, Mr Ferriday was given another honour, when he was elected as leader and chairman of the Conservative group on Hartlepool Borough Council, having been the group’s secretary for 20 years.

The retired photographer and historian joined the local authority in 1970 and during his time, represented the Grange and Rift House wards.

After 34 years’ service as a councillor, he was later given Hartlepool’s highest civic honour, when he became an Alderman in 2010.

In a 1989 Hartlepool Mail article featuring a profile of Mr Ferriday, his commitment and membership of many community organisations was hailed as a “Who’s Who of the caring society”.

He had been founder member of Hartlepool Civic Society, chairman of the Cleveland Committee of the North Eastern Electricity Consultative Council, a board member of the Cleveland Buildings Preservation Trust, press officer for Hartlepool Art Club, a member of the management committees of Hartlepool People and Hartlepool Citizen’s Advice Bureau and was also active in the Hartlepool Council of Voluntary Service.

Mr Ferriday, who served with the Army as an 18-year-old in Belsen, in Germany, was also chairman of Rift House Ward, an executive of the Hartlepool Conservative Association, on the Police Liaison Panel for Hartlepool and also found time to write numerous books.

George Physick Kingsley Gallimore was for many years  principal of Rosebank High School in Elwick Road and lived in an apartment in Ambleside Manor which was also used as the senior department of the school. He lived with his sister. His preferred Christian name was Kingsley which had possibly been his mother's  or aunt's maiden name. 

He was originally called George Gallimore Physick and on 13th March 1929, with an address of Dane Croft, Grosvenor Gardens Newcastle under Lyme Staffordshire and an occupation as schoolmaster, he changed his name by deed poll to George Physick Kingsley Gallimore. This was thereafter the name by which he was known. The reason for this change is unclear.

Gallimore was a J.P. and also involved in local politics, being Mayor of Hartlepool in 1969.

He was possibly from the Stoke on Trent area originally.

This is the career of John (Jack) Bunting told in his own words and in those of his nephew, Derek Bunting. The attitudes and opinions expressed in this account are those of a different era. 

John Shepherd Allison Bunting was born on 12th May 1898 in Seaton Carew, near Hartlepool, on the coast of County Durham. He was the youngest of four children of Charles John Bunting, a Hartlepool solicitor. 

Jack, as he was always known, went to the High School in Hartlepool from 1908 till 1912 before going to Kings College, London University until 1915 with a view to a career in the Civil Service. But the Great War interviened. He tried to enlist in the Army when just 16 but a family friend, Sir Neville Gunter, who was then commanding the 3rd Battalion of the Yorkshire Regiment (The Green Howards) thought he was officer material and got him entered for Sandhurst. Jack was commissioned from there direct into Gunter's regiment on 25th September 1915, aged just 17.  

2nd Lieutenant Jack Bunting went to France with his regiment in July 1916 to Armentieres. He was wounded in September 1916 in the first ever tank attack at Martinpuich - Flers Ridge at the Battle of the Somme and was sent home for convalescence. He returned to the Front on his 19th birthday in May 1917, spending the following winter in the Ypres salient. In July 1917, aged just 19, as a Lieutenant he commanded a Company of the 2nd Battallion Green Howards in their first wave of the attack on Bodmin Copse when they went over the top from the tip of the Ypres Salient. 

As Lieutenant (acting Captain) he commanded a company of the 2nd Battalion at Roupy when the Germans counterattacked on 21st March 1918. The Green Howards were then forced to take part in the retreat of the British 5th Army and the Green Howards were defending the main road south of St Quentin and suffering heavy casualties. He was awarded an MC for which his citation reads: 

"For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty. When in command of a company he resisted for 24 hours repeated attacks of the enemy, inflicting great losses on them. In the rearguard action on subsequent days he rallied his men with skill and courage until finally wounded."

He was wounded by machine gun fire on 28th March 1918. The bullet went clean through his thigh. 

After being in hospital in England, as soon as he was passed fit he returned to France. He said later "I was young and healed very rapidly". He then commanded a Company of the 2nd Battalion Green Howards and led his men over the top on 2nd November 1918. He continued attacking until orders were recieved to halt hostilities when about 12 miles south of Mons on the French - Belgian border. He later wrote about this attack "On November 6th, when trying to cross a small river, the Germans opened up with heavy machine gun and rifle fire and the Company ahead of us was practically annihilated - all the officers killed or missing. After 9 days continuous attack in foul weather and no rations except the roots we scrounged from the fields and the little we carried, we were in a terrible state. The Bosche had destroyed bridges as they retreated and no cookers or transport of any kind could catch up with us. Some of the men had to have their boots cut off, so swollen were their feet."  

Captain Jack Bunting was in charge of the Guard of Honour when Admiral Sir David Beatty, in command of the Grand Fleet, toured the battlefields after the end of hostilities. The Regimental Colours had by then arrived from England with the Regimental Band. He celebrated his 21st birthday party at the Officers' Club in Valenciennes on 12th May 1919. He later brought back the transport of the Battalion to their Regimental Headquarters in Richmond, North Yorkshire, via Dunkirk. 

Jack's elder brother was my father Charles Gilbert Bunting and he also had two sisters; Kathleen (or Kit), who married Arnold Jones, a Director of Gray's shipyard, who lived in Hartlepool. They had one son, Dall. His other sister, Beatrice (or Bea) married Pier Rosling, who was General Manager of Henleys Telegraph Co and lived in Farnham, Surrey. Jack went to Buckingham Palace to be presented with his Military Cross by King George V. He was accompanied to the Palace by his mother and both his sisters. 

Jack was very fortunate to survive. The Ypres Salient was defended by Commonwealth forces throughout the War. No less than 185,000 lives were lost there. I visited the Menin Gate in Ypres last year. This memorial commemorates 54,000 officers and men from the UK, Canada, Australia, India and South Africa who had died by 1916. I also went to the beautifully kept Tyne Cot cemetery where a further 35,000 are remembered. Over 40,000 of them were never identified but have headstones. 100,000 have no known grave. 

After the War Jack was asked for his comments by the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst. These were some of his replies:

I liked and admired the Regular Officers and I was accepted for a regular commission but resigned in 1920 having doubts about peacetime soldiering. 

I think nearly all of us had the utmost contempt for anyone not prepared to fight for their kith and kin and their country no matter what reasons they might give. Life was pretty cheap to us and I think most of us would have approved of them being shot as traitors. 

We were in a hurry in 1914 to get into the army in case the war was over before we could do our bit but I certainly do not think we ever contemplated a long war of attrition. 

It was certainly very frightening at times and darned uncomfortable - sometimes one felt it would never end and one could become very depressed. The cheerful sense of Regimental camaraderie kept one going. 

The New Zealand troops were fine soldiers. I thought the French were poor, dirty, undisciplined and totally unreliable. 

After the War Jack joined Henleys Cables and became Sales Manager. He joined AEI in 1946 and became Managing Director of Edison Swan Cables. After the merger with Siemens he became Joint General Manager of the cable division of this very large public company. Oliver Lyttleton MP and Colonial Secretary, who became Lord Chandos, was Chairman of the company. Jack became Chairman of the Cable Makers Association. He was a member of the Grand Council of the Federation of British Industries. He retired from the Board of Associated Electrical Industries in 1962, later becoming Chairman of the British Group of the International Cable Development Corporation. 

He retired to his house at St Margarets Bay, on the White Cliffs close to Dover. He had married Gertrude in 1930 and they had a son, the Reverend Jeremy John Bunting, born 1934, who went to school at Tonbridge and then to Cambridge University. 

Jack played rugby and soccer for the 4th Army in France. After the War he played cricket for Hampstead, rugby for Richmond, soccer for the Casuals and golf at The Wildernesse and Walmer and Kingsdown golf clubs in Kent. 

My father, Charles Gilbert Bunting, Jack's elder brother, served as a Captain in the Royal Artillery in Hartlepool during the Great War. After the War he ran a very successful firm of solicitors in Hartlepool. He married Joyce Hopkinson in 1927 and they had three sons; Gerald, born 1928, Derek (your correspondent) born 1932 and Edward, born 1936.

My father died in 1967 aged 78. Jack's wife, Gertrude, died in 1968 and with both of them widowed and living on their own my mother and Jack decided to get married, which they did in 1971. They had 16 very happy years together living in Jack's house at St Margarets Bay in Kent which looks out from the top of the White Cliffs of Dover towards France. Jack died in March 1987 aged 88. He was buried in the Seaton Carew churchyard with his mother and father, brother and other members of the Bunting family. 

After Jack died Joyce returned to rejoin her many old friends in Hartlepool in 1987 and died there in 1994 aged 88. She is also buried at Seaton Carew beside her two husbands. 

Derek Bunting

April 2013

Born into a mining family in Easington,Ted Leadbitter became interested in politics as a teenager when he gave out leaflets in the mining village supporting Manny Shinwell. After WW2,he trained as a teacher and from 1964 to his retirement in 1992, he served as MP for Hartlepool.

Pattison became curate of Holy Trinity Church in 1885 to assist The vicar, John Lawson, whose health was beginning to fail. Pattison left in October 1890 after John Lawson's death. He moved to Darlington and became curate of St James Church in Stockton. In 1906 he became vicar of St John's Chapel in Weardale where he remained  until his retirement in 1925.

In 1887, while in Seaton Carew, Pattison took up photography as a hobby and by 1888 had become quite prolific. His photos leave a wonderful legacy of ordinary people and places of his era. In the 1970's his daughter, Catherine, donated his collection of photos and glass plate negatives to Bowes Museum so that they could be enjoyed by everyone.

The images, besides showing us how our ancestors lived are also an aid to family history as many of his images were described with places and names.

Sir Cuthbert Sharp was born in 1781 in Hartlepool to parents Cuthbert and Susannah. He was baptised in St Hilda's Church. Cuthbert married Elizabeth Croudace at Edinburgh on 8th October 1811. He died aged 68 at Newcastle in 1849.

He is known in particular for his History of Hartlepool published in 1816 and still in print today.

Edward Mellanby was born in West Hartlepool the youngest of six children whose father, John Mellanby, was a manager of a shipyard for the Furness and Withy Shipbuilding Company. Edward was educated first Avenue Road School in West Hartlepool and then at Barnard Castle School where he showed both great athletic and scholastic prowess.  In 1902 he left for Cambridge where he studied physiology. Between 1905 and 1907 he became a research student of Emmanuel College and published his first paper in 1908.  Edward then went to St Thomas’s Hospital in London to do his medical training and was a demonstrator in physiology from 1909 to 1911. In 1913 he took on the role of lecturer and later became Professor of Physiology at King’s College for Women. In 1920 he became the first occupant of the Chair of Pharmacology at the University of Sheffield while, at the same time, he was appointed Honorary Physician at the Sheffield Royal Infirmary. In 1933 Edward was made Secretary to the Committee of Privy Council for Medical Research and Secretary of the Medical Research Council for whom he worked until his retirement in 1949.

During the 16 years he worked for the Medical Research Council he also carried on his own personal research at his laboratory in Sheffield where he studied the science of nutrition. This included nutrition deficiencies and the effects of various toxins in foods and the benefit of vitamins, mainly on the once common disorder of rickets.  His findings into experiments with dogs who were given a restricted diet and kept indoors developed rickets but were then fed cod liver oil and recovered. These findings were published in the medical journal Lancet in 1919 and led to the discovery that rickets was caused by a lack of sunlight which resulted in a deficiency of vitamin D. He also studied the effect of alcohol on the brain and his findings became known as the Mellanby Effect. His work in this and other areas saw him become one of the founders of the Nutrition Society.

When Edward died suddenly of heart failure in 1955 there was great accolade for his achievements during his lifetime. He was knighted in 1937 and gained many letters after his name, GBE, KCB, MD, FRCP and FRS. He also could boast numerous publications which contributed greatly to the understanding of the importance of nutrition.

Donated by Richard Mellanby BSc BVMS PhD DSAM DipECVIM-CA MRCVS

Reg Smythe was born in Hartlepool on July 10^th, 1917, the son of Richard Oliver Smyth, a shipyard worker, and his wife Florence (née Pearce). He attended Galley's Field School in Hartlepool, but left when he was fourteen to take a job as a butcher's errand boy.

He joined the Army in 1936 and saw service in North Africa during the Second World War. Reg had a real talent for drawing, and became a gifted cartoonist. His most famous cartoon character was Andy Capp, a stereotyped unemployed northerner, complete with flat cap, Andy Capp was created in 1957 for the Daily Mirror newspaper and proved a huge success.

Reg Smythe died on June 13^th, 1998, and in 2007, a bronze statue of Andy Capp was erected next to the Harbour of Refuge Pub in Old Hartlepool.

The Hemy family, originally from Germany, moved into Newcastle and then one branch moved to Hartlepool. They were a family of artists of reasonable note and musicians, Hartlepool Museums holding several paintings by members of the family in store. 

See The Hemy Family Album

Hemy ,Henry     Musician   b.1780 Saxe Gotha in Lower Saxony  as Henry Hemi and studied Sax Gotha College.  His father was Johannis Hemmi  b. 1740 in Saxe Coburg.

 In 1805 he came to Britain to serve in the Duke of Buccleugh’s Dumfries militia as a musician.

He married  a Scot Nancy Napier and lived in Newcastle, changing the surname to Hemy. He taught music and played in many local bands.  In 1850/1, when 72 he went to the Australian goldfields with members of family but returned to Newcastle advertising himself as a Professor of Music and becoming well known in the area.

He died in 1850 in Newcastle and is buried in St Andrew’s Cemetery.

Hemy , Henry Frederick  Musicianb. 12 Nov 1818 Newcastle, died Hartlepool  9.6.1888

Talented musician from a young age but had love of the sea and became apprentice  to Tyzack, Dobson and Co. and his first voyage was to Montreal. He married Margaret McDonald  in 1840 at St Paul’s Jarrow  and Charles Napier Hemy,  their first child was born in Blackett St Newcastle, the first of 10 sons and 3 daughters.  He took his family to Australia in 1850/1 but returned to Newcastle in 1854. In 1877 he entered Ushaw College near Durham as Professor of Music. He wrote dance music, hymns, songs and pianoforte tuition books. He became a Roman Catholic and was organist at a number of churches through his life and also taught music.  In 1887, while still actively composing and playing, he moved to 1York Place Albion Terrace and Regent St Hartlepool where he died of pneumonia in June1888. A poster printed by Ord the printer shows the extensive pieces of music dedicated to prominent Hartlepool people, that Hemy wrote for Queen Victoria’s Jubilee. His wife survived him and died in 1900 in Falmouth where son Charles Napier Hemy lived.

Charles Napier Hemy  artist  b. 24 May 1841 Newcastle. Was taken as a young boy to a Roman Catholic Church where his father was organist and preferring this to the Scottish Chapel his mother attended, asked to be baptised into that faith. Was taken with family to Australia in 1850/1 and on this journey his love of the sea and also art began. On return to Newcastle, began to study art at the Government School of Design at 13.

He then thought of becoming a priest, studying at St Cuthbert’s College in Ware Hertfordshire for two years. He then stowed away at sea and had to be taken on as an apprentice at 15 yrs of age. He became ill on board and was brought back to England and began painting.

At 19, he entered a Dominican Monastery in France but at 22 left and returned to Newcastle as he realised this was not his vocation either. The family were then in Gateshead, and Charles began painting small seascapes  and by selling them, he began to support himself. As two of his younger brothers,Thomas Hemy and Bernard Hemy were also painters, he became Charles Napier Hemy. The name was chosen because his mother was an admirer of her cousin Sir Charles Napier.

Charles worked in the William Morris workshop, admiring the work of the Pre Raphaelites, which is evident in his early work, and spent summers in Cornwall painting. In May 1866, he married Mary Anne Lloyd  but sadly she died in 1880 before any children were born. He moved to Falmouth and married Amy Freeman who was also a convert to the Roman Catholic faith and they had 10 children.

Hemy continued to paint in Cornwall in particular and in 1896, exhibited ‘ How we Caught the Pilchards’  at the Royal Academy and this was an immediate success. Because of this, he was elected as an associate of the Royal Academy. He had exhibited every year from 1865 to his death in 1917, but it was with his marine pictures that he achieved greatest  notoriety .  When he died, he was buried in Falmouth with his mother, wearing his Dominican habit.

Much of his work is sadly in store in museums and galleries as it is deemed by some unfashionable at the moment.  As a guide, a watercolour ‘Fresh Breeze off the Cornish Coast’ sold in 1989  for £1,350 and an oil painting ‘Wind against the Tide Tilbury Fort’ £6025 in 1987.

Hartlepool Museum Service holds five of his works in store.

For more information on this artist see:

Master of the Sea:Charles Napier Hemy RA,RWS by Margaret Powell 2004 ISBN -13 978-0-906720-37-0

Charles Napier Hemy 1841-1917 – Tyne and Wear Council Museums

Bernard Benedict Hemy  b 1855 d. 1913  Son of Henri F Hemy was an artist who spent most of his life in South Shields painting marine subjects around the Tyne and two of these are held in Hartlepool Art Gallery store.

Thomas Maria Madawaski Hemy b 1852 and was born off the coast of Brazil en route to Australia, his last Christian name being that of the ship. He lived in Sunderland, North Shields and finally London where he exhibited 15 times in the Royal Academy. There are two of his painting in Hartlepool Art Gallery store.

Oswin Bede   Hemy b. in 1856. Oswin became music master at Ushaw College , Durham. In 1877, he married Laura Letitia Walker  at St Peter’s Tynemouth. They had five children and settled in Hartlepool  possibly in the late 1890s after leaving Esh near Ushaw. An advertisement for music lessons  shows him first living in Johnson Street.  The children of the marriage were Frederick b. 1887, Oswin Cyril b. 1875, Herbert William b.1879, Cecilia Constance  b. 1885and Laurence b.1889

Oswin Bede died in 1916.

Cecilia married Joseph Henry Bennett in St Joseph’s Church West Hartlepool on 14.12.1907 and they had three children : Constance Josephine 1907, Benjamin Oswin 21.9.1910 and Laura Letitia 24.3.1916. All were unmarried. Laura taught Y1 at Sacred Heart for many years and died in 1986.

Herbert William  married Isabella Hildreth who had 5 children and then died in 1921. He then married her sister Elizabeth in 1925. Of these children, Veronica b. 1913 married Herbert William Orde in 1940 who was headteacher at Sacred Heart from 1966-1972

SEE family tree of Henry Frederick Hemy

I was born on the 19^th of May, 1930, the youngest of five children, and lived at 10 Hunter Street, West Hartlepool. My parents were William Thomas and Eva Waterland – my mother’s maiden name being Duphie.

I started work with L.N.E.R. in 1944, in the carriage & wagon works, transferring to the signal cabins in 1946. Two years later, aged 18, I was called-up for National Service, completing my Basic Training at Elgin in Scotland, serving with the Royal Engineers – Army No.22069051.

I remember completing a Bomb Disposal Course at Alford, near Skegness in Lincolnshire. This was a four-week course, although being a Private meant I didn’t learn how to diffuse bombs, only how to dig them out!

I was demobbed in 1950 and returned to my job with the railways and in 1951 I transferred to the Transport Police, initially stationed with the Hartlepool Docks & Rail Unit.

I married Maureen (Shepherd), on February 7^th, 1953, at Stranton Parish Church – it was a very cold day with snow on the ground.

In 1962 I was transferred across to Middlesbrough, with four short spells in London, serving at various places including Waterloo Station and Stratford Lift; I also undertook some Royal Duties. I retired in 1985.

Robert Wood was a native of West Hartlepool who lived there all his life except for his years in the Armed Forces during World War II. He was born in the Public Market in 1908 in a room which looked out on the Market Yard, so his interest in the history of the development of the town was by no means an academic one.

He attended Newburn and Church Square Schools before winning a scholarship to the Grammar School. After receiving his professional training at the City of Leeds College, his first appointment as a qualified teacher was to Jesmond Road School in 1929, where he stayed until 1940. He was Head Teacher of Ward Jackson School before he took charge of Rossmere Junior School from 1953 until his retirement in 1973. He was always interested in the history of the North-East in general and Teesside in particular, and frequently wrote, lectured and broadcast on these subjects.