SERVANTS OR WORKERS AT HOME
LANDRETH
The Landreth’s by all accounts were very handsome people running the VICTORIA HOTEL in Whitley Bay. They would have had a lot of people helping to run both the Public House and the Hotel, the only thing I know is that they had a son who was not ‘a full shillin’ meaning a bit slow.He was in charge of the Pony and Trap that met the trains at the nearby Whitley Bay Station and brought customers to the Hotel. It must have been quite a popular place to stay for people visiting Whitley Bay.
PATTERSON
A daughter of the house, a very sweet girl named Mary went to look after a member of the family at Killingworth. There she met her future husband who worked on the nearby railway. He was a widower and this lovely girl took on him and his children, then having several children of her own she would have no help until her daughters Belle and Jenny (Isabell and Jane) were old enough to help. This they did ’till Jenny got married when it fell to Belle to look after her mother/father and brothers still at home ‘till her parents died.
ELLIOTT
Henry Elliott (Henry) lived with his widowed mother ‘till she remarried. She had a small general dealers shop near Cramlington and Harry was a good man and helped her all he could. She must have had a very hard life and seemed to have struggled on ‘till she married again – a widower named TODD who already had children, Together they had more children, presumably helped by any girls old enough in the family, because Harry hated his step father (a bit of jealousy there ?) and left to go and live with his older brother who worked in the nearby pit in Cramlington. He stayed there till he marred Jenny Patterson when they came to live in Backworth..
Harry and Jenny Elliott
Harry continued to be a great help around the house rising early to see to fires, water etc before he went off to work at Backworth Coal Company as a clerk. He was very clever and trained to be a school teacher but fell out with the Headmaster and instead of sticking it out till he could leave and find another job he left and became a clerk)
Their elder children Molly and Roy (Mary Constance and Robert Wilson) were trained at a very early age to help by bringing in Water from the outside tap, coal etc. As soon as Molly could help more she was expected to start the minute she came in from school. Life was hard for women in those days and Jenny had four children having her 5th quite late. She was in poor health and rested every afternoon which is all Molly can remember most. Her mother lying on the couch when she came in from school waiting with all her orders for the very young Molly. Molly was always a….. wah…. holi like her father. Her fingers were never still. She never played at school but kept a crochet hook and wool in her apron pocket and all playtimes were spent crochet-ing (what exactly I don’t know) She kept this up till she went into her final days at Rake home (time in Preston Hospital she still had her work on the go) See note in Book of remembrance at Preston Cemetary, North Shields.
Molly remained the general servant till she got married. Jenny had her son Jack (john Henry) very late in life and also must have been menopausal afterwards. Molly remained bitter about the memories of her late teens. She got married very young to Baden Thompson, nee Reed, who treated her like dirt and whom Molly hated for many years. After Molly got married the next daughter Norah took over but was much more relaxed about everything. I think Jenny must have been relieved to get rid of the fierce black eyed Molly and have a sweet Norah to help who simply shared the couch with her mother in the afternoons !! The family were older then – Jack wasn’t a baby anymore & life was easier as Louie (Lucy) the youngest daughter said ‘They both were on the couch when I got in from school ‘
Norah got married and Louie stayed at home, working as a Hairdresser, helping her mother and father around the house when not at work, When she got married to ‘Harry Richardson’ Harry and Jenny managed together but always needed extra help from Molly and Louie, the only children living nearby……..
RNO MORE !
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