A time capsule of life in a Tyneside shipbuilding town in the early years of the last century has been discovered.
Many of the items in an album relate to Palmers Shipbuilding & Iron Co Ltd in Jarrow and its founder Sir Charles Mark Palmer, twice mayor of Jarrow and also its MP. The album was compiled by Andrew W Young, who lived at Croft Terrace in Jarrow and may have worked at the Palmers company.
Sir Charles extended his shipbuilding enterprise at Jarrow, with blast furnaces, steelworks, rolling-mills and engine works, and was involved in major developments in the town such as its hospital and new Town Hall. The album contains invites and memorabilia to events such as the town hall opening in 1904, warship launches and the unveiling of the statue to Sir Charles in 1903.
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“Most people think of the town in relation to the Jarrow March to London in 1936 when unemployment was horrendously high after the closure of the Palmers company,” said Fred Wyrley-Birch of Newcastle auctioneers Anderson and Garland, who will be selling the album. “But this album reflects life in Jarrow in a heyday when industry was booming in the town and it was reaping the benefits with projects such as the hospital and town hall.
“It is an important piece of social history revolving around the involvement of Andrew W Young, about whom we know very little, but who was part of what was going on at that time, as his invites and letters show.”
Also for sale with the album is an oak cigarette box with brass mounts, which was a fixture in the luncheon room at Palmers works – where it was made – for more than 70 years until the firm’s closure in 1932. It is thought that the box may have been presented to Andrew Young.
Memorabilia in the album includes that of the launch at Palmers in 1901 of HMS Russell, one of a class of warships which were the fastest battleships in the world at that time. She sank in 1916 off Malta after hitting two mines laid by a German submarine. Another launch was of the cruiser HMS Sapphire in 1904, which survived the First World War and was sold in 1920.
The album mirrors life in Jarrow with an invitation to Andrew Young for a prize giving event at Jarrow Drill Hall by the 1st Durham Royal Engineers, raised and commanded by Sir Charles, an invite by Lady Palmer to a garden party in Jarrow Park in 1903, to the unveiling of the Palmer statue in the same year, the town hall opening and the opening oof the new Palmers shipyard graving dock in 1904.
There are also snippets of Andrew Young’s personal life, such as his appointment at £15 a year as secretary of Jarrow Memorial Hospital and his marriage in Leadgate in County Durham in 1903. Also in the sale is an item of pigeon racing history in the North East. A gold pigeon racing fob medal, inscribed “Northumberland Branch Working Men’s Club & Institute Union Ltd, Pigeon Race J Douthwaite Amiens season 1926”. It carries an estimate of £180-£220.
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