WE’RE searching for relatives of Enid Steavenson, whose husband was a wonderfully eccentric doctor in Middleton St George.
Enid and Dr Charles Stanley Steavenson came to the village in 1904 and created a tuberculosis sanatorium in Felix House – today the doctors’ surgery.
As regular Echo Memories readers will remember, they had 50 wooden chalets in the grounds, most on turntables so they could revolve to follow the sun, and a herd of 36 Saanen goats, whose TBfree milk was considered healthier than that from cows.
The Steavensons liked their gadgets: they had the first home-made caravan in the area, the first ride-on lawnmower and the first dishwasher – although it broke more than it cleaned.
They had three marmoset monkeys as pets.
And they had three children: Robin, Ione and Honor.
The reason for the interest is that Enid’s diary from August 1901 has just been bought by James Hart, of Harrogate. “Charming and extremely well-written”, it tells of her holiday with her mother at Staithes, on the North Yorkshire coast, and of her time among the famous artistic colony there.
Enid grew up in the Beechwood mansion, where Sainsbury’s is today off Grange Road. Beechwood lasted until the early Nineties, although you were hard-pressed to see it, as a bus depot had grown up around it.
Enid’s father was Robert Robinson, a civil engineer, and her mother was a distant Pease – Lucy Ann.
If you can put us on Enid’s trail, please contact us as above.
ACOUPLE of months ago, we were bewitched by a wonderful early Fifties photo of old codgers sitting on a bench near Nutters Buildings, Middlestone Moor.
Thanks to our readers, we soon knew nearly every detail about the men, the tractor, the cornstacks...
Now Jack Hicks has found a few more background details, which make the photo a true Durham historical document.
His grandfather, Danny Hicks, is the old codger on the right of the picture.
Danny died in 1962, aged 80.
His family tree goes back to Cornwall, where his greatgrandfather, Joseph Hick, was a fellmonger and ran the Bodmin county jail – the “bridewell”, as such institutions were called – for three years in the 1770s.
His grandfather, Daniel Hick, ran a pub, the Victoria Inn, in Three Mile Stone, near Truro, which stayed in the family for a century.
His father, Vivyan, was born in St Austell in 1845.
Vivyan was a tin miner, whose industry collapsed in the mid-19th Century, scattering his family to Australia, Canada and South Africa.
Vivyan, though, moved to Durham to work underground. As they came north, they also acquired an s on the end of their name – probably a mistake by a registrar.
Many Durham mining families can trace their roots back to the tin miners of Cornwall. Many Durham mining families are touched by tragedy somewhere, and the Hicks are no different.
Vivyan’s eldest son, Vivyan, – brother of Danny in our picture – went to work in Westerton colliery, near Middlestone Moor, as soon as he left school.
On December 14, 1898, aged 13, he was driving a pony out of the mine. It was pulling six tubs laden with coal.
Something went wrong when Vivyan was sitting on the limbers – the poles connecting the tubs to the horse. He slipped off onto the floor, and the first three tubs ran over him.
He was one of 55 miners who died at Westerton during its operation from 1841 to 1961.
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