Remarkable rise of an enterprising runaway

ROBERT Ropner was 19 when he stepped on to English soil for the first time. He was a stowaway, with no money in his pockets and no English in his vocabulary. He had hoped to make a new life in Australia, but found himself washed up in West Hartlepool.

Despite his seasickness, Robert built an empire based on shipping, bequeathed generously to his adoptive town of Stockton, and left in Middleton St George a building that bears his name and a plaque as a memorial to his presence.

He was born in Magdeburg, in Prussia, in 1838, the third of ten children. When he was ten, both of his parents died of cholera.

His father, John, had been an army officer, which suggests that the family probably had the wherewithal to see him through a basic education.

However, aged 18, he ran away from home with a friend.

They reached the port of Hamburg, and tried to gain employment on a vessel bound for Australia. There was room aboard for just one, and Robert's friend sailed off to the New World.

The only other ship about to leave was the SS Dora, heading for Hartlepool, and Robert stowed away on it.

The steward, a Mr Lockhurst, soon spotted him and ensured he did not go hungry - but the crossing of the stormy North Sea made Robert realise that his stomach was not designed to belong to a sailor.

He arrived in West Hartlepool, a thriving new port with ships exporting coal from the Durham coalfields and returning with Baltic timber for pit props.

Unable to speak English, but desperate for money, he got a job in a dockside bakery run by the Craik family, from Scotland. They had a daughter, Mary Anne, about his age, and they fell in love and married.

As West Hartlepool grew, so did Robert Ropner's fortunes. In 1860, he joined Thomas Appleby's firm of coal exporters; in 1866, he became a partner in the firm, and in 1868, he launched the company's first steamship.

In 1875, he went into business on his own and by the 1880s, R Ropner and Co was one of the largest steamship companies in the world, its iron ships faster and bigger than its wooden competitors.

In 1888, he bought a shipyard in Stockton, where he built 60 ships, so that by the turn of the century it was the third biggest shipyard in the country.

It is an extraordinary story, for somehow this immigrant found time to have ten children and serve first on West Hartlepool council and then on Durham County Council.

He was a colonel in the First Battalion Durham Light Infantry, and in 1893 was Mayor of Stockton. During his year in office he gave the town 36 acres of land as a public park (coinciding with our series on Darlington's South Park, Stockton's Ropner Park is having £3.5m of National Lottery money spent on restoring its Victorian grandeur).

Around this time, Teesside organisations including the Stockton and Thornaby District Nursing Association and the Hartlepool Hospital Governors were considering creating a convalescent home, where workers injured in industrial accidents could recuperate.

They rented Sadberge Hall, but then heard that Pemberton House, in Middleton St George, was available.

Pemberton House had been built in the shadow of St Laurence's Church by the Reverend Christopher Jackson, on land owned by the legendary philanderer Squire Henry Cocks (Pemberton was one of the squire's family names).

At a cost of £2-a-week, Pemberton House was rented as a convalescent home with room for 154 patients. The big firms on Teesside put up some money, and from November 1894 the workmen of Stockton and Thornaby each subscribed one farthing a week. Naturally enough, the ubiquitous Robert Ropner was on the project's steering committee.

When Squire Cocks died, his will suggested that Pemberton House be turned into a Cocks Memorial Home, offering long-term accommodation for the needy of the district. This, though, was against the interests of the Stockton and Thornaby workmen who came to Middleton to convalesce for a couple of weeks.

The Teesside committee wanted the house for themselves, and on February 13, 1897, Mr Ropner wrote: "I will give the necessary £2,000 to buy Pemberton House etc. at Middleton and present it for the above purpose to the towns of Stockton and Thornaby in commemoration of the 60th year of the glorious reign of our beloved Queen."

Pemberton House was renamed the Ropner Convalescent Home and reopened on July 3, 1897. With an extension in 1900, there was room for 70 patients. Naturally, male and female guests were strictly segregated.

Companies including British Steel, Synthetic Ammonia, Ashmore, Benson and Pease, Furness Shipbuilding and Head Wrightson subscribed to its up-keep, plus the workmen's deductions from their weekly pay packet. However, even as late as 1949, black workers were asked not to subscribe because they were not allowed to use it.

The Ropner home lasted until 1999, when it was converted into apartments and houses were built in its grounds. The proceeds from its sale were invested in the John T Shuttleworth Ropner Memorial Fund, which is a charity that helps ill, elderly or disabled people and their carers in the Tees Valley.

Mr Ropner lasted until 1924. A keen Conservative, he was Stockton MP from 1900 to 1910. He was knighted in 1902 and given a baronetcy in 1904. When he died, his house and grounds at Preston Hall were presented to the borough of Stockton and are now a museum.

R Ropner and Co thrived, despite losing half its ships during the First World War.

During the Second World War "Ropner's little navy" was one of the miracles that helped Britain win against the odds.

In 1946, the company re-located to Greylands, in Coniscliffe Road, Darlington. It stayed there until 1997 when it became part of the Bidcorp Shipping Group. Now it is based in Dartford, Kent.

* The villagers of Middleton had to wait until 1905, when the Cocks Memorial Homes were built for "respectable ladies and gentlemen of limited means".

Published: 24/03/2004

Echo Memories, The Northern Echo, Priestgate, Darlington DL1 1NF, e-mail chris.lloyd@nne.co.uk or telephone (01325) 505062.