Whitby History and living in the old yards

One might say it was a hard life, but on the other hand if one was brought up to those conditions then one knew no other. Perhaps the hardest part was the water supply. In the old days there was a pump in a near yard. Much later piped water was led to a communal tap in each yard where one filled the daily buckets. It was often their children’s job to get the water in before going to school. The drinking water stood in a spotlessly clean white enamel bucket and that was for domestic use in a zinc one. On one side of the kitchen range there was a boiler which also had to be filled. This came into its own on bath night when mother would scoop out water with a huge enamel mug and pour it into a two handled zinc tub in front of the fire. And in you went, youngest

 Sanitation

Well within living memory the earth closet was an acceptable form of lavatory in the yards. The little houses were called pettys, perhaps from the French petit. Further up the coast they were called nettys. Earth, or sand was used by them and a bit shovelled in from time to time. There were regularly emptied into carts which in their own turn were emptied into the sea or river. Houses in yards which overhung the edge of the river conveniently had their pettys situated directly over the water, all moored according to the state of the tide.

The conversion to water born sanitation started in the late 20s, but it was a very long time until the yards had water closets. Even then, they were all situated outside the house, which necessitated many a cold journey on an evening.

Close up on the heels of water closets came piped water into the actual houses. Great luxury! It was cold water, of course hot water systems remained an aspiration only to dream about.

Heating

The yard houses were warm. Built as they were, the houses were fairly sheltered from the biting winds of the North East Seaboard and not being detached there was not much heat loss from them as modern houses. In previous centuries they were even warmer, since they were divided into tenements and more people occupied each dwelling

As they all had their own fire there was much more heat generated. The principal fuel was coal, for was not Whitby a coal port between Newcastle and London? The coal wharves lined the river and it was a fairly cheap form of heating. It was however, somewhat dirty and the chimney sweep was a regular visitor. His visits were a major event, for the room had to be cleared as near as possible and everything was covered with the sheets. Many people in Whitby today remember Sammy Lambs chimney sweep activities in the days before vacuum sweeps. After the sweeper cleaned up the chimney the resultant soot had to be removed by the careful housewife from every nook and cranny, carpets beaten outside, floors washed, curtains changed, even the very walls swept. All this had to be done in the early morning, for the fire was often the only source of heat cooking.

Lighting

An extra heating bonus was the oil lamp for it gave out pleasant warmth as well as its light. Candles were the only form of illumination and even when gas lighting eventually came it was usually installed only in one room, the kitchen, so one still went to bed by candlelight. Lighting the gas mantle was a very tricky business, for the mantles were extremely brittle and could be broken very easily by the touch of the match.

Electricity was a much later blessing. Can you imagine life without electricity?

Washing

Yes, the washing derives a paragraph to itself. Water you have, if cold. Gas may be. But no electricity. On washday one always had to get up at least an hour earlier than usual. First of all the fire had to be kindled beneath the copper, firmly built with a brick surround. Then the copper had to be filled goes without saying. In later times one had a gas boiler,oh ! very modern. There was a poss and tub and the washboard, sunlight soap and steam. The whole operation took place in the one yard wash house, each housewife had her particular time for action. Incidentally, the clothes were much dirtier because of the grime from the coal and soot laden atmosphere in which one lived.

Poverty

The social history of Whitby is one of comfortable middle-class living alongside those were very poor indeed. But despite the extreme poverty, Whitby people were very good at making the best of things and did not air their poverty publicly. Respectability was important and most people tried to keep some “Sunday best” clothes. In years within living memory there was much parish relief known as “the pan crack” because when one had absolutely nothing else one could always scrape a bit from the crack in the pan. But it was a minimal handout and carried a social stigma with it.

 Romantic looking as the artists may have found it Whitby were undoubtedly substandard. Not all the houses had staircases inside; access to the upper floors was often by way of wooden steps and galleries outside. One can go on patching up indefinitely, but the day comes when the structure simply cannot take any more. Roofs leaked, floors rotted, plaster fell off. People would joke about how well their houses were ventilated, and not just by the Windows either. The landlord might come and fill in the cracks and again he might not.

Perhaps the state of the upkeep of the houses left much to be desired, but that was the landlord’s responsibility, not the people who actually lived in them. But for their part they did their best to keep them clean, turning out the mats and scrubbing the floor with vigour every week. Not only that, they also scrubbed the yard steps from top to bottom. Many of them finished the job by donkey stoning the edges of the steps neatly. (Ask your granny what donkey stoning is?)

We have said that their houses were warm. The cockroaches knew and appreciated this. So did the mice. And there were rats as well.

Such housing conditions bred disease. Many children had close cropped hair for good reasons. Even summer saw the isolation hospital filled with children suffering from diphtheria, scarlet fever and allied diseases. When the first houses were built on a council estate the difference in the children’s health was very soon noticeable. Children as well as plants need sunshine. It was the coalition government of the early 30s that brought about slum clearance throughout the country. There were more slums cleared in the first five years preceding the second war than there had been in the Fifties years before that time.

Who, 50 years ago, could possibly foresee the future boom in the tourist trade and Holiday Cottage Industry? We were recovering from the effects of a very costly war and there simply was no money about to convert all properties which were highly insanitary, to put it mildly.

It may be that in clearing the area piecemeal a few houses were sacrificed which might well have been saved, but that is a moot point. The housing that was put up after the demolition is extremely sturdy, and there were no rats now.

Cats

Despite the poverty, Whitby had a large population of cats. The mice and perhaps the rats would keep them occupied and being a fishing port there was always enough fish grabs to keep the pussy is happy.

One wonders if cats always abound here, long before they named ships “coal cats” and there is a connection. It is certain that Captain Cook, aboard his ex-Whitby boat the Resolution, had a superb cargo of around 25 cats.

Sources

I have used three main sources in the addition to the word-of-mouth memories.

The first was A Valuation of the town of Whitby, taken in 1837 just after Queen Victoria came to the throne, ” by the order of the commissionaire’s under the new Paula Law Act” This was taken by two appraisers with John Bovill, block and master maker, acting as referee. Although this list gives the names of the people and specifies the yards in Church Street, it does not mention separate yards in Crape Lane, Bridge Street, Sandgate, Cliff Street, or Flower gate. It does mention the type of dwellings and as they were very largely tenements we therefore find that there are many more people crammed into small yards down later surveys. They give a rateable value for each tenement and this was used in com paring the probable extent of the holding. At the time the township of Whitby was only small and that of Ruswarp impinged on it. Skinner Street was in this latter area it is not included in the survey.

The second source was The Whitby Director, published privately in 1899, at the end of Victoria’s reign, rateable values are not given, but the occupation of the householders is shown. This is extremely informative. A very great proportion of householders are women and this must be because the men folk were at sea. Whitby is and always has been an essential matriarchal town. The tradition was that the women ran the homes and brought the children up while the men went to sea. The women were managers in charge of domestic economy, and very well they did too.

The occupation of some men, who were doubtless at home when the survey was taken, is showing as seaman, whilst others are called mariners. There is a subtle distinction here as the latter were those who had risen in rank, perhaps to mate, or second mate, those who had got their ticket was shown as a master mariners.

For a third source I have to thank Whitby Council, who allowed me to pour through their rate book for the year of 1934. This is a very comprehensive list, although we do not learn the occupation of the tenants. The rateable value is given and from this one can assess a fair idea of the size and value of the property.

Various factors, the war, clearance of alleged slums, and the building of new housing estates outside Whitby have greatly changed the face and the character of the town, and we are not, therefore, attempting to list the yards that still stand today.

The name of some of the yards have changed from that time to time and it is not always easy to identify them. For instance Capplemans yard, in Church Street is clearly shown both in 1837 and 1899, but there was no trace of it in the 1934 lists, its name having been changed to Stanley Place. Often it was the owner of the yard that decided to change the name. I have done my best to identify all of the yards, but I am only too conscious that there will be some that slipped through the net.

Houses which were empty at the time of the surveys have not been included.

As one beavers away at the seemingly endless list of yards and names, flights of fancy takeover and the names become real people. Did Martha Jackson, for instance have 12 children and did she become a scold? Small wonder if she did. Was Henry Burton a good sober workman, or did he like the bottle? Were the six women who lived in Cockpit yard all solitary, or were their menfolk at sea? For an average township of the time there were extraordinary numbers of women householders listed. One hopes that they were not all widows. There were also a great many women who owned properties. Were they easy on their tenants? Maybe they understood how difficult it was to find the rent, even though it was only a shilling or two a week. Did other women have invalid husband’s, perhaps injured at sea? Were some of the men left to look after their bairns when their wife had died in childbirth? May be Mary next door helped out?

These were all real people and the mind has to make them arise from the flat pages of the valuation books. The valuation refers only to the property, but the human souls who lived and breathed in Whitby can never be rightly assessed save in the mind’s eye.

All the best Alan Davidson  

Endeavour Cottage in Whitby

Tephone 01274 614650

www.endeavourcottage.co.uk

Mobile 07813779273

E-mail alan@endeavourcottage.co.uk

Endeavour Cottage two-minute stroll from the harbour Whitby Holiday Cottages

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