Sunday Obituary - The Advancement of Science for Girls

Hilda R. F. Cowie died in Sutton, Surrey in 1965, aged 93.  "Miss Cowie" had been a teacher and for 24 years, from its foundation to her retirement in 1943, was head mistress of Durham Girls County School

The carefully saved clip of her obituary, that I found amongst my great aunts' belongings suggested that she had been a significant figure in the lives of Lillian and Nancy Thompson and their elder sister Marjorie who had all attended the school.

Little further information is available about "Miss Cowie" but the history of the Durham Girls County School is an interesting one.  It was formed in 1918 when Durham's highly unusual mixed grammar school was split into separate boys and girls schools.

Mixed sex education at this level was very rare at the time as was the school's scientific and technical focus and endeavour to provide as much access as possible to poorer families.

Church Record Sunday - A Parish Magazine

Esh Winning & Waterhouses Parish Magazine 1932

Parish Magazines might not be what is usually thought of as a "church record" but they provide a fascinating snapshot into parish life.  I was lucky enough to find this 1932 magazine from the parishes of Waterhouses with Esh Winning in County Durham amongst my great-aunt belongings.

The little two sided magazine contains the normal list of officers, (my great aunt Lillian Thompson was at just 19 the organist), religious reflections and parish news: communion times, the Mother's Union service, a whist drive by the choir to raise money for the church and a planned bazaar later in the year because both the church and the church hall are in need of repair.

I loved the announcement of a "Magic Lantern Service" for Lent, which would include slides of stories from the old testament.  More prosaically it was just a "slide show" but magic lantern is a delightful connection to an older world.

Wedding Wednesday - Till Death Us Do Part?

The 1935 wedding notice for Lillian Margaret Thompson and Ernest "Billy" Barton notes in detail the outfits of the bride and her bridesmaid.  Unfortunately, there is no photo to support the description either in the local Durham newspaper or in the hundreds and hundreds of family photographs, dating back to the early 1900s, that Lillian carefully stored.

I can only assume that Lillian destroyed any photographic record of her wedding that did exist, for this was not a marriage that stood the test of time.  Quite why I don't know, although they do seem a curious coupling.

Treasure Trove Thursday - Light in a Dark World

The great depression of 1929-1933 was a dark time in the village of Esh Winning as it was across the industrial world.  The mining village, in County Durham in north east England, had never been affluent but in 1930 the depression closed the mine and hard lives got that much harder.

John William Thompson and his wife Annie Newnham, (my great grandparents), had established a small, single room drapers shop in the village and for a few years they had prospered moving to a bigger shop at the centre of the village only just before the recession hit and the mine closed.  Forced to sell out to their largest creditor, John had to resort to selling door to door from a suitcase.  They were better off than many in the village but it must still have been a harsh come down for them in their early fifties.

Talented Tuesday - A "Brown Dog" Nurse

Marjorie Thompson (1910-1945) was born in Hartlepool in County Durham in the north of England. Her father's family had lived in County Durham and the neighbouring county of North Yorkshire for at least 500 years, but her mother's family - the Newnhams - had only moved north from London in the 1870s.

In the late 1920s, Marjorie left Durham for London to train as a nurse.  Marjorie's motivations for choosing to train in London are not clear.  The impact of the great depression on the north east of England was severe and Marjorie's father lost the small shop he kept in the mining village of Esh Winning as a result of it, but Marjorie actually left for London at least 6 months before the stock market crash of October 1929, which is generally seen as the start of the depression and so, it may have been the still strong family ties of the Newnham family that drew her south.