Chisholm Cottage

A Memory of Hartlepool.

My great-great-great grandparents lived opposite Wesley Chapel in the late 1800s, behind the trees on the right-hand-side of the 1901 Wesley Chapel photo.
During the 1830s, Richard JACK (b1813) and some of his brothers moved to Hartlepool from Dalkeith Scotland. In 1841 Richard lived in Northgate Street, with his brothers nearby - they were coal trimmers. Richard lived with the WALTONs from Hexham, Northumberland; Thomas WALTON a Mason by trade; son William WALTON, a Joiner. Richard married Thomas' daughter Margaret WALTON (b1819).
In 1851 Richard and family were on their own in Northgate Street. Richard JACK and two sons (Samuel and William Chisholm) were not found in the 1861 census, but Richard's wife and their youngest son were with the WALTONs - now on the East Side of Old Hart Road, Stranton, among the houses known as Fountain Terrace. (The area is now Raby Road, and on the north side of Wesley Square.) Fountain Terrace dates back to the 1850s and is shown on the 1856 plan of West Hartlepool town. It was adjacent to a large detached house called Fountain House. There was an area of land between the Fountain Terrace, and Fountain House. Wesley Chapel was not drawn on the 1856 town plan, but when it was built, it was opposite these properties.
Oral history says some of the family visited Australia "twice". We found a ship named "Eagles" with JACK passengers (Richd, "Melvuille", and J.) - all names familiar to our JACKs - the ship departed Victoria AUS for Liverpool, ENG in February 1856. Were they our JACKs? Was this the same ship Eagles reported in the Edinburgh newspaper "The Scotsman" on 27 Nov 1852 that it "returned to England from Australia with 600+ tons of gold - the largest amount of the precious metal ever known to arrive in one vessel"? It made the "most rapid passage ever on record, having done the voyage ... in seventy-six days". In 1857 Richard JACK, and two of his sons (Samuel and William Chisholm), and Richard's brother Thomas, visited Australia as "miners" on the SS Great Britain. We think Samuel went again in 1863 on the same ship; we have lost track of him.
What has all this has to do with the 1900 photograph of Wesley Chapel in West Hartlepool? In the 1871 census, Richard JACK was back in Hartlepool, but this time living with his family in Fountain Terrace, Stranton. Richard is no longer a coal trimmer, but a gardener. His daughter's family is in the house - Mary and Joseph Pattison - a coppersmith. In 1881, Richard, a Sawyer, still lives in the area of Fountain Terrace, with wife Margaret. This time, his property is described as Chisholm Cottage (the Chisholm name after Margaret's grandfather - James Chisholm - of Hexham, Northumberland) - a double-tennement building, housing up to four families, on that previously vacant land between Fountain Terrace and Fountain House - all properties opposite Wesley Chapel in Old Hart Road.Some JACKs wonder if they "struck it rich" during their "exploits" in AUS, but by 1857, the excitement of the gold rush in Victoria had reached its climax, and most of the alluvial gold had been retrieved..
The 1891 to 1912 West Hartlepool town map clearly shows the area where Chisholm Cottage stood; the street numbers can be transposed onto the map from a 1954 area map. Margaret JACK was alive and living in Chisholm Cottage when the 1901 photo of Wesley Chapel was taken. Richard died in 1896. Margaret died in 1903. Sadly we have no photograph or painting of "Chisholm Cottage", and the nearest we can see of it, is the trees in front of it on the right-hand-side of the 1901 Chapel photo.
Chisholm Cottage of Old Hart Road, Stranton is not to be confused with Chisholm Villa which appears in the 1901 census in Clifton Avenue, West Hartlepool - owned by Richard and Margaret's youngest son Richard and wife Martha. He was a Tappersmith , with sons Richard (a Coppersmith) and John (a Clerk).A 1948 aerial photo of West Hartlepool, clearly shows that Fountain House was demolished. The resulting vacant land became a car park. Fountain Terrace itself survived into the 1950s when it was known as 8 to 26 Hart Road, West Hartlepool. The name Hart Road was changed to Raby Road on the amalgamation of West Hartlepool and Hartlepool in 1967. A small remnant of the Terrace survived up to the early 1970s.
During the 1990s the area changed considerably. Raby Road was realigned and a new public square developed with an office building - New Clarence House - on part of the Fountain Terrace site. The 1854 town map shows where the original Clarence House once stood. Wesley Square was completed in 1998.
We visited Hartlepool in 2003, and observed the changes to the Old Hart Lane/Raby road area over the years. Such important land where our JACKs once lived!
Richard JACK had many descendants who inherited his name including Richard JACK (1866-1952) - the Royal Academician and Royal Portrait Painter, who was also an official World War I war artist for Canada.
The young lads standing in front of the chapel would be the about the same age as my grandfather at that time - David JACK - who emigrated to Australia in 1924 with his wife Frances Mary ROBINSON, and son David William JACK (my father). Where are the descendants of those relatives now lost to us who went to Canada and America, and beyond? Maybe they have a photo of our ancestral home opposite Wesley Chapel.
Vivienne Hooper (nee JACK)
Australia