Bards and Authors of Cleveland and Teesvalley 500 AD to 1960

Below you'll find links to posts about the many historical Bards and Authors of the Cleveland (uk) area from 500AD to 1960 (This section to be developed).

INTRODUCTION TO SECTION ONE

Part One : Bards and Authors of Cleveland and Teesvalley 500 AD to 1960

(The title is a slightly altered borrowing from Stokesley based George Markham Tweddell's 1872 book - The Bards and Authors of Cleveland and South Durham, in which the author began the work of charting the literary history of this area)

 A CULTURAL DESERT OF THE BIRTHPLACE OF ENGLISH LITERATURE?

In this section we will take you on a journey through time through the North Yorkshire area of the Uk, looking at the literary history of an area often written off as 'Cultural Desert'.

The story begins with Caedmon in Whitby, moves through Beowulf (allegedly buried on Boulby Cliff) through Gower the Moral, through John Hall Stevenson and Lawrence Sterne and many more to the 1800's and on through the story of Printing and publishing in Stokesley, with pioneers like George Markham Tweddell and on through to 1980. Much more in between.

As we said in the general introduction, this site provides not an evaluation but a resource for further research and a outline story that hopefully will be dicussed, thought about and further researched.

THE GEOGRAPHICAL LOCATION

The area covered is hard to define exactly. The political boundaries and names have changed quite a few times but probably what's regarded as North Yorkshire including the Tees Valley best describes the area covered in terms of the current designations. It covers from Hartlepool down to Scarborough - from Catterick in the east to the north yorkshire sea cliffs.

 (A map will be added when I've sorted the image gallery out)

 "The Fire and the Horror" The Representation of Teesside in Fiction - by Andy Croft (Soon to be uploaded to this site)

 Andy Croft has mentioned many times in his broadcasts and written work how poorly Teesside is represented in English Literature (Read the full article above) -

"On the face of it Margaret Drabble seems justified in not finding space for an entry on Cleveland in her Oxford Companion to English Literature (though there's room for 'Barsetshire' and 'Wessex' of course). She goes one better in A Writers Britain, a coffee-table study of writing with a sense of place, at the heart of which is a look and the 'industrial scene'. There are vivid, ambivalent accounts by George Borrow of Merthyr, and by John Dyer of Leeds; there's Charlotte Bronte on the West Riding, Ebenezer Elliot on Sheffield, Dickens and Mrs Gaskell on Manchester, Sillitoe and Lawrence on Nottingham, Arnold Bennett on the Five Towns, Orwell on Wigan -but not a mention of that 'infant Hercules' (Middlesbrough) which once set the world price of iron and steel. Instead for an evocation of the 'massive engineering feats...the building of the railways...the explosions and blazing of furnaces of the Industrial Revolution', Drabble turns to Tolkien's Lord of the Rings..." The Fire and the Horror - The Representation of Teesside in Fiction - Andy Croft (The full text of Andy's essay will be found on this site soon) (and this designation will link to it!)

Middlesbrough is relatively new town but as William Hall Burnett (former Editor of the Middlesbrough Daily Exchange) "it is a fact that Middlesbrough is surrounded by a district in which aforetime many have accomplished wonderful things, not only in the domain of trade and commerce, but in the larger worlds of art and literature" OLD CLEVELAND - Local Writers and Local Worthies 1886)

 AN 19TH CENTURY ASSERTION FOR ENGLISH LITERARY BEGINNINGS IN THE AREA

Far from dismissing the area as a cultural desert, Burnett in 1886, in discussing Aneurin - the Celtic Bard to whom the Gododin (Y Gododdin) is ascribed and whose verses lament the dead who fell in the battle of Cattreth (alleged to be Catterick in North Yorkshire) states "we may fairly claim that hereabouts, English Literature had it's first beginnings" He goes on to say " it's a fair conjecture that the first of English epic poems were strung together line by line and verse by verse by a bard who wandering amoungst the valleys of the Swale, might now and again visit the fair plain of Cleveland in the golden east" Coupled with the knowledge that Caedmon was based in Whitby and Lealholm on the North Yorkshire moors and whose verses inspired Milton's Paradise Lost and Beowulf allegedly buried on Boulby Cliff (near Staithes) and associated with Hartlepool - an argument emerges, that at least in theory, the early English cannon was forged in this general area. That should be enough to prompt some minds to dig a little deeper (although finding evidence for that far back might be somewhat tricky.) Then, back in 1872 Tweddell alleges Gower the Moral (a poet himself and Chaucer's mentor) was born Stitenham and resided in Sexhow near Stokesley and then stories of the Romantics associated with and writing in Stockton and Norton, emerge and Byron's wife Anna Milbanke was the daughter of the Mayor of Hartlepool (himself a shipping magnet in Hartpool) and Thomas Hogg of Norton House in Norton on Tees was Shelley's first biographer and Wordsworth allegedly wrote the first part of the White Doe of Ryleston in Stockton on Tees.

Might this be enough in itself to stimulate more research into the literary history of the area. This section of the site aims only to bring together materials and starting points for research and reassement of the area's literary history.

THE MAJOR COMMENTATORS ON THE LITERARY HISTORY OF THE AREA

We will also be looking at some of the literary figures on this site like William Hall Burnett and George Markham Tweddell who are major informants on the subject. Indeed much Burnett's work derives from an early work by Tweddell - The brilliant Bards and Authors of Cleveland and South Durham published by Tweddell and Sons in Stokesley in 1872. Through an early version of this site I got to meet, correspond and work with one of the Tweddell's descendants - Paul Markham Tweddell and we have put together a range of projects to record the achievements and contributions of his forebears (including his poet wife - Elizabeth (AKA Florence Clevleland - the celbrated dialect poet). This includes a website biography (see the side bar links), a book on the family history of the Tweddell family (in progress); the publishing of the entire collection of Tweddell's poetry (shortly to be published); the consolodation of the family and public Tweddell archives now resident in the County archives in Middlebrough along with a box of hitherto uncatologued materials; the possiblity of of a film (pending making contact with local film makers etc.; the eventual re-publication of Tweddell key publications; the creation of a literary museum (or exhibiton) for the area with a section covering Tweddell and the Printing and publishing in Stokesley. (irons in the fire!). Further reasearch has been taking place in dialogue with experts like Dr Malcolm Chase of Leeds University who has advised on Tweddell's Chartist involvement in Stokesley. We are also seeking a reappraisal of Tweddell's full collection of poetic works.

Other descendants have come to light while working on the site too - and we have research on the Bard of the Dales - John Castillo from Lealholm and more that will be revealed as we go along.

George Markham Tweddell wrote in the introduction to The Bards and Authors of Cleveland and South Durham "My object in the present volume is, to bring under the notice of the poeple of Cleveland and South Durham, the Bards and other authors, who by birth or residence, have been connected with the district....few if any of the subscribers to this work will possess the publications of all the writers of which I have made extracts......I have long cherished the idea of a work similar to Chambers's excellent Cyclopaedia Of English Literature, to be confined to the Poets and Prose Writers of the North of England."

Tweddell, writing in 1872 was thus convinced of the area's literary status and his book contained no less than 37 Bards and Authors associated with Cleveland and South Durham and a further 106 or more earmarked for the follow on. Tweddell acknowleges that this list is not exhaustive when he says "I could name a local writer for every tick of my watch". We will publish the list on this site. Not quite a 'desert' THEN! We do not know the extent to which the second volume had developed althought it is known he had notes beyond the contents of his first volume of Bards and Authors. As Paul Tweddell told me, GMT (George Markham Tweddell) 's notes were stored in the basement of Rose Cottage (Now the Town house in Stokesley) and were destroyed in the floods of the 1930's along with his unpublished notes towards the completion of his People's History of Cleveland (unfinished ground breaking work).

The story also takes in Laurence Sterne whose 'Eugenius' was based on the eccentric John Hall Stevenson - owner of Skelton Castle and that's not all......

 If your curiosity has been aroused read on as the site fill up with materials often hidden from history.

 Trev Teasdel

 

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