A Glance at the History of Stokesley – GM Tweddell

A GLANCE AT THE HISTORY OF STOKESLEY

George Markham Tweddell – From A People’s History of Cleveland and its Vicinage.

Tweddell & Sons, Stokesley c1880 (next to Hovis shop)

George Markham Tweddell was born in Stokesley in 1823 and with the exception of a period in Bury and a period in Middlesbrough, lived most of his life in the North Yorkshire Town. Paul Tweddell gave me a guided tour of the ‘Tweddell Trail” in Stokesely of which we later made a small video of. This article by Tweddell was part of a major work The People’s History of Cleveland for which he collected material towards most of his life. Only four issues came out before his death in 1903 and much of his notes were lost in the Stokesley floods of the 1930’s when relatives failed to rescue them from the flooding cellar of Rose Cottage, and saved his books instead. There were copies of his books elsewhere but not his notes. However Tweddell draw on his collection of materials to inform his other books such as his book on Redcar and Saltburn and Bards and Authors.

This is a pdf file of his article on Stokesley, starting with the Domesday Book taking us through the origin of the name through the ancient history through the changing crafts and industries in the town and the arrival of the railway mentioning along the way GMT’s great grandfather – Horatio Tweddell, who at 18, and a sailor, was the ring leader of a group of anti-papists who were caught pulling the tiles off the local Catholic church.

To download the file – click the arrow which takes you to Google Drive

When it opens – click the black arrow screen left to download to your computer.or for some – Click File and then click download in the menu and the tick Save.

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