Ray King 2015
I was exciting to see the picture of a house on the Husthwaite Local History Society website. I remembered the day when we had stood in front of that same house and my mother told me, “That is where I was born”. The house, on the north side of Low Street, was Hazeldene, now renamed Carlbury, and I recognised immediately the unusual topiary in the front garden. I did not, at that time, realise the house was slightly grand for a village blacksmith but the full story would be revealed in time.
My grandfather, John Leslie Long was the third of our family to be a village blacksmith in Husthwaite and I had decided last year to fill out the history of his family and that of my grandmother, Annie Muriel Slater in the Husthwaite of Victorian times.
I had begun the research some years ago. I knew that my great-great grandfather, John Long was found in the 1851 census to be apprenticed at age fourteen to a blacksmith in Brandsby. His parents were Christopher and Jane Long from Yearsley and Christopher was a farm labourer. From John’s apprenticeship, the blacksmithing trade was to continue for three generations.
By 1891 John was listed as working for himself as a blacksmith in Husthwaite and living with his wife Ann, son Christopher (also a blacksmith) and three other children. John was listed as a local tradesman in an 1890 directory. He had acquired a forge in the Nookin, then known as Pilgrim Street. Chris was shown to be born at East Heslerton, a small hamlet on the road between Malton and Filey, so John may have previously worked in the East Riding.
We know that Chris was working for his father in the business in 1888, for both his name and his trade were mentioned in the Thirsk newspaper. Beacon banks rises up to the east of Husthwaite and it was probably an area where young people met in their leisure hours. It was here that in the April of that year Chris was attacked their by two young men, one Henry Daniels and one other un-named. Daniels was fined ten shillings.
When Chris was about twenty seven, he had met Harriet Boyes and they wanted to marry. His parents (and possibly hers) disapproved. They decided to head for Australia, where my family think that Harriet had relatives, and travelled as far as Hull for a sailing before changing their minds, probably as Harriet was found to be pregnant with my grandfather. The family ill-feeling must have remained strong as they did not return straight away to Husthwaite. Chris was already a fully trained blacksmith and acquired work in the East Riding. They married in 1893 and their son, Leslie (my grandfather) was born in Seaton Ross the following year.
It is interesting that Harriet Boyes, from Ampleforth, was related to William Boyes of the hardware retailing chain who opened his first shop in Scarborough in 1881. An interesting article was written by Malcolm Boyes for the Dalesman magazine. Harriet’s parents and previous generations had lived in Wombleton and from there the article relates that, in the early eighteen fifties, John and Thomas Boyes had set off first to South Africa and then on to Australia, looking to find a fortune in gold. They were unlucky and returned home but some of that adventurous spirit must have passed on. Indeed three of the grandchildren of Harriet and Chris were to make their homes in Australia in the nineteen fifties.
By the time Chris and Harriet’s first son was seven the family were back in Husthwaite according to the 1901 census. From the reminiscences of Husthwaite people collected just a few years ago I see that the Wesleyan Church had an evening to raise funds for an orphanage and recitations were given by a number of children including J. L. Long ( John Leslie) and A. M. Slater (Annie Muriel). My grandparents had known each other from being children in the village. They would have been together in Sunday School as well as the village school.
Muriel was a daughter of Tom and Elizabeth Slater. Tom started out as a carpenter and was known in the village to have built up his business into what was known locally as “the firm”, providing farm equipment.
And so we are back full circle. Tom Slater owned Hazeldene on Low Street. My mother was indeed born there. Tom had rented a cottage behind the house to his daughter and son in law, Muriel and Leslie. Their first children were to be born in the Slaters’ house with grandmother Elizabeth as midwife. Tom and Elizabeth’s son, John Robert, also a carpenter, still lived there in the nineteen thirties. My mother remembered him as Uncle Jack. Leslie’s parents continued to live in Pilgrim Street in a property later to be known as Cote House. The forge still stands to the rear of the drive and is now the premises of a butcher. For many years after the blacksmithing business died, the house was used as a post office.
Annie Muriel sadly died when she was only thirty-five. It seems that she contracted tuberculosis from milking cows in Husthwaite. My mother recalled travelling from York to visit her at Hazeldene, where her father had built for her a structure in the garden where she could have her bed and a good supply of fresh air, as this was thought to be beneficial for t.b. sufferers.
John Leslie was to be the last generation of the Long blacksmiths in Husthwaite. After the war, in 1918, Tom advised him quite wisely to seek work in York. The farrier business was waning and perhaps the Slaters had a good share of the farm repair work. Les found work at the carriage works of British Railways using his blacksmith skills. Sadly, when almost at retirement age, he suffered from a blast from a furnace, was badly burned and needed several skin grafts. However he went on to a long and happy retirement. He joined Muriel in the new Husthwaite graveyard in 1973.
Les’ father, Chris carried on in Husthwaite but finally gave up the working there in the nineteen twenties. Perhaps he sold the business. I do not yet know who took it on. He moved to Maunby, near Northallerton to run a public house. The Buck Inn at Maunby also had a blacksmith’s forge. Sometimes Les would go there on a Saturday to help his father in the forge and my uncle remembers going with him when he was a young boy and seeing the horses lining up ready to be shod. I imagine this was a good business arrangement as the farmers would have time and money to spend in the pub while they were waiting.
I remember Christopher living, retired, in York in the early fifties. I was very young, he was old and unwell. I have a vivid memory of old-fashioned striped pyjamas and a brass bedstead. He gave me a coin, I think a florin, being two shillings and equivalent to 10p in new money.
Many thanks to those who have helped me find information to add to my family’s notes, especially Angela Ovenston, who kindly answered the first e-mail I sent to the Husthwaite Local History Society. We have been in touch ever since. If anyone else has information that might help me, or who would like to know more, I don’t mind if you get in touch with me through RayK@sky.com. I hope later this year to complete an expansion of the history of the Long family in the north riding and to show some of their links with local history.