Power To The People
We are nearing the end of our ‘Meet the Songs’ series for our ‘Power To The People’ show on November 18th, 2018 at The People’s Theatre in Heaton, Newcastle. All the songs we are singing were written in support of change for the better. From our introduction in part 1, here is the conclusion about ‘The Toon Improvement Bill’ from our very own Peter Berrie…
The Toon Improvement Bill – Episode 2. So what was it really about?
Show day is hurtling towards us and as we anticipated The Toon Improvement Bill is proving just the challenge we were expecting! Peter has kindly delved a little deeper to give us the real story…
In August 1853, the Town Improvement Bill was debated in parliament. It was an epic bill with 227 sections with all sorts of improvements. Section 11 introduced gas lighting to Nottingham; in section 23, water was introduced to Cambridge; section 41, a railway from Chichester to Bognor and section 182 was “for the more effectual improvement of the Borough of Newcastle upon Tyne”. Earlier that year, a number of public debates had been held in Newcastle to discuss the bill. Reports in the Newcastle Journal shed light on the contents of the bill and the attitudes of some residents. All that follows is from those newspaper reports.
What the papers said…
With modern eyes, some of the improvements were positive. Better streets, wider pathways; a window in every room in a house and all drains to run into a main sewer! Publicans would be forbidden to sell spirits to children under 14 and the council would force pubs to close on Sundays. One commentator supported this, saying “If a working man got drunk on a Saturday night yet had the whole of Sunday to sober him up, there was a better chance of him working on Monday.” It was said that both publicans and Sunday school teachers supported this!
One of the biggest changes was that the council was given the power to set Corporation Rates against rents from occupants. With the exception of “wretched tenements” where the owner would be charged rather than the tenant. Public debate decided that “wretched” would be set at “under £5 rent a year”! In return for “inflicting borough rates”, the paper thought that the council “ought to provide inhabitants with some place of public recreation equivalent to the Forth of which they had taken possession and sold for building and other purposes”. Here we see the roots of Ned’s chorus.
Commemorative plaque in honour of Ned Corvan’s public debut. Located on an outside wall at Newcastle’s Central Station, formerly the site of the Royal Olympic Concert Hall.
Another proposed improvement was to local roads. The paper reported that “the state of the town opposite St Nicholas church was not what it ought to be as well as the non-formation of roads leading to the High Bridge”. One man thought that the extension of a street leading from Grainger Street to the railway station was essential and another suggested that the railway company ought to make their own approaches and that they had “walked over the public sufficiently already” … to much laughter.
Some amusing commentary!
In addition, the bill proposed to extend the town boundaries so that roads in outlying districts could be improved. One man said that “In the township of Byker, there was no road passable at all”. He thought it “highly desirable” to include some outer townships in the act. Mr Grace contradicted this, saying that “the roads of Heaton, Byker and Jesmond are in a better state than the corporation roads and they also cost a lot less”. The first man retorted that the bad roads were private ones that the owners refused to maintain. The newspaper report provided some great quotes:
- Mr Robinson said there were “at least 200 clauses that were foolish, arbitrary or obnoxious and that if the meeting intended to go into each one in detail, they would require a meeting every week for 17 years!”
- Another man said that the “jobbery and corruption” was in the committees rather than the council, suggesting that self-interest was alive and well back in the 1850s!
- Adam Telfer: “The bill turns the police into bum-bailiffs”. He was referring to the provision for police to stop a man moving his furniture in the street to ask if he had paid his landlord!
- Ralph Walters: “The bill appears to be an incongruous mass of nonsense”. He particularly objected to council slaughterhouses being set up as they could be detrimental to butchers in the town.
Perhaps the most amusing comment came from one George Charlton who said “I wouldn’t be surprised if they next come up with a clause telling us all what time to go to bed”. In a “pre-echo” of Brexit, he added “I thought I was standing in England or have I, by some sort of magic, been transported to the continent because this is some sort of Italian bill telling me how to act, manage and do everything”. He said he thought he could pick out five or six “plain working men” and make a better bill than this.
The verdict and what next?
So the bill brought big changes to the town. We lost The Forth forever and began to pay council rates. But we also gained decent roads and drainage and stopped kids under 14 being served spirits. Not such a bad trade-off in the end … or is the jury still out?!
This was an entertaining look at the Toon Improvement Bill but there was also another side to the story. We have an amazing account from one of our singers about the dramatic effect the bill had on her family. We’ll be sharing this with you all very soon…
Special thanks to Peter Berrie for the time, care and attention he has poured in to his research and writing for us. Don’t forget Peter’s passion is Genealogy. He will be more than happy to chat to you about any interest you have in your own family history. Make sure you check out his recently launched Genealogy Cafe to find out more!
