In
my research into the family’s history I came across an interesting man who
married into my family. As a young Newcastle man, he had quickly developed a
career in journalism, rising to a position of editor of the Newcastle “Evening Chronicle”.
However he was to die at the early age of 30 as a result an illness contracted
earlier in his career whilst reporting on a famous pit disaster.
His
name was ADAM PATTERSON. Born in Duke’s
Street, Newcastle, on the 23rd December 1857, he was the eldest son
of WILLIAM and JANE (nee Gray). William Patterson was initially from Falstone
and had married Jane at Alwinton in 1851. Around about 1856 the family moved to
Newcastle where William was employed as a Grocer’s porter and later as a
Warehouseman. Adam had been named after his grand father ADAM PATTERSON, a
Shepherd in the Falstone area.
After
being educated in the Newcastle area Adam went into newspaper reporting,
working first for the “Northern Daily Express”. This paper was originally
published in Darlington in 1855 but then moved to Newcastle later the same
year. In 1878 Adam left the “Express” to join the leading Newcastle paper the “Chronicle”. Known to his colleagues as “Ned”, he has been recorded as “an
excellent, enterprising and conscientious journalist, an inspiration to those
around him”.
He represented
the Chronicle at Bishop Auckland and North Shields. and was for some time
attached to the London office. The best years of his short life were spent reporting in the city of Newcastle, later as
the editor of the “Evening Chronicle”, to which he was appointed when it was
first started to be published in November 1885.
Adam Patterson
His
obituary in the Newcastle “Weekly Chronicle” states that he “was a most
accomplished stenographer”. This is a possible link to my great grandfather’s
sister ALICE LATTIMER SNAITH (1859-1941) whom Adam was to marry in June 1884.
Their grandfather JOSEPH SNAITH was a
schoolteacher in the Sheriff’s Hill area of Gateshead and is known to have developed his own method of Shorthand.
An
important episode in Adam’s life was the reporting he undertook at the Seaham
Mining disaster which occurred on Wednesday 8th September 1880. An explosion
-brought
about by the ignition of coal dust- resulted in the massive and terrible loss
of 164 lives.
Adam
Patterson was present, just after the disaster, reporting
on behalf of the “Weekly Chronicle” and was exposed to a night of drenching
rain which gave him a chill that fastened on his system. Adam suffered an
attack of rheumatic fever which nearly terminated his life. He recovered and was to live in good health for
another eight years before the complaint reoccurred, causing his death at the
age of 30. Adam died on the 29th November 1888 at his home in Hall
Terrace, Gateshead. He was buried at the Elswick Cemetery in Newcastle.
ALICE
and ADAM PATTERSON had three children.
WILLIAM (1885-1918), DOROTHY ANGUS (1886-1923) and finally MARGARET, born in
May 1888, just six months before Adam’s death. Some years after this the widowed Alice and her family went out to
join other members of the Snaith family who had moved to Natal, South
Africa. She lived in and around the capital
Pietermaritzburg and before the end of the century remarried to SKIDMORE FOWLER
ASHBY (1865 -1928). His family
originally from the Staines, Middlesex area prior to emigrating.
Adam’s
interest and professional ability in journalism was passed on to other family
members. His brother-in-law JOHN ANTHONY SNAITH (1861-1939) was a reporter on
the “Darlington and Stockton Times” for over 45 years. He was a reporter in the Northallerton,
Allertonshire and the whole of Weasleydale area. His name was a household word in the widely scattered district.
Also,
before the 1st World War Adam’s only son WILLIAM PATTERSON was an up
and coming journalist. He began his career in the office of the “Natal Witness” in South
Africa. When still in his teens he received an appointment on the staff of the Johannesburg
paper “The Star” under the editorship of the Mr W. F. Monypenny, who was at the
date of his death a director of “The Times”, London. William was well known in
South African newspaper circles, having held positions on the staffs of the
“Transvaal Leader” and the “Cape Times”. He was a very capable journalist who was to die fighting in
Belgium near the end of 1st World War.
Obviously
ADAM appears to be as quoted in his obituary “a gentleman of amiable temperament and
undoubted capacity, and was always regarded with affection by those who
surrounded him in newspaper life”. A man who had a marked affect on those
around him with respect to work and family.
A true Victorian journalist.
Dr Brian Snaith
25 Alexandra Drive, Yoxall,
Staffordshire, DE13 8PL.
email : briansnaith@aol.com