A HOUSE IN ALBERT STREET - THE HOME OF THE LAWS/WATSON FAMILY FOR FOUR GENERATIONS
When Anthony Laws and his family moved into Albert Street the house had no front door. The two rows of houses that were to make up ‘Top Garesfield’, Albert and Alexandra Streets, had only just been built.
Anthony junior, the family’s youngest child at the time, was all of six months old; the year was 1879, the month December.
Anthony junior, the family’s youngest child at the time, was all of six months old; the year was 1879, the month December.
Anthony Laws, a cooper by profession, was from Bill Quay, his wife Sarah from Wreckington, and the family had been living in nearby Medomsley as of 1871.
Within ten years of settling in Victoria Garesfield however, tragic misfortune befell the family when Anthony Laws was involved in a fatal accident while at work underground. On 21 March 1888 Anthony Laws, along with two other men, had gone to help clear a fall and in the process was caught in a second fall that claimed his life.
Anthony was aged 46 and, as stated in the accident report sheet, was working as an ‘engine-plane man’.
Anthony was aged 46 and, as stated in the accident report sheet, was working as an ‘engine-plane man’.
No compensation was paid to Anthony Law’s widow for the loss of the family’s wage-earner and with no member of the household now in the collliery’s employ, to be able to continue to live in Albert Street in a colliery-owned house, Sarah Laws had no other option than to take in a man in the colliery’s employ as a lodger. Lodgers generally received accommodation only and according to information passed down through the generations, the lodger at the Law’s house in Albert Street used to take his meals alone on a barrel under the stairs.
Once of working age, Anthony junior duly got himself a start at Victoria Garesfield, the family said goodbye to their lodger, and life went on at the Law’s home in Albert Street.
Once of working age, Anthony junior duly got himself a start at Victoria Garesfield, the family said goodbye to their lodger, and life went on at the Law’s home in Albert Street.
Anthony Laws Junior
In December 1906, aged 27, Anthony Junior married Esther Jane Ridley from Victoria Terrace whose father was a blacksmith at the colliery; the Ridley family having been in Victoria Garesfield as early as 1878.
Surname Forename Age Year Born Relation Occupation Birth Place
Ridley William Arkley 34 1847 Head Head Black Smith at Colliery Barnsley, Northumberland
Ridley Mary Ellen 29 1852 Wife Black Smith’s Wife Derwent Cote, Durham
Ridley Ellen 3 1878 Daughter Black Smith’s Daughter Victoria Garesfield, Durham
Ridley Esther Jane 1 1880 Daughter Black Smith’s Daughter Victoria Garesfield, Durham
Ridley William Arkley 34 1847 Head Head Black Smith at Colliery Barnsley, Northumberland
Ridley Mary Ellen 29 1852 Wife Black Smith’s Wife Derwent Cote, Durham
Ridley Ellen 3 1878 Daughter Black Smith’s Daughter Victoria Garesfield, Durham
Ridley Esther Jane 1 1880 Daughter Black Smith’s Daughter Victoria Garesfield, Durham
Durham Census Transcript 1881: 16 Victoria Garesfield Colliery
Thereafter, the house in Albert Street in turn became the home of Anthony Laws Junior’s family with the birth of their daughter Gwendoline in 1909.
Anthony Laws senior would have had every reason to be proud of his name-sake; Anthony Laws junior was known as an upright, hard-working man and was a well-respected member of the local community. He worked his way up to become a deputy at Victoria Garesfield, and was a regular church-goer; in his time he was a pillar of nearby St Patrick’s Church where he attended to the altar and dug the graves.
During the 1926 strike, to enable his neighbours, ‘marras’, and fellow villagers to get coal to heat their homes, he opened up access to the Coronation drift located just behind Albert and Alexandra Streets.
Anthony Laws senior would have had every reason to be proud of his name-sake; Anthony Laws junior was known as an upright, hard-working man and was a well-respected member of the local community. He worked his way up to become a deputy at Victoria Garesfield, and was a regular church-goer; in his time he was a pillar of nearby St Patrick’s Church where he attended to the altar and dug the graves.
During the 1926 strike, to enable his neighbours, ‘marras’, and fellow villagers to get coal to heat their homes, he opened up access to the Coronation drift located just behind Albert and Alexandra Streets.
Anthony Laws Junior – Coronation Drift Victoria Garesfield 1926
The Watson Family
While fate led Anthony’s only daughter to meet and marry from outside the village and local area, Gwendoline Laws could not be persuaded to leave the area. Gwendoline married Alexander Watson a forestry worker from Berwick in St Patrick’s Church in the summer of 1940 and in time the house in Albert Street in turn to become their home, and later property they were to own.
In the run up to privatisation, when the colliery owners Priestman and Peile proceeded to liquidate their assets, the houses in Albert and Alexandra Streets were offered for sale to the families already housed there. Those in Albert Street were available at a slightly lower price than those immediately opposite in Alexandra Street, as Alexandra Street backed onto woodland thus benefitting from a slightly better location. Gwendoline and Alexander Watson bought the house in Albert Street in September 1945.
When Gwendoline and Alexander first met, as the daughter of a pitman, never losing sight of the coal allowance that went with the job, Gwendoline had suggested Alexander look for work at the colliery. As a man of the great outdoors however, Alexander maintained that working underground would be his undoing and instead found work with the local forestry commission in nearby Chopwell Woods just steps from the family home in Albert Street; the perfect compromise. |
VE DAY CELEBRATIONS - ALBERT STREET IN THE BACKGROUND - 8 MAY 1945