STORM AND COMPANY

Jacob Storm's Memoirs.

Chapter 1 page 2

The Bay Chapel was built in 1778 on plots of land bought from Matthew Storm, who may have been the Matthew who built Prospect House, although he died in 1787 and I have seen nothing in the parish books before that. I believe it was the first house on the Bank Top, after the ancient farms. At that time, that is to say towards the end of the eighteenth century, the shipping was beginning to pay off and it is said that the timber used in Prospect House was brought from Scandinavia in the family's own ships. I should think timber from the Baltic was the normal trade for them, and in reasonable weather, cargoes could be brought ashore from ships lying off. Matthew's daughter Dorothy married John Moorsom, descendant of one of the oldest Bay families, which prompts me to remark that speak of one Bay family and you speak of them all. John, to cap it, had Francis Storm as a brother-in-law. The Moorsoms did well out of Whitby whaling; and John and Dorothy had a son, Richard, who became a Whitby magistrate, and built Airy Hill in 1790 . His leading whaling captain was one of our Bedlington kin, and it was Richard's son Robert who commanded the Revenge at Trafalgar (9).

Another lady who married away and whose descendants I have been able to follow was my great-grandfather's sister Frances (1713 to 1798) who first married Robert Richardson, Master Mariner of Robin Hood's Bay, and one of another family with which we have links too numerous to record. Two years after their marriage, Robert was drowned and Frances took her infant son Robert to Sunderland on her remarriage to Captain Joseph Wright, of a family with longstanding interest in Bay shipping (10). The Wright fortunes were followed in Sunderland shipping, and young Robert became a shipowner there and married Isabella Atmar, daughter and heiress of Gerard Atmar, a prosperous innkeeper with a lot of property in the town. Research into this branch ... led me to Mrs. Leighton, Frances's great-great-great-grandchild whose husband happily turned out to be a pedigree agent in London. Together we found Gerard Atmar Richardson, M.D. of Plantation Enterprise, Demerara, and Robert, master Mariner, son of Robert and Isabella, prisoner-of-war in the fortress of Vedun in 1811. Frances's male descendants on the Wright side became lawyers in Sunderland for several generations (10). Through Frances too there is a link with the ancient Northumbrian name of Shaftoe, and it is time, and time alone, that calls a halt to these explorations.

Not all the men stayed in Bay in the old days, and even if they did, most of them travelled the world's seas a good deal. My grandfather's cousin Edward had an interesting career far from his boyhood haunts and the fishing, although he remained a sailor. He ran off to sea on his mother's remarriage and for the rest of his life, went by her maiden name of Hall. In 1776, he married in New York the daughter of the master of a West India packet. He commanded the transport 'Empress of Russia' before entering the Navy as master in 1777, and went on to see considerable fighting in HM Ships 'Vigilant', 'Cornwall' and 'Sandwich', and aboard the last, he was Admiral Rodney's Navigator. The Admiral stood godfather to one of his sons, George Rodney, who died while still a midshipman. Edward became Master Intendant at Antigua, and died there of yellow fever. His eldest son, another Edward Storm, alias Hall, had an active and adventurous career which is related in O'Byrne's 'Dictionary of Naval Biography' p186. This last Edward's grandson was a lawyer in the employ of the Post Office and he visited me at Bay to look up his kinsfolk and became a frequent visitor and correspondent (11). We shared an interest in carpentry and woodcarving.

There was a mystery that he and I could not for certain resolve. The mother of the runaway Edward remarried and her second husband was John Granger. Her youngest son was called Reuben and in the crew list of the 'Empress of Russia', there is one Reuben Granger. Whether he was Edward's brother or half-brother I do not know for sure. What is sure is that Reuben was lost when the 'Ville de Paris', a prize, foundered in 1782 in a Caribbean storm, and there is a tradition in that branch of the family that Reuben followed Edward's fortunes and went to sea.

Of the men who stayed with local vessels, not all were entirely concerned with the fishing, and some at least found part of their livelihood in trading. My great-grandfather Andrew Storm once took a cargo of cloth, hundreds of yards of stuff, to Yarmouth in an open boat. That was in 1767, and the event was recalled in the 'Whitby Gazette's' 'Old Time Diary' some years ago. There are still those who will remember how, before the days of the railway, when a family wanted to move to Middlesborough or Shields, as many did eventually, it was usual for the household goods to go by sea, it being easier that way.

A look at Mr.R.Weatherill's excellent compilation, "The Ancient Port of Whitby and its Shipping", 1908, p42 and 48, will show how Taylor and Isaac Storm were owners of the ships 'Constant Matthew' and 'Matthews' early as 1747 and 1749 respectively (12). I don't think they were involved in the alum trade which depended on the sea transport (the Peak alum works being more or less inaccessible otherwise) because the large amount of ship rates they paid to the parish, in accordance with local custom, indicates vessels too big for that sort of work on our rocky shores.

Isaac made a will in 1763 and it gives the impression that shipping had made him fairly comfortably off. The witnesses to Isaac's will were Edward Cayley and William Hauxwell. The latter had succeeded Arthur Cayley, deceased, as curate. Isaac also mentioned a Benjamin Chapman, Mary Storm's husband, who was a master mariner and came of the Whitby banking family which was to provide. the Bank of England with a director and Whitby with a member of Parliament. Aaron, the infant son of Benjamin and Mary, is buried in the old churchyard.

These people were mixed up with the shipping business. Very interesting to me too was the will of Isaac's grandfather, Thomas, because there went with it a list of his goods at the time of his death, and these possessions help a reader to build a picture in his mind of how a Bay fisherman lived about two hundred and fifty years ago. Thomas, with Robert and Bartholomew Storm, James Helme and Robert Staincliffe, was drowned near Filey Brig in 1690, and this number of crew shows they must have been in one of the bigger Bay boats.

There is no doubt that, over the years, the fishing paid, if the awful cost in life and limb is not taken into account, and there followed a movement into shipping and trading. In either business, the risks of many kinds were high.

The earliest parish record I could find of our local shipping was in the Constable Book for 1751, when the rate to be paid by owners to parish funds was a penny in the pound.

Owners, some of whom were masters, paid as follows:

This rating system was absent from any parish books I saw dated after 1818. The payment in poor rates alone of £33 on fifteen ships seems to have been the finishing touch.
(Editor's note: Some 1795 rates for the upkeep of St Stephens are available)

More has been written and said about illicit than about lawful trade on the coast, and in my opinion it is only reasonable to suppose that those who had boats or ships mixed fishing and trading with a little smuggling. It was only too easy when Dutch and English fishing fleets met in the middle of the North Sea. The career of William Storm (1783-1851) illustrates what could happen, because his gear was confiscated and he saw the inside of Morpeth or Durham Gaol (I don't remember which) and he died poor. He is to be found listed among the inmates of Whitby Seamen's Hospital, towards the end of his days, about the time I was bound apprentice. Poor William traded around a bit in his father's brigantine 'Juno' which was chiefly employed in the Hamburg trade, but in 1815 when William and his younger brother James were master and mate of her, she brought Louis Philippe of France over from Ostend to Harwich and into exile. It is a little amusing, after the passage of years, to recall that William's uncle by marriage was Officer of Customs John Spink.

My grandmother Storm's cousin, John Pearson, was another offender I knew in my young days, and he lost his holdings in Staintondale.

My readers so far, if any, will surely have realised by now what a great source of interest Robin Hood's Bay and its people have been for me, and how great my affection is for the place. But some may well want to know how I came by some of my information, which is not from historical books and documents.

The answer is that the collection of information was one of my interests long before my retirement from sea. It must be remembered that I was born in 1837, and that as three-score and ten is no great age among Bay folk I knew many old people who had tales to tell of a hundred and fifty years ago. When I first went to sea my grandfather, Andrew, was still living and the parish register shows he was baptised in 1778. Then there was Israel Allison of one our "original" Bay families. He was baptised in 1744 and I remember him slightly*. He was a kinsman, and he followed the usual path which led to the sea and became master. When he was commanding a transport in the French wars, with his son as mate, he was captured by the enemy and he remained in their hands for many years, but Israel made up for lost time by living on at Bay till he was nearly one hundred years old. Another long in French hands was Matthew Storm.

*(Editor's Note: The lives of Isreal Allison, Jacob and the latter's grandson, Alan, overlap. Thus Alan remembers sitting on Jacob's knee and hearing him say, "You can see me but I can't see you", for Jacob's eyesight had failed by then in 1926. Put these memories and three lives together and there is a span of two and a half centuries!)

Letters of my own family and of my mother's have been another useful source. Among them, I have kept those of my great uncle William Richardson who was pressed into the navy in 1794 and wrote with great affection to his parents from several of HM ships. I think some extracts from these would not be out of place. He wrote from London in July, 1790, saying, " I have no protection now. My master cannot get any for me but he has put me and John Castles ashore to a very good house until our ship be out. We are at Mrs. Kennedy's, grocer, in Wapping. They pressed three of our boys last night ... but the master expects to get them clear again'. It would seem that William avoided the pressgang then, but in 1794 he reported from Spithead, " I have been pressed aboard the 'Saturn' . . which is very hard after coming off a long tedious voyage from India after a passage of eight months from China. I was in great hopes ... of seeing you. I don't know when I shall have the opportunity ... as there is no expectation of the war being over soon". A year later William's letter came from HMS "Brunswick" at Spithead, "fitting out with all our might", and in August 1796 the vessel was at Spithead "not as yet sailed". By the end of the year she was in the West Indies and William sent from there news of the death by yellow fever of "my old friend and playmate and much lamented Martin Pearson ... He died in Port Royal Hospital and earnestly begged me to write to you ... I am sorry to acquaint you that the West Indies is very sickly at present. We have lost one hundred hands since we left England".

Martin Pearson I can best identify through his mother Mary (nee Storm) who had a house in Bay Quarter and rented Moorsom's Ground or Goose Gates , now held by Wm. Wood of Croft Farm, Thorpe. Mary's brother was John Storm or 'Auld Stormy' who kept a public house in Long Entry where they brewed strong ale. Edward Storm, late of Thorpe, once tried it as a boy and was intoxicated for the first and last time in his life.

As well as Martin, there was also at Port Royal in 1796 Joseph Tindale whom William once visited aboard the frigate 'Lubeck'. I wonder how many others of our people were in that dreadful place then. Joseph was lucky, for he survived, and if my memory serves me right, he commanded the locally owned brig 'Mercury' many years after he got out of the Navy.

The last letter from HMS Brunswick is to my Richardson great-grandparents from one William Rushmore informing them of the 'Miserable News of your son W. Richardson who was drowned on the 20 May. I thought proper to write to you my being shipmates of him seven years and messmates with him so long. . .'. That was in June and in October, another letter shows how my great-grandfather, whose ship was in the Wear, called on his relative Joseph Wright, the lawyer in Sunderland, to see about son William's affairs. In a sad letter, he wrote home to Bay that there was no word from the Admiralty about the dead men and that he was to put to sea. 'We are all loaded ready for sea', he says. 'John Bedlington is in and will be loaded tomorrow. Give my love to all our family'. I hope I shall be forgiven a little pride when I say these people were cast in a stoic mould.

Whilst on subjects connected with the pressgang, I recall the rule of the Unanimous Benefit Society of Robin Hood's Bay, whose meetings started at the King's Head, kept at that time by Isaac Barnard, who was related in one way or another to most of those present, including my grandfather. That was in 1784, and the rule book in those far off hard times said that any member who was pressed into the Navy would be entitled to 'benefit on return to Robin Hood Town' - provided he paid off arrears of subscriptions.

Mention of the Benefit Society reminds me that there was an attempt to run such a society for the young men of Bay. James Storm, the aforementioned mate of the 'Juno' was one of the last members of this, and from his daughter Rebecca (Mrs. Wm. Bedlington) I learnt how he used his share of the funds at the winding up to buy a grandfather clock.

Putting all my gleanings together, gives me such pleasure that I have to confess that I am writing for my own amusement as well as to satisfy the curiosity of my descendants, but they will be unusual people if they are not inquisitive enough to want to know the sort of folk they came from.

Now I am coming nearer to the point where I can give an account of my own career, one typical of the mariners of Bay Town.

PHOTO: View northward over the village

Footnotes: (9)The builder of Airy Hill was in fact the nephew and ward of John and Dorothy. His son was Admiral Sir Robert Moorsom KCB.
(10) Jon Joseph Wright was a Deputy Lieutenant of Durham and Solicitor to the Sunderland Dock Company and the Sunderland Improvement Commissioners.
(11) "Grandson" is meant here.

(12)Richard Weatherill, The Ancient Port of Whitby and its Shipping, 1908.
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