The Tulley Story

The name Tulley, also spelt Tully, Tullie, Tuly, Tuley and Tuely, appears in Scotland, Lancashire, Northumberland and Durham. Some of the Scottish and Lancashire families were of Irish descent, the name being derived from Tooley. The Northumberland and Durham families were indigenous to those counties. We seem to have been descended from the Northumberland families, though the oldest ancestor that I am sure of, David Tully, may well have arrived in Northumberland from Scotland - there were a lot of Tullys in Midlothian and Berwickshire.

A boy named Tullie gave advance warning of an attack on Carlisle, possibly during the Civil War. The Tullie House Museum & Art Gallery in Carlisle is named after him.

David Tully appears in the Northumberland coastal village of Warkworth. I have found a David Tully being born in Swarland and baptised in Felton (on the banks of the River Coquet, some 15 miles north of Newcastle) in 1735, son of Robert Tully and Margaret Barclay, who married in Longhorsley in 1732. There were Tully families in the area before 1650.

However, I'm not convinced this is the same David - "our" David had at least 13 children, and none were called Robert or Margaret. Robert seems to have been a farmer, yet David was a fisherman. Also, the Warkworth Parish Register describes David as "a fisherman from Scotland" in one entry.

David Tully married Margaret Paul (or possibly her sister Martha - the records are a bit confusing !) in Warkworth in 1768. The Pauls were a local family. Warkworth is on the coast next to Amble, where the River Coquet reaches the sea. Warkworth Castle was the home of the Percy family and was once a very famous castle. David and Margaret lived in Amble Pans, but Margaret died sometime between 1772 and 1777.

David then married Eleanor Matthews in Warkworth in 1778 - David was living in Hauxley, a couple of miles south of Warkworth. David's surname is spelt variously as Tully, Tilly, Telly and Tilloch ! David had had three children with his first wife : he went on to have around ten children with Eleanor.

Warkworth has probably not changed much since the 18th Century - the castle ruins are on the hill above the village, and the parish church is in the village square, right next to the river. The small town of Amble is still a fishing port. Hauxley is just a small collection of farm buildings and cottages - some of them look old enough to have been there in the 18th Century.

David and Eleanor had a son, John Tully, in Warkworth in 1780. John married Elizabeth Short in Bedlington in 1803. In the Bedlington Parish Register, John's surname is spelt Tulley, and the family use that spelling from then on. The Shorts were a family of fishermen and pilots from North Blyth. I have traced their ancestors back to a marriage of Robert Nickelson (son of George) and Jane Bell (daughter of James), who married in Hexham in 1690.


In the 18th Century, North Blyth was the main port on the River Blyth. The Tulleys lived at Link End (also known as Fisher Houses), which was at the very end of the river mouth - pilots and fishermen lived there. North Blyth was a centre for shipbuilding, but this gradually moved across the river and was replaced by coal wharves. Around 1800, South Blyth (now called Blyth) was just a farm and a couple of cottages. Now Blyth is a large mining town and port, whereas North Blyth is just four rows of terraced houses and a pub - it's not even shown on a lot of maps (it's south of Cambois). The spit of land stretching out to the sea now houses a dock and railway siding for the transfer of aluminium, with a wind farm at the very end. Link End was between the dock and the wind farm, on the river side.

John and Elizabeth Tulley had two children in North Blyth, Alice and John, who I'll refer to as John Tulley II. John Tulley senior was drowned on 14th January 1808. He was 28 at the time, and his son was born 5 months after his death.

At the beginning of the 19th century, the Blyth fishermen became very superstitious about the 14th January. On that day in 1802, the fishing boats were overtaken by a storm whilst out on the fishing grounds. A boat capsised whilst running for harbour, and a man named Eastery drowned, the last male of an old Blyth family.

On the 14th January 1805, in the act of boarding in the bight, the vessel "Media of Lynn" was upset and pilots William Watts, Robert Redford, John Hedley and James Nicholson were lost. (We are related to the Hedley and Nicholson families - the Redfords were related to the Short family).

On the 14th January 1808, the fishing fleet was caught in a storm.
>From "Wallace's History of Blyth" :
"One of the boats remaining to haul her lines was, when she did come away, unable to reach the harbour; the wind was from the north-east, with a very large tide and heavy sea. When it was seen from the shore that the boat with the utmost effort from the crew, could not gain the harbour, a boat manned with six men, John Tulley, James Redford, John Hossak, Thomas Short, James Short and James Twizell, went out to render help; but after reaching the struggling boat and making an attempt to bring her into port, such had become the fury of the wind and sea that both boats were driven among the broken water a little to the southward of the harbour and every soul perished and in the presence of hundreds of people who were anxiously watching the heart-rending scene of nine fine fellows exerting their skill and straining every nerve to escape death that appeared every moment more imminent; but vain was the attempt of man, after a most heroic struggle of three hours, they were at length overpowered."

The names of the men in the first boat were Richard Robinson (pilot), his son Richard and his brother-in-law John Burn.

The Blyth fishermen never ventured to sea on the 14th January for many following years. Because of the last disaster, funds were raised to purchase the first lifeboat to be stationed in Blyth.

John Tulley II was a cabinet maker and an innkeeper. John seems to have married Ann Gair in Earsdon (the parish for Blyth) in 1831, and had a son, John Tulley III, in about 1835. John Tulley III's birthplace is given in the 1881 Census as Farringdon, Hampshire - but I find no evidence to support this - I think this is a transcription error. I suspect he was born in or near Blyth.

Farringdon, now divided into the villages of Upper and Lower Farringdon, is in mid-Hants, about 15 miles north-east of Winchester, on the route of the pilgrims' way from Winchester to Canterbury. The next village along is Chawton, home of the novelist Jane Austen from 1809 to 1817.

John Tulley II died in Blyth in 1853, at the age of 45, from Asiatic Cholera (in 12 hours). There were various major cholera epidemics in Northumbria in the 1830's and 1840's. John's death was witnessed by David Tulley - I think he was another son of John Tulley II, possibly a half- brother of John Tulley III. David was born in Blyth in 1826, was a foreman joiner, and moved to South Shields about 1858.

John Tulley III was a draper, then a "van man" and finally an innkeeper like his father. In 1862, when he was about 26, he was living in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. In that year, he married Mary Esther Gray in Bedlington, where she was living at the time. Mary was born in Heworth, Co.Durham, but on the 1881 Census, someone put her birthplace down as Blyth, which made it difficult to trace her.

John and Mary had 7 or 8 children, moving around the Newcastle area before settling in South Shields. Their first child was John Joseph Stephenson Tulley, born in Felling in 1863. Mary's father, Joseph Stephenson Gray (after whom J.J.S. Tulley was obviously named), had been a viewer at Felling Colliery and the Gray family were from Heworth, the next village to Felling in the east Gateshead area. I will deal with J.J.S Tulley in more detail later.

John and Mary's second child was Annie Morrow Tulley, born in Gateshead in 1865. In October 1880, she was "accidentally drowned by the rising tide" at Herd Sand, which is the beach near the pier in South Shields.

A terrible storm had burst over the district on Wednesday night, 27th October 1880. Gales were still blowing on the Thursday evening, and the alarm cannons were fired at 8 o'clock, as the schooner Harry Clem started to founder off the pier, the captain and another man having been lost overboard. The promenade became packed with several thousand spectators.

The ship beached, and the crowd made their way along the beach to the scene of the wreck, walking along a sand bar bounded by the sea on one side and a sheet of water left by the tide (a "gut") on the other. As the tide rose, the sea and the gut united, and waves rolled over the sand bar. There was a stampede, with people up to their waists in water and being swept off their feet.

Four girls aged 11 to 22 and a boy of 14 were drowned, their bodies being found in the gut beside the Volunteer Life Brigade House.

At the inquest two days later, John Tulley said "I am a van-man, and live at No.5 Ocean Road. My daughter's name was Annie Morrow Tulley, and she was 15 years of age last birthday. I was not present when she drowned." Robert Stephenson, a plater from South Shields, said " Everybody was struggling for life ... we came to the body of Annie Morrow Tulley, lying in a pool of water four yards from the sand end. I pulled her out, but she was dead. She was lying in about 2½ ft. of water."

The Coroner said that the efforts of the Life Brigade to save lives on such occasions were much impeded by the people crowding down, especially the women.

Annie was buried "on the consecrated side" of Westoe Cemetery - two of the others were buried on the unconsecrated side, There was a large number of spectators at the funeral.

John and Mary's second son was Archibald Brown Tulley, born in Newcastle. He married in 1893, and was a Colliery Pumpman (working below ground). He died in 1925 aged 57 at 85, Elizabeth Street, South Shields of Pernicious Anaemia ("inability of the stomach to absorb vitamin B12") and Cardiac Failure. His brother J.J.S. Tulley was present at the death.

Now there's a bit of confusion. A child named Ellen Jane Tulley may have been born, possibly in South Shields, in 1869. I can't find any other mentions of her, although an Eleanor Jane Tulley married John Heron in South Shields in 1882 - she may have been the daughter of David Tulley.

A child named Eva MaryTulley was born to John and Mary in Eighton Banks somewhere between 1867 and 1871. She doesn't seem to have married, and died in Sculcoates in 1937.

Eighton Banks is a village to the south of Gateshead. It now seems to be a few streets of terraced housing in a rural mining setting, near Springwell Colliery (owned by the Bowes Co.) The only Sculcoates I can find is in Hull, East Yorkshire.

The three remaining daughters were all born in South Shields.

Harriet Louisa Tulley ("Auntie Harry") married a Master Mariner, John Charles Pottinger. They had four children. One son, John Arthur Pottinger, died in Bahia Blanca, a port in Argentina, in 1929 at the age of 17 (presumably he was a sailor). Another son, Charles (known as Carly), was the Master of the M.V. Ashlea, 4222 tons, which was sunk by the German pocket battleship "Admiral Graf Spee" on October 7th 1939 at position 09° S, 03° W (near Ascension and St. Helena, off the west coast of Africa). Carly and his crew were taken prisoner on board the Graf Spee, and were still on board at the time of the Battle of the River Plate in December 1939. The captured crews (Graf Spee had sunk another merchantman as well) were dropped off in Montevideo, Uruguay, and the German captain scuttled the Graf Spee and committed suicide. Carly returned home on HMS Exeter, and may have been the Harbour Master in Alexandria some time later.

The Germans had been forbidden to build battleships (basically, a ship over a certain size and tonnage) by the Treaty of Versailles at the end of the First World War. They got round this by building ships the size of a cruiser, heavily armed and armoured, but using modern welding techniques instead of riveting (to save weight). These were known as "pocket battleships". The Battle of the River Plate was one of the first battles of the Second World War, fought between the Graf Spee and the small British cruisers Ajax and Achillies, plus the somewhat larger (and older) cruiser Exeter.

Harry and John had two daughters, Molly and Rita. Molly lived in South Shields until she died, in the mid-1980's.

Harry and John are buried in the next grave to William, Ethel and Joyce Curry at Harton St.Peter's, South Shields. John Arthur is also remembered on their grave.

John and Mary Tulley's youngest daughter was Jenny Scaife Tulley, who married James Shaw Dickson in 1908, but I don't know any more about her.

John and Mary and their family were living at 5, Ocean Road, in South Shields in 1880, but had moved to 12, Ocean Road by 1881. Ocean Road is a main road running west from the sea towards the centre of South Shields, where it becomes King Street, which runs into Market Square. The east end of Ocean Road is probably very similar today as it was a hundred years ago, with houses on the northern side (now guest houses) and shops on the southern side (now curry houses). King Street and the first block of Ocean Road are now pedestrianised - this is the shopping centre of South Shields. There is a museum, with a building opposite that may have once been council offices but is now a pub. One of the buildings next to the museum was probably number 12 (I couldn't see any numbers), but is now a 1950's building, of which there are a few in the street, probably as a result of Second World War bombing. I suspect that in 1881, 12 Ocean Road was a shop with three floors of apartments above it.

John Joseph Stephenson Tulley, know as Joe, was a grocer's assistant in 1881. Joe married Agnes Carr in 1887, when they were both about 23.

Joe worked at Miller & Co., Grocers and Tea Merchants of 18 (later 22), Fowler Street, South Shields. Fowler Street goes south from King Street in the centre of South Shields, and is now a run-down shopping street. The shop is still there, on the corner of Kepple Street, and is now a discount shoe shop. Miller & Co. became Miller & Douglass after the First World War, and Joe became a partner after Mr.Miller died.

Joe and Agnes had 5 children. Annie Morrow Tulley (known as Nancy) was born in Tynemouth in 1890 and was named after Joe's sister, who had died 10 years previously. Lillie Gray Tulley was born in South Shields (as were the rest of the children) and was named after another of Joe's sisters. Then came Ethel, John Joseph and Martha Mary.

Joe's father John Tulley III died in 1892 of cancer of the liver and disease of the spleen. Joe was present at the death. John and Mary were living at 5, Mariners' Cottages, Westoe at the time (a road leading from Broughton Road to Sea View Terrace), and John's occupation was given as an innkeeper, although I don't know which pub he kept. 5, Mariners' Cottages is described as a 3-roomed house - the Tulleys weren't living there in 1891. John's wife Mary Tulley (nee Gray) died in 1914. Ward's Directory of South Shields for 1920 gives the occupier of 5, Mariners' Cottages as an M.Gray, marine engineer - I wonder if he was a relative of Mary ?

Joe and Agnes were living at 36, Fowler Street, South Shields in 1892, and may have been living above Miller's shop on Fowler Street before the First World War. When Ethel Tulley married in 1918, she had been living at 55, Julian Avenue, which is in the north of South Shields, in an area known as The Lawe (The Lawe was a hill where the Romans built their camp). By 1920, Joe and Agnes were living at "Neptune House", No.4, Helena Terrace, which I cannot find on modern maps. Perhaps it was just the name of a terrace of houses, rather than a street name - it ended at Julian Avenue, and was probably a stretch of Lawe Road, just across the road from the beach.

Around 1926, Joe had a house built, known as "Clovelly", on Sunderland Road in Cleadon Village, just south of South Shields. It was a large house with an upstairs billiard room and extensive gardens. Nancy and her husband lived two houses along. In later years, some of Clovelly's grounds were sold off to build more houses on, and Clovelly itself may now have been demolished.

Joe died of a heart attack in 1928, being found on the bathroom floor at Clovelly. He left £43,000 in his will (the equivalent of about £1.6 million in 1996 values), and his business passed to his son John and to Ernest Douglass.

Joe was buried at Harton Cemetery after a service at Cleadon Village church. The cortege was a long one, an open landau being used to carry the many floral tributes. Among the mourners was the deputy mayor of South Shields and the chairman of the South Shields Grocers Association.

Agnes lived at Clovelly until her death of pneumonia in 1946. Agnes was also buried at Harton Cemetery, in the same grave as Joe, their children Martha Mary and John, and Joe's mother Mary.

Colin Robinson, Sept 1998 (version 8.1)

Colin Robinson, Manchester, England
colinr@cwcom.net

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