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Anything but and ordinary man
May 20, 2008
IT'S sometimes easy to get the impression that in the past, ordinary people lived uneventful lives and didn't move far from the place they were born and grew up.
This may have been true in the distant past but during the last 300 years or so Teesdale families seem to have travelled far and wide. However, most information concerns the great and wealthy, whose lives are well documented. The same can't be said of ordinary dalesmen and women.
There are, however, some useful publications available for study. One has the rather long title of ‘Annual Monitor for 1855 or Obituary of the members of the Society of Friends in Great Britain and Ireland for the year 1854'.
In it can be found the life story of Ralph Dixon, a Quaker Elder, from Staindrop. It's really surprising where information about Teesdale and its people can be found!
Ralph Dixon was born in Staindrop in 1786 and brought up there. He lived in Staindrop for most of his married life and he died there.
However that wasn't the whole story - Ralph spent his adolescence and early adult life far from Teesdale. For the times, Ralph's upbringing was probably typical.
His mother was very religious and Ralph was brought up strictly. His family had had business problems and consequently were living in ‘reduced circumstances', as the Annual Monitor puts it.
As a result, in 1798 when he was 12, Ralph Dixon was apprenticed to a shoe-maker in Staindrop.
According to Ralph Dixon himself - like many dalesmen, he wrote a journal - his fellow apprentices weren't exactly young men of high morals.
He wrote: "I do not recollect during the whole of my apprenticeship, one serious person being amongst them. I am sorry to say, I was too ready a learner in this school of vice and immorality."
Do you think Staindrop was as much a den of iniquity as Ralph reckoned it was?
We think it a modern phenomenon for young men and women to leave the dale in search of work - but this was the beginning of the 19th Century, almost 200 years ago.
But once Ralph had finished his apprenticeship he left Staindrop. He didn't go far, just to Leeds, and once there he couldn't find regular employment. It's a familiar and quite modern story isn't it?
And if a young man can't get a job what does he do? Why join the army of course. And that's just what Ralph Dixon did.
Britain had been at war with France since 1793 and according to Ralph: "The government was forming an army of reserve, and to enduce young men to join it, were offering big bounties." Some time after he had enlisted for the reserve, Ralph became a regular soldier with the 31st Foot Regiment.
His regiment was soon sent to Ireland and Ralph left his home country. Whilst in Ireland, Ralph married the daughter of a soldier. Soon after his marriage, Ralph sailed with his wife, Ann, to Lisbon, en route for Spain.
Britain was by then fighting the French in the Peninsular War. Ralph's regiment joined the army under Sir Arthur Wellesley, later to become the Duke of Wellington.
The presence of the soldiers' wives in a war zone proved to be a problem - so they were sent back to England.
Ralph fought at the battle of Talavera on July 28, 1809 - it marked the end of his army career. Ralph was severely wounded in his left shoulder and his right hand.
He nearly died but eventually recovered, was sent back to England and a year later became a Chelsea pensioner receiving one shilling a day.
Ralph came back to Staindrop, together with his wife and infant son, to the great delight of his parents.
He resumed his work as a shoe-maker but because of his wounds, couldn't make much money. Instead he opened a little shop selling provisions and drugs and proved to have great skill in prescribing medicine.
Later he expanded this business to include a drapery and managed to make enough money to support his increasing family. Once home, Ralph began to consider the state of his soul. He records that: "Soon after I had settled in my native village, my mind took a serious turn, and I was pretty punctual in attending a place of worship of some kind.
"My youngest and surviving brother had joined the Methodists, and often preached among them. He was a schoolmaster, and being very intelligent, it was pleasant to me to have his company."
However, it wasn't to the Methodists that Ralph eventually turned, but to the Society of Friends, the Quakers.
On becoming a Quaker, Ralph's drapery business began to trouble his conscience as he was obliged to advise others to wear clothes that he regarded as unsuitable for his own children to wear. So instead he erected a small steam corn mill. I wonder whereabouts it was in Staindrop?
A much greater problem was his army pension. Quakers are pacifists. Eventually in 1830 Ralph wrote to the Duke of Wellington and asked him to stop his pension. He addressed him as ‘Respected friend'.
His request was accepted but he was told that he could resume taking his pension at any time if he changed his mind.
Ralph's war wounds meant he was never a well man but he was 68 when he died on March 20, 1854. His obituary gives a rare glimpse into the life of an ordinary working man from Teesdale. Ralph was clearly a very religious man with high standards and he lived a varied and perhaps even exciting life - quite a surprise really.
First published in the Mercury, May 14, 2008