IN Darlington library, there is a print of a wonderfully wizened and wrinkly old lady. She’s a widow, says the writing at the bottom, by the name of Elizabeth Alexander who was 104 years old.
It was printed in 1806 and sold for 5d (pennies, in old money). Another line on it says: “Pray, remember the poor.”
The 1806 print showing Elizabeth Alexander, aged 104, which is in the Darlington Centre for Local Studies (Image: Darlington Centre for Local Studies)
Attached to it is an undated article that has been copied, on an early typewriter, from Haughton Parish Magazine. The article tells how Mrs Alexander left money to help the poor of the village, so perhaps the prints were sold for fundraising.
It also suggests that in St Andrew’s Church vestry there is a large painting of Mrs Alexander and that she is buried beneath an inscribed stone in the church chancel.
And in the vestry at Haughton, there is indeed a large painting of Mrs Elizabeth Alexander, in humble dress with barely a wrinkle on her dainty face.
The painting of Elizabeth Alexander which is in the vestry in Haughton church (Image: Carol Atkinson)
Plus in the floor of the chancel, there is an inscribed stone, but it is now covered by an unmovable carpet.
However, its wording was recorded in a book written in 1929 by the rector of Haughton and he reckoned that it said that Mrs Alexander died on “21st January 1790 aged 90 years”.
But if Mrs Alexander had died in 1790 aged 90, how can she have been pictured alive – and very wrinkly – in 1806 at the age of 104?
After weeks of trying to reconcile the two dates, the two stories and the two pictures, we have come to the conclusion that they are of two very different women who both, by chance, were called Elizabeth Alexander. Both, by chance, were widows and both, by yet more chances, were renowned for their longevity and for their charitable intentions.
Tiny writing at the very bottom of the print in Darlington library says: “Published as the Act directs May 8 1806 for Eliz. Alexander & Eliz. Atkins, No 11 Hanway Yard.”
The first part of this means that the print was published on May 8, 1806, to comply with the Engravers' Copyright Acts, which established copyright of the image.
Hanway Street and Oxford Street in London where the other Elizabeth Alexander lived (Image: Chris Lloyd)
The second part is the giveaway: Hanway Yard was in London. It is now called Hanway Street, which is a narrow, one-way road known only to taxi drivers connecting Oxford Street to Tottenham Court Road.
There lived the 104-year-old wrinkly widow Mrs Alexander with Elizabeth Atkins – perhaps her daughter or grand-daughter? – and they sold prints to members of the London Society of Antiquaries – people who liked to study old things – “and to all other Lovers of the Antique”.
Hanway Street and Oxford Street in London where the other Elizabeth Alexander lived (Image: Chris Lloyd)
Indeed, the British Museum has second print of Mrs Alexander in March 1808 when she was 106-years-old. It was printed in 1809 by William Richardson, a publisher of portraits of notable people, so we guess that he printed a souvenir of Mrs Alexander’s remarkably long life after she had died.
So we reckon the print in Darlington library has nothing to do with Darlington or Haughton. It has everything to do with the living curiosity of London’s Hanway Yard. Someone at sometime has muddled up the long-lived London Mrs Alexander with the nonagenarian Mrs Alexander of Haughton-le-Skerne, and so they have wasted precious weeks of our life, and of loads of other people’s time that we’ve taken with this, trying to untangle them.
An Edwardian postcard of St Andrew's Church, Haughton-le-Skerne
WHO was the aged widow Elizabeth Alexander of Haughton-le-Skerne who rests under the stone beneath the carpet of the chancel in St Andrew’s Church and whose picture hangs in the vestry?
If the rector’s transcription is correct, she married Carleton Carr of Haughton “who departed this life the 13th day of March Anno Domini 1718 in the 65th year of his age”.
The stone also says that she died in 1790 aged 90 – dates which are backed up by the Haughton burial records.
The Haughton-le-Skerne burial register from 1790 showing, third down, that Elizabeth Alexander was buried. Picture courtesy of Darlington Centre for Local Studies (Image: Darlington Centre for Local Studies)
At a time when females could marry at 12, although it was most unusual, she must have been a very young bride to a man more than 50 years her senior. Most peculiar.
She then married Philip Bendlowes and after his death she became the wife on William Alexander, a “doctor of physic”, who predeceased her, leaving her with his surname.
Blue Hall, on Haughton Green, is the low building on the left. It was the home of Elizabeth Alexander. Picture courtesy of Carol Atkinson (Image: Carol Atkinson)
She lived in Blue Hall on the village green, an ancient, low building which was demolished in the early 1960s. Now old people’s homes at the top of Kennel Lane are on its site.
The bungalows on Haughton Green that are on the site of Elizabeth Alexander's Blue Hall (Image: Google StreetView)
She was so well respected in the village that a large portrait of her was commissioned by a Colonel Darwin and his wife.
According to the Charity Commission website, Mrs Alexander made a will on February 10, 1789, in which she left £40 to the Haughton rector and churchwardens to be distributed among the village poor on Christmas Eve.
She died 11 months later.
The churchwardens took until 1806 when they wrapped Mrs Alexander’s £40 (worth £4,500 today) up with £145 15s (about £12,000) they had from a school fund to build four cottages for the poor. They were called Diamond Cottages and they were demolished when the Highland Laddie pub was rebuilt before the Second World War when a notoriously sharp bend at the eastern entrance to Haughton was relandscaped.
The original Highland Laddie jutted out into the street making a notorious bend onto Haughton Green. It was demolished before the Second World War and set back. To the left of the cameraman, out of shot, are the four cottages that Elizabeth Alexander's charity paid for (Image: Unknown)
The tenants paid £2-a-year rent, although many were so poor that they were in arrears.
What rents were paid went into “Madam Alexander’s Charity” which every Christmas paid out £2 in half crowns to the village poor and whatever was left over, went back into the school fund.
In 1861, Ann Watson, Bessie Pigg, Bella Broumley and Ellen Franklyn were living in Diamond Cottages, and at Christmas 1862, 16 people (Mary Sheppard, Margaret Coulson, Margaret Lodge, Jane Wetherell, Mary Johnson, Ann Smith, Bella Broumley, Ellen Franklyn, Bessie Pigg, E Wetherall, H Wilkinson, Thomas Bulmer, Jane Suggett, Jane Sharp, Thomas Pallister and Jane Taylor) received half crowns.
In 1867, one resident of the cottages was so poor, he was unable to pay any rent but he was allowed to stay until he died in 1874, and in 1878, John Dredge was allowed to drop his rent from 12s 6d a quarter to 10s a quarter due to his “bodily infirmities”.
It looks as if Elizabeth Alexander’s Charity operated into the 20th Century. It was registered with the Charity Commission in 1963, and given the number 231173, but it was removed from the Commission’s register on October 23, 1997, because, says the Commission’s website succinctly, “funds spent up”.
Mrs Alexander, the nonagenarian Haughton benefactress, may have been expunged by the Charity Commission but her portrait still hangs in the church vestry and her last resting place may well be comfortably beneath the mauve carpet in the chancel, but we reckon the image in Darlington library is of another long lived Mrs Alexander altogether.
- If you can tell us anymore about Elizabeth Alexander and her charity, or indeed about the other Elizabeth Alexander, please email chris.lloyd@nne.co.uk
- With many thanks to Carol Atkinson, and Katherine Williamson and Mandy Fay of the Darlington Centre for Local Studies