September 23, 1916

“QUITE a gloom was cast over Darlington and the surrounding district, particularly in agricultural circles, when it became known that Capt Thomas Sowerby Rowlandson MC, of the Yorkshire Regiment, had paid the supreme sacrifice in the recent great effort,” said the D&S exactly 100 years ago.

“Expressions of regret were heard of every hand that such a fine all round sportsman and typical yeoman farmer had been so prematurely cut off.”

Capt Rowlandson, 34, was a truly extraordinary gentlemen – one of the last of the Edwardian era. He was born at Newton Morrell, a farming hamlet near Barton, between Richmond and Darlington, and after education at Charterhouse and Cambridge University, he had played football. He was a goalkeeper, and he turned out for Darlington, Newcastle and Sunderland, and he travelled down to London each week to play for Corinthians, a legendary amateur club of public schoolboys which probably had the best team in the country but didn’t play against professionals. He toured the world – South Africa, Hungary, Norway, Sweden and Canada – playing the beautiful game with the true Corinthian spirit.

At home, he was a JP and local councillor, and as well as farming, he rode with the Zetland Hunt, was “one of the best game shots in the north … a cricketer of no mean ability… he excelled at golf …” The D&S didn’t mention it, but he also had one of the finest moustaches in Edwardian England.

All that came to an end when war broke out. He allowed his large farmhouse to be converted into a Voluntary Aid Detachment hospital, and he went to Northallerton where he joined the Yorkshire Regiment and was sent to Flanders. In January 1916 at Ypres, he was awarded a Military Cross “for special gallantry”.

In its obituary, the D&S said: “Imbued with a sense of deep patriotism, he was once heard to say that if it was his lot to make the supreme sacrifice, he would die quite happily.”

This only hints at half the story, though.

He had died on September 15, 1916, during the Battle of Flers-Courcelette on the Somme.

His adjutant wrote: “I have always thought of him the finest type of Englishman I have ever known, and his death was just as fine as his life. He died where of all places, I think, he would have chosen if it had to be – on the parapet of a German trench at the head of his men. A Boche bomb hit him on the shoulder. Death must have been instantaneous.”

At Flers-Courcelette, the British unleashed the tank for the first time – “an enormous steel monster, from which spouted a continuous fire of great violence”, said The Northern Echo.

Tom’s death was a contrast to this modern machine of destruction. The Echo also said: “He raced his men for the German trenches, having only a walking stick as a weapon, and he was first into the trench.”

It added: “His sergeant bayoneted the German who threw the bomb that killed him.”

September 24, 1966

“AT last the blow has fallen,” begun the main story on the D&S’ back page 50 years ago (adverts, of course, still occupied the front).

“The decision that Ripon is to lose its station and passenger rail service has been announced. There had been hopes, due to the long delay of this announcement that the city rail services might win a reprieve, but despite the hardship which will most certainly be felt, the Minister of Transport, Mrs Barbara Castle, has decided to withdraw all passenger services on the 25 mile Northallerton-Harrogate line.”

The line opened on June 1, 1848, with Ripon as the main intermediate station. There were other stations at Newby Wiske, Pickhill, Sinderby, Wormald Green and Nidd Bridge.

Ripon was heavily promoted as the alighting point for Fountains Abbey, and from 1902, there was a direct train to King’s Cross.

Mrs Castle put an end to all that. The mayor of the city, Wilfrid Parnaby, said: “Ripon with a population of 11,000 is expanding and rail services are essential. This is a blow below the belt.”

The principal of Ripon Training College, which had 520 students from across the country, spoke of her concerns, and there were worries about the 311 families who lived in the city’s army barracks.

In the previous year, 18,000 passenger tickets had been sold at Ripon, raising £19,000 in revenue.

However, at the Northallerton end of the line, the news was met with ambivalence, presumably because the town was still connected to the main line.

Town clerk, Derek Parkin, said: “The closure is regrettable ... but it was one of those cases where there was some difficulty in establishing a need for the line.”

The line – which had escaped the Beeching Axe only to succumb to the Labour government which followed it – closed to passengers on March 6, 1967, and completely on September 5, 1969. There is a long-standing campaign to reconnect the railway line between Leeds and Northallerton.

September 22, 1866

“ON Monday last as John Swain, son of Mr Swain, plumber, was repairing some splits on the house of Mrs Hamilton in Northallerton, he had two ladders fastened together with a rope, the house bring three storeys high,” reported the D&S exactly 150 years ago.

“From some cause the ladders slipped and fell, and the young man precipitated onto the pavement below. He was conveyed home and attended by Mr Roberts, surgeon, when his left arm was found to be broken and he was otherwise severely cut and bruised.

“Mr Swain was at the bottom of the ladder, and endeavoured to catch his son in his descent, and was himself knocked down, but succeeded in materially breaking the young man’s fall, or the consequences would doubtless have been far more serious.”