From the Darlington & Stockton Times of October 21, 1916

A WOMEN’S farming competition in Northallerton attracted 350 entries from across the North Riding 100 years ago.

The women were competing in categories including ploughing, carting, harrowing, driving cattle, drawing roots, forking and loading carts, and milk testing.

A large, curious crowd gathered to watch the competition at Broomfield Farm, which was chosen due to its proximity to the station – we guess Broomfield Avenue and school were built on its fields.

The D&S noted the practical attire of the competitors. “The majority wore short frocks with leggings and heavy boots, or else Wellington boots without leggings,” it said. “Comparatively few were in blouses and breeches.”

Beside a dense column of reports of deaths and mutilations of local men at the Western Front, the D&S said: “The demonstration should prove once and for all that women are capable of taking the places of men on the farms, if only temporarily.

“It can be stated that among the spectators were those who had come to scoff, but several went away to engage a woman worker. Several of the competitors did the work as if to the land they were born.

“Probably the most instructive class to the prejudiced was that of ploughing. The ploughs were skilfully manipulated and the horses handled with perfect readiness.”

In the “drawing of roots” class, 40 women had to pull and clean four rows of mangold wurzels which they did “with marvellous dexterity”, and in the carting category, they had to load the wurzels, which they did with “surprising alacrity”.

“Equally gratifying was the milking class,” said the D&S, deploying a dictionary’s worth of descriptive words. “The girls went to work expeditiously, and in one case where an obstreperous cow upset the milk can several times, the milker continued her work with the utmost coolness.”

In dense type beside the report was a full broadsheet column listing the names of the local men who had been killed or mutilated in the on-going horror of the Somme.

October 22, 1966

WE reported last week on the trade fair being held in Richmond Market Hall to drum up support for local retailers in the run-up to Christmas.

The D&S of 50 years ago reported that “more than 6,500 persons” had attended, and the Chamber of Trade president, Mr Denis Mansell, “said he hoped that they had made the people of Richmond feel they would get all the civility, courtesy and attention it was possible to give”.

The report said: “The effect (of the trade fair) was something not seen in Richmond before and was an impressive and imaginative demonstration that the needs of the shopping public can be met in Richmond.”

A 17-year-old hairdressers assistant, Pamela Gates, was chosen as the Lass of Richmond Hill 1966.

Elsewhere in the paper, Spectator was noting that “a number of loud bangs and, a week or so ago, two enterprising young men knocking at doors to beg pennies for a premature guy, indicate that the fireworks season is again upon us”.

Lamenting that it was starting earlier than ever, Spectator found a positive: “Fireworks themselves seem to be getting a little less explosive than they used to be (bangers don’t bang quite so loudly and crackers don’t jump quite so high).”

October 20, 1866

EXACTLY 150 years ago, the D&S told of a “horrible murder and suicide at Wolsingham”.

It said: “Seldom, or never, have we had to record the commission of crimes so horrible and deplorable in their nature as were perpetrated at the usually quiet and peaceful little town of Wolsingham on Saturday.”

It didn’t spare many details in its description of those deplorable crimes.

“Some three years ago, a young man, named Thomas Bowman, son of a tailor and draper, residing in Wolsingham, made the acquaintance of a young woman named Mary Ann Newton, daughter of a very respectable man, an old resident of the town,” it said. “He was for a time the accepted lover of the girl Newton...”

Bowman went off to Shildon to work at the engine works, turned piously Methodist and then became addicted to drink. Mary Ann, 23, broke off their relationship and Bowman spiralled lower, becoming painfully thin, and drunkenly wandering the streets of Wolsingham day and night.

Mary had a job as a servant at a large house, and, despite her well known reluctance, Bowman began to visit her.

“He had not been long with her before he seized her by the mouth to tried to hinder her from giving any alarm and dashed the blade – which had evidently been sharpened purposely – of a large, ugly clasp knife into her neck, just below her left ear, pulling it round across the throat, severing on its way the carotid artery, the jugular vein, the gullet and the windpipe.

“The blood gushed from the wound in the neck in great quantities and death was, of course, instantaneous.”

Next morning, PC Edward Reveley followed a trail of blood for a third of a mile from the church gates, along “walls, fences and gates” until he came to the well known Sill stone in Waskerley beck, where the trail ran out.

The policeman got two hooks from a nearby tanyard and dragged the beck. “After a few minutes he drew up the body of Bowman,” said the paper. “His neck was cut from ear to throat, his face blackened by suffocation in the water.”

The inquests were held on Monday, and both were buried in the parish church on Tuesday, a couple of hours apart. They “were followed to their graves by an immense concourse of people”.