ALFRED Pease was a name familiar to me from the age of eight, due to my regular visits to Middlesbrough's Dorman Memorial Museum.
A number of large glass cases in the centre of the main gallery there contained an assortment of stuffed animals, each case being a clever reconstruction of some tiny fragment of Africa, and each labelled 'Alfred Pease Collection'.
For he was the man responsible for many of the African mammals on display and very likely director to the taxidermists' superb skills. At the museum's grand opening on July 1, 1904, Alfred Pease presented his collection to the town.
Henceforth, the Dorman's distinctly Edwardian atmosphere enveloped children and adults alike with its haunting effect until around 1960 when all was reviewed and re-organisation began.
So from my childhood through to art student days, when we worked away at drawings, there watched by a thousand glass eyes in the hushed silence (where there was a tendency to whisper and move gingerly over the highly-polished floors), I was aware of Alfred Pease but unaware of him as an actual person.
Alfred Edward Pease (1857-1939) was no servant to couch-potato culture. Dedicated family man, naturalist, big-game hunter and writer, he was the eldest son of wealthy businessman Sir Joseph Whitwell Pease of Hutton Hall near Guisborough. During his early years within the Quaker family's lucrative concerns, Alfred embarked upon several energetic foreign expeditions, was into numerous lively pursuits at home, and from 1885 to 1892 served as MP for York.
During these times, his hunting safaris provided Hutton Hall and eventually Middlesbrough's museum with a variety of memorable creatures. Stuffed and mounted or exhibited as skeletal remains, they were brought home in the firm belief they would broaden the public's understanding of the world's wildlife.
Education, in other words, the Victorian viewpoint; and although such practices would certainly raise eyebrows today, their reverberations in our area lasted well into the 1970s. A school loans service operated for some years whereby stuffed animals and birds from museums were delivered for pupils to study and draw in the classroom.
Alfred Pease jumped aboard boats bound for foreign lands like any ordinary person today might jump into the car and trip off to Whitby; to endure rough overland treks, health problems and constant attacks from the insect fraternity. But despite his globe-trotting he held obvious affection for the fields and hills surrounding his father's luxurious mansion at Hutton Lowcross - a magnificent pile still sheltering beneath the towering ramparts of Guisborough's Highcliff and nearby Hanging Stone on the very edge of our present national park.
From 1880, Alfred lived at Pinchinthorpe House, set alongside today's busy A173. Here, his passion for writing, fuelled by love for that fine stretch of country from Hutton Gate to Newton-under-Roseberry, gave rise to many books.
An early effort in 1887 recorded his historical account of the Cleveland Hounds as a trencher-fed pack. He wrote also of a badger colony well established in the hills above his home, and produced a short but touching biography of his second son, Christopher, in 1919, describing in detail his happy childhood at Pinchinthorpe before his life was cut tragically short by war.
In his later years, Alfred Pease sat down awhile to compile a dictionary of the North Riding dialect. Published in 1928, many of its entries contain lengthy additional notes of specific local interest; in my view a book of equal match to the better-known glossary put together by Richard Blakeborough.
Not far from Pinchinthorpe House today, and a short distance from dwellings previously used as a railway station, is a popular visitor's centre. The rail track now forms a pleasant walkway. One direction takes ramblers towards Hanging Stone and Hutton Gate; the other invites a stroll across part of the Cleveland Plain, taking in Roseberry Topping as main feature plus the distant spires of Nunthorpe's 'Grey Towers'. It was formerly home to Teesside industrialist Sir Arthur Dorman, who was father to another casualty of war, Lt GL Dorman, whose memory is honoured through the existence of my favourite museum.
The approach from Guisborough to Hutton Gate is not as countrified now. Half a lifetime since there were fewer houses and the dreamy lane up to Hutton village had white goats tethered along its open strays. Yet once into that parkland setting, the private grounds of Hutton Hall still evoke a landscape re-created by Sir Joseph Whitwell Pease circa, 1867, whilst the once bare hills of yore have now become Guisborough Forest. Aloft, the views from Highcliff and Hanging Stone are nothing short of fabulous, and a ridgeway leads easily on to Roseberry if there's a wish to extend the spectacular.
Alfred Pease cared deeply for all this - his personal patch, its people and immediate wildlife - and ever gave an impression of abiding wonderment of his home countryside.
He died on April 27, 1939, and many newspapers including this one reported his funeral at Newton-under-Roseberry. The coffin was placed upon an estate lorry drawn by a Cleveland Bay. Family, tenants and household staff were the only folk present. Tenants acting as bearers and Miss Mabel Nellist, of Stokesley, one-time governess to Alfred's children, played the organ in the attractive little church of St Oswald's.
A measure of the man was reflected by the list of people who later attended his memorial service at Guisborough Parish Church - seemingly every prominent person in the North Riding at the time. The deceased had served his country and district nobly, had taken a keen interest in education, agriculture, politics, literature and local history. He was a friend to all and his life should prove an inspiration, said the Rev AG Wilkes, vicar of Helmsley at the gathering.
In a secluded corner of St Oswald's, beneath the rearing crag of Cleveland's mountain and shaded by the churchyard trees, the Pease family of Pinchinthope have their resting place. Amongst the elegant memorials, one narrow horizontal stone is dedicated to the dear memory of Alfred Edward Pease, second baronet of Hutton Lowcross and Pinchinthorpe. And, after the dates recording his span of years, there follows this brief epitaph: 'Write me as one who loved his fellow men.'
Updated: 11:19 Wednesday, February 12, 2003
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