Frank Masters

Frank Masters (1893 - 1960)

FATHER:	MOTHER:	SPOUSE:	OFFSPRING:
John Masters (b.1864)	Ann Robinson (b.1870)	Mary Robson (b.1892)	Frank Masters (b.1916) Elsie Masters (b.1918) John Masters (b.1920)

BIRTH:	17 December 1893 - Barnsley, Yorkshire
MARRIAGE:	26 February 1916 - Sunderland Registry Office
DEATH:	28 September 1960 - Ryhope, Sunderland

KNOWN ADDRESSES:

3 Mona Street, Barnsley - 1893
108 Railway Street, Ryhope, Sunderland - c.1899 to 1916
3 Lilian Avenue, Ryhope, Sunderland - 1950
7 Hewitt Avenue, Ryhope, Sunderland - 1960

BIOGRAPHY:

Frank Masters was born on 17 December 1893 in Barnsley. His parents were John Masters and Ann Robinson. In the last few years of the nineteenth century (c.1898/9) the family moved to Ryhope, Sunderland. The 1901 census records Frank as a seven-year-old boy, living with his parents and four siblings at 108 Railway Street, Ryhope. Frank's five-year-old sister was born in Barnsley while his two-year-old brother, Edward, was born in Ryhope. His father, John, worked in Ryhope Colliery.

On 30 January 1916, at the age of twenty-three, Frank fathered his first child (who they also named Frank). A month later on 26 February he married the child's mother (Mary Robson). He was still living at 108 Railway Street, Ryhope, Sunderland at the time. The marriage was witnessed by Elsie Masters (Frank's younger sister) and Matthew Bateley who, as can be seen from the 1901 census return, was a neighbour of the family, living at 110 Railway Street, Ryhope. Frank's occupation on the marriage certificate is recorded as "Coal Miner (Putter)".

In 1825 a "Putter" was described as

....those who fill the corves (strong osier baskets in which the coals are conveyed) and lead them from the hewers (coal diggers), on four-wheeled carriages called Trams, to the crane or shaft. The barrowman pulls before, and the putter putts or thrusts behind. In high seams, horses are used instead of men.

In 1892 "Putters" were described as

The putters used to be divided into trams, headsmen, foals, and half-marrows. These were all boys or youths. Their employment consisted in pushing or dragging the coal from the workings to the passages in which horses could be employed. Formerly the coal was conveyed by the putter in corves or tubs. Now small waggons called trams are generally employed. When a boy dragged or put a load by himself he also was designated a tram. When two boys of unequal age and strength assisted each other, the elder was called a headsman and the younger a foal. The former usually received two-thirds of the amount earned jointly by the two. When two boys of about equal age and strength aided each other they were called half-marrows, and their earnings were equally divided. The introduction of metal plates and waggons in place of corves, however, has almost done away with joint labours of this kind. Formerly the labour of the putter was of the most arduous description. Wilson describes it as having been "the most distressing slavery." "It was," he says, "generally performed by boys, in nine cases out of ten too weak for the purpose, if even the materials had been better than they were over which the trams then passed. What must it have been when a beech-board was a godsend? And, more frequently, they had to drag their load over a fir-deal or the bare thill [the natural floor of the mine], the former too often split from constant wear, and the latter too soft to bear the load passing over it. Now the whole way is laid with metal plates, even up to the face of the workings, so that a man or lad may run the tram before him both out and in, the plates being so formed as to keep the tram in a right direction." It was customary at one time to employ girls and young women as putters. This disgraceful and demoralising practice, which continued in Scotland and some parts of England until it was prohibited by law in 1843, was abandoned in the county of Durham about the year 1790. Even before that date the custom was more prevalent in the Wear collieries than in those of the Tyne.

In 1894 a "Putter" was described as

A person who pushes mine waggons from the working place to a horse road or mechanical haulage road.

As well as Frank they went on to have two further children; John and Elsie. Frank and Mary lived in Ryhope for all of their life and he worked at Ryhope Colliery. Frank died on 28 September 1960 in Ryhope, aged 66. His occupation is described as "Retired Coal Miner - Datal Hand". A Datal Hand is someone who is paid by the day to complete a variety of different jobs, perhaps whatever is required at the time. Datalling means "odd-jobbing".

Frank Masters is buried with his wife in Ryhope Cemetary. The inscription reads:

IN LOVING MEMORY OF
OUR DEAR MOTHER
MARY MASTERS
DIED 18 SEPT 1956 AGED 62 YEARS
ALSO OUR DEAR FATHER
FRANK MASTERS
DIED 28 SEPT 1960 AGED 66 YEARS

IMAGES: (click to enlarge)

Frank Masters' Birth Certificate	Frank Masters in the 1901 census	Frank Masters' Marriage Certificate	An undated picture of Ryhope Colliery	A 1920 picture of Ryhope Colliery
A 1923 picture of Ryhope Colliery	Frank Masters (left) in 1945 with son-in-law Harry Harwood and son Jack Masters	Frank Masters (center) with his two sons, Jack (left) and Frank (right)	Frank Masters' Death Certificate	Frank Masters' gravestone in Ryhope Cemetary.

HISTORICAL EVENTS:

1894 – ARCHIBALD PHILIP PRIMROSE, EARL OF ROSEBERY (Liberal) becomes Prime Minister.
1895 - ROBERT ARTHUR TALBOT GASCOYNE-CECIL, MARQUIS OF SALISBURY (Conservative) becomes Prime Minister for the third time.
1899 – BRITAIN ENTERS THE BOER WAR in South Africa against Dutch and German forces. The war lasts until 1902. Popular opinion at home is against the war and the effect is that further colonial expansion is not favored.
1901 – EDWARD VII ASCENDS THE THRONE following the death of his mother, Queen Victoria, Britain’s longest serving monarch. Edward is the eldest son of Victoria and Albert and marks the start of the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.
1902 – ARTHUR JAMES BALFOUR (Conservative) becomes Prime Minister.
1905 – SIR HENRY CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN (Liberal) becomes Prime Minister.
1908 – HERBERT HENRY ASQUITH (Liberal) becomes Prime Minister.
1910 – GEORGE V ASCENDS THE THRONE following the death of his father, Edward VII. George is Edward’s second son.
1914 – BILL GRANTING HOME RULE TO IRELAND BECOME LAW.
1914 – WORLD WAR I, the Great War, starts.
1916 – DAVID LLOYD GEORGE (Liberal) becomes Prime Minister.
1917 – GEORGE V CHANGES THE NAME OF THE ROYAL HOUSE FROM SAXE-COBURG-GOTHA TO WINDSOR.
1918 – UNIVERSAL SUFFRAGE ACT PASSED giving the vote to women over thirty years old.
1918 – WORLD WAR I ENDS.
1920 – GOVERNMENT OF IRELAND ACT PASSED, superseding an earlier unacceptable act. Six of the nine counties of Ulster are to be known as Northern Ireland while the other three and the provinces of Connaught, Munster and Leinster are to form the Irish Free State. Northern Ireland is given its own parliament and permitted to send representatives to Westminster while the Irish Free State is given a similar status to that of Britain’s commonwealth. The Irish Free State ceases to be part of the United Kingdom from early 1922.
1922 – ANDREW BONAR LAW (Conservative) becomes Prime Minister.
1923 – ALBERT EINSTEIN’S THEORY OF RELATIVITY discards the concept of absolute motion and instead treats only relative motion between two systems or frames of reference. One consequence of the theory is that space and time are no longer viewed as separate, independent entities but rather are seen to form a four-dimensional continuum called space-time. Einstein also sought unsuccessfully for many years to incorporate the theory into a unified field theory valid also for subatomic and electromagnetic phenomena.
1923 – STANLEY BALDWIN (Conservative) becomes Prime Minister.
1924 – JAMES MACDONALD (Labour) becomes Prime Minister.
1926 – DECLARATION MADE AT THE IMPERIAL CONFERENCE stating that all the nations of the British Commonwealth of Nations, notably UK, Canada, Australia, the Irish Free State, South Africa, New Zealand and Newfoundland, were equal in status, each independent of the others but uniting under a common crown.
1928 – UNIVERSAL SUFFRAGE FINALLY ACHIEVED IN 1928, when women were given exactly the same voting rights as males.
1929 – GREAT DEPRESSION EFFECTS BRITAIN after a long period of economic stagnation after the war.
1935 – STANLEY BALDWIN (Conservative) becomes Prime Minister.
1936 – EDWARD VIII ASCENDS THE THRONE following the death of his father George V.
1936 – EDWARD VIII ABDICATES THE THRONE TO MARRY MRS SIMPSON. Edward becomes the Duke of Windsor.
1936 – GEORGE VI ASCENDS THE THRONE following the abdication of his brother, Edward VIII.
1937 – ARTHUR NEVILLE CHAMBERLAIN (Conservative) becomes Prime Minister.
1939 – GERMANY INVADES POLAND AND GREAT BRITAIN ENTERS WORLD WAR II.
1940 – WINSTON CHURCHILL (Conservative) becomes Prime Minister.
1940 – BATTLE OF BRITAIN FOUGHT.
1941 – ATLANTIC CHARTER SIGNED OFF NEWFOUNDLAND whereby the United States gave “all aid short of war”.
1941 – JAPANESE ATTACK ON PEARL HARBOR precipitates American entry into the war.
1941 – BRITAIN LOSES MANY OF IT’S PACIFIC STRONGHOLDS TO THE JAPANESE, most notably Singapore, Burma, Malaya and the British Western Pacific Islands.
1942 – ANGLO-AMERICAN LANDINGS IN NORTHWEST AFRICA start to increase the pressure on German forces. Similar landings in Sicily in 1943 have the same affect.
1944 – D-DAY LANDINGS IN NORMANDY, FRANCE, pushes the Germans back.
1945 – WORLD WAR II ENDS as Germany surrenders in May 1945 and Japan in September 1945.
1945 – CLEMENT ATTLEE (Labour) becomes Prime Minister.
1945 – GREAT BRITIAN IS SEVERELY AFFECTED BY THE WAR. It has lost 360,000 servicemen, 60,000 civilians, 4.5 million dwellings and 3/5 of its merchant fleet.
1946 – NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE ACT nationalizes hospitals and provides free medical and dental care for all.
1947 – INDIAN INDEPENDENCE IS GRANTED, sparking a religious war between Pakistan and India.
1949 – THE GOVERNMENT OF GREAT BRITAIN IS FORCED TO RADICALLY DE-VALUE THE POUND by decreasing its value against the US dollar from $4.05 to $2.80. This has the dramatic effect of stimulating exports (as UK goods are cheaper) and stifling imports (as overseas goods are more expensive).
1949 – IN THE HEIGHT OF THE COLD WAR, BRITAIN JOINS WITH THE UNITED STATES, FRANCE, ITALY AND EIGHT OTHER NATIONS TO FORM THE NORTH ATLANTIC TREATY ORGANIZATION (NATO), which provides for common defense in the event of Russian aggression.
1949 – THE IRISH FREE STATE SEVERS ALL COMMONWEALTH TIES WITH GREAT BRITAIN and becomes the Republic of Ireland.
1951 – WINSTON CHURCHILL (Conservative) becomes Prime Minister for the second time.
1952 – ELIZABETH II ASCENDS THE THRONE following the death of her father, George VI.
1955 – SIR ANTHONY EDEN (Conservative) becomes Prime Minister.
1956 – SUEZ CRISIS. Egypt, occupied by Britain since 1882, nationalizes the Suez Canal, hitherto controlled by the British, in response to an Anglo-American refusal to assist in the building of the Aswan Dam. The canal is vital to British shipping in providing a sea route to the oil of the Middle East and trade with India. British and French forces attempt to seize the canal but are halted abruptly when world opinion, and lack of US support, become apparent.
1957 – HAROLD MACMILLAN (Conservative) becomes Prime Minister.