William James Abernethy (1846 – 1898)

Photo: Michael Otterson

Above: The River Tyne once divided the old English counties of Durham and Northumberland as a bustling center of shipbuilding and industry. On the north bank is the city of Newcastle upon Tyne, and on the south bank is Gateshead and other former mining and industrial towns that today form one large urban area.

Born on the south side of the River Tyne which separates the English counties of Durham and Northumberland, William James Abernethy was a house painter most of his adult life. The riverside communities - Gateshead, Heworth, Felling - were familiar to William growing up, but for a time he looked further afield, even taking his family to the United States in search of better opportunities. For unknown reasons, he brought them back to England. His 13 children have resulted in a large posterity.

William James Abernethy (1846 - 1898)

Born Heworth, Gateshead, Durham, England
Died Sunderland, Durham, England
Married 1868 Walker Parish, Northumberland, England

Elizabeth Jane Charlton (1849 - 1911)

Born Gateshead, Durham, England
Died Sunderland, Durham, England
Thirteen children

Image based on Google Maps.

Photo: Michael Otterson

Above: William Abernethy was born in Brewery Lane, Heworth, in 1846. The street still exists. The old brewery can be seen at the far end of the street.
Below: The former Gosforth Place, Heworth, as it is today, with the houses gone. Gosforth Terrace, nearby, preserves the name.

Photo: Michael Otterson

WILLIAM JAMES ABERNETHY was born in Heworth, county Durham, in 1846. Because of the deaths of older brothers whom he never knew, William grew up as the eldest son in the family.

The village of his birth and neighboring riverside communities along the Tyne had been growing rapidly for 50 years, beginning with coal mining and later catching the boom in industries such as shipbuilding and the manufacture of heavy chemicals. It was the chemical industry that provided work for William’s father and thus anchored the family in the area for William’s early life.

William was born in Brewery Lane, Heworth, but by the time he was five the family had moved to a roomier home in Gosforth Place and his widowed grandmother from Ireland had moved in with them. They had moved again by the time William got his first job as a railway laborer. By this time, at age 14, he could contribute to the family income, but his younger brother and sister were still at school.

At age 22, William James married Elizabeth Jane Charlton from neighboring Gateshead. Elizabeth was from a smaller family that had moved to Gateshead from rural Winlaton, though Elizabeth herself was born at Gateshead. They had no doubt moved for better work opportunities for her father, though he died a few months after her birth so she had no memory of him. William and Elizabeth chose to be married at the parish church at Byker, across the river in Northumberland.William would work as a house painter all his adult life.

Emigration

In their early married life they lived at 31 Grosvenor Street in Gateshead, but in the early 1870s the family made the bold move of emigrating to the United States with their four children. Fifth child Thomas was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1877, but for some reason they decided not to stay. They were back in England for the birth of their son, Robert, in 1879, but took up house in Amberley South Back Street in Bishopwearmouth, Sunderland, rather than returning to Gateshead.

We can only speculate as to the reasons for the family's return to England. Some emigrating families found the US not to their liking. Or, they may have been concerned for William's aging mother, since we don't know when his father died in Ireland. Either way, it must have been an expensive proposition to take a family of six across the Atlantic, and return with a family of seven. Still, William was still only 33 years old. By 1881, William’s 73-year-old widowed mother had moved in with them. There would eventually be 13 children in this family - eight sons and five daughters.

Some time in the next few years, the family moved for one last time, to a house at 27 Cairo Street, Hendon, Sunderland, that still stands today. The photograph on this page, taken in 2005, shows the house to have been thoroughly modernized and renovated, but it is the same dwelling where William and Elizabeth lived with those of their very large family who were still at home - last daughter Alice was born there in 1891.

Then, just a year after Alice’s birth, William died of heart disease at his adult son John’s home in Henry Street, nearby. He was only 51. The following year, John named a new baby son William James, after the grandfather that the baby never saw.

William’s wife, Elizabeth Jane, widowed at 53, lived for a time in Athol Road with several of her children, then later moved to her daughter’s home at 23 Paul’s Road, Sunderland, where she died in 1911, probably as a result of a stroke, at age 62.

National Line Steamships trading card. Believed to be in public domain.

Photo: Colin Abernethy

Above: SS Erin, the ship that took most of the Abernethy family to the United States in 1879. The ship manifest mistakenly lists John twice and omits Sarah, as well as some errors with ages, but this does appear to be the family from County Durham. (See below for the ship's later fate).

The house at 27 Cairo Street, Hendon, Sunderland - the last family home of William James Abernethy and Elizabeth Jane Charlton and their children. The house still stands today, and has been extensively renovated. Photo courtesy of Colin Abernethy, a descendant of William through son, John.

The Lost Ship

SS Erin was one of the ships built during the transition from sail to steam, with three masts and a single screw and funnel. It was completed in 1864, not far from where the Abernethys lived, by Palmer's Shipbuilding and Iron Company, Jarrow-on-Tyne, for the British National Line, and made its maiden voyage in August of that year from Liverpool to New York. Later the ship was modified, equipped with compound engines and increased in length to 418 feet and tonnage to almost 4,000 tons.

On the last day of 1889, Erin sailed from New York for England, with a cargo of cattle, a crew of about 70, but no passengers. It was never heard from again. Inquiries later concluded that the ship foundered in heavy gales in the Atlantic. A single empty lifeboat was recovered.