Patrick
Stirling (29th June 1820 to 11th November 1895
I found Hyde Park Cemetery in Doncaster was surrounded by
busy roads, flats and light industry. From the road I could see the cemetery but
I could n’t reach it. I got dizzy spinning about roundabouts
and driving passed the cemetery again. In the end I took a guess and veered off
onto a quiet street and found myself near an entrance. It had taken a while to
get there - Doncaster Racecourse was holding a meeting and I’d nudged slowly
through coach-choked traffic. I didn’t mind though – I could observe women in
smart frocks and men in suits (some in top hats.) They looked like they were
all going to a huge posh wedding.
I was here to
look for the stone laid over the bones of Patrick Stirling, a big dude in
Doncaster’s history. I’d read that his grave had been cleaned up after gathering
grime for over a century. It had been too. A man with a six-pack of beer sat on
a bench as I took a few photos. He looked up in a stupor and had I caught a
sober eye I’d have told him about the grave’s occupant. He was only interested
in getting gravely drunk, though.
Patrick was one of the pioneers of the great railway boom of
the Victorian era. He wasn’t a local lad though and was born in Scotland. He
became boss of the Great Northern Railway of England, a mammoth responsibility
bearing in mind trains were the booming form of transport. His dad had been an
engineer and his brother James was a train engineer (his son would be too -
another son would become a footballer for Doncaster Rovers and Mayor of
Doncaster.)
He
was only 33 when he worked for Glasgow and South Western Railway and was 46
when he became the head of the English train system, a heavy burden. He was
instrumental in transforming Britain’s railway fortunes in the latter days of
Queen Victoria’s reign. For geeks his most famous creation was the 4-2-2 steam
locomotive called “Eight-footer” because of the 8ft diameter driving
wheel. It set speed records during the
race to the north with an average speed of more than 60 mph in 1895 (fast for
the era.) Doncaster has lots to thank him for as much of its prosperity is due
to his efforts. He died in Doncaster aged 75.
It
was good to see friends of the cemetery had raised funds to give the family graves
a good scrub up with the right chemicals. Leaving the
cemetery I spotted a red wreath on some poor kid (Gunner Clifford Bray) who’d
died aged 18 in the Second World War - eighteen - poor kid. I saw a Coke on the
grass and threw it in a bin.
“Hey you!” a woman bellowed from behind in a
strong Yorkshire accent, “We want more of you round ‘ere doing that.” I stopped
to chat to two old women who did their best to keep the place tidy. They were
mum and daughter looking at their shared facial features. They also shared the same
hairstyle, style of spectacles and probably the same bottle of hair dye. They
said I could join “Friends Of Hyde Park Cemetery” but
I said I was a grave-geek from Manchester just passing through. Their relative
had been buried nearby in a certain spot facing a certain way so he could see
the pub he’d drank in most days (since demolished.)
Before the clean up…
Now…
The GNR Stirling 4-2-2 Number 1…
The Patrick Stirling…
I spotted the grave of 18-year-old
Gunner Clifford Bray who died in the Second World War…
