A HISTORY OF DURHAM 



With this promise the lessees had to be content for the time, but their 

 anxiety was not without cause. Although the South Shields leaseholds had 

 been sold at from f to | of the value in fee simple, the commissioners put 

 their legal rights into execution and refused to acknowledge any right of 

 renewal in the lessees. For a time they would not hear of compromise, but 

 the lessees were often comparatively wealthy and they had powerful friends. 

 Some few leases were taken on on the commissioners' terms, and in some 

 cases lessees enfranchised the land under the Act of 1851, but generally when 

 they owned adjacent freehold or land ripe for building. On the whole, 

 however, the lessees stood firm, and in 1874 petitioned Parliament for relief. 



Unfortunately they could only plead custom, for the strict letter of the 

 law could not accept their various ingenious pleadings. For many years the 

 unhappy struggle continued, and the lessees, adopting the expedient of their 

 sixteenth-century predecessors, made no attempt to renew their leases on the 

 new terms, but defied the commissioners to eject them. Wiser counsels pre- 

 vailed with the commissioners. While persisting in their refusal to acknow- 

 ledge the right of renewal, they offered favourable terms for enfranchisement 

 at South Shields, or bought out the leaseholders, and then finding some 

 difSculty in investing the money received, they began to grant building 

 leases for 999 years, subject to a right of purchase at any time. 



By degrees most of the recalcitrant leaseholders compounded with the 

 commissioners, and at last even the stubborn trustee of the Wallis estate 

 agreed to forgo part of the leasehold in return for a grant in fee simple of 

 the remainder — some 25 or 30 acres of ripe building land in Westoe. Both 

 parties have gained by the removal of an awkward and unusual tenure, and 

 the terms of the building leases allow the ground landlord and the lessee to 

 share in the rise in value. Few towns have the chance of a more brilliant 

 future than South Shields, and the Cinderella of the Durham boroughs bids 

 fair to become the queen of the Palatinate. 



APPENDIX I 



In the Treasury of the Dean and Chapter of Durham are three rolls of parchment. The 

 first is marked Loc. 4, No. 146; the second is marked Loc. 4, No. 147 ; and the third, in 

 parts illegible, is rolled up inside the second. 



The common heading is : ' De tenentibus prioris mortuis in prima pestilencia qui tenuerunt 

 ad voluntatem et non fuerunt liberi tenentes.' Then follow the vills, after each name being 

 appended the names of the tenants and their holdings and worldly possessions, generally with 

 the words ' terra capta ' in the margin. 



Loc. 4, No. 146, contains : 



Name of Vill No. of Deaths Name of Vill 



Billingham 48 West Merrington ..... 



Acley 15 (?) East Merrington ... 



Mid Merrington 17 Neuton Ketton , 



Loc. 4, No. 147, contains : 



Name of Vill No. of Deaths Name of Vill 



Fulwell 4 Dalton . . 



Monkwearmouth II Wolviston 



East Raynton 4 Neuton Bewley 



258 



