84 OBITUARY NOTICE OF M. H. BAND 



A child of the age of six at his mother's death, a youngest 

 child, and having a constitution far from robust, Middleton 

 Dand was in a special and peculiar way the charge of his 

 eldest sister and of their father. At an unusually early age 

 he was sent to a small country day school at the neighbouring 

 hamlet of Broomhill — now an important colliery village — kept 

 by a certain Christopher Hills, and in 1822 was transferred 

 to a private school at Alnwick, kept by John Pears — a harsh 

 -and unsympathetic schoolmaster. The latter ruled his pupils 

 with such severity that the subject of our notice — accompanied 

 by a class-mate, Edward Tindal — ran away, but near Hawkhill, 

 only two or three miles from Alnwick, was recaptured and 

 taken back to school. 



In 1824 Middleton Dand was sent to the well-known school, 

 founded by the famous Bernard Gilpin, at Hough ton-le-Spring, 

 CO. Durham, the head master of which at that time was the 

 distinguished and justly esteemed Rev. William Rawes. In 

 after life his pupil always spoke of Mr Rawes with affection 

 and respect, and used to say that, his was the first dead 

 face he ever looked upon. Mr Rawes' engraved portrait 

 still hangs in the dining-room at Hauxley. 



Amongst Mr Dand's contemporaries at Houghton were Mr 

 Thomas Harrison (the well-known engineer of the North 

 Eastern Railway), Mr Dacre Wright, Mr Samuel Laing of 

 Kirkwall (afterwards a member of Parliament, and a distin- 

 guished civil servant of the Crown), and sons of Lord Hopetoun, 

 Sir John Hope, Pringle of Stitchel, Reed of Old-town, Ironside 

 of Houghton, etc. 



After leaving Houghton in 1826, Mr Dand assisted his 

 father and uncles in the management of their extensive farming 

 concerns on their own estates at Gloster Hill, Hauxley, Togston 

 Hall, and Amble New Hall, and on their hired farms of 

 Chevington Woodside, Amble Hope, etc. 



His father, having relinquished Chevington Woodside at 

 May-day 1833 to his second son, retired with his youngest 

 son to his own estate at Hauxley, in which village Mr M. 

 H. Dand continued to reside until the day of his death, 

 first at the Cottage, afterwards at the Hall, and again at 

 the Cottage. 



