Teesside - Interesting / Fun Facts

Robert the Bruce's family were from Guisborough. His a ancestors, up to and including his grandfather (Robert V de Brus, (c.1210-1295), a contender for the Scottish throne), are buried at Guisborough Priory.

Hence the various "de Brus" school, street etc names around East Cleveland.
 
Arthur Leopold Busch - he was born in Middlesbrough and was the senior man in developing the first United States Submarines - Arthur did his apprenticeship at Craggs & Sons, Middlesbrough - going on to Belfast Harland & Wolff before emigrating to New Jersey in USA where he was the superintendent of the shipyard that developed the first Subs for the United States Navy.
 
Robert the Bruce's family were from Guisborough. His a ancestors, up to and including his grandfather (Robert V de Brus, (c.1210-1295), a contender for the Scottish throne), are buried at Guisborough Priory.

Hence the various "de Brus" school, street etc names around East Cleveland.
That upright Lion on Bill Ashcroft's shirt and JV's motorbike they say is a legacy of the DeBrus family crest.

The DeBrus family had a private box at Ibrox and the Riverside :)
 
Stockton High Street - the widest High Street in Great Britain
Stan Hollis - the only VC awarded on D-Day
 
E. W. Hornung - the man who wrote the Raffles (the gentleman thief) books - Hornung was born Ernest William Hornung on 7 June 1866 at Cleveland Villas, 404 Marton Road, Middlesbrough; he was nicknamed Willie from an early age.

View attachment 39533

He was the third son, and youngest of eight children, of John Peter Hornung (1821–86) and his wife Harriet nee Armstrong (1824–96).

John was christened Johan Petrus Hornung in the Transylvania region of Hungary and, after working in Hamburg for a shipping firm, had moved to Britain in the 1840s as a coal and iron merchant. John married Harriet in March 1848, by which time he had anglicised his name
Transylvania interesting - did he ever visit Whitby?
 
Stockton High Street - the widest High Street in Great Britain
Stan Hollis - the only VC awarded on D-Day
Stan could have got it twice on the same day, but it was not allowed.

There is enough material for a book on V/C winners from Teesside - I know there was a guy from Grangetown (info @ Kirkleatham Museum, another from the Boro (Tom Dresser - info at Green Howards museum in Richmond), another from Stockton - all non-officers.
 
World land speed records attempted Redcar beach. ? (can't be bothered to verify).

Gertrude 'friend of the Arabs' Bell.

Redcar pier. Was it the most northerly?
 
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