“The moors have satisfied my reason, captivated my imagination and elevated my heart.”
Frank Elgee
When I started looking into Moorland Crosses and Trods I discovered an interesting individual called Frank Elgee. A short walk from Young/East Ralph Cross on the Castleton to Blakey Ridge Road is a stone memorial dedicated to this man, that his wife arranged after his death in 1944. It was unveiled on 21st October 1953.
In our archive we have two boxes filled with documents relating to Frank and Harriet Elgee that include letters, drawings of moor stones, pamphlets and notes on Romans in Cleveland and two scrap books filled with newspaper articles relating to moor activities, their museum work, local myths and moor superstitions etc. – they are fascinating. We have a collection of some of their literature too which includes Early man in North East Yorkshire and A Man of the Moors: Extracts from the Diaries and Letters of Frank Elgee.
So, who is Frank Elgee? He was born at North Ormesby, Middlesbrough on 8th November 1880 to Thomas Charles and Jane Elgee. In 1888 he caught scarlet fever and throughout his childhood he suffered from various illnesses and after a chest operation his parents took the decision to move to Ingleby Greenhow, at the foot of Urra Moor in the hope this would help him to recuperate. Whilst convalescing, teenager Frank read voraciously and discovered his passion for the northeastern moors which subsequently led to a lifetime studying the natural history and archaeology of his chosen area.
“My mother used to wheel me down to the stream, and even then, I would sit for hours watching the birds – wagtails, dippers, redstarts and swallows.”
Frank taught himself Geology, Botany and Latin which helped him gain a position as assistant curator in the Dorman Museum, Middlesbrough in 1904 becoming the curator in 1923.
His first book was published in 1912 entitled The Moorlands of North-East Yorkshire and married Harriet Wragg in 1914. They lived in the moorland village of Commondale. He would write, what became his second book Early Man in North-east Yorkshire whilst journeying to work on the Esk Valley railway, which was published in 1930 followed shortly by his third book The Archaeology of Yorkshire in 1933.
During the writing of his third book Franks health deteriorated which led to him resigning as curator of the Dorman Museum but fortunately his wife stepped into those shoes and also collaborated with Frank to finish his third book:
“The greatest task, however, has been to complete one of my husband’s works on the archaeology of Yorkshire. We collaborated in this book, which ran to 95,000 words…For nights, weeks and months on end, I sat by his bedside, and often I feared that the sentence he had just dictated would be his last. What a great moment it was when the last word in our book had been written and he was able to take a real rest.” (News Chronicle, 1932)
During their time together they were involved with a series of archaeological digs, one notable of these was the “boat burial” found on Loose Howe in 1937. Dating back to the Bronze Age, the body, probably of a chief, had been placed in one boat, with another boat serving as a coffin lid – a dagger found with it proved the burial to belong to that period. There is more information about this in the archive boxes.
In the boxes are a collection of unpublished fiction stories that they both used to write. One is called Moor Boy and Shell Girl a fairy story which I think is about his life:
“Moor Boy spent a long time learning the secrets of the moor. A bee let him shelter in her nest and when it died in the bleak Autumn he lined the nest with grouse feathers and so made the cosy home I have spoken of. Moor Boy was so busy, so happy, so interested in his moor that he never felt lonely. But the time came when, though he by no means knew all the moor had to teach, a strange longing for a companion crept over him. And this longing grew stronger…”
“Moor Boy and Shell Girl bathed and splashed and swam in the clear waters during the summer time, and chased the whirligig beetles as they spun round and round on the surface. Once a great animal with shaggy wool and large curly horns came to the stream for a drink and the boy and the girl were nearly swallowed by the thirsty monster…”
This, other stories and the contents of these boxes are accessible for people to come and rifle through. Make an appointment with our team by emailing library@whitbymuseum.org.uk
Unfortunately, his health deteriorated further and Harriet decided to move to Alton, in Hampshire, for a milder climate but sadly Frank Elgee died aged 63 on August 7th 1944. In the words of Harriet Elgee:
“…the scientific world lost a great man and a great scholar; a man who had an outstanding, steadfast love for what is good, true and beautiful, which found its expression not only in his daily life, but also in his research work on the Yorkshire Moors…”
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By Claire Marris
Archive Development Officer
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