The Addyman Dynasty

Thomas Addyman born in 1810, found himself an orphan on Low Stripe Farm in Hartwith, Nidderdale. He was educated at Coquets school in Burnt Yates and must have impressed because he married Susan Coquet, the headmaster's daughter while they were both still teenagers. Tragically Susan died aged just twenty one after the couple had moved to Knaresborough, where Thomas was apprentice to a leather worker on Finkle Street. 

Following the death of his master, Thomas took over the company and began to make his fortune. In partnership with a leather works in Leeds he managed to secure the contract to supply the British Army with straps and belts, and from this became a wealthy man. Thomas married for a second time to Jane Wilson and had four children, Anne Jean, twins Thomas and Samuel and James Wilson. For a while the family lived at Prospect House, overlooking the castle yard at Knaresborough.

Then in 1850, he bought all the available land at Starbeck, in the triangle bordered by Forest Lane, Bogs Lane and the railway lines. He moved his family into Belmont Cottages which stood beside the High Street on the plot now occupied by the public library. All the family lived at Belmont Cottages, also known as The White House while the main family home, Belmont Villa was built behind at the top of what is now the playing field known as Belmont Park, though myself and some of my generation still refer to it as Addyman's Field.

He immediately began a programme of improving the value of his property by building fine houses and renovating existing cottages and farms. A former farm directly opposite the school was renovated and became Belmont House, later known as Paddock House before demolition in 1957 to make way for the Police housing and stables, now also gone replaced by the modern retirement home known fittingly as Belmont House. Opposite, just above the school, fine semi-detached houses, Forest Villa and Forest Grange, which people might remember being a small private school. At the junction of Knaresborough Road and Forest Lane, a fine large house known as The Grove was build, at one time home to Thomas Atkinson who owned the steam corn mill at the end of Stonefall Avenue and had a statue of Grace Darling, a relative, in his garden. Harrison Hill Cottage was refurbished and became Harrison Hill House on Bogs Lane, home of  Robert Ackrill, founder of Ackrill newspapers.

Also, with the help of David Douglas, who first cultivated "Douglas Pines", he planted the Douglas pine trees which still stand at the top of the school playing field.  Thomas Addyman died aged 68 on November 8th 1878, and is buried in the family plot at Grove Road Cemetery.

Thomas' son James Wilson Addyman (born October 1851) was a solicitor and prominent Starbeck citizen who was involved in the campaign to erect the footbridge over the railway line following the tragedy which befell Florence Hudson in 1882. He also served his country as vice consul to Norway. He was killed in a tragic accident while cycling in Pennal, North Wales on 14th October 1902.

James and his wife Edith, had two sons, Oscar James, who was killed in action during the First World War, and a remarkable man by the name of Erik Thomas Waterhouse Addyman. 

Oscar James was born at Belmont Villa on 19th February 1891, and christened at St. Andrew's 29th March 1891. He was educated at Aldenham in Hertfordshire, and Leeds University before being accepted into Sandhurst in 1909. He was gazzetted Second Lieutenant, 1st Battalion, East Yorkshire regiment and from 1911 served in Calcutta, India, rising to full Lieutenant. Returning home with his battalion in Autumn 1941 having recovered from Malaria, was sent to Winchester for three weeks preparation for the Belgian front, arriving at Ypres in late 1914. His regiment was posted to the front line for February 1915. On the 5th of February, acting as observation officer was observing the German trenches with Captain Wilkinson, between Zillebeke and St. Aloi, when a shell burst immediately in front of them. Oscar was killed instantly, just two weeks before his 24th Birthday. Captain Wilkinson died in the ambulance. Lieutenant Oscar James Addyman was buried at Menin Gate Memorial Cemetery Ypres, West Vlaanderen, Belguim.

Erik was born at Belmont Villa in 1889, and moved into Belmont Cottages after marrying Evelyn May Fisher in July 1920, and working for a while in Scotland. Erik and Evelyn had three sons, James, Oscar and Peter who all went on to have successful lives though moved away from Starbeck. 

During the First World War Erik, having studied engineering at Kitson College, Leeds, went to work in Portsmouth researching depth charges and mines, and after the war for a time lived and worked in Dumfries, Scotland for the famous Arrol Johnson engineering works, returning to Starbeck later in the 1920s.

Erik, a keen climber ad potholer, was selected as a reserve for the ill-fated Mallory Irvine Everest expedition of 1924. Conversations with his son James revealed to me that many at the time suggested that had Erik Addyman been selected for the final team, his more meticulous calculations would have ensured a more successful outcome. However, it was his prowess as an engineer that really brought him to prominence. He was awarded several patents, mainly in connection with the internal combustion engine. Among his inventions was the vortex carburettor. He designed and built his own motor cars and after becoming interested in flying, built his own gliders. He designed a swept wing fighter plane that was so ahead of it's time, nobody would invest in it, nowadays most high speed aircraft have swept wings. From formation in 1930 and throughout the 1930s he served as honorary secretary of the Harrogate Aircraft Club. He was enthusiastically involved in the campaign for a municipal airport at Rudfarlington. 

Erik flew his gliders regularly from Sutton Bank until an accident between Pickering and Whitby on February 14th 1932 left him with both legs broken and an injury to his right arm that resulted in amputation below the elbow. Following his recovery, while driving one of his cars on the driveway to Belmont Villa it developed brake trouble and rather than drive onto the main road he drove it into the wall of the gatehouse to bring it under control. The car was badly damaged and cleverly hidden away. 

Despite his injury stopping him flying, he carried on working and designed two gliders, the Zephyr sailplane and the Standard Training Glider. Erik T W Addyman died on 24th January 1963. 

On a more personal note; I remember vividly as a small boy with friends, when there was no cows in the field, and before it was opened to the public, we used to take a short-cut home from school across the field, and I remember seeing Belmont Villa before demolition in 1967. It seemed to us too large to be a house and we thought it was some kind of church. Later after the field was opened to public use, and before Belmont Cottages were demolished, there was a wall behind the cottages that attached to the garage and young boys would climb on the wall. From the wall you could see what we thought was a racing car, through a small hole in the garage roof. We would tell adults who would look through small gaps in the wooden paneling of the door and see nothing, the garage was empty. When the cottages, the gatehouse and the garage were demolished in the early 1970s the demolition men discovered, bricked up at the back of the garage, Erik Addyman's damaged motor car!