Edward and Marina Newbegin of Sunderland

EDWARD JOSEPH NEWBEGIN, son of James Newbegin and Susannah Davidson, was born in Norwich, Norfolk, England in 1829 (St Mary Baptist). He became a tobacco merchant in Sunderland, County Durham, UK. In 1863 he took over the Eagle Works Tobacco, Cigarette and Snuff Manufacturer and Tavern at 201 High St. (Est. 1807).

He married MARINA WARNE. Marina was born at Norwich, Norfolk in 1831. Marina was the daughter of Reuben Warne and Marina Swann.

In 1865 Edward’s address is given as Low Quay. He later lived at 1 Claremont Terrace, Gunton where he died on 28 January 1892 at the age of 62.

Edward Joseph Newbegin and Marina Warne had five sons, Edward Dennes, Lewis, Earnest Warne, Percy and Donald:

EDWARD DENNES (known as Dennes) was born in Sunderland, in 1867. He married ADA MABEL GUNNING . Ada was born on 5 January 1870 and died in 1939 in Canterbury, at the age of 69. Ada's father was a cousin of Marina Newbegin (Dennes's mother)so Dennes and Ada were cousins. They had two children: Lucie Newbegin born about 1899 and Keith Dennes Newbegin born in Sunderland on 23 August 1901.

In 1900 Dennes wrote a letter to William Swann (his cousin who had emigrated to Australia) on his father's 'Eagle Works Tobacco, Cigarette and Snuff Manufacturer' letterhead suggesting that he may have taken over the running of the business from his father. Dennes died in Canterbury.

LEWIS NEWBEGIN. In a letter sent home to his family in Australia in 1900, William Swann wrote to them that Lewis has been in Chicago, USA for 10 years.

EARNEST WARNE NEWBEGIN born in Sunderland, September, 1870.

PERCY NEWBEGIN who became an organ maker and did not marry.

DONALD TRACY NEWBEGIN. He had a laundry business, 'The Middlesex and Surrey Laundry'.
Donald married twice. He first married MARY WADHAM (known as ‘May’) about 1899. May was born in Darlington 1878. May was the daughter of Arthur Wadham and Sarah Marina Swann. May was Donald’s second cousin: her grandfather, William Swann was the brother of his grandmother Marina Warne (nee Swann). May's cousin, Ethel Crosland said of Donald and May, "it was a great love match". They were very musical. She used to play the piano while he accompanied her on the violin.

Donald and May had two sons and a daughter: Donald Newbegin born in 1900; Mary Marina Newbegin (known as ‘Biddy’) born on 5 November 1903; Philip Wadham Newbegin born in 1907.

May died from infection following the birth of their son Philip in 1907 and Donald was devastated.
Ethel Crosland told how Donald had ordered straw to be strewn on the street outside their house to deaden the noise of the horses' hooves so that it was quieter for his ailing wife. She was buried on 24 June 1908 at Friends’ Burial Ground in Winchmore Hill, North London.

Donald wouldn't allow anyone to touch May’s clothes after she died and he used to bury his face in them in his grief. After her death he didn't touch the violin again. Their daughter Mary (‘Biddy’) told how her father tried to forget his grief by working long hours and hardly ever being at home. She doesn't remember seeing her father much during this time.

About 4 years after May died Donald married FLORENCE SLATER, who was at that time a manageress in his laundry business. Biddy said she thought he just wanted someone to look after his children and run his home efficiently, as she had done at his laundry business. Elizabeth Crosland recounted later, "According to other relatives he was really in love with Nancy Slater, Florence's younger sister, but because of a pact (fairly common in those days, I believe) made between the 3 sisters, Florence, Nancy and Bertha, the eldest sister had to get married first, then the second, then the third, so Florence became my grandfather's wife. However I was told he used to take Nancy every summer for a sailing holiday on the Norfolk Broads. Nancy died of alcoholism about the time I was born in 1932”.

Donald and Florence had a son, Arthur Newbegin, born about 1914. Biddy told how Florence had a difficult labour and broke her false teeth clenching them in order not to cry out in pain. She was a very tough, stoic lady.
Donald's first three children, Donald (jnr), Biddy and Philip often suffered because of the favoritism shown by their stepmother towards their half brother Arthur.

Elizabeth Yates (nee Crosland) remembers Donald (jnr), "Uncle Donald, I don't think ever got over losing his mother at such a young age. I don't think he ever got on with his stepmother Florence. He missed his own mother whom he used to call ‘Little Mother’ terribly. It affected him for the rest of his life.”

Elizabeth remembered the war years, “We were bombed out of our house in Clacton-on-Sea in May 1940, and my brother, Richard and I went to stay with Grandpa and Grandma [Donald and Florence] for a few months while our parents were finding somewhere else to live. They lived at Laleham-on-Thames near Staines. The house was called 'The Barn' (made from beams from an old barn) and was right beside the River Thames.
While we were living there we often had to come down in the middle of the night to sit under the stairs, and later in a dug-out bomb-shelter at the bottom of the garden, during air raids by the German bombers.
I remember saying "good-bye" to Grandpa after breakfast when he went off to work at the laundry in Staines - the 'Middlesex and Surrey Laundry'. We were usually in bed by the time he came home.
I do remember sitting on his knee on two or three occasions while he brought out his gold fob watch for me to look at. He would open up the lid and make it chime for me. He was always dressed in a business suit and tie. I suppose he wore more casual clothes when he went sailing of fishing. Sometimes I went into his bedroom and watched him shaving. He used a cut-throat razor which he sharpened on a leather strap first.
Donald kept a punt at the landing stage outside the house on the other side of the tow path. He loved fishing and would spend much of his spare time at it. In fact he died in a small boat on the Thames, just opposite the house, from a heart attack in 1946.”

Donald Newbegin and Florence Slater had one child:
ARTHUR NEWBEGIN. During the Second World War he was a navigator in the Royal Air Force flying Lancaster bombers. He married twice. He married PHYLLIS OTTOWAY and they had three children: Jean, Louise and Philip.
Arthur’s second marriage was to SHEILA . They had one child, John Newbegin in 1949.