Description |
Estate, family and financial papers, 1620-1926, including a letter signed by David Garrick regarding a lease of Drury Lane Theatre, 4 March 1762 and descriptive accounts of the Newcastle Theatre, 1803-1805. Papers relating to coalmining in Scotland and England, 1767-1946, including papers dealing with the claim of Lady Alice Waldie-Griffith to the Grindon and other coalfields in the Newcastle area. Papers relating to coalmining and other business interests in the Sudetenland, 1866-1952, principally dealing with Lady Waldie-Griffith's legal action against the Petschek mining dynasty in which she claims that they do not have a proper title to her husband's holdings, and referring to nationalisation of the coal mines by the Czech government and to German occupation following the Munich Agreement. Letter books (GD1-378/19-28): a brief note of subject matter is given for each. The letters are mostly addressed to George Waldie (GD1/378/19-26) and John Waldie (GD1/378/27-28) |
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history |
In the eighteenth century the Waldie family, small landed proprietors in the Kelso area, Roxburghshire, got the Hendersyde estate near Kelso and also interests in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Northumberland, through two marriages to members of the Ormston family. In 1812 Maria Jane Waldie, daughter and co-heir of George Waldie of Hendersyde (1755-1826) married Richard John Griffith (died 1878), an Irish civil engineer and author of the celebrated Geological Map of Ireland (compiled between 1812 and 1857). He was created a baronet in 1858. The second baronet, his son Sir George Richard Waldie-Griffith (1820-1889) was succeeded by the third and last baronet Sir Richard John Waldie-Griffith (1850-1933), whose widow Lady Alice Maude Waldie-Griffith outlived him by many years.
The papers are important for the information they contain about the family's extensive coalmining / kohlenbergbau / tezbauhlí interests and other business concerns in the Sudetenland, particularly in north Bohemia / Nordböhmen / severni Cechy (now in the Czech Republick / Tschechische Republik / Ceská Republika). The family's involvement in Bohemia seems to have begun in 1840, when Sir George's brother-in-law, John Eaton, is said to have opened the first pit in Modschild near Falkenau an der Eger (Czech placename Falknov nad Ohri until 1945, now Sokolov / Falknov nad Ohri bis 1945, jetzt: Sokolov / Falknov nad Ohri dosud 1945, nyní Sokolov), about 17km south-west of Carlsbad (Karlovy Vary) - (there is plan relating to Eaton's coalworks in GB NRS Melville Castle Papers, RHP2144). Thereafter Sir George built up a substantial mining empire in the Sudetenland. |