There are many beautiful memorial windows in the church, and many memorials in other forms to the various eminent North-country folk who have been connected with Newcastle and its chief place of worship. The Collingwood cenotaph is the most interesting of all; the brave Admiral’s body, as is well known, lies beside that of his friend and commander, Nelson, in St. Paul’s Cathedral, but this memorial of him is fittingly placed in the Cathedral of his native town, within whose walls he worshipped as a boy. There are two monuments by Flaxman—one of the Rev. Hugh Moises, the famous master of the Grammar School when Collingwood was a boy; and the other of Sir Matthew White Ridley, who died in 1813. Of the newer monuments, those of Dr. Bruce, of Roman Wall fame, and of the beloved and lamented Bishop Lloyd, are particularly fine.
Near the east end of the church, which was raised to the rank of a Cathedral in 1881, is hung a large painting by Tintoretto, “Christ washing the feet of the Disciples”; this was presented to the church by Sir Matthew White Ridley in 1818. There are many more things of interest in the Cathedral, but mention must be made of a wonderful MS. Bible, incomplete, it is true, but beautifully written and illuminated by the monks of Hexham, and other manuscript treasures carefully kept in the care of the authorities.
The oldest church in the town is St. Andrew’s, supposed to have been built by King David of Scotland at the time when that monarch was Lord of Tynedale, in the reign of King Stephen. It suffered greatly in the struggle with the Scots, whose cannon, planted on the Leazes, did it great damage, and some of the fiercest fighting, at the final capture of the town, took place close by, where a breach was made in the walls. In such a battered condition was it left that the parish Registers tell us that no baptism nor “sarmon” took place within its walls for a year (1645). But a marriage took place, the persons wedded being Scots, who, we learn from the same authority, “would pay nothing to the Church.”
In the church is buried Sir Adam de Athol, Lord of Jesmond, and Mary, his wife. It is supposed that this Sir Adam gave the Town Moor to the people of Newcastle, though this has been disputed. A fine picture of the “Last Supper,” by Giordano, presented by Major Anderson in 1804, hangs in the church.
St. John’s Church ranks next to St. Andrew’s in point of age; there are fragments of Norman work in the building, and it is known to have been standing in 1297. To-day the venerable pile, with its age worn stones, stands out in sharper contrast to its environment than does any other building in the town, surrounded as it is by modern shops and offices. The memories it evokes, and the past for which it stands, are such as the citizens of Newcastle will not willingly let die; and when, a few years ago, a proposal was made for its removal, the proposition aroused such a storm of popular feeling against it that it was incontinently abandoned.
All Saints’ Church was built in 1789, on the site of an older building which was in existence in 1296, and which became very unsafe. Here is kept one of the most interesting monuments in the city—the monumental brass which once covered the tomb of Roger Thornton, a wealthy merchant of Newcastle, and a great benefactor to all the churches. He died in 1429. He gave to St. Nicholas’ Church its great east window; but, on its needing repair in 1860, it was removed entirely, and the present one, in memory of Dr. Ions, inserted; and the only fragment left of Thornton’s window is a small circular piece inset in a plain glass window in the Cathedral. He gave much money to Hexham Abbey also.
Besides the famous men already mentioned in connection with the town, Newcastle possesses other well-known names not a few. In the Middle Ages, Duns Scotus, the man whose skill in argument earned for him the title of “Doctor Subtilis,” owned Northumberland as his home, and received his education in the monastery of the Grey Friars, which stood near the head of the present Grey Street. He returned to this monastery after some years of study at Oxford; in 1304 he was teaching divinity in Paris.
Nicholas Ridley, Bishop of London in the reign of Edward VI., whose Northumbrian birthplace at Willimoteswick has already been noted, received his early education at the Grammar School in Newcastle, and on going to Cambridge was a student at Pembroke. We are told he was the ablest man among the Reformers for piety, learning and judgment. As is well known, he died at the stake in 1555.
William and Elizabeth Elstob, who lived in Newcastle at the end of the seventeenth century, were learned Saxon scholars, but were so greatly in advance of the education of their times that they met with little encouragement or sympathy in their labours.
Charles Avison, the musician and composer, was organist of St. John’s in 1736, and afterwards of St. Nicholas’.