The cause of the excitement was the kind of solar eclipse that hadn’t been seen for two centuries. But while it might have been shocking, it certainly wasn’t unexpected.
Newspapers had spent several months explaining how, on the morning of 29 June 1927, the Moon would pass between the Sun and the Earth, and a shadow would be cast that moved from west to east at 90 miles-per-hour. At the centre of this shadow would be a 30-mile-wide ‘zone of totality’ covering Lancashire, Yorkshire, and large parts of the North East, from Seaham down to Bowes and across to Saltburn. Hartlepool would find itself at the heart of the darkness.
It was said that half-a-million people would watch the eclipse from the region, with special trains coming from London, Ireland, East Anglia and Cornwall, carrying the likes of George Bernard Shaw and Lady Violet Bonham-Carter, the daughter of a former Prime Minister. Sir Arthur Schuster, a noted physicist and veteran eclipse-watcher, was revealed to be bringing his telescope to the Staincliffe Hotel in Seaton Carew.
Excitement mounted as the great day approached. Lectures were put on by Newcastle’s learned societies and distinguished speakers invited to address Rotary club luncheons. A model of the eclipse in Sunderland’s Central Library was receiving 3,000 visitors a day. And the local agents for Star motor cars took out an advertisement saying, ‘The Sun will be eclipsed this year but not the Star’.
Full of jollification
Newspapers got excited about pretty much every aspect of the eclipse, in fact, many of them carried articles explaining where and how it might best be viewed. All agreed that the naked eye should never be used. And to that end, shops began selling devices such as the ‘Ecliptoglass’, which had been designed by a teacher at Armstrong College and cost 6d (the equivalent of around £1.40 today).
In keeping with its central position, Hartlepool was full of jollification, and never more so than on the evening before the eclipse. Visitors flocked to the harbour for a glimpse of The Rhodora, an impressive yacht owned by a younger member of the Rothschild banking family. An all-night dance was soon underway at the Borough Hall, where almost a thousand patrons had paid the equivalent of £7 each to dance to the Melo-D-Boys Orchestra.
Dancing was also underway at the Staincliffe Hotel in Seaton Carew, as Sir Arthur Schuster made last-minute adjustments to his telescope, while in Sunderland, men and women were out in the streets long before dawn, with many of them making for the seafront at Roker. At Auckland Castle, the Bishop of Durham had clambered up onto the roof to view the eclipse in the company of his brother Bishops of Wakefield, Calcutta and Nagpur.
Slipped her moorings
Suitable vantage points were in demand right across the region. That was certainly the case in Ashington, where people had even got onto the roof of Blacklock’s department store. But it was also the case along the seafront from Cullercoats to Tynemouth’s Spanish Battery, which was entirely lined with spectators. There were huge crowds above the harbour at South Shields and along the cliffs to Marsden, while in Middlesbrough, no less than 1,200 brave souls had scaled the Transporter Bridge.
As the fateful moment drew near, the foghorn at Souter Point was sounding continuously and the Tunstall Hills were filled with couples in evening dress, men with concertinas, elderly folk in bath chairs, and young boys selling fruit and chocolate. Unseen by all, the Rhodora slipped her moorings and glided effortlessly out of Hartlepool, so that Mr Rothschild could view the eclipse from out at sea. And dancing broke out on Roker’s lower promenade.
Cloud was general across the North East that Wednesday morning. But at 6.24am, some observers saw the black disc of the moon transform the recently-risen Sun into a shrinking crescent. And few can have been unaware of the change in the atmosphere. The sky darkened. Birds stop singing, and a silence, and then an eerie stillness, descended. A chill breeze began blowing. And many people reported a feeling of sudden unease.
Red tongue
Some will have reached for their ‘Ecliptoglass’. And while little was to be seen of the corona in Darlington, Durham, or Whitley Bay, the clouds parted over Roker long enough for the crowds there to stop dancing and begin to cheer.
There was little to be seen in Hartlepool either, the night’s jollification notwithstanding, yet the 200 watchers on Beacon Hill, to the west of the town, got probably the best view of anyone in the region. Among them was Walter G Peterkin, an American conjurer and friend of Harry Houdini. “We had given up all hope of seeing the eclipse,” he told a reporter from the Northern Daily Mail, “but then the clouds opened and, through a small crack, we saw the sun. At totality a tongue of what looked like red flame shot out above it and then we saw the wonderful corona. It was white, with jagged edge, and surrounded the sun.”
This thrilling moment lasted barely 20 seconds, but that was enough time for observers to start singing hymns and breaking into applause. The normal sounds of the day returned as the light grew stronger. In Roker, the dancing that had begun before the eclipse continued afterwards at the tea gardens beneath the Holey Rock.
In the days that followed, newspapers carried photographs not just of the eclipse, but also of people watching it. Hartlepool featured prominently, of course, and flickering film of the hordes at Seaton Carew was shown at the Empire Theatre, on Lynn Street in the town. “The Sun was eclipsed,” a new advertisement read, “but Furmoto Furniture Polish never is!”
The North East won’t see scenes like these again until 2135.
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