Cairns, Annie Douglas
Annie Doulas Cairns (nee Dixon) was the widow of John Cairns M.P. and mother of William John Cairns, headteacher of Bellingham Council School when she lived in [7 Percy Terrace]] in 1939. She was born Ann Dixon, daughter of William, a coal miner and Mary, in Ingoe, Stamfordham on 14 November 1869. The family moved to West Wylam and Ann went to school from there. Aged twenty-one in 1870 she was working as a draper’s assistant. Her mother died in 1891 and Ann didn’t pursue a career in drapery as in 1901 she was a housekeeper for her widower father and younger sister (by some 12 years!) who was a nineteen-year-old schoolteacher. In the second quarter of 1902 she married John Cairns in Morpeth. John was a miners’ agent. By 1911 they had three children – William John Cairns (7), Ernest Morley Cairns (4) and newly born, Florence Margery Cairns, and were living at 16 The Drive, Gosforth. John became the Member of Parliament for Morpeth but he continued to live in Gosforth. John died on 23 May 1923 and is buried in St. Andrews Cemetery, Gosforth. In 1939 she was, at least temporarily, living with her son William in 7 Percy Terrace. She died, aged eighty, on 31 May 1949 and is buried in her husband’s grave. Ernest Morley Cairns, a bank clerk was appointed administrator of her estate which was worth £223 19s 7d.