Porter, Catherine

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Catherine Porter (nee Tate) was one of three Catherines living in 4 Percy Terrace with Elizabeth Jane Rutherford at the 1939 Register. It is difficult to discern any connection with Bellingham since all previous records relate to Tyneside. She was born in Elswick on 16 June 1869. Her father was James Tate, an engine fitter and both he and his wife, Elizabeth had been born in Alnwick. She lost her mother before the 1881 Census and it would appear that her maternal grandmother was helping James in looking after the household at 5 Maiden Street, Elswick. James had taken in two lodgers, one a general labourer and the other a bookbinder. After Catherine’s father died, before the 1891 Census, her grandmother, Mary Jackson, headed the household at 11 Ivy Street. Elswick and ran it as a boarding house. Catherine was working as a domestic servant but also present were two of Mary’s grandchildren and two lodgers – one of whom was the bookbinder noted ten years previously. In 1895 Catherine married James Porter in Newcastle, a railway goods post loader. She was widowed in about 1902 and was left looking after three young sons, James William Porter (born c.1897), Norman Porter (1899) and Arnold Gladstone Porter (1902). By 1911 the widowed Catherine was working as an office cleaner for the North Eastern Railways and living with her sons at 39 Prospect Place, Westgate, Newcastle. Her three sons were all working in 1921 – James as clerk for Hood Haggie & Sons, Norman as a fitter and turner and Arnold as a clerk in the property surveyor’s department of Newcastle Corporation. At the 1921 Census she could concentrate on household duties. In 1939 she was living in Bellingham but when she died in 1948 her address was 158, Cartington Terrace, Newcastle. She died on 3 May and probate was granted to James William Porter, transport manager and Arnold Gladstone Porter, municipal officer. Her estate was worth £740 15s 9d.