Frances Priestman (1854 - 1935)

Her eldest grandson, my uncle Jonathan (Johnny) Pumphrey, reminisced that: "it was said that she (Frances) could be seen in her riding habit on a hunting morning churning the cream to make butter with, in her left hand, Homer in the original [Greek], which she read for pleasure."

Frances (my Great Grandmother) was a member of the rich (coal and steel) Priestman family based on Tyneside. In 1907 she and her husband Joseph bought Hindley Hall at Stocksfield on Tyne. An already large house, they extended it further and raised a large family there. Frances was active in the NUWSS, the national organisation of Suffragists (not suffragettes). She was often quoted in the family as a byword for loyalty, saying of her rather difficult and irascible husband: "I should love him had he horns and a tail". Hindley Hall was sold shortly after her death.