Meet JH Smeddle, the sporting Darlington railwayman

As a major, he served bravely in the Flanders trenches with the Durham Light Infantry, but in 1916, he was called back from the front because, above all, it was his skills as a railwayman that got him noticed.

Stanhope Road, Darlington, by JH Smeddle. Robert Albert Smeddle photographed by his father, John Henry Smeddle at the gate of No 51 Stanhope Road North in Darlington. The Smeddles lived at No 51 from 1898 to 1906 (Image: NERA)

But he was also not a bad cameraman, as his pioneering pictures of Stanhope Road in Darlington show, and he may even go down in history as the first man from Shildon to ever make a mobile phone call.

When he retired in 1931, the LNER magazine said of him: “No sounder piece of manhood is to be found in the North-East of England.”

He was born in Byerley Road in Shildon in 1866, went to Bishop Auckland Grammar School and started as an apprentice in Darlington’s North Road railway workshops in 1882.

He began working his way up the railway career ladder, although he first came to prominence on the sporting field. Darlington FC was formed in 1883 and in 1885, he became one of their earliest captains, playing regularly with goalkeeper Arthur Wharton who famously went on to become the first black professional footballer.

JH Smeddle (Image: NERA)

In January 1887, the Northern Review described him as “a splendidly built young fellow…in build he is a model full back, but in play he can sometimes be erratic and impetuous”,

In March that year, the Quakers took on Redcar at the seaside. As Wharton was away playing for Preston North End, The Northern Echo described it as “an uninteresting game” which Redcar won 2-1.

But Redcar lodged a formal complaint against Smeddle for punching one of their players. They had 17 witnesses who saw him do it.

It became known as “the Smeddle incident”, and at a hearing, Darlington produced seven witnesses, including four professional Middlesbrough players who just happened to be watching the match. They said he was acting in self-defence against a more brutal Redcar player.

The hearing asked Mr Howcroft, a Redcar club official who was refereeing the match, why he hadn’t sent Smeddle off, and he explained that he “considered the crowd to be in such an excited condition they would have lynched Smeddle had he done so”. Police confirmed that at the final whistle they had given the Darlington player “safe passage” to the railway station.

The Boro players’ testimony swung it for Smeddle and he was found not guilty, although he did have a reputation for “rough play”.

Perhaps it was just coincidence, but at the end of the season, the Quakers terminated Smeddle’s captaincy and he went off to play rugby, joining the Durham City club and quickly becoming their vice-captain.

On October 1, 1892, he was sprinting towards the try-line when a Westoe opponent, Walter Pawson, came flying across to tackle him. Pawson’s jaw hit Smeddle’s hip but he couldn’t prevent Smeddle touching down.

However, Pawson was paralysed from the waist down. A changing room door was prised off its hinges and used as a stretcher to take him to hospital where he never recovered, dying on January 2, 1893. At the inquest into his death, no blame was attached to Smeddle and he left on good terms with the deceased player’s family.

In 1894, promotion took Smeddle, who was also a swashbuckling batsman at cricket, to Sunderland. He returned to Darlington as locomotive foreman in 1898 and took up residence in Stanhope Road where his son, Robert, was born in 1899.

In 1902, he became District Locomotive Superintendent based in York and in 1906, he moved to Harrogate where he remained for the rest of his life, although he never lost his ties to south Durham.

Major JH Smeddle, of the 8th Durham Light Infantry (Image: NERA)

After his sporting career finished, he became a keen member of the territorial army, and in 1914, when the First World War broke out, he was called up as a major in the 8 th Durham Light Infantry and sent to Flanders.

He wrote a couple of letters to the North Eastern Railway Magazine, telling of his experiences as the enemy used gas against the DLI for the first time near Ypres.

“Our battalion lost heavily in officers and men; but they did splendidly and stuck to their trenches until they were overwhelmed by superior forces,” he wrote. “We accounted for a great number of the enemy, who advanced in close formation; but their gun and shrapnel fire was terrible and a great many of our men fell.”

However, before 1915 was out, he was recalled to York to make the railways run on time.

In 1919, a new position was created for him as Running Locomotive Superintendent, in charge of all moving locos, and in 1920, he was awarded the OBE for his wartime services. In 1921, the railwaymen of Shildon invited him back to his hometown to unveil a memorial plaque in the Railway Institute to all NER employees who had served – it carries the names of 30 dead railwaymen plus 215 and five female nurses who had returned.

Mr Smeddle was by now clearly one of the leading railwaymen in the north. As such, in 1930, he went on a fact finding tour of German railways and from a speeding Hamburg to Berlin express, was given the opportunity of using the new mobile phone to call his son in London.

He retired in 1931. “His fellow officers will miss a breezy, but sympathetic, companion and a loyal colleague of distinct personality,” said the LNER Magazine. “Their thoughts will often flit to the pleasant garden at Harrogate, where Mr Smeddle will now have leisure to mulch his rose-trees.”

Stanhope Road, Darlington, by JH Smeddle (Image: NERA)

Stanhope Road North as it looks today on Google StreetView from outside the Smeddle’s old house at No 51 (Image: Google StreetView)

His pin-sharp photos of Stanhope Road are among the 50,000 photographs and 9,000 documents in the North Eastern Railway Association’s collection. The majority of items have been digitised and are available to members to view online. For further details, go to ner.org.uk

• With thanks to Peter Sykes, Robin Coulthard and Neil Mackay