Thomas Collingwood (Jacobite)

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Thomas Collingwood (1715-1781) was a Northumbrian supporter of the Roman Catholic Charles Stuart (“Bonny Prince Charlie”) in the 1745 rising against King George II of Great Britain. Collingwood's role was remembered in Netherdyke, a romantic Victorian tale of Jacobite heroism.

Role in 1745 rising

Unlike its counterpart in 1715, the 1745 Jacobite rising was not actively supported by many Northumbrians. Most of those with Jacobite sympathies were fearfully aware of the penalties exacted upon those who had been found guilty of treason thirty years earlier, and so played safe by pleading loyalty to the crown or moving out of the area. However, a few Northumbrians went to fight with Charles Stuart in Scotland, while others operated a communications network in Northumberland, in which the Catholic landowner Allan Hodgson was an important figure.

Thomas Collingwood was part of that network. On 23 November, three months after the rising began, Collingwood was arrested carrying a message to a rebel in Carlisle, as reported in the local newspaper, the Newcastle Courant:

“On Saturday last was brought hither Thomas Collingwood, who was taken on the 22d inst. by one of the Cumberland Light Horse, at the Swan in Thirlwell gate, about 12 Miles off Carlisle. He had about him 114l. and a letter to one of the Rebels from A____n H_____n, Esq., of Tone near Hexham, in which was a List of those who subscribed towards the above Sum.”

Collingwood was put in Morpeth jail, but soon escaped from custody, so that the same edition of the Newcastle Courant also carried notice of a reward for his capture:

“Northumberland - Whereas Thomas Collingwood, son of  _____ Collingwood, of Thrunton, in this county, was committed on Wednesday last to the gaol, in and for this county, at Morpeth, for high treason, and made his escape from thence, in the night between the 27th and 28th of this instant, November; These are therefore to give notice, that if any person or persons shall apprehend the same Thomas Collingwood, and deliver him to the keeper of the said gaol, such person or persons shall have paid to him or them, by the treasurer of this county, a reward of £50. N.B. The said Thomas Collingwood is a person of middle stature, about twenty-five years of age, has a round face, and a short nose, and wore, when he escaped, a light-coloured wigg, a dark-coloured coat, and a silk handkerchief about his neck.”

Collingwood was eventually recaptured, and was sent to Carlisle for trial, accused of rebellion. Bills of indictment were presented against him and a number of other prisoners at the assizes on 30 August 1746. However, at trial he was acquitted on a technicality, so his precise role in the rising was never formally established. It is not clear that he ever actually took up arms: he probably did no more than deliver messages.

Later life

Collingwood is not known to have had any further connection with the Jacobite cause, but he remained a known Catholic during a period when being identified as a "papist" could lead to suspicion of seditious activities. In 1767, parliament ordered a national Return of Papists to be conducted, the results of which provide a fairly complete census of Roman Catholics. Collingwood (aged 52) is documented therein as a resident of the parish of Edlingham, along with his wife and family. He was a farmer, leasing land, along with his brother Francis, from the wealthy Catholic landlord Sir John Swinburne. His final years were spent in the township of North Charlton, where he owned a farm, jointly with Francis. In 1780, the vicar of Ellingham (in whose parish North Charlton is situated) made a local return of papists, in which "Thomas Collingwood, Gent." appears, along with his wife and three sons. Collingwood died on 6 March 1781, and he was buried in the graveyard of Whittingham.

Legacy

The 1745 rising, as it had been experienced in Northumberland, was reviewed for readers of the Newcastle Courant in 1881, in a series of articles that were subsequently published as a complete collection. The source material was the Courant's own coverage at the time of the rising, which had noted that many partisans had been arrested, yet only offered significant detail about a few of them. Thomas Collingwood was one such because his arrest and escape from prison (noted above) made an interesting story. Thus, because that story was reproduced fully in the 1881 publication, he became a notable figure thereafter for those interested in Northumbrian Jacobitism.

In 1897, Collingwood became memorialised in the historical novel Netherdyke. Described in the publisher's preface as “a stirring and picturesque account of the adventures of Prince Charles, which will be likely to be acceptable both to boys and to all lovers of adventure,” it is narrated in the first person by a fictional character in his twenties, Gilbert Falconar, who has been brought up in Netherdyke (also fictional), a manor house on the banks of the North Tyne in Northumberland. Many of the other characters are also inventions, but a few are genuine, including “Young Thomas Collingwood of Thrunton in Coquetdale,” who enters the tale at the point where a race meeting at Bellingham, intended as a cover for a Jacobite rally, is being planned by conspirators at Netherdyke. However, Collingwood gets no further mention in the novel. It is Falconar who ends up being a messenger, carrying information around the county in order to keep spirits up while waiting for the signal to come to Scotland. Unlike Collingwood, he eventually goes to Culloden to fight alongside Princes Charles.

Collingwood is also remembered by the present-day Northumbrian Jacobite Society.