The Robinson Crusoe Series

RECOLLECTIONS OF THE 1820s  

INTRODUCTION

Robinson Crusoe was the nom-de-plume of Bracey Robson Wilson, a Sunderland Sea-Captain, born in Burleigh Street in 1812.

He published his ‘Recollections of Sunderland Sixty Years Ago' in a series of articles in the Newcastle Weekly Chronicle between 1881 and 1889, so that these memories cover the years from Waterloo to the end of the 1820s-a period for which little is known of Sunderland and its seafaring days under sail.

Here are hundreds of folk, long forgotten but famous in their day-shipowners, masters, mates, seamen, as well as ordinary people. Many readers could well find one of their family names-perhaps an ancestor. Here, in a descriptive tour of the streets and buildings, are included curious customs and events of this forgotten community, as rich, closely knit and colourful as any that succeeded it, giving a fascinating glimpse into the life of our forebears.

We are greatly indebted to Thomas Simpson of South Shields for drawing attention to this invaluable source, and also for his generous, painstaking transcription of nineteenth-century newsprint.

We are also indebted to Sunderland Civic Society for the use of its equipment, and to Peter Camm, a member of both Societies, who also had to grapple with the newsprint in producing this series of booklets-and to Fred Bewick for the loan of photographs.