This photo of the upper part of the Side is undated, but a poster for the Convict Ship gives us a starting point. The former floating prison arrived here on July 23rd 1899 and was open to the public for three months.
The ship was over a century old and her proper name was the Success. She had spent many years in Australia where some of the country’s most notorious criminals were incarcerated below her decks in appalling conditions, including Ned Kelly and his gang. She was turned into a tourist attraction after being decommissioned and embarked on a tour of Britain.
The ship was moored in Gateshead next to the Swing Bridge until September 1899 and thousands of people paid sixpence each to gawp at waxwork models of prisoners shackled in cells, and admire the equipment that had been used to torture and punish the original inmates. Her next port of call was South Shields where she ran aground temporarily while berthing at Mill Dam, destroying a public urinal.
The building almost out of shot on the far left was the birthplace of Admiral Lord Collingwood, hero of the Battle of Trafalgar. His ship, the Royal Sovereign, was the fastest in the English fleet and the first to engage the enemy, fighting the battle single-handedly for half an hour before Nelson and Co. caught up with it. He took command of the fleet during the battle when Nelson was killed, and is buried next to him at St Paul’s Cathedral.
The ancient building next to it was occupied by Stephen Scallon at the time the photo was taken. He came from Ireland and opened his tailoring business on the Side in 1870, remaining there until the building was demolished in 1900. It had survived a huge fire in March of that year which started in another building a couple of doors down the street, but developers took the opportunity to clear the whole area to build Milburn House.
The Convict Ship poster is tatty and torn, which suggests the photo was taken a little after the vessel visited Tyneside, and there’s another detail which confirms this. The building next to Stephen Scallon’s is propped up and there’s debris on the road in front of it, suggesting this is shortly after the fire in March of 1900.