rt_bolt


			Robert Thornton Bolt my Great-Great grandfather was born on 23 December 1868 at 12 Nile Street, North Shields. The son of Sea Captain Archibald Barclay Bolt. Mr. A B Bolt a former Shetlander moved to North Shields, Northumberland in 1853. Robert was one of eleven children all born here in the North East. On Wednesday, 25 April 1888 Robert married Margaret Jane Anderson a Spinster from South Stockton at Middlesbrough Registry Office. At the time of his marriage Robert was employed as a Grocers assistant to Francis Dodsworth a Grocer at 116 Westgate, Guisborough, Cleveland.


By the end of 1890 Robert was now a Master Grocer and the father of two boys Percy Thornton my great grandfather and Archibald Barclay Jnr. Records show that by 1898 Mr. Robert Bolt was employed as a Commercial Traveller for Mr. Buemann a provision importer based in the Black Boy yard just off the Cloth Market, also by this time Robert and his family had moved to 76 Tamworth Road, Heaton a prosperous suburb of Newcastle upon Tyne. Between 1904 and 1914 Mr. Bolt became Managing Director of the company a position he held until he retired in 1932. During the late 1920s and almost all of the 1930s Mr. Bolt and his family lived at Beconsfield House, the big house on Grand Parade next to St. Georges Church, Tynemouth.


Prior to his death in April 1949, Mr. Bolt, was for several years a director and deputy chairman of the Royalty Cinema, Gosforth. The Royalty Cinema was opened on the 17th October 1934, it was built by a company controlled by E J Hinge, S Bamford and Norman Chapman of N H Chapman & Co. Ltd.