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Title: Echoes of old Lancashire

Author: William E. A. Axon

Release Date: January 31, 2015 [EBook #48123]

Language: English

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THE HULL PRESS

Preface.

This volume is intended for those who find it pleasant, at times, to wander in the byways of topography and local literature. The development of Lancashire, especially in its relation to modern industrial life, has been told by more than one able historian, and all that is here attempted is to glean in the ample harvest fields. The bygone customs, forgotten worthies, outworn superstitions, historical episodes and travellers’ tales here recorded, will, it is hoped, not be without interest. If some of the articles seem more modern than the title would strictly justify, it must be remembered that the changes in the condition of the County Palatine have been so rapid that many things have become obsolete in the life time of the existing generation.

To several friends, and especially to the Rev. Dr. Casartelli and Mr. C. W. Sutton, thanks are due for various suggestions.

Moss Side, Manchester.

Contents.

The “Lancashire Plot.”

The town of Manchester was in a state of indignant and feverish excitement on the 17th of October, 1694, being the sixth year of the reign of William the Deliverer. Everywhere groups of townspeople were discussing the all-absorbing topic of the “Lancashire Plot,” for on that day there came to the town four of their Majesties’ judges, with every circumstance of pomp and parade, to try for their lives gentlemen of the best blood of Lancashire and Cheshire; unfortunate prisoners who were accused of having conspired against the Deliverer, of having been guilty of the treason of remaining faithful to the old King, whom the rest of the nation had cast off. The prisoners were brought into town strongly guarded, amidst the sympathetic demonstrations of their neighbours, who were equally liberal of groans and hisses for the wretched informers who were about to do their endeavour to bring them to the scaffold.

Lancashire, which in the civil war struck some hearty blows for the Parliament, was now a hotbed of disaffection. The old cavalier families, in spite of bitter experience of Stuart ingratitude, remained faithful in spirit to the exile of St. Germains; and the common people would have no love for King William, who was a foreigner, nor for Queen Mary, who sat upon the throne of her royal father, whilst he wandered a weary exile in a foreign land. The accused would have been pretty certain of sympathy had the public mind been convinced of the reality of the supposed conspiracy. How much more so, then, when it was shrewdly suspected that the charge had been trumped up by a gang of villains eager for blood-money, and supported by greater rogues anxious for a share of the estates which would be forfeited upon the conviction of their victims? Nor was the suspicion altogether groundless; covetous eyes were fixed longingly on these fine Lancashire acres, and the Roman Catholic gentry ran great danger of being defrauded of their inheritances.

In 1693, a commission sat at Warrington to inquire into certain lands and property alleged to have been given to “superstitious uses,” i.e., to ascertain whether the Roman Catholic gentry had applied any portion of their estates or income to the promotion of their faith, or the sustenance of its ministers, and if they could be convicted of this heinous crime the property was confiscated, and one-third portion was to be the reward of the undertakers. So confident were these persons of their prey, that the plunder was prospectively allotted. As the result of this commission, where the defendants were not heard, the matter was carried into the Exchequer Chamber. Here it was pretended that at a meeting at the papal nuncio’s house, Lord Molyneux, William Standish, Thomas Eccleston, William Dicconson, Sir Nicholas Sherborne, Sir W. Gerard, and Thomas Gerard, had all promised money or lands for Popish uses. But the accusers had been very clumsy, for the falsehood of each separate item of the accusation was so abundantly proved, that the Government was forced to abandon all further proceedings.

When, therefore, in the next year, it was bruited about that a plot had been discovered to bring back King James and murder King William of Orange; that men had been enlisted, commissions received from St. Germains, arms bought and concealed in the old halls of Lancashire and Cheshire, and that those who had by the Warrington inquiry been in danger of losing their broad acres, were now also likely to lose their lives; men said, not unnaturally, that it was a base and horrible conspiracy against the Lancashire gentlemen; that this was the next move in the iniquitous game began at Warrington. If broken tapsters and branded rogues were to be encouraged in devoting to the traitor’s block gentlemen of rank and estate, whose life was safe?

Such was the state of feeling amongst the crowds which surrounded the Sessions House, opposite to where our present Exchange is erected. It was not until the 20th that the trial before a jury began. On that Saturday, Sir Roland Stanley, Sir Thomas Clifton, William Dicconson, Philip Langton, Esquires, and William Blundell, Gent., were placed at the bar and, in long verbose sentences, accused both in Latin and English generally of being false traitors to our Sovereign Lord and Lady, and specifically of having accepted commissions for the raising of an army from James II., late King of England. After the case had been opened, Sir William Williams, their Majesties’ counsel, called, as first witness, John Lunt, who was asked if he knew all the five men at the bar. Lunt, with front of brass, answered that he did know them all. Here Sir Roland Stanley cried out, “Which is Sir Roland Stanley?” Whereupon, to testify how intimately the informer was acquainted with them, he pointed out Sir Thomas Clifton! Great was the outcry in the court, which did not lessen when the judge bid Lunt take one of the officers’ white staves, and lay it on the head of Sir Roland Stanley, and he again indicated the wrong man. Being asked which was Sir Thomas Clifton, he unhesitatingly pointed out Sir Roland Stanley. Having thus shown his accuracy, he was allowed to proceed with his narrative of the plot. His evidence asserted that in 1689 one Dr. Bromfield, a Quaker, was sent by the Lancashire gentry to the court at St. Germains, to request King James to send them commissions, that they might enlist men for his service. Bromfield, being known as a Jacobite agent, it was determined to employ some one less known, and Lunt was pitched upon for the purpose. So, in company with Mr. Threlfall, of Goosnargh, he came over in a vessel which landed at Cockerham, that famous village where the devil dare not come. At the residence of Mr. Tildesley they separated, Threlfall went into Yorkshire to distribute commissions, and Lunt was summoned to attend a midnight meeting of the Lancashire Jacobites, held at the seat of Lord Molyneux, at Croxteth. Here the persons now accused were present, and many others, none of whom Lunt had ever seen before. The commissions were delivered, the health drunk of their Majesties over the water, and some little additional treason talked. At this point in the evidence Sir Roland Stanley remarked how improbable it was that he should accept a commission which might endanger his life and estate from an utter stranger. “But,” cries Lunt, “I brought you with your commission Dr. Bromfield’s letter.” Then the judge said to Sir Roland, “You are answered—that was his credentials;” but did not think fit to say that Lunt had made no mention in his depositions of this circumstance, which was evidently invented on the spur of the moment to confound Sir Roland Stanley. The judge also observed there was no great matter in Lunt not being able to point out the prisoners correctly. Lunt, thus encouraged by Sir Giles Eyre, proceeded with his veracious narrative—swore that the Lancashire gentlemen had given him money to enlist men and buy arms; that he beat up sixty men in London, who were quartered in different parts of the County Palatine; and particularised some persons to whom arms had been sent. In 1691 (about July or August), he was sent to France, to acquaint the Pretender with what his friends had been doing, and to inquire when they might expect him in England. The spring following was named as the happy time when the Stuarts were to be re-established on the English throne. He also named a meeting at Dukenhalgh, when some more commissions were distributed by Mr. Walmsley, one of the accused. Mr. Dicconson now asked Lunt why he had not disclosed the existence of this terrible plot, or why he had revealed it at all. Lunt was evidently prepared for this inquiry, and his retort was prompt and crushing. Some proposals had been made to which he could not assent. Being pressed by the Court to be less reticent, and explain his meaning, he said there was a design to murder King William; that the Earl of Melfort (the Pretender’s friend and minister) had asked him to aid in the assassination; he had consented to do so, but a Carthusian friar, to whom he had revealed it under confession, told him it would be wilful murder if King William were killed, except in open battle, and he had revealed the plot lest his old colleagues should carry out their wicked project.

Such, in brief, was the evidence of Lunt, deviating often from the tenour of his previous depositions, which had been made before he had been under the moulding influences of Aaron Smith, that unscrupulous Jacobite hunter, whose duty it was to manage these little matters, to procure witnesses and favourable juries. Favourable judges were supplied by his betters. And to fully understand the gravity of the prisoners’ position it should be recollected that they could not have the assistance of counsel; their witnesses could not be compelled to attend; they were ignorant of the witnesses to be produced against them; and, until they stood in the dock, had not heard the indictment against them. Every circumstance was in favour of the crown. Lunt’s evidence was corroborated by Womball, a carrier, and one Wilson, who had been branded for roguery, as to the delivery of commissions and arms. Colonel Uriah Brereton (a saddler’s apprentice and common sharper) testified that he had received money from Sir Roland Stanley for the service of King James. This worthy Captain Bobadil being asked if he was not poor and necessitous when he received these gifts, cried out, in true ruffler style, “Poor! That is a question to degrade a gentleman.” The remaining evidence we need not go into, save that of John Knowles, who, having been sworn, declared “by fair yea and nay, he knew nout on’t.”

Then, after short speeches by Stanley and Dicconson, the witnesses for the defence were examined. The first half-dozen made some damaging attacks upon the character of John Lunt, representing him as a mean scoundrel, a bigamist, and a notorious highwayman. Then Lawrence Parsons, his brother-in-law, testified that he had been invited by Lunt to aid him in denouncing the Lancashire gentlemen, but had refused the offer of 20s. per week and £150 at the end, rather than “swear against his countrymen that he knew nothing against.” Mr. Legh Bankes, a gentleman of Gray’s Inn, told how Taafe, an intimate friend of Lunt’s, and who was expected to be a witness for the crown, had been to the wife of Mr. Dicconson, and revealed to her the whole design of Lunt, offering to introduce some friend of the prisoner’s to Lunt, as persons likely to be serviceable in any swearing that might be needed to hang the prisoners. Mr. Bankes was suspicious of this being a trap; but having been introduced to Lunt, that worthy, over a glass of ale, very frankly said that he wanted gentlemen of reputation to back his own evidence, and if Bankes would join he should be well provided for. He produced his “narrative of the plot,” and Taafe read aloud this manuscript, which named several hundreds besides the prisoners. “Why were these not taken up also?” inquired Bankes. Lunt’s answer was, “We will do these people’s business first, and when that hath given us credit, we will run through the body of the nation.” When the next witness arose, Lunt and Aaron Smith must surely have trembled, for it was their old friend Taafe, who, after adding his testimony to Lunt’s villainous character, gave a brief account of that worthy gentleman’s career as a discoverer of plots. How the first one he discovered (it was in Kent) came to nothing, as he had failed to find corroborative evidence; and how he was near failing again from the same cause; how Aaron Smith had edited and improved his original narrative. Lunt wanted Taafe as a witness, complained that the men he had hired to swear were blockish, and of such low caste as to carry little weight. Could Taafe introduce him to some gentleman—(God save the mark!)—willing to perjure his soul, consign innocent men to the scaffold, and receive blood-money from Aaron Smith? Taafe, from some motive not clear, determined to baulk the villany of his fellow-informer, hence the circumstances narrated by Mr. Legh Bankes, whose suspicions of treachery had prevented a full discovery. Taafe had partially opened his mind to the Rev. Mr. Allenson, who had also distrusted him in a similar manner. In Roger Dicconson, brother of the prisoner, he found a bolder and more adventurous spirit. The evidence of Mr. Allenson need not be analysed. He was followed by Mr. Roger Dicconson, who told how he was introduced at a coffee-house in Fetter Lane, by Taafe to Lunt, as a proper person to aid in the plan. Dicconson called himself Howard, a member of the Church of England, willing to join in the plot for a valuable consideration. Lunt said they had gold in for £100,000 a year, and that the informants were to have a third of the forfeited estates. He asked Lunt if he knew Dicconson’s brother, and Lunt, all unconscious that he was sitting face to face with him, replied, “Yes, very well; for he had delivered commissions to Hugh and Roger Dicconson about Christmas!”

Many more witnesses were examined, some of whom established that certain of the prisoners were not in the neighbourhood of Croxteth and Dukenhalgh at the time of the alleged Jacobite meetings at those places; whilst others gave most damaging evidence as to the utter rascality of Lunt and his chief witnesses—Womball, Wilson, and Brereton. The judge, in his summing up, contented himself with saying that the matter deserved great consideration, in which opinion the jury did not agree, for, after a short consultation, and without leaving court, they returned for each prisoner a verdict of Not Guilty. Mr. Justice Eyres then discharged them, with an eulogy upon the merciful and easy Government under which they lived, and advised them to beware of ever entering into plots and conspiracies against it. Lord Molyneux, Sir William Gerard, and Bartholomew Walmsley, Esq., were then put to the bar, but, no witnesses appearing, they were also declared Not Guilty, which gave Mr. Justice Eyres an opportunity for another cynical speech, concluding with these words: “Let me therefore say to you, go and sin no more, lest a worse thing befall you.” As they had just been pronounced innocent, the meaning and fitness of his remarks are somewhat questionable. But if his bias prejudiced him against the prisoners, they would have compensation in the popular satisfaction at their acquittal. Manchester went mad with joy. Lunt and his merry men were pelted out of the town, and only escaped lynching by the intervention of the prisoners’ friends; and all concerned in the prosecution came in for a share of popular hatred. The peril which the Lancashire gentlemen thus strangely escaped was a very great one, but the peril which the country escaped was greater still, for had there been wanting the disaffection of Taafe to his brother rascal Lunt, the courage and address of Roger Dicconson, and the honesty of the Manchester jury, England might have seen a repetition of the atrocities of Titus Oates and William Bedloe; might have seen a bigamist highwayman going from shire to shire and fattening on the blood and ruin of the best of her nobles and gentlemen.

Such will be the impression left on most minds by a candid examination of the proceedings at this remarkable trial as recorded in the volume edited by the Rt. Rev. Alexander Goss, D.D., for the Chetham Society in 1864. It is only fair to add that those who believe in the reality of the “plot” may cite the resolution of the House of Commons (many witnesses on the subject were examined some months after this trial), that there had been a dangerous plot, and that the special assize at Manchester was justifiable. That resolution strikes one as being more political than judicial. A prosecution for perjury against Lunt was abandoned, because it was understood that persistence in it would bring on the prosecutors the weight of the harsh penal laws.

De Quincey’s Highwayman.

“It was, in fact, the skeleton of an eminent robber, or perhaps of a murderer.... It is singular enough that these earlier grounds of suspicion against X. were not viewed as such by anybody until they came to be combined with another and final ground. Then the presumptions seemed conclusive. But by that time X. himself had been executed for a robbery, and had been manufactured into a skeleton by the famous surgeon Cruikshank, assisted by Mr. White and other pupils.”—Thomas de Quincey’s “Autobiographical Sketches,” chap. xiv.

In “The House on the Marsh,” a novel that has had a wide popularity in recent years, the authoress, Miss Florence Warden, has chosen for “hero” a highwayman, or rather burglar, who lives in the style of a country squire, and, having access to the “best houses,” manages to make his position in society contributory to success in the “profession” he has selected. There is a curious parallel to the theme of this story in the life-history of a man who was at one time an inhabitant of Manchester, and whose strange career has already furnished material to Thomas de Quincey and Mrs. Gaskell. More than a century ago there stood—and still stands—at Knutsford a house on the heathside known as the Cann Office. The tenant appeared to be a man of independent fortune, kept horses, joined in the hunting sports of the district, and obtained access to the houses and tables of the neighbouring squires. According to the tradition, he had one night noticed the diamonds of Lady Warburton, and followed her carriage on horse-back, but on coming up with it was disconcerted to hear her say, “Good-night, Mr. Higgins; why did you leave the ball so early?” On another occasion he is said to have noticed in Chester a ladder left accidentally against the wall of a house in one of whose bedrooms he noticed a light. Ascending, he saw a girl in her ball dress take off her jewels, and place them on the dressing-table. As soon as the maid withdrew and the young lady was in bed, Higgins opened the window, and, getting into the room, secured the valuable plunder. A slight noise partially awoke the sleeper, who said, “Oh, Mary, you know how tired I am; can’t you put the things straight in the morning?” and then fell asleep again. If she had awakened and seen him he would certainly have murdered her. Some suspicion that Higgins was not altogether the plain country squire he wished to be supposed may very well have been excited by his occasional absences. It is traditionally stated that his horse’s feet were cased in woollen stockings for his nocturnal expeditions. The murder of Mrs. Ruscombe, an old gentlewoman, at Bristol, caused some noise. The murderer was Higgins. Before the murder was known at Knutsford, in his anxiety to establish an alibi, he put in an appearance at an inn, and made an incautious allusion to it which piqued one of the company, a confirmed newsmonger, who prided himself on having the first intelligence of every event of interest. Suspicion was thus cast upon Higgins. He was arrested at his own residence, but managed to elude the constables, and vanished from the neighbourhood of Knutsford. He played the same rôle of country squire a few months later at French Hay, near Bristol. Thence he removed into Wales, “where he broke open Lady Maud’s house at West Mead.” For this he was tried at Carmarthen, and, notwithstanding that he managed to have a forged respite sent to the Sheriff, he was hanged at Carmarthen on Saturday, 7th November, 1767. He died, we are told, in a very sullen humour, but before he was “turned off” delivered to the officials a letter to the High Sheriff. From this document and the contemporary accounts it appears that the High Sheriff was acquainted with the birth and parentage of Edward Higgins, about which no details are given. His first exploit was that of eloping from the house of his mother with a neighbour’s wife. This was the beginning of “all kinds of wickedness.” He was tried at Worcester, 14th May, 1754, for housebreaking, and was sentenced to transportation. “The day before the transports were sent off from Worcester, his sister came to him early in the morning, and desired to speak with him in a private room; this was refused. She then requested that he might have permission to show her the dungeon; thither they went, and stayed some time in close conference. She had not left the gaol more than half an hour when a farmer who lived near Worcester came in to enquire whether his sister had not been there, ‘for,’ says he, ‘I have been robbed of £14, and I have reason to suspect her, and that she has given the money to her brother.’ The turnkey told him what had passed. Higgins was searched, but nothing was then found. He was brought down to Bristol, put on board the Frisby for Maryland, and delivered, with the other convicts, at Annapolis. The farmer who lost the £14 (as above) came with him from Worcester to Bristol, and when Higgins was stripped on board the transport the farmer’s money was found concealed in the lining of Higgins’ hat; but as it could not be taken from him, the farmer was obliged to be contented with the loss of it.”

By breaking open a shop in Boston he obtained a considerable sum of money, and escaped by a ship sailing for England, to which he thus returned within three months of his transportation. He settled first in Manchester, and afterwards at Knutsford, where he married at the parish church, by special licence, Katherine Birtles, 21st April, 1757. In the licence he is styled yeoman, but in the entries of the baptism of his children he is called Edward Higgins, of Nether Knutsford, gentleman. His fifth child was baptised 11th June, 1764. His letter to the Sheriff concludes with these words:—“As I die an unworthy member of the Church of England, I do not desire your prayers, as you will not receive this till after my death; yet beg for God’s sake (as you are a gentleman of benevolence) you will have some compassion on my poor disconsolate widow and fatherless infants, and as undoubtedly you will often hear my widow upbraided with my past misconduct, I also beg you will vindicate her to all such as not being guilty or knowing of my villany.” His wife remained with him until the end. Higgins was dissected, and his skeleton formed part of the museum of Dr. Charles White, F.R.S., of Manchester. In his collection it was seen by De Quincey, who has left a characteristic account of the visit in his “Autobiographical Sketches.”

In De Quincey’s famous essay on “Murder as One of the Fine Arts,” the professor of homicide tells this grim story about Higgins. “At the time of his execution for highway robbery I was studying under Cruikshank; and the man’s figure was so uncommonly fine that no money or exertion was spared to get into possession of him with the least possible delay. By the connivance of the Under Sheriff he was cut down within the legal time, and instantly put into a chaise-and-four, so that when he reached Cruikshank’s, he was positively not dead. Mr. ——, a young student at that time, had the honour of giving him the coup de grace and finishing the sentence of the law.”

Mrs. Gaskell wrote a sketch—“The Squire’s Tale”—based on the career of Higgins, which appeared in Household Words, and is reprinted in her collected writings. When the Rev. Henry Green was preparing his history of Knutsford he carefully collected all the information that could be found respecting the gentleman highwayman. Edward Higgins deserves some remembrance not only for the strangeness of his career, but for his posthumous influence upon English literature.

Some Lancashire Centenarians.

According to the census of 1891 there were 146 persons enumerated who were returned as being more than 100 years of age. Eleven of these were resident in Lancashire. It may be interesting to compare this with the statements in some of the preceding census reports. Arranged in tabular form, the following results are seen:—

In Lancashire, it will be noticed, there has been a marked tendency towards the diminution of reputed centenarians. The general consent of mankind seems to have fixed upon a hundred years as almost the outside limit for the duration of human life. The Hebrews and the Chinese are agreed in this. The Celestials have a quaint way of dividing a life into cycles. From birth to 10 years of age is the opening degree; at 20, youth expired; 30, strength and marriage; 40, officially apt; 50, error knowing; 60, cycle closing; 70, rare bird of age; 80, rusty visage; 90, delayed; 100, age’s extremity. Far more claims to great longevity are made than can be sustained by reasonable evidence, and it should not be forgotten that the burden of proof belongs to those who make these statements. The bulk of mankind do not exceed, and many of them never attain, the Psalmist’s term of three score years and ten, and it is only reasonable that those who claim for themselves or protégés an existence of five or six score should be required to produce adequate evidence in support of their allegations. Curiously enough until the second half of the present century statements of extreme old age appear to have been accepted without doubt or inquiry. In the census report of 1851 a sceptical note was struck, and since then the late Sir G. C. Lewis and Mr. W. J. Thoms—especially the latter—have done useful service by a persistent demand for evidence. Under investigation some cases have proved to be impostures, and others mistakes and self-deceptions.

The historian of the county of Lancaster claims for Ormskirk parish the prevalence of an unusual degree of longevity. In the churchyard there are gravestones over four venerable parishioners, which record that the first of them died at the advanced age of 94, the second at the age of 102, the third at the age of 104, and the fourth at the age of 106 years. Many centenarians, real or supposed, have been connected with Lancashire, and it is more than probable that a rigid investigation at the time would greatly have reduced the number. They are here presented in chronological order, and have been derived from a variety of sources:—

1668.—Dr. Martin Lister, writing to the Royal Society, says that John Sagar, of Burnley, died about the year 1668, “and was of the age (as is reported) of 112.”

1700.—“Here resteth the bodie of James Cockerell, the elder, of Bolton, who departed this lyfe in the one hundredth and sixthe yeare of his age, and was interred here the seventh day of March, 1700” (Whittle’s “Bolton,” p. 429).

1727.—In the diary of William Blundell, of Crosby, under date 21st January, 1727, there is this entry:—“I went to Leverp: and made Major Broadnax a visit, he told me that in March next he will be 108 years of Aige, he has his memory perfectly well, and talks extreamly strongly and heartally without any seeming decay of his spirrits.” This, according to the Rev. T. E. Gibson, was “Colonel Robert Broadneux, at one time gentleman of the Bedchamber to Oliver Cromwell, and afterwards Lieut.-Col. in the Army of King William, died the following January, and was buried in St. Nicholas’ churchyard, Liverpool, where his memorial stone may still be seen. He is there credited with 109 years, which, according to the diarist’s account, is one too many.”

1731.—Timothy Coward, of Kendal, 114.

1735.—James Wilson, of Kendal, 100.

1736.—Roger Friers, of Kendal, 103.

1743.—Mr. Norman, of Manchester, 102.

1753.—Thomas Coward, of Kendal, 114. The following is an inscription on a tombstone in Disley Church:—

This Joseph Watson was born at Mossley Common, Leigh, Lancashire, in 1649. Watson was park-keeper to Mr. Peter Legh, of Lyme. About 1710, in consequence of a wager between his employer and Sir Roger Moston, Mr. Watson drove twelve brace of red deer from Lyme Park to Windsor Forest as a present for Queen Anne. He was a man of low stature, fresh complexion, and pleasant countenance. “He believed he had drunk a gallon of malt liquor a day, one day with another, for sixty years; he drank plentifully the latter part of his life, but no more than was agreeable to his constitution and a comfort to himself.” In his 103rd year he killed a buck in the hunting field. He was the father of the Rev. Joseph Watson, D.D., rector of St. Stephens, Wallbrook, London.

1755.—Mr. Edward Stanley, of Preston, was buried in that town 4th January, 1755, at the reputed age of 103. He was one of the Stanleys of Bickerstaffe—the branch of the family that eventually succeeded to the Earldom of Derby. His father was Henry Stanley, the second son of Sir Edward Stanley, of Bickerstaffe.

1757.—James Wilson, of Kendal, 100.

1760.—Elizabeth Hilton, widow, of Liverpool, 121.

1761.—Isaac Duberdo, of Clitheroe, 108. Elizabeth Wilcock, of Lancaster, 104. John Williamson, of Pennybridge, 101. William Marsh, of Liverpool, 111, pavior.

1762.—Elizabeth Pearcy, of Elell, 104. Elizabeth Storey, of Garstang, 103.

1763.—Mr. Wickstead, of Wigan, 108, farmer. Thomas Jackson, of Pennybridge, 104. Mrs. Blakesley, of Prescot, 108. Mr. Osbaldeston, near Whaley, 115.

1764.—James Roberts, of Pennybridge, 113.

1765.—Mr. Glover, of Tarbuck, 104.

1767.—George Wilford, of Pennybridge, 100. William Rogers, of Pennybridge, 105. Thomas Johnson, of Newbiggin, 105.

1770.—Ellin Brandwood, Leigh, 102.

1771.—Nathaniel Wickfield, of Ladridge, 103. Mr. Fleming, of Liverpool, factor, 128. He left a son and a daughter each upwards of a hundred.

1772.—Mr. Jaspar Jenkins, whose death at Enfield in the 106th year of his age is recorded in the Gentleman’s Magazine for 1772, was formerly a merchant of Liverpool.

1778.—John Watson, Limehouse Park (of which he was keeper), 130. Mr. Husan, of Wigan, 109.

1779.—Susan Eveson, Simmondsone, near Burnley, 108.

1780.—William Ellis, of Liverpool, shoemaker, 131. He was seaman in the reign of Queen Anne, and a soldier in the reign of George I. Thomas Keggan, of Liverpool, 107.

1781.—Peter Linford, of Maghall, Liverpool, 107.

1782.—Henry Lord, of Carr, in the Forest of Rossendale, 106. He was a soldier in the service of Queen Anne. Martha Ramscar, of Stockport, 106.

1783.—Thomas Poxton, of Preston, 108. He was formerly a quack doctor. He attended Ormskirk market, twenty miles distant, constantly till within a few years of his death; was healthy and vigorous to the last, and was generally known by the name of Mad Roger. William Briscoe, Park Gate, 101. Mrs. Holmes, Liverpool, 114. She was married at 48 years of age, and had six children.

1784.—George Harding, Manchester, 111. He served as a private soldier in the reigns of Queen Anne, George I., and George II. Matthew Jackson, of Hawkshead, 100. He was married about eighteen months before his death.

1786.—Elizabeth Curril, 100, Liverpool. Jonathan Ridgeway, of Manchester, 100.

1787.—Mrs. Bailey, of Liverpool, 105. She retained her senses to the last, was never bled or took medicine in her life, and read without spectacles. Her mother lived to the age of 116.

1790.—Jane Monks, Leigh, 104. She retained all her faculties till within a few hours of her death, and except for the last five years earned her living by winding yarn. James Swarberick, Nateby, 102. Sarah Sherdley, Maghull, 105. She was an idiot from her birth.

1791.—Jane Gosnal, 104, Liverpool. Frances Crossley, 109, Rochdale, widow.

1793.—Mrs. Boardman, 103, Manchester, widow.

1794.—William Clayton, Livesey, Blackburn, 100. The summer before his death he was able to join in the harvest work, about which time he had a visit from a man of the same age who then lived about ten miles distant, and who said he had walked the whole way. Elizabeth Hayes, Park Lane, Liverpool, 110. Mrs. Seal, 101, an inmate of an almshouse in Bury. In the earlier part of her life she was remarkable for her industry, but had been many years bedridden, and supported principally by parish relief.

1795.—Mrs. Hunter, 115, Liverpool. Roger Pye, 102, Liverpool. Christian Marshall died at Overton, near Lancaster, aged 101.

1796.—Anne Bickersteth, 103, Barton-in-Kendal, widow of Mr. Bickersteth, surgeon of that place. She retained her bodily and mental faculties till her death, and walked downstairs from her bedroom to her parlour the day she died. William Windness, 110, Garstang. Anne Prigg, 104, Bury.

1797.—Jane Stephenson, 117, Poulton-in-the-Fylde.

1798.—Richard Hamer, Hunt Fold, Lancaster, 102.

1799.—Mrs. Owen, 107, Liverpool. John M’Kee, 100, Liverpool, joiner. Mary Jones, 105, Liverpool, workhouse. Margaret Macaulay, of Manchester, aged 101. She was a well-known beggar.

1807.—Mrs. Alice Longworth, Blackburn, aged 109. She retained the use of her faculties till her last illness, and never wore spectacles. Her youngest daughter is upwards of 60.—(Athenæum, September, 1807).

1808.—Mary Ralphson, died at Liverpool, 27th June, 1808, aged 110. She was born January 1st, 1698, O.S., at Lochaber, in Scotland. Her husband, Ralph Ralphson, was a private in the Duke of Cumberland’s army. Following the troops, she attended her husband in several engagements in England and Scotland. At the battle of Dettingen she equipped herself in the uniform and accoutrements of a wounded dragoon who fell by her side, and, mounting his charger, regained the retreating army, in which she found her husband, and returned with him to England. In his after campaigns she closely followed him like another “Mother Ross,” though perhaps with less courage, and more discretion. In her late years she was supported by some benevolent ladies of Liverpool. A print of her was published in April, 1807, when she was resident in Kent Street, Liverpool.

1808.—There is a print without date of “David Stewart Salmon, aged 105, the legal Father of two Indian Princes of the Wabee Tribe in America. A resident of Cable Street, Liverpool. After serving his King and Country upwards, of sixty years six months and five days of which time was spent without ever leaving his Majesty’s Service, is now allowed 2s. 6d. per week from the Parish of Liverpool. He is the last survivor of the Crew of the Centurion when commanded by Commodore Anson, with whom he sail’d round the World.”

1808.—Mr. Joe Rudd, writing from Wigan, June 10th, 1808, forwards the following contribution to Mr. Urban (Gentleman’s Magazine, vol. lxxviii., pt. ii., 576):—“I request you to record the following narrative of the longevity of one family in the town of Wigan, Lancashire, where Old Anne Glave died in The Scholes a few years since at the advanced age of 105. She was a woman well skilled in herbs, and obtained her livelihood by gathering them in their proper seasons. She retained her faculties till the last, and followed her trade of herb-gathering within a short time of her death. Anne was the daughter of Barnard Hartley, who lived 103 years, and lies buried in Wigan churchyard. Anne had several children, four of whom are now living at Wigan in good health, viz., Anne, aged 91; Catherine, aged 82; Sarah, 75; and Elizabeth, 72. Old Anne Glave buried her husband, Robert, at the age of 84. He was a fisherman, and famous for making rhymes.” Jemina Wilkinson, Blackpool, aged 106. She retained her senses, and was able to walk without assistance within a few hours of her death.—(Athenæum, October, 1808).

1809.—Mrs. Mary Leatherbarrow, of Hulme, died at the age of 106.

1817.—Catharine Prescott, who died in George Leigh Street, June 2nd, at the reputed age of 108, was a notable character in her day. It was said of her that she learned to read—and that without spectacles—partly at the Lancasterian School and partly at Bennet Street School after she had passed her hundredth year.

1818.—Mary Harrison, who, in 1818, was living at Bacup, was said to be 108 years old.

1826.—Mrs. Sarah Richardson, a widow, who resided at the Mount, Dickenson Street, died at the reputed age of 101. She was a native of Warrington, and her descendants numbered 153.

1841.—John Pollitt, aged 52, and George Pollitt, brothers, were interred at Rusholme Road Cemetery, November 16th. They were followed to the grave by their father, William Pollitt, of Dyche Street, who had attained the age of 104, accompanied by his great-great-grandson aged 21 years.

1848.—An old woman living in Burn Street, Chorlton-upon-Medlock, 110 years old, and in the possession of all her faculties. She perfectly recollected the coronation of George III., which took place when she was 24 years old.

1859.—Betty Roberts was said to be living in Liverpool in 1859, and her birth was asserted to have taken place at Northrop, in Flintshire, in 1749. Her son, aged 80, was living with her.

1877.—In 1877 there appeared a notice of John Hutton, who was born at Glasgow 18th August, 1777, and was apprenticed at Carlisle in 1793 as a handloom weaver, but came to Manchester in 1796, where he served the remainder of his apprenticeship, and was married in December, 1797, by Parson Brookes. He became an employé of the firm of Thomas Hoyle and Son, of Mayfield, and by his skill in mixing became of considerable importance. In particular, he had a secret for the preparation of China blue, which was entrusted to his son, who died at a good age, without having left a successor to the secret. Messrs. Hoyle’s chemist, it is said, who knew all about the theory of the dye, failed to get the exact tint that was requisite, and a joking suggestion was made to the old man that his services were still in demand. He took the observation seriously, proceeded to the dyehouse, where under his directions the brew was a conspicuous success. He was of medium size, cheerful temperament, and habits of great regularity. He took little interest in any matters outside the narrow limits of his household and the works. He was not a teetotaller, but was exceedingly sober and steady. He completed his hundredth year 18th August, 1877. His senses were somewhat dulled, and the arcus senilis was well marked. On his centenary he was photographed in a group with his daughter, grandson, great-grandson, and great-great-grandson. His fellows of the Mayfield Works entertained him at Worsley, and in a bath-chair he was enabled to enjoy the gardens.

1879.—Sarah Warburton, who died at Accrington in 1879, was reputed to have been born February 2nd, 1779. At the old folks’ tea-party during the Christmas before her death she received the prize of a new dress-piece for singing a song of her juvenile days!

1881.—The case of the “Crumpsall Centenarian” excited some interest in 1881. She died October 8th, 1881, and was reported to be in the 108th year of her age. Jane Pinkerton, whose maiden name was Fleming, according to the testimony of the entry in a family Bible, in which the names of her brothers and sisters were also entered, was born 16th June, 1774, within a few miles of Paisley, in Scotland. When she was a girl her father took his family to Ireland. She married James Pinkerton, a schoolmaster in the neighbourhood of Belfast, and at his death she came to reside with a married daughter at Lower Crumpsall. She is buried in the Wesleyan Cemetery, Cheetham Hill.

This list is not a complete one, and doubtless many additions, some in quite recent years, might be made to it. The reader will notice that with few exceptions, amongst which is the remarkable case of John Hutton—there is for the most part an entire absence of evidence. The ages stated have evidently been taken down from the statements of the old men and women, with little or no attempt to verify their correctness. It may be useful to cite two cases that were adequately investigated. The case of Miss Mary Billinge, of Liverpool, is instructive as showing the possibilities of error. She was said to have been 112 years old at the time of her death, 20th December, 1863, and a certificate of baptism was obtained which stated the birth of Mary Billinge, daughter of William Billinge and Lydia his wife, on the 24th May, 1751. It was known that she had a brother named William and a sister named Anne, who are buried at Everton. A reference to the registers showed that these were entered as the children of Charles and Margaret Billinge, and a further search revealed the name of Mary, born 6th November, 1772, and therefore only a little over 91 at the time of her death. The certificate relied upon to prove her centenarian age was that of an earlier Mary Billinge.

The other instance is that of Mrs. Martha Gardner, who died at 85, Grove Street, Liverpool, March 10th, 1881, at the age of 104. This will be best given in the words of Mr. W. J. Thoms, who, after the date of her death, says:—“Some two or three years ago Dr. Diamond kindly forwarded to me a photograph, taken shortly after the completion of her hundredth year, by Mr. Ferranti, of Liverpool. I afterwards received from two different sources evidences as to the birth of this very aged lady, whose father, a very eminent Liverpool merchant, has duly recorded in the family Bible the names, dates of birth, and names of godfathers and godmothers of his fourteen children, who were all baptised at home, but whose baptisms are duly entered in the register of baptisms of the Church of St. Peter, Liverpool. Mrs. Gardner having a great objection to being made the subject of newspaper notices or comments, I advisedly refrained from bringing her very exceptional age under the notice of your readers during her lifetime. I may add that she was a cousin of an early and valued contributor to Notes and Queries, the Rev. John Wilson, formerly president of Trinity College, Oxford, and on his death on July 10th, 1873, Mrs. Gardner took out letters of administration to his estate, and her correspondence, she being then in her 97th year, rather astonished the legal gentleman with whom she had to confer on that business.”

What was the First Book Printed in Manchester?

The answer to this question is not so obvious as might at first be expected. There were in the Lancashire of Elizabeth’s days two secret presses. From one there issued a number of Roman Catholic books. This was probably located at Lostock, the seat of the Andertons. The other was the wandering printing-press, which gave birth to the attacks of Martin Marprelate upon the Anglican Episcopate. This was seized by the Earl of Derby in Newton Lane, near Manchester. The printers thus apprehended were examined at Lambeth, 15th February, 1588, when Hodgkins and his assistants, Symms and Tomlyn, confessed that they had printed part of a book entitled, “More Work for the Cooper.” “They had printed thereof about six a quire of one side before they were apprehended.” The chief controller of the press, Waldegrave, escaped. In these poor persecuted printers we must recognise the proto-typographers of Manchester. No trace remains of “More Work for the Cooper.” The sheets that fell into the hands of the authorities do not appear to have been preserved. Putting aside the claims of this anti-prelatical treatise, we have to pass from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century. Many tracts and books by local men, and relating to local affairs, were printed before 1719, but that appears to be the date of the first book printed in Manchester. The title page is here reproduced:—“Mathematical Lectures; being the first and second that were read to the Mathematical Society at Manchester. By the late ingenious Mathematician John Jackson. ‘Who can number the sands of the Sea, the drops of Rain, and the days of Eternity?’—Eccles. i., 2. ‘He that telleth the number of the Stars and calleth them all by their Names.’—Psalm cxlvii., 4. Manchester; printed by Roger Adams in the Parsonage, and sold by William Clayton, Bookseller, at the Conduit, 1719.” (Octavo.)

The claims of Jackson’s “Lectures” were stated by the present writer in Notes and Queries (see fourth series, iii., 97, and vii., 64), and in his “Handbook to the Public Libraries of Manchester and Salford.” Some further correspondence appeared in Local Gleanings (vol. i., p. 54), and an extract was given from one of William Ford’s catalogues, which, if accurate, would show that there was a local press at work in 1664. Ford has catalogued a book in this fashion:—“A Guide to Heaven from the Word; Good Counsel how to close savingly with Christ; Serious Questions for Morning and Evening; Rules for the due observance of the Lord’s Day. Manchester, printed at Smithy Door, 1664. 32mo.”

Apparently nothing could be clearer or less open to doubt. After a careful look out for the book, a copy has been secured, and is now in the Manchester Free Library. The title reads:—“A Guide to Heaven from the Word. Good counsel how to close savingly with Christ. Serious Questions for Morning and Evening; and rules for the due observation of the Lord’s Day. John 5, 39. Search the Scriptures. Manchester: Printed by T. Harper, Smithy Door.” (32 mo, pp. 100.) There is no date, but the name of Thomas Harper, printer, Smithy Door, may be read in the “Manchester Directory” for 1788, and the slightest examination of the “Guide to Heaven” will show that its typography belongs to that period. From whence, then, did Ford get the date of 1664? If we turn to the fly-leaf the mystery is explained, for on it we read, “Imprimatur, J. Hall, R.P.D. Lond. a Sac. Domest. April 14 1664.” The book, in fact, was first printed in London in 1664, and Thomas Harper, when issuing it afresh, reprinted the original imprimatur, which Ford then misconstrued into the date of the Manchester edition. The book is entered as Bamfield’s “Guide to Heaven” in Clavell’s “Catalogue,” and the publisher is there stated to be H. Brome. Either Francis or Thomas Bamfield may have been the author, but the former seems the more likely. Thomas Bampfield—so the name is usually spelled—was Speaker of Richard Cromwell’s Parliament of 1658, and he was a member of the Convention Parliament of 1660, and was the author of some treatises in the Sabbatarian controversy. Francis was a brother of Thomas, and also of Sir John Bamfield, and was educated at Wadham College, Oxford, where he graduated M.A. in 1638. He was ordained, but was ejected from the Church in 1662, and died minister of the Sabbatarian Church in Pinner’s Hall. He wrote in favour of the observation of the Saturday as the seventh day, and therefore real Sabbath, and whilst preaching to his congregation was arrested and imprisoned at Newgate, where he died 16th February, 1683-4. His earliest acknowledged writing was published in 1672, and relates to the Sabbath question.

The first book printed in Manchester, so far as the present evidence goes, was Jackson’s “Mathematical Lectures,” but it was the fruit of the second printing-press at work in the town.

Thomas Lurting: a Liverpool Worthy.

Quakerism has a very extensive literature, and is especially rich in books of biography; which are not only of interest from a theological point, but are valuable for the incidental and sometimes unexpected light which they throw upon the history and customs of the past. One of the early Quaker autobiographies is that of Thomas Lurting, a Liverpool worthy, who has not hitherto been included by local writers in the list of Lancashire notables.

Thomas Lurting was born in 1629, and, in all probability, at Liverpool. The name is by no means a common one, but it is a well-known Liverpool name, and many references to its members will be found in Sir James Picton’s “Memorials and Records.”^[1] From 1580 to the close of the seventeenth century they appear to have been conspicuous citizens. John Lurting was a councillor and “Merchant ’Praiser” in 1580. A John Lurting was bailiff of the town in 1653; but three years earlier had so little reverence for civic dignity as to style one of the aldermen “a cheating rogue.”

From his own narrative we learn that in 1646, at the age of fourteen, Thomas Lurting was “impressed,” and served in the wars against the Irish, Dutch, and Spaniards. He gives a graphic account of the sea-fight at Santa Cruz in 1657, by our great English admiral Blake, in which the Spaniards came off second-best. At the time of his conversion he was boatswain’s mate on the Bristol frigate. There were two young men on board, who had some conversation with a soldier who had been present at a Quaker’s meeting in Scotland. The soldier soon after left the ship; but what he had said came back to the minds of the young men, and presently they refused to listen to the chaplain, or to take their hats off to the captain, who added to his seafaring functions the quality of a Baptist preacher. The chaplain complimented Lurting as “an honest man and a good Christian,” so long as, in his capacity of boatswain’s mate, he persecuted the two youthful Quakers. Great was the amazement when Lurting joined himself to those despised children of light. The chaplain and the captain in vain tried to convince him of the errors of his new theological associates. The Quakers increased, until instead of two there were fourteen in the ship. There was an epidemic of sickness, and the Quakers were known by the care they took of each other and their brotherly sympathy. When he got well the captain allowed Lurting to have his old cabin—which had the reputation of being haunted—both for a sleeping room and for a meeting-place.

At this time the Quaker mariners did not object to take their share of fighting, but when going into an engagement at Barcelona, it came into Lurting’s mind that it was unlawful to slay. The Quakers having decided to “bear their testimony” against war, had an unpleasant time. Off Leghorn, in 1655, the preacher-captain drew his sword to run one of them through.

Thomas Lurting was several times impressed after the Restoration of Charles II., but he refused either to do the King’s work or eat the King’s victual. On one of these occasions, after five days’ fasting, he was put ashore.

But the most remarkable incident in Lurting’s life was one which occurred when, after he had become a “harmless Christian,” he was mate of a ship that was captured by an Algerine pirate. The English sailors, following Lurting’s instructions, managed to turn the tables and make the Turks their prisoners; but, instead of selling the pirates for slaves, as they had the opportunity to do, they put them on shore not far from an Algerine town. The pirates marvelled greatly at this unexpected treatment, and the captives and ex-captives took an affectionate farewell of each other. Lurting’s account of this remarkable transaction was written at Liverpool in 1680, and was printed in George Fox’s “To the Great Turk and his King, at Algiers.” Of this tract there is a copy in the Midgley Library, at Manchester (Vol. 16, Tract 7), and it is reprinted in the “Doctrinal Books of George Fox” (London, 1706, p. 778). Lurting’s letter to the founder of the Society of Friends is sufficiently curious to be worth quoting in full:—

Dear Friend,

Thine I have received: In Answer to thy request, I have given thee an Account as well and as near as I can; but as to the exact time I cannot, for I have not my Books. I was George Pattison’s Mate, and coming from Venice, being near a Spanish Island called May-York,^[2] we were Chased by a Turkish Ship or Patah, as sometimes before we had been, and thinking by our Vessels well Sailing, might escape: But Providence Ordered it So, That by carrying over-much Sail, some of our Materials gave way, by which means the said Turk came up with us, and commanded the Master on Board, who accordingly went with four Men more, leaving me and three Men, and a Boy on Board our Ship; and so soon as our Men came on Board the Turk, they took them all out of the Boat, and came about 14 Turks in our Boat. All which time I was under a very great Exercise in Spirit, not so much for my self, because I had a secret Hope of Relief; but a great Stress lay upon me, for the Men in this very Juncture of time; for all Hope of outward Appearance being then gone; the Master being on board of the Turk, and four more, and the Turks just coming on Board, I being as one, even as if I were or were not, only desiring of the Lord for Patience in such an Exercise, and going to the Vessel-side, to see the Turks come in, the Word of Life, run through me, Be not afraid, for all this thou shalt not go to Algier. And I having formerly good Experience of the Lords doing upon several such like Occasions, as in times of War, I believed what the Lord did say in me: At this all kind of Fear was taken from me, and I received them as a Man might his Friend; and they were as Civil, so shewing them all parts of the Vessel, and what she was laden with withal, then I said to them that were our Men; Be not afraid, for I believe for all this we shall not go to Algier, but let me desire you, as you have been willing to obey me, so be as willing to obey the Turks. For by our so doing I saw we got over them, for when they saw our great Diligence, it made them careless of us, I mean, in securing of us; So when they had taken some small Matter of what we were laden withal, some went on Board their own Ship again, and some staid with us, which were about Eight. Then began I to think of the Master and the other Four, which were in the Turks ship; for as for my self and the other with me, I had no fear at all; Nay, I was far from it, That I said to one then, Were but the Master on Board, and the rest, if there were twice so many Turks, I should not fear them; So my earnest Desire was to the Lord, That he would put it into their Hearts, to send him on Board with the rest, and good was the Lord in answering, for it was a Seal, to what he before spoke through me. As soon as the Master was on Board with the rest, all manner of Fear was off me, as to my going to Algier, and some said to me, I was a strange Man, I was afraid before I was taken, but now I was taken, I was not; my answer was, I now believe I shall not go to Algier, and if you will be ruled by me, I will act for your Delivery, as well as my own. But as yet I saw no way made, for they were all Arm’d, and we without Arms. Now we being altogether, except the Master, I began to reason with them, What if we should overcome the Turks, and go to May-York? At which they very much rejoyced; and one said, I will Kill One or Two, another said, I will cut as many of their Throats, as you will have me; this was our Mens Answer. At which I was much troubled, and said unto them, If I knew any of them that offered to touch a Turk, I would tell the Turks my self. But said to them; If you will be rul’d, I will act for you, if not, I will be still; to which they agreed to do, what I would have them. Then said I, if the Turks bid you do any thing, do it without grumbling, and with as much Diligence and Quickness as you can, for I see that pleases them, and that will cause them to let us be together: To which they agreed.

Then I went to the Master, who was a Man of a very bold Spirit, and told him our Intents; whose answer to me was, If we offered to rise, and they overcame us, we had as good be burnt alive, the which I knew very well. But I could get him no way to adhere to me, in that he being fearful of Blood-shed; for that was his Reason: Insomuch, that at last I told him we were resolved, and I question’d not to do it without one Drop of Blood spilt, and I believ’d that the Lord would prosper it, by Reason, I could rather go to Algier, than to kill a Turk: So at last he agreed to this, to let me do what I would, provided we killed none: At that time there being still two Turks lying in the Cabin with him: So that he was to lie in the Cabin, that by his being there they should mistrust nothing, which accordingly he did. And having bad weather, and lost the Company of the Man of War; the Turks seeing our Diligence, made them careless of us.

So the second Night, after the Captain was gone to sleep, I perswaded one to lie in my Cabin, and so one in another, till at last it raining very much, I perswaded them all down to sleep; and when asleep, got their Arms in Possession. Then said I to the Men of our Vessel: Now have we the Turks at our Command; no Man shall hurt any of them, for if you do, I will be against you: But this we will do, now they are under, we will keep them so, and go to May-York. So when I had ordered some to keep the Doors, if any should come out, straightly charging the Spilling of no Blood; and so altered our Course for May-York the which in the Morning we were fair by: So my Order was to our Men, if any offer’d to come out, not to let out above one at a time. And in the Morning one came out, expecting to have seen their own Country, but on the contrary, it was May-York. Now, said I to our Men, be careful of the Door, for when he goes in, we shall see what they will do. And as soon as he told them we were going towards May-York, they instead of Rising, fell all to crying, for their Hearts were taken from them. So they desired they might not be Sold; the which I promised they should not. So soon as I had pacified them, then I went in to the Master, he not yet knowing what was done, and so he told their Captain what we had done, how that we had over-come his Men, and that we were going for May-York. At which unexpected News he Wept, and desired the Master not to Sell him; the which he promised he would not. Then we told the Captain we would make a Place to hide them in, where the Spaniards should not find them; at which they were very glad, and we did accordingly. So when we came in, the Master went on Shoar, with Four more, and left me on Board with the Turks, which were Ten. And when he had done his Business, not taking Product, lest the Spaniards should come and see the Turks. But at Night an English Master came on Board, being an Acquaintance; and after some Discourse, we told him if he would not betray us, we would tell him what we had done; but we would not have the Spaniards to know it, lest they should take them from us; The which he promis’d, but broke it; and would fain have had Two or Three of them, to have brought them for England; but we saw his end; And when he saw he could not prevail, he said they were worth Two or Three Hundred Pieces of Eight a Piece; Whereat, both the Master and I told him, if they would give many Thousands they should not have One, for we hoped to send them home again. So he look’d upon us as Fools, because we would not Sell them; the which I would not have done for the whole Island. But contrary to our Expectations, he told the Spaniards, who threatned to take them from us: But so soon as we heard thereof, we called out all the Turks, and told them they must help us, or the Spaniards would take them from us. So they resolvedly helped us, and we made all haste to run from the Spaniards, the which pleased the Turks very well. So we put our selves to the Hazard of the Turks, and being taken again, to save them.

So we continued about six or seven days, not being willing to put into any Port of Spain, for fear of losing the Turks. We let them have all their liberty for four days, till they made an attempt to rise, the which I foresaw, and prevented without any harm. I was very Courteous to them, at the which some of our men grumbled, saying, I had more care of the Turks than them; My Answer was, They are Strangers, I must treat them well. At last, I told the Master it might do well to go to the Turks Coast, for there it was more likely to miss their Men of War than where we were; and also it might fall out so, that we might have an Opportunity to put the Turks on Shoar: To which the Master agreed. And in two days we were near the Turks Shoar, at a place called Cape Hone, about Fifty Miles from Algier, as the Turks told us. So when we came about six Miles from the Shore it fell calm, and I had very much working in my mind, about getting them ashore.

At last I went to the Master, and told him, I had a great desire to put the Turks on Shore, but how I knew not; for to give them the Boat, they might go and get Men and Arms, and so take us again; and to put half on Shoar, they would raise the Country and surprize us when we came with the rest. But if he would let me go, and if three more would go with me, I would venture to put them on Shoar; to which he consented.

So then I spoke to the men, and there were two more, and my self and a Boy took in the ten Turks all loose, and went about six miles and put them on Shore in their own Country, within about four miles of Two Towns which they knew. Withal, we gave them about fifty Padas of Bread and other Necessaries to Travel with. They would fain have enticed us to go to the Towns, telling us we should have Wines, and many other things: As to their parts, I could have ventured with them. They all embraced me very kindly in their Arms when they went ashore. They made one Rising in the Boat when going ashore, the which I prevented; and we parted with a great deal of love.

When we came home to England, the King came to the Vessels side, and enquired an Account, the which the Master gave him. So this is as near as I can certifie thee; I have writ thee more at large to give thee the whole as it was; but thou mayst take what is the most material, and so I rest thine in that which can do good for evil, which ought to be the practice of all true men.

Liverpoole, the 30th of the fifth Month, 1680.

After a stormy manhood Thomas Lurting had a peaceful old age. Part of his well-earned leisure was devoted to the preparation of an autobiography, which appeared in 1710, with the following quaint title:—“The Fighting Sailor turned peaceable Christian; manifested in the convincement and conversion of Thomas Lurting. With a short relation of many great Dangers, and wonderful Deliverances, he met withal. First written for private satisfaction, and now published for general service.” This tract, sometimes in an abridged form, has been several times reprinted, and there were editions in 1711, 1720, no date, 1766, 1801 (Leeds), 1811, 1813, 1820, and 1842.

Thomas Lurting died 30th First Month, 1713. His corpse was taken to the Friends’ Meeting House at Horsleydown, Southwark, where a funeral sermon was preached on the occasion. The body was then interred at the Friends’ Burial-ground, Long Lane, Bermondsey. He had been a widower for some years previously, his wife, Eleanor, who was of Rotherhithe, having died 13th of First Month, 1708-9, aged 65 years.

However much faith may vary and forms of belief change, men will always respect those who listen to the voice of conscience, and obey that inward monitor when its behests bring scorn and persecution. The Quakers had the true martyr-spirit, and would not abate a single iota of their testimony either for the fear or the favour of man. In Lurting’s narrative we see the plain, straightforward character of the man. There is no evidence of self-consciousness to mar the picturesque force of the essentially heroic quality of his deeds. Liverpool can boast of some great names, but let her cherish the name of her Quaker hero, “the Fighting Sailor turned peaceable Christian.”

Footnotes:

Kufic Coins found in Lancashire.

In the great find of coins at Cuerdale in North Lancashire, besides a single Byzantine piece there were several Kufic coins, along with some of North Italy, about a thousand French and two thousand eight hundred Anglo-Saxon pieces. In these coins, and in those found over the whole of Northumbria are to be seen the evidences of the active commercial intercourse that even in the pre-historic ages prevailed between the Eastern world and the people of the North of Europe, and especially those dwelling on the shores of the Baltic. This has been abundantly proved by the numerous archæological discoveries made from time to time.^[3]

Whilst Scandinavia was still in the Stone and Bronze stages of the development of civilisation, merchants came to the Baltic for furs, tin, and the yellow amber so highly prized as an ornament by the oriental women. Indeed Oppert has shown that ten centuries before the Christian era the Assyrians had at least indirect communication with the Baltic shores, the only locality known to the ancient world where the yellow amber could be procured. The references to amber in Homer and Hesiod have not passed without dispute, but the discoveries of Greek coins in various parts leave little or no doubt as to the existence of commercial routes, which went from the Black Sea, by the Dnieper, the Bug and the Dniester, to gain the basin of the Niemen and of the Vistula, and thence spread to the Baltic. The amber commerce in the hands of the Milesians and the Greeks found various routes. The Roman women were as passionately partial to amber ornaments as their sisters of the East, and there is sufficient testimony as to the commercial intercourse of Rome with the barbarians of the North.

The Arabs, although in the Middle Ages they had the monopoly of the trade, were not its originators, but merely continued an intercourse that had existed from remote antiquity. The mediæval geographers had very little precise knowledge; but in the Mappa Mundi of the tenth century, in the British Museum, the parts of northern Europe indicated with the fewest misconceptions are the countries of the amber trade. The rapid conquest of western Asia by the Arabs was followed by those internal dissensions which led to the formation of independent kingdoms. The Samanides, who reigned in Persia and dominated the shores of the Caspian Sea, were the principal cultivators of the North trade. The Arabs, if they had little taste for maritime commerce, were admirably adapted to be the leaders of great caravans, by which the riches of the East were spread into far lands. From Egypt they went across the Sahara to Nigritia, from whence they brought gold, ivory, and slaves. Passing through Persia and Cashmere they worked in the direction of India. Crossing the immense steppes of Tartary, they entered China by the province of Shen-si. Their caravans to Europe passed by Armenia on the south, and by Bokhara and Khorassan on the east. There were great fairs at Samarcand, Teheran, Bagdad, and other places. The merchants directed their course to the Caspian, and halted at Derbend before ascending the Volga. The itinerary of these pilgrims of commerce can be reconstructed from the Kufic coins and accompanying ornaments that have been found at Kazan, Perm, Tula, Moscow, Smolensk, Novgorod, St. Petersburg, and other localities. The finds of Arabic moneys in the Russian Empire have occurred almost exclusively in the country watered by the Volga, which was the line of communication for the Arabs with the Slavs and Scandinavians of the Middle Ages. The shores of Germany, Lithuania, and Sweden were visited. The most northerly discoveries of Kufic coins have been by the river Angermann, which empties itself in the Gulf of Bothnia. The islands of Gothland, Oland, and Bornholm appear to have been the centre of this commercial activity. Lithuania, Denmark, and Poland, especially the latter, have also yielded to the antiquarian investigator many evidences of intercourse with the Arabs. On the coasts of Pomerania and along the course of the Oder Kufic coins have been found, the southern limit being apparently in Silesia.

Worsaae in speaking of some silver ornaments with a triangular pattern of three or four points, also found at Cuerdale, says “that the discovery of so many coins of this class in Russia, from the Caspian and the Black Sea up to the shores of the Baltic, sufficiently proves that from the eighth until the eleventh century there existed a very lively intercourse by trade between the East and the northern parts of Europe.”^[4]

The Vikings, who are usually regarded as simply pirates, had their share in this commerce. From the East came rich fabrics, ornaments and vases, and their bearers carried back in return ermines, furs, slaves, and, above all, amber, which whilst valued as an ornament was also credited with wonderful powers of preserving the health of the wearer. This commerce did not have so much social or political result as might have been expected from four centuries of activity. The grave events alike in Asia and Europe which followed the fall of the Samanides interrupted its peaceful course, and before it could fall again into the old tracks there came the tempestuous interlude of the first Crusade.

From this it will be seen that the occurrence of Kufic coins in the north of England is one of the evidences of the activity of the Danes, and of their commercial intercourse with the nations of the East.

Footnotes:

Newspapers in 1738-39.

It may not be uninteresting to describe some of the oldest surviving fragments of Lancashire newspapers which were formerly in the collection of Sir Thomas Baker, and are now, with many others, in the Manchester Free Library. After a fragment of one leaf we have “The Lancashire Journal: with the history of the Holy Bible.” Monday, October 16th, 1738. Num. xvi. The printer and publishers are thus set forth:—“Manchester: printed and sold by John Berry at the Dial near the Cross, and Sold by Mr. Ozly at the White-Lyon in Warrington, Mr. Sears at the White-Lyon in Liverpool, Mr. Gough at the Spread Eagle in Chester, Mr. Maddock, Bookseller in Namptwich, Mr. Kirkpatrick in Middlewich, Mr. Davis, Bookseller in Preston, Mr. Sidebottom at the Sun and Griffin in Stockport, Mrs. Lord in Rochdale, Mr. Hodgson, Bookseller in Halifax, Mr. Rockett, Bookseller in Bradford, Mr. Bradley, Peruke-maker in Wakefield; at which places also are taken in all sorts of advertisements to be inserted in this Paper at Two Shillings and Sixpence Each.” There is, after the fashion of the time, very little local news, the object of these early journals being to tell the people what was going on at a distance. We hear (October 16th) of the offence given by the “French strollers” in attempting to perform a play in their own language at the Haymarket. The “patriots” were so riotous in their resentment that “the encouragers of these French Vagabonds, durst not in any Coffee-House or Place where the most Polite resort, either Publickly avow their Sentiments, or declare their Resentment.” From Bristol there is news of rioting by the colliers of Kingswood, as a practical objection to a reduction of wages, from sixteen to twelve pence per day.

The next relic is The Lancashire Journal, published by John Berry, at the Dial, in Manchester, Monday, July 30th, 1739. No. 57. The first or leading article sets forth the intention of the managers to “introduce” the journals “with a short Essay, Letter, or Discourse, on some useful Subject, Art or Science,” if they can do it without leaving out any “material Paragraph of News.” After a column of foreign affairs, we have an account from “Exon” of one William Wood, who was in the County Ward for £700 at the suit of the King. After having made his chamber-mates drunk, he fastened a rope to the window, lowered himself down near thirty feet, and then by the aid of a scaling-ladder got into a field and so away. “Last Wednesday a Gentlewoman, aged 87, who lives in Mount Street, Grosvenor Square, was married at St. George’s Chapel, near Hyde Park Corner, to a young Gentleman of 23. The Bride was with difficulty led into the Chapel, and was so much fatigued with standing till the ceremony was over, that the Minute they were out of the Chapel they were obliged to go into a Tavern to get something to revive her exhausted spirits.” Then we learn that at the Old Bailey twenty-seven prisoners were tried, of whom two were sentenced to be hanged, and thirteen to be transported, whilst twelve were acquitted. Some more paragraphs of the same nature show how ineffectual were the sanguinary laws which condemned men to death for slight offences. In one of these figures “Francis Trumbles the Quaker, who was to be hung for robbing Mr. Brow on the highway.” “Last week died in Water Lane, Fleet Street, one Anne Deacon, an elderly woman, who used to ask Alms at Church Doors and elsewhere, in whose rooms after her death were found 100 guineas, £35 in silver, and a bond of £150 on a considerable tradesman.” There is a good deal more of foreign news, and the number terminates with two advertisements, one only being local, which offers an apothecary’s shop, near the Exchange, “to be Sold or Lett. * * Enquire, for further particulars of Mrs. Margaret Dickenson, at the Turk’s Head, in Manchester.” No. 61, August 27th, 1739, opens with a dissertation on the figure of the earth, followed by an account of one of the Dublin Incorporated Society’s English Protestant Working Schools, then some foreign news, of which our forefathers would appear to have been very fond. This number is almost entirely filled with paragraphs relating to our differences with Spain, diplomatic and martial. We have also news of the siege of Belgrade, and “that the Grand Vizer has ordered a vast quantity of scaling-ladders to be made, which looks as if he intended to take Belgrade by storm.” From Cork we have the news that Matthew Buckinger died there August 24th. Buckinger was born without hands or feet, and his performances in penmanship were certainly wonderful under the circumstances. “The King has ordered the two Hazard tables at Kensington to be suppressed.” Two advertisements conclude this number—one of a horse stolen or strayed from Cross Hall Park, near Ormskirk; the other of Miller’s “Gardeners’ Dictionary” and Chambers’s “Cyclopædia,” books on sale by Mr. Newton and Mr. Hodges, booksellers in Manchester. The journal ends, “Manchester: Printed by John Berry, at the Dial, near the Cross, and sold by Mr. Nichison, at the White Lyon, in Warrington; Mr. Sears, at the White Lyon, in Liverpool; Mrs. Gough, at the Spread Eagle, in Chester; Mr. Maddock, bookseller, in Namptwich; Mr. Kirkpatrick, in Middlewich; Mr. Davis, in Preston; Mr. Sidebotham, in Stockport; Mr. Rathbone, in Macclesfield; Mr. Foster, in Bolton; Mrs. Lord, in Rochdale; Mr. Hodgson, bookseller, in Halifax; Mr. Rockett, bookseller, in Bradford; Mr. Bradley, peruke maker, in Wakefield; at which places also are taken in all sorts of advertisements to be inserted in this paper, at two shillings and sixpence each.”

Sir Thomas Baker was also the possessor of three numbers of another early Manchester paper. Whitworth’s “Manchester Magazine, with the History of the Holy Bible.” Tuesday, January 16th, 1738-9. No. 107 is a small, dingy folio of four pages. Its opening paragraphs are devoted to Muley Abdalah, who, in his abdicating the throne of Morocco, expressed “a great regret that he had cut off but 2,000 heads at most.” We have then a dreadful thunderstorm at Bristol, and a quantity of Court and personal gossip. From “Hawick, in Northumberland, December 14th. This day, died here (aged 105), Mr. William Baxter. He taught school in his youth, afterwards followed malting very closely for above sixty years, and though he lived very freely all that while he was never known to have any disorder but one only, occasioned by a over-discharge of bad liquor, which was carried off by a vomit.” The old gentleman was hearty to the last, and knocked under to “a common fever, which as an Argument of his great vigour terminated in a Phrenzy, and in a week’s Time despatch’d him.” We hear of a wolf breaking loose, which was kept by a gentleman who lives near the vineyard in St. James’s Park, and of the mischief it wrought upon—two milk pails; of an attempted escape from Newgate; and of sundry highway robberies. We have then

Next we have a letter relating a sharp trick of some American-Spaniards, followed by the sage reflection that “its greatly to be lamented that the Isle of Cuba, and some other rich and fertile places of their Empire in this part of the world, is not possest by some more industrious People, who would find a much more laudable, as well as profitable, Imployment than pilfering from their Neighbours.” No. 108, January 23rd, 1738-9: “We hear a Gentleman’s Corpse is in Arrest at an Undertaker’s in the Strand, upon a Judgment and Execution for Debt. It’s to be hop’d the Friends of the Deceased will let the Attorney move the Corpse, have it apprais’d by the Sheriff, and take it in Part of his Bill and Costs.” “On Saturday between Four and Five o’clock, a young Woman, servant at Walthamstow, coming to town, was robb’d near Temple Mill by a Footpad; and, whilst the villain was stripping her, being with his back towards the River, the young Woman push’d him into the River and he was drowned. She is since gone distracted.—On Thursday last the Rev. Dr. William Stukeley, Fellow of the College of Physicians and a great Antiquarian, was marry’d to Miss Gale, sister to Roger Gale, Esq.: a fortune of £10,000.” There is an account of a shock of earthquake felt in Halifax, Huddersfield, and other parts of the West Riding. “We hear from Banbury that a village within a mile of that town no less than eighteen people are gone to be dipped in the salt water for the bite of a mad dog, and that a few days past a young man of the said village, who was bit by a dog about Michaelmas last, died raving mad, though he had been at the salt water for a cure.” “Manchester, January 23rd.—We hear from Bury that the inhabitants of that place have agreed to prosecute at their joint expense any person that shall commit an act of felony there. This is worthy of imitation, for rogues often go unpunished lest the charge thereof should fall upon a single person, which is very unreasonable, because the publick reaps the benefit.” The number concludes with an advertisement of a sale by auction at the Angel, at Manchester. From No. 111, February 13th, 1738-9, excluding most of the foreign news, we glean the following items:—“London, February 6th.—Last week two persons were sent to prison by the Bench of Justices at Hick’s Hall for endeavouring to seduce some manufacturers in the glass trade, in order to send them to Holland, where a glass house is lately set up, and who very much underwork us by having English coals 25 per cent. cheaper than the manufacturers in and about London. But it is to be hoped that the Parliament will take these affairs into consideration.—Yesterday morning a gentleman going in a chair from a tavern in Pall Mall to his lodgings at Knightsbridge was robbed by the two chairmen between Hide Park Gate and Knightsbridge of his watch, money, &c.; then they pull’d him out of the chair and threw him into a ditch, after which they made off.—Last week Thomas Piercy, a blacksmith of Deptford, in Kent, about 25 years of age, was married to Mrs. Brookes, a gentlewoman of a considerable fortune in the same town, aged about 70. This gentlewoman has had four husbands before.—Prices of corn at Manchester: White wheat, per load, from 18s. to 20s.; red wheat, from 15s. to 17s.; barley, from 8s. to 11s.; beans, from 11s. to 12s.; meal, from 13s. to 14s.” There is plenty of talk about the convention with Spain, which need not be repeated. These citations may suffice. They are fair samples of what may be found in the local newspapers of the first half of the eighteenth century. The early Lancashire journalist was a man of many parts. Thus the Lancashire Journal, in December, 1740, is said to be “printed by John Berry, Watchmaker and Printer, at the Dial near the Cross, who makes and Mends all sorts of Pocket Watches, also makes and mends all sorts of Weather Glasses, makes all sorts of Wedding, Mourning, and other Gold Rings, and Earrings, etc., and sell all Sorts of New Fation’d Mettal, Buttons for Coats and Wastcoats, and hath Great Choice of New Fation’d Mettal, Buckles, for Men, Women, and Children, all sorts of Knives, fine Scissors, Razors, Lancits, Variety of Japan’d Snuff Boxes, Violins, Fluts, Flagelets and Musick Books, Box, Ivory, and Horn, Combs, Silk, Purses, Spectacles, Coffee and Chocolate Mills, Wash Balls, Sealing Wax, and Wax Balls for Pips, Correls, Tea Spoons, Fiddle Strings, Spinnet Wire, Naked and Drest Babys,^[5] Cards, Cain for Hooping, Bird Cages, etc., with several other sorts of London, Birmingham, and Sheffield, Cutler’s Wares, and variety of Dutch and English Toys. He also sells (notwithstanding what is, has, or may be advertised to the Contrary), the True Daffy’s Elixir, Doctor Anderson Sick Pills, Chymical Drops, being a speedy cure for coughs, colds, and Asthma’s, Doctor Godfreys Cordial for Children, Doctor Bateman’s Drops, Stoughtons Elixir, Hungry Water, Spirits of Scurvy Grass, Flower of Mustard in 3d. Bottles, Oyl of Mustard, and all sorts of Snuffs, at the Lowest Rates.” The variety of his wares has affected both his spelling and his punctuation.

We cannot estimate the feelings of our great-grandfathers as they turned over the leaves of their small paper; but the antiquary of the present day would gladly dispense with a good deal about bashaws and conventions for a little more about those who lived and moved and had their being in this county.

Footnotes:

A Lancashire Naturalist: Thomas Garnett.

A memorial volume of the late Mr. Thomas Garnett, of Low Moor, Clitheroe, was printed for private circulation, and some notice of it will be of interest to many outside the narrow circle for whom it was originally prepared. Mr. Thomas Garnett was one of three brothers. Mr. Richard Garnett distinguished himself as a philologist, and became an assistant-keeper in the British Museum; Mr. Jeremiah Garnett was for many years the editor of the Manchester Guardian, and Mr. Thomas Garnett settled at Clitheroe, where he passed an active life as a manufacturer, but instead of allowing business to absorb all his attention, he found pleasant and healthful recreation in agricultural and scientific observation. The results are now gathered in this volume—“Essays in Natural History and Agriculture, by the late Thomas Garnett, of Low Moor, Clitheroe. London: printed at the Chiswick Press, 1883.” Only 250 copies were printed. The editing has been the work of the author’s nephew, that accomplished scholar and friend of all students, Dr. Richard Garnett, of the British Museum. The first paper contains a number of facts and observations relating to the salmon, chiefly based on Mr. Garnett’s experience in Lancashire. Written as long ago as 1834, it contains a plea in favour of a wise and not vexatious measure for the protection of the salmon fisheries. He believed that the salmon enters and ascends rivers for other purposes than propagation. In support of this view he cites what in Lancashire is called “streaming.” Thus in winter the fish not engaged in spawning, trout, grayling, chub, dace, etc., leave the streams and go into deep water. Another reason is their impatience of heat, which leads the grayling, if the weather is unusually hot at the end of May or beginning of June, to ascend the mill-streams in the Wharfe, by hundreds, and to go up the mill-races as far as they can get. The “salmon” par he holds to be neither a hybrid, nor a distinct species, but a state of the common salmon. In 1851 he wrote some papers describing his own experiments in the artificial breeding of salmon. His interest in the fish is shown by the following quotation:—“I have had fish sent from two different gentlemen living on the banks of the reservoirs belonging to the Liverpool Waterworks: these were beautiful fish, three in number, more like the sea trout than the salmon, and the largest of them weighing two pounds. I had put them into the brooks running into the reservoirs three years before. I also learn that a beautiful specimen of the Ombre chevalier (French char) was taken out of Rivington reservoir. About a thousand had been put in by me two years before.”

It should be mentioned that Mr. Garnett’s experiments on the artificial impregnation of fish ova were made without any knowledge of previous attempts of the same kind. In answer to a suggestion made by Mr. Garnett, the late Sir G. C. Lewis observed:—“You might as well propose to shoot partridges only three days a week as to restrict the netting of salmon to only three days.” In 1859, Mr. Garnett wrote some papers on the possibility of introducing salmon into Australia, and addressed a communication to the authorities of Tasmania and New Zealand on the subject. He had some doubts as to success, but thought that the experiment should be made, and that New Zealand was the likeliest place for the experiment. In 1843, 1844, 1845, and 1848, he made experiments in the cultivation of wheat on the same land in successive years, and the results were communicated to the Manchester Guardian. He also advocated the growing of a short-strawed wheat as peculiarly suitable to the conditions of farming in Lancashire and Yorkshire. The gravelling of his clay soils elicited some amusing comments from his neighbours, one of whom remarked that he had seen land tilled (manured) in various ways, but had never before seen a field tilled with cobble-stones! The cultivation of cotton in India and in Peru was another project in which he took a warm interest.

Mr. Garnett was a keen observer of natural history. Some excellent authorities had asserted that the common wren never lined its nest with feathers, but he showed conclusively that this was a mistake. The nest in which eggs are laid is profusely lined with feathers, but during the period of incubation the male frequently constructs several nests in the vicinity of the first, none of which are lined. The existence of these “cock-nests,” as they are called by schoolboys, was doubted, but Mr. Garnett fully made out his case. The grey wagtail (Motacilla sulphurea) sometimes looks at its own image in a window, and attacks it with great vivacity. A superstitious neighbour was alarmed by this conduct in a “barley-bird” (Motacilla flava), and thought it a portent of evil. Her alarm was cured by the young naturalist, who secured the bird of evil omen. Having caught a colony of the long-tailed titmouse, Mr. Garnett and his brother attempted to rear the half-fledged young ones, but of the six old birds, five died in confinement. The survivor was allowed to escape in the hope that it would come back to rear the young ones. This it did, and by the most unwearied exertions supplied the whole brood, sometimes feeding them ten times in a minute. Mr. Garnett took some pains to establish the identity of the green with the wood-sandpiper. The courage of the stoat, and the pertinacious manner in which the marsh-titmouse for a time resisted attempts to drive her from her nest, are amongst his curious observations. The creeper, he noticed, associated with the titmouse in winter. The language of birds has not yet been mastered, either by philologists or ornithologists, but it appears that the alarm note of one is readily understood by those of other species. Mr. Garnett desired to make some young throstles leave a nest which was in danger of visitation from mischievous lads. He took one from the nest and made it cry out. Its brethren quickly disappeared, the old bird set up a shriek of alarm, and blackbird, chaffinch, robin, oxeye, blue titmouse, wren, and marsh-titmouse, and even the golden-crested wren, which usually appears to care for nothing; in fact all the birds in the wood, except the creeper, came to see what was the matter. Mr. Garnett did not share the prejudice felt by some farmers against the rook, which he held to be serviceable to man. He reckoned that one rookery in Wharfedale destroyed 209 tons of worms, insects and their larvæ. The rook also, he notes, relieves the farmers from the apprehension caused by a flight of locusts in Craven. Contrary to Waterton’s opinion, Mr. Garnett describes the process by which birds dress their feathers with oil from a gland. The sedge-warbler owes its local name of “mocking-bird” to its imitative powers in copying the notes of the swallow, the martin, the house-sparrow, spring-wagtail, whinchat, starling, chaffinch, white-throat, greenfinch, little redpole, whin-linnet, and other birds. Of the water-ouzel he says:—“A pair had built for forty years, according to tradition, in a wheel-race near to where I was born, and had never been molested by anybody, until a gentleman in the neighbourhood, who was a great ornithologist, employed his gamekeeper to shoot this pair. I think the natives of Calcutta were not more indignant when an unlucky Englishman got one of their sacred bulls into his compound, and baited him, than was our little community at what we considered so great an outrage. The gamekeeper narrowly escaped being stoned by myself and some more lads, any one of whom would have shot fifty blackbirds or fieldfares without any misgiving.” Mr. Garnett once shot what he afterwards believed to have been a Sabine’s snipe.

His interest in the river was not confined to the salmon, and he made some interesting observations on the propagation of lampreys, the spawning of minnows, and the breeding of eels. A short note on the last-named topic, by Mr. Jeremiah Garnett, is also printed. On the formation of ice at the bottom of rivers, there are two papers, one by Mr. Thomas Garnett, and the other by his brother, the Rev. Richard Garnett. A shower of gossamer, the thread produced by the aëronautic spider, is recorded as seen on the hills near Blackburn. One of Mr. Garnett’s friends was the unfortunate Mr. Joseph Ritchie, of Otley, who accompanied Captain Lyon’s expedition to Fezzan, and died there in 1819. To this there is an allusion in the following passage:—“In conclusion, allow me to say that the leisure hours which a somewhat busy life has enabled me to spend in these pursuits, have been some of the happiest of my existence, and have awakened and cherished such an admiration of nature, and such a love of the country and its scenes, as I think can never be appreciated by the inhabitants of large towns, and which I cannot describe so well as in the words of one of my friends, in a beautiful apostrophe to England, when leaving it, never to return:—

Why do not more of the dwellers in rural districts employ their often abundant leisure in natural history studies?

The Traffords of Trafford.

The Trafford tradition is that the family were settled at Trafford as early as the reign of Canute. Radulphus, or Randolph, who is said to have died in the reign of Edward the Confessor, appears in the pedigree as the father of Radulphus, who “received the King’s protection from Sir Hamo de Massey, about the year 1080.” From the daughter of Hamo, Richard de Trafford had that entire lordship. To this early and obscure portion of the annals we must refer the tradition of the Trafford Crest, of which Arthur Agarde writes thus in 1600:—“The auncyentteste I know or have read is, that of the Trafords or Traford in Lancashire, whose arms [crest] are a labouring man, with a flayle in his hand threshinge, and this written motto, ‘Now thus,’ which they say came by this occasion: That he and other gentlemen opposing themselves against some Normans who came to invade them, this Traford did them much hurte, and kept the passages against them. But that at length the Normans having passed the ryver came sodenlye upon him, and then, he disguising himself, went into his barne, and was threshing when they entered, yet beinge knowen by some of them and demanded why he so abased himself, answered, ‘Now thus.’” At the fancy dress ball in connection with the Preston Guild of 1823 “Mr. Trafford was remarkably dressed in his own crest: a Clown in parti-coloured clothes, a flail in his hand and a motto, ‘Now thus.’” A similar crest was borne by the Asshetons and the Pilkingtons. The legend was told of a Pilkington to Fuller, who has given it a place in his “Worthies of England.” It is now impossible to tell if it has any foundation at all in actual fact. Another undated tradition is that of a “duel” between John of Trafford and Gilbert of Ashton, in which the latter was slain and buried by his antagonist in a field called Barnfield Bank, near Urmston Hall. Following the order of the pedigree we have as holders of the Trafford estates Radulphus, Radulphus, Robertus, Henricus, Henry, Richard, of whom little or nothing is known. They are followed by a succession of five Henrys, of whom the two last were knights. John, the son of the fifth, having died young, the estates passed to the grandson of the old knight. This sixth Henry came of age in 1336, was knighted, and, dying about 1370, left seven sons, and was succeeded by another Sir Henry, who died about 1386. His son, the eighth Henry, who did not attain to the knightly dignity, died in 1396, leaving a son six years old, who died about 1403, and was succeeded by his brother Edmund, who was knighted by King Henry VI. at Whitsuntide, 1426.

In 1422, the parish church of Manchester was collegiated by the action of the last rector and lord of the manor, Thomas de la Warre. The parishioners were gathered together at the sound of the bell to confirm and accept the arrangements he had made for the better service of the church. After Sir John le Byron and Sir John de Radcliffe, the first gentleman named is Edmund Trafford. Then follow representatives of the families of Booth, Longford, Holland, Strangeways, Hyde, Barlow, Hopwood, and others. Sir Edmund Trafford married Alice, the daughter of Sir William Venables. This union took place in 1409, when the bride was but eleven years of age. The little lady was co-heiress with her sister, Douce or Dulcia, of the lands of her brother Richard, the last male heir, who was drowned in the Bollin at the early age of eight, in the year 1402. She was born at Worsley and baptised at Eccles Church. One who witnessed the ceremony was David le Seintpier, and the ceremony was impressed upon his mind by the uncomfortable circumstance that he was setting out on a pilgrimage to Our Lady of Walsingham when he was thrown from his horse and broke his leg. This form of artificial memory, though effectual in his case, can hardly be recommended for imitation. Sir Edmund de Trafford was in the confidence of Henry VI., whose dreams of avarice he fanned by visions of the philosopher’s stone, and of the possibility of changing all the baser metals into gold and silver. On the 7th of April, 1446, the King granted a patent to this Trafford and to Sir Thomas Ashton, setting forth that certain persons had maligned them with the character of working by unlawful arts, and might disturb them in their experiments, and, therefore, the King gave them special lease and licence to work and try their art and science, lawfully and freely, in spite of any statute or order to the contrary. The King, in issuing this commission, was overriding the provision of 5 Henry IV., c. 4. Sir Edmund lived until 1457, and if he succeeded in finding the aurum potabile, he carried the secret with him to the grave. In 1435, Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Edmund Trafford, married Sir John Pilkington. The deeds are still extant by which Pilkington endowed his bride at the porch of the collegiate church of Manchester. He entered into a bond to pay 200 marks in silver, and also “swere upon a boke” that he stood “sole seiset in his demene as of fee simple or fee tail, the day of weddynge,” of the lands of his father, including the dower land of his mother, dame Margery.

The next holder of the estate, Sir John de Trafford, “belonged to the great Earl of Warwick,” and with his retainers fought for the Red Rose of Lancashire under the banner of the King-maker. His allowance was twenty marks yearly, in addition to the wages usual for one of his degree. For some reason now difficult, if not impossible, to ascertain, he resigned his estates to his son Edmund, the offspring of a marriage with the daughter of Sir Thomas Ashton, of Ashton-under-Lyne. One of his sisters married Sir John Ashton. Sir John Trafford transferred his estates in 1484, and died in 1488. Edmund Trafford married the young widow of John Honford, and had the guardianship of her first husband’s only son and heir. This was granted to him in a document which is worth quoting as an example alike of the customs and language of the time:—“Be hit knowen to all men wher now of late the Warde and marriage of the landez and Body of William Honford son and heir of John Honford esquier perteynet and langet to me John Savage th’ elder knight by cause ye sayd William at that tyme beinge tendur of age that is to witte under ye age of xxi yerez. I the said John Savage giffe and graunte the seid Warde and Mariage of the Body and landez of ye seid Willm during all his seid nonage to my Son in lagh Edmund Trafford esquier and my doghter Margaret his wife they to have all the seid Wardez and to marye hym at their pleasurez, worshipfullye, they takinge the profetez of all the seide Wardez and mariage during his seid nonage to their owne usez. And this is my Will and grawnte without any manner interrupcon or lett of me, myn herez, or of any other by our makyng, procuringe counsaile or assente. In wythence whereof to this my writinge I the saide Sir John Savage have sette my seall Theressez witnessez Thomas Leversege, John Sutton, William Savage the elder, Thomas ffaloghys.”

The boy became a bold soldier, and was slain at Flodden Field in 1515, and with him ended the male line of the ancient family of Honford. His daughter Margaret married, before she was twelve, Sir John Stanley, the stout knight, whose life forms a curious episode in mediæval biography. He was the son of James Stanley, the warlike Bishop of Ely, and Warden of Manchester, who was blamed by Fuller for “living all the winter at Somersham, in Huntingdonshire, with one who was not his sister, and who wanted nothing to make her his wife save marriage.” Young Stanley took part in the battle of Flodden, and is thought to have been knighted in the field. Notwithstanding his prowess he appears to have been “sicklied o’er with a pale cast of thought,” his favourite mottos being those of the preacher who declares vanitas vanitatum omnia vanitas. In 1523, he became engaged in a dispute with one of the Leghs, of Adlington, who had married the daughter of a reputed mistress of Cardinal Wolsey. That haughty prelate summoned Sir John to London, and committed him to the Fleet until he surrendered his lease. Sir John founded a chantry in the church of Manchester, and arranged his estates for the benefit of his wife and child. Then by mutual consent a divorce was pronounced between him and Dame Margaret, and he became a monk of the Order of St. Benedict in the abbey of Westminster. His wife, when the divorce was arranged, intended to enter a nunnery, but anticipating the sentiment of a once popular song, she altered her mind, and married Sir Urian Brereton. When Stanley settled his property he directed that his son was not to be married until he was twenty-one, and then he was to choose his own wife by the advice of the Abbot of Westminster and Edmund Trafford.

The guardian of the monk’s childhood carried forward the fortunes of the Traffords, for in 1514 he was created a Knight of the Bath by Henry VIII. His son, the second Sir Edmund, was born in 1485, and died at the age of forty-eight, leaving behind him five sons and five daughters. Sir Edmund was one of the first feoffees of the Manchester Grammar School. When the school was built the east part of it adjoined “a stone chymney” of George Trafford’s.

Henry Trafford, the younger brother of Sir Edmund, who died in 1537, was rector of Wilmslow, and built the chancel and placed stained glass in many of the windows. He was the youngest son of the Sir Edmund Trafford who died in 1514. His monument in Wilmslow Church represents a tonsured priest in ecclesiastical costume. The inscription, now illegible, set forth his clerical honours as “licensed doctor of divinity,” formerly Chancellor of York Cathedral, and rector of Bolton Percy, Siglisthorne, and Wilmslow. He was succeeded by Henry Ryle, who, in 1542, resigned to make way for another Henry Trafford, who was rector of Wilmslow for nearly fifty years. He died in 1591. His will contains several interesting provisions. He was anxious to be buried in the same tomb as his uncle and predecessor, and left 6s. 8d. to be paid for his funeral sermon. Evidently disapproving of sable trappings, he desired that there should be no mourning gowns at his funeral, but that a “worshipful dinner” should be made for the friends that should happen to attend. His best gown he left to the curate of Wilmslow, and the furniture of the parsonage was to remain for the use of whoever should be his successor.^[6]

The third Sir Edmund, born in 1507, was knighted by the Earl of Hertford, in Scotland, in the thirty-sixth year of King Henry VIII. He was with the King at the siege of Boulogne, and died in 1564. He married a daughter of the knightly house of Radcliffe. His brother Thomas was the founder of the Traffords of Essex. Sir Edmund, in 1542, paid tax on £80 as the value of his Lancashire property. In Mary’s reign he was captain of the military musters of Salford hundred, and High Sheriff of the county. “Between 1542 and 1558,” says Mr. J. E. Bailey, “Sir Edmund Trafford was interested in promoting, in the church, the advancement of the following persons, who, belonging in some cases to the families of his tenants, were ordained at Chester upon the knight’s title: Dns Alexander Chorlton; Dns Alexander Hugson (or Hudson); Dns Robert Williamson; Dns Johannes Gregorie; Dns Willm’s Trafforde; Dns Jacobus Walker. Thomas Acson, of the diocese of Chester, an acolyte in April, 1546, soon afterwards became sub-dean, deacon, and presbyter on the title of Edmund Trafford, co. Lincoln, gentleman. The Trafford family had connections in Lincolnshire. George Trafford, a younger son of the Sir Edmund who died in 1514, had lands in Lincoln, but lived in the neighbourhood of Manchester, and in dying left provision for certain copes and vestments (which had been bought by his father-in-law) ‘to be restored again for the service of God.’” In 1564, a curious legal document was executed between Edmund Trafford, of Trafford, Esquire, and John Boothe, of Barton, Esquire, by which it was agreed that Edmund’s son (also Edmund) should marry Marget Boothe, daughter of the said John, and if she died before the union was completed he was to marry Anne, and in her default any other daughter of Boothe’s who might be her father’s heir. If Edmund died his next remaining brother in succession was to take his place. Moreover, if Boothe had any male issue a similar marriage was to be arranged with a daughter of the house of Trafford. In point of fact the feelings and dispositions of the young folk were not dreamed of as being of any account, and the future of their respective offspring, born and unborn, was dealt with by the seniors in the most arbitrary fashion, with the sole view of joining together the great estates of the two families. The fourth Sir Edmund was born in 1526, and died in 1590. His first wife was a sister of Queen Catharine Howard. By his second marriage, with Elizabeth, the daughter of Ralph Leicester, of Toft, he had three children. In 1586, the marriage of his daughter was celebrated with great pomp at Trafford, the Earl of Derby, the Bishop of Chester, “with divers knights and esquires of great worship,” were present, and the wedding-sermon, which still survives, was preached by William Massie, B.D., who dedicates it to Sir Edmund. “I having right honourably received,” he says, “by your good means, great courtesies, both in the country and at my studie at Oxford.” He was a Fellow of Brasenose College, and had been helped in his education by Sir Edmund. The conclusion of the dedication is worth quoting:—“For your selfe as you have long been a principal protection of God’s trueth and a great countenance and credit to the preachers thereof in those quarters, and have hunted out and unkenneled those slie and subtil foxes the Jesuites and seminarie Priests out of their celles and caves to the uttermost of your power, with the great ill will of many both open and private enimies to the prince and the church, but your rewarde is with the Lorde, and as you have maintained still your house with great hospitality in no point dimming the glory of your worthy predecessors, but rather adding to it: So I pray God stil continue your zeale, your liberality, your loyaltie and fidelitie, to your Prince, Church, and Common Wealth, that here you may live long with encrease of worship and after the race of your life wel runne here you maie be partaker of those unspeakable ioies in the kingdome of Heaven which be prepared for all the elect children of God, unto whose blessed protection I recommend you and al yours. Amen.”

He was, like his father, a staunch Protestant, and is credited with special activity against the partisans of the old faith. Lancashire was regarded as a hot-bed of Popery, and Manchester was thought a convenient place “wherein to confine and imprison such Papists as they thought meet, and to train up their children in the Protestant religion.” Chaderton, Bishop of Chester, was a resident in the town, and some of the children of the Roman Catholic gentry were committed to his charge. In 1580, Trafford wrote to the Earl of Leicester complaining that the state of Lancashire was lamentable to behold, for mass was said in several places, and if harsh measures were not used “our country is utterly overthrown. I know no lenity will do any good by experience.” Towards the close of 1582, Sir Edmund apprehended a priest named John Baxter, who, “for the more ease of Sir Edmund Trafford,” was committed to the common gaol until the next assizes. The zealous priest-hunters were “righte hartelie” thanked by the Privy Council for their activity. The persecuting spirit was exhibited in 1583, when, at the quarter sessions held in Manchester, two priests, Williamson and Hatton, who had been arrested by Sir Edmund, and James Bell, a priest, who had been apprehended by the Earl of Derby, were indicted for high treason for “extolling the Pope’s authority, &c.” Bell and a recusant, named Finch, were condemned to death, and executed at Lancaster. Their heads were placed on the steeple of the Manchester Parish Church. At the same sessions, Sir John Southworth and seven other gentlemen were fined for recusancy, each having to pay £240. The same fine was imposed upon a number of priests and “common persons.” Of four women it is remarked that, “although they be very obstinate, and have done great harm, yet being indicted it was not thought good to arraign them.” The next year, 1584, we find Trafford, at the instigation of Bishop Chaderton, making a descent upon Blainscough, but finding that Mr. Worthington had fled, they proceeded to Rossall to the house inhabited by the widow of Gabriel, the brother of Cardinal Allen. That lady having received a friendly hint had fled, but the High Sheriff found £500, which was secured on the plea that it was intended for the use of the Cardinal. Her three daughters, of whom the eldest was but sixteen, hearing that it was intended to convey them to prison, made their escape at midnight, and luckily finding a boat ready, crossed the Wyre and found refuge with friends. Ultimately, and after many hardships, they escaped to Rome, where they lived upon the bounty of Cardinal Allen. The Rev. James Gosnell, writing from Bolton about 1584, says:—“Here are great store of Jesuits, Seminaries, Masses and plenty of whoredom. The first sort our sheriff (Edmund Trafford, Esq.) courseth pretty well.”

From Warden Herle the Traffords received, about 1574, some ambiguous leases of the tithes of Stretford, Trafford, and half of Chorlton, which were ultimately decided to mean possession for ninety-nine years after twenty-one years. This transaction is probably the origin of the right of the family to nominate one churchwarden and two sidesmen, and to appoint the parish clerk of Manchester. When Peploe was warden these leases were the occasion of much trouble, and it was with great difficulty that the Fellows obtained their surrender. The fifth Sir Edmund was thrice High Sheriff of Lancashire. In 1603, when James made his progress into England, he was received at York with great pomp and state by the Lord Mayor and burgesses. A seminary priest was sent to prison for presenting a petition, and a number of gentlemen were “graced with the honour of knighthood.” Amongst these was Edmund Trafford, who, like his father, was a hater of Roman Catholics, and employed a spy named Christopher Bayley to ferret them out. Sir Edmund died in 1620. His first wife was a Booth, of Barton. In a second marriage he espoused Lady Mildred Cecil, the second daughter of the Earl of Exeter. A daughter received the name of Cecilia, and a son the name of Cecil, in honour of the mother’s family. In 1584, there was a levy of 200 men for the service of the Queen in her Irish wars, and that the Lancashire lads might not be committed to strange captains who “for the most part” had not used their soldiers “with the love and care that appertained,” one of their own shire, Edmund Trafford, eldest son of Sir Edmund Trafford, Knight, was appointed their commander. Two years later an entry in the Court Leet book shows that the town paid £16 to Mr. Trafford and Mr. Edmund Assheton for the “makeing of soldiers into Ireland.”

Sir Cecil Trafford, who was born in 1599, and knighted by King James at Houghton Tower in 1617, succeeded his father in 1620. Leonard Smethley writes from Manchester, 10th May, 1620, that Sir Edmund Trafford was buried on the 8th at Manchester Church by torchlight, and had a funeral sermon by candle-light, leaving a will so ambiguous that the heir who should inherit could not be known. Sir Urian Legh, of Adlington, and Sir Peter Legh, of Lyme, were expected to meet for the ordering and establishing of quietness amongst the four brethren. Smethley, with a keen eye to business, wanted to secure Sir Edmund’s “hearse-cloth” as a perquisite of the College of Arms, whose minion he was. From the Reformation the Traffords had been staunch Protestants, and Sir Edmund in particular was a vigorous hunter of recusants. In his earlier years Sir Cecil was thought to be tainted with Puritanism, and in an excess of religious ardour engaged in an attempt to bring back a convert, Mr. Francis Downes, who had gone over to Rome. This entry into the thorny fields of controversy had an unexpected result. Sir Cecil found himself converted by the very arguments he had sought out only to confute. Sir Cecil married a daughter of Sir Humphrey Davenport, Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer, and his daughter Penelope, named after her mother, became the wife of John Downes, of Wardley, the brother and heir of the man whose reclamation the Knight of Trafford had attempted with so curious a result. His grandson, Roger Downes, was the young rake whose tragic fate has given rise to the story of the “skullhouse.” The death of the Rector of Ashton-on-Mersey, who was drowned on Good Friday, in 1632, “being, as it is feared, somewhat overcharged with drink,” the suicide of the Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge on Easter Day, and the controversy between two Fellows of the College as to the nature of sin, seemed to new converts like Trafford and Downes “signal evidences of God’s anger and wrath, and presages of the ruin of the reformed religion.” It has, however, been claimed that the re-conversion of the Traffords, the Downes, and the Sherburnes was the work of Richard Hudleston, a Lancashire Benedictine monk, who prosecuted the dangerous mission of keeping alive Roman Catholicism in England, and died in 1655, at the age of seventy-five. In 1580, there was at Trafford a priest of this English mission, but no particulars respecting him are known. In religion a Roman Catholic, in politics a Royalist, Sir Cecil played a busy part in the troublous period of the Civil War. Ship-money, perhaps the most momentous impost in its results ever levied, was the subject of a letter from Sir Cecil to Humphrey Chetham, then High Sheriff of Lancashire, which for its quaint formalism may be worth quoting:—

“Mr. Sheriffe,—I hope you will excuse mee for my late sending you venison, for in truth I was ashamed my keeper cold doe noe better, though he had Mr. Fox to help him. I have in recompense of your patience sent you a quarter of a hinde, & if you need more venison I pray lett me knowe and you shall have assoone as it will be kild. I have perused our directions from his Maty and the Llds for the levying of men & money within this County & compared it with Cheshire, & find that some time Cheshire hath byn equall to us, sometyme deeper charged, & sometymes this County hath borne 3 parts and Cheshire 2. Yet I clerely hold equallity is the best rate betweene the Countys, though Cheshire be lesse yet it is generally better land, and not soe much mosses and barren ground in it. Mr. Adam Smiths is now with me and acquainted mee with your desire, which I will as willingly perform as you desire, if God make me able; for I have byn a little troubled with rewme in my head this two dayes, though I am better to-day; I have looked for the Coppy of the letter from the Llds of the Councell for providing a Shipp in this County, but yet I cannot find it; but I find this proclamation for the discharge of it, and by my remembrance in writing on the back of the proclamation you may see the charge of money demanded by the Kinge and Llds because the shipp could not possibly be provided in time. I shall further acquaint you with my booke of Lieutenancy wherein are those few notes of remembrance. I desire to know your tyme of going, and I will prepare myself for you accordingly, and thus with my harty commendations to you I rest

Trafford the third of January, 1634.

To the right worll. my very good freind Humfrey Chetam, esq.

High Sheriffe of the County of Lancaster at his House at Clayton these present.”

These worthy gentlemen discuss the matter of Ship Money with an exclusive eye to its purely business aspect, and seem quite unconscious of the momentous issues beneath these details, and yet the freedom of England was involved in the settlement. Sir Cecil writes from Trafford, 16th February, 1638, to William ffarington that “wee” have enrolled all the able men between sixteen and sixty, “a great number,” out of which levy may be made for the King. On the 11th of March he writes again that he has been to the houses of various gentlemen as requested, to see who would help with arms or money for the Kings cause, and that “few denyed.” In 1639, Sir Cecil, in conjunction with other Loyalists, “suspecting that sundry in the towne did favour the Scots, did charge the towne of Manchester with more arms than ever before in the memory of man it had been charged with, which war being composed they had their arms in their own possession.”

In 1642, Sir William Gerard, Sir Cecil Trafford, and other recusants represented to the King that they were disarmed, and asked for his Majesty’s protection, and that their arms might be “re-delivered in this time of actual war.” Charles immediately issued a commission to the Lancashire recusants “commanding them to provide with all possible speed sufficient arms for the defence of his Majesty’s person or them against all force raised by any colour of any order or ordinance whatsoever without his Majesty’s consent.” This was answered by the Parliament sending down Sir John Seaton, and by the issue of orders for “putting down associations of Papists in Lancashire, Cheshire, and the five northern counties.” In December, 1642, Sir Cecil was imprisoned as a recusant by the Parliamentarians, probably in the same prison to which his relative had consigned so many for recusancy. The death of Sir Cecil’s two eldest-born sons caused the estates to pass to the third, who received the name of Humphrey from his grandfather Davenport. Another brother was John Trafford, of Croston. The eldest of Humphrey’s sons died unmarried at Angiers; the second, Humphrey, was married at Manchester in 1701 to a daughter of Sir Ralph Assheton, but the numerous offspring of this union left no children. In 1670, Henry Newcome’s heart was sorely troubled about the fate of his son Daniel, who was on a voyage to Jamaica. News came that the ships, with their two guardian men-of-war, had, after a two days’ fight, been captured by the Turks. The first imperfect rumour reached him on Saturday, and it was not until the succeeding Thursday that, when visiting Dunham he saw the story told more plainly. He enters it thus in his diary:—“That seven Turkish men-of-war set upon them two ships and other merchant ships near the Cape de Gat, and that the captains were slain, but they fought it out two days, and the Turks were glad to desist from their engagement. This satisfied me that there might be no captivity in the case; but then I knew not but that my child might be killed in the fight; and so it rested with me till Saturday. Then going to Trafford, I discoursed of that part of the news, and Mr. Trafford showed me that Cape de Gat was in the midst of the Mediterranean, and 150 miles within the Straits; by which it was apparent that the Amity bound for Tangier was gone off before.” Dan was not carried into Turkish captivity, but returned to Manchester, and his father was mortified at not being able to obtain employment for him with “Mr. Trafford.” It is to be remarked that at this date Sir Cecil was still living. He was buried 29th November, 1672.

The next squire of Trafford also bore the name of Humphrey. He married a daughter of Sir Oswald Mosley, but the union was childless. In the very curious “Characteristic Strictures,” written by the Rev. Thomas Seddon, and consisting of remarks on an imaginary exhibition of portraits of Lancashire and Cheshire notabilities, we have the following picture of him as “the good Samaritan”: “That universal benevolence is an enemy to restraint, and that character is not the effect of an illiberal spirit, is here most laudably expressed. The pure motives of compassion cannot be restrained by religious tenets; the manner in which these sentiments actuate the Samaritan to relieve his fellow-creature in distress, is most beautifully sublime, and every after-stroke gives lustre to the whole. The formality of the habit is the only fault in this performance, as it is better calculated for a recluse than a travelling character.”

By a will dated June 5th, 1779, the estates were devised by Humphrey to his collateral cousin, John Trafford, of Croston, who settled at the ancient home of his race, and obtained an act of Parliament in 1793 giving him power to let lands on building leases, and to lease the waste moss lands in the parishes of Manchester and Eccles for ninety-nine years. Mr. Thomas Joseph Trafford, who in 1815 succeeded to the estate, was the fifth son, and was born at Croston in 1778. His marriage, in 1803, with the daughter of Mr. Francis Colman, of Hellersdown, Devonshire, resulted in a family of fourteen children. He was a county magnate of high consideration, served as High Sheriff in 1834, and was in 1841 created a baronet and received the royal authority to revert to an old method of spelling the family name. Sir Thomas Joseph de Trafford died in 1852, and was succeeded by Sir Humphrey, who was born in 1808, and in 1855 married the Lady Mary Annette Talbot, the eldest sister of the 17th Earl of Shrewsbury. The numerous issue of this union are the bearers of a name that has endured for so many centuries that some of the families entered in the peerages look but like parvenus beside it. He was succeeded by his son, Sir Humphrey, who in consequence of the contiguity of the Manchester Ship Canal, found it desirable to leave the old home of the family.^[7]

The possessions of the family in Lancashire were thus set forth in the return of landowners in 1873, which is generally credited with under rather than over-estimating the value of the estates of the larger landowners:—

The family of Trafford in bygone centuries did good service in the public work of the nation, and if for some generations it sought obscurity, the motive was honourable and the blame for it rested upon those laws, alike mistaken and mischievous, which made creeds the test of citizenship. The most impressive fact about the ancient race of the Traffords of Trafford is their permanence. It is a thoroughly English attribute, and nowhere will it attract more respect than in that place which successive generations of the Traffords have seen developing from the Saxon village to the busy, bustling, modern city of Manchester. The Traffords survive and flourish, but they are Traffords of Trafford no more.

Footnotes:

A Manchester Will of the Fifteenth Century.

The will of George Manchester, A.D. 1483, was presented to the Peel Park Museum, Salford, by the late Mr. Stephen Heelis. It has several points of interest. The date is given in a peculiar form: “the first year of the reign of King Richard the Third after the Conquest, when he raised his realm against the Duke of Buckingham.” The Manchester localities mentioned are the Irk Bridge, the Furthys (? the Fords), the Pavey, the Spring Bank, the Butts, the Tenter Bank, Drynghouses, Bradforth, and Mylnegate. The family names of Fornesse, Strangeways, Blakeley also occur. Dialectally noticeable are the words brege (bridge), garthyn (garden), longs (belongs), whether (whichever), wedit (wedded), spendit (spent). The spelling of the word lawful seems to point to the former use of a guttural sound now fallen into disuse. The peculiar employment of the word livelihood is also noteworthy. The perusal of this interesting document seems to show that in the past the dialect of Lancashire approximated more closely than at present to the Northumbrian group. The will reads as follows:—“Be it knawen to all men & in especiall to all myn neghburs that I George Manchester have made my Wyll in dyspocion of my lyvelouede the xx^ti day of October the fyrst yere of the regne of Kyng Richard the thyrd after the conquest when he raysed hys realme agaynes the Duke of Bokyngham. Fyrst my wyfe schall have dewrying hyr lyve the place that I dwell in so that she kepe hyre Wedo. And at the furthys xiii s viii d and at the pavey vi s viiii d. And if so be that sche be weddit Roger my sone schall hafe the place that I dwell in and delyver hyr alsmuch in a nother place at the seght of neghburs. And also it is my will that Hugh my sone have the halfe burgage that I purchest of Richard Fornesse and the hows be yond Irke brege that [? Emyun or Simyun] Blakela dwells in and the garthyn and the orchard that longs thereto and the Spryng Bank dewryng his lyve and then remayn to myn eldyst sone and hys heres male laghfully begotyn. And also it is my will that Thomas my sone have a nother hows be yond Irke brege next the Butts and the garthyn & my newe orchard that is cald the Tentur Bank dewryng hys lyve & then remayn to myn eldest sone & his heres male laghfully begottyn. And then it is my will that myn eldest sone have my land at Drynghowses and Jamys hows of Bradforth and Geferous of Pedley and Johns Phyllypp & Johns Alseter & my kylne & my kylne hows and the blake burgage in mylngate with the appurtenaunce that was sum tymes Nicholas Strangewyse. And it is my wyll that yf Roger my sone hafe non ischewe male of hys body lawfully begottyn that then my lyfelode remayn to Hugh my son and hys heres male of hys body laghfully begottyn. And yf Hugh my sone have non heyres male of hys body laghfully begottyn that then my lyfelode remayn to Thomas my sone and hys heres male laghfully begottyn. And yf so be Thomas my sone have none heres male of hys body laghfully begottyn that then my lyfelode remayn to Thurstan of Manchester my brother and hys heres male laghfully begottyn or bastard so that it be in the name. And yf my name be spendit of Manchester it is my wyll that John of Buth my Syster sone have my lyvelode & so furth male or generall whether God wyll. And all so it is my wyll that Roger my eldyst sone gyf to Elyzabeth my Doghtter iiii marks to hyr maryage when he ys mared hym self.” The anxiety to keep his belongings within the enclosure of the family name was greater than his dislike of a bar sinister.

The Lancashire and Cheshire wills published by the Chetham Society show that the illegitimate children were often provided for along with those born in wedlock, and in several cases bore the surname of their father. There are several entries relating to the Mancestres in the manorial rent roll of 1473, which has been translated and printed by Mr. Harland in his “Mamcestre.” Ellen Mancestre appears as the tenant of two burgages, late Katherine Johnson’s, for each of which she paid 12d. George Mancestre held a messuage in “Le Foris” at a rent of 3s. Mr. Harland conjectures this to be the clerkly rendering of “the Market or the Courts.” He was also concerned in a field near the “Galoz,” and paid 6d. as tenant of an ostrina, concerning which Mr. Harland observes:—“The word we have rendered singeing house is in the original ostrina, literally purple, from ostrea, an oyster. But it seems to be an error for ustrina (from uro) a burning or conflagration (Apuleius) a place in which anything, especially a dead body, has been burned (Festus), or a melting house for metal (Pliny); but besides these meanings of classic times, the word had other mediæval significations, one of which is, a place where hogs are singed—ubi porci ustulautur. (See Ducange in voce.) This seems to be the most probable meaning of ostrina in the text.” May not this be the “dryng-howses” named in the will? The name of the family of Manchester is not yet “spendit,” but is still borne both in this country and in the United States.

A Visitor to Lancashire in 1807.

There are some interesting references to Lancashire and the manufacturing district in a volume of “Summer Excursions,” consisting of letters written by Miss E. I. Spence, published in 1809. Literary fame is not always permanent, and it may be necessary to explain that the author of these volumes and of “The Nobility of the Heart” and “The Wedding Day” was a well-known woman of letters in her own generation.

Elizabeth Isabella Spence was the daughter of a Durham physician, and the granddaughter of Dr. Fordyce. She was early orphaned, and was brought up in London by an uncle and aunt. On their death the literary tastes which had already made her a contributor to the press became useful in the gaining of a subsistence. She wrote nine novels or collections of stories, and three works of inland travel, devoted respectively to the North Highlands, Scotland, England, and Wales. She “lodged for the greater part of her life in a retired street at the west end of the town”—Weymouth Street, that is. Amongst her friends were the Benthams, Lady Margaret Bland Burges, Lady Anne Barnard (the authoress of “Auld Robin Gray”), Sir Humphrey Davy, L. E. L., and the venerable Mary Knowles, one of the few ladies who met Dr. Johnson on equal terms in argument, and could even claim a victory over that doughty champion. Miss Spence died on the 27th July, 1832.

Her impressions of the manufacturing district were not of a favourable kind. The inns of Warrington did not please her, and “the dirtiness of the people here exceeds,” she says, “what I could have believed in any part of this kingdom.” From Bolton she writes: “The apparel of the women in some of the villages we passed through was scarcely decent, and all the children were without shoes and stockings.” At Wigan she mentions the “celebrated spa” and the “cannel coal,” which was made into ornaments. “I have heard a dinner service was once made out of this coal, which, after the entertainment, was demolished in the fire.” Bolton she found to be situated on “a dreary moor,” but there was some compensation in “an extensive view of a fine open country.” The next stay was at Stand Hall, a mansion of which the beautiful situation and the hospitality of her friends, who were its inmates, made her pardon even the rainfall. Her host, “Mr. J——,” was Mr. John Johnson, steward for Lord Derby in the Bury district. “The large town of Manchester,” she says, “spreads along the valley in front of the house at some miles’ distance, and the less one of Bury is seen distinctly to the left, surrounded by villages with simple cottages dispersed along the plain. The hills of Lancashire, Derbyshire, Cheshire, and Yorkshire, rising in succession, spread in a vast amphitheatre till lost in the immensity of space; while the rugged tops of the Welsh mountains, which I gazed upon as old friends, hide their heads in the clouds, of which they seem to form a part. The dialect of this country is peculiarly unharmonious to the ear, and when spoken by the peasantry is scarcely to be understood. All the lower orders of the people are employed in the manufactories, and the dress worn by the women is a long bed-gown, black stockings, and a mob-cap hanging open from the ears.” The fidelity of her description of the former dress of the people will be recognised.

Miss Spence was taken by her friends to the Manchester theatre to see Mrs. Siddons as Lady Macbeth, and also as Catharine in “Catharine and Petruchio”—an adaptation of the “Taming of the Shrew.” Apparently the drama then, as now, was in a decline. “This pre-eminently great actress,” says Miss Spence, “has for several years been so entirely the theme of public admiration to the real amateurs of the drama (for some we still possess) that it would be superfluous to dwell on her exquisite powers—powers that even in former times, when the stage was in its meridian glory, could not be excelled, and would have awakened astonishment and admiration. But to give your Ladyship” (the letter is addressed to the Dowager Countess of Winterton) “an idea either of the little taste or the prudent economy of the inhabitants of Manchester in permitting her to perform to empty benches, I need only mention that after the other evening, on sharing the profits with the manager, she was rewarded with the sum (shall I commit it to paper?) of seven shillings!” But wishing to be just, even in such a case, she adds, “There may, indeed, have been a moral cause for this rather than a want of taste or parsimony.” And no doubt there were many in old Manchester who would not go to the theatre even to see the acting of Mrs. Siddons. In 1775, the establishment of a Theatre Royal was advocated by a noble peer as a means of “eradicating” Methodism in Manchester.

Miss Spence visited also Rochdale, and was impressed by the handsome houses of the manufacturers, “whose wealth appears as unbounded as the magnificence of their tables.” She notices with regret the fondness for card parties, and was surprised to find “the primitive hours of our ancestors still prevalent in Rochdale,” where one o’clock was the general dinner hour. Passing through the “miserable village”—as she styles it—of Whitworth, Miss Spence repeats an interesting account of its famous “doctors,” which was given to her by Mr. Johnson. “‘Old Sammie [it should be Jammie] in Whitworth’ was originally a common farrier, or cow doctor. His sons, however, John and George, though they continued the business of farriers, had a deal to do with the human race, and for many years were famous for the cure of cancers, and contracted or broken limbs, which they frequently effected at a very small expense, from the sum of two and sixpence to half a guinea. T——, Bishop of Durham, was a patient of theirs for a cancerous complaint; and it is well known that they prolonged his life for several months, though they did not cure him. To this obscure village both lords and commoners resort for relief; and in cancerous cases and contractions have undoubtedly succeeded when the regular bred men of the faculty have failed. The widow of George, son of old Sammie, and James, grandson of Sammie, are the present doctors, and are held in high estimation for the same cures. The widow of Doctor George is reckoned very clever, and takes a most active part amongst the patients of both sexes. They attend once a week at Rochdale, where they have a public open shop, and it is wonderful, though dreadful, to see the business they go through.”

The neighbourhood of Stand delighted her, and she has a good word for the Rector of Prestwich and for the Earl of Wilton. “What an edifying example does my Lord Wilton set by attending this church every Sunday, not only with the whole of his noble family, but also in being followed by the men and women of his household, who all conduct themselves with the most becoming reverence! This noble example of his Lordship tends to assemble a very numerous and respectable congregation, even from distant parts.” Some of our readers will remember that at a later date Fanny Kemble drew an interesting picture of the household at Heaton Park. She was impressed in the same manner as was Miss Spence, but she does not give expression to it in quite the same manner.

“Adjoining to the mansion of Stand Hall,” observes Miss Spence, “is a barn, which was once a chapel. It has a fine Gothic roof of English oak, and it is a singular fact, no one ever saw a spider’s web upon it; and it always looks as if it had just been swept down. Mr. J—— informed me no person he had ever met with could account for it, although all other barns are covered with spiders’ webs.”

Of Manchester she says, “It is a very large town, but the streets, for the most part, are inconveniently narrow, with very few noble buildings or handsome houses. The population is immense, and the traffic considerable; and it has acquired great celebrity from its extensive manufactories, so productive, all over the kingdom.” We need only make one more quotation. “I wish I could tell your Ladyship,” she says, “that the peasantry were possessed of that native simplicity we expect to find two hundred miles from the Metropolis; their manners accord with their rude and uncultivated appearance, and their demeanour is remarkably forbidding; but this, I understand, is often the case near manufacturing towns, though it is the first time I have had the opportunity of observing it.” Evidently Manchester, even ninety years ago, was some distance from Arcadia.

How the First Spinning Machinery was taken to Belgium.

The introduction of spinning machinery to the Continent is a curious episode in the history of commerce, and has some interest for Manchester people, as it was from that place the men and the machinery were obtained. The industrial activity of England and the riches which the inventions of Kay, Highs, and Arkwright brought her, naturally attracted the attention of her foreign rivals, but in those days there were stringent regulations against the export of machines, and the “seduction of artizans” to engage in the service of a foreign master was a criminal offence. The temptation was, however, too great for the attempt not to be made. As Englishmen had gone abroad in order to obtain the secrets of the silk and other manufactures, so foreigners came here to spy out the industrial riches of the land. The man who succeeded in taking abroad the spinning-jenny was Liévin Bauwens.^[8] He belonged to a Belgian family that claimed patrician rank, but had always been associated with the industries of Holland, in Antwerp, Malines, and other places. Although the names and coat-of-arms of the Bauwens are to be found in the books of the Low Country heralds, they are also inscribed for generations in the records of the Tanners’ Guild of Ghent.

Liévin Jean Bauwens was born at Ghent on the 14th of June, 1769, and was the son of Georges Bauwens and his second wife, Thérèse van Peteghem. His father had a tannery in the Waaistraat, and his numerous children were taught to take a part in the family industry, so at an early age Liévin was made the overseer of a branch establishment at Huydersvetters-Hoeck. He can only have been a boy when he had this responsible position, for at the age of sixteen he came to London, and in the great tannery of Undershell and Fox learned what there was to be known of the English methods of that industry. Three years later he returned to Ghent, and took charge of a large establishment which his father had started shortly before his death. The Nieuwland Tannery in the old Dominican convent employed 200 men, and kept 550 vats going. Bauwens made leather for the London market, and is said to have paid 500,000 francs of customs duty yearly. He had frequent occasion to visit England, and the expansion of the cotton industry naturally attracted his attention—all the more so that he had always had a strong taste for mechanics, and only adopted the family trade in compliance with the wishes of his father. A clock which he had made at the age of twelve was one of the favourite exhibits of his parents, who, whilst proud of the ingenuity of their son, did not wish him to abandon the vocation which had ensured competence to the family. As tanners, they naturally felt that there was “nothing like leather.”

At this time Belgium was annexed to France, and Bauwens proposed to the Directoire that he should endeavour to obtain the secret of the machines by which the British manufacturer bade defiance to his continental rivals. The French Government promised him their support, and he came to Manchester for the purpose of getting the necessary information. This was in 1798, and he was aided by François de Pauw, one of his relations. At Manchester he made the acquaintance of an overseer, Mr. James Kenyon, and his daughter Mary. Whilst talking business with the father he appears to have talked of other matters to the girl, who eventually became his wife. The various parts of the machine, which in Belgium came to be called the “mull jenny,” were secreted in casks of sugar and in bags of coffee, and shipped to Hamburg. The statement that he intended to add dealings in colonial produce to his tanning operations was a sufficient explanation of this novel step on his part. Some of the packages were to be sent from Gravesend, and from this port Bauwens intended himself to depart, along with a number of workmen whom he had engaged. An overseer named Harding had a wife who strongly objected to the departure of her husband, and she made a scene, in which the destination and intentions of the party were made known. The police thus came to a knowledge of the conspiracy, and the men were arrested. Bauwens managed to escape in the crowd, and hastening quickly to London, he took passage to Hamburg, where part of the precious packages and the workmen who had been sent on before awaited him. Here he had a narrow escape, for Sir James Crawford, the British Envoy, endeavoured to have him imprisoned. The export of machinery and workmen was then a criminal offence, and the conspirators who had fallen into the hands of the authorities were brought before the Court of King’s Bench and convicted. The contemporary accounts of the affair in the English periodicals are very meagre, and the French accounts have an air of exaggeration. Thus we are told that Bauwens was, in his absence, condemned to death, and faute de mieux hung in effigy. Whatever his sentence may have been, it was powerless to hinder his success. He established spinning factories at Ghent, and still larger establishments at Paris, where he converted a convent of Bonshommes, at Passy, into a cotton spinning mill. He had a tannery at St. Cloud; he bought from the French Government the ingots made from the silver taken in the dissolved monasteries, and sold them at considerable profit to the Bank of Amsterdam.

Napoleon, when he came to power, had a good opinion of Bauwens; he visited the great works both at Paris and at Ghent, and after his inspection of the last-named place, he sent 4,000 francs to be distributed in presents to the workpeople. Bauwens started a new spinning mill at Tronchiennes, and was the first in Belgium to employ steam power. The flying shuttle was also used by him, and he made essays in cotton printing, in carding, and, indeed, appears to have been always on the alert for every possible improvement of the industrial processes in which he was engaged. He took an active part in local affairs, and was Maire of Ghent and member of the Council of the Department. In 1805, the town of Ghent presented him with a gold medal at a banquet, where the services of Bauwens in the creation of fresh industries was gratefully acknowledged. The French Institute, in a report on the progress of industry, gave to Bauwens the credit of having naturalised the English machines in France. Napoleon, who was in Ghent in 1810, offered him the title of Comte. This he declined, but accepted the Cross of the Legion of Honour. His great works, and that at Ghent, are said to have given employment to 3,000 people, were open to visitors, and he freely gave advice to those who were engaging in the cotton trade. His own profits were very large, and he showed great liberality in the treatment of his workpeople, and in the uses he made of his riches. But this princely opulence was not without check. The coalition of the great powers against Napoleon, in 1814, resulted in disaster to French industry, and Bauwens was one of the victims. A forced sale of the factories turned out very unfavourably, and Bauwens was ruined.

When the kingdom of the Netherlands was formed, Bauwens sought the patronage of William I., but in vain. A proposal to establish cotton spinning on the banks of the Guadalquivir, which he made to the Infanta of Spain, was equally unsuccessful. In these circumstances he attempted the creation of a new industry, and began at Paris a process for the treatment of waste silk. This was in 1819, and his partner, the Baron Idelot de la Ferté, allowed him an annual salary of 5,000 francs and a share of the profits. The patent taken out in November, 1821, for the preparation and treatment of silk floss, might possibly have restored the fallen fortunes of Liévin Bauwens, but he died of the rupture of an aneurysm on the 17th of March, 1822. His widow, the former Mary Kenyon, of Manchester, after burying him in Père-la-Chaise, returned to Belgium, and died at St. Bernard in 1834. Five years later the two sons of the manufacturer received the royal licence to use their father’s Christian and surname as a patronymic. Liévin was himself the eldest of a family of twelve. By his marriage with Mary Kenyon he had two sons and a daughter—Napoléon, born at Tronchiennes in 1805, who died at Paris in 1869; Félix, born at Tronchiennes in 1806, who died in London; and Elvina Marie Bernardine, born at Tronchiennes in 1809, who married M. Louis Rysheuvels, of Antwerp.

Ghent has not forgotten the memory of the man who laid the foundations of a vast industry, and who united to commercial enterprise public spirit and private generosity. One of her open squares is named in honour of Liévin Bauwens, and there his statute stands to witness that peace has her victories no less than war. Such is one of the many romantic episodes connected with the history of the industrial development of Manchester.

Footnotes:

Merry Andrew of Manchester.

In that strange old joke-book, “Pasquil’s Jests and Mother Bunches Merriments,” there is a story in which a “local habitation” is given to a name suggestive of grotesque amusement. Whether the Mancunian Merry Andrew was the first of his tribe may be doubted, but as the book was printed in 1604, he is somewhat of a patriarch in the race. The story is entitled, “How merry Andrew of Manchester serued an Vsurer,” and runs thus:—“Merry Andrew of Manchester, who is well knowne, meeting with three or foure of his companions on a Sunday, presently hee bade them home to dinner, yet hee neyther had meate nor money in his house. Well, but to his shifts he goeth, and went into an olde Usurer’s kitchen, where he was very familiar, and priuily, under his gowne, he brought away the pot of meate that was sodden for the old miser’s dinner. When he came home, hee put out the meat, and made his boy scoure the pot, and sent him with it to the Usurer, to borrow two groats on it, and bade the boy take a bill of his hand: which the boy did, and with the money bought beere and bread for their dinner. When the Usurer should goe to dinner, his meat was gone; wherefore he all to beat his mayd, calling her whoore. She sayd ‘There came nobody but Andrew there all that day.’ Then they asked him; and he sayd, hee had none. But at last they sayd, that he and no body else had the pot. ‘By my fayth,’ quoth Andrew, ‘I borrowed such a pot on a time, but I sent it home agayne;’ and so called his witnesse, and sayd: ‘It is perilous to deal with men now adayes without writing; they would lay theft to my charge, if I had not his owne hand to showe;’ and so he shewes the Usurers bill, whereat the Usurer storms, and all the rest fell a laughing.”

There is another anecdote of this ancient droll, but it is too indecorous to be repeated. The story quoted occurs also, as Mr. Collier states, in the Facetie, Motti e Burle (Venet. 1565) of Domenichi (Bibliographical Account, ii., 124).

A Manchester Jeanie Deans.

About the beginning of the present century there was resident in the neighbourhood of Portland Street, Manchester, an elderly Irishwoman, whose violent temper made her the terror of the neighbourhood. The only person of whom she stood in awe was the Roman Catholic priest, Father Rowland Broomhead. She had a tender side to her character, however, and her son, a wild youth, having committed an offence, which in the then barbarous state of the criminal law made liable to be hanged, she undertook a journey to London; walked the entire distance on foot, braved every difficulty, and by her perseverance gained access to Queen Charlotte, to whose motherly feelings she made a strong appeal, and received a promise that the life of her boy should be spared. He was tried, found guilty, and sentenced to death, but in accordance with the royal promise he was not hanged, but transported. This was told me by one who in her youth had known the irascible but true-hearted Irishwoman.

Some Lancashire Giants.

Like other parts of Old England, the County Palatine has been distinguished by great men, physically as well as mentally. We begin with traditions of the former existence of a race of the sons of Anak. Thus at Heathwaite, in North Furness, two stone-circles are known as “The Giants’ Graves.” A tradition has of course been fitted to the name, and it asserts that the last of these Lancashire Anaks was shot by an arrow on the hill of Blawithknott.

At Manchester the fame of the giant Tarquin, who held a castle on the ford of the Medlock, was long preserved. His legendary overthrow by Sir Lancelot du Lake is recorded by Hollinworth, and has since been turned into verse by one of our local poets. The Rev. John Whitaker, the learned historian of Manchester, discusses the matter with becoming gravity, and is quite inclined to believe in the reality of the gigantic knight and the stalwart courage of Arthur’s hero by whom he was overthrown. In the audit-room of Chetham’s Hospital there is a grotesque boss representing Saturn devouring his children, but the juvenile guides used to describe it as a portrait of Sir Tarquin enjoying his favourite breakfast of a plump Manchester baby.

The tombstone in the east cloister of Westminster, which had on it the name of Gervasius de Blois, but was thought by Dean Stanley to cover the remains of Abbot Byrcheston and twenty-six monks who died of the black death in 1349, was at one time known as “Long Meg,” and was said to be the gravestone of “Long Meg of Westminster.” Long Meg of Westminster was a Lancashire lass, who, according to the story-book, came up to London with other country wenches by the carrier’s waggon to seek service, and she began her Metropolitan career by drubbing the carrier for charging ten shillings each for the ride to the great city. “The Life of Long Meg of Westminster,” printed in 1635, contains many particulars, but it has no good claims to authenticity. “Dr. Skelton” is represented as the object of her affections, and many curious anecdotes are told of her prowess, and of the emphatic manner in which she quelled the disturbances in the Eagle, in Westminster, where she was servitor. She volunteered for service when Henry VIII. went to Boulogne, in place of a man who had been impressed, and there behaved so stoutly as to win a pension. But though an Amazon abroad she was an obedient wife, and declined a bout at quarter-staff with her husband. “Never shall it be said, though I can swindge a knave that wrongs me, that Long Meg shall be her husband’s master; and therefore use me as you please.” As all persons have their detractors, so this “Lancashire lass” is said to have kept at Southwark for many years “a famous infamous house of open hospitality.” Those who desire to know how the Lancashire lass overcame the vicar and bailiff of Westminster, how she overthrew a Spanish knight, fought with thieves, beat the French at Boulogne, and performed many other Amazonian exploits, may consult the “Life of Long Meg,” which has been reprinted in the present century. A ballad about her was licensed in 1594, and in 1618 a play upon her exploits was a favourite at the Fortune Theatre. Ben Jonson describes her:—

Amongst the proverbs cited by quaint old Fuller is one current in the seventeenth century—“As long as Meg of Westminster.”

The most famous of the Lancashire giants is the “Childe of Hale,” who was taken to Court in 1620 and presented to James I. His patron was Sir Gilbert Ireland, who “with some of the neighbouring Lancashire gentry dizened him off with large ruffs about his neck and hands; a striped doublet of crimson and white, round his waist, a blue girdle embroidered with gold; large white plush breeches, powdered with blue flowers; green stockings; broad shoes of a light colour, having high red heels and tied with large bows of red ribbon; and just below his knees were bandages of the same colour, with large bows, and by his side a sword, suspended by a broad belt over his shoulder, and embroidered, as his girdle, with blue and gold, with the addition of a gold fringe upon the edge. We are traditionally informed that his amazing size at the time frightened away some thieves who came to rob his mother’s house.” In this costume he is said to have struggled with the King’s wrestler, whose thumb he put out. This displeased some of the courtiers, and hence the King dismissed him with a present of £20. He returned home by Brasenose College, Oxford, which was then full of Lancashire students. Here, as we learn from Harland, his portrait was taken of full life-size, and is now to be seen in the College library. There is another likeness of him preserved at High Leigh; and an original painting of the “Chylde” is kept in the gallery at Hale Hall, bearing the following inscription:—“This is the true portraiture of John Middleton, the ‘Chylde of Hale,’ who was born at Hale, 1578, and was buried at Hale, 1623.” About eighty years ago the body is said to have been taken up, and the principal bones were for some time preserved at Hale Hall. The thigh bone, it is gravely stated, reached from the hip of a common man to his feet, and the rest measured in proportion. After some time the bones were reburied in the churchyard, but whereabouts is not known. He could only stand upright in the centre of the cottage in which he resided; and tradition states that he attained his wonderful stature in one night, in consequence of some spells and incantations that were practised against him. The Rev. William Stewart, in his “Memorials of Hale,” printed in 1848, says that “the cottage is now inhabited by Mr. Thomas Johnson, and is situated near the south-west corner of the Parsonage Green. A descendant of his family, Charles Chadwick, was living in 1804, and was more than six feet high.” There is every appearance of gross exaggeration in the accounts of the wonderful “childe.”

William Hone has given a portrait in the “Every-day Book” of the “Manchester gigantic boy,” exhibited at Bartholomew Fair, who was fourteen years old and stood 5 feet 2 inches, measured 5 feet round the body, 27 inches across the shoulders, 20 inches round the arm, 24 inches round the calf, 31 inches round the thigh, and weighed 22 stone. Hone gives his name as Whitehead, but William Wilkinson Westhead appears to be his correct designation. He was christened in the Collegiate Church 12th October, 1810, but is said to have been born in Glasgow. Murphy, the Irish giant, who stood seven feet and a half, and who died of small-pox at Marseilles in the 26th year of his age, is said to have begun life as a dock labourer at Liverpool.

At the other extremity may be mentioned Boardman, the Bolton dwarf, who claimed to be thirty-four years old, and to be only 38 inches in height. The showman claims to have received the patronage of the Royal Family at Ascot in 1819. Doubtless further inquiry would greatly add to these scattered notes of the Lancashire Anakim.

A Note on William Rowlinson.

A scrapbook made by William Rowlinson, first exhibited at a meeting of the Manchester Literary Club, and then liberally presented by Mr. Charles Roeder to the Manchester Free Library, is an interesting relic, and may justify a note on this now forgotten but promising young poet. It contains many newspaper cuttings, the earliest pages being devoted to his own compositions, and the remainder consisting of miscellaneous matter, chiefly poetical, that had attracted his attention.

William Rowlinson was born in 1805, it is believed, somewhere in the vicinity of Manchester. The family removed, for a time, to Whitby, but returned again to Manchester. He must early have developed a passion for writing, as contributions of his appear in the British Minstrel in 1824. The British Minstrel was a weekly periodical consisting of songs and recitations, old and new. The number for November 20th, 1824, contains two lyrics by Rowlinson (p. 171). The editor remarks, “We have received a letter from Mr. Rowlinson, of Manchester, and are obliged to him for the Originals enclosed. Mr. Wroe, of Ancoats’ Street, is our bookseller at Manchester; he, no doubt, will afford him every facility in communicating with us at any time he may have a packet for London.” A packet was sent, and is acknowledged in the number for December 25th, 1824. One of his lyrics appears in the last number of the British Minstrel, which came to an end January 22nd, 1825. His contributions are—“I’ll come to Thee” (p. 171). “It is not for Thine Eye of Blue” (p. 171). “Yes, Thyrsa, Yes” (p. 194). “Farewell Land of My Birth” (p. 197). “How Calm and Serene” (p. 303). “Think not when My Spirits” (p. 304). “Serenade” (p. 306). “Knowest Thou My Dearest” (p. 367). “How Sweet to Me” (p. 369). A copy of this volume has been placed in the Manchester Free Library by the present writer.

On the cessation of the British Minstrel, he began, in January, 1825, to write for Nepenthes, a Liverpool periodical. Still earlier, he is believed to have contributed to the Whitby Magazine.

From the age of eighteen to his death, at the age of twenty-four, he was a frequent and a welcome writer of prose and verse for the local periodicals. His range was by no means limited; he wrote art criticisms, essays in ethics, studies of modern poets, and verse in various styles and of varying quality. There is a musical flow about his lyrics that shows a genuine poetic impulse, but his talents had not time to ripen. His contributions to Nepenthes, British Minstrel, Phœnix, and Manchester Gazette have never been collected, and it is too late for the task to be either attempted or justified. An essay of his on Drunkenness is reprinted in the Temperance Star of May, 1890. The best of his poems is probably “Sir Gualter,” which is quoted in Procter’s “Literary Reminiscences” (p. 103). The same charming writer has devoted some pages to his memory in his “Memorials of Bygone Manchester” (p. 161). One example, “Babylon,” is given in Procter’s “Gems of Thought and Flowers of Fancy” (p. 47), and four lyrics appear in Harland’s “Lancashire Lyrics” (pp. 71-75). One of these, “The Invitation,” was printed—with another signature!—in the Crichton Annual, 1866. One of Rowlinson’s compositions—the “Autobiography of William Charles Lovell”—is said to be an account of his own experiences; this I have not seen. The story of his life is brief. He studied literature whilst earning his daily bread in a Manchester warehouse. He was a clerk in the employ of Messrs. Cardwell & Co., Newmarket Buildings, and to gratify his love of mountain scenery, he has been known to leave the town on Saturday night and walk to Castleton, in Derbyshire, and, after spending the Sunday there, walk home again through the night, to be ready for his Monday morning task. Literature did not wholly absorb him, for at twenty-four years of age he was a husband, with a son and an infant daughter. Early in 1829 he obtained a more congenial position as a traveller for the firm of Piggott, the famous compilers and publishers of directories. This gave him the opportunity of seeing Cambridge, where Kirke White is buried, and other places, whose historic and literary associations would appeal to his vivid imagination. But whilst enjoying thoroughly the beautiful scenery of the south, he pined for his northern home. Whilst bathing in the Thames he was drowned, June 22nd, 1829, and was buried in Bisham churchyard, on the 25th.^[9]

The Manchester Free Library has copies of the exceedingly rare Phœnix and Falcon, with the contributions of Rowlinson and others, identified in MS. In the Phœnix “Bag-o-nails,” an imitation of the “Noctes Ambrosianæ,” he appears as Jeremiah Jingler. These periodicals, and the scrapbook, make as complete a collection of his scattered writings as is now possible.

John Bolton Rogerson and R. W. Procter have each borne affectionate testimony to the moral worth and literary promise of William Rowlinson. Soon after his death there appeared in the Falcon some stanzas which declared,

We need not cherish illusions. The stranger’s step is on Rowlinson’s grave, but he is not “shrined on fame’s bright ray,” whatever and wherever that may be. No stone marks his grave, his very resting-place is unknown; we cannot even brush aside the grass from the forgotten and moss-grown tomb of William Rowlinson, one who perished in his early prime; whose music, faint, yet melodious, passed into silence before it could be shaped into a song the world would care to hear or to remember.

Footnotes:

Literary Taste of the Eighteenth Century.

The literary tastes of our great-grandfathers may be supposed to be mirrored in a catalogue of the circulating library established in the middle of the last century at Manchester. The list of the subscribers includes the names of Mr. Edward Byrom, the Rev. Mr. Ethelston, Joseph Harrop, Titus Hibbert, Thomas Henry, Dr. Peploe, Richard Townley, and Dr. C. White. The late president of the Chetham Society had a book-loving predecessor, for the name of Mr. James Crossley is also in the list. The books are of a highly respectable character, and impress one with a favourable opinion of the pertinacity of those who could pursue knowledge tinctured with so slight a flavour of entertainment. Out of 452 books there are but twenty-two professing to be novels, and amongst these are “Don Quixote,” “Gil Blas,” “Devil upon Two Sticks,” “Sir Charles Grandison,” “Tristram Shandy,” and Sir Thomas More’s “Utopia.” The library had faith in “Fingal, an Ancient Epic Poem,” and patronised “Poet Ogden,” who wrote “The British Lion Roused.” Byrom, Deacon, and Callcott were also amongst their local authors. The readers who were tired of Mill’s “Husbandry” and of the “Principles of the Quakers Truly Represented,” might turn to Voltaire’s “Letters Concerning the English Nation,” or amuse themselves with Glanvill’s examination of “The Opinion of Eastern Sages Concerning the Pre-existence of Souls;” and if the daughter of the house obtained by chance the heterodox treatise which declares “Christianity as Old as the Creation,” she might have it changed for the “Young Misses’ Magazine,” or, still better, the “Matrimonial Preceptor.” Another fine avenue for the satisfaction of polite curiosity would be afforded by the study of the wonderful work in which Tobias Swinden discourses at large on the “Nature and Place of Hell,” and proves to his own satisfaction that “the fire of hell is not metaphorical but real,” and shows “the probability of the sun’s being the local hell.” At the end of the catalogue is an advertisement of a proposed musical circulating library, in which the neglect of church music is affirmed; “and if we continue our present fondness for things in the sing-song way, ’tis great odds but our present taste will be entirely changed, and, like some of our modern religious sects, we shall be so distressed as to rob the stage and playhouse to support and enrich our churches.” This is supported by a reference to “the Methodists, as they are call’d,” and their use of song tunes. The volume contains supplementary lists of additions down to June, 1768. These include the first edition of Chaucer and “The Vicar of Wakefield,” then in the early flush of fame. For the members not satisfied with Glanvill’s speculations, there had been added Berrow’s “Lapse of Human Souls in a State of Pre-existence,” and the studious character of the Mancunians received a delicate compliment by the purchase of Tissot’s “Treatise on the Diseases Incident to Literary Persons.” The additional subscribers included Mr. Nathaniel Philips, Rev. Mr. Dauntesey, and the Rev. John Pope. The number of works in the library in June, 1768, was 586, representing perhaps twice that number of volumes.

Hugh of Manchester:
 
A Statesman and Divine of the Thirteenth Century.^[10]

“Let me be the remembrancer,” says Fuller when describing the worthies of Lancashire, “that Hugh of Manchester in this county wrote a book in the reign of King Edward the First, intituled, ‘De Fanaticorum Deliriis’ (Of the Dotages of Fanatics). At which time an impostor had almost made Eleanor the queen-mother mad, by reporting the posthume miracles done by her husband, King Henry the Third, till this our Hugh settled her judgment aright. I could wish some worthy divine (with such Lancashire doth abound) would resume this subject, and shew how ancient and modern fanatics, though differing much in their wild fancies and opinions, meet together in a mutual madness and distraction.”

The historians of Lancashire have generally followed Fuller in regarding Hugh of Manchester as a native of the county, but there is nothing to identify him with certainty, for his name may be referred alike to Lancashire or to Warwickshire, and the tests that can now be applied are not decisive. The pedigree in Dugdale’s “Warwickshire” does not show our churchman, though there is a Hugh de Mancestre who was one of the justices of Warwickshire 29, 30, 31, and 32 of Henry III. In the thirty-sixth year of that King he had a grant of free warren. He was then coroner for the county and next year escheator. He died 37 Henry III., leaving two sons, Simon and Walter. There is no place assigned to Hugh in this genealogy, but even if he belonged to the stock he may have been a collateral relative or he may have been omitted as a member of a religious order having theoretically no further interest in worldly affairs.

The date of his birth is unknown. Fuller, following the authority of Pits, says that he was, “when Adolescens [a youth], a Dominican; but when Juvenis [a young man] he changed his copy, and turned a Franciscan. Say not he degraded himself, choosing a later order then he left; for it seems that amongst them the last is counted the best, as of a more refined perfection. He was a great scholar, and highly esteemed in that age for his severity and discretion.” He was a Doctor of Divinity and Professor of Theology, and afterwards Provincial of the Franciscan Order in England. The most interesting incident in his life is that already named, and which led to the production of that one of his works which is most frequently named. The death of Henry III., in 1272, removed a good man but an incompetent monarch from a world where moral excellence does not supply the deficiency of administrative ability. But the rule of not speaking evil of the dead led some after Henry’s death to invest his memory with a sanctity that approached to a popular canonization. We may again quote Fuller, who is relying upon the authority of Bale: “An impostor happened at this time, pretending himself first blind, then cured at the tomb of King Henry the Third, so to get coin to himself, and credit to the dead King. But our Hugh discovered the cheat; and, writing a book, ‘De Fanaticorum Deliriis,’ dedicated it to King Edward the First, who kindly accepted thereof, preferring that his father’s memory should appear to posterity with his true face, than painted with such false miracles.” It is a matter of regret that this book has not survived; since it is creditable to an age when superstition too often conceded an unwarranted belief in baseless claims. That Hugh of Manchester had the skill to detect the imposture is honourable to his intellect, and Edward I. must be commended for the candour that rewarded the scholar who had dispersed from the kingly father some of that odour of sanctity with which ignorance had surrounded his memory.

There is an interesting reference to Hugh of Manchester in a letter sent by Archbishop John Romanus to Friar William de Hotham, who was afterwards Bishop of Dublin. This epistle is dated 10th December, 1293, and is printed in “Historical Papers and Letters, from the Northern Registers,” edited by James Raine (London, 1873, p. 102):—

“Suo suus salutem, gratiam et benedictionem. Quoniam in recessu nostro apud Wixebrigg dixistis quod cum fratre Hugone de Maincestre, colloquium habituri nobis aliqua significaretis, dilectioni vestræ per experientiam multiplicem approbatæ notum facimus per præsentes quod vobis, sicut diximus viva voce, de illa cedula missa apud Schardeburgh occasione aliquorum falsorum nobis a Fratribus et Minoribus impositorum, quicquid cum honestate poterimus, dictante conscientia faciemus; verum quia, secundum quod nostis, ad observationem canonum in professione nostra sumus firmiter obligati, contra Constitutionem Generalem nihil ausi erimus attemptare. Et quia, argumento nostro ipso inaudito, hec etiam semiplene dicto respondere voluistis, ipsum argumentum vobis scribimus, ut super illo, literatorie nobis satisfacere valeatis. Et est argumentum tale. Supponamus quod curati teneantur curare modo sic. Quicunque tenetur curare, tenetur vultum pecoris sui cognoscere; sed vultum pecoris sui sufficienter cognoscere non potest nisi confessionem subditi audiendo; ergo, quicunque tenetur curare, tenetur confessionem sui subditi audire; et, ideo, credimus quod omnis utriusque sexus constitutio facta fuit. Sed vos dicitis quod qui confitentur Fratribus vestris et Minoribus non tenentur confiteri proprio sacerdoti; ergo proprius sacerdos non tenetur audire confessionem suam; sed, si non tenetur audire confessionem, non tenetur cognoscere vultum suum. Ergo ad destructionem consequentis non tenetur curare. Sed ex hypothesi in principio argumenti curare tenetur. Ergo tenetur curare et non tenetur curare; quæ sunt contradictorie opposita. Et, ut utamur verbis doctoris nostri venerabilis Augustini, primo libro de Trinitate, ‘Non pigebit me,’ inquit ‘sic ubi hæsito quærere, nec pudebit sic ubi erro discere. Quisquis ergo hæc audit vel legit, ubi pariter certus est, purgat mecum; ubi pariter hæsitat quærat mecum; ubi errorem suum cognoscit, redeat ad me; ubi mecum revocat me ad se, ita ingrediamur simul caritatis viam, tendentes ad Eum de Quo dictum est quærite faciem Ejus semper.’ Et quia in Constitutione Martini continentur hæc verba, ‘Volumus autem quod hi qui Fratribus confitebuntur, iidem parochialibus presbyteris confiteri semel in anno, prout generale concilium statuit, nihilominus teneantur; et quod Fratres eos diligenter et efficaciter secundum datam eis a Domino gratiam exhortentur,’ ac nos diximus in cedula quod secundum naturam privilegii sui ipsi Fratres sibi confitentibus injungant, seu eos moneant et inducant quod semel in anno confiteantur proprio sacerdoti. Quatenus a privilegio discrepat dictum nostrum parati erimus, si vobis, placeat, revocare. Bene valete. Data apud Wycomb, iiij idus Decembris, pontificatus nostri anno octavo.”

The following is a translation:—

“For his (son, Romanus, Archbishop) wisheth safety, grace, and blessing. Since in our recess at Wilebrigg you said that, being about to hold converse with Brother Hugh of Manchester, you would point out to us some matters for consideration, we, for your love proved by manifold experience, make known to you by means of this writing, that, just as we said by living voice, about that document sent from Schardeburgh on the occasion of certain falsehoods imposed upon us by the Friars and Minors, whatsoever we can with honesty, and under the dictates of conscience, we will do for you. But because, as you know, we are in our profession firmly bound to the observation of the canons, nothing dare we attempt against the general constitution. And because our argument itself has not been heard, and because you have not wished to respond to what had been only half stated; we write for you the argument itself, in order that you may be able to satisfy us by letter. And the argument is this. Let us suppose that parish priests are bound to administer their cure of souls thus. Whoever is bound to administer a cure of souls is bound to know the face^[11] of his flock. But he cannot thoroughly know the face of his flock unless by hearing the confession of him under his care. Therefore, he who is bound to administer a cure of souls is bound to hear the confession of him who is under his care; and we believe it was for that reason that to every body, of either sex, a peculiar constitution was given. But you say that they who confess to your Friars and Minors are not bound to confess to their own proper priest. Therefore their own priest is not bound to hear their confession. But if he is not bound to hear their confession, he is not bound to know their face. Therefore, to the destruction of the conclusion of the argument, he is not bound to administer his cure of souls. But according to the hypothesis in the beginning of the argument he is bound to administer his cure of souls. Therefore he is bound, and he is not bound, to administer his cure of souls. But these things are contradictory. And, if I may use the words of our venerable teacher Augustine, which occur in the first book concerning the Trinity: ‘It will not,’ he says, ‘be irksome to me thus to inquire wherever I hesitate, nor shame me thus to learn wherever I err. Whoever, therefore, hears or reads these words, let him, when he is equally certain, cleanse himself as I do; when he is equally doubtful, let him go with me and ask; when he knows his error, let him return to me; when he recalls me to himself let us walk together the way of charity, leading towards Him of Whom it has been written, ‘Seek ye always His face.’ And because in the constitution of [Pope] Martin these words are contained, ‘And we wish that these people who confess to the Friars, the same may be bound nevertheless to confess to their own parish priests, once in the year, according to the statute of the general council; and that the Friars diligently and efficaciously exhort them, according to the grace given them by the Lord,’ so we said in the afore-mentioned attestation that the Friars can, according to the nature of their privilege, enjoin upon those confessing to them, or advise and persuade them, that once in a year they confess to their own priest. In so far as what we have said differs from the privilege, we shall be prepared, if it please you, to revoke it. Fare ye well. Dated at Wycomb, IIII Ides of December in the 8th year of our pontificate.”

The latest mention we have of Hugh of Manchester is in connection with his work as an ambassador. He was sent in 1294, in company with William of Gainsburgh, to demand on behalf of Edward III. the restitution of the lands claimed by the English King, but retained by force in the hands of Philip of France. On this appointment Fuller quaintly remarks: “Such who object, that fitter men than friars might have been found for that service, consider not how in that age such mortified men were presumed the most proper persons peaceably to compromise differences between the greatest princes.” There is a graphic account of the embassy in Robert of Brunne’s “Chronicle”:—

On receiving the King’s reply and safe conduct,

After the conclusion of this embassy we hear no more of Hugh of Manchester. The only additional fact concerning him that is known is that he wrote a “Compendium Theologiæ” and some other works, of which not even the titles have survived.

Footnotes:

Mrs. Fletcher in Lancashire.

In the autobiography of Mrs. Fletcher, who was for many years a conspicuous figure in Edinburgh society, there are some interesting references to Lancashire people.

Eliza Dawson was born at Tadcaster in 1770, and came of good yeoman stock, from whom she inherited a steady-going Liberalism that equally avoided the extremes of “divine right” either of kings or mobs. The beauty and good nature of the girl attracted admiration even in her school days, and she had to reduce several worthy young men to temporary despair by the rejection of their proposals of marriage. Mr. Fletcher, who became her husband, was twenty years her senior, and fell in love with her because she realized his ideal of Sophia Western in “Tom Jones”! He was a well-known Edinburgh lawyer, and in her new home she met Scott, Jeffery, and Brougham. Later she made the acquaintance of Wordsworth, Southey, Arnold, Lafeyette, Mrs. Gaskell, Mazzini, Kossuth, and a variety of other distinguished persons. Her husband died in 1838, but she survived for thirty years. Her latter days were spent at Grasmere, where she died in 1858. The impression made by this gifted woman upon those with whom she came in contact is vividly shown by the description which Margaret Fuller has left of her. “Seventy-six years have passed over her head, only to prove in her the truth of my theory that we need never grow old. She was ‘brought up’ in the animated and intellectual circle of Edinburgh, in youth an apt disciple, in her prime a bright ornament of that society. She had been an only child, a cherished wife, an adored mother, unspoiled by love in any of these relations, because that love was founded on knowledge. In childhood she had warmly sympathised in the spirit that animated the American Revolution, and Washington had been her hero; later, the interest of her husband in every struggle for freedom had cherished her own. She had known in the course of her long life many eminent men, and sympathised now in the triumph of the people over the corn laws, as she had in the American victories, with as much ardour as when a girl, though with a wiser mind. Her eye was full of light, her manner and gesture of dignity; her voice rich, sonorous, and finely modulated; her tide of talk marked by candour and justice, showing in every sentence her ripe experience and her noble genial nature. Dear to memory will be the sight of her in the beautiful seclusion of her home among the mountains, a picturesque, flower-wreathed dwelling, where affection, tranquillity, and wisdom were the gods of the hearth to whom was offered no vain oblation. Grant us more such women, time! Grant to men to reverence, to seek for such!”

She owed much of her religious feeling to the influence of the Rev. John Clowes. “It was in the winter of 1788 that I met, at the house of the Misses Hutton (two excellent maiden ladies) at Tadcaster, the Rev. John Clowes, rector of St. John’s Church, in Manchester. The bond between these pious and primitive old ladies and Mr. Clowes was, I believe, their mutual admiration of the writings of Emanuel Swedenborg. Although I could not participate in their enthusiasm for that visionary writer, I think it was from Mr. Clowes’s conversation and writings that I first became interested in the spiritual sense of true religion, or, in other words, felt its experimental truth; and I wish here to preserve the following transcript of the conversation which I made from memory after passing the evening with Mr. Clowes at Miss Hutton’s. Several ladies, some of the Methodist persuasion, were present. His views have always appeared to me to contain much of the true spirit of Christianity. Being asked his opinion of Mr. Law’s works, Mr. Clowes said, ‘I read them, madam, with great diligence and much affection, and I found that they tended to produce a pure, holy, and peaceable frame of mind, but I found likewise that they disqualified a man for the duty of his calling. I could not even go to perform my duty in the church without finding something to disturb me. This made me conjecture that all was not right in Mr. Law’s doctrine, and I conceive it to be this: that it is admirably suited for the contemplative but not for the active life of man, inasmuch as it does not bring the outward man into entire subjection to the inner man, for man has two lives, or two beings, in his very best state while on earth.’... When asked what he conceived to be the state of the blessed, he replied in a calm, but animated tone of voice, ‘I conceive the state of the blessed to be a total forgetfulness or absence of self, and to consist in beholding the good and happiness of others, so that every individual will enjoy the whole happiness of heaven.’... Every man is according to his own desire, for assuredly the Lord wills the good and happiness of all His creatures. If a man says he desires to be better, and that he is unhappy because his desire is not fulfilled, let not that man be impatient; he has begun to bear his cross, and if he bears it patiently, humbly waiting for a better state, he will certainly obtain his desire. The good he did, because he saw it was commanded, will soon be his delight; and to delight in good is the temper and disposition of angels.”

In the year 1808, during a visit to Lancashire, her friend, Miss Kennedy, made her acquainted with the family of Mr. Greg, at Quarry Bank. “We stayed a week with them, and admired the cultivation of mind and refinement of manners which Mrs. Greg preserved in the midst of a money-making and somewhat unpolished community of merchants and manufacturers. Mr. Greg, too, was most gentlemanly and hospitable, and surrounded by eleven clever and well-educated children. I thought them the happiest family group I had ever seen. Miss Kennedy also took me to visit her friends, the Rathbone family, at Green Bank, near Liverpool, and we there met Mr. Roscoe, the elegant-minded author of the ‘Life of Lorenzo de’ Medici.’ Mr. Roscoe took us to his beautiful residence at Ollerton Hall, and charmed us by the good taste of his varied and agreeable powers of conversation. He had been returned member for Liverpool during the Whig Ministry of 1806, and both he and Mr. Rathbone had taken a decided part in the cause of the abolition of the slave trade. We were taken to see the last ship which had sailed from the port of Liverpool for trade in human beings. It was then undergoing a change for the stowage of other goods than those wretched negroes who had formerly been crammed in the space between decks not more than four feet high. The iron hooks remained to which they had been chained. It was a sickening sight,—but those chains were broken. We stayed some days at Green Bank, where we enjoyed the society of the venerable William Rathbone, the zealous friend of civil and religious liberty. It was he, and Mr. Roscoe, and Dr. Currie, who by their personal influence and exertions established the first literary and philosophical society at Liverpool, and induced their fellow-townsmen to think and feel that there were other objects besides making money which ought to occupy the time and thoughts of reasonable beings.”

Mr. W. E. Forster, on a visit to Mrs. Fletcher, brought with him “Mary Barton,” which had then only just appeared, and was still anonymous. Mrs. Fletcher says:—“We were at once struck with its power and pathos, and it was with infinite pleasure I heard that it was written by the daughter of one whom I both loved and reverenced in my early married life in Edinburgh, so that I had a two-fold pleasure in making Mrs. Gaskell’s acquaintance through Miss M. Beever, who knew her at Manchester, and who told me that she always asked about me with interest.”

She visited Liverpool again in February, 1848, where Mrs. Rathbone, of Green Bank, introduced her to that worthy Irishwoman, “Catharine of Liverpool,” whose history is one of the romances of poverty.^[12]

In 1851 she was in Manchester, and after dining with Mrs. Gaskell, went to hear Kossuth in the Free Trade Hall. She was delighted with the orator, pleased with the crowd, who considerately made way for the white-haired old gentlewoman, and impressed by the interest in foreign politics shown by “this great town of Manchester.” Next morning at breakfast she met Thomas Wright, the prison philanthropist, then a hale man of sixty-six.

Her autobiography was edited by her daughter, Lady Richardson, and published in 1875 by Edmondston & Douglas. Another edition appeared in the United States in 1883.

Mrs. Fletcher had not only ability, but the subtler gift of sympathy. She had an instinctive feeling for that which was beautiful alike in the spheres of literature and morals.

Footnotes:

Manchester and the First Reform Agitation.

The reform agitation began in Manchester in 1792, and its history is instructive and too little known by the present generation. The town, which was heartily Republican in the Civil Wars, was as heartily Jacobite in the earlier part of the eighteenth century, and in its closing years was dominated by the sworn friends of intolerance and privilege. The vainly proposed repeal in 1789 of the Corporation and Test Acts, by which the Nonconformists were excluded from all municipal offices, led to the formation in Manchester of a “Church and King Club,” whose members showed their loyalty by deep potations and their piety by wearing buttons which bore a representation of the “Old Church.” An era of bitter party feeling now set in. Those who were Dissenters, those who were suspected of thinking that Manchester and other important manufacturing towns should be represented in Parliament, those who ventured to regard the sale of pocket-boroughs as a scandal, those who hinted that any improvement was possible in the constitution of a Parliament that was notoriously non-representative and that included many members who owed their position to improper and corrupt influences, were marked out for social ostracism and persecution. The Liberals of that day banded themselves together and formed the Manchester Constitutional Society, which in May, 1792, set forth as one of its objects that “members of the House of Commons should owe their seats to the good opinion and free suffrage of the people at large, and not to the prostituted votes of venal and corrupt boroughs.” The Government immediately issued a proclamation against “wicked and seditious writings,” and called upon the magistrates to take rigorous action. The King’s birthday was celebrated by illuminations, and the partisans of the “glorious Constitution,” which denied them the rights of citizenship, tore up a couple of the trees growing in St. Ann’s Square, and tried to batter down the gates of the Unitarian chapels in Cross Street and Mosley Street. The publicans were warned that their licences would be forfeited if they allowed any gatherings of the reformers upon their premises. No less than 186 of them signed an agreement to that effect, and in some of the taverns was a conspicuous announcement, “No Jacobins admitted here.” The war with France was hailed with delight by the adherents to the old order, and was deeply deprecated by the reformers. A man of great talent, Thomas Cooper, issued an address on the evils of war, and this, with other dissuasives, appeared in the Manchester Herald, a newspaper which the reformers had started. Encouraged by the authorities of the town, a drunken mob attacked the printing office and sacked it. The Rev. J. Griffith declared that he would not act against the rioters if called upon to do so, and a special constable offered the mob a guinea for “every Jacobin’s house that they pulled down.” A friend of the printer’s applied to the constable for help, and was answered by a threat of being kicked out of the place. The leader of the reformers was Mr. Thomas Walker, and his house also was selected for attack. He and his friends defended the place with firearms. The conduct of the rioters was defended by Wyndham in the House of Commons, and a prosecution was instituted, not against the law-breakers, but against Mr. Walker. He had firearms in his possession, and therefore he had “obtained arms to wage war against the King.” The case came on at the Lancaster Spring Assizes, but the principal witness proved himself to be a shuffling perjurer, and Law, afterwards Lord Ellenborough, saw the matter to be so hopeless that he threw up the case. Thomas Cooper left the town for America, where he obtained high distinction as a chemist, jurist, and political economist. The reformers were helpless and almost hopeless. The war fever had seized the nation; the right of public meeting and the freedom of the press were the subject of constant attack. The law against seditious assemblies was used as a means of prohibiting any public expression of disapprobation of the state of the Constitution or the acts of the Government. It was denounced by Charles James Fox, and a very whimsical protest was made against it in Manchester, which is thus described in a newspaper of the time:—“On Monday evening (28th December, 1796), the members of the Manchester Thinking Club commenced their first mental operation by beginning to think, or in other words, submitting themselves like good subjects to a constitutional dumbness. The number of thinkers assembled was not less than 300, and many of the thoughtful actually came from Liverpool, Stockport, and other remote places to witness this novel spectacle. The members were all muzzled, and such an imposing silence prevailed for one hour as would have done honour to the best thinkers that ever adorned assemblies of a more dignified nature. The word ‘Mum’ appeared in large characters on every muzzle, and except a seditious sigh or a treasonable groan that occasionally broke forth, ‘Mum’ was literally the order of the night.” Here is an advertisement of the meetings of the “Thinking Club”:—“The members of this truly constitutional Society continue to meet for the intellectual purpose of silent contemplation every Thursday evening, at the Coopers’ Arms, Cateaton Street, where strong constitutional muzzles are provided at the door by Citizen Avery, tailor to the swinish multitude. The questions still to be thought of are: Is man really a thinking animal or not? and if he is, as thinking is rather a troublesome operation of the mind, ought he not to be thankful that his betters kindly think for him? The chair to be taken at half-past seven. Thinking to begin precisely at eight.”

But war brought its usual concomitant of want, and the sufferings of the people led to deep-seated discontent. The weavers called a meeting for the 24th of May, 1808, to ask for the establishment of a minimum rate of wages. The meeting was resumed on the following day, and although it was quite orderly, the Riot Act was read, and the military were ordered to clear the ground. One of the weavers was killed, several were wounded, and several arrested. Colonel Hanson, the commander of a local volunteer corps, tried to persuade the men to disperse by a promise that their interests should be looked after. This was giving “encouragement to the rioters,” and for this he was sentenced to a fine of £100 and six months’ imprisonment in the King’s Bench. Meanwhile the policy of the Government increased the distress of the nation, so that in the cotton districts the people were half-starved, and a scanty dinner of oatmeal and water was too often the only meal in the four and twenty hours. A town’s meeting was called for 8th April, 1812, to thank the Regent for retaining the Anti-Reform Ministry of Castlereagh and Sidmouth. The reformers immediately issued placards calling upon the public to attend. The promoters of the meeting, alarmed at the thought of opposition, now announced that it would not be held, as the staircase was too weak to sustain the pressure of a crowd. People assembled for the expected meeting, and the Exchange was soon surrounded. No authentic account of the beginning of the riot has appeared, but the present writer was informed by an eye-witness that the last touch was put to the anger of the populace by a merchant who afterwards made himself an evil reputation. He was standing at the door of the Exchange, and as a chimney-sweep passed by he struck the lad’s black face with his walking-cane. The populace forced their way into the room, the furniture was destroyed, the windows broken, and the military had to be called out before the place was cleared. This was followed during the next fortnight by food riots and by machine breaking. The authorities, instead of seeing in the existing discontent the symptoms of evils needing remedy, treated every expression of a desire for reform as a crime to be punished with merciless severity. Spies were actively at work fanning the disaffection of the operatives in order to betray them if they could be inveigled into illegality. In 1815, the Corn Law was passed whilst the House of Commons was guarded by soldiers. The Manchester meeting held to protest against its passage was presided over by Mr. Hugh Hornby Birley, who was then Boroughreeve. In 1815, a number of the Radical reformers, chiefly of the artisan class, resolved to adopt an address to the Prince Regent and a petition to the House of Commons in favour of peace and Parliamentary reform. They met at the Elephant, in Tib Street, but hearing that the meeting was likely to be broken up they adjourned to the Prince Regent’s Arms, in Ancoats. John Knight, who was their recognised leader, had just concluded a speech when the room was entered by the famous “Jo” Nadin with a blunderbuss in his hands, and followed by a number of soldiers with fixed bayonets. The reformers were arrested and marched, with their hands tied, to the New Bailey. They were taken before the Rev. W. R. Hay, who, with the gross partiality for which he was notorious, refused to allow Fleming, the spy-witness, to be cross-examined. They were tried at Lancaster in the following August, when Nadin, the constable, admitted that he had sent Fleming as a decoy, and that the spy had asked to be “twisted in”—that is, to be sworn as a member of a seditious society. All who were found in the room were included in the common indictment, and thus could not testify in each other’s behalf. Fortunately Nadin had been too precipitate, and one man escaped his notice. He testified that no oath had been administered, and it was further shown that the two men said to have put the oath to the spy were elsewhere at the time. The thirty-seven prisoners were defended by Brougham and Scarlett, and triumphantly acquitted. They had, however, been in prison for three months, they had been taken from their homes and daily avocations, and it was by the merest good luck that they had escaped transportation.

The writings of William Cobbett had great influence upon the working classes, and his incessant cry for reform met with sympathetic response. The Sunday schools had given elementary instruction to the stronger brains, and native shrewdness, tutored by suffering and hardship, had made them into intelligent politicians. They knew where the shoe pinched, and in spite of some errors of judgment had a clearer conception than their “betters” of the remedy. Sam Bamford, the weaver-poet, was the secretary of a political club at Middleton for Parliamentary reform as a means of obtaining the repeal of the Corn Laws and other desirable objects, and similar clubs existed all over the county.

In 1816, the Ministers suspended the Habeas Corpus Act, and took other measures for burking public discussion. At the “blanketeer” meeting, held at St. Peter’s Fields, 10th March, it was decided that the men should march to London to petition, each with a blanket on his shoulder for protection from cold in the night. The meeting was dispersed by the military, many were arrested, and those who had started on their way to the Metropolis were pursued. The “blanketeers” were overtaken on Lancashire Hill, Stockport, where more were arrested, more wounded, and where one cottager was shot at his own door. It is only fair to the military to state that they showed far more moderation than the magistrates. A few of the “blanketeers” reached Derby. The spies were now at work, and Bamford tells how one of these invited him to join in making a “Moscow of Manchester.” The muddle-headed authorities accepted without inquiry all that their infamous agents told them, and after the arrest of Bamford and others at Ardwick, the Rev. W. R. Hay assured his awe-struck hearers that when these men were tried “purposes of the blackest enormity must be disclosed to the public.” After being taken in irons to London—one of them being an old man of seventy-four—and examined by the Secretary of State, they were discharged, and not even put upon their trial. Yet this “plot” was the chief argument used by Sidmouth for a further suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act. Castlereagh cynically avowed that they had sent Oliver the spy “to see what was going on.” The Lancashire men were warned in time, and Oliver, though he tried hard, had no success here. In Derbyshire, however, he fomented an “insurrection,” and those whom he had first incited to sedition he afterwards betrayed to the scaffold. In 1818, the Manchester reformers sent a petition to the House of Commons, in which they asserted that there never had been in this neighbourhood any reason for the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, denounced the work of the spies, and asked for an inquiry into the action of the magistrates at Manchester. Bamford and others who had been arrested also petitioned; but Mr. George Philips’s motion for an inquiry by a Committee of the House of Commons was rejected by 162 votes against 69, and the Ministry obtained an Act of indemnity for all their proceedings. Mr. John Greenwood managed to exclude the name of Mr. J. E. Taylor from the list of the Salford assessors because he was a moderate reformer, and asserted that he had written a handbill leading to the destruction at the Exchange in 1812. Mr. Taylor, unable to obtain any retraction or explanation, denounced him as “a liar, a slanderer, and a scoundrel.” For this an action for libel was begun. Mr. Taylor defended himself, and the jury came to the conclusion that the plaintiff was “a liar, a slanderer, and a scoundrel.” Mr. Taylor’s acquittal was chiefly due to the foreman of the jury, Mr. John Rylands, of Warrington, who, resolutely putting aside all legal cobwebs, declined to punish a man for telling the truth.

The year 1819 was an important one for the cause of reform. There was a meeting in St. Peter’s Fields in June, when the people, to embarrass the Government, decided to abstain from excisable articles as far as possible. Roasted corn was to take the place of coffee, sloe leaves to be substituted for tea, and the use of spirits and ale was to be abandoned. The “loyal” inhabitants placarded the town with incentives to drinking, and an attempt was made to pay for this poster out of the church rates. The people had lost hope of obtaining reform by petition, and the notion was broached of appointing a representative to claim a seat in the House of Commons. The reformers of Manchester therefore called a meeting for the purpose of electing “a legislatorial attorney and representative” for the town. This assembly was called for August 9th, but the magistrates declared that it would be illegal, and the intention was abandoned. The reformers then presented a requisition, signed by 700 householders, asking the Boroughreeve to call a town’s meeting. He refused to do so, and it was then decided to hold an open-air meeting in St. Peter’s Fields for the purpose of petitioning for a reform in Parliament. The reformers from all parts of Lancashire were expected to be there, and at Middleton and elsewhere they were drilled into the proper method of marching so that there might be no confusion. The authorities professed to regard these harmless marchings with sticks and broom handles as the presages of revolution. The procession that filed into St. Peter’s Fields on the morning of the 16th August, 1819, was largely composed of young men and young women of the artisan class, dressed out in their Sunday best. They had many flags with them. There were from sixty to eighty thousand people present to give a welcome to Henry Hunt, whose handsome form and power of speech made him at that time the idol of the Lancashire workmen. Loud were the cheers of the multitude as he rode up to the hustings—which had been placed where is now the south-east corner of the Free Trade Hall. The white hats—then the symbol of Radicals—were waved in the air, the men hurrahed, and the women smiled as the hero of the hour approached. The magistrates, perhaps honestly alarmed, but weak and vacillating, now determined to arrest the ringleaders in the face of the assembled multitude. There was not the slightest occasion to fear any riot or disturbance, and active precautions had been taken to overawe the reformers. On the field, in readiness for action, were six troops of the 15th Hussars, a troop of Horse Artillery with two guns, part of the 21st Regiment of Infantry, some companies of the 88th Regiment, above 300 of the Cheshire Yeomanry, and about forty members of the Manchester Yeomanry—sworn foes of reform. As the immense multitude listened in intense silence to the opening sentences of Hunt’s speech, the Manchester Yeomanry, under the command of Mr. H. H. Birley, appeared on the outskirts of the crowd, and were received with shouts. Without one word of warning they set their horses in a gallop, and with their bright swords flashing in the air, they dashed into the crowd, striking right and left with their sabres with all the energy of madmen. They became scattered over the field, and were literally wedged into the palpitating mass of humanity which they were attacking. The Hussars were now ordered to the attack, and for the most part drove the people with the flat of the sword, but the edge also was used. When the yeomanry were extricated they wheeled round and dashed again into the crowd wherever there was an opening, cutting and slashing at all who came before them. In many parts the panic-stricken crowd was literally piled up in heaps. For attending a perfectly peaceable meeting to ask for a reform in Parliament, which had then no representatives of the great towns, and was largely filled by the owners of pocket-boroughs and their nominees, for thus asserting their rights as Englishmen to discuss their grievances, ten men and one woman were killed and 600 were wounded. The man chiefly responsible for this slaughter was the Rev. W. R. Hay, who is said to have read the Riot Act from a neighbouring window, but, if so, did it in such a manner that it was never heard by the crowd. The peaceful nature of the assembly was shown by the number of women and of old men who were in it. Poor old Thomas Blinstone, at the age of 74, was rode over by the yeomanry, and had both arms broken, and said he, “What is wur than aw, mester, they’n broken my spectacles and aw’ve never yet been able to get a pair that suited me.”

The “Peterloo Massacre” was a baptism of blood for the cause of reform, and the Tory victory was worse than a defeat, for it excited the indignation of all England against those who had caused the slaughter of their fellow-subjects for demanding admission within the pale of the Constitution.

The Rev. W. R. Hay wrote to Lord Sidmouth on the night of Peterloo giving his version of the affair. At the same time Mr. J. E. Taylor and Mr. Archibald Prentice each sent a plain account of the disgraceful conduct of the magistrates and the yeomanry. These appeared in London papers, and the accuracy of their narratives was amply confirmed by Mr. John Tyas, the representative of the Times, whom blundering “Jo” Nadin had taken into custody as one of the dreaded conspirators. The effect was to rouse a storm of indignation before which even the obtuse magistrates quailed. On the 19th, a hole-and-corner meeting was held in their interests at the Star Inn, when thanks were awarded to the justices and the yeomanry. This was responded to by a protest signed by 4,800 of the merchants, manufacturers, and others of the “respectable classes,” in which the meeting just mentioned was described as a private one, and those who had thus falsely claimed to speak for Manchester were invited to call a public meeting. On the 27th, Lord Sidmouth conveyed the thanks of the Prince Regent to the magistrates and military “for their prompt, decisive, and efficient measures for the preservation of the public peace.” Mr. Hay and his friends had need of sympathy, for they were the objects of general execration. Meetings all over the kingdom were held, at which their sanguinary interference with the right of public meeting was denounced. The sympathy felt with the working men reformers was not confined to one class. The Duke of Hamilton subscribed to the fund for the relief of the sufferers. Earl Fitzwilliam was dismissed from his post of Lord Lieutenant of the West Riding for his energetic protest against Peterloo. Sir Francis Burdett made a still more vigorous protest, and his letter to the electors of Westminster led to his imprisonment for three months, and the infliction of a fine of £2,000. Shelley, writing to Peacock, exclaims, “What an infernal business this is of Manchester! What is to be done?” What he did was to write his “Mask of Anarchy,” in which he made a call to the nation:—

The effect of Peterloo was to bring forth a greater disposition to united action between the middle and the working classes on the reform question. The authorities on their side strained the law to crush out the reformers. An inquest was opened as to the death of John Lees, who died from the wounds he had received on the field. The object of the coroner was to avoid an unfavourable verdict, and this he accomplished first by not putting in an appearance at all, and then by frequent adjournments, so that the inquest, which opened 8th September, continued until December, and was never concluded. When Parliament met in November, Earl Grey moved an amendment to the Address in which the Manchester massacre was denounced as illegal and unconstitutional, but this was defeated by a large majority, as was a similar motion in the House of Commons. Sidmouth carried the series of coercive measures known as the “Six Acts,” and the powers of reaction were in full triumph. Several efforts were made, but in vain, to bring the assailants of the meeting to justice, and even as late as 1822 an unsuccessful action was brought against Captain Birley and three others of the yeomanry by one whom they had cut down.

Whilst the reformers were thus baffled in their endeavours to obtain justice, the partisan magistrates and judges made short work of those who fell into their power. Hunt and others who were arrested at Peterloo were sent to Lancaster, and the trial was removed to York. It was so plain that the Peterloo meeting was not illegal in itself, that every effort was made to connect it with previous drillings on White Moss, where a spy named Murray had been beaten by some of the reformers assembled there. The banners, one of which had on it the words, “Equal Representation or Death,” and others inscribed “No Corn Laws,” “No Boroughmongers,” were also made the most of. Five of the accused were acquitted, but Hunt, Johnson, Knight, Healey, and Bamford were found guilty of seditious conspiracy. Hunt received sentence of two years’ imprisonment, whilst Bamford and the others were condemned to a year’s imprisonment. Johnson was refused permission to visit, even in the custody of an officer, the deathbed of his wife. The Government had soon an opportunity of rewarding the Rev. Mr. Hay, and his appointment soon after Peterloo to the rich living of Rochdale increased the popular hatred which pursued him to the grave. An epigram of the time reads:—

There was no perceptible change in the position of the reform question for some years. The House of Commons was in the hands of the boroughmongers, and the traffic in seats was notorious. Whilst Manchester was unrepresented, there were 200 members returned by 100 boroughs, whose united population was less than that of Manchester alone. In 1827, Manchester was fluttered by the prospect of a seat in Parliament being assigned to it. Penrhyn was then in bad odour for its corruption, and Lord John Russell gave notice that if it were disfranchised he would move that its power of electing two members should be transferred to Manchester. A meeting convened by persons of all parties was held in the still unplastered room of what is now the Old Town Hall. Tories like Mr. H. H. Birley and Mr. Benjamin Braidley were joined with Radicals and Whigs like Mr. Thomas Potter, Mr. G. W. Wood, Mr. John Shuttleworth, and Mr. F. R. Atkinson to petition for representation. This was all the more necessary since a member of the House of Commons, Mr. Legh Keck, strenuously denied that the great towns desired to have representatives in Parliament. The history of the bill was curious. It passed the Commons, and the second reading in the Lords was fixed for 23rd June. Lord Lyndhurst held that as there were 420 voters and only fourteen were shown to have been bribed, the further progress of the measure should be resisted. Lord de Dunstanville, who had property in the neighbourhood, naturally concurred. Lord Eldon had not known “a case so utterly destitute of foundation.” Lord Dacre declared that as the object of the bill was to transfer the franchise from the landed to the commercial interest he should oppose it. The then Marquis of Salisbury called attention to the preamble of the bill, which ran—“Whereas, on account of the great wealth and population of Manchester, it is expedient that it should return burgesses to Parliament.” “Now,” said the noble Lord, “in that single sentence were embodied all the wildest doctrines of reform. If there were no other ground for opposition he should oppose this bill on that ground alone. As no other noble lord had objected to the bill on that ground he had determined to enter his protest against such doctrines being smuggled into a bill to ruin the constitution.” In face of this Tory opposition the bill was withdrawn. A town’s meeting was held at Manchester in February, 1830, when Mr. John Brooks exhibited a list of bad debts for the year 1829, amounting to £11,180, and of bad debts in January-February, 1830, to the extent of £981. Mr. Prentice, Mr. Elijah Dixon, and others who spoke referred to the constitution of Parliament as the cause why no attempt was made to remedy the existing distress. In Parliament Lord John Russell vainly endeavoured to obtain hearing for a proposal to give Birmingham, Manchester, and Leeds representatives; O’Connell tried to bring in a bill for universal suffrage, triennial parliaments, and the ballot. Lord John Russell moved two resolutions in favour of an increased number of representatives, and for the additional ones being given to the large towns and populous counties. Both proposals were rejected by large majorities.

The death of George IV. on the 26th June, 1830, may be taken as the landmark between the old and the new era. The French revolution of July gave an impetus to the desire for reform at home. The Boroughreeve of Manchester declined to call a meeting of the inhabitants to congratulate the French people on the reconquest of their liberty, but the meeting was held in spite of official opposition, and Mr. Mark Philips, Mr. Alexander Kay, and Mr. J. C Dyer were appointed a deputation to convey the address then adopted to Paris. The need for reform at home was insisted upon by Mr. Richard Potter, Mr. R. H. Greg, Mr. G. Hadfield, and other speakers. The reformers were staggered when Parliament met in November by the language of the Duke of Wellington, who said that “he had never heard or read of any measure up to the present moment which could in any degree satisfy his mind that the state of the representation could be improved or be rendered more satisfactory to the country at large than at the present time. He was fully convinced that the country possessed at the present moment a Legislature which answered all the good purposes of legislation, and this to a greater degree than any Legislature ever answered in any country whatever.... He was not only not prepared, but he would at once declare that, so far as he was concerned, as long as he held any station in the Government of the country, he should always feel it to be his duty to resist such measures when proposed by others.” The Duke next advised the King that it would be unsafe to trust himself in the city. On the 15th, the Duke was defeated and resigned, and Earl Grey took his place pledged to peace, retrenchment, and reform.

In Manchester the year was remarkable for the opening of the Manchester and Liverpool Railway, and the formation of a Political Union very much on the plan of that of Birmingham. This association was at first mainly composed of shopkeepers and working men, but was afterwards joined by representatives of all classes. Amongst the artisan members was Mr. Rowland Detrosier, a self-taught workman, remarkable for the extent of his intellectual acquirements and for his great oratorical powers. An early death cut short a career that promised the highest distinction. In January, 1831, a requisition was presented to the Boroughreeve and constables asking them to call a meeting to petition for reform. They declined because the town was in an excited state. A great meeting was, however, held on the 20th, and the petition adopted. On the 31st a petition for representation was adopted at a town’s meeting in Salford. When Lord John introduced the bill on the 1st of March he put the case of the great towns very neatly. “Our opponents say our ancestors gave Old Sarum representatives, therefore we should give Old Sarum representatives. We say our ancestors gave Old Sarum representatives because it was a large town; therefore we give representatives to Manchester, which is a large town.” Henry Hunt, who spoke on the second day of the debate, vindicated the reform agitation in which he had taken part, and, in spite of attempts to drown his voice, denounced “the drunken and infuriated yeomanry” who had slaughtered the people in 1819 for doing that which the Government was then doing—advocating the propriety of Parliamentary reform. A town’s meeting was held in Manchester on the 8th March to thank the Ministry for the introduction of the bill. This was the first gathering of the kind that had ever been convened by the authorities. In the House of Commons the second reading was carried by a majority of one. In the Committee stage there was a long fight, and on their proposal to reduce the number of members, the Government were put in a minority of eight. The King, although regarded by the public as a reformer, was really in great dread of the bill, and had refused to dissolve until stung by some language used in the Lords. “What did they dare to meddle with the prerogative?” he exclaimed, and then declared that he would go down to dissolve the House in a hackney coach if necessary. He went down. “Turn the rogues out, your Majesty,” was the advice of a rough sailor who rushed from the crowd to the side of the carriage. He gave voice to the feeling of the nation. Parliament was dissolved, and the Tories strained every nerve to secure a victory at the polls. The Duke of Northumberland alone is said to have subscribed £100,000 to their election fund. But the nation at large saw that the choice lay between reform and revolution, and a great majority of the counties and free boroughs returned candidates who were pledged to support the bill. The bill was re-introduced, and passed the second reading on July 7th by a majority of 136. Next day “Orator” Hunt presented a petition from 194,000 working people of Manchester and the district in favour of universal suffrage, annual parliaments, and vote by ballot. When the question of enfranchisement came up, some members argued that as Manchester was to have two members, there was no need to give one to Salford. The bill was introduced on the 25th of June, but the tactics of delay were so well observed that the third reading was not reached until September 22nd. That very day there was a town’s meeting in Manchester, when Mr. James Burt, the Boroughreeve, again presided. The speakers included Mr. Richard Potter, Mr. Mark Philips, Mr. R. H. Greg, Mr. G. Hadfield, and others. The only dissentient was a working man, who was, however, ready to accept the bill as a stepping-stone to something better. A similar meeting was held in Salford in the following week. The bill was brought into the House of Lords on the 3rd of October, and its rejection was moved by the Earl of Wharncliffe. The debate was continued until the 8th, when the votes for the bill were 158, against 199. The majority of 41 included a contingent of 21 Tory bishops, on whose behalf the then Archbishop of Canterbury made the hypocritical declaration “that to a temperate and safe reform he would offer no objections.” The prelates have since learned more sense.

On the 12th October there was an immense gathering in Manchester. The first intention was to hold a meeting in the then Riding School in Lower Mosley Street, which would hold about 4,000 persons. The street was, however, so full of eager candidates for admission that it was decided to hold the meeting in the open-air at Campfield. The Boroughreeve, not feeling equal to the control of such a gathering, Mr. (afterwards Sir) Thomas Potter presided over this meeting of one hundred thousand persons. The temper of the people was bitterly hostile to the Lords. When Mr. Shuttleworth spoke of the necessity of creating fresh peers, the response was, “No more peers; we’ve had enough of them.” One of the Radicals, Mr. R. J. Richardson, moved an amendment asking the King to issue writs to populous boroughs, to withhold them from rotten boroughs, to create no new peers, but to take such other measures as would ensure a bill for universal suffrage, annual parliaments, and vote by ballot. This was carried by an enormous majority, and the vast assembly then peaceably dispersed. At Bristol and other places there were disastrous riots. In Manchester the influence of the Political Union and the good sense of the people generally, who were willing to accept the bill as a substantial instalment of reform, prevented any outbreak. Parliament was prorogued until December 6th. The second bill was introduced on the 12th, and the second reading was carried in the early hours of Sunday morning, December 18th, by a majority of 162 in a House of 486. The third reading was not reached until March 19th, when 355 voted for and 239 against. The great question now was, “What will the Lords do?” It soon became apparent that they would mutilate the bill. On a motion by Lord Lyndhurst, the Ministry found themselves in a minority of 35. The King’s fears had been increased by the riots, and he refused Earl Grey the power to create such fresh peers as would give him a majority. The Ministry resigned, and the Duke of Wellington, as the leader of the Tories, was “sent for” on the 9th of May. The news reached Manchester by seven o’clock on the following morning, and the excitement was intense. Business was suspended, and groups of citizens were seen discussing the gravity of the situation. The Reform Committee had sat daily at the Town Hall since the previous September, and thither flocked the friends of reform. On the motion of Mr. Absolom Watkin, a petition to the Commons was adopted, calling upon them to refuse to vote any supplies until the bill was passed. The petition was not placed for signature until nearly three o’clock, but by six it had received 24,000 signatures, and Mr. Richard Potter, Mr. John Fielden, and Mr. John Shuttleworth set off in a chaise to take it to London. They departed amidst the cheers of the multitude, and had an enthusiastic greeting at Leek, Derby, Northampton, and other places on the road. The journey was accomplished in seventeen hours. As they approached London they gave reports of the meeting and copies of the petition to the passengers of the coaches on the road, and the news spread like wildfire through the country. The petition was presented to the House that same night by Mr. John Wood, M.P. for Preston. This was the first call to the Commons to stop supplies until reform was obtained, and it had quickly many echoes.

Peterloo was the place selected for an open-air meeting on the 14th. Mr. C. J. S. Walker, the son of the man whose house had been attacked by the Tories of 1792, was called to the chair, and the venerable Robert Philips, a veteran of ’92, moved the first resolution. Mr. Elijah Dixon and Mr. Joseph Johnson, who had been imprisoned after Peterloo, were amongst the speakers. A town’s meeting was held in Salford, and another in Chorlton. Throughout the country the same sentiment prevailed, and it was said that the Duke of Wellington would try to form a Ministry that should deal with reform. The announcement was received with such a storm of indignation that even the victor of Waterloo was cowed. The King had to recall Earl Grey, but to avoid the creation of fresh peers a sufficient number of the Lords abstained from the divisions, and the Reform Bill became law on the 7th of June, 1832. The general joy found expression in a grand procession of the authorities and trade societies of Manchester and Salford on the 9th of August. In the long debates on the Reform Bill nothing is more remarkable than the distrust of the people felt by the opponents of reform. There was a prophetic instinct in Earl Grey’s reply to a sneer of the Earl of Dudley. “The Earl of Dudley,” said Earl Grey, “will live to learn a lesson from the statesmen of Birmingham and the philanthropists of Manchester.”

The Folk-Lore of Lancashire.

Folk-lore is a word introduced into the English language by the late Mr. W. J. Thorns to designate the superstitions, observances, sayings, traditions, and beliefs of the people; the collecting and systematic arrangement of which is now recognised as an important section of the science of comparative mythology. Folk-lore treats

It takes cognisance of all the quaint notions connected with the varying seasons of the year and epochs of human life; of all the beliefs in futurity and supernatural agencies which are not sanctioned by religion; of the fireside story; of the milk-maid’s song and the mother’s lullaby; in short, of all the remains of ancient religion, history, science, and philosophy which have been preserved to the present day in the conservative memory and affection of the people. The old songs of the peasantry, the grandam’s fairy tales, the children’s rhymes, the auguries and omens of the ignorant and least educated portion of the community might seem at first sight to be unworthy of the serious attention of the antiquary. But experience has shown that these humble materials afford really important data for the student of mythology and anthropology. Customs, which once formed part of the ceremonial of creeds outworn, survive amongst European nations, as an evidence of their pre-Christian belief. The characters of the nursery tales are credited with the performance of deeds once attributed to mighty gods or heroes. The collation of these narratives enables us to remove some myths from the historic page. In a similar manner the examination of popular superstitions throws light upon the various systems of mythology. There is a great similarity noticeable in the folk-lore of different nations, even those which are most remote. Thus the legend narrated by Herodotus of Rhampsinitus is found to have been popular with the Norse children; and while this is the case with stories which do not appear to have any allegorical meaning, it is still more so with regard to those conceptions which we term myths. Each historic nation has emerged from a savage condition, more or less profound, and its folk-lore is merely fragmentary recollections of its past stages, often in the form of ceremonials dictated by principles no longer forming the ordinary rule of action, or even directly opposed to it. And as the ideas of savages are limited in number, and derived mainly from the contemplation of natural phenomena likely to strike each observer in the same manner, it ceases to be so great a matter of wonder that widely separated races of mankind should invent similar explanations to account for the wild or wonderful appearances which excited their awe and astonishment.

The literature of folk-lore has grown with great rapidity, and the foundation of the Folk-Lore Society greatly stimulated the study in this country. Mr. G. L. Gomme has defined folk-lore to be the science which treats of the survivals of archaic belief and custom in modern ages. His suggested classification shows the wide scope of the new science. The first branch, Traditional Narratives, includes folk-tales, hero-tales, ballads and songs, and place-legends. Under Traditional Customs he includes local customs, festivals, customs, ceremonial customs, and games. The third division, Superstitions and Beliefs, includes witchcraft, astrology, and superstitious practices and fancies. The last department, Folk-speech, covers popular sayings, popular nomenclature, proverbs, jingle-rhymes, riddles, etc.

The literature of the folk-lore of Lancashire is somewhat extensive, for references to popular superstitions and customs abound in the writings of Edwin Waugh, Ben Brierley, and the many writers who have illustrated the dialect of the county, and especially of its south-western portion. The late Mr. John Roby, whose “Traditions of Lancashire” first appeared in 1829, was a diligent collector of local legends, but his object was purely literary, and accordingly his book must be used cautiously, though it certainly contains important data. The “Lancashire Dialect Glossary” of Messrs. Nodal and Milner contains many references to popular customs. There are also many articles in Notes and Queries the Palatine Note-Book, Local Gleanings, Manchester City News Notes and Queries, Manchester Guardian Notes and Queries, and other literary and archæological periodicals. The principal authorities on the subject are Messrs. John Harland and T. T. Wilkinson, whose “Lancashire Folk-lore” appeared in 1867, followed by “Lancashire Legends” in 1873. These have been several times reprinted. Mr. Charles Hardwick, in 1872, published a volume, the wide sweep of which is shown by the title, “Traditions, Superstitions, and Folk-lore, chiefly Lancashire and the North of England, their affinity to others in widely distributed localities, and their Eastern origin and mythical significance.” Then Mr. James Bowker has written “The Goblin Stories of Lancashire.” Harland’s “Lancashire Ballads” should also be consulted, nor must the publications of the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire and of the Lancashire and Cheshire Antiquarian Society be neglected.

Some may be inclined to ask, “Is there any folk-lore left?” Certainly during the present age the rapid diffusion of knowledge has happily driven forth much antique superstition; but there is a temptation to exaggerate the extent of the effects which have thus been produced. In Lancashire, where we might have expected to find that the noise of the steam-engine had frightened away both the fairies and the queen of the May, and the spread of knowledge to have destroyed all faith in spells and charms, interesting articles of folk-lore have been recorded as either still surviving, or as having only recently become obsolete. Many observances are connected with particular seasons of the year. Thus on New Year’s Day there is a firm belief that if a light-haired person “let in” the New Year, a twelve month of ill-luck will be the result, and that, on the contrary, dark persons will bring with them a year of good fortune. So Pan-cake Tuesday, Simnel Sunday, Easter, May Day, Christmas, etc., have each their special customs still observed in Lancashire, though in many cases so shorn of their ancient glories as to be little more than relics of former greatness.

The habit of attaching a symbolic importance, even to the most trifling occurrences, is strikingly illustrated in the following quotations from Harland and Wilkinson:—“Most grandmothers will explain, ‘God bless you!’ when they hear a child sneeze, and they sum up the philosophy of the subject with the following lines, which used to delight the writer in the days of his childhood:—

This is certainly a comprehensive epitome of the entire philosophy of sneezing.

The finger-nails of a baby should be bitten shorter. If they are cut, the child will become “sharp fingered”—i.e., thievish.

As a specimen of the folk-tale, we may take that of the “Three Tasks.” The inhabitants of Cockerham, having made up their minds that the devil had been showing an unreasonable partiality to their village, gave the schoolmaster the not very pleasant task of expelling the Prince of Darkness from their midst. The man of letters, having raised the foul fiend, appointed him three tasks; if he failed to accomplish them he was never to appear again at Cockerham, but if he succeeded in their performance, the pedagogue became his prey. The two first tasks were soon done, but the third, the fatal, mystic third—

proved too much even for the ingenuity of the Father of Evil, and if he stuck to his bargain Cockerham must be the happiest place on earth! This legend of the Three Tasks is not confined to Lancashire, but is also narrated in connection with Merton Sands, Cheshire, and a Cornish version forms the subject of “Featherstone’s Doom,” one of the Rev. R. S. Hawker’s wildest lyrics. Another curious story is that which says that the parochial church of Burnley was originally intended to be built on the site occupied by the old Saxon Cross in Godly Lane; “but however much the masons might have built during the day, both stones and scaffolding were invariably found where the church now stands on their coming to work next morning.” This legend is told also of Rochdale, Winwick, Samlesbury, Over, Saddleworth, Churchdown, and many other churches.

A winding-sheet in the candle, spilling the salt, crossing knives, and various other trifles, are omens of evil to thousands even at this day. Should one of your children fall sick when on a visit to a friend’s house, it is held to be sure to entail bad luck on that family for the rest of the year, if you stay over New Year’s Day. Persons have been known to travel sixty miles with a sick child, rather than run the risk. A flake of soot on the bars of the grate is said to indicate the approach of a stranger; a bright spark on the wick of a candle, or a long piece of stalk in the tea-cup, betokens a similar event. When the fire burns briskly some lover smirks or is good-humoured. A cinder thrown out of the fire by a jet of gas from burning coals is looked upon as a coffin if its hollow be long; as a purse of gold if the cavity be round. Crickets in houses are said to indicate good fortune, but should they forsake the chimney corner, it is a sure sign of coming misfortune.

By this time the mixture of races in Lancashire is so complete that it is not easy to gather at first hand fresh data as to indigenous superstitions. This is more especially the case in the populous districts, where immigrants from every part of the United Kingdom and from abroad have been attracted by the great industries of the County Palatine. These influxes have necessarily had their influence upon the population and its beliefs. There is the danger of mistaking for a genuine product of the Lancashire soil what is merely an exotic. This danger exists as to oral tradition, but is still greater with regard to what has become literature. It will be well to illustrate this by a concrete example. In the pleasant volume of “Poems and Songs” by Thomas Newbigging there is a poem entitled “The Story of Old Gamul,” narrating as a Rossendale tradition one of those strange legends which are links in the history of fiction. According to Mr. Newbigging’s story, old Gamul had the enmity of but one man—the keeper, who determined to work his destruction. This villain caused a pit to be dug, and cunningly covered over with turf and branches. Thinking that the victim is already there, the keeper goes to the place and falls into it himself. Gamul soon after passes, and hearing a cry for help, lets down ropes, and pulls up, first a lion, then a serpent, then an ape, and last of all his enemy. The keeper invites Gamul to his house, and when he goes there, knocks him down with a club, and casts him forth as dead. Gamul, however, recovers, and when next he goes to the wood, he is aided in his labour by the ape, the serpent brings him “the adder’s magic stone,” and the lion shows him a cave full of treasure.

The keeper finally hangs himself for vexation, and the old woodman becomes Sir Gamul.

A work by a German named Massenius was published at Cologne in 1657. It was entitled “Palæstra Dramatica,” and contained, amongst other curious narratives, one of a certain Signor Vitalis, who fell into a pit in which a lion, a monkey, and a serpent had also fallen. They were all rescued by an honest countryman, Massaccio, to whom Vitalis promised a marriage-dower and his palace. Once safe, he denies all knowledge of his deliverer. The beasts prove more grateful, but a gem which is given to the peasant by the serpent leads to a suspicion that he has stolen it. At the trial Vitalis again denies him, but is overwhelmed with confusion when the beasts enter the court and force from him an involuntary confession. A translation of this story appeared in Blackwood’s Magazine for March, 1835. The fable was, however, not invented by Massenius, for in a slightly different form it occurs in the “Gesta Romanorum,” that famous collection of mediæval stories. It also attracted the notice of Gower, and is told in the “Confessio Amantis,” in this the lion is omitted. Matthew Paris gives it as an apologue told by Richard of the Lion Heart. Finally it is found in that storehouse of Eastern legend, the Calilah u Dimnah. This was translated by Doni into Italian, and an English rendering of his version appeared in 1570. Massenius may have obtained the story either from the “Gesta,” or from this book of Doni. It is very probable that many other versions exist. But does Mr. Newbigging’s poem really represent a Lancashire tradition? To solve this doubt the readiest way was to put the question to him. The following is his reply:—“With some differences my ‘reverend Grannie’ used to relate this story to amuse my childhood. I cannot help smiling when I look back and remember the time when, if some casualty, such as an unusually wet night, or a ‘hawket heel,’ or any of the thousand and one ills attendant on boyhood, kept me chained to the fireside, my invariable petition was, ‘Grannie! gie’s auld Guy!’ (she gave the hero’s name as Guy, not Gamul, as I have given it) and forthwith ‘Auld Guy’ was related for the fiftieth time by the same patient lips, and to the same eager listener. I had never been able, though I had looked long and carefully, to find anything like it in print. My good grandam (who was a rare old Scotch woman, full of old-world lore) heard the story from her father, and she believed that he had read it in some old book.”

Doubtless this ancestor of Mr. Newbigging’s read the story in one of the many editions of the “Gesta Romanorum,” which was for centuries a favourite story-book. The name of Guido clearly indicates the source. It is a striking instance of the passage of literature into legend. In fifty years from now Mr. Newbigging’s poem would be considered no light proof of the existence of a Lancashire variant of the story; yet, as we have just learned, it has no connection with Rossendale, but came from Scotland, and even then was a book tale, and not a genuine legend. This instance will not have been cited in vain if it warns any too enthusiastic student “folk-lorist” of the pitfalls that beset his path.

We can only indicate the varied interest of Lancashire folk-lore by two or three examples. Let us take a phrase which may still be heard occasionally, “Aw’m coming too, like th’ Clegg Ho’ Boggart.” This is an allusion to a story told of more than one old house in the county. The inmates are perplexed and worried by the exploits of a tricksy spirit that upsets the furniture, makes strange noises, and generally renders everyone uncomfortable. They decide to remove, but when the furniture is on the cart, the “boggart” is heard to exclaim, “I’m going too,” whereupon they decide to remain and endure as best they may the unwelcome companionship of their household spirit. Now this story of the “flitting boggart” is a widespread one. When Professor Worsaae was in England, he surprised a Lancashire friend by narrating a Scandinavian legend which is practically identical. “See i dag flitter vi,” were the words of the Danish brownie. The version given by Mr. Roby appears to be merely a literary appropriation of a Yorkshire story, but the widespread character of the tale is undoubted. Tennyson is familiar with it, and has thus put it into verse:—

The late Mr. Charles Hardwick thought that the flitting boggart was of Scandinavian origin, and the evidence seemed strong enough, but there is evidence that he is known in Italy. In that charming book by Janet Ross, “The Land of Manfred,” there is this interesting bit of folk-lore:—“I observed that some of the flock the old shepherd was guarding looked tired and hung their heads wearily. I asked whether they were ill, and he answered, ‘No; but I must get rid of them, because the Laùro has taken an antipathy to them.’ On further inquiry, he told me that the Laùro was a little man, only thirty centimetres high, always dressed in velvet, and wearing a Calabrese hat with a feather stuck into it. The Laùro is most capricious: to some who ask him for money he gives a sackful of broken potsherds; to others who ask for sand he gives old coins. He took a particular dislike to a cousin of the old shepherd’s, sitting on her chest at night and giving her terrible dreams. At last she was so worried by the Laùro that she determined to leave her house. All the household goods and chattels were on the cart; nothing was left but an old broom, and when the goodwife went to fetch it the Laùro suddenly appeared, saying, ‘I’ll take that; let us be off to the new house.’ His antipathies or likings are unaccountable; he will steal the corn from one horse or mule to give it to another, twist up their manes and tails in a fantastic way, or shave them in queer patterns. The Laùro would not allow the sheep I had asked about to rest at night, and any animal he hated had to be sold.”

It may, of course, be said that the flitting boggart went to Taranto with Guiscard’s Normans in the eleventh century, but it is equally probable that the Lancashire weaver and the Italian peasant have each inherited their belief from a common and an earlier source.

The devil occupies a conspicuous place in folk-lore, but he is not the fallen angel, dark, gloomy, and majestic whom Milton drew, nor is he the accomplished Mephistophiles, the spirit that denies, whom Goethe has painted. The devil of folk-lore is malignant but stupid, and oftener the dupe of humanity than the slayer of souls. This is evident in the story of the devil’s task of making a rope of sand already named, and is equally clear in the story of the tailor who made a wager with the devil that he would beat him at a sewing match. He succeeded by giving the Evil One a needle with a thread in it so long that for every stitch the demon had to fly all round the room, whilst the tailor’s was only of the normal length. The devil of folk-lore is more like Pan and the satyrs, than he is like the Adversary who tempted Job. But de mortuis nil nisi honum, and if—there is much virtue in an if—if the devil is drowned let him rest in peace.

When Archbishop Whately was a Fellow of Oriel, he told this story in the Common Room:—“A cobbler in Somersetshire dreamt that a person told him that if he would go to London Bridge he would meet with something to his advantage. He dreamt the same the next night, and again the night after. He then determined to go to London Bridge, and walked thither accordingly. When arrived there, he walked about the whole of the first day without anything occurring; the next day was passed in a similar manner. He resumed his place the third day, and walked about till evening, when, giving it up as hopeless, he determined to leave London and return home. At this moment a stranger came up and said to him, ‘I have seen you for the last three days walking up and down this bridge; may I ask if you are waiting for anyone?’ The answer was ‘No!’ ‘Then what is your object in staying here?’ The cobbler then frankly told his reason for being there, and the dream that had visited him three successive nights. The stranger then advised him to go home again to his work, and no more pay any attention to dreams. ‘I myself,’ he said, ‘had about six months ago a dream. I dreamed three nights together that, if I would go into Somersetshire, in an orchard, under an apple-tree, I should find a pot of gold; but I paid no attention to my dream, and have remained quietly at my business.’ It immediately occurred to the cobbler that the stranger described his own orchard and his own apple-tree. He immediately returned home, dug under the apple-tree, and found a pot of gold. After this increase of fortune he was enabled to send his son to school, where the boy learnt Latin. When he came home for the holidays, he one day examined the pot which had contained the gold, on which was some writing. He said, ‘Father, I can show you that what I have learnt at school is of some use.’ He then translated the Latin inscription on the pot thus, ‘Look under, and you will find better.’ They did look under, and a larger quantity of gold was found.” This story was as current in Lancashire as in Somersetshire. At Swaffham, in Norfolk, there is a figure of a chapman and his dog. This pedlar popular tradition describes as founding the church out of a treasure found in the manner already described. The story is current also in Cornwall and in Yorkshire. It is narrated as a matter of fact in the history of “Dost in Holland.” But it is found in the Eastern as well as in the Western world. This will be seen from this story which is given in E. W. Lane’s “Arabian Tales and Anecdotes”:—“It is related that a man of Baghdád was possessed of ample riches and great wealth; but his wealth passed away and his state changed, and he became utterly destitute, and could not obtain his sustenance save by laborious exertion. And he slept one night, overwhelmed and oppressed, and saw in his sleep a person who said to him, ‘Verily thy fortune is in Cairo; therefore seek it and repair to it.’ So he journeyed to Cairo; and when he arrived there, the evening overtook him, and he slept in a mosque. Now there was, adjacent to the mosque, a house; and as God (whose name be exalted!) had decreed, a party of robbers entered the mosque, and thence passed to that house; and the people of the house, awaking at the disturbance occasioned by the robbers, raised cries; whereupon the Wálee^[13] came to their aid with his followers, and the robbers fled. The Wálee then entered the mosque, and found the man of Baghdád sleeping there: so he laid hold upon him, and inflicted upon him a painful beating with mikra’ahst (the thick end of a palm stick used for beating), until he was at the point of death, and imprisoned him; and he remained three days in the prison; after which, the Wálee caused him to be brought, and said to him, ‘From what country art thou?’ He answered, ‘From Baghdád.’—‘And what affair,’ said the Wálee, ‘was the cause of thy coming to Cairo?’ He answered, ‘I saw in my sleep a person who said to me, ‘Verily thy fortune is in Cairo: therefore repair to it.’ And when I came to Cairo, I found the fortune of which he told me to be those blows of the palm stick that I have received from thee.’—And upon this the Wálee laughed so that his grinders appeared, and said to him, ‘O thou son of little sense, I saw three times in my sleep a person who said to me, ‘Verily a house in Baghdád, in such a district, and of such a description, hath in its court a garden, at the lower end of which is a fountain, wherein is wealth of great amount: therefore repair to it and take it. But I went not: and thou, through the smallness of thy sense, hast journeyed from city to city on account of a thing thou hast seen in sleep, when it was only an effect of confused dreams.’—Then he gave him some money, and said to him, ‘Help thyself with this to return to thy city.’ So he took it and returned to Baghdád. Now the house which the Wálee had described, in Baghdád, was the house of that man; therefore when he arrived at his abode, he dug beneath the fountain, and beheld abundant wealth. Thus God enriched and sustained him; and this was a wonderful coincidence.” This story is found in the “Masnavi,” written by Jaláuddin, who died about A.D. 1260.

It is not always easy or even possible to trace the precise pedigree of a popular superstition or custom, but many of them can be identified as fragments of bygone religious and mythological systems. When an old faith is supplanted by a new, the missionaries, as a matter of tact, will leave untouched customs that are harmless, and will turn to better uses those that can safely be modified or appropriated. Thus much of folk-lore is fossil theology, and much of it is fossil science. The wonderful “cures,” and sometimes disgusting remedies that linger in use among the ignorant, were the recognised methods of the healing art a few generations ago. Folk-lore, in some respect, corresponds to that wonderful faculty of “make-believe” possessed by all children, and is an inheritance from the mental childhood of the race. The physical evils, the mental and moral discordances of life, are to primitive man not the result of the operation of natural law, but abnormal phenomena, the result of external non-human agencies. Disease is not regarded as the result of infractions of hygienic rules, but as the possession of the sufferer by evil spirits. When man looked around for an explanation of the facts of nature, he found it by peopling the world with unseen beings, who guarded the trees and the wells; who let loose the storm and chained up the winds; who had the good and the evil gifts of human nature; who helped and hindered; who cheated and were cheated. These imaginary beings are sometimes merely the distortion and personification of words. It is not every great language that has attained to the dignity of a neuter gender, though our own possesses one. Personification is a common enough rhetorical device. It is possible, then, that if we could accurately analyse the notions of a modern Lancashire mind, we should find in addition to the deliberately-held faith of conviction fragments of the mythologies of Greece and Rome and Scandinavia and India.

In regard to popular traditions and the household stories, so dear to children, they have come to us by many routes, but the line has always been from East to West. The Buddhist missionaries, going forth to preach the faith of Gautama, made abundant use of fables and apologues to enforce their lessons. The traders, as their caravans passed from land to land, beguiled the tedium of the journey with such narratives. The mediæval preachers freely employed them in their discourses to the unlearned people. If such a phrase be permitted, these tales formed the unwritten popular literature of the Middle Ages. The stories passed from mouth to mouth, and were gradually associated with the place and people best known to the narrator. In this way legends become localised.

The tendency of modern thought is to simplification. The African savage, bowing to his fetish, has probably a more complex theory of life than the Oxford professor, and the study of folk-lore shows how penetrating was the influence of custom and superstition upon the life of the people. It followed man from the cradle to the grave. There were ceremonies to be observed at birth, at marriage, at death; at every stage of the journey of life. It gave to clouds and birds omens that decided human fate. It peopled the meadows with fairies, and the mountains with witches; and made the woods and waters alive with spirits, sometimes friendly, but often malignant. It lighted the Beltane fires at Midsummer and the Yule-log at Christmas. The Calendar of the Year and the Calendar of Man’s Life alike registered its decrees. Whatever happened, good or bad, was referred alike to the supernatural powers, who for bane or blessing were continually intervening in the most trivial details of every home. Fairies were sometimes friends and sometimes foes, but witches and warlocks were entirely malicious. The dead rested not in their graves, but returned to terrify the living. The old gods, dethroned from their eminence, remained as demons to exercise a real and usually an evil power. Viewed in this light the decay of folk-lore may be regarded as an advantage. We may regret the nymphs and dryads, and even the “lubber fiend,” but with them vanish the whole tribe of “witches and warlocks and things that cried ‘Boh’ in the night.” We will not desire to revive or retain the popular superstitions and customs of bygone days, but as they pass away let us examine them with careful and patient attention, and see what they have to tell us of the past history of the race and the psychology of primitive man. Studied in this spirit we may sometimes learn as much from the observation of a child’s game as from the speculations of a philosopher.

Footnotes:

Manchester Grammar School Mill.

In 1883 the Manchester School Mill was acquired by the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Company, in order to make a new road from Long Millgate to Victoria Station. With the destruction of the School Mill there passed away a curious relic of ancient custom, and a link that connected modern Manchester with the quaint old town that stood by Irk and Irwell in the fourteenth century. In the very home of Free Trade there existed a monopoly at least six centuries old. The School Mill claimed the right to grind all the malt that is brewed within the limits of the old town of Manchester. This monopoly is but a fragment of its former privileges, which were abolished as inimical to the general good more than a century ago.

In Roman times as a prime requisite a water mill, it is said, was erected upon the rocky channel of the Medlock below the station and town, on a site which in later times was called Knot Mill. If this be correct, the situation must have been found inconvenient, for the town mill next heard of was situated on the Irk. The right of compelling their vassals to grind at the “lord’s mill,” and to pay such tolls as he might fix, was a valuable privilege to the lord of the manor of a busy and thriving place. When Randle, Earl of Chester, granted the first charter to Salford in 1230, he said in it:—“No burgess ought to bake bread to be sold save at my oven by reasonable custom. If I shall have a mill there the burgesses shall grind at my mill to the twentieth measure, and if I shall not have a mill there they may grind where they will.” When Thomas Grelle, Baron of Manchester, in 1301, granted the charter, by which for many succeeding centuries Manchester was governed, he was careful to remind his burgesses that they should have their corn ground at his mill and their bread baked at his oven, “paying to the aforesaid mill and aforesaid oven the customs as they ought and are wont to do.”

The Grammar School was founded in 1515 by Hugh Oldham, Bishop of Exeter, Hugh Bexwyke, Ralph Hulme, and Joan Bexwyke, and in what respective proportion the institution is due to these worthies may be a matter of doubt. For the endowment of the school they purchased, for a “valuable consideration,” the amount of which is not stated, the lands, rents, and services of the Manchester Corn Mills and all their tolls. Lord La Warr, in thus parting with the ancient soke mills of his manor, merely retained a chief rent, which was then fixed at £9 13s. 4d. The transfer of the mill from the wardens of the college to an independent body of feoffees is set forth in a deed which was executed in 1525, and in which Hugh Bexwyke, clerk, and Joan Bexwyke, widow, state that Thomas West, Knt., Lord La Warr, “did give grant and confirm to them and to Ralph Hulme, deceased, all his lands and tenements, rents, reversions, and services of his water corn mills, called Manchester Mills, situate and being in the town of Manchester, upon the water or rivulet of Irke, running and flowing from and in the town of Manchester and the precincts of the same as far as the water or river of Irwell, flowing between the town of Manchester and the town of Salford, and also of all the tolls soken of the aforesaid mills of all the tenants of the said Lord La Warr in Manchester, and of his sojourners of the same, and of all other residents there.” Further, the same Thomas, Lord La Warr did give, grant, and confirm to them his “fulling mill there, called a walke millne, situate, standing, and being upon the said rivulet or water called Irke; and also his close of land, with its appurtenances, called Walker’s Croft; and also Thomas, Lord La Warr in like manner did give, grant, and confirm to them the aforesaid water or rivulet of Irke, and its free fishery, from a place called Asshelle Lawne as far as the said water or river called Irwell, and also all his lands and tenements adjacent and adjoining, without the several closes and burgage on each side of the same water or rivulet called Irke, flowing in the said town of Manchester, from the place called Asshelle Lawne, into the said river of Irwell.” And farther, the same Thomas, Lord La Warr did give, grant, and confirm to them “full power and authority, and right of making, setting-up, fixing, and attaching mills or messuages, and so many and such weirs, floodgates, and fastenings, to both sides of the same water or rivulet, called Irke, and upon, through, and across the same water, in any places whatsoever, from the said place, called Asshelle Lawne, unto the said water or river of Irwell,” as they or their heirs and assigns should think to be expedient or beneficial for their greater profit or advantage. Lord La Warr also conveyed to the purchasers by the same deed some fulling mills in Ancoats, where there are various evidences of the early practice of textile industries. The value of the Manchester Mills when they were first bought as an endowment for the school was estimated at £47 10s. per annum. Lord La Warr promised that no more mills should be erected within or about the manor of Manchester, and thus ensured to the schools the monopoly of the grinding of the corn and malt for the town. The restraint was probably felt to be injurious at a comparatively early period. In 1556 those who evaded this toll were threatened with amercement, and apparently continued to be undeterred by such threats, for in 1561 it was ordered that “in future” they should forfeit twenty shillings. In 1592 the feoffees had to guard their monopoly against the attack of Anthony Travis, who erected “a horse mill within the town.” The Duchy Court of Lancaster upheld the rights of the monopolists, and actually prohibited the use within the town of even a hand mill or quern mill for the grinding of either corn or malt. If, however, the grain lay at the mill for twenty-four hours unground the owner might take it away to some other mill. In 1608 a horse mill was ordered to be destroyed. During the Commonwealth the people of the town had freedom in this matter, and they used it so that the revenues of the school began to diminish very rapidly. An order of Parliament was obtained in 1647, and the mills were then leased to Mr. John Hartley for £130 per annum. The new lessee established his right against two hardy individuals who had set up a common brewhouse in the college, which they contended owed no suit or service to the School Mills. The decision went against them. In 1701 some persons who had erected mills in Salford were prosecuted for having customers who ought to have ground at the Manchester Mills. They were ordered not to receive any corn or malt for grinding from any of the inhabitants of Manchester. In 1728 some persons who had erected a brewhouse in Salford and sold ale and beer to the burgesses of Manchester were required “under pain of forfeiting £100 to have all their corn and malt that should be spent ground in their houses at the School Mills.” The farmers of the mill at this time made an attempt to obtain a judgment that should include oats, which had not been ground at the School Mills for two generations. The Judges, however, insisted that an issue ought to be directed for trying the custom at common law. This the farmers did not think expedient, and so they dropped the suit and paid the costs. In 1732 they were successful in restraining Sir Oswald Mosley from using a malt mill which he had erected in Hanging Ditch. It will easily be understood that the tenants of the mills were exceedingly unpopular with the inhabitants. Witty John Byrom, in an epigram which became proverbial, thus lampooned the two of them, who from their spare forms had been nicknamed Skin and Bone:—

This was written in 1737, and there was something prophetic in the quatrain, for in 1757, when the pressure of hard times was severely felt, there was a fatal riot arising out of the popular feeling against the monopoly. On June 6th the provisions brought by the farmers to the market were seized by the mob, and a considerable quantity was destroyed. The approach of harvest would, it was hoped, bring something of peace and plenty, but when this anticipation proved delusive, the patience of the people was exhausted, and a large assembly from Saddleworth, Oldham, and other parts, having destroyed a corn mill at Clayton, advanced to Shudehill. They were met, however, by Mr. James Bayley, who was then high sheriff of the county, and who had with him a party of soldiers and a large number of the well-to-do inhabitants on horseback. The rioters, confident that the soldiers would not fire upon them, proceeded to various acts of violence. The goods in the market were seized, the troops were pelted with stones, and one of the soldiers was killed on the spot. This was more than the military were likely to endure, and on receiving orders they fired, and in the ensuing struggle four of the rioters were killed and fifteen wounded. This unhappy occurrence probably had its share in the formation of that public opinion which in 1758 led to the passing of an Act of Parliament for the regulation of the mills. This Act stated that in consequence of the increase of population, it was desirable to free the inhabitants of Manchester from their obligation to grind at the School Mills any corn or grain whatsoever, malt only excepted. The exception was made on the ground that the mills were adequate to the task of grinding all the malt needed. The charge was fixed at “one shilling and no more for the grinding of one load containing six bushels or twenty-four pecks of malt of Winchester measure,” instead of the twenty-fourth part which had previously been taken. The monopoly in this modified form continued to our day.

Formerly the privilege was valuable, and though the profit was devoted to a good cause, it is instructive to note the economical effect. The restriction was always irksome to the brewers, and it is observable that all modern local breweries have been erected just outside the boundaries of the township of Manchester, as, for instance, in Moss Side, Hulme, Cheetham, Ardwick, and Gorton. No new breweries have been built for many years in Manchester proper.

It will be seen from this rapid retrospect that the Manchester Grammar School Mills have a written history extending from the year 1301, and a tradition that carries them generations further back.

The Rising of 1715.

England, it has been epigramatically said, is governed by reactions. There is more truth in the remark than is usually found in smart sayings. There is an ebb and flow in the political tide, the waves which thunder against the bulwarks and threaten to overwhelm the peaceful town beyond them, fall calmly back again to their sandy bed. An example of this phenomenon we have in the intense Jacobitism of Lancashire at the commencement of the last century. Lancashire was not without gallant cavaliers who charged for the “King and the Laws” behind the fiery Rupert, but the county at large swore by the Parliament and struck some hard blows at the “Lord’s anointed.” The memorable “petition for peace” was drawn up by a Manchester man, and the first victims of that civil war which was to drench England with blood, were inhabitants of that town. It was natural then to expect that the pendulum should swing right to the other extreme of its line, and that the descendants of those who had pulled down the monarch from his throne, and consigned him to the traitor’s block, should be sticklers for the right divine of kings to govern wrong, should risk fortune, life, and limb, to replace on the throne of his ancestors the double dealing James and his unfortunate descendants. There were some special causes which strengthened the hands of the Jacobites in this quarter. The Roman Catholics were distinguishable by their steady, unalterable loyalty to the House of Stuart, and the persecution to which they were subjected from the reign of Elizabeth downwards, only served to strengthen their attachment. The jealousy of the Low Church men, and the bitter antagonism of the Puritans was sufficient to defeat any amelioration of their condition which the Sovereign might desire, but in their sufferings they recollected that both Charles and his brother had been desirous of extending to them toleration for the exercise of their religion. The Dissenters, however, chose to endure the severities of the Test Act themselves, rather than do anything to hinder the harrying and persecution of the Romanists. The Roman Catholics had natural friends in the High Church men, who held in all fulness the doctrine of the divine right, and consequently the unlawfulness of the tenure by which King William and George I. held the throne. The clearness and distinctness with which this opinion was formulated must be considered if we would understand the motive power of the Jacobite rebellions.

According to them the King was God’s representative on earth, and unconditional obedience was due to all his commands. He might be a drunken, licentious scoundrel, a perjured villain, a red-handed murderer, a raving madman, but nothing on earth could invalidate his inborn kingly right, and whoso disobeyed him, was false to God and to his country. This opinion was supported by a second theory as to the patriarchal origin of monarchy. Adam and Abraham exercised regal power, therefore it was “unnatural for the people to govern or choose governors.” Charles II. is but an odd looking patriarch, although like the King of Yvetot, his subjects had a hundred reasons for calling him their father. However, as the learned O’Flaherty in his “Ogygia” tells us that the Stuarts were descended in a direct line from Adam (which is probable), and that it was the 124th generation that ascended the Scottish throne, Charles might perhaps claim his monarchical privileges as heir general of the Father of Mankind.

This leading doctrine of the High Church party was closely wedded to a sentiment of bitter dislike of the Protestant Dissenters. The impeachment of Sacheverell, the High Church clergyman, for his denunciation of the revolution of 1688, and of the principles which had brought it about, roused to fever heat all the evil passions of the time. His punishment (three years’ prohibition from preaching) was so slight as to be almost a triumph. In 1714 a bill for the repression of Schism was only prevented from coming in force by the death of Queen Anne.

The accession of George I. was a tremendous blow for the Jacobites, and in Manchester they went mad with rage. The Pretender’s birthday, Friday, the 10th of June, was fittingly selected as the time for wreaking their revenge on the Dissenters. On that day various places in England were disgraced by riotous mobs drinking health to King James, and breathing fiery vows of vengeance against the Presbyterians. The Manchester mob was second to none. The town was in a state of anarchy for days, and King Mob had it all his own way. With beating of drums they enlivened their marches, and with fiery potations inflamed their loyalty and piety. Woe to the luckless Nonconformist who came in their way! The riot was not unlike a rebellion. They had their recognised leaders: a colonel, whose name forgetful history has nowhere recorded; and a captain, Thomas Syddal, a sturdy blacksmith, the end of whose brawling life was not far off. They had the tacit encouragement of Jacobite magistrates, who left the rabble masters of the situation. The only Dissenting meeting-house in Manchester was in Acresfield, and is now known as Cross Street Unitarian Chapel. Headed by the valiant Syddal, these friends of the ancient constitution in Church and State attacked the humble meeting-house, and wrecked it completely. The bare walls were all the vestiges they left of the lowly house of prayer. So fine a performance did the mob consider it, that with infinite gusto they repeated it at Monton, Blackley, and in fact all the meeting-houses that fell in their way as they marched toward Yorkshire. Things were assuming so serious an aspect, and the local authorities were so unable or unwilling to check it effectually, that the Government had to interpose with a military force. It was not until there had been a fortnight’s carnival of riot and outrage that the Earl of Stair dispersed the Manchester band, and took prisoners its leading men. Occasional outbreaks in various places continued until the end of July. The House of Commons petitioned the King for the vigorous enforcement of the law, the punishment of neglectful justices, and the compensation from the public funds of the sufferers. The destruction of religious meeting-houses was declared to be felony without benefit of clergy, and, £1,500 was granted to the Protestant Dissenters of Manchester for the repair of their temple.

Syddal and his colonel were tried at Lancaster Assizes in August. In pursuance of their sentence they both decorated the pillory on the market day, whilst some looked on with scorn and more with sympathy. They were tenderly treated, for no man was allowed to fling anything at them; thus they escaped the worst part of the ordeal. From the pillory back to jail, and there they lay until their prison gates were opened by the army of James III. The High Church faction were a loose-living, hard-drinking race, fonder of confusing their brains by drinking “Confusion to the Elector of Hanover” than of striking home an honest blow for the King over the water. Their conspiracies were of the pot-house order, concocted over a flowing punch-bowl. They exaggerated probably even to themselves the strength of their party, and when the Scottish Jacobites (with whom the struggle was chiefly for the ancient integrity and independence of their kingdom) determined to raise the standard of the Pretender, they had received assurances that twenty thousand Lancashire men would join their forces. On the faith of these promises the Fiery Cross was sent flaming round the Highlands, and the rebellion, which, if confined to Scotland, would have had strong chances of success, was to be a general one. The Earl of Derwentwater and the Roman Catholic gentlemen of Northumberland effected a junction with the two Scottish armies at Kelso. This is not the place to chronicle the movements of the rebel army, their want of purpose, or their internal dissensions. The incompetence of their leader, a country squire turned into a general, whose jealousy of the military reputation of grim old Brigadier Mackintosh led him to reject wise counsel, brought on the fatal catastrophe which awaited them. At Langholm they were met by Lord Widdrington, who assured them of Lancashire aid and sympathy, and this determined at last their course of action. They marched into England, but not without misgivings on the part of the leaders, and many desertions on the part of the Highlanders, who were bitterly opposed to leaving Scotland. They were joined by very few men in their English march, the leaders were thoroughly dispirited, and Mackintosh, tough old soldier as he was, looked gloomily at the cheerless prospect before them.

At Kendal their cheerfulness was somewhat restored by the appearance of Lord Widdrington’s brother with news that Lancashire was ready to rise, that James III. had that day been proclaimed King at Manchester, where the townspeople had undertaken to furnish a troop of fifty men at their own expense, and where many volunteers might be expected. Instead of marching on Newcastle, where the Whig general was hurrying to meet them, they determined to advance to Lancaster. The loyalists were completely surprised at this descent into Lancashire. Sir Henry Houghton was at the head of a body of militia numbering 600. He could not obtain the aid of some dragoons who were stationed in Preston, but refused to stir without orders from London, and he was forced to retreat on Preston, and the army of King James took peaceful possession of the town with trumpets sounding, and the bare swords of the gentlemen glittering gaily as they rode triumphantly forward. The prisoners in the castle were now released from durance vile, and Syddal—Captain Syddal, as he was styled—attached himself to the regiment of the Earl of Derwentwater. Perhaps he was one of the lucky gentlemen soldiers, who dressed “in their best clothes,” went to drink a dish of tea with the ladies of Lancaster, which fair Jacobites were also “in their best rigging, and had their tea tables richly furnished for to entertain their new suitors.” On the 9th of November they marched to Preston, and were greatly encouraged by learning that the dragoons already mentioned had quitted that town. Less pleasing to them was the conduct of Peploe the curate, who had the courage to read with extra emphasis and unction the prayers for King George and his family. At Preston the rebels remained inactive, seemingly careless of the danger which threatened them. Carpenter was hastening from Newcastle, and a second force was hastening in detachments from the west to be placed under the command of General Wills in the neighbourhood. The plan of the campaign was drawn up by no less a man than Marlborough. On the 8th Wills passed through Manchester and found the town so disaffected that he quartered a thousand men in it, greatly to the disgust of the High Church Tories, some of whom were arrested, whilst others fled, or remained in concealment. Whilst the rebels were “feasting and courting” in Preston, bewitched by the Jacobite charms of what was then the most aristocratic and luxurious of the Lancashire towns, wasting the precious hours in contented lotos-eating, the Whigs were full of activity. Even Dissenting ministers in more than one case marched at the head of their congregations with muskets, scythes mounted on poles, and everything that could be tortured into weapons of offence, and joined the army of General Wills to fight for liberty and the Protestant succession. The Rev. James Woods, of Chowbent, was conspicuous in this way, and for the rest of his life was commonly known as “General” Woods.

Notwithstanding the military genius of Mackintosh who now planned the defence, the rebels after some hard fighting, on the arrival of Carpenter found themselves hopelessly surrounded. They sent Colonel Oxburgh to treat with Wills for a capitulation. “I will not treat with Rebels; they have killed several of the King’s subjects, and they must expect to undergo the same fate.” Such was Wills’ alternative, unconditional surrender, and only one hour in which to decide. This secret negotiation exasperated the Highlanders, who swore they would die fighting, and vowed they would shoot their muddle-headed General Forster if they had the chance. The time for consideration was afterwards extended after a further conference with some of the Scotch officers, who pledged themselves to a cessation from arms. Some six or seven rebels were, notwithstanding, cut to pieces in an attempt to escape. Mackintosh was now a hostage in the hands of the King’s forces, and on the 13th of November the defenders of Preston surrendered at discretion. Many of the rebels escaped, but the number of prisoners was 1,569.

The rebellion begun hastily and ignorantly, carried on through all its course with dissensions, quarrels, and the most lamentable incompetence, had arrived at its ignominious end, so far as England was concerned. Preston was for some time given up to plunder, and the prisoners reserved for retribution, in divers jails of Lancashire and Cheshire. The House of Hanover was never noticeable for mercy, and the retribution was a bloody one.

The landing of James in Scotland did no good at all. Above a thousand of the rebels were transported, some of the leaders amongst them; Forster and the brave old Mackintosh escaped, the one by fraud, the other by force. The number who were executed is not known. The hangman had a triumphant progress through Lancashire. On the eleventh of February, 1716, there came into Manchester a melancholy cavalcade. Bound to one horse by strong cords and surrounded by guards, there rode into the town dashing Tom Syddal, the former leader of the High Church mob in destroying the Dissenting chapels, and with him four others who had been condemned to death. They were hanged, drawn, and quartered, at Knott Mill. Syddal’s head was afterwards fixed on the Market Cross.

The Fool of Lancaster.

“Take gifts with a sigh, most men give to be paid.”—J. B. O’Reilly. Rules of the Road.

This story, which is told in “Jack of Dover,” 1604, is instructive if not amusing:—“There was of late (quoth another of the jurie) a ploughman and a butcher dwelling in Lancaster who, for a trifling matter (like two fooles), went to law, and spent much money therein, almost to both their undoings; but at last, being both consented to be tride by a lawyer dwelling in the same town, each of them, in hope of a further favour, bestowed gyftes upon him. The ploughman first of all presented him a cupple of good fat hens, desiring Mr. Lawyer to stand his good friend, and to remember his suite in law, the which he courteously tooke at his handes, saying that what favour he could show him, he should be sure of the uttermost. But now, when the butcher heard of the presenting of these hens by the ploughman, hee went and presently killed a good fatte hogge, and in like manner presented it to the lawyer, as a bribe to draw him to his side; the which he also tooke very courteously, and promised the like to him as he did before to the other. But so it fell out, that shortly after the verdict passed on the butcher’s side; which when the ploughman had notice of, he came to the lawyer, and asked him wherefore his two hens were forgotten. Mary, quoth he, because there came in a fatte hogge and eate them up. Now a vengeance take that hog! quoth the ploughman, that eate both my suit in law and hens together! Well, quoth Jacke of Dover, this in my minde was pretty foolery, but yet the foole of all fooles is not heere found, that I looked for.”

This seems to have been a rather favourite jest, for it is given also in the “Pleasant Conceits of Old Hobson,” 1607, and in the “Mery Tales,” 1530, and is one of the mediæval jokes given by Wright in his “Latin Stories” (Percy Society).

Alexander Barclay and Manchester.

Probably the first purely literary reference to Manchester is that contained in the first eclogue of Alexander Barclay. Of the two shepherds who carry on a dialogue, Cornix is the chief speaker, and graphically pourtrays the miseries of life at court. Early in the conversation comes this passage:—

This passage has not escaped the notice either of Mr. T. H. Jamieson, who has edited Barclay’s translation of the “Stultifera Navis,” or of Dr. A. W. Ward, who has written his life in the “Dictionary of National Biography,” and puts the query that Godmanchester may be meant. The eclogue from which the quotation is taken, together with two others, are said to be “gathered out of a booke named in Latin, ‘Miseriæ Curialium,’ compiled by Æneas Silvius, Poet and Oratour.” This, of course, means that member of the Piccolomini family, who, after an earlier life not free from reproach, made a decorous pontiff, as Pope Pius II., and died in 1464. This book, drawn from his own experience of the unhappy life of courtiers, was the most popular of all his writings. It was often reprinted, but whether Barclay worked from a printed or a MS. copy is not known. Now, what his principles of translation were we know, both from his declaration and practice. In his version of Brandt’s “Ship of Fools,” he tells how he added and omitted as seemed best for his purpose of producing a book that should aid in strengthening the morality of the time. And in dealing with Æneas Sylvius, he has been even freer than in dealing with Brandt. Of the “Miseriæ Curialium,” there are several editions in the British Museum, and those of Paris (1475?), Cologne (1468?), Rome (1485? and 1578), have been examined for me by Dr. W. A. Shaw, to whom my best thanks are due for his kindness. “The book,” he says, “of Æneas Sylvius is in prose, and, in epistolary form addressed to ‘dñō Johī de Arch Pspicaci et claro Jurū cōsulto.’ There is none of the eclogue and dialogue form of Barclay’s work; there are no interlocutors, and there are no references, save to such names of classical antiquity as serve for satirical notice, in, say, Juvenal, with the exception that, in the section treating of the table and pleasures of eating, he refers briefly to the place of origin of the better known delicacies. There is no mention of Manchester, nor of England, from first to last, nor any possibility of it from the style of the letter, and taking it casually, side by side with Barclay, I cannot find a parallel point which would suggest a translation.”

We may, therefore, probably regard the passage as strictly autobiographical, and conclude that, in his wandering life as a preaching friar, Barclay, at some time or other, visited Manchester. From internal evidences, the eclogues are assigned to the year 1514, but it is curious that whilst there is a long reference to the death of John Alcock, Bishop of Ely, in 1500, there is none to his successors, Redmayne (1501) or Stanley (1509). The early editions of the eclogues are undated, and the first three eclogues were apparently issued before the others. There are many points of interest in regard to the life and work of Alexander Barclay, which cannot be discussed in directing attention to one of the earliest—probably the very earliest—purely literary mention of a place that in after ages has not been without claims to distinction in literature and science. The date of Barclay’s birth is conjecturally, but with tolerable certainty, fixed in 1476, and he died in 1552. Since the biographies by Mr. Jamieson and Dr. Ward were written, some fresh information has appeared in Mr. James Gairdner’s “Letters and Papers of the reign of Henry VIII.,” vol. xiii., pt. 2 (1893). These show that whilst Barclay was conscious of ecclesiastical abuses and desirous of their reform, he was an object of suspicion to those who were carrying out the work of the suppression of the monasteries, and ran some risk by his retention of the distinctive habit of the friars. Robert Ward writes on October 9th, 1538, to Cromwell that at Barking, Suffolk, when Barclay preached there in the Whitsun holidays, he did not declare the King’s supremacy. Ward states that he reproached the preacher for not doing so, but does not record his answer. On October 12th, William Dynham writes to Cromwell: “Of late I came to the priory of St. Germayne in Cornwall, and sat at supper with the Prior, accompanied by Alexander Barckley, who the day before preached in honour of the Blessed Virgin, but not so much to the edifying of his audience as his demeanour next day was, I heard, to their destruction. At supper I moved such questions as I thought might do good to the audience. He served my purpose, till, ‘after a sodeyne dompe, he brake silence, as a man that had spoken too well (and yet a frere in a somewhat honester weed),’ and glorified himself. He first protested he would preach no new things, not set out by the King and his Council. I answered, wondering what he meant, when all men of literature and judgment ‘knew that our so Christian a Prince and his Council set forth no new thing but the gospel of Christ, and the sincere verity thereof.’ Barckley replied, ‘I would to God that at the least the laws of God might have as much authority as the laws of the realm.’ Asked him what he meant, and Barckley said, Nothing, but he thought men were too busy pulling down images without special commandment of the Prince. Dynham answered, he knew none pulled down, except such as idolatry was committed unto, and reminded him ‘of St. Margarets Patent is rode’ (the rood of St. Margaret Pattens in London), and the assembly, although somewhat dispraised, yet for the intent and good fact thereof, tolerated. Here, he demanded, what followed thereof? I requiring him to answer his demand, he said I knew how many tenements and some people were burnt soon upon. ‘What, Barckley?’ said I, ‘here is somewhat moved; ye have a versatile ingeyne, but were ye so sleper as an eel, here will I hold you. Would you infect this audience with that opinion, that God for such cause plagued them? Your cankered heart is disclosed. My true little stomach, with reverence of the prior and his board, must be opened lest it break. You are, Barckley, a false knave and a dissembling frere. You get no pence might I rule here. You seek your own profit vocall to hinder the truth more than unity to set forth the true and princely endeavour of our most Crysten, and of his church Supremest Head, most laudable enterprises; whereof, I trust, thou shalt hear.’”

Writing to Cromwell on October 28th, Latimer says that “A man has written to him that Frere Bartlow does much hurt in ‘Corwall and in Daynshyre,’ both with open preaching and private communication. Suspects he has some comfort from Rome, through Dr. Nycolasse.’ The Abbot of Evesham, the bearer, asks Latimer to thank Cromwell for him. Thinks he will find few who will better remember his kindnesses. He seems a very civil and honest man, and one who puts all his trust in Cromwell. Requests Cromwell to maintain him in his right to what he has obtained by his goodness.” These passages enable Mr. Gairdner to identify the subject of this anecdote told by Foxe, the Martyrologist: “Hereunto also pertaineth the example of Friar Bartley, who wearing still his friar’s cowl after the suppression of religious houses, Cromwell coming through Paul’s Churchyard, and espying him in Rheines’s shop. ‘Yea,’ said he, ‘will not that cowl of yours be left off yet? And if I hear by one o’clock that this apparel be not changed, thou shalt be hanged immediately, for example to all others.’ And so, putting his cowl away, he durst never wear it after.” It is satisfactory to know that he survived these dangers, received some preferment, and died peaceably in 1552.

THE END

Index.

“Valuable and interesting.”—Times.

“Readable as well as instructive.”—The Globe.

“A valuable addition to any library.”—Derbyshire Times.

“There is a charm about the chapters seldom found in works dealing with antiquarian lore, for they are never dry and always entertaining. The illustrations are a splendid feature. These county histories call for appreciation and deserve every success.”—Birmingham Daily Gazette.

In this series the following volumes are included, and issued at 7s. 6d. each. Demy 8vo. cloth gilt.

These books have been favourably reviewed in the leading critical journals of England and America.

Carefully written articles by recognised authorities are included on history, castles, abbeys, biography, romantic episodes, legendary lore, traditional stories, curious customs, folk-lore, etc., etc.

The works are illustrated by eminent artists, and by the reproduction of quaint pictures of the olden time.

Literary Byways.

Contents:—Authors at work—The Earnings of Authors—“Declined with Thanks”—Epigrams on Authors—Poetical Graces—Poetry on Panes—English Folk Rhymes—The Poetry of Toast Lists and Menu Cards—Toasts and Toasting—Curious American Old-Time Gleanings—The Earliest American Poetess: Anne Bradstreet—A Playful Poet: Miss Catharine Fanshawe—A Popular Song Writer: Mrs. John Hunter—A Poet of the Poor: Mary Pyper—The Poet of the Fisher-Folk: Mrs. Susan K. Phillips—A Poet and Novelist of the People: Thomas Miller—The Cottage Countess—The Compiler of “Old Moore’s Almanack”: Henry Andrews—James Nayler, the Mad Quaker, who claimed to be the Messiah—A Biographical Romance: Swan’s Strange Story—Short Letters—Index.

“Readable and entertaining.”—Notes and Queries.

“Turn where you will, there is information and entertainment in this book.”—Birmingham Daily Gazette.

Curious Epitaphs.

Contents:—Epitaphs on Tradesmen—Typographical Epitaphs—Epitaphs on Good and Faithful Servants—Epitaphs on Soldiers and Sailors—Epitaphs on Musicians and Actors—Epitaphs on Sportsmen—Bacchanalian Epitaphs—Epitaphs on Parish Clerks and Sextons—Punning Epitaphs—Manxland Epitaphs—Epitaphs on Notable Persons—Miscellaneous Epitaphs—Index.

“A most entertaining collection.”—Newcastle Daily Chronicle.

“A book that is sure to be widely read and appreciated.”—People’s Journal.

“It is an entertaining and instructive work, it may fairly be regarded as the best on its subject, and it will take a permanent place in our literature.”—Hull Critic.

Contents:—Bible Law—Sanctuaries—Trials in Superstitious Ages—On Symbols—Law under the Feudal System—The Manor and Manor Law—Ancient Tenures—Laws of the Forest—Trial by Jury in Old Times—Barbarous Punishments—Trials of Animals—Devices of the Sixteenth Century Debtors—Laws Relating to the Gipsies—Commonwealth Law and Lawyers—Cock-Fighting in Scotland—Cockieleerie Law—Fatal Links—Post-Mortem Trials—Island Laws—The Little Inns of Court—Obiter—Index.

“There are some very amusing and curious facts concerning law and lawyers. We have read with much interest the articles on Sanctuaries, Trials in Superstitious Ages, Ancient Tenures, Trials by Jury in Old Times, Barbarous Punishments, and Trials of Animals, and can heartily recommend the volume to those who wish for a few hours’ profitable diversion in the study of what may be called the light literature of the law.”—Daily Mail.

Divine Song in its Human Echo.

“This volume contains thirty-seven sermons on old-fashioned hymns, and when we say that each discourse averages about ten octavo pages, printed in good-sized type, it will be seen that they are entitled to be called short. The Rector of Ebchester is an adept at the production of short sermons, and the line he has adopted in this instance is an extremely happy one. It is a conception that appeals to a great multitude, and the hymns which give the cue to the reflections form a large variety of well-known spiritual songs, the favourites, indeed, in communities of every name. Some of the sermons, indeed, most of them, have been prepared for anniversaries and special occasions, and all are such as might be expected from a man who is an undoubted lover of hymns. Their brevity excludes prolixity, and terse summaries of facts, sharp statements of doctrine, succinctness of argument, and directness of appeal characterise the whole.”—Newcastle Daily Leader.

Curious Church Customs.

Contents:—Sports in Churches—Holy Day Customs—Church Bells: When and Why They were Rung—Inscriptions on Bells—Laws of the Belfry—Ringers’ Jugs—Customs and Superstitions of Baptism—Marriage Customs—Burial Customs—Concerning the Churchyard—Altars in Churches—The Rood Loft and its Uses—Armour in Churches—Beating the Bounds—The Story of the Crosier—Bishops in Battle—The Cloister and its Story—Shorthand in Church—Reminiscences of our Village Church—Index.

“A thoroughly excellent volume.”—Publishers’ Circular.

“A handsomely got up and interesting volume.”—The Fireside.

“We are indebted to Mr. Andrews for an invaluable addition to our library of folk-lore, and we do not think that many who take it up will slip a single page.”—Dundee Advertiser.

Bygone Church Life in Scotland.

Contents:—The Cross in Scotland—Bell Lore—Saints and Holy Wells—Life in the Pre-Reformation Cathedrals—Public Worship in Olden Times—Church Music—Discipline in the Kirk—Curiosities of Church Finance—Witchcraft and the Kirk—Birth and Baptisms, Customs and Superstitions—Marriage Laws and Customs—Gretna Green Gossip—Death and Burial Customs and Superstitions—The Story of a Stool—The Martyrs’ Monument, Edinburgh—Index.

“The volume is certain to receive a welcome from Scotsmen at home and abroad.”—Daily Chronicle.

“Every sentence in the book is either instructive or amusing, and it should consequently find many appreciative readers. It contains a vast amount of traditional and historical lore referring almost to every district of Scotland. There are some artistic illustrations, especially those of Glasgow Cathedral and views of ancient portions of that city from the pencil of David Small.”—Dundee Advertiser.

England in the Days of Old.

Contents:—When Wigs were Worn—Powdering the Hair—Men Wearing Muffs—Concerning Corporation Customs—Bribes for the Palate—Rebel Heads on City Gates—Burials at Cross Roads—Detaining the Dead for Debt—A Nobleman’s Household in Tudor Times—Bread and Baking in Bygone Days—Arise, Mistress, Arise!—The Turnspit—A Gossip about the Goose—Bells as Time-Tellers—The Age of Snuffing—State Lotteries—Bear-Baiting—Morris Dancers—The Folk-Lore of Midsummer Eve—Harvest Home—Curious Charities—An Old-Time Chronicler—Index.

“A most delightful work.”—Leeds Mercury.

“Mr. Andrews has the true art of narration, and contrives to give us the results of his learning with considerable freshness of style, whilst his subjects are always interesting and picturesque.”—Manchester Courier.

“The old customs, domestic habits, and dress of our forefathers described in these chapters are too much neglected by historians, and a study of them will while away a leisure hour very pleasantly.”—The Times.

Bygone Punishments.

Contents:—Hanging—Hanging in Chains—Hanging, Drawing, and Quartering—Pressing to Death—Drowning—Burning to Death—Boiling to Death—Beheading—The Halifax Gibbet—The Scottish Maiden—Mutilation—Branding—The Pillory—Punishing Authors and Burning Books—Finger Pillory—The Jougs—The Stocks—The Drunkard’s Cloak—Whipping and Whipping-Posts—Public Penance—The Repentance Stool—The Ducking Stool—The Brank, or Scold’s Bridle—Riding the Stang—Index.

“A book of great interest.”—Manchester Courier.

“Full of curious lore, sought out and arranged with much industry.”—The Scotsman.

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Lore and Legend of the English Church.

Contents:—Introduction—The Building of the Church—The Church Steeple—The Churchyard—Graves and Funerals—The Nave—The Pulpit and the Lectern—The Font—Folk-Lore and Customs of Marriage—The Chancel and the Choir—Alms and Offerings—Conclusion—Index.

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A Book About Bells.

Contents:—Invention of Bells—Bell Founding and Bell Founders—Dates and Names of Bells—The Decoration of Bells—Some Noteworthy Bells—The Loss of Old Bells—Towers and Campaniles—Bell-Ringing and Bell-Ringers—The Church-Going Bell—Bells at Christian Festivals and Fasts—The Epochs of Man’s Life Marked by the Bells—The Blessings and the Cursings of the Bells—Bells as Time-Markers—Secular Uses of Church and other Bells—Small Bells, Secular and Sacred—Carillons—Belfry Rhymes and Legends—Index of Subjects, Index of Places.

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The Grotesque in Church Art.

Contents:—Introduction—Definitions of the Grotesque—The Carvers—The Artistic Quality of Church Grotesques—Gothic Ornament not Didactic—Ingrained Paganism—Mythic Origin of Church Carvings—Hell’s Mouth—Satanic Representations—The Devil and the Vices—Ale and the Alewife—Satires without Satan—Scriptural Illustrations—Masks and Faces—The Domestic and Popular—Animal Musicians—Compound Forms—Nondescripts—Rebuses—Trinities—The Fox in Church Art—Situations of Grotesque Ornament in Church Art—Index.

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The Miracle Play in England.

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Ecclesiastical Curiosities.

Contents:—The Church Door—Sacrificial Foundations—The Building of the English Cathedrals—Ye Chapell of Oure Ladye—Some Famous Spires—The Five of Spades and the Church of Ashton-under-Lyne—Bells and their Messages—Stories about Bells—Concerning Font-Lore—Watching Chambers in Churches—Church Chests—An Antiquarian Problem: The Leper Window—Mazes—Churchyard Superstitions—Curious Announcements in the Church—Big Bones Preserved in Churches—Samuel Pepys at Church—Index.

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Contents:—Stave-Kirks—Curious Churches of Cornwall—Holy Wells—Hermit and Hermit Cells—Church Wakes—Fortified Church Towers—The Knight Templars: Their Churches and their Privileges—English Mediæval Pilgrimages—Pilgrims’ Signs—Human Skin on Church Doors—Animals of the Church in Wood, Stone, and Bronze—Queries in Stones—Pictures in Churches—Flowers and Rites of the Church—Ghost Layers and Ghost Laying—Church Walks—Westminster Waxworks—Index.

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