HEYWOOD
NOTES & QUERIES.
Reprinted fione the "Heywood Advertiser ."
CONDUCTED BY J . A . GREEN.
VOL. III .
No. 25.
,,jFriba1, 3aiuuarp 11th, 1902 .
[242 .] JOHN KAY TAYLOR .
(See Note No. 152 .)
Since the publication of the particulars
given at No . 152, I have been favoured with
the loan of a little book which contains additional information . It is entitled :
A New selection of Hymns, compiled for the
use of the Chartists, of Great Britain and
Ireland .
Selected, arranged, and published
under the superintendence of a committee appointed by the Chartist Delegates of South
Lancashire . Manchester : J . Leach, printer, 40,
Oak-street, Swan-street . [
] 32 me. pp . 1At this time of day it is difficult to believe
that groups of men would unite in singing
some of the "hymns" collected in this book .
Ii a man is known by the company he keeps
then Taylor is found here in very good company indeed . The best hymns are by Burns,
Campbell, Ebenez .r Elliott, Thomas Cooper,
2
and Robert Nicoll . The contributions of J .
K . Taylor are not the worst in the book, but
the following samples of his quality will
suffice : Hymn, 3-page 5 .
Chartist Hymn (S .M .) .
1 What can withstand the power,
When Britain's sons unite,
Throughout this empire in one hour,
For to assert their right .
(4 stanzas, signed J. K. Taylor, Heywood.)
Hymn, 14-page 18 .
Chartists' Hymn (P .M .).
1 Come join the patriot's host,
The contest now begun,
Let each and all maintain his post
And labour's battle's won .
(20 more lines, signed J . K . Taylor.)
Hymn, 19-page 24.
Why are we distressed (C .M.) .
1 Upon a soil that God design'd,
For each an equal share ;
For every son of human-kind,
Enough and much to spare.
(5 stanzas, signed J . K . Taylor .)
Hymn, 20-page 25 .
Chartist Hymn (L.M .) .
1 See Phoebus gilds the orient sky,
While birds rejoice in nature's joy ;
While freedom waits on all around,
On all, save man, in fetters bound .
(5 stanzas, signed J. K. Taylor.)
J . A. GREEN.
[243 .] IN MEMORY OF SAM. BAMFORD.
Samuel Bamford's life has been so well told
by himself in his books that little else can
be said of him.
When a memorial tablet
was erected on hits house in Cheapside,
Middleton, a short time ago (December 1st,
1906), some very interesting addresses were
delivered . The tablet bears the inscription :
SAMUEL BAMFORD,
Reformer,
Resided and was arrested in this house,
August 26, 1819 .
8:
The Mayor of Middleton (Councillor W . G .
Townend) presided over a representative
assembly . He said they were met that day
to do honour to the memory of one of Middleton's worthy sons . Though all were far from
satisfied with things as they are to-day, and
were going on being dissatisfied until evils
were remedied, yet they did desire to remember and pay a tribute of respect to one who,
in John Bright's words, was a reformer when
it was unsafe to be one, and who suffered for
hiii faith .
Mrs . Thorpe, the owner of the cottage,
then unveiled the tablet.
An adjournment was made to St . Stephen's
schoolroom . The Mayor again presided, and
Mr. Philip Ashworth, J .P ., gave an interest
ing address on the life and character of Bamford .
He explained that the ceremony in
which they had been engaged was the outcome of a suggestion made by the Rev . W . H .
Eothergill that it was a fitting time to make
some lasting record of the fact that Samuel
Bamford lived in Cheapside and was arrested
in the house there .
Proceeding, he said
"We know that a monument stands in the
cemetery to the Reformer's memory, but I
sometimes think that the less pretentious
tablet has a meaning of its own, because it
brings more forcibly to mind that Bamford
not only existed for the nation, but actually
lived and worked and fought in Middleton .
I look upon Bamford as Middleton's great son,
and whilst we raise to his memory monument and tablet yet at the same time his
most enduring monument is the works that
he left and the advancement of the cause in
which he fought . We honour him not only
for hia fight for freedom, but also for his
contribution to the literature of the country ." Bamford's "Early Days," said Mr . Ashworth, were delightful reading, and especially
so to those who, like themselves, were interested in anything which concerned the history and the welfare of Middleton . To him
the record of the events and conditions of a
hundred years ago came as a breeze across
the centuries, from the moors and the dingles
4
and the fields which Bamford knew and loved
so well . Bamford was of an ardent and poetic
temperament. He was a keen observer, and
was blessed with a most retentive memory ;
and throughout that volume they would find
that be was brimful also of Lancashire wit
and humour under all conditions and circumstances . He was to a certain extent another
Mark Tapley, for he could be jolly under all
circumstances .
Mr . Ashworth went on to
describe Bamford's "Early Days," and re=
marked that what he valued the book for
more particularly was for its author's own
early impressions .
Bamford's father was a God-fearing man.
He came of a religious stock, and that fact
influenced the son throughout his life . Of the
advice which his father gave, three points
stuck in his memory, and he endeavoured
throughout life to abide by them .
They
were : Stand up for the right and fear not,
be inflexibly honest, avoid all approach
towards presumptous assurance, and rather
endeavour to be marked for solid worth .
They could well say that Samuel Bamford was fully justified in laying to himself
humble credit for having followed those admirable precepts .
~s ith a nature such as
that, a temperament such as his, brought
from a home of religious influences, could
they
pathy wonder that Bamford ever showed symfor distress ago need and want ,
in
reading through his books it was difficult to
fully realise the condition of things that used
to exist . They thought sometimes that they
were but a portion of the way towards the
ultimate goal of full liberty, yet they were
very much further than Bamford 'or any of his
associates ever was . But they remembered it
was to him and to others like him that they
were indebted for the advance which had
been made . The time to which he was referring, Mr . Ashworth continued, was near the
close of a very long and disastrous war
Trade was languishing, factories were substituting machinery for the old handloom, and
consequently displacing labour. Food was dear s
and there were very few means of getting
5
it. Could it be wondered at that people were
dissatisfied and discontented, and naturally
blamed Parliament and those in authority for
the ills from which they were suffering?
Feeling that they had no voice in the direction of affairs they sent up those petitions,
which were so foolishly and culpably disregarded . This, of course, led to the holding
The
of meetings, secret and otherwise.
Government got alarmed, spies were sent out,
and sometimes instigated the very things
they were t~o detect . The Habeas Corpus Act
was suspended and arrests made right and
left, Bamford among the rest . He war, taken
to London, and Mr . Ashworth said he
thought that in a certain sense that arrest
was providential .
He believed that when
Bamford came before the Privy Council they
were impressed by him, and could consequently imagine a very different type of
people to what they thought existed in the
North of England .
He believed also that
this contact had a good influence on Bamford .
It was always so . _such of the misunderstanding and bitterness of the present day
was owing to the simple fact that people did
not understand each other through keeping
apart . Nothing of an incriminating character
was found against Bamford, and he was
allowed to go home again . This did not stop
the agitation . It was continued, but in a
more open manner . Bamford was a poet.
Though they could not rate him perhaps
quite so highly as he sometimes hoped to be,
he undoubtedly had a talent in that direction,
and it often seemed that he was desirous of
copying Burns-Burns, the son of the soil .
\1 by could not he follow as a lad from the
mill? To a certain extent he was successful .
He bad a vogue in those days at all events,
and it helped him in his character of being
a leader . He was as open as the daylight,
he was honest, straightforward ; so he treated
other people, and so he expected to be treated
in return .
It was decided that the Peterloo meeting
should be held. A little misapprehension was
caused, perhaps by the fact that they were
6
drilling, and it was felt that this meant revolutionary methods . It was nothing of the
kind . It was simply this, that the press way
against the Radicals at the time, and that,
having been described as a mob, they would,
at all events, remove that stigma and show
that they could march and conduct themselves in as orderly a manner as anybody else.
Bamford went at the head of his contingent ;
and all present knew what happened on that
dreadful day . Ten days afterwards, in the
house they had just visited, Samuel Bamford
was arrested . The authorities sent a tremendous lot of troops, considering that only one
poor weaver was to be arrested . He was
marched away, to the great distress of his
wife . He was lodged in the New Bailey, and
taken on to Lancaster Castle, from whence
he was released in a day or two as bail was
forthcoming . The trial evenutally took place
at York. Sir John Bailey summed up most
strongly in Bamford's favour, and, without
doubt, Bamford was most unjustly condemned . He had done nothing to merit the
punishment meted out to him . He had
always striven against violent and unconstitutional methods . His idea was that his
objects could be attained in other and peaceable directions ; but they knew the state of
the country, how people were prejudiced
against the "dreadful reformers," though today we should think them very moderate
indeed. Bamford and his fellow prisoners
were sentenced to come up for judgment to
the Court of King's Bench in London the
following Easter term . Hunt tried to put off
the evil day, but eventually judgment was
delivered, and Bamford had to go to prison
for twelve months . That was to a certain
extent the turning point in his career . He
seemed to think that the people he had come
across in the upper ranks were not quite so
bad as he had supposed them to be, and they
found a little afterwards that he was not on
the very best of terms with his friends .
One cause of this was that after looking up
to Henry Hunt and believing him to be a
patriot of the finest type he became disiiia-
7
sioned. Whether his judgment of Hunt was
correct or not the speaker did not know,
Bamford met with the "Orator" under
varied and peculiar circumstances, and had
opportunities for judging him not vouchsafed to others . Therefore they took it that
his judgment was correct . Then his friends
seemed to have got across when they found
that he was no longer a weaver but in the
employ of a newspaper . A little misunderstanuing arose. It was felt that he was not
one of their own class, and for a while at
all events he was misjudged .
Continuing,
Mr . Ashworth said he was glad to think that
towards the close of the Reformer's life all
that disappeared . and as in the distance they
could best judge proportions, so the public
and the country generally seemed to be able
to appraise Bamford at his true worth, and
to forget some of the weaknesses which he
had-weaknesses which, to his honour be it
ate, he newer himself attempted to palliate
or deny .
Those weaknesses were now forgotten .
They saw the true reformer, the
true man, who gave up all prospects of
earthly success in the cause of freedom and
for the benefit of others . Anyone passing the
tablet which had just been unveiled, and,
being tempted to inquire who Bamford was,
would, they all hoped, be led to study him
closely and emulate him .
Concluding, the
speaker said : "I sincerely hope that as we
do honour to-day to the great son of Miadleton we are showing a way along which others
will travel, and that many more such tablets
may be brought forth by the excellence of
the sons of Middleton following in Bamford's
footsteps, and giving, as he did, of himself
most freely, sacrificing everything on behalf
or civil, religious, and political freedom ."
Mr. W. Ryland D. Adkins, M .P ., the Member for the division, in a letter of apology
for non-attendance wrote : "It would have
been to me a great satisfaction to have taken
part in this ceremony, all the more so because it is non-political .
"For when time has passed since the
strenuous life of a man like Samuel Bamford
8
has closed, it is happily possible for men of
all parties to unite in honouring a great Englishman, full though his life was of controversy and conflict . I am, of course, in profound sympathy with his career, with his
ardour for social reform, his strenuous
moderation, his unflinching courage, and his
love of poetry, the most humanising of the
arts.
And in such profound sympathy will
be, I doubt not, all who are present tomorrow, however their views may diverge as
to the best ways and means of realising Bamford's ideals .
" Middleton may well be proud of him . 1
hope the example which his life shows of
uniting political ardour with care for the
poor and needy and with devotion `to the
best that has been thought and said in the
world,' may help to widen the sympathies
and brace the wills of all of ue who in any
way are privileged to share in the life of that
Lancashire of which he was so typical and
renowned a son ."
Councillor S . Partington replied to a vote
of thanks on behalf of Mrs . Thorpe .
He
spoke of Bamford's aversion to violent
.
methods, an said that ho always resisted
any attempts at making him join in the wild
proposal to make a Moscow of Manchester ;
nor would he be a party to assassinating
Ministers . Such a course was proposed by
extreme, enthusiastic, and thoughtless men .
Bamford did a good thing for the Middleton
"blanketeers" when he kept them at home .
That showed his firmness and high character,
and the persuasive way in which he exercised
it amongst the Middleton men of that day .
At Peterloio there were fourteen killed, and
one of the killed was John Rhodes of Pitts,
Hopwood . Then there was Thomas Buckley
of Chadderton, Martha Partington of Eccles,
possibly one of a Middleton family that had
migrated there .
Thomas Redford was a
hatter, who lived in a cellar, and he was undoubtedly one of the party badly wounded .
In 1826 Bamford again prevented an attack
on the steam engines in Middleton, Heywood, and Rochdale. That was greatly to his
I
9
credit, and it helped to prove Bamford's
noble impulse for justice and moderation as
against violence.
He was opposed to the
physical force Chartists. In 1839, when the
Chartists were very rampant in Middleton,
he was a special constable to protect the peace .
That would, they might be sure, bring him
into a great deal of contumely and make him
very much hated by the Chartists .
Bamford
lived in London seven years, drudging in a
Government department, and this was considered by his fellow weavers in Middleton
a high crime and misdemeanour .
The fact
was he went there because a Government
official, a reformer himself, had taken a great
interest in him .
Bamford's fellow weavers
said lie was an idle fellow because he did not
clean his own boots and kept his coat on his
back . But he was miserable in London, and
finally left it, disgusted to some extent with
the life he was leading. He loved Lancashire,
and Blackley, and Middleton better than all .
When he issued his "Passages in the Life of
a Radical" he had to go hawking his literature from house to house . Sometimes he met
with favour, sometimes he didn't . It was a
strange mode of receiving remuneration for
his services ; a strange mode of receiving
reward for the sacrifices he had made
-on behalf of his country .
Later he received £100 from Lard Ashburton, probably
a Tory . The Tories did appreciate Bamford,
because they saw be was not a revolutionary,
and therefore a man to be admired .
Then
he had £50 from the Royal Bounty Fund .
Frrther help came from his literary friends
throughout Lancashire and many parts of
Fngland, the Manchester Literary Club, and
the reformers, so he was kept in comfort for
the rest of his life . If one thing more than
another was admirable in Bamford's character
it was his great consistency and determination of character . As Dr. Johnson said of a
predecessor of Bamford's, he was a good
scholar, he had variety, and he had the manners of a gentleman in his own blunt fashion .
There was in the room a flag which was
carried at Poterloo and which was frequently
10
mentioned in Bamford's trial . It was carefully guarded for many years, until it now
has a resting place in the Liberal Club . On
one side are the words "Liberty and Fraternity" and on the other "Unity and Strength ."
Q.
Irhav, 1 ,Jirutarv 25th, 1907 .
NOTES.
[244 .] HEYWOOD IN 1841 .
The following account of Heywood in 1841
is extracted from "A Statistical Sketch of the
County Palatine , f Lancaster, by Edwin Butr
terworth, London : 1841 ." 8vo ., pp . xl ., 168.
HEywooD, a village or town in the township of Heap, parish, polling district,, and
poor law union of Bury, division of Boltonle-moors, and hundred of Salford, 8 ,1 miles
N .N .W . of Manchester. Heywood and Bamford Halls are ancient . There are two episcopal chapels, St . Luke's, existed 1611, a
curacy, annual value £196, patron Rector of
Bury ; and 'St. James's built 1837, a curacy,
patrons Trustees .-There are seven dissenters
chapels : Independent, Baptist, Wesleyan,
Swedenborgian, Primitive, New Connexion,
and Associationists . A customary market is
held on Saturdays ; and fairs, first Friday in
April, Friday before first Sunday in August,
and Friday after October 1st .
The cotton
trade in spinning and weaving is largely carried on : in 1810 the place was a small village,
in 1833 there were 27 cotton mills, in 1839
the mills were about 34, and the number of
hands 5,190 .
There is re canal to the Rochdale canal, cut 1834, and the Manchester and
Leeds railway passes within two miles .
The
population of Heap in 1801 was 4,283 ; 1811,
5,148 ; 1821, 6,552 ; 1831, 10,429.
The
schools are numerous, one is a large episcopal
national school ; there are 11 Sunday schools .
Gasworks were erected 1827, at a cost of
£10,000, and there is a mechanics' institute,
11
date 1839 . In the vicinity are extensive coal
mines . Annual valuo of property : 1815,
£8,861 ; 1829, £27,820 .
Heywood is again referred to in the article
on Bury ; Ashworth, Birch, and Hopwood are
included in the article on Middleton .
J . A.
GREEN .
[245 .] HUGH GARTSIDE .
As an addition to Note 216 (1906) cn Hugh
Gartside, temp Henry VIII ., may be given
two short references from Fishwick's "History
of Rochdale ." The first occurs in his description of Gartside in the township of Butterworth, and is as follows :"Another part of Gartside was owned by
Hugh Gartside, whose son James, on May
16th, 1545, sold a capital messuage called
Gartside Hall to Sir John Byron for £28
5s . 4d . Frcm whose descendant it was sold
to William Greaves of Gartside, gent ., the
son of William Greaves, curate of Littleberough . It afterwards went to the T'ownleys
of Belfield ."
Again, in the description of Wolstenholme
w •' find
"Jane Wolstenholme in a bill of complaint
lodged in the Duchy Court in 1526 sets forth
a clear descent of six generations . The cause
of complaint is tha'r one Alice Shipwalbotham .
beingseised of divers lands and messuages and
mills in Bury and Spotland, had given them
to John Woletenholme and 1largery, his wife,
and to their heirs, and that of right the same
should belong to her as next akin, but that
James Heyward of 'Bury, gentleman, Hugh
Gartside, gentleman, and Robert Hesketh had
conveyed the premises to themselves by
`divers feigned estates .'"
Doubtless other references to this family of
Gartsido may be found which will further
identify them with Heywood .
QIIINCIINx,
QUERIES.
[246 .] THE PEACE EGGG.
Every Easter there is played in Heywood
and the surrounding districts the play, "The
12
Peace Egg ." In some form or other it is
found all over England, but each district has
its own variations . I believe the chorus sung
at the end of the play varies much, as it contains local allusions, etc .
Many of your
readers will be familiar with other versions of
the piece and will know how that played in
Heywood differs from that played in other
parts of the country . I should be very pleased
if I could gather any information about the
local pecu iarities .
Also, was it ever played
at Christmas besides at Easter?
FOLK LORIST .
[247 .] HEYWOOD PETTY SESSIONS IN
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY .
I have heard that there was a court of
Petty Sessions held at Heywood about the
middle of the eighteenth century, and others
at Middleton and Radcliffe . Can any of your
readers give particulars of their origin? Heywood was then only a hamlet situate in the
township of Heap . If there was a leading
inn at Heywood in those days the court
would probably be held there ; but it is just
possible that the businer,s would be conducted
in the ancient Heywood Hall .
.
INQUIRER
[248.] THOMAS JACKSON, JUNR .
The Rev . Thomas Jackson was the highly
respected minister at Bamford G'napel for
nearly twenty years, anu it would be very
interesting to have his story told in full in
this colulun ; my present object, however, is
to ask some of our Bamford friends for particulars of the minister's son, Thomas .
I
have been told that he wrote a pamphlet or
two and composed some hymn tunes . Any .
information of him will be welcome .
GNAT BANS.
ANSWERS .
[249 .] FINE ART EXHIBITION, 1884 .
(See Notes and Queries, Nos . 87 and 112 .)
There has just come into my hands a complete catalogue of the fine art exhibition referred- to above . The exhibition was held cn
i
13
1
behalf of the Hey wood Unitarian . Reed Band,
in the Assembly Room, Reform Club, Heywood, opened January 10th, 1884 . The
official catalogue contains the very respectable
total of 766 items lent by over 120 friends,
chiefly of Heywood, though many exhibits
were sent from Bury, Rochdale, and Man. There were some, remarkable specichester
r:ens of sample work done in the days of
our grandmothers .
Pictures were a special
feature, and included many well-known local
biews, such as "Simpson Clough," by Ernest
Fitton ; ".A.shworth Hall," by J . Partington ;
" Ashworth Fold," by S . Atkinsun ; "Ashworth
Brook," by E'rnest Fitton ; "Bamford Chapel,"
by H. Partington ; "Hopwood Hall Mill," by
S . Chadwick, and many others . It would be
a good thing if another exhibition of a similar
character could be shown to the present
generation .
J . A. GREEN.
.drib i , J ebrxtirp lot, 1907'.
NOTES.
I
[250 .] GOODEN LANE .
In Note 60 ,on "Some old street names,"
by J .C . of Castleton, which appeared on May
26th, 1905, and may be found in the reprint
."Heywood Notes and Queries," vol . I ., p . 68,
occurs the following :-"Gooden Lane (Ma.ncheeter-street) took its name from its being
covered over with golden looking flowers
before any houses were built ."
This, I am
sure, is an erroneous supposition . As Manch :ster Load is so named because it lead, to
Manchester, so Gooden Lane s the lane leading to Gooden, the part of Hopwood immediately adjoining Heywood to the south .
That Gooden is a corruption of golden is
true, and it is possible the country round
about may at one time have been a brilliant
gorsey expanse, but of this we have no evidence . Of the antiquity of the name, however, we have, for it occurs in the original
14
charter by which the land of Heywood was
granted by Adam of Bury to one of the ancestors of the Tamil- which for many generations
possessed it . This charter, a copy of which
r,.ay be found among the notes to James's
"Iter Lancastrense" is without date, but cannot be later than 1272, and is probably of date
between 1260 and 1270 .
In this charter the limitations of the grant
are defined thus : "Incipiendo ad Golden et
sic sequendo Golden u,sque in aquam de Ratch
et sic sequendo Rache ascendendo usque ad
Heedene et sic sequendo Heedene ascendendo
u-;que ad metam Adae de By--y et Rogeri de
Midleton ."-James's "Iter Lancastrense," p .
23 . Chetham Society, vol . vii. This we may
translate roughly : "Beginning at Golden
(Golden) and thence following the Golden
(now the Cartridge Brook) to its junction with
the River Roach, and thence following the
Roach, ascending as far as the Hedene (now
the Miller Brook) and so following the
Hedene, ascenaing as far as the boundary
stone of Adam of Bury and Roger of Midleton ."
Another form of the name was Gulden, and
this is found of nearly equal antiquity .
Among Lancashire fines, for example, we find
one dated, "at Shrewsbury on the octave of
St . Hilary 10 Edward I ." (20th January,
1282), between Richard, son of Hugh of
Gulden, and Adam, son of Hugh of Gulden
and Eve, his wife, confirming a grant of land,
etc ., in Bamford, from the latter to the
former . ("Final Concords of County of Lancaster ."
Lancashire and Cheshire Record
Society, vol . xxxix ., p. 157 .)
It should be
remembered that both Gooden and Bamford
were held by Roger of Midleton as chief
tenant .
In the Middleton Registers the spelling
varies through golden, goulden, gouden,
gowden, to gooden-golden occurring at least
as late as 1617 . (Registers of Parish Church
of Middleton" [1541-1663 .] Lancashire Parish
Register Society, vol. 12, pp. 63 .)
Heywood, January, 1907 .
THOMAS HUNT .
1
4
15
[251 .]
AN OLD SCHOLARS' RE-UNION
AT ASHWORTH .
A local paper gave the following description
of a re-union of old scholars which took place
The
on Sunday, September 10th, 1893 .
account includes some interesting notes on
the history of the church, which will be appreciated by readers of this column . The reunion was the first of the kind held at Ashworth, and was attended by old scholars from
placers many miles distant . The districts from
which they principally came were in the
immediate neighbourhood, such as Heywood,
Bury, and Rochdale, but many came from further afield, several coming from Manchester
and High Crompton, and ono or two from
Rawtenstall, the journey both ways being performed on foot .
The musical part of the service was selected
At
go as to be suitable to the old scholars .
the afternoon service the organist was Mr .
txeorge Ashworth of Manchester, and in the
evening Mr . Harry Clough of IN esley College,
Shcffieid (organist at St . Mark's Church, Sheffield) . Both gentlemen are old attenders at
the church, and in his younger days Mr .
Clough many times played the organ for his
father, who was the organist at Ashworth .
The hymn tunes were old ones, many of them
being very rarely heard in churches nowadays .
Among them were "Cranbrook," "Irish," and
"St . Peter," and in the singing of the hymns
the utmost heartiness was man=:fested by the
congreontions . Such large numbers put in an
appearance at both the afternoon and evening
,services that the building would not hold
them all, even though forms were put along
the aisles, and the vestry was utilised .
The
Rev . hathbone Hartley was the preacher, and
probably the fact that he is the grandson of
a former incumbent the Rev . David Rathbone-had much to do with the large attendance. Mr. Rathbone is yet remembered by
many members of the congregation worshipping at Ashworth Chapel with great and deserved esteem . He was appointed to the incumbency by Mr . Wilbraham Egerton of
Tatton, in whose gift the living was on the
A
5th November, 1832, and retained it until the
10th February, 1871, when he died .
The
church made great strides during his incumbency . In 1837 he commenced the Sunday
school, holding it for over a year in a loft
in Ashworth Hall Fold . The present school
was built by Mr . Egerton in 1838, at Mr.
Rathcs
ne's request, and was opened on Sunday morning, the 12th August of that yea. .
Directly after he was appointed to the incumbency Mr . Rathbone commenced a day school
in the left in Hail Fold, and except when he
had to go away on business he taught in the
school every morning and afternoon, with the
exception of Saturday, on which day the school
was not held .
In January, 1839, he commenced a "writing" school, which was held
at night, and taught the young people, not of
Ashworth alone, but of Barnford and Norden,
how to write . He kept the day school cn for
some 25 years, and was faithfully assisted by
his wife, who woula take his place in the
school on the rare occasions when he had to
go away from home . The church fabric was
also looked after with great care by Mr . RathWhen he was ordained the building
bone.
was but three windows long, but by his exertions it was enlarged and made five windows
in length . The vestry was also built, and on
several occasions the churchyard was added to,
the last time being about 1868, when a large
portion was enclosed . In the year 1850 a new
pulpit and reading desk were put in the
church, but these have since been removed, as
the interior of the church has been altogether
renovated .
Since his death a stained-glass
window has been put in the church to his
memory, and to the memory of his wife, who
died some months after him, and of his son,
David, who died on November 1st, 1860, just
after he bad taken his degree of M .A . at
Oxford .
The window was put in by his
daughter, Mrs . Hartley of Sr'mpson Hill, Heywood . Mr . Rathbone's grandson referred to
the old times when the school met in the loft
in the fold, and after speaking of the great
changes which had taken place, he urged his
hearers to remember that though everything
4
17
in connection with this life was hound to
change, Christ was more permanent than the
everlasting hills .
He hoped that reunion
might lead to a closer binding up of all pre
sent to the eternal Christ, so that their lives
might be more fully and more completely lived
in union with Him- During the course of his
evening sermon, Mr . Hartley, preaching from
the text, "Ye are the salt of the earth," commented on the fact that a large number of
old scholars at Ashworth had attained to pos
tions of trust in various parts, and said that
the very position they had attained to would
enable them, if they were so minded, to use
their opportunities so as to be really and
truly the salt of the earth . The choir sang an
anthem at each service, Mr . Goo . Whitworth
being the conductor . The collections, which
were for the Sunday school and church expenses, realised over £20 .
QUERIES .
[252 .] WORKING MIEN BOTANISTS .
One occasionally sees references to the
school of Lancashire working men naturalists
-the self-taught naturalists of the early years
of the last century. In 1873 there was published a most interesting and valuable little
book on the subject, entitled : "Where there's
a will there's a wayl or, Science in the cottage ; an account of the labours of naturalists
in bumble life," by James Cash of Manchester . I believe there used to be a copy in
the Heywood Co-operative Library, but I do
not remember whether any local men had the
honour of a place in the record . Can anyone
give me information about any local botanists
who attended the meetings of societies in
Heywood and drs~trict?
What discoveries
they made, and where any of their collections may be seen?
. LEMUEL.
[253 .] HAND-LOOM WEAVING .
We have had in this column some references to extinct local industries, but handloom weaving has not yet had a turn .
It
was a considerable industry for a long time
VOL. 3.-Part 26 .
18
after the introduction of the power-loom .
Sometime about 1840 an inventor had the
courage to place an improved hand-loom on
the market, but the power-loom rapidly displaced it. Hand-loom weaving lingers even
yet in some Lancashire districts, but as a
local industry it vanished many years ago .
It would be interesting to have accounts of
some of the best weavers and descriptions of
their looms . Among the weavers there must
have been men of some character who would
be well known to an earlier generation, and
one would like to know something of them .
We have still amongst us many who either
worked some of these looms or saw them
worked by others . Will someone kindly give
particulars of this local industry .
FUSTIAN .
lxihnp, ,Jfiebruar 8th, 1907 .
[254 .]
NOTES.
GENTLEMEN OF THE BEST
CALLING .
In the early days of this column there appeared a communication giving a 'list of lay
inhabitants of this district in 1322 . Trnfortunately, perhaps, we do not possess many
such documents, and what few remain con,
taro mostly the names of members of various
county families . Such a list was published
by the Chetham Society in 1862 (Chetham
Miscellanies, vol . iii .), with an introduction
by Canon Raines . It may be interesting to
give some account of it .
The title of the
manuscript is
"The Names of all the Gentlemen of the
Best Calling Wthin the Countye of Lancaster, Whereof Choyse ys to be made of a
c'ten number to lend vnto her Ma'tye
moneye vpon Privie Seals in Janvarye :,
1588 ."
The money raised at this time by the (Town
was to defray expenses connected with the
resistance of the Spanish Armada, .
"The
19
I
Privy Seals (says Cannon Raines in his introduction) were always exceedingly unpopular
as the recognisance was not invariably discharged nor repudiated, but considered as dormant, and the men of `great worship' who
advanced the voluntary loans as they were
firmed, were ranked in each county chiefly
according to the amount of their contributions
and not as they were regarded by the
Heralds ."
Froude's account of the raising of a loan
in a previous reign shows the general character of this arbitrary imposition, which must
have been most oppressive to those on wham
it was imposed.
"Money," says the historian, "had to be
found somewhere .
The harvest happily had
been at last abundant : and wheat had fallen
from fifty shillings a quarter to four or five .
The country was in a condition to lend, and a
commission was sent out for a forced loan calculated on the assessment of the last subsidy .
Lists of owners of property in each county were
drawn out with sums of money opposite to their
names, and the collectors were directed 'to
travail by all the best ways they might for
obtaining the sums noted .' Persons found conformable were to receive acknowledgments .
Should any be 'too froward' they were to find
securities to appear when called on before the
Privy Council, or be arrested on the spot and
Many thousands of pounds
sent to London .
were collected in this way in spite of outcry and
resistance ."
Canon Raines further says :"We have here a list of the principal old
and wealthy families of Lancashire in the
time of Queen Elizabeth, many of whom did
not bear Coat Armour, and were not ranked
amongst `Gentlemen' by the courtly but inexorable officers of the y Earl Marshall . The
`fountain of all honour,' however, deemed it
politic, at this critical juncture, to address
individuals of various degrees of local
honour and dignity as `Gentlemen of the
best callinge,' and it will be readily admitted that the names now presented indicate men in whom there was a concurrence
of `birth, eduoatien, and continual affecta-
20
tdon of good manners,' which, Selden says,
completed the character and obtained the
title 4 a gentleman . , (Preface to Titles
of Honour .')
The higher
Clergy are
omitted here as they taxed themselves and
granted Royal Aids in Convocation ."
A very interesting calculation is also give,,
in the introduction :-"Of the two hundred
and twenty-six individuals named, not thirty
have left descendants in the male line living
on their ancestral property, and the estates of
the great majority, have passed, from time to
time, into other families, either by marriage,
purchase, or settlement ."
If this was the
case in 1860 there must now be far less than
thirty .
The list is divided into six seoti~ons :=
Derbye
Hundreth ;
Leyland
Hundreth ;
Lonsdall Hundreth ;
Salford
Hundreth ;
Blackburne Hundreth ; and Amounderness
Hundreth--and
contains
altogether
226
names .
The Hundred of West Derby with 55 names
includes
Mr . Ashton of Penket .
Sr John Holceoft.
John Ashton .
Lawrence Ireland .
Mr . Ashton of Penketh was probably the
John Aishton, father of Margaret, wife of
Robert Heywood, the poet, and who married
Ciceley, daughter of Gilbert Ashton .
(See
Corser's Notes to James's "Iter Lane-as,
tren!se .") Richard James mentions the family
in his "Iter" as follows
:"To Roman Nowell, Ashton of Penkith,
Ireland of Hale, to all my Heywoods, with
Brock, Holcroft, Holt, this journall poeme
sends
Greeting and faire observance ."
Mr . Corser's note on "Ashton of Penkith"
is :-
"Thomas Asheton of Penketh, son and heir
of Hamlet Asheton, of Blakebrook, by his wife
Christiana, eldest daughter and co-heiress of
John Asheton, of Peuketh, gent., which estate
her son Thomas inherited in her right .
He
21
k
a
married Catherine, daughter of Robert Brooke
of Upton, Cheshire, and was nephew of Robert
H,,3-wood, of Hey-wood, the elder, who had
married Margaret, the younger daughter and
co-heire€ts of John Asheton of Penketh, gent. .
The Manor or Lordship of Penketh is situated
in the parish of Prescot, and came into the
possession of the Ashetons by the marriage of
Richard Ashton with Margaret, sole daughter
and heiress of Riciarh Penketh, of Penketh ."
The Leyland Hundred contains 26 names,
which include the Heskeths, Banastres, Standishes, etc . The next is the Lonsdate Hundred with 28 names, one of whioh is George
Midleton .
However, the most interesting part of the
list 'is that relating to Salford Hundred, including, as it does, Heywood, Rochdale, Bury,
and LAiddleton .
The section is also the
largest, with 63 names . Three knights head
the list, viz . :Sr Edmund Trafford.
Sr John Radchffe .
Sr John Birron.
Then follow :
Mr . Ashton of Midleton .
Rauphe Barton .
Mr . S'geant Shuttieworth.
Rychard Holland .
Frauncs Holt .
Edmund Trafford.
Among the other names are :
Charles Holt .
Edmund Ashton .
Willm Hilton .
James Browne .
John Grynehaghe.
Edmund Hopwood.
Gilbt Sherington.
Mr . Radclyffe of Foxdenton .
John Bradshawe.
Edmund Heywood .
Richard Leyver.
Robert Holt .
Charles Rad'olyffe .
Edward Butterworth .
Cuthbert Soowfield .
22
Arthur Asht,on .
Ellis Ainsworth .
James Asht•o n.
Thomas Ctompton .
Rychard Radclyffe .
Thomas Chaderton.
Starkye .
Thomas Ainsworth .
Willm Bamforth.
John Radelyffe .
George Birohe .
George Proudlowe.
Hvmfrey Hoght-on .
George Holland .
Lawrence Robinson .
Nycholas Mossley .
It will be peen that all the names given
above belong to old and well-known families,
and for the purposes of a local column such
as this a few remarks on some of the local
names will suffice .
"Fraunes Holt" will be the Franci;y Holt of
Gristlehurst, who has been so frequently nentiened in these columns . The Halts were connected with the Heywoods, the Asshetons,
and other old families .
"John Grynehaghe" is probably John Greenhalgh of Brandlesome .
In the Manchester
Court Leet Records, at the court held October 2nd, 1576, the death of Thonas Greneha'lghe of Brandlsame is recorded, and his heir
is his son, John . [Mr . Harland says "Throughout the old MS . volumes of Court Lent records
are scattered entries of the deaths of the
tenants of the lord of the manor .
. also
stating who is the heir or next of kin of
such deceased tenant, and whether such heir
be under age or at full age, i .e ., 21 years ."]
At the Rochdale Manor Court held 37 Eliz .,
30th April [1595] John Greenalgh of Braardlsome, Es q ., along with Cuthbert Scolfild of
Scolfild (see below) is a plaintiff in a dispute
over land .
The name John Greenhalgh do
Brandlesome, armiger, appears in a list of
freeholders (Libere Tenentea) in the Hundred
of Salford in 1600 .
4
23
11
Edmund Hopwood, of course, is one of the
Hepwoods of Hopwood .
In the Rochdale
Parish Register he is mentioned as married
16th May, 1585, and at the Rochdale Court
Leet, 20th February, 1567, ffrancis Belfeld per
Roger Hasselton, his attorney, had a case
against Edmund Hopwood, armiger .
The Heywoods of Heywood are represented
by Edmund Heywood . He would appear to
b•a a younger son of James Heywood . A full
account of the Heywood family will shortly
be published in Notes and Queries, when further particulars will be given of Edmund and
Junes Heywood .
Y
i'
Robert Holt would probably be identical
with the Robert Holt of Ashworth, who is mentioned in the will of William Asbton of Clegg
Hall, dated 11th January, 1582 . In the Rochdale Parish Registers, under the heading
"Burialls" is March 6th, 1600, "Wilhn Assheten, esquire ." The will was proved 7th, October, 1602, "before Mr . Thomas Richardson,
Clarke, Deane of Manchester ." Testator
recites a deed of settlement made between
his father, Arthur Ashton, himself, and
brothers, Edmund and Charles, on the one
part, and Robert Holte of Ashworth and
Peter Heywood of Heywood, Gents ., on the
other part, and appointed his brothers, Edward and Charles Asihton, overseers and supervisors -of his will . Under the will of Arthur
Assheton, the father, dated 15th May, 33rd
Elliz ., and proved in 1593, testator "desires
his son Edward Assheton, Clarke, Rector of
Middleton, and my very deare friend, Robarte
Holte of Ashworth, gent ., and Robarte Holt,,
his sonn and heire app'ent, to bee overseers,
and I give either of them, 1 0s . i n gold . for a
remembrance of my good will ."
There appear to be two persons of the name
of Cuthbert Schofield about this time . T'ho
one mentioned is probably the individual
whose decease is recorded at Rochdale as
"Mr. Cuthbert Scolfelde," buried June,
1605 .
The baptisms of two illegitimate children of
the above are also registered at Rochdale as
24
1588, December 29,
b Alexander, filius Mr . Cudbenrde Scolfeld et Joney Langley .
1590, Julie 26 .
b Johis,
fil'ius
Chuthbeard Scolfelde,
gent ., and Joney Langley.
At the manor court, held at Rochdale, 37
Eliz ., 30 April [1595] there appeared John
Greenalgh of Brandlsome, E-o ., Edward Rostheame of Newall, Esq ., Cuthbert Scolfild of
Scoifi'ld, gentleman, John Chadwic'ke of Ellenroade, and James Belfeld,' plaintiffs', ; Edmund
Greave of Fernhill, defendant, respecting a
right of footway from Kitrboth-yate-end to
Bridhiil.
(See Fishwick's History of Roohdale .)
Colonel Fishwick also remarks that
Cuthbert Schofield seemed to have had a great
liking for law suits, and the History of Rochdale records many . He is described in a suit
ait the Duchy Court, respecting the occupation of Milnrow Church, as "being a very
ovill disposed"? person . He had a grant made
to him of a crest, 6 March, 1582 (see Palatine
Note Book .)
Willus Bamford de Bamford, gent ., was a
freeholder in the Hundred of Salford in loiO,
and will probably be the same individual as
"Willm Bamforth." He is also mentioned in
. of Edward Sidthe inquisition post-mortem
dall of Slade as William Bamforde, gent ., a
member of the jury . The date is September
23rd, 30 Elizabeth {1588] .
The two remaining Hundreds are those -of
Blackburne ana Amoundernecs .
Blackburne
contains 32 names, including
John Towneley.
Roger Nowell .
Rychard Ashton.
Mr . Shutlewovth of Gawthorpe .
Henry Towneley of Barneshyde .
My Ladye Hesketh .
Mr . Towneley of Royle .
The '1'owlne.eys would be members of the
Towneleyc of Burnley or some other branch of
that well-known family.
The Towneleys of
Rovle are said to he the ancestors of the
Richard Townley of Rochdale who, on the
lot
40,
25
decease of Alexander Butterworth of Belfield
Hall, Esq ., High Sheriff of Lancashire, in
1675, succeeded to the latter's estates .
The family of Nowell were mentioned in the
notes on James's "Iber Lancastrense" given
in this column some few months ago .
Amounderness, the last Hundred, has only
22 names, and none 4 much local interest .
Much information could be given of the
names in the foregoing list, and the writer
hopes that his slight treatment -of the subject may lead others to amplify his notes .
QUINCTTNX.
.,
frihag, iebruarp 15th, 1907 .
NOTES .
[255 .]
DATE OF THE ORIGINAL
HE,YWOOD CHARTER .
In Note 250 on "Gooden Lane" I ventured
to propose the seventh decade of the 13th century as the most probable date of the grant
by Adam of Bury to Peter of Heywood . As
I do not wish this to be taken as a mere excathedra statement I propose in this note to
give my reasons for coming to the above conclusion .
Of the early generations of the Heywood
family we seem to have little if any reliable
information . In the "Iter Lancastrense" the
Rev . Mr . James, with the generous flattery
of an intimate friend, assigns them a beginning
"About ye date
When second Harrie mighty was of state,"
-that is sometime between 1154 and 1189 .
The Rev. Thomas Corser, however, in his
notes (for the genealogical information contained wherein he probably relied entirely
on the Rev . Canon Raines) think, that Mr .
Hunter in his "Life of Oliver Heywood" is
probably more correct when he states that the
charter "cannot be referred to a period later
26
than the first fifteen years of Edward the
first''-(1272-1287 .)
It will be noted, of
course, that these two statements are not
mutually destructive-Peter of Heywood's ancestors may have been residing at Heywood
in the reign of Henry II ., although we have
no evidence of it : on the oi{her hand, Mr
Hunter does not say the charter may not
have been granted earlier than 1272 .
In the chart pedigree inserted in the "Iter
Lanoastrense" the first name is that of "Peter
de Heywood," said to be the grantee from
Adam of Bury, and to have died in 15 Ed .
(1286-7) . On what evidence the date is fixed
I do not know .
In an anonymous article entitled "Heywo •od
Hall," which appeared in the "Bury Times,"
May 20th, 1893, it is implicit that the grant
was made between 1272 and 1287 . The source
is evidently the same as that of Mr . Corser's
rote .
Again, in the "Heywood News" on successive dates in January, 1894, there appeared
an anonymous series of articles entitled "The
Earliest Records of Heywood and the Heywcod Family." Here we have the first fifteen
years of Edward I . again cited, this time on
the direct authority of Canon Raines without
reference either to Mr . Oorser or Mr. Hunter .
Some fresh speculation in the matter is here
introduced, however, as we read that "To a
paper read not long since before the Lancashire and Cheshire Antiquarian Society, Mr .
Nathan Heywood appended a pedigree in
which he gives 1164, ten years after Henry
II . ascended the throne, and scarcely a hundred years after the conquest, as the date of
the grant to Peter de Heywood ."
Here wG
hark back to
"Ye date,
When second Harrie mighty was of state,"
we have a definite date this time, it is true,
but again we have no evidence to support it .
But is it impossible to get at some idea of
the period at which the charter was given,
from internal evidence? I do not think so .
It is usual in dealing with undated charters
M
27
'.r
to find, if possible, among the witnesses, who
were generally numerous, some two or three
of whose contemporary existence there is
some indisputable evidence, and so fix the
date within the period at which these were
contemporary . In the case of the Heywood
charter this seems to me comparatively easy,
for the very first two witnesses are territorial
magnates who have left definite records ~of
their existence both in dated charters and in
dated legal processes in connection with their
tenures : Sir Geoffrey of Chetham and Alexander of Pilkington-uncle and nephew. It
is impossible to identify prima facie the
Adam of Bury and Roger of Midleton named
in the charter, as an Adam and a Roger held
these estates -respectiveiv both at the beginring and towards the end of the 13th century : the same remark applies to Alexander
of Pilkington . We have no record of more
than one Sir Geoffrey of Chetham, however,
so he must be our fixed point .
In the great Inquest of Service taken in
the reign of King John (1212) we find that
Chetham was held by Roger of Midleton, of
the King, and that Henry of Chetham was his
sub-tenant.
("Lancashire Inquests, Extents,
and Feudal Aids, 12!15-1307," p . 66 ., Lancashire and Cheshire Record Society, vol. xlviii .)
Henry's successor in Chethaan was Geoffrey
(presumably his son and heir) whose tenure
began some time about 1235, and lasted nearly
Contemporary with Henry of
forty years .
Chetham was an Alexander of Pilkington,
whose name also occurs in the great Inquest
of 1212 . He was probably the son of a previcus Alexander of Pilkington (temp . Henry
II. .), who must have been deemed by Mr .
Nathan Heywood to be the witness of the
Heywood Charter when he fixed the date
thereof as 1161 . To the Alexander of Pillcinb
ton of 1212 succeeded Roger, who appears as
tenant in 1245 when the inquest known as the
"Scutage of Gascony" was taken . (Lancashire
Inquests, etc ., p . 154) .
He married Ellen,
sister of Sir Geoffrey of Chetham, by which
marriage "the manors of Chetham and Crompton descended to his son, Alexander de Pil-
28
kington, after the death of Sir Geoffrey
shortly after 1271 ." (William Farrer, note p .
35, et seq, "Final concords of the County A
Lancaster" [1307-1377], Lancashire and Cheshire Record Society, vol . xlvi .) This Alexander of Pilkington is found as witness of
various charters between 1260 and 1280, and`
was dead before 1292, as in that year his son
Roger proved his claim to the lands . There
can be no doubt, I think, that this is the
Alexander of Pilkington who witnessed the
Heywood Charter, and not the Alexander of
Henry the Second's reign . We have thus two
important date, 1260, after which Alexander
of Pilkington's name begins to appear on
dated charters, and 1271, "shortly after"
which he succeeded his uncle, Sir Geoffrey, in
the Chetham Estates . In that decade, therefore, I say, should probably be placed any
document attested by both these personages .
Heywood, February, 1907 .
THOMAS HUNT .
,9friba , Iebrunrg 22nb, 1907.
NOTES .
[256 .] EARLY MENTION OF HEP .
A 13TH CENTURY CHARTER.
The earliest mention I have found of the
township known in modern times as Heap
occurs in one of the Lansdowne Manuscripts
(British Museum,, 485 f . 49 .) It is in Latin,
and a rough translation is appended :To all the children of Holy Mother Church,
be it known and made manifest that I, Adam
de Biry, have given, conceded, and by this
present charter have confirmed to God and St .
Mary Magdalene of Bretton and to the monks
serving there -and to the work of her church,
one piece of land in Hop which is called
Lummehalenges, divided as follows :-Tat is
to say, from the rivulet which falls into Blackwell, through the centre of the moss as far as
Meresache -as the land divides itself as far
as Guledene, and from Guledene to the water
of the Rached, together with all rights per-
,of
s.
29
taming thereto in wood, in plain, in meadows,
in pastures, and in waters, and with all
common rights of communication, with their
livestock with the same ville, wheresoever the
livestock of my men communicate with the
same ville of Hep .
This gift and confirmation I have made to
the aforesaid monks, and to whoever they
may assign them, for the health of my soul
-and that of my wife, and for the souls of my
father and mother and of my ancestors and
my heirs, in free and perpetual gift, holding
of me and my heirs, freely, quietly, and freed
from all lay interference, as a free gift .
These being witnesses,
- NIONTBEGON .
ROGER DE I
61
-r
1
r
WILLIAM, THE SON OF
GILBERT DE NOTTON .
ADAM .
"Guledene," I take it, is now represented
by "Gooden" or "Goolden," and "Rached" by
"Roach" or "Roche ."
Perhaps, some reader
of Notes and Queries can throw light oon the
several place-names that occur in the document.
"Adam do Biry" (Bury) held a considerable
portion of land in this district, -under Roger
do Montbegon, who had large estates in the
Hundred of Salford ; and the said Adam
claimed descent from Roger's sister Alice,
wife cf Esward, or Efward, de Bury . Roger
was the son of Adam de Montbegon, "a military tenant of the Honour of Lancaster, in
the counties of Lincoln, Lancaster, and Suff-; ;lk," whose wife, Matilda, was a younger
daughter of Adam fitz Swain, founder of
Monk Bretton Priory, near Barnsley, Yorkshire . The ruins of this Priory-about two
miles eastward of Barnsley-are well worth
Roger do Montbegon held eight
seeing .
knight's fees in the Honour of Lancaster,
and was a great friend of the Priory founded
by his maternal grandfather .
He made an
extensive grant of lands in the Holeombe and
Tottington districts to the Priory.
He :s
said to have been "a stout adherent to the
cause of his chief lord, John, Count of '_Vlortain, for whom he defended Not'ingnam
Castle against the forces acting on behalf of
King Richard in 1194 ." He died in March,
30
1226, leaving no issue . One of the other witnesses to the charter relating to Adam de
Bury's grant of lana in Heap to Monk Bretton Priory appears to be identical with the
Gilbert de Notton, or Nocton, who was the
second husband of Edith do Barton (his
second wife), and held various estates in Lancashire, chiefly in Roger de Montbe,on's fee
of Tottington, a manor of considerable extent.
In his "Court Rolls of the Honor of
Clitheroe," Mr . W . Farrer shoivs that the
Honor of Olitheroe was than part of the great,
Lancashire fief of the family of De Lacy
which lay around the town and castle of
Clitheroe, originally embraoing the Hundred
of Blackburn alone, but afterwards including
Bowland and the Manors of Slaidburn, Tot,
tington, and Bury .
Within that, Honour
fourteen Civil Courts formerly existed, one
of them "the Haimote of the Manor of Tot,
tington, held at Holcombe, and a Court Loot
for the Fey of Tottington," at which last the
following owed suit and service in the year
1526 :-Edward, Earl of Derby, as hereditary
judge of Bury ; Richard Aasheton of Middleton, as hereditary judge of Middleton ; Edward Assheton of Great Lever, as hereditary
judge of Chadderton and Foxdenton ; and
Robert Longley of Agecroft, as hereditary
judge of Alkrington, together with the constables of those townships .
ANSWERS .
LECTOR .
[257 .] PETER HEYWOOD, Gent .
(Reply to Query No . 164 .)
With reference to the Peter Heywood re,
ferred to by "A .P .W .," possibly he is the
gentleman who wrote to George Rigby, at
Lancaster, August 24th, 1636, as follows :"If there be any mention at the Board of
Justices' wages, do me the favour to inform
them that, not ten days since, I received the
first extract of fines imposed since our grant
began . I find the sums so small that, were
they wholly gathered, the money will not
amount to wages for the justices, nor for the
4
<I
31
meaner men, the collectors . (Page 54, Fourteenth Report, appendix, part iv ., Historical
Manuscripts Commission .)
Bolton.
S. PARTINGTON .
QUERIES .
ti
0
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[258 .] ORIGIN OF "CAPTAIN FOLD ."
What is the origin of the local place-name
"Captain Fold?"
I have never seen it
noticed in print . The "Captain Fold" (Hew
wood) is, in the "Rochdale Parish Church
Registers," often spoken of as "Captain Hardman's Fold ."
H .B .
Wigan .
[259 .] LECTURER AT HI:YWOOD.
In their recent book, "English Local Government from the Revolution to the Municipal Corporations Act .-The Parish and the
County," Mr . and Mrs . Sidney Webb,
enumerating the servants of the parish,
speak of "the Lecturer
or Afternoon
whom
the
seventeenth
and
Preacher
eighteenth century Vestries in metropolitan
parishes delighted to appoint in order to
supplement-it may sometimes have been to
counteract--the ministrations of the Incumbent over whose appointment the inhabitants
had, as a rule, no control ."
I once before
drew attention in these columns to the occurrence in the list of those who paid the "First
Loan of the Clergy of the Diocese of Chester"
in 1620 the name
I'Lect . at Heywood, Mr . Buckley, £1 Os . Od ."
Mention is also made of Lecturers at
Middleton and at Birch . Was this lecturer
identical with the "Afternoon Preacher" of
Mr . and Mrs . Webb, or was it sane other
QUINCUNX .
office ?
[260 .] BY-ROAD BETWEEN HEYWOOD
A--\- D MIDDLETON .
At No . 228 your contributor, "Quincunx,"
continues his very useful notes on James's
"Iter Lancastrense," and refers to an old byroad from Heywood Hall to Middleton .
What direction would this old road take, and
can anyone say whether it is shown on any
LEMUEL .
old map or not?
32
,*shag,
arrih 1st, 1907.
NOTES .
[261 .] - JAMES LANCASHIRE OF
LANGLEY .
(See Notes 225 and 237.)
In his `History of the Parish of Rochdale,"
Colonel. Fishwick, referring to "Marled
Earth," in Wardle, states that near the close
,of the seventeenth century the estate was
sold 'by James Holt of Castleton Hall to
James Lancashire of Langley, ehapman-no
doubt the same James Lancashire who by his
will, dated July 30th, 1737, made certain
charitable bequests to Hopwood, Heywood,
Vnsworih, and Walmerslev, as detailed in a
previous Note . Colonel Fishwick, who gives
the date of the will as July 20th, says that
the said James Lancashire deft the Wardle
portion alf his estates to his nephew, James
Lancashire of Heaton, son of his late brother
Josiah ; who, in his turn, in 1756, left the
rent arising out of it to his wife, in satisfaction of her dower, with remainder to his
son, James Lancashire, then a minor .
The last-named will be identical with the
James Lancashire, whose gravestone, in 'St .
John's churchyard, Bury, is inscribed as
follows
Here resteth the body -of James Lancashire
o° Whitewall, gentleman, who departed this
life January 22nd . 1815, aged 67 ream . AI's)
Rachel, his wife, who departed this life
January 23rd, 1829, aged 82 years .
Also of Betty Jackson, daughter of John
sand Margaret Jackson, and granddaughter of
the above, who departed this life May 8th,
1854, aged 60 years.
An adjoining gravestone is inscribed :In remembrance of Robert, son of John and
Margaret Jackson of Whitewall, who, died
April 6th, 1835, in his 40th year . Also Joseph .
their son, died February 26th, 1843, aged 41 .
Also John, their son, died October 22nd, 1846,
aged 54.
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Also of Margaret, wife of the above-name
John Jackson of Whitewall, died July 11th,
1850, aged 80 years.
The "messuage and tenement with the appurtenances, called White Wall, situate in
Walmereley," were left (in addition -to the
Wardle property) by James Lancashire of
Langley to his nephew, James of Heaton,
whose son I assume to be identical with the
James Lancashire of Whitewall, who died, as
shown above, in 1815 .
Whitewall Farm is
situated scone 'three hundred yards down a
lane from the highway between Baldingstone
and Nangreaves (in olden time the road on
which the coaches ran from Manchester to
Haslingden, etc .), at a corner of which lane
there stood until ten or a dozen years ago a
house or small farm tenement known by the
curious name of "Doldrums." The doorhead
stone of the shippoa at Whitewall is inscribed : L
J : M
1748.
The same initials, with the date 1747, appear
on the gable-end of the substantial house at
Imngcroft, on the south side of the road
between Baldingstone and the lane leading to
Whitewall.
The initials may be taken as
relating to James Lancashire and his wifethe James, son of Josiah, to whom James
Lancashire of Langley devised his Walmersley property . In Baldingstone, a few hundre,d yards from Whitewall, stood one of the
schools to which the last-named James Langlely mace a bequest, of which school nothing
remains except a stone, inscribed "1716,"
built into the wall of premises which occupy
the same site .
The James Lancashire to
whom he devised the property, will be identical with either the "James Lancashire of
Little Heaton, gentleman," whose will was
proved in 1757, or the "James Lancashire of
Little Heaton, in Prestwich, yeoman," whose
will was proved in 1759. From a gravestone
inscription given above, it will be seen that.
the James Lancashire (grandson of Josiah,
VOL. 3 .-Part 27.
34
brother of James of Langley), who died at
Whitewall in 1815, had a granddaughter,
Margaret, who married John Jackson, sometime of Whitewall . Probably John Jackson
was a descendant of James Jackson, whose
wife, Mary, was a sister -of James Lancashire
of Langley, and received £400 under his will .
James Lancashire, the benefactor, had
several brothers, including Josiah, Joseph,
Jonah, Joshua, and John, four of whom had
To
among them twelve or thirteen sons .
one of these nephews, John, son of Joseph,
be left a "m,essuage and tenement, with the
appurtenances, called Little Bridge, within
the parish of Bury." Little Bridge was the
name given to some property on the south
side of Rochdale Road, opposite the Seven
Stars Inn, a few hundred yards on the Bury
side of Heap Bridge; and James's brother
Jonah (sometimes called Jonas) was living
there in 1696, his daughter Alice being born
at Little Bridge on November 1st in that
Afterwards Jonah Lancashire resided
year .
at. Siddall, Hopwo~od, where most of his children were born . His wife, Susan, died at
Siddall in April, 1723, and be died at the
same place in September, 1727 . His brother
Josiah is described as of Middleton parish in
1706, of Hebers in 1713, and of Bowlee in
1716 ; and he may be identical with the
Josiah Lancashire, felt maker, of Salford,
who died about 1721 . His son Jeffrey, born
at'Siddall in July, 1710, died at Bowlee about
1778 .
Jeffreys cousin Joseph, a yeoman,
son of Jasia+h Lancashire, died at Little
Heaton about 176 .3 ; it was another cousin,
if not brother, James Lancashire, yeoman, of
Stock Road, within Hundersfield, who died
about 1775 ; and Jeffrey's brother James, a
weaver, died at Little Heaton about 1777 .
The benefactor's brother Joshua died at
Alkrington about 1731 .
Perhaps another
brother was Daniel Lancashire of Hopwood,
who died in the first week of January, 1728 .
The 'benefactor's brother Joseph was a butcher or "slaughterer," in Middleton, and died
about 1752 .
e
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F
I
Reverting to the Rochdale district associa+ions of members of the Lancashire family,
I find it stated in Colonel Fis'hwick's "His,
tory" that "In 1717 James Lancashire of
Wardle leased Marled Earth and about 24
acres of land in Wardle, for 999 years, to
Robert and John Royds, clothmakers, sons
of John Roods of Wardle ." Mention is also
made of Josiah Lancashire, a bookseller, who
had his shop near The Butts, and whose diary
contains a short, account of the Volunteer
Corps raised in 1794 .
Shortly before her
death, in 1804, Alice Schofield disposed of
the bookselling business which had been car
ried on by her father, John, as successor to
his father, Robert, to Mary Scholfield Lancashire, described by Colonel Fishwick as "the
granddaughter of Josiah Lancashire of Salford, who (lied 24th December, 1741 .
He
married, at Manchester, Ann, the daughter of
--- Schofield, who was doubtless in some
way related to the Rochdale family .
Josiah
Lancashire, brother of Mary Scholfield Lancashire, was the father of Josiah Scholfield
Lancashire of Rochdale, who died in 1850 ."
Touching a reference in the preceding Note
to John Starky (one of the witnesses to James
Lancashire's will), a valued correspondent
writes : John Starky, attorney, was born in 1675, and
died in 1749 .
I believe he married a Miss
Mary Stead, then Mary Hindley, widow .
Their eldest son, John, was born in 1715-6,
and died 11th March, 1780 . He married
Esther Whalley . Their eon James (the grand
son of John Starky) married Elizabeth GreggeHopwood, and died without issue on the 17th
November, 1846 .
The witness to James Lancashire's will
would, I believe, 'be John Starky the elder,
and he would be living at Heywood Hall at
that time, or rather soon afterwards, for it is
not until the 20th January, 1741, I find any
description of him as "of Heywood ." It is,
however, possible that John Starky, the son,
was living at Heywood in 1737, during the
lifetime of his father . The Oxford University
Register gives the names of Samuel Starky as
matriculating on 2nd May, 1743, at Brazennose College ; James iStarky at Magdalen, 24th
36
October, 1778 ; besides Joseph S-tarky (eon of
Joseph Starky, a son of John the elder) in
1785.
Samuel Starky (born March 6th, 1722) was,
I believe, the youngest son of the aforementioned John Starky the elder . Jamesnephew of Samuel and first cousin of Joseph
(son of Joseph)-was born on September 8th,
1760 ; married Elizabeth tegge-Hopwool
(born November 1st, 1767 on September ' rd,
1785 ; was High Sheriff of Lancashire in 1791,
when he was living at Heywood ; and died
in his 87th year . His cousin Joseph (born
February 2nd, 1767, died July 8th, 1803) was
sometime a captain in the 16th Light
Dragoons, and sold out in 1796 ; on October
23rd, 1796,
he married Mary Fickford,
daughter of Joseph (Fickford) Radctiffe of
Royton, Lancashire, and Milnsbridge, Yorkshire, and in 1799 he was High Sheriff of
Lancashire . Joseph's father, Joseph Starky,
M.D. (born August 15th, 1719), was twice
married . Through his first wife, Jane Hampson, he became, possessed of property at Redvales, Bury, where 'he went to live, but there
was no issue of the marriage .
His second
wife, Elizabeth, was a daughter of John
Stoko, a naval officer, whose wife was Janet,
daughter of John Sudell, merchant, of Blackburn .
Another daughter (Alice) of John
Sudell married Joseph Hankinson of Kirkham, whose daughter Margaret married Hrgh
Hornby of Kirkham-father of the Rev. Hugh
Horniby, vicar of St . Michael's-on-Wyre, who
married Ann Starky, a daughter of Dr .
Joseph S'tarky, then of Redvales, Bury . Dr .
married
Starky's other aaughter,
Mary,
William Langton of Kirkham, whose brother
Thomas married a daughter (Ellen) of the
Rev. William Currer, vicar of Clapham,
Yorkshire, by his wife Ann Stoko, sister of
Dr . Starky's second wife . Another daughter
(Jane) of John Sudell married John Whalley
of Blackburn-of the same family, I assume,
as the Esther Whalley, who married John,
the eldest son of John Starky of Heywood
Hall .
One of John Sudell's sons, Thomas,
married Dorothy, daughter of Richard Kay,
S
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of Woodhill, Elton, Bury, and niece of the
Rev . Roger Kay, re-founder of Bury Grammar School .
In St . Luke's Church, Heywood, there are
tablets to the memory of some members of
the Starky family.
LECTOR .
.]
MAGISTERIAL
DIVISION
OF
[262
MIDDLETON .
Under Note No . 174 I notice that Sam
Bamford, the Radical, is quoted as having
said : "Heywood is a large and modern village in the township of Heap, the parish of
Bury, the magisterial division of Middleton ."
At
No. 178
Butterworth
:"rieywood
is aEdwin
town in
the townshipstates
of Heap,
the parish and manor of Bury, the magisterial
division of Bolton-le-Moors," etc . Butterworth is right and Bamford wrong .
I take the following from Baines's Lancashire (Harland's edition, 1868) :-"The Hundred of Salford consists of ten entire parishes
and parts of two others ; comprehending one
hundred and thirteen townships, which are
formed for parochial and police purposes, into
three divisions . Bolton division : Bolton
Parish (18 townships) ; Bury Parish, including Heap (Heywood), Dean Parish, Radcliffe
Parish, and Wigan Parish . The Middleton
Division consisted of Middleton Parish, viz .,
Ainsworth, Ashworth, Birtle-with-Bamford,
Hopwood, Great Lever, Middleton, Pilsworth,
and Thornham ; and Ashton-under-Lyne,
Prestwich-cum-Oldham, and Rochdale
Parishes . The third was the Manchester
Division .
Bolton .
S . PARTINGTON .
QUERIES.
[263 .] HEYWOOD CHARIIIFIS .
Will someone kindly give me a list of the
Hevwood charities with details of their
amounts, and how they are now administered? About 1899 there was a Charity Corm .
nlissioners' enquiry at Middleton . Did this
38
enquiry include Heywood in any way?
It
would be a good thin- W have the history
of these charities recorded.
[264 .]
ANTIqUARI.
VIEWS OF OLD ST . LUKE'S
CHAPEL .
During the recent Ernest Fitton exhibition
several drawings of the Old Chapel were
shown . These early studies of Mr . Fitton
would, no doubt, 'be copied from originals
in the possession of members of St . Luke's
congregation . The examples referred to included a view of a rather tumble-down structure, and another view a fairly respectable
building with the corners repaired and
pointed . An engraving of the first was given
in the supplement of the Jubilee number of
the "Heywood Advertiser," and will be fairly
well known, but I should be glad to know
who painted or photographed these early
views, and which would be the correct view
of the old building taken down in 1859?
There must be many old Heywoodites who
can decide these questions .
HIND HILL.
,j)friha ,
irrh 8th, 1907.
NOTES .
[265 .] HEYWOOD HALL .
Nothing is really known of the first Heywood Hall . It is certain that there would
be an ancestral home of the important
family of the Heywoods, and we are told that
Robert Heywood "the poet" rebuilt HeywA,)od""
Hall in 1611 . From this it may be presumed
that the old hall was in pre Jacobean style,
and the additions made to bring it more comfortable and modern than the halls erected
previous to Elizabeth's time .
It has even now a pleasant situation, but
in the old times, with no mill chimneys defiling the air with their black smoke, no
dirty river running by, it must have almost
t
4
39
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I
1
warranted the fanciful and poetic
description of "Christ's croft," given it by
the poet, Richard James, in his "Iter
Lancastrense ."
"Its grounds extended to
the Roach, where the Queen's Park now
is, and backed by the wooded slope rising
from Hooley Clough on the Bamford side of
the river up to where is now built Plumpton
[then] the residence of [the late] Mr . J . Porritt, it must have been eminently appropriate
[Article
as the residence of a gentleman ."
on Heywood Hall in the "Bury Times," flay,
1893 .]
But to return to surer ground . The Heywood family sold the Heywood estate in 1717
The Starkies
to John Starky of Rochdale .
lived at the shall for over a century . It is
thought probable that the old building was
again
partly rebuilt or
remodelled
by
John Starky . The present building, however, is not the hall of the Starkies, and
except an old gable and several outbuildings
the hall has been built during the last een
tury .
The last of the Starkies to live at the hall
was James Starky, who was High Sheriff of
Lancashire in 1791 .
Mr . James Fenton
afterwards lived in the house . "He had it
on a seven years' lease," says the anonymous
article quoted above, "but only lived there
Then the hall was
two or three years ."
bought by Mr . W . Holland, ironmonger, of
Since
Market-street, Heywood, for £203 .
this the house has been the residence of
various families.
In his notes to the "Iter" of James, the
Rev. Thomas Corser, M .A ., described the hall
as follows :-
"It is situated about half-a-mile to the north
east ~of the populous village of the same name .
It is beautifully embosomed in wood, consisting of lofty beech, oak, chestnut, and other
trees, on a rising elevation above the valley
of the river Roach, which flows not far from
the grounds .
The house, which is partly
covered with ivy, has been entirely modernised ; so that with the exception of an old
gable, and some portion of the offices, little
remains of the more ancient edifice ."
40
In the article in Edwin Waugh's "Lancashire
Sketches" on "Heywood and its Neighbourhood" there is an interesting and picturesque
The article
description of Heywood Hall .
was written about 1855 .
"On arriving at the entrance which leads
to Heywood Hall," says Waugh, " we
turned in between the grey gate pillars . They
had a lone and disconsolate appearance . The
crest of the Starkies is gone from the top,
and the dismantled shafts look conscious of
their shattered fortunes . The wooden gate
-now rieketty and rotten-swung to and fro
with a grating sound upon its rusty hinges,
as we walked up the avenue of tall trees
towards the hall .
'ho old wood was a
glorious sight, with the sunshine stealing
through its fretted roof of many-patterned
foliage, in freakish threads and bars, which
played beautifully among the leaves, weaving
a constant interchange of green and gold
within that pleasant shade, as the plumage
of the wood moved with the wind .
The
scene reminded me of a passage in Spenser's
`Faery Queene' :And all within were paths and alleles wide,
With footing worne and leading inward farre :
Faire harbour that them seems : so in they
entred ar.
"We went on under the trees, along the old
carriage road, now tinged with creeping
green, and past the old garden, with its low
be-mossed wall ; and after sauntering to and
from among a labyrinth of footpaths we came
at last to the front of the hall . It stands
tenantless and silent in the midst of its ancestral woods, upon the brow of a green
eminence overlooking a little valley watered
by the Roch . The landscape was shut out
from us by the surrounding trees ; and the
place was as still as a hermitage in the heart
of an old forest. The tread of our feet upon
the flagged terrace in front of the mansion
resounded upon the ear . We peeped through
the windows, where the rooms were all
empty ; but the state of the walls and floors,
and the remaining mirrors, showed that some
4
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1
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I
y
care was still bestowed upon this deserted
hall . Ivy hung thickly upon some parts of
the straggling edifice, which has evidently
been built at different periods, though as far
as I could judge the principal part of it apreared to be about two hundred years old .
When manufacture began greatly to change
the appearance of the neighbouring village
and its surrounding scenery, the Starkies
left the place ; one a wooded mound, in front
of the hall, was thrown up and planted, by
order of the widow of the last Starkie who
resided here, in order to shut from sight the
tall chimneys which were beginning in the
distance . A large household must have been
kept here in the days of the Starkies ."
In the foregoing remarks I have not
touched at all on the family of the Heywoods, leaving that for further discussion in
theso columns .
QUINCUNX.
ANSWERS.
[266 .] HEYWOOD PETTY SESSIONS .
(Reply to Query No. 247 .)
There is undoubted proof in the Little
Bolton township records that petty sessions
were habitually held at Hevwood in the
middle of the eighteenth century .
The
accounts of the overseers of the poor were
found "to be just and true" by the parish
meeting, and subsequently were taken to the
Hevwood court Kind there ratified by the
acting magistrates, Sir Ra . Assheton of
Middleton Hall and a Mr . Hamer . Sir Ralph
was one of the approving justices of the
Little Bolton accounts a year cr two later .
Under the year 1754 : "Going to Heywood
to return new overseers, 2s . ; paid for order
I am informed that the sessions
6s .-8 .s ."
system is wrapped in considerable mystery .
H•.;ywood is not mentioned, I am told, as a
court place in 1620 in the Lancashire and
Oheshire Record Society's publications . Petty
sessions used to be held anywhere, e .g., in a
room at a justice's house .
That was the
42
lowest grade . The next grade was a special
session,, for which two were needed . Assemr
blies of magistrates for county business were
probably the same as the general sessions of
modern times, and they were adjourned from
time to time at the pleasure of the justices .
I think it extremely probable that these early
Heywood petty sessions were held at Hey
wood Hall .
Bolton .
S . PARTINGTON.
[267 .] OLD PLACE-NAMES IN HEAP .
(Reply to part of Note No . 256 .)
With regard to the place-names in the
early 13th century charter in which "Hep" is
mentioned, I think it will be found that
"Lummehalenges" is Lomax . Meresache and
Blackwell Lane have apparently disappeared .
Rochdale .
R. H.
Afriba ,
[268 .]
arch 15th, 1007.
NOTES .
"MR . JONATHAN SCOILEFIELD,
MINISTER OF HEYWOOD .
In the Commonwealth Survey of Heywood
Chapel in 1650 (printed at Note No . 32) there
is : --
"Towards the mainteynoe o& the Minister (Mr . Jonathan Scolefield is Minister
there, and is orthodox, well qualified for
lyffe and conversacon .)"
This Mr . Scholfield is often mentioned in the
minutes of the Bury classic . A short notice
of him occurs in Colonel Fishwick's "History
of the Parish of Rochdale" under the heading
Littleb-orough Church .
"Mr . Scolefeld, clerk of Littleborough, had
a license issued to him 23rd December, 1636,
t,) marry John Halliwell of Pyke House and
Elizabeth Belfield, widow .
[Bishops Reg.
Chester]
This was in all probability the
Jonathan Scolefeld who was at Heywood in
1648 and appointed to Whalley 12th Septem,
her, 1653 . [State Papers, Dom . Sen ., 1653 .
I
i
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43
Parl . Survey, 1650 .
Walker's Sufferings of
the Clergy, p . 41 .]
He signed "The Harmonious Consent" in 1648 and "The Agreement of the People" in 1649, in both cases
as minister of Heywood . He was afterwards
at Douglas Chapel in the parish of Eccleston,
whence he was ejected in 1662 . He died in
1667, aged 70 ."
QUINCUNX.
[269.] LOCAL FOLK-LORE.
(See under Notes Nos . 191 and 199 .)
To find the lost body of Nancy Wood,
drowned at Crimble (1846), it was told to
me that a loaf of bread way thrown in the
water at the spot where it was supposed she
fell in, and the loaf followed until she was
found.
Whether true or not I cannot say .
T. K.
ik
ANSWERS.
[270 .]
r
THOMAS JACKSON, Junior .
(Reply to Query No . 248.)
The following notes on Thomas Jackson,
junior, may not fully satisfy "Gnat Bank,"
but they are offered in the hope that some
Bamfordian will supplement them .
Thomas Jackson was the eldest son of the
Rev . Thomas Jackson who, as briefly stated
by "Gnat Bank," was "the highly respected
minister at Bamford Chapel for nearly twenty
years ."
He, was not a native of Bamford,
and very little is known of him . The best
account is given in a letter written by the
late Sir James Kay-Shuttleworth, and quoted
by the Rev . W . M . Arthur in his "Bamford
Chapel : its origin and history," 1901, pp .
21 27 :-"Among the most prominent of my
remembrances is my association with Thomas
Jackson .
He was the son of the minister
and my most active assistant . He was then
a youth learning his trade as a shoemaker .
He was crippled in the foot and leg and of
by no means a robust constitution ; but he
had a wiry vigour of frame, singular activity
44
and energy, and considerable mental power,
but only a very humble elementary education .
He had then much quaint humour, was prone
to be arch and sarcastic, and was full o&
practical jokes .
Beneath this surface there
was a depth and earnestness of purpose and a
sincere and fervent piety which directed his
whole after life . He taught in the Sunday
school very regularly and with great energy .
He was the leader of the choir in the chapel,
where he played the violin . He was most
enthusiastic in organising choral meetings,
for which he obtained the scores of oratorios
and anthems, and with an unwearied energy
superintended the rehearsah;-both instrumental and vocal-before the final display .
At, last, after great exertions at meetings for
practice, held during most nights of every
week, for two or three months, the whole
neighbourhood was assembled, all the nerformers were placed on a platform in the
chapel, Thomas Jackson led with his violin,
and there was a burst of instrumental and
vocal music which astonished the audience .
I was then at work on chemistry and magnetism, and the worthy minister allowed me
to establish my laboratory in a part of his
house .
His son, Thomas Jackson, greatly
assisted me in the construction of apparatus
and in experiments, and I conceive it was he
that proposed that I should give to the
Sunday scholars and their parents a public
demonstration of the remarkable changes in
volume, form, and colour which attend such
operations .
This, in my young and inexperienced hands, resulted in my suddenly
driving my whole audience from the school
in tumult and confusion by filling the room
with an irritating and noxious gas .
Occasionally I took the most active and
advanced scholars a long excursion on foot .
I remember that once we climbed Knowl Hill
and descended Baldingstone and Brooksbottoms . I recall that on our return, as a
last feat we climbed the steep scar in Bamford Wood . I mention this just to show you
with what strange energy of will Thomas
14
I
45
I
a
Jackson could compel his crippled and wiry
frame to do him service, for he was my foremost companion in this excursion .
I had
climbed the scar expecting to throw off
almost all my party, but when I reached an
old withered oak which overhung the top, I
I revive the
found Thomas close to me .
recoffection also to recommend such excursions to you.
I hope there are as many florists among
you as there were in the old congregation
of handloom weavers who gathered from the
cottages between Bagslate, Ashworth, and
Birtle. The minister was himself, perhaps,
the most skilful florist, and Thomas learned
the art from his father, and through life took
daily pleasure in the garden attached to his
cottage .
Whenever I have visited him I
have found it full of choice flowers, reared
with the greatest skill . I do not remember
that there were any flower shows nearer than
Rochdale.
Thomas Jackson, in after years, while he
supported his family by working as a shoemaker, became a devoted missionary among
the solitary hamlets and remote villages of
our Lancashire and -Yorkshire highlands .
I have often heard him preach . His discourses were carefully prepared.
They were,
characterised by much of the quaintness of
the old divines, and deeply tinctured by a
severe form of Calvinistic theology . But his
imagination prevented his style from becoming harsh, and the geniality of his disposition
gave a winning sweetness to his manner, so
that the sternest doctrines of his creed were
not repulsive from his lips .
I visited him
from time to time to imbibe somewhat of tha
spirit of his earnest life, and give him some
slight proof of my sympathy in his labours .
Thus I came to know that Thomas visited
many outlying congregations of weavers,
miners, and labourers, on the borders of
Derbyshire and Cheshire, and along the
Blackstone Edge range of hills . He walked
great distances to places remote from any
public conveyance . He commonly lodged on
46
the Saturday and Sunday nights in the cottage of the deacon or other prominent member of the little congregation ; and conducted
the worship on the Sunday either in some
small chapel or in a cottage . There must be
in many secluded places a lively rememe
brance of the earnest, unwearied
;'
man, who
spent his life in such humble but faithful
imitation of Christ . I have a heartfelt pleasure in holding up to you the example of
this noble-hearted good man-in pointing to
his simple, cheerful, pure life ; to his
struggle with natural infirmity of body, and
his triumph over it, and to his self-sacrificing
labours under the influence of fervent religious zeal.
At last he had to suffer under grievous
chronic disease, which slowly wasted his
But
strength until his life flickered out .
his hope rose as h ~, vital force failed, and he
died stroirg iii faith and full of charity ."
The foregoing sketch is a very interesting
specimen of the writing of Sir James K .
Shuttloworth ; it is full of good points and
conveys almost all we want to know of
Thomas Jackson .
A pamphlet was issued about 1860 with the
following title :Meditations, in a season of affliction, and
By Thomas
in the prospect of dissolution .
Jackson, Banmford . [Quotations .] Heywood :
printed by G . H . Kent, 26, York-street . [No
date.] 8vo . pp . 32 .
In the opening pages the author relates
several incidents in his life, from which we
gather that he was married in 1829 ; in September, 1832, he made his first attempt at
preaching ; and in September, 1859, be spoke
his last discourse at Heywood, it being a
funeral sermon .
Further information is still needed as to
the date of death and where Thomas Jackson
was buried . He left two children, one of
whom enjoyed more than local celebrity .
Rachel Jackson resided at a small cottage
called "Spring Hill," near to Bamford Chapel .
She was a great sufferer for many years, and
4
4
i
47
her experiences form the subject of one of
John Ashworth's "Strange Tales," entitled
"Trials ."
Another pamphlet was published
on her death : a sermon preacheu in the Bamford Independent Chapel, on Sunday, October
11th:, 1869, by the Rev . Robert Ashcroft .
George Jackson (Rachel's brother) published
"Twenty hymns, tunes, and chants," in '1868 .
He was at one time a bank manager for
Messrs . J . and J . Fenton and Sons, in Yorkstreet, Heywood, and was afterwards engaged
in the cotton manufacturing business . Information of his later career is lacking .
J. A.
Iribap,
[271 .]
7
fflardt 220,
NOTES.
GEEEN .
1907.
BAMFORDS OF BAMFORD .
(Reply to Query No . 12 .)
I have just gleaned a few facts bearing on
this early inquiry . The inquirer quoted from
the Rev . Oliver Heywood's Register, to the
effect that "after sermons at Heywood
Cbappel," on September 24th, 1682, "Mltris
Lomax, wife of Mr . Rich . Lomax of Bury,
who, he being dead, lived with Mr . Bamford
of Bamford, that marryed his daughter,"
missed her footing when getting on horseback, "slipt down," and "scarce spike after,"
the fall resulting in her death, at the age of
An entry in the Bury Parish Church
76 .
registers shows that Ellen, widow of Richard
Lomax, died on September 27th, 1682, and
was interred on the 29th .
Richard Lomax, uenr ., yeoman, of Bury,
made his will on December 9th, 1675, and
died on January 23rd, 1676 . In his will he
directed that his body was to be buried in
the church of Bury, among his ancestors, and
his estate divided between his "loving wife,"
his children-Richard, John, and Susan, wife
of Samuel Bamford of Bamford, gentlemanhis granddaughter, Alice Loc, and the chil-
48
Richard
.
His son-in-law,
dren of his son
Samuel Bamford, succeeded William Bamford
(brother) in the ownership of the Bamford
estate . William Bamford made his will on
April 19th, 1673, and died on the 28th of
the same month . One of the witnesses to his
will was Robert Pendlebbury, yeoman, of
Jowkin, Bamford, brother of the Rev . Henry
Pendlebury (who was born at Jowkin) ; one
of the two thousand clergymen ejected from
their living under the Act of Uniformity in
1662. Robert Pendlebury died st Jowkin on
February 5th, 1699, having survived his
famous brother three years and eight months .
Whether the Bamfords of Bamford were
related to the Pendleburys of Jowkin or not
I am unable to say. In some references to
the Pendleburys, Canon Raines has left it on
record in his MSS . that in April and August,
1833, ho had talks on old-time affairs with
Mrs . Bamford, a widow, residing in Yorkshire-street, Rochdale, who died in 1835 at
the age of 94-her husband, at whose funeral
the Canon officiated, having died about a year
before in his 91st year . (In 1825 there was
one Thomas Bamford, a shopkeeper in Yorkshire-street, Rochdale .) The venerable couple
had been married upwards of 66 years .
Canon Raines says : I saw at Mrs . Bamford's an old oak bed
which belonged to her ancestor, Rev . Henry
It is much carved about
Pendlebury, M .A .
the head, and has an oaken top, somewhat
.
The
posts
have foliage and roses
ornamented
upon them . Altogether the workmanship !s
rude, but invaluable as the remnant of the
furniture of a learned, good, and perhaps persecuted man . It is not to be bought . I saw
also an oak desk, with the date 1692 upon it,
which I think was stated to have been Mr .
Pendlebury'sMrs. Bamford's grandmother was brought up very strictly with her
aunt Pendlebury, and "always had a leaning
towards the Presbyterians," though her husband, Mrs . B : s grandfather, was an old
Churchman, and did not like the -ways of Disc
centers .
. I have heard old Mr . Fenton of
Baniford Hall say that his father, who lived
tr be nearly ninety, was the last person Mr .
Pendlebury baptised .
Mr. Fenton's grand.
I
49
father was clerk to Mr . Pendlebury when he
was minister of Ashworth Chapel .
Canon Raines, it will be seen, alludes to
Henry Pendleburv as "ancestor" of old Mrs.
But Henry PendleBamford of Rochdale .
bu,ry left no issue-a statement I venture to
make notwithstanding what is said to the
contrary in the "Dictionary of National Biography" and elsewhere .
Samuel Bamford, the son-in-law of Richard
Lomax, was a descendant of William Bamford, who died in November, 1607, his wife,
Genet, dying in January, 1617 . This William Bamford was succeeded', by his eldest
son, William, who died in 1624, and whose
brother Samuel died in 1629 . The last-named
William Bamford had two sons-William,
born in February, 1639, and Samuel, born in
September, 1611-the latter being the Samuel
Bamford who succeeded to the Bamford
estate and married Richard Lomax's daughter
Susan . By his marriage with Susan Lomax
Samuel Bamford had two sons, William and
Samuel, and four or five daugIsters .
In the county history it is ; stated :
The [Bamford] estate descended lineally to
William Bamford, who died in 1757 [11761],
leaving by his w'fe Margaret (daughter of
Edward Davenport of Stockport) three daughters and co-heirs ; all of them dying without
issue, it was devised by Ann, the eldest, >n
1779, to William Bamrford of 'Tarleton Bridge,
a remote kinsman, afterwards [in 1787] High
Sheriff of Lancashire, who married in 1786
Anne, daughter of Thomas Blackburne of
Hale ; but dying in 1806, without male issue,
it passed, with a distant female relative, in
marriage to Robert Hesketh of Upton,
Cheshire, who assumed the name of Bamford
in 1805 .
. Bamford was purchased by
Joseph Fenton, whose sson, James Fenton, in
1841 took down the hall, which had been rebuilt in the time of Queen Anne, and erected
near the former site a large and handsome
modern house .
Anne Blackburne, who became the, wife of
the last-named William, Bamford, was a sister
of John Blackburne of Orford Hall' and Hale,
M.P. for Lancashire in ten successive ParVOL. 3.-Part 28.
50
liaments, and grandfather of the present
Rector of Bury, Archdeacon Blackburne .
Edwin Butterworth mentions that in 1719
William Bamford made a bequest to the
curacy of Heywood, and says that "his descendant, William Bamford, died in 1761,
according to the monument in Bury Church ."
Since Edwin Butterworth's time the Parish
Church of Bury has been almost entirely rebuilt, and there does not appear to be a
Bamford monument in the church now . The
monument referred to is stated to have borne
the following epitaph :To the memory of their most affectionate
father, William Bamford of Bamford, Esquire,
this monument was erected by his ;nucb
afflicted daughters, Ann and Margaret, in testimony of their pious regard and tender affection to the man . His sweetness of manners
,and ;goodness of heart endeared him to all
that knew him . He was a kind husband, an
indulgent parent, an easy master, a cheerful
companion, a sincere and generous friend to all .
He was a good man ; herein exercising himself
to have always a conscience void of offence
toward God and toward man .
After a bad
state of health, of unany years' continuance,
which he bore with all the patience and resignation of a Christian, he departed this life .
In "The Admission Register of the Manchester Grammar School," published by the
Chetham Society in 1874, it is stated that
William Bamford was admitted to that school
on June 26th, 1776, and these, particulars are
given
William, son of William Bamford and Anne
Ryley of Tarleton, his wife, was baptised at
Tarleton on 25th November, 1760 . His father
was [a remote kinsman] of the family of Bamford of Bamford Hall, an edifice of the early
part of the seventeenth century (but now demolished, and a new house built near the ald
site), and succeeded to that estate in 1779, on
the death of Ann, the last surviving daughter
of William Bamford . He built the house at
Tarleton, where he lived for many years, when
he succeeded to the Bamford estate . The son,
who was High Sheriff of Lancashire in 1787,
married Anne, only sister of his school-fellow,
Isaac Blackburne, by whom he had two daugh-
1
V
4
51
I
ers, of whom Anne married in April, 1811,
her cousin, John Ireland Blackburne of
Orford and Hale, for some years M .P . for
Warrington .
Several members of the Bamford family
were interred at Bury Parish Church, but
the only memorial there now relating to them
appears to be a flat stone-or, rather, an artificial slab, of light colour, and very hard-in
the yard on the north side of the church .
Probably it was originally in one of the aisles
of the church, over or near the family vault,
and this will account for the inscription being
much worn . So much of the inscription as
is legible reads
Here lieth the body of Margaret, wife of
William Bamford, Esq ., who died June-(?),
17-(?), in the 63rd year of her age .
Also
.Susan, their daughter, who died July the 17th,
17-(?), in the 18th year of her age . William
Banrford died October the 10th, 1761, in the
87th year of his age .
Those who have read Sam Bamford's
"Early Days" may remember that in the
chapter relating to his forefathers the famous
Reformer mentions a tradition that had been
"handed down" in his branch of the family,
to the effect that his great-grandfather,
James Bamford, of Hools Wood, Thornham,
a small farmer and cane reed-maker, "was the
next heir to tine estate of Bamford Hail,
where he used to visit and be on terms of
intimacy with William Bamford, the last male
of the old family, who resided at the hall :
My ancestor was, it seems, fond of the
chase, and on hunting and shooting days he
was frequently at the hall and dined with the
other guests . At this time the property was
said to be entailed ; though for the truth of
that I vouch not more than I do for other
traditionary matters which follow . My aunt,
who was, I believe, a contemporary of some
of the parties, narrated the story to me as 1
give it .
This William Bamford had no offspring save
two daughters, and as they could i.ot inherit
the property, when he lay on his deathbed he
sent for my ancestor, and by much entreaty,
and many solemn promises, backed perhaps by
a douceur, he induced my ancestor to forego
52
his claim nn favour of the young ladies, on`',
condition that at their decease the property
should revert to the next heir in his family .
Tho entail was accordingly cut off ; Bamrford
of Bamford made his will and died ; and his
daughter, "Madam Ann" as she was titled,
held the property . The other sister married,
and went to reside in Yorkshire ; but Madam
Ann lived and died a spinster at Bamford
Hall . And thus, according to traditionary accounts, were the rightful heirs cut off from
the property, which had descended through
their ancestors from the time when the Saxon
wrested it from the Celt .
Yet bow much that is of rare interest and
value would have been missed' if the story
had run otherwise! A great , deal better was
it for his fellow-men that the author of
"Early Days , " and "The Life of a Radical"
should become a handloom weaver and a
social and political Reformer than that he
should be known as the Squire of Bamford
Hall.
LECTOR .
QUERIES .
[272.] t ARISH APPRENTICES.
I have lately has an opportunity of looking
at some old local indentures relating to Sir
Robert Peel . From, these it appears that it
was quite a common practice to apprentice
the "parish" children . It is painful' to notice
on one of the indentures referred to that the
Guardians placed and bound' James Cleg;g of
Spotland, of the age of seven years, as an
apprentice to Robert Peel, with him to dwell,
continue, and serve until the said James
Clegg attained the age of twenty-one years .
Sir Robert, for his part, undertook to teach,
instruct, and inform the said James Clegg in
all the arts and mysteries of the spinning and
manufacturing of cotton .
In exchange for
the labour of fourteen years, Sir' Robert was
to allow the said apprentice sufficient. meat,
drink, apparel, washing, lodging, and all
other things needful ; and at , the end of the
term "shall provide the said apprentice with
two good intire suits of cloaths ." Nothing is
58
said in the indenture about wages or money
to be handed over at the close of such a
long period of apprenticeship . It has been
said that apprentices were bound in this
manner in quite a wholesale fashion, and
their work at such cheap rates helped to
make the immense fortunes of their masters .
The documents referred to are dated 1800-1 .
Can any reader inform me how long this
degrading system continued in the cotton industry, and whether parish apprentices were
employed by others besides the Peels?
MAKEANT.
.Srihap, ffiarich 29th, 1907 .
NOTES .
[273 .] THE ROAD TO THE CEMETERY .
[Under the above expressive title an interesting article appeared in the "Heywood
Advertiser" for July 12th, 1856 . The article
was, most likely, written by John Heywood,
and contains many reminiscences of the bygones of Heywooa which will be of interest
to readers of this column .]
Nor strange, that recollection there should dwell,
Where first I felt and reasoned, loved and was
beloved .
Who does not love to dwell on the delightful reminiscences of childhood?
Who does
not love to roam where the days of his boyhood were spent? Where he picked up the
acorn, where he gathered the blackberries,
plucked the hawthorn blossom, collected from
amongst the beautiful flowers of the field and
the lane his first nosegay, the rippling brook
by which he used to meander, the wayside
flower which smiled upon him in his daily
walks, the hum of the bee as it flitted past
in search of its winter store, the singing of
the redbreast, the wren, and the thrush, the
tuneful rising of thee lark from its mossy bed,
the shout of the merry haymakers when housing their hay, with a thousand other sights
and scenes most pleasant to dwell upon?
54
We were reminded of many such scenes as
these in our boyhood days on the road to
the Cemetery on a recent visit to that place .
But time has made many changes on the road
from Heywood to Chamberhouse during the
last thirty-five years . From the bottom of
York-street to the "Top o'th' Orchard" there
were then no buildings but the Roe Acre,
now used as a turning shop, and the row of
houses ab "Marled Earth," near to the house
of Mr. William Hartley, Sandy Lane .
The
house at Captain Fold, with the exception of
the row occupied by Mr . John Leach and
others, and the rope-making establishment of
Mr . W . Heywood, are all of earlier date than
the time to which we have referred .
The
beautiful residence of Mr . Kay, Harefield
Hall, with its rising trees, shrubberies, gardens, and neat entrance, highly ornamental
to the, locality and pleasant to look upon, are
all of recent date . The general features of
the road from Mr. Kay's lodge to the Ryecroft toll bar have not been very much
altered .
The trees, the hedges, and the
houses are much the same . Robert Pollok,
in his "Course of time," tells us of some trees
near his father's house in the following
words : -----Tall trees they were,
And old, and had been old a century
Before any day ; None living could say aught
About their youth ; but they were goodly trees :
And oft I wondered, as I sat and thought
Beneath their summer shade, or, in the night
Of winter, heard the spirits of the wind
Growling among their boughs,-how they had
grown
So high, in such a rough, tempestuous place
And when a hapless branch, torn by the blast,
Fell down, I mourned as if a friend had
fallen ."
And we also know two trees, a little further
on than Mr . Kay's lodge . They were always
known as the "Great Plane Tree" and the
"Little Plane Tree ."
They appeared old
when we first knew them forty years since .
They are there yet : the woodman has spared
those trees . We are glad of it, for they
have often served the purpose of an umbrella
55
Y
in a shower of rain . They are esteemed by
us for their friendly protection in time of
need . A little further ),n there was formerly
a crab tree which overhung the footpath, and
in the proper season used to tempt one to
throw a stone and fetch a few crabs to the
ground . Here is Ryecroft House, now occupied by Mr . Cheetham, but at the time we
refer to it was the residence of Mr . Ralph
Bolt .
From here to the toll bar there are a few
new features to record of recent date . After
passing the bar we find there have been
alterations of considerable magnitude since
the year 1830 .
From the bar we formerly
had to descend into a deep valley, so deep
that conveyances of every kind were almost
at a stand in attempting to gain the hill on
the Chamberhouse side . But at the bottom
of this valley there was a large watering
trough fixed, from which the horses quenched
their thirst previous to ascending the hill .
There was also a plantation on the left hand
side as we ascend towards Chamberhouse .
About the year 1838 it was our lot to fetch
a can of milk every morning from the farm
called "Primrose Hill," now situate on the
western side of the Cemetery . It was our
custom to start from the bottom of Rochdale
Lane, near the White Lion public-house,
about half-past six o'clock in the morning,
and busy thought often conjures up "sunny
memories" of those happy days. With a can
on our back and a stick in our hand we
bounded forth with joyous hearts, often
essaying to imitate the singing of the lark as
it soared above our heads into the bright
and sunny sky, or mocking the cuckoo as it
poured forth its ever welcome morning
strain, or beating the bushes and hedge-rows
to start from its nest the sparrow, the finch,
or any other of the winged tribe which inhabit the thickest hawthorn and briar ; anon
stopping suddenly to listen to the sound of
the bugle blown by the road-coated gentleman
who then accompanied the Royal Mail, which
passed over Castleton Moor about that time
in the morning with the Yorkshire letters
56
destined for Manchester and other places in
Lancashire .
This mail passed over Blackstone Edge from Yorkshire about six o'clock
a .m., arrived in Manchester about eight .
This was in the "good old coach times,"
before the fiery steed of the railway king
began to frighten the rustics with its fiendish
shriek, making many of them vow determined
opposition to such a mode of transferring
human beings from town to town, many of
whom have kept their word and will, we
believe, do so to the end of their natural life .
These were the days when the famous coach
firm of "Bretherton and Company," Liverpool,
were always patronised by the comparative
few who then ventured as far as Liverpool,
either for 'business or pleasure . It was then
a fine sight to see one of these coaches come
through Heywood on the first day of May,
the round-faced fat, coachey, with a favour in
his breast, driving four-in-hand, with his
horses
fully
ribboned, garlanded,
and
honoured with the symbols of May Day .
But these days, bright as they were then
thought to be, have passed away, and many
of their customs with them, and have been
superseded by others much brighter, which
are destined soon to be placed in the shade
by days brighter still, through the onward
progress of science and enlightenment. The
residence and farmstead opposite the entrance
to the Cemetery was, at the time to which
we have alluded, inhabited by Mr . Robert
Holt, a "fine old English gentleman," such
as are but seldom to 'be met with .
We
always enjoyed the sight of him when we
met him on the road or saw him about the
grounds at Chamberhouse Farm . He is prominent in the reminiscences of our boyhood
days, and 'twere well if his like could be
multiplied .
Strange things have happened
since that time, and amongst those things
we must include the selection of a site for
interring the dead of this district on the
Chamberhouse estate . Everyone, at the time
we refer to, would have been incredulous of
such an impn.bability .
But the new Cemetery is now a fact-it has been purchased
1
57
and laid out-and this week it has received
the first instalment of the inhabitants of our
town, and in a few years there is little doubt
of its having become the place of sleep for
many thousands .
E . F.
Heywood .
[274 .]
PACE'-EGGING AT HEYWOOD .
Would some kind youthful reader give me
a description of a performance of the play
called the "Pace Egg?"
I want to know
whether it is still played locally, and, if so,
the words used .
LEMUEL .
,
rtha , April 5th, 1907 .
NOTES .
[275 .] Rr7MrNTS(7ENCES OF THE
SMOBR.IDGE SONDNOKKURS .
Y
[One of our early correspondents asked for
informaltion about the local sand dealers,
otherwise known as "sondnokkurs ." The business was carried on in Heywood for many
years, and a note on the dealers would be of
some interest . The following reminiscences
of an almost extinct race, recently contributed to the "Ptodhuale Observer," will probably satisfy the inquirer.]
Not many years have elapsed since the dis- tridt of Smallbridge 'bore an unenviable reputation from the lawlessness of some of its
inhabitants who spent the time when not at
work in drinking, fighting, and gambling .
The villagers of that day were for the most
part colliers or handloom weavers, but no
classification woulu be complete without mention of the "Sondnokkars" who formed a small
colony in the district extending from St .
John's Church 'to Brickfield .
These "sondnokkurs,
or "Kitters," as they were often
called (Kilter being the name of one of their
leaders), were a sturdy race, and gained a
livelihood by crushing sandstone rock oh-
58
tained from Blackstone Edge, subsequently
selling it in Rochdale and other neighbouring
towns . This sand was used for strewing on
the stone floors of the cottages and farmhouses just after they were cleaned .
With
the advent of the cheap carpet and linoleum
and the still cheaper oilcloth the demand for
the sand largely ceased, and to-day sandknocking can be counted among our "decaying industries ." One by one the old "sondnokkurs" were removed by death, and with
the declining trade there was no inducement
for their sons or other young men to take
it up. So far as we can ascertain only one
member of the families who were originally
engaged in the calling remains-Mr . John
Law, more familiarly known as Jack Law of
Halifax Road-an •d he has almost relinquished
the business .
While the old race of "sondnokkurs" has
become almost extinct, and the trade-what
little of it survives-is diverted into other
channels, there remains at Smallbridge ample
evidence to show that it was at one time a ,
fairly large and lucrative business . The
names of Sand-,street and Kitter-rtreet remain
to remind us that these were the centres of
the trade (which dates back fully 150 years) ;
and in these localities are still standing
buildings which old residents point to as being
the mills in which the sandstone was crushed
and ground to fine particles .
GRINDING THE SAND .
The methods of grinding are well worth
describing . At first the sand was crushed
and ground by hand . The rock was broken
into pieces of two or three inches diameter
by means of heavy hammers, and was then
ground down by a wooden hammer with a
large and heavy iron facing . The manipulation of these tools involved much hard work,
and there is still living in Sand-street Mrs .
Alice Whatmough, better known, perhaps, as
Aloe o' Josses, who informed our representative that she used to "knock by hand" till
she was so ill that she was forced to stop
work .
59
The method eventually gave way to one
which involved much less labour . A long pole
which was attached to a revolving pivot also
served as the axle for a huge crushing stone .
This crushing stone, which was often six feet
in diameter, ran in a circular trough resembling that of a mortar mill, and was pulled
round by a horse which was harnessed to a
part of the pole projecting beyond the stone .
The broken stone was put into this trough,
and as the ponderous Wheel revolved it was
crushed to powder .
Several such mills
existed in the district .
The last one was
erected by Jim o' Harris at the top of Sandstreet, and the building is still in an excellent state of preservation, although the grinding apparatus has been removed. It is a twostorey building with a wide door, to which
the carts were backed for the purpose of
loading . On the ground floor was the crushing mill ; the upper storey was used as a hayloft . Lower down and on the same side of
Sand-street are some stone buildings in which
the sandstone was also crushed and ground .
NOTED " SON.DNOKKURS ."
!i
Sand-street was perhaps the centre of the
trade, for here Harry o' Bills, Jim o' Harris,
George o' Owd Jones, and Owd Bet lived in
adjoining houses . Of all the "sondrokkurs,"
with the exception of Owd Tew and Owd
Kitter, these were the best known. It was
from this centre that the carts drawn by
ricketty horses set off to take the sand to
distances as far as Burnley, Haslingden, Bury,
Oldham, Ramsbottom, Halifax, Crawshawbooth, and the intervening towns and villages. The men were mostly finely-built with
thick-set sturdy figures, and faces tanned by
exposure to wind and rain .
Most of them
wore knee breeches, but whatever the cut
of their nether garments they were, like the
waistcoats,, of stout moleskin or corduroy,
and an indispensable part of the attire was
an apron of some strong material . This was
used Whenever a customer wanted quantities
larger than a quart, for the sand was sold
by measure at the price of a halfpenny per
quart.
The sand as it was mews red was{
60
tipped into the apron until the required quantity was obtained, when it was transferred
from the apron to the receptacle of the customer.
The "sondno'kkurs" had a natural propensity for playing jokes, especialily if they could
be made to end for their own personal gain .
The measures used for selling the sand were
so constructed that the bottoms were not
flush with the lower edges of the sides, but
were raised about an inch or so .
Having
ordered several quarts, instead of getting the
proper quantity of sand an unwary customer
would receive only so mudh as would fill the
space when 'the measure was inverted, and
unless the mistake was noticed and attention
called to it the "sondnokkur" would go away
laughing at the success of his crafty plan .
Edwin Waugh, who gives an interesting
sketch of these "sondnokkurs" in his "Lancashire Sketches," slays the men were accompanied by their women folk .
Our representative made inquiries on this point, and Mr .
Law assured him that the cart was, as a
rule, tended only by two or three men . Possibly women took the shorter distances-to
the villages around Rochdale . Mr. Law himself walked with Owd Tew thirty and forty
miles a day, and it is hardly likely that the
women would undertake sudh long journeys .
DRINKING HABITS.
Nearly all " sondnokkurs " were hard
drinkers .
In conversation with an old
Smallbridge resident who remembers many of
the leading members of the fraternity, our
representative was assured that after a
journey "they alilus com whoanl drunken ."
The business "ne'er paid onless they could be
drinkin' an buyin' horses . They'd set off at
three in th' mornin', an' coom back at eight
or nine at neet as drunk as fiddlers."
The winter months, our informant said, was
a good time for them ; but in the summer
time it was difficult to sell the sand, and he
had seen them returning as late as ten or
eleven o'clock at night . He continued, "They
didn't use to come back while they'd sowd
61
up . They'd rayther ha' swopped it fur ale
than ha' browt it back ; an' they did that
monny a time ."
INTERESTING STORIES .
It
Their favourite sport was "feightiing ."
mattered not whether it was between themselves or with strangers, and many a Male is
told of their prowess . Often a drinking bout
would end in boxing . To avoid disturbance
from the landlord of the house or any out,
sfder the combatants would carefully secure
the door by wedging a, chair against' it . They
would then strip and, having had their fight
out, would open the door, walk out, and
resume business .
The story is told of two of the number
who, having visited Rochdale one Saturday
evening, were returning to, Smallbridge .
Both had drunk too much. They had reached
St . James's Church, Wardleworth, when one
of them said to his mate : "Aw dunnot feel
"Weel,"
yezzi ; aw hannut• had a feight ."
said his companion, "fast chap tha meets hit
him, an' then, happen, tha'11 get a feight ."
They had proceeded about two hundred yards
He was of good
when they met a man .
physique, but the "sondnokkur" wanted a
fight badly, so he hit the stranger in the face .
He had caught a tartar . The stranger set to
and gave his assailant a sound thrashing .
This had little effect on him, however, for
after it was over, and he was once more on
his way home, he observed to his companion,
"Aw feel a bit yezzier neaw aw've bin
punced' a bit ."
OWD BEN'S PRODIGIOUS ~STRENG'TH .
Although not one of the chief men of the
fraternity Owd Ben was noted among them
"He favverd a
for his great strength .
young giant," was the description of him
given by Mr. Law. His work was principally
to wheel and break up, the rock preparatory
to it being ground down .'
"He'd a barrow
that ud howd verra neer half a cart looad
o' stoane'," added Pdr. Law, when speaking
of him, "an' he used to rnak' a groan when
62
he lifted it. Eh! but he wur a strong felley.
Plenty o' donkeys couldn't ha' drawn th'
stuff he used to wheel ."
As a further instance of the strength of
these men, Mr. Law recounted an incident
in which his father was concerned .
He and
his wife were out hawking the sand, and
when near the White Lion at Wolstenholme
the cart upset owing to the bad condition
of the road . Without waiting for assistance
hi, father went from the horse's head, righted
the cart himself, and continued his journey
as if it was nothing out of the ordinary .
Owd Tew also figures in another story .
Like the rest of the men, he was finely built,
but he limped badly . One day as he was
sitting in a public-house at Burnley his wellset figure caught the eye of a recruiting sergeant . After some talk the sergeant induced
him to accept the Queen's shilling . He was
rather priding himself on his smartness in enlisting so promising a man when Owd Tew
got up and proceeded to walk across the room
with a most pronounced limp . The sergeant
demanded his shilling back, but Owd Tow
calmly told him that it was mixed with others
and could not be identified .
Mr . Law informed us 'that before the workhouse at Dearnlev was built tramps used to
be required to break the standstone rock as
their labour task . This was done in Wardle
worth,, and at the Old Bailey (now part of
the premises known as the Chapel for the
Destitute) .
He said he had fetched many
loads of sand from there to hawk in the district .
There is little demand for the sand now
except in. lodging-houses, old inns, farmhouses, and a few of the older mills .
What
is used now is ground by steam-driven
madhinery, but the demand will probably disappear altogether soon .
[276 .] MEL LOR"S FACTORY CHIMNEY .
Some years ago a Manchester newspaper
gave what purported to be a sketch of
Mellor's famous crooked cmmney, with some
remarks by the late Mr . Smith, the popular
I
"steeple jack ." The "Advertiser" of the following week commented on the matter, and
referred to Heywood's doubtful distinction in
possessing "the crookedes't chimney in Etg
land ." This brought forth a reply from
Colonel 'Vlcllor, in which he detailed the cause
of the dhimney's eccentric appearance .
Will
some reader give me the date of this letter
or some extracts from it?
WRIGLEY BROOK.
riba 1, ~l 1tt1 12th, 1907 .
[277 .]
NOTES .
THE "PACE EGG" AND THE
FOLK DRAMA .
A regular feature of the celebration of the
Easter season in Lancashire, and in fact all
over the country, is the acting of the play,
"The Peace (cr Pace) Egg ." This has a sin-Many writers call it the
gular history .
lineal descendant of the mystery and miracle
plays which preceded the epic drama as the
amusement of the English of the Middle Ages,
but I would claim fcr it an older and morrf
distinp ish<u origin than that . Long -before ,
the days of Shakespeare and; Marlowe, long
before the Reformation, going back to a
period when the monasteries and the Church
were the sole educators of the people, the
miracle plays flourished, and most writers on
the subject say that the Church was the
cradle of the drama .
This is a statement
with which I do not altogether agree .
THE MIRACLE PLAYS.
The aim of the miracle plays was to teach
Christian doctrine to a people in whom the
Pagan spirit was very strong . The Church,
by presenting to an unlettered people rude
versions of the Bible stories-from the Creation to the Resurrection-sought to wean
their minds from the Pagan traditions of the
old Norsemen . Seeing the intense love for
show and scenic display, and how strong the
bold and influence of heathenism was upon
64
the popular mind, the early Roman C1hur'ch .
had introduced into the. service symbolical
forms which took the place of the "gorgeous
spectacula of Pagan Rome." Then it was the
Mass, the central rite of Christian worship,
",celebrated in commemoration of the death of
Christ, with its choral portions and mimetio
actions, its antiphonal singing and dialogues,
which gave rise to liturgical plays ." (1)
The chief events of Christian history were
illustrated, the dogmas of the Church brought
home tc the ignorant and unlettered masses
by means of acting, in short,, "the people were
instructed through their senses ." Instead of
incomprehensible Latin words dramatic performances made the events more intelligible .
I have dwelt on the' mystery plays because
most writers attach to them great importance
in the history of the English drama and incidentally of the "Peace Egg ." The origin of
the latter they ascribe to the miracle plays
in honour of patron saints, which were immensely popular in the Middle Ages .
I
would claim it to be in its origin and in
general structure a genuine folk play .
Though it had in later years some connection
with the miracle plays, it was co-existent
with them, and has retained its hold on the
people till the present day. The term, "folk
play" may require some explanation .
THE ORIGIN OF THE FOLK-DRAMA .
When the Northmen, came to England
they worshipped the old Norse godsOdin, Thor, and Tiw, and all the attendant deities .
The, ritual of these gods,
especially of Odin, included great sacrificial ceremonies . Thrice a year the people
gathered together in order to attend the great
festivals in the temples when, besides animals,
human beings were sacrificed.
At "Winternight" (about the middle of October), sacrifices were offered for a good- season ; at "MidWinter," the end of January, the Yuletide
festival was kept with sacrifices for peace and
fertility ; at "Beginning of 'Summer" (the
middle of April) people petitioned for good
luck and victory in the undertakings of the
65
coming summer .
In somewhat the same
manner as the religious drama arose from the
Church services, so Pagan dramas sprang up
out of the ritual and worship of the gods,
though not on the same grand scale or in so
The combats of warriors
sacred a spirit .
were celebrated rather than the crucifixion
and resurrection of Christ, but for all that
they were the first English attempt at dramatic representation, and it was from this
pagan drama, intimately associated with
nature myths and the very oldest and most
primitive tradition that the folk plays, the
genuine production of the people, arose .
When England was first Christianised
special instrnctlons were given as to the
method of conversion . 'The Pope forbade the
destruction of heathen temples, but the
idols inside them must be destroyed, the walls
sprinkled with holy water, altars built, relics
enshrined, and then the same buildings might
be used as Christian churches .
The people
were in future to resort to their wonted
sanctuaries, the feast-days for offering sacrifices should be changed to festivals in honour
of the saints, and were to be kept with eating and drinking and joyful thanksgiving ." (2)
Thus it was that festivals which had
originated with the earliest men coming
down through the Aryans and the Teutons
were accepted by the Church, and many of
the ceremonies of the worship of the Pagan
gods were transferred to Christian services .
Likewise plays which had been enacted at the
feasts of Odin and Thor were enacted at
Easter and the other Christian festivals This
is one reason for the continuity and long
survival of the folk plays, they living alongside the miracle plays without extinction,
and, as the quotation below will show, eventually getting the upper hand of the Church
In the following remarks
in the struggle .
Mr . Fairman-Ordish (3) admirably sums up
the history of the drama in relation to the
folk plays, and from it the history of our
:play will be apparent
"The genealogy of the English epic drama is
the meeting of two forces, Pagan and ChrisVoL. 3.-Part 29 .
66
tian, resulting in the concession of the miracle
play and mystery ; that alongside the miracle
plays, the traditional embryonic drama contiued to exist, competition with which led
eventually to mixing or debasing the miracle
play representations and ultimately to the;r
abolition ; that at the Renaissance the popular
actor became provided with written secular
plays founded partly on traditional subjects ;
that in the composition of pageants or
masques the popular Pagan traditions became
combined with reproductions of Greek and
Roman classical themes ; that a slim liar combination occurred in the Elizabethan drama,
notably in Shakespeare, where the fairy mythology of the folk is interweaved with the plots
and stories of the plays . And thus by repeated efforts the development was brought
back as far as possible to the line, and the
racial character of our drama was redeemed ."
Including the "Peace Egg" many of the
popular observances connected with Easter
may be plainly traced back to the feast of the
Saxon deity Eastre (the Anglo-Saxon month
of April having been Easter-mdnath) and the
great April festivities of Odin . In later times
the chief religious dramas-the miracle plays
-were most intimately connected with the
Easter season .
THE PACE-EGG AND THE SPRING .
The play obviously consists of two part--in some editions it is divided into two
acts-each a separate legend joined not
very artistically together . We have the fight
of St . George with Slasher, the latter's resuscitation by the Doctor, then entirely separately is the fight of St . George and the
Prince of Paradine, the appearance of the
King of Egypt and the skirmish with Hector,
closing with the appearance of Beelzebub and
Devil-Doubt . The first part itself ii, an amalgain of several myths, all referring to or
bound up with the coming of Spring and the
death of Winter . First the Paschal egg from
which the play derives its name . This is the
symbol of the Resurrection, though the association of eggs with spring is an c id Aryan
myth symbolical of creation or the re-creation
of Spring, "a season," says one, "celebrated in
all times and countries with ceremn ies that
67
from once being of a religious character--like
the midsummer and harvest time-now survive
only in the form of rollicking games and
village mummeries . The Dionysian dramas of
ancient Greece celebrated the same season,
and were connected with the worship of the
god of vegetation
or generation (4) ."
Another writer on folk lore (5) says :"In old Aryan myth the springtide sun was _
typified by a red or golden egg, which in aftertimes was made by the early Christians the
emblem of the Resurrection . Hence the Easter
egg and the many curious customs connected
with it throughout Europe. . . Quite recently
Cheshire children begged (as is still the custom
in the Midland,, and in Scotland) for pace or
pasch eggs (so-called from the Hebrew word
Paseha, meaning the Passover), which are
usually boiled hard in water stained with different dyes-red, blue, or violet-and otherwise ornamented ."
Then we come to the
ST. GEORGE
element, perhaps the chief feature of the
play . The fight between St . George and the
Dragon in Christian legend, Beowa and the
Dragon in Anglo-Saxon, Perseus and the
Dragon, Apollo and Python of the Greeks,
Sigfried and the Dragon of the Teutons,
Sigurd and Fafnir of the Northmen, and in
every Aryan race-Hindoo, Persian, and all the
European branches-we find the myth of a
hero and a dragon . This, Dr . Stopford
Brooke calls the oldest myth of the worldthe ancient myth of the light and the darkness, the sun overcoming the night and
dying in the contest in order to live again .
The origin of the St . George legend has been
well developed by Mr. Baring Gould (6), and
for the history of our patron saint all readers
should refer to his book .
It is this same myth which occurs in not
quite the same way in the "Peace Egg." We
have no dragon represented directly in the
play, though reference is made to the combat
of St . George and the Dragon, but Slasher
takes the place of the monster and is vanquished by St . George .
Especially in the
68
North, the old light and darkness myth referred to above became a battle between the
winter and the summer, between the frost
giants and the beneficient beings who brought
life to men and fruitfulness to their labour .
Probably before the Christian form-the
martyr St . George--was added, our play in
the heathen days represented the defeat of
Winter (Slasher) by the Summer (or beginning
of Summer, i .e ., Spring (St . George), as the
legend is developed in the Elder Edda . This
portion of the play-the nature myth-one is
led to think, is the older, the latter part
being an addition of the Middle Ages . One
might greatly elaborate on the theme of the
plays' original significance, but space is short
and one can but briefly allude to the subject . It has been suggested with some probability that Slasher (the prototype of Winter)
in his boasting to St . George,
"9My head is made of iron,
My body's made of steel,
My hands and feet of knuckle bone,"
refers to the frostbound earth of the winter .
He is then vanquished by St . George (as the
beginning of summer) and the land is fruitful
once more .
With the second portion of the play I purpose dealing in a further note.
QUINCUNX .
(1) "The English Drama," A . S . Rappoport. London,
1906 .
(2) "Northern Mythology" (Doutsche Mythologie),
Friedrich Kauffmann, trans'ated by M . Steele
Smith . London, 1903 .
(3) Two papers on "Folk-Drama," read before the
Folk-Lore Society, by T . Fairman-Ordish, F .,S .A.
Re-printed in "Folk-Lore," 1891 and 1893 .
(4) "The Christmas Boys" (a . mumming play), F.
Gordon Brown in "Notes and Queries," 1907.
(5) "An Introduction to Folk-Lore," Marian Roalfe
Cox . London, 1904 .
(6) "Curious Myths of the Middle Ages," Rev. S .
Baring-Gould, M .A ." London, 1868 .
A