Bygone Cumberland and Westmorland

by Daniel Scott

How long the proclamation has been read at the St. Luke’s Fair at Kirkby Stephen is unknown; certainly for a couple of centuries the practice has been observed, and possibly for a much longer period. Although some of the terms have now no effect, nor the cautions any value, the proclamation is still made, the following being the terms of a recent one:—

“O yes, O yes, O yes, The Right Honourable Henry James Baron Hothfield, of Hothfield, Lord Lieutenant of the County of Westmorland, Lord of the Manor of Skipton in Craven, and Lord and Owner of this Fair, Doth strictly Charge and Command in Her Majesty’s name that all persons keep Her Majesty’s Peace, and not to presume to ride or go armed during the time of this Fair to the disturbance of Her Majesty’s Peace, in pain to be punished according to the Statute in that case made and provided; and also that all persons bargain and sell lawful and sound goods and merchandise, and pay their due and accustomed tolls and stallages, use lawful weights and measures, upon pain to forfeit the value of their wares and merchandise; and also that buy, sell, or exchange any horse, mare, or gelding, that the sellers and buyers thereof repair to the Clerk of the Tolls, and there enter their names, surnames, and places of abode of all such persons as shall buy, sell, or exchange any such horse, mare, or gelding, together with the price, marks, and vouchers at their perils; and lastly if any person have any injury or wrong done by reason of any bargain or contract, during the time of this Fair, let them give information thereof, and the same shall be tried by a Court of Pie Poudre, according to law.

“God save the Queen, and the Right Honourable Henry James Baron Hothfield.”

Needless to say, the Court of Pie Poudre has not sat for many years now.

Many curious and interesting customs were once connected with the holding of markets and fairs; a few of these survive, though not in the form once known. The practice a little over a century ago at Ravenglass, where a fair was held on “the eve, day, and morrow of St. James,” has been thus described: “On the first of these days in the morning, the lord’s officer, at proclaiming the fair, is attended by the serjeants of the Lord of Egremont, with the insignia belonging thereto; and all the tenants of the Forest of Copeland owe a customary service to meet the lord’s officer at Ravenglass to proclaim the fair, and abide with him during the continuance thereof; and for sustentation of their horses they have two swaiths of grass in the common field of Ravenglass in a place set out for that purpose. On the third day at noon, the Earl’s officer discharges the fair by proclamation; immediately whereupon the Penningtons and their tenants take possession of the town, and have races and other divertisements during the remainder of that day.”

The laws of the old Corporations at Kendal, Carlisle, and Appleby, and the guilds and societies at other places, were very stringent, and far surpassed the most exacting rules of the trades unions in our own day. This statement may speedily be verified by a reference to the reprinted Kendal “Boke of Recorde.” The “shoddy cloth man” appears to have flourished almost as much three hundred years ago as he does to-day; at any rate he was sufficiently in evidence to cause the Corporation to pass a very stringent order in regard to “Clothe Dightinge.” The excuse for the imposition of the regulation was that “Sundry great complaints have been made in open Court of the insufficient and deceitful dressing and dighting of clothes uttered and sold within the town, as well by the inhabitants as foreigners coming to the same, therefore it is ordered by the Alderman and head burgesses of the borough with the full assent of the most part of the fellowship of Shearmen now dwelling within the borough, that if any person or persons either now resident in the town or shall hereafter be resident here or in the country adjoining, shall from henceforth have or bring any pieces of cloth to sell or utter within this borough to any person, not being well and sufficiently dight and dressed throughout in all points alike, as well one place as another, in cotton, nop, or frieze as it ought to be; the same being so found by the four sworn men of the same occupation from time to time appointed, shall forfeit and lose for every such piece 2s. 4d., the half thereof to the Chamber of this borough, and the other half to the takers of the same.”

A further order provided that if any piece of cloth was not “well, truly, and sufficiently made in all places alike, and all parts thereof of like stuff as it ought to be, or which shall not be clean washed and clean without blemish left in it, upon the like pain of 2s. 4d., to be forwarded by the maker to those before limited for the first fault, and for every fault then after committed and duly proved, the fine and penalty to be doubled.” Factory and workshop inspectors, of a sort, were not unknown three hundred years ago. The Corporation ordered the appointment of four members of the “Company and fellowship of tayllers” to be known as searchers or overseers, having power to have the oversight of all faults, wrongs, and misusages happening or done in the trade. The order did not long remain in force before the Corporation decided to repeal them, but two or three years later they were revived by common consent, and ordered to continue during pleasure. In still later times travelling tailors were a brotherhood, and within the last fifty years when on their journeys levied money on the resident fraternity.

Cordwainers, when the “Boke of Recorde” was compiled, were only allowed to do certain kinds of work, and were forbidden to “spetche,” or patch boots. Tailors, too, could not employ any man who might apply for work, there being a very strict law about the employment of freemen in preference to those not free; nor could the shearmen enjoy any greater liberty in their trading operations. One rule ran: “No countryman or person not free shall be permitted to bargain, buy, exchange, trade, sell, or utter within this borough or the precincts hereof, any clothes for outside as a shearman, save only such as be occupiers now of the same trade, or such as shall purchase their freedom, upon pain to lose ten shillings, whereof to the Chamber 5s., and Company 5s.”

There was a salutary rule about the selling of meat on Sundays: “From henceforth no butcher, or other his servant, or factor shall sell or utter any flesh or other victuals or meat out of any shop or stall within the borough or liberties, or the precincts of the same, or keep any his or their shop or warehouses open or unshut up after the ending of the third peal or bells ringing to morning or evening prayer on any Sunday or other festival day, upon pain to lose to the Chamber of this borough 12d.”

The laws against forestalling, regrating, ingrossing, and otherwise interfering with the due course of trade, were very strict in the markets held under manors and also in those otherwise regulated. The practice was, however, not peculiar to Cumberland and Westmorland. One other rule from Kendal may be mentioned as showing the steps taken for preventing skins being hoarded up, until prices became high: “It shall not be lawful for any butcher or other person dwelling out of this borough or the liberties of the same from henceforth to bring into the borough to be sold, either on the market day or in the week-day any sheepskin (except the same skin—having the ears upon it—be cleaving unto the head or carcase of such flesh where upon it did grow) being so brought to be sold, nor that they nor any of them shall sell, or offer, or put to sale, any such skin on any market day so brought to be sold unto the borough before ten o’clock before noon, upon pain to lose and forfeit as much as 2s.”