It appears that Ralph Assheton became, by his alliance with a rich heiress, the lord of a neighbouring manor, named Middleton, and soon afterwards received the honour of knighthood, being at the same time entrusted with the office of vice-chancellor, and, it is added, of lieutenant of the Tower. Invested with such authority, he committed violent excesses in this part of the kingdom. In retaining also for life the privilege of guld riding, he, on a certain day in the spring, made his appearance in this manner, clad in black armour (whence his name of the Black Lad), mounted on a charger, and attended by a numerous train of his followers, in order to levy the penalty arising from neglect of clearing the land from carr gulds. The interference of so powerful a knight, belonging to another lordship, could not but be regarded by the tenants of Assheton as a tyrannical intrusion of a stranger, and the name of the Black Lad is at present regarded with no other sentiment than that of horror. Tradition has, indeed, still perpetuated the prayer that was fervently ejaculated for a deliverance from his tyranny:—
Sweet Jesu, for thy mercy's sake,
And for thy bitter passion,
Save us from the axe of the Tower,
And from Sir Ralph of Assheton.
Happily, with the death of this terrible guld-rider of Assheton, the custom was abolished, but the sum of five shillings is still reserved from the estate, for the purpose of commemorating it by an annual ceremony. Ralph Assheton, of Middleton, was an energetic adherent to the parliamentary cause during the civil wars. On the 24th September, 1642, about one hundred and fifty of his tenants, in complete arms, joined the forces of Manchester, in opposition to the royalists. He commanded the parliamentary troops at the siege of Warrington. He was engaged at the siege of Lathom House, and led the Middleton Clubmen at the siege of Bolton-le-Moors. In 1648 he was a major-general, and commanded the Lancashire soldiery of the commonwealth, on the marshalling of the parliamentary forces to oppose the Duke of Hamilton. In the same year, he took Appleby from the royalists. His eldest son, Richard, who died an infant, March 25th, 1631, was supposed to have been bewitched to death by one Utley, "who, for the crime, was tried at the assizes at Lancaster, and executed there." His son Ralph espoused the cause of Charles the Second, and was created a baronet in 1663.
As we glide out of sight of Middleton, a prominent feature of the landscape, on the opposite side of the railway, is the wood-crowned summit of "Tandle Hills." These hills overlook the sequestered dairy farms, and shady dingles of an extensive district called "Thornham;" which, though surrounded at short distances by busy manufacturing villages and towns, is a tract full of quaint farm-folds, grassy uplands and dells, interlaced with green old English lanes and hedge-rows. Before the train reaches "Blue Pits," it passes through the estates of the Hopwoods, of Hopwood; and, at some points, the chimneys and gables of Hopwood Hall peep through surrounding woods, in a retired valley, north of the line. As the train begins to slacken on its approach to the station, the old road-side village of Trub Smithy, the scene of many a humorous story, lies nestling beyond two or three fields to the south, at the foot of a slope, on the high road from Manchester to Rochdale. At "Blue Pits" station, we obeyed the noisy summons to "Change for Heywood," and were put upon the branch line which leads thitherward. The railway hence to Heywood winds through green fields all the way, and is divided from the woods of Hopwood by a long stripe of canal. As we rolled on, the moorland heights of Ashworth, Knowl, Rooley, and Lobden, rose in the back ground before us, seemingly at a short distance, and before any glimpse was seen of the town of Heywood, lying low between us and the hills. But, as we drew near, a canopy of smoky cloud hung over the valley in front; and "we knew by the smoke"—as the song says—that Heywood was near; even if we had never known it before. Heywood is one of the last places in the world where a man who judges of the surrounding country by the town itself, would think of going to ruralize. But, even in this smoky manufacturing town, which is so meagre in historic interest, there are some peculiarities connected with its rise and progress, and the aspects of its present life; and some interesting traits in the characteristics of its inhabitants. And, in its surrounding landscape, there are many picturesque scenes; especially towards the hills, where the rising grounds are cleft, here and there, by romantic glens, long, lonesome, and woody, and wandering far up into the moors, like "Simpson Clough;" and sometimes vales, green and pleasant, by the quiet water-side, like "Tyrone's Bed," and "Hooley Clough."
As the train drew up to that little station, which always looks busy when there are a dozen people in the office, the straggling ends of Heywood streets began to dawn upon us, with the peeking chimney tops of the cotton mills, which lay yet too low down to be wholly seen. Some costly mansions were visible also, belonging to wealthy men of the neighbourhood—mostly rich cotton-spinners—perched on "coignes of vantage," about the green uplands and hollows in the valley, and generally at a respectful distance from the town. Many of the cotton mills began to show themselves entirely—here and there in clusters—the older ones looking dreary, and uninviting to the eye; the new ones as smart as new bricks and long lines of glittering windows could make their dull, square forms appear. A number of brick-built cottages bristled about the summit of a slope which rose in front of us from the station, and closed from view the bulk of the town, in the valley beyond. We went up the slope, and took a quiet bye-path which leads through the fields, along the southern edge of Heywood, entering the town near the market-place. And now, let us take a glance at the history, and some of the present features of this place.
So far as the history of Heywood is known, it has not been the arena of any of those great historical transactions of England's past, which have so shaken and changed the less remote parts of the country. The present appearance of Heywood would not, perhaps, be any way delightful to the eye of anybody who had no local interest in it. Yet, a brief review of the history, and the quick growth of the place, may not be uninteresting. Heywood is the capital of the township of Heap, and stands principally upon a gentle elevation, in a wide valley, about three miles from each of the towns of Rochdale, Bury, and Middleton. The township of Heap is in the parish and manor of Bury, of which manor the Earl of Derby is lord. This manor has been the property of the Derby family ever since the accession of Henry VII., after the battle of Bosworth Field, when it was granted by the king to his father-in-law, Thomas Stanley, first Earl of Derby, who figures in Shakspere's tragedy of "Richard the Third." The previous possessors were the Pilkingtons, of Pilkington. Sir Thomas Pilkington was an active adherent of the York faction, in the wars of the Roses; and, in a manuscript of Stowe's, his name appears, with a large number of other friends of Richard, who "sware Kynge Richard shuld were ye crowne." There is a secluded hamlet of old-fashioned houses in this township, called "Heap Fold," situated on a hill about half a mile west of Heywood. This hamlet is generally admitted to be the oldest, and, probably, the only settlement in the township of Heap in the time of the Saxons, who first cleared and cultivated the land of the district. Previous to that time, it may be naturally supposed that, like many other parts of South Lancashire, this district was overrun with woods, and swamps, and thickets. Edwin Butterworth published a little pamphlet history of Heywood, from which I quote the following notes:—"The origin of the designation Heap is not at all obvious; in the earliest known mention of the place, it is termed Hep, which may imply a tract overgrown with hawthorn berries. The name might arise from the unevenness of the surface—heep (Saxon), indicating a mass of irregularities. The denomination 'Heywood' manifestly denotes the site of a wood in a field, or a wood surrounded by fields." Farther on, in the same pamphlet, he says:—"The local family of Hep, or Heap, has been extinct a considerable time. The deed of the gift of the whole forest of Holecombe, to the monks of St. Mary Magdalen, of Bretton, in Yorkshire, by Roger de Montbegon, is witnessed, amongst others, by Robert de Hep; but without date, being of an age prior to the use of dates. Roger de Montbegon, however, died 10th Henry III., so that this transaction occurred before 1226." It may be true that what is here alluded to as the local family of Hep, or Heap, is extinct; but the name of Heap is now more prevalent among the inhabitants of Heywood and the immediately surrounding towns than anywhere else in England. With respect to the two suppositions as to the origin of the name; almost every Lancashire lad will remember that he has, at one time or another, pricked his fingers with getting "heps," the common bright red berry, which, in other parts, goes by the name of the "hip." And then there is some show of likelihood in the supposition that the name has come from the Saxon word "heep," meaning "a mass of irregularities," as Butterworth says; for the whole district is a succession of hills, and holes, and undulations, of ever-varying size and shape. Again, he says, "Heap was doubtless inhabited by at least one Saxon family, whose descendants, it is probable, quietly conformed to Norman rule. In that era, or perhaps earlier, the place was annexed to the lordship and church of Bury, of which Adam de Bury, and Edward de Buri, were possessors shortly after the conquest.[16] A family of the name of Hep, or Heap, held the hamlet from the paramount lords. In 1311, third of Edward II., Henery de Bury held one half of the manor of Bury."[17] Previous to the fifteenth century, this township must have been part of a very wild and untempting region, having, for the most part, little or no settled population, or communion with the living world beyond; and the progress of population, and cultivation of the land, up to that time, appear to have been very slow, and only in a few isolated spots; since, although there were several heys of land at that time, near to a wood, thence called "Heywood," upon the spot now occupied by a busy community of people, numbering twenty thousand at least, yet, there is no record of any dwelling upon that spot until shortly after the fifteenth century, when a few rural habitations were erected thereon. From this comparatively recent period may be reckoned the dawn of the rural village which has since expanded into the present manufacturing town of Heywood, now thriving at a greater rate than ever, under the impulse of modern industrialism. About this time, too, began the residence there of a family bearing the local name. "In 1492 occurs Robert de Heywood. In the brilliant reign of Elizabeth, Edmund Heywood, Esq., was required, by an order dated 1574, to furnish a coat of plate, a long bowe, shéffe of arrows, steel cap, and bill, for the military musters."[18] James Heywood, gentleman, was living before 1604. Peter Heywood, Esq., a zealous magistrate, the representative of this family in the reigns of James the I. and Charles the I., was a native and resident of the present Heywood Hall, which was erected during the sixteenth century. It is said that he apprehended Guido Faux, coming forth from the vault of the house of parliament, on the eve of the gunpowder treason, November 5th, 1605; he probably accompanied Sir Thomas Knevett, in his search of the cellars under the parliament house. The principal interest connected with the earliest history of the town of Heywood seems to be bound up in the history of Heywood Hall and its inhabitants, which will be noticed farther on.
The old episcopal chapel, near the market-place, dedicated to St. Luke, is a plain little building, with nothing remarkable in its appearance or its situation. It seems to have been founded at the beginning of the seventeenth century. It contains inscriptions commemorative of the Holts, of Grizlehurst, and the Starkies, of Heywood Hall. A dial-plate on the eastern exterior bears the date of 1686, with the initials of Robert Heywood, Esq., of Heywood Hall, who was governor of the Isle of Man in 1678. Besides the Heywoods, of Heywood Hall, there were several powerful local families in the olden time seated at short distances round the spot where Heywood now stands: the Heaps, of Heap; the Bamfords, of Bamford; the Marlands, of Marland; the Holts, of Grizlehurst; and the Hopwoods, of Hopwood—which last still reside upon their ancient estate.
Heywood, or "Monkey Town," as sarcastic people in other parts of Lancashire sometimes call it, is now a manufacturing place of at least twenty thousand inhabitants. It owes its rise almost entirely to the cotton manufacture; and the history of the latter incorporates the history of the former in a much greater degree than that of any other considerable town in the district. This gives it a kind of interest which certainly does not belong to any beauty the appearance of the town at present possesses. A few years before those mechanical inventions became known which ultimately made Lancashire what it is now, Heywood was a little peaceful country fold; but a few years after these inventions came into action, it began to grow into what the people of those days thought "something rich and strange," with a celerity akin to the growth of great towns in the United States of America. About two hundred years ago, a few rural cottages first arose upon this almost unpeopled spot; and at the time when the manufacture of cotton began in South Lancashire, it was still a small agricultural village, prettily situated in a picturesque scene, about the centre of the ridge of land which is now nearly covered by the present smoky town. This little nucleus clustered near the old chapel which stands in the market-place. Previous to the invention of the fly shuttle, by Kay, in the neighbouring town of Bury; and the ingenious combinations of the inventions of his contemporaries by Arkwright, the Preston barber, almost every farm-house and cottage in this part had the old-fashioned spinning-wheel and the hand-loom in them, wherewith to employ any time the inhabitants could spare from their rural occupations. At the time of Arkwright's first patent, the people of these parts little knew what a change the time's inventions were bringing upon their quiet haunts—still less of the vast influences which were to arise therefrom, combining to the accomplishment of incalculable ends; and they were, at first, slow to wean from their old, independent way of living, partly by farming and partly by manufacturing labour, which they could do in their own houses, and at their own leisure. "Manchester manufacturers are glad," says Arthur Young, in 1770 (the year of Arkwright's first patent), "when bread is dear, for then the people are forced to work." But though the supply of yarn in those days was less than the demand, and the people were not yet draughted away from their old manner of life, they were caught in the web of that inevitable destiny which will have its way, in spite of the will of man. The world's Master had new commissioners abroad for the achievement of new purposes. These wonder-working seeds of providence, patiently developing themselves in secret, were soon to burst forth in a wide harvest of change upon the field of human life. Certain men of mechanical genius arose, and their creative dreams wrought together in a mysterious way to the production of extraordinary results. John Kay, of Bury, invented the "picking-peg," or "fly-shuttle," in 1738; and his son, Robert Kay, invented the "drop-box," used in the manufacture of fabrics of various colours; and that wonderful cotton and woollen carding machine, which stretches the wire out of the ring, cuts it into lengths, staples and crooks it into teeth, pricks holes in the leather, and puts in the teeth, row after row, with extraordinary speed and precision, till the cards are finished. Thomas Highs, the humble and ingenious reed-maker, at Leigh, in 1763, originated that first remarkable improvement in spinning machinery which he called after his favourite daughter, "Jenny;" and he also introduced the "throstle," or water-frame, in 1767. This man lingered out his old age in affliction and dependence. James Hargreaves, the carpenter, of Blackburn, improved upon the original idea of the spinning jenny, and invented the crank and comb, "an engine of singular merit for facilitating the progress of carding cotton." The ignorant jealousy of the Lancashire operatives in those days drove this ingenious man to seek shelter in Nottinghamshire, where he was but ill-received, and where he ended his days in poverty. He died in a workhouse. Arkwright, the Preston barber, was more endowed by nature with the qualities requisite for worldly success than these ingenious, abstracted, and simple-minded mechanical dreamers. He was a man of great perseverance and worldly sagacity. With characteristic cunning, he appears to have wormed their secrets out of some of these humble inventors; and then, with no less industry and enterprise than ingenuity, he combined these with other kindred inventions, and wrought them into a practical operation, which, by its results, quickly awakened the world to a knowledge of their power. He became a rich man, and "Sir Richard." In 1780, the "spinning mule" was first introduced by its inventor, Samuel Crompton, a dreamy weaver, then dwelling in a dilapidated corner of an old Lancashire hall, called "Th' Hall i'th Wood," in Turton, near Bolton. This machine united the powers of the spinning jenny and the water frame. The spinning mule is now in general use in the cotton manufacture. This poor weaver gave his valuable invention to the public, without securing a patent. His remuneration, in the shape of money, was therefore left to the cold chances of charity. He was, however, at first, rewarded by a subscription of one hundred guineas; and, twenty years afterwards, by an additional subscription of four hundred guineas; and in 1812, parliament awarded the sum of five thousand pounds to the dreamy old weaver, in his latter days. In 1785, the first patent for the power-loom was obtained by the Rev. Edmund Cartwright, of Kent, who invented it; and, after considerable improvements, it has at last contributed another great impulse to the manufacturing power of these districts. Whilst these mechanical agencies were developing themselves, James Watt was busy with his steam power; and Brindley, in conjunction with the Duke of Bridgewater, was constructing his water-ways. They were all necessary parts of one great scheme of social alteration, the end of which is not yet. These men were the immediate sources of the manufacturing power and wealth of Lancashire. Up rose Arkwright's model mill at Cromford; and the people of South Lancashire, who were spinning and weaving in the old way, in their scattered cottages and folds, began to find themselves drawn by irresistible spells into new combinations, and new modes of living and working. Their remote haunts began to resound with the tones of clustering labour; their quiet rivers, late murmuring clear through silent vales and cloughs, began to be dotted with mills; and their little villages shot up into large manufacturing towns. From 1770 to 1788, the use of wool and linen in the spinning of yarns had almost disappeared, and cotton had become the almost universal material for employment. Hand wheels were superseded by common jennies, hand carding by carding engines, and hand picking[19] by the fly shuttle. From 1778 to 1803 was the golden age of this great trade; the introduction of mule yarns, assimilated with other yarns producing every description of goods, gave a preponderating wealth through the loom. The mule twist being rapidly produced, and the demand for goods very large, put all hands in request; and weaver's shops became yearly more numerous. The remuneration for labour was high, and the population was in a comfortable condition. The dissolution of Arkwright's patent in 1785, and the general adoption of mule spinning in 1790, concurred to give the most extraordinary impetus to the cotton manufacture. Numerous mills were erected, and filled with water frames; and jennies and mules were made and set to work with incredible rapidity.[20] Heywood had already risen up, by the previous methods of manufacture, to a place of about two thousand inhabitants, in the year 1780—that changeful crisis of its history when the manufacture of cotton by steam power first began in the township of Heap, with the erection of Makin Mill, hard by the north side of Heywood. This mill was built by the firm of Peel, Yates, and Co., of Bury—the principal of which firm was Robert Peel, Esq. (afterwards Sir Robert), and father of the memorable Sir Robert Peel, late prime minister of England, whose name is honourably connected with the abolition of the Corn Laws; a man who won the gratitude of a nation by daring to turn "traitor" to a great wrong, that he might help a great right. This mill is now the property of Edmund Peel, Esq., brother of the late Sir Robert. It stands about half a mile from Heywood, in a shady clough, and upon the banks of the river Roch, which rises in the hills on the north-east extremity of the county, and flows down through the town of Rochdale, passing through the glen called "Tyrone's Bed;" and through "Hooley Clough." The river then winds on westward, by the town of Bury, three miles off. The course of this water is now well lined with manufacturing power, nearly from its rise to its embouchure. A stranger may always find the mills of Lancashire by following the courses of its waters.
Before the factory system arose, when the people of this quarter did their manufacturing work at their homes—when they were not yet brought completely to depend upon manufacture for livelihood, and when their manner of life was, at least, more natural and hardy than it became afterwards—their condition was, morally and physically, very good, compared with the condition which the unrestricted factory system led to, in the first rush after wealth which it awoke; especially in the employment of young children in mills. The amount of demoralisation and physical deterioration then entailed upon the population, particularly in isolated nooks of the country, where public opinion had little controlling influence upon such mill-owners as happened to possess more avarice than humane care for their operative dependents, must have been great. It was a wild steeple-chase for wealthy stakes, in which whip and spur were used with little mercy, and few were willing to peril their chances of the plate by any considerations for the sufferings of the animal that carried them. But the condition of the factory operatives, since the introduction of the Ten Hours' Bill—and, perhaps, partly through the earnest public discussions which led to that enactment—has visibly begun to improve. Benevolent and just men, who own mills, have, of their own accord, in many honourable instances, paid a more liberal attention to the welfare of their workpeople even than the provisions of the law demanded: and those mill-owners whose only care for their operatives was bounded by a desire to wring as much work as possible out of them for as little pay as possible, were compelled to fulfil certain humane regulations, which their own sympathies would have been slow to concede. The hours of factory labour are now systematically shortened; and the operatives are not even so drunken, riotous, and ignorant, as when they were wrought from bed-time to bed-time. Books and schools, and salutary recreation, and social comfort, are more fashionable among them than they used to be—partly because they are more practicable things to them than before. The mills themselves are now healthier than formerly; factory labour is restricted to children of a reasonable age; and elementary education is now, by a wisdom worthy of extension, administered through the impulse of the law, to all children of a certain age in factories.
Heywood is altogether of too modern an origin to contain any buildings interesting to the admirer of ancient architecture. The only places in Heywood around which an antiquarian would be likely to linger, with anything like satisfaction, would be the little episcopal chapel in the market-place, founded in the seventeenth century; and Heywood Hall, which stands about half a mile from the town, and of which more anon. With these exceptions, there is probably not one building in the place two hundred years old.
The appearance of Heywood, whether seen in detail or as a whole, presents as complete, unrelieved, and condensed an epitome of the still-absorbing spirit of manufacture in the region where it originated, as can be found anywhere in Lancashire. And, in all its irregular main street consisting of more than a mile of brick-built shops and cottages—together with the little streets and alleys diverging therefrom—there does not appear even one modern building remarkable for taste, or for any other distinguishing excellence, sufficient to induce an ordinary man to halt and admire it for a minute. There is not even an edifice characterised by any singularity whatever, calculated to awaken wonder or curiosity in an ordinary beholder, except its great square, brick cotton mills, machine shops, and the like; and when the outside of one of these has been seen, the outside of the remainder is no novelty. The heights and depths principally cultivated in Heywood appear to be those of factory chimneys and coal-pits. Of course, the interiors of the mills teem with mechanical wonders and ingenuities; and the social life and characteristics of the population are full of indigenous interest. But the general exterior of the town exhibits a dull and dusky succession of manufacturing sameness. Its inns, with one or two exceptions, look like jerry-shops; and its places of worship like warehouses. A living writer has said of the place, that it looks like a great funeral on its way from Bury to Rochdale—between which towns it is situated midway. When seen from any neighbouring elevation, on a dull day, this strong figure hardly exaggerates the truth. The whole life of Heywood seems to be governed by the ring of factory bells—at least, much more than by any other bells. The very dwelling-houses look as if they, too, worked in the factories. To persons accustomed to the quaint prettiness of well-regulated English rural villages, and the more natural hue and general appearance of the people in such places, the inhabitants of Heywood would, at first sight, have somewhat of a sallow appearance, and their houses would appear to be slightly smeared with a mixture of soot, sperm oil, and cotton fluz. And, if such observers knew nothing of the real character and habits of the population, they would be slow to believe them a people remarkably fond of cleanliness and of homely comfort, as far as compatible with the nature of their employment. A close examination of these Heywood cottages would show, however, that their insides are more clean and comfortable than the first glance at their outsides might suggest; and would also reveal many other things not discreditable to the native disposition of the people who dwell in them. But the architecture and general characteristics of Heywood, as a town, evince no taste, no refinement, nor even public spirit of liberality, commensurate with its wealth and energy. The whole population seems yet too wrapt in its manufacturing dream, to care much about the general adornment of the place, or even about any very effective diffusion of those influences which tend to the improvement of the health and the culture of the nobler faculties of the people. But Heywood may yet emerge from its apprenticeship to blind toil; and, wiping the dust from its eyes, look forth towards things quite as essential as this unremitting fight for bread for the day. At present, wherever one wanders among the streets on week-days, the same manufacturing indications present themselves. It is plain that its people are nearly all employed in one way, directly or indirectly. This is suggested, not only by the number and magnitude of the mills, and the habitations of the people, but by every movement on the streets. Every vehicle that passes; every woman and child about the cottages; every lounger in the market-place tells the same story. One striking feature of week-day life in Heywood, more completely even than in many other kindred towns, is the clock-work punctuality with which the operative crowds rush from the mills, and hurry along the streets, at noon, to their dinners; sauntering back again in twos and threes, or speeding along in solitary haste, to get within the mill-doors in time for that re-awakening boom of the machinery which is seldom on the laggard side of its appointment. And it is not only in the dress and manners of this body of factory operatives—in their language and deportment, and the prevailing hue of their countenances—that the character and influence of their employment is indicated; but also in a modified variety of the same features in the remainder of the population, who are either immediately connected with these operatives, or indirectly affected by the same manufacturing influences. I have noticed, however, that factory operatives in country manufacturing towns like Heywood have a more wholesome appearance, both in dress and person, than the same class in Manchester. Whether this arises from any difference in the atmosphere, or from more healthy habits of factory operatives in the country than those induced among the same class by the temptations of a town like Manchester, I cannot say.