A History of Lancashire

by Henry Fishwick

The question of what to do with the wandering beggars appears to have met with a rough–and–ready answer from the Liverpool authorities, and in 1686 they sent round the bellman to warn the inhabitants not to relieve any foreign poor, and, to prevent any mistake, they ordered that all those on the relief list should wear a pewter badge; and so strictly were these regulations enforced, that a burgess was fined 6s. 8d. for harbouring his own father and mother without giving due notice to the officials.

The first regular post–stages between the various parts of Lancashire and the rest of England were slow in developing, as we may infer from the fact that in 1653 three merchants (two Londoners and a Cornishman) made a proposal to the Government to work the inland and foreign letter office, and to establish a stage between Lancaster and Carlisle. This arrangement was probably not carried out. The roads all over the county were at this period in a dreadful state, and were not materially improved until the establishment of the turnpike system.

The educational advantages had now somewhat improved, the increase in public schools towards the close of the century being considerable. The experience of one boy will serve as a sample of how, no doubt, fared others. William Stout, the son of a well–to–do farmer, who lived at Bolton Holmes, near Lancaster (where his ancestors had lived for generations), records[159] that he was first sent to a dame school, and afterwards to the Free School at Bolton (about the year 1674), but when he was between ten and twelve years of age he was, especially in the spring and summer season, taken away for the “plough time, turf time, hay time and harvest, in looking after the sheep, helping at plough, going to the moss with carts, making hay and shearing in harvest;” so that he made small progress in Latin, and what he learnt in winter he forgot in summer; as for writing, he depended upon a writing–master who came to Bolton during the winter.[160] One of the earliest recollections of the writer just quoted was of his sister being sent up to London to be touched by Charles II., on which occasion she received a gold token worth about 10s., which she afterwards wore round her neck, “as the custom then was.” The royal touch was not in this case efficacious. William Stout afterwards settled in Lancaster as a kind of general dealer and merchant, especially in groceries and ironmongery, and from his diary may be gleaned several interesting details of the state and trade of Lancaster, which at that time (end of seventeenth century) did a considerable shipping business to London, Ireland, Virginia, Barbadoes, and other ports.

In 1689 the war with France much interfered with this trade, and the cheese from Cheshire and Lancashire, which required twenty ships yearly to carry it to London, had all to be taken by land. The rate for the carriage in this way was from 3s. to 5s. a hundredweight in summer. Iron was obtained in the crude state from the bloomeries of Cartmel and Furness. Tobacco was largely imported into Lancaster directly from Virginia, the trade being carried on partly by exchange of goods; thus, one John Hodgson, of Lancaster, sent out £200 value of English goods, for which he obtained in Virginia 200 hogsheads of tobacco, and made by the barter a net profit of £1,500, tobacco then selling at 1s. a pound. Sugar bought at Bristol and Liverpool was refined at Lancaster, but none seems to have been imported at this time. Our diarist in 1695 was collector of the land–tax of Lancaster, which was 4s. in the pound, and amounted to £120, so that the rateable value was only about £600.

One curious funeral custom is worth recording. “I went” (writes Stout) “to Preston fair to buy cheese,” the market for cheese being mostly at Garstang and Preston fairs. “At this time we sold much cheese to funerals in the country, from 30 lbs. to 100 lbs. weight, as the deceased was of ability; which was shrived into two or three” (slices or pieces) “in the lb., and one with a penny manchet given to all attendants. And it was customary at Lancaster to give one or two long biscuits, called Naples biscuits, to each attendant, by which from 20 to 100 lbs. was given.” The providing of the penny manchet at the funeral often formed a paragraph in the deceased person’s will, and the doles given to the poor on these occasions were often considerable.

The last Herald’s visitation to the county was made in 1664–65 by Sir William Dugdale, and from it we discover that many old families of the last century have entirely died out, whilst others of more humble origin have succeeded them. The incompleteness of the pedigrees (to say nothing of their glaring inaccuracies) is striking, and one is surprised to find how many families, undoubtedly entitled to bear arms, neglected to enter their descents. The seventeenth century saw the birth of a new order of men in Lancashire, who in many cases rose to opulence and became the founders of what developed into county families; there were the clothiers—they in many instances sprang from the lowest social grade, but by industry and thrift acquired their positions. The clothier purchased the wool (or kept large quantities of sheep), and delivered it to persons who took it to their own homes, and having there made it into cloth, returned it then to their employers. This business was usually carried on in the towns of the county, which were now rapidly springing up, and the demand for the kind of labour required quickly drew workmen from the surrounding agricultural districts. Amongst the most prominent centres for this trade were Manchester, Oldham, Bolton, Rochdale, Ashton, Bury, and Blackburn. In the manorial and other records of this period we find frequent references to “loomhouses,” “bleachouses,” “woolmen,” and “clothmakers.” These pioneers of the wool trade, the clothiers, often lived in large town–houses, adjacent to and communicating with which were their warehouses for the wool and manufactured goods. The contents of one of these establishments is furnished by the inventory attached to the will of Anthony Mosley, of Manchester, clothier, proved at Chester, April 30, 1607. The will itself, after providing for the family of the testator and bestowing several hundred pounds for charitable purposes, concludes with a clause to the effect that the testator’s “walke millers” (i.e., fullers) shall each have a cloak of 10 or 11 shillings a yard; that every one of his servants shall have 40s. each; that at the funeral a dinner shall be provided, and “a dealing to the poor of 2d. a piece”; and finally that the parson who shall make the funeral sermon is to be rewarded with 20s. for his pains. The dwelling–house consisted of the hall, the parlour, and the kitchen, with chambers over them; also a chamber over the warehouse, a brewhouse, a “bolting–chamber,”[161] an upper loft, and cellars. The stock of cloth in the warehouse was valued at £255, and the stock at various fulling–mills was estimated at another £740, whilst the various trade debts owing to the deceased amounted to £1,260. The household effects are not given in detail, but are given as “household stuffe and cloth,” and valued at nearly £600, beside £22 of plate. In 1613 there was a heavy decline in the wool trade, to remedy which a Royal Commission was appointed, and subsequently Acts of Parliament passed to remove the impost on cloth, which had been put on by the Merchant Adventurers’ Company, who for some years had an almost complete monopoly of dyeing cloth. The establishment of a free trade in dyeing once more revived the trade, and dyers were found in all our Lancashire towns where woollen cloth was manufactured, and alongside them were found fulling, or, as they were then called, walk mills. Coal, ironstone, and flags where obtainable also now began to find a ready market. Towards the close of the century the making of fustian and other so–called cotton[162] goods, which had almost been confined to Manchester, began rapidly to be taken up by the surrounding towns, one of the first of these being Bolton.

Lancashire had not yet established a printing–press,[163] though booksellers and stationers were not unknown in the larger towns; and a fair number of authors from this county had furnished materials for the printers of the Metropolis, amongst whom were Isaac Ambrose, Vicar of Preston and Garstang; John Angier, pastor of Denton; Nehemiah Barnet, minister of Lancaster; William Bell, minister at Huyton; Seth Bushell, Vicar of Preston; Henry Pigott, Vicar of Rochdale; Charles Earl, of Derby; Edward Gee, minister at Eccleston; John Harrison, minister of Ashton–under–Lyne; William Leigh, Vicar of Standish; Charles Herle, Vicar of Winwick; Richard Hollingworth, a Fellow of Manchester College; and Richard Wroe, Warden of Manchester; Joseph Rigby; Alexander Rigby; William Moore, Vicar of Whalley; Jeremiah Horrox, the astronomer; Nathaniel Heywood, Vicar of Ormskirk; and a number of writers for and against Quakers (see [Chapter IX.]). One reason, perhaps, of this absence of the printing–press was that not until 1695 was the censorship of printed matter swept away.

On the restoration of Charles II., as a reward for faithful services to the House of Stuart during the Civil War, it was intended to establish a new order of knighthood; this intention was ultimately abandoned, but those in Lancashire who were to have been honoured were Thomas Holt, Thomas Greenhalgh, Colonel Kirby, Robert Holt, Edmund Asheton, Christopher Banastre, Francis Anderton, Colonel James Anderton, Roger Nowell, Henry Norris, Thomas Preston,—Farrington,—Fleetwood, John Girlington, William Stanley, Edward Tildesley, Thomas Stanley, Richard Boteler, John Ingleton, and C. Walmesley, all of whom had an estate of the value of at least £1,000.

William III., on his way to Ireland, before the battle of the Boyne, embarked from Liverpool on June 14, 1690, and he probably met with but a poor reception from the Lancashire people, as everywhere in the county the Roman Catholics were dissatisfied at the expulsion of the Stuarts by the House of Orange. The unpopularity of the King gave rise to many plots against him, the last of which was known as the “Lancashire Plot,” which, according to one authority,[164] was not only the parent but the companion of all the other conspiracies, and its origin was owing to the politics of James II., who, hoping to regain the crown, concerted with his friends, before his departure for France, that they should raise a ferment in England, and that some trusty person should be commissioned to carry out this scheme.

The person selected for this commission was Dr. Bromfield, who, to suit his purpose, passed himself off as a Quaker,[165] and passed rapidly through the North of England to Scotland, sowing the seeds of discontent as he went along. From Scotland he proceeded to Ireland, and then returned to Lancashire, intending to make that county the centre of action. Caryl, Lord Molyneux, had, in 1687, been appointed Lord–Lieutenant of Lancashire in the place of Lord Derby; and it was to his house at Croxteth that Dr. Bromfield first proceeded on his return from Ireland; and here he found at all events a sympathizer, if not an active partisan.