A History of Lancashire

by Henry Fishwick

CHAPTER XII.
THE DAWN OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.

The cotton trade of Lancashire was now fairly established; steam was just beginning to be commonly used as the motive power instead of the old water–wheel, and consequently the sites suitable for factories were no longer limited, and this at once led to a further very great development of textile manufactures. This rapid growth was not unattended with intermittent periods of depression, which the working men of the day were not always prepared to attribute to the right cause, and thus riots and disturbances were of frequent occurrence in the manufacturing districts. One of the most serious of these terminated in what has ever since been known as “the Peterloo.” In 1816 the staple trades of Lancashire were in a very depressed state, and this led to the formation of political union societies, one of the chief objects of which was to obtain annual parliaments and universal suffrage. These societies met in St. Peter’s Fields, Manchester, in October, 1816, when all passed off quietly and orderly, but on March 10 following a larger meeting was held at the same place, at which about 1,000 men appeared with blankets over their shoulders, and with the avowed intention of marching to London to lay their grievances before the Prince Regent. This meeting was dispersed by the military, and several of the Blanketeers (as they were called) were taken to prison. The popular feeling was, however, not appeased, and the turn–out for an advance of wages of the spinners, weavers and colliers, towards the end of 1818, added fuel to the fire. Led on by Henry Hunt of London and others, it was decided to hold a mass meeting in St. Peter’s Fields on January 18, 1819, which meeting was held, and a resolution passed calling for the immediate repeal of the Corn Law. In the August following, the borough reeve and constables of Manchester refused to call a public meeting to consider the best means of obtaining a reform of the House of Commons, although 700 householders had signed the requisition. The result was that the requisitors themselves summoned the meeting, which was held near St. Peter’s Church on August 16, Henry Hunt being called upon to preside.

This meeting was attended by members of the societies from Oldham, Rochdale, Middleton, Ashton, Stockport, and all the surrounding villages, each contingent being accompanied by its band of music. The magistrates, being determined to disperse the vast assembly, called to their aid 200 special constables, the Manchester and Cheshire Yeomanry Cavalry, the 15th Hussars, and a detachment of the 88th Regiment of Foot, some pieces of artillery also being ready if required.

The mob was unarmed, but carried a plentiful display of banners with inscriptions more or less revolutionary. Acting under the orders of the magistrates, the Manchester Yeomanry and the hussars, with drawn swords, dashed through the crowd in the direction of the temporary platform, where they captured Henry Hunt and others. The would–be reformers fled in every direction, and the arrival of the Cheshire Yeomanry assisted rapidly to clear the field. After this onslaught—for it could not be called a fight—three or four people were found to have been killed, and twenty–two men and eight women were carried off to the infirmary; but it subsequently transpired that eight persons were killed and several hundreds were wounded. Henry Hunt was tried for sedition, and sentenced to two years’ imprisonment, but some of his friends got off with a lesser penalty.

When the times again became settled, there was a vast increase in the population of the towns and villages where factories and workshops were established, and this increase came from all the surrounding districts and from other counties, whose sons, hearing of the rise of new trades and industries, came with their families and settled in Lancashire.

A careful study of the surnames of any of our manufacturing towns will show that about this time a very large number of names now for the first time appeared in these districts, a small percentage of which were of foreign origin, but the greater proportion were English. The tendency was, therefore, to concentrate the scattered population around certain centres; thus it came about that in some parishes which remained purely agricultural, the population for years remained stationary, or even decreased. Thus we find, in the extensive parish of St. Michael’s–on–Wyre, the population between 1801 and 1871 had only risen from 1,197 to 1,290, whilst that of Goosnargh shows an actual decrease of 545 inhabitants between 1821 and 1861. The railway system was first introduced into Lancashire in 1830, when the line between Manchester and Liverpool was opened, which ceremony was marred by the fatal accident to William Huskisson, which happened at Parkside, near Newton–le–Willows. The cost of this railway up to June 30 previous to its being opened for traffic was £820,000, but before the end of 1838 the total expenditure had reached £1,443,897; other railways soon followed, and before a generation had passed away the county was intersected in every direction by these iron roads. Steam packets were in use before the railways were started; they first plied on the canals in 1812.

The sudden progress in commercial affairs could not be accomplished without some inconveniences and evils following in its course. The overcrowding of towns brought a condition of social life which took all the powers of the local authorities to grapple with. Some of the sleepy old towns with ill–lighted and worse–paved streets, with their old tumble–down dwellings and their utter want of anything like sanitary arrangements, were ill adapted to receive suddenly large additions to their population. Then, again, the time–honoured grammar schools and the few sparsely endowed free schools were all inadequate to meet the educational requirements.

Very early in the century a few schools were started on Dr. Bell’s system, and subsequently what were called national schools became common in large towns, and to supplement them the Sunday–schools (which were first started about the year 1782) were giving an elementary education to many who did not or could not give regular attendance on the week–day. Another great evil rising out of the increase in manufactories was that men, women, and especially children, all worked too many hours a day, which, had not a wise Legislature stepped in to arrest, would soon have told dreadfully on the physical, moral, and mental condition of the labouring classes. With the necessary improvements of the sanitary condition of our towns came the introduction of the use of gas for illuminating purposes, and our streets became safe by night as well as by day.