Adam Byrom, of “Saulforde, merchaunt,” as he is styled, the son of Ralph, who first settled in the neighbourhood and diverged into trade, was, with one exception, the largest merchant in the Salford Hundred, and in 1540 was assessed by the commissioners of Henry VIII. at a larger amount even than Sir Alexander Radcliffe, of Ordsall, who was accounted the great magnate of the district. Manchester was even then a thriving and prosperous mercantile town. Mills had been placed on the waters of the Irwell and its affluent streams, and “Manchester Cottons,” as they were called, and which, be it known, were then and for a hundred years to come Lancashire woollens, were carried on pack-horses to London and Hull, and were frequently sent to the great fairs at Amsterdam, Frankfort, and to other foreign marts. So important had the trade become that it was found necessary, after a year’s experience, to repeal the statute bestowing upon the town the privilege of sanctuary, and to send the sanctuary men, who by their idleness and other enormities were “prejudicial to the wealth, credit, great occupyings, and good order” of the place, to Chester, which, being poor, was less likely to suffer by the presence of such thriftless and disorderly characters—
Cantabit vacuus coram latrone viator.
The wealth which Adam Byrom acquired in his business was at different times invested in the purchase of lands, &c., in Salford, Darcy Lever, Ardwick, Bolton-le-Moors, and other places, including the chief messuage or manor-house called Salford Hall, in which he resided. He appears to have been a free-trader in principle, and opposed to the feudal monopolies that were then in vogue, for it is recorded in the Kalendar of Pleadings that he prosecuted William Arram, the mayor of Preston, claiming exemption from the payment of tolls and other imposts in the fairs and markets of Salford and Preston. This worthy died on the 25th of July, 1558. His wife, a daughter of one Hunt, of Hunt’s Hall—the Hunt’s Bank, probably, of later days—bore him six children, three sons and three daughters; and it is a noteworthy fact that the two elder sons, George and Henry, died within a month of their father’s demise. George, the first-born, was succeeded by his eldest son, Ralph, then a child of three years of age. One of his daughters was Margaret Byrom, the ill-fated victim of the memorable case of supposed witchcraft in 1597, of which mention has been made in our notice of Dr. Dee, the Wizard Warden of Manchester, who was solicited by her friends to cast out the devil with which it was believed John Hartley, a conjuror, had possessed her, while staying on a visit at the house of Nicholas Starkey, of Cleworth.
It is, however, with the descendants of Henry, the second son of Adam Byrom, the “merchaunt,” that we are at present more immediately concerned. This Henry had in his father’s lifetime been united in marriage with Mary, one of the daughters of Thomas Becke, a wealthy trader in the town, an alliance that introduces us to quite a group of Manchester worthies. The Beckes had been for years engaged in trade, and numbered among them some of the earliest benefactors of Manchester, and some of her most generous churchmen. Isabel, the widow of Robert Becke, and the mother, probably, of Henry Byrom’s father-in-law, at her own cost erected the conduit in the market-place, the first “water works” in Manchester, conveying the water in pipes from a natural spring at the upper end of the town, which gave name to the present Spring Gardens and Fountain Street. Her father was Richard Bexwyke, another opulent merchant, who founded the Jesus Chantry on the south side of his parish church—the one which his descendant Henry Pendleton, in 1653, gave to the parishioners of Manchester for the purpose of a “free” public library, the first of the kind in the town, if not, indeed, in the kingdom; he also restored the choir and nave of the church, erected the beautifully carved stalls on the north side of the choir, and founded a grammar school, which one of his chantry priests was to teach. It is probable that he was the husband of Joan Bexwyke, the sister of Bishop Oldham, who, with Hugh Bexwyke and Ralph Hulme (ancestor of William Hulme, the “Founder,”) was named in the first charter of feoffment of the Manchester Free Grammar School, the three being, in fact, not only trustees, but special benefactors and co-founders in the endowment, if not in the first erection, of the Manchester school, which absorbed the original foundation of Richard Bexwyke. Another of these Bexwykes, Roger, a son or nephew of the Richard just named, married Margaret, the sister of John Bradford, the “martyr,” a “worthy” whose name Lancashire men will always revere; and it is recorded that this Roger attended Bradford at the stake at Smithfield, but he was prevented by the brutal violence of one of the officials from helping to soothe the martyrs last agonies.
Henry Byrom left two sons—Robert, who succeeded as heir, but died unmarried in May, 1586, when the property passed to his younger brother, Lawrence. Of this representative of the family but little is known. He was in infancy at the time of his father’s decease, and he was yet only young when he became heir to his brother, and succeeded to an inheritance that seems to have involved him in no small amount of litigation—generally with his own kinsmen, and for the purpose of adjusting differences respecting properties bequeathed by his father and grandfather. Ultimately, an agreement was come to, as appears by the following deed, dated 13th December, 1586:—
Be yt knowne to all men by these p’sents that wee Raphe Byrom (a cousin of Lawrence), of Salford, in the countye of Lancaster, gent.; Richard Hunte of the same Town, gent.; Adam Byrom (another cousin), of the same Town, gent.; and Raphe Houghton, of Manchester, in the countie afforesaid, gent.; for dyvers good causes and consideracons vs movinge Have Remysed, &c., and quyteclaymed vnto Lawrence Byrom, of Salfforde afforesaid, gent.; &c. All and all maner of accons, sutes, querells, trespasses, &c. by reason of any Lease made unto us of confidence and truste by Roberte Byrom (the elder brother of Lawrence and then deceased) to us, &c. ffrom the beginning of the worlde till this p’sent daye except onlie for the Release or discharge of one Obligacon of a thousande poundes made &c. by Lawce. to Ralfe & Adam 3 Maye 28 Eliz. that the sayde Lawrence B. shall not alter the state tayle made by Henry Byrom, father of the said Robte B. & Lawrence B. Witnessed by “William Radclyffe” and “Roberte Leighe.” Dated 13 Dec., 29 Eliz. (1586).[41]
The late Canon Parkinson, in his notes on the “Private Journal of John Byrom,” says that “after an unsettled life, and a too keen sense of his own infelicity, at least towards the close of his earthly struggles, he found at last a haven of rest in the Collegiate Church, being buried there June 26, 1598. There was,” he adds, “more than ordinary sorrow in his family on that day, and probably some ground for his son not appearing at the Herald’s Visitation in 1613, as well as for his own Christian name not being borne by any of his descendants.” The appearance at the Visitation (Richard St. George’s) was scarcely necessary, for on the same occasion Adam, the son of Ralph (Lawrence Byrom’s cousin), entered a pedigree of six generations, claiming descent from Ralph, “second sonne to Byrom of Byrom,” the first occasion on which any pedigree of the family had been entered, and at the same time he asserted his claim to and was allowed the arms borne by the Byroms of Byrom—Argent, a chevron between three porcupines, sable, a crescent for difference, with a porcupine, sable, charged with a crescent for crest.
Edward Byrom, the son who succeeded him, married, about the year 1615, Ellen, the daughter of Thomas Worsley, of Carr in Bowdon, an alliance that brought him in relationship with the Worsleys, of Platt in Rusholme, of which family was the distinguished Parliamentarian soldier, Major-general Charles Worsley, returned as the first representative for Manchester in Cromwell’s Parliament of 1654. Like his progenitors, he was engaged in trade, and carried on an extensive business as a “linen draper,” a phrase that meant a good deal more in those days than it does now. In local affairs he took an active part, and in 1638–9 his name occurs on the Court Leet Rolls as one of two constables of the town. His lot was cast in troublous times. Unlike his contemporary, Humphrey Chetham, he seems to have escaped the attentions of the money-seeking functionaries of Charles the First. Greatness was not thrust upon him, and he had not, as Chetham had, to pay smart for refusing to take upon himself the “honour” of knighthood—a distinction in those days of doubtful value.