The greater portion of the mansion is and has been for many years in the occupancy of a farmer, Mr. James Bromiley, but a part of the old black and white structure has been divided and subdivided into numerous tenements that are now let to small cottagers. The occasion of our visit was a pleasant autumn afternoon, and proceeding, as we had been previously advised, from the Oaks Station, a pleasant walk of a few minutes over the high ground brought us to the picturesque and interesting old relic. The request to view the interior was readily complied with, the good woman of the house cheerfully accompanying us through the wainscoted parlours and contracted passages, and thence, by a quaintly-carved black oak staircase, with massive and highly-decorated balusters and pendants, that leads to the upper chambers and the vacant lofts above, giving us every facility we could desire in examining the antiquated dwelling. The dining-hall, a well-proportioned room, is on the ground floor, but that which most attracts attention is the chamber above—the only one which seems to have been treated with any degree of respect—Crompton’s room, the one in which he worked, in which he had his rude bench and still ruder tools, where he matured his plans and constructed his primitive models, where for years he laboured on with anxious hope and enduring perseverance, and where at length—just one hundred years ago—he triumphed, giving to his country the invention which has so largely contributed to its wealth and prosperity. The room is now occupied as a sleeping apartment, but in other respects it is little changed since the great inventor’s day. It has been subjected to many whitewashings, but the old ornamental plaster cornice still remains; the old heraldic escutcheon of the Starkies may still be seen; and there too is the spacious window with its double row of leaded lights extending the entire width, out of which Crompton must so often have wistfully gazed. The attic storey possesses but comparatively little interest, and exhibits only a labyrinth of dark and intricate passages, with small chambers and secret hiding places leading off in every direction. It was here that Crompton, in 1779, on the very eve of the completion of his machine, concealed the various parts after he had taken it to pieces for safety against the dreaded attack of the machine-breaking rioters of Blackburn, who had driven poor Hargreaves, the inventor of the Jenny, from his home, destroyed nearly every machine within miles of Blackburn, and who, it was feared, would extend their riotous proceedings to Crompton’s invention before it had been even put in actual work. The principal entrance to the hall is on the south side, by an arched doorway, over which is a square panel with the initials and date already mentioned. Above this, and separated by a bold moulding, is a porch-chamber, lighted on three sides by square windows, mullioned and transomed, over one of which is a lozenge-shaped sun-dial. Evil days have unhappily fallen upon the building. Where repairs have been attempted they have been made by slovenly hands, and unseemly patches mar the effect of its general appearance; but even in its present condition of neglect and approaching ruin it exhibits much that is architecturally interesting. Apart, however, from such considerations, surely the associations that gather round make it a public duty to protect it from further injury, so that it may be preserved to future generations as a memorial of one of Lancashire’s worthiest sons and one of England’s greatest benefactors.
Crompton, though himself of humble parentage, could claim a long and respectable lineage, his progenitors, who derived their patronymic from the hamlet of Crompton in Prestwich parish, ranking among the better class of yeomen, and the parent line asserting its gentility by the use of armorial ensigns. His parents resided at Firwood, a farm in the same township, and distant about half a mile from Hall-i’-th’-Wood, that had been owned by their family for several generations, but which Crompton’s grandfather had mortgaged to the Starkies, and the father, unable to redeem, had finally alienated to them, continuing the occupancy, however, for some time as tenant, and combining with the business of farming that of carding, spinning, and weaving on a small scale whenever the intervals of farming and daily labour permitted. The couple were honest, hardworking, and religious, but fortune was unpropitious, and during the later years of the elder Crompton’s life they appear to have been going down in the world. It was at the farm at Firwood, on the 3rd of December, 1753, that Samuel Crompton first saw the light. Shortly after his birth his parents forsook the old home and took up their abode at a cottage near Lower Wood, in the immediate vicinity. Their stay there was but short, for three or four years after, they removed to the neighbouring mansion of Hall-in-the Wood, a part of which had been assigned to them by Mr. Starkie, who had become the possessor of Firwood, for the old mansion had, even at that date, been divided into separate holdings, and confided by its owner to the care of somewhat needy occupants.
George Crompton, the father, died shortly after, at the comparatively early age of thirty-seven, from, as is said, a cold taken while helping gratuitously in his over hours to build the organ-gallery in All Saints’ Church, Bolton, where he worshipped; and his widow, Betty Crompton, as she was familiarly called, was left to struggle for a livelihood for herself and three children—Samuel, who was then a child of five years, and two girls. She was a woman of superior attainments, industrious, managing, and, withal, strong-minded; energetic in her action, but possessing, with a good deal of outward austerity of manner, much innate goodness of heart. Her good management and business-like habits gained her the confidence and respect of her neighbours, who manifested their appreciation of her abilities by electing her to the office of overseer of the township, an appointment which, though perfectly legal, was of unusual occurrence in days when “Women’s Rights” were unthought of; one of the reasons which induced her to accept the office being the desire to compel her son to discharge the duties, which he disliked excessively. Mrs. Crompton abode at the hall after her husband’s death, and continued his business with energy and thrift, the produce of her dairy being held in high repute in the neighbourhood, whilst the bees in her old-fashioned garden supplied her with another marketable commodity, added to which she had acquired local fame for her excellent make of elderberry wine, a beverage she hospitably dispensed among her friends and visitors. As may be supposed, she ruled her household with a firm hand, and believing in the wisdom of the proverb that to “spare the rod” is to “spoil the child,” she manifested her fondness for her boy by a frequent application of the birch to the unappreciative youngster’s breech—as he was wont to say in after years, her practice was to chastise him, not for any particular fault, but because she loved him so well, a mode of training certainly not the best calculated to enable a lad of a naturally diffident and sensitive disposition to engage in the rough battle of life or to make his way successfully in the world. The widow Crompton, notwithstanding, had many good qualities. She did, as she believed, her duty to her fatherless child, and gave him the best education in her power. School boards and board schools were then only in the womb of time, but Lancashire had many excellent schoolmasters, and of the number was William Barlow,[49] who kept a school at the top of Little Bolton, a pedagogue who worthily upheld the value and dignity of the mathematical sciences, and, on that account, was reputed among his neighbours to be “a witch in figures.” Under his tuition young Crompton was placed, and, being of a meditative and retiring disposition, he took kindly to his studies, made satisfactory progress, and was accounted well educated for his station in life.
Of his two sisters little or nothing is known, but residing under the same roof was a lame old uncle, his father’s brother, Alexander Crompton; a character in his way, whose peculiarities could hardly fail to have an influence on the mind of the nephew. Like the rest of the family, Uncle Alexander was strict in his religious observances, but being afflicted with lameness was unable to leave his room, in which, in fact, he lived and worked and slept, to attend the services of the sanctuary, and so he compensated himself for the deprivation in a manner that was as original as it was humble and respectful:—
On each succeeding Sunday [says Crompton’s faithful biographer, Mr. French], when all the rest of the family had gone to service at All Saints’ Chapel, Uncle Alexander sat in his solitary room listening for the first sound of the bells of Bolton Parish Church. Before they ceased ringing, he took off his ordinary working-day coat and put on that which was reserved for Sundays. This done, he slowly read to himself the whole of the Morning Service and a sermon, concluding about the same time that the dismissal bell commenced ringing, when his Sunday coat was carefully put aside,—to be resumed again, however, when the bells took up their burthen for the evening service, which he read through with the same solitary solemnity.
Such was the household then occupying one of the wings of the rambling old mansion. Mrs. Crompton found no happiness in repose; ever doing and ever having much to do was her manner, and that was assuredly the fate of her son. From his earliest childhood the hours that should have been spent in harmless pastime were occupied in rendering such assistance as he could on the farm, or in the humble manufacturing operations carried on in the house, whilst his mother was bargaining and fighting with the outer world. He was put to the loom almost as soon as his legs were “long enough to touch the treddles,” and when his day’s task was done he was sent to a night school in Bolton to improve his knowledge of algebra, mathematics, and trigonometry. The poor weaver-lad had no playmates or associations with the outer world; he lived a life of seclusion, and his only companion in his brief moments of leisure was his fiddle. His father had been enthusiastically fond of music, and at the time of his death had begun the construction of an organ, leaving behind him a few oak pipes and the few simple tools with which he had made them. The amateur organ-builder’s son inherited the father’s taste, and made himself a fiddle—the first achievement of his mechanical genius. This was the companion of his solitude, and in after life his solace in many a bitter disappointment.