When the kingdom of the Netherlands was formed, Bauwens sought the patronage of William I., but in vain. A proposal to establish cotton spinning on the banks of the Guadalquivir, which he made to the Infanta of Spain, was equally unsuccessful. In these circumstances he attempted the creation of a new industry, and began at Paris a process for the treatment of waste silk. This was in 1819, and his partner, the Baron Idelot de la Ferté, allowed him an annual salary of 5,000 francs and a share of the profits. The patent taken out in November, 1821, for the preparation and treatment of silk floss, might possibly have restored the fallen fortunes of Liévin Bauwens, but he died of the rupture of an aneurysm on the 17th of March, 1822. His widow, the former Mary Kenyon, of Manchester, after burying him in Père-la-Chaise, returned to Belgium, and died at St. Bernard in 1834. Five years later the two sons of the manufacturer received the royal licence to use their father’s Christian and surname as a patronymic. Liévin was himself the eldest of a family of twelve. By his marriage with Mary Kenyon he had two sons and a daughter—Napoléon, born at Tronchiennes in 1805, who died at Paris in 1869; Félix, born at Tronchiennes in 1806, who died in London; and Elvina Marie Bernardine, born at Tronchiennes in 1809, who married M. Louis Rysheuvels, of Antwerp.
Ghent has not forgotten the memory of the man who laid the foundations of a vast industry, and who united to commercial enterprise public spirit and private generosity. One of her open squares is named in honour of Liévin Bauwens, and there his statute stands to witness that peace has her victories no less than war. Such is one of the many romantic episodes connected with the history of the industrial development of Manchester.
Footnotes:
[8]. The story of the life of Bauwens is told in “Un Précurseur de Richard Lenior,” par A. Boghaert-Vaché (Mulhouse, 1886).
Merry Andrew of Manchester.
In that strange old joke-book, “Pasquil’s Jests and Mother Bunches Merriments,” there is a story in which a “local habitation” is given to a name suggestive of grotesque amusement. Whether the Mancunian Merry Andrew was the first of his tribe may be doubted, but as the book was printed in 1604, he is somewhat of a patriarch in the race. The story is entitled, “How merry Andrew of Manchester serued an Vsurer,” and runs thus:—“Merry Andrew of Manchester, who is well knowne, meeting with three or foure of his companions on a Sunday, presently hee bade them home to dinner, yet hee neyther had meate nor money in his house. Well, but to his shifts he goeth, and went into an olde Usurer’s kitchen, where he was very familiar, and priuily, under his gowne, he brought away the pot of meate that was sodden for the old miser’s dinner. When he came home, hee put out the meat, and made his boy scoure the pot, and sent him with it to the Usurer, to borrow two groats on it, and bade the boy take a bill of his hand: which the boy did, and with the money bought beere and bread for their dinner. When the Usurer should goe to dinner, his meat was gone; wherefore he all to beat his mayd, calling her whoore. She sayd ‘There came nobody but Andrew there all that day.’ Then they asked him; and he sayd, hee had none. But at last they sayd, that he and no body else had the pot. ‘By my fayth,’ quoth Andrew, ‘I borrowed such a pot on a time, but I sent it home agayne;’ and so called his witnesse, and sayd: ‘It is perilous to deal with men now adayes without writing; they would lay theft to my charge, if I had not his owne hand to showe;’ and so he shewes the Usurers bill, whereat the Usurer storms, and all the rest fell a laughing.”
There is another anecdote of this ancient droll, but it is too indecorous to be repeated. The story quoted occurs also, as Mr. Collier states, in the Facetie, Motti e Burle (Venet. 1565) of Domenichi (Bibliographical Account, ii., 124).
A Manchester Jeanie Deans.
“There is none,
In all this cold and hollow world, no fount