Lancashire Sketches

The old episcopal chapel, near the market-place, dedicated to St. Luke, is a plain little building, with nothing remarkable in its appearance or its situation. It seems to have been founded at the beginning of the seventeenth century. It contains inscriptions commemorative of the Holts, of Grizlehurst, and the Starkies, of Heywood Hall. A dial-plate on the eastern exterior bears the date of 1686, with the initials of Robert Heywood, Esq., of Heywood Hall, who was governor of the Isle of Man in 1678. Besides the Heywoods, of Heywood Hall, there were several powerful local families in the olden time seated at short distances round the spot where Heywood now stands: the Heaps, of Heap; the Bamfords, of Bamford; the Marlands, of Marland; the Holts, of Grizlehurst; and the Hopwoods, of Hopwood—which last still reside upon their ancient estate.

Heywood, or "Monkey Town," as sarcastic people in other parts of Lancashire sometimes call it, is now a manufacturing place of at least twenty thousand inhabitants. It owes its rise almost entirely to the cotton manufacture; and the history of the latter incorporates the history of the former in a much greater degree than that of any other considerable town in the district. This gives it a kind of interest which certainly does not belong to any beauty the appearance of the town at present possesses. A few years before those mechanical inventions became known which ultimately made Lancashire what it is now, Heywood was a little peaceful country fold; but a few years after these inventions came into action, it began to grow into what the people of those days thought "something rich and strange," with a celerity akin to the growth of great towns in the United States of America. About two hundred years ago, a few rural cottages first arose upon this almost unpeopled spot; and at the time when the manufacture of cotton began in South Lancashire, it was still a small agricultural village, prettily situated in a picturesque scene, about the centre of the ridge of land which is now nearly covered by the present smoky town. This little nucleus clustered near the old chapel which stands in the market-place. Previous to the invention of the fly shuttle, by Kay, in the neighbouring town of Bury; and the ingenious combinations of the inventions of his contemporaries by Arkwright, the Preston barber, almost every farm-house and cottage in this part had the old-fashioned spinning-wheel and the hand-loom in them, wherewith to employ any time the inhabitants could spare from their rural occupations. At the time of Arkwright's first patent, the people of these parts little knew what a change the time's inventions were bringing upon their quiet haunts—still less of the vast influences which were to arise therefrom, combining to the accomplishment of incalculable ends; and they were, at first, slow to wean from their old, independent way of living, partly by farming and partly by manufacturing labour, which they could do in their own houses, and at their own leisure. "Manchester manufacturers are glad," says Arthur Young, in 1770 (the year of Arkwright's first patent), "when bread is dear, for then the people are forced to work." But though the supply of yarn in those days was less than the demand, and the people were not yet draughted away from their old manner of life, they were caught in the web of that inevitable destiny which will have its way, in spite of the will of man. The world's Master had new commissioners abroad for the achievement of new purposes. These wonder-working seeds of providence, patiently developing themselves in secret, were soon to burst forth in a wide harvest of change upon the field of human life. Certain men of mechanical genius arose, and their creative dreams wrought together in a mysterious way to the production of extraordinary results. John Kay, of Bury, invented the "picking-peg," or "fly-shuttle," in 1738; and his son, Robert Kay, invented the "drop-box," used in the manufacture of fabrics of various colours; and that wonderful cotton and woollen carding machine, which stretches the wire out of the ring, cuts it into lengths, staples and crooks it into teeth, pricks holes in the leather, and puts in the teeth, row after row, with extraordinary speed and precision, till the cards are finished. Thomas Highs, the humble and ingenious reed-maker, at Leigh, in 1763, originated that first remarkable improvement in spinning machinery which he called after his favourite daughter, "Jenny;" and he also introduced the "throstle," or water-frame, in 1767. This man lingered out his old age in affliction and dependence. James Hargreaves, the carpenter, of Blackburn, improved upon the original idea of the spinning jenny, and invented the crank and comb, "an engine of singular merit for facilitating the progress of carding cotton." The ignorant jealousy of the Lancashire operatives in those days drove this ingenious man to seek shelter in Nottinghamshire, where he was but ill-received, and where he ended his days in poverty. He died in a workhouse. Arkwright, the Preston barber, was more endowed by nature with the qualities requisite for worldly success than these ingenious, abstracted, and simple-minded mechanical dreamers. He was a man of great perseverance and worldly sagacity. With characteristic cunning, he appears to have wormed their secrets out of some of these humble inventors; and then, with no less industry and enterprise than ingenuity, he combined these with other kindred inventions, and wrought them into a practical operation, which, by its results, quickly awakened the world to a knowledge of their power. He became a rich man, and "Sir Richard." In 1780, the "spinning mule" was first introduced by its inventor, Samuel Crompton, a dreamy weaver, then dwelling in a dilapidated corner of an old Lancashire hall, called "Th' Hall i'th Wood," in Turton, near Bolton. This machine united the powers of the spinning jenny and the water frame. The spinning mule is now in general use in the cotton manufacture. This poor weaver gave his valuable invention to the public, without securing a patent. His remuneration, in the shape of money, was therefore left to the cold chances of charity. He was, however, at first, rewarded by a subscription of one hundred guineas; and, twenty years afterwards, by an additional subscription of four hundred guineas; and in 1812, parliament awarded the sum of five thousand pounds to the dreamy old weaver, in his latter days. In 1785, the first patent for the power-loom was obtained by the Rev. Edmund Cartwright, of Kent, who invented it; and, after considerable improvements, it has at last contributed another great impulse to the manufacturing power of these districts. Whilst these mechanical agencies were developing themselves, James Watt was busy with his steam power; and Brindley, in conjunction with the Duke of Bridgewater, was constructing his water-ways. They were all necessary parts of one great scheme of social alteration, the end of which is not yet. These men were the immediate sources of the manufacturing power and wealth of Lancashire. Up rose Arkwright's model mill at Cromford; and the people of South Lancashire, who were spinning and weaving in the old way, in their scattered cottages and folds, began to find themselves drawn by irresistible spells into new combinations, and new modes of living and working. Their remote haunts began to resound with the tones of clustering labour; their quiet rivers, late murmuring clear through silent vales and cloughs, began to be dotted with mills; and their little villages shot up into large manufacturing towns. From 1770 to 1788, the use of wool and linen in the spinning of yarns had almost disappeared, and cotton had become the almost universal material for employment. Hand wheels were superseded by common jennies, hand carding by carding engines, and hand picking19 by the fly shuttle. From 1778 to 1803 was the golden age of this great trade; the introduction of mule yarns, assimilated with other yarns producing every description of goods, gave a preponderating wealth through the loom. The mule twist being rapidly produced, and the demand for goods very large, put all hands in request; and weaver's shops became yearly more numerous. The remuneration for labour was high, and the population was in a comfortable condition. The dissolution of Arkwright's patent in 1785, and the general adoption of mule spinning in 1790, concurred to give the most extraordinary impetus to the cotton manufacture. Numerous mills were erected, and filled with water frames; and jennies and mules were made and set to work with incredible rapidity.20 Heywood had already risen up, by the previous methods of manufacture, to a place of about two thousand inhabitants, in the year 1780—that changeful crisis of its history when the manufacture of cotton by steam power first began in the township of Heap, with the erection of Makin Mill, hard by the north side of Heywood. This mill was built by the firm of Peel, Yates, and Co., of Bury—the principal of which firm was Robert Peel, Esq. (afterwards Sir Robert), and father of the memorable Sir Robert Peel, late prime minister of England, whose name is honourably connected with the abolition of the Corn Laws; a man who won the gratitude of a nation by daring to turn "traitor" to a great wrong, that he might help a great right. This mill is now the property of Edmund Peel, Esq., brother of the late Sir Robert. It stands about half a mile from Heywood, in a shady clough, and upon the banks of the river Roch, which rises in the hills on the north-east extremity of the county, and flows down through the town of Rochdale, passing through the glen called "Tyrone's Bed;" and through "Hooley Clough." The river then winds on westward, by the town of Bury, three miles off. The course of this water is now well lined with manufacturing power, nearly from its rise to its embouchure. A stranger may always find the mills of Lancashire by following the courses of its waters.

Before the factory system arose, when the people of this quarter did their manufacturing work at their homes—when they were not yet brought completely to depend upon manufacture for livelihood, and when their manner of life was, at least, more natural and hardy than it became afterwards—their condition was, morally and physically, very good, compared with the condition which the unrestricted factory system led to, in the first rush after wealth which it awoke; especially in the employment of young children in mills. The amount of demoralisation and physical deterioration then entailed upon the population, particularly in isolated nooks of the country, where public opinion had little controlling influence upon such mill-owners as happened to possess more avarice than humane care for their operative dependents, must have been great. It was a wild steeple-chase for wealthy stakes, in which whip and spur were used with little mercy, and few were willing to peril their chances of the plate by any considerations for the sufferings of the animal that carried them. But the condition of the factory operatives, since the introduction of the Ten Hours' Bill—and, perhaps, partly through the earnest public discussions which led to that enactment—has visibly begun to improve. Benevolent and just men, who own mills, have, of their own accord, in many honourable instances, paid a more liberal attention to the welfare of their workpeople even than the provisions of the law demanded: and those mill-owners whose only care for their operatives was bounded by a desire to wring as much work as possible out of them for as little pay as possible, were compelled to fulfil certain humane regulations, which their own sympathies would have been slow to concede. The hours of factory labour are now systematically shortened; and the operatives are not even so drunken, riotous, and ignorant, as when they were wrought from bed-time to bed-time. Books and schools, and salutary recreation, and social comfort, are more fashionable among them than they used to be—partly because they are more practicable things to them than before. The mills themselves are now healthier than formerly; factory labour is restricted to children of a reasonable age; and elementary education is now, by a wisdom worthy of extension, administered through the impulse of the law, to all children of a certain age in factories.

Heywood is altogether of too modern an origin to contain any buildings interesting to the admirer of ancient architecture. The only places in Heywood around which an antiquarian would be likely to linger, with anything like satisfaction, would be the little episcopal chapel in the market-place, founded in the seventeenth century; and Heywood Hall, which stands about half a mile from the town, and of which more anon. With these exceptions, there is probably not one building in the place two hundred years old.

The appearance of Heywood, whether seen in detail or as a whole, presents as complete, unrelieved, and condensed an epitome of the still-absorbing spirit of manufacture in the region where it originated, as can be found anywhere in Lancashire. And, in all its irregular main street consisting of more than a mile of brick-built shops and cottages—together with the little streets and alleys diverging therefrom—there does not appear even one modern building remarkable for taste, or for any other distinguishing excellence, sufficient to induce an ordinary man to halt and admire it for a minute. There is not even an edifice characterised by any singularity whatever, calculated to awaken wonder or curiosity in an ordinary beholder, except its great square, brick cotton mills, machine shops, and the like; and when the outside of one of these has been seen, the outside of the remainder is no novelty. The heights and depths principally cultivated in Heywood appear to be those of factory chimneys and coal-pits. Of course, the interiors of the mills teem with mechanical wonders and ingenuities; and the social life and characteristics of the population are full of indigenous interest. But the general exterior of the town exhibits a dull and dusky succession of manufacturing sameness. Its inns, with one or two exceptions, look like jerry-shops; and its places of worship like warehouses. A living writer has said of the place, that it looks like a great funeral on its way from Bury to Rochdale—between which towns it is situated midway. When seen from any neighbouring elevation, on a dull day, this strong figure hardly exaggerates the truth. The whole life of Heywood seems to be governed by the ring of factory bells—at least, much more than by any other bells. The very dwelling-houses look as if they, too, worked in the factories. To persons accustomed to the quaint prettiness of well-regulated English rural villages, and the more natural hue and general appearance of the people in such places, the inhabitants of Heywood would, at first sight, have somewhat of a sallow appearance, and their houses would appear to be slightly smeared with a mixture of soot, sperm oil, and cotton fluz. And, if such observers knew nothing of the real character and habits of the population, they would be slow to believe them a people remarkably fond of cleanliness and of homely comfort, as far as compatible with the nature of their employment. A close examination of these Heywood cottages would show, however, that their insides are more clean and comfortable than the first glance at their outsides might suggest; and would also reveal many other things not discreditable to the native disposition of the people who dwell in them. But the architecture and general characteristics of Heywood, as a town, evince no taste, no refinement, nor even public spirit of liberality, commensurate with its wealth and energy. The whole population seems yet too wrapt in its manufacturing dream, to care much about the general adornment of the place, or even about any very effective diffusion of those influences which tend to the improvement of the health and the culture of the nobler faculties of the people. But Heywood may yet emerge from its apprenticeship to blind toil; and, wiping the dust from its eyes, look forth towards things quite as essential as this unremitting fight for bread for the day. At present, wherever one wanders among the streets on week-days, the same manufacturing indications present themselves. It is plain that its people are nearly all employed in one way, directly or indirectly. This is suggested, not only by the number and magnitude of the mills, and the habitations of the people, but by every movement on the streets. Every vehicle that passes; every woman and child about the cottages; every lounger in the market-place tells the same story. One striking feature of week-day life in Heywood, more completely even than in many other kindred towns, is the clock-work punctuality with which the operative crowds rush from the mills, and hurry along the streets, at noon, to their dinners; sauntering back again in twos and threes, or speeding along in solitary haste, to get within the mill-doors in time for that re-awakening boom of the machinery which is seldom on the laggard side of its appointment. And it is not only in the dress and manners of this body of factory operatives—in their language and deportment, and the prevailing hue of their countenances—that the character and influence of their employment is indicated; but also in a modified variety of the same features in the remainder of the population, who are either immediately connected with these operatives, or indirectly affected by the same manufacturing influences. I have noticed, however, that factory operatives in country manufacturing towns like Heywood have a more wholesome appearance, both in dress and person, than the same class in Manchester. Whether this arises from any difference in the atmosphere, or from more healthy habits of factory operatives in the country than those induced among the same class by the temptations of a town like Manchester, I cannot say.

In the course of the year, there are two very ancient festivals kept up, each with its own quaint peculiarities, by the Heywood people; and commemorated by them with general rejoicing and cessation from labour. One of these is the "Rush-bearing," held in the month of August—an old feast which seems to have died out almost everywhere else in England, except in Lancashire. Here, in Heywood, however, as in many other towns of the county, this ancient festival is still observed, with two or three days' holiday and hilarity. The original signification of this annual "Rush-bearing," and some of the old features connected with the ceremony, such as the bearing of the rushes, with great rejoicing, to the church, and the strewing of them upon the earthen floor of the sacred fane, have long since died out. The following passage is taken from a poem called "The Village Festival," written by Elijah Ridings, a living author, of local celebrity, and is descriptive of the present characteristics of a Lancashire "Rush-bearing," as he had seen it celebrated in his native village of Newton, between Manchester and Oldham:—

When wood and barn-owls loudly shout,As if were near some rabble rout;When beech-trees drop the yellow leaf,A type of human hope and grief;When little wild flowers leave the sun,Their pretty love-tasks being done;And nature, with exhaustless charms,Lets summer die in autumn's arms:There is a merry, happy time,With which I'll grace my simple rhyme:—The wakes—the wakes—the jocund wakes!My wand'ring memory forsakesThe present busy scene of things,And soars away on fancy's wings,For olden times, with garlands crown'd,And rush-carts green on many a mound,In hamlet bearing a great name,21The first in astronomic fame;With buoyant youth and modest maid,Skipping along the green-sward glade,With laughing eyes and ravished sight,To share once more the old delight!Oh! now there comes—and let's partake—Brown nuts, spice bread, and Eccles cake;22There's flying-boxes, whirligigs,And sundry rustic pranks and rigs;With old "Chum"23 cracking nuts and jokes,To entertain the country folks;But more, to earn a honest penny,And get a decent living, any—Aye, any an humble, striving way,Than do what shuns the light of day.Behold the rush-cart, and the throngOf lads and lasses pass along!Now watch the nimble morris-dancers,Those blithe, fantastic antic-prancers,Bedeck'd with gaudiest profusionOf ribbons, in a gay confusionOf brilliant colours, richest dyes,Like wings of moths and butterflies;Waving white kerchiefs here and there,And up and down, and everywhere;Springing, bounding, gaily skipping,Deftly, briskly, no one tripping;All young fellows, blithe and hearty,Thirty couples in the party;And on the footpaths may be seenTheir sweethearts from each lane, and greenAnd cottage home; all fain to seeThis festival of rural glee;The love-betrothed, the fond heart-plighted,And with the witching scene delightedIn modest guise, and simple graces,With roses blushing on their faces;Ah! what denotes, or what bespeaksLove more than such sweet apple-cheeks?Behold the strong-limbed horses stand,The pride and boast of English land,Fitted to move in shafts or chains,With plaited, glossy tails and manes:Their proud heads each a garland wearsOf quaint devices—suns and stars;And roses, ribbon-wrought, abound;The silver plate,24 one hundred pound,With green oak boughs the cart is crowned,The strong, gaunt horses shake the ground.Now, see, the welcome host appears,And thirsty mouths the ale-draught cheers;Draught after draught is quickly gone—"Come; here's a health to everyone!"Away with care and doleful thinking,The cup goes round; what hearty drinking!While many a youth the lips is smacking,And the two drivers' whips are cracking;Now, strike up music, the old tune;And louder, quicker, old bassoon;Come, bustle, lads, for one dance more,And then cross-morris three times o'er.Another jug—see how it foams—And next the brown October comes;Full five years old, the host declares,And if you doubt it, loudly swearsThat it's the best in any town—Tenpenny ale, the real nut-brown.And who was he, that jovial fellow,With his strong ale so old and mellow?A huge, unwieldy man was he,Like Falstaff, fat and full of glee;With belly like a thirty-six25(Now, reader, your attention fix),In loose habiliments he stands,Broad-shouldered, and with brawny hands;Good humour beaming in his eye,And the old, rude simplicity;Ever alive for rough or smooth,That rare old fellow, Bill o' Booth!26

The other is a famous old festival here, as well as in the neighbouring town of Bury. It is a peculiarly local one, also; for, I believe, it is not celebrated anywhere else in England except in these two towns. It begins on Mid-Lent Sunday, or "Simblin-Sunday," as the people of the district call it, from the name of a spiced cake which is prepared for this feast in great profusion, and in the making of which there is considerable expense and rivalry shown. On "Simblin-Sunday," the two towns of Bury and Heywood swarm with visitors from the surrounding country, and "simblins" of extraordinary size and value are exhibited in the shop windows. The festival is kept up during two or three days of the ensuing week. In the Rev. W. Gaskell's interesting lectures on the "Lancashire Dialect," the following passage occurs relative to this "Simblin-Cake:"—"As you are aware there is a kind of cake for which the town of Bury is famous, and which gives its name in these parts to Mid-Lent Sunday—I mean 'symnel.' Many curious and fanciful derivations have been found for this; but I feel no doubt that we must look for its true origin to the Anglo-Saxon 'simble' or 'simle,' which means a feast, or 'symblian,' to banquet. 'Simnel' was evidently some kind of the finest bread. From the chronicle of Battle Abbey, we learn that, in proof of his regard for the monks, the Conqueror granted for their daily uses thirty-six ounces of 'bread fit for the table of a king,' which is called simenel; and Roger de Hoveden mentions, among the provisions allowed to the Scotch King, at the Court of England, 'twelve simenels.' 'Banquet bread,' therefore, would seem to come very near the meaning of this word. I may just observe in passing, that the baker's boy who, in the reign of Henry VII., personated the Earl of Warwick was most likely called 'Lambert Simnel,' as a sort of nickname derived from his trade."27

The amusements, or what may be called the leisure-habits, of the factory population in Lancashire manufacturing towns are much alike. Some are sufficiently jaded when their day's work is done, or are too apathetic by nature to engage heartily in anything requiring further exertion of body or mind. There are many, however, who, when they leave the factory in the evening, go with a kind of renovating glee to the reading of such books as opportunity brings within their reach, or to the systematic prosecution of some chosen study, such as music, botany, mechanics, or mathematics, which are favourite sciences among the working people of Lancashire. And even among the humblest there are often shrewd and well-read, if not extensively-read, politicians, chiefly of the Cobbett school. But the greatest number occupy their leisure with rude physical sports, or those coarser indulgences which, in a place like Heywood, are more easily got at than books and schools, especially by that part of the people who have been brought up in toilful ignorance of these elements. The tap-room is the most convenient school and meeting-place for these; and the tap-rooms are numerous, and well attended. There, factory lads congregate nightly, clubbing their pence for cheap ale, and whiling the night hours away in coarse ribaldry and dominoes, or in vigorous contention in the art of single step-dancing, upon the ale-house hearth-stone. This single step-dancing is a favourite exercise with them; and their wooden clogs are often very neatly made for the purpose, lacing closely up to above the ankle, and ornamented with a multitude of bright brass lace holes. The quick, well-timed clatter upon the tap-room flags generally tells the whereabouts of such dancing haunts to a stranger as he goes along the streets; and, if he peeps into one of them, he may sometimes see a knot of factory lads clustered about the tap-room door inside, encouraging some favourite caperer with such exclamations as, "Deawn wi' thi fuut, Robin! Crack thi rags, owd dog!" The chief out-door sports of the working class are foot-racing, and jumping matches; and sometimes foot-ball and cricket. Wrestling, dog-fighting, and cock-fighting are not uncommon; but they are more peculiar to the hardier population outside the towns. Now and then, a rough "up-and-down" fight takes place, at an ale-house door, or brought off, more systematically, in a nook of the fields. This rude and ancient manner of personal combat is graphically described by Samuel Bamford, in his well-known "Passages in the Life of a Radical." The moors north of Heywood afford great sport in the grouse season. Some of the local gentry keep harriers; and now and then, a "foomart-hunt" takes place, with the long-eared dogs, whose mingled music, when heard from the hill-sides, sounds like a chime of bells in the distant valley. The entire population, though engaged in manufacture, evinces a hearty love of the fields and field sports, and a strong tincture of the rough simplicity, and idiomatic quaintness of their forefathers, or "fore-elders," as they often call them. In an old fold near Heywood, there lived a man a few years since, who was well known thereabouts as a fighter. The lads of the hamlet were proud of him as a local champion. Sometimes he used to call at a neighbouring ale-house, to get a gill, and have a "bout" with anybody worth the trouble, for our hero had a sort of chivalric dislike to spending his time on "wastrils" unworthy of his prowess. When he chanced to be seen advancing from the distance, the folk in the house used to say, "Hellho! so-and-so's coming; teen th' dur!" whereupon the landlord would reply, "Nawe, nawe! lev it oppen, or else he'll punce it in! But yo'n no casion to be fleyed, for he's as harmless as a chylt to aught at's wayker nor his-sel!" He is said to have been a man of few words, except when roused to anger; when he uttered terrible oaths, with great vehemence. The people of his neighbourhood say that he once swore so heavily when in a passion, that a plane-tree, growing at the front of his cottage, withered away from that hour. Most Lancashire villages contain men of this stamp—men of rude, strong frame and temper, whose habits, manners, and even language, smack a little of the days of Robin Hood. Yet, it is not uncommon to find them students of botany and music, and fond of little children. Jane Clough, a curious local character, died at a great age, near Heywood, about a year and a half ago. Jane was a notable country botanist, and she had many other characteristics which made her remarkable. She was born upon Bagslate Heath, a moorland tract, up in the hills, to the north-east of Heywood. I well remember that primitive country amazon, who, when I was a lad, was such an old-world figure upon the streets of Rochdale and Heywood. Everybody knew Jane Clough. She was very tall, and of most masculine face and build of body; with a clear, healthy complexion. She was generally drest in a strong, old-fashioned blue woollen bedgown, and thick petticoats of the same stuff. She wore a plain but very clean linen cap upon her head, loosely covered with a silk kerchief; and her foot-gear was heavy clouted shoon, or wooden clogs, suitable to her rough country walks, her great strength, and masculine habits. Botany was always a ruling passion with old moorland Jane. She was the queen of all flower-growers in humble life upon her native ground; especially in the cultivation of the polyanthus, auricula, tulip, and "ley," or carnation. Jane was well known at all the flower shows of the neighbourhood, where she was often a successful exhibitor; and though she was known as a woman of somewhat scrupulous moral character—and there are many anecdotes illustrative of this—yet she was almost equally well known at foot-races and dog-battles, or any other kind of battles; for which she not unfrequently held the stakes.