Echoes of old Lancashire

The Lancashire and Cheshire wills published by the Chetham Society show that the illegitimate children were often provided for along with those born in wedlock, and in several cases bore the surname of their father. There are several entries relating to the Mancestres in the manorial rent roll of 1473, which has been translated and printed by Mr. Harland in his “Mamcestre.” Ellen Mancestre appears as the tenant of two burgages, late Katherine Johnson’s, for each of which she paid 12d. George Mancestre held a messuage in “Le Foris” at a rent of 3s. Mr. Harland conjectures this to be the clerkly rendering of “the Market or the Courts.” He was also concerned in a field near the “Galoz,” and paid 6d. as tenant of an ostrina, concerning which Mr. Harland observes: – “The word we have rendered singeing house is in the original ostrina, literally purple, from ostrea, an oyster. But it seems to be an error for ustrina (from uro) a burning or conflagration (Apuleius) a place in which anything, especially a dead body, has been burned (Festus), or a melting house for metal (Pliny); but besides these meanings of classic times, the word had other mediæval significations, one of which is, a place where hogs are singed – ubi porci ustulautur. (See Ducange in voce.) This seems to be the most probable meaning of ostrina in the text.” May not this be the “dryng-howses” named in the will? The name of the family of Manchester is not yet “spendit,” but is still borne both in this country and in the United States.

A Visitor to Lancashire in 1807

There are some interesting references to Lancashire and the manufacturing district in a volume of “Summer Excursions,” consisting of letters written by Miss E. I. Spence, published in 1809. Literary fame is not always permanent, and it may be necessary to explain that the author of these volumes and of “The Nobility of the Heart” and “The Wedding Day” was a well-known woman of letters in her own generation.

Elizabeth Isabella Spence was the daughter of a Durham physician, and the granddaughter of Dr. Fordyce. She was early orphaned, and was brought up in London by an uncle and aunt. On their death the literary tastes which had already made her a contributor to the press became useful in the gaining of a subsistence. She wrote nine novels or collections of stories, and three works of inland travel, devoted respectively to the North Highlands, Scotland, England, and Wales. She “lodged for the greater part of her life in a retired street at the west end of the town” – Weymouth Street, that is. Amongst her friends were the Benthams, Lady Margaret Bland Burges, Lady Anne Barnard (the authoress of “Auld Robin Gray”), Sir Humphrey Davy, L. E. L., and the venerable Mary Knowles, one of the few ladies who met Dr. Johnson on equal terms in argument, and could even claim a victory over that doughty champion. Miss Spence died on the 27th July, 1832.

Her impressions of the manufacturing district were not of a favourable kind. The inns of Warrington did not please her, and “the dirtiness of the people here exceeds,” she says, “what I could have believed in any part of this kingdom.” From Bolton she writes: “The apparel of the women in some of the villages we passed through was scarcely decent, and all the children were without shoes and stockings.” At Wigan she mentions the “celebrated spa” and the “cannel coal,” which was made into ornaments. “I have heard a dinner service was once made out of this coal, which, after the entertainment, was demolished in the fire.” Bolton she found to be situated on “a dreary moor,” but there was some compensation in “an extensive view of a fine open country.” The next stay was at Stand Hall, a mansion of which the beautiful situation and the hospitality of her friends, who were its inmates, made her pardon even the rainfall. Her host, “Mr. J – ,” was Mr. John Johnson, steward for Lord Derby in the Bury district. “The large town of Manchester,” she says, “spreads along the valley in front of the house at some miles’ distance, and the less one of Bury is seen distinctly to the left, surrounded by villages with simple cottages dispersed along the plain. The hills of Lancashire, Derbyshire, Cheshire, and Yorkshire, rising in succession, spread in a vast amphitheatre till lost in the immensity of space; while the rugged tops of the Welsh mountains, which I gazed upon as old friends, hide their heads in the clouds, of which they seem to form a part. The dialect of this country is peculiarly unharmonious to the ear, and when spoken by the peasantry is scarcely to be understood. All the lower orders of the people are employed in the manufactories, and the dress worn by the women is a long bed-gown, black stockings, and a mob-cap hanging open from the ears.” The fidelity of her description of the former dress of the people will be recognised.

Miss Spence was taken by her friends to the Manchester theatre to see Mrs. Siddons as Lady Macbeth, and also as Catharine in “Catharine and Petruchio” – an adaptation of the “Taming of the Shrew.” Apparently the drama then, as now, was in a decline. “This pre-eminently great actress,” says Miss Spence, “has for several years been so entirely the theme of public admiration to the real amateurs of the drama (for some we still possess) that it would be superfluous to dwell on her exquisite powers – powers that even in former times, when the stage was in its meridian glory, could not be excelled, and would have awakened astonishment and admiration. But to give your Ladyship” (the letter is addressed to the Dowager Countess of Winterton) “an idea either of the little taste or the prudent economy of the inhabitants of Manchester in permitting her to perform to empty benches, I need only mention that after the other evening, on sharing the profits with the manager, she was rewarded with the sum (shall I commit it to paper?) of seven shillings!” But wishing to be just, even in such a case, she adds, “There may, indeed, have been a moral cause for this rather than a want of taste or parsimony.” And no doubt there were many in old Manchester who would not go to the theatre even to see the acting of Mrs. Siddons. In 1775, the establishment of a Theatre Royal was advocated by a noble peer as a means of “eradicating” Methodism in Manchester.

Miss Spence visited also Rochdale, and was impressed by the handsome houses of the manufacturers, “whose wealth appears as unbounded as the magnificence of their tables.” She notices with regret the fondness for card parties, and was surprised to find “the primitive hours of our ancestors still prevalent in Rochdale,” where one o’clock was the general dinner hour. Passing through the “miserable village” – as she styles it – of Whitworth, Miss Spence repeats an interesting account of its famous “doctors,” which was given to her by Mr. Johnson. “‘Old Sammie [it should be Jammie] in Whitworth’ was originally a common farrier, or cow doctor. His sons, however, John and George, though they continued the business of farriers, had a deal to do with the human race, and for many years were famous for the cure of cancers, and contracted or broken limbs, which they frequently effected at a very small expense, from the sum of two and sixpence to half a guinea. T – , Bishop of Durham, was a patient of theirs for a cancerous complaint; and it is well known that they prolonged his life for several months, though they did not cure him. To this obscure village both lords and commoners resort for relief; and in cancerous cases and contractions have undoubtedly succeeded when the regular bred men of the faculty have failed. The widow of George, son of old Sammie, and James, grandson of Sammie, are the present doctors, and are held in high estimation for the same cures. The widow of Doctor George is reckoned very clever, and takes a most active part amongst the patients of both sexes. They attend once a week at Rochdale, where they have a public open shop, and it is wonderful, though dreadful, to see the business they go through.”

The neighbourhood of Stand delighted her, and she has a good word for the Rector of Prestwich and for the Earl of Wilton. “What an edifying example does my Lord Wilton set by attending this church every Sunday, not only with the whole of his noble family, but also in being followed by the men and women of his household, who all conduct themselves with the most becoming reverence! This noble example of his Lordship tends to assemble a very numerous and respectable congregation, even from distant parts.” Some of our readers will remember that at a later date Fanny Kemble drew an interesting picture of the household at Heaton Park. She was impressed in the same manner as was Miss Spence, but she does not give expression to it in quite the same manner.

“Adjoining to the mansion of Stand Hall,” observes Miss Spence, “is a barn, which was once a chapel. It has a fine Gothic roof of English oak, and it is a singular fact, no one ever saw a spider’s web upon it; and it always looks as if it had just been swept down. Mr. J – informed me no person he had ever met with could account for it, although all other barns are covered with spiders’ webs.”

Of Manchester she says, “It is a very large town, but the streets, for the most part, are inconveniently narrow, with very few noble buildings or handsome houses. The population is immense, and the traffic considerable; and it has acquired great celebrity from its extensive manufactories, so productive, all over the kingdom.” We need only make one more quotation. “I wish I could tell your Ladyship,” she says, “that the peasantry were possessed of that native simplicity we expect to find two hundred miles from the Metropolis; their manners accord with their rude and uncultivated appearance, and their demeanour is remarkably forbidding; but this, I understand, is often the case near manufacturing towns, though it is the first time I have had the opportunity of observing it.” Evidently Manchester, even ninety years ago, was some distance from Arcadia.

How the First Spinning Machinery was taken to Belgium

The introduction of spinning machinery to the Continent is a curious episode in the history of commerce, and has some interest for Manchester people, as it was from that place the men and the machinery were obtained. The industrial activity of England and the riches which the inventions of Kay, Highs, and Arkwright brought her, naturally attracted the attention of her foreign rivals, but in those days there were stringent regulations against the export of machines, and the “seduction of artizans” to engage in the service of a foreign master was a criminal offence. The temptation was, however, too great for the attempt not to be made. As Englishmen had gone abroad in order to obtain the secrets of the silk and other manufactures, so foreigners came here to spy out the industrial riches of the land. The man who succeeded in taking abroad the spinning-jenny was Liévin Bauwens.8 He belonged to a Belgian family that claimed patrician rank, but had always been associated with the industries of Holland, in Antwerp, Malines, and other places. Although the names and coat-of-arms of the Bauwens are to be found in the books of the Low Country heralds, they are also inscribed for generations in the records of the Tanners’ Guild of Ghent.

Liévin Jean Bauwens was born at Ghent on the 14th of June, 1769, and was the son of Georges Bauwens and his second wife, Thérèse van Peteghem. His father had a tannery in the Waaistraat, and his numerous children were taught to take a part in the family industry, so at an early age Liévin was made the overseer of a branch establishment at Huydersvetters-Hoeck. He can only have been a boy when he had this responsible position, for at the age of sixteen he came to London, and in the great tannery of Undershell and Fox learned what there was to be known of the English methods of that industry. Three years later he returned to Ghent, and took charge of a large establishment which his father had started shortly before his death. The Nieuwland Tannery in the old Dominican convent employed 200 men, and kept 550 vats going. Bauwens made leather for the London market, and is said to have paid 500,000 francs of customs duty yearly. He had frequent occasion to visit England, and the expansion of the cotton industry naturally attracted his attention – all the more so that he had always had a strong taste for mechanics, and only adopted the family trade in compliance with the wishes of his father. A clock which he had made at the age of twelve was one of the favourite exhibits of his parents, who, whilst proud of the ingenuity of their son, did not wish him to abandon the vocation which had ensured competence to the family. As tanners, they naturally felt that there was “nothing like leather.”

At this time Belgium was annexed to France, and Bauwens proposed to the Directoire that he should endeavour to obtain the secret of the machines by which the British manufacturer bade defiance to his continental rivals. The French Government promised him their support, and he came to Manchester for the purpose of getting the necessary information. This was in 1798, and he was aided by François de Pauw, one of his relations. At Manchester he made the acquaintance of an overseer, Mr. James Kenyon, and his daughter Mary. Whilst talking business with the father he appears to have talked of other matters to the girl, who eventually became his wife. The various parts of the machine, which in Belgium came to be called the “mull jenny,” were secreted in casks of sugar and in bags of coffee, and shipped to Hamburg. The statement that he intended to add dealings in colonial produce to his tanning operations was a sufficient explanation of this novel step on his part. Some of the packages were to be sent from Gravesend, and from this port Bauwens intended himself to depart, along with a number of workmen whom he had engaged. An overseer named Harding had a wife who strongly objected to the departure of her husband, and she made a scene, in which the destination and intentions of the party were made known. The police thus came to a knowledge of the conspiracy, and the men were arrested. Bauwens managed to escape in the crowd, and hastening quickly to London, he took passage to Hamburg, where part of the precious packages and the workmen who had been sent on before awaited him. Here he had a narrow escape, for Sir James Crawford, the British Envoy, endeavoured to have him imprisoned. The export of machinery and workmen was then a criminal offence, and the conspirators who had fallen into the hands of the authorities were brought before the Court of King’s Bench and convicted. The contemporary accounts of the affair in the English periodicals are very meagre, and the French accounts have an air of exaggeration. Thus we are told that Bauwens was, in his absence, condemned to death, and faute de mieux hung in effigy. Whatever his sentence may have been, it was powerless to hinder his success. He established spinning factories at Ghent, and still larger establishments at Paris, where he converted a convent of Bonshommes, at Passy, into a cotton spinning mill. He had a tannery at St. Cloud; he bought from the French Government the ingots made from the silver taken in the dissolved monasteries, and sold them at considerable profit to the Bank of Amsterdam.

Napoleon, when he came to power, had a good opinion of Bauwens; he visited the great works both at Paris and at Ghent, and after his inspection of the last-named place, he sent 4,000 francs to be distributed in presents to the workpeople. Bauwens started a new spinning mill at Tronchiennes, and was the first in Belgium to employ steam power. The flying shuttle was also used by him, and he made essays in cotton printing, in carding, and, indeed, appears to have been always on the alert for every possible improvement of the industrial processes in which he was engaged. He took an active part in local affairs, and was Maire of Ghent and member of the Council of the Department. In 1805, the town of Ghent presented him with a gold medal at a banquet, where the services of Bauwens in the creation of fresh industries was gratefully acknowledged. The French Institute, in a report on the progress of industry, gave to Bauwens the credit of having naturalised the English machines in France. Napoleon, who was in Ghent in 1810, offered him the title of Comte. This he declined, but accepted the Cross of the Legion of Honour. His great works, and that at Ghent, are said to have given employment to 3,000 people, were open to visitors, and he freely gave advice to those who were engaging in the cotton trade. His own profits were very large, and he showed great liberality in the treatment of his workpeople, and in the uses he made of his riches. But this princely opulence was not without check. The coalition of the great powers against Napoleon, in 1814, resulted in disaster to French industry, and Bauwens was one of the victims. A forced sale of the factories turned out very unfavourably, and Bauwens was ruined.

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.

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 fountOf deep strong, deathless love, save that withinA mother’s heart.”– Mrs. Hemans, Siege of Valencia.

About the beginning of the present century there was resident in the neighbourhood of Portland Street, Manchester, an elderly Irishwoman, whose violent temper made her the terror of the neighbourhood. The only person of whom she stood in awe was the Roman Catholic priest, Father Rowland Broomhead. She had a tender side to her character, however, and her son, a wild youth, having committed an offence, which in the then barbarous state of the criminal law made liable to be hanged, she undertook a journey to London; walked the entire distance on foot, braved every difficulty, and by her perseverance gained access to Queen Charlotte, to whose motherly feelings she made a strong appeal, and received a promise that the life of her boy should be spared. He was tried, found guilty, and sentenced to death, but in accordance with the royal promise he was not hanged, but transported. This was told me by one who in her youth had known the irascible but true-hearted Irishwoman.

Some Lancashire Giants

Like other parts of Old England, the County Palatine has been distinguished by great men, physically as well as mentally. We begin with traditions of the former existence of a race of the sons of Anak. Thus at Heathwaite, in North Furness, two stone-circles are known as “The Giants’ Graves.” A tradition has of course been fitted to the name, and it asserts that the last of these Lancashire Anaks was shot by an arrow on the hill of Blawithknott.

At Manchester the fame of the giant Tarquin, who held a castle on the ford of the Medlock, was long preserved. His legendary overthrow by Sir Lancelot du Lake is recorded by Hollinworth, and has since been turned into verse by one of our local poets. The Rev. John Whitaker, the learned historian of Manchester, discusses the matter with becoming gravity, and is quite inclined to believe in the reality of the gigantic knight and the stalwart courage of Arthur’s hero by whom he was overthrown. In the audit-room of Chetham’s Hospital there is a grotesque boss representing Saturn devouring his children, but the juvenile guides used to describe it as a portrait of Sir Tarquin enjoying his favourite breakfast of a plump Manchester baby.

The tombstone in the east cloister of Westminster, which had on it the name of Gervasius de Blois, but was thought by Dean Stanley to cover the remains of Abbot Byrcheston and twenty-six monks who died of the black death in 1349, was at one time known as “Long Meg,” and was said to be the gravestone of “Long Meg of Westminster.” Long Meg of Westminster was a Lancashire lass, who, according to the story-book, came up to London with other country wenches by the carrier’s waggon to seek service, and she began her Metropolitan career by drubbing the carrier for charging ten shillings each for the ride to the great city. “The Life of Long Meg of Westminster,” printed in 1635, contains many particulars, but it has no good claims to authenticity. “Dr. Skelton” is represented as the object of her affections, and many curious anecdotes are told of her prowess, and of the emphatic manner in which she quelled the disturbances in the Eagle, in Westminster, where she was servitor. She volunteered for service when Henry VIII. went to Boulogne, in place of a man who had been impressed, and there behaved so stoutly as to win a pension. But though an Amazon abroad she was an obedient wife, and declined a bout at quarter-staff with her husband. “Never shall it be said, though I can swindge a knave that wrongs me, that Long Meg shall be her husband’s master; and therefore use me as you please.” As all persons have their detractors, so this “Lancashire lass” is said to have kept at Southwark for many years “a famous infamous house of open hospitality.” Those who desire to know how the Lancashire lass overcame the vicar and bailiff of Westminster, how she overthrew a Spanish knight, fought with thieves, beat the French at Boulogne, and performed many other Amazonian exploits, may consult the “Life of Long Meg,” which has been reprinted in the present century. A ballad about her was licensed in 1594, and in 1618 a play upon her exploits was a favourite at the Fortune Theatre. Ben Jonson describes her: —