The Record Society of Lancashire and Cheshire Volume 142: start THE RECORD SOCIETY OF LANCASHIRE AND CHESHIRE FOUNDED TO TRANSCRIBE AND PUBLISH ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS RELATING TO THE TWO COUNTIES VOLUME CXLII The Society wishes to acknowledge with gratitude the support given towards publication by Lancashire County Council © The Record Society of Lancashire and Cheshire Katrina Navickas Jonathan Oates ISBN 0 902593 73 0 Printed in Great Britain by 4word Ltd, Bristol JACOBITES AND JACOBINS: TWO EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY PERSPECTIVES: THE MEMOIR OF WALTER SHAIRP: THE STORY OF THE LIVERPOOL REGIMENT DURING THE JACOBITE REBELLION OF 1745 Edited by Jonathan Oates AND THE WRITINGS OF THE CRAGG FAMILY OF WYRESDALE Edited by Katrina Navickas PRINTED FOR THE SOCIETY 2006 FOR THE SUBSCRIPTION YEAR 2004 COUNCIL AND OFFICERS FOR THE YEAR 2004 President J.R.I I. Pepler, M.A., D.A.A., c/o Cheshire Record Office, Duke Street, Chester CHI 1RL Hon. Council Secretary Dorothy J. Clayton, M.A., Ph.D., A.L.A., F.R.Hist.S., c/o John Rylands University Library of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PP Hon. Membership Secretary Maureen Barber, B.A., D.L.A., 7 Rosebank, Lostock, Bolton BL6 4PE Hon. Treasurer and Publications Secretary Fiona Pogson, B.A., Ph.D., c/o Department of History, Liverpool Hope University College, Hope Park, Liverpool L I6 9JD Hon. General Editor Peter McNiven, M.A., Ph.D., F.R.Hist.S., The Vicarage, 1 Heol Mansant, Pontyates, Llanelli, Carmarthenshire SA15 5SB Other Members of the Council Diana E.S. Dunn, B.A., D.Ar.Studies B.W. Quintrell, M.A., Ph.D., F.R.Hist.S. B. Jackson, M.A., D.A.A. D.A. Stoker, B.A., M.Ar.Ad. V. McKeman, B.A., D.A.A. T.J. Thornton, M.A., D.Phil. C.B. Phillips, B.A., Ph.D. G.J. White, B.A., Ph.D., F.R.Hist.S. T.J. Wyke, B.A. CONTENTS General Editor’s preface vi The memoir of Walter Shairp: the story of the Liverpool Regiment during the Jacobite rebellion of 1745. Edited by Jonathan Oates 1 Introduction 3 The Memoir 15 Appendix 1 33 Appendix 2 34 The writings of the Cragg family of Wyresdale. Edited by Katrina Navickas 35 Map 36 Introduction 37 Genealogical table 40 The life of Timothy Cragg of the Chappelhouse 47 Cragg family memorandum book 1698-1816 53 Index to Walter Shairp’s memoir 129 Index to the writings of the Cragg family 133 GENERAL EDITOR’S PREFACE The two parts of this volume are completely unconnected. They were offered sep­ arately, at about the same time, for consideration for publication by the Record Society. As originally presented, although both were of immediate appeal, they were each far too brief to stand as volumes on their own, and it was hoped that one or two texts of similar length might be found to join them in a Miscellany volume. However, Katrina Navickas was able to add a considerable amount of interesting material to her initial proposal. First, inspired partly by the Jacobite theme of Jonathan Oates’s text, she added earlier memorandum book entries including references to the rising of 1715, as well as another Cragg family man­ uscript which was primarily conceived as a Quaker conversion tract but which touches on its writer’s attitude towards Monmouth’s rebellion of 1685. Secondly, the main text of the memorandum book, which Ms Navickas had originally edited to concentrate on matters of national political significance, was restored to its full extent, providing insights into more local economic and social conditions pre­ vailing in the Wyresdale district of North Lancashire. Her introduction is very effectively complemented by her article ‘The Cragg Family Memorandum Book: Society, Politics and Religion in North Lancashire During the 1790s’, in Northern History, xlii (2005), pp. 151-62. While the two contributions remain clearly distinct and do not even overlap in theme (in that they deal with different Jacobite risings), they illustrate between them some of the salient features of what might be called the ‘long’ eighteenth century; that is, the period from the ‘Glorious Revolution’ of 1688 to the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. The eighteenth century can seem a relatively featureless tract of British history, sandwiched as it is between the larger-than-life issues and personalities of the Tudor and Stuart eras and the dynamic and recog- nisably ‘modem’ Victorian period. In fact, its significance perhaps lies precisely in its status as a century of transition; a transition between a now quite alien world dominated by the personalities of monarchs and by dynastic politics and a mod­ em period driven by more impersonal but at least as compelling political, social and economic ideologies. The enduring popular appeal of the 1745 Jacobite rising - a rising for which, as Jonathan Oates pertinently notes, the bulk of the history was written by the losers - surely represents romantic nostalgia for an era which had already passed when the rebellion took place. It would in truth be difficult to find anyone less romantic or ideological than the Walter Shairp who presents himself to the reader of his Memoir. While he dis­ plays no sympathy for the Jacobite cause, there is not a trace of hostility towards ‘the enemy’, or indeed any hint of soldierly aggression, in his narrative. Even his desire to see the Jacobite prisoners in Carlisle seems totally lacking in malice or triumphalism: if any impression is given, it is one of almost friendly curiosity. On the other hand, Shairp gives no positive impression of patriotic or ideological General Editor’s Preface vii support for the Hanoverian regime which Charles Edward Stuart aimed to over­ throw. The nearest approach to a political stance comes in the innocuous state­ ment that his regiment, the Liverpool Blues, was ‘Rais’d to defend the Nation against the attempts made by the Son of the Chevalier de St. George in the Highlands...’ Clearly Shairp was implicitly orthodox in upholding in his own per­ son the Union of 1707 in the face of a threat to the status quo, and like many lowland Scots he presumably felt little or no affinity with his northerly compa­ triots. It might be assumed that as a prominent member of the Liverpool business community his primary motive in volunteering for an active military role con­ cerned the maintaining of stable trading conditions rather than the greater reli­ gious, dynastic and international issues for which men were being asked to put their lives on the line. Shairp was not simply an unthinking man in uniform slavishly following the commands of his betters. His account of his otherwise conscientious fulfilment of his duties is punctuated by occasional vigorous opinions on the shortcomings both of local civilians and superior officers. During the preliminary planning of the reg­ iment’s role, he rejoices ‘at being no longer under the direction of a parcel of Ignorant aldermen’, and describes a proposal of the ironically-designated ‘Wise Corporation’ as ‘so Ridiculous a Scheme’. When the regiment was integrated into the overall strategy of the campaign against the Jacobites, Shairp and other offi­ cers successfully challenged orders ‘which ... appear’d so odd a Scheme ... that we could not help complaining of it’. As the prospect of direct contact with the enemy increased, Shairp and his fellow volunteers seem to have become less inclined to question the decisions of their commanders, although at the success­ ful conclusion of their term of service he was at pains to record his frustration at the lack of recognition from the government which culminated in the disbanding of the ‘best New Regiment raised in the kingdom ...& the very only one that had been of any service till then’. Overall, however, Shairp’s tone is one of contentment. ‘I cant say that I ever before spent any time more agreeably ... ‘ ‘For though we frequently had a great dale of Fatigue & trouble ... yet that was always made more than amends for the mirth & joy that we afterwards had when we got into our Quarters ...’ The impres­ sion is of a man at ease with himself who even managed to turn the extraordinary upheaval of the Jacobite rising into an affirmation of his values. Was he perhaps typical of a mid-century mood of slightly complacent satisfaction with the world which he inhabited? The same could not be said of the main author of the Cragg memorandum book as he compiled his highly subjective record of the impact of international and national events on North Lancashire society. Much of Cragg’s narrative deals with issues such as extreme weather, especially floods, with a distinctively sardonic coverage of crimes, scandals and other local newsworthy events. There is detailed material on the problems of the worsted mill at Dolphinholme and its impact on the region, illustrating the impact of the early stages of the Industrial Revolution and complementing the account by Benjamin Shaw published as volume cxxx (1991) by the Record Society. What really aroused Cragg’s passions, however, viii General Editor’s Preface was the juxtaposition of his sympathy with the French Revolution with his antipa­ thy towards what he saw as the politically and fiscally repressive policies with which the British government was responding to the perceived threat to the estab­ lished order. Inspired by the increasingly forbidden writings of the radical Anglo-American political philosopher Thomas Paine, Cragg dismissed George III as a ‘useless extravagant King or despot’ and complained that ‘we are now nothing but abject slaves subject to the will and caprice of a despotical tyrannical government’ where ‘Parliament is but a name, the Minister [William Pitt the Younger] rules them at his will and whatever method, whatever law he proposes, he carries it through ...’ At the height of his hostility towards the government Cragg’s views became explic­ itly treasonable as his wish for a revolution similar to that in progress across the Channel shaded into hopes that this might be effected through defeat for Britain in its counter-revolutionary Continental war.