Quarter Sessions Building in Lancashire, 1770‒1830
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Christopher Chalklin, ‘Quarter Sessions building in Lancashire, 1770–1830’, The Georgian Group Journal, Vol. X, 2000, pp. 92–121 TEXT © THE AUTHORS 2000 QUARTER SESSIONS BUILDING IN LANCASHIRE, – CHRISTOPHER CHALKLIN etween about and expenditure on THE JUSTICES AT Bbuilding and construction by Lancashire was QUARTER SESSIONS among the largest for any English county. In the Until nearly the end of the eighteenth century only previous century there had been a steadily rising the gaol at Lancaster (used as in other counties to hold outlay, entirely on bridges apart from occasional prison debtors, those awaiting trial, and convicts) and at first repairs. Although Lancashire is the sixth largest three, later five bridges, and a raised roadway, were English county, the great growth of expenditure from the financial responsibility of the county. The number the s was particularly the result of the increase of of its bridges then rose, reaching by the early s. population. It more than trebled between and The two bridewells, or houses of correction, holding , and grew more than four times between and minor offenders and vagrants who were expected to . The estimated population of Lancashire between work for up to a few months, were financed separately . and was as follows. : ,; : The Preston bridewell was paid for by the five , or , ; : ,; : ,, . hundreds of Lonsdale, Amounderness, Blackburn, While population was growing all over Lancashire , Leyland and West Derby, and the Manchester prison the increase was especially great in the part of the by the other hundred, Salford. The six hundreds county from Preston and Blackburn southwards on were also responsible for about bridges, the account of the expansion of the cotton industry. number hardly changing between the seventeenth and The consequent inevitable steady growth of crime early nineteenth centuries. In there were said to and the influence of the prison reform movement be hundred bridges in Lonsdale North of the Sands led to almost continuous prison building work from and South of the Sands, in Amounderness, the mid- s, although it was concentrated in Blackburn, in Leyland, in West Derby and particularly in the decade after (when the houses in Salford. The justices referred to the ‘ancient of correction in Preston and Salford and the county agreement for each hundred to repair and maintain gaol were built), and in the years after (when their particular bridges, the three county bridges Salford bridewell was extended and a third built at excepted’ in . The importance of the hundreds Kirkdale near Liverpool). In this period the court may be explained by the emergence of all, or most, accommodation was transformed, first in Lancaster of the hundreds before the county did so in the Castle and after in Preston, and a lunatic eleventh and twelfth centuries; also perhaps their asylum erected ( – ). Because of the growth of convenient size for administration was a factor, trade and industry, bridge works were continuous, Lancashire being one of the larger counties and long the biggest being constructed at Lancaster in the mid from north to south (Fig. ). s and the largest outlay being in the south-east, Each quarter sessions met in four towns in in Salford Hundred. succession at an interval of two or three days. Those THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME X QUARTER SESSIONS BUILDING IN LANCASHIRE ‒ Lonsdale being dealt with at Lancaster, for Amounderness and Blackburn at Preston, for West Derby and Leyland at Wigan or Ormskirk, and for Salford hundred at Manchester. The adjournments were convenient on account of the size of the county; Lancaster, the county town, was distant from the main areas of population and communal activity. In addition a Sheriff’s Board was held by the justices at the Assizes at Lancaster to deal with business concerning the county at large, particularly the nomination of officers. In it was replaced by an annual general sessions at Preston because of its more central situation. On account of the opposition of Lonsdale justices to its removal from Lancaster, it was established by act of parliament in to handle all county financial matters (fixing the rate and approving accounts), appointing officers, dealing with the gaol, houses of correction and county bridges. In the later eighteenth century between three and four and eight or nine justices attended each meeting, with more on special occasions. The Fig. The hundreds of Lancashire. majority of the justices were established gentry; a minority were either professional or mercantile men or came from a professional or trading background, particularly Liverpool or Manchester. Cotton manufacturers were not normally justices, because they were not considered to be in a position to adjudicate impartially in disputes between masters at Epiphany and Michaelmas were adjourned from and men in the industry. Lancaster to Preston, thence to Wigan, and from Some of the gentry, such as Alexander Butler of there to Manchester; at Easter and Midsummer the Kirkland near Preston (d. ), High Sheriff of sequence was Lancaster, Preston, Ormskirk and Lancashire in and the chairman of annual Manchester. There were occasional further general sessions, , – , , , and adjournments. Thus in January quarter sessions Wilson Braddyll of Conishead Priory, Ulverston, met on the th at Lancaster, the th at Preston, the who attended the Lancaster Sessions, belonged to th at Wigan and the st at Manchester. A different families who had been established on their estates for group of justices met on each occasion. This system several centuries, either through the male or female of meetings had been decided by the Chancellor of line. Wilson Braddyll was the heir of Thomas the Duchy of Lancaster in after consultation (d. ), who had modernised the mansion, making between the judges and justices. It enabled the it, in a contemporary’s words, a ‘large and excellent justices to keep local affairs to themselves, those for gentleman’s seat’, with extensive grounds. Although THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME X QUARTER SESSIONS BUILDING IN LANCASHIRE ‒ the Braddylls had been settled earlier near Whalley Lancaster between and . Some gentry had on another estate, and a John Braddyll had bought cultural interests: Dorning Rasbotham of Birch House and sold monastic land in the mid-sixteenth century, near Bolton ( – ), who grew up in Manchester they were descended from the Dodding family who but retired to the country estate inherited through his had been at Conishead since the sixteenth century. mother in , indulged in art and wrote a tragedy In the words of the same observer: which was twice performed at the Manchester theatre . The leading figure among the justices In the house I observed the portrait of a Dodding between and the s was Thomas Butterworth aet. , A.D. , together with several of the Bayley of Hope, a country estate outside Manchester Braddylls, brought from Portfield. The original seat of this family was the house of Braddyll, with Brook Hall, who also drew an income as Receiver of the Duchy near Whalley, but in the parish of Blackburn. Here Rents for Lancashire. His ancestors had been they may be traced at least three centuries, but a silkweavers and merchants in Manchester. He was purchase of one moiety of the demesnes of Whalley High Sheriff at and became chairman of Salford Abbey brought them to Portfield, near that place, Sessions. An active magistrate, he paid great where they continued several generations. Enriched, however, by a wealthy marriage with the heiress of the attention to the police and was particularly notable Doddings, they finally migrated to Conishead. for his zeal over the house of correction erected at Salford in the late s. He was chairman of the Gentry belonging to families with a Lancashire Board of Health set up in to improve sanitation. commercial background had often not been in trade His other interests are shown by his being a Fellow themselves, nor had their fathers. The ancestors of of the Royal Society and vice president of the Sir Ashton Lever of Alkrington Hall (b. and Agricultural Society of Manchester. made a justice in ) had been clothiers in the There was little change in the background of seventeenth century, though his father (who had justices who were most prominent in quarter sessions built the Hall in and had been High Sheriff) was work in the first three decades of the nineteenth a gentleman. Among justices who had themselves century. The clergy were still a minority and there made money in trade was Peter Baker of Liverpool were justices from mercantile families. Several justices (d. ), a shipbuilder who constructed both naval in the s and s had been at meetings long and mercantile vessels, and who owned the privateer before , such as Sir Richard Clayton of Adlington Mentor which captured the French East Indiaman, in Standish, where his family had been settled for Carnatic , worth £ ,, in October ; he was more than a century; having become a justice in , Bailiff of Liverpool in and Mayor in , and he was chairman of annual general sessions in owned landed property in the neighbourhood of and . Rev Richard Formby of Formby Hall, Liverpool in the s. Some families who had made west of Ormskirk, had been a justice since . In fortunes in trade in the past owned considerable the years and both chaired several quarter estates: the Lever estate extended over much of south- sessions at Ormskirk, Clayton taking a deposition east Lancashire, and included property in Manchester from Bolton weavers that they had taken illegal oaths and the neighbourhood. in , when propertied people feared disorder and A few prosperous clergy and other professional risings among the working classes . men were also prominent as justices, such as Rev The majority of justices had less service behind Oliver Marton, vicar of Lancaster until , whose them.