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Home , Baron Byron, Blackstone Edge, Edwin Butterworth, John Fielden, Salford Hundred, Wardleworth

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Chapter Four PURITANS AND PACKMEN : 1603-1702 THE BYRONS, THE WAR AND THE MANOR . ONG BEARD " Sir died in 1604 and in the same year K his son, the third successive Sir John (who married Margaret L FitzWilliam, daughter of the Lord Deputy of Ireland), received a letter from the Earl of Shrewsbury referring to his "great debtts, and . . . many chyldren " and advising him to cut down his expenses at Newstead and live in ,] but he seems to have done exactly the opposite . His son the fourth (who married Anne Moly- neux of Sefton) survived him by only two years, dying in 1625, by which time Clayton and had both been sold and the lease of the Manor had lapsed. Clayton was eventually bought by Humphrey Chet- ham and his brother, thriving merchants . In 1625 Sir Rich- ard Molyneux Was Steward of the Manor of Rochdale before it was even- tually sold to Sir Robert Heath, the Attorney-General . Heath, in 1626, caused a detailed survey to be made of Rochdale and in 1638 sold the Manor for £2,500 to Sir John Byron (son of Sir John and Anne, nee Molyneux). This fifth Sir John, amongst a multiplicity of Royalist Byrons, particularly distinguished himself during the Civil War . He was Member of Parliament for Nottingham, was made a Knight of the Bath at the Coronation of Charles I and was Lieutenant of the Tower in 1641 . After fighting at Worcester and Edgehill he was created Baron Byron of Rochdale in 1643 . He was also made Field-Marshal General of the Roy- alist forces in Worcester, Shropshire, and N . Wales, .and Gover-

44 ROCHDALE RETROSPECT

nor of Chester . After the War his possessions were confiscated by the Commonwealth ; he joined the Court in Paris and died there, childless and exiled, in 1652 . His second wife, Eleanor, daughter of the Irish Viscount Kilmorey, was said by the diarist, Pepys, to have been Charles [I's seventeenth mistress abroad and to have extorted £15,000 from Charles, who also promised her £4,000 of plate, but she died in 1664 before receiving it. First married at the age of I I to a Cheshire gentleman, Peter Warbur- ton, she lived only 36 years and left the bulk of her goods and " all sums of money due to me out of His Majesty's Exchequer " to her brother and sisters .- For some time during the Commonwealth and Protectorate, Gabriel Gartside was the Deputy Steward of the Manor . In 1661, after the Restoration, Richard the second Lord Byron (brother of the first), held the Manor and his descendants continued to do so until the 19th century . He was succeeded in 1679 by his son William, who died in 1695, leaving a son and heir, William the fourth Lord Byron . ROCHDALE REVIEWED . From James I's 1610 Inquisition of Rochdale, from Sir Robert Heath's comprehensive 1626 Survey of the Manor, and from other documents, a fairly clear picture presents itself of Rochdale as it must have been within the first half of the century . The market was held on Mondays, near the junction of Lord Street and Street (the latter was then the High Street), and around this central focus was a cluster of now vanished inns, the King's Arms, the Eagle, the Bell, the Bull and the White Hart, within whose walls much trade was transacted, also the affairs of the approximately monthly Courts and the weightier Courts Leet, which were held twice a year . Most of the near-by houses would be half-timbered and thatched, some with gables, latticed windows, galleries beneath which stalls were put up on market days, and outer wooden stairs to the upper rooms . The Town Mill was near the " Parrock " (probably what is now known as the Paddock, Bury Road) and would have heavy sluice-gates, massive wooden paddles and cog-wheels to turn the mill-stones and grind the corn ; not far away from the Town Mill was a fulling-mill . At another mill, on land owned by Robert Holt (though he had no deeds for it) malt was ground by a horse turning the mill-wheel . This mill stood near the then King's Arms and upon the site of what was " formerlie called the New Market and where the Markett was kepte ." The Roch had a ford at the Butts ; the bridge to the west was " in decay " and it was not known who should repair it, although official Surveyors were in charge of the highways . South of the river the glebe-lands stretched on both sides of the church, from Castle Hill on the west, and east as far as the present Moles- worth Street : apart from the half-timbered and thatched Vicarage and the stone Church and Grammar School there were only seven small houses or farms (including those known as Broad Field and Sparrow Hill), also

PURITANS AND PACKMEN : 1603-1702 45

six houses in Church Street (now Church Lane), where the cattle markets were still held . A network of lanes led through meadows and open country to the small hamlets. Goose Lane, for instance (now the main Manchester Road), continued on from Church Stile and Castle Hill between the then, no doubt, gorse-grown " wastes " of Castleton Moor and Brimrod to the old water corn mill at Sudden, Marland . The plight of tradesmen and travellers may be judged from the fact that in 1605 the bridge at Littleborough, on the highroad between Rochdale and Halifax, was fit for foot passengers only .3 Rochdale itself was a meeting-place for the four townships and had no town boundaries . According to the 1626 Survey, the principal hamlets in Castleton Township were : Castleton, Marland, Newbold and Buersill ; in Butterworth were : Butterworth, Clegg and Hollingworth ; contained , Wuerdle, Wardle, Blatchingworth (which included Littleborough), and ; consisted of Spotland, Falinge, Chadwick, Wolstenholme and Rosseadale (or Brand- wood). In the first quarter of the century at least three more fulling mills had sprung up-one at Falinge, one at Howarth Hall, Wuerdle, and a third, James Fielding 's mill at Godplay (or Gorpley), Todmorden, together with bleach-houses at Buersill, Butterworth and at Woodhouse Lane in Spotland . The boundaries of the Parish were clearly defined . Briefly, they extended from Burnedge and across the Real stream to Ogden in the south- east, then north as far as Portsmouth and including Littleborough, Todmorden and .The western boundary descended partly along the , west of Rockcliffe, east of , to Cowpe, Cheesden, the Naden stream, Bagslate, the Roch and then eastwards, north of Hop- wood and Thornham, to Burnedge . Edwin Butterworth's somewhat distorted map, made in 1829, gives the 1610 boundaries also the contem- porary spellings of the old land-marks of which several, such as the Wolf Stone on Naden, have now vanished . There were no lead mines within the Parish, but there were coal mines at the Trough, in Spotland ; at Featherstean, i.e. , meaning four-sided stone, (a common above Crook in Wardle) ; at Brown Wardle : at Micherden Clough in Walsden, and at Butterworth Common . In the 1626 Survey a female coal miner, Alice Wolstenhome, is noted disapprovingly as having destroyed much timber for " supplying of her Pits " at Shore Moor, Wardle . Stone quarries were numerous . Fifteen years later the population of the Rochdale Parish may be roughly assessed as over 10,000, since in 1641-2 all the adult males within the Parish and over 18 years old, " none refusing," took the Protestation to support Parliament and oppose Roman Catholicism . Over 2,000 names were recorded, excluding officials : the clergy, churchwardens, three overseers of the poor, and one or two constables for each township . A

46 ROCHDALE RETROSPECT

certain clannishness is shown by the fact that only sonic 300 surnames were represented on the lists. The first quarter of the century was dominated by the fear of plague . In 1605 it was ordered at the Quarter Sessions that " Watch and Ward shall he kept henceforth at Ratchdale from 5 a .m . until 8 p.m ." John Holt was one of the Justices on the Bench, and Alexander Butterworth, a High Constable of Hundred, was put in charge . The death- rate of Rochdale did not, however, rise unduly until 1623, when it swelled to about three times its normal number, with 541 burials, and then reverted again to nearly normal . "FORCAST TO LIVE AS FOR EVER ": THE STONE HALLS . The spirit of this Puritan and Packman age is expressed by a 1632 date-stone once kept at Pike House, engraved with the initials of Nathan- iel Halliwell and the words " Forcast to live as for ever but live as to dye tomorrow." Though the houses in Rochdale's centre were still mostly half- timbered, the freeholders and copyholders of the hamlets were now buil- ding, partly through lack of timber, partly through greater wealth and security, hails now quarried from the millstone grit of the surrounding hills. Even the smaller buildings had chimneys, and fireplaces set into the walls, for coal fires. The windows were mullioned, with small panes of glass; iron bars were socketed into the sills . The oak doors, often porched, were bolted through with stout nails ; oak, too, was used for the stairs, and 20 ft . oak logs, perhaps forked above the doors, formed the beams. Roofs were of stone slates, and, apart from the hood moulds above the windows, there was little attempt at ornament . Two-storied, often L-shaped against the wind and with the moors behind them, these dwellings had the look of small fortresses : they were built to last and many of them have survived through three or four centuries. It was then a common practice to carve initials and a date above a door or a porch . As examples of such old buildings which are standing today, a round dozen of 17th century date-stones are quoted : 1603 : TODMORDEN HALL (which must be one of the finest Post Office buildings in the country) ; 1605 : SHORE HALL, near Little- borough ; 1609 : HILL HOUSE, off Bury Road ; 1619 : BIRCHINLEY HALL, east of ; 1631 : LADYHOUSE, near ; 1635 : WINDY BANK, off Blackstone Edge Road ; 1678 : a HARRIDGE STREET house, Healey ; 1690 : the PLOUGH INN, Milnrow ; 1691 : OLD BENT HOUSE, near Blackstone Edge ; 1693 : MOORGATE EAST FARM, off Broad Lane, Burnedge ; 1694: BANK HOUSE, on Hunger Hill, off Woodhouse Lane ; 1696 : the RAKE INN, off Blackstone Edge Road. Of these, most replaced much older timber buildings, and some, such as Old Bent House, have still earlier date-stones . There were, of course, numerous other stone halls and houses scattered through the

PURI'T'ANS AND PACKMEN : 1603-1702 47

Parish, but many were later almost completely rebuilt or were pulled down in the 19th century . Ten halls have been chosen in this book as a necessarily limited cross-section of Rochdale history . The 1626 Survey describes each, with the exception of the Great House, as being a capital messuage or fair mansion . Casi/elon I/a// and C/cg,g Hall are specifically mentioned as being built of freestone (i .e . easily cut stone) ; they and Stub/ei Hall had courts, stables, and totes for pigeons or doves, with an ox-house at Castleton and a fishpond at Clegg . This latter hall, though roofed with stone slates and possessing mullioned windows, was not a typical local building, being rectangular in shape, having three stories and an attic, twelve gables and a columned projecting porch, with the Ashton mullet carved above each side of the doorway . It was probably built by Theophilus Ashton at some time before 1618, and it eventually passed to his sister's husband, Edmund Howarth of Howarth Hall, and to Edmund's son Robert, who died in 1639 .

Beheld Hall was probably built at about the same time as its sundial was made ; this small brass plate was engraved with the date 1612 and the initials of the Alexander Butterworth who died in 1622-3,

Belfield Hall, e. 1881 .

48 ROCHDALE RETROSPECT

and was succeeded by his son Edward . (The sundial is now in the Rochdale Museum) . The builders and approximate dates of four other stone houses are given in chronological order : Pike House, built in 1608-9 by James Halliwell's son John, who died in 1619 and was succeeded by his own son, James . Healey Hall, built, according to its date-stone, in 1618 . by Robert Chadwick, whose eldest son, Jordan, died in 1634 and was succeeded by his eldest son, John . Chadtrick Hall, built, according to its date-stone, in 1620, by Roger Chadwick's son Oliver, who had the same name as his grandfather . and died in 1621, leaving a son, John, and a brother, Henry . Oakenrod Hall was probably built in the middle of the century, though a stone from the old corn mill was dated 1606 . Gabriel Gartside's son James held Oakenrod before 1626 . James' daughter Susanna became the second wife of his cousin, another Gabriel Gartside, who thus ac- quired the property . The Schofield Hall date-stone became too worn to be decipherable . Gerard Schofield married Mary, daughter of Richard Lynney, in 1602 ; their son James was 18 years old when his father died in 1638 . The Great House (where a Robert Gartside lived in 1565) at one time bore a stone engraved 1612 and with the initials of Richard Lynney ; this house was near the river, east of what is now Newgate . Lynney's grandson, Richard, in 1676 owned an orchard by the Roch (on the site of the present War Memorial), close to fields which in 1659 belonged to Gabriel Gartside and James Schofield, and through which a road was then made from the High Street (Yorkshire Street) and through the meadow gate in Blackwater, " along the common footpath that led to the towne nrylne." ROCHDALE AND THE CIVIL WAR . As might be expected, Puritan Rochdale was mainly in sympathy with the Parliamentarians : Colonel Ralph Ashton (or Assheton) of Middle- ton easily obtained supplies from the people . Although no skirmishes took place within the Parish . Rochdale men were concerned with the various sieges of Manchester, and of Lord Derby's Lathom House, near . In 1642 Manchester was fortified against the Royalists with posts, chains and mud-walls, by a German engineer, John Rosworm, later made a Lieut. Colonel . At Bolton, savagely besieged by the Royalists, who used spiked and pointed pikes derisively called " Roundheads," a Captain Schofield of Rochdale was in 1643 one of the officers of the garrison, and 1700 men from Middleton, , Rochdale and Manchester came to the aid of this town . When the Royalist Earl of Newcastle sent an in- timidating letter to the " Manchester Men " they sent back an undismayed

PURITANS AND PACK MEN : 1603-1702 49

reply, dated from Rochdale on the 7th July, 1643 . Colonel Rosworm now placed a garrison of 1200 men in Rochdale and 800 more on Black- stone Edge, with two guns .4 Within ten days, Newcastle sent "200 horse to break through the passage at Blacstone Edge " but the garrison there slew some of Newcastle's men, taking others prisoners, " and sent back the rest to tell their fellows that they will hardly have passage . . . neither is that way fit, either for carriage or ordnance ."

Amen Corner, c.. 1769 . Early in 1644, Sir Thomas Fairfax and Colonel Ashton, having defeated the " Turkish Lord Byron " at Nantwich, moved north to besiege Lathom House, then held by the gallant Countess of Derby, but Prince Rupert also made his way north, looting and massacring 1,600 men at Bolton towards the end of May ; early in June the Prince's troops plundered the country round Bury and Rnehdale .5 After proceeding to relieve Lathom, Rupert turned east towards York, and in July was defeated by Cromwell, Lord Fairfax and the Earl of Manchester at Mars- ton Moor . This decisive battle cost the Royalists the North of , and Newcastle now fled to the Continent .

50 kOCHDALE RETROSPECT

However, in the following year, Rupert was able to go to the relief of Beeston Castle, then besieged by Colonel Sir William Brereton (Com- mander-in-Chief of Cheshire under the now Presbyterian Parliament), who asked for aid against Rupert. Amongst the troops sent to him were 5,000 Scots, who had come through Rochdale (from Yorkshire) on March 18th, 1645, a day after Beeston Castle had been taken by Rupert, Beeston Hall being afterwards burned " downe to the ground " by the Royalists . Brereton's troops met the Scots near Bowdon and Knutsford

ArrwlAT . . h, aprr a Arnwin¢ hr G . .Shaw. Schofield Hall, 1829 . on March 20th,e and Rupert was eventually forced to retreat, leaving Lord Byron, forsaken and alarmed, to hold out stubbornly at Chester, which he did not surrender to Brereton until February, 1646, when the besieged city had reached starvation point. After 1645, although Cromwell, and Lancashire forces, defeated the Scottish insurgents at Preston in 1648, Rochdale, as a whole, can have had very little direct interest in the War . THE WAR AND THE HALLS . Being of the very warp and weft of a Puritan Parish, the Rochdale gentry were scarcely likely to he deep-dyed Royalists . Even in 1629, when the extravagant Charles I had ordered that wealthy men should take up knighthood, Jordan Chadwick of Healey Hall denied that his land was held from the King, and in 1631 he was fined £10 : Edward Butterworth of Belfield Hall, a staunch Puritan, was fined £12 10s . Dur- ing the Civil War his younger brother, named Alexander, after their father, joined the King and during 1645 helped to defend the moated fortress of Lathom, which in 1651 provided timber for the Earl of Derby's scaffold when he was beheaded at Bolton. The Puritan Chadwicks of Chadwick, who barely survived into the 18th century, do not appear to have taken a prominent part in the War,

PURITANS AND PACKMEN : 1603-1702 51

nor do the equally Puritan, but fast-multiplying Halliwells, despite the fact that the 1643 July troops must have manhandled their guns through the colony of Halliwell houses and up Blackstone Edge . In 1619, John Holt of Stubley and Castleton was High Sheriff of Lancashire : his son Robert also became High Sheriff, in 1640 . At the beginning of the War the Royalist Robert Holt went through the flower- strewn streets of Manchester to join the future Earl of Derby at a banquet, but in 1646, having surrendered, he took the National Covenant. He was

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FiJnrlck', History or Rochdale . Oakenrod Hall, 1830. lined the large sum of £1,150.7 A man of " verie right principles," he died in 1675 and was succeeded by his younger son James, to whom he left, amongst other bequests, " his biggest piece of gold, his armour and his pistols." Gabriel Gartside apparently tried to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds . In his 1646-7 petition for leniency, he is styled as a " woollen draper " : he claimed that a warrant had been issued against him by the Parliamentarians, also that he had been " incompassed " by the Royalists and taken to Lathom . However, a fine of £28 was imposed upon him. As for the faithful Royalist, Alexander Butterworth, in 1650, having only a nag and his clothes, he was fined £3 6s . 8d .

52 ROCHDALE RETROSPECT

A NUTSHELL OF HISTORY . After the ravages of the War and the severities of the Common- wealth and Protectorate, Charles 11's restoration was an opportunity for a revival of almost forgotten festivities-when he visited Manchester after his Coronation it is said that a city water-conduit was supplied with claret which ran " in three streams " for the benefit of the public, until sunset .

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Petition of Martha Kershaw, widow of " Trumpelt Henery " : Lancashire Record Office photograph of part of Document QSP/200/5. But in 1660, " Henery Kershawe . . . imployed as a Trumpell att the lyme of proclaimeing the King's Majestic all the Towne of Rachdale . . . was shott through the head and there slaine in the street ."8 The sympathy of the crowd must have been with the assassin, for it was never discovered who did it . A collection for the widowed Martha Kershaw and her five children was made throughout the County . Her petition was signed by six men of Rochdale who certified that she and her children " are in :t condition much to bee pittied " ; not only is their handwriting extremely characteristic but this scrap of a document sums up in a nutshell centuries of Rochdale history . Robert Bath's signature is scholarly, as befits the Vicar of St. Chad's and an Oxford M .A. After the 1672 Act of Indulgence he formed what is believed to be the first legalised body of Dissenters in Rochdale .

PURITANS AND PACKMEN : 1603-1702 5 3

The symbolically exact and thick down-strokes of Zachary Taylor betray the character of the Rochdale Grammar School master and the curate of Robert Bath . His son, Zachary Taylor, in 1697 wrote The Surer Impostor, ridiculing the demoniac boy of Sawrey, near Whalley, who vomited silver and gold, was a ventriloquist and possessed of the Devil . James Schofield's upright handwriting is that of the Royalist who, having lost money in the War, was obliged to sell Schofield Hall to his son-in-law, Seth Clayton in 1673, dying twenty years later, and leaving a son, Radcliffe Schofield, to head four generations of Nonconformist ministers. Edward Leigh, a wool merchant, was one of the Rochdale gentle- men who were summoned to record their pedigrees in 1664 . His writing seems that of a refined and fastidious man ; he married Jane, daughter of the Samuel Hamer, of Hamer Hall and Wildhouse, who in 1667 left property which included two muskets, a sword, belt and " Bandaleeres," a clock and case, " a glass case and bookes ." Edward Leigh died child- less, otherwise his descendants would have inherited (through his father's later marriage to Mary Hopwood), the house of Spotland Gate, or " The Green," which became the property of the 19th century novelist, William Harrison Ainsworth . It was pulled down in 1907, and the 1655 date- stone was removed to a house in nearby Churchill Street . The rather pernickety signature of Abraham Stansfield of Hamer Hall Mill is that of the father of Abigail and Alice, who married, respect- ively, the Rochdale surgeon's son, Joseph Whitworth (a curate), and John Haslam, fuller and clothier, whose descendants built Old Falinge and sold it in 1756 to the Royds family . As might be expected, Gabriel Gartside's signature is a forceful one : he had married as his first wife the sister of the prosperous shop- keeper and Parish Clerk, Abel Brereley, whose 1637 inventory included over £440 of goods and woollen cloth, bills and bonds for various amounts, 11 one payer of gold weights " (or scales for gold), also, a rare possession in those days, a carpet. When Gabriel Gartside married, secondly, his cousin's daughter, Susanna, he secured Oakenrod Hall for his son, Samuel, who was described by Oliver Heywood, the Nonconformist preacher of Northowram, Yorkshire, as " a great man and steward to Lord Beren's Court ." It is significant that in 1668 Samuel Gartside put up a memorial " brass " (it is, however, copper) to his mother Susanna, with no addition for his father, who died five years before him . This memorial is still on the north wall of the Parish Church and is engraved with two skeletons, a dedication and the admonition : " As you are so were wee . As wee are so must you bee ." Samuel, however, died in York on the day of his second wedding in 1685. The ambitious Gabriel, in 1676, together with Joseph Dearden, was responsible for putting in hand the long-delayed building of the Rochdale Bridge, which cost over £76, The master workmen were paid

54 ROCHDALE RETROSPECT

12d. a day, " and 10d. a day the rest ."9 40 loads of " Walstone " were used, and three draughts (of oxen) were needed to haul 140 loads of free- stone, as well . The bridge had needed repairs in 1632, when it was " much decaied." NORROY AND ROUGE DRAGON RIDE NORTH . Unlike some other Rochdale gentlemen, Gabriel Gartside did not need to be twice asked to record his pedigree . The imperious herald, Sir William Dugdale, Norroy King of Arms, was a Royalist, and not in favour of Puritans : the representative of any family which met with his disapproval was liable to be publicly proclaimed " No gentleman ." hence many old families were reluctant to answer his first summons and he had to send a peremptory letter to insist that certain gentry of the should register their claims at the King's Arms, Salford . Alex- ander Butterworth of Belfield (Edward's nephew), James Halliwell, Ed- ward Leigh, James Schofield, and the Buckleys, all of Rochdale, were amongst these tardy claimants . Neither James Halliwell's pedigree nor Edward Leigh's was recorded amongst those of several Rochdale families which included, apart from those mentioned, the Holts of Stubley and Castleton, the Chadwicks of Chadwick and of Healey, and Samuel Hamer . In 1664 the herald travelled north on horseback with his talented clerk, Gregory King (afterwards Rouge Dragon, also a statesman famous for his analysis of the hearth taxes) . Dugdale was welcomed by his friend Theophilus Howarth, of Howarth and Clegg (brother and eventual heir of Robert Howarth), educated at Rochdale Grammar School and at Magdalen, Cambridge . Being later attached to Oxford University, Dr . Howarth presented a silver tankard to Brazennose College ; he practised as a " Doctor of Phisicke " in Manchester, and on the 12th April, 1671 he was buried in the Cathedral . Dugdale attested the claims of the Howarths to be ancestors of the Duke of Norfolk, but, some ten years later, significantly ignored this descent in his famous Baronage, the first of the great genealogical Peerages, which was, however, to need many corrections . ROCHDALE WEALTH . The tax collected in 1666 shows that Rochdale had the very large total of 1,267 hearths, most of which would represent one family, and, perhaps, servants or labourers as well . Robert Holt had 15 at Castle- ton and I I at Stubley ; Alexander Butterworth of Belfield : 14 ; James Brerely: 10 ; James Schofield : 9 ; Samuel Hamer : 8 ; Gabriel Gartside, James Chadwick of Chadwick, and Henry Pigot (the Vicar) had 7 each ; James Halliwell, Edward Leigh, John Hamer, Joshua Stansfield, Joseph Dearden, Ellis Haslam and Matthew Hollas (or Hallowes) had 6 each . This assortment illustrates how, more than ever, the wool trade was dominating Rochdale's affairs-all, except the Vicar, were woollen manufacturers or dealers . Excerpts of a few wills in the second half of the century show that this Puritan and trading town was not altogether without its luxuries,

PURITANS AND PACKMEN : 1603-1702 5 5

In 1668, at Healey Hall, there were orris (or gold or silver lace) curtains, green carpets and a " paire of Harpsichalls " (spinet, or early type of piano), though the Chadwicks were by now more interested in their Ridware, Staffordshire, property, acquired by marriage . In 1676 died John Gregory, gentleman of Rochdale, who left over £2,626 and such dainty and fashionable items as gloves, flower-pots, table napkins and sugar . He was the son-in-law of Captain Ogden, who was probably the builder of a small bridge over the river from his new house " The Wood " (where the present Town Hall now stands) . At almost the same time died Jonathan Butterworth, mercer, whose " Goods in the Shopp " included 0240 worth of " habbardashary and silke wares " and nearly £90 of groceries and " Psaltery " (or salted meats and fish, then a necessary winter diet which caused many skin complaints) . For some twenty years a shortage of small coinage led to the use of trades- men's individual trade tokens, some later specimens of which are in the Rochdale Museum. Jonathan Butterworth's ;d . tokens somewhat pretentiously represented a bust of the Queen of Bohemia, James I's daughter. Dr . Theophilus Howarth in 1671 left 185 ounces of plate, one clock worth £4, several pictures worth £10, and £3 to buy mourning rings. Samuel Gartside's will, proved at Chester in 1685, mentions some mysterious " ingens, tools and instruments " in a room at Oakenrod, also hooks, and framed pictures of himself and his ancestors, and a gold ring engraved with the Gartside arms . At a time when cotton manufacturers were invading western Lan- cashire, Rochdale, which had no woollen guild to restrict new traders, became the most important centre and stronghold of woollen manufacture in the county, making " bays, frizes, kerseys, minikins, cottons (i.e. woollen " coatings ") and penistones ." The dyes used (sometimes illeg- ally) show the influence of the New World-red logwoods and parrot- green popingeys had joined the blue indigo of the East and the ancient English blue woads, grey kenitts, pale blue watchetts and tawny and russet motleys, or medleys . A. P. Wadsworth's 1925 paper on the Rochdale woollen trade shows that in 1669 there was near the market cross a group of buildings " tenanted by a merchant, three mercers, two woolmen, a clothworker, three cloth makers, a dyer, two linen drapers, an innkeeper, three naylors, two bakers, an apothecary, an ironmonger, a blacksmith, a cooper, a joiner and a barber ."In In 1668 three cottages in Toad Lane were occupied by a clothier, a cloth maker and a woollen dresser, and " in 1682 there were seven woolshops in another block of property by the cross ." Much of the trade was with Yorkshire-long single-file trains of pack-horses would set out before dawn for -other travellers on the narrow roads or stone causeways would time their journeys to avoid the inconvenience of passing them . The Rochdale traders them- selves now had their cloth shipped abroad . A Gabriel Gartside in 1700

5 6 ROCHDALE RETROSPECT

told the House of Commons that Rochdale bays had been shipped to Amsterdam, and how, in 1699, owing to the stoppage of trade with Flan- ders, over £1,000 had to be provided for the Rochdale poor-at least £200 more than usual in previous years . In 1705 the brothers Gabriel, Josiah and Samuel Gartside built the Red Lion and King's Head inns near Newgate . (The name and part of the site of the former, at least, has survived) . It seems likely that these brothers were relations of " the great " Samuel Gartside, who had brothers but no sons . An Adam Gartside (possibly a descendant of the 16th century Gartside who lived in the Great House) in 1692 owned and had probably built the stone Great House (a little to the east of Richard Lynney's orchard) with its two stories, mullioned windows, and a garden of "eight falls" sloping down to the river : a fall or "rodfall" was a rod, pole or perch-in Lancashire usually 7 yards . This house was let off in four parts, one of which contained " the porch, the body of the house, the kitchen, the brewhouse, the buttery, the little parlour, the great parlour, the staircase, the great chamber over the house, and the chamber over the little parlour," also " a place to lay coals in ."On the glebe-lands, south of the Roch, more but less permanent houses were also being built in the last half of the century . THE VICARS AND THE NONCONFORMISTS . There were five 17th century Vicars of Rochdale . Joseph Midge- ley, even more of a Puritan than his father, was deprived of the living in 1607 . He was followed first by Richard Kenyon, and then by Henry Tilson, friend of Strafford and Laud, who became Bishop of Elphin, Ire- land, in 1639, and was the grandfather of Henry Tilson the portrait painter . In 1646 Robert Bath joined the 2nd Presbyterian Classis, or Assembly, at Bury-Edward Butterworth was another member . By the 1662 Act of Uniformity all Church ministers were required to be of Epis- copal ordination, and, after some 25 years as Vicar, Bath was deprived of the Rochdale living but continued to preach to Dissenters at a small house in Deeplish, Castleton, although, amongst other severe Acts, the Conven- ticle Act prohibited meetings of more than five Dissenters (other than a family) on penalty of fines, imprisonment or transportation to the Amer- ican colonies. For the next sixty years the Episcopalian Henry Pigot was a some- what whimsical vicar, described in his old age as a little man " of a spare habit, very pale, wearing a plaided silk cap, with long white hair, and very fond of music and fishing."t2 It was he who sent an invitation to an Oldham choir who came by cart to St . Chad's and were afterwards entertained at the Royal Oak (probably near the Church stile-a Royal Oak inn near there was closed down in 1901) . It was after the 1672 Act of Toleration that Robert Bath took out a preaching licence . There were now several vigorous groups of Dissen- ters within the Parish, In 1650 there had been " very foul riots "within

PURITANS AND PACKMEN : 1603-1702 5 7

a town suffering from the effects of plague and the War ; in 1663 a threat- ened rising of Anabaptists, Independents and Presbyterians was reported to Robert Holt of Castleton, then Deputy Lieutenant of Lancashire . An early group of existed in Todmorden even before the Res- toration, including, notably, John Fielden, who, during some twenty years, was frequently imprisoned and fined . For thirty years, between the 60's and the 90's, Oliver Heywood came over the border to preach to Dissenters in Lancashire ; he often stayed with Matthew Hallows and preached at his house, also at Chadwick Hall, and once in 1683 he was nearly arrested while staying with John Halliwell . The house of Matthew Hallows (or Hollis) was registered as a Dissenters' meeting-place in 1689 .13 THE PARISH CHURCH . During the 17th century history of St . Chad there is an early example of reserving family " formes." In this case it was Edward Leigh who in 1621 was given permission to erect, at his own expense, a form at a vacant place on the south side of the chancel . In 1635 it appears that the seats were " uniformed quirewise " and some thirty years later Samuel Gartside was allowed to erect a " pew or seate " in the chancel . However, in 1682 Mr. Pigot locked the church doors against Alexander Butterworth, J . P. (nephew and eventual heir of Edward Butterworth), who had been appointed High Sheriff of Lancashire in 1675 and 1676 . Alexander, true to his name, solved the problem by ordering his servant to go in through the window and " nayle green Beas " (baize) on the seat he wished to reserve . After a public brawl between the Vicar and Mr. Butterworth, Mr. Pigot read the Common Prayer in the churchyard, but Mr. Butter- worth ordered the outdoor congregation to disperse, which they did . In 1676 Mr. Pigot, as auditor, refused to pass the too loosely kept accounts of the churchwardens-various parishioners had not paid their church lay, including John Entwisle and Gabriel Gartside, whom every- body knew to be solvent . The Rochdale churchwardens cannot always have welcomed their duties-in 1674 they and the Parish Constables were obliged to appeal to the Quarter Sessions for protection against the " very numerous and powerfull Conventiclers " who " have threatned the utter ruine of severall of your petitioners so scone as they come out of their office (besides the beating of several]) "14 (The word office " would, of course, signify " position " or " duties.") Two galleries, west and south, were added to the church in 1693 and 1699, but they were later pulled down . A clock had been provided before 1644, but there is little evidence to show who made it and the various clocks, cased and uncased, with or without dials, mentioned in local wills . Two silver patens inscribed 1696 and 1702 respectively, were donated by the Holden family and are still amongst the Church possessions today . During the Civil War the Church plate had been taken into Yorkshire for safety, and in the next century there were to be thefts . P

58 ROCHDALE RETROSPECT In 1660 eight loads of stone were brought from Blackstone Edge for the Church Steps, which had probably existed already in some form . From the point of view of the town a most important development had occurred during Mr. Bath's vicariate, when prosperous and overcrowded inhabitants spread southwards over the river and began to build houses on the glebe-land . As a result Church Lane and the Packer became two handsome streets . Both Bath and Pigot received rents from this property .

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Fishwiek'v History of Rochdale . The Gartside " brass," Parish Church . The churchwardens' accounts begin in 1640 and provide an insight of contemporary customs and beliefs, but before passing on to these, a brief mention must be made which concerns both religion and education : the first independent " Charities " were now being founded . In 1688 James Wolfenden, yeoman, of Hades, left funds for the poor of Hunders- field. and at about the same time Theophilus Halliwell made an endowment for a schoolmaster at Littleborough Chapel . In 1692 John Brearley provided for the poor of Spotland . These were the beginnings of a move towards separate " Free Schools ." Three other funds, amounting alto-

PURITANS AND PACKMEN : 1603-1702 5 9

gether to £25 a year, had been allotted to the Grammar School in 1682 and after by the Chadwicks of Healey Hall, Mr . Lynney and a solicitor, Jeremy Hargreaves . 17th CENTURY CUSTOMS AND INNOVATIONS . Amongst customs connected with the church was the habit of making payments of rent in the porch, generally on Quarter Days . The Parish coffin and individual winding-sheets (enforced in order to aid the wool trade) were used for the dead ; only a few were buried inside the Church and tomb-stones were scarce : a bone-yard was used when the old graves were re-ofened . The stocks, dated 1666, were then outside the small churchyard . In 1656 an officer named a " Bang-beggar" (or beadle) was employed . The churchwardens' accounts of 1642 detail 5s . paid for "getting out Rishes " and sweeping the Church, and during the first forty years, pay- ments were made for " Fox heads," " hedge hodgs," " ottar heads " and " Mouldewarpes " (or moles) . Hare hunting and the various " baits " were for a long time to remain popular : the Halliwells of Pike House in 1720 claimed that for one hundred years they had kept a pack of hounds-they may well be looked upon as the first organisers of the Rochdale harriers . Archery was still practised until 1636, at least, and in 1652 men were fined for illegally fishing with nets in Marland Mere and in the Roch . John Pollett, the Curate of Milnrow for 1647-57, is thought to have been the " Mr. Pollett " who attended a horse-race, though outside the Parish, at Barton Moss . Of the ministers at Todmorden, Henry " Krabtree " was an astrologer : one of his many curious entries in his register reads " James, son of James Taylor of Todmorden. He was born, 2nd October, near sunsetting and also near a full moon, wch is a sure sign of a short life ." Some time before 1657, Dr . Theophilus Howarth (of Howarth and Clegg) discovered and popularised a spa at Castleton Moor, some ten or twelve " roodes " from the High Road between Rochdale and Manches- ter, whereupon Abraham , a woollen webster, complained to the Quarter Sessions that his hedges and grass were being damaged because " many of the gentrie and innumerable people lof the Countrey, some impotent and disseased " came " some to drinke, some to wash, and some to fetch burdens of water away ."15 He applied for a licence to sell ale, and thus offset his losses, but the Court did not grant his request, so he may, as he threatened, have filled in this Castleton " Spaw." Incidentally, the first Sunday in May was traditionally known in Rochdale as " Spaw Sunday " until the late 19th century . There were now several doctors in the Parish-the 1676 inventory of Dr. Vaughan, whose possessions were " prized by the sworn prizers of the towne," lists " l I knifes to let one blood withal], I Rasor and pen knife, I Pharmacopia Londoniensis (Turky lether), I Box with old ports and Bottles and salve . . . I bladder with odd Buttons ."1h Rochdale men now began to break into print : the Parish Clerk's

60 ROCHDALE RETROSPECT

brother, Roger Brereley, died at in 1637, having founded a relig- ious sect known as the Grindletonians . He wrote poetry which was eventually published in 1677 . The lines best known are those on "Self Civil War," and begin with " I am not with my self, as I conceive," and end " I cannot live with-nor without my self ." Robert Towne, minister at Todmorden before 1650, was said by Oliver Heywood to have " writ sonic books," and the Todmorden astrol- oger Henry Crabtree in 1686 published an almanac]< " Merlinus Rusticus ." But before this, at London, in 1676, there had been published a sermon preached at Lancaster in March 1675 by the Vicar, Mr . Pigot, then chaplain to the High Sheriff, Alexander Butterworth . It is said that when preaching before the Lancashire judges, the Vicar chose as his text " These that have turned the world upside down are come hither also," and that, though one of the judges requested that the Sheriff should not bring the same chaplain to the next Assizes, Pigot again appear- ed in the autumn and selected the text " Hear what the unjust judge saith ."

A PRETTY NEATE TOWNE . One of the first 17th century travellers to record his impressions of Rochdale, in 1626, was the Reverend Richard James, librarian to the Sir Robert Cotton whose collection of books is now in the British Museum . James, in his poem Lter Lancastren.se, speaks of " trading Rochdale " and of his friend " Sander" (Alexander) Butterworth who led him " through all ye cataracts of Healo Dene," i.e. Healey Dell . The Vicar, Henry Tilson, stopped at the Baitings Inn, just outside the border, on his way over Blackstone Edge to take up his duties in Rochdale. Oliver Heywood made many journeys during the second half of the century . In 1696-7 at Castleton Moor, a highwayman armed with pistols shot the mare of a chapman (or travelling salesman) from Stafford, but the chapman " catched hold on . . . the said Highwayman " who, while " offering to draw his Hanger, or dagger, fell over backwards ."n The chapman escaped with his money, met his assailant at a Middleton inn and caused him to be brought for trial . Travelling was both difficult and dangerous at this time, in spite of a 1691 Act which directed that " no horse cawsey shall be less than three feet wide " and a 1697 law ordaining the provision of signposts . Never- theless, two famous travellers came over Blackstone Edge in 1698 . Ralph Thoresby, the Yorkshire topographer and antiquarian, braved the February snow and had his leg crushed when his horse fell . The adventur- ous Celia Fiennes, daughter of a Cromwellian colonel and grand-daughter of the first Viscount Saye and Sele, rode side-saddle on her tour through England . A guide brought her from Yorkshire on a " pretty faire " morning, but she met with a mist and " small raine " on the top of Black- stone Edge, which she describes as " noted all over England for a dismal high precipice ." However, the sun came out as she rode down into