'NOT INFERIOUR TO ANY IN THIS PART OF OUR KINGDOM': WOOLTON ACADEMY AND THE ENGEISH CAREER OF THE REVEREND BARTHOEOMEW BOOTH, SCHOOLMASTER

Maurice Whitehead

I

The contribution of the larger and best documented eighteenth-century academies to the development of English education has received some attention from historians. 1 In Lancashire and Cheshire, institutions such as Warrington academy and the earlier Blue Coat foundations at Liverpool and Chester, to name but three, have been examined in detail.2 In contrast, the role of smaller, less well documented academies in providing education for the emerging middle classes has largely been neglected. Such institutions were often short-lived and not infrequently subject to changes of location. Their proprietors in most cases left few records by which their contribution to education can be assessed. Woolton academy, a small-scale institution which flourished at Woolton Hall near Liverpool from 1766 to 1772, is a prime example of such neglect. Its very existence has hitherto completely escaped the notice of historians. It is not mentioned in any published work of local history and apart from a very few passing references in print to the brief ownership of Woolton Hall by the academy's proprietor, the Revd Bartholomew Booth (1732-1785), the career of this Anglican clergyman- schoolmaster has been equally neglected. 3 The reason for his neglect doubtless lies partly in the fact that he emigrated to 20 Maurice Whitetuad

Figure 2 Portrait of the Reverend Bartholomew Booth (1732-85) by an unknown English artist, c. 1760. Oil on canvas, 30" X 25" Reproduced by kind permission of the Washington County Museum of Fine Arts, Hagerstown, Maryland, U. S. A.

Maryland in 1773. There, during the last twelve years of his life, he played a prominent role in educating the sons of a significant number of the leaders of the American Revolution, including numerous nephews of George Washington. Yet a study of Booth's second and arguably more significant American career Woolton Academy 2 1 as a schoolmaster (which lies outside the scope of this article) has also still to be written. Though, in common with so many eighteenth-century schoolmasters and schoolmistresses, Bartholomew Booth left few personal papers and no published writings by which his work in England and Maryland can be fully assessed, there remain widely scattered in a number of archives on both sides of the Atlantic sufficient fragments of evidence to permit his career to be traced in some detail. Drawing on those limited sources, this article will attempt to outline and evaluate Booth's English career prior to emigration, with particular emphasis on his work at Woolton academy from 1766 to 1772.

n

Bartholomew Booth, the son of Bartholomew Booth senior, schoolmaster, and his wife Helen, was born at Mellor in Derbyshire and baptized there on 7 October 1732. 4 The Booths had been established as yeoman farmers in the neighbouring Cheshire hamlets of Werneth and Beacom, across the valley from Mellor, from at latest the second half of the seventeenth century. 5 Where Bartholomew Booth senior received his education is not known, but in July 1713 he was appointed to the mastership of Mellor school.6 After marrying in the 1720s, he continued living at Beacom. A daughter, Helen, was born in 1727 but died in infancy and a second daughter, also named Helen, was born in 1730, both children being baptized at Marple. 7 By the time of the birth of their second child, Bartholomew, in 1732, the Booths were living at Mellor, close to the schoolhouse adjoining the village church. The young Bartholomew Booth grew up in the village, almost certainly receiving his early education from his father. During the winter of 1749-50 Booth senior died intestate and was buried at Stockport on 10 January 1750. 8 His son was evidently a promising student and Booth's widow, though of limited means, determined to allow the young Bartholomew to continue his education. On 3 March 1750, less than two months after his father's death, the seventeen-year-old youth was admitted to Manchester grammar school as a pupil.9 There he doubtless availed himself both of some of the extra- 22 Maurice Whitehead curricular instruction available in French, Italian, and mathematics, as well as the facilities for study afforded by Chetham's Library, which was frequented by senior students from the nearby grammar school. Indeed it may well be that the scientific and astronomical apparatus maintained in the library awakened in Booth an early interest in science and astronomy, subjects that he later offered in the curriculum of his own schools. 10 Booth remained at Manchester grammar school until about 1751. Even if at that stage he was entertaining the idea of following the example of a number of his fellow pupils by continuing his education at Oxford, his stay there of less than three years prevented his applying for one of the scholarships available to pupils from the school. If he wished to pursue his studies further he would first have to secure his own funds. Probably with that end in view he obtained temporary employment as an assistant or usher to the schoolmaster at Marple, across the River Goyt from his home at Mellor." At this stage of his life, or earlier, he met Mary Chatterton of Marple and the young couple were married by licence at St Mary's, Cheadle, on 6 March 1753. 12 Booth was just twenty years old. For reasons which will become apparent, the step he had taken was one he was soon to regret and to continue regretting for the remaining thirty-two years of his life. The arrival of the Booths' first child, William, baptized at Marple on 8 January 1754, 13 did not hinder Bartholomew from completing his education. He was now determined to follow a career as a schoolmaster and had decided that his future work would best be done as a clergyman. Inspired by his experience of having seen numerous senior fellow pupils at Manchester grammar school continue their studies at Oxford, particularly at Brasenose College, with which the school enjoyed close links, Booth successfully sought admission to that college. Leaving his wife and infant son in Marple, he arrived in Oxford about 24 June 1754 and matriculated at Brasenose four days later. 14 After less than eight months at Oxford, Booth was ordained deacon by the bishop of Chester, Edmund Keene, at St Margaret's, Westminster, on 23 February 1755, 15 returning to Brasenose shortly afterwards to continue his studies for a further year, though not to graduation. In the mid eighteenth century it was not uncommon for undergraduates at Oxford Woolton Academy 23 and Cambridge to finish their studies without graduating, a university education without the award of a degree nevertheless giving them status as 'literati' or 'literate persons'. 16 On 22 May 1756 Booth left Brasenose and returned home to Mellor. 17 Within a short time he was working as a deacon at the chapel in the nearby village of Disley, across the county boundary in Cheshire, gaining pastoral experience before ordination as a priest. It seems likely that he also undertook some teaching at Disley school, a charity school on the edge of Lyme Park patronized by the Legh family. Certainly assistance would have been needed at the school then: the schoolmaster, Peter Wood, an associate of Booth's father, had died just a few- months earlier in February 1756. 18 Disley was the home of the Booth family for the next four years and Bartholomew's domestic links with Mellor were soon severed. His mother died in the spring of 1757 and the family home was broken up. He did, however, inherit two small parcels of land in Mellor, called Lane Head and Tardin, which had formerly belonged to his parents. 19 By the summer of 1758, with two years' experience as a deacon in Disley, Booth was ready to undertake a full ministry. He was ordained priest at Chester cathedral on 2 July20 and was immediately licensed to both Disley and Macclesfield chapels as an assistant 'at the yearly sum of Thirty Pounds, together with the profits arising from the Seats and Surplice Fees'. 21 The stipend and supplementary fees were needed to feed and clothe the growing Booth family. A second son, Robert, was born about 1757 and a third, John, two years later. 22 Their father's pastoral work in Disley did not continue for long, however. In the early months of 1760 he was nominated schoolmaster of Disley by Peter Legh of Lyme, who was a feoffee or trustee of Manchester grammar school and an alumnus of Brasenose College, Oxford. Booth's appointment was soon ratified by the bishop of Chester who, at the same time, gave him new pastoral responsibility as curate of Marple chapel, two miles from Disley. 23 The education received and experience gained by Bartholomew Booth thus far was typical of that of the 125 or so Oxford men ordained annually in the mid eighteenth century. In an age of clerical patronage, the nobility and gentry had the presentation of a significant proportion of livings, particularly 24 Maurice HTiitehead the richest benefices. Consequently, less well connected Oxford men like Booth had limited opportunities of preferment and initially could not hope to earn more than £20 or £30 per annum as country curates, perhaps supplementing their income as schoolmasters. Booth's life, however, did not follow a typical course thereafter. Soon after beginning his new work in Disley and Marple, Booth began to notice the first signs of mental instability in his wife Mary. The strain on the young curate caused by her abnormal behaviour evidently grew, but he nevertheless continued his work in Marple chapelry. By the end of 1760 Mary's mental health had deteriorated to such an extent that the pressure on her husband became intolerable. Notwithstanding his marriage vows, Bartholomew took what must have been a painful decision to separate from his wife and attempt to regain some balance in his own life and in that of his young sons. Settling an annuity on his wife, possibly by allowing her the income from his inherited lands in Mellor, he resigned both his teaching post at Disley and his living at Marple during the autumn of 1761 and left the area, taking with him his eldest two sons, William, aged seven, and Robert, aged about four; the youngest son John, aged two, remained in Marple with his mother, who was evidently still sufficiently mentally balanced to continue caring for him.24 The next four years were a period of intense turmoil for Booth and his two older sons. Though no record has been found to indicate how and where they spent the winter of 1761 and the early months of the following year, Bartholomew Booth throughout that period was evidently seeking another living. Despite the fact that his new personal circumstances must have rendered his search immensely difficult, he was eventually successful in his quest, securing a new position as a curate at St Alkmund's, Derby, by August 1762.25 If Booth's personal life was in turmoil, the parish of St Alkmund was equally in a state of upheaval. The vicar, the Revd Henry Cantrell, had just died and been replaced by the Revd Thomas Manlove (1730-1802), a Cambridge graduate two years Booth's senior. Manlove was appointed vicar only one day before Booth's appointment as his curate.26 A difficult man to live with, Manlove was described by a fellow clergyman thirty years later as 'a shrewd talking respectable-looking old Woolton Academy 25

Parson but deeply tainted with what ought to be an anti- Parsonical vice, Meanness'. 27 That trait in his character may have caused at least some of the friction which soon developed between Manlove and Booth. In 1763, a few months after his arrival in Derby, Manlove was appointed headmaster of Derby grammar school. By the end of that year Bartholomew Booth was nominated second master of the same school by the mayor and burgesses of Derby, in whose gift the nomination lay, at an annual salary of £20.28 Surviving records suggest that he served a period of probation in his new post until July 1764, when the bishop of Lichfield issued an official licence vouching for Booth's 'probity and goodness of life as likewise for [his] skill in the instruction of Youth in Grammar and other useful parts of school learning'. 29 To supplement his income, Booth successfully sought an additional living and was nominated to the perpetual curacy of Brassington, near Wirksworth, in June 1764. 30 The appointment was short-lived. Soon after taking up his living at Brassington, for reasons which are far from clear, Booth's licence as second master at Derby grammar school was withdrawn by the bishop of Lichfield. 31 In the absence of evidence in the episcopal records of Lichfield and owing to the loss of the relevant municipal records of Derby, one can only speculate as to the reason for the bishop's action. Perhaps Thomas Manlove deemed Booth's pastoral obligations, together with his considerable domestic responsibilities, incompatible with his duties as a schoolmaster. Whatever the cause may have been, Booth suddenly and unexpectedly found himself without the principal means of gaining his livelihood and supporting his young sons. Apparently unable to remain in the diocese of Lichfield and wishing to avoid his estranged wife in Cheshire, Booth fled for a second time from the scene of his labours and set off towards Liverpool in an attempt to rebuild his shattered life. Once he arrived in Liverpool with his two sons in the autumn of 1 764, Bartholomew Booth threw himself with energy into planning a new enterprise of his own. The rapidly expanding town was an ideal place in which to build on his varied experience as a schoolmaster by opening a private academy for the sons and daughters of the growing merchant class. Hiring 'a large and convenient room' in the Old Church 26 Maurice Whilehead

Yard adjoining the parish church of St Nicholas on the quayside, Booth announced the opening of his new educational venture to the public of Liverpool in Williamson's Advertiser for Monday 7 January 1765:

On Monday, 7th inst., at a large and convenient room near the Old Church Liverpool will be opened an Academy for the Instruction of Youth in the following useful and polite branches of learning viz. the English Grammar, the Latin, Greek, French & German Languages, Writing in all the different hands, Geometry, Perspective, Arithmetic, the Use of the Globes, Geography, Navigation, the Italian Method of Bookkeeping, Drawing & Music in the Spring, Summer & Autumn Ojjarters. The Art of Fencing between the hours of twelve and one (during which time Gentlemen will not be permitted to stay in the Rooms). Ladies may be taught Drawing, Writing, Arithmetic & Geography. REV. MR. BOOTH32

The wide curriculum offered reflected the breadth of Booth's personal interests and is testimony to the broadly based education he had received both from his father at Mellor and at Manchester grammar school. Booth's new school was both an important addition to the educational opportunities available in Liverpool and a distinctive institution. In the mid eighteenth century, in spite of borderline cases, the main types of proprietory school (classical and modern) may be distinguished by two features in addition to their curricula. The modern schools, with their emphasis on mathematical and technical or vocational subjects, were generally called 'academies', and their masters in the majority were laymen and did not possess a university degree. The classical schools, on the other hand, very seldom used the term 'academy', their masters almost invariably being ordained priests of the Church of England. Booth's academy, with its curriculum firmly based in the 'modern' mode, was therefore unusual in that its master had received a classical university education and was a clerk in Anglican orders. 33 Surviving records do not indicate either how many assistants Booth employed initially or how many pupils at first enrolled in the new academy. However, his two eldest sons, William, then aged eleven, and Robert, aged about seven, both remained in his charge and attended the fledgling school. They were joined Woolton Academy 27 by their cousin Booth Hibbert (1755-1818), son of the schoolmaster's sister Helen Hibbert, who lived at Marple, and by George Hibbert (1757-1837), a future member of parliament and Fellow of the Royal Society, who may have been a more distant relative. The Booth family settled in a house in Chapel Street, close to the schoolroom, Booth's name appearing at that location in the first Liverpool directory of 1766. In the same directory his name also appeared as one of the four curates attached to the two churches of St Nicholas and St Peter in the town. Evidence in the marriage registers of two other Liverpool churches, St George's and St Thomas's, shows that he also officiated regularly at the former from November 1764 and at both until mid October 1766.3+ No doubt Booth's status as a prominent clergyman, combining pastoral duties with his work as a schoolmaster, helped to promote the development of the academy. He soon became acquainted with the leading families of the town, including those of Ralph Peters (1728-1807), the deputy recorder of Liverpool, and Joseph Valens, clerk to the dockmaster, Alderman Thomas Shaw. Though members of both the Peters and Valens families, who were intimately acquainted with one another, were destined to play a part in the future course of Bartholomew Booth's life and educational work, the two daughters of Joseph Valens, Mary (1740-1810) and her elder and recently widowed sister Anne Bardsley (1733-1781), had by far the greater influence on him. 35 The two young women, both evidently highly educated, took pity on the hapless clergyman-schoolmaster who had recently arrived in their midst, struggling both to raise his two sons single-handed and to launch his new academy. Not seeking remuneration, they volunteered their assistance in running the new school, possibly to the extent of sharing some of the elementary teaching. Their offer was soon taken up by Booth. By the New Year of 1766 the academy was prospering, despite competition from the handful of private educational establishments in the town,36 and the schoolroom in the Old Church Yard was full to capacity. Unable to find suitable larger accommodation to house his academy, Booth determined to have a new schoolroom built on the edge of the town in Park Lane, on the borders of Toxteth Park. On 15 March 1766 he entered into an agreement with a Liverpool builder and cabinet 28 Maurice HUtehead maker, Cuthbert Bisbrowne of Paradise Street, for the construction of a brick 'dwelling house and school' to cost between £700 and £1,000. Booth pledged himself to rent the new building from Bisbrowne for a period of fourteen years in the first instance, at an annual rental of 7% of the total cost of construction. 37 Within a month the agreement with Bisbrowne was rescinded, following an unexpected turn of events. On 19 March 1766, four days after the signing of the contract, the 86-year-old dowager Viscountess Molyneux died at her seat at Woolton Hall, five miles outside Liverpool. Three weeks later a notice in Williamson's Advertiser announced that the Hall was to be let. 38 Booth lost no time in going to view the property. The spacious house, built in the classical style by Richard Molyneux in 1704, was set in thickly wooded grounds on the edge of Woolton village, at the end of the high ridge, 200 feet above sea-level, running southwards from Childwall. The property enjoyed commanding views of the Mersey and the Welsh hills in one direction and the town of Prescot and the rural hinterland of south-west Lancashire in the other. A contemporary description of the Hall's surroundings gives some idea of what Bartholomew Booth found on his visit to Woolton:

In the skirts of this [Childwall] hill are several small villages, with gentlemen's seats scattered about, well covered and for the most part delightfully situated. The most remarkable of these is the dwelling- house of lord Molyneux, which is small and neat, constructed of a rude iron coloured stone, and in appearance about two hundred years old. Belonging thereto is a pleasant garden, laid out in the old style, with a bowling green in the middle; variety of grass-plats, high hedges of yew and holly, forming different alleys, ornamented with figures cut in box, holly etc. The whole is terminated by a grand terrace, exhibiting a noble view of a country finely cultivated, and interspersed with variety of charming villages. 39

With its fine grounds, stables, coach house, brewhouse, and granary, the setting and location of Woolton Hall was ideally suited to Booth's purposes, less than an hour's ride from Liverpool and in a healthy environment in which his growing number of pupils might prosper physically as well as intellectually. Furthermore, the Hall was immediately available Woolton Academy 29 for occupation, unlike the proposed new school at Park Lane, which would have taken time to construct. With a firm offer of continuing domestic assistance from the Valens sisters, Booth could now think seriously in terms of taking boarders, and, in consequence, made the necessary arrangements with the executors of Lady Molyneux to rent Woolton Hall from the summer of 1 766. During the course of that summer the Booth family vacated their home in Chapel Street and the schoolroom in the Old Church Yard and removed to Woolton Hall, where Anne Bardsley and Mary Valens also took up residence. In seeking new pupils for his Woolton academy Booth intended to cast his net as widely as possible and was not content to confine his publicity to the north west of England. Given Liverpool's growing commerce with north America, he even hoped to attract pupils from the ranks of the sons of prosperous Virginia merchants, anxious to provide their offspring with a modern education in England. Accordingly, he swiftly dispatched the following advertisement, which duly appeared in the Virginia Gazette on 27 November 1766:40

At the Rev. B. BOOTH'* ACADEMY, the seat of the late Lady MOLLINEUX'i at Woolton, five miles from Liverpool, young GENTLEMEN are educated on the following terms:

For Board, and learning English, Latin, Greek, Writing, Arithmetick, Merchants Accounts, Geography, Navigation, Astronomy, Surveying, Mathematicks in [ general, Drawing and Perspective, I per Ann.

Entrance for do. 110 Musick, per quarter, 1 1 0 Entrance for do. 0 10 6 Dancing, per quarter, 0 15 0 Entrance for do. 050 Fencing, per quarter, 1 1 0 Entrance for do. 0 10 6 Fire, per annum, 050 Washing, according to their age, from 7s. 6d. to 10s. per quarter. Particulars, relating to those who do not board in tlte Academy, may be hadfrom the master.

The addition of surveying to the curriculum is not without significance. Two strands of circumstantial evidence Booth's friendship with the Lancashire surveyor and cartographer 30 Maurice Whitehead

William Yates, an officer in the Liverpool Custom House, and the strong support given twenty years later by several of Booth's former pupils to Yates's cartographical work together suggest that Yates may have contributed to the specialist teaching of surveying at Woolton academy.41 Other specialist assistance to enhance the breadth of the curriculum was soon sought. In a mercantile environment such as Liverpool, enjoying a growing trade with continental Europe, Africa, and the Americas, a knowledge of one or more modern European languages would be an asset to the sons of local merchants. Fortuitously, Booth found an ideal young assistant to teach French in Peter Newby (1745-1827), a native of Westmorland, who had recently arrived in Liverpool seeking employment. In an already unusual academy the appointment of Newby was a further unorthodox step on the part of Booth. Newby, a Roman Catholic, had received the major part of his education from 1757 to 1764 at the English College at Douai in Flanders, having originally intended to study to become a priest. His seminary training had provided him with a thoroughly classical education as he had progressed year by year through the traditional classes of figures, grammar, syntax, poetry, rhetoric, and philosophy. During his studies in the last class, he had determined that he did not, after all, wish to pursue an ecclesiastical career. Rejected by his family in Kendal on his return to England in 1764, the nineteen-year-old Newby had been obliged to find temporary employment on a slaving vessel, visiting the west coast of Africa and Jamaica during the course of 1765. Returning to Liverpool early in 1766, having seen all the horror of the slave trade, Newby hoped not to have to return to sea and began to look for alternative employment. His seven-year sojourn at Douai had resulted in his learning French thoroughly and, given appropriate guidance and a suitable environment, it was a subject he might be able to teach.42 Peter Newby and Bartholomew Booth first made each other's acquaintance in the summer of 1766. Booth evidently appreciated the potential of the young Newby as a teacher of French and, undeterred by the latter's religious affiliation, he engaged him as an usher, or assistant teacher, at his new academy at Woolton on 8 October 1766.43 Despite the dearth of records for the early period of the Woolton Academy 31 academy's existence, it is clear that the school prospered in its new setting. Mary Valens and Anne Bardsley provided essential support in overseeing the smooth running of the domestic side of the academy, while Booth and his new assistant concentrated on their teaching. By the summer of 1767 Newby was at home in his new environment, organized in his work, and beginning to write poetry, a passion which he continued to develop. He was also able to undertake extra teaching in Liverpool in his free time, as an advertisement in Williamson's Advertiser announced:

PETER NEWBY, Teacher of the French Language, at the Revd. Mr. Booth's Academy, Woolton, begs leave to acquaint the Ladies and Gentlemen of Liverpool that he intends opening a school for the education of youth in the French language at Mr. William Lightfoot's, Grocer, in James's Street, on Monday the 6th of July next, and to give private attendance at any house in town. He would likewise be glad to wait upon merchants who have French letters to translate; and perform their business with the greatest secrecy and care, acknowledging their favours in the most grateful manner. The hours of attendance will be from two to four in the afternoon. For further particulars please to enquire at Mr. William Lightfoot's.44

Bartholomew Booth, too, must have been satisfied with his change of fortune and with the growth of his academy. The broad curriculum he was able to offer appealed to the prosperous middle classes and Booth's tolerance and breadth of vision attracted a small number of Roman Catholic pupils: besides the name of Peter Newby, 'Under Master', aged 22, the names of Felix Doran, 'School Boy', aged 11, and Edward Dease, 'School Boy', aged 10 years, were recorded in the Childwall parish section of the 1767 papist returns for the diocese of Chester.45 Locally, Booth played a leading role in the community, combining his teaching with pastoral duties as curate of Childwall.46 He was also on excellent terms with his neighbour at Childwall Hall, Bamber Gascoyne (1725-1791), who entrusted the education of his sons to Booth. By the close of 1767 the growing academy needed the services of an additional usher and Booth was obliged to advertise in the Liverpool Chronicle: 32 Maurice Whitehead

Wanted, at Woolton Academy, near Liverpool, an Assistant in the English Language, of sober character, and a temper that will bear with the little foibles of children. Salary 50 1. per annum.47

That the academy was prospering is evidenced by the salary, which was generous for the period; and Booth's largeness of educational vision was reflected in his interest in seeking a tolerant usher genuinely interested in education and not content to resort to physical chastisement as the first means of correction. How successful Booth was in securing the services of a suitable assistant is not clear. In May 1768 Peter Newby married Elizabeth Gant of Prescot, who may have belonged to Booth's domestic staff and who had certainly been in service at Woolton Hall in Lady Molyneux's time.48 The marriage proved a happy one, unlike Booth's own, which was causing him increasing pain and suffering. Bartholomew Booth had by then been separated from his wife, who was still living in Marple, for nearly ten years. During that time her mental condition had continued to deteriorate. By 1769 the situation had become intolerable for her husband. Though he had not seen his wife during their long years of separation, Booth was regularly troubled by disturbing news of her condition. A second major worry was that Lady Molyneux's executors had recently declared their intention of selling Woolton Hall. The future of the academy was suddenly in jeopardy. Desperate to find relief from his pressing problems, Booth began to consider the possibility of emigrating to north America and finding a living as a clergyman there. For help he turned in utmost confidence to the Revd Richard Peters (1704-1776) of Philadelphia, the Liverpool-born uncle of Ralph Peters, the deputy recorder. In 1765 Booth had met Richard Peters, then visiting his family in Liverpool, at about the time he was setting up his first academy in the Old Church Yard. 49 A friend of the Valens family, Peters had unwittingly contracted a bigamous marriage in 1730. The scandal caused by the unfortunate experience had forced him to abandon his living at Lathom chapel, near Ormskirk in Lancashire, and flee to Pennsylvania. There he had obtained an important position as secretary of the Land Office of Pennsylvania, a post he held from 1737 until resuming pastoral work as rector of Christ Woolton Academy 33

Church, Philadelphia, in 1762. Richard Peters was an ideal person to whom Booth could turn in his distress. As a fellow clergyman, he had himself experienced painful matrimonial difficulties; as a founder-trustee of Benjamin Franklin's pioneering Philadelphia academy, opened in 1751, he had a keen interest in education; and as a result of his high public office held before resuming his ministry, he still enjoyed considerable power and influence in the north American colonies. 50 Writing from Woolton Academy on 18 May 1769, Booth addressed two letters to Peters. The first, personal and private and meant for Peters's eyes only, is worth quoting in some detail for the light it throws on Booth and his plight:

Dear Sir,

In the inclosed I have taken the liberty of soliciting your interest for the procurement of a living in North America, and since you may, perhaps, be inclined to shew the contents to some of your friends I have not signed my name nor given reasons for such a request. I must here beg leave, therefore, to acquaint you in great openness of heart with my circumstances and situation of mind. I should make an apology for giving you so much trouble did I not know that you are never more happy than when employed in the service of your fellow creatures. Possibly you may not have forgot that when you was in England I had undertaken a seminary of learning which was then in its infancy. You had not been gone long before I engaged the house of the late Lord Molineux at Woolton and have established there an Academy not inferiour to any in this part of our kingdom. My great misfortune is that this house is to be sold for more thousands than it would be prudent in me to give.

The extent to which Woolton Academy was a thriving enterprise whose smooth running was threatened by reports of Mary Booth's mental disorder is clear from the schoolmaster's further remarks to Peters:

There is no other [house] in the neighbourhood of Liverpool proper for my business. To build a large pile for the reception of so numerous a family would be plunging myself into much debt and engaging to be a slave for life, which I am willing to abord. But the greatest of all inducements which I have to leave this kingdom is my unhappy marriage. 'Tis true I have not been shocked with a sight of the imprudent cause of all my misfortunes for these ten years past, yet still I am too [word illegible: ? often] hurt with accounts of her behaviour 34 Maurice V\Tritehead

which is blameable in the highest degree. When we paned, I settled an estate upon her. It is an ample provision. I cannot, then, be disturbed by the apprehensions of her being in want, and I would willingly fly to those regions where I cannot be stabbed by the reports of her folly.

Pray oblige me with your sentiments and believe me to be with the most affectionate esteem your very much obliged and obedient and humble servant

B. Booth

Woolton Academy near Prescott May 18th 1769. 5 '

The second letter, unsigned and intended for the eyes of Peters's friends and acquaintances, reveals the nature of Booth's predicament:

I have been for many years inclined, and am now fully determined, if possible, to spend the remaining part of life in some of your [? provinces]. The only difficulty I labour under is that of being certained of a support for my dependents before I leave Europe. Having three sons to bring up, I cannot think myself at liberty7 to make any attempt for the increase of my own happiness at the hazard of their bread . . . May I, therefore, entreat you to represent me as I am (but not by name) to the gentlemen of your world, and to assure them that if they will be pleased to ascertain me of a living in the Protestant church not less in value than an [? hundred] pounds sterling per annum, I will, as soon as [? my] affairs can be settled in a proper manner, set sail for North America. With such a living I could subsist and maintain my family.

Booth went on to consider the possibility of continuing to combine teaching with pastoral work:

As an instructor of youth I should not choose to engage myself before I arrive. This employment would be altogether consistent with the discharge of my duty in the Church and I should be [? ready] to exert all my endeavours in the service of the community ... If you think I could be as useful to the world by residing in country as town a retired situation would be more agreeable to my present turn of mind than a public. 52

In writing such letters to the Revd Richard Peters in Philadelphia, Booth cannot have hoped for a swift response, Woolton Academy 35 even if a positive outcome were to be forthcoming. In the meantime the pressing problem of the relocation of Woolton academy had to be met. During the summer of 1769 Bartholomew Booth underwent a complete change of heart with regard to the possible purchase of Woolton Hall. Despite extensive research, it has not yet proved possible to determine beyond doubt the reason for the change, but circumstantial evidence strongly suggests that Joseph Valens, the father of Booth's voluntary housekeepers, Mary Valens and Anne Bardsley, died about then, leaving his daughters a large fortune, part of which they were ready and willing to use in assisting Booth in his educational work.53 Lady Molyneux's two executors, her grandson Thomas Clifton of Lytham, Lancashire, and John Stanley Massey of Puddington, Cheshire, were anxious to sell Woolton Hall as rapidly as possible, and Ralph Watt, Clifton's steward at Lytham, was instructed to attend to the sale. Watt had a valuation and survey made of the Woolton estate, which was calculated as being forty-five acres in extent. On 14 October 1769 Watt wrote to Booth informing him that the executors had studied the valuation and survey and were willing to give Booth the first option of purchasing the property for £6,100. Booth was warned that as Nicholas Ashton, the prosperous young proprietor of a salt works at nearby Hale, on the banks of the Mersey, was also interested in purchasing the property, he should come to a firm decision without delay.54 Booth, who had had his own independent valuation and survey undertaken by the Lancashire surveyor William Hawkshead, did not waste a moment and arranged to visit Lytham the following week to sign a contract for the purchase of Woolton Hall. It was duly done on 21 October 1769, when Booth agreed to pay the asking price of £6,100 by 1 June 1770. 55 For reasons which are far from clear, there was a long delay in completing the conveyance, which was not signed until 8 May 1771. The Woolton Hall estate was conveyed both to Bartholomew Booth and to Henry Park, surgeon, of Liverpool, 'upon trust that he will hold it to any use to be indicated by Bartholomew Booth'. 56 It is to be assumed that Henry Park acted as a trustee for Mary Valens and Anne Bardsley, who must have contributed substantially to the purchase of the property. The signing of the conveyance was not the end of the 36 Maurice \Vhitehead matter. A law of 1717 required papist estates to be enrolled and as the Molyneux family had been Roman Catholic, Booth had to appear at the Lancashire quarter sessions held at Ormskirk on 22 July 1771 in order to have the conveyance duly recorded. 57 Despite the financial assistance he most probably received from the Valens sisters, Booth still needed ready cash to maintain his educational work and pay his ushers, servants, and farm labourers on the estate. The completion of the conveyance in May 1771 appears to have drained his resources for a time and necessitated his taking out a loan of £600 on 10 May 1771 from Diana Starkie, daughter and coheiress of Thomas Starkie of Preston.58 No documentary evidence on the educational progress of Woolton academy during the period 1769-1771 has come to light, but for the last few months of its existence a series of letters survives from Thomas Langton, a Lancashire flax- merchant, of Kirkham in the Fylde, to his two sons, William and Jack, both pupils of Bartholomew Booth at Woolton.59 Taken together, the letters provide valuable insights both into life at the academy and into the expectations of a merchant for his sons' education. The correspondence reveals that die school year at Woolton academy did not include a break at Christmas. Thomas Langton, in a letter to his son William dated 11 January 1772,60 sent via one of his servants visiting Liverpool, explained that he was including with it

a small box for you and your brother . . . [containing] a bun such as your mother used to make for you in Lent, a dozen minced pyes, being Christmastime, and also some rolls of chocolate for you and your particular acquaintance to regale yourselves with.

The gifts came with a warning, however:

But pray take care not to use it in such a manner as may give any umbrage to Mr. Booth or any of the family, by which means you may cause him to be offended at you, which I beg you will always avoid as much as possible. How you intend to use the chocolate I can not say, but I hope you will not go to any publick house to have it made as it will bring you to other unnecessary expenses and likewise be disagreeable to Mr. Boom. Woolton Academy 37

Langton senior lost no opportunity in giving his sons advice in his every letter. When Booth appointed a new writing master to the academy early in 1772, Langton wrote:51

I find you have got another writing master, which will call your attention to that part of your duty again, and as good and correct writing is very commendable in business of any kind, I beg you will both of you exert your endeavours to improve in it.

Nor were the boys to neglect their work in 'Accompts':

Whatever your Accompts Master recommends to you I would have you adhere to, and you may buy the Book you mention to set down any rules in any branch of that science you find requisite.

The steady work of the pupils and ushers at the academy received a sudden jolt in February 1772 with the unexpected announcement by Bartholomew Booth that the school was to close within three months and remove to Essex. Discreetly, throughout the two years that he had been busy purchasing Woolton Hall, Booth had been pursuing his resolution to seek, ultimately, a living in north America. Unbeknown to his staff and students at this juncture, the proposed move to Essex was to be Booth's first step towards emigration. Understandably, the sudden announcement, coming so soon after the purchase of the Hall, caused consternation among the pupils' parents: Thomas Langton wrote to his sons expressing his sorrow at the news 'as I was very well satisfied with your situation'.62 The Langton brothers had already clearly expressed a keen desire to join Booth in Essex, as their father's letter continued:

I find you have an inclination to go along with him but it is at a very great distance from home, which is not so eligible. However I should be glad to know Mr. Booth's proposals, as well as the place he fixes on and the mode he proposes to adopt... in as full a manner as you can, and I will immediately write back to you. I would have you also mention the names of his present scholars that propose to go along with him.

A week later Thomas Langton wrote again to his son William informing him that he had also received a report of the impending move from Mrs Anne Bardsley, with the additional news that Booth intended taking only twenty boys at 40 guineas a year and proposed 'to give preference to any of his present 38 Maurice Miitehead pupils who incline to go along with him'.63 He noted his son's continuing eagerness to stay with Booth and the fact that he was only just fourteen years old and too young 'to be put to business'. With so many factors to consider, he found it difficult to come to a clear decision, not least in the light of the French teaching William had received from Peter Newby. As Langton informed his son:

I should rather chuse to put you under a master where you would have the opportunity of making a further proficiency in the French Language as well as writing and accounts, though these last are what is chiefly to be regarded. If Mr. Booth only takes twenty pupils I can hardly think he will have the different masters for instruction which he now has at Woolton.

Health considerations were another factor to be borne in mind. Woolton Hall was in a salubrious location, but what of the new academy? He urged William to give him as quickly as possible

a particular account both of the place Mr. Booth proposes to live and of whether the situation be good and healthy, as some parts of Essex are reputed to be far otherways.

By mid April 1772, a matter of weeks before the closure of Woolton academy, Langton came to a final decision which he announced to his sons:

You would learn from Mr. Booth that I had wrote to him to signify my consent that you should both go along with him into the South to perfect your education under his care, as it seems to coincide so much with your intentions and earnest sollicitations. And although it will be attended by a very heavy expence, yet I hope you will sufficiently repay it by your diligent attention to your studies, and utmost endeavours for improvement therein.64

By now it had been revealed that Bartholomew Booth had sold Woolton Hall to Nicholas Ashton and that the schoolmaster's two elder sons, together with Anne Bardsley and Mary Valens, were intending to settle in a large house in the hamlet of High Beach in Epping Forest, near Waltham Abbey.60 They were assisted in finding the new location through the good offices of their neighbour and patron Bamber Gascoyne, Woolton Academy 39 who resided both at his Lancashire seat, Childwall Hall, and at his Essex estate of Bifrons at Barking. Gascoyne, in his local role in Essex as a verderer of Epping Forest and in his national and international roles as a Eord of Trade and Plantations first from 1763 to 1765, and again from 1772 to 1779, was in a position to call upon the services of merchants whom he knew to help Booth in his plans for emigration. One of those men was William Molleson, who in the early 1770s was the foremost London merchant trading with Maryland. 66 Molleson, with powerful family and business connections in the Chesapeake Bay area of north America, was ideally placed to help Booth emigrate; and the schoolmaster's intention to live close to the merchant's country residence was an important factor in finalizing his plans to set sail across the Atlantic. Back at Woolton, plans for the closure of the academy advanced quickly. By the end of May 1772 all the pupils were dismissed for the summer vacation and the sons of those parents who so wished were invited to rejoin Booth in Essex by the following August. 67 Like the parents of other pupils, Thomas Langton made suitable arrangements for the departure of his sons from Woolton and their return home to Kirkham in Lancashire for the summer. Typically for Langton, no detail was lost sight of as he wrote to his sons for the final time at Woolton:

I find . . . that Mr. Booth has already had a sale of his horses, cattle etc., and that he is intending to sell his household goods next week and expects his boys to leave Woolton today or tomorrow. On this account I send horses off for you this morning and expect they will get to Woolton in good time ... I am glad to find that you have sent your desk and boxes to Liverpool and they must be forwarded from thence hither by a sloop ... I send you by Thomas Brewer two guineas which I fancy will serve you to pay ofT all your exigencies, and you must give the servants something on leaving Woolton. You may either give it yourselves or leave half a guinea with Mr. Booth for that purpose.68

Bartholomew Booth spent the months of June and early July busily attending to affairs at Woolton. The sale of Woolton Hall was eventually concluded by a release, dated 31 July 1772, between John Atherton of Walton-on-the-Hill, Bartholomew Booth, Dr Henry Park, Nicholas Ashton, William Gregson of 40 Maurice \Vhitehead

Everton, and Joseph Brooks the elder.69 The document reveals that Booth had borrowed £5,000 from John Atherton in order to make the original purchase of Woolton Hall in 1771 for £6, 100. By the terms of the new conveyance, Nicholas Ashton was to pay £8,000 for the property. Of that, £5,000 was to be paid by Ashton to John Atherton, and £600 to Robinson and Diana Shuttleworth (nee Starkie), then newly married, to repay Booth's loans. The remaining £2,400 was to go to Booth. In fourteen months, therefore, excluding legal, surveying, and other fees, Booth had made a substantial profit of some £1,900 on the purchase and sale of Woolton Hall. In mid July 1772 Booth and his sons, Mary Valens, and Anne Bardsley bade farewell to their servants at Woolton and set off for Essex to prepare for the opening of the new academy at High Beach. They were joined by Peter Newby, who agreed to continue working temporarily as Booth's usher, leaving behind his wife and three-year-old son Thomas at the Gant family home in Prescot, a few miles across the valley from Woolton. Once the academy had been made ready, Bartholomew Booth was fully occupied meeting his northern pupils in London and conducting them safely to High Beach. He engaged a new writing master and, on reopening his academy, continued to offer a wide curriculum which even a parent as exacting as Thomas Langton had to admit was 'pretty extensive'. 70 Music was now included among optional subjects on offer and William Eangton was informed by his father that he could 'learn a little musick . . . provided it does not interfere too much with . . . other studies'. 71 When eventually he discovered that William was learning 'the German flute', he was less happy, 'as wind musick is too apt to prey upon the constitution when too closely applyed to'. He urged his son to learn to dance as he felt that it 'gives young people a pretty easy manner and an agreeable behaviour'. 72 At Woolton Academy, William Langton had made excellent progress in learning French, and with German as a new addition to the curriculum at High Beach, he was anxious to make a start in learning a new language even prior to receiving his father's formal approval. Thomas Langton wrote from Kirkham:73

You say that you have begun to learn High Dutch, which I am pleased to hear, and would have you to prosecute this study, if Mr. Booth thinks Woolton Academy 41

it eligible. Whatever books you have a desire of, I would have you to buy them and if Mr. Booth thinks a Dutch dictionary or any other French books necessary, I would have you to get them.

As a Lancashire flax merchant trading regularly with northern Europe, Langton senior was used to dealing with English agents in the Baltic ports and seldom had need to communicate in any language other than English. His sons were destined to follow in his footsteps and Eangton's qualified encouragement of his son's eagerness throws interesting light on an eighteenth-century merchant's attitude to the learning of foreign languages:

Although the Dutch language may be spoken at Konigsburg and at other places in the Baltic, yet the persons we correspond with there are all Englishmen that seldom have occasion to write an)' other language. However, it may be of use to you sometime, and as you have the opportunity, would have you to prosecute it.

In the same letter, Langton noted that among the new students at High Beach was 'a young gentleman from [King's] Lynn' who had 'been at an Academy in Holland sometime'. He urged William to cultivate his acquaintance 'as he must have some knowledge of the language and be pretty conversant in the French and the Dutch'. The 'young gentleman' in question was almost certainly John Hill of Wells, near King's Lynn in Norfolk, thanks to whom a manuscript list of Booth's select group of twenty pupils at High Beach in 1772-3 survives. The list is inscribed in Hill's personal copy of Peter Newby's collected Poems (Liverpool, 2 volumes in 1, 1790), now in the Beinecke Rare Book Room at Yale University Library. 74 Newby's Poems include a short play entitled The force offriendship, a dramatic tale, which bears the date January 1774. The first draft of the play was written at High Beach, and John Hill, recalling his schooldays at least seventeen years after leaving Booth's academy in Essex, appended the following handwritten note to the final published version of the play as it appeared in his copy of the Poems:

N.B. This piece was written whilst the Author was French Teacher at the Academy of the Revd. Bartholomew Booth at High Beach in Essex and was performed there by the students.

Students at High Beach, Epping Forest, at the time this piece was written: 42 Maurice Whitehead

William Booth _ . _ , sons of the Master Robert Booth J Bamber Gascoyne ) (Brothers) since M.P. for Liverpool Isaac Gascoyne > since M.P. for Do. and a General Officer Benjamin Gascoyne75 ' Sabine Gascovne 1 , , , r u u \ Brothers (and cousins of the above) George Gascoyne J Jonathan Scott since Private Secretary to

Foliot Scott Joseph Keeling of Barking in Essex77 Newcome of Shrewsbury Joseph Cheetham of Manchester Otway Bird (a West Indian) John Turner of Chester Van den Berg, afterwards an Officer in the Guards John Hill of Wells in Norfolk Adam Steward \ , , rT . ., Robert Steward ) Brothers (of Liverpool) Godfrey Meynell78 ,... . T° \ of Kirkham. Lanes, Brothers William Langton J

J.Hffl

The importance of the list, besides its completeness, lies in the evidence it provides of the extent of Booth's patronage by the Gascoyne family, the continuing patronage of a number of northern families whose sons had doubtless been pupils at VVoolton academy, and Booth's apparent partial success in publicizing the latter establishment in the Virginia Gazette in 1766: the 'Otway Bird' referred to in the list is almost certainly identical with Francis Otway Byrd (1756-1800), generally known simply as Otway Byrd, son of William Byrd III of Westover, Virginia, one of the wealthiest plantation owners in the American colonies. 79 Just as his new pupils were settling down in their new academy, Bartholomew Booth announced his intention of closing the school and of emigrating to Maryland with his two sons and two female companions. With the exception of Bamber Gascoyne senior, who was intimately involved in Booth's emigration plans, the news must have come as a blow to pupils and their parents. Many of the latter, particularly in the north of England, who had been put to considerable Woolton Academy 43

expense by allowing their sons to continue their studies with Booth in Essex, must have been understandably angered and perplexed by the news. Certainly, Thomas Langton's final letters to his sons at High Beach, dated March and April 1773, do not bear his previously customary closing request for his respects to be conveyed to 'Mr. Booth and the Ladies'. About the middle of April 1773, the Langton brothers left High Beach, travelled north to Kirkham, probably with Peter Xewby, who bade adieu to the Booth household and returned home via London to rejoin his wife and son in Lancashire.80 Other pupils made their way home as the academy closed at the Easter vacation. A diary entry made by his sixteen-year-old former pupil, George Hibbert, then living in Manchester, gives some idea of the secrecy surrounding the reasons for Booth's wish to emigrate. Some weeks after the closure of the academy at High Beach, Hibbert, whose diary reveals his dislike both of his former mentor and his female companions, noted acerbically in an entry for Wednesday 26 May 1773:

In my walks this day met Joseph Cheetham (a schoolfellow towards the end of my time at Woolton and who attended Booth up to London). I enquired very particularly after Booth's affairs and found that he either did or should have set out for America the 1 st of this month with his 2 wh es and 2 sons assigning not even the shadow of a reason for his leaving England, everything promised having been performed by Gasc.foyne] etc. etc.81

Hibbert's retrospective record of the anticipated date of Booth's final departure from England with Mary Valens and Anne Bardsley on or about 1 May 1773, when taken in conjunction with other documentary evidence, suggests that William Molleson's patronage of the schoolmaster extended even to the provision of a safe passage on a ship to Maryland. On 20 April 1773, a few days prior to its departure, William Sewell, master of William Molleson's vessel Calvert took out at London a Mediterranean Pass for a voyage to Maryland. 82 It does not seem unreasonable to conclude that this was the vessel in which Booth and his household set sail to start their lives anew. 44 Maurice White/lead in

Bartholomew Booth's subsequent career in Maryland lies outside the scope of this article and, as noted earlier, a full study of it has yet to be written. However, a brief outline of his fate and that of the Valens sisters is necessary, if only to indicate the continuity of Booth's Lancashire, Cheshire, and Essex connections in north America. After a short stay in Georgetown, Maryland, following his transatlantic voyage in the summer of 1773, Booth, assisted financially by Mary Valens and Anne Bardsley, purchased an estate of 945 acres called the Forest of Needwood near Frederick in western Maryland. There he built a large, commodious house, which still stands, and lived the life of a country gentleman, playing a role in the local community as a vestryman of All Saints' parish, Frederick, whose rector, the Revd Bennet Alien, together with more than half the Anglican clergy of Maryland fled to England late in 1775 as the political crisis in the American colonies deepened. In August 1776, shortly after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Booth was wrongly suspected by the local populace of sharing Alien's Loyalist sympathies. Despite having already clearly identified himself with the Revolutionary cause, Booth suffered the indignity of having his property at Needwood attacked by the mob. Undeterred, he began tutoring privately a small number of the sons of the leaders of the Revolution and in 1779 was granted a special licence by the Maryland legislature 'to teach and preach the Gospel': he was one of the first Episcopalian clergymen in the emerging United States to receive such permission. 83 With the continuing financial and domestic support of Anne Bardsley and Mary Valens, he opened at Needwood a boarding school on the lines of Woolton academy. It operated throughout the War of Independence, when education was severely disrupted throughout the thirteen American states, and received patronage from, inter alias, various members of the Washington family; Dr William Shippen, medical director of the Continental Army; the prime instigator of the American Revolution, Richard Henry Lee; General Benedict Arnold; and the Liverpool-born financier of the Revolution, Robert Morris, whose sons Booth taught. Woolton Academy 45

Anne Bardsley died suddenly in 1781 and shortly afterwards Booth sold the Needwood estate to the Governor of Maryland, Thomas Sim Lee, whose cousin Eleanor was the wife of William Molleson of London and High Beach, Essex. Just before her death Anne Bardsley had purchased another estate of 1,780 acres near Hagerstown, fifteen miles from Needwood, where the Booth household eventually settled, naming the property Delamer after the barony held by the Booth family of Dunham Massey, Cheshire, to which family Bartholomew Booth was possibly distantly related. At Delamer, Bartholomew Booth's academy continued to flourish until his sudden death in September 1785. Soon after the burial of their father on the Delamer estate, William and Robert Booth set sail for England to visit their long-estranged mother and brother, still living at Marple. Their ship, its passengers, and crew unfortunately perished crossing the Atlantic during the winter of 1785-6. When news of the disaster eventually reached the Revd Bennet Alien, by then living in London, he immediately informed the M.P. for Liverpool, Bamber Gascoyne, Booth's former patron. Gascoyne wrote to John Booth, now the only surviving son, in Marple, informing him of the tragedy which had befallen his brothers.84 John Booth set sail for Maryland in 1786, leaving behind his mentally ill mother, whom he never saw again.85 He arrived in the United States, became naturalized as an American citizen in 1788, married in 1792, and died in 1840, his descendants continuing to live at Delamer until the 1930s. His cousin Joseph Lowe followed swiftly in his footsteps. Having apparently learned the workings of the Lancashire and Cheshire cotton trade in the mid 1780s, he set out for the United States in 1789 to seek his fortune and was appointed superintendent of a cotton manufacturing company in Baltimore in the same year.86 In 1786, shortly after the death of Bartholomew Booth, Mary Valens, then aged forty-six, married Booth's neighbour and friend, General Horatio Gates (1728-1806), the victor of Saratoga, and the couple eventually retired to their final home, Rose Hill Farm, Manhattan, New York. There Mary Gates died in 1810 and was buried with her husband at Trinity Church, at the junction of Broadway and Wall Street. Her will, proved in New York in 1810,87 included bequests of $90,000, apparently a fraction of the original fortune inherited from her 46 Maurice Whitehead father Joseph Valens. The portrait of Bartholomew Booth (figure 2), bequeathed by him to Mary Valens by his will of 1785,88 was bequeathed in turn by her to John Booth of Delamer. It remained in the Booth family until 1950, when it was donated to its present home, the Washington County Museum of Fine Arts in Hagerstown, close to the Delamer estate.89 Though John Booth managed the Delamer estate rather than following in his father's footsteps as a schoolmaster, the involvement of the Booth family in educational work was not at an end. One of Mary Gates's many bequests in her will was to Bartholomew Booth's nephew and former pupil at Woolton academy, Booth Hibbert, who inherited £1,000. The money doubtless helped Hibbert to improve his successful academy at Bromley, Kent, which was continued by his son, the Revd Henry Booth Hibbert, M.A. (1783-1842), into the 1830s, thus carrying the Booth educational dynasty into the fourth generation.

IV

Bartholomew Booth's colourful and chequered career as a schoolmaster on both sides of the Atlantic, at Disley, Derby, Liverpool, Woolton, High Beach, Needwood Forest, and Delamer, was unique in its diversity and drama. Without the continued domestic and financial support of Mary Valens and Anne Bardsley, his work at Woolton academy would never have been possible, given his unfortunate personal circumstances. Once his unorthodox association with the Valens sisters began, Booth's improved financial standing, combined with his enlightened views and wide curriculum, gave him new opportunities. His enhanced social status allowed him both to use his skills as a schoolmaster to the full and to obtain, develop, and enjoy the patronage of an intricate network of personal, ecclesiastical, business, and educational contacts on a transatlantic level, often with strong Lancashire, Cheshire, and Essex connections. Woolton academy was a place of enlightened liberal learning, providing a stimulating curriculum for an elite; a significant number of Booth's pupils rose to positions of prominence and Woolton Academy 47 influence. If Booth's years at Woolton were troubled by persistent reports of his wife's mental instability, surviving records suggest that a happy atmosphere generally prevailed among staff and pupils. Peter Newby, for one, was grieved by the closure of the academy in 1772. To mark the occasion he composed a pastoral poem, entitled The Farewell, bearing the following dedication:

Written on the Author's leaving W[oolto]n, and with the sincerest Profession of a grateful Regard for many Kindnesses received in that happy Village, from the first Promoter of his present Felicity, this is most respectfully inscribed to the Reverend Mr. B[oot]h.

The poem was published anonymously in London in 1773 as one of Six Pastorals by P N . Though it was advertised in the Gentleman's Magazine in April 1773, the anthology met with little success and only one copy of the work is known to survive.90 The Farewell, set in the grounds of Woolton Hall, is a long pastoral dialogue between Alcinus (Peter Newby) and Lisetta (Elizabeth Newby), lamenting the imminent departure of Barthelmo (Bartholomew Booth). Even allowing for eighteenth- century hyperbole, the penultimate stanza, declaimed by Alcinus, reveals the feelings of Bartholomew Booth's usher at the close of a short-lived but important academy:

Farewell, ye hills, where I've so often stray'd; Farewell, ye woods, beneath whose sombre shade, Such happy thoughts have e'er inspir'd my pen; Farewell thou mansion of the best of men; No more his like shall here be henceforth seen; No more shall swains e'er dance upon the green. Barthelmo tir'd by importuning foes, In happier climates seeks for real repose. Where, free from cares, from mean repinings free, Oh grant, ye pow'rs, he may for ever be!

NOTES

N. Hans, New trends in education in the eighteenth century (London, 1966) provides the best national study of the subject to date. H. McLachlan, Warringlon academy: its history and influence (Chetham Soc., CVII, 1943); W. Turner, The Wanington academy 1757-1786 (Warrington, 1957); R. Hewitt-Jones, 'The background, origins and development of 48 Maurice Whitehead

the Blue Coat schools of Chester and Liverpool, 1700-1824: a study in educational philanthropy' (unpub. M.A. dissertation, Liverpool Univ., 1974). 3 Passing mention of the ownership of Woolton Hall by Booth is to be found in V.C.H. Lanes., Ill, p. 117; Stanley A. Harris, 'Robert Adam (1728-1792), architect, and Woolton Hall, Liverpool', T.H.S.L.C., CII (1950), pp. 161-177; R. Sharpe France, 'The conveyance of Woolton Hall, 1771', T.H.S.LC.,ClI(\950),pp. 178-181. 4 Derbyshire Record Office, baptismal register of Mellor, D 2454Z/Z2. 5 Cheshire R.O., WS 1703, will of Ralph Booth of Werneth (father of Bartholomew Booth senior), yeoman. 6 lichfieldJoint Record Office [henceforth L.J.R.O.], B/A/11 B. 7 Cheshire R.O., Mf 37, baptismal register of Marple, 29 Nov. 1727 and 7 May 1730. In both baptismal entries the father's status as a schoolmaster is reflected in his being styled 'Mr. Bartholomew Booth of Beacome'. 8 Cheshire R.O., Mf 34, burial register of Stockport, 10 Jan. 1750; L.J.R.O., probate records, Bartholomew Booth of Mellor, 1750: his estate was valued at £19 5s. 6d. 9 Manchester school register: admission register 1730-1775, ed. J. F. Smith (Chetham Soc., 1st sen, LXIX), p. 37. 10 A. Mumford, The Manchester grammar school 1515-1915 (London, 1919), pp.90, 139, 156, 159. 11 Cheshire R.O., Mf 37, baptismal register of Marple, 8 Jan. 1754. 12 Ibid., Mf 74/2, marriage register of Cheadle, 6 Mar. 1753. 13 Ibid., Mf 37, baptismal register of Marple, 8 Jan. 1754. 14 Brasenose College register 1509-1909 (Oxford Historical Soc, LV, 1909), p. 348. 15 Cheshire R.O, EDA 1/6, f. 20. Bartholomew Booth's ordination to the diaconate and to the priesthood and certificate of conformity to the liturgy of the Church of England, signed by the bishop of Chester on 3 July 1758 on his being licensed to Disley, as well as his University of Oxford matriculation certificate, are preserved at the Washington County Museum of Fine Arts [henceforth W.C.M.F.A.], Hagerstown, Maryland, U.S.A., where they were deposited by a descendant in 1950. 16 Cheshire R.O., EDA 1 /6, f. 53. 17 Brasenose College register 1509-1909, p. 348. 18 Cheshire R.O., Mf 42, burial register of Disley chapel, 28 Feb. 1756. Peter Wood had been a priser of the inventory of Bartholomew Booth senior of Mellor in Apr. 1750: LJ.R.O., probate records. 19 LJ.R.O, will of Hellen Booth ofMeUor, 1757. 20 Cheshire R.O., EDA 1/6, f. 53. Booth's ordination certificate at W.C.M.F.A. described him as a 'literate person'. 21 Cheshire R.O, EDA 1 /6, f. 54; EDP 104/1 /1. 22 John Booth, the youngest son, was baptised at Disley chapel on 3 Mar. 1759: Cheshire R.O, bishop's transcript of registers of Disley. 23 Ibid, EDP 104/5; EDA 1/6, f. 64. 24 Historical Society of Pennsylvania [henceforth H.S.P.], Peters Papers, vol. 6, p. 76, Bartholomew Booth to Richard Peters, 18 May 1769. Booth was succeeded at Marple by the Revd Thomas Beeley on 20 Nov. 1761: Cheshire R.O, EDP 188/1/1; EDA 1/7, f. 12. Woolton Academy 49

25 L.J.R.O., B/A/4/35, f. 216, 19 Aug. 1762. 26 Ibid., B/A/1/21, f. 99. The Revd Thomas Manlove, M.A., was a graduate of St John's College, Cambridge, and lord of the manor of Boylestone, Derbyshire: The Derby school register 1570-1901, ed. B. tacchella (Derby, 1902), p. xi. 27 The Journal of the Reverend William Bagshaw Stevens, ed. Georgina Galbraith (Oxford, 1965), p. 103, 21 Oct. 1793. 28 L.J.R.O., B/A/11 B Derby 1663, 17 Dec. 1763. 29 Ibid., B/A/11 B Derby 1664, 2 July 1764. 30 Ibid., B/A/3. Booth was nominated to Brassington by one Mary Bainbrigge of Woodborrow, Notts., on 29 June 1764: ibid., B/A/1/21, f. 112; B/A/4/35, f. 294. 31 Ibid., B/A/11 B Derby 1666. 32 Williamson's Advertiser, 7 Jan. 1765; 26 Dec. 1766. It seems likely that the schoolroom used by Booth was identical with the schoolroom (part of the ancient chapel of St Mary del Quay) vacated by the Liverpool free school in 1721 on its move to a new site in the precincts of the Blue Coat school: H. Ormerod, The Liverpool Free School 1515 1803 (Liverpool, 1951), pp. 22,29. 33 N. Hans, New Trends, pp. 63, 67. 34 Liv. R.O., 283 GEO 3/1; 283 THO 3/1. 35 The friendship of the Peters and Valens families of Liverpool is attested to in H.S.P., Peters Papers, vol. 10, p. 2, letter of General Horatio Gates to Judge Richard Peters of Pennsylvania, 5 Apr. 1792. For further details ofjoseph Valens, see note 53. 36 The first Liverpool directory for 1 766 included the names of thirteen schoolmasters in the town, excluding Bartholomew Booth, listed as a clergyman. 37 Maryland Hall of Records [henceforth Md.H.R.], Annapolis, Booth Papers, D310-1, articles of agreement between the Revd Bartholomew Booth and Cuthbert Bisbrowne of Liverpool, 15 Mar. 1766. Bisbrowne was evidently a prosperous man, being the sole owner of the ship Prince Frederick, of Liverpool, master John Bisbrowne: Liverpool Plantation Register (Liv. R.O., Mf 4/12), 21 Mar. 1766. 38 Williamson's Advertiser, 11 Apr. 1766. 39 Samuel Derrick, Letters written from Leverpoole, Chester, Corke, the lakes of Killamey, Dublin, Tunbridge-Welh, and Bath (Dublin, 1767), p. 17. 40 Virginia Gazette, 27 Nov. 1766. I am indebted to Professor Sheldon S. Cohen of Loyola University of Chicago for bringing this reference to my attention. 41 Booth's pupils Bamber Gascoyne and Felix Doran (see note 45), as well as another possible pupil, Edmund Rigby (see note 74), supported in various ways the publication and public recognition of the value of Yates's 1786 survey of Lancashire: J. B. Harley, 'William Yates and Peter Burden: their role in the mapping of Lancashire and Cheshire during the late eighteenth century', T.H.S.L.C., CXV (1966), pp. 123, 131. 42 For further details of Newby's career see Maurice Whitehead, Peter Newby: 18th century Lancashire recusant poet (University of Lancaster, Centre for North-West Regional Studies, occasional paper no. 7, 1980). 50 Maurice \\liitehead

43 Ibid., p. 15. 44 WilMamm's Advertiser, 26June 1767; 3 July 1767. 45 Returns of papists, 1767, diocese of Chester (Catholic Record Society, Occasional Publication No. 1, 1980), p. 3. Felix Doran was the son of a sea captain of the same name, of Lord Street, Liverpool, close to the modern Doran's Lane. Doran senior had been engaged in the slave trade from at latest the mid 1730s. For details of the younger Felix Doran's later education in France, see Whitehead, Peter.\'ewby, pp. 18-19. 46 Booth's signature is to be found on the bishop's transcript of the register of Childwall for 1768: Lanes. R.O., DRL/2, box 9. 47 Liverpool Chronicle, 3 Dec., 10 Dec. 1767. 48 Peter Newby's poem The Farewell (see note 90) alluded to Elizabeth Newby's service on Lad)' Molyneux's staff. 49 The Revd Richard Peters was in Liverpool from about Nov. 1764 until July 1765: H.S.P., Peters Papers, case 14, box 16, letters of Richard Peters to Elizabeth Fergusson, 20 Nov. 1764 to 9 July 1765. 50 R. Stewart-Brown, 'An account of the oil painting Liverpool in 1680 with notes on the Peters family of Platbridge and Liverpool', T.H.S.L.C., XXXIV (1908), p. 54; Hubertis A. Cummings, Richard Peters, provincial secretary and clem, 1704-1776 (Philadelphia, 1944). 51 H.S.P., Peters Papers, vol. 6, p. 76, Bartholomew Booth to Richard Peters, 18 May 1769. 52 Ibid., p. 77. 53 Joseph Valens's position as clerk to the dockmaster at Liverpool from 1759 until c. 1761 was a demotion, for reasons of professional inadequacy, from the much more prestigious post of receiver of the dock duties at Liverpool, which he held from 1736 to 1759: Liv. R.O., 352 MIN COU I, 1/11, Liverpool Town Books 1756-1776, ff. 133-138. One can only speculate that Valens's official salary, plus poundage, over a long period, perhaps supplemented by unofficial perquisites, helped him to amass a considerable fortune which his daughters eventually inherited. No record of his death has yet been found. 54 Md.H.R., Booth Papers, D310-2, Ralph Watt to the Revd Bartholomew Booth, 14 Oct. 1769. 55 Lanes. R.O., DDHk, survey of Much Woolton Hall, 1769, by William Hawkshead for the Revd Bartholomew Booth; DDCl 287, contract for the sale of Woolton Hall, 21 Oct. 1769. 56 Sharpe France, 'Conveyance of Woolton Hall', pp. 178-181. For Park's career see F. C. Beazley, 'Henry Park, surgeon, and his register', T.H.S.L.C., LXXX, pp. 51-57. Park's Register, in the Liverpool Medical Institution, records his treatment of Edward Dease, a pupil at Woolton academy, in Oct. 1769. 57 Sharpe France, 'Conveyance of Woolton Hall', p. 178. 58 Md.H.R., Booth Papers, D310-3, bond between the Revd Bartholomew Booth and Diana Starkie, 4 June 1771. The document was witnessed by Booth's friend William Yates, the Lancashire cartographer, and Moses Leyton. Diana Starkie married Robinson Shuttleworth, a future high sheriff of Lancashire, at Preston on 10 June 1772. Robinson Shuttleworth was the nephew of Barton Shuttleworth (1708-1772), Woolton Academy 51

schoolmaster, of \Villiamson Square, Liverpool, whom Booth doubtless knew well, and through whom the loan may have been arranged: R.M. Glencross, 'Pedigree of Shuttleworth of Preston, Co. Lancaster', The Genealogist, XXXVTII (Apr. 1922), p. 8. 59 Lanes. R.O., DDX 190/27^-6. I am greatly indebted to the late Mr F.J. Singleton of Kirkham, Lancashire, for drawing this correspondence to my attention. 60 Ibid., DDX 190/27, Thomas Langton to William Langton. 11 Jan. 1772. 61 Ibid., DDX 190/28, Thomas Langton to William and Jack Langton, 7 Feb. 1772. 62 Ibid., DDX 190/29, Thomas Langton to William and Jack Langton, 4 Mar. 1772. 63 Ibid., DDX 190/30, Thomas Langton to William Langton, 11 Mar. 1772. 64 Ibid., DDX 190/31, Thomas Langton to William and Jack Langton, 17 Apr. 1772. 65 Essex Record Office, Waltham Holy Cross overseers' rate book, D/P 75/11/4. The book indicates that the property which Booth was about to rent had a rateable value of £80 and was occupied by him from the autumn of 1772 until the following spring. I am grateful to Dr K.N. Bascombe of the Waltham Abbey Historical Society for providing me with this information. 66 The rate book referred to in note 65 reveals that William Molleson had been in possession of the property in which the academy was housed, immediately prior to Booth's arrival. For a full account of the life and work of William Molleson, whose business premises were at America Square, London, see Jacob M. Price, 'One family's empire: the Russell- Lee-Clark connection in Maryland, Britain and India, 1707-1857', Maryland Historical Magazine, LXXII (2) (1977), pp. 165-225. 67 Lanes. R.O., DDX 190/34, Thomas Langton to William Langton, 23 May 1772. 68 Ibid. 69 Liv. R.O., Ace 3110. I am indebted to Janet Gnosspelius for bringing this and other associated documents to my attention immediately after their discovery in a Liverpool solicitor's office some years ago. 70 Lanes. R.O., DDX 190/36, Thomas Langton to William Langton, 7 Sept. 1772. 71 Ibid. 72 Lanes. R.O., DDX 190/38, Thomas Langton to William Langton, 10 Nov. 1772. 73 Ibid., DDX 190/39, Thomas Langton to William Langton, 6 Dec. 1772. 74 The volume was found in the open stacks of the Stirling Memorial Library at Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, in the summer of 1986 (call mark Im N429 790). The frontispiece bears the names of three owners, J.H.' (i.e. John Hill), 'Mary- Hill', and 'Edmund Rigby, 1790'. The latter name is crossed out. Given the significance of the list, the volume was removed in 1986 to the Beinecke Library at Yale, where it rejoined another volume of Peter Newby's poetry, also once owned by Mary Hill (see note 90). 52 Maurice Whitehead

75 Benjamin Gascoyne's name curiously does not appear in the family genealogy in Burke's Landed Gentry (1952 edition), p. 301. However, he matriculated at Christ Church, Oxford, on 9 July 1779, aged 17, and entered Lincoln's Inn in 1782: J. Foster, Alumni Oxonienses, 1715-1886, I, p. 512. 76 The inclusion and subsequent deletion of the name of Jonathan Scott (1753-1829) suggests that he was probably a pupil at Woolton academy and not at High Beach, John Hill's memory probably temporarily failing him as he compiled his list. Scott completed his education at Shrewsbury school, eventually becoming private secretary to Warren Hastings and afterwards Professor of Oriental Languages at Haileybury, translating books from Arabic, Persian, and Hindustani: Shrewsbury school register 1734-1908, ed. J. E. Auden (Oswestry, 1909), p. 11. 77 The Keeling family lived at Westbury, Barking, part of a manor purchased by Joseph Keeling senior from Bamber Gascoyne senior in 1747: The Victoria History of the County of Essex, ed. W.R. PoweU, V (1966), p. 213. 78 Godfrey Meynell's family lived at Meynell Langley, Derby. I am grateful to the present owners of Meynell Langley, Mr and Mrs Godfrey Meynell, for allowing me to consult their family papers which, unfortunately, do not throw any further light on Godfrey Meynell's education at Booth's academies. 79 The appellation 'West Indian' was possibly another lapse of memory on the part of John Hill. As the son of a major plantation owner in Virginia, Otway Byrd could easily have been thought of by Hill as hailing from a plantation in the West Indies when he recalled his former schoolfellow while compiling the list at least seventeen years after leaving High Beach. For further details of the life of Otway Byrd see The correspondence of the three William Byrds ofWestover, Virginia, 1684-1776, ed. Marion Tinling (2 vols, Charlottesville, 1977), II, p. 829. William Byrd III was a close associate of the Revd Richard Peters, who may well have recommended Booth as a potential tutor following his visit to Liverpool in 1764-5. 80 Lanes. R.O., DDX 190/46, Thomas Langton to Jack Langton, 2 Apr. 1773. 81 George Hibbert's diary for 1773, a single leather-bound volume, is the only one known to survive from his boyhood. I wish to record my indebtedness to the late fifth Viscount Knutsford, Julian Holland- Hibbert, for allowing me to consult the volume, which is to be found among his family papers at Munden, Watford, Hertfordshire. 82 P.R.O., ADM 7/98. For Molleson's ownership of Calvert see Md.H.S., Horsey Collection, MS 1974, 178-287, 22 Aug. 1774. 83 Laws of Maryland, made and passed at a session of assembly, begun and held at the city of Annapolis, on Tuesday the ninth of March, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and seventy-nine (Annapolis, 1779), chapter XIV, sections IV and V, available in the library of the Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore. 84 New York Public Library, Gates Papers, box 2, Revd Bennet Alien to General Horatio Gates, 1 Feb. 1787. In 1782, some years after his return Woolton Academy 53

to England, Alien obtained the living of Great Ilford, Essex, through the patronage of Bamber Gascoyne, and perhaps through the influence of Booth. 85 Mary Booth died on 24 Sept. 1 789 and was buried at Marple: Cheshire R.O., EDB/143, bishop's transcript of register of Marple, 26 Sept. 1789. 86 New-York Historical Society, Gates Papers, box 16, no. 285, Joseph Lowe to John Booth, 16 July 1789. 87 Surrogate's Court of the County of New York, New York City, Liber 49, ff. 90-94, will of Man' Gates, proved 10 Dec. 1810. 88 Md.H.R., Washington County Wills, T.S. No. 1, ff. 208-210, will of Bartholomew Booth, proved 19 Sept. 1785. 89 My thanks are due to Jean Woods and Steven W. Majors, respectively Director and Curator of the W.C.M.F.A., Hagerstown, for their help in providing reproductions of the Booth portrait and Booth manuscripts in their custody. 90 The only known surviving copy of Peter Newby's anonymously published Six Pastorals (London, printed for G. Alien, No. 59, Pater­ noster Row, MDCCLXXIII [Price One Shilling]) is in the Beinecke Library at Yale University (cf. note 74). The six poems were written between Mar. and Sept. 1772 at Woolton and Prescot, Lancashire, and High Beach, Essex. The identity of dedicatees of the poems and certain references to persons and place-names was concealed by Newby by the inclusion of gaps. An early owner of the Yale copy, Mary Hill, was evidently familiar with the identities of most of the persons and places so treated and obligingly completed the gaps in ink for the benefit of posterity.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I gratefully acknowledge that this article could not have been written without financial support from the British Academy and the Twenty-Seven Foundation, which has allowed me to trace Bartholomew Booth's career from archives in the U.S.A. A full study of Booth's career as a schoolmaster in England and Revolutionary Maryland is currently being written with a view to eventual publication. I wish to express thanks to my parents, Francis and Evelyn Whitehead of Liverpool, to Dr C. B. Phillips, and to an anonymous referee for their helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper; and to my wife Janet for typing the text.