"JEMMY DAWSON" AND THE FATAL '45.
Who that has read Harrison Ainsworth's story of the "Manchester Rebels"
can fail to remember the vivid picture he has drawn of the ferment into
which the whilom Puritan town was thrown when, on the morning of the
28th November, 1745, a recruiting sergeant, with a drummer boy and a
Scotch lassie, crossed the old Salford bridge into Manchester, passed
along Cateaton Street and the Millgate, to the Market Cross, and after
proclaiming "King James the Third," began beating up for recruits for
"The yellow-haired Laddie," who on the following day joined them with
the main body of the rebel clans; of the rejoicings and festivities,
the illuminations and the fireworks; of the enthusiasm of the Jacobite
ladies, who sat up all night at Mr. Byrom's at the Cross making white
cockades, and the joyous excitement of John Byrom's gossiping daughter,
"Beppy" Byrom, who, as she confesses, got completely "fuddled" with
drinking the Prince's health in champagne after having had the honour
of kissing his hand; when the orange plumes paled before the blaze
of tartan in which female Manchester had arrayed itself, and Colonel
Townley laboured with unwearying zeal in mustering and enrolling a
Manchester regiment, and Parson Coppock and the irrepressible Tom
Syddall exhorted their fellow townsmen in the name of their God to
enlist in the service of their rightful sovereign. And who that has
read Shenstone's pathetic ballad, "Jemmy Dawson," that tale
So sad, so tender, and so true,
but has "heaved a sigh" at the touching episode connected with
Lancashire's share in the rebellion which it records?
But for Mickle's wonderfully woven web of truth and fiction,
The haunted towers of Cumnor Hall
and the sorrows of Amy Robsart would never have excited special
interest; and had not Shenstone, with the same marvellous gift of
nature, commemorated in imperishable verse the sad fate of the plighted
fair one of Captain Dawson, our interest and our sympathy with the
victim of that revolting tragedy might never have been awakened, and
the name even of the amiable and unfortunate subject of the stanzas
have become forgotten.
But who, it may be asked, was "Jemmy Dawson," where was his abode,
and what was the name of the hapless maid whose fortunes were so
sadly linked with his own? Mr. Robert Chambers, in his History of the
Rebellion of '45, says:
James Dawson, the son of a Gentleman of Lancashire, was attached to
a young Lady of good family and fortune, when some youthful excesses
induced him to run away from College and join the insurgents. Had he
obtained the Royal Mercy or been acquitted, the day of his enlargement
was to have been that of his marriage. When it was ascertained that
he was to suffer death, the inconsolable young lady determined to
witness the execution, and she accordingly followed the sledges in
a hackney-coach, accompanied by a Gentleman nearly related to her
and one female friend. She got near enough to see all the dreadful
preparations without betraying any extravagant emotions; she also
succeeded in restraining her feelings during the progress of the
bloody tragedy; but when all was over, and the shouts of the multitude
rang in her ears, she drew her head back again into the coach and
crying, "My dear! I follow thee--I follow thee! Sweet Jesus receive
both our souls together!" fell upon the neck of her companion and
expired in the very moment she was speaking.
[Illustration: MR. BYROM'S HOUSE AT THE CROSS.]
The information thus given is of the scantiest nature, and, meagre as
it is, it is inaccurate in some details. Of the family of "Jemmy
Dawson" unfortunately but few particulars can be gleaned, but the
little we know is sufficiently interesting to make us long to know
more. Of the lady to whom he was betrothed we know absolutely nothing,
and her name even has never been satisfactorily established. In the
"Legends of Lancashire" (p. 159) it is stated, though on what authority
does not appear, that her name was Katherine Norton, that she was an
orphan, and that her parents had been of illustrious rank. "She had
travelled," it is said, "with a maiden aunt, and as they were residing
for a few weeks in the vicinity of Cambridge, she had met with young
Dawson, and thus commenced an ardent attachment between them."
The Dawsons, who were a family of some note in Manchester, came
originally from Yorkshire, where, at Barnsley, towards the close of
the seventeenth century, was residing James Dawson, who is described
as a trader, a phrase that had a different significance a couple of
centuries ago than it has now, a trader then being equal in social
status to the merchant or manufacturer of the present day. The trader
of Barnsley in due time took to himself a wife in the person of Jane
Wolstenholme, of Hopwood, near Middleton, and to this worthy couple was
born on the 5th March, 1695-6, a son and heir, William Dawson, who,
after he had attained to man's estate, settled in Manchester, where
he practised as an apothecary, and was known to his neighbours as Dr.
Dawson. He was successful in his profession, and eventually became the
owner of a considerable real estate, including a house at Barnsley,
which he had probably inherited from his father, and another called
"The Cottage," in Manchester; the latter a dwelling-house with gardens
and pleasure grounds attached, occupying the site of the present
Concert Hall--then a pleasant suburb of the town, to which we shall
have occasion hereafter more particularly to refer. Dr. Dawson appears
also to have had in the later years of his life a town residence near
the top of the present King Street, a fashionable quarter, where some
of the clergy of the "old church" had located themselves, and which was
then known as St. James's Square, a name that was abandoned when the
Hanoverian sovereigns had finally asserted their prerogative against
the claims of the Jacobite Pretender; the two squares--St. James's and
St. Ann's--being memorials of a conflict which is now but a matter of
history.
William Dawson, the apothecary, married for his first wife Elizabeth,
one of the daughters of Mr. Richard Allen, a gentleman residing at
Redivales, near Bury, the representative of a family of somewhat more
than local fame, claiming descent from the stock of the same name
seated at Rossal, in Lancashire, of which house was the well known
Cardinal Allen, the apologist of Sir William Stanley's perfidy and
treason in surrendering Deventer to the King of Spain, and a branch of
which was located in Salford, their home being the quaint old black
and white gabled building still standing in Greengate, and for many
years past occupied as a tavern, and bearing the sign of the "Bull's
Head." This match brought the young apothecary in close alliance with
some of the best families in the neighbourhood. Mrs. Dawson's aunt,
Dorothy Allen, had married the wealthy draper of Kersall, and she
was, therefore, own cousin to his sons, Edward Byrom the younger, and
John Byrom, the amiable and gifted poet and strong, though prudent,
partisan of the Jacobite cause. Her great-grandmother was the wife of
the Rev. Isaac Allen, Rector of Prestwich, a staunch Churchman and
Royalist, who, for refusing to take the Covenant, was turned out of his
living during the Cromwellian period, but reinstated shortly after the
Restoration in 1660.
The children of William Dawson, by his first wife, Elizabeth Allen,
were James, the hero of Shenstone's ballad, of whom anon; William,
who was educated for the law and entered at Lincoln's Inn, and two
daughters, Elizabeth and Sarah. In 1737, the year in which his eldest
son entered at the university, Mr. Dawson had the misfortune to
lose his wife, her death occurring on the 3rd of May, at the age of
forty-one. Some time afterwards he married for his second wife Mary,
the eldest daughter of William Greenwood, of Liversage Hall, previously
of Middlewood Hall, near Barnsley, and the widow of Joseph Greenwood,
of Leeds; but by this lady, who survived him nearly twenty years, and
died January 25, 1782, he had no children.
James Dawson, the eldest son, the rebel captain, who was born about the
year 1717, would, in all probability, receive his early education at
the Grammar School of his native town, where Thomas Coppock, the pseudo
Bishop of Carlisle, was also a pupil. In 1737, being then twenty years
of age, he proceeded to Cambridge, where, on the 21st October, he was
admitted to St. John's College, the register describing him as:--
Jocobus Dawson, Lancastriensis filius natu major Gulielmi Dawson
pharmacopolæ Mancunii natus et literis institutus apud Salford in
eodem Comitatu sub Magistro Clayton, admissus pensionarius minor
Tutore et fide Jussore Magistro Wrigley, Oct. 21, 1737, anno Ætatis
20^(mo.)
The "Magistro Clayton" referred to was doubtless the Rev. John Clayton,
of the Sacred Trinity Church in Salford, an ardent Jacobite, who
preached in the church and prayed openly in the street in Salford
for Charles Edward at the time of his visit to Manchester, and whose
appearance in the pulpit of St. Ann's in the interval between the
death of one rector and the appointment of another caused so much
dissatisfaction to the Hanoverian worshippers that, as Miss Byrom
in her diary tells us, some of them "went out of church because he
preached." The story related by Chambers and others that young Dawson
had been induced to run away from his college, fearing that he might be
expelled on account of some youthful excesses, and that after leaving
Cambridge he joined the ranks of the young Pretender, does not appear
to rest on any reliable foundation. There is extant a letter written by
the Registrar of the University of Cambridge, dated 24th October, 1833,
which states that "the only document concerning him in the University
Records is his signature on matriculation, which took place on the 17th
of December, 1737, when he was matriculated as a pensioner. He wrote
a bold hand. He never took a degree, nor does he appear to have been
subjected to any punishment for irregularity in the University Court
held by the Vice-chancellor."
A century had wrought a mighty change in the political sentiments of
the people of Manchester. When the great struggle between Charles
the First and his Parliament began, led by the eloquence of Warden
Heyricke, they took sides against the King, but they quickly changed
their opinions, and when Charles's son, the "Merry Monarch," was
restored to the crown they were jubilant, and in the exuberance of
their joy caused the conduit to flow with wine and the gutters to swell
with strong beer. The sons of those men held by the political opinions
of their fathers, and were, for the most part, ardent supporters of
the hereditary claims of the House of Stuart. There were two factions
in the town--Whigs and Tories, or Hanoverians and Jacobites as they
were more commonly called, the latter being by far the more numerous
and influential. They met at their respective taverns--the Hanoverians
at the "Angel" in the Market Street Lane, and the Jacobites at "John
Shaw's" and the "Bull's Head" in the Market Place--drank punch, a
beverage for which they seem to have had a special partiality, and
toasted the King, and denounced the Pretender with a mental reservation
as to
Who Pretender was, and who was King.
Thirty years previously the town had been stirred to its inmost
depths by the claims the first Pretender had advanced. Many of the
sympathisers of '15 were still alive, and the old spirit of strife,
though it might have slumbered, was still strong. James Dawson's
kinsman, Dr. Byrom, who was then in the heyday of his popularity, was
warmly attached to the cause of the exiled Stuarts, and was accounted
the laureate of the party; his Jacobitism was, however, under the
control of a cautious possessor, and in proclaiming his political faith
he was sufficiently prudent to avoid imperilling either his personal or
his family interests. He nevertheless exercised a marvellous influence
over his fellow townsmen, and largely helped to fan the flame of
disaffection. A wit, a scholar, and a poet, his playful epigrams and
clever _jeux d'esprit_ caused his society to be sought after by both
parties, and linked him in close intimacy, if not, indeed, in close
friendship, with men whose political creeds were at variance with
his own. Byrom's versatile powers and refined and courteous demeanour
acted as a charm, and enabled him, if not to turn Hanoverians into
Jacobites, at least to bias their practice and take the sting out of
their Whiggism.
Brought within the range of his seductive influence, we can scarcely
wonder that Byrom's relative, young Dawson, then fresh from college,
impressionable, impulsive, and enthusiastic, should have imbibed
his Jacobite principles. The time was one of political excitement.
England was in a state of agitation, and the rumours which had reached
Manchester of the successful rising in the North sufficed to stir the
fire of youthful enthusiasm and inspire devotion to the Pretender's
cause. The young Chevalier was in the field at the head of the Highland
clans; France had promised substantial support, not because France
had any particular liking for the Stuarts, but because she was not
unwilling to pay off some old scores by finding occupation for her
traditional foe; Sir John Cope had been beaten at Prestonpans, and
the victorious Charles Edward was then at Carlisle on his way south.
Francis Townley, a scion of an old Lancashire family, who had figured
at the Court of Louis XV. and seen service and earned distinction
abroad, was entrusted with a colonel's commission from the French King;
the commission authorised him to raise forces on behalf of the Prince,
and with that object he repaired to Manchester, the reputed stronghold
of the Jacobite party, to beat up for recruits; the town was excited,
the bolder spirits were jubilant and eager in their desire to don the
white cockade, some money was raised and more was promised but never
paid, and what is known to history as the "Manchester Regiment" was
enrolled. In that regiment James Dawson was honoured with a captaincy;
what that captaincy cost him we shall hereafter see.
Saturday, the 29th of November, 1745, was an eventful day for
Manchester, and one the townsmen had cause long to remember, for it
was that on which the young Chevalier, Prince Charles Edward, made his
appearance, after having taken Lancaster, Preston, and Wigan, on his
progress from the North. About ten o'clock in the morning the main body
of his army entered the town; regiment after regiment, with their
glittering firelocks, their tartan sashes, and gay and picturesque
dresses, marched over the Old Bridge and into St. Ann's-square, then
lately built, where they halted. It was an inauspicious moment, for at
the precise time the remains of the first rector of St. Ann's, the Rev.
Joseph Hoole, were being committed to the grave. As the men entered
the square, the warlike notes of the bagpipes were instantly hushed,
and, with instinctive reverence for the dead, the officers drew near
the churchyard, unbonneted, and joined devoutly in the service while
the coffin was being lowered to its final resting-place. It was an
ominous incident, and seemed premonitory of the fate that was shortly
to overtake so many of those assembled. As the historian of St Ann's
observes:--"White cockade and black scarf were at one in the presence
of death. Many a white cockade was laid low ere a month was gone."
Scarcely was the mournful scene ended than Prince Charles himself,
dressed in Highland garb--the Stuart plaid belted with a blue sash,
and wearing a light wig with a blue bonnet, in which was fixed a white
rose, entered the town amid the applauding acclamations of the people.
As he passed through Salford on his way, Parson Clayton, then one of
the chaplains of the Collegiate Church, and previously young Dawson's
instructor at the Grammar School, dropped on his knees, and in fervent
tones prayed that the enterprise might be successful, and that the
divine blessing would rest upon the Prince's head. Colonel Townley
had made previous arrangements for his reception, and on his arrival
he was conducted to his quarters at the house of Mr. Dickenson,[66] a
residence in Market Street Lane, thenceforward dignified with the name
of "The Palace," a name still perpetuated in Palace Buildings, which
mark the site. The head-quarters of the officers were fixed at the
"Bull's Head," in the Market Place, then the principal inn in the town,
and Lord George Murray, the Prince's secretary, stationed himself at
the Dog Inn, in Deansgate, for the purpose of distributing the French
King's commissions to officers who were willing to purchase. In the
course of the day "His Majesty King James the Third" was proclaimed at
the Market Cross, poor James Waller, of Ridgefield, a loyal subject
of the House of Brunswick, who was content with monarchy as it stood,
being compelled to pocket his political principles, and become the
medium of communication between Prince and people, by conveying the
demands of the rebel army to his fellow-townsmen for the payment of all
the money they had collected for the taxes; and in the evening bonfires
were lit, the streets were illuminated, drums beat, pipes played, and
the bells rang loud peals from the Old Church steeple in honour of the
event. No pains were spared to fan the flame of enthusiasm. Receptions
were held by the Prince, and Jacobite sympathisers of both sexes,
wearing tartan favours, thronged the house of Mr. Dickenson, anxious
to be presented and to have the honour of kissing the Prince's hand.
Recruiting, meanwhile, was carried on with energy; the Manchester
Regiment was enrolled, and by the Chevalier's orders Colonel Francis
Townley, who had joined the forces at Preston, was nominated commander;
Thomas Coppock, the son of a Manchester tailor, residing in the Old
Millgate, and a quondam companion of James Dawson, who had lately
graduated at Brasenose, Oxford, where he had been an exhibitioner from
Hugh Oldham's Grammar School, was appointed chaplain; Tom Syddall,
the son of a peruke-maker, who had been hanged and his head fixed on
the Market Cross for the share he had in destroying the Cross Street
meeting-house in 1715, and who, from the hour he had seen his father's
exposed and insulted countenance, had conceived an implacable hatred
for Dissenters, Whigs, and all the Hanoverian race, was made adjutant;
and James Dawson was one of the first to be enrolled as captain.
Coppock, dressed in full canonicals, accompanied a drummer through the
town, exhorting the people to take up arms in the Stuart cause, and
his efforts were ably seconded by Dr. Deacon,[67] the minister of a
non-juring congregation assembling in Fennel Street, whose three sons,
on the advice of the father, and with his prayers and blessings, were
among the earliest to obtain commissions; but the number recruited
through their efforts fell far short of their expectations, not more
than three hundred men being added to the strength of the rebel army,
and of those comparatively few were resident in the town. The people
were noisy and enthusiastic enough, but they were not sufficiently
ardent to risk their lives and property in the chivalrous defence of
the antiquated doctrine of the divine right of kings. The reason may
not be far to seek. Manchester men had thriven upon their manufacture
of fustians and dimities, and become a comparatively wealthy
community--they had something to lose; their interests were bound
up with more peaceful pursuits; insurrection and civil war do not
generally conduce to the prosperity of trade, and hence they had little
fondness for fighting.
The day which followed the Prince's arrival was a great day for the
Jacobites. It was Sunday, and St. Andrew's day withal. The bells
rang out from the old church tower; the streets were filled with
Highland soldiers; Colonel Townley's Manchester Regiment mustered in
the churchyard, the men in their blue and white cockades gathering
round their flag, which bore on one side the inscription "Church and
Country," and on the other "Liberty and Property." Never did the
ancient fane itself present a brighter or more animated appearance;
the nave was crowded with armed men, whose gaily-coloured attire and
glittering claymores, targets, and other accoutrements produced a
striking effect. The townspeople occupied the side aisles, and such
a display of tartan had never before been witnessed; everybody wore
Stuart favours, and the ladies were ablaze with tartan ribbons, shaws,
and furbelows. The Prince occupied the warden's seat in the choir,
his retinue being accommodated in the stalls close by. Warden Peploe,
a staunch Whig, but lacking the spirit of his father, who, thirty
years before, when the insurgents occupied Preston, had stood before
the Pretender's soldiery and prayed for King George and the House of
Brunswick,[68] had consulted his safety by withdrawing from the town.
Young Parson Coppock, the chaplain of the Manchester Regiment, supplied
his place, and preached from the text, "The Lord is King; the earth
may be glad thereof" (Psalm xcvii., v. 1); and from the same pulpit
whence, a century before, Warden Heyricke, on his "drum ecclesiastic,"
had stirred the hearts of the Manchester people by his trumpet-tongued
sermons, and roused them into active resistance to the Stuart King and
the "Papistical malignants" who had gained possession of him, was now
only heard a mild oration larded with flattering eulogies of his Popish
descendant.
When the service was concluded, the Manchester Regiment was inspected
by the Prince, and on the following day, with the rest of the rebel
army, they set forward on their march southwards, advancing in two
divisions by different routes towards Macclesfield, which had been
fixed as the limit of the first day's march. At Cheadle Ford, where
the bridge now bestrides the Mersey, a temporary bridge, formed of the
trunks and branches of poplar trees, was constructed for the horse
and artillery to pass over, and here the Prince, with two regiments,
crossed, buoyant with hope and full of energy. On reaching the opposite
bank he was welcomed by a number of the Cheshire gentry, who had come
out to meet him; with them was the venerable Mrs. Skyring, of whom
Lord Mahon relates the following affecting story ("Forty-Five," p.
84):--"As a child, she had been lifted up in her mother's arms to view
the happy landing at Dover of Charles the Second. Her father, an old
Cavalier, had afterwards to undergo, not merely neglect, but oppression
from that thankless monarch; still, however, he and his wife continued
devoted to the Royal cause, and their daughter grew up as devoted as
they. After the expulsion of the Stuarts all her thoughts, her hopes,
her prayers, were directed to another restoration. Ever afterwards she
had, with rigid punctuality, laid aside one-half of her yearly income
to remit for the exiled family abroad, concealing only the name of the
giver, which she said was of no importance to them, and might give
them pain if they remembered the unkind treatment she had formerly
received. She had now parted with her jewels, her plate, and every
little article she possessed, the price of which she laid in a purse at
the feet of Prince Charles, while straining her dim eyes to gaze on his
features, and pressing his hand to her shrivelled lips, she exclaimed
with affectionate rapture, 'Lord! now lettest Thou thy servant depart
in peace!'" It is added that she did not survive the shock when, a few
days afterwards, she was told of the retreat. The ancient lady, who is
represented as somewhat irreverently employing the sacred words of the
_Nunc Dimittis_, may be a pretty object to contemplate through the haze
of a century or more, but the story Lord Mahon so pathetically relates
is of doubtful origin, and should be received with caution.
On reaching Macclesfield the two divisions of the Prince's army were
united, and the Manchester men were drawn up in the churchyard, when
arms were distributed to those who had not previously received them.
The rebel forces met with little encouragement in the town, and the
next day, after having searched Adlington Hall and some other houses
of note in the neighbourhood, and taken what arms they could find,
they continued their march by way of Congleton and Leek to Derby,
which town was reached on December 4th, having, incredible as it may
appear, met with little or no opposition on the way. Of the subsequent
movements of the Manchester Regiment we need not say much; the record
of its doings is part of the country's history. Some who joined may
have been led by a love of adventure, but others were influenced by
higher considerations. Sincere and enthusiastic in their support of
the exiled dynasty, they were willing to forfeit their lives for their
Prince, and the forfeit, as we shall see, was rigorously enacted.
Their progress was as disastrous as it was brief. Hearing, while at
Derby, that the Duke of Cumberland, with an army of veterans, was in
the neighbourhood, and distrusting the skill of their own officers,
they beat a retreat northwards, carrying with them whatever in the
way of booty they could lay their hands on. On the 9th December the
advanced guard reached Manchester, where, instead of meeting with the
welcome they had received ten short days before, they were assailed by
a shower of stones from the mob; the regiment raised by Captain Townley
was broken up, and many of the men dispersed, but Captain Dawson,
with Coppock, Syddall, the three Deacons, and several other of the
more resolute supporters of the Prince, determined upon sharing his
fortunes, and pushed on with him to Carlisle, hotly pursued by the Duke
of Cumberland. In opposition to the advice of Lord George Murray, it
was determined that a garrison should be left in the border city. There
was at the time a gloomy anticipation of the fate awaiting those who
should remain, yet none hesitated to make the almost certain sacrifice;
Colonel Townley volunteered for the desperate service, and was
accordingly made governor of the city; with him were Captain Dawson,
Adjutant Syddall, the Deacons, Coppock, who had been dubbed Bishop
of Carlisle, and the remnant of the Manchester Regiment, one hundred
and twenty strong, with two hundred and seventy of the Highlanders
and Lowland Scots, and a handful of French officers and privates.
Soon after the Prince's departure the Duke of Cumberland, with
Marshal Wade, appeared before the city, and summoned the garrison to
surrender; after a brief resistance they were obliged to yield on the
hard conditions that, instead of being put to the sword, they should
be reserved for the King's pleasure. Coppock, after being imprisoned
for some time, was executed at Gallows Green, Harrowby, about a mile
south of Carlisle, meeting his death, as did his companions in arms,
with firmness to the last, and expressing his belief in the justice
of the cause he had embraced. The other officers, twenty in number,
were conveyed in waggons under a strong guard to London. Great efforts
had been made to inflame the minds of the populace against them by
representing them all as Papists, who, if they had succeeded, would
have roasted the Duke of Cumberland to death, burned the bishops,
and destroyed all heretics--men, women, and children; and on their
arrival in the Metropolis they were led in a sort of triumph through
the streets, where the greatest indignation was offered them by the
excited throng. As they had served under commissions from the French
King, they expected to have been treated as ordinary prisoners of war,
and that they would be regularly exchanged. Their fate, however, was
far otherwise. Imprisoned first in the cells of Newgate, and afterwards
in the New Prison in Southwark, they passed thence to the scaffold. The
head of Syddall was sent to Manchester and fixed on a spike in front of
the Exchange, near where that of his father had been fixed thirty years
before. Captain Thomas Deacon was treated in like manner, and it is
recorded of his father, the nonjuring divine, that he never afterwards
passed the spot where the mutilated head of his son had been exposed
without reverently raising his hat as a token of respect. A local poet
has embalmed the memory of these Manchester martyrs in the following
quaint lines:--
The Deel has set their heads to view,
And stickt them upon poles;
Poor Deel! 'twas all that he could do,
Since God has ta'en their souls.
It is with the fate of Captain Dawson, however, that we are more
immediately concerned. It had been determined that the full vengeance
of the law should fall upon the unfortunate victims belonging to the
Manchester Regiment, and those who were in Newgate were, after a lapse
of six months, ordered to prepare for trial previous to their removal
to the prison of Southwark. Dawson, as previously stated, had while at
Cambridge been betrothed to a young lady, a Miss Katherine Norton, it
is said. She appears to have engaged all his thoughts, and it is stated
that during his confinement he employed himself in writing verses on
his unhappy fate.
The trials commenced on the 16th July, 1746, in the Courthouse at
St. Margaret's Hill, before the High Commissioners appointed for the
purpose. Townley, the colonel of the regiment, was the first arraigned.
His behaviour during the trial was firm and undaunted, and when
sentence of death was pronounced he was not in the least discomposed,
nor did his countenance undergo any change of colour. The trials
lasted three days, and the whole of the prisoners arraigned were found
guilty. James Dawson was indicted for high treason (committed 18th
November, 1745, five days before the taking of Carlisle by the rebels),
and accused by witnesses for the prosecution of "having appeared as
captain, at review, at Macclesfield;" "beaten up for volunteers at
Derby;" "been at the head of company, at Penrith and other places;"
"and also been one of the rebel garrison taken at Carlisle on the 30th
December, 1745." He, like the others, was found guilty and sentenced to
death, which was ordered to take place at Kennington on the 30th July,
along with eight other officers of the Manchester Regiment. In the
interval between his condemnation and his execution he employed himself
in preparing a written declaration of the motives and sentiments which
had influenced him in joining the standard of the Pretender, a copy of
which, as made and signed by himself, we give herewith:--
Blessed are they that suffer Persecution for Righteousness sake, for
theirs is ye kingdom of Heaven.--Mat. ye 5 and 10.
Friends, Brethren, and Countrymen,
I am come to this place (and it's with cheerfulness and resignation I
say it) to lay down my Life in defence of my King, and in support of
the liberties and properties of you his natural-born subjects, and
blessed be the will of God, who (unworthy as I am) has deign'd to look
upon me as no unfit Instrument of executing his Divine Pleasure. I am
now on the very last scene of life, and shall in a very few minutes
launch into eternity; I therefore solemnly declare, as I shall answer
it at the awful and impartial Tribunal before which I must shortly
appear, that I firmly believe, and in my conscience am persuaded, that
James the 3rd is my only true, lawful, and indisputable Sovereign;
that the present Possessor of this Crown and Kingdom is a usurper;
that my taking up arms against him was so far from being a crime that
it was my indispensible and bounden duty; if I had ten thousand lives,
I ought sooner to devote them all to his and my Country's service than
to see Right overpowered by Oppression, or Rebellion prevailing over
Justice.
I die, my dear Friends, in the fellowship and communion of the Church
of England, and in perfect love and charity with all men. I humbly
ask pardon of all those whom I have in any shape, or in any manner,
either injured, affronted, or offended, as I do from the bottom of
my heart forgive all my Enemies, Persecutors, and Slanderers, and
in an especial manner Mr. Maddock,[69] who has not only sworn away
mine but several other innocent persons' lives (an unchristian-like
return for relieving and supporting him when destitute of almost every
necessary of life); but this I mention not to upbraid him, God forbid
I should. No, my dear Countrymen, I only beg that this, his fatal
unhappy delusion, may be a lively and instructive warning both to you
and posterity, never to add cruelty to injustice, or to injure your
Benefactors only for having partaken of their benefits. And I likewise
here solemnly declare that I sincerely forgive the ... [illegible] of
the Counsel, the partiality of my Judges, and the misguided zeal of my
Jury.--"Lay not, O God, my blood to their charge, neither let this my
murder rise up against them. Forgive them, Oh! my Father, for they not
know what they do."
And now, Oh! my God and merciful Father, having thus addressed the
Throne of Grace for mine Enemies, let me now supplicate thy mercy for
my poor unworthy self. I now with humility prostrate myself before
thee, and beseech thee of thine infinite goodness, to deign to forgive
me all my sins, negligences, and ignorances; excuse the frailties
and infirmities of my nature, and pardon every levity, excess, and
indecency which I have committed against thy Divine Majesty; plead
thou my cause, Oh, my sweet Saviour; Oh! let not the transgressions
of my youth, or the faults which I have been betrayed into, either
through fear, forgetfulness, or surprise, be alleged against me at
the Great Day of Judgment. Let that precious blood which was spilt at
thy most bitter death on the Cross be a sweet-smelling sacrifice to
turn away thy wrath from thy servant, who is not only now persecuted,
but going to die for truth and righteousness' sake. In proportion
to the humility of my desires, and the purity of my intention,
heighten, Oh, Christ, my reward hereafter. Into thy hands I commend
my soul; vouchsafe to save all those whom thou hast redeemed with thy
precious blood, and make me to be remembered with thy Saints in glory
everlasting. Amen.
If we could close the narrative of Manchester's share in the dynastic
contest of '45 without reference to the afflicting details of the
barbarities the victors deemed it necessary to perpetrate we should
not have necessarily to excite the indignation of our readers against
atrocities for the commission of which neither passion nor party zeal
can furnish even the shadow of an excuse. The 30th of July was the
day on which Captain Dawson and the four officers of the Manchester
Regiment were to be subjected to the hideous penalties the law had
awarded for their active partisanship of the exiled Stuarts--a day
not less of shame than of triumph to the ruling powers, and one
constituting in itself a very black page in the annals of the country.
On that day there was to be enacted a scene such as England had
happily not witnessed for thirty years or more. When the Manchester
men surrendered at Carlisle they were told that they would be reserved
for the King's pleasure--their fate is a dismal memorial of his tender
mercies. Indifferent to the dishonour he was bringing upon the nation,
and unmindful of the odium that must attach to his name, the Elector
of Hanover looked upon rebellion as a crime that could only be dealt
with in a spirit of revenge, and by the perpetration of cruelties
so exceptionally revolting that they could not be repeated without
greater danger to the throne than the insurrectionary feeling they
were intended to crush. On the morning of the day named the whole of
the condemned men were bound on three hurdles, and in this ignominious
manner dragged from the new gaol at Southwark to the place of execution
on Kennington Common, escorted by a strong party of soldiers. A gallows
had been previously erected, and near it were the hideous adjuncts of
all executions for treason--a pile of faggots and a block on which
was laid the executioner's knife. On their arrival the victims were
unbound and transferred from the hurdles to a cart placed under the
"fatal tree," and at the same time the fire was lit, the faggots
blazing up and crackling, before the doomed men's eyes. Having spent
some time in their devotions, they severally delivered the declarations
which they had written to the sheriff, the cart was withdrawn, and they
were launched into eternity, all dying calm and composed. At the end
of five minutes after suspension--before life was extinct, and while
the body was yet quivering--Captain Townley was cut down, stripped, and
placed on the block, when the hangman with his cleaver severed his head
from the body, and then took out his heart and bowels and cast them
into the fire. Captain Dawson underwent the same barbarous treatment;
the others in succession shared his fate; and when the heart of the
last was thrown into the fire the grim finisher of the law exclaimed,
"God save King George!" the assembled crowd answering with a loud shout.
Connected with this melancholy exhibition an incident is recorded
that has a more enduring interest even than the catastrophe itself.
Among the spectators of the tragic scene was the plighted fair one of
Captain Dawson. When all hope of the royal clemency was at an end the
inconsolable young lady, impelled by frenzy and despair, determined
upon following her betrothed to the place of execution and witnessing
the dreadful spectacle that was to be enacted. Accompanied by a
relative she, with heroic fortitude, followed the sledges in a hackney
coach, beheld the preparations that were being made, watched her lover
mount the gallows, and saw his lifeless body cut down and placed upon
the block to be mutilated, without betraying any extravagant emotion,
but when the executioner flung his victim's heart into the flames the
sight was more than human nature could sustain. Withdrawing her gaze,
she leaned back in the carriage, breathed his name, and was no more.
Shenstone has made the incident the theme of a ballad which has alike
immortalised its hero and its author. The following version, which
differs slightly from some of the printed copies, is from Percy's
"Reliques":--
Come listen to my mournful tale,
Ye tender hearts and lovers dear;
Nor will you scorn to heave a sigh,
Nor will you blush to shed a tear.
And thou, dear Kitty, peerless maid,
Do thou a pensive ear incline;
For thou canst weep at every woe,
And pity every plaint but mine.
Young Dawson was a gallant youth,
A brighter, never trod the plain;
And well he lov'd one charming maid,
And dearly was he lov'd again.
One tender maid, she lov'd him dear;
Of gentle blood the damsel came,
And faultless was her beauteous form,
And spotless was her virgin fame.
But curse on party's hateful strife
That led the favoured youth astray,
The day the rebel clans appear'd:
O had he never seen that day!
Their colours and their sash he wore,
And in the fatal dress was found;
And now he must that death endure,
Which gives the brave the keenest wound.
How pale was then his true love's cheek,
When Jemmy's sentence reach'd her ear!
For never yet did Alpine snows
So pale, or yet so chill appear.
With faltering voice she weeping said:
"O Dawson, monarch of my heart,
Think not thy death shall end our loves,
For thou and I will never part.
"Yet might sweet mercy find a place,
And bring relief to Jemmy's woes,
O George, without a prayer for thee
My orisons should never close.
"The gracious Prince that gave him life,
Would crown a never-dying flame,
And every tender babe I bore,
Should learn to lisp the giver's name.
"But though, dear youth, thou should'st be dragg'd
To yonder ignominious tree,
Thou shalt not want a faithful friend
To share thy bitter fate with thee."
O then her mourning coach was call'd,
The sledge mov'd slowly on before;
Though borne in a triumphal car,
She had not lov'd her favourite more.
She follow'd him prepared to view
The terrible behests of law;
And the last scene of Jemmy's woe
With calm and steadfast eye she saw.
Distorted was that blooming face
Which she had fondly lov'd so long;
And stifled was that tuneful breath
Which in her praise had sweetly sung.
And sever'd was that beauteous neck
Round which her arms had fondly closed
And mangled was that beauteous breast
On which her love-sick head reposed;
And ravish'd was that constant heart
She did to every heart prefer;
For though it could its King forget,
'Twas true and loyal still to her,
Amid those unrelenting flames
She bore this constant heart to see;
But when 'twas moulder'd into dust,
"Now, now," she cried, "I'll follow thee.
"My death, my death alone can show
The pure and lasting love I bore;
Accept, O heaven, of woes like ours,
And let us, let us weep no more."
The dismal scene was o'er and past,
The lover's mournful hearse retired;
The maid drew back her languid head,
And, sighing forth his name, expired.
Though justice ever must prevail,
The tear my Kitty sheds is due;
For seldom shall she hear a tale
So sad, so tender, and so true.
Doubts have been entertained as to the genuineness of the story which
Shenstone has narrated with such simple tenderness and pathos, and
a belief expressed that for some of the more tragic details he has
had recourse to the poet's licence. But apart from the circumstance
that the incident commemorated has been a tradition in each of the
three branches of the Dawson family, and accepted as an unimpeachable
fact, there is extant sufficient contemporary evidence to remove any
misgivings as to its authenticity. "Seldom shall you hear a tale so
sad, so tender, and," as the poet adds, "so true." Shenstone, "whose
mind," as has been said, "was not very comprehensive, nor his curiosity
active," was content to take the event of his song from a narrative
first published in the _Parrot_ of August 2, 1746, three days after
the "dismal scene" recorded. It is there stated that, "On the young
lady being informed that Mr. Dawson was to be executed, not all the
persuasions of her kindred could prevent her from going to the place
of execution. She accordingly followed the sledge in a hackney coach,
accompanied by a gentleman nearly related to her and a female friend.
Having arrived at the place of execution, she got near enough to see
the fire kindled that was to consume him, and all the other dreadful
preparations, without betraying any of those emotions her friends
apprehended. But when all was over, and she found he was no more, she
drew her head back in the coach, and ejaculating, 'My dear, I follow
thee! Lord Jesus, receive our souls together!' fell on the neck of
her companion, and expired the very moment she had done speaking.
Most excessive grief," the narrative adds, "which the force of her
resolution had kept smothered within her breast, is thought to have
put a stop to the vital motion, and suffocated at once all the animal
spirits." The story is copied from the _Parrot_ into the _Whitehall
Evening Post_ of August 7th, 1746, and the remark appended that, "upon
inquiry, every circumstance was literally true."
It has been repeatedly stated, though incorrectly, that, after the
execution, the head of Captain Dawson, with those of Syddall and
one of the Deacons, was sent down to Manchester and spiked upon the
old Exchange. Concerning the final disposition of the relics of poor
mortality which were so long left to moulder in the sun and rain--the
memorials of a barbarous and unchristian revenge--the following
communication was some years ago addressed to Mr. Proctor, the author
of "Memorials of Manchester Streets," and which, though somewhat
lengthy, we venture to transcribe:--
I was dining some years ago, with the late Dr. S. L. (S. A.?)
Bardsley. When the cloth was removed, the conversation took a more
narrative character than is usual. Many personal recollections were
told, and at length one of the guests incidentally mentioned the
traditions of Manchester at the time of the Jacobite disturbances.
Upon this our host observed how singular it was that the authorities
of that day had never discovered the persons who had removed from the
Manchester Exchange the heads of Jemmy Dawson (the hero of Shenstone's
ballad) and the two deacons which had been exposed there, after their
execution, as participators in the Jacobite troubles. He added that
he was the only person living who could then solve the mystery. He
went on to say, that many years previously (I forget the exact date)
[1828] he was in attendance upon one Miss Hale (Miss Frances Hall?)
who lived in King Street, and who had been a great partisan of Charles
Edward. The old lady, who was then about ninety years of age, and
believed herself to be dying, as was in fact the case, dismissed all
her attendants from the room except the doctor; and having ascertained
from him that she had not many hours to live, told him that her
brother, who was then dead, was the person who had removed the heads
in question, and that they were then buried in the garden at the
back of the house in which she was living. She concluded by making
him promise, that when she was gone, he would have them taken up and
placed in consecrated ground.
I need hardly add that Dr. Bardsley strictly fulfilled her wishes.
Three skulls were found in the garden, as she had stated, and they
were placed, as I understand, in St. Ann's churchyard. This is the
more probable as there are now tombs of the Deacons to be found there.
This note introduces us to a family that for a century or more occupied
a prominent position in the society of Manchester, and the members of
which were in each generation distinguished alike for their public
spirit and private worth. Richard Edward Hall, who resided in an old
half-timbered house in Deansgate, at the corner of Bridge-street, and
afterwards in Hulme, where he died September 13th, 1793, at the age
of ninety, was an eminent surgeon at the time of the Pretender's
visit, the friend of John Byrom[70] and Dr. Dawson, and an ardent
Jacobite withal. Two of his sons, Edward Hall and Richard Hall, adopted
the father's profession, and were surgeons to the Infirmary, and
it must have been one of them who removed the rebel heads from the
Exchange. The survivors of the family were their two sisters, Frances
and Elizabeth Hall, who remained unmarried, and died at an advanced
age, the last-named in 1826, at the age of eighty, and Miss Frances
Hall, June 4th, 1828, aged eighty-four. These two ladies, after their
father's death, resided, with the other members of the family, in a
house near the top of King Street, at the point where Spring Gardens
has lately been carried through; their home was a large old-fashioned
dwelling of stately exterior, with a spacious garden extending in
rear to Chancery Lane, and a clump of tall trees, in which a colony
of rooks had established themselves. The rookery remained within the
recollection of the present generation, and only disappeared when
garden and greensward were taken possession of by the builder, and
the tumultuous occupants became but a memory of the past. When Prince
Charles Edward passed through the town in 1745 Frances Hall was a
child in arms, and had in all probability been held up to view the
gay cavalcade; her brother Edward was then a youth of fourteen, and,
inheriting his father's attachment to the exiled race, it is easy to
understand his desire to remove from their ignominious position, the
ghastly relics of those whose lives had been sacrificed for their
devotion to the Stuart cause. The Halls were as wealthy as they were
prominent, and when Miss Frances Hall died in 1828 she left by her will
no less a sum than £44,000 to the Royal Infirmary, House of Recovery,
Lying-in Hospital, Ladies' Jubilee School, and other charities in her
native town. She is buried in the Derby chapel within the Cathedral,
where a monument by Chantrey was erected to her memory in 1834, which
has since been removed to the Derby chapel.
It is stated in the communication we have quoted that three heads
were removed from the Exchange--those of Jemmy Dawson and the two
Deacons--but this is clearly an error. Dawson's head was not exposed in
Manchester, and there is no record of more than two being placed upon
the Exchange--those of Adjutant Syddall and Captain Thomas Theodorus
Deacon. In the constable's accounts for the year the cost of placing
them is thus recorded:--
1746: Expenses tending the Sheriff this morning for Syddall's and
Deacon's heads put up. 0 1 6
And it is worthy of note that when the Exchange was pulled down in 1792
the two iron rods on which they had been spiked remained fixed in one
of the stones.
The statements that have come down to us respecting the disposal of the
heads of the unhappy Jacobites are singularly vague and conflicting.
Baines adopts the oft-repeated statement that the head of Colonel
Townley, with that of Captain Fletcher, another officer of the
Manchester Regiment, was fixed on Temple Bar, the "City Golgotha" as it
came to be called; but this statement, so far as Townley is concerned,
is incorrect, that part of his sentence having, at the intercession of
friends, been remitted, and an undertaker at Pancras allowed to take
charge of his corpse, by whom it was buried. There were, however, two
heads exposed on the Bar; one of them was Captain Fletcher's, and there
is good reason to believe that the other was that of Captain Dawson.
Walpole, writing to Montague, August 15, 1746, says:--"I have been this
morning at the Tower, and passed under the new heads at Temple Bar,
where people make a trade of letting spying-glasses at a halfpenny a
look." For several weeks people flocked to the revolting exhibition,
which afforded to many a savage pleasure, and a print, published at
the time, gives a view of Temple Bar with the heads spiked on the top,
and the following doggrel lines beneath:--
While trembling rebels at the fabric gaze,
And dread their fate with horror and amaze,
Let Briton's sons the emblematic view,
And plainly see what is rebellion's due.
Dr. Johnson relates the impression which the sight of these trunkless
heads made upon him. "I remember," he says, "once being with Goldsmith
in Westminster Abbey. While he surveyed Poet's Corner, I said to him--
Forsitan et nostrum nomen miscebitur illis.
When we got to the Temple Bar, he stopped me, pointed to the heads upon
it, and slily whispered--
Forsitan et nostrum nomen miscebitur _istis_."
Goldsmith's rejoinder is so charmingly witty that we make no apology
for repeating it. After this we have little mention of these relics of
the victims of Hanoverian vengeance--the lips that love had kissed,
the cheeks that children had patted were left to blacken and rot
until the 31st of March, 1772, when one of the heads was blown down,
and shortly afterwards the remaining one was also swept down by a
stormy gust; the cruel-looking spikes, however, remained until the
beginning of the present century, when they were removed, and since
then the Bar itself, with its ponderous gates--black, weather-worn,
and dilapidated--successively a protection, an ornament, and an
obstruction, have disappeared, and is now only remembered as belonging
to the past.
The sun of the Stuarts went down with the rout and slaughter of the
rebel army at Culloden. On that memorable 16th of April, 1746, a
dynastic contest of fifty-seven years was conclusively ended in less
than fifty-seven minutes; the visions of thrones and sceptres vanished,
the hopes and aspirations of the youthful adventurer were blighted, and
he who, one short hour before, had been a nominal king, was reduced
to the condition of a luckless and forlorn outcast, shunned by every
one except those who sought his destruction. Though the friends of the
exiled house adhered to their mystically significant toasts, drank "The
King over the water," and sang "The King shall enjoy his own again,"
Jacobitism as a principle, may from that time be said to have waned,
and to have become extinct as a profession of faith with the death
of Charles Edward in 1788; for though the Prince's younger brother,
Cardinal York, issued a medal bearing his name as "_Henricus Nonus
Dei Gratia Rex_," with the meek addition, "_Haud desideriis Hominum,
sed voluntate Dei_," his assumption of the regal title excited little
interest or feeling among the English people. The Jacobites had a firm
belief in the right divine of kings, and viewed the case of the Stuarts
as that of a family deprived of its rights by unjust means. Influenced
by that belief, their conduct in seeking to affect a restoration of the
dynasty was both logical and generous. The effort they made in 1745 was
in many respects a brilliant one, but it was out of time; the House of
Brunswick had then become firmly seated upon the throne, and there was
little chance of effecting its overthrow. From the first the enterprise
was hopeless; the country gentlemen sympathised with it, but the great
mass of the people were indifferent and had certainly no attachment or
prejudice in favour of the House of Stuart. But while we may condemn an
attempt dictated by youth and presumption, and conducted without art
or resolution, we cannot but admire the heroic efforts, and pity the
sufferings of those engaged in it.
Though the hope of a restoration of the exiled family was finally
extinguished, the bitterness of party feeling long continued to
manifest itself in Manchester, where political and religious excitement
was maintained at fever heat by the two contending factions. The
partisans of the House of Brunswick had regained the ascendancy;
inflamed with the sense of victory, they made an ostentatious parade
of their loyalty, and in their exultation treated their opponents
with every contumely, accounting Jacobites, Tories, and Non-jurors as
the equivalent of Jews, Infidels, and Heretics. The local magistrates
were energetic in the discharge of their office, and as severe as
they were energetic, everyone whose Hanoverian sympathies were not
of the most pronounced character being compelled by them to take the
oath of allegiance to the reigning sovereign. But the fiercest feuds
must some time come to an end, for society cannot continue in a state
of perpetual antagonism; if party principles were maintained, party
feeling gradually subsided, and King _de facto_ men and partisans of
the Pretender eventually laid aside their differences and settled down
to the calm enjoyment of social intercourse and the ordinary amenities
of civilised life.
With the suppression of the rebellion and the renewal of active
business life we may leave the story of the "'forty-five," with all its
painful memories, to note some few particulars respecting the family of
the luckless Jemmy Dawson.
Dr. Dawson, the father of the rebel captain, as previously stated, had
his town residence in the upper part of King Street--but then known
as St. James's Square--a fashionable quarter, intended, originally,
to be what the name imported, a square, and a rival in stateliness
and substantial dignity, to the one lower down, named after the
Hanoverian Queen. In addition, he had become the owner of a house
called the "Cottage," which stood in the fields near the site of the
present Concert Hall--a pleasant out of-town abode, with a walled
garden, orchard, and pleasure ground, contiguous to which, on the
high ground called the Mount, stood an antiquated windmill that gave
name to Windmill Street; Mosley Street, which commemorates the former
manorial lords, and "the most elegant and retired street in the town,"
as Dr. Dalton afterwards described it, was then Mosley Street only in
name, and the narrow alleys and streetlets leading into it had not
come into existence. The lower part of the street, from the present
Nicholas Street to St. Peter's Church (erected many years afterwards),
was then called Dawson Street, and led directly to Mr. Dawson's house,
standing within its own grounds in the open country. When the street
came to be built upon, it was inhabited by some of the best families in
the town, and numbered at one time among its residents Nathan Meyer
Rothschild and the well-known Major Shakspeare Phillips. Mr. Dawson's
family consisted, in addition to the ill-starred subject of Shenstone's
ballad, of a son, William Dawson, and two daughters, Elizabeth and
Sarah. In the earlier years of his married life there was residing
with him a lady, the circumstances of whose life are shrouded in much
mystery--the Lady Barbara Fitzroy, one of the daughters of Charles Duke
of Cleveland by his second wife, Ann, daughter of Sir William Pulteney,
of Misterton, in Leicestershire--a lady in whose veins coursed the
blood of the Stuarts, the Duke, her father, being one of the children
which Charles II. had by the notorious Lady Castlemaine, a vain and
volatile beauty, whose pretty face helped to undo a nation. Lady
Fitzroy had withdrawn from her own family when she took up her abode
with the Dawsons, but the circumstances which led to the alienation
and her being disowned by her mother are not known, and we fail to
discover by what means her fortunes became identified with those of the
family of "Jemmy Dawson," though, doubtless, the connection helped to
strengthen his attachment to the Stuart cause. She was born February
7th, 1695-6, and died January 4th, 1734, in her 38th year. Robert
Thyer, the accomplished scholar and critic, writing to John Byrom under
date January 20th, 1734-5, says "My Lady Barbara Fitzroy, that lived
with Mrs. Dawson, and Mrs. Mort were both buried this week. My Lady has
made Mr. Dawson her heir, if he can but come at the money." Mr. Dawson
did not "come at the money," and neither he nor any of his family
benefited by Lady Barbara's benevolent intentions. She is buried in the
choir of the cathedral, where upon her gravestone, is a brass with the
inscription--
Lady Barbara Fitz Roy, Eldest Daughter of the Most Noble Charles Duke
of Cleveland and Southampton. Died January 4th, 1734.
Above the inscription on a lozenge shield are the arms of Charles II.,
differenced with a baton sinister flanked on each side with the usual
emblems of mortality, a skull, cross-bones, winged hour-glass and
scythe, and a candle nearly extinguished.
Dr. Dawson died at his house in King-street, then called St. James's
Street, March 20th, 1763. He is buried in the cathedral by the side of
his wife (who died before her son came to his tragic end) and one of
his daughters. The gravestone is inscribed--
Guls. Dawson de Mancr. Gen. ob. 20mo Mar. A.S. 1763, æt 67. Eliz. Ux.
Gul. Dawson ob 30 Maij anno salutis 1737, ætatis suæ 41. Saræ filia
prædic. obt. 7mo Maij 1725.
Mr. Dawson was succeeded by his second but eldest surviving son,
William Dawson, who, as previously stated, had entered at Lincoln's Inn
and been called to the bar. He resided at the "Cottage" before referred
to, and from the little that is known respecting him appears to have
been a somewhat eccentric personage. When John Byrom's son, Edward
Byrom, the banker, established himself in Quay Street and conceived
the idea of founding St. John's Church, Mr. Dawson associated with him
in the good work, but from some cause or other a dispute arose which
led him to withdraw from the undertaking after contributing to the
cost of the erection. While travelling in Italy he had purchased the
picture by Annibal Carracci of "The Descent from the Cross," which he
intended should grace the altar recess of St. John's, but when the
misunderstanding arose the intention was abandoned, and some years
after his death, when St. Peter's was erected in close proximity to his
house, and became, by the attractiveness of its services, if not the
carriage-way to heaven, at least the shrine to which the "fashionable
idlers" and "genteel sinners" of Mosley Street and Dawson Street turned
their steps one day in seven, the picture was placed there, over the
communion table, where it still remains. Several years before his death
he had engaged Mr. Bottomley, an engraver in the town, to inscribe
the plate which he purposed having placed over his remains, and this,
according to Dr. Hibbert-Ware, he kept in his room as a memento until
the day of his death. _Sapiens, qui, dum vivat sibi monumentum parat._
He died unmarried at "the cottage, near the Mount," on Thursday, the
17th August, 1780, and was buried on the following Sunday in the grave
in which forty-six years before his friend and patron Lady Barbara
Fitzroy had been laid. The plate before referred to, which is placed on
the lower compartment of the stone, bears the following inscription:--
Here are deposited the Remains of William Dawson, Esq., who died the
17th day of August, 1780, and in the 60th year of his Age.
He desired to be buried with the above named lady, not only to testify
his gratitude to the memory of a kind benefactress: although he never
reaped any of those advantages from her bounty to his family she
intended.
But because his fate was similar to her's. For she was disowned by her
Mother. And he was disinherited by his Father.
Above the inscription is a shield of arms and crest, but, by some
unaccountable mistake, instead of the Dawson's those of the Allens of
Redivales are depicted, a family from which Mr. Dawson was descended
through the female line.
In Mr. Barritt's MSS. in the Chetham Library we have the following
particulars respecting Mr. Dawson:--
This gentleman was buried agreeably to his request, in the following
dress, ruffled shirt, and cravat, nightcap of brown fur, morning
gown striped orange and white, deep crimson-coloured waistcoat and
breeches, white silk stockings, and red morocco slippers. In his bosom
was put a folded piece of white paper, which enclosed two locks of
hair cut from the heads of two boys that died, for whom Mr. Dawson had
a great regard; they being the children of Mr. Cooper, his steward,
with whom Mr. Dawson liv ed, and likewise became his heir at his death.
Nothing is known of the circumstance that led to the differences
between Mr. Dawson and his father; the breach, however, would seem
never to have been healed, and the son, as the inscription on his
grave evidences, retained an unpleasant recollection of it to the
last. Mr. Dawson was a prominent figure in the Manchester society of
the last century, and many were the stories that used to be told of
his foibles and peculiarities. By his will he bequeathed the greater
part of his property to Mr. William Cooper, the steward referred to in
Barritt's MSS., and constituted him his sole executor. Mr. Cooper thus
became the owner and occupier of the "Cottage," which thenceforward
became commonly known as "Cooper's Cottage," a name it retained until
half a century ago, when it was pulled down to make room for the
present Concert Hall; and as the patronymic of its former possessor
was commemorated in Dawson-street, so, in like manner, Cooper-street
perpetuates the name of its subsequent owner.
In concluding our account of the Dawsons it only remains to notice
one other member of the family,--Elizabeth, the younger of the two
daughters of Dr. Dawson. The eldest daughter, Sarah, as we have seen,
died unmarried in 1725; Elizabeth Dawson married some time before March
24, 1749, William Broome, the representative of a family which had then
been settled for half a century or more at Didsbury, and the heads of
which held the position of legal agents to Sir John Bland, of Hulme,
and also of the Barlows, of Barlow Hall. Tradition points to this lady,
"Bessy Dawson," as the one who accompanied "Jemmy Dawson's" affianced
bride on the morning of the sad 30th of July, 1746, to witness the
terrible tragedy to be enacted on Kennington Common, and the same
authority tells us that afterwards, having formed an attachment for
the handsome young lawyer of Didsbury, and failing to obtain her
father's consent to the match, she eloped with him and was married
clandestinely, a procedure which gave such offence to her father that
he never forgave her. The first part of this statement has such an air
of probability about it that we would not willingly spoil the effect
by questioning its accuracy, but the story of the elopement does not
appear to rest upon any reliable foundation.
Elizabeth Dawson died February, 1764. By her marriage with William
Broome she had several children; the eldest, named after his father,
married and had issue a daughter, Mary, his heir, who became the wife
of Henry Fielding, of Didsbury, and by him had a son, Robert Fielding,
who married Ann, eldest daughter of Sir John Parker Mosley, of Ancoats.
The eldest son by this marriage was the Rev. Robert Mosley Fielding,
rector of Bebbington, in Cheshire, who died in 1862, leaving with
other issue a son--Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Fielding, of Dulas Court,
Hereford, high sheriff of that county in 1864, who is the present
representative of this branch of the Fieldings, as well as of the old
Manchester families of Broome and Dawson. Colonel Fielding married
in 1858 his second cousin, Louisa Willis, fifth daughter of Joseph
Fielding, of Witton Park, formerly M.P. for Blackburn, and sister of
Major-general Randle Joseph Fielding, M.P. for North Lancashire, by
whom he has a numerous issue.
In thus relating the story of "Jemmy Dawson," we have endeavoured to
rescue from oblivion some few particulars respecting the life and
family connections of one of the most notable of the Manchester victims
of Hanoverian vengeance, and one whose tragic end forms a dark page in
the history of the fatal '45.