MIDDLETON.--And now, before taking a glance at the woollens and hardware of
Yorkshire, we suggest, by way of change from the perpetual hum of busy
multitudes and the whizzing and roaring of machinery, that the traveller take
a holiday, and spend it in wandering over an agricultural oasis encircled by
hills, and so far uninvaded by the stalks of steam-engines, where the air is
comparatively pure and the grass green, although forest trees do not
flourish.
The visit requires no distant journey. It is a bare six miles from the heart
of Manchester to Middleton. Nine times a-day omnibuses ply there. These
original, if not primitive vehicles, are constructed to carry forty-five
passengers, and on crowded market-days may sometimes be seen loaded with
seventy specimens of a note-worthy class.
Middleton, lately a dirty straggling town, of 15,000 inhabitants, a number at
which it has remained stationary for ten years, built without plan, without
drains, without pavement, without arrangements for common decency, stands on
the borders, and was the manorial village, of the Middleton and Thornham
estates, which had been in the family of the late Lord Suffield for many
hundred years. In the village, land was grudgingly leased for building, and
no steam-engine manufactories were permitted. The agricultural portion of
some 2500 acres of good land for pasturage and root crops, celebrated for its
fine supplies of water and for its (unused) water-power, was divided into
little farms of from twenty to seventy acres, very few exceeding fifty acres,
inhabited by a race of Farmer-Weavers, who, from generation to generation,
farmed badly and wove cleanly in the pure atmosphere of Middleton. They
were, most of them, bound to keep a hound at walk for the Lord of the Manor.
Now the old Lords of the Manor and owners of the estate of Middleton (the
Harbords, afterwards Barons Suffield), were proud men and wealthy, who
despised manufactures and resisted any encroachment of trade on the green
bounds within which their old Manor House had stood for ages. So when the
inventions of Crompton, Hargreaves, Arkwright, and Cartwright began to coin
gold like any philosopher's stone, for well-managing cotton manufacturers,
speculators cast their eyes upon the pleasant waters of Middleton and
Thornham, proposing to erect machinery and spin the yarn or thread, and
otherwise to use the abundant water-power. But the Lords of Middleton would
have none of such profits, (and if they could afford to reject them, we will
not say that up to a certain point they were not wise), and so they gave
short answers to the applicants, who went away and found, half-a-mile off, on
the borders of Yorkshire, similar conveniences and more accessible ground-
landlords in the Byrons, Lords of the Manor of Rochdale. And when, some time
afterwards, a like application met with a like answer, other manufacturers
went away to another corner, and built Oldham.
So the Middleton farms continued very pretty picturesque farms; Middleton
village grew into a miserable town, and was passed over in 1830, when every
population was putting forth its claims to a share in making the laws of the
United Kingdom; while Oldham, with 30,000 inhabitants, was allotted two
members, (an honour which cost the life of one of them, our best describer of
English rural scenery, in racy Saxon English, William Cobbett); Rochdale,
with 24,000, obtained one, and eventually made itself loudly heard in the
House, in the person of John Bright, a gentleman of pluck not without
eloquence, who has done a good deal, considering the disadvantages he has
laboured under, in not having been brought to his level in a public school,
and in having been brought up in the atmosphere of adulation, to which the
wealthy and clever of a small sect are as much exposed as the scions of a
"proud aristocracy."
A few years ago, the late lord, who had occasionally lived on the estate,
died. His successor pulled down the Manor House, became an absentee, always
in want of ready money, and introduced the Irish system into the management
of his estate. That is to say, good farming became a sure mode of inviting
an increase of rent--for indispensable repairs no ready money was forthcoming,
so tenants who had an indisputable claim to such allowances, received a
reduction of rent instead; they generally accepted the reduction, and did no
more of the repairs than would just make shift. The land in the town
suitable for building was let at chief rents to the highest bidder, with no
consideration for the mutual convenience of neighbours, or the welfare of
future residents.
Thus mismanaged and dilapidated, the estates were brought into the market,
and purchased for Messrs. Peto & Betts, by their land agent, Mr. Francis
Fuller, for less than 200,000 pounds; and the lands of the aristocracy of
blood passed into the possession of the aristocracy of trade. Here was a
subject for a doleful ballad from "A Young Englander," commencing--
"Ye tenants old of Middleton ye cannot need but sigh,
Departed are the traces of your own nobility,
The Locomotivocracy have gone and done the trick,
And England's aristocracy's obliged to cut its stick."
A visit to Middleton, however, will show that on this occasion the tenantry
have no reason either to sigh or weep, and the visit is worth making,
independently of the pleasantness of a change from town to country, because
it affords an opportunity of seeing what can be done with a neglected domain
when it passes into the hands of men of large capital, liberal views, and a
thorough determination that whatever they take in hand shall be done in the
best possible manner.
Messrs. Peto & Betts are managing this estate on the same principles that
they have conducted the undertaking by which, in a very few years, they have
acquired a large fortune and an influential position. Not by avariciously
grasping, and meritlessly grinding all the subordinates whose services they
required; not by squeezing men like oranges, and throwing them away when
squeezed; but by choosing suitable assistants for every task they undertook,
and making those assistants, or advisers, feel that their interests were the
same, that they were prepared to pay liberally for services strenuously
rendered. By this system servants and sub-contractors worked for them with
all the zeal of friends, and by this system the tenantry of Middleton will
attain a degree of comfort and prosperity hitherto unknown, while the estate
they occupy will be largely increased in value.
It is most fortunate that, at a time when so much landed property is passing
into the hands of men of the class of which these gentlemen may be considered
the intellectual leaders, an example has been set, by them, of liberal and
judicious management.
For this reason we do not think these rough notes on Middleton will be
considered a useless digression.
* * * * *
DRAINS AND REPAIRS.--Instead of the ordinary system of bit-by-bit repairs and
instead of arrangements for the tenants to execute drains, as the first step
after the change of proprietorship, a complete survey was made of the defects
and of the value of all the holdings. On this survey the rents were fixed,
with the understanding that while no increase of rent would be imposed on a
good tenant, lazy slovenly farming would be forthwith taxed with an
additional ten per cent.
The landlords have themselves undertaken to execute a complete deep drainage
of the whole property at a cost of 20,000 pounds. For this they charge the
tenants five per cent. on the outlay per acre occupied. Farm buildings and
farm houses are being put in thorough repair, and tenants are expected so to
keep them.
In the course of these repairs farm houses were found in which the windows
were fixtures, not intended to open! While as to the farming, it is scarcely
possible to imagine anything more barbarous. It is not a corn-growing
district, and what corn is grown these weaver farmers, indifferent apparently
to loss of time, first lash against a board to get part of the grain out, and
then thrash the rest out of the straw!
Market garden cultivation, stall feeding, and root crops would answer well,
but at the time of the survey only two gardens were cultivated for the sale
of produce in the unlimited markets of Oldham, Rochdale, and Manchester; and
little feeding except of pigs.
Orchard trees are now supplied by the landlords, free of cost, to all willing
to take charge of them.
It will be very difficult to induce these people to change their old slovenly
style of farming, for their chief pride is in their weaving, which is
excellent, and many of them are in possession of properties held for two and
three generations without change. But the system of encouraging the good,
and getting rid of the lazy, will work a reformation in time, especially as
there are some very good examples on the estate. For instance, Benjamin
Johnson, who, paying the highest rent per acre, has creditably brought up ten
children on nine acres of land, without other employment.
Middleton is a district especially suited for small farms, so much so that it
has been determined to divide one or two of the larger ones.
Altogether it is a very primitive curious place, with several originals among
the tenantry, and some beautiful natural scenery, among whom a morning may be
spent with profit and pleasure.
With the town and building land an equally comprehensive system has been
adopted.
The defects of the existing buildings are to be cured as soon as, and in the
best manner, that circumstances will admit; while all new houses are to be
built and drained on a fixed plan, and all roadside cottages to have at least
a quarter of an acre of ground for a garden.
It will take some years to work out complete results; it is, however,
gratifying to see a landowner placing himself in the hands of competent
advisers, planning not for the profits of the hour, but for the future, for
the permanent health, happiness, and prosperity of all dwelling on his
property.
The pecuniary results promise to be highly satisfactory; it is already
evident that increased rents will be accompanied by increased prosperity, and
it is thought in the neighbourhood that in the next ten years, the property
will, from the judicious expenditure of 30,000 pounds, be worth at least
300,000 pounds.
So much for employing a scientific and practical agriculturist as land agent,
instead of a fashionable London attorney. {193}