into wells on Palm Sunday, or if they fail to do so they will break
their bottles on the following Easter Monday. The pins must be new and
straight, not crooked. I have talked to children who have done this,
and one of them, a girl about fourteen years old, said the children go
in great numbers on the afternoon of Palm Sunday to a well in Bradwell,
“behind Micklow.” She took me to the well herself in October, 1901. It
is divided into two parts by the boundary wall of a field, and is so
small that I should never have found it alone. The Bradwell children
used also to drop pins on this day into a well in Charlotte Lane, and
also into a pond between Bradwell and Brough. Mr. Robert Bradwell, of
Bradwell, aged 88, told me that on Palm Sunday “the children used to
put new pins into lady wells, and the lady of the well would not let
them have clean water unless they did that.” There is a lady well at
the back of the castle at Castleton, from which the children used to
fill their bottles at Easter, and there is another at Great Hucklow,
or Big Hucklow, as some call it, from which they filled their bottles.
Mr. Bradwell said the object of the children was “to get clean water
by the lady’s influence. They had to do what the lady required. It was
a fairy, or else an insect. On Easter Monday, a father or mother would
say to a child, ‘If tha’s put no new pin in, there’ll be no clean water
for thee.’” Mrs. Harriet Middleton, aged 83, once lost her slippers in
the snow when she was going to put a pin in the well near Micklow. She
and other young girls would have gone through snow or any weather to
put them in.
[Illustration: The Keep: Peverel Castle.]
[Illustration: Little Hucklow: Folk-Collector’s Summer House.]
At Castleton, Bradwell, and other places in the neighbourhood, Easter
Monday is known as Shakking Monday. At Bradwell the children get glass
bottles, such as medicine bottles, and fill them with water. They then
put in pieces of peppermint cakes of various colours, but generally
pink. These peppermint cakes are quite different from ordinary
peppermint lozenges. They are big things, two or three inches wide,
and are square or oblong in shape. The children break them up, put the
broken pieces into the bottles, shake the mixture, and drink it. Some
of the children tie the bottles round their necks. The sweetened water
lasts for many days, and they take a drink of it from time to time. At
Castleton and Aston the children put Spanish juice or “pink musks” into
the water.
They say at Bradwell that unless you wear something new on Easter
Sunday the birds will drop their excrement on you.
On Good Friday the lead-miners of Bradwell would on no account go into
the mines. They would do any other kind of work on that day.
Shrove Tuesday Custom
About Whaley, near Chapel-en-le-Frith, they used to bake pancakes
(which are eaten as soon as they are ready) on Pancake Day, _i.e._,
Shrove Tuesday. If a girl could not eat a pancake between the time when
the last pancake was done and a fresh pancake was ready, she was thrown
into a gooseberry bush or upon the ash midden. At Abney on this day
they called the one who was last in bed the “bed-churl” or “bed-churn,”
and they threw him or her on the ash-midden. It was a common thing in
the village to ask who had been the “bed-churl” that day.
Yule Loaf, Posset, and Candle
On Christmas Eve at Bradwell they have a large candle on the table and
a large bowl of posset, which is made of ale and milk. They all sit
round the table whilst the candle is burning, put their spoons into
the bowl, and sup from them. The grocers still give candles to their
regular customers for this purpose.
Mrs. George Middleton, of Smalldale, told me that the posset bowl used
on Christmas Eve in that hamlet is a pancheon or milk bowl. They sit
round the table, and put their spoons into the bowl. Any stranger who
happens to come in can also put his spoon in. Posset is made of milk,
which is warmed and spiced with nutmeg, ale being poured in until it
“breaks” or curds. The Yule loaf was baked all in one piece. It was
“like a round loaf put on the top of a four pound loaf.”
Robert Bradwell, of Bradwell, aged 88, said that the posset pot went
round the table from one to another. There was a bit of a figure on the
top of the Yule loaf to please the eye. The Yule candle was much longer
than an ordinary candle.
The last of the Cave-dwellers
Two old women, called Betty Blewit and Sall Waugh, lived in a hut
within the opening of the great cave at Castleton. It was one storey
high; it had a mud roof, and “a bit of a lead window in front.” The bed
was in one corner. These old women used to say that they “lived in a
house on which the sun never shone, or the rain ever fell.” They begged
of gentle people in the summer.[122] Writing of the cavern in 1720–31,
the Rev. Thomas Cox says: “Within the arch are several small buildings,
where the poorer sort of people inhabit, who are ready at all times
with lanterns and candles to attend such travellers as are curious to
enquire into these territories of Satan. These people resemble the
Troglydites, or cunicular men, who, as Dr. Brown describes them, lived
under the ground like rabbits.”[123]
[122] Information by Samuel Marrison, of Castleton, aged 88, in 1901.
[123] _Magna Britannia_ (Derbyshire), p. 442.
First Foot
At Castleton a dark-haired man “takes the New Year in” immediately
after twelve o’clock on New Year’s Eve. He must be a dark man, _i.e._,
“a man with a black head or black hair.” The parish clerk who had very
black hair took the New Year in to some houses in Castleton. When
the dark-haired man comes in “a glass of something good is given to
him.” I was told that young dark-haired lads “get a ruck o’ money” in
Castleton for taking the New Year in. Black or dark hair is obligatory
in the High Peak. Miss Barber, of Castleton, aged 76, said that the
black-haired man ought to be a stranger, and not a member of the family
visited. In Bradwell, as in Castleton, the New Year is brought in by a
dark-haired man.[124] The term “first foot” seems to be unknown in the
High Peak.
[124] Near Sheffield the man who brings the New Year in brings with him
a mince pie, a bit of coal, and something to drink, to cause good luck
to the house. At Bradwell they have what they call “lucky bags,” things
being put into them for good luck.
Curfew
At Castleton the curfew bell is known as the “curfer” bell, the accent
falling on the first syllable. It is said to have been rung as a
warning to people coming over the moors. It begins to ring on the 29th
of September, and ends on Shrove Tuesday. On the 29th of September it
rings at seven in the evening, and on the following nights at eight
o’clock. It does not ring on Sundays, or between Shrove Tuesday and
September 29th. Mr. Samuel Marrison, of Castleton, aged 88, said to
me that “people found their way across the hills by the sound of the
bells. There were no walls, and the sound of the bells was a guide.”
An old man in Castleton told me that “they ring curfer because a man
was lost on the hills. The parish clerk rings it on one bell.” I was
surprised to find how many people in Castleton knew the exact times at
which this bell is rung.
Good Times
In Bradwell they speak of “a good time as a wakes time.” One of the
lead-miner’s customary rules declared “that the bar-master, by the
consent of the jury, shall make a lawful dish between the buyers and
the sellers of lead ore; and against a good time (or festival) as
Christmas, Easter, and Whitsuntide, etc., shall give to the poor two
dishes, if need require.”[125]
[125] Hardy’s _Miner’s Guide_, Sheffield, 1748, p. 28.
Vows under the Shadow of a Hill
If lovers make vows to each other under the shadow of the castle hill
at Castleton, those vows must never be broken. If broken, their love
affairs will never prosper.
Thar-Cake Joinings
At Bradwell, on the fifth of November, they make a quantity of
thar-cake (in South Yorkshire called tharf-cake), and divide it among
the different members of the family, as the father, mother, brothers,
and sisters. This is called a thar-cake joining. One Bradwell man will
say to another, “Have you joined yet?” meaning “Have you made your
thar-cake?”
Another informant told me that a “thar-cake join” was a kind of
feast among children, and it used to be very common in Bradwell on
the fifth of November. The children asked somebody to make the cake,
and each of them paid his or her proportion towards the cost of the
ingredients—meal, treacle, etc. They had coffee, etc., with the
cake. The Primitive Methodists in Bradwell have now what they call a
“thar-cake supper.” It is held on the Saturday which is nearest to the
fifth of November.
Burial Customs
At Castleton burying cakes and warm ale were handed round at funerals.
Burying cakes, said one of my informants, were three-cornered, and
big enough to be carried under the arm. But another informant said
they were round, and seven or eight inches across. They cut them into
slices, and handed them round with warm ale.
At Castleton the funerals of poor people were known as “pay-buryings.”
The guests used to give something towards the expenses, and an old
woman with a white cap on used to sit in a chair in the corner, or in
an armchair by the fire, and receive the money.
At Bradwell an old farmer called Jacob Eyre was expected to attend all
funerals. A basket like a butter basket hung on one of his arms, and
with the other arm he used to “deal out” pieces of bread to children
standing round the door. Plenty of children gathered together at the
funerals for the sake of the bread. The pieces of bread were three or
four inches square, and they were either got from a bakehouse, or the
relatives made it themselves. The old man was “very complimentary” to
the children. He pleased them, joked, and made them laugh. What he said
was very pleasant and nice. It was a regular custom in Bradwell, but it
was not continued after Jacob Eyre’s death. He died many years ago.[126]
[126] Information by Robert Bradwell, of Bradwell, formerly a lead-mine
owner, aged 88, and given by him to me in 1901. Among the directions
which William Percy gave to his executors in 1344 was one which obliged
his executors, on peril of their souls, not to let a poor man depart
from his funeral without receiving a penny, or the equivalent of a
penny in bread.—_Testamenta Ebor._ (Surtees Society), i. p. 6.
Mrs. George Middleton, of Smalldale, widow, aged 45, said that her
mother used to dress coffins with flowers at Abney, where she lived.
But she did not put thyme on them, for she said “they had nothing to
do with time.” But she said that whenever one of the Twelve Oddfellows
at Bradwell dies, the survivors march before his coffin and sing, each
surviving oddfellow carrying a sprig of thyme in his hand, which he
drops on the coffin. Mrs. Middleton thought that one of their printed
rules provided for this being done, but I did not find it in them. Mrs.
Middleton said that her mother was present at all births and laying out
of corpses at Abney, not as part of her duty, but because she liked to
be there. “Funeral bread,” she said, “was made in a peculiar way.” Mrs.
Middleton said it was the custom at Abney to put thyme in a house after
a death and before the funeral, and also southern wood, old man, or
lad’s love, these being names for the same plant.
In Eyam there was a “custom of anointing deceased children with
May-dew.”[127]
[127] Bagshaw’s _History, Gazetteer, and Directory of Derbyshire_,
1846, p. 497.
Wakes
At Thornhill near Hope they have two barrels of ale at the wakes, and
they feast in a barn. They dance and sing.
Mr. Robert Bradwell, of Bradwell, aged 88, told me in 1901 that “every
day weakened the wake time. A few old women used to stand across the
road at Castleton at the end of the wake week with a rope to keep the
wakes in. There is only one road in Castleton—that leading from Hope.”
Mr. Bradwell said he had never seen a rope tied across the road to keep
the wakes in, and that it was a superstition by which they intended to
prolong the wakes. I put questions to many people in Castleton about
this, but found nobody who had heard of it.
At Bradwell wakes, which begin on the second Sunday in July, children
got their new clothes, and all sorts of cleaning and whitewashing were
done against that time. At Castleton also the children had new clothes,
and the houses were whitewashed. They “fettled and cleaned for the
wakes.”[128]
[128] Mrs. Johnston, of the Peak Hotel, Castleton, told me that at
Morley, near Leeds, any neighbour could come into a house on the Sunday
morning when the feast began and take a sop out of the pan. They walked
straight in and helped themselves. English wakes seem to correspond
to the festival of new fruits in other countries. On this subject see
Frazer, _Golden Bough_, ii., 326 _seq._
At Castleton on wakes even, _i.e._, on the Saturday night before the
feast begins, they pulled trees up in gardens, hung gates in trees, hid
the farmers’ carts, and took them anywhere.
Offerings to the Fairies
A Derbyshire man, aged about 55, said that his grandmother used to
tell him that if you made the hearth very tidy before you went to bed,
and put a little food on it, you would find the room swept and tidy
next morning. He remembers trying this experiment when a boy, and the
disappointment he felt when the desired result was not produced.
“Sweeping the Girl” on St. Valentine’s Day
“If the lass is not kissed, or does not get a visit from her
sweetheart on St. Valentine’s Day, she is said to be dusty, and the
villagers sweep her with a broom, or a wisp of straw. She is bound,
subsequently, to cast lots with other girls, and finally, if she has
good luck, draws the name of her future husband out of an old top
hat.”[129]
[129] From an article on “Superstitions in the Peak,” in the _Sheffield
Daily Telegraph_, 14th August, 1906. It was written by Mr. John
Pendleton, of Manchester, who has kindly allowed me to mention his name.
Mr. Pendleton tells me in a letter that the custom was observed on the
morning of St. Valentine’s Day in the middle of the last century.
JEDEDIAH STRUTT
By the Hon. Frederick Strutt
Jedediah Strutt, the second of three sons of William Strutt, a farmer
at South Normanton, Derbyshire, was born on July 26th, 1726. His mother
was Martha Statham, of Shottie, a hamlet in the parish of Duffield, at
which church she and William Strutt were married on February 11th, 1724.
Of his elder brother Joseph little is known, except that he went to
London, where he started in some commercial business, and that he
married a Miss Scott.[130]
[130] Joseph Strutt went to London early in life, and we believe
ultimately kept a shop there. He married in the year 1755 a Miss Scott,
and from this marriage the Strutts known as the Strutts of Tutbury
are descended. His two daughters married in succession Mr. Joseph
Chamberlain. From the second of these marriages is descended the Right
Hon. Joseph Chamberlain, late Secretary of State for the Colonies, etc.
Jedediah’s education can have been only that of a country school of
those days, though it is but fair to surmise that his father must have
been a man superior to the farmers and yeomen of his day, otherwise his
sons, Jedediah in particular, could not have been so successful in the
respective occupations of their after life.
Mr. Felkin[131] tells us that in very early years Jedediah’s thoughts
took an eminently practical turn, and that as a boy he occupied himself
in making toy water-mills on a small brook, in endeavouring even to
improve his father’s plough, and in other ingenious pastimes. The
writer of this memoir is unaware from what source Mr. Felkin obtained
his information as to the early tastes and occupations of Jedediah, but
as he (Mr. Felkin) was a friend of the first Lord Belper, the grandson
of Jedediah, the writer feels confident that nothing was inserted in
Mr. Felkin’s account that had not Lord Belper’s full knowledge and
approval.
[131] _A History of Machine-wrought Hosiery and Lace Manufacture_, by
W. Felkin, 1867.
It is at all events clear that at fourteen years of age Jedediah had
shown a greater taste for mechanics than for husbandry, for he was
then apprenticed by his father to a Mr. Ralph Massey, a wheelwright of
Findern, a village about five miles from Derby, and twenty miles from
his paternal home. It was to this apprenticeship, and to this life at
Findern, that Jedediah Strutt owed a great part of his success in after
life, and it is interesting to know that the document of the original
indenture, of which a _facsimile_ is given, is in the hands of and
prized by his great-grandson, the second Lord Belper.
At Findern, Jedediah was put to lodge with a family of the name
of Woollatt, who were what were called hosiers (_i.e._, hosiery
manufacturers in a small way); it was, as we shall see, from his
intimacy with this family that a great deal of his success in after
life emanated.
It may be presumed that William Strutt’s family were not members of
the Church of England, but belonged to the Presbyterian, or, as it was
called in later years, Unitarian persuasion. Whether that was so or
not, the Woollatts at all events belonged to that sect, and sat under a
Dr. Ebenezer Latham, who was a scholar of some repute, and had chapels
both at Findern and at Caldwell.
Jedediah Strutt, we know, served the full time of his apprenticeship at
Findern, and after that was in service or employment at Leicester, or
at Belgrave, near that town, for a period of about seven years.
[Illustration: Apprenticeship Indenture of Jedediah Strutt, 1740.]
It must have been about the year 1754, when he was twenty-eight
years of age, that an uncle, who was a farmer at Blackwell, the
parish next to South Normanton, died; he left his stock on the farm
to Jedediah, with the idea, we suppose, that he would succeed him as
tenant. This legacy seems to have been sufficient to induce Jedediah
to give up his employment, whatever it was, near Leicester, and return
to the land or to husbandry. It served also as a reason for thinking
he was in a position to marry. We find him, therefore, almost at once,
after settling at Blackwell, writing to Elizabeth Woollatt, with whom
he had been ever since his residence at Findern, now more than eight
years before, on terms of intimacy if not of affection. Miss Woollatt
had during that time been very little at home, but had been out in
service, and at the time of Jedediah’s proposal was acting as servant
or housekeeper to a Dr. Benson, an eminent Presbyterian divine in the
east of London, who had written several works on divinity, and who has
in more recent days been deemed worthy of a place in the _Dictionary of
National Biography_.
The characteristic letter containing Jedediah’s proposal to Elizabeth
Woollatt, which we are about to give, is a long one, but it is rather
typical of the writer, and is also worth inserting as a proof of how
well he, who was little above a working man in position, had managed to
educate himself.
“J. Strutt to Elizabeth Woollatt.
“Blackwell
“Feby 3^{rd} 1755
“Dear Betty,
“Since our first acquaintance, which is now many years ago, I have
often wrote to you but never in a strain like this; nor did I think I
ever should for though we were then more intimately acquainted than
since and though then I thought you had some degree of kindness for
me, yet as my conduct and behaviour to you has been such as could
neither raise nor continnue your regard, together with the years that
have passed since then, (for time often puts a period to love as well
as all other events) I did not think you could remember me with the
least pleasure or satisfaction but rather the contrary; but when I
was at London and had the opportunity of seeing you something or
other told me (though perhaps nothing more than the last glance of
your eye when I bade you farewell) that you looked on me with an eye
of tenderness nay, one is so apt to speak as they wish I had liked
to have said love; and if so that one generous instance of truth and
constancey has made a greater and more lasting impression on my mind
than all the united claims of beauty wit and fortune of your sex so
far as I have had opportunity of conversing, were ever able to make;
therefore it is upon this foundation I promise to tell you that from a
wandering inconstant and roving swain I am become entirely yours!
“I am ready to become all that you could wish me to be if you loved me
and which is all I wish your husband. But suppose I should have gone
too far in this declaration, and my fond observation prove a mistake,
how will you wish, nay rather how impossible would it then be for you
to wish even to call me by that tender name. But let me still suppose
it is not so.... Yet what argument can I use to induce you to leave
London with all the delights it affords, or how persuade you to leave
so good a master who I know values you and whom you both esteem and
love. Here I am at a loss and if you should be indifferent with regard
to me it will be impossible to say anything that will be sufficient.
And indeed I am not inclined to flatter nor to fill your imagination
with fine words only; and this is one of all the realities I can think
of, that it is not impossible but that you may be happy here even tho’
it is true you cannot behold the splendour and the gaiety of a great
city nor the noise and hurry of its inhabitants; yet the London air
is not half so sweet, nor the pleasures half so lasting and sincere.
Here inocense and health more frequently reside; here the beauties
of nature are ever presenting themselves both to our senses and
imaganations; here you may view the rising and the setting sun which
many in London are strangers to; here it is that you may have the
morning and the evening song of many warbling larks and linnets and as
Milton expresses it ‘The shrill matin song of birds on everry bough.’
As to myself fortune has not placed me among the number of the rich
and great and so not subjected me to the many temptations and follies
that attend great men some of which perhaps I should not have been
able to withstand, and others that I should have been loth to bear;
yet by the blessing of heaven I have more then enough for happiness,
and by that means at this season of the year I enjoy many leisure
hours (and all the blessings of leisure and retirement) some of which
I spend in reading and meditation, the rest I dedicate to love and you.
“But I shall forget myself and learn to do a thing I never loved that
is to write long letters, and yet methinks I have a thousand things to
say; but as I had rather you wished I had said more than less nay if
I could have told you all my heart in one word, I should not now have
troubled you with so many; but I have no apology to make, only my
sincerity, and if you read with candour and with the same simplicity
with which I write you will certainly find it sincere. I hope that
will recomment it to your kind reception and obtain if possible an
answer of kindness.
“I saw your brother as I passed through Derby but I did not take
him the books you desired me. I heard from my brother last week and
rejoyce to hear he has been abroad (i e out of the house).
“My father often talks of the Doctor and you and withall knows that I
love you, nay he himself loves you and will be glad to see you here;
and now if ever you had any kindness for me, if ever I did or said
anything to give you either delight or pleasure, let it not be in vain
that I now ask, nor torture me with silence and suspense; by so doing
you will lay the highest obligations on one who is in every sense of
the word
“Your sincere lover
“J Strutt.”
This proposal elicited the following equally characteristic reply:—
“Elizabeth Woollatt to Jedediah Strutt.
“addressed to
“M^r Jedediah Strutt at Blackwell
“to be left at the Bull Inn, Mansfield
“London Feby 15^{th}
“1755
“Yours of the third came safe, which I would have answered before
but had not presence of mind enough for some time to lay it before
my master; at length a favourable opportunity offering itself, my
resolution got the better of my fear, and, after a short introduction
gave him your letter which he said showed you to be a man of sense
and he thought of honour and honesty; but as to himself he was so
surprised, disconcerted and uneasy as I never saw him, and for some
time would say nothing more to me. At length he became able to talk
freely on that head, bid me consult my own happiness and not think
what he suffered. He then offered to make me independent, that so
after his death, I might live where I pleased, not at all intending
that as a dissuasive from accepting your generous offer, but as a
means to prevent my being influenced by any other motive than that
alone which is essential to the most lasting, most perfect happiness.
“Such, such is the behaviour of this god-like man; may he meet all the
reward that such beneficence deserves in both worlds.