HORSEFIELD'S PREDECESSORS AND COMPANIONS.[24]
Though I be hoar, I fare as doth a tree
That blosmeth ere the fruit y-woxen be;
The blosmy tree is neither drie ne ded;
I feel me nowhere hoar but on my hed;
Mine harte and all my limmès ben as green
As laurel through the year is for to seen.
CHAUCER.
A chapter may here be legitimately devoted to the men in whose
wake Horsefield and Crozier followed and to their own principal
companions. The history of these men is peculiar. It is not simply
that of individuals, but inseparably identified with that of the
botanical societies of South East Lancashire and the neighbourhood,
without question the most remarkable in England. Every man of course
has had his own private and personal history, but the energies and
activities of each have been so closely intermingled with those of his
companions that the history is essentially like that of a tree or a
corporate body,--not so much of many things as of an organic whole.
Many persons have never so much as heard of these societies, though
assembling almost at their very doors. While the learned and wealthy
have been holding brilliant _soirées_ and _conversazioni_ in lecture
halls and royal institutions, meetings have been going on among the
weavers and other craftsmen, quietly and unostentatiously, with aims
exactly similar, and success not inferior, and probably with tenfold
more enjoyment to the bulk of those attending them, because of its
simplicity and earnestness. Should the history of science in Lancashire
ever come to be written at length, it would be wanting in one of its
most interesting and important chapters were the proceedings of these
societies to be omitted, whether the members who composed them were
thought worthy of mention or not. The sketch we propose to give must
necessarily be brief, but it will serve to indicate what a large amount
of real, practical scientific knowledge exists among the workpeople of
our district, and how superior these men are to the mere herb-gatherers
or "yarb-doctors" with whom they have often been confounded, and who,
though useful in their way, constitute an entirely different class.
The study of botany by the operatives about Manchester, at least in a
precise and methodical manner, appears to date from the establishment
of the Linnæan system, which was one hundred years ago. Doubtless
the neighbourhood was already remarkable for its _love_ of plants,
since men do not jump at things like the Linnæan system unless they
have taste for them beforehand; but prior to the time of Linnæus, the
difficulties attendant on botany as a science were too great for it to
be anywhere a popular pastime. It was in Lancashire, without question,
in life and power, though not in determined fact. There is reason
to believe that botany, in some sort, was cultivated in Lancashire
as far back as the time of Ray, who described, in his "Synopsis,"
nearly four-fifths of the British plants, and frequently refers to
north-country botanists in connection with the localities of rare
species. They were probably the originals of those keen observers and
ardent cultivators whose succession has never yet intermitted. Ray's
work made its first appearance in 1670. What is meant by the "Linnæan
System" must be learnt from books devoted to its elucidation. It will
suffice to say of it here that it established a method of classifying
plants which gave it vantage, not only for successfully clearing the
ground of difficulties which were fast becoming insuperable to smaller
schemes and threatening the very existence of botany, but rendered
everything intelligible and delightful. No really practical system
had been devised previously to the time of Linnæus, and though his
classes and orders are now superseded by the grander and profounder
"Natural System," which it was Linnæus' own desire to arrive
at--acknowledging his sexual or "Artificial System" to be but temporary
and provisional,--when it appeared it may fairly be said to have made
that live which before was dead or dying, and to have been the true
inauguration of the science of botany.
The period referred to was, in round numbers then, fully one hundred
years ago. No records are extant as to what was actually done here at
that time, but the general fact that botany was ardently engaged in is
well established. Old Crowther, who was born in 1768, was accustomed,
when only nine years of age, to attend the meetings of a botanical
society at Eccles, numbering, on the average, forty members,--the first
society, in all likelihood, that was formed by the young Linnæans, and
the same, it may be concluded, as that which in 1790, or thereabouts,
had spread to Ashton, Oldham, Middleton, and many other places, holding
fixed monthly meetings at the several towns and villages in rotation,
and with which the proper "historical era" of botany in Manchester
may be said to commence. The business of the meetings was to compare
the floras of the several neighbourhoods, and to exchange plants and
information in general on subjects connected with botanical science.
A library of practical service was formed at a very early period. The
members subscribed, and bought among other books the "Systema Naturæ,"
and "Species Plantarum," of Linnæus; Withering's "British Plants,"
and Lee's "Introduction to Botany," exchanging the volumes with one
another on the days of meeting, and for several years everything went
on pleasantly and usefully. With the close of the century, however,
owing to infractions of the rules, the meetings were discontinued, and
the society was abruptly dissolved.
But death is everywhere the spring and herald of life. Though for a
time there was no regular society, meetings continued to be held in
a more private way, and, as generally happens after an interregnum,
new and better principles of management were introduced, resulting in
the formation of those numerous and excellent local societies which
started botany afresh, and several of the best of which are still
at work. The late venerable John Mellor, of Royton, near Oldham, is
generally considered to have laid the foundation of the new school.
Associated with him were the celebrated John Dewhurst, first president
of the collective meetings, and George Caley, well known to the
scientific as the botanist who accompanied Sir Joseph Banks to the
South Seas. The society which lays claim to primogeniture is that
at Middleton, or, at all events the Middleton _District_ Society.
Its former president, the late Mr. John Turner, possessed a letter
written from Australia in 1800, in which Caley warmly acknowledges
his obligations to the members, as having first given him a love for
plants. The Mottram Society is also of long date, having celebrated
forty-four anniversaries.[25] To make this matter of relative age
more intelligible, it may be observed that the local societies
group themselves into "districts," and that the name of a local
society is sometimes the same as that of a district society. For
instance, the Ashton-under-Lyne district takes in Ashton, Stalybridge,
Mottram, Glossop, Tintwistle, &c., and has both monthly meetings and
"bye-meetings;" the Rochdale district comprises Rochdale, Middleton,
Milnrow, Todmorden, Harpurhey, &c.; the Bredbury district includes
Stockport, Disley, Hatherlow, &c.; and so with the others. The
Prestwich local society, the nearest, and in many respects the most
interesting to Manchester, has been in existence thirty-eight years,
having been established September 11th, 1820. (Now, of course, extended
to sixty-two.)
Gradually, after this fresh start, the whole of the country lying
north-west, north, and north-east of Manchester became animated with
the love of botany; as far even as from Disley and Todmorden came the
echo of the new music; and under the successive presidentships (after
John Dewhurst's) of Edward Hobson, the great bryologist, then of John
Horsefield, and subsequently of James Percival, a man of extraordinary
information, both in accuracy and amount, the meetings have gone on
uninterruptedly and happily, and never were they more satisfactory
than at the present moment. The list for 1858, printed along with the
rules, announces twenty-six of the grand general gatherings, or a
meeting every fortnight, and fifteen different places of assembly. The
most successful meetings have been at Prestwich, Ashton-under-Lyne,
Blackley, Bury, Rochdale, Middleton, Oldham, Whitefield, Eccles,
Ringley, Radcliffe, and Harpurhey; and the best attended, the last
year or two, those held at Prestwich, Whitefield, and Bury. The
meetings, as at the beginning, are held upon the Sunday afternoon, at
some respectable tavern, such being the only place where working men
can assemble inexpensively; and though this may seem to some persons
detrimental to good order and sobriety, no religious service was ever
more decorously conducted. Working men can assemble at a tavern, and
not abuse it, quite as well as gentlemen; in either case, all depends
on the ideas they carry in with them. It is the peculiar characteristic
of intelligent delight in the objects of nature, that, with very rare
exceptions, it brings with it a moral and harmonising influence on the
heart, so that men who gather together as our Lancashire botanists do,
albeit in a public-house and on a Sunday, are the most likely of all
in their station of life, to conduct themselves in a manner becoming
intelligent beings. When the churchwardens or other peace-officers
think proper to walk in, as sometimes happens, they always express
themselves satisfied. Twice only, during upwards of seventy years, have
the meetings been interfered with by the authorities, and in neither
case has it been from disapproval of them, or because of misconduct
on the part of the members. The second occasion, which alone had
notoriety, fell in November, 1850, when the men had assembled, as often
before, at the "Ostrich," in Rooden Lane. The landlord of the house
had made himself obnoxious to the law, but in such a way, whatever it
was, that he could only be reached by the unfortunate botanists being
made the scape-goat.[26] The ale is not _forgotten_, nor would it be
wisely forgotten if it were. Water is good, but so, in their season,
are good wine and good ale. "My specimens," once said old Crowther,
in his quaint, quiet way, when nearly eighty years had silvered his
hair, his eyes twinkling as he spoke, "my specimens always look best
through a glass!" Capital botanical libraries are possessed by the
societies at Todmorden, Ashton, Oldham, Miles Platting, Prestwich,
and Boothstown. Several of the societies also possess herbariums. The
Prestwich collection, which fills nearly one hundred and sixty volumes,
contains a beautiful series of specimens prepared by the celebrated Mr.
Shepherd, once curator of the Liverpool Botanic Garden. Many of the
members further amuse themselves by cultivating curious plants, the
roots of which have been chiefly obtained by making excursions, for
the special purpose, into North Wales, the Lake district, and the more
romantic parts of Derbyshire and Yorkshire.
Once a year, on a Sunday fixed as near the height of the flower season
as possible, there is an extra grand meeting, when deputations from all
the societies in the neighbourhood make a point of attending. That of
1858 was held on the 11th of August at the "Golden Lion," Harpurhey,
twenty or thirty different societies being represented. The proceedings
were reported by the writer of these pages in the _Manchester Weekly
Times_ of the ensuing Saturday, the account, after some preliminary
observations, continuing as follows:--"The botanists began to assemble
soon after two o'clock, and at three, when the proceedings commenced,
there were present no fewer than two hundred and twelve, all, with the
exception of four or five, working men, and not more than the odd dozen
or so unconnected with one or other of the societies. It is a striking
and most pleasing fact, for the consideration of intelligent people,
that there should be in and about Manchester a body of naturalists
able to send two hundred zealous and well-informed representatives
to an annual meeting where the object of assembly was purely social.
Whatever else the cotton manufacturing districts may be in the eyes of
people at a distance, here, at least, is a characteristic that cannot
be disputed, and such as no other system or trade in the country has
tended either to develope or encourage. The meeting took place on the
large bowling-green behind the inn. At the lower extremity was placed a
table, some twenty yards long, and covered throughout its whole length
with specimens of flowers, mostly curious and uncommon, and about half
of which were British, with the addition of a few stove and greenhouse
plants, contributed by gentlemen's gardeners. After a little time spent
in conversation, the president, James Percival, was called to the
chair, from which he gave the names of about one hundred and fifty of
the most remarkable exhibits, first the Latin, and then the English,
often with some little remark upon their nature or place of growth. The
accuracy of his naming was not more remarkable than the correctness
of the pronunciation, showing how mistaken is the popular notion that
the Latin or scientific names of plants are harder to learn than the
English ones. Percival having concluded, his place was taken by John
Nowell, of Todmorden, who similarly named a quantity of mosses, and
when these were finished a box of beautiful ferns was opened by Mr.
Tom Stansfield, of the same town, and the contents disposed of in the
same manner. If any difference of opinion arose as to the correctness
of a name, the specimen was handed about for criticism, but it rarely
happened that either of the three spokesmen had made even so much as a
slip of the tongue. The plants having all been named and distributed,
some routine business was transacted, and the meeting, as to its formal
part, broke up, having lasted very nearly three hours. The remainder of
the evening was spent, like the commencement, in friendly chat. This
was in many respects quite as interesting as the regular business, the
opportunity being afforded for intimate converse with one after another
of two hundred as thoroughly good-hearted and intelligent men as ever
met together, full of anecdote of themselves and their companions,
never vainly putting forth their knowledge without call for it, but
never allowing the slightest error to pass unchallenged. No discussions
of learned doctors were ever more vigorous and entertaining than those
of our botanists on the green of the "Golden Lion." Among the chief
botanists present, in addition to those already mentioned, were George
Hulme, Prestwich; Edwin Clough and Henry Newton, Ashton-under-Lyne; Tom
Bleackley, Whitefield; John Shaw, Eccles; Isaac Ollerenshaw, Glossop;
John Darbyshire, Newton; William Bentley, Royton; James Devonport,
Droylsden; John Turner, Middleton; Richard Buxton, John Crowe, and John
Warburton, Manchester; William and James Horsefield, sons of John; Mr.
Isaac Williamson, of Stockport; and Mr. Lund, president of the Rochdale
Society. Mr. Edwin Waugh, Mr. Henry Robson, and several other visitors
from Manchester also attended."
Not the least pleasing feature of the meeting in question consisted
in the number of men in advanced years who were enjoying its
incidents,--fine specimens of youth carried along into mature
life,--that most admirable and noble condition of human nature, and
looking as if they were never going to be old. They showed how true it
is that spirit is youth, and that the want of spirit is age,--that life
measures not by birthdays, but by capacity for noble enjoyments, and
that he who would be a Man, must never forget to be a Boy. It avails
nothing for a man to live sixty or seventy years, unless he carry along
with him the freshness and cheerfulness of his youth, and nothing so
powerfully contributes to keeping the heart green, as simple and true
love of country pleasures and country productions. This is the true
old age, and that which we should set ourselves to attain. Our first
duty is to live as long as we can; and our chief wisdom, after the fear
of God, is to cultivate those tastes which make youth of spirit last
till birthdays come no more. The actual longevity both of naturalists
in general, and of many of the Lancashire men in particular, is a
fact of no mean significance. Crowther was seventy-nine when he died;
John Mellor, eighty-two; Elias Hall, the geologist, eighty-nine.
Timothy Harrop, of Middleton, with whose work, as a bird and animal
stuffer, the British Association were so well pleased when they visited
Manchester in 1842; and Josiah Nuttall, of Heywood, were also very
old men. Whether this longevity is to be attributed to the quiet and
temperate habits which the study of natural history almost invariably
induces, or to the continual out-door exercise inseparable from genuine
pursuit of it; or to the quickening of the intelligence and affections,
and the invigoration of the bodily health, which, by a beautiful law of
nature, always so gratefully ensues;--there is evidently a something
about natural history--other circumstances being equal--wonderfully
promotive of length of days. Men never step into the presence of
nature with affection and reverence, but they come back blessed and
strengthened with a reward.
Let us now look a little more closely at the individuals. The lives of
some of them are before the world,--told in those interesting, though
"short and simple annals," which have appeared in the local press from
time to time, such as the autobiography of John Horsefield, who died
March 6th, 1854, and the obituary notice of Crowther, which filled a
column and a half of the _Manchester Guardian_, of January 13th, 1847,
a week after his decease. Crowther was a Banksian, and one of the most
simple-hearted men that ever lived; willing to travel any distance,
and undergo any amount of fatigue, so that he secured his flower. As
one of his old companions remarked to me some years ago, "he was not
_learned_, but he was very _loving_." It is worthy also of record that
Crowther never touched his wages for purposes of botanical pleasure,
but took home every penny, and trusted to fortunate accidents for
the means of supplying his scientific wants. Of the indefatigable
and acute George Caley, who was born at Craven in 1770, and died May
23rd, 1829, there is a pleasing memoir in the "Magazine of Natural
History," vol. ii., p. 310; and vol. iii., p. 226. A similar memoir
of Edward Hobson, who died September 7th, 1830, may be seen in the
"Transactions of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society,"
vol. vi., 1842. Buxton's is prefixed to the "Guide," and several other
memoirs have since been given by Mr. Cash in his delightful little
book, "When there's a Will there's a Way." These appear to be the whole
of the memoirs of any length that have been printed, though there have
frequently been short notices when death has carried off another of
the band. It would be well were they reprinted in a collective form.
Unmarked though they are by stirring incidents, the lives of these men
are such as no person of feeling and intelligence, and sympathy with
pure, hearty, honest endeavour after knowledge and self-improvement,
can peruse without emotion. Science owes more to them than has ever
been confessed, and it is anything but honourable to public taste and
public morals, that while the lives of murderers and rascals of all
descriptions are read with avidity, and the minutest incidents of their
abominable careers demanded and fed upon, the lives of the modest,
unassuming votaries of science, both the dead and those who are yet
with us, are never so much as inquired for. They have their reward. If
it be not in the notoriety of a great criminal, it is in the perennial
enjoyment of the highest faculties of our nature, such as are brought
out only by loving conversance with the works of God.
Scarcely anything is recorded of the earlier Lancashire botanists.
Of John Dewhurst, mentioned as the first president of the restored
botanical society at the beginning of the present century, little more
is known than that he was a fustian-cutter by trade, and lived at Red
Bank. John Shaw, now of Eccles (since deceased), remembers seeing him
in his "pride of place" at the "Lord Nelson," at Ringley, where the
annual meeting was at that time accustomed to be held, the first Sunday
in May, Mr. S. being then a child, and this the first botanical meeting
he was present at. Dewhurst died in Salford, about 1820, at the age
of about seventy. He was of a good and well-to-do family, but in the
position of "poor relation." A kind friend of the Lancashire botanists
in those days,--Mr. Mitchell, of Bradford Hall,--gave Dewhurst and
Hobson a piece of ground adjoining his house for a botanic garden. In
this they were accustomed to deposit the roots of plants procured in
the course of their rambles, going up every Monday morning for the
purpose. It happened at that time that there were great operatives'
political meetings. One day, in 1812, it came to Mr. Mitchell's ears
that the two botanists were engaged to attend one of them, and at the
same moment he had private information that the magistrates intended
to disperse it, and send the leaders to prison,--Hobson being one of
the marked, and certain to be apprehended. Luckily for all parties,
the meeting was appointed for the very day when the two botanists
were accustomed to visit their garden. Up they went as usual, early
in the morning, from which time till late in the afternoon their host
contrived, probably without much difficulty, to keep them engaged
with liquid refreshment, and thus saved Hobson at all events from
imprisonment. As the two men journeyed homewards, they met the soldiers
and their captives on the way to gaol. One of Dewhurst's intimate
associates was old William Evans, of Tyldesley, now long deceased, a
friend from boyhood of Dr. Hull, Dr. Tomlinson, and Dr. Withering, and
companion also of George Caley. "He was always after botany," says
a letter respecting him, "and travelled many thousands of miles in
quest of plants." That excellent botanist and worthy old man, Joseph
Evans, of Boothstown, to whom we have had occasion to express our
acknowledgments in the "Manchester Flora," is son of the renowned
William. Born in 1803, the lad, when only ten years of age, used to
be taken to the meetings, walking, of course, every inch of the way,
both there and back. He was also his father's constant companion in the
fields. Ah, how much is imbibed under such kindly teaching, and how
much more than we actually learn is excited and animated! It is not
so much what a man, even one's own father, tells us, tutor-fashion,
that does the good for one's entire life-time, as what he _inspires_
us with. The man, or the woman either, upon whom we look back as
having supplied the aurora of our mental day, when we think it out
carefully, is he or she who taught us not so much how to write and cast
accounts, as how to see and to feel--to see the wild-flowers, and the
snow-crystals, and the darting dragon-flies in their beautiful blue
corselets,--to listen to the hum of the busy bees and the songs of the
birds, and to feel that "he prayeth best who loveth best all things
both great and small." Evans was taught, when no more than ten years
old, how to contemplate the immortal beauty of nature. Like his father
before him, he had very little book-learning, but he fed abundantly on
the best and truest source of all great and worthy ideas. A vigorous
frame and an admirable constitution enabled him to undertake journeys
on foot that to many would be positively affrighting. He knew the
contents of every wood and pond within twenty miles of his home, the
results of his long rambles plainly declared in the trim little garden
adjoining his cottage. The number of plants we once counted in it, all
curious, exceeded three hundred. Evans died June 23rd, 1874, and was
followed to his grave in Worsley churchyard by more than a thousand
people, including a hundred and seventy young children. For of the
little folk, especially girls, he was always immensely fond;--they
went to the churchyard more of their own accord than because led. His
sympathy with them was the sweetest of all sympathies--the sympathy of
tenderness and simplicity; no wonder that many of them carried little
chaplets of midsummer field flowers. We often hear of magnificent
funerals--chariots and plumes; they may not, after all, be such as we
should so well care to be the pattern of our own. The cottage itself
wherein he resided was clean and bright as a sea-shell just washed by
the waves. If the love of the clear purity of wild-flowers kept alive
in old Evans the love of one thing more than another, it would seem
to have been that of a home absolutely spotless, still maintained, we
believe, by one who always reminds us of a rose in the snow. In figure
Joseph Evans was tall and thin, a lofty forehead conferring a dignity
upon his appearance which invariably attracted strangers. Never was
this more observable than at a natural history meeting once at the
Manchester Athenæum.[27]
No botanist contemporary with the elder Evans attained greater
celebrity than John Martin, of Tyldesley. He was especially
well-informed respecting Carices, and first drew the attention of
the botanists of Manchester to the richness of the neighbourhood,
supplying, in regard to them, names and localities they knew not of, as
well as many facts respecting the botany of Tyldesley in particular,
with which he has never been properly accredited. This eminent veteran
was among us till so late as August 13th, 1855.
The mantle of these old men has fallen well. Very few of the botanists
mentioned above are still alive--I am glad to be able to add to
the short list the name of Richard Hampson, of Tyldesley; but they
have plenty of successors, and never more energetically than at the
present moment was natural history pursued as a pastime in South East
Lancashire.
The peculiarities of the original race are fast disappearing, a
circumstance plainly attributable to the facilities of travel given by
the railway system, to the multiplication of books, and to the more
general diffusion of knowledge. At the period when the celebrity of the
old Lancashire botanists was established, say during the first quarter
of the present century, they lived in comparative isolation. Now the
isolation alike of abode and opportunities has been cancelled, and as a
consequence the class of men who as individuals, somewhat conspicuous
in their way, gave it colour, have slowly disappeared. The ancient
spirit, nevertheless, is as keen as ever, and the love of botany
in particular is quite as honourably and intelligently represented
as at any preceding time. If we can no longer single out men very
particularly remarkable, it is because the estates of the patriarchs
have been divided, as it were, among whole troops of worthy descendants.
[Illustration]
Footnotes
[24: The following pages were originally printed in the
_Manchester Weekly Times_ of July 10th, 1858. It gave me great pleasure
to see that the article was made the subject of comment and lengthy
extract in _Chambers's Journal_ of the following October 16th, a
recognition of the general interest of the matter dealt with that seems
to me quite to justify a reprint almost _verbatim_, with corrections
that bring it up to the present date.]
[25: _i.e._ up to 1858.]
[26: See the account of the conviction in the _Manchester
Guardian_, of November 30th, 1850.]
[27: For further particulars respecting old Joseph Evans, see
the _Gardeners' Chronicle_ for November 14th, 1874, from which we have
transcribed, being our own words, a small portion of the above.]
[Illustration]