PROGRESS IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.
The general appearance of the chief Lancashire towns in the early part
of the eighteenth century has been graphically described by a lady who
rode through England on horseback;[223] and from this source we take
our descriptions of Manchester, Liverpool, Lancaster, Wigan, Preston,
and Rochdale.
Manchester consisted of not very lofty, but substantially built houses,
mostly of brick and stone, the older houses being of wood; from the
churchyard you could see the whole of the town. The market-place was
large, and took up the length of two streets, when it was kept for the
sale of the "linnen-cloth and cottontickens," which were the chief
manufactures of the place.
Liverpool was also mostly of brick and stone, but the houses were "high
and even that a streete quite through looked very handsome"; in fact,
the fair equestrienne describes it as "London in miniature," and was
much struck with its Exchange, standing on eight pillars, and over it
"a very handsome Town-hall," from the tower of which you could see the
whole country round. Lancaster was "old and much decayed," and some
of the carved stones and figures belonging to the dissolved priory
were still to be seen. The town was not much given to trade, though
within it various trades were carried on; some of the streets were
"well pitch'd and of good size." Preston was a very good market-town,
leather, corn, coals, butter, cheese, and garden produce being exposed
for sale. At the entrance to the town was a lawyer's house, all of
stone, with fine windows in the front, and "high built, according
to ye eastern buildings near London; on each side of it were neatly
kept gardens. There were in some parts of the town some more of these
handsome houses, and the streets were spacious and well pitch'd."
Wigan is described as another "pretty market town, built of stone and
brick," and as being the place where the "fine channell coales" are in
perfection, and the writer adds, "Set the coales together with some
fire, and it shall give a snap and burn up light." The Wigan people at
this time were in the habit of making salt-cellars, stand-dishes, and
small boxes out of cannel, and these were sent to London as curiosities.
Rochdale is described as a "pretty neate towne, built all of stone."
The ride over Blackstone Edge is well described; the author mentions it
as "noted all over England," and, after referring to the ascent from
the Yorkshire side, says, "Here I entred Lancashire; the mist began
to lessen, and as I descended on this side ye fogg more and more went
off, and a little raine fell, though at a little distance in our view
the sun shone on ye vale, wᶜʰ indeed is of a large extent here, and ye
advantage of soe high a hill, wᶜʰ is at least 2 mile up, discovers the
grounds beneath as a fruitfull valley full of inclosures and cut hedges
and trees. That wᶜʰ adds to the formidableness of Blackstone Edge is
that on ye one hand you have a vast precipice almost the whole way
one ascends and descends, and in some places ye precipice is on either
hand."
Of the state of the roads in Lancashire this writer has somewhat to
say; her ride from Wigan to Preston, though only twelve miles, took
her four hours; and she adds, "I could have gone 20 miles in most
countrys" in the same time; but she found one good thing in the county
roads, which was, that at cross-roads there were posts with "hands
pointing to each road, wᵗʰ ye names of ye great towns on." Daniel
Defoe, passing over Blackstone Edge in 1724, complains that the road
was "very frightful narrow and deep, with a hollow precipice on the
right," and that after he had gone a short distance this hollow got
deeper and deeper, and, though they led the horses, they found it "very
troublesome and dangerous." Yet this was the direct and only road to
Yorkshire from the Rochdale valley. The turnpike system,[224] before
the advent of the nineteenth century, had not been adopted in any part
of Lancashire, but, with the commencement of the new industries and
commercial enterprises of the period, it soon became apparent that the
old "pack and prime"[225] ways were no longer adequate to carry on
the business which had now to be done. Some of these old roads were
little better than footpaths, which the repeated tread of long strings
of pack-horses had worn deep into the soil, so that in rainy weather
they served at once as roads and water-courses, and these were often
crossed by rivers, which at flood-times were both deep and rapid, and a
constant source of danger to travellers and their goods.
In 1753 all the roads in the county were infested with highway
robbers, and to guard against them travellers went in groups. Thus,
every Tuesday a gang of horsemen set off from London, and arrived at
Liverpool on the Monday following. Goods were carried on stage-waggons,
and were usually from ten days to a fortnight in coming to Lancashire
from the Metropolis.
As late as 1770 Arthur Young passed along the road for Preston and
Wigan, and thus refers to it: "I know not in the whole range of
language terms sufficiently expressive to describe the infernal
highway. Let me most seriously caution all travellers who may
accidentally propose to travel this terrible country to avoid it as
they would the devil, for a thousand to one but they break their necks
or their limbs by overthrows or breakings down. They will here meet
with ruts which I actually measured four feet deep and floating with
mud only from a wet summer! What must it, therefore, be in winter!"
The earliest Turnpike Act was passed in 1663, and referred to the great
north road through the counties of Hertford, Cambridge, and Huntingdon,
and near the end of the century similar Acts were adopted for other
districts, but none of them applied to Lancashire. Of the main roads
through Lancashire at this period we have little information, but there
was one from Chester which passed through Warrington, Manchester,
Rochdale, and over Blackstone Edge to York; another from Manchester
to Buxton and on to London; and a third from Lancaster to Skipton
in Yorkshire. There was also one from Warrington, through Wigan,
Preston, and Lancaster, to Kendal. Of course there were several other
cross-roads, but these were the main trunks. The great Northern centre
of these roads was Chester; between there and Liverpool was all but
impassable at this time with anything like a waggon.
The first Turnpike Act for Lancashire was passed in 1724, and
applied to the road from Buxton to Manchester, which is described
as the nearest road from London to Manchester. Other districts soon
followed this example, and Acts were obtained for turnpiking the road
from Liverpool to Prescot in 1725; Wigan to Warrington and Preston
in 1726; Rochdale to Elland (over Blackstone Edge) in 1734;[226]
Preston to Lancaster, 1750; Salford to Warrington and Bolton, 1752;
Rochdale to Burnley, 1754; Manchester to Rochdale, 1754; Liverpool to
Preston, 1771; Clitheroe to Blackburn, 1776; Bury, and Haslingden to
Blackburn, 1789; Rochdale to Edenfield, 1794; Rochdale to Bury, 1797;
and other lines of route. So that before the century closed the county
was intersected[227] in all directions by turnpike roads, which were
maintained and formed under the regulations of their several Acts,
and no longer dependent upon the uncertain measure of repair formerly
reluctantly furnished by the local rates, which had often to be paid
by those who used the road the least. Some of the preambles to these
local Turnpike Acts furnish curious particulars as to the then state
of the roads. For example, in 1750 the road from Crosford Bridge (near
Sale), which passed through Stretford and Hulme to Manchester, is
described as being "a common High road and part of the Post road from
London to Manchester; and by reason of the nature of the soil and the
many and heavy carriages passing the same, the said road is become so
exceedingly deep and ruinous that in the winter season and frequently
in summer it is very difficult and dangerous to pass through the
greatest part thereof with waggons, carts, and other wheel carriages;
and travellers cannot pass without danger and loss of time. And whereas
some part of the said road lying next to Crosford Bridge is many times
overflowed with water and impassable; whereby the Post is delayed, and
severall persons in attempting to pass through the same have lost their
lives."
Towards the end of the century many parts of the old roads were
abandoned, and shorter routes adopted, thus materially contributing
to that ready access between town and town and the county with the
Metropolis which was now becoming an absolute necessity. In places
where the Turnpike Act had not been adopted it was now often found
necessary to enforce the law as to repairs by indicting the parish at
quarter sessions, where the justices ordered a fixed sum to be paid,
which had to be levied by rates. The vast improvements made in the
highways led to a very rapid development of the stage-coaches and
stage-waggons.
An adventurous Manchester man advertised in 1754 that his flying coach,
"however incredible it may appear, will actually (barring accidents)
arrive in London in four days and a half after leaving Manchester."
In 1756 the "Flying Stage" coach left Warrington on Mondays, and got
to London on Wednesdays, the inside fare being two guineas, with an
allowance of fourteen pounds of luggage.
It was not until 1760 that a stage-coach began to run between Liverpool
and London direct.
Between Manchester and Liverpool a stage-coach was established in 1770,
which ran twice a week.
But along with the improvement of roads other schemes were being
developed which ultimately led to the formation of the navigable canals
which now intersect the county. The first of these is the one known as
the Bridgewater Canal, which was commenced in 1758, when the Duke of
Bridgewater obtained power to construct a water way from Worsley to
Salford and to Hollinfare (or Hollin Ferry), on the river Irwell, and
also to carry his canal across that river through Stretford into the
town of Manchester. This work, which was then considered a masterpiece
of engineering, was carried out under the direction of James Brindley.
In addition to the aqueduct over the river, which is upwards of 200
yards long, there were other difficulties to be overcome, amongst them
a tunnel of three-quarters of a mile in length. The bridge over the
Irwell consists of three arches, the centre one 63 feet wide and 38
feet high, thus admitting barges to go through with masts standing,
and, as Baines put it (writing in 1836), affording the spectator the
"extraordinary sight, never before witnessed in this country, of one
vessel sailing over the top of another." In 1761 a much bolder scheme
was commenced by the Duke, which, when completed, formed a canal nearly
30 miles long, from Stretford to Runcorn on the Mersey. This took
five years to construct, and it had the effect of at once lessening
the cost of carriage by water between Manchester and Liverpool by at
least fifty per cent. But this first Lancashire canal was not used
only for the conveyance of goods; boats on the model of the Dutch
_trekschuyt_ were used daily to take passengers from Manchester to the
places on the line of route. A branch from Worsley to Leigh was cut
in 1795. Before the establishment of canals powers had been obtained
in 1720 to render navigable the Irwell and Mersey from Liverpool to
Manchester, and in 1726 the river Douglas (_alias_ Asland), from
Wigan to the Mersey. These river improvements were made at great
cost, and at the best were not found to work in a very satisfactory
manner, and were soon superseded by the ordinary canals. One of the
first Lancashire canals was the Leeds and Liverpool, which was begun
in 1770, when it was considered one of the boldest schemes which had
ever been undertaken in England. Its length from Leeds to Liverpool
is 107 miles. Dr. Aiken, writing near the close of the century, says
of this canal: "On a cursory survey, the tract of country through
which it passes will probably appear not extremely inviting to such an
undertaking. It is but lightly peopled, and though the great towns at
the opposite extremities abound in objects of commercial importance,
yet their connection with each other is not very intimate, nor does it
seem likely to be much promoted by such a circuitous communication.
Coal and limestone are the chief natural products of the intermediate
country; and as the districts abounding in the one often want the
other, a considerable transport of these articles on the canal may be
expected, as well as other useful kinds of stone found in quarries near
its course."
After the American War, which ended in 1783, Manchester showed great
activity in pushing forward various schemes for the extension of the
water-communication with the surrounding districts. Amongst the canals
made before the end of the century were those to Bolton and Bury,
Ashton-under-Lyne and Oldham; Manchester to Rochdale and Yorkshire;
Kendal to Lancaster, Garstang, Preston, and West Houghton. On the
latter packet boats conveying passengers to Preston went daily for many
years.
The only place in the county where the maritime trade was increasing
was Liverpool, where in the last decade of the century some 4,500
vessels arrived annually, their tonnage being about one-fifth that of
the ships which reached London each year. The chief trade was with
Africa and the West Indies, at least one-fourth of the Liverpool
vessels being employed in the slave trade. From Lancaster, before the
stagnation of trade set in, about forty-seven vessels were trading with
foreign ports, their chief cargoes being mahogany furniture and goods
made in Manchester and Glasgow. The Ribble was not much used by boats
of any considerable burden.
To the cotton trade and all its developments must we look for the vast
increase in the commercial prosperity of Lancashire which so strongly
marked the last fifty years of the eighteenth century. The first
invention which led to the present mode of spinning wool was the patent
taken out in 1738 by Lewis Paul,[228] of Birmingham, for spinning of
wool or cotton by machinery. The preamble to this grant sets forth that
the machine was "capable of being set so as instantaneously to spin
wool, cotton waste and wick-yarn to any degree, size, or twist with the
greatest exactness, and is to be worked without handling or fingering
the matter to be wrought, after the same be once placed in the machine,
and requires so little skill that anyone, after a few minutes'
teaching, will be capable of spinning therewith; and even children of
five or six years of age may spin with the same, by which means the
poorest of the clothiers will be enabled to supply their customers
without suffering under the encumbrance of a dead stock of yarn, and
the weavers may be supplied with such yarn as they shall want for their
several occasions without that loss of time which often happens to
them."
The principle of this and a later patent taken out by Paul covered the
invention of what is technically known as roller-spinning, but which
required further improvement before it could be profitably used. John
Kay, a native of Walmersly, near Bury, where he was born July 16, 1704,
was the undoubted inventor of the fly-shuttle which was patented in
1733, and of several other important machines connected with the trade.
His melancholy history cannot here be repeated, but his life was one
long struggle against ignorance and ingratitude. The people who were
most to be benefited by his invention broke up his machines and drove
him homeless to France. His appeal to Government was in vain, and even
those who adopted the fly-shuttle refused to pay for its use. He died
an exile from his country in obscurity and poverty.
Let us take a glance at the daily work carried on by the cottagers
and small farmers in Lancashire at the time when Kay made known his
great invention. Samuel Bamford, of Middleton, who was well able to
give testimony on this subject, writes: "The farming was generally
of that kind which was soonest and most easily performed, and it was
done by the husband and other males of the family, whilst the wife and
daughters and maid-servants, if there were any of the latter, attended
to the churning, cheese-making, and household work; and when that was
finished, they busied themselves in carding, slubbing and spinning
wool or cotton, as well as forming it into warps for the looms. The
husband and sons would next, at times when farm labour did not call
them abroad, size the warp, dry it, and beam it in the loom, and
either they or the females, whichever happened to be least employed,
would weave the warp down. A farmer would generally have three or
four looms in his house, and then--what with the farming, easily and
leisurely though it was performed, what with the house-work, and what
with the carding, spinning and weaving--there was ample employment for
the family. If the rent was raised from the farm, so much the better;
if not, the deficiency was made up from the manufacturing profits."
William Radcliffe, himself an improver of the power loom, gives another
account of the life of the hand loom weaver. In 1770, he says, "the
land [in Mellor, near Manchester] was occupied by between fifty and
sixty farmers ... and out of these there were only six or seven who
raised their rents directly from the produce of the farms; all the
rest got their rents partly in some branch of trade, such as spinning
and weaving woollen, linen or cotton. The cottagers were employed
entirely in this manner, except for a few weeks in harvest. Being one
of those cottagers, and intimately acquainted with all the rest, as
well as every farmer, I am better able to relate particularly how the
change from the old system of hand labour to the new one of machinery
operated in raising the price of land. Cottage rents at that time,
with convenient loom-shop and a small garden attached, were from one
and a half to two guineas per annum. The father would earn from 8s. to
half a guinea, and his sons, if he had one, two, or three alongside of
him, 6s. or 8s. a week; but the great sheet-anchor of all cottagers
and small farms was the labour attached to the hand-wheel; and when it
is considered that it required six or eight hands to prepare and spin
yarn, of any of the three materials I have mentioned, sufficient for
the consumption of one weaver, this shows clearly the inexhaustible
source there was for labour for every person, from the age of seven to
eighty years (who retained their sight and could move their hands), to
earn their bread, say from 1s. to 3s. per week, without going to the
parish."
A weaver at this date had frequently to walk many miles to collect from
various spinners the quantity of weft required to keep his hand-loom
going, but the invention of the fly-shuttle made matters no better
for him, as, although he could now turn out with the same labour as
heretofore double the amount of pieces, he found no material increase
in the product of the spinning-wheel. Here, then, was a block, to
get over which there was only one way, and that was a corresponding
increase in the production of the weft.
Many attempts were made to bring the old spinning-wheel up to the
requirements of the day, but not one of them proved efficacious.
It may be noted here _en passant_ that, whilst most of the patents
taken out at this period were intended to improve the processes in
cotton manufacture, Kay's fly-shuttle was first applied in the weaving
of woollen, but was afterwards made adaptable for cotton. Another great
improvement was what was known as the "drop box," which was invented by
Robert Kay (a son of John Kay) in 1769.
This difficulty in keeping the woollen and cotton looms at work was
brought before the Society of Arts in 1763, when its members, fully
recognising the importance of the crisis, offered a prize of £50 for
"the best invention of a machine that would spin six threads of wool,
flax, hemp or cotton at one time, and require but one person to work
and attend to it." This incentive caused many model spinning-wheels to
be submitted for approval, none of which furnished what was required.
The solution of the difficulty was reserved for James Hargreaves, a
weaver of Stanhill, near Blackburn, a town which had then about 5,000
inhabitants, many of whom were employed in making a kind of cloth
known as "Blackburn gray." Hargreaves for several years was engaged
in making improvements in the carding machines, which displaced the
hand-cards then in use for clearing and straightening the cotton fibres
preparatory to their being spun; but in 1765 he turned his attention
to the mechanical operation for spinning yarn, and having matured his
ideas, he had a machine secretly made in his house, where he afterwards
used it to great advantage. The machine was subsequently called the
spinning-jenny, and did for the spinner even more than the fly-shuttle
did for the weaver. Several of these machines were soon privately sold
to some of his neighbours, who were not slow to discover the immense
advantages which they furnished. Of course, an invention like this
could not long be kept secret, and when it became known that here was
a machine by which one spinner, instead of working with one thread,
could, with equal ease, work with sixteen or even twenty threads,
and that henceforth much of the female labour at the spinning-wheel
would no longer be wanted, the unreasoning and ignorant populace began
to rise against it and its inventor. The result was that, on a fixed
day, weavers from Darwen, Mellor, Tockholes and Oswaldtwistle met in
Blackburn (where their numbers were greatly augmented), and from thence
made their way to Hargreaves' house; but not finding the inventor at
home, they broke to pieces the spinning-jenny, and totally destroyed
the household goods and furniture. They then proceeded to a mill of
Robert Peel's, where the jenny was used, and reduced the place to
ruins. After this, Hargreaves fled to Nottingham, and in 1770 took out
his first patent for the machine which may almost be said to be the
foundation of the cotton trade.
Like most other great inventors, Hargreaves did not make much money
from his invention; but after a vain attempt to protect his patent,
he settled down at Nottingham, and, in partnership with Thomas James,
a joiner of the town, erected a small building which they ultimately
used as a cotton factory, and which is believed to have been the first
cotton mill in the world;[229] it was originally 40 feet long and 20
wide, and consisted of three stories. Hargreaves died at Nottingham in
the spring of 1778.[230]
Notwithstanding the working-man's opposition to the spinning-jenny,
before 1771 it had been adopted by nearly every spinner in Lancashire.
Riots against the "jenny" continued, however, for a time to break out
in the neighbourhood of Blackburn for several years after Hargreaves'
death.
Another Lancashire inventor was Richard Arkwright, a barber, who was
born at Preston, December 23, 1732, and was said to have been the
youngest of thirteen children. About the year 1750 he, having married
a daughter of Robert Holt, of Bolton, removed to that town, where, in
1769, he so far improved upon the invention of Lewis Paul (see p. 261)
for spinning cotton by rollers, as to make it not only practicable but
profitable, and thus at once opened a new era in cotton manufacture.
Taking warning from the treatment which Hargreaves had received, he
removed to Nottingham, where he had a small mill worked by horses,
which was subsequently abandoned and a new factory built at Cromford,
in Derbyshire, where the river Derwent supplied the water-power. The
dispute and connection between Kay and Arkwright need not here be
detailed.[231] Arkwright was also the inventor of other mechanical
improvements in the manufacture of cotton.
Amongst other mills built by Arkwright was one at Chorley, and this
was one of those selected for destruction by the mobs in 1779, of
the doings of which the _Annual Register_ for October 9 in that year
records: "During the week, several mobs have assembled in different
parts of the neighbourhood, and have done much mischief by destroying
engines for carding and spinning cotton wool (without which the trade
of this country could never be carried on to any great extent). In
the neighbourhood of Chorley the mob destroyed and burned the engines
and buildings erected by Mr. Arkwright at a very great expense. Two
thousand or upwards attacked a large building near the same place on
Sunday, from which they were repulsed, two rioters killed, and eight
wounded taken prisoners. They returned strongly reinforced on Monday,
and destroyed a great number of buildings, with a vast quantity of
machines for spinning cotton, etc. Sir George Saville arrived (with
three companies of the York Militia) whilst the buildings were in
flames. The report of their intention to destroy the works in this
town--Manchester--brought him here yesterday noon.
"At one o'clock this morning two expresses arrived--one from Wigan and
another from Blackburn--entreating immediate assistance, both declaring
the violence of the insurgents, and the shocking depredations yesterday
at Bolton. It is thought they will be at Blackburn this morning, and
at Preston by four this afternoon. Sir George ordered the drums to
beat to arms at half after one, when he consulted with the military
and magistrates in town, and set off at the head of three companies
soon after two o'clock for Chorley, that being centrical to this
place, Blackburn and Wigan. Captain Brown, of the 24th Regiment, with
70 invalids--pensioners, presumably--and Captain Thorburn, of Colonel
White's Regiment, with about 100 recruits, remained at Preston; and for
its further security, Sir George Saville offered the justices to arm
300 of the respectable house-keepers, if they would turn out to defend
the town, which was immediately accepted. In consequence of these
proceedings, the mob did not think it prudent to proceed to any further
violence."
These riots, which were pretty general in the district where machinery
was used, arose from a temporary depression of trade, which the
spinners mistook for the effects of the introduction of the recent
inventions.
At Bolton £10,000 worth of mill property was destroyed. This dread of
machinery was not entirely confined to the operatives, for some of the
middle and upper classes connived at these appeals to brute force, if
they did not actually encourage them.[232] Arkwright for many years
suffered from attempts to infringe upon his patents, and his name often
appeared in the law courts as plaintiff or defendant; but the details
are of too complicated and technical a character to find a place in
these pages, beyond stating that, notwithstanding that in 1785 his
patents were declared by the Court of King's Bench to be null and void,
he amassed a large fortune, in the year following was knighted, and in
1787 was made High Sheriff of Derbyshire. He died on August 3, 1792,
leaving property estimated at half a million sterling.
One other of the pioneers of the Lancashire staple trade remains
to be noticed. Samuel Crompton was the son of a farmer living at
Firwood, near Bolton, where he was born on December 3, 1753. Soon
after the birth of his son, the elder Crompton removed to a house near
Bolton, known as "Hall-in-the-Wood," which has since become famous
as the birthplace of the "mule," which was to enable the spinner to
produce a yarn out of which delicate fabrics could be woven such as
heretofore had defied the skill of the English manufacturer. Crompton
is said to have been five years in bringing his cherished scheme to
perfection, during which time he worked secretly at his machine, and
often prolonged his labour far into the night. In the memorable year
when the rioters were busy destroying all the spinning-jennies they
could find, Crompton completed his model, and, to hide it from the
sight of doubtful visitors, he contrived to cut a hole through the
ceiling of the room where he worked as well as a corresponding part of
the clay floor of the room above, and had thus always ready a place
in which he could hide the evidence of his patient industry. Part of
Crompton's model had been in a measure anticipated by Arkwright; but
"the great and important invention of Crompton was his spindle-carriage
and the principle of the thread having no strain upon it until it was
completed. The carriage with the spindles could, by a movement of the
hand and knee, recede just as the rollers delivered out the elongated
thread in a soft state, so that it would allow of a considerable
stretch before the thread had to encounter the stress of winding
on the spindle. This was the corner-stone of the merits of his
invention."[233]
Crompton's "mule" was at once a success; but instead of securing
himself by a patent, he vainly endeavoured to work with it in secret,
but was at length reduced, he tells us, "to the cruel necessity
either of destroying my machine altogether or giving it to the
public. To destroy it I could not think of; to give up that for which
I had laboured so long was cruel. I had no patent, nor the means
of purchasing one. In preference to destroying I gave it to the
public." In taking this step he was acting under the advice of a large
manufacturer of Bolton, who was doubtless fully aware of the merits of
the machine, and, in order to induce Crompton to make this valuable
concession, some eighty firms and individuals of that town promised
each to pay to him one guinea; but, as a matter of fact, the total sum
received did not much exceed £60, or scarcely enough to cover the cost
of the construction of the model, which he also gave up.
Leaving Crompton for the moment, we must note that in 1784 the Rev.
Edmund Cartwright took out his first patent for the invention of a
power-loom, for which he obtained a grant from Parliament of £10,000.
This loom never came into general use. It was not until some years
later, and after several futile attempts, that a power-loom was made
adaptable. Crompton, after much trouble and anxiety, did ultimately
get from the House of Commons £5,000, which he afterwards lost in the
bleaching trade, which was at that time making considerable progress.
When he had reached his seventy-second year, some friends raised for
him an annuity of £65, which he only enjoyed for a short time, as he
died in Bolton on June 26, 1827, aged seventy-four years. Thus was
treated another of Lancashire's greatest benefactors, who, whilst he
lived, was left to feel that "chill penury" which "froze the genial
current of his soul," but who after his death was thought worthy of a
statue in copper-bronze, which cost nearly £2,000, and now forms one of
the chief monuments of the town of Bolton.
So rapid was the result of these various means of developing the
manufacture of cotton that in 1787 there were over forty cotton-mills
in Lancashire, and seventeen in Yorkshire; those in other parts of
England increased the aggregate to 119, whilst the value of cotton
goods manufactured rose from £600,000 in 1766 to £3,304,371 in 1787,
showing the increase in twenty-one years to be five and a half fold.
In the last decade of the century a stop to further progress appeared
imminent, as nearly all the sites where water-power was available had
been utilized to the utmost; but fortunately, while Arkwright and
Crompton had been perfecting the machinery for cotton manufacture,
Watts was completing his labours to render steam-power available for
rotative motion.
Before 1782 steam-engines had been used exclusively for pumping water
out of mines, but in 1785 Boulton and Wall erected a steam-engine
to work the cotton mill of Messrs. Robinson, at Papplewick, in
Nottinghamshire, and four years later Manchester had its first
steam-engine applied to cotton manufacture. In 1790 in Bolton a cotton
mill was turned by steam, and before the end of the century this motive
power was adopted in a few other places in the county. Cotton-mills
worked by horse and water power were now common enough in all the large
towns where textile manufacture formed part of the trade carried on.
This enormous increase in local textile manufacture led at once to a
similar development of the manufacturing of machinery, the raising of
coals, and of all other industries required to carry on the now staple
trades.
Before closing the account of Lancashire in the eighteenth century,
some reference must be made to its press, and this must always afford
some clue to the character of the people. In the time of Elizabeth
there was in Lancashire a secret press from which were issued a few
Roman Catholic books; this was probably located at Lostock Hall, near
Bolton. There was also the wandering press from which came the Martin
Marprelate tracts; this press was seized by the Earl of Derby at Newton
Lane, near Manchester.[234] In 1719 Roger Adams was established in
Manchester as a printer; from his press came "Mathematical Lectures:
being the first and second that were read to the Mathematical Society
at Manchester." Adams also, in that same year, printed and published
the _Manchester Weekly Journal_, which in 1737 became _Whitworth's
Magazine_; this periodical enjoyed a run of twenty years. Whitworth
published a considerable number of books, some of which were of more
than local interest. In 1738 a second Manchester periodical was
published entitled _The Lancashire Journal_, of which only about sixty
numbers were printed. After this date, Manchester-printed books were
pretty numerous.
A newspaper called _Orion Adams' Weekly Journal_ was started here in
1752; it was followed by Harrop's _Manchester Mercury_ and Whitworth's
_Manchester Advertiser_. Liverpool probably began to print a year
or two before Manchester; the first book known to have been issued
there is a volume of "Hymns sacred to the Lord's Table," by Charles
Owen--"Leverpoole, printed by S. Terry, for Daniel Birchall, 1712."
After this very few books can with certainty be placed to the credit
of the Liverpool press, but in 1736 appeared Seacome's "Memoirs of
the House of Stanley," and subsequently many other works bearing the
imprint of Liverpool. Terry in 1712 published the _Leverpoole Courant_,
and in 1756 appeared _Williamson's Liverpool Advertiser_. Its price
was originally 2d., the stamp being one halfpenny. It appears to have
had a considerable circulation; on the first page of the issue for
October 17, 1760, is the following announcement: "The publisher of
this paper begs leave to return his grateful thanks to his friends and
readers in the northern parts of Lancashire for their kind indulgence
in promoting and encouraging this paper; and, as he has been at the
continued expense of expresses to meet the London post, in order to
be as early with the news as possible, and messengers to distribute
the paper, which have entirely taken away all profits arising from the
sale, he presumes that his customers in Ormskirk, Preston, Lancaster
and adjacent neighbourhoods, will further indulge him by advancing the
price of the paper to 2½d., as no other newspaper in England of the
same size and make is sold under that price." Its size was small folio,
and it consisted of four pages; it contained no leading article, and
did not report the meetings of Parliament.
In 1799 Liverpool had three weekly newspapers. The smaller towns were
somewhat later in setting up the printing presses, but the following
names of places, with the dates of the first issue of books with
their imprint, will give some idea of the respective rate of progress
in this direction: Warrington, 1731; Preston, 1740 (and probably a
little earlier); Wigan about 1760; Bolton about 1761; Prescot, 1779;
Lancaster, 1783; Kirkham, 1790; Blackley, 1791; Blackburn, 1792; Bury,
1793; Haslingden, 1793; Rochdale, 1796, and Burnley, 1798. At Preston
several attempts were made to establish newspapers in the eighteenth
century, but neither the _Preston Journal_, in 1744, nor the _Preston
Review_, in 1791, proved successful.
From the literature of Lancashire we may turn to its amusements. In
Liverpool, a theatre was opened in 1772. Manchester's first theatre
was built of wood, which was afterwards, in 1753, superseded by a
regular theatre, which stood somewhere near the top of King Street;
but this proving too small, forty gentlemen subscribed £50 each, and,
having obtained an Act of Parliament, erected a larger playhouse in
1775 in Spring Gardens, which was burnt down in 1789, but was rebuilt
and again opened in 1790.
Towards the close of the century Rochdale had its theatre, and probably
several other towns; and where such buildings did not exist, the
strolling players, during the season, acted their parts in assembly or
other convenient rooms. Horse-races were now very popular, and meetings
were regularly held at Manchester, Preston and Liverpool. Kersal Moor
Races, near Manchester, were begun in 1730. Cock-pits were also found
in nearly all our large towns, and bull-baiting was a common amusement.
But there was not wanting evidence of a higher taste. Subscription
libraries were being established, and few towns were without regular
organized musical, literary or scientific societies.
On all sides the growth of trade was calling into existence new
villages and towns, and the rapidly increasing number of wealthy
families led to the formation of that now world-renowned place of
resort--Blackpool. Here, in 1750, there were a few scattered clay-built
cottages with thatched roofs, which could by no effort of imagination
be called a village, when one Ethart Whiteside ventured to open a
house of entertainment, which consisted of a long thatched building,
which he subsequently converted into an inn. Nineteen years afterwards
there were only in its neighbourhood twenty or thirty cottages, but
not a single shop. In 1788 W. Hutton records that "about sixty houses
grace the sea; it does not merit the name of a village, because they
are scattered to the extent of a mile"; yet in August of that year
there were 400 visitors; and for their entertainment there were
bowling-greens, "butts for bow-shooting," and many of the company
"amused themselves with fine ale at number three"; and for the evening
the threshing-floor of a barn was turned into a theatre, which when
full held six pounds. Of bathing-machines there were but few; a bell
was rung when ladies went to bathe, and if, during the time set apart
for them, a gentleman was seen on the beach, he was fined a bottle of
wine. The price charged for boarding at one of the hotels was 3s. 4d. a
day.
From this date the progress of this town was very rapid, and it soon
became the great fashionable resort (during the season) of not only
Lancashire, but all the North of England.
From this period many of the towns in Lancashire date their rise from
the obscurity of small villages. Oldham, in 1794, had only a population
of some 10,000, and within its area were at most a dozen small mills.
Middleton did not get a right to hold its market and fair until 1791,
whilst Bury at that date had not more than 3,000 inhabitants. The
population of the municipal borough of Blackburn in 1783 was 8,000; the
four townships, on the corners of which now stands St. Helens, in 1799
did not contain more than 7,000 souls. Over Darwen had in 1790 about
3,000 inhabitants, and Lower Darwen not more than half that number. The
now prosperous town of Burnley had in 1790 certainly not above 2,000
inhabitants, whilst its neighbouring towns of Colne and Accrington had
even a less number. Haslingdon, Newchurch, Bacup, and other towns in
the Forest of Rossendale, were at this time mere villages; indeed, the
entire population of the Forest did not, in 1790, exceed 10,000.
As a guide to the varied extent of business transacted in Manchester
at the end of the century, much information may be gleaned from the
local directories which were published from time to time, between 1772
and 1800. The first directory, prepared by Mrs. Elizabeth Raffald,
appeared in 1772, and contained a list of all the merchants, tradesmen,
and principal inhabitants, "with the situation of their respective
warehouses"; also a list of stage-coaches, waggons, carriers, and
vessels to Liverpool "upon the old navigation and Duke of Bridgewater's
Canal."
There were 119 country manufacturers having warehouses in Manchester.
The coaches went to London in two days during the summer, but in winter
they required one day more. Coaches also went to all the surrounding
districts; in some cases once a week, in others thrice.
Twenty-one vessels went to Liverpool by the Mersey and Irwell
navigation ("the old navigation"), and eleven by the Duke of
Bridgewater's Canal. Manchester had then one bank and one insurance
office. Passing over a quarter of a century to 1797, the directory
of that year gives about 5,600 names, many of whom are engaged in
trades not mentioned in the earlier list, such as twist manufacturers,
cotton-spinners, cotton-merchants, bleachers, and printers. The list
of country manufacturers and others who attended the Manchester
market gives the names of 332 individuals or firms. The names of the
officers of the Infirmary and the magistrates acting in the Manchester,
Rochdale, Middleton, and Bolton divisions of Salford Hundred are also
furnished. The coach-service had considerably improved, as we now find
that the Royal Mail, "with a guard all the way," left Manchester every
morning, and reached London in twenty-eight hours, the fare being £3
13s. 6d.
One other trait in the eighteenth-century character of the Manchester
men deserves a passing notice, that is, their patriotism. In 1777,
on the breaking out of the American War, they raised a fine body of
volunteers, which was enrolled as "The 72nd, or Manchester Regiment,"
and did some service at Gibraltar under General Elliott; they were
disbanded on their return home in August, 1783, their colours being
deposited with much ceremony in the collegiate church. The year
following, Sir Thomas Egerton, of Heaton Park, raised "The Royal
Lancashire Volunteers," and in 1782 the inhabitants of Manchester
raised another volunteer corps of 150 men to serve in the American
War. Several other corps were afterwards raised in the locality and
incorporated with the regular army. On August 25, 1796, there was a
review on Kersal Moor of volunteers from Rochdale, Stockport, and
Bolton. The end of the eighteenth century gives us a remarkable
standpoint from which to glance at the then position of the county.
The rebellion had passed through its midst and excited its people to
a greater degree than was probably the case in any other county. The
prolonged struggles between Puritan, Presbyterian, Episcopalian and
Romanist had at length died out; and although war and rumours of war,
ever and anon, obscured the political atmosphere, and good times and
bad times followed each other in trade and commerce, yet there was an
ever-increasing feeling that the days had for ever gone when tyranny
and oppression could flourish in the land. New industries on every
hand were being developed, and one invention followed another in rapid
succession; no sooner was a want declared than someone was ready to
supply the requirement, thus opening out bright prospects for the
future. The highways had been vastly improved, canals cut from north
to south and from east to west in the county; machinery was at work
which far more than realized the hopes of its inventors, and everywhere
there were signs of coming prosperity. During this century Manchester
and Liverpool had enormously increased in population and in commercial
importance; and some other of our towns had to a considerable extent
followed in the same direction, whilst here and there little quiet
villages had seen rise in their midst the one small mill which was
destined to be the forerunner of many others which would in no very
long period make the insignificant village into a large and prosperous
town.
Religion had widened out her views, and now denominations heretofore
unheard of had arisen, and churches and chapels were multiplying in
every community. Some feeble attempts were being made for popular
education; but the press was almost the only means then at command,
and that, whilst so many of the poorer classes could neither read
nor write, was at best but of small avail. But there was a future
opening out when much of the intellectual darkness--which had so long
prevailed, not only in Lancashire, but all over the land--should
become a thing of the past, and the workman should cease from being a
mere machine and become an educated and enlightened citizen. Nothing
but the utter want of knowledge of the simplest elements of political
economy could justify or account for the manner in which each of the
great inventions which were to bring about such gigantic results were
received; there was scarcely one of the great improvements of the age
which was not, on its introduction, opposed by disorder and riot by
the very people who were in the long-run to be most benefited by its
adoption.
Nevertheless, the close of this century witnessed a tremendous progress
in the direction which led to the results which placed the trade of
Lancashire in the position which it ultimately attained.
[Footnote 223: "Through England on a Side-saddle," by Celia Fiennes;
London, 1888. The date ascribed to this journey is the time of William
and Mary. This, strictly speaking, is in the last decade of the
seventeenth century, but it is near enough to the eighteenth century to
serve as an illustration.]
[Footnote 224: See article by Mr. W. Harrison in the _Lanc. and Ches.
Hist. Soc._, vol. iv.]
[Footnote 225: These roads were not cart-roads, but intended for horse
and foot passengers, and in Lancashire were paved with narrow blocks of
millstone grit, which are still in places to be seen, the centre deeply
worn by the tread of the horses.]
[Footnote 226: Another, A.D. 1766.]
[Footnote 227: See Mr. Harrison's List of Turnpike Roads (_Lanc. and
Ches. Ant. Soc._, x.).]
[Footnote 228: This invention is by some attributed to John Wyatt, of
Birmingham, but recent research gives the credit to Lewis Paul. (See
Espinasse's "Lancashire Worthies.")]
[Footnote 229: Some authorities assert that Arkwright's mill in
Nottingham was built prior to Hargreaves'.]
[Footnote 230: He did not, as has been frequently stated, die in
poverty. He left property worth £4,000.]
[Footnote 231: See Guest's "Compendious History"; Baines's "History of
Cotton Manufacture"; Espinasse's "Lancashire Worthies," etc.]
[Footnote 232: _Quarterly Review_, No. 213, p. 64.]
[Footnote 233: Kennedy's "Brief Memoir of Crompton"; see also French's
"The Life and Times of Samuel Crompton," and Espinasse's "Lancashire
Worthies."]
[Footnote 234: Article by Mr. W. E. A. Axon, _Lanc. and Ches. Ant.
Soc._, vol. iv.]
[Illustration]