Kitabı oku: «A History of Lancashire», sayfa 17

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.

CHAPTER XII
THE DAWN OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

The cotton trade of Lancashire was now fairly established; steam was just beginning to be commonly used as the motive power instead of the old water–wheel, and consequently the sites suitable for factories were no longer limited, and this at once led to a further very great development of textile manufactures. This rapid growth was not unattended with intermittent periods of depression, which the working men of the day were not always prepared to attribute to the right cause, and thus riots and disturbances were of frequent occurrence in the manufacturing districts. One of the most serious of these terminated in what has ever since been known as “the Peterloo.” In 1816 the staple trades of Lancashire were in a very depressed state, and this led to the formation of political union societies, one of the chief objects of which was to obtain annual parliaments and universal suffrage. These societies met in St. Peter’s Fields, Manchester, in October, 1816, when all passed off quietly and orderly, but on March 10 following a larger meeting was held at the same place, at which about 1,000 men appeared with blankets over their shoulders, and with the avowed intention of marching to London to lay their grievances before the Prince Regent. This meeting was dispersed by the military, and several of the Blanketeers (as they were called) were taken to prison. The popular feeling was, however, not appeased, and the turn–out for an advance of wages of the spinners, weavers and colliers, towards the end of 1818, added fuel to the fire. Led on by Henry Hunt of London and others, it was decided to hold a mass meeting in St. Peter’s Fields on January 18, 1819, which meeting was held, and a resolution passed calling for the immediate repeal of the Corn Law. In the August following, the borough reeve and constables of Manchester refused to call a public meeting to consider the best means of obtaining a reform of the House of Commons, although 700 householders had signed the requisition. The result was that the requisitors themselves summoned the meeting, which was held near St. Peter’s Church on August 16, Henry Hunt being called upon to preside.

This meeting was attended by members of the societies from Oldham, Rochdale, Middleton, Ashton, Stockport, and all the surrounding villages, each contingent being accompanied by its band of music. The magistrates, being determined to disperse the vast assembly, called to their aid 200 special constables, the Manchester and Cheshire Yeomanry Cavalry, the 15th Hussars, and a detachment of the 88th Regiment of Foot, some pieces of artillery also being ready if required.

The mob was unarmed, but carried a plentiful display of banners with inscriptions more or less revolutionary. Acting under the orders of the magistrates, the Manchester Yeomanry and the hussars, with drawn swords, dashed through the crowd in the direction of the temporary platform, where they captured Henry Hunt and others. The would–be reformers fled in every direction, and the arrival of the Cheshire Yeomanry assisted rapidly to clear the field. After this onslaught – for it could not be called a fight – three or four people were found to have been killed, and twenty–two men and eight women were carried off to the infirmary; but it subsequently transpired that eight persons were killed and several hundreds were wounded. Henry Hunt was tried for sedition, and sentenced to two years’ imprisonment, but some of his friends got off with a lesser penalty.

When the times again became settled, there was a vast increase in the population of the towns and villages where factories and workshops were established, and this increase came from all the surrounding districts and from other counties, whose sons, hearing of the rise of new trades and industries, came with their families and settled in Lancashire.

A careful study of the surnames of any of our manufacturing towns will show that about this time a very large number of names now for the first time appeared in these districts, a small percentage of which were of foreign origin, but the greater proportion were English. The tendency was, therefore, to concentrate the scattered population around certain centres; thus it came about that in some parishes which remained purely agricultural, the population for years remained stationary, or even decreased. Thus we find, in the extensive parish of St. Michael’s–on–Wyre, the population between 1801 and 1871 had only risen from 1,197 to 1,290, whilst that of Goosnargh shows an actual decrease of 545 inhabitants between 1821 and 1861. The railway system was first introduced into Lancashire in 1830, when the line between Manchester and Liverpool was opened, which ceremony was marred by the fatal accident to William Huskisson, which happened at Parkside, near Newton–le–Willows. The cost of this railway up to June 30 previous to its being opened for traffic was £820,000, but before the end of 1838 the total expenditure had reached £1,443,897; other railways soon followed, and before a generation had passed away the county was intersected in every direction by these iron roads. Steam packets were in use before the railways were started; they first plied on the canals in 1812.

The sudden progress in commercial affairs could not be accomplished without some inconveniences and evils following in its course. The overcrowding of towns brought a condition of social life which took all the powers of the local authorities to grapple with. Some of the sleepy old towns with ill–lighted and worse–paved streets, with their old tumble–down dwellings and their utter want of anything like sanitary arrangements, were ill adapted to receive suddenly large additions to their population. Then, again, the time–honoured grammar schools and the few sparsely endowed free schools were all inadequate to meet the educational requirements.

Very early in the century a few schools were started on Dr. Bell’s system, and subsequently what were called national schools became common in large towns, and to supplement them the Sunday–schools (which were first started about the year 1782) were giving an elementary education to many who did not or could not give regular attendance on the week–day. Another great evil rising out of the increase in manufactories was that men, women, and especially children, all worked too many hours a day, which, had not a wise Legislature stepped in to arrest, would soon have told dreadfully on the physical, moral, and mental condition of the labouring classes. With the necessary improvements of the sanitary condition of our towns came the introduction of the use of gas for illuminating purposes, and our streets became safe by night as well as by day.

To trace the growth of the various towns and villages of Lancashire during the present century is outside the scope of the present volume, and if it were not so, it would be quite impossible to do anything like justice to the subject within the limits assigned to this series of “Popular Histories.” It must therefore suffice to say that in all the grand movements achieved by Great Britain in the nineteenth century, Lancashire has done its share, and that in trade, commerce, education, and every modern advance in moral, religious, or social life, the county has been in the van. Before closing this very brief notice of the present century, a few statistics may with advantage be given which will serve to illustrate the enormous growth of material progress and the ever–increasing numbers of its teeming population. Preston, in the first twenty years of this century, doubled its population, and between 1821 and 1868 it rose from 24,000 to 90,000, and in the latter year there were in the town seventy–seven cotton–mills, which gave employment to 26,000 persons. Through this important centre – just before the railways were opened – there passed daily seventy–two stage coaches. In Bolton the population rose from 11,000 in 1791 to 105,414 in 1881. Wigan, through the large coal–fields in the neighbourhood, advanced from 25,500 in 1801 to 78,160 in 1861, and about the year 1831 6,000,000 tons of coal were annually raised in the parish; other of the now large towns increased in the same proportion. But Liverpool and Manchester were the two centres in the county.

Liverpool, very early in the century, began to exhibit that spirit of enterprise which soon placed that city in the foremost rank in the maritime world. It was only in 1815 that the first steamer appeared on the Mersey, yet in 1835 there had been constructed docks which extended for two miles along the shore, with a water area of 90 acres; these docks have now a frontage of considerably over six miles.

In 1834 the total number of bales of cotton imported into this country and landed in London was 40,400, whilst at Liverpool the number was 839,370; in 1868 at the latter were landed 3,326,543 bales, and it has been estimated that in 1834 the value of the export trade of Liverpool reached £20,000,000, the goods mostly consisting of woollens, linens, and cotton goods; the imports in the same year were put down as being worth £15,000,000. The dock dues paid in 1812 amounted to £44,403, and in 1862 to £379,528. The number of vessels which entered the port in 1802 was 4,781, with a tonnage of 510,691; in 1832 there were 12,928 vessels, with 1,540,057 tonnage; and in 1862 the vessels numbered 20,289, their tonnage being 4,630,183. The population of Liverpool in 1801 was 77,653; in 1861 it was 269,742.

Manchester and Salford, though one is now a city and the other only a borough, are in some senses almost inseparable: they both made rapid progress, following the rise of the staple trades, and both received their charters of incorporation as Parliamentary boroughs in 1832; their united population in 1801 was only 112,300, in 1831 it was 270,963, and in 1861 it had risen to 529,245. Manchester has been well described as the centre of the largest and most populous area in the world; it has on all sides large and increasing towns and villages, all of which are engaged in the staple trades of the district. The following figures will illustrate: In Manchester itself there are 2,708,000 spindles, in Oldham 11,500,000, Bolton 4,860,000, Ashton–under–Lyne 2,013,000, Rochdale 1,914,000, Blackburn 1,435,000, and there are some other towns in the neighbourhood each of which has close on a million spindles. Without detailing the marked progress in the other districts, it will perhaps equally well show the fact if we quote the population returns for the whole county.

In 1801 there were 673,486 persons, in 1851 there were 2,026,462, being an increase in fifty years of 1,352,976 persons; this is considered one of the most remarkable features in the official returns of England in 1851. In 1831 the population was 1,336,854, so that in twenty years it was nearly doubled. According to the returns of the last census (1891) Lancashire is the most densely populated county except Middlesex, and to every square mile of its surface there are 1,938 people.

We have now traced the history of the county palatine of Lancaster from the time when it was first inhabited by mortal man, through all its varied and not uneventful course, until we now leave it with, we may hope, a bright future dawning upon it – a future that will still find it, as it for so long has been, an important power in that great kingdom on whose domains the sun never sets.