Darlaston’s history is intimately connected to the history of metal-working, particularly the manufacture of gun-locks and other mechanical components. We were startled, though, to find such expertise put to felonious ends, and the constable of Darlaston (Thomas Partridge) drawn in to give evidence against the accused.
In 1819 three men were tried at the Staffordshire Assizes ‘for having, at the parish of Darlaston, in the county of Stafford..traitorously made and counterfeited a certain piece of coin to the likeness of a shilling’. Joseph Wilkes, Thomas Earp alias Reddall and John Duffield stood trial for their lives, since coining was a capital offence. Witnesses were able to show that Earp had been apprehended with a parcel of metal blanks hidden inside his umbrella, and that Wilkes had taken possession of the dies or ‘stamps’ used to convert the blanks into counterfeit coin. Duffield was the organiser of the scheme.
Image courtesy of the Wellcome Trust: an eighteenth-century illustration of a machine used in coining https://wellcomecollection.org/works/fuxnvhmx
The three men were working within a midlands network of counterfeiters, and were not apparently inhibited or deterred by the prosecution or execution of members of the circle. John and Mary Bissaker of Warwick pursued a career in coining, and when John was executed in 1800 Mary carried on (narrowly avoiding execution herself in 1807). It was Mary’s arrest and prosecution in 1819 that prompted the transfer of dies to the Darlaston men, and Mary’s execution that signaled the movement of the trade from Warwick to Darlaston.
But perhaps the most surprising part of the story is still to come. When the three defendants were found guilty, Mr Justice Richardson initially sentenced them all to death; yet ‘the prisoners begged loudly for mercy; and the learned Judge was much affected.’ The astonishing result of this spontaneous appeal was that Richardson rescinded the death penalty for both Wilks and Earp, leaving Duffield as the only perpetrator paying for his crime with his life. Surely this established a problematic precedent for this particular Judge, and for consistency of sentencing, even if it was expressive of candid humanitarianism?
William Wetherell was baptised on 6 March 1785 at Kirkby Lonsdale, Westmorland. He married Martha Davidson on 31 January 1803 in Dalston, Cumberland, where he made and repaired shoes and clogs. He appears in the Pigot’s 1829 Trade Directory listed under Clog and Patten Makers (& shoes).[1] By this time William and Martha had eight children bapised in the hamlet of Raughton Head, near Dalston: Thomas (1803-1880), Richard 1806-1857) , Jane (1808-1890) Ann (1810- ), James (1813-1814), Martha (1815-), William, (1817- ), and Margaret (1819-1842).[2 ]
His bills to the Select Vestry of Dalston from 1835 to 1837, are mainly for the repair of clogs or calking of clogs, less often new clogs and once for a pair of shoes. The price of new clogs varied according to size (see Blog about Clogs 9 January 2019). For example, the Roddick brothers got new calked clogs on 19 October 1835, priced at 3s for George, and 2s 6d for Thomas. On 13 July the following year they received the same again. On this occasion Thomas’s clogs cost more at 2s 9d. Like the Roddick brothers items on the bills are mainly for children of working or apprentice age.[3]
SPC44/2/43 7 Dalson Overseers’ Voucher, William Wetherell, 1836
George and Thomas Roddick, John Hind and John Sanderson also appear on the bills of Joseph Shields, Schoolmaster, who had a Hedge School at Corsica Cottage, Buckhowbank. The family of George and Thomas Roddick received parish relief payments between 1830 and 1835.[ 4] John Sanderson was the illegitimate son of Ruth Sanderson. His mother received payments from the Parish between 1824 and 1831. Her other two children Joseph (1817-) and Sarah (1821-) like John being born at Dalston Workhouse.[5]
Clogs would have been the favoured footwear of those who worked in the industries which grew around Dalston; as well as the cotton mills of Northern England. The River Caldew provided the water power for the industries of Dalston at this time. With extensive cotton mills, a flax mill, and forge there was a constant demand for Wetherell’s footwear . The wood (sycamore, beech and willow) used to make the clogs was either sourced locally and stacked to dry out, or alternatively seasoned clog sole blocks were bought in.
Wetherell usually had an apprentice or a few other shoemakers working for him; advertising in the local newspaper when these were required. [6]
‘Shoemaker Wanted two good Journeyman shoemakers for strong country work will meet with constant work if suitable’
As there are only vouchers for the short span of time it is not discernable for how long Wetherell had been supplying the Vestry of Dalston. By 1838 John Brown, previously a shoemaker in Carlisle, appears to be doing similar work for the Vestry and for the same individuals named on Wetherell’s bill.[7]
Wetherell’s wife died in 1845. He appears in Slater’s trade directoryof 1848 as does John Brown. Both were still trading in Dalston.[8] Retiring shortly afterwards, he subsequently married his housekeeper Margaret Ladyman (baptised in Temple Sowerby 1803), at Gretna 12 August 1854 [9] and died 12 November 1870.[10] He was succeeded by his son William who married Jane Dewers, and their sons James and William. Two other sons followed their father into the same trade. Thomas married Mary Ann Nelson and set up his business in Skelton. Successive generations joining and continuing the business. Richard married Isabella Roper and traded in Carlisle, while sister Jane married John Olivent Bewsher also a shoemaker, eventually emigrating to the United States.
Sources [1] J Pigot & Co., National, Commercial Directory Cumberland & Westmorland and Lancashire [2] England Birth and Baptisms [accessed at www.findmypast 10 May 2020] [3] Cumbria Archives, SPC44/2/48 160, Dalston Overseers’ Voucher, 15 June 1835 – 12 December 1835; SPC44/2/43 7, Dalston Overseers’ Voucher, William Wetherell11 July 1836- 5 September 1836. [4] Cumbria Archives, SPC44/2/32, Dalston Account Book for Weekly Outdoor Relief. 1826-1840. [5] Cumbria Archives, SPC44/2/35, Dalston Account Book for the Maintenance of Illegitimate Children, 1833-1836 [6]Carlisle Journal, 5 November 1836, p.2. [7] Carlisle Archives SPC44/2/47/4, Dalston Overseers’ SPC44/2/43/7, Dalston Overseers’ Voucher 2 December 1837-28 May 1838 ( John Brown) [8] Cumberland 1848 ( Slater’s County Directory) [9] England and Wales National Probate Calendar, Index of Wills and Administration. 1858- 1995 [accessed at www.ancestry.co.uk 10 May 2020] [10] Carlisle Patriot, 19 August 1854, p.5.
This is a work in progress subject to change with further research Additional information from Cumbria Archives DSO 242, Carlisle Shoemakers Guild, 1800-2003 DGC 2, Shoemakers Guild, 1795-1934 Penrith Observer, 28 February 1956, p.6 (Old time clog shoe and timber trade).
Nathan Arnison can be found in a trade directory of 1829 at Nether End, near Penrith, as a linen and woollen draper. [1 ] He moved the business to Market Place Penrith around 1831. He bought the shop from a William James who had purchased it from Christopher Crackenthorpe, a member of the Wordsworth family. The shop once was the home of William Cookson silk mercer and draper, and the maternal Grandfather of the poet William Wordsworth and his sister the diarist Dorothy Wordsworth.
Plaque re the former owners of Drapers on the site of N Arnison business, Penrith
A small bill amongst the Greystoke overseers’ vouchers, is headed ‘Bought of N. Arnison Linen and Woollen Drapers, Family Mourning and Funeral Furnishing’,and dated 27 April 1836. The four items, totalling 11s 1/2d, inclued the versatile fabric of cotton calico, priced at 1s. 6d, and 1 pair of sheets at 4s. 4d. [2] It is not apparent from the bill who might be the recipients of these items. Eight years later as well as a small bill for £1.17.6 a larger bill from N Arnison exists.[3] To the Executors of the late John de Whelpdale it is for his funeral expenses in June 1844 for £123.7s.6d Among the 63 different textiles supplied are black and slate calico, ribbon, black mourning silk, crepe, silk and Barcelona handkerchiefs. [4]
N Arnison Linen and Woollen Draper Penrith PR5/67-K
Nathan Arnison, the son of George Arnison (1744-1833) and Elizabeth Topping (1752-1831) of High Hareskeugh (sic) was baptised 1 January 1796 at Kirkoswald .[5] His father a yeoman and victualler of the Horse Heads Inn, Haresceugh [6]. Nathan married Ruth Barra (1799-1870) in 1827. Two sons joined the business: George (1829-1883) and Thomas Bell (1833-1888). N Arnison and Sons appear in subsequent Trade Directories. Robert (1836-1916) was a draper in Sheffield. The other sons William Barras (1830-1896) and Charles Nathan (1840-1911) were principally solicitors. [7] Nathan and Ruth also had two daughters: Isabella Ruth (1838-1914) and Elizabeth who married Hamilton Woods, an engineer.
When Nathan Arnison died 27 February 1886 he left a well established businesss. [8]Those living in the Penrith area will be familiar with the shop that remains in the same place in the centre of Penrith today.
Sources
[1] Parson and White, Directory of Cumberland and Westmorland Furness and Cartmel (1829). [2] Cumbria Archives, PR5/67- K 8, Greystoke Overseers’ Voucher, 27 April 1836. [3] Cumbria Archives, DX 8/1/15, N Arnison Account, 1843. [4] Cumbria Archives, DHUD/17/60, John de Whelpdale deceased, N. Arnison, Penrith, draper, 29 June 1844. [5] J.J. Thornley, Penrith Ancient Church Registers of the Parish of Kirkoswald. [6] Parson and White, Directory of Cumberland and Westmorland, Furness and Cartmel (1829) [7] M Harrison & Co., Directory and Gazetteer County of Cumberland (1861).
[8] Cumbria Archives, PROB/1886/W570, Will of Nathan Arnison.
The history of midwifery in the eighteenth century in England is a story of a traditionally female occupation being colonised by male medical practitioners. In 1700 deliveries were nearly all conducted by women, whereas by 1800 deliveries to prosperous families were conducted by men. Doctors and surgeons charged more for their obstetric services than their female competitors (typically 10s 6d or £1 1s per child by men, compared with 2s 6d or 5s per child by women), so women continued to deliver only the poorest expectant mothers.
The success of the ‘man-midwife’ can be attributed to a number of social and intellectual developments. The introduction of delivery by forceps in the first half of the eighteenth century, a technological refinement not used by female midwives, probably accounts for some of the increased popularity for trained men. They could achieve a successful delivery in difficult circumstances. Men could claim authority and expertise from studying human anatomy in ways not open to women.
Elizabeth Parrock, a Staffordshire midwife, probably trained for her role in the same way as most eighteenth-century women, by practising among her friends. Female midwives emerged when women accustomed to attending births as a friend or relation acquired a wider reputation for their ability to manage the birthing room. In most deliveries where the baby presented normally (head down, facing their mother’s spine) the midwife’s task was to reassure the mother and give advice, while allowing nature to take its course. The two women would probably be surrounded by the female friends of the mother, and collectively the group would keep fathers out of the room.
If the birth became abnormal, due to the malpresentation of the baby or the distress or excess bleeding of the mother, midwives had few techniques at their disposal to achieve a good outcome. Long experience might have taught them how to ‘turn’ the baby in the womb, but the only other option was to call in a surgeon to do something drastic. Women rarely if ever survived a caesarean section before the second half of the nineteenth century.
Dempsey Portraits https://www.portrait.gov.au/image/87695/87987/ Depicting Mary or Elizabeth Leagrove, a gaol attendant in Ipswich, 1823
We don’t of course know what Elizabeth Parrock looked like. The image above is the one we have used to illustrate her in our card game for the project. We do know that she was earlier called Elizabeth Floyd, and was married to George Parrock at Bilston, Staffordshire in 1752. The couple had at least three children, baptised in Bilston and Wednesbury 1756-1760. Elizabeth, therefore, fitted the typical profile for a midwife, being a woman with children of her own but whose children were mature, allowing her to leave her household to work. We know from the overseers’ vouchers that she charged the lower sum for her deliveries, 2s6d per child, for her work in Wednesbury in the 1780s. She was the only woman recorded in the Wednesbury vouchers so far as a midwife, paid for the delivery of just three babies, yet her association with midwifery was strong enough to ensure she was described as a midwife at the time of her burial. The vouchers similarly show that her husband George Parrock was employed by the parish to mend shoes.
Elizabeth is unusual because we can know something about her working life other than her name. Most women who worked as midwives left no records of their business at all, so parish payments for delivering pauper babies is one of the few ways to see them in action. She is also unusual in that female midwives were typically paid immediately after the child was born and did not need to issue receipts, whereas male midwives allowed parents to owe him the money: consequently relatively few female midwives crop up elsewhere in our project database, with only one named midwife per county so far.
Sources: Staffordshire Archives D4383/6/1/9/1/14/20, D4383/6/1/9/2/80, Wednesbury St Bartholomew overseers’ vouchers; marriage of 29 June 1752 Bilston; burial of 4 June 1787 Wednesbury St Bartholomew.
The Winchelsea poor-law records have been edited for publication by Malcolm Pratt and appear as volume 94 of the Sussex Record Society series. This book includes relatively few of the overseers’ vouchers surviving for Winchelsea – there are hundreds – but nonetheless contains riches for the project. It provides lots of evidence about men who took a parish salary to help implement the poor law.
Parish Beadles have a reputation for having been hard-hearted and officious, for which Dickens’s Mr Bumble is somewhat to blame. The word ‘Bumbledom’ was widely used in the second half of the nineteenth century to characterise pomposity and rigidity in public office. Harry Seacombe’s performance in the musical Oliver! in 1968 has cemented this popular view and it has to be said, whatever his behaviour in the role, his costume was fairly faithful to beadles’ uniforms of the period.
Beadle, Winchester, 1823: one of the 52 portraits painted by John Dempsey, now showcased by the National Portrait Gallery of Australia, at https://www.portrait.gov.au/exhibitions/dempseys-people-2017
But the Winchelsea beadles employed in the 1820s do not fit this stereotype at all. Instead, they were paupers themselves. John Chester was removed to Winchelsea under the provisions of settlement law in 1822, and was resident in the workhouse during the following year. He went on to serve as parish beadle 1824-6 for four shillings per week paid out of the poor rates, until his neglect of duty proved a nuisance to Magistrate Henry Powell.
Chester’s successor may have been better at the job, but endured a similar lifestyle. The tasks of beadle were taken up by Henry Tilden, which in 1826 included delivering notices to quit rented properties. The Winchelsea workhouse accommodated Tilden until the time of its closure in 1831. From then onwards, the beadle’s salary was agreed at six shillings per week if he would ‘keep himself’. On Tilden’s death in 1835 aged 77, he was buried at the parish expense.
One of the vouchers that was printed in Pratt’s book offers an additional touching sidelight on the inclusion of Tilden among the parish poor. He was listed in a bill of 1830 as one of the men benefiting from the services of George Haisell, hairdresser, paid for shaving the adult male paupers and cutting the hair of the children.
Sources: M. Pratt (ed.), Winchelsea Poor Law Records 1790-1841 (Sussex Record Society, 2011).
Three letters which relate to Isaac Mark and his wife Mary can be found with other Greystoke overseers’ vouchers. The first dated 2 June 1821 is an examination of Isaac Mark’s antecedents by the magistrates of Leath Ward to determine his place of settlement . Isaac is described as a labourer late of Kingside Hill, Holm Cultram. Born at Bowscale in Greystoke Parish he had, until about the age of 15, worked on a farm at Newlands. His father rented it from William Pattinson for £50 a year. In 1788 Newlands was described as being in both Castle Sowerby and Sebergham Parish [1]. After that, Isaac served in first the navy for twelve years then in the 81st Foot Army Regiment for twelve years. Not being in any one place more than six months, he had been to Malta, Gibraltar, Sicily, Naples, and Lisbon amongst many other places. He was married in Gretna around 1804-5. His son was born about 3 months later. He said he had not tried to gain a settlement elsewhere.[2]
Examination of Isaac Mark June 2 1821 PR5/67-C3
Isaac Mark was baptised on 30 October 1771, at Bowscale, Cumberland, the third son of Thomas (1736-1812) and Sarah Pattinson(1738-1805). He was the brother of George (b.1762), Mary (b.1762), Elizabeth (b.1765), Ruth (b.1767) John (b.1769), Thomas (b.1774), Sarah (b.1779) and Benjamin (b.1785). All were baptised as Quakers.[3] Isaac’s family were descendants of the Bewley and Mark families whose names dominated the Quakers of Mosedale, Cumberland. Some were persecuted for their faith. [4]
Perhaps struggling to make a living, Isaac left the farm. Military conflict may not have sat well with any Quaker principles he had.
It is not known where his wife Mary was born. The marriage document gives her surname as Marey Gels of Higton Lancshire[sic]. Their son, Thomas, appears to have been baptised in Bolton le Moors Lancashire on 17 June 1804.[5] Shortly afterwards, on 17 October 1804 Isaac enlisted in the 81st Foot Regiment at Londonderry, Ireland. He appears on a list of others in the Regiment serving in Canada [6].
While Isaac was absent Mary and Thomas were removed from Bolton le Moors to Greystoke on 3 October 1808, only to be sent back.[8 ] At a future appeal at the Quarter Sessions, they were returned to Greystoke where they were accepted by the overseers and given relief. The overseers account book shows that Mary was given £1 every 4 weeks but towards the end of 1813 payments were sometimes £2 every 8 weeks.[9]
Cumbria Archives PR 5/45 1810-1814 Poor Account Book payment 11 February 1811
On 14 November 1808 an order was given to remove Mary described as a widow and her son named Benjamin aged about 1 year from the Caldewgate Parish of St Mary’s in Carlisle to Castle Sowerby. The record refers to her son as Benjamin, no reference is made to her son Thomas although a subsequent document refers to a son called Thomas suggesting he was still alive. Further research has revealed that as a twelve year old the overseers of Greystoke arranged for him to be apprenticed to George Harrison a husbandman at Skelton Parish . Mary either thought she was now widowed or claimed she was. It is possible that there were two sons, Thomas and Benjamin. The 1851 census records Benjamin Mark aged 43 a Bricklayer of English Damside, Carlisle living with William Gilmore and his wife Mary Gilmore. Although referred to as Son-in-Law it may be that Benjamin Mark was his stepson and Mary Mark his wife. Isaac having died [10]
Caldewgate was mainly and area of innkeepers, tradesman and manufacturers attracting people from other areas looking for employment. The poor could be looked upon badly, more being spent on removing a pauper than relieving them.[11] Whether Mary was removed is not known.
By 7 December 1816 Mary’s status was no longer described as that of a widow. Once again the Justices ordered that Mary and her son Thomas be removed from Caldewgate Quarter to Greystoke Parish. Mary and Thomas, aged about 11 years, were described as having previously been removed from Bolton le Moors and accepted by one of the Overseers of Greystoke, Johnby, Blencow, Motherby and Gill, about seven years previously. Isaac her husband a soldier could not be found at the time, his whereabouts until lately being unknown. The Magistrates believed that he had returned to the Greystoke area and his place of settlement. They rejected Greystoke’s appeal against her removal as they had been paying her relief and should have been less submissive in accepting her from Bolton le Moors. The onus being on them to prove a settlement in another neighbouring parish.[12] Isaac may have left the army after the Napoleonic Wars about this time and have returned to what he considered home looking for work.
On 9 June 1821 a short letter to Thomas Burn the Overseer for Greystoke from Isaac and Mary stated they had arrived in Wigton. It briefly describes Isaac and Mary’s journey. He writes ‘she desires you send her bed and what there is‘.[13 ]
Letter from Isaac and Mary Mark to Thomas Burn 7 June 1821 PR5/67-C17
The last letter, dated 17 June 1821, is from John Stalker, the Overseer of Castle Sowerby to Thomas Burn warning him that if they try to send Isaac and Mary to them they will lodge an appeal at the Quarter Assizes. Stalker wrote: ‘take care you do not incur a penalty by suffering a woman deranged as she is to be at large’. Greystoke to be trying to remove both of them [14].
Together by choice or necessity it is not known if they every gained a settlement anywhere.
Thomas Burn from John Stalker 17 June 1821 PR5/67-C2
Sources [1] Cumberland Pacquet and Ware’s Whitehaven Advertiser,6 August 1788, p.1 [2] Cumbria Archives. PR5/67-C item 3, Greystoke Overseers’ Voucher, 2 June 1821 [3] Quaker Birth Marriage and Death Registers, 1578-1831 [accessed at ancestry.co.uk 21 February 1821] [4] Rev. Edward Thomas Bewley. The Bewleys of Cumberland and their Irish and other descendants (1904). [5] Gretna Green Marriage Registers [accessed at ancestry.co.uk]; Liverpool Parish Clerk Project Online. www.lan.upc.org.uk [6] The National Archives, Kew, WO 25/481, 81 Foot British Regimental Registers of Service 1801-1816pp. 89-90 (https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/) [7] Lancashire Archives, Salford Quarter Sessions, QSP/2575/31, Salford Epiphany 1809 or event date 3 October 1808 [8 ] Lancashire Archives Salford Quarter Sessions QSP/2575/31, Salford Epiphany, 1809 or event date 3 October 1808; Cumbria Archives, PR 5/57, Removal orders, 1737-1833 [9] Cumbria Archives, PR 5/45, Overseers’ Account Book, 1810-14 [10] Cumbria Archives, SPC 67/38, Castle Sowerby Removals, 1778 -1835; Cumberland Quarter Sessions, Q4/2, Christmas Sessions, 1809, p. 105. Cumbria Archives PR 5/59 Bundle of Apprenticeship Indentures 1763-1837 [11] Frederick Morton Eden, The State of the Poor (1797) Volume II page 60 [12]Cumbria Archives, PR 5/57, Removal Orders, 1737-1833 [13]Cumbria Archives, PR5/67-C, item 17, 9 June 1821 [14]Cumbria Archives, PR5/67-C, item 2, 17 June 1821
This is a work in progress subject to change with further research
One feature of the Old Poor Law which attracted criticism was the practice (adopted by some parishes) of using the able-bodied poor as a pool of cheap labour. People who did not have enough work might be sent around to different employers in a parish to be given occupation (with a daily wage being paid partly or wholly out of the poor rates). Alternatively the workhouse poor might be sent out of the house each day and allocated to specific employment where their pay was then given to the parish. These types of work for the poor were often deprecated, for reducing the wages of the non-parish poor and/or for giving some employers unfair access to cheap or free labour.
Ninfield parish is important for our project, but not just because it has some surviving overseers’ vouchers. In fact the number of vouchers is minimal, unusually for East Sussex, but it did have a very rigorous approach to setting the poor to work. From at least 1821 and possibly earlier, the poor of Ninfield workhouse were listed and systematically allocated to work for parish landowners, in direct proportion to the value rate-payers’ parish property. In other words, wealthy residents could expect to be given paupers to employ, and were required to pay a going rate for the work completed. This ‘pay’ was collected by the parish officers to offset the cost of accommodating the workhouse inmates.
Who were the workhouse poor, and what work did they do? Ninfield was determined to make the most of its human resources, and typically included children in the work rota. The workhouse population was dominated by ‘boys’ rather than adult men or girls/women, which may have reflected a parish policy of control (ie to house young, unoccupied and potentially-disruptive males). Work included hop-picking, sometimes allocated to girls, and bark-shaving (which could be very heavy work).
This must all have made an impact on the poor who needed to seek relief in Ninfield, but it probably made an impression on others including the parish officers. One overseer in particular seems to have taken his experiences in Ninfield and applied them elsewhere with dramatic effect.
Thomas Abell was a small-scale farmer who took on the job of paid overseer of the poor in Ninfield in 1825: he later took on the same job in Brede. It seems likely that he transplanted the strict work ethic of his first parish to his second, and to have added some severity of his own. We know this because his habits in working the poor (and their consequences) featured in the British press in the autumn of 1830.
British Museum Prints and Drawings 1948.0214941 Copyright Trustees of the British Museum
The newspapers ran a lot of stories in 1830 about the exploits of the fictional ‘Captain Swing’ who was credited with inspiring rural labourers to riot against their working conditions. Paid overseers of the poor were particularly targeted by rioters, and Thomas Abell was one of the men who felt the backlash. He was said to have worked the poor in Brede in punishing and degrading ways, such as compelling them to drag a cart (loaded with wood) to a wharf some miles away: therefore we can see why, when rioting reached the parish, Abell was forcibly put on the Brede parish cart with a noose around his neck and hauled to the parish boundary by a determined group of poor women.
Abell might have richly deserved this humiliating treatment, but in the longer term the linkage of records at Ninfield with the later newspaper reports gives us further insight into the careers of parish officers, which have been opaque for so long: violence at Brede had its origins in another parish’s determination to work the poor.
Sources: The Keep, PAR 430/12/1/1, Ninfield vestry book 1821-3; PAR 430/31/1/3-4 Ninfield pauper ledgers 1821-7; PAR 430/31/3/1-3 Ninfield workhouse work books 1825-7; PAR 430/31/7/1 Ninfield overseers’ notebook 1828-9; PAR 430/37/4/1-2 Ninfield workhouse inventories 1829; Morning Post 11 November 1830 (and other newspapers thereafter).
The project’s research into salaried overseers, called assistant or perpetual overseers in the contemporary terminology, took us to the Durham County Record Office. The chapelry of Lamesley in County Durham holds a very unusual collection of sixty five letters, all written in May or June 1831, in relation to the same post for this sort of job. Thirty one men wrote on their own behalf, while others wrote references or testimonials in support of their application.
This flurry of administrative activity was sparked by an advertisement, placed in newspapers for Durham and Newcastle on Tyne, for an assistant overseer. The terms of employment were stringent: in exchange for £60 per year, the appointee was asked to live in the chapelry, have no other occupation, and to offer securities of £200 against the risk of malpractice in office. The candidates would undergo ‘election’ on Friday 10 June at 3pm.
What does this have to do with the project’s focus on Cumbria (including selected parishes in former Westmorland)? The appeal of this post was felt far and wide, attracting applications from Liverpool and other places some distance west and south of Lamesley. An application from Brough in Westmorland came from one George Pearson, who in comparison to some of the applicants wrote rather a good letter in terms of both handwriting and details of his occupational background.
Pearson described himself as a married man of 34 years old. He had been a clerk to Mr Blackett at his colliery works, left Mr Blackett in 1819 to be clerk to the London Lead Company, and remained there for eleven years. He gave up that employment owing to ill-health, and on recovering began teaching in a school at Brough ‘as an occupation rather than to make a living by it, there being over many schools in Brough before I began’. He claimed to be well-versed in accounts, to have property exceeding the requisite security bond, and to command references for his religious and moral character. He named referees including a banker, a reverend, and four others including Mr Blackett.
Wellcome Images: detail of clerks from ‘Hudibras addresses a lawyer who sits in an elaborately decorated pew next to shelf of books; two clerks sit beneath’. Aquatint by Merigot, 1799, after William Hogarth. https://wellcomecollection.org/works/mqw23ewf/items?canvas=1&langCode=eng
Pearson’s letter went on to ask about the duties required of the post-holder, and his chances of success. He gave an unusual account of his faith, in that he was a member of the Methodist Society but an attender at Church, to the extent of being a churchwarden at Longmarton and establishing a large Sunday School there (where the teachers were nearly all Methodists, apparently).
His application looked quite professional, but struck a plaintive note: the salary on offer at Lamesley was less than half of the total he had commanded at the London Lead Company, ‘but such is the competition for situations and so numerous are applicants’ that during the previous year he had visited Liverpool, Newcastle and other places with ‘the best’ recommendations but without success.
But Pearson’s story doesn’t end there, because he spent some time considering his position and eventually withdrew from the appointing process at Lamesley. He explained his reasons in a letter, and in doing so gives us extra insight into the recruitment of assistant overseers. He wrote on 7 June ‘as all the ratepayers have a vote in the election and have been canvassed by different parties, several of whom may be every way eligible, the choice will probably fall on one who belongs to the neighbourhood and is connected by friends with the parish: the chances of success for a stranger would in consequence, I fear, be so slight as not to warrant the expense I should incur in coming over’. Who knew that you had to ‘canvas’ for ratepayers’ votes to secure a post as assistant overseer this early in the nineteenth century? There was a contested election for the assistant overseer of St Chad’s in Lichfield in 1843, where it is evident that canvassing had taken place, but this was under the ‘New’ poor law of 1834 (where the Guardians of each Union had to be elected, so a culture of electioneering for poor-law offices was more pervasive). And Pearson was not simply making a false assumption because at least three other applicants either refer to their own ‘canvas’ or that of other candidates.
The letters in the Durham archives provide a fascinating insight into the evolution of the job application as a genre of writing, but they also offer us detailed guidance on the tensions and opportunities for aspiring assistant overseers. A single post could be hotly contested, drawing interest from beyond county boundaries. Lamesley is plainly not in the modern county of Cumbria, but its evidence in this respect will form a key component in our writing about the holders of assistant overseer posts.
Oh, and the job? It went to a Mr William Wren, who lived in Lamesley and had already been an assistant overseer in a different location during ‘a most arduous and difficult period’. But that is another story.
Sources: Newcastle Courant, 21 May 1831; DCRO EP/LAM 7/174-240.
SPC44/2/48/73 Thomas Watson Surgeon’s bill to the Parish of Dalston for Delivery and Attendance on Jane Gate feb 11th 1831
Jane Gate was born in Dalston and baptised there on 14 July 1795. The youngest of six children, her elder siblings were William (b.1784), Robert (b.1786), John (b.1789), and twins Elizabeth (1792-1795) and Margaret (b.1792). Her father Jonathan (b.1755) was listed as a labourer in the parish register. Jane’s mother Frances Mathews (c.1760-98) died when Jane was three years old. [ 1 ] Jane Gate’s name appears on a voucher dated 11 February 1831. A payment for 10s. 6d was made to Thomas Watson (1801-1833) surgeon: ‘to a Delivery and Attendance on Jane Gate ,Workhouse’.[2 ] This refers to Jane’s son William who was baptised in Dalston 7 April 1831. This is not the only time that her life converged with the physicians of the parish. To one encounter with Dr Daniel Wise in 1824 she may have owed her life .
Daniel Wise (1781-1829) was born 1 May 1781 Seaville, Holme Cultrum Parish, the son of John and Dorothy Wise. It is not known when he became a practicing doctor although he was in the Dalston area in 1815.[3 ] Three vouchers exist with a list of his expenses sent to the overseers of Dalston. Common items supplied include pills 1s 6d, powders 6d and 2s.0, a blister and ointment 1s 0d, while also including the inoculation of children at the poorhouse and attending deliveries. [ 4 ]
Part of Dr Daniel Wise bill 1817 Dalston Parish SPC44/2/51/2
In 1823 Jane Gate was living in the Townhead area of Dalston, an area near the church and the centre of the village. Various newspapers reported on the events in Jane’s house that night, although they all vary slightly in how they relate the facts. In summary, her neighbour Mary Irving like others suspecting she may be pregnant called to see how she was. Finding Jane unwell she went for Margaret Scott who brought Betty Irving, Mary’s mother, as well as Jane Irving and Mary Atkin. Quite a few neighbours appear to have been in the house trying to determine Jane’s circumstances. Eventually, after denying she had given birth, Jane when asked by Mary Atkin if if she had given birth and where it was replied ‘upon the coals in the coal hole’. There they found a male infant dead covered in coal dust. It was also revealed that Jane had a illegitimate daughter, Frances, about 5 years old living with her.
Dr Wise was sent for by the overseer and seeing the injuries to the dead infant felt it had come to some malicious harm. A subsequent inquest conducted by Richard Lowry at overseer Thomas Martin’s house, the King’s Arms, reached a verdict of ‘wilful murder’ against Jane Gate and she was committed under a coroner’s warrant for trial. [ 6 ] Jane could not be removed to prison and her subsequent trial was postponed as she was not considered well enough. The coroner bound her over to the churchwardens and overseer to prosecute. It was reported that Jane had a ‘dangerous and infectious illness’. Jane Gate had smallpox.[7 ] Her trial was postponed until the spring assizes.
At the Cumberland Assizes (9 March 1824) Jane faced an indictment of murdering her own child. Appearing before the Grand Jury, she pleaded ‘not guilty’. She was appointed council to represent her as she had none.
Jane’s daughter Frances (1819-85) was asked to give evidence. Frances, on being questioned, said she did not know how old she was or what would become of her if she told a lie. No more was asked of her.
Mary Irving, one of the first to enter Jane’s house, described where Jane Gate lived. A house with one room downstairs, one up, a kitchen, stone flags on the floor and a fire, ‘Very near the public road where anyone can see in’. Many other women also lived there who knew her well. [8]
Evidence given to the coroner was simulary repeated by some of the women who had been present. No mention was made of any employment that Jane may have had or help from the parish.
At the coroner’s inquest, Dr Wise said that the infant had injuries about the head enough to cause death. He was unable to give a positive judgement as to whether the male child was born alive, or if the injuries were deliberate or incidental. [9]
Justice Holroyd directed the jury. He pointed out that there was proof she had concealed the child, but as the law had changed, where previously the mother of a dead child born in secret would be guilty of murder Lord Ellenborough’s Act meant the circumstances had now to be enquired into. She had not dealt with the child as if she meant to murder it although there may be a strong suspicion. Jane Gate was found ‘not guilty’ of murder but sent to Cockermouth House of Correction for two years for the concealment of the child.[10] None of the newspapers give any account of anything Jane Gate may have said in her defence other than her reply, ‘Not Guilty’. One newspaper went as far as to provide judgement of Jane, calling her ‘a wretched woman’.[11]
By 1827 Jane was living in Whitehaven about 14 miles from Cockermouth. She is receiving payments from the overseers of the poor. 1s 6d per week.[12 ] Three letters from Jonathan White asking for the money paid to her to be refunded by the Overseers at Dalston exist.
Jane must have returned to Dalston before her son Robert was born in 1831. By 1841 Jane, and her children Frances and Robert were living together. Jane and Frances were working in the cotton industry. They remained in Dalston, but poverty was never far away. When not working as agricultural labourers or in the cotton industry they were listed as paupers or recipients of parochial relief on subsequent census returns. Jane died December 15 1867 while living at Whitesmith Buildings, Dalston; Frances on 4 January 1885 at Skelton’s Yard, Dalston; and William on 13 February 1900 at Dalston.
Dr Wise died on 13 March 1829 aged 46 years. He and his wife Ann Hayton had three children, Joseph (1810-1830), Dorothy Wilson (b.1812) married to Dr James Allen (who died in Bedlam Hospital, London 1877) and Ann (b.1816). [13]
References [1] Cumbria Archives. PR 41 Dalston St Michael Parish Register, 1570-2016 [2] Cumbria Archives. Dalston Overseers’ Voucher, SPC44/2/48/73 line 1 24 march 1831 [3]Cumberland Pacquet and Ware’s Whitehaven Advertiser, 12 September 1815, p3 col a [4] Cumbria Archives, Dalston Overseers’ Voucher, SPC44/2/51/1, June 1817; SPC44/2/51/2, 15 February 1816 – 24 April 1817; SPC44/2/51/3, 22 August 1814- April 1815, bills to the Overseers of the Poor from Daniel Wise [5] Carlisle Patriot, 12 July 1823 p 4 col. d [6]Bell’s Life, 20 July 1823, p4 col b (accessed 19 August 2019 at Find My Past.co.uk) {7]Westmorland Gazette, 16 August 1823, p3 col e [8]Carlisle Patriot ,13 March 1824, p1 col e,f [9] Carlisle Patriot 13 march 1824, p2 col a
10]Cumbria Archives. Q/4, Conviction Books 1791-1891, Lent 1824 [11] Cumberland Pacquet and Ware’s Whitehaven Advertiser, 15 March 1824, p2 col e [10]Cumbria Archives, Q/4, Conviction Books. 1791-1891, Lent 1824. [12] Cumbria Archives, SPC 44/2/66/30, 19 August 1827; SPC 44/2/66/32 22 September 1827; SPC 44/2/66/38, 5 December 1837.
In December 1827, the parish of St Clements in Hastings decided that it was ‘absolutely necessary’ to appoint an assistant overseer. This salaried official would be asked to take over all of the day-to-day drudgery associated with relieving the poor, namely to relieve all paupers, pay all bills, superintend the management of the poorhouse under the governor, removal all paupers and do all the other duties of a managing overseer. This freed the annually-elected overseers to do the really important work of collecting the poor rates.
Candidates for the office wrote to the parish in early April asking to be considered, but they had been pipped to the post by the interim ‘internal’ candidate. Mr Solomon Bevill had been provisionally appointed in January 1828. He remained in post subject to annual reappointments until 1833 when (presumably) declining health prompted him to retire. Bevill died in 1834, leaving goods and property to his children and grandchildren.
East Sussex Record Office, PAR 367/37/2/17
Thus far, Bevill’s story fits with the outline for a number of assistant overseers around the country. Men of apparently declining fortunes or towards the end of life secured this sort of post to provide an income in otherwise lean years. What is surprising is the additional detail we can glean from genealogical and other sources about the career that was coming to an end in Bevill’s case.
He had been born in the mid-eighteenth century and was therefore in his late 70s when he took on the parish job. Solomon Bevill was married to Lydia Blackman in 1775. In their early lives, the family members were sufficiently poor to warrant the attention of parish officers: Solomon, Lydia and their daughter Elizabeth were the subject of a settlement certificate issued in 1777. Thereafter their fortunes lifted: Solomon Bevill the elder acquired property in Hastings, and either he or his son, Solomon Bevill the younger, became Comptroller of the Port of Hastings. Most intriguing of all, one of the Solomons (I’m assuming the elder) can be found listed as the commander of a privateer in 1812, during the war against America. A letter of marque was made out to this name as the Commander of the ship Eclips out of Hastings, owned by Thomas Mannington.
The Beach at Hastings, c1812-1815
Elderly though he may have been, Bevill certainly brought something of a swashbuckling approach to parish affairs. At first appointment, and without asking the vestry, he summarily pulled down the wash house attached to the parish poor house and began rebuilding it with contractors of his choice. The tone of the vestry minutes in recording this realisation is, though, quite conciliatory rather than reproachful or outraged. Presumably Bevill’s long history in the town, or his age, conferred a protective veneer.
Sources: The Keep, East Sussex Record Office: PAR 367/12/2/8, Hastings St Clement Minutes of the Vestry concerning the poor 1827-33; PAR 367/12/5 Hastings St Clement vestry minute book 1823-58; PBT 1/1/78/562; National Archives HCA 25/206.
