West Bank – allanprussell

The Big Houses Of The Heatons: Christmas In The Big Houses

A Christmas Feast – Adlington Hall, Adlington, Near Poynton, Cheshire – From The Manchester Weekly Times December 16 1892

Christmas as we think today it is largely a Victorian, or more precisely a Dickensian invention. The increase in prosperity and advances in technology did mean that they certainly changed the emphasis of the festival. By the end of the century our ancestors were doing as we do, looking back on times past and lamenting the loss of a never existent innocence.

By 1892, Christmas as a tradition was firmly established. Professional societies held annual christmas lunches, the very week the Manchester Weekly Times published the drawing above, it also reported on the annual dinner of the Manchester And District Society of Chartered Accountants. Alongside their festive cheer, they concerned themselves with obtaining a professional recognition similar to that recognised by their colleague lawyers. Who says we accountants never enter the spirit of the season.

The Weekly Times looked back on a Christmas falling in the dreariness of the midwinter, blending pagan and Christian ceremony, the yule log and the boar’s head, the wassail, holly and Santa Claus himself.

Bringing in the Yule Log, Houghton Tower – Manchester Weekly Times 1892

The article gives pictures of how the inhabitants of these houses celebrated the season. At Wycoller Hall near Colne, the Cunliffe family revelled for a full twelve days, dining on a dish of frumenty – a porridge made of wheat and fresh milk, followed with roasted beef, a fat goose, pudding and of course plenty of beer.

However, the mill workers of Stockport did not enjoy the same luxuries. In 1842, Alfred Orrell , the serving Mayor of the town, was met with a deputation of 200 tradesmen, apprentices and assistants who were lobbying for an extra day’s holiday on the 26 December, to allow them to enjoy their customary convivilialities and festivities, Christmas falling on a Sunday, and they being unable on that day to celebrate (ie go to the pub) and attend church.

To his credit Alfred did give his blessing to the plan, which passed and allowed the shops to remain closed, with the caveat that he intended to open his mill for work on the 26th, but remain closed the following Monday.

A few days later we discover that the shops did infact close on Boxing Day (would that it were still so), whilst the mills were nearly all at work. The apprentices and assistants were therefore able to enjoy the festivities. One sole shopkeeper raised his shutters on the 26th December in the Market Place, he was rewarded with a broken window. The Stockport Advertiser reported that the apprentices expressed themselves in anything but sympathetic terms on hearing this news

Which is fortunate, for drinking time was limited on Christmas Day, the same paper reported that year that licensed premises may not sell beer before one o’clock on Christmas Day, and must close during Divine service in the afternoon.

Travelling a few miles along the Manchester to London turnpike that same year, if we stopped off at Poynton, we would see Lord and Lady Vernon give a Christmas tea party in the Boys School Room (now the Poynton Community Centre) in order to award prizes to the best scholars and celebrate the festivities.

The room was decorated with a bronze chandelier holding 25 candles. The surrounding windows were covered with scarlet curtains and the walls on each side had uplifting mottoes, praising Church and Queen, Lord and Lady Vernon, The Prince Of Wales, and of course the Vernon Schools themselves.

230 children and 270 locals dined on tea and rich redcurrant bread, after which the Reverend Robert Littler of Poynton awarded the prizes and then to his delight the assembled multitude presented him with a copy of Bagsters Large Folio Polyglott Bible, to thank him for his service to the community. Poynton always knew how to party.

By 1844 the Stockport millowners had started to be a little more amenable to the season, and that year Edward Hollins, of Park Mills gave a supper to 700 workers in one of the millrooms. The food consisted of a joint of beef weighing 77 kilos, after the meal there was beer and dancing. The Manchester Courier noted that the moral effect of these gatherings would foster a better understanding between employer and employed, and hinted that other millowners should perhaps follow the example.

In nearby Ashton Under Lyne that year, the mills closed on Boxing Day evening (a Thursday) for the rest of the week, and the Courier was pleased to note that not one case of drunkeness was presented to the magistrates.

In 1853, if we visit Strines near Marple in Cheshire we find that the partners, James Nevill and Joseph Sidebotham held a festival for their employees on 23 December 1853. It commenced with a tea for 200 children, the entertainment including ‘Dissolving Views’(magic lantern) and ‘Voltaic Battery Show’ There then was a supper for the adults starting at 8.30pm for 202 guests. This included a lengthy ritual of toasts. In one for the ‘work people of Strines’ it was mentioned that some of them had worked for the Company for 50/60 years. If this were true they would have commenced working at the formation of the Company in the 1790’s, and would be at least 70 years old.

The ball then commenced in an elaborately decorated adjacent room. The venue was probably the two first floor rooms of the oldest part of the Works – the original ‘Block Shop’ adjacent to Strines Hall. The festivities continued until 06.00am Saturday, Christmas Eve – nearly ten hours of partying for the adults.

The illustration below comes from the Strines Journal, a worker produced magazine reflecting the philantrophic nature of the owners. We will learn more about the Strines Journal in a future article on Charles Henry Nevill and Mile End Hall.

*1853 Christmas Festival from the Strines Journal – Strines Community Website*

Venturing into Manchester, we see that traditional entertainment is available. Boxing Day 1850 saw the premiere of a new Pantomime, Baron Munchausen – An Old Friend With A New Face, at the Theatre Royal, and in 1854 The Manchester Examiner and Times gave an overview of non theatrical entertainments the chief of which was Dr Reimer’s Anatomical and Ethnological Museum at the Royal Exchange. This rather graphic show had exhibits including an anatomical Venus, which was taken to pieces and explained, by a professional Gentleman to gentlemen, and by a Lady to ladies. Ladies were not permitted to view the large number of wax models which showed frightful deliniations of the frightful consequences of vicious indulgence. A report in the Lancet in 1853 noted a room was set apart which showed the ravages of syphilis and gonorrhea.

You could enjoy all this entertainment for the price of one shilling in the morning and 6d in the evening (5p and 2½p). You can read more about theatres and festive entertainment in Manchester in Marilyn Shalks‘ excellent blog.

The combination of Sir Henry Cole’s new Christmas card and the 1840 penny postal service meant you could despatch greetings to your relatives. It was as we all suspect a ruse by the post office to boost postal traffic, and presumably underage drinking by the look of the young girl quaffing a glass of wine.

Henry Cole’s first Christmas Card, 1843.

The cost was prohibitive, whilst only a penny to post, the card itself cost twelve times as much.

You may rue the lack of traditional religious scenes in cards today, in the nineteenth century the practice of sending mass produced cards by post at Christmas was a novelty, still they managed uplifting messages such as murderous frogs and dead robins

Christmas Greetings – Library of Birmingham, Birmingham City Council

I suppose the erithacophobe market was significant in those days.

Rather less unsettling entertainment was available at the Free Trade Hall, Professor Anderson, a necromancer who had toured the United States, entertained with his magic tricks, and Mr Gallaher had a ventroliquial show, introducing the Bubble Family at the Athenaeum.

The traditionalists could see Jack and the Beanstalk at the Theatre Royal, and the devout attend a Christmas day performance of Mendelssohn’s Elijah.

Around the same time as the Christmas Card was produced, Charles Dickens saw a commercial opportunity, and he published A Christmas Carol on 19 December 1843. The first edition sold out by that Christmas Eve, and by the end of the following year it was in its thirteenth edition. He did not make much money out of it that first year, mainly because of piracy, but the public readings he undertook of it from 1847 until his death in 1870 were very lucrative for him.

The Christmas book changed the publishing industry, from now on Christmas was the peak time of demand, and a steady supply of books came out. Dickens himself produced a weekly literary magazine, All The Year Round, to which he contributed, but mainly published literature by other authors including Elizabeth Gaskell and Wilkie Collins. This had special expanded Christmas editions.

He gave equal prominence to male and female authors, although they were never credited, for he styled himself as the Conductor of these anthologies. The Manchester author, Elizabeth Gaskell penned the second story in the 1863 Christmas number.

Elizabeth produced her own Christmas Stories, or at least stories at Christmas. The Moorland Cottage, was certainly primed for the Christmas market with its fireside hearth cover. However, you get the impression her heart was not in a festive mood from the beginning of Chapter 5 Christmas-Day was strange and sad. Mrs. Buxton had always contrived to be in the drawing-room. Christmas is only mentioned eight times in the book, and we only see it the once, on a strange and sad day.

The Moorland Cottage Elizabeth Gaskell 1850

Ghost stories were popular, the new middle classes moved into town. The servants were often taken on in autumn when the nights were long, these servants were in strange houses, they often appeared suddenly through concealed doors. It has been suggested even that the gas lighting caused hallucinations, and the rise in interest in spiritualism reinforced the belief in other worldly apparitions.

Authors were cynical about the Christmas market. William Makepeace Thackeray published a number of festive stories, the first of which was under a nom de plume, Mrs Perkin’s Ball by M A Titmarsh in 1846. He reviewed a number of books that year, including his own, and halfway through in mock horror realised that he had written it, saying: Kick old Father Christmas out of doors, the abominable old imposter! Next year I’ll go to the Turks, the Scotch, or other Heathens who don’t keep Christmas. (1)

Mrs Perkins Ball M A Titmash aka William Makepeace Thackeray 1846

I’ll leave the last word on Christmas literature to Anthony Trollope, who wrote in his autobiography of 1883: While I was writing The Way We Live Now, I was called upon by the proprietors of the Graphic for a Christmas story. I feel, with regard to literature, somewhat as I suppose an upholsterer and undertaker feels when he is called upon to supply a funeral. He has to supply it, however distasteful it may be. It is his business, and he will starve if he neglect it. ……… Nothing can be more distasteful to me than to have to give a relish of Christmas to what I write. I feel the humbug implied by the nature of the order. A Christmas story, in the proper sense, should be the ebullition of some mind anxious to instil others with a desire for Christmas religious thought, or Christmas festivities,—or, better still, with Christmas charity. Such was the case with Dickens when he wrote his two first Christmas stories. But since that the things written annually—all of which have been fixed to Christmas like children’s toys to a Christmas tree—have had no real savour of Christmas about them. I had done two or three before. Alas! at this very moment I have one to write, which I have promised to supply within three weeks of this time,—the picture-makers always require a long interval,—as to which I have in vain been cudgelling my brain for the last month. I can’t send away the order to another shop, but I do not know how I shall ever get the coffin made. ²

Returning to the centre of Manchester, in 1853 the Victoria fruit market, was a forerunner of the Christmas Markets we have today, and must have been a great source of wonder for Mancunians. At the top end of the market Mr R Clark displayed two crystal baskets replete with flowers and Mr McElroy had a display of grapes and other fruit. However, the Manchester Times was most impressed with Mr William Copeland’s display of apples, each of which he had placed a letter, spelling out such slogans as Long Live Victoria! and Hampton Court! He also had pyramids of oranges, lemons, pears and apples.

Ample meat was available from the Shambles, and other butchers. They displayed hams on Deansgate from Stretford farmed pigs. The game market not only sold game, geese, turkeys and fish, but also barrels of oysters.

This was the year Smithfield Market in Manchester was first covered with a glass roof and there were ten new shops on the side of the building, and the market area covered 2½ acres, giving greater opporunity to shop in comfort away from the ravages of the weather.

Sir James Watts was mayor of Manchester in 1855. That year he reminded the business community that Christmas Eve had two postal deliveries, and therefore should not be given up to frolic.

In 1859, the Christmas Holiday argument was still raging, Christmas Day having had the temerity to repeat its cyclical habit of falling on a Sunday.

However, in 1862 a greater indignity faced the gentry of town when a solar eclipse was to occur on the afternoon of the 31st December, as the Manchester Weekly Times put it, abating its glory in in view of a mourning nation and the dying year. Traditional Manchester weather snuffed any possiblity of viewing this by providing a thick fog, to the dismay of the shooting parties, who after struggling through the thick haze, were defeated by the darkness of the eclipse making as great an obstacle to shooting as the prevalence of the mist.

By 1865 a German Fair was well established in the centre of Manchester, as was a Christmas Tree. The tree was 25 feet high, however, in keeping with modernity it was artificial, built of a large gas pipe which radiated branches serving as burners surrounded by comic heads. It was decorated with multicoloured chinese lanterns and decorated with 2,000 dried Welsh ferns tipped with candles, and festooned with wrapped presents.

At the bottom of the tree, a tableau of carved animals and birds depicted the flight of the animals in Noah’s Ark, and a few feet away was the traditional crib scene.

The toys in the Christmas market stalls were also at the cutting edge of technology, dolls which said Papa when tilted were on sale, as were examples that cried, walked and kicked. For the boys there were self propelled boats and railway trains as well as a distant ancestor of the Duracell rabbit which walked, moved its lips and played a drum.

By 1887 if you wanted to spend Christmas day away from home, there were trains, running on the 25th to Liverpool as well as excursion trains to places as far afield as Dumfries and Edinburgh on other days. For the more affluent, Thomas Cook and Son on Market Street were running Christmas trips to Nice, Monte Carlo and other Mediterranean resorts.

Christmas as we know it had arrived by the end of the century, enough for nostalgic looks back at how the season was marked in days of yore, which as we used to say is where we came in.

I’ll leave you with some festive views of some of the places we’ve seen, Heaton Lodge, sent by the young Rowland Hill Harrop to a girl he met, Highfield, taken over a century apart, yet once they stood next door to each other. Bramhall Hall, home of the Davenports and Charles Henry Nevill of Mile End Hall, Abney Hall, built by Alfred Orrell, and lived in by the Watts family. Barnes Hospital, built by Robert Barnes, the brother of Maria, who married George Fernley , Bruntwood Hall, built for William Nelson and Mauldeth Road, as it was across the road from Heaton Lodge and one of my childhood views.

Finally, in the words of the song, Sleigh Ride, a picture print by Currier & Ives, from Arthur Fitzwilliam Tait.

American Forest Scene, Arthur Fitzwilliam Tait, Currier & Ives

Having linked Heaton Mersey with Zooey Deschanel, I’ll wish you a Merry Christmas.

References

1 Pricket, Stephen. Victorian Fantasy. Waco, Texas: Baylor University Press, 2005

² Thanks to Anthony Burton of the Elizabeth Gaskell house for sources on Victorian Christmas Literature.

The Big Houses Of The Heatons : Interlude Elizabeth Gaskells House

I paid a visit today to Mrs Gaskell’s house near Plymouth Grove. It was really good to get a feel for what a Victorian Merchant’s house looked like after writing about them for so long, and I am sure I will pay a few more visits in the future.

However, what was really exciting for a geek like myself was to see in the dining room, a portrait of Victoria Street in Manchester by Arthur Fitzwilliam Tait.

Victoria Street Arthur Fitzwilliam Tait – The Elizabeth Gaskell House Manchester

If that were not enough, there was a Ruskin exhibition on the first floor and of course Mabel Tylecote, nee Pythian, and the curator was kind enough to let me hold some of the books which had been donated by Mabel, from her father’s collection. John Pythian, her father was a solicitor, politician and lay preacher, who was a great admirer of Ruskin, and had an extensive collection, some containing his pencil written notes.

You get a bit of Heaton Mersey in the best places.

The Big Houses Of The Heatons: West Bank – Part Eight: The Last Inhabitants

Edith Johnson stayed on at West Bank until her death, looked after by her maid Francis Bateman, who was just four months younger than her, being born in 1874, and had been in the family’s service when they moved to West Bank forty years earlier.

In 1955 John Norman Baxter Chadwick and his wife Alice Cartwright were living at the house. John was born in July 1908. He married Alice in 1937, and they moved to Tatton Road in Stockport where he describes himself as a Director and Works Manager. They moved from West Bank in the early 1960s. John died in 1985 at Leegate House on Leegate Road in Heaton Moor, Stockport.

The couple had three children, who are still alive. John and Alice were keen golfers, Alice was twice ladies’ captain at Heaton Moor Golf club. Two of the children went on to be directors of Kenyon’s Containers in Stalybridge.

West Bank House next door had by then been purchased by the Catholic Church and was used as a convent serving the nearby church and of course, St Winifred’s School.

Therefore in 1964 West Bank was certified as an approved school for boys, run by the Salford Church Rescue Society. Six years later at the end of 1970 it was redesignated an approved school for girls. As children, living on Lodge Court, the building was deemed off limits because of its status, and we did fear the rather stern nuns who would chase us off if we encroached on the grounds.

The gatehouse served as a sweetshop for the school, and I presume any sweet toothed nuns.

In 1973 the school became a Community Home with Education, run in conjunction with Stockport MBC. It only managed to struggle on until 1979, when the running costs of £100,000 pa became too much, and the school was closed down on 31 December 1979, ending 150 years of history.

A Grainy, Soon To Be Closed, West Bank in November 1979 – Stockport Express

At the time of closure, there were 34 staff, caring for 12 girls, the Headmaster at the time, Terence Barnwell had worked there almost since the inception of the girl’s home in 1970. He was concerned at the lack of alternate accommodation for future, as he called them, wayward girls in the region, but at least satisfied that the current residents had been rehoused, although he feared for the staff finding new employment. Just before the closure there had been a major refurbishment which would have allowed them to care for seven more girls.

Mr Barnwell lived in tied accomodation with his family next door to the home, so he could be considered the house’s last resident.

Terence Barnwell, Headmaster 1979 Stockport Express

At the end Stockport lost a valuable resource. The house was demolished and is now housing, Cannock Drive, off Lodge Court. The only evidence that a grand house ever once stood there is remnants of a small border wall at the edge of the car park in Catherine House next door, and of course the gatehouse. The trees along that border once served as the dividing line between Heaton Lodge and West Bank.

Next time inspired by the connection between Charles Henry Scott and Daniel Clifton we will leave the borders of the Heatons and visit Mile End Hall,

The Big Houses Of The Heatons: West Bank – Part Seven: Charles Fielding Johnson

In 1913 the contents of West Bank are put up for sale after the death of Charles Scott. The Manchester Courier of 8 March that year announces the auction. Even the lawnmower is for sale, I wonder if it is the same one that Mortimer Lavater Tait owned.

Manchester Courier West Bank Contents For Sale

For a long while the only information I had about the next inhabitant was this rather curt advertisement from the Manchester Evening News of 15 March 1917.

This transpires to be Charles Fielding Johnson, who was born to John Goode Johnson and Katherine Parr Brady on 1 October 1863 in Stockport. Charles kept up the informal West Bank tradition and ran a bleachworks, but this time it was not the Heaton Mersey Bleachers, but Henry Marsland’s Park Bleachworks in Edgeley.

Katherine Parr Brady was the daughter of Charles Robert Brady and Ann Parr. Charles was born in 1801 in Orford in Suffolk, Anne was an Essex girl, born in 1804. Charles came up to Stockport to work for Robert Legh of Lyme, tending his farm as a tenant. Katherine was born in Gate Cottage, Lyme Park, the family moved in the 1840s to Cale Green, where they looked after Cale Green Farm and lived next door to Samuel Carrington who we met when looking at Cephas John Howard.

Charles then took charge of Castle Farm on Mile End Lane, which subsequently became the Davenport Park estate. He died in 1864. Katherine Parr Johnson, as she became, died in 1919.

John Goode Johnson was born as part of a long line of John Goode Johnsons, on 23 January 1831 in Langwith, Nottinghamshire. He was the brother of Thomas Fielding Johnson, who founded Fielding & Johnson Engineers, the first company to use steam engines in its factories, and subsequently in 1919 donated 37 acres of land which established Leicester University.

At the age of 18 John Goode Johnson came to Stockport and entered the firm of Henry Marsland Bleachers in 1849. He married Amelia Sophia Turney around 1855 and had four children with her. After she died he married Katherine Parr Brady on 8 October 1862, and soon after became managing Henry Marsland’s bleach works on Alexandra Park in Stockport.

Henry was clearly a generous employer to his management because John Goode Johnson amassed enough wealth to move to Brinnington House and he lived there from the late 1870s until his death on 3 September 1912, having risen to Chairman and Managing Director of Henry Marsland Ltd.

The Johnson Family 1902 outside Brinnington House
Back row l-r Lewis Brady, Charles Fielding, Isobel Katy, George Leonard, Frank Stafford
Middle row Samuel Turner, Mary, John Goode Sr, Katherine Parr, John Goode Jr
Front row Helen, Alan, Little Vic The Dog, Fanny (Frances)
Stockport Image Archive

Brinnington House stood next to Brinnington Hall, and is now the site of St Paul’s primary school in Brinnington.

Brinnington House Stockport Image Archive

Charles Fielding Johnson was the eldest of John Goode Johnson and Katherine Parr Brady’s children. in 1871 he is living with his parents on Old Road in Heaton Norris, but by 1891 he has moved to London, where he is staying with his half brother Samuel Turney Johnson (1857-1928) who is working as a wholesale lace warehouseman at Manor Villas on Hamilton Road in Islington, London, Charles is at this point working as his assistant.

Charles returned to Stockport around 1896 to marry Edith Rachel Gardiner (1874-1952) a farmers daughter from Pott Shrigley in Cheshire.

*Charles Fielding Johnson* and Edith Johnson (nee Gardiner) 1902 Stockport Image Archive

Charles worked with his father at Henry Marsland’s bleachworks and in 1901 he living at Mayfield on Goyt Crescent in Brinnington with Edith and described himself as Secretary to a Limited Company (Bleachworks). They moved to West Bank in Heaton Norris after Charles Henry Scott’s death in 1913.

Charles was a amateur entomologist, and a fellow of the Royal Entomological Society of London. He died on 22 October 1928 at West Bank, after his death his extensive Lepitoptera collection was put up for auction. The couple had no children.

Edith lived on there together with her maid, Frances Bateman, until early 1952 when she too died.

Of John Goode Johnson Senior’s other children, the first four were born to Amelia Sophia Turney.

John Goode Johnson Jr (1856-1923) took charge of Henry Marsland’s bleachworks and moved next door to Brinnington Hall, home once of the Howards. He was involved in the formation of the HM limited company and the dissolution of the partnership which proceeded it. In the new company 3/7 of control was with the Johnson family.

He married Sarah Cope Allen in 1886 and died at Brinnington Hall on 26 April 1923.

We have briefly met Samuel Turney Johnson (1857-1928) when Charles was living with his half brother. Samuel died in Brondensbury in Middlesex in 1928.

Mary Johnson (1858-1940) had a rather tragic life. She married Leonard New in 1883. Leonard was an Evesham solicitor who had settled in Stockport. Leonard became a partner in Lake New and Lake on Bridge Street in Stockport, and rose to Deputy Magistrates Clerk and president of the Stockport Law Society before dying suddenly in October 1911 at home in Longacre, on St Lesmo Road in Stockport.

They had two sons and a daughter, Oswald (1886-1915) was killed at Gallipoli, and Oliver (1893-1918) fell in Flanders. Dorothy New (1886-1936) carried out volunteer war work in Stockport, before also dying relatively young. Mary outlived them all, dying in 1940.

Katherine Johnson (born 1860) married accountant John Bark Moorehouse and they had three sons, Eric, Paul and Jack.

The next nine children were born to Katherine Parr Brady. Charles Fielding was the eldest, and then came Frances Eleanor (born 1867) married Sydney Coppock in 1894 who was by trade a paper stainer. They moved to Macclesfield where they lived at Daisy Bank.

George Leonard Johnson (born 1868) emigrated to the New York in 1891 where he married Helen Page (born 1871) and had three children. George imported cotton goods and they lived on Lincoln Street in New Jersey. They were still there in the 1940 census.

Isobel Katy Johnson (1871-) did not marry, and was still living at Brinnington House in 1911.

With Frank Stafford Johnson (1873-1950) we have a sportsman and olympic silver medalist in Lacrosse in the London Games of 1908. However as there was only a Canadian and English team competing the medal chances were rather high to start with, and our man came second in a field of two. Not unlike the 1900 Paris Olympics when England won gold at cricket against a French team populated by English expats. He also played cricket and golf at club level in Stockport.

He married Sarah Alice Pickford in 1901 and they went to live at the Alders in the Crescent in Davenport where he was manager of a textile mill.

Lewis Brady Johnson (1875-1947) became a travelling salesman for his father’s firm, settling near to his brother Frank at number 37, The Crescent in Davenport. He married rather late in life, Theresa Boyd in 1913 and died age 72 at his house on the Crescent.

Helen Margaret Johnson (b 1877) married Lewis Hyde a Stockport solicitor and they lived at 6 Brook Road in Heaton Norris. They had three children but she died young, aged 31 on New Years Day 1909.

Alan Septimus Johnson (1879-1949) lived at Brinnington House until at least 1911, after which he married to Barbara. He visited his brother George in New York in 1939, and died in 1949.

Finally Amy Johnson married Thomas Greenhalgh a bank cashier of Heaton Moor in 1910, and they lived at Moorside in Levenshulme.

The Big Houses Of The Heatons: West Bank – Part Six: Charles Henry Scott

We mourn the loss of High Street names on a daily basis. Part of this is progress. We have neither the need nor the desire these days to wander past endless Blacksmiths, Coal Merchants and Tripe Shops when shopping in a mall. However, there are Grocers we remember from our childhood, whose stiffly overalled proprietors we remember like some archetypal Alf Roberts, when they are gone there is a hole, perhaps our parents felt their loss, as we would if Sainsbury or Tesco were to disappear from streets and yet forty years or so later they are forgotten. No more Gateway, no more Lennons, no more Moores Stores. These were eaten up into larger chains as they in their turn devoured T Seymour Mead and Burgons of Manchester.

Our next West Bank resident, Charles Henry Scott was perhaps an unlikely Grocer, he was born into a working class family in Bridgwater, Somerset, his father, Joseph (1810-1891) was a brickmaker. Bridgwater was a brick town. In 1850 there were sixteen brickmaking factories in the area. The product was exported around the world to China, The Bronx, Canada and New Zealand.

Joseph Scott married Mary Ann Irish in 1832 and worked in the brick trade until 1863, when he moved to Manchester. He died in relative comfort in 1891 in Altrincham, Mary died a few years later in 1895.

Charles Henry Scott was born on 25 August 1834 and his first venture into the working world was as a Bookbinder, but some time in the 1850s he moved to Manchester and in 1861 he started working as a journeyman grocer on Booth Street West, this is possibly at the wholesale grocers Wright & Green. Manchester was a big town and people worked long hours, small shops therefore sprung up in the streets, these were supplied by the large wholesalers.

He shares his lodgings with six other grocers. He is the oldest amongst them.

Charles	Scott	26	1835	Grocer	Bridgwater
Rob	Ratcliffe	22	1839	Grocer	Worsley
Thomas Seymour	Mead	20	1841	Grocer	–
James	Robert	21	1840	Grocer	Cheshire
Moses	Haxley	17	1844	Grocer	Warwickshire
James Woodline	Cobbe	17	1844	Grocer	Staffordshire
Westby	Edward	15	1846	Grocer	Buttington

Interestingly he is working with the man who would become his main competitor in the future grocery trade, and the one whose company would also survive a century – Thomas Seymour Mead.

Two years later, in 1863 Charles married Mary Ann Birks at St John in Heaton Mersey. Mary was the daughter of Frederick Birks and Mary Robinson. Frederick was a Liverpool born grocer who had settled in Stockport and had a shop at 35 Greek Street.

Around this time he began an association with Isaac Burgon. Isaac was born in Derbyshire in 1821. In 1846 he married Caroline Wilson and they went to live on Stretford Road in Hulme where he established a grocers shop. His first average weekly receipts were £23. (typical average receipts were £83-£123 per week). By the 1860s he had three shops on Stretford Road, and two on Oxford Street. He moved to 133 Oxford Street in the late 1850s and then to Lansdown Villas in Withington and finally Belmont in Urmston. By 1881 he was employing 66 men as a tea merchant and grocer. He died in 1885 whilst on holiday in Blackpool, Caroline died a few years later in 1893.

During that time Charles was also coming up in the world. He also describes himself as a grocer and tea merchant between 1871 and 1901.

Mary and he are living at Sandway Oakling in Altrincham in 1871, moving to 35,Rumford Street in Chorlton before we see him at West Bank in 1891. What is clear is that whilst his reputation is rising in the community he is only comfortably off when he lives at West Bank, soon after Isaac Burgon’s death.

Isaac died intestate, and Charles saw the opportunity to buy up his shops from his estate.

In 1880 there were six Burgon’s stores but the growth after Charles took control is quite dramatic. There were 45 stores by 1913, including the flagship store in Manchester City Centre.

Burgon’s Store St Mary’s Gate – The Drug Department – Manchester Courier and Lancashire General Advertiser 24 September 1913

The city centre store was quite a novelty, at the time central Manchester was mainly devoted to commerce. However, around St Ann’s Square and St Mary’s Gate was where the fashionable shops stood. Burgon’s occupied pride of place here. It was in Exchange Arcade, the drug department dispensed prescriptions from the other branches which were sent back by messenger. The grocery section was considered high class. It sold over a thousand packets per week as the modern housewife does not have time to spend long hours preparing a dinner which will be eaten in a few minutes, nor does she rely upon the skill of her cook to provide a recherche meal at short notice. She could buy the constituents of an entire meal, hors d’oeuvres, joints, fish, sweets all in tins and packages of various kinds, everything served in a few minutes. Let nobody tell you the ready meal is a modern invention.

The store had two storerooms devoted to chocolate. On Saturdays the trade in chocolate exceeded all other. Not only did it cater to retail customers, it also supplied restaurants. Burgon’s butter was specially blended there, and because of its popularity, the turnover was so high that it was always sold freshly prepared.

They also had a coffee house on Deansgate, which served as English coffee houses had for hundreds of years, as a meeting place for businessmen. The coffee was freshly ground and blended at the St Mary’s Branch.

Infact tea and coffee was at the forefront of their quality offering. This lasted well into the mid twentieth century, both Burgons and Seymour Mead prided themselves on that. I can remember Seymour Mead tea cards, alongside the PG Tips cards.

The employees were well treated, there was a profit sharing scheme, not only that for every £20 spent at the store in a year, customers received one fully paid ordinary share, which paid a guaranteed dividend of 5%, infact the dividend paid in 1913 was 6.25%. If less than £20 was spent, the accumulated purchases were carried forward to the next year.

The head office was in the India Buildings on Oxford Road with branches as far afield as St Annes On Sea, Blackpool, Bakewell, Matlock and Buxton. There was a branch at 52, Heaton Moor Road, on on Stockport Road in Levenshulme and at 108 Barlow Moor Road in Didsbury.

Burgon’s Heaton Moor Store – The Four Heatons Through Time – Phil Page, Ian Littlechilds

Burgon Stores – Prestwich, Denton and the Supply Store at Cheadle

Around 1895 Charles is appointed a director of the Prince Shipping Line in Sunderland. This may have been through his connections. The Prince Line was formed by James Knott, the son of a successful North East Grocer. James started as a shipbroker in 1875 but by 1878 he realised the big money was in ownership. By 1891 the line had 47 steam ships.

Interestingly James Knott took advantage of the boycott of Liverpool shippers of the newly opened Manchester Ship Canal by using the canal. Charles Scott was one of the first directors when the company incorporated in 1895 with a capital of 50,000 £10 shares. Both Charles and James attended the opening of the canal in October 1894, and by 1900 he was the chairman of the Line, as well as a director of the Manchester Ship Canal Company – as was a former inhabitant of Bank Hall and the Towers in Didsbury, Sir Joseph Leigh.

In 1897 Charles embarked on the Creole Prince as she left Salford Docks for the inaugral sailing of the Mediterranean line from Manchester to Egypt and the Holy Land. Not only was the Mediterranean line a money spinner for passengers, it also gave Manchester a ready supply of Egyptian Cotton.

The profits in 1900 were £141,000 (2019 £17.3m) and a healthy dividend of 7.5% was paid.

We have a number of photgraphs of West Bank from Charles and Mary’s days there.

West Bank at the beginning of the 20th century

Charles died a wealthy man at West Bank on 2 January 1913, he was certainly a canny businessman. He had built a successful chain of grocers and was good employer and recognised the value of quality. He left £210,768-2/4 in his will (£24.1m in 2019). Mary died earlier in 1906.

Whilst much of his fortune went to his family, he rewarded his company secretary, general manager and company clerk with a bequest of preference shares, as well as leaving money to his gardener and coachman. He left £3000 to the Mary Ann Scott Memorial Home for the Blind in Old Trafford of which Charles was a Trustee.

His successor at the helm of Burgons was a Burgons man, who had worked his way up from the shop floor at the St Mary’s branch. His successor on the Prince Line as Chairman was Daniel Clifton, a Stockport brewer, of Mile End Hall.

Charles and Mary had thirteen children. Emily Birks Scott died in infancy in 1864, and William Edward Scott lived from 1866 to 1880.

Alfred Henry Scott (1868-1939) was a councillor on Manchester City Council and in 1900 stood against Arthur Balfour, the First Lord of the Treasury in Manchester East, he was unsuccesful, and this was despite a campaign of lobbying and court cases funded by his father to prevent Balfour from standing stretching back to 1892.

Alfred Henry Scott (1806-1939) Wikipedia

He stood as a radical, supporting Home Rule for Ireland, the Temperance Movement, Nationalisation of Land, Railways and Mines and the abolition of the House of Lords. He was eventually elected for Ashton Under Lyne in 1906 and held his seat until 1910, when he was defeated by Max Aitken (Lord Beaverbrook to be). He subsequently moved to London and attempted unsuccessfully to be elected there, and retired to Thanet in Kent where he became an alderman and JP, he died on 17 July 1939.

Nellie Scott (1869-1942) married Llewellyn Birchall Atkinson, a director of an Electrical Cable Manufacturer in Buckinghamshire. She retired to Devon after living in Breconshire, Surrey and Buckinghamshire. She may have had an interest in Wagnerian Opera.

Mary Alice Scott only survived nine months, dying in March 1872.

Charles Archibald Scott was born on 7 August 1872 and he followed his father in the Tea trade, marrying Beatrice Sarah Norforlk first, then Florence Kate Hayler in 1919 after Beatrice’s death. They moved to Vancouver in British Columbia where he was like his father a grocer, tea merchant but also a tea blender and real estate broker. He died on 9 July 1932 in North Vancouver.

Dorothy Scott (1873-1933) married Dr Hugh James Dickey, an Irish surgeon resident in Heaton Mersey. They lived at Ovoca, on Didsbury Road which is to this day a GP’s practice in the area before moving to Buckinghamshire.

Millicent Scott (1874-1963) married James David Bell who was a cloth salesman, they moved to Devon then Worthing in Sussex.

Joseph Frederick Scott was born on 10 October 1876. He first set up a printing company, but then enlisted in the Imperial Yeomanry in 1900. He did not stay there long and marred Annie Christian Matthews in 1903 moving to Southport where he established a restaurant. He died in Liverpool at the Northern Hospital in 1954.

James Edwin Scott (1879-1939) became a grocer and tea merchant like his father and married Doris Burton. His sister Kate (1879-1952) remained a spinster all her life, as did Margaret Elsie (1880-1961).

Finally Marion Scott married Adam Gordon MacLeod and lived from 1888 to 1977, when she passed away in Wiltshire.

Both Burgons the Grocers and Seymour Mead were bought by Moores stores of Sunderland which was founded by William Moore in 1907. Moores was eventually bought up in 1972 by Cavenham foods which was part of James Goldsmith’s empire. Burgons and Seymour Mead were both trading under their names until the early 1970s in the Manchester and Stockport areas.

The Big Houses Of The Heatons: West Bank – Part Five: John Smith Buckley

We have briefly met John Buckley before when we were looking at Sir James Watts of Priestnall Hey. The Buckleys were certainly more liberal in their outlook than the Eskrigges, and worthy of their connections with the Watts family.

John Buckley was the son of Nathaniel Buckley and Betty Collier of Saddleworth. Nathaniel was born in 1764 in Mottram in Longendale, he married Betty (1773-1843) in Mottram on 14 October 1790. They moved to Saddleworth where he established a partnership with Andrew and Joshua Binns at Carr Hill near Mossley as cotton spinners.

In 1811 they were operating from Carr Mill as well as Dukinfield Old Mill. Andrew Binns died in 1805 and Joshua went on to operate on his own account in 1819. In 1820 Nathaniel built Carr Hill and Roughtown Mills and to facilitate trade he promoted the building of a road from Stalybridge to Mossley. Until around 1830 he was the largest employer in the area until the Mayall Brothers (of whom John Mayall, the bluesman is a direct descendant, singing the music of the cotton pickers who supplied the mills) took over.

Nathaniel Buckley and Carr HIll Mills in the mid 19th Century

Outside mill ownership he was a member of the Congregational Church (like Watts) and one of the first members of Albion Chapel in Ashton Under Lyne, he was a major contributor to its constructon, and is remembered on a memorial on the inside of the Chapel. He died on 16 January 1845.

Nathaniel and Betty had around eleven children. Their eldest daughter Mary lived from 1791 to 1863.

Abel Buckley (1794-1865) was born at Carr Hill and like his father became a cotton spinner, building Ryecroft Mill and founding Abel Buckley and Company. He married Mary Keehan.

Between 1847 and 1849 he was the first mayor of Ashton Under Lyne. His son, Abel became the Liberal MP for Prestwich in 1885.

Susan Collier Buckley (1797-1858) married the Reverend Jonathan Sutcliffe, the first minister at Albion Chapel.

Jonathan Smith Buckley was born on 9 January 1798 in Staley Wood. His first wife died young and his second marriage was to Sarah Ann Seel on 22 October 1825. They lived at Carr Hill after Nathaniel’s death, and continued in the firm of Nathaniel Buckley and Company.

He had a reputation as a man who was prepared to tolerate and listen to opposing opinions, and was quick to give his workers a pay rise when the conditions allowed it (although this is also a canny nod to market forces, avoiding the losses of a strike). He was also a patron of Sunday Schools and Chapels in the Saddleworth area, as well as a benefactor of the Mechanics Institute there. He was also unlike his predecessor at West Bank ready to shorten working hours when it was decreed, being the first in the area to reduce the working day to 10 hours.

In 1858 John and Sarah moved to West Bank in Heaton Mersey. This presumably was to be near his friend and business colleague, James Watts and as we will learn to be near his sister. However, John did not live long in retirement, and he died suddenly on 24 April 1860 at West Bank, aged 62. He was buried on the 28th at the Congregational Chapel in Heaton Mersey, where he worshipped alongside James Watts.

John left £30,000 in his will (£3.6m in 2019). Sarah lived on at West Bank until her death in 1876, and she was buried alongside her husband at the Congregational Church.

John and Sarah had ten children. The eldest David Hyde Buckley (1827-1872) ran Nathaniel Buckley and Sons at Carr Hill with his brother Nathaniel.

David lived there with his first wife Sarah Andrew (1828-1858). In 1870 he married once again to Elizabeth Ann Doe in St Asaph, Denbighshire, and lived in retirement there with her until his death in 1872.

Harriet Seel Buckley died aged 22 in 1851, and John Charles Buckley barely made it to age one, dying in 1831. Robert Buckley died also as a child, aged 3.

In 1835. Frederick Buckley, born 1833 worked at Carr Hill and at least made his 21st birthday, as he celebrated that, at his father’s expense at the Fleece Inn in Mossley, in the company of his brothers and sisters.

Maria Buckley (born 1836) moved to West Bank with her parents, and was still living there in 1871.

Nathaniel Buckley was born in 1837, and like his brother, celebrated his 21st at the Fleece Inn. He married Susan Buckley Watts , the daughter of James Watts on 25 July 1861 in a location appropriate for such a power wedding, the Cathedral in Manchester. He worked with his brother at Carr Hill Mill, and lived at Carr Hill with Susan.

After that he inherited Ryecroft Hall in Audenshaw from his uncle James Smith Buckley (who had died in 1851, but there were issues with the will), but did not live there long. In 1881 he and Sarah went to Buxton to take the waters, but this was to no avail and he died on 10 June 1881 at West Bank.

Eliza Ann Buckley was born in 1840, and Jane Buckley in 1842, and the final child was Sarah Ann Buckley. Sarah Ann Buckley proved herself an equal of Sir James Watts in her political achievements. Sarah was born on 13 November 1842 at Carr Hill and moved to West Bank with her parents in 1858 where she lived until 1874 when she married Charles Edward Lees on the 30 July at the Heaton Mersey Congregational Church.

In 1907, following the Qualification of Women Act she was the first woman councillor in England, representing Hollinwood on Oldham Town Council, to surpass that in 1909 when she was named the first woman Freeman of Oldham, and the following year became Mayor of Oldham, only the second woman to reach that office in England.

She lived at Werneth Hall in Oldham with her husband, who was an Oldham cotton manufacturer.

Their daughter Marjory Lees (1878-1970) helped form the Oldham Women’s Suffrage society. Sarah Lees was made a Dame Commander of the British Empire in 1917 in recognition of her work during the War. She was also President of the Oldham Infirmary and Chairman of the Oldham branch of the League of Nations. She died on 14 April 1955

Returning to Nathaniel Buckley and Betty Collier, after John Smith Buckley Hannah was born. She lived from 1801 to 1837 and married Charles Hindley who was MP for Ashton Under Lyne from 1835 to 1857, and the first member of the Moravian Church to sit as an MP.

Robert Buckley died in infancy, whilst James Smith Buckley (1805-1851) ran Ryecroft Mills, and bought the land to build Ryecroft Hall from the Earl Of Stamford. After James died the house was occupied by his wife and sons until it passed to his nephew Abel Buckley.

David Hyde Buckley only lived from 1808-1811 whilst Jane Buckley died aged 30 in 1840 in Glossop. Robert Hyde Buckley (1812-1867) build and operated Woodend Mills in Mossley.

Finally, we once more return to the Watts family as Margaret Ann Buckley (1817-1892) married Sir James Watts in 1832, you can read about their life together in the link.

The Big Houses Of The Heatons: West Bank – Part Four: Thomas Eskrigge

We have met Thomas Eskrigge before, his daughter Julia married his neighbour William Roby Barr of Heaton Lodge.

Thomas Eskrigge was the son of Thomas Eskrigge and Sarah Brockbank. Sarah had previously been married to Captain William Linton, who we shall meet later.

The Eskrigges were a prominent Lancaster family who lived at Eskrigge Hall, Eskrigge near Lancaster. Thomas Eskrigge Senior (1767-1844) was a merchant in the town, owning land and several properties in Lancaster and the surrounding area.

Thomas and Sarah had five children. The eldest John (1797-1819) passed away on returning from a journey. On arriving home he was indisposed and a fever was diagnosed. Unfortunately he died. His obituary ends by counselling that the public (should) be careful to examine the beds on which they sleep when from home. Advice I think that we should heed to this day.

Thomas Eskrigge Junior was born on 10 March 1800 in Lancaster. He married Ann Tatham in 1821. Ann was the daughter of a Sea Captain turned Liquor Merchant, Thomas, who died a few years later in 1805. Thomas Tatham had captained HMS Penelope which saw service in the Carribbean and sailed between 1783 and 1797.

Thomas and Ann moved in the mid 1830s to Warrington , where they lived in Hope House and established a cotton factory at Hope Mill. This is next to the railway line, which will enter the story soon.

On 7 August 1841 the factory suffered a fire, the top two floors of the throstle mill, which on the map is the smaller of the two buildings, were completely aflame. Fortunately the firemen were able to extinguish it, and although the upper floor was completely damaged, along with the roof, as well as the throstles on the second floor and a large quantity of cotton, the mill was saved, and Eskrigge was insured with the York and London Fire Insurance Company (else of course the fire engines would not have come out)

However, either by bad luck or design, this fire bankrupts him and a few years later we find him living at 17 Tiviot Dale in Heaton Norris, followed by a few years living in Didsbury where he becomes managing partner in Kershaw Leese and Company managing the Mersey Mill.

He is returned as a councillor in 1847 and builds many connections in the local political and business community.

He is not above dirty tricks when trying to prevent people for voting for his political rivals, in a practice referrred to as bottling, his son Thomas was instrumental in kidnapping local men in order to prevent them from voting.

Samuel Southman testified in the Manchester Courier of 22 December 1847:

I Samuel Southman, cab driver of Stockport, declare that on Thursday evening of the 8th instant I was engaged to drive to Manchester by young Thomas Eskrigge, and I took up at the Woodman Inn, in Heaton Lane, William Ramscar and Thomas Hanson inside, and Thomas Eskrigge outside. Ramscar had a bottle of whisky with him. Hanson appeared tipsy and to some extent stupified. I drove them to the Ducie Arms, near the Victoria Station, Manchester. Then Eskrigge engaged a one horse dragg, for which he paid a pound, to Warrington. They had great difficulty in getting Hanson into it, he was so anxious to come home. He got some cheese and bread and a glass of ale to it. They mixed him a glass of whisky, gin, rum and brandy, “for all nations” as it is usually called, but he would not drink it. He said he would be made a fool of by them. At last he got into the dragg at the front and I saw no more of them. Eskrigge gave me 3s 6d (17.5p) 2s 9d for myself and 9d for the bars and he desired me not to say a damn’d word about it. I was conscious that they were bottling Hanson.

Thomas Hanson goes on to say that he is a registered voter in Stockport and was intending to vote for Major Marsland. He was drinking at the Pack Horse on Middle Hillgate, Stockport playing dominoes when

Miles Slater treated me with two glasses of ale. I had not had much to drink and I am sure the liquor I took had been drugged with plum or some other sedative, for I went completely senseless and remember nothing more until I was somewhere near Warrington in a Spring Cart with Thomas Eskrigge who was driving. Ramscar and Eskrigge had a wine bottle filled with some kind of strong liquor on the way and they kept frequently putting it to their mouths and pretending to drink and then handing it over to me and pressing me to drink freely. We arrived at a private house in Warrington at 3 O’Clock on Friday morning and I did not know what town we were in until Sunday morning. I was so stupified with drink … Ramscar and four other persons kept watching over me and would supply me with any kind of meat or drink I had a mind to ask for, but no money. and I only had 6d (2.5p) in my pocket and wanted to go home again on the Saturday morning but the folks in the house would not let me have my shoes….. on Sunday morning I was determined to go home… Ramscar and two of the men came about two miles on the road with me and kept pressing me to call in at every public house on the way to have a gill or two before we parted, as they said. I left them all at that house and walked to Manchester, and then got upon the Railway at Manchester and so expended my last penny ( having spent 2d in apples and 4d on my railway fare on my last journey).

He was probably taken to Hope House in Warrington, as the Eskrigges still lived there. He was relatively lucky. On the same night another potential voter for Marsland, one Eli Waller, was literally carted off by Eskrigge’s men to Preston where he was stuck until the 16th December, although he did receive 3s 1d to pay his rail fare back to Stockport.

The Eskrigges were nobbling voters in support of a Liberal MP against the incumbent Tory, Sir Thomas Marsland. And they succeeded, Aldeman James Kershaw (his partner in Kershaw, Leese & Co) was elected MP for Stockport in 1847 and sat for the constiuency until his death in 1864.

His political connections serve him well when the factory acts attempt to outlaw the use of child labour for more than 10 hours a day, a child being nine to thirteen years old.

The normal factory day was considered to be 15 hours from 05:30 to 20:30. At maturity, 18, they therefore would work 72 hours a week – by contrast the Emancipation Acts enforced a 45 hour work for freed adult slaves).

The mill owners soon found a way around this law by creating relay systems whereby children could determine their own meal breaks individually. This meant that hours worked became impossible to track. The relay system was allowed as long as it was approved by a local court, and so Thomas Eskrigge proposed a relay system for his mill. The factory inspectors refused, a few months later, another mill owner appeared before the local magistrates to face charges of operating a similar system.

As Eskrigge was sitting as a magistrate (along with two other cotton spinners) he saw no issue in the system being managed by the accused and acquitted him. He then used that acquittal as a precedent for introducing the same system at his own mill, therefore getting the longer hours he wanted his child labourers to work.

For posterity Karl Marx who was in Manchester at the time used this example of millowners exploting child labour, and cited Eskrigge as an example of wicked capitalists in Das Kapital.

The Morning Post of 9 June 1849 records how a number of millowners from around the country, with Thomas and James Marshall representing the Stockport interests, met Sir George Grey, the Home Secretary to protest the Factories Act reducing women’s weekly working hours from 63 to 58. That is five days at eleven hours and a generous eight hour half day on Saturday. The petition also demonstrated the extent of cotton manufacture in the Lancashire area:

The combined salary for these was £100,000 per week. In 2019 money that represents an annual wage bill for Manchester Cotton mills of £655 million, which demonstrates why Manchester became so rich with cotton.

In 1851 he is living with Ann and his family at West Bank. His standing in the community (but perhaps not with Marxist dialectics) continues to rise, and he is appointed to the board of the National Provincial Mutual Life Assurance Society, and in 1856 elected president of the Reform Society in Stockport.

Thomas died at West Bank in early 1858, and was buried at Heaton Mersey Congregational Church, Ann died two years later in 1860.

Thomas and Ann had twelve children. Their first son, George Brockbank Eskrigge was born in 1821 in Warrington and died shortly afterwards.

Thomas Eskrigge Junior (1823-1881) married Amelia Slater at the Manchester Collegiate Church in 1848, and in 1856 he appears on the electoral roll at 17 Tiviot Dale.

In the mid 1850s he travelled to Nagasaki in Japan for the firm of Tatham & Company. He traded from Yokohama between 1861 and 1863

It is claimed that the first foreign trade in raw silk from Japan took place when Thomas Eskrigge purchased silk from a Japanese merchant Shibaya Seigoro on July 1, 1859 in Yokohama. A Chinese man called Achiu mediated negotiations between the two.

However, Thomas also attempted of one of the most audacious gold trades ever.

Japan had closed itself off from the world for centuries, and therefore did not have an established system for currency exchange. The Japanese offered visiting ships an exchange rate of one Spanish silver dollar (aka Mexican dollar, or in pirate speak, a piece of eight- the de facto international currency) to one Japanese ichibu. Four ichibus made a gold koban. In terms of metal exchanged this gave nobody an advantage as the trader could exchange his silver ichibu for gold koban at the prevailing bullion rates, and be no better or no worse off, in either dollar or bullion terms.

For whatever reason the Americans did not like this arrangement and wanted the Japanese to accept a weight for weight exchange based on the silver contained in the ichibu coin (which was a lot less in the Japanese) The Japanese considered the ichibu to be a token, not valued according to its silver content. They did not trade on the value of the silver, but instead on the promise to pay an amount from their central bank.

The Americans forced this weight for weight exchange rate between the ichibu and the dollar, under the ironically named Treaty of Amity & Commerce of 1859. The new rate was three ichibus to one dollar This gave a opportunity for foreigners purchase gold three times the value than they could before. For every Mexican Dollar they exchanged for an ichibu, by subsequently buying gold koran they tripled the value of their funds.

Not surprisingly canny traders exploited this gap in the market, however, Thomas Eskrigge is singled out as applying to exchange an extreme amount, the Illustrated Times quotes $1,200,666,778,244,601,066,953 but I suspect that is more a sub editors imagination. A request to change $250,000,000 was not unusual during this frenzy. The motivation was that even if they received a percentage of the amount requested they would enrich themselves substantially.

Thomas did this using a variety of hardly convincing aliases, such as Snooks, Jack Ketch, Stickitup, Sweedlepipes, Moses, Bank, Nelly, Smell Bad, No Nose and Bosche. The Japanese were naturally not familiar with these nonsense names and therefore for a while they paid up, but eventually they were overwhelmed with the sheer volume of trades being requested and they closed the Exchanges, thus closing down newly and delicately negotiated trade.

1860 size reduction of the Japanese Koban – Wikipedia

Eventually the problem was solved when the Japanese issued a new koban gold coin containing one third of the value, thus closing the possibility of further arbitrage. A Stockport man had caused Japan to alter the size of their coin dramatically.

There were further repercussions in Japan. The debasement of the currency resulted in a huge fall in the purchasing power of the koban. The Samauri lived off fixed incomes and were rendered poorer, thus Samauri revolts became much more frequent over the next years. The Tokugawa dynasty itself had profited by the sale of token coinage, and was now poorer, and the last Tokugawa prince resigned in 1867.

Thomas returned to Stockport and lived in Drynie House in Heaton Chapel where he died on 21 September 1881. Amelia lived on there after his death and died on 21 August 1898.

Thomas and Ann’s third child was the second George Brockbank Eskrigge. He was born in 1824 in Warrington and attended the grammar school there. In 1843 he attested for the Scots Guards in Liverpool, and was in the army for three years, but only never attained more than the rank of Private. He is living at West Bank in 1851 and died in St Columb, Cornwall in 1863.

The next child, John Eskrigge was born on 26 October 1825 at Hope House, and by 1841 he was working alongside his father at Hope Mill as a cotton manufacturer.

He moved along with his father to Stockport and in 1848 he married Ann Ellen Brownhill in Didsbury. and they lived at 81 Wellington Road North in Heaton Chapel. He was also a cotton spinner and employed 2,341 men at Springmount, Park and Newbridge Mills in partnership with his brother in law , William Roby Barr.

By 1861 he is living in Hollywood House, which was on the site of Hollywood Park in Stockport.

Hollywood House, photographed in 1897, the day before its demolition. Stockport Image Archive

The Eskrigges and the Barrs then commence a three year mayorality, John’s turn is first in 1863, followed by his brother William in 1864 and then William Barr in 1865.

In 1882 he retired, possibly through illness or infirmity to a home in Farnworth near Bolton, whilst Ann moved to Nap Top, Marsland Fold in Marple. John died in April 1889 in Marple, and was buried at All Saints Church there. Ann lived on until September 1906 living in Marple with her daughter, Ellen, before herself going into a home at Rusholme Lodge in Rusholme, Manchester. She too is buried at All Saints.

William Linton Eskrigge (1827-1901) again followed in the family trade. He was named for the artist William Linton (1791-1876). The artist was the son of Sarah Brockbank’s first marriage and Thomas Eskrigge was one of his patrons. He has been compared favourably with JMW Turner and painted scenes of the North of England and Italy. He married Julia Adeline Swettenham, for whom another Eskrigge child was named.

The Temples of Paestum William Linton 1791-1876 Tate Gallery

Our William Linton was a partner in Eskrigge and Barr, and mayor of Stockport in 1864. He married Ann Crossley Tatham in 1858 at St Stephen The Martyr in London, before settling down first at Lark Hill Road then at Spring Mount House in Cheadle.

We have heard so many negative points about the Eskrigges that at times I am hard pressed to paint them in a good light. Whilst the mill owning side may not have been positive, WL Eskrigge did serve as a Trustee to Stockport Grammar, and the boys had happy memories of him wangling half holidays for them and arrange treats involving pop and Eccles Cakes. Not a lot I know, but looking for good I am on fallow ground with the Eskrigges.

The couple finally settled at 7 Woodbine Crescent in Stockport. William died in early 1901 and Annie in late 1915.

Frances Eskrigge, known as Fanny had a short life, she was born in 1828 at Hope House, but on Thursday 26 July 1838 she was sent on an errand to fetch a servant from the fields, which involved crossing the railway line parallel to Hope House. On the way back she tripped on the line and was panic struck as an engine hit her shattering her leg, which had to be amputated. Unfortunately she died the same day, and was buried two days later at St James’, Latchford.

Julia Adelina Eskrigge (1803-1905) we briefly met above. She married her next door neigbour William Roby Barr, and lived first at Heaton Lodge, then Priestnall Road in Heaton Mersey.

Robert Atkinson Eskrigge (1839-1898) was also involved in the family firm. He married Eliza B Robson in 1858 on the Wirral, and they lived in Liscard where he became a cotton broker and JP. He died in November 1898 at Fir Cottage in Liscard.

One of his daughters, Edith Eskrigge (1872-1948) did much to revive the Eskrigge good name. She became involved in the Settlement for Women Workers, also known as the Canning Town Settlement. This was a movement set up to to encourage educated people to settle amongst workers and strive to improve the quality of their lives. She then became a member of the South Wales Women’s Suffrage Federation. During the first world war she became involved with the Liverpool War Pensions Committee and Soldiers and Sailors Family Association, becoming Chief Officer of the latter.

In Liverpool she established a school for invalid children, which evolved into the Child Welfare Association, and also participated actively in the Child Adoption Society.

The next child Edward Eskrigge died aged five in 1843.

Ann Eskrigge was born in 1840 and like her sister Julia Adeline, she married into the Barr family. Joseph Henry Barr. Joseph was a GP and a member of the Royal College of Surgeons. They lived first on Ardwick Green, before moving to Brighouse.

Elizabeth Eskrigge (1844-1923) married her cousin Thomas Tatham in 1865. He was was the head of Tatham & Co, Iron Merchants of Whitworth Street in Manchester. They lived first in Meols and then at Wilmslow Park, Wilmslow.

Finally Henry Bridgeman Eskrigge (1846-1891) married Annie Bewley and worked as a cotton broker in Liverpool. They lived on Carter Street in Liverpool.

The Big Houses Of The Heatons: West Bank – Part Three: Mortimer Lavater Tait

Alfred Orrell left West Bank around 1846. Our next inhabitant did not live in the house for long, as on 20 May 1848 the contents are placed up for auction in the Manchester Courier and Lancashire General Advertiser. The auction taking place on 25 and 26 May. The house is to be let at the same time, being in the possession of one Mortimer Lavater Tait. A full description of the contents and order of sale is given in the article below.

1530-manchester-courier-20-may-1848-west-bank-house-and-contents Download

West Bank at that date had a drawing room with large chimney, dining room containing Spanish mahagony chairs and table, a breakfast room, entrance hall staircase and landing, again with mahagony chiffonier and tables, kitchen and scullery, butler’s pantry a dressing room and six upstairs bedrooms. In the gardens there was everything the hi tech gardener would need including a Budd’s Patent Mowing Machine (invented by Edwin Beard Budding in October 1830 who wrote in his patent Country gentlemen may find in using my machine themselves an amusing, useful and healthy exercise).

Mortimer Lavater Tait was not staying, possession of the house was immediate after the sale of contents. He had been bankrupted and needed the funds to pay off his creditors.

Mortimer Lavater Tait was the son of William Watson Tait and Jane Danson. William was a Liverpool Merchant who had been born in 1771 at the then innovative British Lying In Hospital in Holborn, London – one of the first maternity hospitals. As befits such a birth, Mortimer came from a well to do family who lived at Livesey Hall in Wavertree. This house was in what is now Newsham Park.

Newsham House Liverpool – Formerly Livesey Hall

William married Jane Danson (1781-1848) in 1802 in Bolton Le Sands.

William was a ship owner and broker. He had many branch offices and warehouses carrying out his trade between the West Indies and the European ports of the North Sea. During the Napoleonic wars he mistakenly captured a Dutch Vessel, believing we were at war with the Netherlands. William’s mistaken belief and a subsequent case at the Prize Court in Liverpool lost him a lot of money in compensation payments. Following that there was the failure of his correspondant in Hamburg, Herr Sonntag, due to levies enforced by General Marshal Davout of Napoleon’s army during the French occupation of Hamburg. This was unfortunate also for his daughter Susan, who had been christened Susan Sonntag Tait in his honour. All of this forced the sale of Livesey Hall.

The family moved to Manchester. He was discharged from Bankruptcy in 1811 and recovered as a businessman as in 1825 was appointed secretary of the Manchester Ship Canal Company.

This was the first attempt at a Manchester Ship Canal, not the second successful one.

There had long been a desire of Manchester merchants to have an easy route to the sea. The Mersey and Irwell navigation had partially solved these problems, but in the early 19th century Liverpool was not the major port it became, and most traffic went via the Dee. Parkgate on the Dee was the major embarkation point to Dublin and Ireland, and therefore proposals were made for the first Manchester Ship Canal from Parkgate, passing along the Cheshire side of the Mersey, crossing the Wirral Canal, through Lymm and Altrincham to Didsbury and onwards to Manchester where it was to end in Hulme by the barracks. The company was to raise £1m in 100,000 shares of £10. At a meeting held in the Old Exchange in Manchester it was resolved to build a navigable ship canal capable of bearing vessels of 400 tons .. and upwards to communicate with the Irish Sea direct from Manchester.

Needless to say, Liverpool was not impressed and the Liverpool Kaleidoscope expressed their scepticism on 19 April 1825, by invoking the Monarch of the seas – Neptune – to speak on their behalf.

The Monarch, indignant at what he called treason

And contrary too, to the dictates of reason

Advis’d them in future to stick to their Jennies

And in aping their betters not make themself ninnies

“And as for your ditch there, why take it for granted

My protection in this case will never be wanted”

Clearly Liverpool’s sense (or is it realisation) of inferiority to Cottonopolis goes back a long way. The bill went to Parliament, coincidentally, in the same session as the railway bill for the Liverpool Manchester route on 21 March 1825. It eventually was passed by a Commons majority of one, but failed in the Lords.

The Dawpool Docks for the Manchester and Dee Ship Canal

His endeavours failed him once again, and in 1828 he was once again made bankrupt in another Liverpool venture. William died in 1851 at Robert Street in Ardwick. We would have to wait nearly 70 years for another Heaton Mersey connection to put egg on firmly on the faces of our Liverpool cousins.

William and Jane had at least twelve children. They were both extravagantly named and many well travelled, befitting their merchant father.

The first, Augustus Danson Tait died in infancy in 1803. Jane Sonntag Tait (1804-1882), named for the Hamburg merchant, was his second child. She first set up as a milliner in Liverpool but that did not succeed and in 1834 she married William Cawkwell (1807-1897) who went on to become the General Manager of the London and North West Railway.

William Cawkwell, General Manager LNWR by Hubert Von Herkomer – National Railway Museum

Augustus Henry Tait (1806-1883) married Ann Hogg and they emigrated to the USA, he died in Hastings New York on 19 December 1883. His brother Ferdinand Adolphus was born in 1808 and went to Brazil where he married Clara Da Silva Barbosa and had two children by her, before parting from her and marrying Elizabeth Trevilla Richard back in England, having five more children and emigrating to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where he died in New Orleans in 1860.

The next child Dover Ashurst Tait was born in 1809 at Livesey Hall and died in 1834 in Mehattan, Mexico.

Mortimer Lavater Tait was born on 28 October 1810 in Bolton Le Sands. He married first Ann Hood (born 1808 in Lougborough) at St Nicholas in Liverpool on 28 September 1834, and they moved to Manchester where they lived on Broome House Lane in Eccles in 1841, before moving to George Street, Manchester (now in China Town) in 1844, where he has an interest in a cotton mill on Mosley Street as well as something intriguingly called the Mortimer Tait Railway Company.

In 1846 we find him at West Bank with Ann, and he is running Heaton Mersey Bleachworks with Samuel Stocks (who had been in business at the same factory with John Stanway Jackson).

Heaton Mersey Bleachworks 1831 by A Fraser 1786-1865 – Lancaster Museums

In 1847 this business failed and a fiat in bankruptcy was ordered, this forced the sale of the possessions at West Bank and the letting of the house, and he moved to a property he called The Cottage in Heaton Mersey. Whether this is a small cottage or a nod at a house the size of Alfred Orrell’s residence in Grasmere I can’t say.

However, by 1854 whatever the size of his residence, he has overcome his troubles and is once again at Heaton Mersey Bleachworks, and he is living on St James’ Street in Manchester. Ann died around 1851 and on 24 July 1860 he married Mary Danson in Regent’s Park, London, and they settled on New Road in Heaton Moor. Obviously once more a succesful man, by 1857 he is respected enough to serve on the Grand Jury for the January Quarter sessions at Salford.

Mortimer continued his association with the Heaton Mersey Bleachworks into the late 1860s before retiring to Barrow Mount in Ramsbottom and then Bold Street in Heysham near Morecambe after Mary’s death in 1872, where he died on 2 March 1893.

Mortimer is buried at St John in Heaton Mersey together with both of his wives.

Mortimer Latimer Tate, Ann Hood and Mary Danson’s resting place at St John Heaton Mersey.

The next child born to William Watson Tait and Jane Danson was Constantia Elizabeth Tait (1812-1891) she married Dr Joshua Rowbottom, FRCS, at the Collegiate Church in Manchester on leap year day 1848. They lived together on Union Street in Ardwick. They subsequently moved to New Zealand, where Joshua died in March 1881 and Constantina moved back to her family roots in Lancashire.

Alfred John Tait was born in 1814 and married Susannah Williams in Liverpool in 1836, but he died young in Manchester in 1845 aged 31. He was buried at Ardwick Cemetery.

William Arthur Tait (1817-1865) married Dorothy Maria Chester and they moved to Oporto where he became partner in a Port Wine Lodge, Rawes & Tait, before running it under his own name. Dorothy died in 1863, and he married Margaret Page in the British Consulate in Oporto.

Through the years the Tait label has undergone a few mergers, but is now sold under the marque Velloso & Tait, previously it was Stormonth and Tait, and supplied the necessary port to Ernest Shackleton on his expedition to the Antarctic.

Williams oldest son, William, carried on the family trade and purchased Casa Tait in Oporto, which today houses a museum of numismatics. William Jr was a keen student of flora and fauna, and introduced many plants to Portugal.

Casa Tait, Oporto copyright Francisco Restivo

Arthur Fitzwilliam Tait (1819-1905) entered the Agnew and Zanetti Art store in Manchester aged 12. Agnew and Zanetti were famous for framing paintings by well known Victorian Artists.

He soon developed an interest in art and between 1845 and 1848 he specialised in lithographs of railway subjects. There are a lot out there. It is worth searching, I especially recommend Views On The Manchester & Leeds Railway.

Crewe Station, Victoria Station Manchester and Stockport Viaduct by A F Tait

Attending an exhibition in Paris he became aware of the Americas and emigrated to New York and established himself as a professional artist, where he attracted the attention of the lithographers Currier and Ives (who are namechecked in the popular 1948 song Sleigh Ride) In 1858 he was elected a full member of the United States National Academy of Design.

He specialised in animal pictures and illustrations of the American West.

Autumn Morning on Lake Raquette, An Early Start and Playmates by A F Tait.

Being an artist he married many times, firstly to Marian Cardwell in Liverpool, then to Mary Jane Polly Bortoft in 1873 and finally to Emma Hough in 1882 and He died in Yonkers in 2006 and remains popular, one of his paintings sold for $167,300 in 2006.

Maria Louisa Tait (1821-1870) died in St Pancras London, and finally Sarah Tait (1827-1827) died in infancy.

Returning to Mortimer Lavater Tait, he and Ann Hood had eleven children.

His first son, Mortimer Dover Tait (1836-1918) emigrated to Australia and maintained the family railway connections by becoming a Station Master in Jondarayan near Toowoomba. He married Elizabeth Anderton shortly before emigrating He died suddenly, collapsing and expiring near Goggs Street in Toowoomba on 4 September 1918.

Maria Jane Tait, and Harry N Tait died in infancy. William Henry Tait served in the Indian Army, gaining a medal during the Indian Mutiny of 1857-1861 (just four years before my great grandfather served in Agra in India). He returned to the UK to become a farmer in Heaton Mersey, marrying Margaret Hull, and dying aged 40 in 1879 on the Isle of Man.

The next two child Ferdinand Morley Tait died in infancy in 1840.

Louisa Ann Danson Tait (1846-1917) married Thomas Newton Pearson a Heaton Mersey merchant.

The Reverend Herbert George Danson Tait (1846-1900) studied at Lincoln College in Oxford obtaining his MA in 1881 and becoming headmaster of Rossall Preparatory School in Fleetwood. He died of a heart attack whilst returning home along the sands on 14 January 1900 after performing divine service.

There were two Emily Jane Taits. The first was born in 1842 and died in January 1844, the second Emily Jane Tait lived from 1844 to 1914, and married her cousin Edward Paget Tait in Auckland New Zealand. They had three children and he died in 1903, Emily returned to England and married Charles Knight, and died in Blackburn.

Charles Lavater Cawkwell Tait (1848-1891) was another to be associated with the Railway Industry. After marrying Hannah Walker Moore in Whitehaven in 1871, he became manager of the East Midlands Railway Company and settled at the Cow and Hare in Fakenham before becoming a railway traffic manager in Liverpool and dying in 1891 in Birkenhead.

Finally the youngest Tait, Arthur Christopher (1850-1892) emigrated to Buenos Aires where he married Rudecinda Fonda and became a merchant. He had six children, two of which returned to England and were to die in their great great grandmother, Jane Danson’s home of Bolton Le Sands.

Mortimer Tait and his second wife, Mary Danson, did not have any children.

We remember Mortimer Tait these days in Heaton Mersey in Tait Mews, where Tait’s Buildings once were, where he once housed his apprentices for the bleachworks.

The Big Houses Of The Heatons: West Bank – Part Two: Alfred Orrell

Alfred Orrell was a whirlwind of a man. By 23 he was an Alderman of Stockport, and three years later, mayor. He owned the largest mill in Stockport in 1842 at 27 and was the third largest manufacturer in the town in 1847, at 28 he was living at West Bank, but was dead at a very young 33.

Alfred was born to Ralph Orrell and Mary Roebuck. The Orrells were a long established family who inherited Turton Tower in Bolton via the marriage of William Orrell to Elizabeth de Torboc. The Torbocs had held the property since 1212 by virtue of the Lord of the Manor of Manchester.

On inheriting the property the Orrells built the pele like structure, not as protection from border raids, but apparently more to protect them from the Torboc family. The Orrells sold the tower to Humphrey Cheetham in 1628 because of mounting debt. However, they lived there until 1647. This was during the English civil war. The Orrells were Royalists, the Cheethams Cromwellians. The Orrells shared the residence with Cromwell’s troops during that time.

Turton Tower, Bolton, Copyright TripAdvisor

Ralph Orrell (1790-1837) built Travis Brook Mill, Heaton Norris in 1834, itself a mammoth undertaking – 6 storeys high, 280 feet (85m) high, designed to house over 150,000 spindles. It employed 1,264 hands.

Ralph married Mary Roebuck at the Collegiate Church in Manchester in 1814 and they had three children together, Alfred, Mary Sophia (1818-1838) and Jane Elizabeth (1820-1865). Mary Roebuck died in 1823 and he married Mary Pickin in 1825 in Bowdon. They had one more child, Mary (1826-1860)

Ralph Orrell died in April 1837 in Stockport, aged 46. Mary Pickin survived him and lived comfortably as an Annnuitant at Heath House, Cheadle Bulkeley then Bowdon, dying in December 1878.

Alfred Orrell was born on 10 February 1815 in London, he was christened on 19 March 1815 at the High Street Presbyterian Chapel in Stockport. By the age of 16 he was working in his father’s mill.

As well as business, he became active in local politics, joining the Stockport Anti Corn Law league in 1838, the same year as he became an Alderman. He became mayor in 1842 when Cephas Howard was unable to stand because he did not accept the nomination in time. He stood down as mayor , succeeded by Cephas Howard in 1843, and held a grand banquet at West Bank to celebrate his year in office.

The family were living at Heath House in Cheadle Bulkeley but when John Stanway Jackson put West Bank up for sale in 1842 he moved in. Around the same time he commissioned the building of a property on the site of the Cheadle Grove Printing works, which he called the Grove.

Alfred was inducted as a freemason in 1843, at the first ever meeting of the Stockport Lodge.

In business he suffered a minor setback in 1843 when he lost some bales of cotton in a major fire at Nightingales Warehouse, Zara Street in Manchester. However, contrary to some reports he was a relatively liberal mill owner. He organised and paid for his 1,264 employees by chartered train to Alderley Edge.

The millworkers set out on 21st June 1844 from Travis Mill at 1:30pm in procession to Heaton Norris Station, accompanied by two brass bands, where 25 carriages awaited them for their journey. The party took 30lbs (14 kg) of tea with them and each hand was given a bun weighing 1 lb (500g). At Alderley there was dancing and fiddle playing. At the end of the day, at Alderley station, the oldest employee, one Joseph Potts addressed his employer thanking him on behalf of all present for his kindness and liberality, and wishing him a long and happy life. The following year his workforce presented him with a silver salver to express their gratitude to him, and in 1846 he treated 300 inmates of the Stockport Workhouse to a Christmas dinner of Roast Beef, Plum Pudding and Ale.

In 1844 he was listed as a director of The Chester, Stockport and Manchester Railway. The size of his business empire can be seen from this article from the Manchester Courier of 25 March 1847, apart from James Marshall and sons, his consumption dwarfs nearly everyone else.

By 1847 he is being mooted as the MP for Stockport. On the 6 October that year he married Mary Louisa Broadhurst, the daughter of Daniel Broadhurst and Sarah Tootal.

One of Daniel and Sarah’s other children, Henry Tootal Broadhurst (1822-1896), founded Tootal, Broadhurst and Lee which became the Tootal textile dynasty. Another child, Charles Edward Broadhurst (1826-1905) was recognised in 2009 as one of Western Australia’s 100 most influential citizens – this despite him retiring to Bournemouth in Dorset… Perhaps Western Australia is still sparsely populated.

Mary and Alfred went to honeymoon at Royal Leamington Spa, and their attendance was reported in the Court Circular of the Morning Post.

Alfred bought a property in Grasmere around 1845, which he called The Cottage. Perhaps that is a rather modest name for it, it is offered for sale in May 1849 as a picturesque lake villa, occupying 12 acres at the foot of Silver Howe. The bijou property boasted 2 drawing rooms, a dining room and ten bedrooms, as well as accommodation for servants, stabling for horses, and a lodge house at the entrance. Befitting a modern man, it was only eight miles distant from the railway, which was easily accessible by mail coach and other conveyance from Grasmere. Manchester was a mere four hours ride away.

Having looked at the OS map for 1859, and making note of the description of the property in the advertisement, I believe The Cottage still exists, and we can gain some idea of the scale of the house. It isn’t small.

OS Map 1859 with The Cottage, and The Cottage today copyright Google

Alfred and Mary moved into The Grove in 1846, and he continued his good deeds, hosting Sunday School parties in the grounds,

They had a child, Mary who was born in late 1848 but his happiness was not to last, and he died on 8 January 1849, having only briefly known his daughter.

The Grove was put up for auction to be bought and substantially altered by James Watts who made his own stamp on the design and renamed the property Abney Hall.

The Grove For Sale, Stockport Library Services

Mary moved to Ardwick Place in Manchester, and then the Oaks in Rusholme, before remarrying to Sir Joseph Whitworth , the engineer, philanthropist and inventor of the Whitworth screw. She died aged 68 at Standcliffe Hall, in Darley Dale, Derbyshire.

Alfred and Mary’s daughter, Mary married James Samuel Higginbottam (1839-1897) a Glasgow cotton spinner, albeit with Stockport roots, his grandfather hailing from there. Mary died in 1889 and was buried alongside her mother in Darley Dale. Again she was only young, 41.

Before we go, we will briefly look at what happened to Ralph Orrell’s other children. Mary Sophia Orrell was born in London in 1818, and died young as did her brother, aged 20 in Stockport.

Jane Elizabeth Orrell was born on 25 September 1820 on Lancashire Hill in Stockport, she married Sir William Cunliffe Brooks, a Northern Circuit Barrister on 27 July 1842.

Sir William Cunliffe Brooks, Vanity Fare

Sir William became sole partner in Cunliffe Brooks & Co, Bankers of Manchester. You may not know the bank, it was established in 1792 in Blackburn, but you will know the building which was commissioned as the Manchester Branch, it became one of the ten provincial banks who worked with the Bank of England and merged with Lloyds in 1900

Brooks Bank 46-48 Brown Street Manchester

Jane too died young, aged 45 in Manchester.

Mary Orrell, born 1826, married John Marshall Brooks, the cousin of Sir William Brooks. John Marshall Brooks was a cotton spinner and lived at Cranshaw Hall in Lancashire.

She too had a short life, dying aged 34 on 8 May 1860.

All the Orrell line died young. Alfred achieved so much in his life, and perhaps would have done much more had he lived. He may have collaborated in Tootals and made it even bigger than it became, he would likely have been an MP, and perhaps climbed further in politics. Sir James Watts was 51 when he was in a position to own Abney Hall, Alfred Orrell barely 30. Stockport lost a lot of potential when Alfred Orrell passed away.

The Big Houses Of The Heatons: West Bank – Part One: John Stanway Jackson

Of the houses we have looked at so far, West Bank, I knew. Well at least as a child my house stood on Lodge Court, and my bedroom window looked out on West Bank. Little remains of it now, only the wall which divided it from Heaton Lodge, and the entrance gates.

It’s also a request I received from a reader to cover the house. As we progress through the inhabitants we shall see what a close knit community Heaton Mersey was as we meet people who were related to the residents of Priestnall Hey and Heaton Lodge.

The house was probably built in the 1830s it does not appear on the 1819 map of Manchester, and John Stanway Jackson is living there in 1841, but is still at Canal Street in Stockport in 1829. Its name probably derives from the fact that it was west of the forgotten hamlet of Bank, which was where Bank Hall was built (it is on the north bank of the Mersey).

Confusingly, there is not only a West Bank, but a West Bank House next door. This makes research a little difficult as the names seem to be used interchangeably on census returns. West Bank House appears around 1851, it is not there for the 1841 census, nor is it on the 1848 OS map.

1848 and 1895 OS Maps showing West Bank and West Bank House.

With those caveats in place, let’s meet John Stanway Jackson. The Jackson family hailed from Middlewich in Cheshire. James Jackson (1730-1783) was married to Martha Pickmore. James was part owner of local salt mines, a publican who ran the Queens Head, a butcher and the owner of several properties. His son, John Jackson (1770-1840) married Mary Stanway in 1796 and they settled in Gatley, having eight children.

The eldest of those was John Stanway Jackson, born on 1 September 1797 in Lancashire. He married Rebecca Maurice in 1821, but she died shortly after that, and on 27 May 1824 he married Harriet Sing in Bridgenorth, and they went to live on Canal Street in Stockport.

The family appear on the 1841 census as living at West Bank.

John was an accountant by profession, and in that role by 1834 he was the registered officer of the Stockport Banking Company, and the General Manager of the Manchester and Liverpool District Banking company. In 1839 there is a whiff of scandal around his resignation from that bank after it suffered heavy losses. Whatever happened, the directors of the Manchester and Liverpool felt that the welfare of the bank might possibly be promoted by his retirement. He strenously denied any responsiblity for these losses in a letter to the Atlas on 7 December 1839.

It is somewhat fortunate for him then that whilst on a summer visit to the Isle of Man he bought a ticket in the lottery for the disposal of the Earl of Athol’s estate at Falcon Cliff near Conchan. If we are to be believed, he bought the ticket,numbered lot 1, placed it in his wallet, and thought no more about it until his father was reading the newspaper and remarked he wished he had bought the winning ticket. At which John remembered he had bought the ticket, and sent his father to Conchan to take possession of the property.

Somewhat incredibly, by coincidence or not, the second and third prizes were difficult to dispose of, until a number of wealthy gentlemen happened upon buying a bulk of tickets, making a 50% profit on their investment.

Whether John was extremely lucky (with lotteries) unlucky (with banking) comes again into play when in 1840, he is called to give evidence in the trial of John Kenyon Winterbottom (twice mayor of Stockport solicitor and banker) who presented a forged bill of Exchange to The Bank Of Stockport, managed by one John Stanway Jackson, to the value of £5,000 (2019 £500,000) and promptly absconded to France. He was appreheded and tried in 1844, where he was sentenced to transportation for life.

A scandal erupted over this sentence – Winterbottom had many pleas for clemency submitted on his behalf (including the one from the widow he swindled) but despite this he ended up in Tasmania, where diligent work and good conduct allowed him to obtain the rarity of a ticket to leave. He took employment in Hobart as a town clerk, but once more questions were raised about his conduct in 1867 when it transpired he had sold council debentures for £400 and retained the proceeds. Two further years in jail ensued.

It probably was a good time for John to start afresh somewhere, and as luck would have it he had just won an estate in the Isle of Man, and The City of Glasgow Banking Company were in the process of establishing the Bank of Mona, therefore he moved to the Isle and commissioned John Robinson, a local architect to design and build Falcon Cliff.

Consequently in July 1842 the Stockport Advertiser carries this sale notice

We will return to Auburn Street later. In 1842 John Stanway Jackson severed his last link with Stockport, by dissolving the business partnership he had with Samuel Stocks, Bleachers and Dyers of Heaton Mersey and moved to the Isle of Man. He departed for the Isle of Man to run the Bank Of Mona.

Falcon Cliff – Mona’s Isle Album of Views 1890

John and Harriet lived at Falcon Cliff until 1855 when they moved into the newly constructed Bank of Mona building on Prospect Hill nearby. By 1871 he is retired and is living on Windsor Terrace in Lezayre on the Isle of Man. John died on 13 October 1881 at his son’s house in Glasgow and was buried at Kirk Malew on the Isle of Man, Harriet had died a few years earlier on 29 December 1878.

John Stanway Jackson – http://www.imuseum.im

Falcon Cliff passed into private hands, then became a hotel, and is now an office complex. John Stanway Jackson’s affairs were complex even in death, and it was not until 1895 that parts were sold, and up to 1899 there were claims in court to settle debts owed on legacies.

Returning to John Jackson and Mary Stanway, their second child was James Pickmore Jackson (1798-1852), who was a wool dealer and furrier on Auburn Street, Manchester, and became bankrupt in 1840, the same place John Stanway Jackson gave as a business address when selling West Bank.

Samuel Somerville Jackson was born in 1802 and married Mary Ann Girling in 1822 and emigrated to the Australian colonies where he became a farmer and innkeeper in Macclesfield, South Australia. He died there at his farm, Woodside in October 1854. For the curious, Macclesfield was named for the Earl of Macclesfield (whose estate was in Oxfordshire) by the Davenport brothers of London, so has few if any connections to the Macclesfield and Davenports we would expect.

Peter Jackson (1804-1848) was a furrier in business with his brother James, and died in Gloucestershire, like James he had moved there to carry on in the wool business after bankruptcy.

William (1805-1806) and Joseph Jackson (1807-1808) both died in infancy.

Mary Elizabeth Jackson (1800-1871) married Arthur Levett, a solicitor, and they moved to Kingston Upon Hull and Martha Evans Jackson (1812-1901) married John Wilton Shelly, a Russia Merchant, and went to live in Great Yarmouth, before moving to Plymouth, where they both died.

The children of John Stanway Jackson and Harriet Sing had varied futures. Stewart Levett Jackson (1838-1881) became a manager in the Bank Of Mona like his father, and died in Knutsford in 1881.

Louisa Sing Jackson (1825-1917) married James MacLehose, a Glasgow publisher. They begat a family of academics and book publishers, Sophia Harriet MacLehose wrote The Last Days Of The French Monarchy, and Tales from Spenser , chosen from the Faerie Queen. Louisa Sing MacLehose published an academic translation of Vasari, the painter and architect of Arezzo. Norman MacMillan MacLehose became a surgeon ,and James John Maclehose married Mary MacMillan, the daughter of Alexander MacMillan, and niece of Daniel Macmillan, the founders of MacMillan publishing, and the first cousin, once removed of Harold MacMillan (1894-1986), Prime Minister from 1957 to 1963 and Earl of Stockton.

Harriett Millington Jackson (1826-1871) married an artist Jasper John Capper, who had exhibited at the Royal Academy summer exhibition, although his marriage may have shaken him to his responsibilities as he takes a job as an engineer shortly after that. Their first son, John Brainerd Capper became assistant editor for The Times as well as an author – 25 Trifles in Verse and Stories of Naples and the Comorra, (Professor) Stuart Henbest Capper became Professor of Architecture at McGill University and subsequently Manchester University and (Professor) David Sing Capper, Professor of Engineering at King’s College, London.

Charles Edwin Jackson (born 1829) married Phebe Baker, and became a farmer, and possibly around 1861 he sold up and retired to Canada, where he died in 1906 in British Columbia.

Frederick Stanway Jackson (1832-1886) was born in Chesham Buckinghamshire (quite why Harriet was there I have not discovered). He followed in his father’s footsteps and became a banker, but also like John Stanway Jackson an accountant, and practiced as a public accountant, auditor and insurance agent, as well as owning some ships. He married Mary Bradley in Edinburgh in 1855 and they settled on Marian Terrace in Conchan (now Onchan).

Frederick died of typhoid on 25 November 1886, whilst in England recovering from another ailment in England. If scandal had overshadowed his father’s life, Frederick appears to have made amends for it. The obituary published for him is over effusive in its praise, calling him the most estimable and upright of our citizens and a sterling man, his word was as good as his bond. They conjured Solomon and Wordsworth to highlight his qualities, concluding that whilst we all must at one point die, few such removals have come home with such unavailing regret as that of the deceased. The one hope for humanity they could pinpoint was that his son had stepped in to carry on the family business (Isle of Man Times 4 December 1886).

Sophia Hopkins Jackson, born 1835, died aged 9 in 1845, and John Hall Jackson (1839-1917) married Maria Macnamara and emigrated to the USA and settled in California.

Next time at West Bank we will meet the man who commissioned Abney Hall in Cheadle.

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