by C. E. A. Burnham

The true tale of how an Emperor and later a Pope wrestled with the Bit.

On one of his campaigns Julius Caesar found legions experiencing winter conditions when, according to the calendar, it should have been high summer. The blame for the mishap is laid solely on the calendar which at that time had a year of exactly 365 days. But the time taken by our Earth to describe one circuit of the Sun is more nearly 365 1/4. (Not that Caesar would have expressed it in this way! ) So that the
calendar was slow by about a quarter of a day each year. This discrepancy of about six hours, negligible in the short term, accumulated over a long period, producing errors of months, seasons … Nature’s year has 365 plus a-certain-bit days. Failure to allow for the Bit would disrupt our pattern of life.

Caesar brought into operation a revised calendar – the Julian Calendar – in which an extra day was added every fourth year. This extra day became February 29th. Why February? The Roman year began with March (as did our own year till the mid-eighteenth century). So February was the twelfth month; the extra day was added at the end of the calendar.

Now the period of the Earth’s rotation about the Sun is not precisely 365 1/4 days; more accurately it is 365.2422 days. The all important Bit is 0.2422, and the Julian Bit (0.25) is too large by 0.0078 or so years. Caesar’s calendar created too many leap years; eight too many in a thousand or so years. By 1500 A. D. it was eleven days out of phase and in 1583 A. D. Pope Gregory XIII replaced it by the Gregorian
Calendar.

Recall that we (i.e. Pope Gregory) aim to reduce Caesar’s Bit of 0.25 by 0.0078. This we attempt by making changes to the Julian Calendar: –

i) We decree that the exact centuries – 1700 A.D., 1800 A.D – shall not nowcount as leap years; but,
ii) We retain leap-year status for those centuries which are multiples of 400, i.e. 1600, 2000, 2,400. Caesar’s addition of one every four years produced a Bit of 0.25.

Pope Gregory’s amendment (i) – a removal of one day every hundred years (i.e. 0.01 of a day per year), together with his amendment (ii) (the addition of 1/400th (0.0025) of a day per year, brought the attempt to 0.25 – 0.01 + 0.0025, i.e. 0.2425. Not quite there! We aimed at 0.2422.

But that is where our present Gregorian calendar now stands – a calendar year of 365.2425 days, with an error of the order of 0.0003 – three days in ten thousand years.

1900 A. D was not a leap-year. 2000 A. D will be.

The Gregorian Calendar was not accepted in 1582 by everyone. In England the change was not made until the mid-eighteenth century. The accumulated error of 11 days was rectified by Act of Parliament of 1751:-
” Wednesday 2nd September 1752 shall be followed by Thursday 14th September 1752″

New Year’s Day was established: –
“The Computation of the year now begins on the first day of January.”

Published in Mourholme Magazines Issue 18 1992

by Audrey Fishwick

Browfoot Farm lies under the slope of Cringlebarrow wood, to the south of the Silverdale Road where it turns the corner into Yealand Storrs. It is one of the oldest buildings in thearea and bears a date stone which reads W/IM 1627. I hope to research further into its earlier history, but I have already started to make records of its twentieth century history. As you will see in these extracts the records refer to a way of life that is already gone.

Browfoot is a tenant farm, the property of the Reynolds’ family of Leighton Hall. From the early 1900’s the farm was occupied by the Seed family. George, the father, Lizzie his wife, the daughter of near neighbours, Mr and Mrs Shaw who lived at Storrs Cottage. There were five children: – Polly, Agnes, Tibby, Jack and Alice.

Browfoot in World War II
The only illumination was by oil lamp and candlelight, and all the cooking was done on the open fire (though there was a fire-side oven for baking). There was one cold tap in the
kitchen and hot water had to be obtained by heating on the fire. Sanitation was primitive. At the back of the house (round the side and through the field) was an earth closet. It was not till the present tenants took over in 1960 that a water closet and bathroom were installed.

The family rose at six o’clock. The cows were usually waiting in the pasture and as soon as the yard gates were opened they would loiter into the milking shippon. In winter it would have to be lighted with oil storm-lanterns which were hung on the beams. Hay was thrown down from the barn overhead through pop-holes and landed in the gangway (called the fodder gang) in front of the cows. Milking was done by hand with milkers precariously perched on three-legged stools, leaning with heads and shoulders against the cows’ warm bodies, while the milk flowed in a tuneful rhythm into the buckets.

As each bucket was filled it would be taken across to the dairy where it was poured into the cooler. From there it ran into the waiting milk kit (or churn). Three of these were usually filled, then taken on a flat bogie and put on to the stand to wait for the milk lorry to pick them up. The women then washed the dairy (though not till after breakfast – porridge, home- produced bacon that had been kept hanging from hooks in the ceiling, and sweet tea. )

Sheep were kept at Browfoot, about 170 of them. They were no real bother except at lambing time, clipping time and dipping time. Usually men from farms round about came to
help with the clipping. They had with each other to see to be fed. Farms used to vie with each other to see who could put on the best meal and Browfoot always had a reputation of being one of the best. Huge dishes of hotpot were made, along with large enamel bowls of creamy rice pudding (baked long and slowly in the oven) and plates of apple pudding. Down the centre of the large living room was a very long table round which sometimes 18 people sat. The meal would be quickly devoured and then back to the clipping again.

At dipping time it was the same procedure. Men from other farms helped out – each farm had their own time for these jobs and the other farms fitted in.

Haytime and harvest work was all done with horses; cutting, scaling¹, rowing-up and carting. Browfoot had three horses; Blossom, Jewel and Flower. They moved at an ambling pace and nothing and nobody could get them to go any faster; but they could keep going all day long and most of the night as well if it was necessary to get the hay in. It usually took two weeks of workable weather i. e. warm and dry to make the hay.

Winter threshing was undertaken by the local contractor, Jack Graves from Silverdale, who arrived with his noisy, smelly monster. Once set in motion it was a horror to go near, with its mass of turning, flaying belts which worked the various parts. It swallowed the corn at one end and coughed out bags of oats and tufts of loose straw at the other. A team of about eight to ten men were needed to keep the work flowing, two or three bringing the sheaves, two on top of the machine feeding it and three or so carrying the bags of oats to the granary, while the remaining men stacked the straw in the barn for winter bedding.

After work was done for the day each man would enter the back kitchen and have a strip-off wash in the large, shallow stone sink. After much scrubbing with carbolic soap they would emerge all red and shining. with their hair wet and plastered to their heads. Then to sit down at the large table and eat enormous meals. After supper games of cards or dominoes would take place. A large bag of white conical shells would be produced, and each player would be allocated twenty each, and I guarantee noone at Monte Carlo could be more seriously or dedicatedly determined than these folk to win their neighbour’s shells.

In the 1950’s modernisation stepped in, in the form of electricity. Tractors became the thing and suddenly life was not quite the same. I particularly missed the horses. Talking to a
tractor as you go about the work is not quite the same thing!

In 1959, after Mr Seed’s death, the farm was sold up. The sale was on a grey November day. Item after item was sold. Some, like the lovely old brass oil lamps, stood forlornly about the dustbins waiting for the rubbish men to take them away. All the furniture was sold and the animals left one by one. A great heaviness of heart crept over me and I knew life would never be quite the same again.

Note:

The author is the daughter of a cousin of Lizzie’s. She was a frequent visitor to the farm and spent most of the war years there

1. Scaling (or skailing) Turning the hay. The horse drawn machine had a row of wheels with long tines to pick up the hay and toss it in the air to dry. ↩︎

Published in Mourholme Magazines Issue 18 1992

By Jean Chatterley and John Findlater

Preface

Any observant person crossing the River Keer, going from Carnforth to Warton, might speculate on the origins of the settlement bordering the eastern side of the road. Local people, of course, are well aware of the connection between these terraces of Victorian houses and the now vanished Ironworks, which functioned in nearby Carnforth from 1865 to 1929.

Two members of the Mourholme Society independently, have become intrigued by Millhead. We hope to offer a few articles on various aspects of this settlement, which grew up in the second half of the nineteenth century. It will inevitably involve consideration of Carnforth as a whole, though our primary interest is in the Ironworks/Millhead area.

There are already useful publications on the maturation of Carnforth, which are listed in the bibliography at the end of this article. We hope to complement these publications in this and future articles.

The Growth of Carnforth in the Nineteenth Century

The Ordnance Survey (OS) 6″ map shows Carnforth in 1848, two years after the opening of the Lancaster-Carlisle railway; a sparse collection of limestone cottages and farmhouses along the old coaching road near the Lancaster-Kendal canal. It is now a minor road (North Road) and even in 1848 had been superseded as a through road by the turnpike road (the Garstang and Heronsyke Trust on the map), which roughly followed the line of the present A6. The small settlement lay in the south-eastern part of the largely agricultural parish of Warton. A few craft industries, wool and linen weaving and small-scale quarrying and mining made a modest contribution to the local economy. Millhead, to the north of the River Keer, was merely a bare hillside where once grain from a nearby mill had been threshed.

Over the next few decades the area was changed beyond recognition.

The OS map shows how matters stood in 1891. Carnforth had become a township with the Ironworks occupying a substantial area beside the River Keer, within the triangle made by railway lines going North, South, East and West; Millhead had become a compact little housing development. On the 1904 map, it is called Dudley, for reasons that will be gone into in a later article.

In the years we are talking about, Britain was in a ferment and upheaval. Laissez-faire economics, Chartist agitation and the successful Anti-Corn Law League campaign had stirred up the body politic, though without the revolutions which afflicted other European countries in 1848, the year of the Communist Manifesto. The enormous socio-spatial rearrangement called “urbanisation” was underway, driven by industrialisation and by a great population increase; the population of England and Wales went from 9 million in 1801 to 18 million in 1851, and to over 32 million by 1901. Eighty percent of the increase was in the towns (an eightfold increase). By the mid-nineteenth century the process of industrialisation was at the end of its revolutionary phase, (if you believe in the idea of an industrial “revolution” that is), settling into sustained growth and maturity.

The Great Exhibition in 1851 announced to the world Britain’s primacy, and imperial ambitions were strong; wars (the Crimean War, 1853-6; the Indian Mutiny, 1857 and the American Civil War, 1861-65) were about to erupt. Complex domestic, social, economic and political processes were at work producing change. These included electoral reform, factory legislation, sanitary and housing developments, with Victorians on the move (literally) as never before. Profound alterations in social relationships resulted. Equally disturbing to people of those times, since it impinged on fundamental ideas and beliefs, was the publication in 1859 of Charles Darwin’s “Origin of Species”.

All this “froth” of history which we read about in history books was at work. Blowing this froth away and focussing on local matters, we may usefully consider the Millhead/ Ironworks area as an example of what Dr J. D. Marshall has called a “colony”, (though he hastens to reject any pejorative connotations in the use of this word). A colony in his usage “stands for a small social unit (village or settlement) of a homogeneous nature, e.g consisting of people working in the same industry, perhaps in one local unit. Its nature as a ‘colony’ may mean that it contains other occupations, say of a service nature, and buildings like chapels and churches, clubs, institutes and shops”¹ .

He suggested that this nineteenth century urban settlement pattern, – “colonisation” – resulted, in the case of Carnforth, in a pre-existing agricultural community on a main route being largely supplanted by “capitalist industrial development. ” Dr Marshall gives it as an example of a colony which resulted in the formation of a “distinct town” Carnforth, “with a central function and widespread amenities”; it became “a central place for up to six surrounding or nearby villages, and … a shopping centre intermediate between Lancaster and Kendal.” over a few decades. However Dr Marshall does say that this variant of the pattern (a colony providing the basis for the formation of a distinct town with a central function) is somewhat rare; more usually a colony “becomes the nucleus of a suburb, or is absorbed by more haphazard urban spread”. Probably the reason for this rarer pattern was the important place of the railway industry in Carnforth.

The Lancaster and Carlisle railway line was opened in 1846, during the second boom in Britain’s railway expansion, sometimes referred to as the era of “railway mania” [There was a hundredfold increase in railway line mileage between 1830 and 1879]. The line was leased to the London and North Western Railway company in 1859 and later taken over altogether by the bigger company. The Carnforth/Ulverston line opened in 1857, (and was absorbed in 1862 by the Furness Company), so linking the whole Furness area with the north-south line. Carnforth’s importance as a junction increased when in 1867 the Furness company, jointly with the Midland Company, built a link line to the West Riding of Yorkshire via Wennington. In addition, the important South Durham and Lancashire Railway Line from the North East had already in 1861 made a link with the Lancaster/Carlisle line at Tebay.

This rail network was the crucial precondition for the establishment of the Ironworks in Carnforth. Then, partly because of the synergy between the ironworks and the railways, but also because of Carnforth’s importance as a mainline junction, the railway industry grew rapidly in the town. Three motive power depots were built (one for each of the companies, the London and North-Western, the Furness, and the Midland), each with offices, stores, fitting shops, blacksmith shops, coaling plant, sheds and marshalling yards.

In 1851 the stationmaster (born in Hayton, Cumberland) and one inspector lived in Carnforth; by 1861, besides the stationmaster, (born in Sedgwick, Westmorland) there were four engine drivers, all Lancashire men (one born in Barrow, one in Dalton and one in Preston), a fireman, one guard and one porter (all born in Cumberland), and one engineer from Scotland. The railway development pre-dated the ironworks (which were not established till 1864,) and remained (in terms of numbers employed) the more important of the two, as shown below in the table. The number of household heads in the two industries is taken from the censuses for 1871 and 1881.

Employment:  Railways and Ironworks (Warton/Carnforth)
Employment: Number of Household Heads
	1871	1881
Railwaymen	68 (19.32%)	147 (26.11%
Ironworkers	69 (19.60%	109 (19.36%

Development of Carnforth town took place between the old settlement around North Road and the new railway station down by the River Keer. There was a new town centre of millstone grit shops, terraced houses, a few “villa” type houses, hotels, church, chapels and schools with an influx of all manner of tradesmen and occupations. But it has to be noted that this was occurring even before the Ironworks started up. For example, the Lancaster Gazette of 24th October 1863 rejoices that eight first class houses are being built near Robin Hill, one to be a grocer’s shop and another a clothier and tailor’s which will greatly “add to the beauty of the town”, and notes what a boon the General Post Office is; the same issue also announces that the Carnforth “Newsroom and Library of the Young Men’s Improvement Society” is being opened.

Details of the population changes which accompanied this development will be gone into in a future article. Here it can be pointed out that from the 1850’s Carnforth’s population rapidly increased, first overhauling and then outstripping the increase in the once larger settlement of Warton; rather as if Carnforth was a cuckoo in Warton’s nest. (though the comparisons are complicated by the simultaneous growth of Millhead, which housed mainly railway and iron workers, but remained part of Warton. ) No doubt the establishment of the Ironworks provided a great stimulus to Carnforth’s development, but it was already underway. On the whole, it is perhaps fairest to call Carnforth the child of both the railway and the ironworks.

Establishment and Growth of the Carnforth Ironworks

The Carnforth Haematite (Iron) Company was born in 1864; with registered capital of £100,000 in five hundred £200 shares. There were no local names among the shareholders who were, in the main, business and professional men from Manchester, Birmingham and the North East. Amongst them was Henry Bessemer² with two shares.

Iron working was not new to the area; the monks of Furness Abbey had worked iron. By the early 19th century, Furness was exporting iron ore (182,000 tons in 1849), and by the 1860’s, Barrow had the world’s largest steel complex with three blast furnaces. Carnforth’s works can indeed be seen as a natural growth point for the region’s iron industry when new factors, which with hindsight we call the Industrial Revolution, came into play.

During the mid-nineteenth century demands for wrought iron worldwide were becoming insatiable; for buildings, bridges, boats, but above all for railways, especially rails, where Britain was the world’s chief supplier³. Everything essential for manufacturing iron either existed at Carnforth in the 1860’s, or could be easily brought there by various railway company lines which converged on the area.

• Iron ore plentiful in nearby Furness.
• Good quality coke from the Durham coalfield.
• Limestone used as flux in the furnaces from the [Warton] Crag.
• Water from the Keer.
• The saltings of Warton and ideal area for dumping slag.
• A large flat cheap site for the works, in the triangle of land produced by the junction of the railway lines.

A railway line, or tramline as it was called on contemporary maps, was built to run from the works to the Scout Quarry, with a branch out to the tip on the sands. The remains of it can still be traced in the fields and roadside verges alongside the toll road to Crag Foot and out to the sands past the present tip at Cotestones. There were many accidents, especially to children, during the building of this quarry railway link. The accidents frequently involved amputation or surgery under chloroform at the “Lancaster Dispensary”. There seems to have been a total absence of some rudimentary safety measures let alone compensation or benefit for the disabled.

In March 1865 the Lancaster Gazette reported that the site was a chaotic scene: “Here a number of huge stones thrown anyhow in a heap … here a steam engine pounding away. . . masons at work in one quarter, bricklayers in another … “

A Mr Edward Barton was appointed by the owners to oversee the founding of the iron works and the hiring of labour. In May his wife laid the foundation stone of the engine house chimney – 210ft high and 19ft across at the base, and the town’s landmark for some 60 years. Five furnaces were planned at first (and a sixth added later). It was anticipated that there would be employment for 200-500 men. In 1866 two of the furnaces were “blown in” and the first pig-iron – produced. Blowing in meant starting up the furnace with blasts of hot air through the first loading of ore, coke and limestone. It was a serious matter after that to allow the furnace to “blowout” again – the contents could solidify, and the furnace develop cracks and other expensive damage.

In 1867 Edward Barton was appointed Chief Engineer, and was later to become Manager. Although only in his thirties, he was experienced in iron-making techniques from his time in the industry on Teeside and in West Cumbria. Warton Grange, on Sand Lane in Warton, was built for him and his family, and it was his home from 1873.

In the initial phase of establishing an ironworks, there would have been an influx of construction workers. But once established, labour demand would be for skilled and unskilled⁴ iron workers. Tradition has it that these men came from Dudley -the Dudley/Bilston/Wednesbury area of Staffordshire. Some support is given to this idea, among other things, by the fact that the maps of the time call the Millhead area “Dudley”.

By 1870 four furnaces were each producing 300-400 tons of pig-iron per week, and the decision was made to make steel as well. Two Bessemer converters were installed and in 1873 three plate and rail rolling mills were added. By 1876 the capitalisation of the company had risen to £240,000 in two thousand four hundred £100 shares, 166 of which were held by Bessemer.

In February 1879 however, “after 12 years of expansion and prosperity, came the first hint of trouble; the local papers reported a “stoppage” because ”remunerative prices cannot be obtained.” The plant was idle for some months. There followed a period of ups and downs, with gradually falling prices. The newspapers of 1880-1882 reported regularly that only four, then three of the furnaces were operating.

In 1883 a scheme to revive the industry was proposed, that of having a puddling works, employing 150 men. Puddling was an arduous manual operation, stirring and turning molton iron in a reverberatory furnace to convert it into malleable iron. It did not revive the industry, and the following year the paper reported that; “The company intends to put their large converting plant which has lain idle since its construction to profitable use. It was realised that it was a waste of money sending pig iron from Carnforth to Sheffield to be made into steel. ”The report is quoted just as it stands in the newspaper. It is odd, however, since it seems to imply that, despite the installation of Bessemer Convertors some fourteen years before, the company had never used them, but had continued to send their pig-iron elsewhere for conversion to steel.

By December 1884, plans for reorganising the steel works to produce steel wire were reported. However, none of these plans were enough to keep more than 3 of the furnaces alive, and in June 1886 a fourth was “blown out” and some 40-50 men were given notice. The strike of 1886 saw the works closed completely for a while.

The story of the further decline and the end of the venture will be told later. Meanwhile, what was the lot of the 300 or so men who were employed by the company for those first 20 years of growth? A few were local labourers, but most came into the area with skills acquired in other iron and steel works. There were great distinctions between workers in the various stages of iron production. “Fillers” loaded the ore, coke and limestone into barrows which were then raised to the “bell” at the furnace top. Here the “Bridge Stocker” had a gang of “Chargers” who loaded the material into the bell, a cone-shaped canopy which, when lowered, allowed the load to drop into the furnace. 35 cwt of ore, 10 cwt of limestone and 21 cwt of coke were hoisted up for every ton of pig iron produced. The lower furnace was in charge of a “Stock Taker” helped by a “Keeper” who decided when the furnace was ready for tapping, and he in turn had “Helpers” and “Slaggers”. Twelve men worked a shift at each furnace. Some of these “men” were 12 year old lads.

In the early days, especially, problems of industrial relations were many. The following case (Lancaster Guardian March 9th 1867) illustrates the worker-manager divide, as well as the legal system of the times.

Fifteen employees of the company were up before the magistrates for alleged breach of contract some of them were employed as ore fillers, others as coke fillers, and the remainder as labourers.

Representatives for the two sides agreed that the case arose over a new method of filling a furnace with mixed ore which was being tried out. Extra men were put on to help, but about midday Williams, the foreman, sent the extra men elsewhere. Those remaining said they could not manage without help.

…. Mr Barton the General Manager, was not at the works, so Williams sent to his home in Warton. . . according to Williams the men refused even to speak to him; he said that he told them to return to work. . . even if they could not keep up with the loading it would make no difference to them as they would still get paid. But, he said,the men still ignored him. . . packed up and left for home

The men’s story was that Williams had just said they could do the work, or take their money and go. They had taken this to mean that they were dismissed. They had not known that only the absent Mr Barton had the power to dismiss anyone. The men themselves did not hear their case since:

“All these arguments were heard before the men came into court. The magistrate felt the men might be tempted to alter their story to fit the arguments if they were present in court all the time. When the men were brought into court, four of them pleaded guilty. This settled the case rather quickly; the others were also judged guilty. Those who had pleaded guilty were sentenced to seven days hard labour at Lancaster Castle; the others got 21 days.”

The newspapers of the period also gave graphic accounts of the numerous and horrific accidents associated with the iron works. A small sample will suffice. Between 1866 and 1881 :-
John Barrow, son of Warton’s grocer, fell 70 ft from a plank at the top of a furnace;
a man was buried alive under 14 tons of sand in the pit at Robin Hill (sand was used in making the pig-iron beds);
William Butler fell while putting coals on a furnace and broke both arms;
Thomas Edmondson of the Ironworks Cottages was taken to Lancaster Infirmary after bogies passed over both his legs.

The accident that brought the works to a standstill came as late as the 1890’s: –

“About midnight on Thursday last occurred at the Carnforth Ironworks the most shocking fatal accident … John Hodgson was following his ordinary work on top of the furnaces, which consisted in charging No.2 furnace. Shortly after midnight Hodgson gave the customary signal to the men in charge of the “bell” … to lower it before Hodgson had tipped his barrow. To the horror and intense grief of his fellow labourers Hodgson fell into the burning furnace and was no more seen. The gases which escape from the furnace would render him insensible and this fact will be some consolation to his sorrowing widow and children, as well as his parents who reside in Warton and are very respectable people … not a particle of the unfortunate man’s body remains…

Between 1 and 2 a.m (sic) Friday all the men at the Ironworks were hoisted up to the mouth of the furnace, where the Church of England Burial Service – was impressively read by Rev. J. H. Fidler, Mr Barton and others being present. .. Work stopped for some hours.”

During this time Carnforth grew rapidly. The total population of Carnforth and Warton rose from 974 to 3,350 (roughly 244% increase). Consequently, there was urgent demand for housing. The first company houses were built in Millhead – 20 alongside Warton Rd., called Bessemer Cottages (later demolished to make way for expansion of the works). The built up area in Warton and Carnforth expanded rapidly as gaps between cottages were filled and the fields were covered with rows of terraced houses. Most of “Dudley” was company owned or sponsored (119 workers’ houses were listed for Sale when the works were finally dismantled). Elsewhere in Carnforth they were not company property even if company inspired. The period of rapid building lasted well into the 1890’s for a decade after the Ironworks had begun to decline such was the momentum of the town’s expansion.

The growth was reflected in land prices. The Lancaster Guardian for April 11th 1874 comments on this “extraordinary increase”, giving as example a sale at Carnforth when a small field purchased for £60 thirty years before realised £350.

Thus there was a great impact on the landscape, townscape and economy of the area. In twenty years, the long-settled population saw the arrival of the ironworks, the 210ft chimney, blast furnaces, rapidly built terrace houses, railway lines, slag heaps and all their accompanying dirt, smoke and smells. The quarrying would have added its own specialities to the rural environment. There are many older Warton residents who, when interviewed for the Society’s oral history researches, recalled how the sky was lit up by the furnaces and by the wagons of still burning slag as they travelled along the line to the tip on the sands.

The Initial Colonisation of Millhead

Between 1861 and 1871, the population of Warton township increased from 579 to 1061 Warton with Lindeth in the 1871 Census is composed of District 3 (which includes Millhead) and District 4⁵. that is an increase of 83.25%. This was almost entirely due to the influx of the new industrial workers for the Carnforth Ironworks. Whereas the workers in the growing railway industry over this period (and beyond) were mostly housed the other side of the River Keer in Carnforth, there was a concentration of ironworkers at Millhead to the north of the Keer. In the 1861 census the only property enumerated at Millhead was Keer Bridge House, housing Robert Stainton, a yeoman, aged 61, from Troutbeck in Westmorland, with his wife, unmarried daughter and unmarried niece.

In the 1871 census, Robert Stainton was still there, but now features as a widowed and retired farmer with his unmarried niece and a 15 year old domestic servant. In addition, Robert Clark, a landowner, lived at Hazelmount, with his groom and gardener Isaac Robinson living at Hazelmount Lodge. There was a beerhouse called “West View Hotel” (at other times called “The Nib”⁶ ) kept by Thomas Swarbrick, an unmarried man of 28, with a housekeeper and 13 year old domestic servant. There was an unoccupied house and then Joseph Whiles, a builder and bricklayer, lived at West View with a household totalling eight, which included three bricklayers lodging with him, one of whom was an apprentice, also a glass stainer. Next was the house of John Lithgow a plasterer from Wigan with his wife and two sons (the first born in Cumberland and the year old in Warton), together with his “musician” father-in-law and his wife. Joseph Jackson, a 54 year old from Westmorland, is given as a quarry master employing 29 men; in his own household of eight was a 17 year old son who was a clerk at the ironworks.

However the bulk of the Millhead population lived in two rows of terrace houses, Albert Street and William Street, running north to south down a gentle slope towards the River Keer. There were 52 houses in all, which had been built for the Ironworks and housed 284 people (169 males, 115 females). Possibly Mr Whiles’ and Mr Jackson’s business were thriving from all the building work associated with the Ironworks, the houses and the infrastructure. Certainly there was a report in the Lancaster Guardian on 14 November 1866 that the surveyor of roads was summoned to the Judges’ Lodgings at Lancaster because of the poor repair of roads between Jackson’s quarry and the Ironworks, indicative of overuse.

Virtually all the household heads in Albert Street and William Street were Ironworks employees, the only exception being W. Sharp, an agricultural labourer who lived in William Street. There were 53 household heads. One house in William Street had two households within it (David Child a “steel blower” with a wife, and James Slater an “iron furnace labourer” with wife and two children).

Of the household heads there were 34 ironwork labourers, 12 others were more skilled iron workers (“Pig lifters”, “steel blowers etc.), and amongst these was an iron furnace manager, Mr Evans⁷. The remainder included 2 bricklayers, a plasterer, 2 stonemasons, a blacksmith and 2 engine drivers, besides Mr Sharp the agricultural labourer. It is assumed that these men were, in fact, employed at the ironworks. In these households some family members – sons, nephews or brothers – were also employed at the ironworks; there were 9 ironworks labourers, a bricklayer son and an engine driver son. In addition there were 27 lodgers, 21 of whom were ironworks labourers, and 5 skilled ironworkers besides a bricklayer, a waller and a mason who might be presumed employed at the ironworks; perhaps there is less certainty about a key maker and a lock maker who may have been self-employed, perhaps not.

According to the occupations column of the 1871 census Edward D. Barton, the Manager of the Ironworks (who, when he first came to oversee the construction of the ironworks and for the first years of his time as manager, lived at Warton Hall Farm with two servants) employed 300 men. The number in these two streets in Millhead, Albert Street and William Street, working at the Ironworks amounted to 64 labourers, 17 skilled and 13 others making 94 in all or about 1/3 of the total workforce. The rest were scattered about Carnforth – notably a concentration at Bessemer Row on Lancaster Road now called Hall Street.

Of the whole population in Warton District 3 in the 1871 census, of 678 souls (361 male and 317 female), 319 (186 male, 133 female) lived at Millhead.

Examination of the birthplace of the Millhead household heads shows that none were born within the parish, and only 3 were from nearby: J. Hall from Bolton-le-Sands, J. Hunter from Skerton and M. Mason from Hornby, all ironworks labourers. The others came from far and wide; 2 came from the Isle of Man, 3 from Ireland, 5 from Wales and 1 from Belgium and 5 from Bradford, but 17 came from the area around Dudley in the West Midlands. When the lodgers are taken into account a further 15 came from the Dudley area, 2 from Wales and 2 from Bradford.

The preponderance of the workers originating from the West Midlands may be explained by the fact that work in the Earl of Derby’s works in that area was in decline, whereas Carnforth offered opportunity. Jon Raven, who has done many years of research into the lives of the industrial workers of the Dudley area, and who now runs a museum there, was contacted to ascertain whether any recruitment drive was known to have occurred. He writes :-

“. . . at the time 1868-71, the Dudley Ironworks would have been much in decline, I believe, as were some coal mines. The district was investing its labour and skills in the up and coming engineering industry and many workers were retraining to this end. No doubt the failure of the industry in this area was known to those opening the Ironworks and I imagine an agent was sent down to attract people … “

It is very likely also that since the new employers were looking for workers with former ironworks experience, they would encourage men in teams, the skilled accompanied by their accustomed labourers.

It is interesting, and significant, to note from the 1871 census that, in Millhead, only children aged 3 or under were born in Warton, indicating that the main period of growth in housing in Millhead had begun around 1868.

However, it is well known that people usually migrate in a “steplike” fashion. By studying the birthplaces of the older children in these recently arrived families it is possible to trace in a fair way the movements of the parents. William Ainsworth, Abraham Bettany and Benjamin Evans are good examples of families where the father was born in the West Midlands area, his older children were born there, and his very youngest was born in Warton/Carnforth. Others had been born and bred elsewhere, moved to Staffordshire and then, after perhaps a year or two, to Warton/Carnforth. Some examples show this: Thomas Patterson a 36 year old iron furnace labourer, was born in County Down, Ireland, and had 2 children born in Tunstall and Hanley (the Potteries) before moving to Carnforth. Joseph Waite, 32, an ironworks labourer was born in Hastings, Northants and had come to Carnforth via Golgreen in Staffs. John Venables had a son, John of 9 years, born in Bilston and another, Thomas, aged 1, born in Warton. Less can be deduced with certainty in cases like John Ellias and Francis Northall who were both born in Wales, and Benjamin Pugh, born in Belgium, all of whom married women from the Dudley area and had young children born in Warton/Carnforth. Almost certainly they had worked and married in the Dudley area, but moved on to Carnforth. William Iniff 31 years old, a blacksmith, was born in Rochdale and had children born in Workington, before he came to Millhead. Samuel Lunn, also 31, a steelmaker, was born in Bradford and had children born in Oldham and Manchester before his last two in Warton.

Not only does the 1871 pyramid show a great increase in the Warton population, compared with 1861, but the pyramid is noticeably different in shape with a broader base reflecting the great influx of younger people into the parish (181 children were 9 years or less, 17% of the total population). Immigrants into any community are usually the younger and therefore potentially child- bearing section of the population; certainly the census details show this to be the case here.

Apart from one unmarried household head – William Coyner of William Street, aged 20, the rest had wives (Farmer Stainton was a widower, and beerkeeper Swarbrick was unmarried). When household composition is averaged out, the average size was 6.3; 2.57 children, 0.33 kin, and 0.48 lodgers. The average age of the household heads was 33.2 years, but if the ages of working sons, kin and lodgers is taken into account the working population had an average age of 29.75. Families were still large but not particularly so. However, with parents still young the family would no doubt soon increase.

Albert Street and William Street consisted of small terrace houses, with a living room, kitchen and pantry, two bedrooms, a small box room and a cupboard under the stairs. The front door opened on to the street. In the kitchen was a brown slop stone and a cold water tap, also a bricked-in set boiler for washing, heated by a coal fire. Large tin baths were used for bathing. In the living room the iron fireplace had an oven and a boiler at the other side for heating the water. The fireplace was black- leaded, and often had a bright steel fender and fire irons. The houses were lit by paraffin hanging or table lamps. These were often made of brass, candles were often used. There were outside privies or ash pits, which were always a source of sanitary concern.

These houses must have been crowded with an average household size of 6.3. Perhaps a more revealing picture is given by presenting the situation as below.

Millhead 1871, House Occupation.

No. of persons in Household	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11
No. of houses so inhabited	3	7	14	9	12	4	11	0	0	1

In some houses, there were not only several children, but often lodgers also. Some of these lodgers were married men, sometimes relatives of the householders, who were presumably waiting for more housing to be built before moving their families to the area. In William Street, Benjamin and Katherine Evans, an iron furnace labourer and his wife, both in their twenties with 3 daughters aged 5, 3 and 1, all from Wednesfield, Staffs, took in six unmarried male lodgers, all ironworks labourers in their early twenties except for one man of 45, a key maker, and all but one of them coming from the “home area” of Wednesfield, Willenhall and Bilston. At one house in William Street, David and Elizabeth Child, a couple in their early fifties, lived with the Slaters, a young family of four.

In his study of Cleator Moor Dr J.D. Marshall comments on the ” dubious reputation” of the newcomers, many Irish and given to “excessive drinking⁸“. Even before the Fenian troubles in 1884 there was internecine strife there. It is a melancholy fact that the sudden arrival of industrial newcomers concentrating as they did at Millhead almost inevitably produced friction which continued even into times remembered by people alive today.

There were incidents coming to court indicating that alcohol was something of a problem amongst ironworkers at Carnforth. For example, the Lancaster Guardian of 10th September 1870, reports that William Darby, a charger at the Ironworks had been charged with beating his wife because he wanted money for drink. She had saved him from imminent confinement; he was reprimanded and cautioned.

However there are other reports which suggest that perhaps the workforce was rather better behaved than that. For example, the Lancaster Guardian of 10th July 1869 comments on a £7 gift from the workmen to Warton Church, showing that “instead of workers being rabble as ‘natives’ had imagined, many were warm-hearted Christians; they had been some of the first to suggest the project“. Indeed, the foundation stone for a Primitive Methodist chapel (now a garage workshop) was laid in 1873 by James Williamson (later Lord Ashton), pretty solid evidence that many of the families were Methodists. In addition as reported in the Lancaster Guardian, December 4th 1869 there were “readings” and programme of songs given at the “Ironworks Reading Room”.

No doubt conditions were ameliorating because this was a time of increasing prosperity in Carnforth. On the 4th of May 1872 the Lancaster Guardian reported that Carnforth was very busy. All furnaces were in full blast. “Foundations of a steel works have already been laid which should provide employment for 200-300 additional men”. On the 2nd of March of that year, there had been a report of the proposed erection of 36 concrete houses for Carnforth Haematite Iron Company. It is a moot point whether there is greater social harmony in boom times or in depression, but it looked as though Carnforth/Warton was in for boom.

The Cuckoo Outgrows Its Nest

The years 1873 to 1896 are often called the years of the “Great Depression”. Hobsbawm⁹ describes it as “a new state of mind of uneasiness and gloom“, with a “spectacular 20 year deflation which reduced price levels by a third“. Saul¹⁰ claims that closer investigation shows the depression to have been a fiction. Webb¹¹ agrees that there was no depression in the sense of a general contraction of the economy. There was tougher competition, some lower prices and capital flooding abroad (Hobsbawm believed that this was a factor which led to imperialism).

In particular for our purposes we should note that Scotch pig iron prices, 54s/6d in 1867-1871 and 117s/3d in 1873, dropped to 56s/5d per ton in 1876-7. This would be bad news for the Carnforth Ironworks and Millhead. By contrast, grain prices dropped by a third between 1876 and 1886 which, though depressing agriculture especially in the south, would help the food bills of industrial workers. It is true that dairy, meat and market gardening prices held up well, but probably these items were less a feature in the diet of industrial workers than grain.

To judge from contemporary newspaper reports, the ironmaking industry in our area was subject to short term ups and downs. The Lancaster Guardian (February 15th, 1879) reported a stoppage of the Carnforth Ironworks, the works standing idle for some months, an indication of slack trade. It reported that a large quantity of iron had been produced, but “remunerative prices cannot be obtained“. This was followed on March 8th, 1879 by the Carnforth Haematite Iron Co. contradicting the closure report; one furnace remained in blast. Later in the year, according to the newspaper on September 3rd, there was a revival of the Iron Trade and another furnace was to be put into blast. On September 3rd, 1881 the Lancaster Gazette reported that “Messrs. W&J Galloway of Manchester have in hand a pair of large blowing engines for Carnforth blast furnace“, and that the Ironworks had made a very satisfactory profit for the year; the dividend payments amounted to £37,146, equalling a 10% return. All the same, half the smelting plant was idle and the steel plant was not in operation. The position was thought encouraging to shareholders and people interested in the haematite trade. A further report in the Lancaster Gazette on September 17th, 1881 by H.J. Walduck of Silverdale regarding the capital of Carnforth Haematite Iron Co. Ltd, revealed that, in 1870, £30,000 had been raised for erection of Bessemer Steel Works. The money had been spent having the works built, but they had never been put in operation. The company continued to be prosperous, with profits from the manufacture of pig iron and, in the Lancaster Gazette of October 18th, 1882, it was reported that “another furnace was put into blast last week making four at work”. In 1884 as reported in the Lancaster Gazette (February 23rd) it was planned to put the large steel converting plant, lying idle since construction, to profitable use. It was a waste of money sending pig iron from Carnforth to Sheffield to be made into steel. This was followed on December 13th, 1884 by a report stating that “a steelworks at Carnforth will be opened in January next under management of Mr B. Pemberton of Albion Ironworks, Barrington”. As was suggested in the last article, in 1873 it appeared that Carnforth/Warton viewed the future optimistically. All the indications pointed to increased prosperity. The account of developments given above show that, with some fluctuations, this hope was justified.

Consequently, it is no surprise to discover from the decennial censuses that the population of Warton-with-Lindeth increased from 1,035 in 1871 to 1,471 in 1881 (a 36% rise). The Millhead population had increased from 284 to 544 (a 92% increase). In the census of 1881 several new terraces of houses had appeared at Millhead to accommodate this in-migration: Mary Street, Stainton Street, Jackson Terrace and Carlisle Terrace (see Map p.10).

It is hard to believe these were the houses of “a peculiar cement construction brought to Carnforth in a ‘piece form'”, as reported in the newspaper. Whereas Mary Street and Stainton Street (see photograph ) resemble the already existent Albert and William Streets, houses in Jackson Terrace are rather more imposing (most of these houses were occupied by railway men), and in Carlisle Terrace (see photograph) the houses definitely represent a step up. Each house had a little garden in front with a gate. One of the surprising things to emerge from examination of the census returns is to note the unusually high number of uninhabited houses there appear to have been in William Street, unlike the other rows. In the census numbers 6,7,12,14,16,17,21,25,26,28,33 and 35 were all recorded as uninhabited.

Millhead 1891

It was mentioned in the article above that there was an Ironworks reading room. We have been told it was definitely in William Street; one person is quite sure it was the front room of number 23, the front room which was later used as a Sunday school. According to the census, T. Sandham, an ironworks labourer, lived at this address. When the households are investigated, it is surprising to find that only four household heads of those living in Albert Street and William Street in 1871 can be found in 1881 (they might be called “persisters”). William Iniff, previously entered as aged 31, a blacksmith from Rochdale living in Albert Street, who had previously lived in Workington, is now an ironworks labourer aged 46(!) and living at 12 Carlisle Terrace. His wife Elizabeth, born in Carlisle, who was 24 in 1871, is now 37. The eldest daughter, Margaret Elizabeth, has left home as has son Francis. Nicholas, aged 12, and Thomas, aged 10, have now been joined by Jane, aged eight; Mary, aged five, and Lancelot, aged four.

Abraham Bellamy, an ironworks labourer, who had originated in Tipton, Staffordshire is still living at 24 William Street. His eldest daughter; Mary Ann, has left home, as well as the third daughter, Martha, who would have been 18. Sarah, now 21 and living at home, is a housemaid; son William, aged 17, is an ironworks labourer and has been joined by John aged 14, Joseph aged 11 (the first to be born in Warton) besides twins Esther and Mathilda, aged 7, Edward aged 4 and Lizzie, one month old¹².

Joshua Hall, an ironworks labourer, is a “persister” who remains at number 1 William Street. He is now 42, this time giving his birthplace as Skerton whereas it was Bolton-le-Sands in 1871. Sarah, his Overton born wife, is still alive. Like the Iniffs and the Bellamys they have a large family. Their son William has gone, as have daughters Elizabeth, who would have been 19 and Margaret, who would have been 16; James 15, Joseph 13 and John 11 are still at home, but William Thomas aged 8, Robert aged 5 and Sarah aged 2 have come along.

William Evans, an ironworks labourer, originally from Wales, who lived in William Street in 1871 is now 58, and lives at 7 Carlisle Terrace. His wife is still with him aged 55, daughter Elizabeth has gone, but son William, aged 18, an ironworks labourer and Thomas aged 15, a labourer in a wool shed are still unmarried and living at home. Just as surprising is the fact that only one son who was adult and employed in 1871 is a “persister”; James Brazington, aged 24, an engine driver at the Ironworks in 1881, having been an unskilled ironworks labourer in 1871 when he lived in William Street in the household of his father George Brazington. James is now married with a one year old daughter and lives at 5 Stainton Street. None of the 1871 lodgers has remained or become a householder in Millhead. You might have thought that some of these men of 1871 might have taken lodgings hoping to find houses and settle their families in Millhead, but they had all cleared out, possibly to Carnforth, Warton or more likely further afield. It does seem that ironworkers tended to move on from one ironworks area to another.

This would occur in the Carnforth/Millhead area especially if the future there looked uncertain. Perhaps it is worth noting here that this mobility was not confined to ironworkers. The late Anne Morley, trying to trace the history of “Warton Families” found that few “non-ironworkers” could be traced from one census to the next. When the birthplace of the Millhead residents of 1881 are examined there was no preponderance of people originating in the West Midlands as there had been in 1871. Immigrants came from all over and ironworks labourers were recruited locally as they had not been previously (see bar chart). Bar Graph

* Stainton St **** CARLISLE TERRACE (Photograph 1993) *** BACK OF CARLISLE TERRACE (Photograph 1993) * The Lodging House * (Photograph 1993)

When the average household composition in 1881 is examined it varies a little from that of 1871. The average age of the household head is 37.07 instead of 33.2. The average total size is 5.13 instead of 6.3; the average number of children at home 2.67 instead of 2.57; 0.27 kin instead of 0.33, and 0.23 lodgers instead of 0.48. In other words, slightly older men headed slightly smaller households, with a slightly higher proportion of children, but smaller proportion of kin and lodgers. The house occupation in 1881 can be set out in comparison with that of 1871; ***

Whereas in 1871 the householders were with one exception ironworkers, in 1881 there was more variation. By far and away the largest proportion of non-ironworkers were railway personnel. There were dressmakers, Miss Lunn at 11 Albert Street and Miss Lynn, 4 Mary Street; a seamstress, Mary Almond (a widow) at 8 Jackson Terrace; a tailor, P. Metcalfe, from Yorkshire, at 36 William Street; a master clogger, W.R. Vipond, from Kendal, at 14 Mary Street. In other words people in service occupations were increasing.

The lodgers also had more varied occupations than in 1871. A significant development had taken place along the Main Road between Carnforth and Warton, where the new town houses have recently replaced the slipper factory, viz: Hartley’s Grocery and Provision business. In the 1881 census, John Hartley aged 40 from Kendal, the household head, is given as “senior partner” employing 17 hands. His wife was born in Orton and they have three sons and two daughters – ages from 14 to 3 years. There were two apprentices, William Postlethwaite, 19 and unmarried, from Cumberland and William Edmonson, 16 and unmarried, also two servants, a domestic servant and a 24 year old nurse girl.

The big house, Hazelmount, was occupied by John Jennings a farmer and maltster, aged 68 and widowed, who had previously lived in Main Street, Warton. His unmarried son of 16 and daughter of 12 lived with him together with two servants. At West View was the household of William Coward, a Preston born tailor. His wife, from Ambleside, is given as a dressmaker; they have one daughter and three sons. William Anderson aged 46, also at West View is a blacksmith from Ulverston whose household consists of a wife, also from Ulverston, with three sons and three daughters; the older five children were all born in Carnforth, but the youngest, 11 months old, was born in Warton – so did they occupy only within the last three years? They shared the house with an ironworks labourer born in Warton, in the census recorded as the household head – married to a woman from Ulverston.

Then there remains the beerhouse at West View, the keeper of which was Titus Wilson, born in Morecambe. He and his wife had four children and one servant. There is some doubt about its situation. Could it have been the building subsequently known as the “lodging house” (see photographs), rather than the West View Hotel recently renamed the Nib? Mr Chalmers, former owner of the West View Garage, who incorporated this building into his garage complex as the stores building, is convinced by the layout he found that it had been a beer-house. He suggests it was called the “Kibble and Clink”. Millhead had become quite a self-contained community, but like the cuckoo we compared it to at the beginning, it was becoming an overwhelming influence in Carnforth’s development; So much so that despite our firm intention to attempt a circumscribed study we will be obliged to extend our investigation into the affairs of Carnforth.

Acknowledgements
In preparation of this article, use has been made of notes left to the Society’s archives by David Peter, Sylvia Myall and others.

Bibliography

Alan Harris: Carnforth, 1840-1900: The Rise of a North Lancashire Town Transactions of the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire. Vol. 112, 1960.
John Easter Roberts: The Changing Face of Carnforth [ 1974 Mayoh Press, Carnforth]
David Peter: Warton with Lindeth, A History. Part One. Lancashire Library 1985
Jean Chatterley: To Dudley … From Dudley Mourholme Magazine
Jean Chatterley Carnforth’s Public Health Crisis Mourholme Magazine

Notes

1. J.D. Marshall Urban –related Colonies in the North West Unpublished Paper ↩︎
2. Henry Bessemer patented in 1856 an economical process by which molten pig iron disturbed by a current of air is turned directly into steel. He was knighted in 1879 (Chambers Biographical Dictionary) ↩︎
3. Production of wrought iron in Britain grew from 300,000 tons between 1830 and 1870. ↩︎
4. We would probably call them semi-skilled now, but they described themselves as “labourers” in census returns. ↩︎
5. The summary for District 3 gives 678 persons and District 4, 357 which makes a total of 1,035, but one of us (J.C.) counted the entries and made 1,061 which is the figure used in this article. ↩︎
6. Why the Nib? Two answers have been offered. First, ‘The Nib’ is short for a longer nickname, ‘The Nibble and Clink.’ The second answer turns on the pub being a Boddington’s house. The front door of the hotel, so the story goes, had a glass panel on which was written ‘Boddington’s.’ As you entered the pub, you read ‘Boddington’s,’ naturally enough, but as you came out, the letters in the centre of the reverse side of the name seemed to spell ‘nibb’, especially, it may be imagined, if there had been any impairment of one’s peripheral vision. 
   Any other suggestions? ↩︎
7. In the enumeration book it is given as “Evehs from Bettws, Montgomeryshire”, but this is almost certainly a mistake: Evans seems most likely. The census clerk would write down what he thought he had heard and obviously his knowledge of strange dialects and names added to the confusion found in the place of birth” column. Some knew their birth town but not county so Willenhall appears in both Staffordshire and Shropshire in various places. Some of the place names given are not traceable because of being obviously names of houses or farms and the names have long since disappeared. ↩︎
8. J.D. Marshall “Cleator and Cleator Moor: some aspects of the social & urban development in the mid-nineteenth century” p. 168, T.C.W.A.A.S, Vol.LXXVIII, 1978 ↩︎
9. E.J Hobsbawm, Industry and Empire, Penguin Books Ltd, 1968, pp.127, 128. ↩︎
10. S.B. Saul, The Myth of the Great Depression 1873- 1895, 1968 ↩︎
11. R.K. Webb, Modern England, 1980 ↩︎
12. The Iniffs and Bellamys show that quite a false impression of family size is given when individual census returns are used. ↩︎

A website has several photographs and the history of the Carnforth Ironworks.

by John Bolton

The survey of The Moiety of the Manner of Silverdale in Warton, made on August 10th, 1563 records that a Robert Taylor lived at a tenement called Stamhawe at what is now Silverdale Green. The tenement probably encompassed about half of what was then the Green. Mrs Thomas wrote Stamhawe must have been at the Green, and probably encompassed about half of what was then the Green. It was very soon to be divided into four smaller holdings. In John Lucas’s History of the parish of Warton, compiled between 1710 and 1740, he records:-

the following Inscription which is found on a Monument in the East Wall of the Chancel of St. Botolph’s, Aldgate, in London; “Here lieth buried the Corps of Robert Taylor of Silverdale, in the Parish of Warton, in the County of Lancaster, Gentleman: the Father of John Taylor Citizen and Draper of London, and of the Parish Beere-Brewer: he departed this life about the age of 80 years, the 15th day of February An: Dom: 1577

John Lucas continues: –

Robert Taylor who was one of the Sheriffs of London and Middlesex was grandson to this Robert Taylor.

Was the monument in St Botolph’s to the Robert Taylor of Stamhawe? And was, perhaps,the division of the Stamshawe property soon after 1563 occasioned by his leaving Silverdale to spend the last years of his life with his successful son, and his even more illustrious grandson in London? If this was so, it is perhaps the closest Silverdale has been to having a “Dick Whittington”.

by John Todd

On March 12th 1992 Mr John Todd spoke to the Society about the finding of St Bees man. For those who were unable to be present here is a brief summary of the talk.

A team of archaeologists found burials below the site of the ruined chancel aisle of St Bees priory in 1980. The most interesting burial was in a well-made tomb in front of the altar site. There were two bodies. One was a skeleton, probably a woman. The other was sealed in lead sheeting, held with iron clamps. There was a hole in the lead sheeting near the feet. The body within was wrapped in two pieces of linen and
tied with twine. The linen was coated with beeswax. It exuded an extraordinary smell, not offensive, but very strong indeed and sweet.

The body was that of a slightly bald man with a small beard and a moustache. He had been in the prime of life and in good general health. Preservation of the corpse was such that the arm could be flexed and the skin of the palm, where it was untouched by the beeswax, almost normal in appearance. A bunch of hair (not his) was tied under the chin. A post-mortem examination showed multiple injuries: a dislocated lower jaw, a broken collar-bone, cracked ribs and bleeding into the lung cavity (the blood still liquid) as from a penetrating wound. The pathologist likened the injuries to a road traffic accident. He could have fallen from a horse, whether or not in a fight.

Identification was difficult, but the site of the tomb showed the man had been important. The second body was probably that of his wife, buried in an extension of the tomb. He had died in the years between the building of the aisle (1300) and its collapse in 1539. The shattered remains of tomb effigies, one having a shield with a “fretty” charge, gave clues. A drawing of the tombs, made when Sir William Dugdale, Norroy King of Arms, was visiting the area in 1665, showed the fretty shield and indicated armour dated to about 1360-1380. Six families in the region had fretty arms. One of the more likely men was Anthony Lucy, last of his name. He went on a crusade in 1365 and died abroad in 1367. He had probably been with the Teutonic Knights in eastern Europe.

This is probably a unique case. There are records suggesting that similar burials have been found in the past, but none have had full post-mortem examination as this one has. Investigations continue. The lead in which the corpse was wrapped is not apparently English, and enquiries have gone as far as Poland. A pollen analysis of the beeswax might help show where that originated, but there is a doubt whether
enough beeswax was retained to allow this.

The body was reinterred – in the lead sheeting, but unsealed – and was a service based on that devised for the crew of the ship, the Mary Rose

Published in Mourholme Magazines Issue 18 1992