A History of Lancashire

The enormous amount of material, printed and in manuscript, which is available for a History of Lancashire, makes the writing of a popular work on that subject by no means an easy task; indeed, when first mentioned to me, I thought it was almost impossible, by any process of selection, to produce within the compass of an ordinary octavo volume such a book as would be a popular history, and yet not fail to present a faithful picture of the county.

However, I have made the attempt, and in accomplishing the task I must have necessarily left out much which many readers would prefer should have been inserted; but I trust that I have not inserted what some would wish I had omitted. I have endeavoured to confine myself as far as possible to the history of the county as a whole, and have not allowed myself to go into personal or local details except when such were required to illustrate the subject in hand. Of the large army of Lancashire authors and celebrities I have said nothing, as strictly speaking personal notices belong rather to biography than history; and if it were not so, I may, I think, stand excused, as to have merely given their names would have well–nigh filled the volume.

In making my selection of materials from the almost inexhaustible stores at my disposal, I have rejected everything which in my opinion is not capable of being well authenticated. In a work of this character it is not desirable to encumber the text with the very large number of references to authorities which otherwise might be required. The reader, however, may rest assured that I have in no case drawn on my imagination for my facts, neither have I accepted the statements of others without first satisfying myself that those statements are trustworthy and reliable.

The Heights,

Rochdale.

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTORY

Lancashire, on its south and south–east, is bounded by the county of Chester, the division for about 50 miles, i. e., from Stockport to Liverpool, being the river Mersey; on the west is the Irish Sea; on the east, up to Graygarth Fell, in the parish of Tunstall, lies Yorkshire; from thence to the waters of Morecambe Bay the boundary is formed by Yorkshire and Westmorland; across the bay is a portion of Lonsdale hundred (north of the Sands), which is almost surrounded by the counties of Westmorland and Cumberland, the extreme eastern boundary being formed by a portion of Windermere Lake. Lancashire from north–west to south–east measures 86 miles, and it is 45 miles across at its widest part; it contains 1,219,221 acres. It has within it 69 parishes (exclusive of 9 extra–parochial districts), 446 townships, and 16 Parliamentary cities and boroughs, which return 35 members, the county divisions adding 23 to this number.

The great divisions of the county are the six hundreds of Lonsdale (north and south of the Sands), Amounderness, Leyland, Blackburn, Salford, and West Derby.

Lonsdale north of the Sands is situate in the extreme north of Lancashire, and is the most picturesque portion of the county, as it embraces a portion of the well–known Lake District; its highest mountain is the Old Man, near Coniston Water, which is 2,577 feet above the sea–level.

The two subdivisions of Lonsdale north of the Sands are Furness and Cartmel. The former is the larger district: its chief towns are Barrow, Ulverston, and Dalton; in the latter there is not a single town of any considerable size or importance. Barrow–in–Furness is one of those towns which the enterprise of the latter half of the present century has suddenly created. A few years ago it was scarcely a village; it is now an incorporated borough, and not only does a large business in iron, but is a port of some importance. With this exception, and a few iron mines, almost the whole district is agricultural in its character.

Furness Abbey, Coniston Priory, and Cartmel Priory were all located in the southern end of this part of the county.

Lonsdale south of the Sands is also chiefly an agricultural district, and is, compared with some other parts of the county, but thinly populated; here and there tall factory chimneys may be seen, but, except in the neighbourhood of Lancaster, they are few and far between.

Time–honoured Lancaster, with its castle and priory, form the central historic point of interest in this part of the hundred; here also were five of the largest forests in Lancashire – Wyersdale, Quernmoor, Bleasdale, Myerscough, and Fulwood. Coming south of Lonsdale, the county is much wider, and is divided longitudinally; the western portion, as far as the river Ribble, forming the hundred of Amounderness, which, like the more northern parts, is inhabited by people engaged in the cultivation of the soil, except in and immediately around the town of Preston, which is now one of the great centres of the cotton trade. The parishes of Kirkham, Garstang, St. Michael’s–on–Wyre, Lytham, Bispham and Poulton are all in a district long known as the Fylde, and their respective churches are all of antiquarian interest. Preston is now by far the largest town in the division; the manufacture of cotton was introduced here in 1777, and the trade has since developed to very large proportions. Here were two religious houses, one a convent of Grey Friars, and the other a hospital for lepers. The Ribble, in its course from Mitton to Preston, intersects the county. To the east of Amounderness is the hundred of Blackburn, which, although it is twenty–four miles in length, only contains five parishes; its north–western extremity is more or less agricultural, but the rest of it is densely populated, and has become a great manufacturing district.

Blackburn, Burnley, Accrington, and several other towns in the district, are all engaged in the staple trade of the county. Clitheroe Castle, Whalley Abbey, and Ribchester are in this hundred.

The south bank of the Ribble forms the western boundary of the hundred of Leyland. The only market–town in the division is Chorley, which until 1793 formed a part of the parish of Croston; like so many other towns of Lancashire, it rose out of obscurity through the introduction of spinning mills towards the end of the last century, and it is now a town of considerable size and importance; in addition to its cotton–mills, coal, stone, and iron are found and worked in the neighbourhood. At Penwortham, on the bank of the Ribble, was a priory dedicated to St. Mary.

The ancient parish churches of Croston, Leyland, Eccleston, and Standish are all of historic interest.

The hundred of Salford has now an enormous population, and the very names of its principal towns call up a vision of tall factory chimneys, dense smoke, and the noise of machinery; manufactories of every kind abound, and it is not saying too much to add that few industries are unrepresented, coal, stone, iron, cotton and woollens, however, constituting the chief trade.

The city of Manchester and the boroughs of Salford, Oldham, Bolton, Rochdale, and Bury are all well–known names in the textile or mechanical world.

West Derby hundred completes the county. This was in Saxon times called Derbei, and was a recognised division; the river Mersey on the one side, and the Irish Sea on the other, have not a little contributed to render this one of the most important districts in England. Liverpool, with its miles of docks and its connection with every part of the world, has become the recognised second port in the country. In the north–east corner of West Derby are the extensive coalfields of Wigan.

A considerable portion of the hundred is as yet untainted with the smoke of the manufactory. Many of the parish churches are of great antiquity; amongst them may be named Ormskirk, Leigh, Wigan, Winwick, Warrington, Childwall, Walton–on–the–Hill, Prescot, Sephton and Huyton. Burscough Priory was in the parish of Ormskirk, and Liverpool had its ancient castle.

Having thus briefly (but at as great a length and in as much detail as the nature and scope of the series of County Histories will allow) described the County Palatine, we may at once proceed to deal with its history as a not unimportant section of the United Kingdom.

CHAPTER II

PRE–ROMAN LANCASHIRE

Notwithstanding what has been written upon the so–called “glacial nightmare,” it still remains an undisputed fact that at some far–distant period the whole of Lancashire was sunk beneath a sea, the waters of which carried along with them huge masses of ice, which, in their passage southward, deposited boulders which they had borne in their chill embrace for hundreds of miles. The hills which rose above the sea were covered with perpetual snow, and the valleys between them were filled with glaciers, which in many instances left a terminal moraine.

The direction which these icebergs took was invariably from north–west to south–east, or north–north–west to south–south–east, that being sufficiently indicated by the polished and striated rocks frequently discovered in all parts of the county. A careful investigation of the erratic blocks which have been discovered in one small district alone1 shows nearly 400 of these rocks, some of which have travelled from Scotland, but by far the larger number have come from the Lake District; these are occasionally found in the valleys, but are generally located on the sides and tops of hills at an elevation of from 600 to 1,200 feet above the sea–level. Geology furnishes abundant proofs that at this period the level of the land in what is now known as Lancashire was fifty or sixty feet higher than it is at the present day; this is very apparent along the coast–line, where the remains of submarine forests are frequently met with. It is more than probable that, from the mouth of the Mersey to the estuary of the Dudden, what are now sand banks were in prehistoric times dry land on which grew forests of the oak, the birch, the ash, the yew, and Scotch firs.

All along the coast–line from Liverpool to Preston have been found at low water the roots and trunks of trees.

Near Fleetwood and Blackpool frequent traces of these forests have been met with below the high–tide level, the trunks of the trees all pointing eastward, with their torn–up roots to the west; stumps of Scotch firs were found near Rossall, and near to them the cones which had fallen from their branches; trunks of oak and yew trees were also discovered at Martin Mere (in Poulton).

In these forests the brown bear, the wild boar, roes and stags, the wolf and the reindeer, and a host of other wild animals, would all be discovered by the neolithic man when he first made his appearance in the district.

Whence came this earlier settler? and at what exact period did he come? are questions which modern scientific research has failed to satisfactorily answer.

It has been suggested – and with some show of reason – that the early neolithic man in Lancashire had been driven from the Yorkshire coast by the victorious invader, who came armed with a war–spear and polished stone axe.2 Be this as it may, the evidence of such a race of men having for some time lived in parts of the county is of the most conclusive character. Although odd specimens of flint instruments have been unearthed, in various districts, it is only in the eastern portion of the county that distinct traces of a neolithic floor have been discovered – that is to say that, on removing the top soil, beneath it has been found a surface so profusely sprinkled with flint chippings and implements as to leave no room for doubt but that at some very early period there was settled upon it a race of men whose weapons of offence and defence, as well as the few instruments required for their simple personal wants, were made out of the flints collected from this drift.

This neolithic floor is found on both sides of Blackstone edge, and is generally at least 1,300 feet above the sea–level, but on the Lancashire side its area is not very large, as it does not reach Burnley on the north, nor Bolton on the west. The depth of the soil or peat above this floor varies from one to ten feet. The flints consist of knives, scrapers, arrow–heads, spear–tips, and minute instruments, probably used to bore holes in bone needles; they are none of them polished or ornamented.

In the parish of Rochdale alone there are twenty–five places where these implements have been found; in fact, there is scarcely a hill–top in the district where traces of them have not been unearthed. The great number of chippings met with in small areas of these high lands indicate that these are the sites of the primitive man’s workshop – here he sat and laboriously fashioned the weapon or the instrument which he required. Barbed arrow–heads are extremely rare, but a beautiful specimen was lately found on Trough Edge, a hill near Rochdale.3

These men have left no traces of their dwelling–place, and they do not appear to have made pottery; probably they lived in earth dwellings or caves in the hillsides. The single fact of their inhabiting only the high ground indicates that the fear of an enemy was ever before them, and it may well be that the foe which drove them from Yorkshire may have ultimately expelled them from their hillside settlements.

At some later period the district became inhabited, though probably only sparsely, by Celtic races and people of Celtic extraction; of the latter were the numerous tribes of the Brigantes, one of which was the Setanii or Segantii (the dwellers in the water country), which is said to have been chiefly located between Morecambe Bay and the ridge of hills which divide Lancashire from Yorkshire. Another tribe also located here was the Voluntii.

At this date Lancashire contained many extensive forests, and in every direction were trackless morasses. As these almost savage tribes lived in tents or huts, and spent their time in hunting or fighting, it is not surprising that the traces of their existence are faint and unsatisfactory, and that it is often impossible to decide whether particular remains belong to the early Celtic or the late British. The geographical nomenclature of the county furnishes some examples of Celtic origin, but for the most part it clearly points to a later period. That these Celtic settlers were well spread over the entire district is certain, as traces of them have been discovered in almost every parish.

Stone hammers, stone axes, spear–heads, socketed celts, cinerary urns, and remains of that class, have been unearthed in many places, amongst which are Aldringham, Cartmel, Tatham, Penwortham, Garstang, Preston, Pilling Moss, Silverdale, Kirkham, Bolton, Cuerden, Flixton, Liverpool, Winwick, Lancaster, Manchester, Royton, Rochdale, and Burnley; this list is alone sufficient to demonstrate that the early settlers had penetrated into all parts of the county.4

In the Furness district remains of entrenchments, ramparts, stone rings, and other evidences of these early settlers are abundant; they have been unearthed at Hawkshead, Hall Park, Bleaberry Haws Torver, Holme Bank, Urswick, Heathwaite Fell, Coniston, and other places in the neighbourhood, proving beyond a doubt that here was an extensive British settlement. Beside these there are several cairns, and portions of stone wall attributable to the same period.

One of the most extensive of the latter group is the one at Heathwaite Fell, where on the top of an elevated piece of moorland is a site near half a mile long by 700 yards wide, which has been encompassed by a stone wall originally 2 feet thick. This enclosed space has been subdivided into five or more smaller enclosures by cross walls, and each of these divisions had its own water–supply. The apex of the ground has been cut by a wall, and this encloses the north elevation of the site. About midway along the west side another wall leaves the outer one and crosses the summit, and cuts off the west angle. On the centre of this wall are situated the “homesteads” or headquarters of the settlement. The homesteads are situated upon the south–east slope of the hill, and upon the cross wall dividing off the western ward. They consist of seven walled courts or yards, three smaller chambers, and two very small mural huts and chambers. The walls of these are usually of dry–built masonry, and are in some places 3 feet thick and in others from 6 to 7 feet.

The main entrance to these enclosures is on the south. The mural huts are placed at the north–west angle of the west court and the south–west angle of the south court. The first is the most interesting; it is contained in a small rectangular block of masonry filling up the angle, and the plan of the chamber itself is that of a joiner’s square. There is no trace left of any covering to these huts, but they were probably covered with stone flags or branches of trees. Within and without the enclosures are cairns of all sizes, one of which is known as The Giant’s Grave. It is remarkable that all the settlements in the Furness district are found on the fells, and never in the dales, some of them being 300 feet above the sea–level. Of any actual defensive structure there is no trace. The settlers here evidently buried their dead close to their homes, and from the calcined bones found it is clear that the bodies were burnt.

These earthen burial–mounds are, however, very scarce in the district; rude–stone cists have been unearthed, but no trace of metals or ornamental workmanship except a few pieces of rude pottery.

At Holme Bank, Urswick, the rampart of earthed stones encloses a five–sided figure, within which are traces of cross walls, the general plan of which points to the site of an early settlement. The rampart or entrenchment discovered at Hawkeshead Park is of a similar character. At Scrow Moss, near the foot of Coniston Old Man, is another of these enclosures, a drawing of which is given in Archæologia (vol. liii., part 2). At Dunnerdale Fell is an enclosure very similar to that found at Heathwaite, though much smaller, the central homestead being formed by a single wall, near to which are several cairns and remains of walls. On Birkrigg Common, at a place called Appleby Slack, is another of these small enclosures, consisting of a single rampart or vallum of earth, enclosing a pear–shaped area, not far from which is a tumulus, and about half a mile to the south–east is a double concentric stone circle. Concerning these various remains in the Furness district, the writer of the exhaustive article in Archæologia5 just referred to is of opinion that their elevated position is due to the fact that the lower ground was at that period such a dense mass of scrub and jungle that it was utterly untenable for residential purposes. These various enclosures do not appear to have been forts, as the homesteads themselves were all on the sloping sides of the hills, but were rather the dwelling–places of a very early tribe of settlers, who were living at peace with their neighbours, and had, therefore, no need of a system of defence, such as we find traces of in other parts of the county. The plan of these settlements was simple – the smaller courts were the living apartments, and were no doubt covered with some kind of roof; the larger enclosures were for the cattle, or possibly for the lower orders of the tribes who held the place.

Many tumuli belonging to the early British settlers have been opened, as at Briercliffe, near Burnley, where the covering of earth had been partly wasted away, leaving a rudely–marked circle of stone, near to which in 1885 was found a sun–baked hand–made urn of pre–Roman origin, containing the remains of an adult and a child. At Wavertree, near Liverpool, in 1867, a large tumulus, since called Urn Mound, was opened, and six urns containing partly–calcined human bones were discovered, all of which were early British. Near to these were found a flint arrow–point and several “scrapers.”6

Canoes assigned to this period have not infrequently been dug out of peat which once formed the bottom of lakes, such as Marton Mere, in Poulton–le–Fylde, and at the estuary of the Ribble, near Penwortham. A very remarkable bronze beaded torque of the late Celtic period was found by some workmen in 1832 at Mowroad, in the parish of Rochdale. This ornament had probably been worn round the neck of some person of rank; it weighed one pound five ounces, was made of bronze, and was of superior workmanship and ornamentation.7 The British tribes did not congregate in such numbers as to establish anything like a town, or even a large village, in these Northern parts; but no doubt when the Romans took possession they found here and there clusters of hut dwellings, which the geographer Ptolemy afterwards described as British settlements. One of these was Regodunum, which was somewhere near the mouth of the Ribble, perhaps at Walton–le–Dale. The author just referred to (who lived about A.D. 140) mentions the estuaries on the west coast, three of which, from the latitude and longitude given, clearly refer to Lancashire rivers; they are named as the Estuary Moricambe, the Haven of the Setantii, and the Estuary Belisama. Belisama was the old name for the Mersey; the Haven of the Setantii was at or near the mouth of the Ribble; and the other estuary was at the conflux of the Kent with the waters of Morecambe Bay.8

At Walton–le–Dale and at Lancaster the Romans are believed to have founded their stations on the sites of British settlements, as in both these places have been found celts, arrow–heads, cinerary urns, and other signs of the earlier race.

CHAPTER III

THE ROMANS AS CONQUERORS AND RULERS

The coming of Julius Cæsar in August, B.C. 55, with his legions of Roman soldiers to punish the men of Kent for having sent assistance to one of the Gallic tribes, the Veneti, then at war with Rome, was what led on to the subsequent subjugation of the whole of Britain. This did not, however, take place for nearly a century afterwards, as, on the Britons undertaking to pay tribute, the invaders withdrew. In A.D. 43 the Emperor Claudius appears to have looked at this country with an envious eye, and finally decided to annex it to Rome; and with this view he sent his General, Aulus Plautius, with an army of some 48,000 men, to subdue the natives, who were, however, found to be a race not easily conquered. After severe fighting, he entrenched himself on the bank of the Thames, where he was joined by the Emperor himself in the following year. Step by step, slowly but steadily, the invaders made their way northwards.

The building of a line of forts by the Imperial Legate from the Severn to the Nene, thus dividing the country, led to a rebellion of the tribe of Cenimagni (or Iceni), the dwellers in what is now Norfolk or Cambridgeshire. In this case the natives were again unsuccessful; and in recording their defeat Tacitus9 first mentions the Brigantes in terms which clearly indicate that even before this time they had given the Romans some trouble. The passage runs: “He (Ostorius Scapula) now approached the sea which washes the coast of Ireland, when commotions, begun amongst the Brigantes, obliged the General to return thither, as he had formed a settled determination not to prosecute any new enterprise till his former were completed and secure. The Brigantes, indeed, soon returned to their homes, a few who raised the revolt having been slain and the rest pardoned.”

The Silures, inhabiting the western part of Wales, under their King Caractacus, maintained a fierce resistance to Ostorius, but were ultimately compelled to bear the Roman yoke. At this period the Queen of the Brigantes was Cartismandua, whose betrayal of Caractacus has preserved her name from oblivion. She afterwards married a leader of the Silures named Venusius, who, according to Tacitus, was for some time under the protection of the Romans; but having been divorced from Cartismandua, she again took up arms against the invaders.

In A.D. 58 in the eastern district of Britain reigned Queen Boadicea, who, taking advantage of the Roman Governor, with many of his soldiers, being engaged in the country of the Brigantes, attacked the towns of St. Albans, Colchester and London, with victorious results, the legion being destroyed and many thousand settlers slain. This probably led to a withdrawal of the Romans for a time from the north–west, and thus left Lancashire in peace. The whole of South Britain in A.D. 62 was finally conquered by the Romans; but it was left to the Roman Governor, Petilius Cerealis, to fight out the battle with the Brigantes, who were reputed to be the most populous state in the whole province. Many engagements took place, attended with much bloodshed, and the greater part of the tribe were either subjugated or slain.10