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CHAPELTOWN RESEARCHES.
CHAPELTOWN RESEARCHES,
ARCH^OLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL;
INCLUDING
OLD-TIME MEMORIES OF THORNCLIFFE, ITS IRONWORKS AND
COLLIERIES, AND THEIR ANTECEDENTS.
MATTHEW HENRY HABERSHON,
HONORARY CORRESPONDENT OF THE VICTORIA INSTITUTE ; AUTHOR OF " THE
WAVE AND THE ROCK"; "CHRISTMAS EVE ON THE MOORS " ;
"THE MONKS' GRANGE"; "FESTIVAL VERSES," ETC.
' If studious, copy fair what time hath blurr'd." — Ghorge Herrert.
LONDON:
SiMPKiN, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent and Co. Limited.
SHEFFIELD:
Pawson and Bkailsford, Printers, High-st. and Mulberry-st.
1893.
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TO
LIEUTENANT-COLONEL
THOMAS CHAMBERS NEWTON, J. P.,
CHAIRMAN OF
MESSRS. NEWTON, CHAMBERS AND COMPANY LIMITED,
THIS CENTENARY VOLUME IS RESPECTFULLY
INSCRIBED BY HIS FRIEND
THE AUTHOR.
" The smallest thing rises into consequence when regarded
as the commencement of what has advanced, or is advancing,
into magnificence." — John Foster's Essays.
PREFACE.
It is natural for people to desire to know something of the past
of the place where they reside. If they were born where they
live, interesting is likely to be the history of the locality that is
memorable as their native home. Is there not in the lifetime of
most men some event--personal, social, or national — to which is
applicable the admonition, " tell ye your children of it, and let
your children tell their children, and their children another
generation ? " Is there not, from that admonition, to be drawn the
inference, that the prophet Joel meant, that the preservation of
the memory of special occurrences, by their being talked of, cele-
brated and recorded, was important as bearing upon the education
of the race ? He does well who does his best to help historically
to instruct and interest, and thus benefit, humanity.
Of the land we are wont to boast of as peerless in freedom, as
foremost in science, as unrivalled in song — the land of Alfred,
Hampden and Cromwell, of Newton, Watt and Faraday, of
Chaucer, Shakespeare and Milton — there is no city, town or hamlet
of which the historical and archsological explorer cannot find some-
thing special to say of its long ago ! That this affirmation is true
of the rural district comprising Chapeltown and villages adjacent,
it is the purpose of the author of this volume to endeavour to show.
In Dugdale's " England and Wales Delineated," there is mention
of Chapel, in Essex; of Chapel-Brampton, in Northamptonshire ;
of Chapel-Sacken, in Cumberland ; and of Chapel-Allerton, near
Leeds ; but this place, called Chapel formerly, and now Chapel-
town, appears to have been either too insignificant to be known to,
or to be noticed by, the antiquarian compiler of that gazetteer.
Although it had a place of worship in Catholic times, its chapel
was unendowed, and therefore no account would be taken of it
ecclesiastically. The inference, however, from the village having
been thus ignored, is not against, but in favour of, the residents
VIII
in and near it being furnished with information as to its history,
obtained on the spot by one of themselves; for the vestiges, not
only of the families of knightly rank who for centuries abode in
this neighbourhood, but of its industries in connection with iron
and coal, are certainly not devoid of interest. To those who now
have their home in this district of Yorkshire, where the Parishes
of Ecclesfield, Tankersley, Wath and Rotherham unite, it is
needless to prove that, as yet —
" Its hills are green, its woods and prospects fair,
Its meadows fertile,"
although it has been liable, owing to its wealth of minerals, to
have its beauty marred, as has been many a fair landscape, by the
demand for fuel, and the supremely serviceable metal with which
the nation chiefly constructs its mechanical inventions.
Before the importation of foreign charcoal-made bars of iron
into England, there passed from this neighbourhood to Sheffield
many a load of the material of which were manufactured arrow
heads, knives, scissors, razors, and the many steel implements for
which that town has long had a world-wide reputation. The line
in Geoffry Chaucer's poem —
" A Shefeld thwytel bore he in his hose "
emphasizes the fact that, in those years of the fourteenth century
during which Chaucer lived (1327 — 1400), blades were made in
Sheffield for which steel would be required ; and may not the
surmise be entertained, that, at the works on Thorpe Common,
carried on by monks of Kirkstead until Edward III. forbade
ecclesiastics trading (and probably afterwards by their tenants),
would be "fabricated" a sort of iron, with just sufficient car-
bon in it to produce a steel-like product which would submit to
the forge, and, after tempering, sustain an edge? From the
historic fact that there were in existence as long ago as 1160
those mines and furnaces, arises the inference that, at no great
distance from those primitive works, there must have been a
market for what they " fabricated." It requires little effort of the
imagination to picture, passing down the road now called Grange
Lane, and through Brightside, on the north side of the river Don,
packhorses carrying material such as would be used by the ancient
Hallamshire blacksmiths.
IX
And of a later date, there is that which research brings into
view of products of the Chapeltown furnace, where probably was
made the cannon which the Duchess of Newcastle says was
ordered by her husband after he had taken possession, on behalf
of Charles I., of Sheffield Castle.
If, as stated by Mr. Hunter, it be true that " till the
time of James I. the iron forges standing in the township
of Brightside Byerlow, commonly called Attercliffe forges, were
in the hands of the Earls of Shrewsbury, and worked for
their benefit " : and as it is undoubtedly true that the smelt-
ing furnace, which was a part of the ironworks of the Lord
of the Manor of Sheffield, was .at Chapeltown; we have to
go far back if we would solve the problem, When and by
whom were the Chapeltown Works, with their water-wheel
and blast furnace, started? There is an entry in* the diary
of John Hobson, of Dodworth Green, of date March 17, 1726,
published by the Surtees Society, which is positive evidence
as to the connection between the Chapeltown furnace and the
Attercliffe forges.
Before then, as far back as the reign of Charles II., Chapel-
town furnace was in the hands of Captain Copley, who, about
1678, gave the works up to tenants, whose names are given by
Mr. Hunter. How long they had been in existence when Copley
took to them is a question which, as yet, research seems not able
to answer.
The agreement by which was secured a site for the Thorn-
cliffe Works was signed December 13th, 1793, and the arrival
of the one hundredth year of their history is deemed a fitting
occasion for the publication of some pages descriptive of the
district in which, for a century, they have been prominent and
important as a scene of Yorkshire skill, industry and enterprise ;
and for placing on record what research has been able to gather
of the men who founded those works, and whose " footprints on
the sands of time " — as their earthly career was ended before
the present century was twenty-five years old — have become
well-nigh obliterated.
Scholars in the schools in this neighbourhood will, pef
haps, better remember certain events in their nation's history
by being shown how it is linked with people who lived
here, were affected by those events, and helped to make that
history. The few pages of fiction in which, by a dream, Joan
Mounteney appears as an attendant upon the Princess Elizabeth,
may serve to interest youthful readers in the fact that, in the
fifteenth century, royal and noble-born personages were exposed
to contingencies of misfortune and peril such as happily in these
days no privileged, or unprivileged, class of persons in this free
realm is liable. The Plantagenet Edward, Earl of Warwick, who
merely because he was the son of the Duke of Clarence, was
during his whole life a prisoner, first at Sheriff-Hutton, where,
for a time he had the Princess Elizabeth his cousin for a com-
panion, and then in the Tower of London, until he was put to
death, at the age of 29 years, by order of Henry VII.
For the benefit of those whom they concern, and for whom
old-time memories have a living voice, are issued these notes of
researches, briefly archaeological, historical and biographical, at
Chapeltown and places near that hamlet, from the point of view
of the author.
Of his indebtedness to the historical works which have
facilitated his researches, especially those of the late Joseph
Hunter, F.S.A. ; the Rev. Alfred Gatty, D.D., Sub-Dean of York;
the late Rev. Jonathan Eastwood, M.A. ; the late John Guest,
F.S.A., of Rotherham ; and the Halifax Historian, John Crabtree,
Esquire, the author desires to make full acknowledgment. To
friends and neighbours from whom he has received information
and assistance, he offers his best thanks.
Greenhead Cottage,
Chapeltown, near Sheffield,
Nov. lyTH, 1893.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
Christmas Day at Chapeltown, a.d. 1482 : a Dream and its Amplifications i
Chapter I.
Notes referring to records between the lines of which imagination found
space to dream . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Chapter II.
House at Greenhead built by A. W. in 1684 ; Cowley Manor, castle-Iike
and moated, of the De Renevilles and the Mounteneys ; and Hesley
Hall, also rebuilt after the Lord of the Manor of Sheffield had
purchased their estates . . . . . . . . . . 37
Chapter III.
Tankersley; its Church, Hall and Park; and the Tankersleys, Elands,
Saviles and Wentworths . . . . . . . . . . 59
Chapter IV.
Howsley Hall and other remaining 17th century buildings in the district ;
Mortemley Hall; Chapeitown House; Lound School; Ivy House;
High Green House ; St. John's Church, Chapeltown ; St. Saviour's
Church, Mortomley . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
Chapter V.
Barley Hall ; Methodism at Thorpe, High Green and Chapeltown .. 127
Chapter VI.
Old-time Memories of Thorncliffe: its Ironworks and Collieries, and their
antecedents at Furnace Hill, Sheffield; Chapeltown Furnace ; and
at the top of Grange Lane, in the Township of Kimberworth, where
the Monks of Kirkstead Abbey in the twelfth century established
Ironworks . . . . . . . . ■ . . ■ . . 143
Chapter VII.
Notes Biographical of the Thorncliffe Partners, supplementary to the
previous Chapter upon Qld-tinje Memories of Thorncliff? ,, 185
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
Sketch of the Grange erected by the Monks of Kirkstead Abbey, who had
Ironworks in the neighbourhood of Chapeltown in the year 1160
Old Barn at Cowley Manor
Fac-simile of Letter written by Richard III., in 1483
Old House at Greenhead, built by A.W., 1684
Cowley Manor
Hesley Hall
Tankersley Old Hall
Howsley Hall
Mortomley Hall . .
Chapeltown House
Ivy House
Portrait of Dr. Falding
Barley Hall
Mount Pleasant Chapel
Portrait of Mr. George Newton
,, Mr. Henry Longden
the Rev. Adam Clarke, LL.D.
Iron Lighthouse made at Thorncliffe for Goodwin Sands
Old Th'undercliffe Grange, pulled down in 1777
Portrait of Mr. Matthew Chambers, senior . .
Mr. Thomas Newton
Mr. Thomas Chambers, of Lane End House
Mr. Thomas Chambers, of Melbourne ..
Mr. John Chambers, of Belmont
Mr. Matthew Chambers, of Barbot Hall.,
CHRISTMAS DAY AT CHAPELTOWN,
A.L). 1482 :
A DREAM AND ITS AMPLIFICATIONS.
" Where, as at Tankersley,
Time hath but left a hollow roofless shell,
To show what written records fail to tell,
Surmise may fill the space the lines between
And fancy paint what, p-rhaps, of yore hath been.'
" England's music feeds
On past events not dim
Though distant in our land's career,
And we to freedom cling
To-day the more because we hear
Of them our minstrels sing." — The Monks' Grange.
PART FIRST.
PREFATORY.
" At length an oak chest, that had long lain hid,
Was found in the Castle — they raised the lid."
T. H. Baily's song: " The Mistletoe Bough."
The "moated castle-like" mansion of the Mounteneys,
which for centuries was as much the chief dwelling at Chapel-
town as yonder mansion of Earl Fitzwilliam is the principal
house at Wentworth-Woodhouse, is represented in name, but
in name only, by the present Cowley Manor. The only struc-
tured relic of the buildings which were in existence when the
Mounteneys had a home at Cowley, is an outhouse — a sort of
barn — the roof of which is supported by massive oak posts let
into the ground and uniting at the top so as to form three
Gothic arches. It is a place likely to be dreamt about ; a
place likely to have become, when the old mansion was pulled
down, the receptacle of such things of uncertain value as people
have to find a place for when they re-build, or "flit" from
one house to another. If there be at such times an old chest
at hand, naturally there are placed hastily in it — parchments,
papers, and other things taken from shelves, drawers, and cup-
boards. Years pass, and curiosity leads to the inspection of
what may be inside that ancient bin, coffer, or box.*
' There is scope for imagination to dream of there being
found in such a chest in that barn, what is archseologically
interesting — documents, in a script not readable by the finder,
but which an expert can easily decipher.
After becoming familiar with the passages in the several
historical works in which the Mounteneys are referred to, such
*In the notes of the late John Wilson, Esquire, of Broomhead Hall, there is
mention of there being in Bradfield Church, an old iron-bound chest, hewed out
of a solid tree, in which, in 1616, the writings of the Church were kept. It is
r.ow used as a receptacle for general lumber.
as the one which says, "Among the English Knights who
" agreed to sail to the Crusades with the Prince, or to follow
" him, appears the name of Robert de Mounteney, who with
" two attendant Knights received three hundred marks for
" their expenses," and, "At a tournament at Dunstable, in
"the second year of the reign of Edward II., appeared Sir John
" de Mounteney," the mind is likely to be astir with conjecture.
By the bye, how is it that a matter-of-fact individual, whose
brain when he is awake never imagines or invents, has before
him when he is asleep elaborate pictures of scenes entirely
fanciful and fictitious ? This is a question not easily answered.
But the probability may be conceived that, after research,
which has resulted in the production of a local archaeological
and historical volume, the writer of it — if a dreamer — would
have visions. Not unnaturally it comes to pass that, after
persistently reading and musing, he has before his mind's eye
such vivid pictures of the past, that his dreams become coloured
by his researches. Long ago people, of whom history has told
him scarcely anything but their names, become as distinct and
familiar as if they were his contemporaries. In this way may
be accounted for such a dream as this, and its imaginary
amplifications.
There is a blank, or omission, in the Mounteney pedigree
which seems to demand the invention of some hypothesis to
supplement or elucidate the record. Joan, the daughter of Sir
Thomas Mounteney, born Michaelmas day, 1321, had two
husbands, and it is strange, says Hunter, that of the former,
from whom the genealogical line descends, there is no trace.
Her son John was legitimately born before her marriage with
Thomas, Lord Furnival, but the name of his father is not
given. That son's name, "^Si^rjphn de Mounteney, Knight,"
so called " jussu matris " (fajs-^i^of his mother, as appears
in a deed bearing that lady's seal), may not have been derived
from his father, but assumed in consequence of his mother in
her widowhood resuming her maiden name. The reader
naturally wonders why this mystery and concealment ? The
beautifully illustrated missal which belonged to this lady, Joan
Mounteney, "quandam uxor Thomas Furnival, Chevalier,"
which Mr. Hunter hopes will turn up some day, is surely in
somebody's library somewhere (unless there has been a fire
destroying the premises where it was treasured). A dream so
practically useful as to reveal where that missal is deposited
would establish for dreaming in this scientific age, a place
higher than either clairvoyance or spiritualism has attained !
In the year here recalled, 1482, the later Joan's grandfather,
Thomas Mounteney, had been dead nine years, and her father
Nicholas and her mother Elizabeth would be living at Cowley.
Her father's will is dated 1499, so he was residing there after 1483
for seventeen years. In that will she, as well as her brothers
Robert, Thomas, Alexander and Nicholas, is mentioned. Her
age is not indicated, but she was the youngest of the family
and an only daughter (as, strange to say, has been the rule,
with few exceptions, in families residing at Cowley throughout
its history down to the present day : Miss Ramsden has no
sister; Mr. John Jeffcock had only one daughter ; immediately
preceeding him was resident there Mr. Smith, who had one
daughter ; Mrs. Kirk, the grandmother of the wife of Mr.
Smith, was an only daughter of a Cowley household).
An extract from the pedigree of the Mounteney family
will help to a perception of the young lady Joan's environment.
Nicholas Mounteney, of Shiercliffe, Esq.=EliEabeth, daughter of
In his will dated 6 June, 1499, he
mentions all the children
below.
John Drax, Esq.,
by Margaret Barley,
his wife.
Isabel =
1 1 ! 1 1
= Robert, of Cowley and Shiercliffe. Thomas. Alexander. Nicholas. Joan.
first
His second wife, Anne.
From whom (dreamt of as
wife.
His will is dated 3 Aug., 15 19, on
descended lady attendant
Living
which day he died, and was
the Mounteneys upon the
1499
buried in the church at Ecclesfield.
of Kotherham, of Princess
and
Creswick, and Elizabeth,
1505'
of Wheatley, near daughter of
Doncaster. Edward IV.)
Jo
in, = loan.
of Cowley and
Living
Shiercliffe,
24 May, 1536.
Founder of the
Orator
V in 1536.
• Smethy=Dorothy, Barbara, =Thos. Thwaites
died without issue. sole heiress.
In his will, dated 6th June, 1499, Nicholas desired that his
body might be buried before the image of Saint Mary in the
church at Ecclesfield, and directs that a priest shall say mass
for his soul for one full year after his decease. To the fabric
of the church of Ecclesfield, he gives one seme of iron ; to
Robert, all his heirlooms, among which are specified — "unum
calicem argenti, unum mese boke, unum primarium cum armis
meis pictis, cum omnibus ornamentis capelle mee pro capellano
seupresbyteromeocantantiet missam celebranti ;" to Isabella,
the wife of his son Robert, he gives a girdle used by his wife
Elizabeth ; and he makes his sons Thomas, Alexander and
Nicholas his executors, who are to order for his soul's health
as they think fit. Thomas Clarke, vicar of Ecclesfield, he
nominates one of the supervisors.
We may assume that the father, mother, and five younger
persons specified in the pedigree were of the household of
Cowley in the year 1482, and we may be sure that that
daughter Joan had often in her hands the illuminated missal
of her namesake, bequeathed by her father to her eldest
brother Robert.
Several historical facts being distinctly remembered which
correspond in date with this period, the incidents of the vision
have an aspect of reality ; for instance a parchment at Wortley
Hall evidences that, while the High Chancellor of King
Edward IV., Archbishop Rotheram, was building his college
at Rotherham, he, for the most part, was the guest of his
friend Sir Thomas Wortley, and that it was in 1481, the year
after the King's Chancellor was made Archbishop of York,
that he founded that college in the town of his nativity.
The Countess of Richmond, the mother of Henry Vll.,
and therefore ultimately the mother-in-law of Elizabeth, the
daughter of Edward IV., had a first cousin, Lady Paston, whose
daughter became wife of a gentleman of this neighbourhood,
Sir John Saville, of Tankersley. A daughter of this Sir John
and Lady Saville married the head of the house of Wortley.
Taking foi' granted that the families at Wortley, Tanker^ley
and Cowley were neighbourly, it is natural that these persons
should be thought of, and their intimacy with the Queen
accounts for the position, at her court, of the lady Joan as atten-
dant upon, and instructress of, the Princess.
Although the personal appearance, character and endow-
ments of this sole daughter of Nicholas Mounteney are not on
record, no one has grounds for saying of the dreamer's portrait
of her, as has been said of Sir Walter Scott's description of
Amy Robsart, " she was not all his fancy painted her," for in
the case of the Kenihvorth lady the actual facts are known. Here
the real person, which the pedigree verifies, and the ideal portrait
and circumstances associated with her individuality, are not sub-
ject to an analysis that can separate the one from the other. The
conception of her sweetness, accomplishments and goodness, fit-
ting her to be the instructress of the Princess, and of her occupying
that position through the recommendation of one who knew
her intimately and had influence at Court, may claim to be
credible and tenable. It is no use anyone trying to prove the
real Laura whom Petrarch loved was less beautiful than his
immortal lyrics describe ! Archdeacon Farrar, a reproducer of
the events of the first century of the Christian era, has lately
written a book, which he calls " An Historical Tale." " He
" has," says a reviewer, " elaborated the hints of Pagan
" writers, and availed himself of personal allusions in the
" salutations of the Pauline epistles for the woofs running
" across his webs of fact." ..." He gives identity to
" Pudens and Claudia, to Linus and Prisca and Aquila, and to
" many others who, in the salutations of the Epistles, are
" often names and nothing more."
Archseologists are not wont to describe dramatically the
ancient abbeys and castles they write about as Shakespeare
romances about the Plantagenet kings and queens and their
associates ; but we find the judicious and unromantic Mr.
Hunter, in his " History of Hallamshire," which is not a book
8
professing to deal with nice points of ethics or chivalrous
sentiments, writing of Matilda, the heiress at a very tender age
of the last of the male line of the Lovetots, words of protest, as if
he were a modern liberal politician defending " women's rights."
He says : " The right of chief lords to dispose in marriage the
" heiresses of those who held land of them, is one of the most
"indefensible points of the feudal system. It may have had
" its convenience in regard to the superiors ; but what did the
" tenants gain by it ?— and, in a well regulated community, all
" general political institutions will be directed to the benefit of
" the more numerous class. In this instance a thousand
" objections, arising out of some of the most sacred feelings of
" human nature, immediately present themselves, which no
" reasons of expediency or policy ought ever to have been
"allowed to countervail." (p. 42.)
In the dream is blended with Mr. Hunter's words quoted,
a passage in Dr. Collier's English History, which says, " It
" was a strange feature of Edward IV. 's foreign policy, that he
" endeavoured to make marriages for his children from the day
" of their birth ; but none of his schemes succeeded. At the
" conclusion of the war he had with Louis XL, King of France,
" one of the conditions of the peace-treaty of Pecquigny, was,
" that Louis' eldest son, the Dauphin, should marry the English
" Princess Elizabeth."
At the date of that treaty of peace, assigning her to the
Dauphin, 1475, she would be nine years old, and 16 in 1482.
Henry VII. became King, August 22nd, 1485, so she could not
be more than 20 when Richard III., her uncle, wanted to
marry her, and perhaps would have compelled her acquiescence
had he lived a few months longer, notwithstanding the dissua-
sion of hischief counsellors Ratcliffe and Catesby. The blood-
thirsty savage, the murderer of her two brothers, and deserving
only to be thought of with execration, she knew to be intent
upon making her the means of confirming his usurpation, and
she seems to have thought of herself as utterly helpless.
There is a letter in her hand-writing in the cabinet of the
Earl of Arundel and Surrey, from which may be inferred that
she had the feeling that it would be perilous to refuse if the
unscrupulous monarch demanded her hand. The letter is
written to the Duke of Norfolk, desiring him to be her mediator
for her marriage with the King, whom she calls her only joy
and maker in the world. (Buch's Life of Richard III.)
Well might her mother weep, when, notwithstanding her
forebodings, she consented, at the request of Archbishop
Rotheram, to let her boy be taken from her. Did the Princess
Elizabeth know of those tears ? — of the fate of her two brothers ?
— of the character of her uncle ? No doubt she did ! We cannot
interpret the obscure words in her letter without bearing this in
mind.
This episode would need some word of apology if the
purpose of the author of " Chapeltown Researches" had been
only to inform or remind his readers by the reproduction of
historical facts. He aims to make his volume entertaining,
as does the artist, who, painting a historical picture, in order
to depict the scene as effectively as possible, introduces persons
and objects not known to be, but presumed to be, associated
with it.
,«l^>
*
lO
PART SECOND.
CHRISTMAS DAY 1482.
In accordance with license granted— such as that which,
half a century earlier, was granted by Kempe (Archbishop of
York) to Dominus Robert Normanton (Vicar of Ecclesfield)—
there were services in the winter months in the little chapel at
Chapeltown, which had given that hamlet its name; but on
the day of long-ago, now brought into view, the church bells at
Ecclesfield ringing merrily a Christmas peal, have invited and
attracted the parishoners far and near to assemble in the richly
decorated edifice which used to be designated " the Minster
of the Moors." Moreover it is known that morning that a
high dignitary of the Church is to be present. Thomas
Rotheram, who is not only the King's Chancellor, but has
lately been promoted to be Archbishop of York, and who is
staying with his friend Sir Thomas Wortley, at Wortley Hall,
has promised the Vicar (Thomas Clarke) that he will help him
to officiate.
That he should do this is in accordance with the interest
he takes in the parish of Ecclesfield, for when he founded and
amply endowed the college at Rotherham, he provided that, in
the election of pupils into that college, the parishes of
Rotherham and Ecclesfield were to have a preference, and the
provost of the college had, for part of his duty, to preach the
word of God in the parishes of Rotherham and Ecclesfield.
There is evidence in the Archbishop's will that he regarded
himself as closely identified with the parish, for in bequeathing
property in it to John Scott, his cousin, he refers to the Scotts,
his mother's family, having had a " small estate, descending
successively in the same name and blood from a time beyond
the memory of man."
II
In the Catholic church (as from the gospel of Luke it is
known that the event of Christ's birth was in the night) there
was a mass service at midnight. In the iirst three centuries
of the Christian era there was probably no celebration of the
event ; the usage was to celebrate the death of remarkable
persons rather than their birth ; but in the fourth century a
festival was established in memory of our Lord's birth. In
the Western church the time fixed in the fifth century for the
celebration was the day of the old Roman feast of the birth of
Sol, on the 25th of December, though no information
respecting the day of Christ's birth existed. In Catholic
churches there was also a service at daybreak, and another in
the forenoon. Whether at Ecclesfield church in the fifteenth
century there would be the midnight and daybreak service is
uncertain, but no doubt there would be the mass celebration in
the forenoon.
After this service, dispersing worshippers exchange saluta-
tions. Nicholas Scott, of Barnes Hall, and his sister Anne
Scott (afterwards married to John Watts, of Muckleton) linger
to have a few words with their relative the Archbishop. The
horse on which he has ridden from Wortley Hall to the church
the servants have brought to the porch, but it is not further
required, for he has accepted an invitation from his Cowley
Castle friends to spend the remainder of that Christmas day
with them, and the weather being so fine, it is decided that a
walk over the crisp snow will be preferable to riding, for his
Grace, at the age of 58, is in vigorous health. The group,
pictured to the mind's eye, ascending the pack-horse track
towards the common, includes members of the Cowley house-
hold, namely, Nicholas Mounteney, his wife Elizabeth, the
sons Robert, Thomas, Alexander, Nicholas, and their sister
Joan, also the vicar, Thomas Clarke, who is asked to dine with
them, and the worthy yeoman Master Wylkinson, of Crowder
House.
12
A Christmas dinner of those days has been often ^'""tely
described, and can be readily pictured, especially the dish ot a
boar's head, and the richly spiced globular pudding, unknown
in this land until introduced by the Crusaders. _
After the feasting and the toasting and the special ob-
servances of the festival banquet had been gone through, how
natural would it be for the Archbishop to entertain the
assembly by words seasonable and appropriate. For those
around him on the dais, the distinguished scholar of Edward
IV.'s New College at Cambridge, and previously of that at
Eton, would be likely to produce (perhaps not a printed volume,
for only two or three years before then Caxton had issued the
first book printed in England, but) a manuscript copy of the
Canterbury Tales of Geoffrey Chaucer, and read the lines in
which the poet satirizes the monks and friars-for the Arch-
bishop, as well as Chaucer, was a man to appreciate much of
the advanced teaching of Wickliff. He knew that the poet
had given offence to the clergy by adopting many of the
reformer's tenets, but he admired his conscientiousness and
zeal in the pursuit of truth. He did not think the worse of
him for lacking the courage to prefer martyrdom rather than
tell what he knew of the doings of the Lollards in the City of
London in connection with the election of a Lord Mayor.
It is likely the Archbishop would refer to King James I.
of Scotland, and tell how that learned monarch, while a
prisoner in England, had studied Chaucer's poems, and,
himself a poet, written thereon, admirably, comments which
were published.
A good deal is known of the character, as well as the
prosperous career of this son of Sir John Rotheram, of
Rotherham, but there is no trace of bigotry or intolerance to
be found in his words or conduct.* John Vere, the 12th Earl
•Shakespeare thought of him, as kind and gentle, for he makes him say to
the young Duke of York's mother (who has exclaimed, " Go to, you parlous boy,
you are too shrewd."') " Good madam, be not angry with the child ! " And, " My
gracious lady, go, and thither bear your treasure and your goods ; for my part,
I'll resign unto your grace the seal I keep ; and so betide to me as well I tender you,
and all of yours I Come, I'll conduct you to the sanctuary." — (Rich. III., Act 2.)
13
of Oxford, observing the high merits of his fellow collegian,
chose him for his chaplain, and his connection with that
nobleman brought him under the notice of the king, Edward
IV., who took him into his own service, and finding him to be
an able and steady partisan of the House of York, treated him
with marked favour; made him Provost of Beverley, and
Keeper of the Privy Seal ; then Bishop of Rochester, 1467 ;
then Bishop of Lincoln, 1471, and while he was Bishop of
Lincoln he had, in 1474, committed to his custody the Great
Seal, the possession of which constituted him the Lord High
Chancellor of England. He also became chancellor of the
University of Cambridge. The King, given to pleasure and
indulging in indolence — unless excited by some great peril,
when he could display much energy and courage— threw upon
his minister all the common cares of government.
In 1480, the High Chancellor became also Archbishop of
York. On the 24th January, 1482, he opened Edward IV. 's
last parliament with a speech from the text, " Dominus illumi-
natio mea et salus mea." We can form a pretty good idea as
to what sort of a man he was when, at Christmas the same
year, he was the guest at Cowley of Squire Nicholas Mounteney.
The scene, if we can recall it after four centuries have passed,
may help us to enjoy the leisure and social intercourse of the
Christmas present.
As the host, his family, and his guests are grouped around
the large wood fire in the hall of the mansion, " castle-like
and moated," how natural is it for the conversation to include
the work the Archbishop is engaged in in his native town.
The previous year, 1481, after his promotion to the see of
York, he had started his new college project, and he was
remaining in the neighbourhood to ensure it being carried out
according to his design and intent ; and there is talked about
the building of a church at Rotherham, on an extensive scale,
and with ample means, on the site of the old, small Saxon
edifice ; and the assistance which Roland Bilton, the Abbot of
14
Rufford, and Henry CornebuU, the Archdeacon, are affording
the Archbishop in his laudable undertaking. The new style of
Gothic architecture, called Three-pointed, or Perpendicular,
selected, and which is the style adopted in the erection of the
King's St. George's Chapel, at Windsor, is discussed. Master
Wylkinson makes a remark about the condition of the labourers
employed on the farms, which opens the question whether the
recent wars of the Roses have not put an end to serfdom or
villenage, and if that be not " a consummation devoutly to be
wished."
Later in the evening, the fair Joan, the sole daughter of
the house, is urged to let her sweet voice and wel practised
fingers contribute to the hilarity, sober and restrained as was
customary on such occasions at Cowley, though as much
cannot be said of houses generally. She consents to be led to
her harp, and there is merriment in the music she discourses ;
though her cheerfulness is rather assumed than real, for she
is somewhat troubled by a foreboding that an admirer — a
worthy gentleman in the King's service — for whom she has an
affection, will be compelled to marry a lady whom the King
assigns to him. Suiting her music to her mood, after singing
a number of lively and humourous songs, she selects an old
Troubadour lyric referring to a Persian monarch's court,
where was a young maiden, fair as Esther, firm of purpose as
the beautiful Queen Vashti, and whom the min'strel tells of as
having shown self-sacrifice in a most extraordinary way. The
song affirms that she was driven to the dire expedient of
staining her skin a reddish colour rather than be made to marry
a satrap whom she hated, instead of the prince to whom she
was betrothed, and who was so devotedly her lover that, rather
than lose her, he approved her desperate resolve.
At the conclusion of the harp-accompanied recital of this
Eastern story, the singer of it for a moment or two touches
softly the strings in continuance of the strain, and then adds
commentatory verses of her own, expressing her sentiments in
15
regard to compulsory marriages, and hinting at what she
icnows to be the disturbed feeling of the Princess Elizabeth in
view of the precariousness of her position. The Archbishop,
as Chancellor, has great influence in the royal household, and
the verses are sung to awaken or stimulate his sympathy.
Modernized, as regards both the words and their metrical
arrangement, the lady's verses, headed, in the ancient manu-
script, " Stiches sung at Christmas by Joan Mounteney,"
read thus : —
If that banished young man from the Court Ispahan
And the lady each other thus loved,
It is well that their wrongs should have place in our songs
Till the burdens we bear are removed.
Thus disfigured for life that she might be his wife !
We might doubt if that ever could be
If we had not in view of ourselves, what is true.
For 'tis certain we here are not free.
We're of those who the most of their chivalry boast,
But 'tis less than a chivalrous thing.
When an heiress's hand is assigned with her land,
Though the act of s lord or a king !
The practice is vile in this feudal-cursed isle,
Of treating sweet flow'rs as weeds !
Pure affection ignored, to advantage a lord,
Or a dynasty, rarely succeeds.
'Tis said, on the morn when the Princess was born.
That her father determined a scheme
or alliance — as if he could measure her life,
And the love Heaven gives were a dream !
When but nine summers old to be bartered or sold,
Is betrothal not such as is bless'd ;
But as yet not a bride, nor as yet set aside
Is her state, and 'lis oneof unrest.
When I say to her why does your ladyship sigh ?
She doth naught of the wherefore confess:
If I ask of a breeze why it sighs in the trees,
Though I have no reply, I can guess.
The Archbishop applauds, and remarks, " The Princess is
virtuous and amiable, and grieved should I be were she to be
married against her will, and to one who would not be kind to
her. Ministers of State have great responsibility resting upon
them in connection with such marriages. It is a great national
misfortune at times, when Royal personages are wrongly mated.
While it is true that only when affection is the basis of the
union is a marriage what it ought to be, Cupid not seldom is
I6
a most mischievous intermeddler. If our King had not fallen in
love with the widow of Sir John Grey while the Earl of War-
wick was negotiating for him a marriage with the sister of the
King of France, we should not have had so much fighting for
the crown during the last twenty years. I was not the King's
Chancellor when that treaty was arranged in 1475. The Great
Seal had passed into the hands of Bishop Gray of Ely, who being
a fluent master of the French language, was better suited than
myself to accompany the King and negotiate the treaty with
Louis. I am not responsible for that clause in the deed signed
on the bridge of Pecquigny ! The Great Seal was not returned
to me until the 20th of August, 1480, two years ago. I am
supposed to be an adviser of His Majesty now, but neither he
nor I know what the Dauphin intends." Addressing Joan
Mounteney, he adds, " Have you lately heard any news of the
Princess ?"
She replies, " Sir John Saville has arrived at Tankersley
from London, and he brings the news he heard talked about
just before he left. He says it is rumoured, and Lady Paston
believes it to be true, that the Dauphin is to be married to
Margaret, the daughter of Maximilian of Austria and Maria of
Burgundy, notwithstanding the treaty of Pecquigny."
"That is not bad news," remarks the Archbishop, "unless
the Princess has got to like him. Is that making her unhappy ?"
Joan replies : " I know nothing of her not liking him ; but
the suspense is very trying, and must cause a state of unrest.
She knows that her feelings will not be considered by those
who will make it their business, and have the power, to dispose
of her in marriage. For the past seven years there has been
over her life a cloud of uncertainty and danger, and she has
not been free from the apprehension that it may become a storm-
cloud of suffering and dire misfortune. She knows, of course,
what has been the fate of her uncle, the Duke of Clarence, and
how cruelly many others have been treated." His Grace then
observes : " The King will be very angry if a scheme for which
17
he has always had a peculiar fondness should be frustrated.
He will awake to the treachery of the French King, and
rush forthwith into war."
The Vicar here exclaims : " My feelings are not so much
exercised by the Princess not being free to choose a husband,
as in regard to the affairs of the heart of another lady with
whom I sympathise, but whom I hope to congratulate, some
day, when the obstacles she has to contend against will be over-
come. I happen to know that a certain gentleman, who, when
he made the promise to the King, swears that he was deceived —
was not told why the King wished him to marry the lady, and
that not ' all the King's horses nor all the King's men' will be
able to drag him to fulfil that promise."
" Ah !" says Squire Mounteney, " the course of true love
never did run smooth ; but unmarried priests, like our friend
here, although they have many things confided to them in the
Confessional, know little of the contingencies and experiences
of the course true love travels upon."
" That may be," replies Vicar Clarke, " but it is not from
choice I forego the experience !"
" I may say the same," says the Archbishop, " but still
we know a good deal. For instance we know the story of the
maiden Rebecca, who was left free to go or not go with Eliezer,
the messenger sent to deliver to her Isaac's offer of marriage ;
which Hebrew incident is a good basis for an argument on the
question whether our feudal usages are justifiable or otherwise.
Who can deny it was wrong for the young heiress of Hallam-
shire, Matilda Lovetot, while a child seven years old, to be
compelled to be betrothed to Gerard Farnival ? or deny it was
wrong for Isabella of France, when only eight years old, to be
married to our Richard II., as his second wife ? Ere long the
stories in the Bible will be better known by our people. The
printed pages of Wickcliffe's translation are sure to be read, if
only from curiosity. The invention of printing will have a
prodigious effect in many ways. It will help to turn the world
upside down." This remark leads to a conversation as to the
books, beside the Bible, likely to be printed, and if they will be
cheap or dear. The Archbishop remarks " the time will come
when printed books will be cheap ; but they are not cheap yet,
as I happen to know, for three years ago I gave 27 volumes to
the University Library, and they cost a good deal of money.
There are a few I know of, recently published, I am desirous to
purchase. One is a folio from Caxton's press, entitled ' Con-
fessio Amantis,' by Sir John Gower, the Poet Laureate, and
Chief Justice of the Common Pleas ; and another is 'Caesar's
Commentaries on the War in Gaul,' a quarto, printed only four
months ago at Venice. In this the Latin words are
admirably well printed, on good paper, and there is at the
beginning of each part a blank space left for the initial letter
to be ornamentally traced by a brush or a pen."
This allusion to the adorning of books reminded Joan of
her ancestor Lady Joan Furnival's illuminated missal, and she
said, " I must show your Grace a something our family
possesses of that sort, which is very beautiful, and which
proves how skilfully, a hundred years ago, a monk, who was
an accomplished artist, could embellish a volume." It was
produced, and the Archbishop examined the miniatures and
heraldic decorations carefully and admiringly. " Verily," he
said, "this is an heirloom to be treasured. Here is Furnival
impaling Lovetot, and here Mounteney impaling Furnival.
This and the Luterel Book were probably executed by the
same person."
There was also shown to him a seal, of beautiful device
and workmanship, executed for the same lady, which has on it
the representation of the branch of a tree, having suspended
from it, on each side of the trunk of the tree, a shield, one of
which bears the arms of Furnival and the other those of
Mounteney, and having around them the inscription Sigillvm
JoHANNE DE FuRNivAL. This Seal is appendant to a deed
which, being extant, authenticates those Mounteney records
19
between the lines of which imagination finds space to idealize.
That deed is worded thus : — " Sciant presentes et futuri, quod
ego Johanna Mounteney filia et hseres Thomse Mounteney,
quondam uxor Thomas Furnivall Chr. dedi. concessi, &c.
Johanni Mounteney Alio meo manerium meum de Bulcotes
cum omnibus pertinentiis in Com. Nott. Dedi etiam prsedicto
Johanni omnia terra et tenementa prata, &c., in Risheton juxta
Rothewell in Com. Northampt. &c., ac in Swynton et Scoles
in Com. Ebor. Habend, &c., prsedicto Johanni heredibus et
assignatis suis, &c. Data apud Shierclyffe in Com. Ebor. in
festo Sci Marteni Episcopi in hyeme 15, Rio. II."
Absent from this vision of Christmas long ago, cannot be
the something spiced, in an earthenware bowl, which the
festival-keepers partake of. Whether it be the pure unfuselled
product of the grape, such as the English people ought to be
able to obtain from abroad in these days, the dreamer ventures
not to affirm. Whatever be the beverage — harmless or other-
wise — the friends continue their conversation until a somewhat
late hour. The final topic of the evening is the new parliamen-
tary enactment touching " excess of apparel." The discussion
of it elicits no Utile merriment, for there is freely expressed
the probability that as the Chancellor is Chairman of the
House in which the Bill was introduced, he had a good deal to
do with it. Squire Mounteney's son Nicholas protests against
the privileges in it allowed to the nobility. " Because I am
not a lord," says he, " I am not to wear a mantle as short as I
fancy will suit me best ! "
There is cheerfulness suited to the season beaming in
every countenance, when at length the Archbishop pronounces
the benediction, " Gratia Domini nostri Jesu Christi sit
vobiscum," and the party separates, each one to sleep — per-
chance to dream !
PART THIRD.
Edward IV. died the year after the Christmas-day on
which Joan Mounteney had been referring to the disturbed feel-
ings of that King's daughter. The event was not only important
as affecting the Princess, but in regard to the young lady Joan,
for there was, owing to the King's death, no further interference
with the freedom of her friend and admirer, who was expected to
marry, not as he desired, but as best served the interests of the
selfish and sensual monarch. Ere another Christmas-day came
round she became — if a dream can supply what history fails to
record — the bride of a man, nameless in the pedigree of
her family, but of whom there is mention in the notes of the late
John Charles Brook, Esquire, Somerset, herald-at-arms, and
from whose record Mr. Hunter, for his " History of Hallam-
shire," constructs the following paragraph : —
"On the 2ist of February, 15 Henry VI., 1436, Robert
Normanton, vicar of Ecclesfield ; Richard Pigburn, of Scausby;
John Skyres, of Wath ; Thomas Greff, of Sturch hill ; and
John Wilson, of Wadsley, granted to John Howsley and Joan
his wife, for their lives, all the lands, &c., which they (as
trustees) had the gift of, of the said John Howsley, within the
bounds of Chapel, in the parish of Ecclesfield, to hold, &c., to
the said John and Joan his wife ; remainder to William, son
of John, and the heirs male of his body; remainder to John,
brother of William ; remainder to the right heirs of the
father." "John Howsley appears in 1505, and Thomas
Howsley in 1532."
The John Howsley, who was alive in 1505 (twenty-three
years older than he was in 1482), was married at Ecclesfield
church by Archbishop Rotheram, and, by that friend of h
bride's family, put in possession, as tenant, of Howsley Hall,
which the Howsley-s had lost the hold of. Vicissitudes not
now traceable caused the estate to pass into the hands of the
Wortleys, and the Archbishop, as he mentions in his will
bought It of Sir Thomas Wortley. His grace left it to his
is
21
relative John Scott, a cousin, and on May 14th, 1560, Anne
Scott marrying Thomas Howsley, the manor passed again into
the Howsley family, and in 1594, by the marriage of Anne
Howsley to Gerard Freeman, to the Freemans.
The fact is on record that Richard HI., after the death of
his wife Lady Anne, put pressure upon Archbishop Rotheram
to use his influence with the dowager Queen, the widow
of Edward IV., in order to promote Richard's scheme of
marrying himself to his niece, the Princess Elizabeth. He
was equal to any act of either crime or folly. He had put the
Archbishop in the tower for handing the great Seal to Edward
IV. 's widow, but he could be liberated if he would thus
promote the unscrupulous Richard's scheme. There is uncer-
tainty as to what the Archbishop did. The death of the King
at the battle of Bosworth relieved him of the pressure put upon
his conscience. Lord Campbell, in his •'' Lives of the Chan-
cellors," says " Rotheram certainly identified himself, so far
as an adherent of Richard, as to place the crown on his head
at his second coronation at York." Richard III. was not twice
crowned. If Rotheram had taken part in a coronation at
York, there would be some mention of it in the memorials of
him in York Cathedral. Lord Campbell was misled by the
report of an incident which took place at a dinner at York,
which a writer exaggerated into a coronation.
Archbishop Rotheram died at Cawood, in Yorkshire, of
the plague, May 29th, 1500, aged 76 (as he was born August
24th, 1423). His coffin, in his vault in York Cathedral, was
opened in 1735, and there was found in it a well-carved bust,
from which the portrait of him was painted, which is in King's
College, at Cambridge. As he died of the plague, it is probable
that his body would be immediately buried, and an image of
him substituted in the more solemn and ceremonial interment.
He was one of the most conspicuous men of his day, not only,
says Leland, "secretary to four Kings, but Legate of the
Apostolic Chair."
c
22
POSTSCRIPT.
In these December days of Anno Domini 1892, the
question,— "To whom will a certain royal personage be
married ?" is one that is being asked. It is one that will be
among the topics talked about on the Christmas day nigh at
hand, as was discussed at Cowley Castle four hundred and ten
years ago the marriage of the daughter of King Edward IV.
The Princess whose name will be mentioned has had an
experience which assures her that, whatever be her fate matri-
monial, the English people believe she is worthy to have a place
in their affections. If, in due time, the rumour of to-day
should prove true — that bridal flowers are about to take the
place of signs of mourning, "the garment of praise for the
spirit of heaviness"— the news will be welcomed as glad
tidings in this corner of Yorkshire, as elsewhere throughout
the realm.
$:^^ii>i«^0
The foregoing episode was printed on the eve of last Christ-
mas, that the author might send a copy of it to friends whom he
is wont to greet when that festive season comes round. As time
has verified the rumour hinted at in the postscript, it is allowed to
remain ; and, as a further prelude to the several chapters of the
volume, the following supplementary and elucidatory notes are
appended.
23
CHAPTER I.
Notes referring to records between the lines of which
imagination found space to dream.
Note A, page 3. Sketch of the interior of the Old Barn at
Cowley Manor.
To show that the manuscript dreamt of as having been found
in a chest in that barn, centuries after it was written, would not
likely to be readable by the finder, here is a fac-simile of part of a
letter written at Lincoln, October 12th, 1483, by King Richard III.
Three months after his coronation he commands the Lord Chan-
cellor to send him with all haste his great seal, the possession of
which is necessary for carrying out his schemes against the Duke
of Buckingham. The letter of the court official whom the King
had commanded to write, appears not to have been expressed in
language strong enough for the humour his majesty was in, so
with his own pen he adds to it thus :— " We wolde most gladly
" ye comme yourselffe yf that ye may, and yf ye may not we pray
" you not to fayle, but to accomplyshe in all dyllygence oure sayde
" comawndement to send oure scale in contenent apone the syght
" heroffe as we trust you with suche as ye trust and the offycers
" pertenyng to attend with hyt praying you to assertayne us of
" your newes. Here, loved be God, us alia welle and trewly de-
" termyned and for to resyte the malysse of hyme that hadde best
" cawse to be trewe, the Due of Bokyngame, the most untrewe
" creature lyvyng whome with Godes Grace we shall not be long
" tj'Ue that we wylle be in that partyes and subdewe his malys.
" We assure you there was never falsse traytor better purvayde
" for as this berrerre Gloucestre shall shewe you."
There is evidence that a century before the time Richard III.
thus wrote, the language of this country had become English, As
early as 1385 a schoolmaster tells us that he had entirely ceased
to employ French in his teaching, for he found that the mother
tongue of the people was a far better medium for teaching the
Latin grammar to his boys, as they scarcely understood a word
of French. In 1362 the two Houses of Parliament were opened
with an English speech. At the same time the Government
enjoined the Courts of Law to have their proceedings conducted
in English.
Note B, page 21. Character of Richard III. : " Equal to any act
of crime or folly."
Dr. W. F. Collier's History contains the following para-
graph : — " The character of the last of the Plantagenets has
" been painted by the historian and the dramatist in the
" darkest colours. He is represented as a man cruel and
"treacherous, lured on by the demon of unbridled ambition to
" commit crimes most terrible and unnatural. Though he
" cannot have been a good man, yet it is due to his character
" to remember that the picture of Richard III., familiar to our
" minds, was drawn under the Tudor sovereigns,, and that, on
" this account, some allowance should be made for the rancour
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" of a hostile feeling." " Cannot have been a good man I" Is
that the way a judicious historian should remark about the
character of Richard III., when, apart from the words of
Shakespeare and prejudiced historians, he had the means of
inferring from facts as to which there is no uncertainty?
Richard's murder of his two nephews alone prevents a
questioning of the familiar picture painted by Elizabeth, the
dowager queen. She says to the king, her brother-in-law: —
Thou cam'st to earth to make the earth my hell !
A grievous burden was thy birth to me !
Tetchy and wayward was thy infancy I
Thy school days frightful, desperate, wild and furious !
Thy prime of manhood daring, bold and venturous !
Thy age confirmed, proud, subtle, sly and bloody !
More mild, but yet more harmful, kind in hatred !
What comfortable hour canst thou name
That ever graced me in thy company ?
Shakespeare's Richard III., Act iv., Scene 4.
Turk-like as was the morality of that age, when princes did
not scruple to destroy life either within the circle of their own
family or out of it when it suited their interests to do so, this
king's foul murders were too heinous to admit of the slightest
extenuation.
Note C, page 8. — The arbitrary disposal, in feudal iitites, by
marriage, of heiresses.
All heirs and heiresses, being wards of the king, were by him
given in marriage, and this "indefensible point of the feudal
system " continued until the early part of the reign of Charles I.
What that feudal system was, some of the customs of which
existed among our Anglo ancestors, but which was mainly trans-
planted here by William of Normandy, is well shown in Hallam's
" History of the Middle Ages," and also in Sir Francis Palgrave's
" Proofs and Illustrations of the Origin of the English Common-
" wealth."
The claims of the lord of the fief in connection with wardship
and marriage were based upon the conditions upon which the land
was held. The victorious Franks shared according to their rank
or merit, but the chief, or leader of the army, had not the power
of supreme disposal, and did not, as some writers suppose, divide
26
among his followers the conquered lands, to be held on condition
of their rendering him service. Too proud a spirit of independence
reio-ned among those tierce warriors to admit of any such arrange-
ment. Each felt his mdividual importance and looked for his
share of the spoil, not as a gift from his leader, but as his right.
He watched with the greatest jealousy the claims of his sovereign,
as the following story shows. " Clovis, King of the Franks, when
" plundering a church at Soissons of its rich utensils, appropriated
" to himself a splendid vase over and above what fell to his share ;
" but one of his soldiers dashing it to pieces with his battle-axe,
" exclaimed, 'You shall have nothing here but what falls to you by
"lot.'" The property acquired in the first instance by the
subordinate chieftains was subject to their appearing in defence
of the commonwealth, but it was not subject to other obligations.
The kings, however, received a much larger share than any of
their officers. Royal demesnes were appropriated to the king for
his own use and for the maintenance of his dynasty, and of these,
in many cases he made grants under certain conditions to his
favourites.
Military service was expressly annexed to these grants.
Charlemagne required the possessors of such estates to take the
field in person, but those who held lands allotted to them, and
which they owned absolutely, had only to furnish soldiers, the
rate being one for every three farms. This was feudalism in
France, but in England there was a modification of the system.
There is no land here that is not held of the sovereign (Nuttall's
Dictionary anent the word allodium is my authority for this
assertion). Whatever might have been the custom in Normandy,
it is clear that in this country the lord of the fief was the guardian
of the heir during his minority. He had the custody of his person
and of his lands, without rendering any account of the use made
of the profits. In the case of a male, the guardianship continued
until the minor arrived at the age of twenty-one ; in the case
of a female it terminated at the age of fourteen. Before she
attained that age her lord could offer her in marriage to whom he
pleased, provided it was without disparagement or inequality of
rank. The husband of the heiress had to do suit and service for
27
her. If the lady refused the alliance, she had to forfeit from her
estate as much as the person to whom her hand had been offered
would have given for having been selected. The penalty was
more severe if she married without the baron's consent ; for in
that case a fine equal to double _what an alliance with her was
valued at was exacted by her ruthless sovereign. In addition to
this, the feudal lord in England extended his authority over the
daughters of all his vassals, not allowing any of them to be
married without paying a certain sum, so that marriage yielded
him an abundant revenue.
Ancient records abound with evidence of this arbitrary
authority being exercised by the crown ; for instance, we read
that Joan, a cousin to Nigell de Fossard, an heiress, was given
in marriage to Robert de Turham by Richard I. That monarch
was not on the throne when he selected a husband for Matilda
Lovetot, but his father, Henry II., deputed his son Prince Richard
to act for him.
The date of the marriage of Edward IV. with Elizabeth, the
widow of Sir John Grey and daughter of Sir Richard Wydeville
and his wife Jacqueline, widow of the regent Bedford, was IVIay
1st, 1464, and the date of the birth of the Princess Elizabeth,
Edward IV. 's eldest daughter, February nth, 1466. She was
not therefore quite nine years old on August 25th, 1475, when the
Peace Treaty was signed at the Bridge of Pecquigny, containing
a clause which promised she should be the wife of the Dauphin.
The widow Lady Grey appeared before the king to plead for a
recognition of the right of her two sons to certain estates, and thus
she became known to him, and came into matrimonial competion
with the Lady Bona of Savoy, the King of France's sister, for
whom the Earl of Warwick had been sent to negotiate on King
Edward's behalf. One of those two sons was Henry Grey,
Marquis of Dorset, the father of Lady Jane Grey, the accom-
plished, virtuous, and unfortunate young lady who, when scarcely
seventeen years old, was beheaded owing to her having been,
against her will, proclaimed queen after the death of Edward VI.
28
Mary, Queen of Scots, was one week old when, in December,
1542, her father, James V., died, and her uncle, Henry VIII.,
immediately conceived the idea of marrying her to his son
Edward, who, born October 12th, 1537, was five years older.
Note D, page 8. The Treaty of Peace at Picquigny.
There is extant, in the Public Record Office, the document
on which is written the minute of the proceedings of a council
held in the English camp, near Peronne, on August 25th, 1475,
at which council King Edward IV. empowered certain persons in
his retinue to treat with Louis XI. of France for peace. The
document bears King Edward's signature and that of brothers
Richard, Duke of Gloucester, and George, Duke of Clarence.
Note E, page 10. The reference in the Will of Archbishop
Rotheram to jfohn Scott.
The John Scott mentioned on page 10 would be either the
son of the Archbishop's uncle Scott, the brother of his mother
Alice Scott, or the son of the Archbishop's brother George
Rotheram, who might have taken the name of Scott. The
evidence is conflicfting and someone has blundered, probably
owing to the Archbishop being styled " Thomas Scott, alias
" Rotheram," in the " Succession of the Archbishops of York."
The words in the Archbishop's will, " Item volo, quod
" Johannes Scott, consunguineus meus," show that the John Scott
to whom he bequeathed the manor " De Bernes" was a blood
relation, but are indefinite as to what was that relationship.
" Richard St. George, Norroy-King-at-Arms," says Hunter,
" on his visitation to the northern parts, 1612, subscribed a
"pedigree declaring that it 'was well proved by authenticall
" ' matters,' in which it was stated that the Archbishop of York
" and Lord Chancellor of England died in May, 1500, aged 76,
" that his brother married and had Sir Thomas and George.
" George had John, who had Richard Scott of Barnes Hall, who
" had Nicholas, who had Thomas, married to Isabel, daughter to
" Arthua Alcock, of London, by whom Richard, living in 1612, Sir
" Richard Scott founded the hospital near Barnes Hall, and
" endowed it with thirty pounds per annum."
2g
Dr. Gatty's son, Mr. Alfred Scott Gatty, who is a genealogist
and Rouge Dragon at the Heralds' College, writes in a paragraph
quoted in " A Life at one Living " : — " He (the Archbishop) was
" son of Sir Thomas Rotheram, knight, by Alice , most
" probably Alice Scott of Ecclesfield, his wife, and he was born
" at Rotherham."
This is undoubtedly true, and Hunter is wrong in regarding
the Archbishop's brothers. Sir Thomas and George, and the
descendants of the latter, including Sir Richard of Barnes Hall,
as all inheriting the name of Scott. The sentence on page 1 1
beginning with the words " Nicholas Scott, of Barnes Hall, and
his sister Anne," &c., which is somewhat inexact, as dreams are
wont to be, would have been more chronological if worded thus :
" Richard Scott, of Barnes Hall, and his wife, the daughter of
Edward Barber, of Rowley, linger to have a few words with
their relative the Archbishop."
Note F, page 17. Treachery of the French King.
Louis XL, before he succeeded to the French crown, married
Margaret, one of the daughters of James L of Scotland and his
wife Joan Beaufort. It is in accordance with what history affirms
of the character of Louis for the English Chancellor Rotheram to
be imagined to say he was " treacherous," for he is described as
" crafty, cruel and cold-hearted.''
Note G, page ig. The Wine likely to have been provided at the
Cowley Manor Banquet.
There is extant a letter dated 1386, written by Richard n.,in
which he instructs the Chancellor to issue a patent for the
securing, every Christmas, to Elizabeth, Prioress of St. Magdalen,
at Bristol, a tun of Gascony wine.
Note H, page 16.
Which of the Sir John Saviles is the one here mentioned,
as brino-ing news from London to Tankersley, should be made
clear. A glance at the pedigree sheet of the Saviles will assist
the reader. The Sir John who had been in company with Lady
Joan Paston was her son-in-law— the Sir John Savile who, by the
30
death of his grandfather at Sandal Castle, had in that year of the
dream, 1482, come into possession of the family estates, his father
having died previously. By his marriage with Elizabeth, the
daughter of Sir William and Lady Paston, his relations with the
Court of Edward IV. would be such as, when honours were being
distributed, to put him in the way of participating. He was ap-
pointed to be Captain of the Isle of Wight. In his own county
he was sheriff. In the Public Record Office, reference to him are
met with, as in the following entry : Nov. igth, i Henry VII.,
1485, " Mandate to the treasurer and chamberlain of the
" Exchequer; reciting that Sir John Savyle, Knt., had been
" appointed by Richard, late in dede and not in righte, King of
" England, Lieutenant and Captain of the Isle of Wight, with
" power to ordain and depute under him all manner of officers
'■ there, and that certain fees and wages were granted therewith,
" and that he had had great costs and charges in the keeping
" of the said Isle of Wight, and has not had payment thereof
" from Easter to Michaelmas last : to pay all the said wages,
" fees, &c. during the said term, to which his letters patent
" entitle him." P.S. No. 473.
A family pedigree is not an uninteresting document if the
persons of whose names it is composed — or some of them — are
worthy of being remembered, and their doings recorded. The
utility of that mode of placing before the eye the position of each
individual in relation to the lineage to which he belongs is obvious.
Annexed to the chapter upon Tankersley, is one of the Savile
family, and also one compiled from English history, showing how
the Tankersley Saviles and the Wortleys are linked with the Royal
line, by the marriage of their ancestor, in the fifteenth century,
with the daughter of Lady Joan Beaufort, whose father, Edmund
Beaufort, Earl of Somerset, was grandson to John of Gaunt, son
of Edward III., and how, from three sons of that monarch, Lionel,
Duke of Clarence, John, Duke of Lancaster, and Edmund, Duke
of York, were descended the disputants engaged in the long war
of the roses, nearly ended in the latter part of the reign of
Edward IV., and of which, in 1485, the battle of Bosworth was
the final conflict. The same genealogical sheet shows that the
31
Joan Beaufort, who was the wife of James I. of Scotland, was
aunt to Lady Paston, the mother of Lady Savile of Tankersley.
Note J, page 12. The Prisoner, King Raines I. of Scotland.
The sUght reference on this page to the cultured prince is
not all that need be said about him in these '■ Researches." His
wife, Joan Beaufort, being sister to Lady Paston's father, Edmund
Beaufort, Earl of Somerset, is fair reason for surmising that
Archbishop Rotheram would be likely to refer to him as a
student of Chaucer's poems. The Archbishop would be likely
to know a good deal of the interesting story of his eighteen years'
captivity — probablj' more than is known in these da3's — and he
would know that the ancestor of the wife of the captive prince,
the Catherine Synford, who was Duchess of Lancaster, was
sister-in-law to the poet Chaucer, for Chaucer was born in
Picardy, his father being an attendant on Philippa of Hainault,
the queen of Edward IIL
The story of the eighteen years captivity of James L of
Scotland is interesting, and as he was, as shown, the husband
of Joan Beaufort, the aunt of the Lady Joan, whose daughter
Sir John Savile married, it comes within the scope of these local
" Researches." It may, for the benefit of youthful students of
English history, be thus briefly related : —
Robert H. of Scotland, dying in 1389, the crown came to his
son Robert IIL, whose eldest son was David, Duke of Rothsay,
inhumanly starved to death in Falkland Palace, by his uncle, the
Earl of Fife. King Robert III. was of weak intellect, and lacked
the power to assert his rights and to punish his brother who
committed that murder. To save his younger son, then in his
tenth year, from a similar fate, he determined to send him to
France to be educated. On the way thither the youth was so ill
from sea-sickness that he was landed that he might have tem-
porary relief from it, at a place on the coast of Norfolk ; but while
there he was seized by some mariners of the seaport Clay and
taken before the English king, Henry W ., who, that he might
have a hostage for the good behaviour of Scotland, placed him
in the tower. The prince had been furnished by his father with
3^
a letter to King Henry in case accident should throw him on the
English coast, and this he presented and begged to be allowed to
return home, but Henry, unmoved by his " frantic appeals,"
resolved on detaining him.
One reason for his retention is thus described — "About this
" time a person appeared in Scotland who was supposed to be the
" dethroned King Richard II., although that Prince was declared
" by Henry IV. to have died long ago. The Duke of Albany
"took him under his charge, and, being anxious that the young
" Prince James should be detained in England so that he might
" himself enjoy the government without interruption, held up the
" mysterious person who had fallen into his hands as a kind of
"bugbear to the English sovereign, insinuating that if the right-
" ful heir of Scotland should be let loose, so also should the
" rightful monarch of England. Thus the two usurpers (for such
" they might both be considered) kept each other in check, very
" much after the manner of two ordinary felons who knew each
" other's secrets."
The amiable old king, Robert III., did not long survive the
captivity of his son, and the government falling into the hands of
the Earl of Fife, who became Duke of Albany, and Regent, that
unscrupulous ruler found in the absence of the heir to the throne
too many advantages to take any serious measures for his ransom,
though, to preserve appearances, ambassadors were sent annually
in form to England, under pretence of demanding the release of
the prince. But the two Courts understood each other too well,
and James continued to remain a captive.
It is to the credit of the English king, Henry IV., that he
had his prisoner well educated. The proof that he did this is in
the fact that the Scotch captive became the most accomplished
prince of his age and one of the wisest. He had been instructed
in the sciences and liberal arts, in oratory, jurisprudence and
philosophy, while he was not untrained in all the exercises then
usually practised by young men of rank, such as tilting, wrestling,
archery and horsemanship. His studies no doubt soothed many
a weary hour of solitary restraint.
53
In 1413 he was removed to Windsor Castle, and in 1416
received permission, on giving security for his return, to visit his
native country.
In 1419 he accompanied Henry V. to France that he might
use his influence in getting 7,000 Scotchmen to return home, who
were aiding the French against the English armies, a scheme
which seemed likely to be, but was not, successful.
He appears to have studied Chaucer and Gower, and
himself written some charming verses. Even at this day
there are ballads of his that are said to be popular, namely,
" Peebles to the Play," and " Christ's Kirk on the Green." The
best of his writings which have come down to us, is, " The King's
Quhaer (the King's Quire, or Book). A copy of this poem, pre-
served in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, was printed in 1783,
the editor being William Tytler, Lord Woodhouselee. The
Royal Poet's verses, written after his first sight, from the window
of his place of captivity in Windsor Castle, of the young lady Joan
Beaufort, who became his wife, are in the allegorical style of the
age, and not devoid of touches of feeling and imagination.
Shakespeare would be likely to appreciate them, if, as is likely, he
found a copy among the manuscripts he examined and culled
from.
The obsolete words and obscure lines in the poem are too
many for its insertion here verbatim, but the portions of it as to
vk'hich there is no uncertainty, may be thus, without the metrical
form being adhered to, briefly reproduced : —
" Bewailing in my chamber all alone, despairing of all joy
and remedy, tired of my thoughts, and woe-begone, I walked to
the window to see the world outside and any one who might be
passing ; and thus to look did me good.
"Now by the tower's wall was a fair garden, and in the corner
of it an arbour, and all the place was planted with trees, and
hedges of hawthorn, and so thick were the green boughs they
shaded the paths. There was the green sweet juniper growing
fair, and on its small green twigs sat the sweet little nightingale,
which sang loud and clear the hymns consecrate to love's use.
34
" Casting my eyes down, I saw walking under the tower a
fairer and fresher young flower than I ever beheld before, which
sent all the blood of my body to my heart. No wonder for a
little while I was entranced ! and why ? I was so overcome with
pleasure and delight, my heart became the thrall of her sweet face.
" Hastily I drew in my head, but soon looking out again, I saw
her walking, and I said to myself. Ah ! sweet, are ye a worldly
creature, or a heavenly in likeness of nature ? or, are ye Cupid's
own princess come here to loose me out of my bondage? or are
ye the very goddess Nature, that has painted with your heavenly
hand this garden full of flowers ? What shall I think ! What
reverence shall I minister unto your excellence ?
" She was arrayed in rich attire. Her golden hair was arranged
like fretwork, with white pearls, and great precious stones glitter-
ing as the fire, with many an emerald and "fair sapphire, and on
her head a chaplet of plumes, red, white and blue. Above all
this there was beauty enough to make a world to dote. About
her neck, white as enamel, was a goodly chain of small gold
work, from which hung a ruby shaped like a heart. More than
my pen can report she was in shape and feature, womanly,
youthful and beautiful.
"When she had walked in the garden for a little time, beneath
the sweet green bending branches, she turned and went her way,
and to see her go, brought to me aches and torment, for I, a
captive, might not follow ! Methought the day was turned into
night !"
As the Bishop of Winchester, the Cardinal of St. Eusebius,
Henry IV. 's brother, schemed for the marriage of his niece to
the captive prince, he may be imagined to have had something to
do with their thus being near to each other at Windsor.
On his return from captivity to wear the crown of his fore-
fathers, the prince said, " If God grant me life, there shall be no
" spot in my realm where the key shall not keep the castle, and
" the brackin bush the cow, even though I should lead the life of
" a dog to accomplish it."
35
He evidently had a high ideal of what a king should be, but
the age in which he lived had barbarous ways of administering
justice. It is said of him, " Though he reformed many abuses,
"made excellent laws, and conducted himself with so much firm-
" ness and good policy, that even to this day his name in Scotland
". is held in reverence ; one of the first acts of his reign was an
" unhappy one, for he brought to the block nearly every surviving
" member of the family of Albany, though it does not appear that
" his cousin Murdock usurped his crown and authority as his
" uncle had done. Yet he and his two sons, Walter and Alexander,
" and his father-in-law, the Earl of Lennox, about eighty j'ears
"old, were all beheaded on the Castle Hill at Stirling. Joan
" often interceded, successfully, with her husband for criminals
" and traitors. In 1427, when Alexander, Lord of the Isles, was
'' convicted of acts of hostility, and Archibald, Earl of Douglas,
" suspected of treason, they were pardoned by James when his
" dearly loved queen begged for their lives."
" The young king had wild Highland robbers and disaffected
" nobles to contend with, and the battle was too much for one
" man."
He was so firm and decided in his dealings with the people
that they began to grumble and to look upon him as a tyrant.
He suppressed an attempt to introduce the Lollards, or Wickliffe
heresy, into his dominions, and (sad to say, he, lacking, like all
the monarchs of Christendom, perception of the high ideal of Oliver
Cromwell, that rulers had no right to force the conscience in
religious matters) allowed a Bohemian physician, one Peter
Crawar, who visited Scotland as a missionary of that faith, to be
persecuted by church officials and burnt.
He was far superior to his nobles and courtiers — a superiority
produced by his education while a prisoner in England. One of
his biographers remarks : " Among the Scottish nobles he
" appeared as a man among children, as a person adorned with
" all the accomplishments of civilization among a horde of
" savages, as some angel sent from heaven on an errand of
" chastisement among the erring, refractory, astonished mortals
" whom he comes to punish,"
36
Bearing in mind that the result of his forbearing to put to
death his enemy, Sir Robert Graeme, was fatal to himself, it is
difficult to judge as to how a ruler in that turbulent age ought or
ought not to have acted. It was difficult for Queen Elizabeth to
decide how she should deal with Mary Queen of Scots when all
Catholic Europe, aiding Mary, was intent upon Elizabeth's
overthrow.
Note K, page 13.
■■■ If Henry VIII. had adhered to what he affirmed as to the
importance of preserving collegiate institutions, the Archbishop's
project at Rotherham might have continued to this day. The
King said to his hungry courtiers, flushed with abbey lands, and
wishing to spoil colleges also, " I tell you, sirs, that I judge no
land in England better bestowed than that which is given to our
universities."
Note L, page 18.
In the Duke of Devonshire's library, at Chatsworth, there is
treasured a copy of the " History of Troy," printed by Caxton,
and published in 1471 at Cologne, the first book printed in the
English language. It belonged to Elizabeth Grey, the Queen of
Edward IV., and the thought may be entertained that before the
year 1482 it would have been seen in her palace by the High
Chancellor Rotheram, and be one of the books he would speak
of that Christmas day at Cowley.
37
CHAPELTOWN RESEARCHES.
CHAPTER II.
House at Greenhead, built ey A. W. in 1684— Cowley Manor,
"castle-like and moated," of the De Renevilles, and the Mounte-
NEYS ; and Hesley Hall, also rebuilt after the Lord of the Manor
OF Sheffield had purchased their estates.
Of the tradition that the ancient chapel which gave Chapel-
town its name was situated at Greenhead, Mr. Eastwood, in
his "History of Ecclesfield," thus writes: — "At Greenhead, an
old fashioned house, now divided into cottages, must have
been formerly a superior residence. It bears the date 1684,
and initials A. W. There are said to have been grave-
stones in front of this house almost within memory of
persons now living ; if so, this may have been the site of
the ancient chapel, but it is very doubtful."
As the late Professor Owen, from a single bone of an
extinct animal could make out of what sort of a creature that
bone was a portion, I may theorise in this matter, and, I
think, support the tradition, for recently I found in the garden
of my residence at Greenhead, while removing the material of
a rockery or mound, some fragments of stone deeply grooved,
as are grooved the stones of the arches of Early English
39
Gothic church windows. I compared what I had found with
the slcetch of an arch shown on page i6o of Mr. Eastwood's
book ; and I said to myself, where did these come from ?
Not from a distance ; for who would be likely to bring them ?
They argue the existence not far from here of an ecclesiastical
building to which they belonged ! They certainly make less
doubtful the tradition that the old chapel was at Greenhead !
That tradition is supported by the statement of an old inmate
of one of the Almshouses. She said to a person, who repeated
the statement to me, that her mother had been heard to say
that she had seen in one of the cottages in that neighbourhood,
what was once the altar of a church. Looking at the pieces
of grooved stone which I had found, in the light of the
tradition as to the site of the chapel, I conceived the probability
that the "old fashioned house," on which are to be seen the
letters A.W. and the figures 1684, was built of the stones of
that demolished place of worship.* The old chapel would
supply material for the present building, the stones of the outer
walls of which are such as are likely to have been squared for
the earlier building, but the stones of the arch of a church
window would not be available. They would be left unused,
become broken, be likely to remain unnoticed debris, unseen by
anyone with archaeological proclivities, until I discovered them
buried not more than fifty yards from that old house. The two
letters, A.W., were to me an unsolved problem until I chanced
to see in Whitaker's "History of the Parish of Whalley," in a
pedigree of a branch of the Townley family, the words : —
" John Wilkinson of Greenhead, Com. Ebor. Arm. had the
manor of Dalton, and moiety of the manor of Deighton."
I should like to know the history of that old-fashioned
house. I know little more than that about the beginning of
the present century it was the property of the grandfather of
* It is said that of the stones of the old Sheffield Castle, was built what
was the Grammar School, in Townhead Street, before it was located near St.
George's Church, in 1824.
40
the late Reverend Frederick John Falding, M.A., D.D.,*
Principal of the Yorkshire United College at Bradford, who
was born at Loundside, Chapeltown, in the house now
occupied by Mrs. Charles Falding.
That the hamlet was formerly called Chapel, and not Chapel-
town is certain. It is thus named, in his enumeration of the
places comprising the parish of Ecclesfield, by Roger Dodsworth
(born 1585, died 1654), the indefatigable collector of Yorkshire
antiquities (whose 162 folio volumes are in the Bodleian Library
at Oxford). In all, except what historians would call recent
documents, it is written simply Chapel or Capel. As early as
1249, in the reign of Henry III., the name Hugh de Chapel
appears, along with that of Robert de Mounteney, as witness-
ing the signature of a charter by Matilda de Lovetot. In a
deed by which that lady granted certain lands in this
immediate neighbourhood, which had belonged to Josselin
de Burne, to John Camerario, there is mention of Chapel as
being where Burn was situated. " All the lands, in Burn, in
Chapel," are words in that deed which evidence that at the
date when Matilda de Lovetot signed it, Chapel was the name
of the place, and also show that, if it got its name from a place
of worship, the building was erected not later than the end of
the twelfth century. In the year 1366 there is mention of
" Capel near Cowley." In parish accounts of later date the
name, without "town" attached to it, very frequently occurs.
Just before 1602 there was a person carrying on the business of
a tanner, who is described in the will of Edward Scott, of
Shiregreen, as " Robert Shirtcliff of Chapel within the said
parish of Ecclesfield."
We know that Time not seldom has produced curious
transformations in names, and for a moment the question may
* Dr. Falding was a man of whom the place of his birth should have some
memorial. The author of this volume, a pupil at the Brampton Academy,
where he came to be one of the teachers, and associated with him during many
of the years of his Rotherham life, can testify that he was worthy of the
reputation to which he attained.
41
be asked — Has some word of which we have no trace got
changed into Chapel ? However possible that may be, we
know for certain that there was here, many centuries ago, a
place of worship in connection with the Church at Ecclesfield,
and it was called a chapel. A separate " cure of souls " not
being assigned to it, there is difficulty in tracing its history.
Mr. Hunter remarks : " The records of the See of York
are very deficient of information respecting the origin of the
chapels which were of early foundation, and when these fail us
the utmost that can be expected is that we should fix a period
before which the chapels must have existed, and show on
probable grounds to whom the foundation is to be attributed."
" The addition of clericus or capellanus to the name of a
witness who is described of any place affords a probable
ground of inference that there was a chapel in the place at
the time he lived."
The name Chapel, or Capel, is not in the Domesday
Survey. If the place as a hamlet had been in existence at
the time of that survey, we may conclude it would have been
mentioned, for, says Ingulphus, "There was not a hide of land
in the whole of England but the king knew its value and
possessor, nor a lake, nor a place but it stood described in
the king's roll."
At some unknown date the place may be believed to have
got its designation in consequence of a chapel having been
built here either by an owner of the Cowley or the Howsley
estate, perhaps the latter, as Greenhead is so near to
Howsley Hall. Why a place of worship was thought to be
required in the winter months by parishioners residing some
two miles from the church at Ecclesfield is on record, for " On
September 2, 1426, Archbishop Kempe granted a license for
two years to Dom Robert Normanton to celebrate, or cause
to be celebrated, divine service in the chapel of Ecclesfield,
from Michaelmas next following to the octave of St. Martin
in winter, in both years, causa peregrinacious."
42
In 1545 the Parliament granted alt colleges, chantries and
free chapels to King Henry VIII. "The chantry lands at
Ecclesfield shared the fate of more than two thousand similar
endowments in other parts of England, which were sequestered
to the use of the Crown and then granted to some favoured
laymen." I should like to know the name of the favoured
layman who got the unendowed building and plot of land at
Chapeltown. The Domesday survey shows that among the
owners of lands in Ecclesfield which Roger de Busli became pos-
sessed of, there were six Saxon lords who had held the six manors
which comprised the large parish, namely, Elsi (from which is
derived Elsecar), Ufac, Godric, Dunnic, Elmar and Norman.
To which of those lords this district was assigned is uncertain.
Mr. Hunter, after mentioning that there was a church at
Tankersley, at Hope, at Treeton and at Rotherham before the Nor-
man Conquest — that is before either Ecclesfield or Sheffield had a
church — says: "The Church of Rotherham, noticed in Domes-
day Book, seems to have better pretentions to be the mother-church
ofthehigher parts of the vale of the Don than others. Rotherham,
rising like Doncaster out of a station on one of the Roman high-
ways, was probably, like it, a place of considerable comparative
consequence before the Conquest." There may, however, have
been a Saxon church in the district which bears the name Eccles-
field, for the word Ecclesfelt, favours that hypothesis.
The word KIRTON, the ancient name of the place now
called Bradfield, suggests that there may have been a church
there in Saxon times.
As long ago as the eleventh or twelfth century the De
Renevilles owned land in this district, for a charter of Richard
de Lovetot mentions that the land he is granting adjoins the
possessions of Jordan de Busli and De Reneville. By them
doubtless would be brought into cultivation some of the acres
of the wide district laid waste by the vengeance of William I.
after the revolt with which Waltheof was connected. We
read that the Renevilles held much land of the De Lacis.
43
As the Cowley family had free warren at Wath, we may
surmise that Rainborough Park, which is between Wath and
Wentworth, is a name associated with Reneville, which is also
written Rainville and Ranville. The farm called Reinforth,
between Smithy wood and Grange lane, is thought to have got
its designation from the same source. There is, in the Parish
of Ecclesfield, a farm called Mounteney-Hagg, which is a
perpetuation of the name.
As the manor of Cowley is not referred to in the Domes-
day survey, there was probably no separate holding here at
that date. In the Nomina villarum — an enumeration of villages
and towns in the ninth year of Edward II., 1316 — there is no
mention of a hamlet of the name Chapel. We may infer that,
in the days of the Renevilles, although there might have been
here a chapel, there were not houses sufficient in number to
constitute the place a hamlet. After the chapel was built, travel-
lers on the road or pack-horse track between Sheffield and
Barnsley would begin to call the place where, about half way
between the two towns, they stopped to bait and refresh, Chapel,
because the building would be there conspicuous. The exact
spot where was the inn would be somewhere about the present
market place, where are the old houses, " The Wagon and
Horses" and the "White Horse." On the latter there is the
date 1720. A little to the west is an old tenement which
has upon it the date 1667, and which is supposed to have
been long ago a public-house. It is upon the Chapeltown
House estate, which for two centuries was the property of
the Aliens of Chapeltown, and is now owned by George
Dawson, Esq.
Three centuries ago, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, on
April 1st, 1572, the Chapeltown estate of the Mounteneys
passed by purchase to the Earl of Shrewsbury, the lord of the
manor of Hallamshire. Their "stately, moated, castle-like
mansion" at Cowley was then demolished, and of the materials
the house as here pictured would be built. The site of the
1^ ^is'/fe ii\'K ■
■T ^^^
45
former building may; be exactly identified on an eminence
immediately at the back of the present Cowley Manor and
near to a stone quarry past which flows the "'Blackburn Beck"
(as the rivulet is designated in the Harleian MSS.), "the head
of which is at Wortley Park, and which runneth by the south
skirt of Tankersley by Cowley woods, sometyme the possession
of Mounteney. The Holbrook flows into it, for it springeth
in Wortley lordship, comes to Holbrook, thence to Mortemley
by Ecclesfield, Thunnercliffe Grange, and so into Dun at
Mady-hall."*
Where the road between Chapeltown and Rotherham
passes on the north-east, was probably part of the moat which
surrounded the mansion.
Dodsworth says that " the Mounteneys had at Cowley a
stately castle-like house, pulled down not long since by the
Earl of Salop, after he had purchased the lands."
Dr. Gatty words his description of the family and their
Cowley habitation thus: "The family of the Mounteneys, a
family of Knightly order through the middle ages, owned
Cowley Manor, which was castle-like and moated, with great
woods and abundance of red deer."
If the Duke of Norfolk would allow, and facilitate, some
excavating to be done at the well-defined site of the old
building, probably some relics of interest to archaeologists
would be discovered.
Mr. Eastwood, in his History of Ecclesfield, says : "After
the village of Ecclesfield, the ancient manor of Cowley claims
the first place, for though not mentioned in Domesday, nor in
the Nomina Villarum of the time of Edward H., it is of remote
antiquity as a separate manor from that of Ecclesfield. Jordan
de Reneville, son of Adam de Reneville, belonging to a family
which held much land of the De Lacis in various parts of their
fee, is the first person actually mentioned as lord of the manor
of Cowley ; his name occurs in a charter of Richard de Lovetot,
♦ No. 8oi, Harleian MSS.
46
of the twelfth century, as having lands adjoining to those given
to the hermitage of St. John the Baptist in this neighbourhood.
His daughter, Margaret de Reneville, was living in 1266, and
succeeded to Cowley, which thence forward became the
inheritance of the Mounteneys, she having married Sir Robert
de Mounteney, son of Arnald de Mounteney, who had married
a daughter of Gerard de Furnival and Maud de Lovetot. In or
about 1390, John Mounteney, chevalier, is returned as having
free warren in 'Colley, Shirtcliff juxta Sheffeld, where he had
a park, Ecclesfeld, Roderham and Wathe.' The Mounteneys
had also a residence and chapel at Shirtcliffe, and another at
Hesley, and continued to reside on the three estates until the
eldest branch of the family ended in Barbara, daughter of
John Mounteney."
The above-mentioned Maud de Lovetot is the young
heiress of Hallamshire whose hand in marriage, when about
seven years old, Prince Richard (coeur de lion) had the disposal
of, his father. King Henry H., having placed with him the
responsible selection of a husband for her. He assigned her to
his comrade in the Crusades, Gerard de Furnival.
Put genealogically the descent stands thus : —
Maud de Lovetot = Gerard de Furnival.
Their daughter = Arnold de Mounteney, younger brother of Sir Robert de Mounteney.
Sir Robert de Mounteney ~ Margaret de Reneville.
"The connection," says Mr. Hunter, "between the houses
of Mounteney and Furnival is affirmed in the received pedigrees
of the former family, and attested by a series of armorial
empalements which were once to be seen in a window of the
church at Ecclesfield. But the best proof is a charter which
Gascoigne had perused of 51 Henry HI. (1267), wherein Sir
Robert de Mounteney is described as nepos, that is, the grandson
of Maud de Lovetot."
The family named De Reneville may be thought of as
having held the Cowley estate at least as long ago as about
47
one hundred years after what is called "the Conquest,"* that
is A.D. 1066.
Jordan de Reneville had no son to continue the name, and
his property descended to his two daughters, Margaret and
Aliena. Margaret was the only one of the two whose
descendants kept the estates in the family, for her sister
Aliena's son, Stephen de Bella Aqua, died without issue.
Before the Mounteneys were lords of Cowley manor, they
had possessions in what is now called the township of Brightside
Bierlow, and which, in Saxon times, was in the manor of
Grimshaw,t held by Ulfac, the last Saxon proprietor. " It
passed to De Busli and De Lovetot, but a considerable portion
was granted off very early to the family of De Mounteney, who
had a hall and park at Shiercliffe, and who claimed manorial
rights." Hunter says the arms of Mounteney were, " Gules a
bend between six martlets or," and he showsa sketch of the shield.
Within the memory of persons still living, says Mr. East-
wood, writing in 1862, separate courts for the manor have
been held at Cowley, and that there were deer in the park as
late as 1664.
The Mounteneys of Cowley appear to have descended, not
from the first name in the pedigree, Sir Robert de Mounteney,
but from his younger brother Arnold, thus : —
Sir Robert de Mounteney. Arnold de Mounteney, = Matilda de Furnival, daughter of
Gerard de Furnival and his wife
Matilda, the heiress of the
Lovetots,
Sir Robert = Margaret de Reneville,
de Mounteney, one of the two daughters to
whom the Reneville estates
descended, A.D. 1266.
The Reneville and Mounteney pedigree, as furnished by
Mr. West, of Rotherham, the Earl of Shrewsbury's seneschal
for Hallamshire, stands thus, as copied by Dodsworth : —
* In the feudal law the word conquest had not quite the meaning attached
to it now. It meant the acquiring of something out of the common course of
inheritance. In the feudal sense it is applicable to the Duke of Normandy
succeeding Edward the Confessor on the throne of England. In the modern
sense it is applicable to him as being Conqueror of Harold.
+ Grimshaw and Grimesthorpe are words of the same origin.
48
Adam de Reniville,=
I
Jordan de Reneville
Styled Lord of the Manor of Cowley
Margaret de Reneville. = Sir Robert de Mounteney.
Living in 1266. I
Aliena = Thos. de Bella Aqua,
Sir Robert = Constance, daughter Thomas de = Isabella. Stephen, died without issue.
de Mounteney,
of Cowley,
3 Ed. IL, 1310.
and heir of John
Saint Liz.
Mounteney. Living in
1287.
John
dc Mounteney.
Constance = John
Bosvile,
of Chevet.
Sir Thomas
de Mounteney.
Living in 1325.
I
Joan,
sole daughter
and heir,
born 1322.
died 1396.
Daughter of Hugh de Godlington.
First, the Secondly = Lord Furnival,
husband, called the Hasty
whose name Ob. S.P. 39,
is unrecorded. Ed, IIL, 1366.
Sir John Mounteney, Knight, so called
" jussu matris," 41 Edward HI., and
15 Richard II., son and heir of Joan
Mounteney, aged 40, 19 Richard II.
Sir John Mounteney, Knight, born 1396.
Living in 1444, when he received a
surrender of lands in the court of the
Carthusians of Coventry for their Manor of
Ecclesfield.
Thomas, born 1396,
Lord of the Manor of
Shirtcliffe 1451,
died 4th Dec, 1473.
Robert, born
Nov., 1397.
Nicholas Mounteney, of Shirtcliffe, Esq.
Will dated 6th June, 1499.
Elizabeth, daughter of John Drax, Esq.,
by Margaret Barley his wife.
Robert Mounteney,
of Cowley, and Shirtcliffe, Esq.
Will dated 3rd Aug., 1519, on
which day he died.
Buried at Ecclesfield Church.
Isabel,
daughter of
Nicholas
Wortley, Esq,
Living 1499
and 1505.
I
Thomas.
Living
1499-
Alexander.
Living
1499-
Nicholas.
Living
1499-
Joan,
Living
1499.
I
John Mounteney, of Cowley and Shirtclifie,
founder of the Oratory in Ecclesfield
Church in 1536, died that year and buried
in that church.
Joan.
Living
May 24th,
1536.
Thomas,
of
Whealtey.
John Mounteney, of Creswick,
born at Cowley, died 1573,
buried in Ecclesfield Church,
married Maud, daughter of
George Wasteneys.
Nicholas, of
Rotherham, whose
grand -daughter
married Charles
Tooker.
I
Dorothy Mounteney,
born 17th October, 1527,
married Smethley,
died without issue
before 4 Edward VI.
I
Barbara, at length
sole heiress of the eldest
line of her family,
born Sep. nth, 1530,
buried at Ecclesfield
30th Nov,, 1585.
Thomas Thwaites,
of Marston, near York,
and secondly
17th Nov., 1562,
Thomas Cotton, Esq.
49
Adam de Reneville, the earliest name to which the
pedigree goes back, would be living and be owner of Cowley
about the year 1200. He had a son, Jordan de Reneville,
whose daughter Margaret married Sir Robert Mounteney.
Their eldest son, Sir Robert, had no children, and Thomas
succeeds his brother. His name has not the prefix, sir ; but
it reappears in the next generation, for his son is Sir Thomas
Mounteney. This knight has no son, and his heir is an only
daughter, Joan, the name of whose first husband is, for some
unknown reason, omitted in the pedigree, and whose second
husband was Thomas, Lord Furnival. By her expressed wish,
(" jussu matris ") the son of her first husband and herself takes
her maiden name, and becomes Sir John Mounteney. He has
no children, and his brother Thomas is his heir. The sign of
knighthood in the family here disappears. His son is
" Nicholas Mounteney, armiger," who died in 1499, and his
eldest son Robert is his heir, the father of John, who founded in
Ecclesfield Church the oratory to which the inscription there
still to be seen refers. The Latin words, carved in relief on the
upper border of a bench, are —
" Orate pro animabus Robarte Mountney et Anne uxoris
ejus, ac pro bono statu Johannis Mountney et Johanne uxoris
ejus, qui hoc oratorium fieri fecerunt xxiiij die mensis Julii,
anno dni mcccccxxxvi."
" Pray for the souls of Robert Mountney and Anne his
wife, and for the good estate of John Mountney and Johanna
his wife, who caused this oratory to be made 24 day of the
month of July, in the year of our Lord 1536."
No doubt there is in existence somewhere the missal
which Mr. Hunter asks for — that curious and beautiful relic
of the early Mounteneys which Dodsworth saw in the hands of
Mr. Thomas Mounteney, of Wheatley, with adornments
" executed by one of the illuminators of the time for Johan de
Mounteney, the heiress who married Thomas Lord Furnival."
Mr. Hunter expresses the wish that his notice of it " may be
50
means of bringing it again into view, or of drawing from its
fortunate possessor a more particular account of the miniatures
with which no doubt it was richly adorned." Dr. Gatty
suggests that from it was taken the picture to be seen on a
fragment of glass, in the church, of a lady in prayer with a
book open before her, and who " certainly," he says, " is Isabel
Wortley, who married Robert Mounteney about 1499-"
The John who founded the oratory left two daughters,
co-heiresses, Dorothy and Barbara. Thus, in the reign of
Henry VIII., the Mounteney pedigree, as had that of the
Renevilles, ended in two daughters, who inherited the estates.
One of those ladies, Barbara, was married to Thomas
Thwaites, of Marston, near York, who died in 1562, and his
widow, Barbara, daughter of John Mounteney, married
Thomas Cotton, no doubt of the family of the John Cotton
mentioned in the letters patent of King Edward VI., con-
ferring chantry lands at Wakefield, Ecclesfield, and other
places, and who is there spoken of as " our trusty servant
John Cotton, gentleman, in consideration of his good and
faithful service done to us and to our late noble father." Mr.
Thwaites, the brother of Mrs. Cotton's first husband, in 1568,
bought the manors of Cowley, Hesley, and Shiercliffe from two
gentlemen who probably were the executors of Thomas Cotton,
namely, Sir Thomas Wharton and Robert Bowes, Esquire.
This purchaser, John Thwaites, sold in 1572, Cowley, Shier-
cliffe and Hesley, to George, the Earl of Shrewsbury.
The Earl did not immediately get the property, for the
right of John Thwaites to sell it was disputed by his heir James
Thwaites, and the suit ended in his favour ; but at length all
difficulties were removed, and the Earl secured possession of
the manors. By him the old Cowley mansion was demolished
and the present house erected. The name of the first tenant
was Guest, and for two hundred years a family of that name
were the occupiers. In 1637, Mary Guest, a widow, pays a
a rent of ^^6 i8s. 5d. In 1681, a Gerard Guest there died,
51
whose only daughter, Ann, was married to Robert Kirk, of
Anston. He became tenant, and his second son, Gerard Kirk,
was the next occupant, whose daughter, Ann Kirk, became the
wife of Mr. Thomas Smith, of Cawthorne, and he Hved at
Cowley, as did his son William, until he purchased Barnes
Hall in 1823.
The late Mr. William Smith, of Barnes Hall, of the next
generation, was born at Cowley, and when commencing his
career as a lawyer he had his office at the old house in
Chapeltown, where is the Post Office, where Mrs. J. Gibson
resides, and where is the grocer's shop of Mr. Gradwell.
In the year that Mr. Smith left Cowley Manor, John
Jeffcock, Esq., J. P., became its tenant, brother of the first
mayor of Sheffield, and father of the heroic and amiable
Parkin Jeffcock, the civil and mining engineer, who lost his
life in trying to rescue the unfortunate victims of the Oaks
colliery explosion, which occurred December 12th, 1866 [and to
whose memory there is an inscription in Ecclesfield churchyard,
which reads thus : " Parkin Jeffcock, late of Duffield, in the
county of Derby, Esq., civil engineer, eldest son of John and
Catherine Jeffcock, of Cowley Manor, in this parish, where he
was born October 27th, 1829. He died in the great explosion of
the Oaks colliery, near Barnsley, leading a band of volunteer
explorers, December 13th, 1866, and was buried here October
7th, 1867." A memoir of him was published by his brother,
the Rev. Prebendary Jeffcock, M.A., F.S.A., the present rector
of Wolverhampton.] Mr. Aaron Ramsden is the present
occupant of Cowley Manor.
After the forfeiture of the estates of the Earl of Arundel
during the civil war in the time of Charles I., Cowley Manor
was leased, along with other manors, by the Parliamentary
commissioners to two persons, named Philips and Holland
(about the year 1647 or 1648), but on November 24th, 1648,
the House of Commons voted that the Earl of Arundel should
be admitted to the composition of his estates for £6,000, regard
52
being had to what loss he had suffered by the ParHament
forces, and that the -^6,000 should be paid for the use of the navy.
There is evidence that the Mounteney knights took part
in those tournaments of which such a vivid description is given
by Sir Walter Scott in " Ivanhoe." In 1244, in the reign of
Henry III., when discontented barons and knights assembled at
Dunstable for the ostensible purpose of holding a tournament, but
in reality to prosecute their political designs in connection with
the revolt headed by Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, the
husband of Eleanor, the king's sister, Robert Mounteney would
be with them, for his name is mentioned among the names of
chief persons in this neighbourhood who took part with the barons,
and in connection with which revolt Sheffield castle was burnt.
How formidable was the power of these feudal barons is
indicated by what then occurred at Dunstable. The tourna-
ment was prohibited by royal mandate, but, in the name of the
assembled barons and knights, a peremptory order was sent by
Sir Fredk. Fit^warren to the Pope's nuncio, whose proceedings
had given great offence, that he should instantly quit the
kingdom. The authority of King Henry was insufficient to
protect him, and he was obliged to obey the order.
In Mr. Hunter's additional notes we find the following : —
" In some previously unpublished notices of the times of Ed. I.,
given in a paper in vol. viii. of the Arch^ological Journal, p. 46,
among the EngHsh knights who agreed to sail to the crusades
with the prince, or to follow him, appears the name of Robert
de Mounteney, who, with two attendant knights, received three
hundred marks for their expenses. Only eighteen names are
given, and those mostly of persons of the highest stamp.
The prince's uncle and cousins, De Clifford, De Clare,
De Percy, De Wallace, etc."
"At a tournament at Dunstable, 2 E. ii., appeared Sir
John de Mounteney with these arms, viz. : — On abend between
six martlets or, a mullet zu."
Col. Top et Gen., vol. iv., p. 72.
53
The knight Sir John Mounteney who took part in the
tournament at Dunstable in the second year of Edward II.,
1309, would be the son of the Lady Joan Mounteney, as to
whose first husband there is, in the family pedigree, no men-
tion — the lady for whom was executed the beautiful illuminated
missal of which Roger Dodsworth gives a description. It was
seen by him at the house of one of the descendants of the
family, a Mr. Mounteney who resided at Wheatley, near
Doncaster. On the first page, Dodsworth says there is thus
recorded the birth of the lady for whom the missal was compiled : —
" Nota est Joha filia Thomas militis in fo Sci Michis
Archangele An"^ Dni 1321."
"The other entries of the same nature have been used
in the composition of the pedigree. They extend to the time
of James I."
" This missal was doubtless executed by the same hand to
which we owe the Luterel Book which Mr. Gage Rokewode
has described in the Vetusta Monumenta of the Society of
Antiquaries." {Hallamshire, pp. 391, 392.)
As to the absence in the pedigree of this lady's first
husband, the fact that her legitimate son and heir was born
when she was thirty-five years old, is an item of circumstantial
evidence in the direction of the assumption that she was twice
married, and that her first marriage was not a happy one, or
that for some mysterious reason the continuance of his name
in the family was undesirable.
There is a legend connecting Hallamshire with the war
in France in the year 1453, when the first Earl of Shrewsbury,
80 years old, was killed at Chatillon. It is said that a large
part of the Earl of Shrewsbury's army of 8000 men was from
Hallamshire, and that "so greatly did they suffer while fighting
round the Earl as he lay bleeding on the field of battle, that
there was not a family nor a house in all Hallamshire that did
not lose a father or a brother or a husband or a son on that
fatal day."
54
Thomas Mounteney, of Cowley, would be 57 years old in
1453. As he was alive until 1473, he was not one of the
Hallamshire men who were mourned for after the disastrous
battle at Chatillon in Gascony, but he might have been there.
The records do not affirm that he was, but there is ground for
the conjecture that he went with the lord of the Sheffield
manor, and his son John Talbot, to endeavour to retrieve the
losses which England sustained on the continent after the death
of Henry V. We can imagine that Thomas Mounteney was
among the Hallamshire survivors, when from Bordeaux "home
they brought (their chief) their warrior dead," to bury him in
the family sepulchre.
At Ecclesfield, over the vestry door, is now to be seen the
Mounteney shield. It is one of the fragments of old glass
collected in 1863 and formed into a scrap window.
Parts of the inscriptions, which were in the private oratory
of the Mounteneys, have been preserved, and have been com-
pleted from Dodsworth's notes. Finely cut in oak, in the
south side chapel, is the inscription in Latin, dated 1536 —
" Orate pro animabus Robarte Mounteney et Anne uxoris
ejus ; ac pro bono statu Johannis Mounteney et Johanne uxoris
ejus, qui hoc oratorium fiere fecerunt xxiii, die menis Mali
Anno Dni Mcccccxxxvi."
On two sepulchal stones : —
"Orate pro anima Robarte Mounteney de Cowley armigeri,
qui obiit tertio die mensis Auguste A° Dni Mccccc°xix°, cujus
animge propitietur Deus."
" Orate pro anima Johis Mounteney de Cowley armigeri,
qui obiit 11° die mensis Auguste A° Dni M.ccccc°xxx°vi° cujus
animse propitietur Deus. Amen."
Over the pew was painted in black letters on the wall : —
" Sedes domini domus antiquae et manerii de Cowley :
et * * • • id juris tenent, 1663."
" It must be regretted," remarks Mr. Hunter, "by all true
lovers of the remains of ancient time and ancient art that the
55
church of Ecclesfield was despoiled of its beautiful and appro-
priate window ornaments," and he deals with the question, at
what period, and by whom the despoliation was done. There
is not, he thinks, any proof of the existence of those ornaments
at a period later than the time of Dodsworth, who visited this
church before the outbreak of the war between King Charles
and the Houses of Parliament. Common fame will, of course,
ascribe the destruction to the Parliamentarians, and Brook has
preserved a tradition that the church did suffer much in the
civil wars when, amongst other things, its organ was destroyed.
It is, however, but justice to the parliament of 1643 to
transcribe a clause from the act of that year, "for the
suppression of divers innovations in churches and chapels,
&c.," expressly framed for the protection of such ornaments as
those in the church of Ecclesfield.
" Provided that this act or anything contained shall not
extend to any image, picture or coat of arms in glass, stone or
otherwise in any church, chapel, churchyard, or place of public
prayer as aforesaid, set up or graven only for a monument of
any king, prince or nobleman, or other dead person which hath
not been commonly reputed or taken for a saint, but that all
such images, pictures, coat of arms, may stand and continue in
like manner and form as if this act had never been had nor
made ; anything in this act to the contrary thereof in anywise
notwithstanding." It would not be during the Commonwealth
that the demolition was done. Before the civil war, painted
windows in churches were broken by individuals of strong anti-
popish feeling. In 1630, at Salisbury, the recorder, whose name
was Sherfield, broke one in St. Edmond's church in that city.
He boasted of what he had done in defiance of the bishop of
Salisbury's express command, and because such monuments
were monuments of idolatry. He was tried for the offence,
fined ;f5oo, condemned to make a public acknowledgment,
to be bound for his good behaviour, and removed from his
office.
56
The portrait of Robert Mounteney, who married a sister
of Sir Thomas Wortley of Wharncliffe celebrity, and the portrait
of his lady, with the arms and effigies of his ancestors, once
appeared in the east window of the south aisle of the church at
Ecclesfield. That window was placed there by him in 1505.
His will bears date the 3rd of August, 1519, and he was buried,
according to his directions it contained, in the church of Eccles-
field. As before mentioned, fragments remain of the sepulchal
stone of this Robert Mounteney and that of his son and heir John
Mounteney, who was interred in the same church in 1536.
Their heirs, says the Hallamshire historian, probably
thought that the memorials which they placed over their
graves would endure for ever, when, having cut the inscription
deep in the stone, they filled up the letters with some pitchy or
metallic substance. But these are now a far less perfect
memorial of this ancient and opulent family than is another
inscription in the same church carved in oak, requesting
prayers for the souls of Robert Mounteney and Anne his wife,
and for the good estate of John Mounteney and Joan his wife,
who constructed the oratory in 1536. This John Mounteney,
the last of his name at Cowley and Shiercliffe, died in the
prime of life ; and a tradition is not to be wholly passed over
that he was assaulted and wounded in the church porch of
Sheffield, of which wound he died, but by whom it was
inflicted or on what account the tradition does not explain.
By inquisition taken after his death, 28 Henry VHI. (1537),
he was found to hold the manor of Cowley of the king, as of his
honour of Tickhill, by knight-service : the manor of Shiercliffe,
of whom or by what service (he held) the jury knew not : and
the manor of Steynton (he held) of the king by knight-service ;
and Dorothy and Barbara were found to be his daughters and
co-heirs. The furniture of the oratory which he and his wife
founded, dated 1536, is still to be seen in Ecclesfield church.
There is evidence of the Mounteneys being related to the
Saviles, in a deed of the time of Edward H., thus worded : —
57
" Sciant, &c., quod ego rhomas de Savile, dedi, &c. D'ne
The. de Mounteney et Constancise uxori suas, manerium meum
in villa de Dodworth, quod vocatur Sayvile-hall, una cum
omnubus terris meis in Staynborough et redd, ann 2s in villa
Coldwell, quEe habui ex dono Baldwini patris mei Dat. apud
Seyvill hall in crastino Sanctse Trinitus 4 Edw. fil Edw."
Peter de Savile, from whom the Tankersley Saviles descend,
had a brother Baldwin Savile, who owned one of the ancient
homes of the family, called " Sayvile-hall," situated on the
northern bank of the river Dove, and his son Thomas de Savile
having inherited the estate, bestows it by the above deed to
Sir Thos. de Mounteney and his wife Constance, in possession
of whose descendants, the Bosviles of Chevett (near Barnsley)
and Neviles of Ragnal and Grove, it continued until 16 Eliz.,
1574, when George Nevile sold it for £240 to Thomas Headily.
Hesley Hall was a possession of the Mounteneys, and was
sold to the Earl of Shrewsbury at the same time as Cowley and
Shirtcliffe. The present house is old, but not so old as the time of
the Mounteneys. The ancient moat is still in existence in part,
with water in it. The Earls of Shrewsbury used the Hall for the
residenceof the keeper of the red deer, mentioned by Dodsworth.
At an inquisition taken at the death of Robert Mounteney,
Esq., 5 Aug., 1519, he was found seized of, amongst other
things, " Maner, Colley in soc' et per 34s. redd' in c, at al. in
poch' de Ecclesfield ten' de Geo. Comit Salop ut de Maner'
Sheffeld Maner Shercliff 20th &c Maner Hesteley &c"*
In Harrison's Survey, 1637, " Humfrey Northall holdeth
at will Heslowe farm, by the yearly rent of xxx^^ imprimis, a
tenement called Heslow Hall, moated round, &c." And among
the out-payments that year is " Humphry Northall, the keeper
of Couley woods, his wages 3;^."
In 1664, "To Henry Priest, for looking to Cowley woods
and ye outlying red deer, in Humfrey Northall's place 4^^."
In 1697, " Valentin e Hurt, for Hesley farm, 35£."
• Coles' Escheats, Harleian MS., 759, p. 151.
59
CHAPTER III.
TANKERSLEY.
The hamlet of Tankersley as now known is a rural place,
consisting of the Church, the Rectory, the Grange, several
farm houses and a few cottages ; but the parish of that name,
including the lordship or township of Wortley, is of con-
siderable extent. Its church in remote times was larger and
of more importance than the present one. Of its stained-glass
windows Dodsworth makes mention. Between the nave and
the chancel may be now seen columns which indicate that
originally the architecture was Saxon. The large octagonal
font is evidently very old ; the tower is of later date. In
olden, times the Park was almost as nearly in contact with
the hamlet of Chapeltown as were the woods of Cowley ; but
the acreage of the former being extensive and the mansion on
the far side, the ruins of the old hall are not so immediately
contiguous to our Greenhead standpoint of vision as the site
of the demolished Cowley Manor.
That there was a church at Tankersley at a very remote
date is evidenced by the Doomsday survey. That survey of
the eleventh centuiy is silent as to any church in the manors
which constituted the parish qf Sheffield, says nothing of one
at Ecclesfield, while it speaks of Rotherham, Treeton, Aston,
Hope and Tankersley having each a Christian edifice. The
first Tankersley rector of whom there is mention is a Richard
de Tankersley ; and next, in the year 1226, a William de
Tankersley has presented to him, by a Henry of that name,
a moiety of the living of the church. John de Lekes is
instituted March, 1290 and April, 1291, on the presentation of
Richard Tyas and Hugh Eland ; a Richard le Tyas, acolitus.
6o
became rector in 1312, on the presentation of Richard Tyas
and Alice his wife ; in 1329, Jac. Eland, acolitus, was rector on
the presentation of Robert Bradfield and Joan his wife, called
Lady Joan de Tankersley. There was a Sir Francis le Tyas
in 1280, who was witness to a charter ; perhaps the Hall and
the Rectory were the residences of the two families, Tyas
and Tankersley.
Mr. Hunter says, " The family of the name Tankersley
became extinct iive centuries ago." He seems not to have
known anything of Dr. William Tankersley, who, in i5go,
emigrated to the United States of America, and who was the
orphan son of George, the son of Sir Henry Tankersley. It is
true, however, that though the family was not extinct, no one
bearing the name lived at Tankersley after the close of the
thirteenth century, for 1308 (3 Edward II.) is the date of the
death of the Sir Hugh Eland, who some years before had
become the owner of the estate by his marriage with the
heiress of the Tankersleys, for in 1291 he presented to the
rectory.
As early as 1246 (30 Henry III.) and in 1275 (3 Edward i.)
there was living at Elland Hall, near Halifax, a Sir John Eland,
and descended from him was a Sir John, who was concerned in
a quarrel which arose between Thomas the Earl of Lancaster
and the Earl of Warren regarding Alice de Laci, heiress of
Pontefract, Lancaster's wife, and daughter of the Earl of
Lincoln. That Earl of Lancaster, grandson of Henry III., was
beheaded in 1332, and his wife died in 1348, which dates give
the time about which that " deadly feud " occurred, one of
the results of which was the passing of Tankersley from the
Elands to the Saviles.
For several generations the ancient family of the Elands
had their seat at Elland Hall, on the north side of the River
'Calder, in the township of Eliand-cum-Greetland, and lived
there in great splendour until there occurred the feud by which
the male descendants lost their lives. In 1341 Sir John
6i
Eland was Sheriff of Yorkshire, and is mentioned as being
in that year "lord of Eland, Tankersley, Fulbridge, Hinchfield
and Ratchdale."
After his death and the death of his son Hugh, both in
connection with that feud, a member of the ancient Yorkshire
family of the Saviles became possessed of the estates which
had been owned by the Elands. Sir John Savile, Knight,
purchased, in 1350, from the lord of Pontefract, for two hundred
pounds, the wardship of the heiress Isabel Eland, daughter of
the said Sir John Eland, and was married to her at some date
previous to the year 1399. There is evidence that this Sir
John Savile was son of John and Margery Savile, of Golcar,
for there was formerly a chantry at Ell and where prayers were
offered for " Sir John Savile, Knight, and Isabel his wife, for
John Sayvill and Margery his wife, parents of the said John
Sayvill, Knt., also for Thomas de Eland and Joan his wife,
parents of the said Isabel."
In 1475 Sir John Savile, Knight, and Thomas Savile,
Esquire, his son, appear in an indenture disposing of the
Grange of Ainley, in the chapelry 01 Elland, to John Savile, of
Hullenedge, and William Wilkinson.
The gist of the feud story is that Sir John de Eland, when
Sheriff of Yorkshire, 15 Edward III., went privately in the
night, at the head of a body of his tenants, and put to death,
in their own houses, three neighbouring gentlemen, whose
friends, nursing their wrath and biding their time, had their
revenge. They waited until the sons of those murdered
gentlemen were grown up, and then killed both Sir John Eland
and his son.
This barbarous mode of executing private revenge was
not infrequent among the Norman barons and their descendants.
In Brady's " History of the Reign of King Stephen,"
p. 281, there is the following passage: — " If earls or great men
found themselves aggrieved by another, they frequently got
together all their men-at-arms or knights that held of them,
62
their other tenants and poor dependants, and as much assistance
from their friends and confederates as they could, and burnt
one another's castles, houses, &c."
Will our race ever have so progressed as to be superior to
this evil propensity of revenge, which in all lands and all ages
has caused blood to be shed and coloured history with tragedy?
Bright, indeed, is the vision which we are permitted to have a
glimpse of, when, high enough above the paths adhered to by
agnostics and pessimists to see as they do not, we can behold
that He—
" Who laid the foundations of the earth,
Who stretched out the heavens like a curtain,
Hath made known His ways unto Moses,
His doings unto the Children of Israel,"
and thus apprehend something of the verities implied in the
Psalmist's important declaration, confirmed by the Teacher
who, in proving by his resurrection that He was what He
claimed to be, proved that He knew what is true. The
question as to what may be hoped for of humanity is prompted
by the following newspaper paragraph which has happened to
come in my way while writing this chapter : —
"A startling story reaches us (says the Globe) hy the Indian
mail in connection with the murder of Major A. H. S. Neill, of the
Central India Horse, some time ago. It will be remembered that
the Major was shot on parade by one of his men. He was a son
of General Neill, of Cawnpore fame, and the man who shot him is
now said to have been the son of a Duffadar in the Light Cavalry,
who was executed for the murder of General Wheeler at Cawnpore,
after having been flogged. The man, who was arrested on the
recapture of Cawnpore, stoutly denied his guilt, and urged that he
had been forced to mutiny against his will. Before being hanged
he left a dying message for his infant son, and prayed the Prophet
to strengthen the child's arm to avenge the death of his father on
General Neill or any of his descendants. The son grew to
manhood, and served under Major Neill for years before he came
to know that his officer was the son of the man who had ordered
his father's execution. Lying ill in hospital one day the news
63
was conveyed to him by a Fakir, and the dying imprecation of his
father now repeated to him had such an effect on the man's mind,
that though he had been treated with special kindness by Major
Neill he thought of nothing but revenge. Accordingly, on the
earliest opportunity he shot the Major on parade, keeping his
object so secret that the murder seemed wholly without motive.
He was sentenced to death by Sir Lepel Griffin, and died without
making any statement. The explanation is now given by a man
who was at Cawnpore during the mutiny."
The tragic story of the murderous doings of Sir John
Eland, and the retribution which came to him fifteen years
afterwards, is extant in the form of an old English poem, en-
titled " Sir John Eland and his antagonists," transcribed in
the year 1650 by a Mr. Hopkinson. The 124 verses, from a
literary point of view, are loose and crude, and can only claim
to rank as doggerel ; but they are evidence of historic events
which happened 550 years ago affecting the ownership and
occupancy of one of the chief houses in this neighbourhood.
The deadly feud story has been commented upon by distin-
guished antiquarians, namely, Watson, the Halifax Historian,
Beaumont of Whitby, and Dr. Whitaker. Beaumont supposed
the whole to be a fiction, because, he said, at the very period
of the last act of the tragedy the different parties appear to have
been at peace, as may be inferred from the evidence of their
having attested each others' charters. This argument, however,
is not conclusive. The fire of revenge during the fifteen years'
interval between the first act and the second was not extinct,
but smothered under embers, and decent appearances were kept
up between the survivors of the fainilies. Dr. Whitaker says,
that, in his opinion, "the poem authenticates itself. The
estate passed, by the marriage of a sister of the last Eland, to
the Saviles, although she had a brother named Henry, and why
he did not inherit is not accounted for in the poem ; but it
informs us that this Henry was a brother of the half blood, and
therefore, the immediate ancestor having died intestate, could
64
not inherit. This could not have been invented. I cannot
conceive the story to be a fable, as it is so circumstantial — the
places, dates, &c., so specific and so consistent."
While my researches v^^ere making out in what way the
Tankersley estate got into the hands of the Saviles, I found
that not the least interesting facts of that family's history are
connected with a remarkable personage, a lady, who had four
husbands, lived to a great age, was of royal lineage, and is a
link in a genalogical chain which unites the Saviles and the
Wortleys with the Plantagenet Kings of England, as shown in
the pedigree appended. At Tankersley Hall she resided in the
latter part of her long life, not ended before 1542, for in that
year her will is dated ; and to Tankersley she would be taken
as a bride, for her first husband was Sir John Savile, Sheriff of
Yorkshire, Captain of the Isle of Wight, the owner of the estates
at Tankersley, Thornhill, &c., by inheritance from several
generations of knightly ancestors. At Tankersley Hall would
probably be born her daughter who was married to the head of
the house of Wortley. This lady, the wife of Sir John Savile
until his death in 1504, was daughter and co-heir of Sir William
Fasten and his wife Lady Joan Beaufort, daughter and co-heiress
of Edmund Beaufort, Earl of Somerset, grandson of John of
Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster ; and to the Countess of Richmond,
mother of Henry VH., Lady Savile's mother was first cousin.
The widow of Sir John Savile became the wife of Sir
Richard Hastings, a younger son of Lord Hastings, who was
beheaded by Richard HL, and who was brother to the Countess
of Shrewsbury of Sheffield Castle. When next a widow,
she was courted by Sir 'Edward Poynings, and became
his wife, and her fourth husband was Thomas Gargrave,
of Tankersley. Whether the lady whose name had
become Gargrave was a widow for the fourth time when, at
Tankersley, she made her will in 1542, does not appear. We
may suppose that after her first husband's death in 1504
Tankersley continued to be her residence, and that her second
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66
husband, Sir Richard Hastings, did not require her to live
elsewhere, for he was the guardian of her son Henrj', who, at
his father's death, was only six years old. When Sir Richard
died, the Earl of Shrewsbury had the custody of the youth, and
probably the Earl was Sir Richard Hastings' executor, for in
1514 the right to present the Tankersley Chuixh living was in
his hands. During the years she was the wife of her second
and third husbands perhaps she had not her home at
Tankersley, but it is clear that she had, by right or per-
mission, a residence there after she married Robert Gargrave,
who is called "Robert Gargrave of Tankersley," and there her
will is dated. Her son Henry Savile had been under the care
of the Earl of Shrewsbuiy, and when in 1518 or 1519 he became
of age, he would become the owner of the other family mansion
at Thornhill. He need not, therefore, if he had the power or
will, interfere with his mother's occupancy of Tankersley Hall.
Twenty-three years after the son had attained his majority,
and when he would be forty-four years old, she made her will.
Her death about that time would give him the choice of living
either at Thornhill or Tankersley. He seems to have preferred
the latter, for he there spent much of his time. There is
extant a letter which he wrote in 1546, in which he says :
" Lord Talbot was at Tankersley, and killed two stags in
Wharncliffe-walks."
The Gargraves doubtless sprang from the village of
Gargrave in Cravan, of which family was Sir John Gargrave,
who was Governor of Pontoise under Henry V., and there
intei-red. His son. Sir Thomas, was Master of the Ordnance
in France, and fell at the siege of Orleans in 1428. This latter.
Sir Thomas Gargrave, is mentioned by Shakespeare as among
the companions of the first Earl of Shrewsbury, then Lord
Talbot, in the French wars. In 1514 there lived a Thomas
Gargrave at Alverthorpe, near Wakefield, who in his will,
made that year, directs his body to be buried with somewhat
expensive accompaniments in Wakefield Church. Doubtless
this was the same person, with Thomas, who married
Elizabeth Levett, and whose son. Sir Thomas, was knighted
in Scotland in the year 1547 by the Earl of Warwick. In the
first Parliament of Queen EHzabeth the latter was member for
Yorkshire and Speaker of the House, and it was he who, in
1559, May 27, by direction of the Treasurer of the Queen's
Household, " caused to be assembled at Tankersley twelve
members of the Savile family to take some stay for Edward
Savile's inheritance, he having been found by a jury to be
incompetent." {See " Introduction to the Savile Corres-
pondence," published by the Camden Societ}'.) I find
there is mention in " Pepy's Journals " of a Sir Robert
Paston, who for his eminent services in the Civil War and
his activity at the Restoration was created Viscount Yarmouth
(25 Charles II.)
He was probably descended from the John Paston who
was Sheriff of Norfolk in the reign of Henry VII., and to
whom was probably addressed a letter which is to be seen
among "The Paston Letters," vol. it, p. 36, of date 1470,
headed, "To my cosyn J. Paston."
In 1518, the ninth year of Henry VIII., Sir Henry Savile —
the son of the lady who had four husbands — " was of full age
and had livery of his lands." Of the Honour of Pontefract he
was Steward, and of the Manor of Wakefield ; was Sheriff of
Yorkshire in 1538 and in 1542, and was made a Knight of the
Bath at the coronation of Queen Anne Boleyn. His wife was
a great heiress, being co-heir to the Fitzwilliams. They had
one son, who was married before his father's death. When that
event took place, it was found that the father had settled as much
of his estate as was at his disposal upon an illegitimate son,
Robert of Howley, from whom descended a race of Saviles, who.
Hunter says, " over-peered the genuine branches for the greater
part of two centuries, the Lords Savile and Earls of Sussex." His
will is dated February 15th, 1555, the year of his son Edward
Savile's marriage at the age of 20, and at which date the Manor
68
of Tankersley was settled by the son upon his wife. Mr. Hunter,
who prints two letters signed Edward Savile, surmised that
there must have been some deficiency of intellect in the young
man, for he seems to have placed himself under the protection
of the powerful family of the Earl of Shrewsbury. The two
letters do not evidence that he was of unsound mind when
he wrote them, and Queen Elizabeth thought he was not so
defective as he was said to be. Hunter says : " There
must have been an examination as to his mental condition,
if the story be true which Dr. Johnson heard, that when
Edward Savile was under examination, and he was asked, 'how
many legs have a sheep ? ' he answered ' two.' This appeared
conclusive against him, but he surprised the court by telHng
them, 'since he could remember, there were two legs and two
shoulders, and that if they had asked him how many feet, he
had told them four.' " The date when twelve members of the
Savile family were summoned by Sir Thomas Gargrave, by
direction of the Treasurer of the Queen's household, to assemble
at Tankersley " to take some stay for Edward Savile's in-
heritance, he having been found by a jury to be incompetent," is
May 27th, 1559. That would be 45 years before his death, for he
lived until 1604. Those twelve members of the Savile family
would be interested in believing him to be incompetent. He
was, however, deprived by his father of property which could be
diverted from the line of legitimate descent. As the pedigree
shows, he had no children, and his wife was divorced, upon whom
at the time of his marriage his Tankersley estate was settled.
It appears from fines levied in the 8th and gth of Elizabeth
that the Manorof Burkisland was "to remain to the heirs male of
the body of Thomas Savile, of Lupset, deceased, for want of issue
male on the line of Savile of Thornhill and Tankersley, which
line failed in the person of Edward Savile, the sixth lineal
descendant from Henry Savile, which Henry married Elizabeth,
daughter and heiress of Simon Thornhill, whereby the Manor
passed from the name of Thornhill to that of Savile."
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69
In the reign of James I. (September 4th, 1604), Sir John
Savile, Knight, a descendant of Thomas Savile of Lupset, was
one of the commissioners, under the Statute 43 Elizabeth, to
redress the misemployment of lands given to charitable uses ;
and the bequest of Thomas Smith, of Crowland, the founder
of the Sheffield Grammar School, came under his inquisition
at the above date at Wakefield.
In 1577, 19th of Elizabeth, George, Earl of Shrewsbury,
joined with the said Edward Savile and Henry Savile in
conveyances within the Manor of Burkisland. The trust
reposed in this noble family arose from Sir George Savile,
Knt. and Bart., son of Henry Savile, of Lupset, marrying
Mary, daughter of the said George Talbot, sixth Earl of
Shrewsbury. Lady Mary's husband was second cousin to
Sir Henry Savile, of Tankersley. Mr. Hunter says he had not
found anything to enable him to determine whether Tankersley
passed to Sir George Savile or to the Earl of Shrewsbury, nor
evidence as to who ha,d possession of the estate in succession
to Edward Savile up to the time when it was purchased by
the first Earl of Strafford.
On the evidence of the Earl's letter, written in Ireland, his
obtaining the Tankersley estate would be at a date previously
to the year 1635.
The Savile pedigree shows that the nobleman George
Savile, Baron Eland of Thornhill, Marquis of Halifax — the
eminent political writer, who was born in 1630 and died in
1695, who on the death of Cromwell helped to restore
Charles II., and whose portrait is to be seen at the mansion
of Mr. Vernon Wentworth, of Stainborough — was the eldest
son of Sir William Savile, of Thornhill, the third baronet,
Governor of Sheffield Castle for Charles I. in the Civil Wars.
There was a Savile prominent in Parliament at that time who
was not on the King's side, and who is referred to in a passage
commenting on the trial of the Earl of Strafford, thus:—" It
was the second day after the Earl of Strafford's arrival in
F
70
London that he was impeached (Nov. 13, 1640). Why was the
action of his opponents so prompt ? It is said that the
promptitude of the measure was owing to the fact that
Wentworth was about to impeach Savile and some other
lords of a treasonable correspondence with the Scots, inviting
them to an invasion of the kingdom." I imagine Wentworth
might hate this Savile, because he had had something to say
about the way the Tankersley estate had got into Wentworth's
hands. There is, in the beautiful mausoleum at Wentworth
Woodhouse, along with busts of seven other friends of the
Marquis of Rockingham, that of Sir George Savile, Baronet,
of Sandbeck, who (a descendant of Sir John Savile, the knight
of Tankersley, killed at Sandal Castle in 1482) was one of the
best speakers and most distinguished statesmen of his time.
He had much to do with the introduction into this country of
canal navigation, and a hearty acknowledgment of his services
was expressed in a resolution passed at Halifax on May i8th,
1769, by the company of proprietors of the Calder and Hebble
Navigation.
Appended to a sketch of the Tankersley Old Hall in the
Sheffield Weekly Independent of August 29th, 1891, there
appeared the following : " Thoroughly dismantled as it now
is, enough remains to refer its origin to the Tudor period, and
to set it in company with the Hardwicks, Wingfields and
Haddons of that manor-loving age. The Saviles of Tankersley,
who built the hall, seem to have been distinguished in their
way. One of them became by marriage a distant relative of
Henry VII., and at a later time another held Sheffield Castle
for the king, Charles I., during the civil wars. At Tankersley,
in 1643, the year before his defeat at Marston Moor, the
Royalist Earl of Newcastle won a victory over 2,000 local
Parliamentarians, some of whom " were slain and some taken
prisoners." This is stated in the Duchess of Newcastle's
memoirs of the life of her husband. She writes : " Imme-
diately after, in pursuit of the victory, my lord sent a
71
considerable party into the west of Yorkshire, where they
met with about 2,000 of the enemy's forces, taken out of their
garrisons in those parts to execute some design, upon a moor
called Tankerley Moor, and there fought them and routed
them ; many were slain and some taken prisoners." Eight
years before this (1635) the Tankersley estate had passed into
the possession of the first Earl of Strafford, who, while
carrying out " Thorough " in Ireland, found time to send
directions as to the preservation and management of his new
possession. He was appointed Viceroy in 1633.
The following is one of the letters written from Ireland in
1635 by the Earl of Strafford to Mr. Greenwood, Rector of
Thornhill : —
" I appoint my cousin Rockley, Master of the Game at
Tankersley, desiring him he will now and then look into the
house to see that it be kept from decay ; that the woods be
preserved without cutting or lopping, which is almost as bad ;
that the park be sufficiently maintained, the deer increased till
they come to three hundred ; that the ponds may be from time
to time kept in repair and maintained. In like manner I
appoint my brother Hutton, Master of the Game at Kimber-
worth, always provided that you have the liberty to command
in either park what deer you list, and that I would have
venison sent to my cousin Wentworth of Wolley, to my cousin
Wentworth of Emsal, and to my brother Rhodes every season;
and that any of them may command a piece of venison when
they have occasion to desire it. Sir Richard Scott hath power
to dispose of a buck in either park in summer and a doe in
either park for winter; and soe I pray you let him know that if
he have any friend he may pleasure them therewith as he likes
best himself."
At a later period, after the death of the first Earl of Straf-
ford, the Hall at Tankersley was lent, as a residence, to Sir
Richard and Lady Fanshawe, about whom there is on record
much that is interesting. During the reign of Charles I., Sir
72
Richard Fanshaw was secretary to the Prince of Wales,
afterwards Charles II. At the battle of Worcester, Sir Richard
was wounded and taken prisoner. After the Restoration he
was ambassador at several continental courts.
In a memoir of her own and her husband's life, written by
Lady Fanshaw, she writes : — " In March we went with our
three children into Yorkshire, where we lived a harmless
country life, minding only country sports and country affairs,
There my husband translated ' The Lusiad' of Camoens. This
he dedicated to William Earl of Strafford, from his lordship's
park at Tankersley, May ist, 1655, and he says that from the
hour he begun it to the end thereof he slept not once out of
those walls. Whilst there he translated also a Spanish play,
' Querer por solo Querer.' He edited what is known as ' Oldy's
Notes,' in which there is a reference to some remarkable yew
trees to be seen in Tankersley Park, particularly one called
Talbot's yew, as to which in Oldy's notes on the margin of
' Langbaine's Account of Dramatic Writers,' there is, ' A man
on horseback might turn about in it. "
Daniel Defoe, author of " Robinson Crusoe," in his "Tour
through England," published in 1727, says that the best red
deer in Europe were in this park, and that one of them stood
higher than his horse, " which was none of the least."
The Lady Fanshaw who resided, as she describes, at Tan-
kersley, was a person of whom any neighbourhood might be
pleased to preserve a memorial. My researches have discovered
about her some interesting particulars. She was the daughter
of a Sir John Harrison and his wife Margaret, of an ancient and
highly respectable family of the name Fanshawe, "an emi-
nently pious and accomplished lady." Their daughter, Ann
Harrison, born in London, March 25th, 1625, was so well
trained, that at the age of 15 years, when her mother died, she
was able to take charge of her father's house in a highly
exemplary manner. At the age of about ig she married Mr.,
afterwards Sir, Richard Fanshawe, a relative of her mother's.
He had been educated a lawyer, but not liking his profession,
went abroad with his wife, and was appointed Secretary to the
English Ambassador at the Spanish Couii. He was a loyal
adherent of the house of Stuart, true to Charles I., and the
confident and counsellor of Charles 1 1 . During the struggles and
violence of those terrible times, this good wife shared the dangers
and sympathised with the feelings of her husband. When he
was in prison, after the battle of Worcester, she, with a dark
lantern, at four o'clock in the morning, would often be under
his prison window to converse with him, regardless of rain,
danger or darkness. At length, released on a heavy bail, he
was free to devote himself to literary pursuits, for which also
his wife had the taste. Tlaere was a friendship and family
connection between the Fanshaws and Sir George Radcliffe,
the friend of the Wentworths, who owned the Tankersley estate,
and thus it would happen that the Hall was lent to Sir Richard
and Lady Fanshaw as a temporary residence. After the
Restoration he was in great favour at Court, had a seat in
Parliament, and was sent as Ambassador to Spain and to
Portugal. Owing to some change of policy, he was recalled,
and while he and his family were preparing to return to
England, he suddenly died. The Queen of Spain was greatly
moved by the desolation of the heart-broken widow, and would
have provided for her a pension of 30,000 ducats per annum,
and a handsome provision for her children, if she could have
embraced the Catholic religion. Lady Fanshaw was deeply
grateful, but could not accept any favour upon such conditions.
Her own language will indicate her feelings under this severe
affliction. She thus writes in her journal : " Have pity on me,
Lord, and speak peace to my disquieted soul now sinking
under this great weight, which, without Thy support, cannot be
sustained. See me, with five children, a distressed family, the
temptation of the change of my religion, out of my country,
away from my friends, without counsel, and without means to
return with my sad family to England. Do with me, and for
74
me, what Thou pleasest, for I do wholly rely on Thy promises
to the widow and the fatherless ; humbly beseeching Thee that,
when this mortal life is ended, I may be joined with the soul
of my dear husband." The body of her husband was embalmed,
and for several months she had to wait before she could reium
with it to England, for she could obtain no money from the
Government. Even the arrears due to her husband were with-
held by the ungrateful and profligate Charles II., who lavished
upon his minions and mistresses what was due to his tried
and suffering friends. At length, Anne of Austria, widow of
Philip IV., gave Lady Fanshaw 2,000 pistoles, saying, with true
feminine delicacy, "that the sum had been appropriated to
purchasing a farewell present for Sir Richard, had he lived."
The body was interred in the vault at St. Mary's Chapel, in the
Church at Ware, and Lady Fanshawe erected a handsome
monument to'her husband's memory. Their union of 22 years
had been a pattern of conjugal truth, and of as much happiness
as the married state can attain. The widow continued as
constant to the memory of the dear departed as she had been
in her affection to him while he lived. She ever planned and
aimed for the education of her children, and "for her dear and
only son." She wrote her own memoir, and survived her
husband 14 years, dying January, 1680, aged 54.
Her conclusion, based upon experience as to what a wife
should be, appears in the following passage from her memoir
referring to the time when Sir Richard was Secretary to the
Prince of Wales, afterwards Charles II.: — "I knew him (my
husband) to be very wise and very good, and his soul doted on
me ; upon which confidence I will tell you what happened. My
Lady Rivers (a brave woman, and one that had suffered many
thousand pounds' loss for the King), for whom I had a great
reverence and she a kinswoman's kindness for me, in discourse
tacitly commended the knowledge of State affairs, mentioning
several women who were very happy in a good understanding
thereof, and saying none of them was originally more capable
75
than I. She said a post would arrive from Paris from
the Queen that night, and she should extremely like to know
what news it brought, adding if I would ask my husband
probably he would tell me what he found in the packet, and I
might tell her. I, that was young and innocent, and to that
day had never in my mouth, " What news ?" now began to
think there was more in inquiring into public affairs than I had
thought of, and that, being a fashionable thing, it would make
me more beloved of my husband than I already was, if that
bad been possible. When my husband returned home from
the Council, after receiving my welcome, he went with his
hands full of papers into his study. I followed him ; he turned
hastily, and said, ' What would'st thou have, my life ?' I told
him I heard the Prince had received a packet from the Queen,
and I guessed he had it in his hand, and I desired to know
what was in it. He smilingly replied : ' My love, I will
immediately come to thee ; pray thee go, for I am very busy.'
When he came out of his closet I revived my suit. He kissed
me and talked of other things. At supper I would eat nothing.
He, as usual, sat by me and drank often to me, which was
his custom, and was full of discourse to company that was
at table. Going to bed, I asked him again, saying I could
never believe he loved me if he refused to tell me all he knew.
He answered nothing, but stopped my mouth with kisses. I
cried, and he went to sleep. Next morning very early, as his
custom was, he called to rise, but began to discourse with me
first, to which I made no reply. He rose, came on the other
side of the bed, kissed me, drew the curtains softly, and went
to Court. When he came home to dinner he presently came
to me as was usual, and when I had him by the hand 1 said,
' Thou dost not care to see me troubled,' to which he, taking
me in his arms, answered, ' My dearest soul, nothing on earth
can afflict me like that ; when thou asked me of my business
it was wholly out of my power to satisfy thee. My life, my
fortune shall be thine, and every thought of my heart, in which
76
the trust I am in may not be revealed ; but my honour is
my own, which, if I communicate the Prince's affairs, I cannot
preserve. I pray thee with this answer rest satisfied.' So great
was his reason and goodness, that upon consideration it made my
folly appear to me so vile that from that day until the day of
his death I never thought fit to ask him any business except
what he communicated freely to me in order to his estate or
family."
Whatever heroic deeds may have been done by the persons
of knightly rank who were occupants of TankersleyHall, it is not
probable that, if we had a complete record of them, we should
find anything affording such scope for comment as the act of
Charles I. which sanctioned the execution of Thomas Went-
worth. Earl of Strafford, on the 22nd of May, 1641. Tradition
has so associated the Earl's name with Tankersley Park, that
few tourists who wander there fail to hear referred to the
statesman who held the reins of power under Charles I. after
the assassination of the Duke of Buckingham, and whose name
occupies such a prominent place in history. Local tradition
affirms that from beneath a certain tree in Tankersley Park the
Earl was arrested. We know that it was by command of
Charles I. and against the inclination of the Earl that he went
to London at the time of the meeting of the Long Parliament,
and when the King was perplexed and desirous of the assistance
and advice of his Minister ; and if the arrest of the Earl took
place in Tankersley Park, as the tradition has it, he must have
(when the indictment had become a serious matter) run down
into Yorkshire. Perhaps for family reasons, or that in the
quietude of his rural abode he might deliberate, he hurried
away from London.
When Sir Henry Vane had discovered, in a red velvet
cabinet, some papers which had upon them the notes, in
Strafford's own handwriting, of the counsel he had given to the
King, and after Vane had shown those papers to Pym, who
used them as witnessing to the treasonable intentions of
77
Strafford, he would have reason to feel that the impeachment
would put his abilities to the test. It was that discovery which
decided his fate. It afforded the prima facie evidence which led
to his being apprehended.
Of his career the following is a summary:— Sir Thomas
Wentworth, Earl of Strafford, was eldest son of Sir William
Wentworth, of the ancient Yorkshire family of that name.
He was born in London in 1593, and a student at St. John's
College, Cambridge. After leaving the University he travelled,
and on his return received the honour of knighthood. By the
death of his father in 1614 he came into possession of a large
fortune, and soon after he was appointed custos rotulorum of the
West Riding of Yorkshire in lieu of Sir John Savile. In 1621
he was the representative in the House of Commons of the
County of York. When Charles I. asserted that the Commons
enjoyed no rights but by Royal permission, Sir Thomas
Wentworth strenuously and eloquently urged the House to
maintain that their privileges were rights by inheritance.
When the new Parliament was convened, in 1625, he was one
of six popular members who were prevented being eligible
to serve by being appointed sheriffs. He submitted to this
arbitrary act in silence ; but soon after, the Duke of Bucking-
ham, alarmed at the measures taken against himself in
Parliament, made overtures to him, which he declined, and
the favourite revenged himself by obliging Wentworth to restore
the office of custos roiulorum to Sir John Savile.*
When Charles had recourse to forced loans, Wentworth
refused to pay, and was imprisoned and then confined to a
range of two miles round his residence at Dartford. This
restraint was removed when a new Parliament was summoned
in 1628, and he was again member for Yorkshire and was one
of the most conspicuous advocates of the Petition of Right. As
he had proved the strength of his abilities, high terms were
offered him by the Court, which, alas 1 for his reputation, he
*Sir John Savile, of Lupset, who died in 1659.
78
finally accepted. In 1628 he was created Baron Wentworth,
and soon afterwards a viscount and privy counsellor. On the
resignation of Lord Scrope he was nominated President of the
North.
The assassination of Buckingham, soon after, freed him from
a powerful enemy at Court, and he became so influential in the
King's council, that his power in the four northern counties
over which he presided became enormous. His commission
contained 58 instructions, of which scarcely one did not exceed
or violate the common law. In the exercise of this authority
he displayed haughtiness, impetuosity and ability. By his
strictness in levying exactions, he increased the revenue in his
district to four or five times the previous amount. He was
sent to Ireland as Lord Deputy in 1632. Nothing could be
more arbitrary than his government there. It was his boast
that he had rendered the King as absolute in Ireland " as any
prince in the whole world could be."
On the first signs of resistance to the royal authority, he
counselled the strongest measures ; and after the failure of the
King's first expedition against Scotland in 1639, he was sent
for from Ireland, and made Earl of Strafford, and Knight of the
Garter. Fle returned to Ireland with the full title of Lord-
Lieutenant, so that he might gain subsidies and troops, in
which he fully succeeded. Coming again to England, he took
command in the north. Obliged to retire before the Scottish
army, he retreated to York.
It was then that the King's necessities obliged him to call
the Long Parliament, and then that Strafford — aware of the
enmity he had inspired among the popular leaders — begged to
be excused coming to London, and allowed to return to his
post in Ireland. But the King, hoping that the Earl's great
talents would be serviceable, demanded his presence, assuring
him that " not a hair of his head should be touched by Parlia-
ment." Very soon Strafford had the proof that his apprehen-
sions were well founded. On the i8th of November, of the
79
year of the assembling of the Long Parliament, 1640, Pym
appeared at the bar of the House of Lords, with the resolution
of the House of Commons, to impeach him of high treason.
It was easier to prove that he acted as a friend and pro-
moter of arbitrary measures, than to substantiate any particular
fact to justify a capital charge; and Strafford, without any
assistance of counsel, was able to show that the charge could
not be sustained. The impeachment was abandoned, and his
opponents proceeded to bring about his punishment by Act of
Parliament. A Bill of Attainder having passed both Houses,
and received the King's signature, the Earl was beheaded on
May 22nd, 1641. At the scaffold he addressed the people
assembled, asserting the good intention of his actions, however
misrepresented. He left behind him a memorable, but certainly
not an unspotted name.
We may judge of Strafford by the evidence he supplies in
his own letters. Writing to Archbishop Laud, he says: "In
truth I still wish Mr. Hampden, and others to his likeness,
were well whipped into their right senses, and if that the rod
be so used that it smarts not, I am the more sorry." — (Strafford
Papers ii., 138-158). " It (the spirit of the times) is a grievous
and overspreading leprosy, less than thorough will not overcome
it. There is cancerous malignity in it, which must be cut
forth, which long since hath rejected all other means." — (ii.,
136. " I know no reason, but you may as well rule the common
lawyers in England, as I, poor beagle, do here ; and yet that I
do, and will do, in all that concerns my master, at the peril of
my head." " The debts of the crown being taken off, you may
govern as you please ; and most resolute I am that the work
may be done." There is in his letters sent to Laud, between
1629 ^^^ 1640, much which shows that nothing less than the
overthrow of the constitution was intended — the suppression of
law whenever opposed to " a sovereign power."
Hume's excuses for the King will not bear examination.
He says in one place: "It seems unreasonable to judge of
So
measures embraced during one period, by the maxims which
prevail in another." He is speaking of the severity of the
star-chamber, " which was," he says, " perhaps in itself some-
what biamable, but will naturally, to us, appear enormous, who
enjoy so much liberty." What he calls " maxims," are moral
principles which are eternally obligatory. Religious injunctions
divinely revealed, he speaks of as would an agnostic of to-day,
as " subjects where it is not allowable for human nature to
expect any positive truth or certainty." A lie is heinous now,
and it was not less so in the days of Cromwell, who would
have acted differently with Charles had it been possible to
trust him.
The description Lord Macaulay gives of that man of
genius is graphic : " But, Wentworth ! whoever names him
without thinking of those harsh, dark features, ennobled by
their expression into more than the majesty of an antique
Jupiter; of that brow, that eye, that cheek, that lip, wherein,
as in a chronicle, are written the events of many stormy
and disastrous years, high enterprise accomplished, frightful
dangers braved, power unsparingly exercised, suffering un-
shrinkingly borne ; of that fixed look, so full of severity, of
mournful anxiety, of deep thought, of dauntless resolution,
which seems at once to forbode and defy a terrible fate, as it
lowers on us from the living canvas of Vandyke ? Even at
this day the haughty Earl overawes posterity as he overawed
his contemporaries, and excites the same interest when
arraigned before the tribunal of history which he excited at the
bar of the House of Lords. In spite of ourselves, we some-
times feel towards his memory a certain relenting, similar to
that relenting which his defence, as Sir John Denham tells us,
produced in Westminster Hall. This great, brave man
entered the House of Commons at the same time with
Hampden and took the same side with Hampden. Both were
among the richest and most powerful Commoners in the
kingdom. Both were equally distinguished by force of
character and by personal courage. Hampden had more
judgment and sagacity than Wentworth ; but no orator of that
time equalled Wentworth in force and brilliancy of expression."
Mr. Forster, in his " Life of Sir John Eliot," thus
describes the Thomas Wentworth who became Earl of
Strafford :—
" Here, among the legislators, raw and inexperienced, who
had sat in no former Convention, Eliot's glance fell upon a tall
young man from Yorkshire, Thomas Wentworth, whom men
noted even thus early (a contemporary tells us) for his stoop in
the neck, for the cloudy shadow on his face except when
lighted up bj' anything that moved him, and for the fierce far-
reaching look of the eye."
The question. Was it a false charge of treason which lost
him his life, or was he guilty? will be answered differently; but
all will agree that he was basely treated by the King.
Hume writes : — " Strafford, sensible of the load of popular
prejudices under which he laboured, would gladly have
declined attendance in Parliament, and he begged the King's
permission to withdraw himself to his government in Ireland,
at least to remain at the head of the army in Yorkshire (this
would include days of quietude at Tankersley and Wentworth
Woodhouse), where many opportunities, he hoped, would offer
by reason of his distance to elude the attacks of his enemies.
But Charles, who had entire confidence in the earl's capacity,
thought that his counsels would be extremely useful during
the critical session approaching ; and when Strafford still
insisted on the danger of his appearing amidst so many enraged
enemies, the King, little apprehensive that his own authority
was so soon to expire, promised him protection, and assured
him that not a hair of his head should be touched by the
Parliament." The excuse for the King, that the power of the
Houses of Parliament had become so great that he was
helpless, has not the weight of a feather. The unpopular and
unconstitutional acts of Strafford were the carrying out of the
82
King's own foolish, treasonable design to exalt his own
prerogative and make his rule autocratic. Instead of taking
Juxon's advice, to " refuse his assent to the Bill if his conscience
did not approve " : instead of saying to the Parliament,
"Strafford has been faithful to me, carried out my wishes, and, if
what he has done be treason, the fault is mine, not his "; he sinks
his manhood below the level of that " honour among thieves,"
which forbids one of them, to save his own life, implicating a
comrade. The King's remorse, shame, and grief must be
estimated by his course of conduct which had brought him
into such an extremity. A man who is habitually false to his
word and his oath, deliberately and solemnly given, may not
expect people to believe in the profoundness of his contrition
when his last act of faithlessness has proved disastrous.
The maxim, " The king can do no wrong," had much to do
with his servant Strafford being held accountable for the King's
misdeeds; though it is surely nonsense. "It was a wrong of the
most criminal description to attempt a subversion of the most
sacred laws of the Commonwealth. To assume, because of that
maxim, that Strafford acted not merely without the King's
consent, but in violation of his commands, is utterly absurd. To
make the maxim fit, we have to suppose that Strafford would
be lying when he said that what he did he did at the King's
bidding ; Charles was, and did, what the wife of Colonel
Hutchinson truly says of him : " The example of the French
King was propounded to him, and bethought himself no monarch
so long as his will was confined to the bounds of any law; but
knowing that the people of England were not pliable to an arbitrary
rule, he plotted to subdue them to his yoke by a foreign force, and,
till he could effect it, made no conscience of granting anything
to the people which he resolved should not oblige him longer than
it served his turn, for he was a prince that had nothing of faith or
truth, justice or generosity in him : he was obstinate, and so
bent upon being an absolute uncontrollable sovereign, that he
was resolved either to be such a king or none." (Vol. i, I20.)
83
The question whether the Bill of Attainder against Strafford
can be justified, has been much discussed. A writer in the
Edinbro' Review (Sept., 1828, 116-117) said: "Look around
the nations of the globe, and say in what age or country would
such a man have fallen into the hands of his enemies without
paying the forfeit of his offences against the Commonwealth
with his life. * * * Something beyond the retirement or
dismissal of such ministers has seemed necessary to ' absolve
the gods ' and furnish history with an awful lesson of retri-
bution. The spontaneous instinct of nature has called for the
axe and the gibbet against such capital delinquents. * * *
In condemning the Bill of Attainder, we cannot look upon it as
a crime."
I have no admiration for the talents of this great states-
man that is not neutralised by his conduct. It is beyond doubt
that his show of patriotic feeling when he spoke so eloquently
in favour of the Petition of Right in the House of Commons
had behind it no reality. He had no patriotic convictions
strong enough to resist the faintest intimation of favour from a
quarter whence wealth and titles where obtained. When the
prospect of sharing in the honours and opulence of a court was
set before him, the lure was so far attractive that, though it
required him to unsay every good thing he had ever said
and to undo every good deed he had ever done, he was
unable, even on these conditions, to resist it. The Petition
of Right had just passed when the Court overtures were made
and accepted by the man who had argued, " Grievances and
supply should go hand in hand, and the latter in no case
precede the former. * *- * Let us leave all power to His
Majesty to bring malefactors to legal punishment, but our laws
are not acquainted with sovereign power. We desire no new thing,
nor do we offer to trench on His Majesty's prerogative, but we
may not recede from this petition either in whole or in part."
No man did more towards securing the important recognition
of English liberty contained in the Petition of Right than the
84
Thomas Wentworth who, when sojourning at Tankersley, was
the near neighbour of the people who lived at Chapeltown two
hundred and fifty years ago, and no statesman in a more marked
manner suddenly changed his political colours than did he,
deceiving no one, for the offers of reward were not made in
secret.
It was on the nth of November, 1640, eight days after the
assembling of the famous Long Parliament, that the Earl of
Strafford was impeached of high treason and taken into
custody, and on May ist, 1641, his trial on that impeachment
began. The statement in books of English History that he
was beheaded on a false charge of treason is absolute nonsense.
He aided and abetted the King to commit acts of high
treason — that is, to do things in violent opposition to the
laws and the constitutional authority of the realm. The
charge of treason rested on unquestionable facts, which were
not affected by the trial by impeachment not having reached a
verdict. His defenders argue as if that trial had gone on, and
a verdict of acquittal been the result.
The crime which attacks directly the supreme authority of
the State has in all civilised countries been considered treason,
and only by the false assumption that Charles I. had a right to
rule independently of the limitations of the Constitution upon
which the English Government is based can the justice of the
sentence against the Earl of Strafford be questioned.
If the clever servant of Charles I. had more closely
considered the character of his master he would have seen
reasons for not trusting, as he did, to his magnanimity. He
would probably not have written the letter in which he tells
the King to ratify the Bill of Attainder if by doing so his
Majesty could secure his own safety. That the Earl found
how greatly mistaken he was in his opinion of the King may
be inferred from his words when, without regard to the promise
that not a hair of his head should be touched, the King
sacrificed him on an altar of expediency. Strafford exclaimed,
85
lifting his. eyes to heaven and putting his hand on his heart,
" Put not your trust in princes nor in the sons of men, for in
them there is no salvation."
There are words in Hunter's " Hallamshire" referring to
the Civil Wars of the seventeenth century which are in striking
contrast to much that has been affirmed by less unbiassed
writers. He says : —
" We are now arrived within the sound of those wars which
interrupted the peace that England had so long enjoyed, and
were the occasion of infinite natural and moral evil, though
they issued in the establishment of our free and envied Consti-
tution, and in placing on the British throne for its protection,
first, a Prince of the House of Orange, and afterwards the
august family of Brunswick ; for, however the truth may be
disguised, there is no essential difference between the opposi-
tion which was made to Charles I. and that which in later
times was presented to his son; and had James H. been
successful in his war in Ireland, and had by force of arms
regained possession of the throne, we might have had another
Clarendon to have given us the history of another rebellion.
" In both instances there was much of private resentment
and unworthy passion interfering with the great public principle
on which the parties proceeded ; there were some men who (as
is the case in all unsettled times) sought to benefit themselves by
engaging in the contest, and both parties showed too little
willingness to come to a just accommodation when the sword
had once been unsheathed. But the substantial question on
which the parties were at issue, both in the time of Charles I.
and of James II., was whether the ancient constitution of
England had not left the Crown in possession of certain prero-
gatives, the exercise of which was incompatible with the safety
and welfare of the subject. The powers of the ancient
monarchy of England had been usurped in dark and barbarous
ages by military chieftains or voluntarily conceded to answer
particular purposes, which purposes no longer existed. In the
G
86
early part of the reign of Charles I. the controversy might be
said to have begun when the people by their representatives
in Parliament called for the reduction of the royal prerogative.
The King heard with impatience requests which seemed to him
to strike at the very root of his authority ; and at last, weary
with the importunity of his Parliament, he listened to those
counsellors who advised him to assemble that body no more.
For eleven years England had no Parliament. This of itself—
to every man who wished not that his life and fortunes should
be at the mercy of a single person — must have shown that the
power of the Crown to summon, or to suspend the summoning
of Parliament, required some regulation. But without a
Parliamentary grant, even in those days, the King was unable
to defray the expenses of the State, much more to take any
active part in the contentions of the Continent. To supply
himself with money. King Charles had recourse to the expedient
of reviving obsolete powers of the Crown by which tyrannical
princes in former times had enriched themselves at the expense
of their subjects. Again was evidence afforded of the necessity
of curtailing the Royal prerogative. Precedents were to be
found for most of the King's measures — perhaps for all of them.
But the times were changed, and just notions of civil liberty
and the rights of the subject were pretty widely diffused. Nor
indeed was it a difficult thing to convince most men that there
could be no good and sufficient reason for calling upon all the
gentry of the kingdom to take upon themselves the honour of
knighthood, or to give subsidies under the name of loans at a
time when there was no pretence of danger from abroad. The
ship-money was at least of doubtful obligation, and at a time
when men were becoming impatient of the acknowledged
prerogative, it was not to be expected that they would acquiesce
in the revival of those claims which, if they had ever existed as
rights of the Crown, had long become obsolete. Accordingly,
when the King's necessities at last obliged him to call
Parliament together, the two parties found themselves at issue
87
on some of the most important questions of civil policy, which
it was hardly to be expected could be decided but by the
sword."
" But other things," Mr. Hunter goes on to say, " combined
to produce the state of mind and feeling which was manifested.
There was at that period a numerous party in the kingdom who,
with an increase of civil libertj', wished also for a change in
the ecclesiastical constitution of the country. They thought
that the Reformers had not gone far enough ; that many cere-
monies were retained which became not the simplicity of the
Gospel, and for which they contended that there was no
Scripture warrant. Many went so far as to think that a church
government similar to that which was adopted in Scotland
and by some reformed churches abroad was more accordant
with the apostolic form than the existing hierarchy ; while
others were for abolishing church government altogether, and
leaving every congregation to manage its own concerns."
The above words, from a present-day point of view, afford
little room for controversy. The next sentence I quote without
entirely assenting. " The soundness of the principles on which
the Presbyterians and Independents of those times acted, is
much more problematical than that of the doctrines of political
freedom for which others contended, and which were indeed no
more than were a few years afterwards acknowledged by the
estates of the realm to be fundamental principles of the British
constitution, when the nation's controversy with the house of
Stuart was brought to its final issue."
Comparing the two problems — civil freedom and religious
liberty — I venture to affirm that the latter is a sound principle,
and more easily proved to be fundamental than the former; and
that bad as was the conduct of Strafford, that of Laud was
worse.
In the Introduction to Fox's History of James I. (Brodie,
III., 99), the question of Strafford's guilt is discussed thus :
•'That he told the King that he might use his prerogative in
raising mone}', and was absolved from the rules of government,
is indisputable : indeed he admitted that he mght have used
thus his prerogative, and his quibble about the meaning of the
words never could have been seriously listened to, when it is
considered that the advice was given because the legal mode
(of raising money) had proved ineffectual. If this be estab-
lished, what related to his bringing over the Irish army was of
no importance. He who recommends the adoption of an
arbitrary course, and that particularly of taking the money of
the subject by violence, necessarily calculates upon either
having already a sufficient force to effectuate the object, or on
being able to command it. Therefore, the conclusion is inevit-
able that Strafford either was prepared to introduce the Irish
army, or flattered himself that the executive had strength to
carry through the measure without its assistance. Surely then,
whatever may be said of the Bill of Attainder, it must be
admitted that he committed the most aggravated treason
against the state, and that there would have been a deplorable
defect in the constitutional system if criminality of so horrid a
dye — partly acted upon too — had been permitted to escape
punishment in a country where the heavy penalties of justice
were severely visited on each petty offender."
That Lord Strafford, making every allowance for the
peculiar circumstances of Ireland, abused the high powers
entrusted to him, is beyond dispute, and not less certain is it
that in exacting ship-money he did that which was a violation
of the fundamental laws of the kingdom. From the evidence
produced on his trial, and still more from his private letters
since brought to light, it is quite as certain that it was his
constant aim to subvert the dominion of the laws, and to sub-
stitute the tyranny of a single will in its place. " If this was
not treason," says Dr. Robert Vaughan, " it was, perhaps, high
time it should be made such, since few treasons had equalled it
in atrocity. That the Earl of Strafford deserved to die, according
to the most acknowledged principles of society, was the sincere
89
conviction of nearly all those men who had shown any real
concern for the public welfare, and their object was to conform
the technicalities of the law to the moral character of the case."
The dealing with Strafford by a Bill of Attainder has been
censured by some men of strong views in direction of liberty, as
a departure from the sacred rules of justice. They have
questioned the justice of the act on the ground that it was
retrospective — the making of a law for a purpose referring to a
past offence. They say to warn is the end of punishment. In
reply it is asserted that to warn is not the only reason for
punishing. An incorrigible offender needs to be removed from
the community that it may not suffer further by his conduct.
A powerful and unscrupulous statesman, who could not be
displaced as in these days by a vote of no confidence, had to
be dealt with by such measures as were available, and with a
severity commensurate with the enormity of his offences, even
though it were certain that his fate would not deter others from
imitating his example. There are times when an Act of Par-
liament has to be passed to suspend the Habeas Corpus Act, and
thus interfere with one of the fundamental rights of Englishmen :
that a trial by twelve of their compeers shall, without delay,
follow their being taken into custody by an official of the Govern-
ment. Nobody argues that this power of Parliament should
never be exercised. If the Legislature, in order to reach a
peculiar form of delinquency, may be justified in suspending a
statute, may not the Legislature be justified, while pursuing
the same end, in creating a statute such as the exceptional
circumstances of the case require ?
The historian Hallam remarks : " They who grasp at
arbitrary power : they who make their fellow citizens tremble
before them : they who gratify a selfish pride by the humiliation
and servitude of mankind; have always played a deep stake,
and the more invidious and intolerable has been their pre-
eminence; their fall has been more destructive and their
punishment more exemplary. Something beyond the retirement
go
or the dismissal of such ministers has seemed necessary to
' absolve the gods ' and furnish history with an awful lesson
of retribution. The spontaneous instinct of nature has called
for the axe and the gibbet against such capital delinquents."
My opinion is that, assuming that 'the axe and the gibbet' are
necessary and expedient in any case, not only the Earl of
Strafford but the King, his master, "died justly before God and
man."
There was perhaps this difference between the two cases of
capital punishment for high treason — in the one, that of the
Earl, it was right and expedient, while in that of the other, the
King, it was right but not expedient. John Goodwin, the
philosophic historian, writing before the Restoration, remarks:
" The notion was everywhere prevalent that a Sovereign
could not be called to account — could not be arraigned at the
bar of his subjects. And the violation of this prejudice * *
gave to his person a sacredness which never before appertained
to it. Among his own partisans the death of Charles was
treated and spoken of a sort of deicide. It may be admitted
as a universal rule that the abrupt violation of a deep-rooted
maxim and persuasion of the human mind produces a reaction,
and urges men to hug the maxim closer than ever. I am afraid
that the day that saw Charles perish on the scaffold rendered
the restoration of his family certain." [John Goodwin, the
philosophic historian who was deprived of his church living
(Coleman Street, London) in 1645 for refusing to administer
the Sacrament to his people promiscuously. He wrote a
vindication of the death of Charles I. He was excepted out
of the Act of Indemnity.]
Not long after Straffoi'd's death, Parliament mitigated
his sentence as regarded his children ; thus they were not
disinherited. He married three times — first a lady of the
noble house of Clifford, secondly Arabella, daughter of Holies,
Earl of Clare, the mother of his one son and several
daughters.
91
When the division of the Yorkshire estates of the Went-
worth family took place, and the obelisk to mark that division
was erected on the Barnsley road, the Tankersley portion fell
to the share of the Wentworths of Wentworth Woodhouse, the
head of which is our much-respected neighbour, Earl Fitz-
william.
The prefix Sir seems to call for a remark. The honour
attached to the knighthood conferred by the Stuart kings has
to be measured by the qualifications of the recipients of the
honour. " In the year 1630, Anthony Bentley, of Ovendon,
gentleman, paid ^f 10 composition money for not receiving the
order of knighthood at the coronation of Charles I." " In 1630
Henry Cockcrofte, of Mayroides, in the county of Yorke,
gentleman, paid the sum of £15, and it was discharge of a
composition by him made with His Majesty's Commissioners
for compounding the fines and forfeitures for not attending and
receiving the order of knighthood at His Majesty's coronation,
according to the law in that case provided." James I.
notoriously offered rank and titles for money. In six weeks
he created more than two hundred knights. He instituted the
title of baronet, and the charge he made for it was £1000. His
son Charles II. called upon all the gentry of the kingdom to
take upon themselves the honour of knighthood, and fined those
who refused. Every man holding lands to the amount of £^0
per annum who failed to present himself to the King at his
coronation to receive the order of knighthood was fined.
The practice was introduced by Henry III., but until the
age of the Stuarts little more than a form was the summons
issued. The means resorted to for raising money rather than
have recourse to Parliament were most tyrannical and dis-
graceful. Richard Chambers, a merchant of London, daring
to appeal to the laws of his country against the unauthorised
demands of the Crown, was fined £2000, and sentenced to be
imprisoned until he made submission before the Star Chamber,
the Council and at the Exchange. These terms were not
92
complied with, and after being twelve years in prison he
found himself completely ruined. He said before the Star
Chamber that the traders of Turkey were not more screwed
up than the merchants of England. It is strange the Long
Parliament did not have regard to the petition of the " sturdy
Puritan " for redress.
"The civil authorities, after the example of the spiritual,
had managed to convert the sins of the people into a source of
revenue by admitting a host of delinquents to compound for
their offences." (Brodie, ii., 276-278.)
93
CHAPTER IV.
HowsLEY Hall and other remaining 17TH century buildings in the
DISTRICT — MORTOMLEY HaLL, ChAPELTOWN HoUSE, &C.
The family abode in this district next in importance to the
hall at Tankersley and the mansions of the Mounteneys, would
be, in the 15th and i6th centuries, Howsley Hall, which in the
reign of Edward IV. was the property of that monarch's
chancellor, Thomas, son of Sir Thomas Rotheram and Arch-
bishop of York, the worthy and illustrious prelate, who was
born at Rotherham, who founded a college there, and who
rebuilt the church. In his will, dated 1498, he says he bought
for cxl. lib. the Barnes estate of Robert Shatton, and, of
Sir Thomas Wortley, Housley Hall, for cxx. lib.
The mother of the Archbishop Thomas de Rotheram
was of the family of the Scots, of the parish of Ecclesfield,
and to a member of that family, John Scot, his cousin, the
estate descended by his bequest, and thence to Alice Scot. She,
in 1560, married Thomas Howsley, of the family of that name,
which long before had owned it. At an early date in the
history of the parish of Ecclesfield a John Howsley is
mentioned as the owner of lands within the bounds of Chapel
in that parish. Mr. Hunter, in his reference to this estate,
takes us back to the 12th century. He says : " Maud de
Lovetot, the great heiress of Hallamshire, granted by deed,
without date, to John Camerario all the lands which were
Josselin de Burne's, in Burne, in Chapel, which lands in
process of time came into possession of the family of Howsley,
who seated themselves there, and from whom the capital
messuage or seat was called Howsley Hall." There was a
deed as early as 1436, in which the trustees of a John Howsley
grant to John Howsley and Joan his wife, for their lives, and
94
to William their son after them, and then to John, his brother,
all the lands of the feoffment of the said John Howsley within
the bounds of Chapeltown.
In 1505 the name of John Howsley appears, and a Thomas
Howsley in 1532, but neither of these could be, at those dates,
in possession of the hall at Chapeltown, for the Archbishop
died in 1500, and the Alice Scott to whom, by his bequest, John
Scott, his cousin, it descended, did not marry Thomas Howsley,
of Howsley Hall, until May 14th, 1560. How the estate, and
at what date, passed into the possession of Sir Thomas
Wortley, of whom the Archbishop bought it, does not appear,
but it is clear that sixty-two years before the date of Arch-
bishop Rotheram's will it was in the possession of the Howsley
family. The children of Thomas Howsley and the Alice
Scott, whom he married in 1560, were Elizabeth and Anne.
The former was the wife of Gilbert Dickinson, who, in the
reign of James I., lived at Howsley Hall, and for whom
and his wife, Dodsworth mentions there was an inscription
on the wall of Ecclesfield Church over a pew, of date
1601, and he says it was appointed by the Earl of Shrewsbury.
This Gilbert Dickinson was the brother of Francis Dickinson,
of Rotherham. The younger daughter Anne was married
in 1594 to Gerard Freeman, who died in 1637, leaving
Howseley Hall to his son, named Howsley Freeman, aged
36. From this son the estate descended three generations
later to Captain Howsley Freeman, of the militia, who
had no sons, and whose three daughters, namely, Grace,
wife of Richard Brown, of Aberford ; Lydia, wife of John
Lambert, of Leeds ; and Margaret, became his heirs. They
divided the property into three portions, for which they drew
lots. The Howsley Hall estate fell to the lot of the eldest
daughter, Grace. She left it to the daughter of her sister
Lydia, and this niece, Lydia Lambert, and her husband, Mr.
John Mackereth, of Wakefield, clerk, having complied with the.
condition that she and her husband should change their names
95
to Freeman, became, in 1787, owners of the estate. She lived
until 1837, but did not reside at the hall, but at Howsley
Cottage, Ridal Mount, Ambleside, and her ancestor's antique
Chapeltown dwelling was let, either divided or as a whole, to
various tenants, namely, Mr. William Froggatt, whom she
appointed executor ; Mr. Henry Longden, Jun., Mr. Matthew
Chambers, Sen., in 1818 ; Mrs. Thomas Chambers, after the
death of her husband in 1814 ; Mr. Campsall, the surgeon,
and Mr. Warburton, Mr. Froggatt's son-in-law, who had a
boys' boarding school there. When Mrs. Freeman died it was
found that she had left the Howsley Hall estate to the Right
Hon. James Stuart Wortley. Of him his cousin, the Earl of
Wharncliffe, bought it. There is a paragraph in Dr. Gatty's
volume, " A Life at One Living," which says : " I remember
Mr. Wortley telling me that Mrs. Freeman's unexpected legacy
of her property at Chapeltown (for he had no acquaintance with
the lady, who lived and died at Ambleside) reached him in a
curious manner. A letter was delivered at Wharncliffe House,
London, addressed to himself, but with a postage of five
shillings upon it. Thinking it was probably a monster adver-
tisement, or a hoax, he refused to open it, and it went to the dead
letter office. But in a few weeks he received a letter from the
solicitor at Ambleside, to whom it had been returned, which
ultimately ensured it a very cordial welcome. The parcel-letter
contained the title deeds of the estate, which is now, by purchase,
in the possession of the Earl of Wharncliffe " (p. 49).
Mr. Warburton's widow was married to Mr. Swallow, the
father of the present Mr. Swallow, J. P., of Mosbro', the owner
of cottages near to the Howsley Hall Park, and which were
built by Mr. Froggatt. Of this Mr. Swallow's progenitor there
will be mention further on in connection with the Chapeltown
Furnaces.
"The first Howsley Freeman and his son Thomas com-
pounded for their estate under the Commonwealth. Their
delinquency was that they did collect money for the service
\ I
97
against the Parliament, but were comprised within the Articles
of York. They petitioned April 14th, 1649, desiring considera-
tion of their timely tender to the power of the Parliament,
having, ever since July, 1644, attended the confirmation of
those Articles. They compounded for an estate of which the
fither was seized in fee (the son having only an expectation
thereof), of messuages and lands in Ecclesfield Parish, and a
cottage in Rotherham, worth £52 per annum. Their personal
estate was ^^48, their debts were ^^350, their fine -|ri56."
The Gilbert Dickenson who married Elizabeth Howsley,
and had previously lived at Barnes Hall, would be descended
from the Gilbert Dickenson and his wife who (Dodsworth
mentions) had a pew in Ecclesfield Church over which — on
the wall — was an inscription of date i6or. This husband of
Elizabeth Howsley had to answer a charge brought by Richard
Lord, Vicar of Ecclesfield, for what is now called " practical
joking." He was concerned with others in the killing of deer
in Wharncliffe Chase, pulling down paling in the park, and
otherwise grossly insulting Sir Richard Wortley.
In Ecclesfield Church there are the following tablets : —
" Sacred to the memory of Miss Margaret Freeman, who departed
this life the 6th March, 1783, at Bombay, in the East Indies.
Her disconsolate mother erected this monument as a memorial
of the virtues of the best of daughters.
" Sleep on, blest creature, in the grave,
My sighs and tears cannot awake thee ;
I shall but stay until my turn.
And then, O then, I shall o'ertake thee."
"Herelieth the remains of Howsley Freeman, of Howsley
Hall, who was interred March 5th, 1783, aged 71 years; also
Grace Brown, his sister, who was interred July 8th, 1787, aged
73 years; also Lydia Lambert, his sister, who was interred
December 28th, 1792, aged 77 years ; also Margaret Freeman,
his sister, who was interred March 31st, 1795, aged 76 years;
also the Rev. John Lambert, his nephew, who was interred
November 30th, 1817, aged 6g years."
98
"This tablet, to the memory of Mrs. Lydia Mackereth
Freeman, was erected by William Frogatt, of Howsley Hall, in
this parish, whom she appointed (Executor).* She died at her
residence, Howsley Cottage, Ambleside, Westmoreland, March
2nd, 1837, was interred at Troutbeck, in the said County, and
was the last of the family of Freemans, of Howsley Hall."
On what was formerly a part of the park of Howsley Hall,
are Almshouses founded by this Mrs. Ann Freeman, who died
March 2nd, 1837. I" the centre is a large reading room or
chapel intended to be used every Wednesday afternoon for a
service for the benefit of the inmates, for which Mrs. Freeman
instructed her executors to invest ;^300 in Government Stock.
The other annual income of the charity from an endowment of
;£'2,ii4 15s., amounts to about £70, devisable among the
occupants of the said tenements. She left ;f 100 in Consols,
standing in the name of the Vicar and Churchwardens of
Ecclesfield, the interest to be distributed among the poor by
the said Vicar and Churchwardens. Her reasons for leaving
her estate in Yorkshire to the Hon. James S. Wortley, are thus
stated in her will (proved May 31st, 1837) : —
" And whereas I feel a strong desire that the family estate
of the Freemans should at all times be kept in the style suited
to the station which that family has filled in the world, and as
a strong attachment formerly existed between my late uncle
Howsley Freeman, late of Howsley Hall, Esquire, deceased,
and the grandfather of the present Lord Wharncliffe, I have
selected a member of the house of Wortley to succeed to my
estates in Yorkshire, . . . not doubting that he will prove
himself a worthy descendant of that honourable house, and a
suitable representative of my own family, &c."
In the garden at Howsley Hall, there was a cork tree, a
unique specimen in this district. It was blown down by a
storm of wind on the 24th October, 1868. The tree was (in
* This word is not on the tablet, but seems to be implied. He was not related
to her. There was left him, for his life, the rental of three farms, tradition says,
for reasons arising out of his marriage.
99
its prime) not less than 35 feet high, with branches extending
12 to 15 feet. The bark— that is the actual cork— varied from
two to three inches. There is no record of its age, but it was
thought by Mr. George Parker, Lord Wharncliffe's woodman,
to be about 120 years old when blown down.
During the years 1808 until 1811, while the eldest son of
Mr. Henry Longden, one of the partners when the Thorncliffe
Works were started, was residing at Howsley Hall, it was the
birthplace of the present Mr. William Longden, and his sister
Mrs. Joshua Moss. It was when Mr. Matthew Chambers, sen.,
removed from Low Moor to take part in the management of
the Thorncliffe Works, after the death, in 1817, of his father,
that Howsley Hall became his residence. Afterwards he re-
moved to Chapeltown House, which he took on a lease for
21 years, dated February 2nd, 1826. The widow of his elder
brother, Mr. Thomas Chambers, also resided at Howsley Hall.
Mr. Campsall, the surgeon, lived there until he bought the
house at Chapeltown lately pulled down by the Midland
Railway Company in constructing their branch line between
Wincobank and the Thorncliffe Works.*
Mortomley, near to Chapeltown, on the north-west, has a
history which goes back to 1227. The following is Mr. East-
wood's account of the hamlet : — " It is mentioned among the
estates of Lord Furnival in 1365, and again among those of
William de Furnival in 1365, as yielding 50s. per annum. In
both cases it is spelt Northumley. If this be the true form, it
seems to point to the etymon, North-holm-ley, similar to
Bright-holm-ley, in the chapelry of Bradfield. In 1227,
Jeremiah de Morthumley was witness to a deed of John de
Midhope. In the same century Gerard de Furnival granted to
Ralph Wortley lands in Troghesels, and lands of Ralph
Duddefyn in Mortomley, with common of pasture in Eccles-
field and Mortomley ; and, among the Cottonian Charters, a
* In the cottage near to Howsley Hall lived for a time John Sheldon, the
father of Jabez and Benjamin Sheldon, well-known in this neighbourhood.
lOI
deed of 4 Henry IV. (1403) mentions that Nicholaus de
Mortumley quitclaims to Arnald Wyke, Vicar of Ecclesfield,
and John Raynold, chaplain, a messuage and three plots of
land in Waldershelf, which formerly belonged to Adam de
Sewynok. In a deed of 27 Henry VI. (1449), William de
Brekersherth de Rotherham gives to John Talbot, Knt., of
Salop, all his lands in Mortomley, which he had of John Boton,
of Rotherham."
The present Mortomley Hall, of which there is here
a sketch, was built on the site of the older house by John
Parkyn, in 1703, who put that date and the initials of his
own and his wife's names over the door. The older house,
part of which remains, had long been the home of the
Parkyns. As far back as 1567 they owned the estate.
In the time of Henry VIII. lands at Mortomley were held
by Robert Parkyn (as evidenced by proceedings in Chan-
cery of date 1602), and from him the property descended
through ten generations of the name to Miss Catherine
Parkin, who became the wife of John Jeffcock, Esq., J. P.,
brother of the late William Jeffcock, Esq., of High Hazles,
the much respected first Major of Sheffield. The son of
that lady, the Rev. John Thomas Jeffcock, M.A., F.S.A.,
Rector of Wolverhampton, Prebendary of Lichfield, compiled
for Mr. Eastwood a pedigree of the Parkins which shows that
William Parkin, Esq., who married, first, Mary, daughter
of Lionel Copley, Esq., of Sprodborough, and secondly,
Catherine, daughter of Patientius Warde, Esq., of Hutton-
Pagnel, died, aged 60, on May 2nd, 1757, without issue,
and that his entailed estates at Mortomley and Darley
descended to a nephew, Thomas Parkin, who married a
daughter of William Wilkinson, of Crowder House, and
from that Thomas Parkin to his grand daughter, Mrs.
Jeffcock, sole heiress of her father, after the death of her
brother. This family of Parkyn, which was settled at Mortom-
ley Hall in the reign of Henry VIII., dates back in the female
H
I02
line through ancestors bearing the names Adams, Castleford,
Rockley, &c., to Swain, the son of Ailric, the son of Rychard
Aschenald, Lord of Staincross,* &c., in the time of Edward
the Confessor.t
In Ecclesfield Church, in the south choir, is a tablet in-
scribed thus : — " Sacred to the memory of Thomas Parkin,
late of Mortomley Hall, in this parish. He was born January
21, 1770, and departed this life June 15, 1808, aged 38 years."
"And near this place lie interred the remains of 'William
Parkin, son of Thomas Parkin, Esq., and last male heir of the
family; he was born October g, 1807, and died, much lamented,
aged 17 years, January 17, 1825. He was a youth of virtuous
and pious principles, and of amiable and endearing manners.
He bore a long affliction and much acute sufferingwith Christian
patience and fortitude, and died in hope of a joyful Resurrection
into eternal life."
In the nave of the church is the following : "Here lieth
interred the body of Mary, wife of William Parkyn, gentleman,
of Mortomley, daughter of Lionel Copley, of Sprotborough,
Esqre., obt Oct. ye 26th, 1736, set 34."
" Here lieth interr'd ye body of William Parkyn, Esqre.,
of Mortomley, Obt. ye 2nd of May, 1757, aged 60."
"In memory of Thomas Parkin, Esqre., who departed
this life April i6th, 1776, aged 46 years."
" Also Hannah, the wife of the aforesaid Thomas Parkin,
Esqre., who departed this life Novr. the 23, 1790, aged 58
years."
" Ako of Catherine Parkin, one of the daughters of the
above named Thomas and Hannah Parkin, who departed this
life the 23rd day of June, 1804, aged 42 years."
*A district which includes the Parish of Tankersley.
+1 may add, as an item of genealogical interest to those whom it may concern,
that Catherine Jeffcock, the grandmother of Mr. John Jeffcock, of Cowley, and his
three brothers, was daughter of a race whose descent is traced lo a possessor of
land granted by Roger de Laci, who died October ist, I2ri. (See Whitaker's
History of the Parish of Whalley, p. 316, 1800 edition).
I03
"Sacred to the memory of Thos. Parkin, Esqre., late of
Mortomley, who departed this life June the 15th, 1808, aged
38 years.
" Through death's dark vale we hope to find the way
To the bright regions of eternal day ;
Life's but a moment : death that moment ends ;
Thrice happy he who well his moment spends,
For on that dreadful point eternity depends,"
Mr. William Parkin, by his will in 1757 left ^50 for the
purchase of Communion plate, and the articles that bequest
provided are a solid silver flagon and four solid silver plates.
On the flagon is inscribed : " This given to Ecclesfield Church
1759 by the late William Parkyn, Esqre., of Mortomley Hall,
by will, for the Communion table." Upon the plates there is
this inscription : " Given by will to Ecclesfield Church by
William Parkyn, Esq., of Mortomley Hall, 1759."
William Parkin, of Mortomley, also by will in 1757 left £"50-
charged upon the Mortomley estate, the interest to be paid to
the schoolmaster of Lound School for teaching six poor children
of Mortomley and Mortomley Lane End.
Formerly belonging to members of the Parkyn family who
resided at Horbury, was Greg House, near the Sheffield and
Barnsley road, " a complete specimen of a farm-house of the
period about 1680. Paul Parkyn, of the Horbury, died seized
of it in 1751. The name is said to be a contraction of Gregory
House, from a family still numerous in that neighbourhood,
which has a considerable local reputation for musical talent."
Preserved among the papers of Mr. Thomas Parkin, of
Mortomley, is a list of his pack of hounds, the members of
which were sent to "Summer" with various persons. For
tenancy of some sort, Mr. William Parkin, at Mortomley, in
1771, paid £4 5s. to the Duke of Norfolk.
As a memorial of Mr. Parkin Jeffcock, who lost his life in
his heroic effort to rescue miners at the time of the Oaks
Colliery explosion, was erected, 21 years ago, St. Saviour's
Church at Mortomley.
104
High Green House, where for some years in the middle of
this century Mr. George Chambers resided, is associated in
local records with the names of Sylvester, Phipps, Reresby
and Foster. In 1637, Elizabeth Stones, widow, and her son
Ralph, were joint occupiers of High Green Farm. The name
Silvester occurs very frequently on the parish records ; the
earHest being Robert, buried 1583 ; and Edward, in 1594,
churchwarden, and, in 1616, Feoffee. The latter is described
in the Parish Register as " of Hyegrene," in September, 1599.
I surmise that his residence would be the present High Green
House (or one on the same site 300 years ago), and that after-
wards, in 1670, it would be in that "sole house of importance,"
in what Mr. Eastwood calls "that straggling hamlet." By
Edward Sylvester, of the Tower of London, one of the High
Green family, was founded the Mortomley Lane End hospital.
He was probably brother to John Sylvester, of Burthwaite, in
the parish of Darton, near Barnsley. Mrs. Anne Sylvester,
spinster, sister to the above John and Edward, by will dated
August 14th, 1711, left "the income of two hundred pounds to
be given and distributed yearly some time before Easter, at the
discretion of the trustees, to the Poorhouse-keepers within
Greno Firth or Quarter, and that the income of the residue
or remainder, be it more or less, be employed in putting forth
of poor children belonging to the aforesaid Firth or Quarter
to trades ; the vicar of Ecclesfield for the time being to be
always a trustee, and the rest to be nominated by my
Executor, John Silvester, of Burthwaite, in the parish of
Darton and county of York, Esquire. The " residue or
remainder" was about ;fioo, and the whole of Mrs. Anne
Sylvester's bequest to the parish was laid out in purchasing
a farm at Whitley.
In that hospital are seven rooms for seven poor men
or women of the parish of Ecclesfield, respect being had to
those who live on the north side of the parish, and who are
entitled nearly to 30/- or more if the estate produces more.
105
Mr. Nicholas Silvester was to have the patronage during
his life, and then the vicar and churchwardens of Eccles-
field.
There is a monument in Ecclesfield church of a George
Phipps, senior, of High Green, who married Susanna, the
daughter of Immanuel Knutton, the vicar of that parish, during
the Commonwealth. She was buried at Ecclesfield, June igth,
1720, aged 70 years. In 1649 there was living at Holbrook,
near to High Green, a Thomas Phipps, who owed ;^ioo to
Mr. Dickinson, of Howsley Hall.
High Green School, which has recently fallen into the
hands of the Ecclesfield School Board, was oiiginated by a
member of the Reresby family. The report of the Charity
Commissioners for 1839 states that " Ann Reresby, by will
dated June 23rd, 1801, bequeathed to the Rev. Samuel Phipps,
Samuel Tooker, Esq., and Mr. John Foster the sum of £500,
the interest thereof to be applied to the education of any
number of poor girls not exceeding thirty within the several
places called High Green, Thompson Hill, Potter Hill and
Mortomley. In an old cottage or school-house children were
being taught by a Mrs. Elizabeth Arthur, and for the benefit
of this school Mrs. Ann Reresby gave ^200. Mr. John Foster
was the trustee who received the money, but before he had
invested it he died. His heir, in 1839, conveyed to William
Smith, of Barnes Hall, Esq., "a cottage at High Green, with
croft, formerly in the occupation of John Foster, deceased,
afterwards of John Foster of Lingodell, and now, or late, of
George Chambers. This cottage and old school-house together
occupied 362 square yards." The rent was paid to the master,
and in 1862 amounted to £2 12s.
In 1840 (Dec. 31) Mr. Smith conveyed the above to George
Chambers, Thomas Chambers, Thomas Newton, William
Smith, jun., John Jeffcock, and John Bower Foster, in trust
for school uses, and in or about 1843 the present school-house
was built, at a cost of ;f6oo, on another site containing 3420
io6
square yards, let by the Duke of Norfolk, Oct. 6, 1842, for
99 years, at an annual rent of 5s., to George Chambers,
Thomas Newton, Thomas Chambers and John Chambers.
The amount for the building of it was raised by voluntary
subscriptions and grants from the British and Foreign School
Society, hence it has been known as " The British School."
Mrs. Reresby was the last, according to her epitaph, of a
very ancient family in Yorkshire, which family is said to have
come into the county from Ashover in Derbyshire. Its origin
has been traced to a place of the name in Lincolnshire. Mr.
Eastwood says : — " There was a Ralph Reresby who is said to
have married a daughter of Ralph de Normanville, of Thri-
bergh, of which place in 1328 Sir Adam Reresby was owner
as heir to his uncle. In the thirteenth generation from him
was Leonard, son of Godfrey and nephew of Sir Thomas
Reresby, who died in 1619. This Leonard Reresby is described
as of Ecclesfield. Two more generations are given in the
pedigree, in the second of which Mary, daughter of Leonard
Reresby the younger, married William Sitwell, of Sheffield,
Sept. 21, 1693, from which connection the present Sir Sitwell
Reresby Sitwell, of Renishaw, Bart., derives one of his names."
On a brass plate in the north aisle of Ecclesfield Church
there is the following inscription :—" Ann Reresby, spinster,
died the 24th day of September, 1802, aged ^-j years. Her
extensive charities will be long remembered and felt, and the
aged occupants of the Lane End Hospital and the Charity
School for poor girls at High Green bear testimony to her
benevolent heart. She was the last of the ancient and
respectable family of Reresby in this county."
At High Green House was resident for forty years, holding
the office of coroner, Mr. John Foster, a gentleman belonging
to an old-established family in this district.* He died October
*He was uncle to, and his house at High Green was for some years the home
in his youth of my relative the late Mr. Joseph Foster, Town Councillor and
High Bailiff of Doncaster, who liked to tell of his Lound schooldays, and of the
bear-baitings he witnessed at High Green.
107
4th, 1822. He was associated with the musical reputation for
which this neighbourhood has some claim, for he was a com-
poser and an enthusiastic player of the violoncello. " Mr.
Foster, about the year 1820, published a volume of sacred
music of his own composition. One of the tunes, called High-
Green, is considered to have very great merit." — {Eastwood p.
548). He married the daughter, Sarah, of a Mr. Phipps. She
died September 24th, iSog, aged 66. One of their sons, Joseph
Foster, was the father of Thomas Wood Foster, of Ecclesfield,
surgeon, who died December i8th, 1852, aged 39 years, leaving
a son, Arthur Reresby Foster, and two daughters.
Lound School, built upon land given by George Allen, of
Chapeltown, a tanner, had its origin in the will of Mrs. Anne
Sylvester, a maiden sister of John Sylvester, Esquire, of Burth-
waite, in the pansh of Darton, in this county. In that docu-
ment, dated August 14th, 1711, she left ;fioo in these words : — ■
" I give and bequeath the income of one hundred pounds for
teaching so many poor children to read as the executor here-
after named, together with the feoffees in trust, shall think
convenient, belonging to Chapeltown, Mortomley Lane End
and Burn Cross, provided that the inhabitants of the above-
named places shall erect a school-house in some convenient
place for that purpose ; the Vicar of Ecclesfield for the time
being to be always a trustee, and the rest to be nominated by
my executor, John Sylvester, of Burthwaite, in the parish of
Darton, and county of York, Esq." A stone preserved from
the old school building, and which is to be seen over the
main entrance of the present school, has upon it, " Mrs. Anne
Silvester by will, Augustjai4th, 1711, left £5 per ann for
teaching poor children of Grenoforth, and 3^15 per ann to
be divided amongst the poor, and to put out children belonging
to the same." During more than a century this simple
establishment, opened on the 9th April, 1716, was the regular
school for;poor children of the Grenofirth quarter of the parish
of Ecclesfield ; and, as there]was'no limit to the admission of
io8
scholars, in addition to those who were taught free, it was
often very numerously attended. The children were taught
" to read the bible, and learn the catechism and the elements
of writing and arithmetic " ; and once every year they were
publicly catechised in the Parish Church, at Ecclesfield, by
the Vicar, the ex-officio trustee.
Grants of money by the Privy Council and the National
Society having been obtained for the re-building of the school,
so that it could be used as a place of public worship, the
first stone of the existing edifice was laid in November, 1844,
by Lord Wharncliffe, and it was opened in 1845 for 276
scholars. From that time the building was used for public
worship, until the Rev. John Kidd, the first incumbent after
the village was made into a separate ecclesiastical district,
built a school near Cowley, which he used for divine service in
preference to the one at Loundside. In 1859, on November
3rd, was laid the first stone of the St. John's Church, conse-
crated on the 28th November, i860. This church is scarcely
old enough to be included in antiquarian researches, but in its
grave-yard is the tomb of the late Mr. Thomas Newton, who,
after the death of his father, Mr. George Newton, in 1825, was
head of the firm of Newton, Chambers & Co., and there are
buried the earthly remains of those of his family who have
passed away, namely, Mrs. Newton his wife, his eldest son
George, and his youngest daughter Mary Harriet, also his
brother George Newton, who died at Staindrop Lodge, in 1863,
also of Mrs. Thomas Chambers (Mrs. Thomas Newton's mother),
who died June 4th, 1865, aged 85 years. In that churchyard
was also buried the vvidow of Robert Chambers, the second son
of Mr. Chamber?, senior. She, Sarah Gregory, and Robert
Chambers were married February 17th, 1793. She survived
him until June 4th, 1865, attaining the extreme age of 94 years.
One of the smaller windows of the Church is of stained glass, in
memory of Matthew Edward Chambers, who died March i8th,
1875, younger son of Mr. Matthew Chambers, of Barbot Hall.
log
The present vicar, the Rev. William Micklethwaite, was
appointed in 1857. He is one of the family referred to in the
following paragraph of Mr. Hunter's History of South Yorkshire
(p. 293, vol. 2). — "Here," Swaithe Hall, "was also a family which
derives its name from the place, and who appear as witnesses or
principals in very early charters. It afterwards belonged to the
name of Micklethwaite, one of whose co-heirs married an Elm-
hurst, Richard Elmhurst, of Houndhill, married Margaret,
daughter of Richard Micklewaite, of Swaithe Hall, his first wife."
Allen is a name which appears frequently in connection
with Chapeltown in the last century. To the Aliens belonged,
for at least two hundred years, Chapeltown House. When, a
few years ago, Mr. George Dawson was negociating with Major
All^n for the purchase of it, mention was made of the fact that
it had been the property of the family of the Aliens for two
hundred years. From a Mr. Thomas Allen, of Huddersfield, the
house was taken on lease, in 1826, for twenty-one years, by Mr.
Matthew Chambers, senior, at whose death, in 1828, his son
Matthew removed into it, and remained the tenant until he had
Barbot Hall offered to him by Earl Fitzwilliam, in 1847. Miss
Allen, the last of the family, resided at Chapeltown House before
she removed to Highfield, Sheffield, some time previous to 1826.
Her monument in Ecclesfield Church bears the following in-
scription : — " Sacred to the memory of Mary Allen, spinster, late
of Highfield, near Sheffield, and heretofore of Chapeltown, in
this parish, last surviving child of the late Mr. John Allen,* of
the latter place. She died on the 4th of December, 1836, in the
76th year of her age, and was interred in the cemetery of this
church in the same grave with her father of pious memory. In
all the relations of life she exemplified in no ordinary degree the
power of Divine Grace, by which she constantly sought to be
guided. This monument was erected by the children of a
deceased sister, whose early loss to them she had supplied
with all the tenderness of a mother."
*This John Allen died August 7th, 1807, aged 78 years.
<IX1
Ill
One of the family of the Aliens married Susanna, daughter
of Joseph Scott, of Alverthorpe, near Wakefield, gentleman,
and grandfather of the late Joseph Scott, of Woodsome and
Badsworth, Esq. Others are mentioned on tombstones in the
churchyard at Ecclesfield, the earliest being in 1722. They
seem, says Mr. Eastwood, to have been connected with the
ironworks at Chapeltown.
Thomas Allen, gentleman, married, first, Gertrude,
daughter of Thomas Steade, of Onesacre, and by his
wife, Elizabeth Creswick, of Boroughleigh, had issue John
Allen, whose grandson was Benjamin Haigh Allen, of Green-
head, Esq., J. P. He married, secondly, Elizabeth, daughter
and finally heiress to Robert Middleton, of Eyam, and had a
daughter Sarah, who married the Rev. John Carver, Rector of
Whiston and Treeton, and from them descended John Carver
Athorpe, of Dinnington, Esq., J. P. Members of the Allen
family "are said to have lived at the old-fashioned substantial
house at the cross-roads in the middle of the village." Thus
Mr. Eastwood describes the building where is now the post-
office and where Mr. Gradwell has a grocer's shop. The
portion of the premises on the south side here shown, covered
with ivy, and now known as Ivy House, is the residence of
Mrs. John Gibson. For many years the building has been owned
by the Thorncliffe Company. It was there they formerly carried
on a retail business to supply their workmen with groceries,
drapery goods, &c.
Mr. George Allen, who gave the land for the building of
the Lound School, opened April gth, 1716, was a tanner, and no
doubt had his home either where is now the post-office or at
' Chapeltown House. There are names of persons mentioned
whose abodes cannot be identified. For the White Lane
Coalpits and coalpits at Mortomley, Edward Wingfield and
Thomas Ragge paid rent to the Earl of Shrewsbury — for the
former ten, and the latter forty pounds per annum. That was
in the year 1637, in the reign of Charles I., when the Atter-
"3
cliffe forges would no longer be in the hands of the Earl for
his own benefit, but let to tenants ; and the question arises —
Was coal then used for smelting the ironstone obtainable in
the neighbourhood of Chapeltown ? In that year, 1637,
Zachray Parkin paid a coal royalty to the Earl of Shrewsbury
of forty shillings, and in 1711 seventy-five shillings were paid
by John Parkin.
The name Falding has been known in this district since
the middle of the last century. It appears in the Ecclesfield
list of churchwardens. John Falding was warden for Greno-
forth in 1731, "William Falden " in 1754, Wm. Falding in
1846, and Joseph Falding in 1852. Two bachelor brothers of
the name are said to have built the house at Chapeltown
recently demolished to make way for the branch line of the
Midland Railway Company, and which, after Mr. Darwin left
it, became the residence of gentlemen of the medical pro-
fession, namely. Dr. Campsall, Dr. Aveling, Dr. Stone, Dr.
Samuel Drew and Dr. Snadden. The site of the old Mount
Pleasant Chapel, built in 1805, was a croft owned by a
Mr. Falding. At Greenhead, Loundside, Burncross and
Ecclesfield the Faldings have been owners of house property.
Greenhead Cottage has upon it the date 1838, and initials
J.M.F., indicating that it was built by Joseph and Mary
Falding. This Mrs. Falding and Mrs. Horsfield were the
two sisters who erected in Ecclesfield Church a monument to
the memory of their brother, and which is thus inscribed: —
" Sacred to the memory of Thomas Cliffe, schoolmaster, late
of Whitley Hall, in this parish, who died April 6th, 1824, '"
the 29th year of his age. He owed his elevation in life chiefly
to his pious habits, with persevering industry and high attain-
ments in literature. When these seemed to promise him
continued prosperity, a short illness removed him from his
earthly prospects, deprived his friends of a most affectionate
relative, and the rising generation of a kind and intelligent
instructor.
114
" Triumphant Death exulting seized his prey,
And as we wept his trophies waved on high ;
But virtue lives : the vanquished makes his way,
Is conqueror crown'd and reigns beyond the sky.
His two sisters erect this tribute of affection in commemoration
of his many excellencies."
Of the member of the Falding family who was for the
the greater part of his life connected with the Rotherham
Independent College, first as student and afterwards as prin-
cipal, the Rev. H. H. Oakley uttered, from his pulpit at
Broompark Congregational Church, words which show what
he thought of his old tutor from a student's point of view :—
" Dr. Falding impressed and influenced his fellow men, whether
they were students in the College or fellow citizens in the town, less
by what he did or gave than by what he was. It was as a noble
character more than as a noble thinker or worker that he won the
reverent esteem of all with whom he had to do. Goodness — not
birth nor wealth, nor brilliant parts, much less any artful pandering
to popular ignorance or prejudice — was the pedestal on which, to
the eyes of his fellow worshippers and fellow citizens in general,
the doctor stood conspicuous and eminent. Dr. Falding entertained
a fatherly solicitude for the true success of his students in the work
of the Christian ministry. In these traits of character all saw
Dr. Falding's best equipment for the delicate and responsible office,
the duties of which he discharged so faithfully, so discretely, so
efficiently, and so long ; and in which, however valuable his
services of other kinds and in other fields, his noblest and most
fruitful work was done. Dr. Falding was a conspicuous example of
patient continuance in well being. He had in a very eminent degree
the grace of steadiness — much of his strength lay in this ; much ot
the beneficence of his influence came from this source. He was
not given to change, neither did he meddle much with them
that were. He had certain principles clearly apprehended and
tenaciously held on which he ruled his conduct. He believed in
the power and ultimate victory ot truth, and in steady believing
labours. He held nostrums of all kinds in abhorrence. Nothing
made him so angry as to see people run after practisers of a mere
Dr. Falding, born at Chapeltown June 14, i8ib ; died December, 1892.
"5
trick, or follow some may-be self-deluded advertiser of short cuts
to the millennium. Charlatancy in literature, in religion and in
politics was amongst the few things which could move him to show
temper. He believed in progress, but he was slower and surer than
some in making up his mind what progress was. As a result, every
year of his long life improved his record, added weight to his
opinion, and increased his power to present persuasively with that
moderation of tone and statement which is born of long conviction,
and is of all things the most convincing — the truth by which he
lived."
Gills is an old Chapeltown name of some prominence.
Nicholas Gills in 1644 was churchwarden for Grenoforth, and
one of the same name in 1693. In 1735 Nicholas Gills, of
Chapeltown, by will dated October 20th left, amongst other
things, " ioo£ for teaching six poor children, born of honest
parents in Grenoforth Quarter, till such times as they can read
well in the Bible, and also towards apprenticing the same to
honest trades." On his tombstone he is described as a " Nail
Chapman, of Chapeltown, who departed this life the 5th of
March, 173I, aged 79." Vicar Steer says : " He died an old
bachelor worth ,^2000, which he had got himself, and with a
fair character."
In the Ecclesfield Register is the following entry, 1605,
Nov. : " Nychns fil. Nicholi Gyiles & Margaretse yxoris eius
et neptis eius de Chappell bapt. x° die."
The name Almond is also an old one in this neighbourhood.
Mr. James Almond, the present Mr. John Watson Almond's
father, lived on the premises now called Ivy House, and also
owned the property adjacent, where is Mr. Beard's shop, and
the building where Mr. Barton had a school, and where the
first Wesleyan Methodists in this hamlet worshipped. Paul
Almond, of the same family, lived at the Farmstead, at Green-
side, lately occupied by the Whittakers.* The public-house,
the Norfolk Arms, at the end of Warren lane, of which Mr. J.W.
* He was Churchwarden for Grenofirth (for Mr. Freeman), in 1773. In 1767
and 1768, Philemon Alniond, of Hole House, was Grenofirth Warden,
ii6
Almond is landlord, is a very ancient habitation, some portions
of it being four centuries old. The "White Horse " public-house,
in the Market place, the property of Launcelot Iveson, Esq., has
upon its signboard the date, 1720. The other old house, the
" Wagon and Horses," is no doubt as ancient. The house in
Station road, near wh^e was the toll bar, and which pleasantly
faces the wood, was the residence of Mrs. Brothers, the widow
of an officer in the army, and sister of Mr. James Malam, who
was much at ThornclilTe in connection with the first use of
coal-gas for lighting purposes. She and her four sons,
Orlando, Valentine, Colin and Horatio ; and her two
daughters, Rebecca (Mrs. Darwin) and Rosalind (Mrs. Wilson)
were well-known in this neighbourhood fifty years ago.
The old brick house at Greenside, pulled down by Mr.
Dowson, and on the site of which he built the villa which
has lately been purchased with a view to its being converted
into a much needed hotel, was the residence of Mr. George
Hall, a maltster, brother of the late Rev. Francis Hall, Vicar
of Greasbro'. There was a rector of Tankersley named
Francis Hall, who in 1773 sold the estate of his family,
Nether Swaithe, to Major Milner, of Burton Grange.
117
CHAPTER V.
Barley Hall. — Methodism at Thorpe, High Green and Chapeltown.
" To uphold the integrity of the Christian dogma, to trace its workings,
and to exhibit its adaptation to human thought and human welfare in all the
varying experience of the ages is, in my view, perhaps the noblest of all tasks
which it is given to the human mind to pursue. This is the guardianship of the
great fountain of human hope, happiness and virtue." — W. E. Gladstone,
Content. Rev., July, 1875 (p. 144)-
Alluding to the forty-eight years during which the
Rev. James Dixon was vicar of the parish of Ecclesfield,
Mr. Eastwood says : " It was rather a period of the Church's
slumber, and if a cloud was over the ecclesiastical affairs of
Ecclesfield, it shadowed also the whole northern province.
John Wesley could not move as he wished within the Church,
so he found scope for his energies beyond the pale of her
discipline ; and connected with that extraordinary man's visit
to Sheffield at this time was the foundation of Mount Pleasant
Chapel at Loundside." Not irrelevant to this chapter is the
question, " How came there to be over ecclesiastical affairs
that cloud, hiding the light from heaven which reveals that
' God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself?' "
We are told that Mr. Dixon " was chaplain to the
Marquis of Rockingham, which caused him to be a great deal
at Wentworth House, where he met the celebrated Rousseau,
and came under the influence of the false conclusions of that
talented man. No doubt the thought of the age was tainted
by the sceptical theories of Paine, Voltaire, Rousseau and
Spinoza, and other learned writers, who, because Christianity
reveals mysteries which reason apart from faith has not the
power to reach, were unreasonably and foolishly its opponents.
At that time, of the state of religion in England we know
that Bishop Butler wrote : " It is come, I know not how, to
ii8
be taken for granted by many persons that Christianity is not
so much as a subject of enquiry, but that it is now at length
discovered to be fictitious, and accordingly they treat it as if,
in the present age, this were an agreement among all people of
discernment, and nothing remained but to set it up as a
principal subject of mirth and ridicule, as it were, by way of
reprisals for its having so long interrupted the pleasures of
the world." But there was a cause more likely to have
produced the condition of ecclesiastical affairs which Mr.
Eastwood describes as a state of slumber — a cause traceable
to the character of the government of the disreputable and ill-
advised King Charles II., to whom is unquestionably applicable
the familiar line —
" The evi) which men do lives after them."
It suits the purpose of some historians to make no
mention of the fact that the reaction brought about by the
Restoration included not only the suppression of the eccen-
tricities of the Puritans, but of the godliness (iisebia), the
fountain forth from which spring virtue, morality and good
citizenship.
Alluding to the time when the Directory of the West-
minster Assembly was substituted for the Book of Common
Prayer, Mr. Eastwood says : " In 1645, Jan. 3, an Ordinance
of Parliament took away the Book of Common Prayer and
established in its stead the ' Directory for the Public Worship
of God in the Three Kingdoms.' This was followed, Aug. 23,
by another Ordinance 'for the more effectual putting in
execution the Directory.' Henceforth to use the Book of
Common Prayer in any public place of worship or in any
private place or family within the Kingdom was punishable by
a fine. Then came a time of hypocrisy and violence, during
which the voice of the Church of England was silenced and
Presbyterianism, after trying to bring a spiritual despotism
into every parish and household, was in its turn obliged tg
yield to Independency — ' a hydra of many heads.' "
iig
I remark (being free equally with Mr. Eastwood to intro-
duce an ecclesiastical opinion) that in comparison with the
times preceding and immediately subsequent to the Common-
wealth era, the description of it as "a period of hypocrisy
and violence " cannot be justified. Surely it is true that Royal
and Episcopalian tyranny had been far in excess of the inde-
fensible restrictions of religious freedom of the Long Parliament.
As to the forbidding of the use of the Prayer Book may be cited
'as a set-off the expulsion, in 1768, from St. Edmund's Hall,
Oxford, of six University men for reading and expounding the
Scriptures and for being so Methodistical as to offer extempore
prayer, one of the six being the Rev. Thomas Grove, who
became the minister at the Masborough Independent Chapel.
It is surely a fact that the religious principles openly professed
and acted upon by the adherents of Independency were the
very opposite of those which allow of persecution.
Roman Catholics, Anglicans, Presbyterians all sanctioned
the enforcement of religious belief by the State, as did not the
Independency hydra which had Milton for its champion. It is
necessary to regard Cromwell as a hypocrite in order to be in
accord with the tone of Mr. Eastwood's comments. A fairly
accurate knowledge of what Cromwell wrote and said and did
and of the public events of his day should surely forbid a
candid student of history repeating that slander. It is one of
very many groundless assertions to which is applicable the
remark, anent another matter, of Mr. Froude, who says :
" Loose statements of this kind, lightly made, fall in with the
modern humour. They are caught up, applauded, repeated and
pass unquestioned into history. It is time to correct them a
little." I venture the opinion that, if the time of the reign of
Charles II. had been no more a time of "violence and hypocrisy"
than was the time of the Commonwealth, there would not have
been such a cloud overshadowing ecclesiastical affairs. The
men removed from their pulpits in the time of Cromwell
were interfered with because they failed to show they were
I20
competent to do the work for which they had been appointed.
That has never been said of those who were ejected when the
Act of Uniformity was passed and put in force. Speaking
generally of the two thousand who gave up their livings (as
men are not wont to do merely from "a spirit of opposition ")
rather than be false to their convictions, they were not shepherds
dismissed because they were not fitted to tend their flocks.
Mr. Eastwood, having quoted from Collier's strongly-coloured
" Ecclesiastical History," says : " These sweeping statements
coming from the opposite party, must doubtless be accepted
with a reservation; such names, for instance, as Heywood and
Baxter can never be mentioned without respect, as being those
of truly pious, conscientious men, whose great object was the
spiritual welfare of their fellow men, and who spared no pains
and shrank from no hardships in trying to attain that object.
Others endured hardships too, but in many instances worldly
motives and the spirit of opposition shine through and woefully
detract from the merit of their proceedings." It is more easy
for those who fail to see the merit of the proceedings of the
" separatists " to attribute worldly motives to them than to
show good grounds for the suspicion. After losing most of its
best ministers in 1662, the State Estabhshment did little to
instruct the people religiously in accordance with the teaching
of Christ and His apostles. What was done was by various
sorts of Evangelists, chiefly outsiders, who were not merely
Christians in name, as evidenced by their lives, but showed
that they knew by personal experience the saving truth under-
lying the formularies of Christianity, and were active and
zealous in its dissemination.
In tracing how the influence of Methodism reached this
district, which a cloud is said to have shadowed, we find there
is mention in the last century of the visits of eminent and
zealous men who came to preach the " Word of God " (the
same divine message but with fewer human perversions than
that which Archbishop Rotheram had, three centuries before,
121
by his will provided that the provost of his new college at
Rotherham should preach in the parish of Ecclesfield as well
as in that of which he was a native). To High Green often
came Grimshaw, the vicar of Haworth, and occasionally heard
there were the stirring appeals of George Whitfield. At Barley
Hall, on the opposite side of Chapeltown, year after year were
uttered earnest Gospel words by that "extraordinary man," as
Mr. Eastwood designates him, John Wesley, and sometimes
those of his brother Charles Wesley. George Whitfield, on
returning to England from America in 1741, declared his full
assent to the doctrines of John Calvin, while Mr. Wesley
professed an Arminian doctrine. The difference in the views
of these two great evangelists caused a separation. The
Methodists were thus divided, one part following Mr. Wesley
and the other Mr. Whitfield. They were, however, agreed on
the question — What can the Gospel of the New Testament do
for humanity ? They both emphasized in their preaching the
fall and depravity of man, the atonement, restoration through
the merits of a crucified Saviour, repentance and regeneration.
They preached in a popular style, with eloquence, vehemence
and enthusiasm, their zeal presenting a marked contrast to the
philosophical indifference of most of the established clergy.
Whitfield, the boldest of the apostles of Methodism and the
most eloquent, often collected hearers in fields, churchyards
and even at fairs, in numbers estimated at from ten to twelve
thousand. The distinctive character of Methodism is not so
much in its doctrines as in the application of them : the
bringing out of creeds — what is divinely true — 'into the minds
and lives of men that they may be saved. The fruits of Whit-
field's preaching were perhaps not less than those of Wesley,
but the latter reaped what they both had sown. He had the
organising skill of the illustrious general of his family whose
name, Wellesley, had not been shortened to Wesley.
"The rise of Methodism," says the writer of an article
in one of our Encyclopedias, " was a revival of religion in
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123
England. Since the Reformation there had been no such efforts
made in the cause of religion ; no preaching so awakening, so
little sectarian y no preachers with more zeal, singleness of
purpose, and power of exhortation. It awoke the slumbering
Church from its lukewarmness, and Dissenters to more bold
and united efforts of Christian zeal. It addressed the ignorant,
the poor, the hardened, in such a manner as to interest their
feehngs and command their attention. It has done much and
is doing much to instruct as well as to excite them. It made
its way at first through persecution and outrage, and after
spreading over its native country, it has established missions
in the most distant parts of the old and new world.*
The distinct affirmation of this quotation is too obviously
true to be questioned, although Methodism may be open to
the animadversions of those who dislike, in religious advocates,
what is irregular and thought to be extravagant. Of course
what is of sterling value in Methodism is to be judged of in
the light of the teaching of Christ and his apostles, apart from
the theology and ecclesiasticism which have come down to us
from other sources. "
Evidence as to what John Wesley believed and preached
may be found in a summary written, in the year 1771, by the
Rev. John Fletcher, vicar of Madeley, who says : — " For
above sixteen years I have heard him frequently in his
chapels, and sometimes in my church ; I have familiarly con-
versed and corresponded with him, and have often perused "
his numerous works in verse and prose ; and can truly say, he
maintains the total fall of man in Adam, faithfully points
out Christ as the only way of salvation, and holds, as a funda-
mental doctrine, holiness of heart and life ; holds that without
the grace of God man has not the ability to take any one step
towards his recovery ; that faith is the only means of receiving
*Dr. W. F. Collier's school book, " History of the British Empire," alludes
to the work of Wesley and Whitfield thus: — "To these two men our country
owes much, for they led the van in the revival of religion of which in the present
day we are reaping the harvest " (p. 279).
124
Christ and the benefits of his righteous life and meritorious
death ; and that genuine faith produces the aspiration to be
holy in heart and life. He preaches a fuller salvation than
most professors expect to enjoy in this world — that God can
so shed abroad His love in human hearts by the Holy Ghost
given, as to sanctify wholly, soul, body and spirit. He holds
also a general redemption and its necessary consequences.
With Paul, he asserts that ' Christ tasted death for every
man ' ; with John, that ' Christ is the propitiation, not only
for our sins, but also for the sins of the whole world ' ; with
Peter, that ' the Lord is not willing that any should perish,
but that all should come to repentance.' He accepts, as
based upon gospel truth, the invitation, ' Whosoever will, let
him come and take of the water of life freely.' After Christ's
example and command, he preaches the gospel to every
creature — that Christ is a king as well as a priest ; that all are
under a law to Him ; that all who will not have Him to reign
over them will be slain ; that He will judge the secrets of men,
and will be the author of eternal salvation to none but them
that obey. He knows the word grace necessarily implies the
freeness of a favour ; and the word will, the freedom of choice.
When the will is touched — as he knows by blessed experience
— by divine grace, and yields to the touch, it is free to good
as it was before to evil. He believes that none are converted
but those who have a free will to follow Jesus. He supposes
he can as soon find a stone without gravity as either a good or
a bad man without free-will. As a consequence of the doctrine
of general redemption, he lays down two axioms — first, all our
salvation is of God in Christ, and therefore of grace ; secondly,
all our condemnation is of ourselves, by our unbelief and
avoidable unfaithfulness. The first he builds upon such
Scripture as, ' No man cometh unto me except the Father
draw him ' — ' Christ is exalted to give repentance ' — ' Faith
is the gift of God.' The second he founds upon such passages
as, ' This is the condemnation, that light is come unto the
125
world, and men loved darkness rather than light ' — ' Ye
always resist the Holy Ghost ' — ' See that ye refuse not Him
that speaketh from heaven ' — ' Ye will not come unto Me
that ye may have life.' "
In the light of the New Testament I see nothing in the
above to object to. The man who thus believed had, as had
the Apostles, a leverage by which to move the world, without
the aid of a clear insight as to what the Sovereign Ruler had
predetermined before the foundation of the world.
About twenty-six years ago, at the opening service of the
new Wesleyan Chapel at Warren, I heard preach the Rev.
Romily Hall, who about that time was President of the
Wesleyan Conference. When I heard him announce his text,
Romans viii. 29, 30, I was reminded of a conversation I had
had with him a short time before at Lane End House, and I
wondered what he was going to say about the doctrine of
Election, that fruitful ground of polemical discussion ; but
he said : " Underneath these words there is a mine of endless
controversy, but I am not going down to that strata. I shall
confine my remarks this afternoon to what is on the surface."
Had he explained the doctrine of predestination as the mother
of John Wesley understood it, I could have assented without
caring to determine whether her theological view agreed with
Wesleyan Methodism or modern Calvinism. She says in her
letter of date August 18, 1725, addressed to her son John when
he was about twenty-two years old, " I firmly believe that God
from all eternity has elected some to eternal life ; but then I
humbly conceive that this election is founded on His fore-
knowledge, according to Romans viii. 29, 30. Whom, in His
eternal prescience, God saw would make a right use of their
powers and accept of offered mercy. He did predestinate and
adopt for His children. And, that they may be conformed to
the image of His only Son, He calls them to Himself, through
the preaching of the Gospel, and, internally, by His Holy
Spirit, which call they obeying, repenting of their sins and
126
believing in the Lord Jesus, He justifies them, absolves them
from the guilt of all their sins, and acknowledges them as just
and righteous persons, through the merits and mediation of
Jesus Christ. This is the sum of what I believe concerning
predestination, which I think is agreeable to the analogy of
faith, since it does in nowise derogate from the glory of God's
free grace nor impair the liberty of man. Nor can it with
more reason be supposed that the prescience of God is the
cause that so many finally perish, than that one knowing the
sun will rise to-morrow is the cause of its rising."
The late Mr. Spurgeon, after having preached in a chapel
lent to the Baptists by the Wesleyan Methodists, said, " I
have to express, for the loan of this building, our thanks to my
good brother who occupies this pulpit. The only difference
between him and me is that he thinks a man divinely regene-
rated can fall off the rock, and I don't think he can." Brought
into a concise utterance, so as to be thus illustrated, never
before were the diverse theological views of Calvin and
Arminius. Surely Whitfield and Wesley need not have
separated " one from the other," as did Paul and Barnabas,
if that were all about which they disagreed. " Christ sent
me not," said Paul, " to baptise, but to preach the gospel."
The two Methodist evangelists might have said something of
the same kind and acted upon the conviction, without the
world being any the poorer.
The preaching of John Wesley in America did little good,
for the reason he gives. When he returned he discovered that
he who had been voyaging to convert others had never been
converted himself, and he felt, as he observed, " a want of the
victorious faith of more experienced Christians." This con-
viction was strengthened by a Moravian missionary, Peter
Boler, with whom he had much intercourse. At length,
according to his own statement, on the 24th of May, 1738, at
a quarter before nine in the evening, while hearing, in the
Society in Aldersgate street, someone read Luther's preface
127
to the Epistle to the Romans, the eyes of his soul were
suddenly opened. To have his faith strengthened he went to
the Moravian Brethren at Herrnhut and remained there until
September. Then he commenced the systematic labours
which made him the patriarch of the great religious bodies
known in these days as Methodists. " Wesleyan Methodism,"
says Everett, " is deeply indebted to Moravianism, and it will
admit of a doubt whether it would ever have been what it is
had it not been for the instruction which Mr. Wesley, under
God, received from the Moravians."
The rise of the " United Society of People called
Methodists " Mr. Wesley describes as being in London in the
latter part of the year 1739, when eight or ten persons called
upon him for advice, and out of which rose the class meetings.
About that time he began a course of incessant labour,
preaching often three or four times a day and visiting prisons
and other places in the metropolis, and in the country where
he knew there needed a distribution of the bread of life. He
accepted an invitation from Whitfield to join him at Bristol,
and in May, 1739, the first stone of a Methodist meeting-house
was laid in that city. Difficulties arising as to the liability of
the trustees nominated, in regard to the expenses of the
erection, Mr. Wesley was induced to take himself the respon-
sibility, and thus was laid the foundation of the unlimited
powers which he had in connection with all the operations,
architectural and ecclesiastical, which he sanctioned. All
chapels were vested in him or in trustees bound to give
admission to the pulpit only as he should direct.
The dislike of ministers of the Establishment to join in
the work he was doing obliged him to appoint lay preachers to
itinerate among his societies. He kept in his hands the power
of nominating those preachers, and thus, as the societies
multiplied, his authority received indefinite augmentation.
The progress of his cause was favoured by the strict and
orderly discipline established, commencing in the classes
128
and ending in the annual conferences of the preachers.
The whole was wisely designed to bind, harmonize and
consolidate.
He was almost perpetually travelling, and his religious
services, conducted while he was engaged in literary and con-
troversial work, were almost beyond calculation. The approach
of old age did not in the least abate the zeal and diligence of
this " extraordinary man."
In the "Methodist Magazine" for 1825 (p. 386) appeared
the following description of John Wesley, written by Joseph
Benson. No wonder that the extraordinary man's labours
were productive of great results : " I was constantly with him
for a week. I had the opportunity of examining narrowly his
spirit and conduct, and I assure you I am more than ever
persuaded he is a none such. I know not his fellow — first, for
abilities, natural and acquired ; and, secondly, for his incom-
parable diligence in the application of those abilities to the best
of employments. His lively fancy, tenacious memory, clear
understanding, ready elocution, manly courage, indefatigable
industry really amaze me. I admire, but wish in vain to imitate
his diligent improvement of every moment of time; his
wonderful exactness even in little things ; the order and
regularity with which he does everything he takes in hand ;
together with his quick despatch of business and calm serenity
of soul. I ought not to omit to mention (what is very manifest
to all who know him) his resolution, which no shocks of
opposition can shake ; his patience, which no length of trials
can weary ; his zeal for the glory of God and the good of man,
which no waters of persecution or tribulation have yet been
able to quench. Happy man! * * * thou shalt rest from
thy labours, and thy works shall follow thee !"
His death took place March 2nd, 1791, in the 88th year of
his age. He had a countenance in which mildness and gravity
were blended, and which in old age was extremely venerable.
In manners he was social, polite and conversable, without
129
gloom or austerity. In the pulpit he was fluent, clear and
argumentative, often amusing, but never aiming at, or reaching,
like Whitfield, the eloquence of passion.
John Wesley was a successor of the apostles, not because
he was ordained by his Grace John Potter, Primate of all
England, but because to show forth God in Christ reconciling
the world unto Himself was his heaven-appointed vocation !
We do not know that he ever preached at Chapeltown,
but he never came into this part of Yorkshire without visiting
the Thorpe Hesley homestead, known as Barley Hall, and
while Mr. and Mrs. Johnson were there to welcome him. That
house became the head-quarters of a numerous society.
As early in his career as when he was about thirty years
old he was at Wentworth, for his father, in 1733, had occasion
to consult some books in the library of the Marquis of Rocking-
ham, and he was accompanied by his son John, then resident
at Oxford, where he had begun to be distinguished. On the
Sunday of the week they were at Wentworth he was asked to
take part in the service at the church, and he preached. There
was present on that occasion Mr. Birks, a resident at Thorpe,
and with him his son Samuel, a boy eight years old — the same
Samuel Birks whose likeness when ninety-five years old is
shown in "Everett's Methodism in Sheffield." There was also
present at that service Mr. John Duke, one of Mr. Wesley's
local preachers in 1742, the grandfather of Mr. John Duke who
afterwards resided at Barley Hall, and gave the bells which have
lately been removed from the old to the new church at Went-
worth. Mr. Everett says (p. 52) : " One of the early seats of
Methodism was High Green, about a mile from Thorncliffe.
Both David Taylor and John Nelson had visited it, and were
entertained by Mr. Joseph Smith, a farmer, in whose house
they preached, and where a society was now formed consisting
of ten or twelve members." Of Mr. Whitfield's first visit to
High Green, in 1743, he thus writes : " When Mr. Whitfield
first visited these parts he was met by Mr. S. Birks (of Thorpe)
130
and Mr. John Johnson (of Barley Hall) at Rothwell, near
Wakefield, and they acted as guides to him to High Green,
near Thorncliffe, where he slept all night at Mr. Joseph
Smith's. He set off next morning to Rotherham, and preached
there in a large orchard ; thence he journeyed to Sheffield."
He was in this neighbourhood in 1746, and preached to an
immense concourse of people on Sheffield Moor, from the text,
" Turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways ; for why will ye die,
O house of Israel ?" Mr. Grimshaw, of Haworth, who was
united with the Methodists as far as a clergyman could be,
began about the year 1747 to itinerate, and very often
preached at High Green. He is said to have preached outside
his own parish about 300 sermons annually. He died of a fever,
April 7th, 1763, aged 54 years. In visiting a person ■ thus
stricken he caught the disease. Two years after his death the
little society at High Green was dispersed, for when Mr. Joseph
Smith was no longer there to open his house to Mr. Whitfield,
Mr. Grimshaw, Mr. Edwards (of Leeds), Mr. John Thorpe,
Mr. William Green, Mr. Joseph Rose, and other preachers,
there were not the facilities for holding the services. It had
been one of Mr. Thorpe's favourite places. He generally
preached there on Sunday, morning at eight o'clock, and often
on Saturday evening. At Charlton Brook, near to High Green,
was born, Oct. 30, 1745, Mr. Thomas Cooper, a member of
the Methodist Society for more than half a century, and whose
father, John Cooper, was the first class-leader at Potter's Hill.
James Bailey, of Potter's Hill, was in the habit of going with
his brother, his sister and others to Thorpe, Greasbro' and the
Holmes to hear the Word of God preached. Alice Murfin,
when the only Methodist in Rawmarsh, and before there was
a society at Rotherham, used to walk to Barley Hall.
When David Taylor commenced his career as a preacher
he had. no connection with Mr. Wesley, and probably had
never heard of him. The name Methodist was not known
here when David Taylor, in 1738, first preached in a barn at
131
Thorpe Hesley, and made the acquaintance of Samuel Birks
of that village, to whom we are indebted for some particulars
of the early history of his spiritual instructor, imparted to Mr.
Everett by Mr. Birks himself. " David Taylor," he said,
" came to Sheffield from Leicestershire. He lived in the
family of Lady Betty Hastings, as butler. His attention was
first directed towards personal religion by the circumstance
of her ladyship's chaplain having one day been absent at the
time of evening prayers. After the family had waited some
time, someone said, ' Who is to read prayers ? ' The reply
from several persons was ' David Taylor.' With hesitancy
and diffidence he took his stand at the desk, and the idea of
assuming, though only for an occasion, so sacred an office,
made a great impression upon him. On leaving the service
of Lady Hastings he resided in the family of Mr. Wardlow,
of Fulwood, probably as a friend, as he had saved a little
money ; and he was travelling about as a religious teacher too
frequently to have been a person whose services at home would
be constantly required. Mr. Wardlow was a Dissenter, and
when David Taylor began to pray and exhort in private houses,
his doing so better accorded with the views of Mr. Wardlow
than might have been had Mr. Wardlow been a member of the
Established Church. People assembled around him in little
groups, the tidings were borne to others, and public attention
was attracted. One of the principal places of his early labours
was Heeley, then about a mile from Sheffield, where was
formed what may be considered the first Methodist Society
in those parts."
The parents of Mr. Birks, of Thorpe, when he was twelve
years old, being on a visit to some relations at Heeley, heard
David Taylor preach, and gave him an invitation to come
over to the village of Thorpe ; and they sent their son on a
pony, and with a horse to convey the preacher. The result
was that something like a society began to make its appear-
ance,
132
Mr. Wesley, whose way was well prepared in these parts,
first visited Sheffield June 14th, 1742. In his diary he says :—
" Having a great desire to see David Taylor, whom God has
made an instrument of good to many souls, I rode to Sheffield,
but not finding him there, I was minded to go forward
immediately; however, the importunity of the people con-
strained me to stay, and preach both in the evening and the
following morning." David Taylor returned home in time for
them to meet. Mr. Wesley proceeded to Barley Hall and
preached there in the afternoon. He was there received as
" an angel of light " by Mr. Johnson.
Charles Wesley was at Barley Hall in 1743, and David
Taylor with him, who, in the assault made upon them, was
wounded in the head by a stone, and lost his hat.
In the year 1744, Mr. Charles Wesley's coming to Barley
Hall was the occasion of " a violent outbreak on the part of the
local opponents of Methodism. On its becoming known that
he was to preach there, the prime movers in the opposition
gathered their forces in the village of Thorpe Hesley, through
which he would pass on his way to the hall. The plan was
for one division to line the edges on each side of the road in
advance, and the rest to close up the rear immediately the
preacher and his party had entered the lane. Mr. Charles
Wesley appearing, accompanied by Mr. Birks and a few other
friends, they were met by a shout from the mob in front ;
turning to escape they found the way of retreat cut off by the
enemy in the rear, who had left the edges and blocked the
lane. Now was the time, if help must come at all ; and come
it did from an unexpected quarter. Mr. Birks' son Samuel, a
sturdy young fellow of eighteen, who had gone earlier to plough
than usual, in order to be at the preaching, was at that moment
bringing home his team along the lane in the direction of the
mob. Guessing the state of affairs, he mounted one horse,
led a second, and driving two abreast before him, dashed —
with crack of whip — into the midst of the fray, and the mob
133
broke and fled. Mr. Wesley lost his hat, but with his hand-
kerchief tied over his wig, and b}/ going round by Chapeltown,
he reached Barley Hall in time to preach, as arranged, at one
o'clock in the afternoon, young Birks being one of his hearers.
Mr. John Wesley's journal shows that he wa_s at Barley
Hall in 1743 and also in 1744, 1745 and 1746. On May 13,
1747, in the evening, he preached at Sheffield, and on the 14th
rode to Barley Hall and there preached. At 3 o'clock next
morning he set off for Leeds to see Mr. Perronet, who was ill
of a fever; arrived there between 7 and 8 a.m., preached at
noon in Leeds, and then hastened back to Barley Hall, where,
at 7 in the evening, he again preached, his text being
" Glorify God with your bodies and your spirits which are
God's." This journey means 50 miles on horseback ; but the
next day he was mounted again, passing through Sheffield,
Chesterfield, Mansfield, Nottingham and forward to Markfield,
scattering as he went along conversational blessings.
In that year (1747) a son of Mr. John Johnson, of Barley
Hall, was married to Margaret Lomley, the daughter of
a Christian man who was steward of Mrs. Finch, of
Thryborough Hall. On their marriage they came to reside at
Hoyland, and opened their door for the Methodist preachers.
Of these good people the clergyman officiating at Wentworth
was pleased to propagate a false report, for which he got
rebuked by the Marchioness of Rockingham, who made it her
business to inquire as to the credibility of the report, and found
it to be the invention of the malevolent. She had a high
respect for the Johnson family.
After that date there is no mention for several years in
Mr. Wesley's journal of his having visited this neighbourhood.
In 1752 he writes of Sheffield : " All is peace here since the
trial at York, when the magistrates gave orders that the
meeting-house which the mob had pulled down was to be
rebuilt. He preached in the shell of the new building after an
absence from the town for upwards of two years. In that year
134
(1752) he visited Rotherham for the first time. Wilham Green
and his good wife had made every preparation for him. In
his journal the following year (1753) Mr. Wesley wrote : " It
being still sultry, I preached at Barley Hall under a shady tree,
and in an open space at Rotherham in the evening." In 1755 he
was at Sheffield and Rotherham, and no doubt at Barley Hall.
Some time previous to this the Marquis of Rockingham,
his lady, and Earl Fitzwilliam's father attended a service at Mr.
Johnson's, Barley Hall, and heard Mr. James Kershaw preach.
In 1757, on Wednesday, July 27th, Mr. Wesley preached at
noon at Barley Hall and the same evening in Sheffield.
At Wentworth House, in the year 1760, one public day
when there were visitors present, one of them introduced the
subject of Methodism, expressing astonishment that the
Marquis of Rockingham should suffer the Methodists to plant
societies on his estates. After listening for some time to
opinions pretty freely expressed, and during which a request
was made to his lordship to employ his power and influence
to check the progress of such schismatical proceedings, he
dismissed the subject with: " You converse like country gentle-
men. Are you not aware that the Methodists preach
immediately under His Majesty's eye ?" (This would be
George II., who died October 25, 1760.)
On Monday, July 27, 1761, Mr. Wesley preached at
Barley Hall, and on Wednesday, the 29th, at Woodseats and
at Sheffield. On Thursday and on Friday he preached in the
shell of the new octagon house at Rotherham. His preference
for that form of construction for the chapels he appears not to
have retained.
In 1764 he was at Sheffield, and he preached at Rotherham.
The story of the donkey coming into the chapel there is told
in connection with the visit. The chapel in Mulberry street,
Sheffield, which afterwards became the printing premises of
the Sheffield Independent newspaper, would be the building in
which Mr. Wesley says he preached on March 26th, 1766.
135
" On February i8th, 1769," writes Mr. Everett, " good old
Mrs. Johnson, of Barley Hall, took her flight to the Paradise
of God." At what date her husband died there are now no
means of ascertaining. With emotions of pleasure he says he
" visited the venerable domain where this pious pair lived and
died, and where Mr. Wesley and the first Methodist preachers
found a temple and a home," of which he rejoiced to be able
to bring away a sketch for insertion in the history he was pre-
paring. Prior to Mr. Johnson's occupation of the house and
farm they belonged to a Mr. Hague, a tanner. Mr. Johnson,
who succeeded him, carried on the skinning business exclusive
of tanning. Mr. Bowers was the next occupant, and then
Mr. Ellis. Mr. and Mrs. Johnson were originally " Dissenters,"
and were brought among the Methodists through the instru-
mentality of David Taylor.
JuneaSth, 1780, Mr. Wesley's birthday, he was in Sheffield.
In that year, Sept. 4th, he wrote from Bristol the following
letter to the leaders at Sheffield : — " My dear Brethren, — Let
the persons who propose to subvert the Methodist plan by
mixing men and women together in your chapel consider the
consequences of so doing. First, I will never set foot in it
more ; secondly, I will forbid any collections to be made for it
in any of our societies. I am, my dear brethren, your
affectionate brother, John Wesley."
He wrote, Feb. 10, 1781, to Samuel Bardsley, one of the
Sheffield ministers, " I did not doubt but you would agree
with the people of Sheffield. They are a loving and affectionate
people." His last visit to this part of Yorkshire was in 1786,
when 83 years old. He was in Sheffield several days. Tradition
says that he went to Wentworth House, accompanied by Mr.
Birks, of Thorpe, and that when they were leaving Mr. Birks
asked Mr. Hall, the steward, if it would be agreeable for Mr.
Wesley to pray with the family before he left. Permission was
courteously given, the household summoned and the prayer
offered. From this, his last visit to Barley Hall is less uncertain
136
than was supposed by the writer of the following, paragraph in
the Weekly Independent, accompanying a sketch of that old home-
stead : " Probably Mr. Wesley was not there after the death
of Mrs. Johnson in 1769. Meeting-houses led to the disuse of
private dwellings as preaching places. Three Methodist chapels
in Thorpe show that Barley Hall had long ago done its work.
But, even with collieries invading its silence, it keeps its touch
and air of the past. One almost expects to see steady-going,
clean-shaven men, in old-world dress, step up to the preaching;
or equally staid women, in. " coal scuttle " bonnets and long
black cloaks, wend their way hither of an afternoon to Mrs.
Johnson's ' class.' But they do not come! and the old house
seems to be wondering why."
Charles Twigg, in his " Village Rambles," mentions that
his grandmother heard Mr. Wesley preach at Hoyland in
August, 1772, from some stone steps at the end of what is
called Tithe Lathe, formerly a tithe barn, and now made into
cottages, and says that in the afternoon, after thus preaching
at Hoyland, he arrived at Thorpe.
Probably owing to Chapeltown being so near to Barley
Hall, Wesleyan Methodism did not get located here in the life-
time of John Wesley. The earliest record I have met with of
a Methodist service in the village, refers to William Green
having preached in 1765 from the text, " Ye must be born
again." A person living in 1822 heard the sermon.
The first place of meeting which the Wesleyans had in
Chapeltown was an upper room, or warehouse, near the present
post-office, the one in which Mr. Barton had his day school.
In Mr. George Newton's diary there is the following
entry: — "Mr. Longden being a local preacher in the
Methodist connexion, as soon as we got a covered building
in Thorncliffe we opened a door for the preaching of the
Gospel, which through the Divine blessing was the means of
working a great reformation in the neighbourhood. It was
soon admitted into the local preachers' plan, and has since that
137
time been regularly supplied. Very many have had abundant
cause to praise the Lord for the unspeakable privilege ; and
surely when we reflect on the kind and gracious dealings of
our heavenly Father towards us, we must allow that we were
bound in gratitude to contribute to the utmost of our power to
the advancement of His cause and interest in the world." *
" In the Spring of 1805 we commenced the building of
Mount Pleasant Chapel, and collected about ;^5oo for that
purpose. When it was completed, the seats were entirely let.
It was opened on Sunday, May nth, 1806, by the Rev. William
Jenkins, who to a crowded congregation preached an excellent
sermon from Isaiah ii. 2, 3, ' And it shall corne to pass in the
last days, that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be
established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted
above the, hills ; and all nations shall flow unto it. And many
people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the
mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob ;
and He will teach us of His ways, and we will walk in His paths.'
"The Society (which had been meeting in a warehouse at
Chapeltown, and which had been stationary for some years at
about 45 members) was soon doubled. Our contributions
increased, and we got the travelling preachers to supply, at
first every third Sunday and in a short time every other
Sunday, so that the work of the Lord prospered and our
privileges and comforts increased.
" On January 18, 1807, we established a Sunday school
in the chapel, which in a short time amounted to three
hundred children. In a few months, however, the novelty
having subsided, they decreased to about two hundred, which
continued stationary for several years. It has proved a great
blessing to the neighbourhood and an unspeakable advantage
to the children."
* The first sermon was preached in the warehouse chamber at Thorncliffe,
on March 12th, 1801, by Rd. Reece. His text, " The desire of all nations shall
come, and I will fill this house with glory, saith the Lord of Hosts,"' — Hag-g-n/ ii.
7,— was to be seen inscribed on a window pane in that chamber until the time
of the fire, by which wood models, &c., were destroyed, about the year 1845.
139
The society of 45 persons which Thorncliffe Methodism
numbered in the early years of its history, included names
which witness to the fact complained of by the Coroner, Mr.
Foster of High Green House, that the founders of the Thorn-
cliffe Works had brought " a lot of Methodists into the
neighbourhood."* Naturally the influence of Mr. Longden a
Thorncliffe partner, and one of Mr. Wesley's foremost local
preachers, tended to this. At the village of Eyam, in Derby-
shire, which he often visited, as it was then included in the
Sheffield circuit, there lived a worthy class-leader named John
Sheldon, and his second son, John, when a young man of
about 20 years, at the suggestion of Mr. Longden, applied at
Thorncliffe for employment as an iron-stone miner.
Thus in the beginning of the year 1796, the John Sheldon
who for 50 years was the leader of the singing at the Wesleyan
services (and whose portrait the late Mr. Thomas Newton got
painted and gave to Mr. Benjamin Sheldon), came to Chapel-
town. In the spring of that same year, the Eyam class-leader,
the father of that John Sheldon, followed to work at Thorn-
cliffe, and in 1797 brought here his family. Here he lived
until his death in 1820, at the age of 78 years. In 1802, his
son John, the choir official for so many years, was married to
Elizabeth Windle, and of the faithful services of sons and
grandsons of theirs, both the business at Thorncliffe and the
Methodism of the neighbourhood have on record highly
honourable mention. In the late Mr. Thomas Newton's
memoir of this John Sheldon, read by the Rev. James Sugden
on the occasion of his funeral sermon being preached in the old
Mount Pleasant chapel to a crowded congregation, May loth,
1855, there appear the following remarks ;— " He was almost the
last link of a race of class-leaders whose names will be remem-
bered with interest by many in this congregation, as Longden,
Chambers, Shel don (senior), Fullelove, Booth, B a mford,
* Hostile as he was to Methodism, he was shrewd enough to appreciate
what was excellent in Mr. Newton and Mr. Longden, for in his will he appointed
them his executors.
140
Stanley, &c." " Since the lead-miners were drowned out, other
Derbyshire men were probably by the same influence led, about
this period, to engage themselves at the neighbouring works."
At Grindlelow, near to Eyam, was William Bamford, a
weaver, who came to Thorncliffe and became a class-leader.
He was married to a Mary Longden, and their eldest child
Eliza became the wife of Benjamin Myers, who for many
years lived in the Thorncliffe yard, and was caretaker of the
works.
John Fullelove, referred to above as a class-leader, was
employed at Thorncliffe almost immediately after the works
were started. He was born at Thorpe Hesley, Dec. 14th, 1759,
and died at Lane End, Chapeltown, April ist, 1825. In the
Wesleyan Methodist Magazinefor January, 1826, there appeared
an obituary notice of him, signed "Thomas Newton," which
contains words not unworthy of being reproduced in these "Old
Time Memories." " At the age of about ten years he was put
apprentice to a nail maker at Chorlton Brook, the John Cooper
who was (as mentioned on page 130) the first class-leader at
Potter's Hill. He was a steady, well-disposed lad, but as he
grew up he became somewhat loose in his morals, and was
addicted to cock-fighting, a practice of which after his con-
version he spoke with abhorrence and detestation. When about
twenty-five years of age, he was married ; soon after which he
began again to attend the ministry of the gospel, and in about
two years obtained peace with God through our Lord Jesus
Christ. This happy event occurred about thirty-eight years
before his death, and he never turned back again to sin and
folly, nor is it known that he ever lost his evidence of the divine
favour. He was a man of good sense, of a social and com-
municative disposition, a good husband and an affectionate
father, remarkably industrious and strictly honest."
In the latter part of his life he had charge of the garden
at Staindrop Lodge, Mr. Newton's residence, and that of
another of the Thorncliffe partners; and about eight years
141
before his death, " a gentleman (from London) who was a
dealer in seeds, called at his house one Sunday for the purpose
of business, when Mr. Fullelove was engaged at the Sunday
school. A message was sent to him, and his reply was, " Tell
him that his money is ready for him, that he may have it in
the morning as soon as he pleases, but that he cannot have it
to-day." On the following day John walked to Rotherham,
and paid the money. The next journey, the traveller mentioned
the reproof and acknowledged the justice of it.
In the Mount Pleasant Chapel, opened in 1806, the learned
Dr. Adam Clarke is known to have preached at least once, for
in his life (p. 433) there is on record his own mention of the
fact. He writes : " I went to Thorncliffe, where, instead of
thirty or forty shillings, I had eleven pounds for the missions."
This was in May, 1832.
It is not generally known that Mr. James Silk Bucking-
ham, one of the members of Parliament for Sheffield after the
Reform Bill of 1832 had enfranchised the town, was a man
who exercised his gifts as a local preacher. On one occasion
he came over from Dodworth and preached in Mount Pleasant
Chapel.
In that old chapel often would the service be conducted
by the Rev. William Morley Punshon, D.D., for, as one of the
ministers of a Sheffield circuit which included Thorncliffe, he
was resident for twelve months at Chapeltown, occupying part
of Chapeltown House. Both as a preacher and a lecturer he
was a celebrity to be remembered by all who had listened to his
felicitous and eloquent words.
The poem he wrote when the news reached him of the
passing away, on Sunday, April 30th, 1854, of James Mont-
gomery, goes far to show not only that he was himself a poet,
but that—
The inspiration is not absent here,
Which, as a zephyr, in the atmosphere.
As the iEolian harp the silence breaks.
Breathes music when emotion thought awakes.
142
Having regard to the date of that poem, there may be
indulged the surmise, that it would be in Dr. Punshon's abode
at Chapeltown that he wrote : —
" 'Twas then, when toil had laid him down,
And meek devotion knelt to pray ;
And the glad sun sat, like a crown,
Upon the forehead of the town —
A poet pass'd away.
No more, alas ! the fragrant air
Shall be with that high music blent;
The heavenly harpers could not bear
The minstrel from their host to spare ;
God touched him, and he went.
Green be his grave ! the chartered wind
Shall play around its flowery sod ;
His clay must be to earth consign'd,
But angels have his victor-mind,
Borne heavenward up to God."
At the recent annual united gathering at Mount Pleasant
Church, in connection with the Thorncliffe Wesleyan Metho-
dist Circuit, the Chairman congratulated the friends present
on the position of Wesleyan Methodism in the district. He
said : " more than usual interest was attached to their gathering
that evening, frofn the fact that their church had reached its
centenary. It was just 100 years since the founders of the
Thorncliffe Ironworks introduced and established the present
Wesleyan brotherhood at Thorncliffe. The year 1793 saw
Messrs. Chambers, Newton and Longden start business at
Thorncliffe, and as soon as the firm got a covered building
they opened it on Sundays for Divine Service. In 1805 the
first Mount Pleasant Wesleyan Chapel was built, and two
years later saw the birth of their beloved Sunday School.
Since that time Wesleyan Methodism had continued to
prosper, until at the present time they had flourishing societies
at High Green, Ecclesfield, Warren, Piley and Westwood,
sprung from the parent society at Thorncliffe. He contended
that the material prosperity of Thorncliffe, Chapeltown and
surrounding districts was in a large measure due to the
influence which the Wesleyan Church had exercised."
^43
CHAPTER VI.
Old-time Memories of Thorncliffe, its Ironworks and Collieries,
and their antecedents.
In the year 1793, under a cliff, and at about the centre of
a triangle, of which the villages Chapeltown, High Green and
Tankersley form the corners, and where at that time the park
of Tankersley touched the rivulet which separates the Wapen-
take* of Strafford and Tickhill from that of Staincross, was
obtained from Earl Fitzwilliam a well-selected site for the
erection of the works which bear the name Thorncliffe. The
centenary year of these works having been reached, it seems
to be fitting that some account should appear of their rise and
of their progress in the early stages of their history, and of the
men who founded and carried on the business. The names of
these and their relation to each other genealogically are here
shown, also portraits of two of the three original partners. I
regret that a likeness of Mr. Chambers is not obtainable.
*It is not easy to explain why the divisions of Yorkshire are called
Wapentakes, while in other counties hundreds is the word used. The ceremony
of touching armour, from which comes the word Wapentake (weapon-touch or
weapon-take) would not be peculiar to the Anglo-Saxons who gathered in this
part of the country at their genotes, or assemblies for discussing public affairs.
Claro Hill, between Borough Bridge and Wetherby, was the place where the
freemen of this district met, and when the president of the assembly had taken
his place, touched his spear, in accordance with the laws of King Edgar.
144
145
Thomas Chambers,
bom June 17th, 1745,
died January 4th, 1817.
George Newton,
born July nth, 1761,
died October 22nd, 1825.
Henry Longden,
born Feb. 6th, 1754.
died Feb. 24th, 1812
withdrew from the
firm in i8ir.
Thomas Chambers,
bornMar.26th,i77i,
died Oct. 16th, 1814,
before the recon-
struction of the firm
after the death
of his father.
I
I
Matthew Chambers,
born Sep. 17th, 1776,
died Jan. 26th, 1828.
I
Joseph Chambers
born Jan. 17, 1783,
died Mar. 3, 1824.
I
Isaac
Newton,
born
May 24th,
1792,
died July
igth, 1820.
Thomas
Newton,
born
Sep. 5th,
1796.
died May
8th, 1868.
Thomas
Chambers,
of
Lane End
House,
born Jan. 7,
1798,
died Oct, 29,
: Johanna,
daughter
of
Matthew
Chambers,
John
Chambers,
of
Belmont, -
born
who died April 27th,
in 1828. 1805,
died June
2ist, 1869.
Elizabeth,
daughter of
George
Newton
and
widow of
Mr. Railton.
I
Thomas
Chambers
ceased to be
a partner
July I2th, 1839,
and
emigrated to
Melbourne,
Australia,
born Dec.2ist,
1796, died
Aug. 16th, 1875
Matthew
Chambers,
of
Barbot Hall,
born Nov. ii,
1798,
died March 23,
1862.
Lucy Ann, = George Dawson,
eldest managing
daughter. director of
Newton, Chambers & Co.
Limited.
Arthur Marshall Chambers, J. P.,
managing director of
Newton, Chambers and Co.
Limited.
Hannah,
daughter ot
Thomas
Chambers,
who died
in 1814.
I
Thomas
Chambers
Newton, J. P.,
of
Staindrop Lodge,
chairman and
managing
director of
Newton,
Chambers &Co.
Limited.
The iron-works at Thorncliffe and Chapeltown, and the
colheries there and at Tankersley, Hoyland Common and
Thorpe Hesley, transferred in 1881 by the trustees of the late
Mr. Thomas Newton, of Mr. Thomas Chambers, of Mr. Matthew
Chambers, and of Mr. John Chambers, to Messrs. Newton,
Chambers and Company Limited, were referred to by the
Sheffield Independent newspaper, at the time of that transferrence,
as having long been regarded as " amongst the largest
and most successful commercial undertakings in Yorkshire ;
and as having had an important and permanent influence
upon the entire neighbourhood, and upon the trade of the
country."
The size of the concern has recently been considerably
augmented by the annexation of the Grange Colliery, at
Dropping Well, on the estates of the Earl of Effingham and
the Earl Fitzwilliam.
What Thorncliffe was in i88x may be judged of by the
prospectus issued at the time the trustees of the deceased partners
146
were taking steps towards the formation of a Limited Company.
That prospectus contained the following particulars : —
" The business was founded in 1793, and has been gradually
brought to its present high development and reputation by
the energy and integrity of three successive generations of
proprietors.
"The average annual output of coal for the last three
years has been 612,000 tons ; the output in 1880 was 620,000
tons, and during the first nine months of the present year it
has amounted to no less than 553,000 tons. The second
Rockingham Pit, which is already sunk to the ' Silkstone '
seam and provided with permanent engines, can be completed
at a cost of about ;^20,ooo, by which it is estimated that the
output will be increased to upwards of 800,000 tons per annum.
The manufacture of coke forms an important item in the
economy of the business. There are 311 ovens, producing over
2,400 tons per week of the best quality for Bessemer, steel-
melting and blast furnace purposes.
"The iron-works consist of the Thorncliffe and the Chapel-
town works, including two large blast furnaces of the best
modern construction, which yield annually 31,000 tons of
pig-iron ; extensive foundries, in which about 13,000 tons
of pig-iron is converted into castings ; and a large and
complete engineering plant, embracing all necessary machinery
for the manufacture of boilers, roofs, bridges, etc.
" These works are well known for the manufacture of all
kinds of gas-making apparatus ; also for lighter goods and
cooking apparatus of various kinds, including the well-known
' Thorncliffe Patent Range.' The iron-works sales for 1879
amounted to ^198,000, and for 1880 to £210,000.
" Twelve miles of railway belong to the firm, the rolling
stock consists of 4 locomotives and above 1,200 railway wagons,
of which upwards of 500 are the absolute property of the firm.
" The farms consist of 600 acres, with the requisite farm-
steads and buildings.
Henry Longden, born February 6th, 1754, Thorncliffe partner from 1793 until 1811,
147
" The freehold estates of the firm comprise i8a acres of
land, and the Silkstone, Thorncliffe and Parkgate seams of coal
lying under about 70 acres thereof; a large workmen's hall,
and 165 houses and cottages ; also 20 acres of land near
Buxton, giving an abundant supply of the best limestone.
" There are also 85 houses and cottages held under lease,
at low ground rents."
The total amount of the verified valuation in this
prospectus, dated October 26th, 1881, was £448,963.
The founders of the business were Mr. Tl^omas Chambers
and Mr. George Newton. These two names stand alone at first
in the record of its origin, but almost immediately after they
had resolved on the project, Mr. Newton's friend in London,
Mr. Maskew, consented to join them as a " sleeping partner,"
and the firm became Maskew, Chambers and Newton. There
was, however, an unforeseen difficulty in the way of his con-
tinuing his connection with the undertaking, for his partner
in London did not favour the venture of Mr. Maskew on an
enterprise for which he had no experience or technical know-
ledge that would be available, and he had to withdraw, or sever
his connection with his London partner. Some one with
capital to take Mr. Maskew's place was thus wanted, and at
length, Mr. Henry Longden was admitted into partnership,
and the firm became first. Chambers, Newton and Compan}',
and when, three or four years afterwards, in January, 1796,
Mr. Longden received, by the bequest of his uncle, Mr. John
Turner (the West India merchant who resided and had his
counting-house in the Hartshead, Sheffield) the capital he had
been led to expect and relied upon, it placed him at the head
of the firm of Longden, Newton, and Chambers.
The following extracts describingthe origin of the business are
from the newspaper article before quoted : " The works have from
the most unpretending beginnings gone on developing and extend-
ing, until, having outgrown the ordinary limits of private enter-
prise, it has been decided to transfer them to a limited company."
148
" In the latter half of the last century there was in Work-
house croft (Sheffield), at the north of Queen's foundry yard, a
small establishment in which Messrs. George Newton and
Charles Hodgson carried on business together as manufacturers
of spades, shovels, trowels, and similar goods. They were
well known as industrious, honest men ; they made a good
article, and their business so increased that larger premises
were needed. They entered into a contract with one William
Cooper to erect for them ' two dwelling-houses, a warehouse,
and suitable workshops on Pond hill, near to the Duke of
Norfolk's coal yard,' and to their new premises the firm
removed in 1791. Towards the close of the next year Mr.
Thomas Chambers, who had been some years in the service of
Messrs. Smith, Stacey & Co., iron-founders, of the Queen's
foundry, Paradise square, informed Mr. Hodgson that he was
about to leave his situation, and that he wished to commence
business on his own account, or in connection with a friend
who could advance a few hundred pounds for that purpose.
The result of further interviews was, that Mr. Newton severed
his connection with Mr. Hodgson — who, it may be mentioned
was an ancestor of the Messrs. Hodgsons, corn millers, of
Rotherham — and entering into partnership with Mr. Chambers
and Mr. Maskew of London, there was established the firm of
Maskew, Chambers and Newton. They purchased property
on Snow hill, together with land extending to Furnace hill,
and there in December, 1792, they commenced the erection of
the Phoenix foundry. The work of building proceeded so
rapidly that they were able to commence the casting of goods
on the first of March, 1793. In that year Mr. Maskew with-
drew from the business, and Mr. Henry Longden, grandfather
of the present Mr. H. Longden, who then lived in Meadow
street, joined the firm, and it was carried on as Chambers,
Newton & Co. Business prospered, and looking round to see
in what way it could be further extended, they decided if
■possible to commence the manufacture of iron."
149
" One day — still in 1793 — Mr. Chambers and Mr. Newton
took a ride with the intention of applying to Mr. Bowns, of
Darley Hall, Bank Top, near Barnsley, steward to Earl Fitz-
william, for a site on which to erect blast furnaces. Little did
they imagine what would be the great and far-reaching results
from that quiet afternoon's ride. They met Mr. Bowns on the
road, and having acquainted him with the object of their
journey, he referred them to Joseph Hague, steward of the
colliery at Westwood, thinking that that locality would suit
them. Mr. Hague, however, pointed out Thorncliffe as much
preferable to Westwood, being in close proximity to the estate
of the Duke of Norfolk, on which iron-works and collieries had
been conducted for at least a century. On the 7th December,
1793, the partners met Mr. Bowns by appointment at Thorn-
cliffe, and, after fixing on the spot most suitable for the erection
of their works, terms were proposed and agreed upon for a
lease for 21 years."
Supplementing the foregoing extracts, which in most
respects are in accordance with my own researches, I take
up the story.
Mr. Thomas Chambers — one of the founders of the
Thorncliffe business, and whose connection with the iron
trade commenced at the Holmes, near Rotherham, where
were the blast furnaces of Mr. Samuel Walker — was born at
Rawmarsh, on the 17th of January, 1745. The entry in the
register of baptisms there, dated February 21st, 1745, shows
that he was the son of John Chambers, of Rawmarsh. The
register of burials at Rotherham church evidences the death
of his first wife Elizabeth, who died, when his age would
be about 23 years, on the 20th of December, 1768. Six
months afterwards, on the 22nd of June, 1769, he was
married at that church to Hannah Oxley, the daughter of
Robert Oxley, of Greasbro'. The entry in the register
describes him as Thomas Chambers, widower, married
by banns to Hannah Oxley, spinster, by J. Loyd ; and the
150
witnesses were Joseph Lodge and John Bagshaw, probably the
father of the Thomas Bagshaw whom he appointed one of his
executors. There is the register of Hannah Oxley's baptism
at Rotherham church, March loth, 1744, so she was a few
months older than her husband. There is in existence no
portrait of Mr. Chambers. Tradition says he was " a fine-
looking man. I regret that I never enquired while there
were persons living who knew him, what he was in appear-
ance. There is no one to be met with now who is old
enough to be likely to have seen him, as he died seventy-
six years ago. An old workman, Joseph Lax, of whom I
sought information, said, "I do not remember what he was
like, though, when a little lad, I suppose I sometimes saw
him, but I have not forgot that when he died, a man came
into our house at Tankersley farm, where my father was
bailiff, and said, 'T'oud maister's dead !' " I imagine him to
have been rather a tall man with dark hair and eyes, for the
six grandsons of his whom I knew were, when in the prime
of manhood, of that sort. Up to the time of his sudden
death, at the age of 72 years, he took an active part in the
management of the business. Before the house* in the Thorn-
cliffe foundry yard was built, which for some years was his
residence, he would more frequently walk than ride the seven
miles between his two places of business. I infer that he
was a man strong both physically and mentally. He would
be forty-eight years old in the year 1793 when the Thorn-
cliffe works were started.
At the foundry, mills, and smelting furnaces of Messrs.
Samuel Walker and Company he seems to have acquired
knowledge and experience, which he had the energy to make
good use of. Leaving their service (owing to a dispute in
the pattern-making department, about the infliction of a fine
of one shilling for the breaking of one of the tools he
'Afterwards his son Thomas, and his grandson Thomas Chambers resided
there. In 1829 the house was divided, part being used as a counting-house, &c.
It has now altogether vanished.
151
worked with), he found employment at the Queen's Foundry
of Messrs. Smith, Stacey and Company, situated at the corner
of Queen street and Workhouse croft, Sheffield. That he was
a man whose services, skill and character his employers at
Rotherham appreciated, may be inferred from the efforts they
made to induce him to return. Mr. Walker went over to
Sheffield to see him, but the means used to get him back to
Rotherham were not successful. How many years previous
to December, 1792, when he entered into partnership with
Mr. Newton, were spent at the Queen's Foundry is uncertain.
Messrs. Hodgson and Newton's place of business being adjacent
to that of Messrs. Smith, Stacey and Co., that contiguity led
to Mr. Chambers becoming acquainted with his future partner,
Mr. Newton.
The business of Mr. Hodgson and Mr. Newton was
extended to include the sale of cutlery, tea, &c. They also
erected, at Nether Slack, Owlerton, a plating forge and tilt,
paying for the stream ^45 a year. This extension absorbed
more capital than they had command of, though they were
assisted by Mr. Maskew to the extend of £2000. The war
with France made trade bad, and they had to contract their
sphere. It was at this point of time, Dec, 1792, that Mr.
Thomas Chambers intimated to Mr. Hodgson his intention to
leave the Queen's Foundry and begin business, leading to the
separation of Mr. Newton from Mr. Hodgson and the estab-
hshing of the firm of Maskew, Chambers and Newton, in
connection with the ambitious smelting -furnace -building
designs of Mr. Chambers.
As has been mentioned, Mr. Maskew's project was dis-
hked by his London partner, and Mr. Maskew was compelled
either to withdraw from it or sever his connection with Mr,
Hetherington. The French Revolution's interference with
trade made the finding of a partner to take the place of Mr.
Maskew somewhat difficult. At length Mr. Longden, Mr.
Newton's class-leader, became the substitute.
152
Mr. George Newton, who, in conjunction with Mr. Thomas
Chambers, commenced the business the centenary of which
has led to the publication of this volume, was a gentleman of
whose life and character many particulars are on record. In
the possession of his grandson, T. C. Newton, Esq., J. P., are
his diaries and memoirs of his life written by himself; and in
the " Wesleyan Methodist Magazine" for the month of Novem-
ber, 1826, there is an obituary notice of him, evidently written
by some one who knew him well. He was born July nth,
1761, at Staindrop, a small market town in the county of
Durham, thirteen miles west of Darlington. His father carried
on business at Staindrop as a manufacturer of a woollen cloth
called " cheney," which was sent to London and exported to
places abroad, where it was used for bed-hangings, etc. He,
the cheney manufacturer, married the widow of Mr. Robert
Burrow, of Brancepeth, near the city of Durham. Of the
eighteen children born of this marriage only three survived
their childhood, John, George and Tobias. The second name
is the one with which Chapeltown became familiar.
Of the brothers of Mr. George Newton something is known,
because he refers to them and their adventures in his auto-
biographical records. John, the oldest, was unheard of by his
family for six years, and he was supposed to have lost his life in
connection with the Lord George Gordon riots in London, in
1780, which Charles Dickens has so well described in " Barnaby
Rudge"; but it turned out that he had been "pressed" for a
soldier and sent to the East Indies. He was heard of as being
alive and well there in 1797, and not afterwards. Of Tobias it
was known that he was engaged in the war against Hyder AUi
and his son Tippoo Saib, and that he died in Calcutta, June
loth, 1790.
From the time of Mr. Newton's removal, on the 27th of
October, 1800, from Sheffield to Greenhead, Chapeltown, may
be dated the project of building the Mount Pleasant Chapel,
which was accomplished within a few years. He was one of
153
the most prominent promoters of the cause of Wesleyan
Methodism in the district, contributing liberally both money
and personal service.
In 1806 Mr. Newton obtained from thfe Duke of Norfolk
the lease of an acre of land at Mortomley Lane End, upon
which he built Staindrop Lodge. He removed from Green-
head into his new residence in October, 1807. Afterwards the
freehold was purchased, and Staindrop Lodge is now the
property and home of his grandson, Mr. Thomas Chambers
Newton.
What that home was to the gentleman who built it we
can picture from the memoir of him in the " Methodist
Magazine," which says: "As his circumstances improved he
gratified his love of reading by procuring a choice collection of
books on science and divinity. Few men of business at that
day had so good a library, or made so good a use of it. His
memory was very tenacious, and his mind was richly stored
with knowledge of the most valuable kind. To this was added
a communicative disposition, which rendered him a highly
interesting companion. In the latter part of life his increasing
deafness interfered with his joining in general conversation ;
when with particular friends, he would, however, exert himself
to take part in the discussion of any interesting topic. His
ear was ever open to the prayer of distress and the cry of
suffering. None who applied to him for relief, and were
worthy of charity, were ever dismissed without a timely
supply. Though discriminating in his liberality, he had a
heart which devised liberal things. He was truly a benevolent
man, and contributed to nearly all the charitable institutions
which have emanated from the ingenuity and mercy of
Christians in the present day. In conducting his worldly
affairs he was systematic and accurate, punctual and dili-
gent, expeditious and persevering. Few men have been able
to get through so much business, yet he never seemed in a
bustle, but went about his many engagements in a calm.
154
collected and cheerful manner. His improving circumstances
produced no change in the simplicity of his manners or in the
humility of his heart. He could "condescend to men of low
estate, and perceived virtues in many of the poorest of the
flock of Christ which abased him in their presence and excited
him to abound in love and good works. He never assumed
airs of importance or ventured into the dictator's chair. On
all occasions he was meek and affable, uniting the ease and
courtesy of a gentleman with the familiarity of a friend and
the piety of a saint." The hymns which he wrote for special
occasions may not be of any particular poetical merit, but
they show that their author had culture and intelligence.
He is described as having had a good constitution and excel-
lent health until he was about 52 years of age. At this period
he received an injury in the casting house to one of his legs.
The wound, through neglect at first, was difficult to deal with.
It laid the foundation of a series of complaints which termina-
ted in his death in his 65th year, Oct. 22, 1825. The late
Joseph Lax, one of the workmen, speaking of his funeral,
told me he went with it to St. James' Church, Sheffield, along
with a number of other lads.
Mr. Henry Longden, who took the place of Mr. Maskew,
of London, soon after that gentleman had withdrawn from
the firm of Maskew, Chambers and Newton, was a native of
Sheffield, the son of a man born at Ecclesfield. In the " Life
of Mr. Henry Longden," published in 1813, the date of his
birth is stated to be February 6th, 1754, after his father had
established himself in business at Sheffield as a manufacturer
of table knives. The son, who was a partner with Mr.
Chambers and Mr. Newton when the Thorncliffe Works
were founded, was placed in his youth as an apprentice
with a razor manufacturer. The memoir of him contains
extracts from his diary and letters which show what he was
in the early years of his life and before religion began to
influence his conduct.
155
Mr. Longden's wealthy uncle, Mr. John Turner, watched
with interest his nephew's career, and showed his willingness
to help him by lending him, on two occasions, ;f 500, and when
the time came for him to be consulted respecting the proposal
of Mr. Chambers and Mr. Newton that Mr. Longden should
join them, he was acquiescent, promising that his two nephews
should be participants of the property he was possessed
of. They— Mr. Longden and Mr. Binney — were, when he
died, the chief beneficiaries under his will, and the capital of
the business carried on at Furnace hill and Thorncliffe was
augmented by Mr. Longden's share, in accordance with the
expectation of Mr. Chambers and Mr. Newton when they
arranged for Mr. Maskew's withdrawal. They did not,
however, expect that Mr. Longden would have to wait until
Mr. Turner's death before he received the assistance his uncle
had led him to anticipate.
In the "Life and Times of John Wesley," by the
Rev. Luke Tyerman, mention is made of the preaching
of Mr. Henry Longden, at Barnsley, in the year 1783, when
a man, who had resolved to murder him, " ran up to him
while preaching and aimed a blow which would probably
have been fatal, but Longden leaped aside and providentially
escaped."
The last fifteen years of Mr. Longden's life, that is from
1797 until 1812, "he was not," as is stated in his Memoirs
(p. 119) " occupied with any personal attention to business."
Those who bore the burden of the management did so well
with what Mr. Longden had invested that during that period
his capital was more than doubled. When he retired in 1811
it amounted to £25,222, which was paid to his executors by
instalments of £3,000 a-year.
January 26th, 1798, he wrote in his diary : " Went to
Thorncliffe and met the happy praying colliers. They appear
to be men after God's own heart. I felt much enlargement in
praying for Mr. N. and his family."
156
Mr. Longden preached in 1790 at Darfield, standing upon
a wall opposite the Church, and between the rectory and
vicarage. (That parish is peculiar in having both a rector
and a vicar to officiate in the same church.) He had ridden
from Sheffield, so as to be in time to conduct the service at 9
o'clock in the morning, and after having had some refreshment
at a public-house, he asked the landlord to show him a
convenient place where he could preach, and the said wall
was pointed out. The singing soon brought to the spot
a large company. The two clergymen, disapproving of the
intrusion, took steps to disturb the service ; one of them
ordered the bells to be rung, and the other mounted his
horse and galloped up and down the street to disperse the
people if possible. Mr. Longden however persisted, and the
congregation heard, notwithstanding the interference, an
earnest appeal which produced upon the conscience of some
of them the same effect which Paul's preaching, in the open
air, by a river side, had upon the heart of a Lydia, at
Philippi.
On page 206 of Mr. Longden's memoirs there appears the
following paragraph, which it is due to his memory to quote : —
" Some years ago a friend wrote to him, faithfully declaring
that he was afraid he was not sufficiently liberal. His remarks
upon this letter in his journal are as follows : ' I find, upon
examining mj' cash book for the last six months, I have given
to the poor exclusively, one-seventh part of my income.
Perhaps my friend is right : it is possible that I ought to give
much more away than I do ; but my dear friends do not know
that I am prohibited, by our articles of co-partnership, from
receiving more than simple interest of my capital in trade.
Add to this, that the supplies of another mercantile concern
into which I was persuaded, contrary to my judgment, have
been nearly ten times as much as the original contract ; and
these supplies have been necessarily taken from time to time
from my yearly income.' "
157
In writing of Mr. Longden's character as a companion and
friend, his biographer says : — " He was formed for society,
possessing strong sense, an enlarged mind, an uncommon flow
of spirits, and a most affectionate disposition ; hence his com-
pany and friendship were in extensive request. Nor was he
averse to social intercourse : happy himself, he loved to be
surrounded with cheerful countenances, provided only that
the cheerfulness arose from such a source as was consistent
with the religion of Jesus Christ. He possessed a fund of
most interesting anecdotes ; and when in company with a
small number of friends he would open out his store in a
manner peculiar to himself, and excite sensations in his hearers
of delight and sympathy which it is impossible to describe."
He was tall and remarkably well made ; his figure was
finely proportioned ; and though at one period he rather
inclined to corpulency, yet till he was worn, away by illness he
never lost the expression of great muscular strength, combined
with great activity. His complexion was fair, and his manly
countenance was unusually prepossessing. His voice was a
full bass, and highly melodious ; his ear for music finely
correct. His monument in Carver Street Chapel is thus in-
scribed : —
" Near this place lie the remains of Henry Longden.
" He was a member of the Methodist Society thirty-five years. As a Christian his
conduct was exemplary. As a class-leader he was affectionate and faithful. As
a local preacher he was wise to win souls regardless of fatigue or danger. He
was an honoured instrument of good in this and the surrounding circuits, turning
many to righteousness. Two-and -thirty years, with unabating zeal, he preached
a present, free and full salvation, through faith in the Atonement. He departed
this life in the full triumph of faith, February 24th, 1812, aged 58 years.
"'Deo laus sit, et omnia honos.' "
Mr. Newton, in his diary, gives an interesting account of
the circumstances in connection with the resolve of Mr.
Chambers and himself to erect smelting furnaces ; but he does
not mention as one reason for acting upon their resolve, that
the Sheffield iron-founders had difficulty in getting the pig-iron
they required. The supply, although trade was bad, was not
equal to the demand, and when that is the case prices usually
158.
rise so as to yield a good profit. The design which had long been
in the mind of Mr. Chambers corresponded with a thought in the
mind of Mr. Appleby, who had a foundry near to the works of Mr.
Chambers and hispartners at Furnace hill, and while Mr. Cham-
bers and Mr. Newton were looking out for a site for furnaces on
the estate of Earl FitzwiUiam, Mr. Appleby was doing the same
in Derbyshire and ultimately found one at Renishaw.
At that time the trade of the country was in a very
depressed state. The French people, on the 2ist of June,
1793, had put their king to death, and war had broken out
between France and England. Mr. Newton's diary contains
the remark, "It was a most enterprising thing which we did
that morning when we rode to Wentworth to have an interview
with Earl Fitzwilliam." They saw, at Wentworth House, the
steward, Mr. Bowns, but the Earl seemed not to be there.
Fortunately, however, for the success of their expedition, his
lordship was not far off. Just as they were remounting their
horses to return to Sheffield, he appeared in the stable yard,
and there they had an opportunity of speaking to him, and of
explaining their errand. Had they missed seeing him they
would probably have failed to obtain what they wanted, for,
as they learned afterwards, Mr. Richard Swallow, a gentleman
well-known in connection with the iron trade of this district,
had been making the same request, and though he had been
hesitating to agree to the terms proposed, immediately after
their visit he renewed his application, consenting to the terms
for minerals previously offered. His delay in deciding perhaps
influenced his lordship, for he gave Mr. Chambers and Mr.
Newton a favourable reply. Impediments had to be encountered,
but Mr. Newton says, in his description of that journey, that
"the sequel fully proved the word of the nobleman to be as un-
changeable as the laws of the Medes and Persians."
For a long time I wondered how it was that Mr. Chambers'
and Mr. Newton's application for the Thorncliffe site was so
favourably entertained by Earl Fitzwilliam, as I supposed they
159
would be strangers to his lordship; but I discovered, in
searching the Rotherham Church registers, that Mr. Chambers'
second wife, Hannah, was the daughter of a Robert Oxleji, of
Greasbro', which village is on the Wentworth Estate, and, thus,
Mr. Chambers would not be unknown at Wentworth House.
It was on the 13th of December, 1793, after having on the
7th of that month arranged with Mr. Bowns, the steward, as to
the site and the price of the minerals, that an agreement was
signed at the Angel Inn, Sheffield, promising a lease for 21
years. Evidently the actual obtaining of that lease from Earl
Fitzwilliam was not a matter of urgency, for it was not until
the I2th of August, 1797, after more than three years of the
term had expired, that the document was signed. Instead,
therefore, of being for 21 years, it was for a term of 18 years,
namely, from March 25th, 1797, until March the 25th, 1815.
The terms of that first lease were £70 per acre for the 2ft.
6in. bed of coal, £^0 for the 5ft. seam, and ^^140 per acre the iron-
stone. Those prices were no doubt fair and liberal, but not so
favourable as those which, in 1746, Mr. Walker got from Lord
Effingham. The situation of the works in Mr. Walker's case,
near a navigable river, was much to his advantage. His
castings were conveyed by barges direct from the Holmes to
the Humber, and thence without reshipment to the Thames.
He was especially favoured by having the confidence of the
Marquis of Rockingham, who helped him when he needed
capital, and no doubt said a good word for him at the
Admiralty and the War Office.
The services of an experienced foreman of the name of
Joseph Hague were secured lor the new undertaking, and
forthwith, on New Year's Day 1794, operations at Thorncliffe
were commenced, a sough or drain being first constructed.
On the 27th of April, 1795, the first furnace was put into blast.
There is extant a memorandum of the quantity of iron
produced weekly after the first furnace was got to work, and
some letters which show the market value of pig-iron in 1793.
i6o
Although of the twelve or fifteen thousand pounds inherited
by Mr. Longden by the bequest of his uncle a large portion
was* available for the Thorncliffe extension of the firm's
business, more capital was soon needed, and Mr. Robert Scott,
of London, a friend Mr. Newton had known for some years, was
taken into partnership, and also his brother, Mr. John Scott.
The firm then became Longden, Newton, Chambers and Scotts.
This new partnership was for 21 years from January ist, 1799.
Mr. Robert Scott, who became " a sleeping partner " in
the Thorncliffe firm in the year 1799, and who continued to
have a considerable amount of capital invested there long
after the death of Mr. Longden and Mr. Chambers, and for
several years after the death, in 1825, of Mr. Newton, was
the friend in London to whom Mr. Newton was indebted for
his initiation into the principles of Wesleyan Methodism. As
he states in one of his letters, he was induced to comply with
the wish of Mr. Newton and his partners that he should join
them, in order to promote the interests of his brother, Mr.
John Scott, who, having also a share, would give personal
service. The latter, however, in the course of a few years
sold his share to his brother and returned to London. Mr.
Robert Scott in the latter part of his life resided at Pensford,
near Bristol. Dr. Adam Clarke and he were on terms of
affectionate intimacy, and there are published letters referring
to Mr. Scott written by that eminent minister, which help us
to estimate the influence which Christianity, in the form of
Wesleyan Methodism, had upon the Thorncliffe partners in
the early days of its history.
On Thursday, the iqth of February, 1801, a time of great
distress and high price of provisions, there was a distribution
made to the workmen at Thorncliffe of rice, and a vessel in
which to cook it. To every man was given i lb., with i lb.
for his wife and half-a-pound for each of his children, also a
five quart " Digester," an iron vessel for boiling, invented by
Dr. Ure, and of which, at that time, the firm were making a
i6i
considerable quantity. I have the list of the recipients before
me, and it is evidence that the names of many of the present
residents in the neighbourhood are linked by honourable de-
scent with those connected with the business at Furnace hill,
Sheffield, and Thorncliffe ninety-two years ago. The cost of
the donation was ^^35, and the number of the recipients 514,
of whom 102 were wives and 253 children.
During the first few years of the Company's history the
ordinary foundry operations f)f the business were carried on at
the Phoenix Works, Furnace hill, Sheffield, and only the
smelting and mining done at Thorncliffe. On October 27th,
1800, Mr. Newton and his family removed from Sheffield to
Chapeltown, where they occupied the house at Greenhead,
now the residence of Mrs. Thomas Gibson. Then was com-
menced the erection of casting-sheds and other buildings at
Thorncliffe, and such good progress was made with them that
in June, 1802, the premises at Sheffield could be quitted and
disposed of.
After that date, for the business which had to be transacted
in Sheffield, the rendezvous of the partners and others who
drove into the town, and those whom they had to meet, was
the King's Head Hotel, in Change alley. The landlord reserved
for their use on market days what got to be called the Thorn-
cliffe room. The dinner provided every Tuesday (at which, for
many years, there was almost always present a Mr. Newton or
a Mr. Chambers) became an institution of note in the town,
and continued to be so until, by the death of Mr. Thomas
Jessop, the president, that " Birthday Club " dinner collapsed,
and could not be resuscitated. That historical house of enter-
tainment, however, still finds the accommodation the Thorncliffe
Company requires, as it did ninety years ago.
At the house at Greenhead Mr. Newton resided until
his new abode, Staindrop Lodge, was ready. The date on
the walls of this substantial, commodious and pleasant habita-
tion is 1807.
1 62
In the year 1806 was obtained from the Duke of Norfolk a
lease of the minerals on the farm of Mr. John Foster, of High
Green, consisting of the Bromley or Silkstone coal, and the
Claywood or Gallery Bottom ironstone. They first attempted
to win these minerals by means of a water-wheel, but that plan
was not successful.
I have at hand a printed list of prices, dated January ist,
1807, of foundry products. It may be interesting to persons in
the trade to know something of the prices charged at that
period. For wheelbarrow wheels, was charged i8s. 8d. per cwt. ;
for anvils, from 14s. to i6s. ^d.; for sad-irons, 23s. ^d.; for sash
and clock weights, 14s. Six months' credit given, or five per
cent, allowed for prompt cash. The list is headed, " Longden,
Newton, Chambers and Scotts, Thorncliffe Iron-works, near
Sheffield."
It was soon seen what sort of men they were who had
come into the neighbourhood, and who had commenced at
Thorncliffe their new works. Mr. Foster, the coroner, who
lived at High Green House, and occupied some pasture land
underneath which lay some of the minerals first used, did not
like the intrusion. It is said of him, that, seeing Mr. Chambers
talking to the men who were beginning to sink a pit, he
exclaimed, " What the devil are you going to do here ?" The
answer was, "With God's blessing, Mr. Foster, we are going
to get a bit of coal and ironstone;" and it is a part of the story
that the Coroner then said, " There now 1 see that ! I'm
swearing and you're praying!"
As soon as the first of the newly-erected workshops was
finished building, a service was held in it, conducted by
Mr. Longden.
After the withdrawal, in 1811, of Mr. Longden, and the
disposal by Mr. John Scott of his share to his brother,
Mr. Robert Scott, the invoice heads of the firm show that it
was styled. Chambers, Newton and Scott. Mr. Chambers died
in 1817, and on the ist of January, 1820, the signature of the
i63
firm was changed to Newton, Scott, Chambers and Company,
the name Chambers representing sons of the deceased's first
partner of that name.
After the death of Mr. Chambers in 1817, and his eldest
son, Mr. Thomas Chambers, junior (who had taken an active
part in the management of the business), having died three
years previously, the chief control rested upon Mr. Newton,
assisted by Mr. Matthew Chambers, a younger brother of the
son who had died. For some years Mr. Matthew Chambers
had been at Low Moor, obtaining employment, knowledge and
experience at the large works of Messrs. Hird, Dawson and
Hardy; and when his father died, he came to Chapeltown, and
was resident at Howsley Hall, until he removed to Chapeltown
House. The two sons of Mr. George Newton — Mr. Isaac and
Mr. Thomas — also assisted in the management.
On January ist, 1820, a new partnership was constructed,
and a new lease for 21 years obtained from Earl Fitzwilliam.
The firm then were, Mr. George Newton, Mr. Robert Scott,
Mr. Matthew Chambers, Mr. Joseph Chambers, Mr. Isaac
Newton, and Mr. Thomas Newton. As Mr. Robert Scott had
in 1810 bought for ;^3,i5o his brother's one-ninth share, Mr. J.
Scott's name was not in the new list of partners.
Mr. Joseph Chambers had the management of the branch
establishment at Chapeltown, where the firm supplied their
workmen with groceries, and the various articles of food,
clothing, &c., which the sole retail shop of a village was wont
to provide when there were no railroad facilities as now for
travelling to a neighbouring market town. The old-fashioned
system "of paying by ticket was then in vogue.
In the year 1810 the colliers at Thorncliffe combined for
an advance of wages. This is evidenced by a charge made by
the lawyer, Mr. Charles Brookfield.
In the year 1820, on the 19th of July, a terrible disaster
occurred at the Thorncliffe Foundry. There was being cast,
for Messrs. Armitage of the Mousehole Forge, near Sheffield, a.
164
shaft 18 feet 9 in. long, 16 in. diameter, octagon ; and weighing
about five tons. The pit in which it was to be cast was 15 feet
deep. The sand was rammed close up to the boxes, 10 or 11
feet. When the metal had been poured in the mould nearly to
the top, there was a terrific explosion. The lowest box burst.
The event occurred during a thunder storm, and in the presence
of several of the partners, one of whom, Mr. Newton's son
Isaac, lost his life, and eight of the workmen.
Mr. Isaac Newton in trying to get out of the way fell down
on his back, and the liquid metal, falling in showers all around,
so severely burnt him that he died five hours afterwards. The
partners, Mr. Newton, senior, Mr. Matthew Chambers, senior,
and Mr. Thomas Newton, escaped uninjured. Mr. Matthew
Chambers, junior, had his face and hands burnt, but not
seriously.
The men who lost their lives were, Jonathan Windle, junior,
and his son Alfred, James Nixon, M6ses Pingston, two brothers
of the name of Hurst, James Oxley and his son Isaac, and
Henry Hall, a young man just out of his apprenticeship, who
had come to the works to take leave before he returned home.
I am told that the pit in which this shaft was being cast
was over the sough or drain made when the works were first
started, and the water in it was in contact with the bottom of
the pit ; that it was a dry sand casting; that there was only
sand of the thickness of three inches in the box, which gave
way ; and that the foreman was blamable. Mrs. Batty, -who
had a high reputation for her practical skill in dealing with
ailments, attended Mr. Isaac Newton during the few hours of
his terrible suffering.
Jonathan Windle, senior, who was called upon to mourn
over the loss of his son and grandson, was one of a number of
the Thorncliffe workmen for whom the partners had a sincere
feeHngof respect and kindly regard. When his death occurred,
in October, 1830, the following paragraph, supplied by the late
Mr, Thomas Newton, appeared in a Sheffield newspaper : —
i65
" On Thursday last, in the 79th year of his age, Jonathan
Windle, at the house of his son-in-law, at Birdwell, neai-
Barnsley. He entered the service of the Thorncliffe Company
28 years ago, and continued with them, giving satisfaction by
his uniform and steady conduct, until he was obliged by growing
infirmities to retire, about five years ago. He was a man of
peace, and much respected for his good nature and friendly
disposition. He had been a consistent member of the Methodist
society 36 years, and died, as he had lived, in the enjoyment of
true religion. He has left a numerous progeny behind him,
consisting of 8 children, 59 grandchildren and 6 great-grand-
children. His remains were borne to the family grave at
Ecclesfield by eight of his grandsons, accompanied by a large
concourse of friends and fellow workmen."
The death, in the prime of manhood, of Mr. Thomas
Chambers, the eldest son of the first of that name at Thorn-
cliffe, was an event which deprived the business of an active,
shrewd and industrious manager. His conspicuous shrewdness
got him the sobriquet among the workmen of " Long-headed
Tom." His eldest son, the Thomas Chambers of the third
generation, was about 19 years old at the time of his father's
death, and he was in the course of being trained in an old-
established ironmongery house with which the firm did business.
Without waiting for the completion of his term of apprentice-
ship, his grandfather and Mr. Newton, seeing that it seemed
desirable that he should be transferred to Thorncliffe, arranged
that his younger brother, George Chambers, should take his
place as an apprentice. Thus it was that Mr. Thomas
Chambers, of Lane End House, who for many years was
prominent at Thorncliife, first became connected with its
management.
In 1825 Mr. George Newton, who had been at the head of
the business for some years, died, at the age of 64 years. In
1827, after the death of the three original partners, viz., Mr.
Thomas Chambers, Mr. Henry Longden and Mr. George
M
i66
Newton, and the death also of Mr. Joseph Chambers and of
Mr. Isaac Newton, there remained only Mr. Thomas Newton,
Mr. Matthew Chambers, senior, and Mr. Robert Scott. Mr.
Matthew Chambers was at the close of his life, for he died in
1828, and Mr. Scott was 75 years old, and wished to be paid
out. The question therefore of a new partnership was of
pressing urgency ; but before anything could be arranged the
demand of Mr. Scott had to be dealt with. Mr. Scott, through
his agent, asked for a larger sum than his partners thought
he was fairly entitled to, and Chancery proceedings were
commenced.
It is an interesting page in this history which tells of
Dr. Adam Clarke becoming arbitrator in the dispute, whereby
heavy lawyers' bills were averted. It was complimentary to
Dr. Clarke that he should be invited to look into the affairs of
the Company and decide what would be a fair amount for
Mr. Scott to receive, and sagacity was shown by the men who
proposed that he should be asked to be umpire.
The learned doctor was far away in the north of Scotland
when his name was mentioned, and Mr. Chambers of Lane
End was sent to seek him. The result was that he awarded
to Mr. Scott two thousand pounds less than he had asked for.
Mr. Scott died a few years after, at the advanced age of
82 years. There is mention of him in the life of Dr. Adam
Clarke, as the gentleman to whom the doctor first appealed,
after he had persuaded the conference at Bristol, in 1823, to
send two preachers to the Zetland Islands, and promised to be
responsible for the money required to sustain them.
The writer of that memoir says, "There lived at that time
at Pensford, near Bristol, a gentleman of great honour and piety,
Robert Scott, Esq., who, with his excellent lady, was always
willing to help the preachers in their enterprises to make the
Saviour known to the nigh and the far-off. Mr. Scott gave the
promise of a hundred pounds per annum for the support of the
missionaries, and of ten pounds towards every chapel to be built
167
in the Islands. In fulfilling this promise, he always exceeded
the amount at first stipulated, while his admirable wife and
her sister, the late Miss Granger, of Bath, added handsome
donations." This Mr. Scott bequeathed ;f 3,000 in trust for the
Zetland mission, and Ur. Clarke was one of the trustees.
As the business established at Thorncliffe is a product of
Weslejan Methodism, and as Mr. Robert Scott 'was so well
known to Dr. Adam Clarke, we can conceive how likely the
doctor would be to comply with the request that he would
undertake this friendly office. It would be in 1828 that this
occurred, for it was in that year the doctor made his second and
last visit to the Shetland Islands, where he was "hard at work"
from the i8th of June until the iSth of July, helping the
missionaries Messrs. Dunn and Raby. What is said in the
memoir of this eminent man will illustrate his fitness to be
umpire in a business dispute : —
" As a pastor he inculcated the most inflexible principles
on the subject of commercial integrity. In preaching one
Sunday morning at the old chapel in Spitalfields, on the 15th
Psalm, he laid great stress on the relative duties laid down for
the guidance of men of business. In that Psalm there are
the words :
" ' Lord, who shall sojourn in thy tabernacle ? Who shall
dwell in thy holy hill ? He that walketh uprightly, and worketh
righteousness, and speaketh truth in his heart. He that slandereth
not with his tongue, nor doeth evil to his friend, nor taketh up a
reproach against his neighbour. In his eyes a reprobate is despised ;
but he honoureth them that fear the Lord. He that sweareth to
his friend, and changeth not . He that putteth not out his money
to usury, nor taketh reward against the innocent. He that doeth
these things shall never be moved.' — (Revised Version.)
" An eminent merchant who had heard the sermon over-
took him on the way home and observed, ' Mr. Clarke, if what
you have said to-day in the pulpit be necessary between man
and man, I fear few commercial men will be saved.' Dr. Clarke
i68
replied, 'I cannot help that, sir! I may not bring down
the requirements of infinite justice to suit the selfish chicanery
of any set of men whatever ; it is God's law, and by it will
men be judged.' "
Political economy is not a science which prescribes, but
describes what is prevalent in business transactions. We are
often reminded of this, but we rarely meet with a protest by
a Christian writer upon that science against self-interest and
the desire for wealth being the guiding principle with that
portion of mankind which professes to be swayed by the
teachings of morality and religion. Why should not a treatise
upon that science tell us not only what is, but what should
be ? It is undoubtedly true that the leaven of Christianity
and morality works among all classes of business men. Would
it not be well, that it may work less slowly, if Christian
political economists had the courage of their convictions and
were to insist, as did Dr. Adam Clarke, upon the obligation
which rests upon Christian men of business so acting that
as far as they can prevent it, self-interest rather than Chris-
tian rectitude shall not be the dominant rule ; that when the
good and the bad, the selfish and the unselfish, come to act
in a mass, self-interest shall not carry the day, and so hasten
the time when the economic assumption that it always does
carry the day shall no longer hold good ?
The dissolution of the partnership of the old firm of New-
ton, Scott, Chambers & Co., after Mr. Scott had been paid out,
took place on the ist July, 1831, and was advertised in the
Sheffield Iris, November 15 of that year. The persons whose
names were attached to the deed of dissolution were : —
Thomas Newton \
Thomas Wheailey I Executors of George Newton,
Samuel Owen [ (wlio died Oct. 22, 1825.)
Robert Scott (died aged 80, Jany. 28, 1832.)
„ „ ( Executor of Thomas Chambers,
Thomas Bagshaw -i
[ (who died Jan. 4, 1817.)
169
Dr. Adam Clarke
170
Thomas Chambers (grocer)
Matthew Chambers
William Chambers
Thomas Chambers (son-in-law)
Thomas Chambers (grocer)
T. Aldam
Thomas Newton
Thomas Newton
Executors of Matthew Chambers,
(who died Jan, 26, 1828.)
Executors of Joseph Chambers,
(who died March 3, 1824.)
Mr. Thomas Newton and Mr. Robert Scott being the only
personal partners whose names are attached to that deed, and
as, after the retirement of Mr. Scott, only Mr. Newton
remained, the immediate arrangements for the formation of
a new partnership had to be considered. Then commenced
the firm whose designation was Newton, Chambers and
Company, consisting of Mr. Thomas Newton, of Staindrop
Lodge, the father of the present Mr. T. C. Newton; Mr.
Thomas Chambers, of Lane End ; Mr. Thomas Chambers,
of Chapeltown and afterwards of Melbourne ; and Mr. Matthew
Chambers, then of Chapeltown House and afterwards of
Barbot Hall. Afterwards Mr. John Chambers, of Belmont,
became a partner. Mr. Thomas Chambers, who had managed
the branch business at Chapeltown, withdrew from the firm in
1839, and in 1852 with his large family emigrated to Australia.
For several years after the invention, in 1792, by a Mr.
Murdoch, of an apparatus for the manufacture of coal-gas, and
the demonstration of its utility by Messrs. Boulton and Watt,
at Birmingham, in 1S02, at the festival of the Peace of
Amiens,* Parliament opposed the general adoption of the
invention. But the time came when a demand for light thus
produced was widely heard of. By this, about nine or ten
years after the works were started, a large amount of business
was brought to Thorncliffe. In connection with Mr. James
Malam, who had made himself acquainted with the details of
the invention as developed at the Soho Works in Birmingham,
• The Peace of Amiens was concluded on the 27th of March, 1802, and
ratified on the following May the 13th.
T71
the firm promptly adapted their appliances for the production
of every part of a gas apparatus large or small, and also for
supplying pipes and lamp posts for the streets. London,
Brighton, Yarmouth, Hamburg, Riga, and scores of towns in
this and other countries have been supplied with coal-gas by
the aid of the skill, labour and enterprise of this Yorkshire
iron-foundry. Gas was first used in the streets of London
in 1807. The quantity of coal sent away now to feed the
retorts of gas-works in London and elsewhere, is something
like half a million tons a-year.
After the close of the Peninsular war, and the final defeat
of Napoleon Bonaparte at Waterloo in 1815, the diminution
in the demand for cannon caused the Walkers of Rotherham
to look for orders in other directions. They undertook to
make the iron three-arched Southwark bridge which crosses
the Thames, and at Thorncliffe were cast some of the parts of
that bridge.
There have been great changes in the smelting of iron, as
well as in the converting of iron into steel since the beginning
of the present century. Some years after the three blast
furnaces were erected at Thorncliffe, the hot blast process
was invented by Mr. James B. Neilson. As elsewhere, when
that invention was made known and tested, the cold blast was
discontinued — not however because the hot blast produced
better iron, but because of the saving of fuel ; for in the old
process, the best part of the ore being most easily melted, it
constituted the product of the cold blast furnaces, the inferior
portions of the ironstone remaining in the scoria.
In 1841 Messrs. Newton, Chambers & Company had the
contract for supplying castings for the construction of an iron
lighthouse on the Goodwin Sands, to the design of the patent
of Mr. William Bush, civil engineer. This copy of the
engraving of the structure proposed, shows what it was
intended to be. It was to consist of circular hollow castings
of considerable diameter, rising one above another and bolted
172
together through flanges, with a circular staircase inside ; the
lowest casting let down through the sand to the rock, or such
foundation as might be found, and that lowest one and those
upon it as high as where the top of the pedestal would rise
above the surface of the water, filled up with solid material ;
above the pedestal the castings to be of slightly diminishing
diameter to the apex. The work of erecting the lighthouse
was carried on until the pedestal appeared above the surface
of the sea, ready for the superstructure. Unfortunately
further progress was interfered with. A thunder-storm of
exceptional violence occurred, and the weight of the upper part
not being upon the base under water, the latter was disturbed
by the storm. The Trinity House authorities had misgivings,
and would not go on with the project. They resolved to let
floating lights suffice to protect vessels coming near to those
dangerous sands, and to-day there is no lighthouse.
The "strike" of the Thorncliffe colliers which began in
the spring of the year 1869, was a serious affair. It is supposed
to have shortened the life of both Mr. Thomas and Mr. John
Chambers. It lasted from March, 1869, until August, 1870.
For seventeen months, more than a thousand miners refused
to work not only because the wages offered did not satisfy
them, but because the managers of the collieries declined, at the
dictation of a committee of Union men at Barnsley, to alter
two of the long established modes of conducting their business,
namely, to make the weighing of coal 20 cwt. to the ton in-
stead of 21 cwt. the rule at all the pits, and to have the
colliers' wages reckoned every week instead of every fortnight.
The furniture of the lower rooms of thirty new cottages, erected
at Westwood for the new hands, having been destroyed, a troop
of soldiers were brought from Sheffield, and were, along with
forty policemen, located in the neighbourhood for six months
to protect the men brought to the collieries to take the place of
those who refused to work, and the old hands, about a hundred,
who had not consented to join the Union. The "black sheep," as
174
they were called, could not pass to and from their work — could
not even attend the funeral of one of their children — without the
risk of being abused or murdered. The Union spent ;^i7,ooo,
and the cost to the firm would not be less. In the Workmen's
Hall a temporary floor was placed on the level of the gallery,
across the large room, and iron beds were hired and put there
for the soldiers.
The contributor to Dr. Gatty's edition of Hunter's Hallam-
shire, who writes about the trade of the district, in the Chapter
upon the " Expansion of the Town and Trade of Sheffield,"
seems not to have sufficiently considered certain credible state-
ments, some of which are to be found in the work which he
supplements. " In the middle of the last century," he says,
" there were forges at Attercliffe, Mousehole and Wadsley,
which annually made 520 tons of bar iron. Up to this period,
however, the iron trade, in its larger sense, had- never been
known here. What was at first an air bloomery was after-
wards blown with bellows, by which a stronger and surer
draught was obtained; and the blast furnace did not come into
use until coal was employed in melting the ore, about a century
ago. The iron, which abounded in the district, was never
worked for any castings of great dimensions, though small
foundries existed in the town." * * * " j^ must be
acknowledged that Samuel Walker was the real founder of the
iron trade in these parts." In these paragraphs there seems
to be an under estimate of what was done at Chapeltown and
Wortley, long before Mr. Walker's time. The writer seems
not to have known, or borne in mind, that the Duchess of
Newcastle, in her memoirs of her husband, mentions that the
Duke, while at Sheffield, during the civil war, finding there"
were ironworks in the neighbourhood which could produce
cannon and other implements of war, ordered some to be made.
Nor has that writer remembered that of the Attercliffe works
Mr. Hunter writes.:—" These forges are perhaps the oldest in
the neighbourhood. Till the time of James I. they were in the
175
hands of the Earls of Shrewsbury, and worked for their benefit.
Afterwards they were leased to Captain Copley and others."
In his "South Yorkshire," Mr. Hunter mentions that from
Captain Copley the ironworks at " Chapeltown Furnace,"
" Rotherham Mill," and " Wadsley Forge " passed into the
hands of William Simpson of Renishaw, Francis Barlow of
Sheffield, and Dennis Heyford of Millington, County Chester,
in the reign of Charles II. (about 1678). It may fairly be
surmised that the cannon and other implements of war which
the Duchess of Newcastle says her husband ordered to be
made at ironworks in the neighbourhood of Sheffield, were
not the product of a place where an iron trade was not in
existence. The "Chapeltown Furnace," as the foundry was
called, which was in connection with the Attercliffe forges,
was owned by the same person who owned Sheffield Castle,
which the Duke of Newcastle had charge of, and, therefore,
it is probable that that would be the foundry where the cannon
were made. The words of that contribution to Dr. Gatty's
edition of the History of Hallamshire which affirm, "The
blast furnaces did not come into use until coal was employed
in melting the ore, about a century ago," were written under
date 1869, not 1819, the year when Hunter's preface is dated.
The furnace at Chapeltown would be smelting with coal for
fuel before the year 1769, for there is a Report of a Committee
of the House of Commons on Patents which states that it was
in 1619 that Lord Edward Dudley took out a patent for the
process he invented for smelting iron-ore with pit coal instead
of wood, and that it was about a century afterwards that its
use became general. The dearth and scarcity of fuel caused
by the use of wood in smelting iron was complained of in the
early part of last century, and by about the year 1740 the
cutting down of trees for that purpose was generally discon-
tinued, and Lord Dudley's process adopted. In that year the
quantity of pig-iron produced in England and Wales was about
17,000 tons, from 59 furnaces, of which number Chapeltown
176
Furnace would be included. Smelting by coal made no
very rapid progress until the steam engine was employed to
maintain the blast. The first steam engine was applied to a
cotton mill in 1785. The first in Manchester was in 1789; in
Glasgow in 1792 ; in Sheffield in 1786 (erected by Beilby and
Proctor, opticians). In 1700 the estimate of coal raised is
2,612,000 tons, in 1795 io,o8o,30otons,in 1892 191, 954,908 tons.*
The diary of John Hobson, of Dodworth Green, published
by the Surtees Society, is evidence that there was a smelting
furnace at Chapeltown belonging to the Duke of Norfolk in
1726. There is an entry in that diary, of" March i6th, 1726,
which says : " At Barnsley, where it is reported for certain
that Mr. Edward Wortley has taken the Duke of Norfolk's
iron-works, viz., Chapeltown Furnace, Wadsley and Attercliffe
Forges." The furnace that was there in 1726 would not be
different from that for which rent was paid in 1712 by " Mr.
Simpson, Mr. Fell and partners."
Searching for information respecting the Chapeltown
Furnace, with the knowledge obtained from the diary of
John Hobson, of Dodworth Green, dated 1726, I can better
understand the evidence supplied by the old rent books in the
Duke of Norfolk's office, where I found that on February 24,
1712, tenants who are styled " Mr. Simpson, Mr. Fell and
partners," paid £"8o 5s. as the annual charge for " forges,
furnaces, &c." In 1720 Mr. Fell paid for forges, furnaces, &c.,
the same sum, and in 1729 the rent received from Mr. Fell for
the same was ;f 100. His firm continued each year to pay ^f 100
until 1768. In 1772 a rental of £106 was paid by Clay & Co.
for "forges, furnaces and slitting mill." In 1780 Mr. Richard
Swallow paid for "forges, furnaces and slitting mill" £Sy, and
in 1797 he was the tenant of the same at the same rental.
That the word "furnaces" in these entries refers to those at
Chapeltown is clear, because the number on the map at the
place where the Chapeltown furnaces are indicated corresponds
with the number in the rent book.
* of which more than 40,000,000 tons, including cinders, were exported.
177
To this Mr. Richard Swallow was bequeathed, by the
widow of Mr. John Fell the younger, the mansion called
Newhall, which he had built near to the Attercliffe forges,
on the opposite side of the River Don. Both the father and
the son prospered in connection with those works, and the
latter placed his handsome brick house, with its spacious
gardens, within the sound and the reach of the smoke of those
ironworks where he and his father had acquired their wealth.
Mr. Fell, junior, died May 17, 1762, without a son to inherit,
and leaving a widow, who died January 29th, 1795. The senior
Mr. Fell, before he removed to that side of Sheffield, had been a
clerk at the Wortley Forge when it was in the hands of Mr. Hey-
ford. Mr. Swallow and his son both resided at Newhall. The
latter was married to a sister of Mr. Hugh Parker, of Wood-
thorpe. I suppose he would be the Mr. Swallow who in 1793
applied to Earl Fitzwilliam for the Thorncliffe site.
Wortley Ironworks, situated on the estate of the Earl of
Wharncliffe in the lordship or township of Wortley, and thus
in the parish of Tankersley, have been in continuous occupation
during the last four centuries. On a wall in the forge may still
be seen a sculptured representation of a tilt hammer, with
the initials S.W. and the date 1713, when the works were
enlarged and improved. A further testimony to the antiquity
of the works, and bearing date anterior to this, is the following
inscription, still legible on a gravestone in Wortley church-
yard: "Here lies the body of Francis Askew, of Upper Forge,
hammerman ; died October 24th, 1669." Although smelting
of iron-ore with coal in blast furnaces seems not recently to
have been done at Wortley as at Chapeltown, no doubt there
were there bloomeries formerly in which the process of smelt-
ing was carried on.* In the adjacent woods large quantities
* As foreign iron came into use in Sheffield — which it appears to have done
as long ago as 1557, imported from Denmark and Spain — " the smelting of iron
ceased to be carried on in the town, though it flourished in the neighbourhood."
In what other neighbourhood besides Chapeltown, I am unable to affirm on
reliable evidence.
178
of scoria have been found. About a century ago the Wortley
Works were owned by Mr. James Cockshutt, F.R.S., civil
engineer, at one time a partner of Crawshay, the original
founder of the great Welsh iron industry. Mr. Cockshutt at
the Wortley Ironworks had one of the first mills for rolling
with grooved rolls; and "pig-iron," either from his own
smelting furnaces or purchased, he "puddled." He was one
of the pioneers of improvement in the manufacture of iron,
being amongst the first to appreciate the inventions of Henry
Cort nearly a century ago. Mr. Thomas Andrews, F.R.S,,
M.Inst.C.E., is the present proprietor of these works.
" The probabilities are strong," writes Mr. Hunter, "that
before the Norman invasion, and even while the Romans had
possession of the island, the iron mines of Sheffield afforded
employment to a considerable number of persons. Domesday
must be considered as neutral on this question ; and in. almost
the very next in chronological order of the records from which
we obtain our knowledge of the early state of this neighbour-
hood, about the year 1160, we have notice of pretty extensive
ironworks established by the monks of Kirkstead." The site
of these ancient works in the township of Kimberworth is on
high ground two or three miles eastward of Chapeltown, and
underneath that spot are the workings of the Grange Colliery,
which the Thorncliffe Company have recently annexed. Thus,
not only are the Chapeltown Ironworks antecedent to opera-
tions begun by Mr. Chambers, Mr. Newton and Mr. Longden,
a century ago, but the much older works, carried on by the
monks as long ago as the twelfth century, are linked with Mr.
Hunter's short sentence on page 428, " In the neighbourhood
of Chapel Town are extensive ironworks."*
The whereabouts of the place in the parish of Kimber-
worth selected by the monks for their ironworks, was to me,
for many years, an unsolved problem. The Rev. f. Stacye
•Had the Thorncliffe Works been not in the Wapentake of Staincross, but in
the Hallamshire about which Mr. Hunter was writing, probably " extensive " would
not have been the only descriptive word he would have applied to them.
179
thus comments upon Mr. Hunter not having defined the two
properties respectively conferred on the monks by De Busli and
De Lovetot : — " Considerable misapprehension seems to have
arisen from its not having been sufficiently borne in mind that
two distinct properties were given to the monks of Kirkstead,
in the neighbourhood of Kimberworth, — the one (in the parish
of Ecclesfield) the donation of William De Lovetot, of the
hermitage of St. John (the Baptist) and its lands, with the
additions made by his son Richard ; the other (in the adjoining
parish of Kimberworth) the grant of Richard de Busli, of
' unam managium in territorio de Kimberworth,' i.e., of one
homestead, with leave to erect forges and dig for minerals in
his whole manor here. Hence this latter establishment has
been looked for near the site of the present grange (formerly
the residence of the Earls of Effingham), where (or near to
where) the hermitage seems to have stood ; whereas there can
be little doubt that the forge premises of the monks were a mile
or so to the east of this, on the most lofty situation in the
neighbourhood, as would be necessary for the smelting of the
metal, before artificial blasts were used (and, he might have
said, because the minerals were there). Indeed it seems pretty
certain that the very building erected about a.d. ii6o, agreably
to the charter of De Busli, still remains, and a very curious
and interesting building it is. It is of most massive construc-
tion, and retains some of the small original Norman windows.
(Those on the north side have not been disturbed). The south
side has been a good deal altered, and many insertions have
been made, some indeed of very early date. The whole hill
side on which it stands is covered with large heaps of cinders,
from which the whole joint property seems to have derived one
of its names, viz., Synocliffe, Scenocliffe or Senecliffe, while
the other designation of Thundercliffe, i.e., the (or th') Under-
cliffe Grange, was properly applicable to the grange situated in
the valley beneath. In the Vol. Eccl., Henry VIII., it is
returned as one property, thus, ' Sinecliff firma grangix £4.'
i8o
It seems not improbable that the Kirkstead monks introduced
the iron trade into- the neighbourhood."
The charter is extant in which Richard de Busli, a
nephew — according to Thornton — of Roger de Busli, "with the
consent of his wife Emma and her heirs, gives to the monks of
Kyrkstead, ' unum munagium in territorio de Kymberworth,'
and gives leave to erect four forges, two for smelting iron and
two for fabricating (ad fabricandum) whenever they may please;
to dig for minerals through the whole territory of the said vill
sufficient for the two fires, and to collect dead wood sufficient
for the four iires."
Later, when the Lovetots had succeeded to De Bush, there
is a grant from Richard de Lovetot in which he gives "to God
and the church of St. Mary at Kyrkestide, and the monks of
the same place, the hermitage of St. John in the parish of
Ecclesfield, with all the land which his father gave and which
he gives in addition, bounded by the landes of Richard de BusH
in Kimberworth and of Jordan de Reineville of Cowley,"
Respecting that hermitage, Mr. Hunter says, " In that
retired part of the parish of Ecclesfield where it adjoins the
manor of Kimberworth, a religious solitary took up his abode."
His example followed by others, a hermitage became established
dedicated to Saint John the Baptist. The first William de
Lovetot settled certain lands upon the hermitage, and to this
gift his son Richard made a small addition. In his time the
hermitage lost its inhabitant, and Richard gave it with all
its appurtenances to the monks of Kirkstead, for 'his own
health, and of William his son, Cecilia his wife, and others.'
The monks of this Lincolnshire house * * found it expedient
to erect a grange for the residence of their tenant or bailiff
who had the oversight of these outlying lands and ironworks."
It seems to me that is not the only way of accounting for
the substantial building on Thorpe Common, which is not yet
quite a ruin (but I am afraid soon will be, for I see holes in
the roof which were not there a year or two ago). Some of
I»I
the monks would probably be there themselves, for they were
not forbidden, as monks were afterwards, to trade with iron,
wool, &c., because they were getting inconveniently wealthy
by embarking in business undertakings.
William de Lovetot was buried at Worksop about the
year iioo. Richard his son, who gave the hermitage estate,
was living in the year 1161, in the reign of Henry II., for in
that year he had a dispute with the priory of Ecclesfield as to
the extent of their respective rights and territories. He says
in his deed in favour of the monks, " I have given, and all the
land that was that of Robert de Gras, to the church and
monks of St. Mary of Kyrkestede. free and quit from all
secular service and custom and all exaction, for the welfare of
myself, and William my son, and my heirs and brothers, and
for the souls of my father and mother and Cecilia my wife,
and all my ancestors, and they shall cause a monk to serve
there at the chapel (that is at the chapel at the monastery at
Eirkstead)."
Mr. Eastwood says, " Grange lane and Grange mill take
their name from a grange to which Grange lane directly leads,
and which is now called Parkgate farm. A very little exami-
nation takes away all reasonable doubt of its being the original
grange of the monastery of Kirkstead, which is known to have
been somewhere near here, though its site has hitherto been
placed half-a-mile lower down in the valley, near to where now
stands the mansion of the Earl of Effingham, where, or near
to, was another grange (Thundercliffe) and where doubtless
was the hermitage of St. John the Baptist, which formed the
nucleus of the possessions of Kirkstead* in these parts.
"A visit to the Grange, now called Parkgate farm, will well
repay those who are curious in the ancient architecture of five
or six centuries ago. * * The beams and lintels ^re of oak,
still perfectly sound and of amazing thickness, most of them
• The ruins of Kirkstead Abbey are to be seen between Horncastle and
Tattershall.
N
i83
being a foot-and-a-half in depth and the same in breadth. The
■door-ways and square-headed trefoil windows, also present
certain peculiarities of construction which fix their erection
at a very early date."
Of those monks whose abode, when they were engaged in
their mining and smelting and " fabricating " operations, is to
be seen to-day near the Sportsman's Inn on Thorpe Common,
nothing is known, not even their names. How long they were
thus personally engaged is uncertain. It could not be after the
year in the reign of Edward III. when ecclesiastics were for-
bidden to meddle with ti-ade and commerce — that is, between
1327 and 1377 — but the Abbey might have leased the works to
tenants, as they did their land in the parish of Ecclesfield.
A sketch of this very ancient building is placed as a frontis-
piece to this volume, because it is the oldest. Indeed there is
no roofed ruin so old in this part of England. There is a tra-
dition that it has been used as a prison. It would not be an
unsuitable place for the custody of captives who, during the
many wars in which the people of this land have been engaged,
had the ill-luck to lose their liberty, but there is no evidence in
support of the tradition. Kirkstead Abbey held the property
in Ecclesfield and Kimberworth for at least 365 years — that is
from A..D. 1160 to 1525. In the latter year it had passed to
the Crown, for a lease for ninety-nine years was then granted
to Nicholas Wombwell. In proof of this the collector of the
King's rent, Michael Wentworth, gives a receipt for rents
received in the seventeenth year of the lease— that is, 1542,
33 Henry VIII. The property is described in the Lord
Treasurer's Memorandum, 33 Henry VIII., thus: "Scenecliffe
Grange in parochiis de Ekkilsfeld et Rotherham." Before the
expiration of that lease the Crown granted the Grange on
the site of the hermitage of St. John the Baptist and other
property of the Kirkstead monks to Thomas Rokeby, the
elder brother of Archbishop Rokeby. This was in 1537.
The house which came to be known as th'undercliffe
i84
GRANGE, and which passed to the Wombwells, was rebuilt
or enlarged by Thomas Wombwell in the year 1575. In
the hall of the old mansion, a sketch of which is here
given, were his arms, impaling those of Arthington, and
the initial letters T.W. A.W. 1575. Afterwards it became
possessed by a family of the name of Green, in which it
appears to have remained for six generations. At length it
was sold by a Dr. Green to Mr. Hugh Miller, of Shire-
green, who left it to his brother, who sold it to Thomas, the
third Earl of Effingham, the owner of considerable property in
the township of Kimberworth. The Earl pulled down the
house about the year 1777, and built, not on the same site, but
just outside the parish of Ecclesfield, and on his Kimberworth
estate, the present mansion close under the park wall. By the
boundary brook is the Grange Mill, on the very spot where the
Kirkstead monks had their mill seven hundred years ago.
185
CHAPELTOWN RESEARCHES.
CHAPTER VII.
Notes Biographical of the Thorncliffe Partners. Supplementary to
THE Previous Chapter upon Old-time Memories op Thorncliffe.
Mr. Thomas Chambers, senior, who was one of the
founders of the Thorncliffe Works, and whose name is at the
head of a pedigree specifying the names of more than two
hundred descendants, died seventy-two years ago, having nearly
reached his seventy-second birthday anniversary. His tomb is
in Ecclesfield churchyard. He was thrice married. The mother
of all his children was Hannah, his second wife, who died
April 17th, 1802. After she was taken from him he remained
a widower until about 1805, when he married the daughter of
William Green, of Rotherham, a man of considerable promi-
nence in the early days of Methodism. He had a school at
Rotherham. Sons of Mr. Samuel Walker were his pupils.
William Green's second wife, the mother of Mrs. Chambers,
was a person of whom much that is interesting has been
written. Mr. Everett, in his History of Wesleyan Methodism
in Sheffield, says : " Mrs. Chambers, of Rotherham, and Mrs.
Bagshaw, of Rotherham, were the daughters of the second
wife of William Green, of Rotherham. After his first wife's
death in 1747, he married Miss Jane Holmes, the daughter of
a Mr. Holmes, the cousin of a gentleman of that name who
resided at Syke House, near Doncaster, and whom Mr. John
Wesley frequently visited." On page y^, he writes : " Of Mr.
Holmes (Mrs. Green's father) whose death John Nelson simply
notices, it may be proper to say a little more. He was a
branch of an ancient family whose ancestors came from Nor-
mandy with William the Conqueror. The eldest branch of it,
now nearly extinct, enjoy considerable estates in Holderness,
which were granted to them by that prince."
i86
William Green's daughter Rebecca, Mrs. Chambers (who
survived her husband i8 years, and vi^as buried at Rotherham,
June i2th, 1835) was a worthy adherent of the Methodism
which canonized her mother "that saint of God," as Everet
designates her, and of whom Mr. Henry Longden, in his diary,
March 28th, 1798, writes: " I rode over to Rotherham to see
Mrs. Green. In the midst of her sore afflictions, long confine-
ment, and loss of worldly goods, she is all resignation, all
patience, all meekness, overflowing with heavenly love. I was
indescribably happy while I heard her gracious words. "What
a holy ambition has this venerable saint — to be conformed to
the image of her dear Lord in all things." A note at the
bottom of the page on which the above appears, says : " It is
a lamentable circumstance that no memoirs were written of
this great and good woman, that her virtues were not recorded
for the example of ages to come " (p. 142).
Mr. Chambers' eldest son, Thomas, who died in his
father's lifetime, did not attain to the position of a partner,
as he probably would have done had he been living when
the firm was re-constructed in 1820. Nor did the second
son, Robert, who was also employed at the works, but went
away. The wife of the former occupies a foremost place in
" Old Time Memories of Thorncliffe." The memoir of her,
written by her friend Miss Bennet, supplies many particulars
of the family history with which her long life was contem-
poraneous, for she lived to be 84 years old, the date of her
death being March 8th, 1853. Of her husband, the memoir
mentions his assiduous application to business in connection
with the Ironworks, and that his life was shortened thereby.
She describes him as "a man of a cheerful, but very easy
temper, clever in his business, and most industrious in his
habits." He died, aged 44, October i6th, 1814, three years
before his father. In the spring of 1795 he, with wife and one
child, removed from Sheffield to reside near to the Thorncliffe
Works, and soon afterwards, when the health of Mrs.
i87
Chambers, senior, began to fail (and she required the help of
her daughter-in-law to receive and entertain persons who came
on business), they had their home at the works in the same
house. In the memoir of that daughter-in-law. Miss Bennet
remarks: "Her commanding figure and unsophisticated de-
portment secured respect, which was manifested by the
attention she received from many who visited the iron-works."
The husband's death " was followed by severe trials — the
natural result of such a loss," but the widow was a person of
great force of character and Christian faith. She never
doubted that the Lord would provide for her and her large
family, and, to use her own language, "so He did." " She
roused herself and those of her children who were able to
comprehend the extent of their loss : she informed them that
their future welfare would depend on their own efforts ; they
responded to their mother's call with a firm reliance on the
providence of God. They worked with undaunted courage,
and evinced to her who had set them the example the highest
respect and veneration." One of her children died of con-
sumption, a daughter who had been engaged as an assistant in
a school where she was very much respected on account of her
amiable disposition and great industry in the discharge of her
duties. Of the other children. Miss Bennet writes, " the
widow saw each one of them taking a position in society equal
to her most sanguine expectations. Her prayers had been
graciously answered; her troubles on their account had been
confined to their childhood." When the youngest became the
wife of Mr. Thomas Newton, who succeeded his father in the
firm, Mrs. Chambers gave up her residence and went to live
with them at Staindrop Lodge.
Chambers is rather a common surname. Whether the
origin of the name of this family be the Norman-French
" Chambres," or the English word which means a room in a
house, is uncertain. One member of it, the late Mr. Chambers
of Lane End, was remarkably like the brothers William and
Robert Chambers, the Edinburgh pubHshers. From whatever
family branch sprang the ThorncHffe Mr. Chambers' father,
who settled at Rawmarsh in the early part of last century, the
son had the school education and technical industrial training
in his youth which enabled him to ascend the first steps of a
prosperous business career.
Like his partner Mr. George Newton, Mr. Chambers when
a young man was not a Wesleyan. He attended the chapel at
Masbro' built by Mr. Walker, near his residence— the chapel
where Thomas Grove, and previously John Thorpe, preached
Calvinistic doctrines.
One day when I was driving through the hamlet of
Bradgate, near Masbro', having with me the late Mrs.
Wright, sister to Mr. Matthew Chambers, of Barbot Hall,
she remarked, " this is where our grandfather Chambers
lived." This was, for me, interesting information ; and I said,
" and it is where my grandfather lived. We are now passing
the very house altered into two cottages. From the age of
twenty-one years (up to which time he was at school) he was
book-keeping and surveying in the service of Mr. Samuel
Walker, and your grandfather, twelve years his senior, would be
about that time engaged model-making at the ironworks of
that enterprising gentleman. Yes ! in this hamlet, near
neighbour to Mr. Chambers, would be resident Mr. Matthew
Haberjam or Habersham*, who came from Handsworth or
* The orthography of this surname is extremely irregular. The name of
this member of the family is on his tombstone " Habershon," but in his agree-
ment with Mr. Hirst it is " Habersham," and in the register of his baptism
" Haberjam." He was the second son of Mahlon Haberjam, of Handsworth,
whose great-grandfather lived in that parish in the reign of Elizabeth. In the
Harleian MSS., where is mention of the fa,mily arms, the name is " Haberiam."
In the Lancashire records, since the time or Henry VIII. it has been " Haberg-
ham " or "Habersham." In 1369 it was written " Habringham ;" in 1358
" Habrincham," Roger de Laci, who died 1211, granted land in Hambringham
to Matthew de Hambrigham. Whitaker says : " I have no hesitation in
referring the original spelling to the well-known Han or Hambrig." The
Hanbrig water was a small spring of alcali water between Burnley and Townley.
Thus a hamlet near a bridge over that spring would be Ham-brig-ham. Hambrig
Eaves, says Whitaker, means ground surrounding a principal mansion. The
old Habergham Hall was described to me in 1856 by an aged man who
remembered it.
Handsworth Woodhouse to manage the colliery of Mr. John Hirst
of the Clough, and my grandfather Matthew Habershon, until his
marriage in 1785, the year after the death of his father, had his
home here." The fact that thus contemporaneous and known
to each other in those days were our Christian grand-sires,
suggested a thought akin to the one expressed upon another
page. They both aspired to be accounted worthy to be, by their
fidelity to their risen Saviour, partakers of the resurrection life ;
and we could think of them as being together with Him, and
many friends from whom we are parted, in the place He went
away to prepare in the spiritual paradise of His Kingdom.
Mr. GEORGE NEWTON.
(Portrait shown page 144^.
Mr. Newton records of himself, in the manuscripts which
I have had the privilege of inspecting, much that is interesting
in connection with the period of his early manhood in London,
which began in 1781. He mentions that the journey by stage
coach from his home, in the county of Durham, to London,
commencing on a Wednesday (October 17th), ended on the
following Friday evening, at about nine o'clock, at which hour
he found himself at the " George and Blue Boar," in Holborn.
After for a time travelling for the firm of Messrs. Flower,
Creak and Worstead, tea dealers, No. 69, Cornhill, he agreed
with Messrs. Hetherington and Maskew, wholesale tea
merchants, of 34, Nicholas Lane, to enter their service. Thus
commenced his acquaintance with Mr. Maskew, who afterward
became so truly his friend.
The business was partly managed by a merchant's clerk,
a Mr. James Chadwick, a young man who was a hearer of the
Rev. John Newton, St. Mary's Church, Walnorth. At the
funeral of this young man Chadwick, Mr. Newton made the
acquaintance of Mr. Robert and Mr. John Scott. They were
Wesleyan Methodists, and Mr. Newton's intercourse with them
led to a change in his religious views. H itherto he had supposed
that the Calvinistic doctrines of the Church of England, which
I go
he heard preached by some of the most eminent evangelical
preachers of the day, from both church pulpits and from those
of Dissenters, were scriptural, although he was confused and
uncertain as to what was affirmed of " election " and " pre-
destination." He acknowledged, in a letter to Mr. Robert
Scott, that " though he had a sincere respect for the ways of
God and a love for His people, he was without being sensible
of bearing any part or connection himself therewith or therein."
Mr. Scott, in reply, asked him to spend the next Sunday
with him, and he took him to the City Road Chapel to hear
Mr. John Wesley, who, from what Mr. Newton had heard
said, held views to which he had an antipathy. In the evening
of that day, just before leaving Mr. Scott's house, Mr. Newton
noticed a book on the mantleshelf,entitled,"An appeal to matter
of fact and common sense," by the Rev. John Fletcher, Vicar of
Madely. This, Mr. Scott told him to put in his pocket and
read at his leisure. Mr. Newton mentions in his diary the
effect produced by the perusal of it. " The reading of that
volume was to me as rivers of water to the thirsty soul. While
reading it, light sprang forth as the morning, and the day-spring
from on high visited me. I rejoiced with exceeding great joy,
I felt in myself a new creation, I saw with new eyes, I heard with
new ears, and 1 was convinced that ' the Lord is loving unto
every man, and His tender mercies are over all His works.' "
It was a relief to him to be able to dismiss entirely the
thought of what was called " the doctrine of reprobation " being
true. Of course there is nothing of the sort in the teaching
of our Lord, who said, " it is not the will of your Father which
is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish " ; who
assured His disciples that God would save every man, if every
man would submit to be made fitted for the life eternal.
Nothing that expositors of Scripture say, nothing that any
fallible apostle may seem to have said, can nullify the trilth
divinely revealed, that "upon him that willeth it is that God
hath mercy." " Ye will not come unto me that ye may have
igi
life." (John v. 40.) ■" As many as received him, to them gave
he the right to become the children of God, even to them that
believe on his name." " Born of God " are they who "believe
on his name." (John i. 12, 13.)
Having reached the conclusion that the doctrines taught
by the Wesleyan Methodists were nearer the truth than those
preached by the evangelical theologians of the school of Owen,
Doddridge, Watts, Toplady, Romaine, Whitfield and Rowland
Hill, Mr. Newton took leave of his " Calvinistic friends," " all
of whom, however," he says, " I still highly esteem and love
for their works' sake ; and, notwithstanding our differences in
sentiment, I fully expect to meet in heaven."
In December, 1787, he joined a society of the Wesleyan
Methodists in London. In the autumn of 1788, when 27 years
old, he was engaged in making preparations for entering into
business in Darlington, when he was suddenly deprived of the
sense of hearing. It was some months before he recovered
the use of one ear, and he was deaf of the other during the
rest of his life. This deafness caused him to abandon his
Darlington project. A train of providences he refers to as
having intervened between this date and his being in business
with Mr. Chambers in Sheffield. In that town Mr. Charles
Hodgson resided, who had married Miss Marshall, Mr.
Newton's cousin, and his journeying there led to his
becoming engaged to Mrs. Hodgson's sister.*
From the house of Mr. and Mrs. Hodgson, on tfie 7th of
June, 1789, Mr. Newton and the lady he had there seen and
become devoted to, were married at the Sheffield Parish
Church by the Rev. George Bayliffe. On the 12th of that
month they travelled to London and occupied apartments at
No. 6, City Road, until August 27th, when they removed to a
small, neat, pleasantly situated but lonely house at Holywell
Mount. " On the 4th of October thieves broke into the house
» Of this lady, Mrs. Thomas Chambers remarked in the hearing of her
biographer, Miss Bennett, " My sonin-lavv, Mr. Newton, is just like his mother."
192
and," says Mr. Newton, " found a guinea, which was ail they
got ; but we, alarmed to remain there, removed to 34, Nicholas
Lane, to a part of Messrs. Hetherington and Maskew's house
of business." There their first child was born, March 20th,
1790. About this time, the beginning of 1790, occurred
changes which Mr. Newton thus describes :— " A few weeks
after our marriage my hearing began to be restored. My
brother-in-law, Mr. Charles Hodgson, had kindly offered me
a share in his business — a manufacturing of spades, shovels,
trowels, hinges, &c. About the beginning of 1790 we formed
a connection upon the plan of my continuing in London ; but
he (Mr. Hodgson) had to travel, and we altered our terms, and
it was arranged that I should remove to Sheffield and take an
active part in the business." He here alludes to the generous
assistance of a London gentleman, to whom he was beholden
for much of his prosperity. He was one of the partners of the
firm for whom he travelled, and the friendly feeling which
existed had been brought about or augmented by a service
which a religious motive had prompted. Mr. Newton, while on
one of his journeys, took an opportunity in a letter to this gentle-
man of expressing his views on the subject which, to his own
mind, had become, above all others, weighty and important.
He had the satisfaction, not only of receiving a favourable reply,
but, on returning home, of finding that what he had said was
" a word in season." They went together to hear Mr. Wesley
preach ifi the City Road Chapel, and the result of what Mr.
Newton had ventured to say was that the gentleman and his
wife and family were benefited. To this gentleman no doubt
Mr. Newton is alluding when he writes : " My valuable friend
Mr. Maskew generously assisted with a considerable sum of
money to enable us to extend and improve our concern."
The removal to Sheffield was accomplished on the 4th of
December, 1790. After a visit to Staindrop, Mr. and Mrs.
Newton got settled by Christmas in a house at the corner of
Edward Street and the Brocco. Afterwards they lived in
193
Meadow Street, near the house of Mr. Hoyle, from whom
Hoyle Street is named. The manufactory of Hodgson and
Newton was in Workhouse Croft, at the bottom of Queen's
Foundry Yard, but the premises being too small, they got built
by a Mr. William Cooper, two dwelling houses and workshops,
&c., in Pond Hill. " We removed to our new house," says
Mr. Newton, "Oct. ist, 1791. Our second son, Isaac, was
born there May 24, 1792, and baptised at the Parish Church
June 20th." For the services at the opening of the Mount
Pleasant Chapel, May nth, 1806, he composed a hymn which
contains the following verses : —
Hail, Sovereign, everlasting Lord !
Who giv'st command to preach Thy Word ;
We come, obedient to Thy call,
And at Thy sacred footstool fall.
Come in Thy condescending grace,
And let Thy glory fill this place.
Which, now united we agree
To consecrate, O Lord ! to Thee.
Among metrical productions of his which have been pre-
served are the following lines written while, in August, 1815,
he was enjoying a sojourn at Scarborough : —
" The Happy Man.
Happy the man whose head is clear ;
Happy the man whose ears can hear ;
* * * *
Whose senses five are all complete
* » • *
With bones well formed, and sinews strong,
With healthy lungs and nerves well strung ;
* * • *
Whose limbs are active, mind serene
And well-disposed and free from spleen.
Happy the man who, free from care,
Commits himself to God by prayer !
With sleep refresh'd, can early rise
To pay his morning sacrifice ;
Then taste the sweets of early dawn.
In walk or ride across the lawn,
In meditation sweet— profound,
On fair creations ample round ;
Combined with health, to point the road
From " nature up to nature's God ! "
Happy who thus prepares his way
To meet the toils of every day.
With conscience pure, with temper even.
Serves God on earth and lives for heaven."
194
Miss Bennett mentions in her memoir of Mrs. Thomas
Chambers that she spoke of Mr. Newton as " a very good and
pious man." "I shall," she said, "always remember his
kindness to me and my family. I loved Mr. and Mrs. Newton
as a brother and sister; he was a sincere friend to my husband.
When he went from home for change of air he would have my
husband to go with him." In reply to my inquiry of an aged
woman in the Sylvester Almshouses, Mrs. Elizabeth Grayson,*
if she remembered old Mr. Newton, she said : " He paid for
the schooling of a number of children at the day school of
Mrs. Walbrun, at Mount Pleasant, and I was one of them."
Mr. henry LONGDEN.
(Portrait shown page 147)
It is probable that the early years of Mr. Longden did
not in any way predicate the most prominent features of his
subsequent life. Whatever his home-training, he does not
appear, on the evidence of the several manuscripts from which
was partly compiled the memoir of him published in 1813,
soon after his death, to have been Godward in his youth.
After narrating how he and companions as wicked as himself
enlisted for soldiers, and how his father sought for him, liberated
him and brought him back to Sheffield, he relates the following
incident of his apprenticeship : — " My master and mistress were
the reverse of each other in their tempers and dispositions.
He was mild and pacific, dispassionate and sober ; but she
would alike disgust by her over-kindness or brutishness— ever
contriving unnecessary rewards, or satiating her malice by
revenge. At times my master sought quietness from home,
and often would not return till two or three o'clock in the
morning. It remained a mystery how he gained admission in-,
to his own house. The truth was I used to sit up in my room
• The daughter of James Norbion and grand-daughter of John Faries, one of
the first of the Thorncliffe workmen .
195
till all the family were asleep, and then return to the kitchen
fire till my master tapped at the door, when I was ready to
open it. One night my mistress resolved, if possible, to pre-
vent my master gaining admission into the house as usual.
She took the keys out of the locks and carefully secreted them.
Afterwards I heard her cautiously creeping up to my lodging
room to examine if all was right there. I leaped into bed and
nearly covered myself, closed my eyes, opened my mouth, and
was snoring when she arrived. Having looked at me, she
turned about and said, ' Oh, I see you are safe.' To avoid
waiting, as usual, I followed her so close as to be able to pass
by her door just as she was shutting it. She heard a creaking,
opened the door, and having a glance of something, pursued as
quickly as she was able. There was no alternative, so I leaped
into a brewing copper, which had some water in it, and was
just composed when she arrived. I believe she looked every-
where but in the right place. Finding nothing, she felt alarmed,
and, believing it to be something supernatural, she hastened
to bed. As soon as I thought she was settled, I ventured to
leave my cold retreat and dried myself by the kitchen fire.
At two, my master tapped at the door. I had already un-
screwed the lock with a knife, and I admitted him to his great
satisfaction : I then screwed the lock on again, and went to
bed. When of full age, I sat down seriously to consider the
course of my future life. To continue in the business I had
learnt would have been the most profitable ; but when I
recollected the age and growing infirmities of my father, and
the gratitude and affection which I owed him as a son, I
resolved to offer him my services to conduct and manage his
business. He accepted my offer with readiness and great
affection. By unremitting industry I soon found my father's
trade to increase and prosper, and I look back upon the last
year of my father's life, which I spent with him in this manner,
with pleasing recollection. About six weeks before the death of
my father I entered the marriage state. It was on this wise.
196
As I was walking one evening, in the country, I met two young
women ; as soon as I had passed them I found an involuntary
and unaccountable regard for one of them— a regard which I
had never felt for any other person. I paused, and 'lingering,
look'd behind.' I would have followed them but durst not for fear
of giving offence. I often walked on the same road hoping to
see her again, but in vain ; nor had I any reference or means of
inquiring after her or her friends. Some months after this
my sister told me she had invited a few female friends to tea,
and she hoped I should make it convenient to be with them,
to which I consented. What was my astonishment when I
beheld her whom I had sought in vain. After mature con-
sideration I offered myself as sacred to her, and some time
after we were united in the bonds of holy matrimony, for
which union I shall have cause to praise God in time and
eternity. Her name was Ann Wood."
It was after their marriage that they both attained to that
" assurance of faith " which was the theme of his preaching
and a blessing to many whose minds he influenced. In 1778,
when he was 24, he took for his motto, " Not slothful in busi-
ness, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord."
From 6 a.m. to 4 p.m. his time was devoted to business,
in which ten hours, he says, "besides managing my little
business, I set myself to earn ten shillings, and this I did with
great ease. My business prospered more and more ; and there
being but few in the same calling, I could choose my con-
nections, which prevented much risk and trouble. I now had
money to spare for the support of God's cause and for the
relief of God's poor."
From 4 p.m. to 10 p.m. he made the hours sacred to
religious purposes.
He describes his being urged to allow himself to be
appointed a class-leader, which, he says, he "engaged in
with much trembling, considering it by far the most im-
portant office amongst the Methodists."
197
His future partner, Mr. George Newton, was in his class,
and in this connection they could not fail to become well
known to each other. Thej- were kindred spirits, and only
upon one matter, which was one arising out of their connection
with each other in business, do they seem to have held diverse
views. As far as I can judge from their letters, &c., both were
right.
What Mr. Scott was as to his Christian belief may be
judged of by the letters respecting him written by his friend
Doctor Adam Clarke. There is one which reads thus : —
" The next day I received a letter from Mr. Scott, and
one from his wife, begging me to come and see him, as his life
hung in doubt and he wished to see me before he died. I
got into Bristol, Wednesday night, very late, and set off the
next morning for this place (Pensford). I found Mr. Scott HI,
but he would walk from room to room, talk about the things
of God, and appeared as if he would yet weather a few storms.
But he has continued to sink, and is now as low as well can
be. But he is quite sensible, and is very happy in God. He
seems to dwell in God and God in him. I have not found a
greater evidence of complete salvation. His mouth is ever
filled with the high praises of God for what He has wrought
in and for him. He is full of admiration of the perfections of
the Divine nature, and His wonderful condescension towards
the fallen race of man. ' God is love ' is a frequent ejaculation,
and he seems to feed upon it as the very food of his spirit.
He takes no food, but a little drink to weit his lips from time to
time. This morning he performed the last act of his life, viz.,
signing a cheque for ^^50 for Zetland. He would do it, it being
the last instalment, and, though he had only to sign his name,
Mrs. Scott having filled up the cheque, he was at least a whole
hour before he could do this. His right hand had lost its
cunning, and its strength also. He will no more grasp a pen.
Having loved Zetland, he loved it to the end. When he found
he had succeeded, he spoke as well as he could these remarkable
words : ' There, for the work of God in Zetland I send
my last cheque to heaven for acceptance, and the inhabitants
will see that the writer will soon be there himself.' He is
sinking very fast, and will to every human appearance keep
his next sabbath in heaven. He said to the doctor ' my soul
is perfectly resigned to the Divine will. I have a full assurance
of God's love, and it is no odds to me whether I be found in
this world or in the world of spirits an hour hence.' "
In another letter Dr. Clarke wrote, " I seem to have been
brought here to learn to die, and the lesson before me is both
solemn and instructive. Certainly Mr. Scott is dying a very
noble death. May God make my last end like his."
Mr. MATTHEW CHAMBERS.
Mr. Matthew Chambers, the third son of Mr. Thomas
Chambers, senior, was born Sept. 17th, 1776. On the 24th of
May, 1796, before he was of age, he was married to Mary
Louth. At the latter date the Phcenix Works at Furnace
Hill, Sheffield, had been in existence three or four years, and
he was employed there and had his residence in Smithfield,
the street adjoining, where his son Matthew (afterwards of
Barbot Hall) was born, as was also his elder brother Thomas.
Mr. Matthew Chambers, senior, would, after the death of his
father in 1817, occupy a position of considerable responsi-
bility, his eldest brother's valuable services in the business
having been terminated by his untimely death three years
previously. In a letter which has been preserved, dated
January 29th, 1817, the writer expresses some misgivings that
Mr. Matthew might not prove so energetic and thrifty as his
father was, at the same time hoping that Mr. Newton would
find him careful and attentive in helping to manage the
concern. He would then be 41 years old, and he would have
had a good deal of experience, gained at Sheffield, Thorncliffe
and Low Moor, for he went to the large ironworks at the latter
igg
200
place to acquire knowledge that would be likely to be con-
ducive to the prosperity of the Thorncliffe business. While
he was residing at Low Moor, some of his children were sent
to a school at Brough, a village seven miles from York, his son
Matthew being one of them. His daughter Rebecca (Mrs.
Wright) was born at Low Moor. He was living at Houseley
Hall on the 24th April, 1818, as the diary of John Senior
shows. The periodical journeys of Mr. Matthew Chambers,
senior, to London used to be on horseback. I was told this
by the late Richard Woodhead, who had many a time groomed
the mare upon which he travelled, a fine animal which was
thought much of, probably the one upon which the younger
Mr. Matthew rode when he galloped to Sheffield in about half
an hour, as I have heard him affirm, to summon a physician to
attend his grandfather in the illness which proved fatal.
Mr. ISAAC NEWTON.
Mr. Isaac Newton, the second son of Mr. George Newton,
admitted into the partnership on the ist of January, 1820, was
one of the nine persons who, on the 19th of July of that year,
were killed at the foundry by the explosion in the casting of a
metal shaft of five tons weight for the Mousehole forge. He
was born May 24th, 1792, married to a Miss Wilson, and their
residence was at Greenhead. They had no children. His
funeral sermon was preached at Mount Pleasant Chapel by the
Rev. J. P. Haswell, who soon afterwards married the widow.
Mr. THOMAS NEWTON.
Mr. Thomas Newton, of Staindrop Lodge — whose features
and expression are, I think, fairly represented in the portrait
annexed — the senior partner of the late firm of Newton,
Chambers & Company, was the third son in the family of the
Mr. George Newton who, with Mr. Chambers and Mr.
Longden, founded the Thorncliffe works a century ago.
201
Thomts Newton, born September 5th, T/g6, partner from 1820 until
his death in 1S6S,
202
From what has been written of the senior Mr. Newton, it
will be seen that his son inherited a name of good repute and
prestige, and he did much to sustain what his father had
founded' both of local family reputation and in the way of a
business structure. His integrity, suavity, gentleness, and
benevolence were evident to all who knew him.
His department at Thorncliffe was chiefly that of finance and
the counting house,* and he had for his assistant cashier Mr.
Burton. He took great interest in the affairs of the Wesleyan
Methodist "Societies," and gave liberally towards the erection
and sustaining of their places of worship and their Sunday
schools. Especially was he generous in regard to the require-
ments of the community of Christians with whom he worshipped.
For many years he was superintendent of their Sunday school.
Owing in a large measure to his Christian liberality and that of
his family, the Wesleyan Methodists here have now, for their
use, the beautiful and substantial Mount Pleasant church, and
the adjacent commodious school-rooms. Internally the church
seems to be all that could be desired, excepting that there is
too much light admitted behind the pulpit, the inconvenient
effect of which is, that the features of the preacher's face cannot
be seen ; and if, in the removal of this defect, there could be
accomplished the design to add to the ornate appearance of the
interior of the building, by introducing three stained glass
windows in memory of the three chief contributors to the cost
of the church, future generations of worshippers will be likely
to look upon what is thus done — if well done — with interest
and approval.
It was not necessary for Dr. Gatty to mention Mr. Thomas
Newton's name in describing how he got helped in 1844, in
paying for the rebuilding of Lound School. The vicar writes :
" I was their sole trustee, and I had my first experience of
*The late Mr. John Depledge was, when a boy, in the counting house, and I
have heard him say that it seemed quite natural for Mr. Newton, when all was
done and every one else had gone home, to say: "Now John, we'll ask God's
blessing on our day's work."
203
building responsibility ; for when I had collected all the contri-
butions, I found they were ^loo short of what had to be paid.
This became known to a worthy old gentleman, who was not
a churchman, but had a large and liberal heart, and he induced,
by his own example, three friends to subscribe £25 each,
which released me from the difficulty."* To whom but to
Mr. Newton could these words refer ?
At one of the meetings at Mount Pleasant, at which Mr.
Chambers of Land End House presided, Mr. Newton, in
proposing that the chairman should be thanked for his services
in the chair, said, " We were together at school, we were
trained together for business, we are together as partners,
and I trust we shall be eternally together in heaven."
Mr. THOMAS CHAMBERS.
Mr. Thomas Chambers, grandson of the first of that
name at Thorncliffe, and who from the year 1829 until his
death forty years afterwards resided at Lane End House, was
known to be, by those who had transactions with the Thorn-
cliffe firm, a fine specimen of the best business men of his age.
He was shrewd, courteous, gentlemanly, energetic, industrious,
and religious. For nearly four years I was in close contact
with him. I saw him, not only daily in the counting
house, but when not engaged with business affairs. I had
often the pleasure of being his guest, and sometimes he
would do me the honour to be mine. I have been with
him when he was in London and at Scarborough, I was in
his bedroom during the illness which proved fatal, and from
my own observation I know him to have been a man
whom his children, his nephews and nieces (he seemed to be
uncle to every one) and his grandchildren have good reason to
regard as one of the family not least worthy to be remembered
and honoured. What he was in appearance at the close of his
life is shown, but not very precisely, in the portrait annexed.
*A life at one living, p. 60.
r
204
Thomas Chamber.s of Lane End House, born January 7th 1798
from 1S32 until his death, October 29th, iS6q,
205
Mr. THOMAS CHAMBERS, of Melbourne, Australia.
Mr. Thomas Chambers, the eldest son of Mr. Matthew
Chambers, senior, was a partner until July 12th, 1839, and
had charge of the branch establishment at Chapeltown. In
1852, he and his family emigrated to Melbourne in Australia.
He was born December 21st, 1796 ; married Mary Pollard, of
Burnley; and died in Australia, August i6th, 1875, in his 79th
year. His eldest daughter. Alary, married James Swift, brother
to WilHam Swift, of the Stamp Office in Sheffield, and of whom
there is a monument in the Sheffield Parish Church. The
widow of Mr. Thomas Chambers died in Australia, February,
1887, aged 83.
From his youth, until he left for Melbourne, he was closely
associated with the Wesleyans at Mount Pleasant Chapel, and
a class-leader.
Mr. JOHN CHAMBERS, of Belmont.
Of Mr. John Chambers of Belmont, I find I have at hand
the following newspaper obituary notice, of date June, i85g : —
" The announcement of the death of Mr. John Chambers, of
the well-known firm of Newton, Chambers & Co., of Thorn-
cliffe, will be received in a wide circle with deep regret. Mr.
Chambers' health had been failing for some time past, and a
few days ago he went to the English lakes to try the effect of
a change of air and scene. On Saturday he was seized with
paralysis at Ambleside, and died there yesterday, at the age of
64. Mr. Chambers had been all his life connected with the
Thorncliffe Works, and upon him devolved the management
of the colliery department. He was a practical miner — perhaps
the only one among the coalowners of South Yorkshire, and
thoroughly understood all the details of the trade. In early
life he worked indefatigably, and by his personal superinten-
dence and practical knowledge contributed in no small degree
to the success of the Thorncliffe Company. For some time
206
Thomas Chambers, born December 2ist, ,790, partner from 183.' to 1839
died in Australia, August iCth, 1875.
207
John Chambers, of Dtlmont. born April 27th, 1805, partner from 1840 until
his death, June 2rst iS^'g.
2o8
past Mr. Chambers has been chairman of the South Yorkshire
Coalmasters' Association. In all the relations of private life
Mr. Chambers was most exemplary. The strictest conscien-
tiousness marked all his dealings, while his disposition was
singularly amicable. He was a leading member of the
Wesleyan body, and contributed liberally to the support of the
cause in his own neighbourhood. His loss will be severely felt
by the firm of which he was a member, by the community
dwelling in the neighbourhood of the works, but most of all in
his own family circle. He married a daughter of the late Mr.
G. Newton, of Thorncliffe, and left, besides a widow, four
sons and one daughter."
Mr. MATTHEW CHAMBERS, of Barbot Hall.
Mr. Matthew Chambers, of Barbot Hall, near Rotherham,
the second son of Mr. Matthew Chambers, senior, I ought to
be able to say something about, for, in 1855, I was married to
one of his daughters. I saw him first when, nearly fifty years ago
he and I travelled together, inside a coach, from Gainsborough
to Lincoln. Being unknown to each other, we passed the
couple of hours almost in silence, as is the way with most
English gentlemen unknown to each other as we then were.
At the end of the journey, however, we met at the Saracen's
Head Hotel, and became acquainted. He and Mr. Appleby
had come to Lincoln about a gas contract. He there showed
that if a straw on his path seemed to be an obstruction, it would
be likely to perturb and irritate. But, after I had got to know
him in after years, I found that the irritation-at-a-trifle, which
was one of his characteristics, lasted only for a few moments.
He was a high-spirited, well-intentioned and generous gentle-
man, attentive and competent as a man of business, and warm-
hearted as a friend. His musical proclivities made him, in his
own social circle, popular. He was never more complaisant
than when he had between his knees his violoncello. His
209
Matthew Chambers, of Barbot Hall, born November nth, 1798, partner
from 1832 until his death, March 23rd, ia02.
210
quartette-party performances, at Barbot, when he got to visit
him his musical friends — ^Mr. Stirhng Howard, of Sheffield ;
Mr. Carr, of Wath; and Dr. Sewell, organist at the Rotherham
Parish Church, were his delight. I have known one to begin
after a mid-day luncheon and continue until noon the next,
with limited intervals for dinner, supper, bed and breakfast.
When, midnight arriving, Dr. Sewell had to tear himself away,
without some favourite quartette having been gone through,
Mr. Chambers would say : " Walk up here after breakfast, and
we will have an hour or two more before we separate." He was
professedly a churchman from the time of his marriage, but he
always contributed liberally at the. Mount Pleasant Chapel anni-
versaries. He was popular with the Thorncliffe workmen, many
of whom were, and are, proficient amateur musicians. He would
occasionally invite some of them to bring their musical instru-
ments to his house, and join him in a homely concert. He
was in the foundry at the time of the explosion in 1820, and
sustained some injury, but he was soon after well enough to
take a journey, for I find in John Senior's diary, " September
19th, 1820, Mr. M. Chambers, junior, went his journey." He
was married, in 1826, to Miss Dodson, of Handsworth, two
years before the death of his father, Mr. Matthew Chambers,
senior, and the house they first occupied was one called
" Carnac," at the western side of Ecclesfield. In 1828
they removed to Chapeltown House, and in 1847 to
Barbot Hall. He was a man who attached great importance
to habits of punctuahty. He would leave Barbot Hall and
pass through the village of Greasbro' with such regularity that
the sight of his phaeton in a morning indicated the time almost
to a minute to those who saw him pass. He was church-
warden for Ecclesfield in 1827, and for Grenoforth in 1828,
In Ecclesfield churchyard, beneath the shadow of some elm
trees spreading their branches from the vicarage grounds over
the boundary wall of the sacred enclosure, is his tomb. In
conjunction with that tomb is the vault which I had constructed
211
for the remains of my boy Wilfred, and to that " quiet
resting place " were brought from London those of my
daughter Catharine Chambers in 1883, and of my beloved
wife in 1887 — the memory of whose presence in my home is
still, as a ministering angel, helping to keep my thoughts in
touch with the life revealed and promised for those who are
" accounted worthy to attain to it by the resurrection from the
dead," and which life, like that of the angels, is dependent
upon no fragile "vesture of decay."
^5-^i"^-^i^
Pawson and Brailsforf, Printers, High-street and Mulberry-street, SheiBeld.
213
INDEX.
A
PAGE
Act of Uniformity 120
Adams 102
Albany, Duke of 32
Alcock Arthur 28
Alice de Laci 60
Aliena Reneville 47
Allen 43, 107, log
Almond 115
Almshouses g8, 104
Amiens, Peace of 170
Andrews Thomas 178
Angel Inn, Sheffield 159
Apparel, Excess of ig
Appleby 158,212
Archbishop Kempe . . . 10, 41
Archbishop Rotheram 6,10.12,16,21
Armitage 163
Arundel, Earl of 9.51
Askew Francis 177
Aston Church 59
Athorpe iii
Attercliffe Forges .. .. 113,175
Aveling Dr 113
B
Bagshaw Mrs 185
Bamford 140
Barber of Rowley 2g
Barley Hall 117,121
Barlow Francis .. .; .. .. 175
Barnaby Rudge 152
Barnes Hall 11,29
Barrow Robert 152
Barton 115
Batty Mrs 164
Baxter Rev. Richard 120
Beaufort, Earl of Somerset . . 64
Beaufort, Cardinal and Bishop . 34
Beaufort Joan 64
Beaumont of Whitby 63
Bennett Miss 186, 194
Benson Rev. Joseph (quoted) . . 128
Bill of Attainder. . . . 79, 83, 89
Binney iS5
Birks Samuel 129,131
Birthday Club 161
Bishop of Winchester .. .. 34
Bishop of Ely 16
Bodleian Library 40
PAGE
Boleyn, Queen Anne .. .. 67
Boler Peter, the Moravian . . 126
Bona Lady, of Savoy . . . , 27
Bonaparte Napoleon 171
Book of Common Prayer . . . . 118
Booth 140
Bosworth, Battle of 21
Boulton and Watt 170
Bowns 149, 158
Bradfield 42, 99
Brady's History 61
Brancepeth 152
Bridge of Pecquigny 27
Brook, Herald-at-Arms . . 20, 55
Brookfield ; 163
Brothers 116
Brown Richard 94
Brown Grace 94
Buckingham, Dukeot ..24, 76, 77
Buckingham James Silk . . . . 141
Burkisland 68
Burne Josselin de 93
Bush William 171
Busli 42, 179
Butler Bishop 117
C
Calvinism 125
Cambridge, King's College .. 21
Camerario 93
Campbell, Lord 21
Campsall 95. 113
Cannon made near Sheffield . . 175
Canterbury Tales 12
Capel or Chapel 40
Carver in
Carver St. Chapel, Monument in 157
Catesby 8
Cawood 21
Caxton 18
Centenary of Thorncliffe
Methodism 142
Caesar's Commentaries . . . . 18
Chambers George 105
Chambers John 170,207
Chambers Joseph 170
Chambers Matthew Edward . . 108
Chambers Matthew I ^\^^f'2^J°'
Chambers, Newton and Co. . . 147
214
INDEX.
PAGE
Chambers, Newton and Scott ..162
( 95. 105, 108,
Chambers Thomas j 143, 149, 163,
( iS'j, 203, 205
Chambers Richard 91
Chambers Robert . . . . 108, 186
Chapeltown 40
Chapeltown Furnace .. 95. 175
Chapeltown House no
Charlemagne . . . . 26
Charles 1 69,71,76
Charles II 69,72,118
Chatillon 53
Charlton Brook 130
Chaucer Geoffrey (preface) vlii. 12,31
Christmas Day 10, 14
Christ's birth 11
Clarendon 85
Clarence, Duke of . . . . 28, 30
Clarke Dr. Adam. . 160, 166, 169, 197
Clarke, Vicar .. .. 10,11,17
Claro Hill . . . . . . . . 143
Claudia 7
Clay and Co 176
Cliffe 113
Clovis . . 26
Cockcroft Henry 91
Cockshutt .. ' 178
Collier Dr 8,120,123
Colton 50
Commonwealth 55. 95
Confessio Amantis . . 18
Conquest . . . . . . 42, 47
Cooper John 130
Cooper Thomas 130
Copley loi, 175
Cork Tree 98
Cornebull Henry 14
Cort Henry 178
Cowley Manor .. 3, 6, 11, 40, 44
Crawshaw . . . . . . . . 178
Creswick in
Cromwell 80, iig
Crowder House .. .. .. 11
Dalton 39
Darley Hall 101,149
Darfield, Rector and Vicar of .. 156
Dartford 77
Dawson 43, 109
Defoe Daniel 72
Denham Sir John 80
Depledge John 204
Dickens Charles 152
PAGE
Dickinson 94,97,105
Digesters 160
Directory of the Westminster
Assembly 118
Dixon Rev. James 117
Dodsworth 40
Domesday 41,59,178
Dowson 116
Drew 113
Dropping Well 145
Duchess of Newcastle . . . . 70
Dudley Lord Edward . . . 175
Duke John . . . . 129
Duke of Norfolk 149
Duke of Rothsay 30
Dunn .. 167
Dunstaple 4> 52
Edgar , • • 143
Edinbro' Review 83
Edward I. (pedigree) 31
Edward II 4
Edward III 183
Edward IV 5, 20. 21, 28
Effingham Earl of . . . . 159, 179
Eland 60
Eliot Sir John 81
Elizabeth of York, Princess 15, 21
Elizabeth, Queen of Edward IV. 25
Elizabeth (Tudor) Queen . . . . 68
Ellis (of Barley Hall) . . . . 135
Elmhurst log
Emsal 71
Falding 40, 113, 114
Falkland Palace 30
Fanshaw 71
Fell 176
Feudal System 26
FinchMrs.,ofThryboroughHall 133
Fitzwarren Sir Frederick . . . . 52
Fitzwilliam.. ..3,67,91,149,158
Fletcher Rev. John 123
Forster (quoted) 81
Foster John . . .. 105, 106, 139, 162
Fox 87
Freeman 94
French Revolution 151
Froggatt 95
^15
INDEX.
PAGE
Froude iig
Fullelove 140
Furnace Hill 148,161
Furnival -I, ig, 46, gg
G
Garbut 215
Gargrave 64, 68
Gascoigne 46
Gascony 2g
Gaslight 170, 171
Gatty 45,50
Gaunt, John of 30.64
George II 134
Gibson in, i6i
Gills 114
Gloucester, Duke of 28
Golcar 61
Goodwin John go
Goodwin Sands 171
Gower Sir John 18
Gradwell in
Grange Colliery 17S
Grange Lane 181
Grange Mill 181,184
Granger Miss 167
Grayson Elizabeth ig4
Graeme Sir Robert 36
Green Dr 184
Green William . . . . 130, 136, 185
Greenhead 37, 152, i6i
Greenwood, Rector of Thornhill 71
Greg House 103
Grey Sir John 15
Grey Lady John 27
Griffin Sir Lepel 63
Grimshaw, Vicar of Haworth . . 121
Grove Rev. Thomas iig
Guest 50
H
Habeas Corpus Act 8g
Haberjam 188
Hague .. i49> I59
Halifax, Marquis of 6g
Hall "6, 164
Hallam (quoted) 8g
Hall Rev. Romily 125
Hambrigham 188
Hampden 79
Hastings 64
Hastings Lady 131
Haswell Rev., J.P 202
Henry III 91
Henry IV , ,. ■• 31
PAGE
Henry V 3I1 54
Henry VII., . . (preface) x, 7, 8, 64
Henry VIII 42,56
Hermitage 181
Hesley Hall 57
Hetherington .. .; .. .. 151
Heyford Dennis 175
Heywood Rev. Oliver . . . . 120
High Green 104
Hirst John (of Clough House) . . i8g
Hobson John 176
Hodgson .. 14S, igi
Hole House 200
Holmes Miss Jane 185
Hope Church 42
Hopkinson 63
Horsfield 113
Howley, Robert of 67
Howsley .. .. 20, 41, g3, 100
Howsley Cottage, Ambleside . . gs
Hume (quoted) 79. 81
Hunteron theCivilWar(quoted) 85
Hutchinson Colonel 82
Hyder Alii 152
I
Independency 118
Independent Chapel, Masbro' . . iig
Ivanhoe 52
J
James I. of Scotland . . .. 12,30
James I. of England 91
James II. of England .. .. 85
Jeffcock 5.5'. loi
Jenkins Rev. W 137
Jessop Thomas 161
Joan Beaufort 64
Joan Mounteney . . 4, 14, 20, 53
Joan Tankersley 60
Johnson Dr 68
Johnson Mr. and Mrs., Barley
Hall I2g
Josselin de Burne g3
K
Kempe, Archbishop .. 10,38,41
Kidd Rev. John 108
Kimberworth .. .. 71, I7g, 180
King's Head, Sheffield .. ..161
Kirk 51
Kirkstead, Monks of.. 178, i8r, 184
Kirton 42
Knutton, Vicar 105
2l6
INDEX.
PAGE
Laci 39
Lambert ■ • 94
Laud 79' 87
Lax 150, 154
Lighthouse for Goodwin) ,_, ^_,
Sands ) ' ' /->
Linus 7
Lollards 12
Lomley i33
Longden . . 95, 99, 136, 154, 194
Longden, Newton & Chambers. 147
Longden, Newton, Chambers
and Scotts 160
Long Parliament . . 76, 78, 84, 119
Lord, Vicar 97
Louis XI 8, 16
Lound School 107, 204
Lovetot. . . . 8, 27, 40, 42, 93, 179
Luterel Book i8i 53
M
Macaulay 80
Mackereth 94
Malam 116,170
Maria of Burgundy 16
Marquis of Dorset 27
Mary, Queen of Scots . . . . 34
Maskew, Chambers and Newton 147
Maskew .. ..147,151, 189,192
Maximilian of Austria .. .. 16
Methodism 120
Micklethwaite Rev. W log
Middleton iii
Midland Railway Company ... 99
Miller Hugh 184
Milner 116
Milton John iig
Montford Simon 48,52
Montgomery James 141
Mortomley gg, 100
Moss gg
Mounteney 3,4,5,6, 15,42,43, 48,52
Mount Pleasant Chapel . . 137, 193
Mousehole Forge 174
Murdoch 170
Mulberry Street Chapel, Sheffield 134
Myers 140
N
Neill Major 62
Neilson Jas. B 171
Nelson John i2g
Nether Swaithe 116
Neviles of Ragnal 53
PAGE
Newcastle, Duchess 01 . . . . 174
Newhall 177
Newton, Chambers and Co. . . 170
Newton, Chambers and Co.
Limited (prospectus) . . . . 145
Newton George ..144, 153, 188, i8g
Newton Isaac .. .. 163, 164, 200
Newton John 152
Newton Scott Chambers 16, 163, 168
Newton Thomas 202
Newton T. C 152
Newton Tobias 152
Nigell de Fossard 27
Nomina Villarum ..40,41,43,45
Norfolk, Duke of 9, 45
Normanton, Vicar .. .. 10,41
Northall Humfrey 57
O
Obelisk, on the Barnsley Road 91
Oldy 72
Owen Professor 37
Oxley James 164
Oxley Robert 149, I5g
P
Paine 117
Parker George gg
Parker Hugh 177
Parkgate Farm 181
Parkyn loi, 113
Paston 64, 67
Patents, Report of a Committee
on 175
Peace of Amiens 124
Pecquigny 8, 16, 28
Peebles to the Play 32
Peronne 28
Petition of Right .. .. 77,83
Petrarch 7
Pedigree of the family of
Mounteney 48
Pedigree of the family of Savile 6g
Pedigree ofthe family of Newton 214
Pedigree of the family of Cham-
bers 215
Philippa 30
Phipps g6, 105
Phcenix Works 148
Pingston 164
Political Economy 168
Potter, Archbishop 129
Poynings Sir Edward . . . . 64
Prices of Foundry Products . . 162
Priest Henry 57
Princess Elizabeth / . . 14, 15, 21
217
INDEX.
PAGE
Prisca 7
Pudens -j
Punshon Rev. W. M., D.D. .. 141
Py™ 73.76,79
Q
Quhier, The King's 32
R
Raby 167
Rainborough Park 43
Rainville 40, 43
Ragge Ill
Ramsden 47> 5^
Ratclifife 8
Reece Rev. R 137
Reneville 40, 42, 43
Renishaw .. .. 106,158,175
Reresby 105, 106
Revenge 62
Richard 1 27
Richard II 17. 31
Richard I[1 8,9,21,23,25
Richmond, Countess of . . 6, 64
Rivers, Lady 74
Robert de Turham 27
Robert III. of Scotland .. 30,31
Robsart Amy 7
Rockingham, Marquis of 70, 134, 159
Rockingham, Marchioness of . . 133
Rockley 71,102
Rokeby Thomas 183
Rokewode Gage 53
Rotheram, Archbishop \ ' ' '
Rotheram Sir John 12
Rotheram Sir Thomas . . . . 93
Rotherham Church . . . . 13, 59
Rosseau 117
Rufford, Abbot of 14
S
Sandal Castle 29, 70
Savile ,. .. 6,16,29,56,61,67
Scott Alice 94
Scott Anne 21
Scott Edward, Shiregreen . . 40
Scott George 28
Scott John 21
Scott Joseph Ill
Scott Nicholas n
Scott Richard 28,71
Scott, of London . . . . 160, i8g, 197
Scott Robert, of Pensford.. .. 166
PAGE
Scrape, Lord 78
Sheffield Grammar School .. 69
Shirtcliife 40
Shrewsbury, Earl of ..43, 50, 53, 57
Silkstone Coal 162
Simpson 175
Sir, the prefix 91
Smith Joseph, of High Green . . 129
Smith, Stacey and Co. .. 148,151
Sheldon John 139
Sherfield, of Salisbury . . . . 55
Sheriff Hutton . . . . (preface) x
Smith Thomas, tfCrowland .. 69
Smith William 51,105
Snadden Dr 113
Soho Works 170
Somerset, Earl of 64
Southwarl' Bridge 171
Spinoza 117
Sportsman's Inn 185
Spurgeon 126
Stacey Rev. J 175
Stainborough Hall 6g
Staindrop 152
Staindrop Lodge 153
Stanley 140
Steade 11 1
Steam Engine first used . . . . 176
Steer, Vicar 116
St. John's Church, Chapeltown 108
Stone Dr 113
Stones 104
Strafford, Earl of 6g
Strafford, Earl of — his children go
Strike of Miners 172
Sugden Rev. James 139
Surtees Society . . (preface) ix. 176
Sussex, Earls of . . 67
Swaithe Hall log
Swallow 95,158,176
Sylvester 104, 107, ir6
Synford Catherine 31
Synocliffe 179
T
Talbot John 54
Tankers]ey Dr. William .. .. 60
Tankersley . . . . 7, 42, 59, 60, 65
Taylor David 129
Thorncliffe 99
Thorncliffe Partners 145
Thornhill 66,68
Thorpe John 130
Th'undercliffe Grange .. i8r, 182
Thwaites 50
Tickhill 56
2l8
INDEX.
PAGE
Wellesley 121
Wentworth Woodhouse .. 3i 43
Tippoo Saib 152
Tooker 105
Tournament 4i 52
Treeton Church 42
Troubadour Lyrics 14
Turner John 147
Twigg Charles 136
Tyas 59
Tyerman Rev. Luke 155
TytlerWm.(LordWoodhouselee) 33
V
Ure Dr 160
Y
Vane Sir H 76
Vashti, Queen 14
Vaughan Dr. Robert (quoted) . . 88
Vere John, Earl of Oxford . . 12
Vernon Wentworth 69
Voltaire ..117
Wadsley Forge 175
Wagon and Horses .. 40, 43, 116
Walbrum Mrs 194
Walker Samuel .. 16, 149, 174, 185
Waltheof 42
Wapentake 143
Ware, Church at 74
Warburton ., 95
Warde Patientius loi
Wardlow of Fulwood .. .. 131
War Office 159
Warren, Earl of 60
Warwick, Earl of 15
Warwick, Edward Earl of (preface) x
Wath 43
Watson the Historian . . . . 63
PAGE
Wentworth Mausoleum . . . . 70
Wentworth Sir Thomas . . . . 50
West, of Rotherham 47
Wesley Rev. Charles 121
Wesley Rev. John .. .. 117,121
Wesley Mrs. (letter) 125
Wesley (letter of John) .. .. 135
Wesley John, at Wentworth
House 136
Wharncliffe, Earl of . . . , . . 95
Wharncliffe Chase 97
Wharton Sir Thomas . . . . 50
Whitaker's History of
Whalley 39, 63
" White Horse". . .. 40,43,116
White Lane Coalpits .. .. 112
Whitiield Rev. G I2i
Whitley Hall 113
Wickliff 12, 17
Wilson John, Broomhead Hall . 3
Winchester, Bishop of .. .. 32
Windsor Castle 33
Windle 139,164
Wingfield in
Wombwell, Family of .. .. 184
Workman's Hall 147
Wortley Sir Thomas . .6, 10, 56, 93
Wortley James Stuart . . . . 95
Wortley Edward 176
Wortley Isabel 50
Wortley Sir Richard 97
Wortley Ironworks 177
Wylkinson of Crowder
House 11,14,101
Wylkinson of Greenhead . , . , 39
Y
York 21
York Cathedral 21
Z
Zetland Islands i65
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