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A^^l-UBRARYQc. -^vNtEIBRAR'i ^i tei 1^1 i^i i^m tei i^Jiii i^i Zbc IDtctorta Ibistor^ of the Counties of Enolanb EDITED BY WILLIAM PAGE, F.S.A. A HISTORY OF DURHAM VOLUME II THE VICTORIA HISTORY OF THE COUNTIES OF ENGLAND DURHAM LONDON ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE AND COMPANY LIMITED Thii History is issued to Sulncrihen onli/ By Archibald Constable & Company Limited and printed by Eyre & Spottisivoode H.M. Printers of London INSCRIBED TO THE MEMORY OF HER LATE MAJESTY QUEEN VICTORIA WHO GRACIOUSLY GAVE THE TITLE TO AND ACCEPTED THE DEDICATION OF THIS HISTORY 33S074 if* B, THE VICTORIA HISTORY OF THE COUNTY OF DURHAM EDITED BY WILLIAM PAGE, F.S.A. VOLUME TWO LONDON ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE AND COMPANY LIMITED 1907 • • • « • • c < • • • « » * * c • e e • « • ••• •• ••' « c ' CONTENTS OF VOLUME TWO PAGE Dedication ................v Contents . . .............. ix List of Illustrations and Maps ............ xi Ecclesiastical History . . . . By the Rev. Henrv Gee, D.D., F.S.A. . . i Religious Houses : — By Miss Margaret E. Cornford Introduction .............. 78 Monastery of Hartlepool ............ 79 St. Hilda's First Monastery 80 Gateshead House ............. 80 Nunnery of Ebchester .......... 8 1 Monasteries of Wearmouth and Jarrow . . . . . . . . .81 Priory of St. Cuthbert, Durham 86 03 06 Priory of St. John the Baptist and St. Godric, Finchale . Priory of St. Mary, Neasham ..... Priory of Baxterwood ...... Franciscan Friars of Hartlepool ..... Franciscan Friars of Durham ..... Friars Preachers of Hartlepool ..... Friars Preachers of Jarrow ..... Austin Friars of Barnard Castle ..... Hospital of St. Giles, Kepier ..... Hospital of St. Mary Magdalen, Witton Gilbert . Hospital of Bathel ....... Hospital of SS. Lazarus, Martha and Mary, Sherburn . Hospital of the Holy Trinity, Gateshead Hospital of St. John the Baptist, Barnard Castle Hospital of St. Edmund, Bishop and Confessor, Gateshead Hospital of St. Mary Magdalen, Durham Hospital of St. Stephen, Pelaw ..... Hospital of SS. Mary and Cuthbert, Greatham Hospital of St. Leonard, Durham .... Hospital of Friarside ....... Hospital of St. Edmund, King and Martyr, Gateshead . Hospital of Gainford ...... Hospital of Werhale ....... College of Darlington ...... College of Auckland St. Andrew .... College of Norton ....... College of Lanchester ...... College of Chester-le-Street ..... College of Staindrop ....... College of Barnard Castle ...... Hermitages ........ 09 09 ic 10 10 1 ! I I H H '5 •7 17 18 '9 20 21 23 23 2 3 25 25 26 27 27 28 29 29 30 CONTENTS OF VOLUME TWO Political History Social and Economic History Table of Population, 1 80 1- 1901 Industries : — Introduction Iron and Steel . The Chemical Works Shipbuilding Glass Works Potteries Textile Industries Mining. Coal Lead . Iron Barytes Fluorspar Agriculture . ■ . Forestry Sport Ancient and Modem : — Introduction . . . , Fox-hunting . . . . The Raby, Mr. Cradock'sand Lord Zetland's Foxhounds The Lambton, the Durham County, and the South Durham Foxhounds The Durham County Hounds The North Durham Fox hounds The Hurworth Hunt The Braes of Derwent The Grove Hare-Hunting Otter-Hunting Coursing . Shooting . Angling . Horse-Racing Rowing Golf Football . By Kennett C. Bayley, F.S.A 133 By Frederick Braushaw, M.A. (Oxon.), D.Sc. (Lond.) 175 By George S. Minchin ...... 261 By Miss Maud Sellers, Hist. Tripos. Cantab. By Prof. Henry Louis, M.A. (Dur.), Assoc. R.S.M., M. Inst. C.E., &c., and C. H. Vellacott, B.A. By Douglas A. Gilchrist, M.Sc. (Dun), B.Sc. (Edin.), F.R.S.E By the Rev. J. C. Cox, LL.D., F.S.A., and Arthur Chas. Forbes, F.H.A.S. ..... By Percy S. T. Stephens By J. B. Radcliffe By Percy S. T. Stephens By R. H. J. PooLE By the Rev. E. E. Dorling, M.A. By C. J. Bruce Marriott, M.A. 275 278 293 302 309 312 314 319 230 348 353 356 356 357 373 385 388 388 393 395 397 398 399 400 401 403 404 409 414 4'7 420 426 427 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS AND MAPS PACE Durham Cathedral . By G. E. Nathan Frontispiece Durham Episcopal Seals : — Plate I full-page plate, facing iz Plate II „ „ „ «8 Plate III „ „ » 22 Ecclesiastical Map of Durham facing 76 Durham Monastic Seals full-page plate, facing 102 Details of Shotley Bridge Sword (Plate I) „ „ „ 290 Plan of Mill Dam Salt Works 299 Sunderland Pottery (Plate II) fall-page plate, facing 312 Swalwell Time-Gun ) , wPlatelll) „ „ „ 3'o Coatham Mundeville Mill ) A HISTORY OF DURHAM ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY THERE is no proof of the existence of Christianity during the Romano-British period within the district now called the county of Durham. When in later days the first English historian came to tell the story of the beginnings of the Church in these islands, he found himself without any definite information concerning the origin of the faith in a district which was to him more interesting than any other region of the English settlement. The Venerable Bede, in his slight sketch of the earliest Christian centuries, was chiefly dependent on Orosius, who completed the Historia in 417, writing it in Africa, where he was far removed from Britain, and possessed no special knowledge of British affairs.^ We cannot extort from Orosius, or from Bede, one single historical fact connected with Roman Durham. Nor have any Christian relics of the Roman period descended to us. Coins have been dug up at various times in Jarrow, Hartle- pool, Chester-le-Street, and other places, and inscriptions have come to light at Lanchester, but nothing that can be interpreted as Christian has hitherto made its appearance.^ All we can say is that a Roman road passed directly through the region, and that at Lanchester and Binchester there were military stations. It is as difficult to suppose that Christianity was entirely absent as it is to prove its actual presence. Bede is the first of a series of church historians connected with Durham.'' He wrote his Church History of the 'English People in 731, when exact details of the planting of Christianity in Northumbria were accessible to him through the tradition of those who had witnessed the events in their boy- hood, or had received their record from the previous generation. The first definite contact of Christianity with English Durham must have taken place when the Kentish Princess Ethelburga, otherwise Tata, came to the north as bride of Edwin, who had lately drawn within his influence the various English principalities. Bede tells in full the story of Edwin's wide sway ; of the arrival of his bride ; of the king's acceptance of the faith ; of the subsequent wide mission of Paulinus, the queen's chaplain. Paulinus must have traversed ' For the authorities used by Bede, see C. Plummer's edition of the Works of Bede, (i) pp. xxiv and xliv. ' An important resume of what can be recovered concerning Durham in the pagan period will be found in Arch. Ael. vli, 89. Nothing is there traced of early Christianity. Raine's note on Haddan and Stubbs's A'p'ptVtiXii. Monumental Remaitis of the British Church during the Roman Period %\im% up the admitted absence of all information so far as Durham is concerned ,■ Hist, of the Church of York, i, p. xx. ^ The other Durham chroniclers are Simeon of Durham, Geoffrey of Coldingham, Robert of Graystanes, and William de Chambre. See Surtees Society edition of Tres Scriptores, p. vii. 2 I I A HISTORY OF DURHAM the present county of Durham from end to end in the tour which he made through Northumbria to Edwin's northern capital at Yeavering.* The nobles of that kingdom had embraced Christianity in the early stages of the mission of Paulinus/ and in the thirty-six days of constant baptizing in Glendale the rest of the people presented themselves in vast numbers. This successful evangelization was much helped by the proverbial peace of the reign of Edwin.* But no church or baptistery was built as yet, Bede tells us ; and he is careful to hint that no permanent organization of the Church was made in the northern parts of Northumbria during the mission of Paulinus.^ The results of that mission were soon severely shaken by the death of Edwin and the pagan excesses of Penda, yet it was not overthrown.' After a stormy interval of tyranny and disorder Oswald restored peace and unity to the distracted kingdom of Northumbria, following on his victory near the Roman wall. It is with Oswald that we get the historical beginning of the Church in Durham, as Simeon points out.* The sympathies of Oswald were ^° more particularly with the Bernicians, and Bamburgh became his capital rather than York. He placed Aidan at Lindisfarne, and from this island a wide mission was directed. Fresh missionaries from Scottish regions joined him in his work, and churches were built and lands given, the whole life and disci- pline being constructed on the basis of Celtic monasticism." One of the monasteries so built we are able to identify by name at Hartlepool, and its erection is the first really definite event of Durham history to which we can point. '^ Here Aidan placed Heiu, the first Northumbrian nun to take the veil.^' The establishment of this convent is assigned to about the year 640. About that time Aidan summoned Hild, a great-niece of Edwin, to a similar but unnamed institution, which has been identified with St. Hilda's, South Shields.'* In 649 Hild was transferred to Hartlepool, where she succeeded Heiu." Under her gentle rule of eight years the house at Hartlepool now became a centre of great fame and activity, to which Aidan and the other Celtic religious constantly resorted. This peaceful beginning of the church in Durham was disturbed in 651 by the death of its apostle St. Aidan, and also by the defeat and death of Oswin, the successor of Oswald. The new king Oswy, after the final over- throw of the Mercian Penda at Wingfield in 655, proved a good patron of the Church, and placed his baby daughter Aelflede under Hild's care at Hartlepool. This action was taken in devout recognition of his success. Various members of his family were eventually buried at Hartlepool. So far, the missionary influence throughout Northumbria since the departure of Paulinus was entirely Celtic. Wilfrid is usually credited with being the first to introduce the Roman type into Northumbria. So far as ' Bede, Hilt. EccL \\, 14. ' Ibid. * Ibid. ' Ibid. ; cf. iii, 2, nee immento — statueret. * Ibid. ; cf. ii, 20, Turbatis itaque rebus Nordanhymbrorum. ' Sim. Dur. Opera (Rolls Ser.), ad init. '" The family connexion of the two Northumbrian royal lines is explained, Arch. Ael. xix, 50. " This important passage runs as follows : — ' Construebantur ergo ecclesiae per loca, confluebant ad audi- endum populi gaudentes, donabantur munere regio possessiones et territoria ad instituenda monasteria ' ; Bede, Hist. EccL iii, 3. '■ Ibid, iv, 23 ; Ebchester is, on insufficient authority, said to have been another; cf. Hodgson Hinde, Hist. of 'Northumbria, I 30. " Bede, loc. cit. " See an instructive p.iper in Arch. Ael. xix, 47, by Canon Savage. " A further transference of Hild to Whitby in 657 was probably due to the emergence of the paschal controversy, afterwards decided at Whitby in 664. 2 ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY Durham is concerned he was actually anticipated by Benedict Biscop, otherwise Biscop Baducing." Biscop was a thegn of Oswy. He is the first Durham personage after Hild and Heiu to emerge partially from the obscurity of the time. His is a truly great name, but our knowledge of the details of his life is disappointingly meagre. Passing to the Continent with Wilfrid in 653 he pushed on to Rome, and returned to Northumbria before his companion came back. No doubt he spread those ritual scruples which Wilfrid imbibed at Rome, and disseminated after his return, scruples which were only set at rest, if they were set at rest, in the synod of Whitby, 664. The Whitby decision marked the triumph of the Roman as against the Celtic model, and is a matter of considerable importance. ^^ After a second journey to Rome in 665, and a residence of some years abroad, Biscop came back, in company with Theodore, in 669. From a third journey he returned to Northumbria about 672 to find Oswy dead and his son Egfrid occupying the throne. A friendship now sprang up with Egfrid which had great effects on religion and learning. The king bestowed on Biscop a large gift of land, probably in the actual neighbourhood of Heiu's first convent, but certainly on the northern bank of the Wear. Here he founded in 674 a monastery which was signifi- cantly dedicated to St. Peter." Of this famous house Stubbs says : 'The learning and civilization of the eighth century rested on the monastery which he founded, which produced Bede, and through him the school of York, Alcuin, and the Carolingian school on which the culture of the Middle Ages was based.' Commencing his foundation at Wearmouth in 674, Biscop journeyed next year to Gaul, and brought back masons who built the house in the Roman fashion dear to him, as Bede tells us ; and then he sent for glaziers, who not only did their own work, but taught their craft to the Northumbrians. The church, at all events, was ready for use within a year, and part of the ancient porch, it is probable, survives as an evidence of the builder's skill. In this counterpart to the work of Wilfrid recently erected in York, Hexham, and Ripon, we see the amazing progress of architecture and civilization which the span of a very few years witnessed. It is probable that the father of Bede was born and brought up as a heathen. His son, who was born on Wear- mouth land, perhaps a year before the monastery was founded, lived to see an enormous advance of civilization and religion, and to prove the depositary of all known learning. But Bede, to whom we are thus introduced, was still more closely con- nected with a second great Durham monastery which was erected by the same Biscop at Jarrow." A fourth visit of Biscop to Rome was concluded in '° Bede has worked the facts of Biscop's life into Hist. Eccl. v, 19, so far as they are connected with Wilfrid, and has left a memoir of Biscop. See Bishop Stubbs's article, ' Benedictus Biscop ' in Did. Christ. Biog. i, 308. " For the Whitby decision the original authority is Bede, Hist. Eccl. iii, 25 ; cf. Early Engl. Ch. Hist. 223-31 ; Diet. Christ. Biog. i, 309. " The early history of the Wearmouth Monastery, until its devastation by the Danes, is given in Surtees' Hist. ofDur. ii, 2. " Bede is again our original authority. Hist. Eccl. v, 21, 24, with Hist. Abbat. passim. W. Bright, Early Engl. Ch. Hist. 365, sqq. gives a full summary and appreciation of all known facts about Jarrow. See, too, Surtees, Dur. ii, 67. For Bede's literary influence, J. R. Green, Making of England, 399-404 ; Hodgkin, Italy and her Invaders, vi, 422. The important paper of J. R. Boyle in Arch. Ael. x, 195, on the 'Monas- tery and Church of St. Paul, Jarrow,' gives a full rcsumi of the foundation of the house, with a discussion of its archaeological remains. These are particularly a series of inscribed stones, the most important of which records the dedication of the church. A HISTORY OF DURHAM 680. He brought back a still greater quantity of church furniture, and his former patron Egfrid gave him another but rather smaller grant of land in the neighbourhood of what is now Jarrow Slake, then termed ' gyrwy ' or ' marsh.' This little bay formed a safe harbour for ships, and its being known as Egtrid's Harbour suggests that the king had some family or personal connexion with the spot, as he had perhaps with Wearmouth. However this may be, the site was given in recognition of the success at Wearmouth, and building was pushed on with the same dispatch as before. The new monastery, dedicated to St. Paul, though seven miles distant from Wearmouth, was regarded as part and parcel of the same institution. The chief glory of Jarrow lies in the fact that it was for nearly fifty years the home, the school, the library, and the oratory of Bede. Here English learning, born at Wearmouth, was cradled and nursed, and here a generation of scholars was brought up under the fostering care of the first English teacher. Both Jarrow and Wearmouth were richly endowed with books by Benedict, and also by Ceolfrid, who in 690 became the single ruler of the double monastery. We thus get the beginning of monastic libraries in the North of England. "^ The two houses were severely treated by the famous plague, which had first made its appearance in 664, and ravaged Northum- bria with frightful desolation in and about 685.-^ But apart from the havoc caused by this early ' Black Death,' Northumbria began to decline from that same fatal year, 685, when Egfrid, under the temptation of securing external conquest, was lured into a Pictish ambuscade and perished." Thus the last legitimate descendant of the old Northumbrian royal house passed away. His successor, Aldfrid, reigned for 20 years more over an attenuated kingdom. After him a period of usurpation, conspiracy, and murder set in, which only partially gave way to greater stability in the reign of Eadbert, 737-58.'' Bede wrote on quietly at Jarrow during this troublous period, beginning with his grammatical works between 691 and 703, proceeding to his Com- mentaries in or about 709, and taking up history, in addition, with the Lives of the Abbots in 716. No historian came after him, and a considerable gap follows his death in 735, during which interval we have merely a very general knowledge of Northumbrian history. In 788 there occurs an obscure reference to a synod held in Pincanheal, which place has been identified with Finchale, near Durham, but the fancied likeness of the word is the only ground of such identification, and is altogether too precarious. But be that as it may, an event took place in the preceding year which is a considerable landmark. Xhe Anglo-Saxon Chronicle places the first coming of the Danes in 787. Soon after this a piratical foray devastated the Lindisfarne monastery in 793, and next year a descent was made upon Jarrow, but it was repelled with some success, the defeated Danes suffering shipwreck in their flight. Apparently the Northumbrian churches were now left without molestation for seventy years. One event of considerable magnitude took place during this long respite, when Ecgred, bishop of Lindisfarne, increased the possessions ^ For what is known of these early libraries see Plummer's BeJe, i, p. xviii. " See Dr. Charles Creighton, Hist, of Epidemics in Britain, i, 7. Further evidence of the general desolation occurs in Arch. Ael. xix, 1 52. *' J. Hodgson Hi de, Hist, of 'Northumberland, i, 93. '^ Particulars in Plummer's editio 1 of Bede, i, p. xxxiii. ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY of the see by large grants of land. The nucleus of the patrimony of St. Cuthbert had been formed in 685, when Egfrid of Northumbria bestowed on St. Cuthbert, then living, territories in those parts of the kingdom which were to become in later days Northumberland and Yorkshire.^* Ecgred about 830 gave, in addition to certain places outside, a large slice of the modern county of Durham. The centre of this new donation was the royal vill of Gainford, and with its appendages included some of the district between Wear and Tees to a spot some three miles south of the latter river.^^ Billingham was also added at the same time. Meanwhile, more formidable incursions of the Danes had been taking place in other parts of England. A period of regular settlement began about 853. In 866 a large body of the invaders remained for the winter in East Anglia, and came to terms there with the East Anglians. What followed is obscure, but it would seem that in revenge for some treacherous act committed by the Northumbrian king these Danes came north. ^° With horse and foot to the number of 20,000, they laid Northumbria waste, destroyed Lindisfarne, and finally burnt the two houses of Jarrow and Wearmouth. After this the pro- vinces of Bernicia and Deira were placed under Danish governors." A coin discovered and described some years ago makes it probable that Beorn was appointed ruler over that part of Northumbria which lay to the south of the Tyne.°* This disastrous occupation seems to have practically annihilated the Church of Northumbria. So far the Church had been planted in monasteries, and with the exception of Gainford there is no proof of the existence of church buildings in other specific centres before 8 67. The destruction of Jarrow and Wearmouth meant, therefore, the practical extinction of the Church.^' This brings us to the great name of St. Cuthbert, whose dead body was destined to be the means of reviving Christianity in Durham, With this district he had no connexion in life, save nominally as bishop of Lindisfarne during the last two years of his episcopate (685—7). I" ^75 ^^^ famous wanderings of his body began. It was borne from Lindisfarne through Northumbria and Galloway for seven years. Then came a respite in the ferocity of the Danes. Their leader was dead, and an opportune dream to Eadred, the abbot in charge of the wandering community, suggested the name of Guthred as the next king.^" There was sufficient romance and awe connected with St. Cuthbert to induce the Danes to regard the vision as a divine admonition, and Guthred, evidently predisposed to favour the monks, was elected. He forthwith established them at an ancient " Lapsley, County Palatine of Durham, 157. " Simeon does not say that the whole country from Wear to Tees was given, but ' quicquid ad eam [villam] pertinet a flumine Teisa usque Wer sancto confessori Cuthbert contulit.' Simeon of Dur. Opera (Rol s Ser.), i, 53. Billingham also lies between Wear and Tees, and would not have needed separate specification if the entire district had been intended. '* The sources of our knowledge of the events, so far as Northumbria is concerned, are examined by Mr. D. H. Haigh, Arch. Ael. vii, 23. " To speak of the provinces of Bernicia and Deira is to use language loosely. Mr. Bates has a paper on this in Arch. Ael. xix, 147-54, in which he shows that we must think rather of peoples than of provinces. The limits of the Bernicii and the Deiri fluctuated constantly. " See Mr. Haigh's paper, Arch. Ael. vii, 24. " South Shields and Hartlepool (above, p. 2), founded as religious settlements about 640, may have lingered on. Bede has no further mention of them after their foundation, or of the churches indicated above, p. 2, note 1 1. '° For the motives of Eadred and his relation to the bishop, see J. Raine, S/. Cuthbert, 47-Q. The chronology is examined in Arch. Ael. vii, 29. 5 A HISTORY OF DURHAM Roman station, now known as Chester-le-Street." Here we get the restoration of the Church in Durham and the commencement of its bishopric. We have traced above the donation of Durham land to the original see of Lindisfarne. All that had gone ; but Guthred began at once the series of gifts which was to form the mediaeval patrimony of St. Cuthbert. Another vision of Eadred directed the king to bestow all the land between Tyne and Wear and to the east of the Roman road. A glance at the map shows that this is a large square district from Gateshead to Chester-le-Street on the west, and from South Shields to Sunderland on the east. The new church was to have right of sanctuary.'*' The donation was approved by the army and by the people. Guthred again confirmed it at his death, and Alfred, who now exercised a sovereignty over Northumbria, was eager to ensure all these privileges to St. Cuthbert, who had appeared to him on the eve of Ethandun in 878. Alfred also commended the patrimony of Cuthbert to the protection of ^ Edward. In the reign of Edward, the bishop at Chester-le-Street, Cutheard, added to the endowment certain lands which have not been specified. Under Bishop Cutheard, Sedgefield was purchased and added to the ' possessions of the see. But these recent gains were soon lost in the confusion that followed Guthred's death. According to Simeon, a Danish leader called Reginald appeared in the Humber about the beginning of the tenth century < and took York. He then made a foray into the land of St. Cuthbert, and divided it between two of his followers, Scula and Onalafbald, but the latter, seized by sudden illness, confessed the sanctity of the saint in the agony of his last moments. This circumstance added greatly to the awe which already surrounded the remains of St. Cuthbert and prepares us for the next step. The reign of Athelstan constitutes a landmark in the history of the Northumbrian church, as well as in English history generally. Three churches at least, Ripon, Beverley, and Chester-le-Street, looked back to it as an era of stability .'' Athelstan deposed Reginald and other petty sub-kings, and annexed Northumbria to his own overlordship. This tightening of his control led to a coalition of various chieftains which he crushed, and made the rebels swear obedience. One of them was Constantine, king beyond the Tweed, who broke his pact in or about 934. On this the king gathered his forces and marched to avenge himself. It was apparently on this occasion that he visited the three places just mentioned, and confirmed all existing privileges. At Chester-le-Street he not only established anew all the rights of St. Cuthbert, but bestowed various gifts, which were all duly entered upon the Liber Vitae and survived in Simeon's time two centuries later. Most important of these gifts were certain villages which constitute a strip of land on the coast from Sunderland to Hesleden inclusive. The compactness of this grant may suggest that the land comprised an estate of one of the sub-kings, which was now forfeited to the conqueror.^* " Guthred's new kingdom was entirely south of the Tyne ; Raine, loc. cit. ; Simeon, op. cit. ii, 13-16. " Sanctuary was recognized in England first by Ini of Wessex in 693 ; by Guthred here in 883 ; and by Alfred in 887. See introduction to Sanctuarium Du'ie/mens(, pp. x\,xn, and below p. 26. " For Ripon see Memorials of Ripon (Surtees Soc), i, 5 1 ; Beverley, Beverley Chapter Act Book (Surtees Soc. xx). Athelstan was duly honoured in the daily chapter mass at Beverley. '* Simeon of Dur. Opera, i, 74-5 ; cf. Raine, St. Cuthbert, 50-2 ; Surtees, Hist. Dur. i, 224. The grrundless theory that old Durham, close to Durham, is the scene of Athelstan's great battle of Brunanburh is not worthy of examination. 6 ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY The devotion of Athelstan, imbibed from his predecessors, was transmitted to his brother, who followed him on the throne of Wessex. In the ebb and flow of Danish power in Northumbria after Athelstan the presence of Edmund became necessary in 944, and of Edred in 954. Both kings therefore visited Chester-le-Street and endorsed the privileges of the Church. ^Ethel- wold, bishop of Winchester, formerly a protege of Athelstan, made pilgrimage somewhat later to the same spot. These visits, duly recorded, afford evidence of the enormous prestige of St. Cuthbert's shrine through these turbulent days, and help to account for the magic power of his name in time to come.'" With the closing years of the loth century we reach the foundation of the city of Durham. There is no mention of its unique site before the familiar events of 995, though its nearness to a Roman road'° must have given frequent opportunity to the wayfarer to inspect its wonderful natural position. About 980 the ferocity of the Danes was renewed in constant raids upon the south coast of England." In 99 i the attack passed northward, and Danegeld was first paid. Aldhun had been consecrated bishop of Chester-le-Street in the previous year, so succeeding to the now ample estates of St. Cuthbert. The undiminished fury of the Danes broke upon his see in 993. Aware that he was powerless to protect the possessions of the Church, the bishop had entrusted some of the manors to Uchtred, earl of Northumberland, and to two other nobles, intending to resume them when happier days came.'^ Other manors, either before or after this, he bestowed as a marriage portion upon his daughter, Egfrida, who was married to this same Uchtred.'^ Having thus provided for the temporalities of the Church, Aldhun formed in 995 the famous resolution of taking the body of St. Cuthbert to Ripon, whither the whole congregation of St. Cuthbert betook itself. In the summer of the very same year peace was restored, if indeed the menace of the Danes had been made effective, of which there is no real proof. The congregation set out on the return journey to Chester-le-Street.*" The bier became immovable. It was considered to be a sign that the saint refused to be borne back to the old spot. They were then close to the place where in after days Simeon recorded the account which he had received from the descendants of the original porters. From his pen the phrase prope Dun- helmum is not likely to have meant anything more distant than the immediate " Raine, S/. Cuthbert, 53, with authorities there quoted. '^ The existence of this road was discovered by Mr. Cade, of Gainford, in the eighteenth century. See Archaeologia, vii, and Surtees' note on Mr. Cade in his account of Gainford. " Anglo-Sax. Chron. sub ann. "Simeon of Dur. Opera, \, 83 and 213. For the existence and history ot the official earldom see Hodgson Wmdit, History of Northumbria, 158,3 book strangely overlooked by Dr. Lapsley in his County Palatine of Durham. " The date is uncertain. It may have been after the return from Ripon. Simeon the monk perhaps naturally omits the fact of Aldhun's daughter and her dowry. It is vouched for by the interesting tract printed with his works in the Rolls Series, i, 2 1 5. For the general existence of clerical marriage in this period see Hunt, Hist. Engl. Ch. 269, 321. As regards the congregation of St. Cuthbert in particular, the practice was probably curtailed when Edmund became bishop in : 02 1. It seems to me likely that the circumstances of this bishop's election (Simeon of Dur. Opera, \, 85-6) point to the introduction of monastic influence. When Simeon calls Aldhun (i, 78) probabilis monachus, he is looking at him through twelfth-century spectacles. '° It would appear (see note 36, above) that a Roman road led from Sockburn to Mainsforth, Old Durham, and Chester-le-Street. It traversed the very lands that had been given to the congregation of St. Cuthbert, and it would be natural, not to say much safer, to bring the body over territory associated with the saint, and probably at this time specially under the protection of Uchtred. Simeon of Dur. op. cit. i, 83 and 21 3. 7 A HISTORY OF DURHAM neighbourhood of the city of Durham. There is no reason to disown the local tradition which makes the hill Mountjoy the scene of this incident. At all events Durham was considered to be indicated as the spot where the saint desired to rest, and thither the bier was borne. It lay for some time in a hastily improvised wattled shrine on the hill-top, whilst the site was prepared for habitation. Uchtred the earl and son-in-law of Aldhun lent his aid, and prevailed on all the people, from the Coquet to the Tees, to join in the work of clearing the place and building the necessary buildings. A more seemly church known as the White Church received the body of St. Cuthbert, and the first cathedral of Durham was at once commenced. It was ready for use within three years, and to it the remains of the saint were carried, and the dedication took place on 4 September, 999.*^ So the long history of the city of Durham opens. The earls of North- umberland were its first patrons and benefactors. In 1006 the new city was able to withstand a severe assault directed by Malcolm of Scotland, and the heads of many of the defeated host were fastened upon the fortifications. This decisive victory, which kept the Scots at bay for some years, was reversed in 1018 at the disastrous battle of Carham-on-Tweed,'*" when a levy of the people between Tees and Tyne was routed with terrible slaughter. But in 1013 Northumbria had acknowledged the power of Sweyn. Appar- ently his son Canute marched north after the battle of Carham, and by his armed display kept the Scots in check. At all events Canute came through Northumbria, and at Trimdon, so tradition says, made fresh gifts to St. Cuthbert,*^ whence he walked with bare feet to Durham. Thanks, then, to the patronage of Uchtred, Durham was now a fortified city, and gifts abounded. Stories of miraculous cure turned the attention of distant churchmen towards it. Relics began to be stored in the church of St. Cuthbert. A sacrist named Elfred brought to it the remains of various north-country saints, and rifled the ruins of Jarrow for the bones of Bede — at least so he gave out. In 1040 the second siege of Durham took place, when Shakespeare's Duncan brought a vast host together to reduce it. A sally on the part of the defenders routed the cavalry of the Scots, whilst the foot were annihilated. The heads of the killed were stuck on poles in the market-place, which is presumably the present Palace Green. The size of the Scottish army and the fact that the beleaguered forces were able to follow it up and disperse it goes to prove that the entire space within the peninsula was by this date fortified. vEthelric, a Peterborough monk, who became bishop in 1042, received from the new Earl Siward the same protec- tion which Uchtred had given to Aldhun. The earl confirmed the bishop in his see against a clerical revolt, ^thelric desired to replace the old church at Chester by a more dignified stone building, and proceeded to carry out his wish. His pillage of the ornaments and treasure at Durham is proof of the " Simeon is our authority for all these facts, which he claims to have received by tradition from those present. Op. cit. i, 78-84. See his remarks on the closeness of the tradition, ibid. 80. " For its importance cf. Freeman, Norman Conquest, i, 444, and Pertz, Mon. Hist. Germ. Hodgson Hinde, Hist. Northumb. l6z. " For the tradition cf. Surtees, Hist. Dur. i, 2, 104. The lands r\ovi bestowed were chiefly in the neighbourhood of Staindrop, and were part and parcel of that manor, viz. Staindrop, Shotton, Raby, Wacker- field, and Ingleton, all close to one another, and Auckland, Eldon, Thickley, Middlcton, Lutterington, and Evenwood, rather farther off. Simeon of Dur. Opera, i, 90 and 213. Auckland and Thickley were restitu- tions. Simeon of Dur. Opera, i, 213. 8 ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY wealth of the Church in these things over and above its considerable landed estates. ^Ethelric's brother succeeded him and robbed the Church in the same way. Tosti, the next earl, carried on the now traditional patronage of the earls of Northumberland to the Church and see of St. Cuthbert.** Copsi, the lieutenant of Tosti in Northumberland (for Tosti was the earl of York), was an even more hberal benefactor, and increased the Church estates by the addition of various manors in the North Riding of Yorkshire.*^ It is probable that during the troubles of Tosti, who was driven from his earldom in 1065, the congregation of St. Cuthbert were perplexed as to their allegiance. Next year, after the battle of Hastings, they openly sided with Edgar Atheling, and doubtless helped to inspire general Northumbrian resistance to the Conqueror, William appointed the Englishman Gospatric to be earl of Northumbria in hope of reducing the widespread opposition of the north. Then followed the northern rebellion of 1068, which was stimulated by Gospatric himself, who found it politic to join the insurgents. Accordingly William made a reconnaissance in force as far as Warwick, whereon the northern army dispersed.*' A detachment, however, fled to Durham determined to make a stand on this impregnable spot. What follows is intricate, but a probable order of events is as follows: — According to a Norman authority Durham was now still further fortified." William, determined to crush Northumbria, appointed Robert Cumin to be earl, and dispatched him to his work. Now the bishop had, some little time before, made his submission *' to William at York, and when the earl arrived before the gates of Durham he and his troops were admitted. But so imperious was their conduct that the Northumbrians rose next day and massacred the Normans.*' News of this event encouraged the Northumbrians without. Gospatric and Edgar, who had fled on the approach of William the year before, returned to rally the rebels. The Conqueror now seized York, and pushed on an army to seize Durham, but it got no farther than Northallerton.^" A little later in the same year a Danish invasion took place in Northumbria, and completed the downfall of William's cause by taking York. The disaster was only for a moment. William retook York and wreaked a terrible vengeance by depopulating the whole country round the city. Whilst these miseries were being enacted, the bishop of Durham, uncertain of his own fortune, was persuaded by Gospatric to flee with the body of St. Cuthbert to Lindisfarne. Accordingly the whole congregation left Durham. The motives of Gospatric are not clear. ^^ Perhaps he intended to seize the property of the see. At all events he with Waltheof, earl of Northampton and son of Siward, made submission to William in January, 1070. But this did not save the bishopric, for William at once carried burning and slaughter north of the Tees. " For the facts of this paragraph Simeon is our chief authority, op. cit. i, 87-98. " That Durham was becoming a place of pilgrimage is seen from the story of Bishop Alfwold of Sher- borne in William of Malmesbury, De Gestis Pontif. (Rolls Ser. 52), 180 ; and of Gospatric in Hoveden, Chron. (Rolls Ser. 51), i, 59. ** Freeman, Norman Conquest, iv, 188. " William of Jumiiges, quoted by Freeman, op. cit. iv, 194, but it may be doubted whether this author is correctly informed as to the fortification. Presumably that existed already. It would be interesting if the work referred to is the erection of the mound of the existing keep at Durham. " For this submission, of which the exact date is doubtful, see Freeman, op. cit. iv, 205. *' The story is told most fully by Simeon, op. cit. i, 98. '" A legendary story is given in Simeon, ibid. " Simeon, op. cit. 102-41, speaks of the efforts of Gospatric. 292 A HISTORY OF DURHAM Jarrow was at all events partially destroyed. The cathedral church at Durham became a hospital for the sick and dying." About March the deadly work was over, and once more the congregation of St. Cuthbert came to Durham, and set in order their ravaged church. The bishop was not allowed to rest. As in the case of his brother and predecessor i^thelric, there were suspicions of peculation. These, joined to the doubtful character of his loyalty, marked him out as an object of punishment. William was a son of the Church, and desired to make proof of his intention to be no plunderer or destroyer, and the bishop was made his scapegoat, being outlawed and deprived." In 1 07 1 William placed a foreigner, as elsewhere, over the see of Durham in the person of Walcher, who until now was a secular priest in Lower Lorraine.^* Next year, after some delay, the king set out for Scotland, where he received the submission of Malcolm at Abernethy. His return left its mark on Northumbria. At Monk Chester he ordered the erection of the castle which gave its name to Newcastle." At Durham, which he now entered for the first time, he confirmed, as Athelstan and Canute had done, all existing privileges.'' A strange tradition was handed down as to his scepticism concerning the presence of St. Cuthbert's body. His unbelief was dispelled, and the benefactions alluded to were bestowed as evidence of his veneration for the saint. Before the year 1072 closed, William appointed Waltheof, of the old Northumbrian house, to be earl in place of Gospatric. Between the earl and the bishop a strong friendship sprang up, of which one visible result is Durham Castle, which Waltheof built for the protection of his friend." There was as yet, apparently, no thought of palatinate power in connexion with this ecclesiastical fortress. The history of the last year had shown how necessary some stable residence would be for the bishop and the desirability of adequate protection for the congregation of St. Cuthbert. Walcher contemplated a great change at Durham. Hitherto the bishop had been, as it were, the dean of a body of canons whose prebendal estates were numerous and widely spread.'^ Walcher introduced into Northumbria the revived Benedictine monasticism of the eleventh century. He began this course at dismantled Jarrow, and endowed the restored monastery with the lands adjacent, to which the bishop's title is not clear. From this house the majority of the monks were transferred to Wearmouth, where similar endow- ment was made, and the buildings were renewed which had lain waste since the Danish inroads. The design of transplanting this restored monasticism " For the facts with reference to original authorities cf. Freeman, iv, 304. That Durham offered no resistance at this time is due either to the fact that it was denuded of the bishopric men, who presumably did some kind of military service, or else to the submission of Gospatric. " The fate of the bishop is told confusedly by Simeon. William could not depend on any one of the northern magnates. He, doubdcss, designed to extrude the Englishman and adopted the means described in the text. " Simeon, op. cit. i, 9-10 ; Freeman, op. cit. iv, 513 znd passim, has worked all the authorities. " Some authorities put this later in the reign ; Freeman, op. cit. iv, 5 18. " The order of events in the Durham visit is confused. It is probable that the grants were made after leaving Durham, when he stopped at Darlington. For his scepticism cf. Freeman, op. cit. iv, 520. " This is the true reading of Simeon, op. cit. ii, 199-200, where the subject of the sentence must be Waltheof, and not William, to whom the building of the castle has been wrongly ascribed. " This seems clear from what is a priori likely in regard to men who were not monks, though Simeon threw over them the respectability conveyed by that word. See also note 39 above. Reginald of Durham certainly regarded them as secular canons. Libellus, 29. 10 ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY to Durham was cut short by the bishop's death, though some preparation for the monks was made/^ Waltheof being implicated in rebellion is withdrawn fron Northumbrian history in 1075. Walcher succeeded to his position as earl of Northumbria. But Walcher was an old and mild ecclesiastic unable to curb his dependants, and met his death at what may have been a meeting of the palatine court held at Gateshead.^" This tumultuous episode had an interesting sequel in a four days' siege of Durham Castle by the murderers of the bishop which was quite ineffectual. In revenge for the murder, Odo of Bayeux was dispatched to the north, and for the third time in fourteen years the district round Durham was deluged in blood and fire. Carileph the next Norman bishop completed the monastic plan of Walcher, and began the present cathedral at Durham." It is possible that the complaisant Walcher shrank from extruding the Cuthbertine canons. Carileph had no such scruple. He was younger and more energetic, and having obtained from Hildebrand, who was absolutely like-minded on this point, the bulls thought necessary for the purpose, the bishop gave the congre- gation the choice of turning monk or of withdrawing. Monks from Jarrow and Wearmouth were drafted into Durham, and thus the great Benedictine Abbey began its history in 1083. The great church was commenced in 1093, after an interlude of exile on the bishop's part which does not concern us here.^^ Several charters purporting to be of the end of the eleventh century have been preserved, but they are now proved to be of later fabrication, though they seem to state facts. ^^ To Carileph, then, we may attribute the donation of Rainton, Pittington, Hesleden, Dalton-le-Dale, Merrington, Shincliffe, and Elvet, with the churches in Elvet, Aycliffe, Hesleden, and Dalton. On the same showing several manors outside the county were given about the same time to the prior and convent. Tynemouth Priory which had been a possession was transferred to the monks of St. Albans, about 1093. The character and eccentricities of Flambard, who became bishop in 1099, do not much concern us here. He came to a greatly wasted see after three years of vacancy. In the main Flambard, who had taught Rufus the profitable trick of keeping sees vacant, proved to be a restorer.** The most interesting event of the early twelfth century was the trans- lation of the body of St. Cuthbert in i 104 from its temporary resting-place after the destruction of Aldhun's church to the shrine now prepared for it behind the high altar. There can be no doubt on scientific grounds that the body of the saint, emaciated by fastings and rigour, had dried up, but *' Greenwell, Durham Cathedral, 20 n. ^ For a discriminating summary of this affair see Arch. Ael. xx, 32. " Simeon, op. cit. i, 125 sqq. is our main authority. No better summing up of what Carileph did is to be found than that of Dr. Greenwell in his Dur. Cath. (6th ed.), 21-9. " The circumstances of Carileph's exile are important in the larger political history of the time. See Bp. Creighton's summary in Diet. Nat. Biog. who points out that Simeon of Durham takes his side, whilst the southern chroniclers condemned him. Durham Castle was seized by the king during the bishop's exile. '^ See Dr. Greenwell's preface to the Feodarium. " After his imprisonment and subsequent exile, during which for five years the see was deprived of its bishop save for a visit in U04 and perhaps again. Diet. Nat. Biog. ' Flambard.' II A HISTORY OF DURHAM had never perished. This fact was abundantly proved at the opening of the coffin, which has been fully described for us."" Flambard did much for the city of Durham, completing the plans of Carileph at the cathedral, adding to the fortifications of the castle, and before his death giving a large sum of money to the citizens.*^ One or two other points may also be noted, as, for instance, the foundation of Kepier Hospital in 1 1 12, and the grant of Finchale to the prior and convent in 1118. It was probably during his absence from England that the see of Carlisle became independent. A very " shadowy jurisdiction had been exercised over Cum- berland or part of it, from Lindisfarne, but the bishops of Durham do not seem to have succeeded to any authority over it. Hexhamshire, said to have been dependent on Durham until Flambard, can not be proved to have owned any real allegiance. Under Geoffrey Rufus (113 3—40) , who had been chancellor in Henry's reign, the see was brought into the turmoil of the two contending factions and suffered much in consequence. Geoffrey took the side of Stephen in 1 135, and it was perhaps in token of gratitude that the new king permitted the bishop for the first time to erect a mint- which survived until the Refor- mation.°^ The action of Geoffrey gave David of Scotland a pretext for trying to push the southward influence of Scotland, which Malcolm had been the last to attempt. David accordingly advanced into England and took up position at Newcastle. Stephen to oppose him flung himself into Durham. For the moment terms were made, but two years later, in i 138, the invasion was resumed to vindicate the claims of David's son Henry in right of his mother to the earldom of Northumberland. There is no trace of any bishopric force. The diocese was ravaged, Norham Castle (erected by Flambard) was taken, and after great accessions from Scotland and Ireland, the tide of invasion flowed on into Yorkshire, to be hurled back at the Battle of the Standard. In all this crisis the bishop plays no recorded part, and the semi-religious aspect of the campaign is due to the banners of St. Peter, St. Wilfrid, and St. John of Beverley. In May, 11 39, at Durham, a conven- tion was signed which recognized the claim of David's son to the earldom of Northumberland, and provided that the rights of the bishop of Durham within the lands of St. Cuthbert should be fully recognized.*^ In Geoffrey's time the chapter-house was completed.™ An interesting if discreditable episode was enacted in the interregnum which followed Geoffrey's death in 1141. Cumin, who had been David's chancellor, was by his master's direct help intruded into the see." He obtained the goodwill of the great officers in the castle and of some members ^ The best account is in Raine, Si. Cuthhert, 74. For the physical condition of the body, F.C.H. Dur. i, 124. The original authority is Simeon, op. cit. i, 247-61, ii, 236. '^ Flambard's work at Durham caught the imagination of William of Malm. De Geslis Pontif. (517). For a contemporary account see Simeon, op. cit. i, l 39, iii, 260. Summaries as to details in Hutchinson, Hut. and Antiq. of Dur. i, 1 8 3 ; Surtees, Dur. i, p. xix. " For early position of Carlisle, see V. C. H. Cumb. ii, 7. Another shadowy jurisdiction was TeviotJale, henceforth annexed to Glasgow, as Hexhamshire, (until 1 836) to York. For the latter see J Hist, of Northum- berland, iii, 117. ^ For the mint see M. Noble's Two Dissertations. '' Summary in Hodgson Hinde, Hist. Northumb. 207-15. " Greenwell, Dur. Cath. 47. " A convenient summary is in Hodgson Hinde, Hist. Northumb, 216-17. The chief original authority is Laurence, prior of Durham (1149-53), who witnessed the occurrences so far as Durham was concerned, and described them in his poems (our chief authority for the Norman Castle), published by the Surtees Society, and also in prose if, as is likely, Laurence is the first continuator of Simeon of Durham ; Simeon, op. cit. i, 143-60. 12 Richard Marsh, 1217-26 ^f^^f ■^^^ \<. ^J■^ Anthony Rek, 12S4-1311 {Ohi'cnc) Anthony Bek, 1284-1311 {Revene) Durham Episcopal Seals : Plate I ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY of the cathedral. He managed to hold the place for two years altogether before making an ignominious submission to the new bishop (William de St. Barbara), whom some of the escaped monks elected. But the two years coming so soon after the devastation of David proved a time of terrible woe for the diocese. The borough of Elvet was destroyed, and so was Kepier Hospital, with other buildings in the suburbs of the city, whilst partisan zeal stirred the sympathies of the chief bishopric tenants for or against the usurper. William succeeded as an old man in 1143, and proved himself energetic in healing the wounds of his diocese. Two twelfth-century saints were famous at this time, Bartholomew of Durham," an anchorite on the Fame Islands, and St. Godric,^^ the hermit of Finchale, who became a great friend of the bishop. In his episcopate Middleham became the property of prior and convent. To the presumably well-defined see-lands Pudsey succeeded with all the prestige that relationship with Stephen gave him.^* He was well received in his diocese, and apparently spent the earlier years of his episcopate in healing the sores of the land. By degrees he was trusted by Henry II, and took some part in the politics of the day. A famous return of 1 166 gives a side-light on the military service of the various territories in the see." In 1170, after steering clear of the Becket dispute, Pudsey com- promised himself along with Roger of York over the coronation of Prince Henry, and this led to a brief papal suspension from his bishopric. Two years later he connived at the rebellion of the king's sons, and made terms with Scotland, now active in the prince's behalf. For such disloyalty Pudsey lost his castles, including Durham Castle, and did not regain them for some time. More peaceful days followed, and during the long vacancy of the see of York, from 1181, the spiritual sway of Pudsey in the north of England was much augmented. The crusading frenzy which seized the country after the fall of Jerusalem in 1 187 now gave the opportunity for that advance of power which marks the episcopate of Pudsey. Richard I, desirous of preventing Pudsey from joining the crusade, readily bestowed upon him the earldom of Northumberland for a large money consideration. Some time in the same year the bishop obtained the earldom of Sadberge which, though it was situated between Tyne and Tees, had been no part of the episcopal lands. Installed in the increased power brought him by these transactions Pudsey was able to defy the king's half-brother Geoffrey, recently appointed archbishop of York, a defiance which needed papal settlement in 1 191. For the rest Pudsey did well in his new position. ^^ For the city and county of Durham Pudsey's reign was a prominent epoch in many ways, apart from the large secular sway that he exerted. To Durham he gave a charter in 11 75, as he did to Gateshead and Sunderland. The castle, considerably damaged by fire about 1 1 54, was improved, and at the cathedral the famous Galilee was added, whilst a new bridge led to the borough of Elvet. Here the rectory, with its dependent chapels at Croxdale and Witton, was given to the prior and convent." He refounded Kepier, " Life of Bartholomew in Simeon of Dur. op. cit. i, 295-325. '■* For facts and authorities, see Surtecs Soc. Publications, vol. xix. " He is called in a charter of Stephen ' Nepoti meo.' " Given in Hutchinson, op. cit. i, 207. '" Facts and authorities in Diet. Nat. Biog. ' Hugh de Puiset.' " The fabric of St. iVlargaret's, Durham, suggests that it was built now, but the chapclry (it was one of four dependent on St. Oswald's, the others being Croxdale, Witton, and St. Leonard) cannot be yet traced. 13 A HISTORY OF DURHAM founded Sherburn Hospital, built the church of St. Giles, and at Darlington built the collegiate church of St. Cuthbert, and augmented its foundation.''* His grants to lay tenants were numerous. The great importance of the famous Boldon Book is set out at large in another article." To the episcopate of Pudsey (1153-95) there succeeded a long interval before the next really great bishop. Yet those who followed, if men in- ferior to Flambard and Pudsey in strength of character, held firmly to the regaUty which was clearly recognized.*" Our authorities now begin to increase, and in the information supplied by patent and other rolls we obtain frequent mention of bishop, and the various bishopric officers.*^ Incidentally during the vacancy of the see we are able to trace in the Pipe Rolls, &c., the accounts of the revenue, the names of the chief tenants, and the regular suc- cession to prebendal estates at Auckland, Norton, and elsewhere in the king's gift during vacancy. The general history of the diocese during the greater part of the thirteenth century is not attractive, as it consists mainly of disputes between the bishop and the monastery, or the bishop and the archbishop of York, with more than enough of personal crime and violence on the part of the chief actors. Glancing briefly at the bishops in question we first notice Philip of Poitou (i 197-1208), a friend of King John, who gave him a new grant of a mint at Durham.*^ His appointment of a nephew, Aimeric, as archdeacon of Durham, led to a long feud with the monastery, in which the nephew urged his uncle to a series of attacks upon the independence of the monks, and scenes of disgraceful violence were enacted. It is to his episcopate that the well-known description of Geoffrey of Coldingham refers, in which he says that 'Jesus was thought to be asleep whilst the little bark of the Church was tossing in the midst of the sea.'*^ One of several prolonged vacancies followed the death of Bishop Philip, during which regular returns of the episcopal revenue in the king's hands were made by the royal officers. At last, in 1 2 17, Richard Marsh was elected, a man of more than doubtful past history,** who carried on the dispute with the monastery. The feud was so bitter that Bishop Richard appealed to Rome, and perhaps by his influence the suit was protracted without definite sentence. He died leaving the appeal unfinished and the diocese in debt. After another interval of three years, Bishop le Poor followed, and by his excellence atoned for the personal demerit of his immediate predecessors. His fame rests not only on the fact that he added the eastern transept of the nine altars to the cathedral, but on his termination of the embittered strife between bishop and monastery. The convenit, as it is usually called, was drawn up in 1229 as a solution of all the outstanding disputes, and though it was criticized by the monastic element as scarcely fair to prior and convent, it formed a good modus vivendi between '* LongstafFe, Hut. of Darlington, 213. " Pudsey's inventory {}VUh and Inventories, Surtees Soc. ii, 3), gives an interesting list of books, some still preserved at Durham. ™ The claim as to the southern end of the bridge over Tweed in 1199 is an instance in point. Hutchinson, Hist. Dur. i, 229, from Hoveden, Chron. (Rolls Ser.). At least as early as 1255 there is mention in so many words of the bishop's regality between Tyne and Tees' ; Close R. 39 Hen. Ill, m. 7 d. *' The Attestationes testium in Feodarium (Surtees Soc), 220-300, give incidentally the names of a large number of officers in the first half of the thirteenth century. '- Noble's Two Dissertations is the chief authority on the mint. ^ Tres Scriptores (Surtees Soc), 21. " Matt. Paris, Chron. Maj. (Rolls Ser.), ii, 531. 14 ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY the two parties, as the long continued pause in disputing now made evident. *° Poor was no doubt anxious to effect a working settlement, since at Salisbury- he had been on particularly friendly relations with the secular canons of the new church. The friars, who were beginning to get a foothold in England at this time, found no welcome or encouragement in the bishopric, and the dominating influence of the great Benedictine order succeeded in keeping them out of the city at all events. After four years' interval, during which the crozier was for a short time forced into the hand of Prior Melsamby, Nicolas Farnham (1241— 9) became bishop. His oath of obedience to the archbishop of York survives to show that the direction of 1191 was now observed. *° In his time the Scots began after long quiet to disturb the peace of the borders, and Nicolas was directed by the king to see to the protection of the Marches. Thirty years later the same danger and the same duty became more frequent, and these directions to the bishop mark that idea of the defensive aspect of the bishopric which in the fourteenth century was regarded as the raison d'etre of the Palatinate. Nicolas resigned the bishopric in 1249, and held (notwithstanding efforts to oust him) the manors of Howden, Stockton, and Easington. One or two echoes of the great ecclesiastical and political questions which agitated the Church of England in the thirteenth century come from Durham in the next quarter of a century. Thus in 1257 the prior and convent made a determined stand against the papal exactions in common with the canons of Gisburn, for which bold action they were put under a temporary interdict." Apparently they were ready to contribute a few years later to the tenth granted to the king by the pope in 1274."* There is no special evidence to show the attitude of the bishop or monastery to the barons in the Barons' War, but a document survives which gives the names of the bishopric knights at Lewes in 1264.*^ In 1268 Cardinal Ottobon, who was active in promoting peace between the king and his subjects, urged the bishop of Durham and others of the northern province to restore the lands of the nobles recently dispossessed, despite the pressure of burdens already existing. Greatham Hospital is connected with the troubles of this crisis. Its land endowments formed part of the confiscated estates of Peter de Montfort, and were devoted by Bishop Stichill to their new purpose in the exercise of his Palatinate powers in regard to forfeits.'^ Apart from these few matters, the episcopates of Kirkham (1249-60), Stichill (1261-74), and Robert of Holy Island (1274-83) left little record, and in general (with small exception) " The chief points in dispute were certain advowsons of churches, estates, and the delimitation of the bishop's and the prior's courts, 'de curia, Tol, Them, et Infangethef et de placitis latrocinii,' &c. Lapsley, County Pal. Dur. 169. ** Melsamby was prior, and reluctantly submitted to his election, but being an ex-prior of Coldingham was regarded by the king as more than half a vassal of Scotland (Graystanes in Tres Scriplorcs, 38), and eventu- ally he resigned. For the oath of Nicolas Farnham, see Raine's Historians Ch. of York, iii, I 22 ; cf. Hoveden, Chron. iii, 74. The origin of this theory is discussed by Lapsley, op. cit. 303. " Matt. Paris, Chron. Maj. y, 634-5 (Rolls Ser.), in recording this says: ' O si habuissent in tribulatione sua consortes et in eorum constantia coadjutores ! Quam feliclter ecclesia Anglicana de tortoribus suis et oppressoribus triumphasset ! ' '^ Cal. Close, 1272-9, p. 128. " The original is in Add. MSS. 27423, fol. 66, 71. It is printed by Hutchinson, Hist. Dur. i, 267. "' Northern Reg. (Rolls Ser.), 15, 18. '^ Hutchinson, Hist, and Antiq. of Dur. i, 263-5, gives the particulars of this important constitutional matter. The bishop successfully asserted his right over that of the king ; cf. Lapsley, op. cit. 42. 15 90 A HISTORY OF DURHAM their relation to the monastery was friendly, partly because the two latter bishops were local Benedictines. Various churches and chapels can first be traced in that part of the thirteenth century which has now been reviewed. We hear of chapels at Streatlam and Stainton in 1210,''' at Satley in 1221;°' of licences to oratories at Stanley in 1241,^* and Old Durham, 1268;'° of chantries at Easington (a rec- tory before 1222; Surtees, Hist. Dur. i, 2, 12), about 1249, and at St. Nicholas, Durham, in 1250.^^ These are, perhaps, the first known instances of chantries in the bishopric. Heighington was made a vicarage in 1239." The century which lies between the death of Robert of Holy Island in 1283 and that of Hatfield in 1381 comprises what is outwardly the most mag- nificent period in Durham church history. The palatinate power was now at its height, and to a great extent proved itself unassailable in the internal con- troversies with convent and commonalty and the external attempts of king and archbishop. Yet there were contrasts to the success and opulence of the prince-bishops in various episodes which darkened the general splendour. Few years were without prospect or realization of Scotch invasion ; the clergy were still pillaged by direct taxation or by the iniquitous practice of papal provisions ; the Black Death, if less awful than in some parts, left its terrible trace upon the land ; robbery and violence abounded. The epoch was intro- duced by Bishop Anthony Bek (1284—1311),°* first friend and comrade in arms of Edward I, then churchman, diplomat, and statesman. Shortly after his elevation Bek was opposed by Archbishop Romanus of York, who stimu- lated by the old jealousy sought from Bek an acknowledgement of his position as suffragan. In the issue certain messengers were imprisoned at Durham, and Bek cleverly urged his palatine jurisdiction as justification of what he had done, and obtained a decision in his favour. The bishop was employed by the king in the marriage negotiations on behalf of the first prince of Wales and the Scottish child-Queen Margaret. Her death prevented the union of the two kingdoms, and led to the dynastic feuds which followed. Bek made use of his crusading experience in the series of wars between England and Scotland. He was appointed custodian of the lands north of Trent, and found himself at the head of a large force of men gathered not only from the bishopric and the northern counties, but from Ireland and Wales. It was, perhaps, in the newly-built hall of Durham Castle that Bek lavishly enter- tained the king in 1296 after a successful campaign. In 1300, and partly as an outcome of this warfare, there took place a recrudescence of the weary controversy between bishop and convent. On this occasion the matter in dispute was not only the bishop's visitatorial powers (in executing which he deposed the prior), but a broadening out of the whole quarrel, so that the tenants of the bishop were involved. These last had complained bitterly of being drawn outside the bishopric in the late war, and pleaded their privilege of being ' Haliwerk folk,' and so exempt from external service.'^ The struggle at last bereft Bek of his palatinate for a time, and brought a summons to " Surtees, Hist. Dur. iv, I, loo. " Ibid. 344. " Wolley Chart, v, 3. '^ Surtees op. cit. iv, 91. ^ Ibid, iv, 2, 48. '' Ibid, iii, 306. '' For his character and history see Jrch. Ael. xx, 1 1 5. ™ Cal. Pat. 1301-7, p. 71. Various matters were introduced into the dispute, e.g. the question of co.il rights, perhaps the earliest reference to Durham coals ; cf. Arch. Ad. viii, 175. The Icing compelled the dis- putants to come to terms; Cal. Pat. 1 301-7, p. 106. Articles of agreement in Stowe MS. 930, fol. 152. 16 ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY Rome which ended in his suspension, Bek saw fit to humble himself to the king and received back his possessions. A new pope gave opportunity for a re-trial of the case, but this pontiff was Clement V, who was a warm friend of Bek, and made him Patriarch of Jerusalem in 1306."° That was the last year of Edward I, who now seized certain lands forfeited by Balliol and Bruce, but the young King Edward II, coming to the throne in i 307, restored to the bishop the rights of his Palatinate almost intact, and made him king of the Isle of Man.^"' Two or three untroubled years followed before Bek's death in 131 1. He was the first bishop buried in the cathedral. Bek left behind him traces of his magnificence and generosity in his buildings at Auckland and Durham, his foundation of the prebendal churches at Chester- le-Street and Lanchester,'"' and in gifts to the cathedral."' At Bek's death another stage of the convent dispute was reached, when the prior seized the jurisdiction and started a controversy which it took some years to settle."* The next bishop was Kellaw (131 1—16), whose magnificent register,"^ with its curious history, swells out the steadily- growing stream of information. It is possible for some years to chronicle the history of the Palatinate with much exactitude. As Kellaw" was a Durham monk the bishop and convent disputes ceased for the time. He was a man of quiet character and encouraged learned men. His times were not quiet. His episcopate contains the record of Scottish troubles which led up to the English defeat at Bannockburn. The trace of hurrying troops is on every page of the records. Time and again the bishop is commanded to stay in his diocese and guard the borders."* All sorts of men were requisitioned either for service or to contribute money. The clergy granted a rate for the protection of the cathedral ; "^ prior and convent contributed 800 marks ; "^ prayers were ordered in all the churches. Meanwhile marauders ran riot over the bishopric, which was in a deplorable state through pillage and fear, whilst famine was rife amongst the poor. All this is the darker side. The register exhibits many proofs of episcopal vigilance and activity. Large ordinations were regularly held in the cathedral or at Stockton, Egglescliffe, or elsewhere, by the bishop or by some other bishop acting for him."^ Some of these helpers were foreigners. The whole process from getting a title and testimonials until licence was given is fully referred to. Sir Thomas Hardy points out among other notabilia in the register the equal discipline to high and low which is characteristic of Kellaw."" Eleemosynary indulgences multiplied through the century for purely religious purposes, or for charitable uses, such as the building and repair of churches, monasteries, or bridges for public utility. Ever since the "^ Bek was allowed to wear the pallium of the office, titular as the appointment really was ; Cal. Papal Let. ii, 10. "" The chief dates are : first seizure of the Palatinate, July, 1302; summons of king to peace, M.ir. 1303; restoration of the Palatinate, July, 1303 ; second seizure of Palatinate, Dec. 1305 ; Bek made Patriarch, Dec. 1306 ; restoration of the Palatinate, Sep. I 307 ; and fuller grant. May, 1308. '"' The date is about 1 297, the year in which the pope confirmed the two foundations ; Cal. Papal Let. i, 570-1. '"' Surtees Soc. Publ. ii, 12. '"' The prior's action led to a protest by Archbishop Greenfield ; Reg. Palat. Dun. Kellaw, i, 39. The matter was settled in 13 16 on the death of Kellaw. '"^ In Rolls Series, Reg. Palat. Dun. See introduction of Sir T. D. Hardy, i, pp. i and xciii. '°* Cal. Close R. i 307-1 3, p. 568. "" Reg. Palat. Dun. i, 469. '"'' 'Northern Registers (Rolls Ser.), 232. "" Reg. Palat. Dun. iii, p. Ixxiii. "° Introduction to Reg. Patat. Dun. iii, p. cxviii. 2 17 3 • A HISTORY OF DURHAM building of the nine altars in the cathedral church, a century before, the granting of indulgences was constant at Durham."^ The appointment of a diocesan penitentiary in 1312 marks the organization of the penitential system on mediaeval lines.'^* Kellaw died at Middleham. The bishops evidently made much use now of their country houses. In Kellaw's time we get the first mention of an episcopal residence in London."' Two years' interval of disgraceful competition for the Palatinate followed the death of Kellaw in i 3 1 6. The one good feature of that time was the final adjustment of the question of sede vacante jurisdiction. This was now left in the hands of the pope,"* who formulated his decision. Beaumont (1318—33) was at last appointed bishop through the queen's influence. Of this prelate strange stories are still told to visitors over the empty matrix of his magnificent brass. His lack of education, his boundless vanity, the huge fees paid to Rome for his election, the story of his being kidnapped and held to ransom, were matters which tinged the mention of his name with interest."' Fresh outbreaks of Scottish turbulence filled much of his episcopate with the same orders and measures as in the previous episcopate ; directions to garrison and provision the castles are the staple of the years."* Invasion actual or menacing is mentioned in 1322, 1323, and 1325, rising in violence to Darlington fight, when Douglas fell, in 1327, and finally culminating in the decisive English victory of Halidon Hill in 1333, which retrieved the defeat of Bannockburn. Yet a somewhat famous letter of Edward II to Beaumont still exists in which the king upbraids him for even greater negligence against the Scots than Kellaw had shown. "^ This was in 1322, and five years later Beaumont certainly stirred himself to prosecute before the king in Parliament the recognition of hisyV/r^ regalia^ and the restoration of forfeitures, almost at the same time as the Darlington victory alluded to above. The ample acknowledgement of the bishop's liberties is the most constitutionally important event "* of his episcopate, and the Halidon Hill victory two months before his death was a complete justification of Edward's action, though Beaumont did not in person lead the forces. Beaumont was succeeded for the moment by Graystanes, the Durham chronicler, one of our chief authorities from the early thirteenth century to his time. He was duly elected, confirmed, and consecrated by the arch- bishop of York, but Edward, whose acquaintance with Durham was con- siderable, had from the pope obtained the position for his tutor Bury. This eminent prelate,"' who now came in as a direct papal nominee, is chiefly interesting as the first literary bishop of Durham. Edward had probably learned that the duties of Count Palatine might be discharged by efficient officers. It is certain that Bury was more at home in his study than in camp. Yet he stuck to the rights of the Palatinate when need arose, and '" Introduction to Reg. Palat. Dun. iii, p. cxxxvi. '" Reg. Palat. Dun. i, 135. "» Ibid, i, 645. "* Raine, Hist. Ch. of York, iii, 237 and 265. "* For all these stories Graystanes {^res Scriptores, Surtees See), is the original authority. "'The Patent and Close Rolls contain many relative entries. See Cal. Pat. 132 1-4, p. 92 ; Ca/. Close, 1318-23, pp. 562, 663, 679. '" Translated in Reg. Palat. Dun. i, p. Ixxix. "' Ibid. p. Ixxx. '" Cf. Hardy, Reg. Palat. Dun. iii, p. cxli. 18 Lewis de Beaumont, 1518-33 Richard Marsh, 1217-26 RiCH.ARD OF Bury, 1333-45 CuTHEERT TCNSTALL, 1 530-59 Durham Episcopal Seals : Plate II ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY was ready to treat with the Scots when directed to do so by the king.^'" The whole bishopric was still smarting under the wounds of the late incur- sions. Raids and robbery prevented the sores from healing.^^^ Society generally was in deep distress, and the king in 1334 remitted the debts of the men of the bishopric in consequence.'" So great was the poverty of the clergy that the new taxation of 1330 was enforced in place of the older assessment preserved for us in Kellaw's register. Particulars of the new scheme do not appear to have survived, but as the older taxatio itself had been drawn up only in 13 18 to meet the poverty of the period, we have here an indication of the miserable impoverishment produced by the Scottish wars.'"^ Many of the clergy in the diocese at this time were aliens, and in 1343 the king demanded a return and specified his reasons for desir- ing the practice of promoting foreigners to cease. '^* Bury's episcopate is otherwise noteworthy as being the high-water mark of our manuscript authorities for the history of Durham.'"^ Bishop Hatfield (1345-81) now follows. Personally he is not so im- pressive as Bek, for instance, though the motto of the hall in the University of Durham named after him describes this prelate as endeavouring to be ' vel primus vel cum primis.' '^^ His military experience gained in the French wars stood him in little stead, and he figures rather as a political bishop much trusted in matters of state than as a warrior. Within the Palatinate his magnificence catches and retains the eye, but there is a very different aspect of his episcopate due to the circumstances of the time. Its early months were full of rumours of war, and in 1346 the Scotch crossed the border in greater numbers than in any previous invasion, and at a moment when the country was engaged in war with France.'" Once more St. Cuth- bert's sacred banner was borne at the head of the bishopric troops, which formed an important element in the forces hastily gathered to repel the invader.'-' Probably Durham men had more to do in the winning of this battle than in any other border victory. Yet it was hardly purchased, for loss and poverty crippled the district owing to the recent invasion. '^^ The most gloomy period in the history of the diocese now began, when the Black Death apparently for the first time was desolating England, and Durham was not spared."" One little incidental sentence in a roll of Bishop Hatfield indicates the fearful ravages of the plague, and between the lines of various documents we obtain proof that the death-roll was heavy."' The ''° He even purchased an armistice with the Scots ; cf. Lapsley, op. cit. 39. '"In 1333 the king offered the bishopric men shelter for themselves and their cattle in the southern forests. Cal. Close, 1333-7, P- 'o'- '" ^"^^ P"'- •330-4> P- S^^. '-' Taxation of 1318 ; cf. Pat. Rolls II Edw. II, pt. ii, m. 6 of 1330 ; Cal. Close 1330-3, pp. 65, 67. See Hardy's remarks, Introd. Reg. Palat. Dun. iii, p. Ixi, and text of valuation, ibid. 88. For order of 1336 Cal. Close, 1333-7, P- 720. '" Cal. Close, 1343-6, pp. 215, 224. "' Cf Lapsley, op. cit. 329-330. '-* The words come from Chambre's description of Hatfield in Tres Scriptoies, p. 137. '" The account in Surtees' History, i, p. xlix, is clear and not too long. An elaborate examination of the battle is given in Arch. A el. i, 27 1. '^° For the history of the banner, see Arch. Ael. ii, 57. '^' Letters from 'Northern Registers (Rolls Ser.). "° Ibid. 399, 401, important evidence for Durham and the northern province. The papal registers for the next forty years give in their concessions to monastic houses conclusive proof of the virulence of the outbreak in the north. "' Cursitor Roll, Hatfield, where special provision for a land title is made in the event of the death of the assigns during the pestilence then raging. 19 A HISTORY OF DURHAM years that followed 1349 were in the Durham diocese given to repair and restoration. Hatfield seems to have been solicitous for the spiritual welfare of his flock. In 1353 he issued licence to Carmelite Friars, somewhat against the custom of the diocese/^" to preach, and gave as his reason the wish ' that there should be more preaching that the souls of the people might be fed.' Frequent licences were given to friars and others to hear confessions."' In 1353 he served the rectors and vicars of churches with a monition respecting the observance of festivals."* Six years later the condition of the cathedral fabric engaged his attention, and in consequence of its dilapidated state representatives were sent round to places more or less distant in order to solicit contributions towards restoration."^ Soon after this the Neville ornaments were added to the cathedral. But despite the general impoverish- ment bishop and pope taxed the Palatinate unmercifully, until in 1378 the king wrote to Hatfield forbidding him to extort further sums on behalf of the pope."° Plague and defeat did not stop the Scottish incursions. They recur in 1377 and in 1380."^ In the former year the bishop was ordered to live near the Scottish marches, and in the latter laymen were bidden to remain on their lands where these were worth 100 marks. Traces of money-raising on these occasions survive in the reo-isters."' Yet Hatfield and his officials found time in these troublous years to foster the growth of Durham College, which in one shape or other had existed in the University of Oxford since 1290, and under Hatfield received a more stable foundation."^ The comparatively peaceful years that fell between the battle of Neville's Cross and the Scottish incursion just alluded to, were troubled by a fresh outburst of the slumbering feud between York and Durham. In 1349 two of Hatfield's chaplains went to York Minster and made a dis- graceful exhibition of themselves with some suspicion of Hatfield's conni- vance."" There was further cause of affront in an attack upon the bishop of Chrysopolis, suffragan to the archbishop, which was thought to have been suggested by Hatfield."' In neither case was Hatfield's personal guilt estab- lished, but the tales serve to show the jealousy that was never far off in the relations of the archbishop of York and the bishop of Durham in the palmy days of the Palatinate. Archbishop Neville who had family reasons for desiring to depress the bishop asserted his right to visit, and this reappearance of the old claim already described "^ was only dissipated by a repeated pro- hibition from the king in 1376 and 1377. The prior and convent seem to have gained much in general prestige and influence by the middle of the fourteenth century. Perhaps in part from a dislike of too close proximity to the monks, the bishop, when in the diocese, resided less and less in Durham. Auckland, Stockton, Middleham "^ Dur. Epis. Register, Hatfield. '"" Ibid. '" Ibid. '^^ Mention is made of application to Carlisle in Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. ix, App. i, 191. "^ Lapsley, op. cit. 298; cf. 274. The action of the bishop is all the more capricious in view of a com- mission issued by him in 1358 to inquire concerning all oppressions, extortions, etc., committed by his own officers. '" cf Cal. Pat. 1377-81, pp. 308, 606. "' Dur. Epis. Reg. Hatfield. "' An excellent sketch in Dean Kitchin's Ruskin at Oxford, and other Studies. "" The story is told in Northern Registers, 397-9. Can this outburst of blasphemy be due to the general depression succeeding the pLigue ? '" Rymer, Foedera, iii (i), 389. "* Diet. Nat. Biog. 'Hatfield,' i^Sa. 20 ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY were favourite places of abode.'*' Durham indeed was, with its multiple jurisdictions, increasingly the city of prior and convent, so that now the Old Borough and Framwellgate were the sum total of the bishop's pos- sessions in the immediate neighbourhood of the castle and precincts. A papal 'document of 1372 proves the growing magnificence attained by the monastery under this little-checked expansion, and it indicates incidentally how severely other northern houses of less enviable character and attraction had suffered from the Black Death, or from the decay of monasticism. The pope in declining to facilitate a new appropriation by the king to the prior and convent says : As there had been appropriated to the said prior and chapter four abbeys of religious in which only priors are now instituted, in each of which were twenty-four monks and now no more than fifteen in all four ; as likewise two other monasteries in each of which fifteen persons dwelt, in both of which there are now ten ; as moreover thirteen parish churches were appropriated and many other things conferred on them, it is probable that if the king were sufficiently informed of this, he would not petition for the said appropriation seeing further that in Durham there are now only fifty-six resident monks who when they go out travel with three or four horses and spend more on food and clothing than befits the modesty of their religion.'" A few years later under Bishop Fordham the prior and convent made petition to Urban VI for the coveted distinction of wearing the full pontifical insignia of mitre, staff, &c. The monastery pleaded in justification of the concession that their annual income exceeded 5,000 marks, and that less important houses possessed the desired privilege."^ If, as the registers show, Hatfield was rarely at Durham and often out of the diocese altogether, he was certainly not neglectful of that part of the city which was peculiarly the bishop's. It is probable that in his absence the castle became more and more a garrison of soldiers. It was doubtless in connexion with this use of the buildings that Hatfield lengthened the hall, made alterations in the Constable's Hall, and built the lofty mediaeval keep, which was in constant use for the next 100 years. '*^ The bishop's throne in the cathedral is an apt symbol of the magnificence of Hatfield's episcopate. He also built Durham House in the Strand for his residence when attending at Parliament, and arranged a sumptuous appointment of chaplains in it.'*' The register and rolls connected with Hatfield bear witness to the enormous amount of business with which he and his officials had to deal.'** The number of the latter and the variety of their offices, however, suggest that the work was distributed. Moreover, suffragan bishops were commissioned for intervals longer or shorter.'*' There is little evidence by which to test the condition of intellectual and spiritual enlightenment, but we must bear in mind the negative evidence of Hatfield's ordinances of 1353 alluded to above, '" A brief renewal of the dispute with the bishop is alluded to in 1 353 when a deed was enrolled (cf. Cursitor Rolls, Hatf. i, D. m. 9) concerning criminal matters and the right to various dues. '" Cal. Papal Let. iv, 117. '" Low, Dioc. Hist. Dur. 196. '"The original authority is Chambre's Tres Scriptores, 138. See the forthcoming monograph of C. C. Hodges on Durham Castle. '*' Tres Scriptores, loc. cit. See, too, Surtees Soc. vol. 52, xi ; Cal. Pat. 1377-81, p. 61 1. Later entries, 1387, Stowe MS. 1055 and 1475, Cursitor Roll 2, Booth, H. m. 6. '*' Described in Lapsley, op. cit. 99-103. "' In Hatfield's Register the bishops of Besanyon (also under de Bury), Langonen (Lango m the Cyclades) [Eubel, Hierarchia Cathol. i, 304], Dimi(ta)cen (Domokos in Greece) [Ibid, i, 233], Le(i)ghli(n)en (Leighlin in Ireland) [Ibid, i, 312-13] are mentioned as holding longer or shorter commissions. 21 A HISTORY OF DURHAM and such considerations as the unrest and turbulence occasioned by the Scottish invasions, whilst on the other hand the clergy at all events frequently received a licentia studendi at the university.'^" Instances of murder or riot or wreckage, which appear from time to time on the rolls, do not prove much as to general tendencies. Of the two bishops who fill the interval between the episcopates of Hatfield and Cardinal Langley, Fordham (1382-8), is of little importance. His was a political appointment,'" and as he was deeply involved in the troubles of Richard II he shared the king's unpopularity, being forced to resign his see and retire to Ely. He cannot be proved to have left any permanent stamp on the church in his diocese,"^ and his reputed opposition to Wycliffism was probably exercised in London rather than in the north. '°* There is certainly no evidence of Wycliffism in Durham during the fourteenth century. As a political force Fordham was more noteworthy, and gained from the king an important confirmation of palatine jurisdiction as the result of a commission issued for the purpose. In 1386 a commission of array was issued in the bishopric to resist the French invasion that was feared, and in 1388 there was another Scottish invasion. Skirlaw (1388— 1405) was a great builder. He began the cloisters at Durham, and erected bridges at Yarm and Shincliffe. Personally he was one of the most attractive of the mediaeval prelates of Durham. His election at the very height of the Wycliffe controversy goes to show that he was of proved orthodoxy. He had been employed in various foreign missions, and once at Rome. As bishop he was used in the Scottish marriage negotiations of 1394. He was steadfast to the new dynasty in 1399. The absence of his register, and the meagreness of other records which have rapidly lessened since the days of Hatfield, leave us in complete ignorance of his personal influence in the diocese. His rolls are all occupied with ordinary business matters, and give no insight into the condition of the church. Political considerations had some weight in the choice of the next bishop, Thomas Langley (1406-37). His previous connexion with the Lancastrian family was expected to ensure his steadfast allegiance to that house, a matter of no small importance considering the recent Scottish wars, and the probable contingency of some alliance between France and Scotland. Soon after his election he resigned his chancellorship,'" and apparently began to devote himself to his diocese, from which he was summoned in 1409 to be present at the Council of Pisa. From the close of that year he was active, as his register shows, until called away on an embassy to Paris in 141 4. His reappointment as chancellor in 141 7 drew him into the stream of politics again, and for some years he was rarely in the diocese. The bishop of Elphin was appointed to act as his suffragan in 1420. Langley had a large part in drawing up the Treaty of Durham in 1424, and entertained the Scottish James I at Durham. The remainder of his episcopate was, so far as we can "" The custom was derived from a mandate of Boniface VIII, and is illustrated in episcopal registers of the time. Cf. Bishop Hobhouse's note in Drokensford' s Reg. (Somers. Rec. Soc), p. 304. '" He was Lord Treasurer until 1386 ; Chroti. Mon. St. Alb. (Rolls Ser.), 374. '" Is there indeed proof that he was much in the diocese ? Careful provision was made for his lodging in London ; Cal. Pat. 1381-5, p. 122. For his gifts see Surtees Soc. Publ. ii, 43. '■'' Collier is cited as the authority for this opposition, Eccl. Hist, i, 574. '^' For dates see article in Diet. Nat. Biog. ' Langley,' with references cited. 22 Thomas Hatfield, i 34.5-81 (^Oh'verse^ Thomas Hatfield, 1345- [Revcrse) 4i l:^i John Fordham, 1 382- (OU'crse) John Fordham, 13S2-8S {Re-vcrsc) , Durham Episcopal Seals : Plate III ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY trace, largely spent in the work of his diocese, and its record is somewhat full. He exercised the office of the Palatinate with the completeness which the Lancastrians were likely to allow. In his diocese some of the most important of his acts are perhaps those concerned with heresy. The bishop's intimate acquaintance with the religious movements of the day naturally led him to be eager in repressing any erroneous tendency. It has, perhaps, been gene- rally thought that the north of England was quite untouched by LoUardy. This is certainly not strictly the case, though we must be careful not to interpret monitions and mandates beyond their proper value. One of the Nevilles of Raby, who died in 1389, had been a Lollard leader.^" As early as 141 4, and expressly on account of the spread of heresy throughout the kingdom, the bishop orders the prior and the priors of cells to hold solemn processions during Lent, in which the citizens are to join, praying God to protect His Spouse the Church from the insults of the heretics, to confirm the people's faith, to confound the heretics. The letter is to be read every Sunday, Wednesday, and Friday, either during mass or in sermotie}'^ It was perhaps his solicitude for the welfare of his flock which led Langley to seek a proctor for his appearance at the great Continental Councils of 1414 and 14 16.'" An entry of 141 8 speaks of prospective danger to the realm and Church.'^' Our next evidence is about 1422, when a Carmelite prior named Boston has to revoke some error which he maintained as to offering candles at Candlemas. Other articles were exhibited against him which have not survived. The case was not decided at once.'" In the winter of 1428-9 letters were written round to the prior of Durham and to others warning them against the errors of Wycliffe and of Huss.'^" It must, however, be admitted that these documents fail to prove the presence of aggressive Lollardy in the bishopric in Langley's time. Later traces will occur further on. Cardinal Langley issued a variety of enactments which, as they multiply in the register, strike the reader's attention. It is probably not fancy to regard as more than formal the repeated injunctions and provisions to promote education, reverence towards things sacred, kindliness to the poor and afflicted.'" His will proves his zeal for education ; the repeated help extended to the injured shows his kind disposition ; the erection of the font in the Durham Galilee for the children of excommunicated persons does the same. But Langley's name has been handed down in the bishopric rather as a builder.'^^ He restored the Galilee of the cathedral, and completed the cloisters. He also rebuilt the great north gate of the castle, which had perished since Norman days, and this new work lasted until 18 18, when it '" Sir William de Neville, son of Ralph, fourth Baron Neville of Raby, and victor at Neville's Cross ; cf. Diet. Nt:t. Biog. sub voce. "' Epis. Reg. Langley, fol. 66. On fol. 6j d. a form of abjuration of heresy is provided. '•' Ibid, sub annis. '^ Ibid. fol. loo. "' Ibid. fol. 52, 55. The abjuration took place in 1426, when Boston had become prior of the Carmelite house at Newcastle. ™Ibid. fol. 153-8. '" Indulgences abound for help to debtors, to those who have received injury from fire or flood, to the blind, to widows. There are monitions for theft, cruelty to animals, cutting down trees, S;c '" One will of 1427 (Reg. Langley, fol. 137) is liturgically important. John Newton, late rector of Houghton, leaves to his church a whole legend of the Sarum Use and three processionals of Sarum Use. On fol. 220 is the will of a dean of Auckland, who leaves a Missal Usus Ebor. in bequest. Chambre, in Tres Scriftores (Surtees Soc), is our original authority for Langley's buildings. 23 A HISTORY OF DURHAM was ruthlessly demolished. He erected two schools on the Palace Green, one for plain song and the other for grammar. ^^^ Four episcopates now succeed which must be rapidly dismissed. We still have the bishops' Cursitor Rolls for them, but their ecclesiastical informa- tion is meagre, and there is no episcopal register proper between Langley and Fox. Bishop Neville (1438-57), uncle of Edward IV and Richard III, was a scion of the local house, and son of Ralph the first earl of Westmore- land. His episcopate, which began with a fresh outbreak of the plague, was signalized by a cessation of border warfare. He took part in various truces, which were the means of producing this pause in the international hostility, the chief occasion being in the cathedral in 1449. In 1448 Henry VI paid a visit to the castle and to the bishopric, and has left a bombastic and amusing letter giving a high appreciation of north country character. If the royal visit was the most picturesque incident under Neville, his erection of the still standing exchequer at Durham is the most important event. During part of his time he had the bishop of Dromore as suffragan. Little else is recorded of the bishop. For the second time a queen of England now succeeded in getting her nominee appointed bishop. Laurence Booth (1458-76) was appointed in the early years of the Wars of the Roses, and was placed in a position of great difficulty in consequence. Durham had so far been Lancastrian, and Booth presumably belonged to this party. For the most part the tide of war flowed north and south of the bishopric. After Towton, in 1461, the Lancastrian partisans fled to Scotland. Henry made an abortive expedition thence through the bishopric in that year, and is heard of at Brancepeth.^** A year's pause followed betore Queen Margaret came with French help and captured certain Northumbrian castles. Edward came north in December, 1462, with Warwick, and seized these strongholds. The issue appears to show that in this brief Lancastrian revival of 1461 Booth had in some way manifested his sympathy with Henry and Margaret, for when Edward signalized his triumph by spending Christmas at Durham,^" the bishop was deprived of his temporalities.^" It seems equally clear that on the eve of the decisive battles of Hedgeley Moor and Hexham in April and May, 1464, when Edward again led an army into Northumberland, Booth was forgiven and the temporalities restored."^ He was also permitted to reside where he pleased in the realm for the next three years, and to absent himself from attendance at the Parliament and council. '^^ The permission seems to hint at some restriction of residence during his disgrace which we are not able to trace. A month or two after this concession the king at York reviewed the chief charters of privileges from the forged charters of William the Conqueror down to the fourteenth century, documents on which the prior and convent relied as the basis of their position, and granted them a full confirmation of all."^ The peace of the bishopric was again endangered in 1468 during the brief rising of Sir Humphry Neville, when he caused considerable trouble '^ Surtees (op. cit. i, Ivi) gives a summary of his chief acts in the Palatinate, as does Hutchinson, op. cit. '' 4°7-8. '"* Pari. R. V, 478. Perhaps the best reconstruction of an obscure period is in Jrchaeolo^a, xlvii, 266. '^^ Ibid. 271. "* Cal. Pat. 1 46 1-7, p. 215. '" Ibid. 347, 375. '^ Ibid. 325. ''' Ibid. 392-3. 24 ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY in Durham, and gave occasion to a proclamation by the king ' against breaking St. Cuthbert's franchise, or taking any man or goods within the bishopric of Durham otherwise than according to law.' ^^° How completely the bishop had regained the king's confidence is proved by the confirmation of Barnard Castle to Booth after its forfeiture by John Balliol in 1470."^ There are just one or two of the scanty entries of Booth's time which throw some falling ray of light on the moral and religious condition of the Palatinate. In 1460 a special commission of important personages was issued ' to inquire concerning insurrections, felonies, LoUardies, conspiracies, and other offences.' ^" The special inclusion of 'LoUardies,' although pos- sibly only the common form of the commissions of that date, should perhaps be noticed. An undated letter under the privy seal to the bishop of Durham calls attention to the ' grete extorcions, roberes, murders, and other great exorbytances and myschieves ' which had ensued from the late troubled state of the realm."' The bishop was directed to proclaim the king's will and commandment herein."* We pass over the episcopates of Dudley (1476—83) and of Sherwood (1484—94) with very brief mention, as they are almost entirely devoid of ecclesiastical record and reference. A survey of castles and manors in Dudley's first year,"° taken in connexion with a rather later letter of Richard III in Sherwood's time, describing the ruinous condition of castles and towns belonging to the Church of Durham,"^ seems to be indication of evil days, and to prepare us for the restoring work carried out by Fox and Tunstall. The Scottish restlessness in Dudley's pontificate did not affect the Palatinate save in so far as bishopric men were arrayed to join the duke of Gloucester in his Scottish wars."^ The duke was popular in the north, and had a considerable connexion with the bishopric."* It is not surprising, therefore, that Bishop Sherwood was ready to attach himself to the duke when he became king. Richard showed his appreciation by asking the pope for a cardinal's hat for the bishop, but this was never given."' Sherwood was certainly the most learned bishop since de Bury, and in his love of books illustrates the rising influence of the Renaissance in England. Whatever may have been his personal dealings with Henry VII at the beginning of his reign, "° events go to prove that Sherwood had some sympathy with Simnel in the rising of 1487, for the bishop was significantly omitted from a commission issued by the king to inquire into insurrections within the bishopric.'" Sherwood died in Rome,'"* whither he went as a special envoy to the pope from Henry VII. It has been assumed that he had retired to Rome in consequence of disgrace, "" Cursitor R. Booth, 2 P. m. 3 ; Dep. Keeper''s Rep. 102. '" Ibid. 2 D. m. 4 ; Report, 97. ''-' Ibid. I D. m. 8 ; Report, 80. "^ Ibid. 3 K. m. 15 ; Report, 120. "' A slight side-light on ways and means in clerical life belongs to this period. The bees at Dinsdalc rectory form a source of revenue ; Surtees, Hist. 239 and note. "" Cursitor Roll Dudley, I K. m. 1. Report, 140. '"' Hutchinson, op. cit. i, 450, with references. '" Ibid. 451. "* Surtees, Hist. Publ. ii, Ix, Ixi, and notes. '" Ibid. Ix, note. "" In i486 he was sufficiently trusted to receive appointment as a king's proctor at Rome on the matter of cathedral preferments ; Materials Illustrative of the Reign of Henry Vll (Rolls Ser.), i, 323. In the text above the view of Hutchinson concerning Sherwood is given, but it is quite possible (so scanty are our records) that Sherwood, who on his tomb at Rome is called the king's Orator, lived there in the English College without returning. '"' Hutchinson, op. cit. i, 451. ""* Cal. Venetian S.P. 21 M.ay, 1492, 12 Jan. 1494. 2 25 4 A HISTORY OF DURHAM because his name had been wanting in various commissions connected with Scottish affairs."- About this time an interesting if fitful Hght is thrown upon the otherwise obscure history of the sanctuary at Durham. In the cathedral registers now preserved in the treasury of the church there occur between the years 1477 and 1524^'' some 247 entries relating to the taking of sanctuary. It is curious that so particular a record should be left of these while the earlier centuries of the history of the sanctuary are practically unillumined by the slightest reference, save a mere mention now and again in other documents. It is also remarkable that the entries should be set in the cathedral register for those years, and those only, instead of in a sanctuary book, as at Beverley. Analysis of the instances named discloses certain facts worth noting. The crimes alleged are murder and homicide, debt, horse-stealing, cattle-stealing, escape from prison, house-breaking, theft, and one or two technical offences, such as harbouring a thief. Of the 247 cases, 195 are connected with murder and homicide. As to the locality of the fugitive, Yorkshire gives 120 instances, Northumberland 58, Westmorland 20, Cumberland 13, Lancashire g, Middlesex 4, Lincolnshire and Warwickshire 3, Nottingham- shire and Cheshire 2, with single entries from Surrey, Suffolk, Somerset, Northamptonshire, Derbyshire, and Gloucestershire. Durham county, of course, does not supply instances (save two by an apparent mistake), since a crime in the county broke the peace of St. Cuthbert, and obliged the accused to seek sanctuary at some other place, say Beverley, or more probably Ripon, though there were others not far off. Thus it appears that guilty persons from all parts might take refuge at Durham, where, in accordance with well- known practice and the evidence of the entries in the register, they were examined and, if approved, were suffered to remain. It has always been the custom at Durham, in showing the sanctuary knocker,"* which still exists, to draw largely for description of the sanctuary customs upon the Rites of Durham. The somewhat garrulous reminiscences of the compiler have been cited even by good antiquaries as evidence for pre-Reformation usages. The value of the information supplied by this book has been recently examined, together with the larger question of the nature and extent of the Durham sanctuary privileges."^ Mr. Forster has reached the conclusion, upon evidence not wholly indisputable, that the rights of the ' grithman ' were far more extensive than a mere temporary sojourn of thirty-seven days at Durham,"^ ' and that the liberty of St. Cuthbert protected him and his property within the boundaries of the county palatine of Durham. ... At any rate such a conclusion accords better than any other with the mediaeval reputation of St. Cuthbert, and the princely position of the old-time bishops of Durham ; '** The same probabilities have been thought to attach to the bishop's attitude in 1492 in Warbeck's insur- rection ; Hutchinson, op. cit. i, 452. "^ Printed with an introduction by Rev. Canon Chevallier in Sanctuarium Dunelmense et Beverlacense, {Surtees Soc). The whole subject needs fresh examination in the light of wider knowledge. "' See a recent paper on the ' Knocker' ; Brit. Arch. Assoc. Journ. (New Ser.), ix, 1 17-32. '** Notes on Durham and other North Country Sanctuaries, by R. H. Forster, esq., hon. treasurer of the British Archaeological Association, reprinted from its Journal, Aug. 1905. "' Mr. Forster's conclusion is attractive, and, with such positive evidence as he has collected, it is probable. Two things are necessary to prove it, (l) a larger number of particular instances than those he cites in support of his contention that the fugitives sought the liberty of St. Cuthbert infra Tynam et Tysam ; (z) a collection of definite mediaeval allusions to prove that the extensive character of the sanctuary rights at Durham was generally acknowledged. 26 ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY as well as with the view that while sanctuary rights had a religious origin, they were in their later phases based upon temporal jurisdiction.' "^ Henry VII owed much to the statesmanship of Richard Fox, whom he translated from Bath and Wells to Durham in 1494. Fox was bishop of Durham for seven years (1494-1501), having first made acquaintance with the district when he passed to^and fro on the king's business in 1487/^* In the first year of his episcopate a new Scottish invasion was feared, and the bishop was directed to array the forces of the bishopric.'**' It was perhaps at this moment the bishop took the precaution to fortify Norham with all possible care. During part of 1496 Fox was absent from England negotiating the Magnus Litercurstis, and returned to find Warbeck's second attempt just about to take place. In the assault of Norham which followed, the Scots were unable to take the fortress. The bishopric men had all been called out in August, 1497, ^^^ ^ truce was concluded by Fox in December. Next year his skilful mediation prevented the outbreak of war between England and Scotland. ''" How little the bishop trusted the continuance of peaceful rela- tions with the Scots seems to be indicated by his work at Durham Castle. At all events it is tempting to connect the building, which was in progress there about 1498, with the need of the increased accommodation for a garri- son. His intention to rebuild the keep may point to the same conclusion. ^'^ The bishop's greatest diplomatic triumph signalizes the year 1499, when he was successful in arranging the marriage alliance between King James and the Princess Margaret. He was, however, translated to Winchester before the wedding took place. Short as the episcopate of Bishop Fox was, it left more than a material mark on the north of England. Notwithstanding his diplomatic work he was more in evidence in the diocese than his immediate predecessors. He strove to curb the wild and unruly borderers of Tynedale and Redesdale by spiritual process. They constantly made inroads into the bishopric for the sake of plunder, and among them were certain hedge-priests as lawless as any. The presence of these men is a curious side-light on the character of some of the Northumberland clergy at the time, and it is probable that the bishopric clergy proper were of a hig. er type than their rougher brethren farther north. "^ The register of Fox is brief and uninteresting, with the exception of two or three documents. One of these is a long monition to the raiders just mentioned. Elsewhere there is an interesting list of books given by Fox in 1499 for the use of the library in the collegiate church at Bishop Auckland. ^'^ The volumes are biblical commentaries, works of the schoolmen, provincial constitutions, classical writers, books of ecclesiastical law, &c. It is preceded by a list of implements given to the dean of Auckland at the same "' From Mr. Forster's paper, 134, 139. The reader will still refer to Rites of Durham (Surtees Soc. ed. Canon Fowler), 41, 42, 226. "* For this cf". Hutchinson, op. cit. i, 45 1., '"' Cal. Doc. Scotland, iv, 1608. '*• Cf. Diet. Nat. Biog. ' Richard Foxe.' '" Chambre, however, speaks of arrangements in the hall which suggest festival rather than barrack use. Trej Scrifi/ores, 50. The date existing on the buttery hatch is 1499, and it is possible that the changes con- template the marriage of Margaret, which was arranged in that year, though it did not take place until 1503. "^ The process is printed in Surtees Soc. Puil. xxi, 37-42. The reference to the register is fol. 19 and 300'. On fol. 35 d. is an appeal to the secular arm to put down wizards in Redesdale. ™ Printed in Rev. J. F. Hodgson's account of Auckland in Arci. Ael. xx, Fox, Register, fol. 26 d. and 27. 27 A HISTORY OF DURHAM time.''* The explanation lies in the fact that Fox, soon after he came to Dur- ham, visited the college, and discovering the disrepair of the buildings and the general meagreness of divine service, gave orders for the better regulation of the institution, by the diversion of part of the prebendaries' stipends/'^ At Norton in 1496 he sequestered the prebends to reconstruct the chancel. ''* The bishop of Rochester took ordinations for Fox, and the bishop of Dromore acted under commission for him."^ During the vacancy w^hich followed the bishop's translation in 1501, Thomas Savage, just promoted to be archbishop of York, undertook a visitation of the city and diocese of Durham. This somewhat intrusive visitation seems to have been endured without protest, and the acts survive. They reveal no special features calling for comment. Omnia bene is a note which sums up a large number of parishes. The questions, which have not been preserved separately, concerned, as the answers suggest, the church fabric and furniture, the character of the clergyman, and offences against morality. In the interval between the translation of Fox and the appointment of his successor the progress of Princess Margaret to the Scottish capital took place, and was long remembered in the north country. At Darlington and at Durham, on her passage through the bishopric, she stopped and was enter- tained. Fox returned to Durham for the occasion, and for three days the princess was royally treated in the castle. This was in July, 1503, and in the October of the same year the new bishop was appointed in the person of William Sever (otherwise Senhouse), a bishopric man who had probably been educated at Durham College, and was now bishop of Carlisle. He had been an old fellow-commissioner of Fox in 1496, and was perhaps chosen as being acquainted with the district. He died in the spring of 1505, after a perfectly uneventful episcopate so far as our very negative evidence goes. The penu- rious king kept the see vacant for eighteen months, and just at the conclusion of this period a synod was held in the Galilee. A fragment concerning it has been preserved, with a list of those present, a useful document in regard to the clerical personnel of the diocese. There is nothing which throws light upon the authority or exact scope of the so-called ' synod,' but its like- ness in circumstance to the visitation of 1501, mentioned above, leads to the conclusion that Archbishop Savage of York directed a visitation as papal legate and guardian of the spiritualities of city and diocese. The vacant see was filled in November, 1 507, by the appointment of Christopher Bainbridge, who was removed after a few months to York. A letter of Henry VII has been preserved, in which the bishop's restoration of temporalities was made conditional on the repudiation of all that was preju- dicial in the papal bulls to the king's rights. No ecclesiastical act of Bain- bridge's brief Durham episcopate survives, but his gift to prior and convent of the Banks at Durham has been preserved. '^^ Ruthall (1509-23) spent the greater part of his episcopate in political em- ployment away from Durham, but appeared in the north from time to time with considerable effect. He was remembered in later days for his princely in- "' Register, fol. l6 d. "' Ibid. fol. 6, Nov. 1495. "' Ibid. fo1. 8, June, 1496. '" On the evidence of his register (which is not quite perfect) Fox ordained, or had ordained for him, 47 sub-deacons, 41 deacons, 35 priests. The annual average is I7'57 for the three orders. Ofthe 123, 79 were regulars, leaving an annual average of 6-|- seculars. "* Ties Scriptores. 28 ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY come, and for his lavish expenditure at Auckland, where he built a new hall."' When, in 15 12, rumour came that James IV of Scotland was being urged by the French king to attack England whilst Henry was busy in France, Ruthall superintended the fortification of Norham. Next year Ruthall was personally prominent in arraying the bishopric against the Scots.^"" Mass was said in Durham Cathedral, and the sacred banner of St. Cuthbert was for the last time borne into battle. After the victory the bishop himself described it to Wolsey, and attributed the result to the intercession of St. Cuthbert, adding that 'the king of Scots' banner and sword and "gwyschys" have been brought to Durham.' The bishop was some time in correspondence with Lord Dacre and others^"^ over a clearing movement, which was intended to sweep away the remains of the Scots in England. The sheriff was ordered to seize the goods of all Scots living in Durham, and a series of cruel reprisals was inflicted on all laggards. This savage appendix to Flodden went on, if not continuously, yet with some energy, until the end of Ruthall's episcopate. But long before that point was reached, the bishop, as Lord Privy Seal from 15 16, had become so immersed in state affairs that his direct control of the Palatinate cannot be traced. His name, however, was held in grateful remembrance by those who regarded him as the restorer of order in the Palatinate.""' Occupied in his last years with the negotiations of the Field of the Cloth of Gold and the trial of Buckingham, Ruthall's only prominent action in the north at that time concerns the rally of the north against the feared Scottish invasion of 1522.^°^ Two years of pestilence, however, had so thinned the population that it was hard to get a sufhcient levy. A proposal was made to take the banner of St. Cuthbert on the expedition, but general protest was effectual to keep it in Durham.""* Ruthall died in the spring of 1523. His episcopate coincides with critical times in the religious history of the country at large, but there is no single proof in extant documents, so far as is known, that the New Learning touched Northumbria at present. Ruthall's own sympathies were clearly on the side of the old order, as his presence at the burning of Lutheran books in London -"' proves. Wolsey was transferred from Bath and Wells to Durham, but no record survives of his enthronement, and there is no solid proof that he ever came to his more northern diocese at all. He was fortunate in having an excellent representative in Frankleyne, temporal chancellor and archdeacon of Durham, who was ready to serve him in every way, and to bring to London all receipts and accounts both of Durham and of York, so that the cardinal might be ' substantially, truly, and well served.' ^°^ Constant letters passed from this vicegerent, who informed his master of the condition of affairs, and kept him well acquainted with the steps taken in repressing a Scotch raid in the spring of i525.°"'' At one juncture some of the palatinate ofBcers even journeyed to London to seek the advice of Wolsey as to the condition of "' Tres Scriptores, 153 ; cf. Cott. MSS. (Brit. Mus.), Cal. B. vi, 40. ™' L. and P. Hen. Fill, i, 3412, 5759, and 4-457-6z ; cf. Jrch. Ael. v, 175. ™' L. and P. Hen. Vlll, i, 4518, 4522, 4523, iii (i), 573 ; Cursitor R. Ruthall, i d. m. 12. -''-' L. and P. Hen. Fill, n, (2), 4258. *" Harl. MSS. 422 ; cf. Add. MSS. 24695, fol. 172. "" L. and P. Hen. Fill, iii (2), 2531. "Mbid.(i), 1274. '" For some account of him, and extracts from his correspondence, cf. Hutchinson, op. cit. i, 500. '"" L. and P. Hen. Fill, iv (l), I 289, 1482. 29 A HISTORY OF DURHAM the bishopric owing to the robbers of Tynedale and the Scots, who still infested the district."™ Wolsey seems to have kept the appointment to all important posts in his own hands. ^"^ Incidental reference shows that Durham House was kept up, and that some muniments were stored there. It is clear, however, that the cardinal had no real interest in Durham, and in the autumn he wrote to Henry to solicit the bestowal of the somewhat more lucrative see of Winchester, suggesting his old friend the dean of Wells for the vacant promotion at Durham.^'" After an interval of one year, during which the revenues of the see are said to have been appropriated to the use of Anne Boleyn, we come to the great and good bishop who was more closely associated with Durham and the north of England than any prelate since Hatfield. Cuthbert Tunstall (1530- 1559) was destined to witness the greatest changes that fell within the episcopate of any bishop of Durham — the loss and restoration, and then again the loss of his see, the entire alteration of the church service, the diminu- tion of the palatinate power, and the wave of greed and robbery which deluged the whole country. It is probable that he was papally provided to the see of Durham, because he was thought to be on the side of pope and emperor in the divorce question then embittering the ecclesiastical and political relations of England."^ There can be no doubt that the divorce question and the other burning question, soon to emerge, of the royal supremacy were alike extremely distasteful to Tunstall.^'^ As regards the latter, he made a dignified protest, which he committed to writing, and by his example influenced the wavering bishops of the north and his own clergy.^^^ Scottish troubles in 1532 must have proved an almost welcome diversion, as the bishop followed the course of events towards the inevitable declaration of the royal supremacy. He threw himself with characteristic energy into the measures taken for the peace of the Palatinate, and half ruined himself thereby.^^* With the spring of 1533 pressure was brought to bear upon Tunstall to induce him to declare in favour of the king,^^^ but at the convocation of York in June he delivered himself of a strong spoken protest, which would not have been allowed to pass unchallenged, the emperor was told, save for the fact that Henry could find no other man so competent to govern the borders. "° After persistent efforts, however, which we cannot trace, the bishop began to give way. His weight, doubtless, helped onwards the sudden collapse of the northern convocation in June, 1534, in which they anticipated the verdict of the south, and the Supremacy Statute of November. The commission issued in 1535 to ascertain the value of all church pro- motions was the beginning of all the pillage that soon followed. The inquisition was minute, and Tunstall wrote to Cromwell, who was really the instigator, to complain of the hardship inflicted upon the clergy by the com- missioners.'^' However, it was carried out during the spring and summer of ^'" L. and P. Hen. Fill, iv, (i), 893 ; towards the end of the previous year. ™ Ibid. (2), 4201, 471 1. ™ Winchester is stated in one letter to have been worth 2,000 ducats more than Durham, ibid. (3), 5228, but elsewhere to have been of equal value, ibid. (2), 4898. See Wolsey's letter ibid. (2), 4824. A note from Wolsey's receiver at Durham in 1528 speaks of the great poverty of the district. A commission was issued in 1530 to inquire into Wolsey's possessions in the bishopric. "' Ci. L. andP.Hen. mi,\y {i),6-jos. "' Ibid, v, App. 9. "Mbid. 819. ="' Ibid, vi, 303. "' Ibid. 437. "« Ibid. 653. "' Dixon, Hist. Ch. of Engl, i, 248. 30 ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 1 535, and in July the bishop reported the values as they had been discovered to exist. The results of the inquiry are recorded in the Valor Eccksiasticus. Whilst all this was in operation Tunstall and the other bishops were forced to follow up their previous submissions by expressly renouncing the pope, and by sending round letters to their clergy to the same effect.^'* The bishop also preached in various parts of his diocese on the same question. It bears testimony to the great personal influence of Tunstall that it should be told Cromwell at the beginning of 1536: ' He has preached the royal supremacy so that no part of the realm is in better order than his diocese,' "' though on the other hand Campeggio in June still hoped that Tunstall would be the means of effecting reconciliation with Rome. A letter of Tunstall to Lord Lumley makes it probable that in the bishopric, as in other places, the justices of the peace were set to watch the clergy and report any disaffection towards the constitutional changes in progress.^"" Almost coincidently with the careful system of inquisition and espionage set on foot in 1535, the visitation of the monasteries began in the autumn. The first trace of the visitors is in February, 1536, when report was made of irregularities in the bishop's household, and in June a list of the smaller houses was drawn up. Alarmed by what was evidently in contemplation, and anxious to preserve some of the dependent houses, the prior in a letter still preserved tried to bribe the all- powerful Cromwell. ^'^ Rumours of abolished privileges, and amongst these the curtailment of sanctuary rights, caused some commotion, and prompted Sir Francis Bigod, a north country magnate, to intercede with Cromwell."^ The summer and autumn were a time of seething, which was intensified by the issue of the Ten Articles, quickly supplemented by the Injunctions, which alike ran counter to many cherished practices. Further south than the bishopric popular resentment burst out into open conflagration in Lincolnshire and Yorkshire. Howdenshire was afterwards remembered as one of the first places to take part in this Pilgrimage of Grace. ^"' Under Darcy the rebels rushed through the Palatinate to Newcastle, and the whole country-side was soon ablaze. Promises of pardon on submission amused the rebels, and a conference at York ended abruptly. Social chaos brooded over the Pala- tinate.^"* At last Norfolk, who was commissioned to tread out the rebellion, turned north, and men understood that the day of reckoning was near. The demonstration began to evaporate. Lancaster Herald, passing through the district to proclaim the king's pardon upon submission, found the people everywhere penitent,'^^ though in Durham itself he had an ugly brush with the populace.^''^ For indeed the submissiveness of the people was fictitious, and every man of position knew that it was feigned.-" The truth of this was soon evident in the renewal of the agitation. Tunstall, identified perhaps with the king's policy, had to flee from Auckland at midnight, and betook himself to Norham Castle, whence he wrote to urge Norfolk not to delay. In March, Norfolk at CarHsle proclaimed his intention of dealing with the bishopric. He intended to execute some score or more of the rebels in order to strike terror into the hearts of the others. The trials began, despite a '" Dixon, Hist. Ch.oJEngl. i, 254. "' L. and P. Hen. Fill, x, 182. '■" Ibid. 1077. "' See Gasquet, Hen. Fill and the Engl. Monasteries, i, 416. '" L and P. Hen. VIII, xi, 503. "' Ibid, xii (2), 536. "' Ibid, xii (1), 568 ; xiii (l), 1313. '" Ibid, xi, 1371. ">= Ibid, xii (1), loi. "' Ibid. 148, 416. 31 A HISTORY OF DURHAM defective commission/"* and in Easter week sentence was passed and execu- tions took place.-^' So the rising ended, though seditious talk went on.^''" Shortly after this, the Council for the North was formed, and Tunstall was made president. Norfolk left the bishopric now that his special work was done, and Tunstall's time was henceforth much taken up in dealing with the endless business which came before the new body. In view of his necessary absence at York and elsewhere, Tunstall obtained the services of Sparke as suffragan bishop, under the recent Act, who took the title of bishop of Ber- wick.^^^ Sparke was one of those present in the year 1537 when the body of St. Cuthbert was exhumed and reburied by the visitors, as is described elsewhere. -^^ The year that followed was characterized by spasmodic dis- turbances in the bishopric,"'*' and then by an outbreak of plague, which interfered with the administration of justice.^'* Tunstall was almost con- tinuously absent during this dark sequel to the rebellion, being occupied in London or at York. A casual letter to Cromwell shows how little the design of ' tuning the pulpits ' availed in the distant north : — ' Very few preachers in Durham and the other northern counties set forth God's word and the king's supremacy.' "'^ There is apparently no record of the final scenes in the history of the great monastery of Durham."''*' Her eight dependent cells had gone in 1536 and 1537, and she alone stood undissolved in 1540. Tunstall was absent in London, and it is possible that he used his influence on behalf of the noble house, whose fall was certain to come, but there is no trace of remonstrance or of suggestion, nor is there a hint of popular feeling in the bishopric. The rebellion and its chastisement, together with the plague of 1538, produced, it is probable, apathy towards the change in progress, and, after the dissolution, the lengthy border wars and the long continuance of plague diverted the thoughts of people in the north. At all events the abbey came to an end on the last day of December, 1540, when Whitehead, the prior, signed the deed of surrender.^" Was it intended as an act of conciliation that in the same year the king gave £^0 towards the building of Barnard Castle Church ? ^'* The new year, at any rate, brought a sense of keen alarm to the bishopric. Before January was out musters were held under Norfolk in connexion with a display of force on the part of the Scots. Next year the war was carried across the Tweed into the Lothians, and in 1543 the rout of Solway Moss filled North-Country prisons with captives. It was in the midst of such wars and rumours of wars that Durham Cathedral was established on its new foundation in May, 1541, under the dedication of the Cathedral Church of Christ and Blessed Mary the Virgin, instead of its old designation of the Blessed Virgin and St. Cuthbert.^'*' Hugh Whitehead, the amiable prior since 1524, was made the first dean, and from the monks twelve were chosen to be the first prebendaries. Four days later further ^=» L. and P. Hen. VIII, xii (l), 651, 666. "' Ibid. 918. "" Ibid, xii (2), 353. '" Ibid. 191. Cf. Hutchinson, Hist. Dur. 520. *^' See V.C.H. Dur. i, 251 ; also Raine, St. Cutkbert, 176. "' Surtees, Hut. Dur. i, 352. "' L. and P. Hen. VIII, xiii (2), 10 10. ''' Ibid, xiv (2), App. 7. -^ The visitation described in Raine, St. Cuthbert, 173-6, seems to belong to 1537 ; cf. ibid. 176, note \ ^'■'Transcribed from the Patent Rolls, Hutchinson, Hist Dur. ii, I 32. '3' Harl. MS 433. '^' Transcribed in Hutchinson, op. cit. ii, 142 32 ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY letters patent were issued with full specification of the lands lately in the possession of prior and convent which were now made the endowment of the new foundation. ^*° Its early years, however, were saddened, not merely by the alarms of war, but by the severe outbreak of plague due, it is said, to the billeting of Scottish prisoners in various parts of the district.''" The consequent distress was considerable. The next act was the first fingering of Church goods other than monastic. This will be traced elsewhere. Nothing was carried away during the remainder of the reign of Henry VIII. Inventories of the chantries in Durham were drawn up in May, i 546.''*^ Any alarm occasioned by such measures was diverted by the mad war of Somerset in Edward's first year. In May Tunstall wrote to warn the bishopric to be ready ,^" and the Protector ordered the bishop to search the Registers in support of the boy-king's claim to the fealty of the Scottish monarch.^** During Edward's short reign the bishopric was roughly handled. At the outset the Chantry Act dissolved the chantries surveyed two years earlier, and in addition the various colleges of the district. Six collegiate churches were thus destroyed — Auckland, Chester-le- Street, Darlington, Lanchester, Norton, Staindrop. A royal visitation perambulated the bishopric in the late summer of 1547, during which time the bishop's authority was suspended.^" Details have not survived, as they have for the analogous visitation of 1559, but the character of the injunctions of Edward and the known views of Somerset would lead us to conclude that an effort was made to impress upon the bishopric, as elsewhere, the ceremonial and doctrinal changes so far attained. It is curious how absolutely in the dark we are as to the working of the Edwardine changes of religion in Durham.''" It is probable that the visitation and the sermons of Ridley, who accompanied the visitors, were tolerated without outward remonstrance. We have no trace of the reception accorded to the Prayer Book of 1549, which involved the entire supersession of the familiar Latin services. We are not enlightened, moreover, as to the steps which led to the temporary suspension of the see. In 1550 Tunstall, with Whitehead the dean, and Hindmarsh the chancellor, was first accused of some treasonable action by a certain Ninian Menville.^" It is suggested that the real agent in this accusation was Northumberland himself, who desired to oust Tunstall from the Palatinate and to secure for himself ' an impregnable position ' in the north.^*^ The charge was so pertinaciously pressed that in December, 1 551, Tunstall was sent to the Tower, and after ten months' imprisonment was deprived. Warwick, now duke of Northumberland, was already asking for the gift of the palatine jurisdiction, and pressing Home, "" Transcribed in Hutchinson, op. cit. ii, 137. '" See the interesting letter of Shrewsbury, L. and P. Hen. VIII, xix (i), 931, from Add. MSS. 32655, fol. 100. **■ Surtees Society Publ. xxii, App. iii, pp. xlv-xlvii. For the St. Giles inventory see P.R O. Exch K.R. Ch. Goods, ^j. '" Cal. Hamilton Papers, ii, 440. "* Cott. Cal. B, vii, 329. "' For an account of this important event, 'see Dixon, Hist. Ch. of Engl. ii. 428. The inhibition is in Tunstall's register. "° Mr. Pollard says, without giving proof, that Tunstall though he voted against the Uniformity Act of 1 549 enforced its provisions in his diocese. The fragmentary character of the register at this stage prevents us from following any diocesan regulations. "' See the facts as known in Dixon, Hist. Ch. of Engl, iii, 320. "* Diet. Nat. Biog. 'Tunstall,' 313. 2 33 5 A HISTORY OF DURHAM the new dean, upon Cecil for promotion to the bishopric.^*' Fresh plans suggested themselves. In March, 1553, an Act was passed to dissolve the see of Durham,^^" another to make over Gateshead to Newcastle,"^ and a third in May handed over the denuded bishopric to Northumberland.^^'' The act of dissolution provided for the re-erection of the see of Durham, with an income of 2,000 marks, and the establishment of a second see at Newcastle with half that amount. The brief reign of Edward was fast ebbing out, and no action was taken as regards the statutes mentioned, though North- umberland appears to have seized upon Durham House."' It has been thought, not without some reason, that a famous sermon preached by Bernard Gilpin at court in 1552 reflects the condition of the Durham diocese with which the preacher was best acquainted."* Over and above the sins common to the times he specifies non-residence, farming of benefices, general ignorance, as characteristic in the Church, and speaks of popular regret for the ' pomp and pleasing variety of painted cloths, candle- sticks, images, altars, lamps, and tapers.' It is long before we get any account of improvement in the former respect, though the ornaments named, where taken away, soon began to find their way back into churches. Within a month of Edward's death Tunstall was restored. The cathedral, probably, returned to its old condition under Watson, made dean in November, 1553, almost immediately after the Act of repeal which swept away all the Edwardine ecclesiastical legislation."^ A further Act was passed annulling the specific acts of Edward's last year by which the see of Durham had been reduced from its ancient position."* Thus it was ' now by the authority of this present Parliament fully and wholly revived, erected and [shall] have its being in like manner and form to all intents and purposes, as it was of old time used and accustomed.' The queen also granted to the bishop the patronage of all the prebends. In 1554 a commission issued which drew up the present statutes of the cathedral. Heath, Bonner, Tunstall, and Thirlby served on this com- mission."^ The cathedral is known to have suffered much in the last years of Edward, but it is doubtful whether remote parish churches in the diocese were much disturbed, and a list of chantries existing at Coniscliffe in August, 1553, gives one instance in which the demolition of Edward's first year had been quite unsuccessful."' And so whether change had been wrought or whether no alteration had been effected, and there must have been instances of both experiences, the general aspect in 1558 of church life in the bishopric was little different from what had obtained thirty years before, save where pillage or zeal had left some mark not easily to be effaced. The persecution of Mary's last years certainly did not touch the diocese. The first commencement of change under Elizabeth was seen in September, 1559, when the visitors of the royal commission (modelled on '" S.P. Dom. Edw. VI, vol. 14, No. 18. '=° Quoted in Hutchinson, Hht. Dur. i, 529. "' 7 Edw. VI. cap. 10 ; cf. JnA. Ael. ii, 219. **' Hutchinson, op. cit. i, 529. "' Ibid. 530. ^^ In life of Bernard Gilpin. Summary in Low, Diocesan Hist. Dur. (S.P.C.K.), 222. '" Dur. Epis. Reg. Tunstall, fol. 45. "* I Mary, Statute 2, cap. 2. '" See the statutes, Hutchinson, Hist. Dur. ii, 155. ^'^ Surtees, Hist. Dur. iii, 381. There is mention of the rating of a chantry at Sedgefield in June, 1558 ; Harl. MS. 608. 34 ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY that of 1547) perambulated the diocese in order to enforce the working of the new Uniformity and Supremacy Acts, and to administer the oath of allegiance. Some details of this important visitation survive.^^' Sessions were held at the largest churches in convenient centres, and the clergy were summoned. There is some reason to believe that the services of Gilpin, the most highly-respected clergyman in the neighbourhood, were enlisted to influence the subscribers."^" But there was much reluctance to sign. The chapter was probably more stiff than any other, and six canons were deprived eventually. Some thirty-five clergymen were absent from the visitation out of about 180, but of these the large majority sooner or later took the oath. Tunstall, in London, heard with alarm of the work of the visitors, and wrote in dignified protest to Cecil hoping that his own diocese might be spared such scenes. °" Those words were his last recorded utterance in connexion with the north. After his death the see remained vacant, and Home, restored to the deanery, wrote more than once to Cecil with querulous accounts of the condition of affairs, partly as regards morality in general,^^" and particularly as to the lack of proper stipends for the clergy. ''^^ During the vacancy the queen had confiscated more than a quarter of the Palatinate, much to the indignation of the new bishop, Pilkington (1560-75), who found his authority much impaired thereby, whilst attendance on commission to administer the oath and such police work did not bring him into general favour.-" He made a return of his diocese in 1563, from which we should gather that the various churches in the present county of Durham were gener- ally well served."" We also find that there were in the same district 1 1,772 households, and this suggests a population of about 58,860. Pilkington was long remembered for his Puritan sympathies, in which he was supported by Whittingham the dean, and Lever, a Swiss reformer, appointed prebendary in 1564. Whittingham, soon after his appointment, wrote to Cecil an account of the cathedral and neighbourhood.^^' From this we gather that the cathedral staff were busy enough in teaching and preaching, and that the inhabitants ' begin to resort more diligently to the sermons and service.' The people generally ' are very docile and willing to hear God's word,' though hitherto ' the town is very stiff.' As for the clergy, conformable for the most part, some of them began from 1564 to 'refuse the apparel.'^" In 1568 KnoUys commends the bishop for the condition of his diocese as regards conformity,**'^ though two months later a gloomy picture is drawn of the general ignorance, lack of sermons and preachers.^'" It appears that in many parishes the vicars had to serve from two to five chapels each, and that in some cases these were served by ' vagabond Scots who dare not abide in their country.' It is even said that they were better served when they belonged to the abbeys."" "' See Gee, EUxabethan Clergy, 71, etc. The manuscript account is in S.P. Dom. Eliz. vol. 10. '■™ Gee, op. cit. 74. '" S.P. Dom. Eliz. vol. 6, No. 22. "=Mbid. vol. II, No. 16. "^ Ibid, vol 14, No. 45. , *" Ibid. vol. 20, No. 5. '" Harl. MS. 594, fol. 186, etc, but see another return below, note 270. '^ Lansd. MS. 7, fol. 24. '" Doubtless under the influence of Whittingham and Lever. Lansd. MS. 7. "^ Cal. S.P. Scot, ii, 829. "' S.P. Dom. Eliz. Add. vol. 14, No. 42. "° A return, perhaps of 1565 (alluded to in note 265), concerning vacant livings. 35 A HISTORY OF DURHAM This curious entry about the Scottish clergy finds a parallel in what is said by the bishop in 1564 : The Scottish priests that are fled out of Scotland for their wickedness and here be hired in parishes on the border because they take less wages than the other, and do more harm than other could or would in dissuading the people. The same document refers to dispossessed clergy (evidently the six extruded canons and the like) who kept sending in from Louvain books and letters which cause many times evil rumours to be spread and disquiet the people. They be maintained by the hospital of the New Castle and the wealthiest of that town and the shire as it is judged, and be their near cousins.^'' The hints of hostility to the new regime which appear in such docu- ments as that just quoted prepare us for the next great episode in Durham church history. The rebellion of the northern earls was in its inception a Durham rising. It broke out in November, 1569, when Tempest and Swin- borne, two bishopric gentlemen, began to agitate.^" The bishop opportunely left for his health a month before this.^^* The standard of the earls of Westmoreland and Northumberland was raised at Brancepeth on the 8th. Durham was entered a few days later, and mass was said in the cathedral."* The whole bishopric seemed to be in sympathy with those who now declared for the restoration of the old religion."** Emboldened by the gathering force altars were restored in divers parts of the country."* The host swept on to Darlington and reached Ripon on the 20th. A prudential retreat began. In Durham mass was again sung on St. Andrew's Day, and a skirmish with the queen's musters took place in or near the city. At the approach of Sussex the rebels fled to Hexham. Retribution came with the new year : lands were to be forfeited, and ringleaders were to be executed. °" Some of the pre- bendaries who had shown sympathy were threatened with death. "^ Execution took place on January i ith, and the whole district was put under martial law. An aftermath of discontent manifested itself, and it was not until June that Sussex dismissed his troops, and even so with orders to be ready if need be."' A year later, indeed, Pilkington wrote to Burghley of the ill state in the north, which he ascribed to ' the connexions of the persons engaged in the late rebenion.'^'" After the terrible warning given by the punishments which followed the rebellion, it is natural to find Romanism less in evidence. Indeed, Puritanism began to flourish. Bishop and dean were both of puritan sympathy. Lever as prebendary was a congenial spirit, and was joined for a year by John Foxe, the martyrologist. The triumph over the Romanizing party was complete, and confession of destroying church books or building altars was extorted "' The ecclesiastical proceedings described in Surtees Soc. Publ. vol. xxi, include libels against hearers of mass, 130 ; erecters of altars and holy-water stoups, 129 ; burners of church books, 132. »" S.P. Dom. Eliz. Add. vol. i 5, No. 4. '" Ibid. vol. 14, No. 98. "* See a resumd of the history from the state papers in Dixon, Hist. Ch. Engl, vi, 231. '" S.P. Dom. Eliz. Add. vol. 15, No. 100. •'* See the informing proceedings in Surtees Soc. Publ. vol. xxi. '" S. P. Dom. Eliz. Add. vol. 17, No. 10. Ibid. 14, a list is given of those prisoners who are to be executed. Eighty were ' appointed to die ' in Durham, including thirty aldermen and townsmen. Mr. M'Call has made it highly probable {I'orkshire Arch. Soc. Proc.) that a small proportion only really were put to death. In the whole county 3 1 4 were ' appointed to die.' '" Ibid. vol. 1 7, No. 76. '" Cal. S. P. Scot, iii, 284. "° S. P. Dom. Eliz. vol. 81, No. 48. 36 ■ ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY from people.''^ In the bishop's register the clergyman instituted is not infre- quently decorated with a distinctively puritan title such as ' minister ' or 'preacher of God's word.' Sabbath breaking is in 1573 a punishable offence.'^''' If prayer books are scanty in i 574 it is a sign, not of recalcitrance, but of the confusion occasioned by the late troubles.^*'* Another result of the rebellion was to involve the bishop in difficulties with the queen on the question of the forfeitures.^^* A long dispute was the issue, and this impoverished the already attenuated Palatinate, and still further diminished the prestige of the bishop. Pilkington was held in very little account in the north ^^^ at a time when a prelate strong and good might have done much. He complained with justice of the harm done to religion by the constant bickerings over the posses- sions of the see.^'* His lamentation might have had more influence had he not ■contrived to amass a large fortune, which he bestowed largely in dowry upon his daughters. He was never very happy in his northern home, and a letter written three years before his death pictures pathetically the trial which he found in the bleakness of the Durham winters : ' the common griefs that he had suffered there for sundry winters past made him to think what he should look for in the winter that was then at hand.'^^^ Pilkington was a poor business man, and left the episcopal property in great neglect at his death. '^* Bishop Barnes (1575—87) followed Pilkington, being promoted according to a tradition known to Strype '^' in order to watch the borders against the passage of messengers to and from Mary queen of Scots. Barnes followed in the footsteps of his predecessor in trying to enforce conformity, but with- out the genuine puritanism of Pilkington. He certainly copied him in his servility to the queen, carrying the alienation of parcels of the bishopric to an outrageous extent. ^^° His relations with his own tenants were somewhat strained. °" He seems to have done his best with what was left of the diminished bishopric, raising the rents and also repairing the see houses. As a true Elizabethan bishop, he was much concerned with the compulsory discipline expected from him, and coerced the Nonconformists. Regular recusant lists were drawn up and injunctions were issued at his visitations. "°^ He had the reputation of reforming the north. His picture, however, of the bishopric is gloomy enough, and he describes the cathedral as an augie stabuluin, the people as ' truly savage.'^^^ There was no love lost between him and his flock, who ' practised to deface him by all slanders, false reports, and shameless lies.' He connived at the rapacity of his brother, who was his chancellor, and received a celebrated rebuke in consequence from Bernard Gilpin, the most influential clergyman in the diocese.^'* Yet he must have credit for some "• Surtees Soc. Publ. vol. xi, 168-9. '"'' ^"^- ^^l- "'. 'S^- '" S. P. Dom. Eliz. Add. vol. 23, No. 59. '** See Hutchinson's summary. Hist. Dur. i, 560-3. "* For. Cal. Eliz. 1571, No. 21 14. "" Quoted in Hutchinson, op. cit, 562. "' Ibid. 561. '" Ibid. 565. '*' Strype, Jnn. ii, 431, App. 105. ™ A list is given in Hutchinson, op. cit. i, 561, from Strype, Jnn. App. '" S. P. Dom. Eliz. vol. 159, No. 48, and vol. 160, No. 35. ^" The most material references are : 15 7'/, list of persons refusing to attend church, S. P. Dom. Eliz. Add. vol. 25, No. 42 ; 1577, visitation injunctions, "Surtees Soc. Publ. vol. xxii, 13 ; letter about sectaries, 1578, ibid, xvii, 59 ; cases of church discipline, ibid, xxii, 113-42 ; inquiry into conventicles, 1582, S. P. Dom. Add. vol. 27, No. 128; Barnes' dealings with recusants, 1586, S. P. Dom. Eliz. vol. 187, No. 49 ; Papists in Durham, ibid. vol. 192, No. 57. Seefassim, Surtees Soc. Pub/, vol. xxii. "' Quoted in Hutchinson, op. cit. i, 570-1, from Strype, Ann. ii, 482. "'* Ibid. 572. There were dean and chapter disputes too over their lands. Hutchinson, op. cit. ii, 193. 37 338074 A HISTORY OF DURHAM attempt to improve the level of the clergy. He took interest in his ordina- tions/^^ founded apparently a divinity lecture at the cathedral/'' strove to raise the social status of the clergy/" and must have been gratified by the chancellor's report of the improving condition of the incumbents in respect of learning/^* It must be remembered, too, that the district was still unsettled"'* and that more than one visitation of the plague fell in his episcopate. '°° One episode of his time is the commission to inquire into charges against Dean Whittingham, more particularly as regards his alleged Genevan ordination. This brother-in-law of Calvin had defaced monuments in the cathedral, and was in various ways obnoxious. Sandys, archbishop of York, had unsuccess- fully tried to visit sede vacante, and the commission was issued by the presi- dent of the council. Eventually the dean was allowed to remain.""^ Another long vacancy occurred after the death of Barnes. With the prospect of a war against Spain, the queen was not unwilling to augment her already considerable profit from the see,'°° and so kept it unfilled, despite the earnest request of Dean Matthew for his own preferment.'"^ The new bishop — the learned Matthew Hutton — was more impressive than his immediate predecessors, and gave dignity to his tenure of office (1589—95).*°* His occupation of the see was chiefly marked by the appearance of the seminary priests in the north of England. Jesuits had been active before his time,'°^ but now made themselves a strong influence. Commissions were issued in i 591, and again next year."*"' These and other similar severe measures are described in a letter from Durham about this time,'"' and indicate a policy which so far had not been necessary since the rising of 1569. Other recusants also were dealt with,'"* and the bishop wrote to Burghley an account of his proceedings against them."" Dean Matthew became bishop in 1595. The see which he had coveted proved no bed of roses. It would be difficult to find any period in the history of the bishopric much more distressful. Matthew left a diary behind him with a list of the sermons that he preached as dean, bishop, and finally as arch- bishop. From this it appears that he was an active preacher, and tradition asserts that he was a good one."" He was certainly a man of considerable wit, and the distresses of his time probably sat rather lightly upon his mercurial temperament. He found the see lands much attenuated by royal pillage,'" and the constant leases let by his predecessors, and all through his episcopate there "' They are regular and improving in number of candidates, and are taken by the bishop himself. '"« S. P. Dom. Eliz. vol. 133, No. 3. "' Surtees Soc. Publ. vol. xxii, 62. »'« Ibid. 22,72. ''' Ibid, vi, 38. ™Ibid.38, 83, 95. '"' The story is told by Hutchinson, Hist. Dur. i, 187. See too J. T. Fovirler, Rites of Durham (Surtees Soc), passim. '"' Return of revenue, S. P. Dom. Eliz. Add. vol. 30, Nos. 45, 50, 54 ; cf. Mickleton MSB. vii, fol. 50, 55. "" MSB. Cott. Tit. B. ii, 286, etc. ^ Surtees Soc. Publ. xvii, p. xvi. "» Cal. Bord. Papers, i, 126. '■* S.P. Dom. Eliz. vol. 240, No. 66 ; ibid. 241, No. l6 ; list of priests (1593), ibid. Add. vol. 32, No. 64 ; so too S.P. Dom. Eliz. vol. 24;, No. 24, &c. ; secret mass (1593), ibid. vol. 245, No. 131. "" Ibid. vol. 238, Nos. 143, 148 ; cf Lansd. MS. 64, for restraints. ™ S.P. Dom. Eliz. Add. vol. 32. No. 89. "» Ibid. Eliz. vol. 244, No. 8. "° Hutchinson, Hist. Dur. 1, 585 ; Surtees, Hist. Dur. i, p. Ixxxv. '" List of retained lands, I 596 ; Cal. Bord. Papers, ii, 162. For an earlier list of leases assigned chiefly by- Barnes, cf. Hutchinson, op. cit. i, 569. Notes as to ' decays in the bishopric,' S.P. Dom. Eliz. vol. 259, No. 3 ; CaL Bord. Papers. 38 I ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY are frequent traces of decay and impoverishment, which were partly due to previous carelessness and in part to the troubles of the closing century. The bishop resisted further invasion of his rights, with increasing vigour, as his episcopate went on, and as the queen's rapacity grew more spasmodic with her advancing age.'" Border history now assumes a prominence and interest unknown in the first thirty years of Elizabeth's reign. War with Scotland had become a distant tradition. Doubtless there had been something healthy in the old periodic struggles, but towards the end of the sixteenth century much bad blood had accumulated, and constant feuds and biclcerings had steadily come to a head. Men were carried off and held to ransom,'^'* animals were raided,'^* outlaws maintained themselves in remote valleys, and sallied forth to plunder in every direction."^ Graemes and Armstrongs on the borders had been particularly insolent. All this turbulence brought the bishop into new prominence, and much time in the earlier years in the see was taken up as a border commissioner to regulate the disordered affairs of the district. He had a chief hand in drawing up the Treaty of Carlisle in 1597, which was designed to end the troubles on the Marches, and was the special outcome of an inquiry held at Auckland in the previous year,'^" and a bill drafted to ' strengthen the borders.' '" The Romanist recusants seem to have increased much during these troubles. Hutton's complacency was premature. The old families who had been harbouring the seminary priests were in correspondence with friends on the Continent, who allured them with large designs for the future. A northern province of three bishops had been sketched, with Blackwell at York, Haddock at Durham, and a third at Carlisle, but the plan somehow miscarried.'^^ Ten years later, in 1602, Parsons, the Jesuit, made an elaborate plan for the conver- sion of England, in which an academy was to be located at Durham or some other place, when the coming triumph should be effected.'" There is full evidence of a growing volume of recusancy in the bishopric. In face of this the bishop complained bitterly that the Ecclesiastical Commission as now constituted was abridged rather than extended by the omission of his own name and that of the bishop of Carlisle from a recent renewal of the High Com- mission.'^" The exact reference is not clear, and the Patent Rolls for that time do not appear to contain a fresh commission. The long reign of Elizabeth had not served to make the inhabitants of the bishopric content with the ecclesiastical changes forced upon them. Sir William Bowes, in 1595, re- ported that True religion hath taken very little place, not by the unwillingness of the people to hear, but by want of means, scant three able preachers being to be found in the whole country. False and disloyal religion hath taken deep root, and that in the best houses, increasing daily by the number and diligence of the seminaries, with more liberty resorting hither, being driven from other places of both the realms.'*^ '" Surtees, Hist. Dur. i, p. Ixxxvi. •" Cal. Bord. Papers, ii, 301. "'Ibid, ii, 433. "'Ibid. "' S.P. Dom. Eliz. vol. 257, No. 80. . "' Cal. Bord. Papers, ii, 462. '" S.P. Dom. Eliz. vol. 2 5 I , No. 89. '" Paragraph 20 in S.P. Dom. Eliz. vol. 288, No. 48. 'Academia nova Richmondiae, Dunelmiae, aut Novocastri, in partibus borealibus construenda est.' ^'^ Cal. Bord. Papers, \\, \zi. ' The cause of religion laid chiefly upon my weak shoulders by the said instructions can not possibly be so promoted as it might if the ecclesiastic.il high commission lately renewed were ai large and effective as the former was.' '" Cal. Bord. Papers, ii, 171. 39 A HISTORY OF DURHAM This reference to the need of capable clergymen able to give suitable in- struction indicates a want which was felt not only in the bishopric. An interesting document of this time shows that the north and west of Yorkshire were suffering from the same lack, and indicates the proposed establishment of a large Church of England seminary or university at Ripon for the supply of efficient pastors, a scheme which, fifty years later, may have suggested Cromwell's first draft of the University of Durham.^'*'' The reports for the bishopric continue for some time to exhibit a state of affairs which was slow to improve. Then, two years after the letter of Bowes, Dean James tells Cecil that ' this poor country and city ... is very backward in religion, there being 200 recusants, esquires, gentlemen, and others of meaner calling.' ^^* Bishop Matthew sat occasionally on the High Commission, whatever the reference to a recent change noted above may mean, but in general, as he grew older he became more lax towards recusants.'"* The last years of the sixteenth century were marked by repeated visita- tions of the plague, and by agricultural distress. An epidemic visited the district in 1597, and was followed by severe scarcity of food. Many have come 60 miles from Carlisle to Durham to buy bread, and sometimes for 20 miles there will be no inhabitant. In the bishopric of Durham 500 ploughs have decayed in a few years, and corn has to be fetched from Newcastle, whereby the plague is spread in the northern counties. ^^^ . . . The poverty of the country arises from decay of tillage. . . . Colleges and cathedrals are impoverished because tenants cannot pay their rents ; then whole families are turned out, and poor borough towns are pestered with four or five families under one roof.^^^ The accession of James I raised great expectations in the bishopric, as elsewhere. A return dated August, 1603, shows a significant change in the number of recusants, it being stated that ' 196 recusants lately, and especially since the death of Queen Elizabeth, have been seduced or, after their conformity, restored to papistry.' '" It is, however, expressly stated that few are ' of any account,' the rest being ' either tenants or servants, or otherwise dependants upon those recusants.' If the total number is to be added to the survivors of the 200 returned in 1597,'^* the aggregate has been doubled in the short interval, and the rate of progress is rapid in the years that follow. It may be convenient to summarize here what can be gathered as to this progress during the reign of King James. The severity which followed the discovery of Gunpowder Plot produced much dissatisfaction amongst the disappointed Romanists.'"' Seditious rumours were on several occasions delated to the members of the Court of High Commission, and the inquiries made prove how widely the disappointment was felt. Now and then a member of an old family or some person of position is apprehended for unwise language, and the case is forwarded to London as a proof of High Commission zeal. The name of a Bulmer occurs now and then in this way, and Lady Adeline Neville, sister to the earl of Westmoreland, Sir Thomas Gray, Sir Thomas Danby, and others are also mentioned. ''° A few details as '-' Printed in Peck's Desiderata curiosa. '■'^ S.P. Dom. Eliz. vol. 262, No. 11, ^-' Cal. Bord. Papers, ii, I 331. '" S.P. Dom. Eliz. vol. 262, Nos. 10, 1 1. "* Ibid. '-" Ibid. Jas. I, vol. 3, No. 42 ; cf. ibid. vol. 13, No. 52^. '™ Ibid. Eliz. vol. 262, No. 11. '" Cal. S.P. Dom. 1603-10, pp. 286, 294, 332, &c. ™ Ibid, passim. 40 ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY to the harbouring of seminary priests occur in the state papers of the period. In 1609 the judge of assize writes that whilst Northumberland, Cum- berland, Westmorland, and Lancashire are quiet, and show an abatement of recusancy, Yorkshire and Durham are not so quiet nor so free from recu- sants/'^ In the whole diocese of Durham they had been estimated as about 700 in the early years of the reign, which shows a marked increase, but the vigilant commissioners reduced them to 400, though a personal visitation by Bishop James in 161 5 revealed an increase once more.''' Later in the same year the bishop was much occupied in trying to unravel the intricacies of a plot which does not seem to have left much impression on the records of the time, and yet promised, it was then thought, to develop into a conspiracy of some magnitude. He was shrewd enough to obtain the services of a renegade Romanist, or at all events one who knew Romanist ways well, and was able to insinuate himself into assemblies of seminary priests and others in the north of England. The bishop believed at one time that the king's life was in danger, but his fear probably exaggerated matters,''' Another spy reported to Winwood in 16 16 that ' throughout the bishopric of Durham popery prevails, so that at the ports Hartlepool, Sunderland, &c., the recusants can import as they will.'"* The writer's opinion was that the bishop and his officers were slack and covetous, so that law was not well administered ; he desired to see the reduction of the bishop's prerogative, and the introduction of a system of government similar to that which obtained in Northumberland. This criticism of the bishop's way of using his position had come up in the previous reign, and recurred at intervals in later days. Its interest at the moment lies in the transient glimpse that is given of the condition of affairs in the Palatinate. The people, for instance, were now unused to arms ; woods had been cut down in the county ; recusancy was rampant.''^ A lull followed, and the last nine years of King James have left no proof of severity in Durham. This accords with the general character of those years in the larger history of England, where little or nothing is heard of the penal laws and their enforcement, though there is no reason to doubt that papal agita- tion still flourished in those gentler days."* The beginning of the reign of Charles was signalized by an attempt to seize the arms of recusants.'" This was of a piece with the declared policy of the new king in the early days of the reign, and was endorsed by a letter from him in which he specially directed the enforcement of the laws."^ Bishop Neile unearthed a good deal of correspondence between Sir Robert Hodgson, of Hebburn, and some others ' reputed pragmatical in ill offices of conveying, receiving, and 331 333 Ca/. S.P. Dom. 1603-10, p. 5-1-3, &c. Ibid. 161 l-i8, p. 289. 'Ten years before there were 700 recusants in his diocese ; by the Ecclesi- astical Commission, &c. they were reduced to 400, but have increased again. Has spent three weeks in personal visitations to malce a true report on them.' James had been appointed dean in 1596, and became bishop in 1606. He spoke, therefore, with nearly twenty years' experience of the diocese. "' Ca/. S.P. Dom. 1611-18, pp. 301-2, &c., '^* His name was Berridge or Morton. His paper gives some details as to the recusant ladies of Durham and Northumberland, and of the Durham prebendaries ; ibid. 395. "' See the suggestions of Henry Sanderson ' for the good of Northumberland and the bishopric of Durham,' 161 5 ; ibid. 329, also Ca/. S.P. Dom. for 1625. '^^ The reasons are given by Gardiner in his Hiit. of Eng/. iv, 34 and 289. "' Ca/. S.P. Dom. 1625-6, p. 134. ™ B.M. Add. MSS. 33207, fol. 32. The letter is dated 22 Dec. 1625. 2416 A HISTORY OF DURHAM harbouring of persons of all sorts ill-affected to the state.' "° A return of the same year speaks of i,ooo convicted recusants in the county of Durham.'*" This report is connected with an inquiry for Recusants' Lands recently ordered, which led to the drawing up of an ' estimate of the true value of lands of recusants found by inquisition in co. Durham.' '" In 1628 an important commission was issued to the President of the North and to others for compounding with recusants in various counties (including Durham) for forfeitures. The proceeds of the composition were to be employed in maintaining six men-of-war to guard the coasts from the north-east to the mouth of the Thames."^ The Romanist priests harboured by such bishopric gentlemen as Sir Robert Hodgson confined themselves in the main to the quiet performance of their sacred functions wherever they might prove to be acceptable. A small volume of proceedings of the High Commission survives for the years 1626—39.'" We have in it evidence of various clan- destine marriages and secret baptisms. One such case will serve as an illustration of many. Ralph Huntly, of Pittington, ' confesseth he was married to Frances, his now wife, by one Flood an old man, whom he thinketh was a Popish priest ; and hath had four children all privately baptized in his own house.''** Huntly was fined £^0 with one month's imprisonment, and was directed to bring a certificate of baptism for his children from the vicar of Pittington. But about this time the attention of the ecclesiastical authorities began to be taken up by other matters, as the sequel will show, and recusancy was either suffered to maintain itself unmolested, or to receive merely occasional warnings. Reverting to the point from which digression was made to survey the fortunes of recusancy, a few words may be said about the episcopate of Bishop James (1606—17). Its importance lies rather in the history of the town than of the bishopric at large. It forms an epoch in the relations of the bishop and the citizens. A feud broke out in 1609 over certain municipal rights and led to a large amount of ill feeling.'*^ In 161 i the bishop was troubled over the case of Arabella Stuart. He had been appointed by the king to prepare lodging in Durham Castle for the reception of this young lady, whose attachment to Lord William Seymour was thought to be a possible menace to the succession. She left London with the bishop, but managed to make her escape on the way to the north. Her custodian was so greatly perturbed by the worry of his task that he fell ill in consequence.'*" Some few years later Bishop James received the king at Durham Castle during his somewhat memorable progress into Scotland in 1 6 1 7,'*^ the first royal visit which has been recorded since the marriage feast of Princess Margaret in 1503. Bishop James left no mark on the northern Church. The parish books of Pittington and of St. Oswald's, Durham, which are more or less contemporary, throw some little light on church life and practice in and near the city.'*^ Mention *" Dur. Univ. Mickleton MSS. 2, 394, quoted by Surtees, Hiit. Dur. ii, 75. "» Ca/. S.P. Dm. 1625-6, p. 420. "' Ibid. 488. "' Ibid. 1628-9, P- 205. '" Surtees Soc. Pui/. xxxiv. '" Quoted in Surtees, Hist. Dur. i, 1 1 8. '" These are described elsewhere, ' Political History '; cf. Ca/. S.P. Dom. 1603-1 1, p. 573. '" The narrative is given in Gardiner, Hist. Engl, ii, 113 and 1 1 7. For the S.P. Dom. references, 1 603, &c. There is an account of the expenses in Harl. MS. 7003, fol. 94, 96, 97. "' Described in Gardiner, Hist. Engl, iii, 223—4. "° Surtees Soc. Publ. Ixxxiv. See the summary, pp. viii-xv. 42 ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY is made of the erection of pews, their lease to houses or to individuals, graves in the church, the use of incense for purposes of fumigation. Holy Communion was celebrated at the important parish church of St. Oswald's at rather rare intervals, despite the attempt of Bishop Barnes thirty years before to increase its frequency in the diocese.^" There was, however, a great annual communion at Easter. The vestry seems to have been duly elected. Mention is made of a church flock at Pittington,'^" of the churchwardens' attendance at visitation, of the payment of rogue money .^°^ Bishop Neile (1617-27) had gained favour with the king in 16 14, and accompanied him to Scotland in the tour alluded to above. He was not the least conspicuous in a long line of repairers of the breach, and built much at Auckland, Durham and elsewhere. To him was due the restoration of some of the see houses, notably the castle of Durham. The king made him lieutenant of the bishopric and county of Durham, an office recently instituted and of comparatively brief existence. In the time of Bishop James it had been held by the favourite Somerset. But Neile's importance lies not so much in the general eclat of his episcopate as in the great ceremonial and doctrinal changes with which his name is connected. He came from Lincoln to Durham at the very moment that the new Arminian school of thought was making itself felt in England. The friend and patron of Laud, Neile was now the chief spirit of the new movement, as also an abettor of the king's growing views of the prerogative. As bishop of Durham he had a unique opportunity of spreading ideas which he had conceived during days of rapid promotion and wide experience. Some little sign of sympathy with the rising school had been seen, perhaps, in the transference of the altar in Durham cathedral from its position in the nave to the east end, where it soon became a cause of offence.''^ This was in 16 17 during the vacancy of the see, when a lay dean, Adam Newton, allowed the affairs of the cathedral to fall into neglect through his own non-residence, and probably suffered the prebendaries to do much as they pleased. We can almost trace the formation of the two parties — Arminian and Protestant. To the one belonged the Prebendaries Morecroft, 16 14, and Burgoyne, 1617, who were joined rather later by Laidsell, 161 8, Birkhead, 1620 (when a new dean. Dr. Hunt, appeared on the scene), Marmaduke Blakiston, 1620, Newell (Bishop Neile's half-brother), 1620, James, 1620, and also the archdeacon of Durham, Gabriel Clark, 162 I, formerly of Northumberland, 1619.'^^ John Cosin, who joined the capitular body in 1624, was brought into the diocese by Bishop Neile first as master of Greatham Hospital.'^* ^^ Bishop Barnes enjoined a monthly communion. Surtees Soc. Puhl. Ixxxiv, p. xiv. ''" The ' church flock ' is the name given to sheep kept not for pasturing the graveyard (ibid. 4), but as a means of profit to the parish. Their wool was regularly sold. ^" This yearly payment for the maintenance of prisoners is explained, ibid. 19. '" Some information as to the position of the communion table in the diocese is given by Mr. LongstafFe in a paper on the * Screen of Darlington Church,' Arch. Ael. vii, 248. ''' The best source of information as to the little coterie of men who made such changes at Durham li the first volume of Bishop Cosines Correspondenee (Surtees Soc), 52, where the familiar letters of Cosin, Morecroft and others enable us to catch the spirit of the proceedings. The literature connected with Smart (see below) gives a mass of detail in an unchronological sequence. ''* Cosin, famous in English church history for his connexion with the Prayer Book of 1 662, is a very prominent figure in Durham history. His name will recur. At this point he begins to come forward as the leader of the Arminian movement. He held many preferments in the bishopric, and must be regarded as the Keble of the new school of thought so far as the north was concerned. 43 A HISTORY OF DURHAM A letter of Richard (afterwards Bishop) Montague, written to congratu- late Cosin on his promotion to a prebend, indicates the methods of the new school, and the advice which its leaders gave : — All that I now advise you is, do nothing suddenly nor without my Lord [Neile]. Make him your counsellor that is the author of them [his preferments] to you. So he can not take it but well, and you shall further engage him. A most honest, thorough friend he is, and such must be held omni modo. Refer all to him so shall you hold and endear him.^^* We cannot clearly trace the progress of Arminian influence outside Durham through the diocese,'*" but when we take into consideration the number of benefices held by the little knot of prebendaries, and the opportunities of influence enjoyed by the archdeacons in their visitations and at other times, it is natural to conclude that the impress left upon the 1 18 parishes then exist- ing in the county of Durham'" would be profound. There is no surface proof that resentment was widely felt towards innovations which were intro- duced. If opposition was manifested it came probably from the clergy themselves. Two of the prebendaries were conspicuous in this connexion. Robert Hutton, son of the former bishop, and rector of Houghton-le-Spring, preached a 'reflecting' sermon in the cathedral in 1621, taking occasion to give his own views as to ' the king, the bishop, and the church ceremonies.' Peter Smart became famous throughout England "' for the fierceness of his attack upon the changes at the cathedral. Under Neile he had contented himself by staying away from Holy Communion, perhaps limiting his protest to this negative action out of friendship for his former schoolfellow. Neile was translated in 1627, and Monteigne was appointed bishop, but was trans- ferred to York after three months. During the vacancy which followed. Smart, as the senior prebendary, save one, undertook a manifesto against the spread of Arminianism. This took the form of a sermon at the July assize, 1628, when the cathedral echoed with the violent recital of all that had been done in the way of innovation. The sermon, ' almost Miltonic in the strain of its invective,' was at once considered at a sitting of all the available mem- bers of the recently reappointed High Commission to the province of York. Suspended after a month or two by this court, Smart had his case transferred to the London High Commission at Lambeth, which deposed, degraded, and fined him /^500.'*^ Smart might have found the money, for friends were ready to help him, but he preferred to languish in prison, from which he was only released some ten years later by the Long Parliament in its early sittings. The whole case is important as illustrating the Laudian changes in progress, and also because there is no evidence to show that there was any real volume of sympathy with him. Indeed, his wife in a curious letter tells him to make the most of his case, because ' there is not one man that will shew himself in all this country for you but Mr. Wright.''^" In the growing irritation felt "' Surtees See. Puhl. cii, Cosin' s Correspondence, 35. ^^ In certain articles exhibited before the High Commission in 1630 {Cosin's Correspondence, i, 165) it is alleged : 'All which your abominations both town and country began to imitate ... to the complaint of all well affected people in the king's dominions.' '" So summed from Camden's Map by a writer in S.P. Dom. Addenda, 1 580-1625, vol. 43, No. 4. ^^ Surtees, Hist. ofDur. i, 149. ^'^ The best source of information is C. Hunter, Illustration of Mr. D. Neal's Hist, of the Puritans, 1736 ; a summary of the case in Diet. Nat. Biog, ; cf. too, Gardiner, Hist, of Engl, vii, 44. ^ Hunter, op. cit. 64. 44 ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY by the Commons at this juncture towards the king and the bishop, great capital was made out of the Smart case, and a note of 27 January, 1629, records that the Commons ' propose to inquire . . . how ceremonies are crept in as at Durham.''" As the months went by, and the weary proceed- ings were dragged out before the High Commission — now at Durham, now at Lambeth, and again at York — the comparative apathy of the diocese was stirred by degrees to something like excitement : ' You have much disturbed the peace of the church, and ministered great cause of offence and distraction to the weak and tender consciences of sundry inhabitants of the city and country.' '" Such was the objection made against Cosin and his adherents at York on the day that Smart was finally sentenced after a protracted considera- tion of the case during two years.'" The long document from which this quotation is given sets out in the most bitter way the case against the reform- ing prebendaries. It is possibly the work of the lawyer, Mr. Wright, who had sided with Smart from the outset."* It shows how thoroughly Cosin was the leading spirit in the changes at Durham.'" He had in the earlier days of the agitation forced the dean into compliance with his own methods and aims, and on one occasion he brawled in the church with the Dean himself about the gentlewomen who would not stand when he bade them, whose pew he locked up and afterwards nailed because they would not stand, and again with him about the lighting of three or four candles upon each candlestick on the altar. He called the same gentlewomen ' lazy sows,' and tore their sleeves because they refused to stand. '^^ At a later date, apparently, the gentle dean was more active in his sympathy, and introduced the stone altar which still stands, though somewhat injured, under the present communion table in Durham Cathedral. You have lately so set it [says the indignant protestor] that the minister can not possibly stand on the north side of the Table, there being neither side standing northward, and contrary to the example either of St. Paul's Church or any other. You Richard Hunt have cast out the Communion Table of wood which was light and portable, and you have erected a mighty altar of stone, unmovable, fastened to the ground and standing (being a double table, one below, of which there is no use at all, and another above), upon six pillars upon which are curiously wrought nine pair of white cherubins' faces. You beautified the same altar with paintings and gildings, and hangings and coverings of silk and velvet, of silver and gold, so brave and glorious that all the altars in England (for so our popish Arminians have lately began to term all communion tables) I say all altars may cast their caps at our Durham altar which hath cost with the furniture thereunto belonging above ^^3,000.'°' Nor was it the furniture and ornaments alone which gave offence to the party of Smart. A variety of ceremonies had been introduced, standing at the Nicene'^^ Creed, bowing (or as the Durham people called it), 'making legs to »«' Lonsdale MSS. (Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. xiii), App. vi, 64. "' Surtees See. Pui/. lii, 164. '«' CaL S.P. Dom. 1634-5, p. 321. ^ See above note, and C. Hunter, Illustration oj NeaPs Puritans, p. 64. '" This is evident from other authorities : 'A great part, if not the most of the evil of our church, at this present, is supposed to proceed from him, and those he wholly ruleth, as My Lord of Durham whom he wholly ruleth.' In strictness of date, since the paper is dated 29 March, 1628, the bishop to whom reference is made is Bishop Monteigne, who was only bisliop from 3 March to 16 June, 1628. If this is correct it shows that Monteigne was under the direction of Cosin even before he entered upon the see. The passage is given in Surtees Soc. Publ. xxxiv, 198, from the Baker MSS. ^^ Surtees Soc. Publ. lii, 174. '" Ibid. 179. '^ Ibid. This was a source of considerable contention, and led to a successful defence on the part of Cosin, which is given in his correspondence, ibid. 200. 45 A HISTORY OF DURHAM the altar,' ^^^ the singing of anthems instead of psalms, the wearing of ' Baby- lonish robes called copes . . . embroidered with images' instead of 'decent copes,' ^™ and so forth ; whilst it was averred that strange and novel doctrines had been imported in sermons by the reforming prebendaries.'" It was for these reasons, probably, that Archbishop Harsnett, of York, took the extreme step of proposing to visit the diocese of Durham.'" Bishop Howson at once wrote off to Laud, then bishop of London, and quoted precedents to show that the idea, if not unheard of, was unconstitutional. ' The people,' he says, ' now on the first motion proclaim that they know none but God, the king, and Saint Cuthbert, which is their bishop, to whose government they submit.' The protest was successful, and the visitation abandoned. Later in the year (1630) Howson undertook his primary visitation and gave certain ordinances to the dean and chapter, in which it was directed that ' to prevent scandal of innovation the uniformity of Common Prayer used before the alteration in the time of the late bishop be observed.' '" The State Paper containing these injunctions is indorsed hinc illae lacrymae, which may lead us to suppose that the precept was not palatable. The bishop's own position was difficult. He did not fully sympathize with Smart, but owing to the excited state of feeling in England he found it best to temporize, and in the end"* rather took his side. It would seem that despite a partial incrimination of Cosin for the offences alleged in introducing changes without due authority,"' the ultimate issue was to justify his party, so that the triumph lay almost wholly on the side of the reformers and innovators. Some evidence of this is given in the acts of the High Commission, which show renewed activity after the final sentence given at York in 1630. A comparison of their acts from this time with what was done in 1627 shows far greater vigilance, and a very much widened range or inquisition. Moral offences, irreverence, profanation of the sacraments, hindering divine service, assaults on the clergy, defamation, fortune-telling, are some of the various cases from all parts of the diocese which multiply in and about 1630."' Bishop Howson was promoted to the see of Durham when he was seventy-three, and was succeeded by a prelate of much the same advanced age. No post-Reformation bishop had found the see of Durham a bed of roses, but no one had so uneasy a tenure as Bishop Morton (1632-47), the pathos of the situation being intensified by his distinguished merits and his great age.'" The new bishop was of a somewhat different school from his immediate predecessors. The friend of Casaubon and of many well-known scholars, Morton represented rather the school of Hooker than of Laud. He was an ardent apologist of the Church of England, but in a day when strong language was used and vehement action taken, Morton was as conciliatory as »^' Surtees Soc. PuM. Hi, 179. "" Ibid. 184. "" Ibid. 186. "' S.P. Dom. Chas. I, vol. 162, No. 32. "^ Ibid. vol. 186, Nos. 97, 107 ; cf. Surtees Soc. Publ. Hi, No. 202. "* This is not quite the vievi^ of the editor of the Surtees Soc. volume, ibid. 204, foot-note, but is justified by the bishop's own correspondence ; cf. S.P. Dom. Chas. I, vol. 154, No. 95. '" Complacent reference to Cosin's fine and temporary suspension is given in the articles previously cited, Surtees Soc. Pub!. Hi, 191-2. "* For the Acts of 1629 onwards, see Surtees Soc. Publ. xxxw, passim. A summary (if it maybe trusted) of 1627 is given by Dr. Carter in his previously cited reply to Neal, p. 44. "' A very eulogistic and almost contemporary account of Morton was written by his chaplain^ Dr. Barwick. For his ' Catholic Apology ' and other important works see Diet. Nat. Biog. 46 ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY he was strong in his own convictions. It is possible that this disposition recommended him for promotion to Durham at a moment when recent events must have left behind them a strong sense of irritation. He took pains to try to bring into the diocese men in whom he felt confidence.^^* In this way Dr. Naylor was promoted to the rectory of Sedgefield, with a prebend in the cathedral ; Johnson, an excellent preacher, to Bishopwear- mouth ; Dr. Feme, later master of Trinity, Cambridge, and dean of Ely, to the rectory of Stanhope and archdeaconry of Northumberland ; and last, but not least. Dr. Isaac Basire to the same two preferments as Dr. Feme held before him, Morton scattered over the diocese copies of the church catechism, and insisted strongly on the duty of catechising.'" His extreme liberality, his care in ordinations, his promotion of real learning, his per- suasive influence with recusants (amongst others he brought back, one of the Swinburnes to the Church of England), are points over and above his own steadfast character to which his biographer draws special attention.'*" He was, however, firm as well as amiable, and made a stand for Palatinate rights stronger than any predecessor had made since the spoliation of the episcopal prerogative under Henry VIII.'" He displayed greater activity than his immediate predecessors in regard to the train-bands. A writer of a strange little tract which belongs to 1629 had stated that the train-bands were very rarely called together even for the sake of practice; but in 1635, owing to the threatening aspect of Scottish affairs, Morton summoned the train-bands to appear before him at Durham, both horse and foot completely furnished and exercised. The various gentlemen of the county were bidden to provide themselves with fit arms, and the clergy in like manner to be answerable to their abilities.'*'* But before this gloomy cloud presaged the storm that was soon to fall upon the north, one of his most pleasant, if most exhausting, experiences came to the bishop. In 1633 Charles announced his intention of making a progress into Scotland. Great preparations were made in the bishopric, the various parishes contributing to the mending of roads and repairing of bridges, and other expenses of the journey, as different parish books attest.'*' An extremely interesting account of the event written in Latin by Cosin still survives, from which it is easy to picture the manner of the king's reception at the cathedral and the castle.'** It is a tradition that his entertainer, the bishop, was impoverished by the great expense of the function, which cost him ^1,500 a day. Charles, who was destined to return to Durham under very different circumstances, seems to have shown much interest in the cathedral. At the instigation of Laud, probably, he gave directions for the removal of some unsightly buildings annexed to the church,'*^ and by his presence virtually endorsed the changes that had been wrought in services and furniture. A letter from Arundel to Windebank written at Durham '*' testifies to the king's satisfaction with the cathedral. A >" Barwick. Life, 83. "» Ibid. 89. »«' Ibid. 93, 95, 97, &c. »»' S. P. Dom. Chas. I, vol. 302, No. 6. »«' Ibid. vol. 296, No. 20 ; vol. 398, No. 46. '"'Ibid. vol. 134, No. 16. Entries in Gateshead parish books. See also Surtees Soc. Publ. Ixxxiv, 95 «. *** Surtees Soc. Publ. Hi, 212. For the expense, Hutchinson, Hist. Dur. i, 618. ''^ S.P. Dom. Chas. I, vol. 240, No. 10. '"This must be remembered as explaining the flight of the prebendaries in 1 640 on the approach of the Scots. 47 A HISTORY OF DURHAM quaint and interesting view of an ordinary service and a residence dinner is given in 1634 by three Norwich soldiers who came to church and were entertained by Dean Hunt.'" As for the king's visit, church discipline seems to have been tightened by the countenance it gave to the party now in the ascendant, and evidence survives of much activity in the next two or three years. Shadows, however, soon fell. The year 1636 saw a severe visitation of the plague.'^^ Throughout the bishopric the royal exactions which were being forced upon the people were particularly galling, whilst throughout England popular resentment was rising rapidly.^*' The first note of the coming storm was sounded in Durham at the end of 1637, when the old bishop was directed by the Privy Council to look to his train-bands, for the Scots were signing the Covenant.''" Then came a year of suspense, until the bishop at the close of 1638 was ordered to make special musters over and above the ordinary train-bands.'" For the first time in its history it was owned that the city could no longer be held against Scottish artillery,"^ so that Newcastle was chosen for the military head quarters in the coming bishop's war. Again Charles passed through Durham,'^' and Morton at the cathedral preached on the text, ' Let every soul be subject to the higher powers.'''* The first bishop's war fizzled out in the summer of 1639 in the pacification of Berwick, but in the spring of 1640 the temporary peace was again disturbed. There was now widespread sympathy with the Scots,''' but Morton rallied the bishopric forces on Elvet Moor, and consecrated the band on the eve of their march to Newcastle. The shock of battle with the crusading Scots took place in August, 1640, at Newburn-on-Tyne, and resulted in a Scottish victory followed by the occupation of Newcastle. Intense interest was taken at Durham in the course of events. One prebendary wrote to report the unwise speeches current in the town."* The fugitive English army rushed south through Durham. The flight of the army was followed by the general exodus of all the church party in Durham, who had little hope of good treatment from the covenanting Scots.'". The bishop fled,"' and the new Dean Balcanqual fled too, as did most, if not all, of the prebendaries. As for the city of Durham [says one who saw], it then became a most depopulated place, not one shop for four days after the fight open ; not one house in ten that had either man, woman, or child in it, not one bit of bread to be got for money, for the king's army ^' Quoted by Surtees, Hist. Dur. iv, i66, Addenda. The full narrative has been edited by L. G. Wickham Legg, 'A relation of a short survey of 26 counties.' ^ Surtees Soc. Publ. ii, 122, 123 ; ibid, iv, 69, 142. "' Ship-money and carriage of timber were the chief complaints. S. P. Dom. Chas. I, vol. 317, Nos. 37 and 96 ; ibid. vol. 369, No. 47 ; ibid. vol. 385, No. 22 ; vol. 387, No. I 3 ; vol. 401, No. 60. ''" S. P. Dom. Chas. I, vol. 398, No. 46. '" Ibid. vol. 404, No. 61 ; cf 99, which makes it clear that Durham was meant at first to be, at all events, head quarters for the bishopric. '" Cal. S.P. Dom. 1638-9, p. 325. ^^ For the various visits of Charles to Newcastle, and for an excellent rauml of the history about this time, see Mr. Terry's paper, Ani. Ael. xxi. ^'* The learned Royalist sermon was printed, A sermon preached before the kin^s majesty, 1639. ^'' This sympathy in the bishopric is frequently cause of complaint in the State Papers ; cf vol. 420, No. 121 (drinking to the covenant in a Durham tavern), and passim. "« Ca/. S.P. Dom. 1640, p. 347. '" Rushworth, Co//. 1239, cf S.P. Dom. Chas. I, vol. 466, No. 67. '™ The bishop went to Stockton, thence to Helmsley {Be/voir MSS. Hist. MSB. Com. Rep. xii, 523), and later to London. For his fortunes see Diet. Nat. Biog. 48 ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY had eat and drank all in their march into Yorkshire, the country people durst not come to market, which made that city in a sad condition for want of food. Most of the church- men having removed all that they had considerable, left their houses with some trash open, which their servants and neighbours spoiled. Durham became a military dep6t for the year that the Scottish army remained in the northern counties. The references to the misery of the occupation, and of the longer period that followed three years later, are numerous in documents of the time. As for the church the time of reprisal had come.'**' Cosin was attacked by the Long Parliament, and Smart was restored. A petition from the parishioners of Muggleswick about this time mentions the flight of the incumbent. "° The Arminian prebendaries who held various livings had disappeared. No doubt they were joined by others of like views who feared the Scots. Those clergymen who remained at their posts were probably called on to support soldiers billeted upon them.*"^ Everywhere property was insecure and poverty intense.*"' At last the departure of the Scots in August, 1641, was hailed with relief, but the church soon felt the severity of the Long Parliament. Means were at once devised to protestantize the whole country, and early in 1642 the Protestation was very generally signed in every ward of the Palatinate. There is no evidence of resistance to the ' Shibboleth to discover a true Israelite,' which men everywhere found it politic to accept.*"' Before the actual outbreak of the Civil War in 1642, the bishopric had very generally become strongly Royalist *°* owing to the universal disgust at the late Scottish exaction, so that recruiting went on apace during the summer, the old recusant families even supplying officers for the king's troops.*"' Another flight began *°° whilst these forces were massing for the protection or Newcastle, but there was at present only one skirmish between the troops of Newcastle and those of Hotham at Piercebridge.*"' The real danger came with the beginning of 1644, when it seemed as if the bishopric would be crushed between the Scots coming south and Fairfax operating in Yorkshire.*"* A second Scottish invasion followed, avoiding the city of Newcastle and crossing the Tyne at and near Bywell.*"^ Leven, their commander, seized Sunderland and other places, and marched in force to Durham, which was evacuated by the marquis of Newcastle, who fled on towards York, the Scots following in pursuit. During this renewal of troubles the Covenant was imposed upon the country,*^" and its taking can be traced in various places, ^^ Lds. Journ. iv, 249, 256 ; cf. Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. iv, 63-66. *" Surtees, Hist. Dur. ii, 388. *"' Instances Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. iv, 59 (Lilburne and Perrott). *™ ' Not a man in the bishopric dare call anything his own,' S.P. Dom. Chas. I, vol. 467, No. 12. The dean and chapter lands were controlled by Leslie's Commissioners, as were also those of the bishop, but at present there was no eviction of tenants; cf Hutchinson, Hist. Dur. i, 621 ; S.P. Dom. Chas. I, vol. 467, No. 60. Rents from the prebendal and other estates went to maintenance of the army. *" Ordered 30 July, 1 641, but returned in February or March of 1642. For a summary of the Durham returns see those o( Lords' MSS. (Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. v), 125. "" 'The people of this country,' says a dispatch to Denbigh, 4 Feb. 1644, 'are unwilling to give intelli- gence or supplies, and all either of their own accord or by force are in array, so great power hath the cathedral here.' Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. iv, 264. At Whorlton the parish register shows that the beacons were lighted to warn against the Scots. "" Portland MSS. (Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. xiii), App. i, 68. •« Ibid. 75. *" Surtees, Hist. Dur. iv, 32. *"' Gardiner, Hist. Engl, i, 315. '™ Mr. Terry's exc I'.ent paper in Arch. Ael. xxi, 146, gives full details. Add to his authorities Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. iv, 264, 269 ; viii, App. ii, 60 ; x, App. i, 53. "" For Easington cf Arci. Ael. xvii, 300. 2 49 7 A HISTORY OF DURHAM as for instance at Easington, where the Scots were quartered in April. Other details of the connected circumstances were collected by one of the Durham minor canons.*" With the return of a Scottish army after Marston Moor the bishopric was again in trouble. Garrisons were placed at Hartlepool and Stockton ; Gateshead was seized and the siege of Newcastle began.'''" The Scottish grip of the county was complete, and was not relaxed until 1647. During these years the bishopric was subject, not only to the Long Parliament, but to the Scottish Commissioners who were on the spot.*'' Exaction and poverty were again the fortune of the miserable inhabitants.*'* For the direction of secular affairs a standing committee was appointed, by whose negotiation with Parliament the whole personnel of the county was altered.*" As for church affairs a meeting of the parliamentary party was summoned in Durham and itinerating preachers were sent down at their solicitation.*'* Parliament appointed to livings in some cases at all events, but these were probably benefices in the gift of the bishop or dean and chapter.*'^ The Committee for Plundered Ministers in London appointed sequestrators to deal with the church property of ' delinquents.' *" They have left a record of their doings for the diocese of Durham from which we can watch their operations.*'* They made inventories of recusants' lands and issued warrants to seize them, to demise, let, collect, and gather the glebe, tithes, rents, and averages ' for the use of the commonwealth.' The churches were no doubt purged from all ' monuments of idolatry ' in accordance with the contemporary order sent round in that behalf in 1644.*^° In their previous occupation of the county the Presbyterian Scots had no doubt anticipated that ordinance so far as Durham was concerned.*^' In 1645 Presbyterianism was completely victorious when the Prayer Book was abolished, the Directory substituted, and the Presbyterian Classes carried out for the whole county. *^^ These arrangements survive.*-' Sir H. Vane certifies the division of county Durham into six different classical Presbyteries, with a list of the persons nominated for each ; he further certifies that of the many other churches in the county divers are destitute of any ministers, while the ministers in others are some so weak and others so <" D. and C. of Dur., Hunter MSS. "* Mr. Terry's paper in Arch. Ad. 21 is again a careful reconstruction of dates and movements. For the revival of royalist sympathy between the departure of the Scottish army to York in April, 1644, and its return in July, see S.P. Dom. Chas. I, vol. 502, No. 20 ; 'Northumberland, Westmorland, and Durham lie under the present pressure of the enemy ' (Royalists). "' Some friction apparently existed between the two authorities. S.P. Dom. Chas. I, vol. 506, No. 15. '" 'Almost ruined,' ibid. vol. 503, No. 60 ; 'oppressed by insupportable burdens,' vol. 503, No. 65. '" Ibid. vol. 506, No. 38 ; vol. 507, No. 57 ; vol. 510, No. 40. *'° Porlliind MSS. (Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. xiii), App. i, 181 ; cf. Com. Journ. iii, 593. '" Parliament appointed to Biihopwearmouth, Stanhope, Gateshead, Houghton-le-Spring, and eight other benefices in Durham between 1643 and 1 648. "' For this committee see W. A. Shaw, Hist. Ch. of Engl. 1 640-1 660, ii, 178 and 185. *" D. and C. of Dur. Hunter MSS. Surtees, Hist. Dur. has put in several references to this book, e.g. Dalton-le-Dale, i, 3; Kelloe, i, 69 ; EgglesclifFe, iii, 201. A plague in this year (1644) accentuated the misery. It is mentioned in the registers of St. Oswald's, Durham, EgglesclifFe, Whorlton, &c. "" Transcribed in Houghton-Ie-Spring Vestry Book (Surtees Soc. Publ. Ixxxiv, 322). "' St. Oswald's Vestry Book, ibid. 191, speaks of repairing 'the fount stone broken by the Scots.' **- The Whitworth Parish Register notes that the use of the Prayer Book was suspended from 27 July, 1645, until 12 May, 1660. *-'' Portland MSS. (Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. xiii), App. i, 325. The paper is fully described by W. A. Shaw, op. cit. ii, 367. 50 ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY scandalous or malignant or both, that they cannot as yet recommend any more to be added to the several classes. With the evidence at present available it is not possible to w^atch the Presbyterian system in operation. Such parish documents as have been published seem to ignore it, and show variety in the working of the spiritual machinery. At Pittington, for instance, communions were still celebrated; at St. Oswald's and at Houghton-le-Spring they ceased during these years of Presbyterian supremacy ; nor were they resumed until the Restoration.*^* The vestry uses of the parish went on. Churchwardens were elected, but were not sworn. Rates were levied. The church buildings did not always suffer either at this time or during the Protectorate. It may be questioned, for instance, whether at any period more care was bestowed upon the fabric of Houghton Church than in the years immediately preceding the Restora- tion.*" A survey of the existing parish account goes to prove comparative neglect of the building during the Presbyterian period, followed by increasing care from about 1653. After the abolition of bishops in 1646, an Act was passed for the sale of their lands, and a survey was made.*"^ They were not handed over to charitable uses, but were bought up by laymen. A list of those sold in Durham survives.*'^ The Scottish army left in 1647, ^"'^ ^ ^^1 ^^ j°y ^g^ii^ went up from an impoverished county .*'* More than one Royalist outbreak in the following years proves that the king's cause was still dear to many in the north. *^' The year 1649 was an important epoch in the vicissitudes of church property. In it an Act was passed for the sale of the dean and chapter lands which had been held in trust since the abolition of chapters in 1648.*^° A detailed survey was made and trustees were appointed to sell the lands for the main- tenance of ministers.*" All this work was carried out by an intricate series of parliamentary committees. The same year witnessed the inauguration of the famous but short-lived society for the propagation of the gospel in the northern counties.*^^ Its chief work was to carry out the augmentation of the livings of ministers, and to appoint suitable schoolmasters. An account of some of its proceedings survives, more particularly of services held at New- castle in 1651—53, when ministers were settled and assessments made upon various parishes for their support.*'*' Spasmodic help had been given before this committee came into being,*'* so that it marks the culmination of a series of attempts to organize the Presbyterian parish system more efficiently. Indeed, whatever the shortcomings of the Long Parliament, it strove valiantly *■* Dur. Parish Bis. (Surtees Soc. Ixxxiv), 102, 192-3, 304.. "' Ibid. 312-15. Compare the entries in the volume for the years 1644 to 1652 with those after 1653. "* Text of the Act in Hutchinson, Hist. Dur. i, 632. For the history cf. W. A. Shaw, op. cit. ii, 210. The ordinance for the sale is dated 16 Nov. 1646. Shaw, op. cit. 213 ; cf 242. For the survey, ibid. 603. "' Printed by Strype, j^titia/s, ii (appendix), 65 ; also by Hutchinson. The first sale was on 18 Oct. 1647. The total amount realized was ^^68,121 15/. ()J. including parcels outside the bishopric. "' Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. vi, 160 ; S.P. Dom. Add. 1625-49, ^o'^- 5°9> 43^- *" July 1648, defeat of Royalists in Northumberland, where many of the chief gentry of Northumber- land and Durham were taken prisoners ; S.P. Dom. 516 ; cf Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. vi, App. : List of loyalist gentlemen in 165 1-2 ; Surtees, Hist. Dur. i, App. i, cxxxix. The S.P. Dom. for 1655 indicate further risings. "» W. A. Shaw, Hist. Ch. of Engl, ii, 213. "' For the survey, ibid. 603. The question of improving benefices was first stirred in 1646, ibid 214. "' Described by Shaw, op. cit. ii, 226. "^Lambeth MS. 1006, fol. 426-30. 'An abstract of the settlement of ministers in the counties of Durham and Newcastle.' *^' Shaw, op. cit. ii, 218. 51 A HISTORY OF DURHAM to improve the value of poor benefices. In connexion with this task a parochial survey was undertaken in 1650, and the presentments of jurors were returned into Chancery giving much detail as to the various parishes surveyed.*'^ All these Committees of Parliament were discharged by the dissolution of the Long Parliament in 1653. The instructions given to the commissioners will illustrate the business- like character of these parliamentary dealings with the church : To find out (i) What parsonages, vicarages, and other benefices, with or without cure of soul, there are in your division ; (2) The value of each per annum ; (3) The names of the present incumbents and proprietors ; (4) Who receives the profit ; (5) Who supplies the cure, and what is his salary ; (6) The number of chapels belonging to parish churches; (7) How the parish churches and chapels are situated, and how they might be united ; (8) How the churches and chapels are supplied with preaching ministers ; (9) What chapels might well be reassigned or made into parish churches ; (10) Where new churches should be built and parishes divided. So far as Durham is concerned, the remarks appended to the returns are very interesting, and the details given are a useful piece of parochial church history. About eighty parishes in the county of Durham appear to be described, exclusive of annexed chapelries. One or two returns may serve as specimens, e.g. ' Stockton a chapel value ^35 ; minister Rowland Salkeld, salary £25-' ^^ i^ desired by the inhabitants that ' being a corporation it may be made a parish church.' «^ Another scheme of these years was the foundation of the Durham College, which in its educational aspect has been more fully described in the previous volume."* Mooted first in 1650 the design took six years to come to maturity. From the very first the idea was to promote an institution which should be ' as well in reference to the promoting of the Gospel as the religious and prudent education of young men there.'*" It is natural to suppose, though exact proof is wanting, that the idea of the college owed something to the splendid Ripon College scheme which had been projected seventy years before.*'^ After various propositions as to using fines from delinquents for carrying out the Durham plan, subscriptions were invited,*'^ ,and the college began work in the late summer or autumn of 1656. The tradition is that it prospered well during the short period of its existence.**" Coincidently with its inception in 1650 a disgraceful episode took place when Cromwell filled cathedral and castle with what remained of the rabble of prisoners taken at Dunbar.**^ Tradition ascribes much defacement of the *" Shaw, op. cit. ii, 603. The Durham return is among the Hunter MSS. in the Dean and Chapter Library. *^' The volume is the fourth of the Lambeth MSS. described by W. A. Shaw, Hisf. ofCh. of Engl, ii, 467. "" V.C.H. Dur. i, 380. See, too, J. T. Fowler, Hist, of Univ. of Dur. The dates are : 7 May, 1650, original petition for erection of a college, Hutchinson, Hist. Dur. i, 636 ; August, petition for fines to go to its support; 11 Mar. 165 1, Cromwell's approbation secured, Hutchinson, ibid.; 14 Jan. 1652, further petition, ibid. 638; 28 Apr. 1653, further petition from the county, ibid 639; 29 Jan. 1656, citizens' petition, S.P. Dom. 12480 (17) ; I Feb., 6, 10 Mar., 3, 10, 22, 25 Apr., 16 May, i, 7 Aug., 5 Sept., 1 1 Dec. are days for which there is some report in S.P. Dom. An article in the Gent. Mag. (Ser. l), ix, 606, purports to describe the final steps, but perhaps it betrays some imagination. "' From Cromwell's approbation, Hutchinson, op. cit. 641. "' One of the provisional drafts has been printed in Peclc's Desiderata Curiosa. "^ S.P. Dom . Interregnum, vol. 126, No. 28. *"" Hutchinson, Hist. Dur. i, 655. *" Mercurius Politicus, 8 Nov. 1650 ; cf also Several Proc. 8 May — Burney newspapers in B.M. 34 and 36. 52 ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY cathedral to the prisoners. They were not discharged until the middle of 1652."^ Next year, which saw the discredit of Presbyterianistn in England, marked the earliest known traces of Quakerism in the county, when some trouble was taken at Gateshead"' to put a stop to the increase of Quakers in Durham. It is possible that they had been more stringently treated under the Presbyterian regime. Increasing severity, however, was shown by the Independents in other directions. In 1654 a proclamation was enjoined by the Council to forbid horse-racing and other meetings in the north, since these gatherings were made the occasion of spreading Royalist sympathy.*** Under the Protectorate proper, trustees were reappointed to take the place of the now discharged committees of the Long Parliament which had dealt with church lands until 1653. They carried on the work of their predecessors and directed another survey of parishes to be carried out."^ It is not quite clear how far this dealt with the same places as were returned in 1650. Some of its returns for the county survive at Lambeth and correspond exactly in character with the earlier work of the Committee for Propagating the Gospel, which they confirmed and carried on.*** A printed protest of October, 1654, against the confirmation of the sale of the bishops' lands seems to indicate that the new owners were turning the old tenants out of doors, their wives and children going a-begging. The old Committee for Scandalous Ministers was revived as a ' commission for ejecting scandalous ministers.' *" The same principle of organizing the administration was carried out in other directions. Assizes were restored and took the place of martial law.**' The county and the chief boroughs were at last represented in Parliament. Itinerating preachers were appointed,**' yet there was a restless undercurrent. Royalist feeling reasserted itself, and a considerable rebellion broke out in 1655.**° Lambert was appointed major-general of the district, and Robert Lilburne his deputy for Durham. Next year Hyde sent to feel the pulse of the Royalists and to ascertain their names.*" After the death of Oliver Cromwell Royalist sympathy was further stirred, and when, in January, i 660, Monk began his march, active measures were taken by men of influence. *^^ In February a riot took place in Durham and the people called for king and a free parliament.*^' It would be difficult to disprove the assertion that the citizens of Durham were only voicing the desires of the bishopric at large. *" Order for release given I Mar. S.P. Dom. Interregnum, vol. 23, No. 105 ; countermanded 17 Mar. ibid. No. no ; finally given I July, ibid. vol. 24, No. 60. *" Jni. Ael. vi, 229 ; viii, 222. "' Council to Capt. Howard, Cal. S.P. Dom. 1654, P- 245. ♦" Hist, in W. A. Shave, Hisf. Ch. Engl, ii, 221, 230. "« Lambeth MSS. 1000, fol. 8, &c. **' Ibid, passim, where directions are given by the trustees to these commissioners. *" Hutchinson, op. cit. i, 629, for the years 165 I and 1652. In the former year all cases were to be heard depending in the Dur. Ct. of Pleas in 1642 or instituted since. In 1654, 31 Mar. and 9 June, petitions were made to the Protector to hold assizes, S.P. Dom. Interregnum, vol. 68, No. 81, and vol. 72, No. 14. **' Durham College was to maintain two of these preachers by a grant from Sedgcfield Rectory. "" Instruction of Protector to suppress the present rebellion, conspiracies, &c. 14 Mar. 1655. S.P. Dom. Interregnum, vol. 95, No. 28 ; 5 Apr. commissions for trial, ibid. vol. 96, No. 10. *'' Sir E. Hyde to Sir M. Langdale, I Sept. 1656, from Antwerp, ' Please send me the names of five or six persons of the Bishopric ... on whose interest and discretion we may depend.' Norf. House MSS. (Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. for 1903), 353. "' Thos. Lilburne was speci.illy prominent, as he reports to Haselrig, Cal. S.P. Dom. 1659-60, p. 294. •" Described in Liitkcote MSS. (Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. 1899), 159. 53 A HISTORY OF DURHAM With the Restoration the old conditions were brought back. Those who had been extruded from any benefice unjustly during the troubles at once began to sue for restitution,"* a proceeding which a special Act of Parliament soon legalized, appointing the justices to act as commissioners for such suits.*"' The Church services were resumed.*^^ Multitudes of petitions from those who had suffered began to flow in.*" From the Act of Oblivion three or four names were specially excepted in the county of Durham.*^* At some early date the chief inhabitants of the district petitioned Parliament for the full restoration of the old form of government, and many were willing to sign this document whose names appear on the parliamentary side in previous years.*^' A flood of loyalty spread over the bishopric at first, nor is there any apparent sign of a discontented minority until two or three years had passed. During the vacancy of the see all benefices were in the king's gift, and to these Charles at once began to prefer incumbents. Fie also placed new men in the chief vacant Palatinate offices.*^" At the end of the year Cosin was- consecrated bishop of Durham, and next year began the course of renovation for which his precise knowledge of city and county so well fitted him. His entry into the bishopric was delayed until August, 1661, after the main part of his labours on the revised Prayer Book were completed. An active autumn followed, in which he confirmed, ordained, and preached widely.*" Durham was a partly demolished city. Elsewhere the see houses were ruined. He did over again the work which Neile had done so bountifully forty years before. From London he kept up a vigorous correspondence with his agent, who was pressing on the building and decorating in the castles at Auckland and Durham.*" In July, 1662, his primary visitation was undertaken and was carried out with a minuteness which recalls the exactitude of Barnes a century before. It was succeeded by a progress ' through the larger part of this county palatine, preaching on every Sunday in several churches, and being received with great joy and alacrity both of the gentry and all other people.'*^' The cathedral which was in course of restoration was also visited and articles of detailed inquiry administered. A precise return of all the money expended by the new Dean Barwick and his chapter shows as well the ruin caused by the Scottish prisoners, and the munificent scale of restora- tion now set on foot.*" The Puritan hold of the county had been firm. Organization had been carried out more widely than in many parts. No voice of remonstrance has come down to us from the early days of the Restoration. The Puritan party no doubt sulked in silence. It seems quite impossible to estimate the propor- tion of their various constituents. Quakers were first heard of in the county "* See the action of Cosin's friends on his behalf, Surtees Soc. Publ. Iv, 3-4.. *" I 2 Chas. II, cap. I 7. 45"! ' ' Thus in the Whitworth Register it is noted that the Prayer Book was used again for the first time snce July, 1641;, on 12 May, 1660. '"The S.P. Dom. of 1660 give numbers of these. *^' The document is given in the Lambeth MSS. "' Given in Surtees, Hist. Dur. i, p. cxxxix. *'" S.P. Dom. *" Surtees Soc. Publ. Iv, 27. '^' The correspondence is preserved in the Durham University Miciileton MSS. and has been printed in part, op. cit. "'Ibid, xvi, from Menurius Poliiicus, xxxii, 531, and Kennetfs Reg. 831. '" Printed Surtees Soc. Publ. xxxvii, z6o, from Mickleton MSS. S4 ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY in 1653.*" One or two mentions of Baptists survive from the Cromwellian period.*^^ Independents are likely to have flourished in the Protectorate, but •cannot be clearly traced yet. In the religious confusion of the period other sectaries may well have maintained themselves. At all events the first proof ■of religious dissidence after the Restoration that has yet come to hand is at the end of 1 66 1, when we are told that ' the Fifth Monarchy men are strongly at work, in Yorkshire, Durham,' and other places.*" The same informant represents them as going about from county to county and fanning the flames of rebellion. There does not seem to be evidence of secession when the Uniformity Act came into operation in 1662."' Doubtless, however, the Act stimulated latent sectarian irritation, for we find secret treasonable corre- spondence with foreign Baptists in active operation that same year, and the presence of Baptists in Durham is asserted."' All this agitation came to a head in 1663 in what has been called the Derwentdale Plot. It gets its name from the head quarters of the Durham confederates in the conspiracy. It has been the practice of writers to make little of this aff^air,*^" but if we may credit the mass of state papers connected with it and now accessible to the historian there was during the whole of 1663 and afterwards a widespread and determined effort to crush the religious settlement, and to overthrow the restored dynasty in reliance on the combination of the Dutch Protestants. Who the chief agitators were it is not possible to say, but the confessions of those ultimately apprehended indicated all manner of sectaries as involved in it, and sketched the proportions of a deeply-laid and dangerous stratagem."' A fair summary of what is really a long story is contained in the following information of one of the leaders : The design was laid in the South. The chief designers in the North were Lieut. Col. Mason, Dr. Edw. Richardson, John Joplin once gaoler in Durham, and Paul Hobson. . . . They intended to force the king to perform his promises made at Breda, grant liberty of conscience to all but Romanists, take away excise, chimney money and all taxes whatever, and restore a gospel magistracy and ministry. They have sworn to be secret, and to destroy all who oppose them without mercy, especially the Dukes of Albemarle and Buckingham etc. 2,000 horse and dragoons were ready in Durham and Westmorland, and many of the train-bands all over. . . On October 12 the rising was to be in London, in two places near Blackwell Hall, to fall on the city in St. James' Fields, and attempt Whitehall. . . . Many in the Life Guards and Duke of Albemarle's regiment, in the Fleet, in Scotland, and beyond the seas, and divers of quality over England were consenting to it.*'^ At all events it was estimated that 'in Durham 700 or 800 men were ready.' Ultimately the plot, which was known to the authorities from the first, fell to pieces when the leaders were taken and their close colleagues imprisoned. *" Above, p. 53, Mr. J. W. Steel has collected from documents surviving at Darlington and elsewhere an interesting account of the early days of the cause. Early Friends in the North, 1905. *™ As early as 1630 or so the name occurs in the Acts of the High Commission Court, Surtees Soc. Publ. vol. xxxiv ; see further below. *"C<2/. S.?. Dom. 1 66 1-2, p. 161. '^ Mention is made in the State Papers of ministers who have been extruded and are fomenting rebellion in the county, but they may belong to other parts. Tradition does not seem to speak of any large deprivation in the diocese. Calamy gives the names of eighteen rejected ministers, amongst whom two were tutors in the college erected by Cromwell at Durham. "' Cal. S.P. Dom. 1662, p. 564 ; cf. 1664, p. 577. They never took root in Durham. "° In the accounts, for instance, by Surtees, Hist. Dur. ii. Addenda pp. 389-91, and Canon Ornsby, Surtees Soc. Publ. Iv, p. xx. '"The authorities are the S.P. Dom. for 1663 and l66:[. passim. '" Cal. S.P. Dom. 1663, p. 540 ; see also p. 352. 55 A HISTORY OF DURHAM Even so, and when further danger was at an end, it was admitted that in the bishopric ' things are far out of order, and there is great alteration in the deportment of the people.'*" So much was this the case that in the spring of 1664 a second attempt was feared, so that it was even desired to fortify Raby Castle as a stronghold against the rebels, and ' associations for peace ' were formed in the county.*" It is almost impossible to distribute the guilt, for party names are so loosely used that we cannot discern the actual delinquents. Anabaptists and Quakers are mentioned frequently in the con- temporary accounts, but it is probable that these appellations were given indiscriminately. Mutterings and discontent attributed to persons so called recur at intervals all through the post-Restoration period. The next episode is the working of the Conventicle Acts. The first Act was not so severely pressed as the second. It was passed just before the outbreak of the great plague, which took men's minds off" to other things, and prompted vigilance rather against the entrance of infection than against the gathering of Quakers or Baptists for worship. It called out a stream of charity such as had never yet flowed from the bishopric, every parish more or less sending contributions to the great subscription organized.*^* Whatever proceedings may have been taken under the first Act there is abundant proof of the increase of meetings in the Palatinate. Persons of position were ready to foster them, as at Raby for instance, where Lady Vane aided the fanatical gatherings over which her steward presided.*^' Conventicles multiplied, and admired preachers, such as Blackett the Anabaptist, were eagerly sought.*" So out-of-hand had the Nonconformist cause grown by 1670 that the operation of the more stringent Act was carried out with difficulty. The sectaries were much discouraged by it, but maintained themselves notwith- standing. Indeed it was just at this time that the Durham Quakers were beginning to organize their quarterly meetings over the county.*^' Cosin was not at all inclined to be severe against the Conventiclers, and only pressed the matter at the royal bidding, sending orders through the archdeacons to report all guilty of taking part in conventicles.*" It can scarcely be supposed that Cosin was quite successful in the restoration of his diocese. His energy and strong personal influence, how- ever, must have improved the face of the Church very widely, as Archdeacon Basire with forty years' knowledge of the diocese expressly stated in the funeral sermon. **° His four periodic visitations of the cathedral and diocese "'Cal. S.P. Dom. 1663, pp. 517, 552. "*Ibid. 646. *" The Durham regulations signed by Dean Sudbury and other justices of the peace are given in jlrch. Ael. XV, 18. For the subscriptions see Surtees Soc. Pttbl. Iv, 322-32. *" His name was Cocks. Particulars in Cat. S.P. Dom. 1666-7, p. 428. Note the Congregation of Saints in Newcastle, ibid. 1668-9, p. 72. "' Letter of H. W. [Wm. Haggett], a spy in the northern counties, Ca/. S.P. Dom. 1668-9, pp. 419- 420. For Blackett, see also ibid. 1667-8, p. i 54. His name suggests a connexion with a considerable north- country family. Foxey and Pooley were two other preachers sent over at the time from Germany. *"' J. W. Steel, Ear/y FrienJs in the North, 12, gives 1671 as the date of the establishment of the Durham Quarterly Meeting at Lanchester. On the subject of Quakers in Durham see, too, Jrch. Ael. xvi, 191. "' The bishop was informed in 1670 that the round number of women recusants in the city of Durham was 700. Surtees Soc. Publ. Iv, 237. He seems to suspect its accuracy, ibid, and 242. At Norton, he hears with regret, there are ' many obstinate men and women . . . that will not yet let down their conventicles,' ibid. 243. *™ The sermon was printed in 1673 under the title Ike Dead Man's Real Speech. Text, Heb. xi, 4. Brereton's account of the sumptuous and impressive funeral is worth reading, Cal. S.P. Dom. 167 1—2, pp. 397-8. 56 ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY show that the irregularities of the mother church of the diocese were hard to correct, and it is only reasonable to presume that the infection of Noncon- formist opinions, so widely spread in the diocese, tainted the loyalty and activity of not a few of the incumbents/*^ But the episcopate left a tradition of care and punctiliousness which those that followed Cosin willingly accepted. A glance at the work of the archdeacon of Durham from 1673 to 1677 proves how wholesome, in the main, and how varied was the discipline exercised by this official in his courts.**' In the influence which it exerted the work of Cosin compares very favourably with that of Pilkington, who had a somewhat similar task of restoration before him. The view taken in the text is based upon a general survey of the various references to Nonconformity in the diocese that exist for the period. An incomplete return in the Treasury of Durham which survives for forty-six parishes in the archdeaconry of Durham gives, at first sight, a somewhat different impression. It is dated July, 1669, and is made in reply to interro- gatories furnished by the archdeacon. Few active conventicles are acknowledged, but mention is made of the incursion of strangers from outside the district who hold meetings in various places. These are chiefly Quakers, and Norton is their great rallying point. A conventicle raided at Darlington proved to contain about twenty-four persons. It is expressly stated more than once that few of the Nonconformists are of any special rank. The vicar at Washington returns : There is not one of the viperous brood sojourning among us, neither is there any person (save a few simple and ignorant people of the Romish persuasion) that are dissenters from the divine service of the Church. From my heart, worthy Sir, I wish that all parishes in this flourishing Kingdom was as free from such noisome contagious vermin as this, and then I'm sure both Church and State were happy. It is not possible to reconcile the Durham City (St. Nicholas) return with that given in Surtees Society Publ. vol. Iv, p. 237, and one is inclined to suspect that the return is partial in more than one sense of the word. In the preceding paragraphs the view has been taken that it is almost impossible to discriminate between the various religious bodies of the time, since the references to them in contemporary documents are apt to confound the various sects. A few words, however, may be added as to the early days of the Baptist cause.**^ The Baptists never have been a strong body in the county of Durham, yet there are certain periods in which their history comes out into relief The first local Baptist centre was at Muggleswick in or about the year 1653,*** and, during the years that immediately followed. Major Lilburne of Sunderland, then in command of the troops in Scotland, himself a strong Baptist, may have encouraged the spread of the sect.**^ Lady Liddell, a daughter of the Lady Vane who was active at Raby, patronized the struggling church,**^ and aided Ward, who, as far as Durham is concerned, '" In 1674 Archdeacon Grenville said to the clergy: 'I have looked on it as a very fateful presage since the restoration of our Church Service that the clergy have expressed no more affection to it, especially in this diocese, after so many admonitions "and injunctions of their several ordinaries.' Surtees Soc. Publ. xlvii, 15. *'' Surtees Soc. Publ. xlvii, I ; Introd. pp. xix-xxi. **' An excellent summary of early Baptist history is given in Histor'^ of the Northern Baptist Churches, 1648-1845, by David Douglas. This rare work was brought to the writer's notice by Mr. H. A. Raine, of Durham. "Ubid. 31. '''Ibid. 33. «« Ibid. 64. 2 57 8 A HISTORY OF DURHAM was the real apostle of the Baptists, and continued to lead them on Derwent- side until his death in 17 17.*" But Blackett, already mentioned, was a more important man, and being possessed of some means was able to consolidate the work at Beechburn, his residence near Bishop Auckland, which for some years became the Baptist head quarters in the northern counties, until Ham- sterley succeeded to a position which it maintained for at least a century.*^* It is curious that the first toleration of Nonconformist congregations, though for a brief time, synchronized with the death of Cosin. For a year from the beginning of 1672, royal licences were granted in England to certain ministers.**^ The returns for these indulgences in county Durham show that seven Presbyterians and two Independents applied for licences. There were no Baptist applicants, nor were there any in Northumberland. Of all the counties in England, Westmorland alone supplied fewer instances. Even Rutland had more than Durham. The places in which the licensed ministers were to preach were : — Presbyterian : Bishop Auckland, Brancepeth, Darling- ton, Durham, Lamesley, Stanhope, Sunderland ; hidependejit : Stanhope, Stockton, West Pans near South Shields. After the frequent mention of Nonconformity in the previous years, this paucity of recognized congregations is at first sight remarkable. It is of a piece with what we find in the early eighteenth century,"" and is explained partly by the circumstances of the county which was so largely ' held under the church ' as the people describe their tenure, and partly by the fact that the places represented are just those towns (with the exception of Gateshead) in which, generally speaking. Dis- senters would be likely to congregate. A long interval followed the death of Cosin. A contemporary paper gives the reason for this delay, ascribing it to the king's wish to look into the revenues of the see, and to consider some change of government.*^^ Discredit- able rumours gained currency as to the use made of the revenues,*'^ but nothing came of the proposed alterations save the long demanded concession of parlia- mentary representation which Cromwell had allowed during his supremacy. Of course all palatinate offices and prebends were filled sede vacatite by the king. Some trouble arose between Charles and the chapter, who had ever since the Restoration lamented the king's frequent demand to dispense with the residence of prebendaries who were royal chaplains."^ The vacancy of the see let down somewhat the rigid carefulness which Cosin had tried to effect.*'* Grenville, the archdeacon of Durham, strove by numerous visitations to restore a better standard of clerical life and work. His charges and letters show that licentiousness and even atheism abounded in the county ; that small irregular conventicles did exist ; that the clergy were inclined, in many instances, to make themselves and their office too cheap and contemptible ; "' Douglas, Hist, of the Northern Baptist Churches (1648-1845), 127. *«» See further, ibid. **' An account and summary are given in the Cal. S.P. Dom. for 1673. ''" A rough return for 171 5 is given in Brit. Mus. Add. MSS. 32057. *" 'A successor to Bishop Cosin will not be nominated until the King has issued his commission for governing that county Palatine and revising its revenues,' Ryi/al Hal! MSS. (Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. xii, App. vii), 87. "' Given in Hutchinson, Hist. Dur. i. ■"' Cal. S.P. Dom. 1673, pp. 37-, 397-8,472-3. Dispensations of residence are frequent during the reign, cf. Cal S.P. Dom. 1673-5, p. 286. '^' This was the lament of Archdeacon Grenville, Surtees Soc. Puil xlvii, 15, 16 ; cf ibid, xxxvil, 177. 58 ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY that there was too widespread a neglect of canons and rubrics.*''' Yet the archdeacon was always ready to boast that ' the bishopric of Durham is with- out dispute the most conformable part of England,' and to compliment the clergy on its general condition.*'^ The new bishop was Nathaniel Crewe (i 674-1 722), whose episcopate was destined to be longer than that of any bishop of Durham, and less memor- able than most. In 1697 he succeeded to his father's barony. All through his tenure of office he was more the rich man and the nobleman than the chief pastor of the diocese. He owed his advancement to the duke of York, and was not ashamed to aid the designs of the prince when he became king. He did not absolutely neglect his diocese,*" but his presence in it was chiefly for the purpose of entertaining lavishly at Durham and Auckland. The loss of his register prevents us from tracing his work in the county. In 1680 we get a passing mention of Romanists in the district in connexion with the extra- ordinary Act then proposed for transplanting the more notorious Romanists in different parts of the county. Eighty-one names are given in the county of Durham, a number which is below rather than above the average for other places. In Northumberland 106 were named, and in Newcastle itself eighty- two.*'* In the city of Durham the Roman Catholic cause received considerable impetus in the work of the Jesuit Father Pearson who served a mission which had been established there since 1590. About 1685 Pearson erected a chapel and residence in Old Elvet, and opened a public school or college which drew together a large number of scholars at a time when it was thought that by the action of King James the whole of England would shortly embrace Romanism. So successful were the efforts of Pearson that in 1687, when Leyburn, the vicar-apostolic, visited Durham, 1,024 persons were presented to him for confirmation. Sixteen months later a paralysing blow fell upon the mission when William of Orange entered London. A large mob collected in Durham and made their way to the residence. In a few minutes the chapel was completely destroyed, and the cross was publicly burnt. The houses of the leading Roman Catholic residents were sought out by the excited rioters, who pillaged right and left with apparently very little check laid upon them by the inhabitants. The Jesuit priests had to flee for their lives and seek refuge where they might, as they wandered up and down the country. Pearson, the head of the mission, ventured back again somewhat later, but it is believed that no attempt was made to resusci- tate the pillaged mission in Durham until nearly the end of William's reign. The residence, or missionary district, was served by thirteen Jesuits in Anne's reign, when it comprised Cumberland as well as Durham and Northumberland.*'' *" Surtees Soc. Publ. xlvii, 1 1-24. Grenville as prebendary was frivolous, as archdeacon scrupulous, as dean dignified. For his improvement, ibid, xxxvii, 150-1. His excellent ideals of parish work are contained in many letters and papers, cf. ibid. 42, 43. "* Ibid, xlvii, 23, cf. 15. '" The life written by one of his household credits him with frequent visits to the diocese : ' He was con- stantly in his diocese every year till his sickness in London in 1715-16. His visitations till that time were constantly triennial and his confirmations aniTual ' (CamJen Misc. ix, 33). Of his first visitation it is s.iid : ' My lord made a pompous visitation over his whole diocese. He visited the Dean and Chapter' {Life, 1790, P- 39)- *'' The draft and particulars are given in Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. xi, App. ii, 224-6. "' The facts as to the Durham mission have been put together by the Rev. Canon Brown of St. Cuth- bert's, Durham, who is now in charge of the secular mission which took the place of the Jesuits in 1827. See the ' Story of an Old Mission ' in the Ushata Mag. for 1900. 59 A HISTORY OF DURHAM Grenville was the chief force in the diocese at this time, and when he became dean he was successful in bringing the cathedral services up to the standard which he had often desired/"" He proved an excellent preacher and took pains to attract young men of promise to the diocese, guiding them after ordination and promoting monthly meetings of the clergy. At the cathedral he revived the practice of Lenten sermons, and encouraged the mayor and corporation to attend. He drew tight the reins of discipline too, so far as the officers of the church were concerned, but his hospitality was bountiful and well ordered.''"^ It was in the midst of all this activity that the crisis of his life came. The events of the reign of James II were doubtless followed with keen attention in the north. In 1688 the bishop, who had abetted the king so far, came to the diocese to promote the policy of the indulgence.'"^ The dean was in sympathy with his attitude, but had the courage of his convictions, which the bishop ultimately had not. The declaration was read in the cathedral and in Little St. Mary's in Durham, together with nineteen other churches in the county.'"' The rest of the incumbents could not be moved by the solicitation of bishop or dean. The latter was the one conspicuous instance of refusal to take the oath among the clergy of the diocese. He was vigorous in his Jacobitism, raising a subscrip- tion of ^/Tyoo in which some of the prebendaries joined. The dean fled from Durham when a troop of horse entered it to proclaim William, and refused consistently in his exile to take the oath which was often pressed upon him.'"* No successor was appointed until 1691. Durham was not a non-juring county.'"' Despite the earnest endeavours of the dean to persuade the clergy in his archdeaconry to refuse the oath they were steadfast almost to a man and resisted the pathetic appeal of written leaflets, of sermons in the cathedral, and of visitation charges.'"^ Only eight clergymen in addition to the dean are known to have stood firm against the oath, and of these two saw fit to forgo their scruples.'"^ Some effort was used to propagate disaffection in the county, and papers of libels were sent up by the carriers into the district addressed to persons of position in the bishopric, endeavouring to seduce them from their allegiance.'"* It was even reported in Whitehall that near Sedgefield considerable sums of money were collected on behalf of King James, and there were dim hints that some design was intended.'"' No clerical complicity, however, is proved, and ""' The authority for the statements about Grenville is the two volumes previously quoted, Surt. Soc. Publ. xxxvii and xlvii, with Canon Ornsby's prefaces. "" Surtees Soc. Publ. vol. xxxvii. The directions, ibid. 1 6 1-3, as to the cathedral throw much light on the conduct of its services. "" This has been denied {Camden Misc. ix, 23), but contemporary evidence of the fact will be found in Kenyon MSS. (Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. xiv, App. iv), 189, and Leeds MSS. (ibid. Rep. xi, App. vii), 30. An explicit denial is given by the bishop of Carlisle in May, 1688, who says that the bishop is much annoyed by the report. '" Surtees Soc. Pui>/. xlvii, 147. '"' For the rest of his life spent in exile see the Surtees Society volumes xxxvii and xlvii. '" 'The drum beat for ten days at Durh.im for volunteers, but got none,' 12 Oct. 1688. Rydal Hall MSS. (Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. xii, App. vii), 215. 'The gentlemen of the bishopric of Durham have all signed a petition for a free Parliament,' 13 Dec. 1688, ibid. 228. There is evidence that many Roman Catholics in the district man.iged to evade the oath. ™ Full particulars of these appeals will be found in Surtees Soc. Publ. xlvii, 124, 11-36, 43-59. The letter to his curates is interesting, ibid. 119-27, written from Rouen in 1691. '" They are given, ibid. 127 w. from the appendix to the life of Kettlewell. •»' Cal. S.P. Dom. 1689-90, p. 177. ™ Ibid. 412. 60 ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY almost the only non-juring episode that has come down to us is the action of a Mr. Grey who had been one of Bishop Crewe's chaplains, and turned the coronation sermon into ' a virulent ballad.' "" A few events of some local importance mark the episcopate of Bishop Crewe. Perhaps the most outstanding of these in the history of the county is the erection of Stockton and of Sunderland into distinct parishes, and the building of a new church in either place. At Stockton the borough and township had been situated within the ancient parish of Norton, but with some increase of trade and prestige in the early eighteenth century the inhabitants of the rapidly-growing town desired to separate it from the mother parish, and to erect in place of the old chapel-of-ease built by Bishop Poor in 1234 a new and suitable church. Two Acts of Parliament were accordingly passed, the one in 171 1 and the other in 171 4, which made Stockton, with East Hartburn and Preston, a distinct and independent parish."' The new church was con- secrated in 17 1 2 by Bishop Crewe, and the sermon was preached by Dr. Smith, prebendary of Durham, the most learned Durham man of his generation probably, and long famous for his classic edition of Bede."^ The preacher took occasion to point out that Stockton was setting in the north the same example of church-building zeal which characterized the reign of Queen Anne elsewhere. At Sunderland the like proceedings took effect rather later, in 17 19, when an Act of Parliament was obtained for constituting the ancient township a distinct parish from Bishopwearmouth, with a rectory church of its own, its population at the time being about 6,000. The new church was consecrated by Bishop Robinson of London, the bishop of Dur- ham being now too old and infirm to come frequently to his diocese. At Winlaton, on the Durham side of the Tyne, tradition pointed to the site of an ancient chapel destroyed in the rebellion of the earls in 1569. Sir Ambrose Crowley, who owned extensive lead mines in the neighbour- hood, set an example which has been followed by other employers of labour in the county since then by building on the spot a large chapel-of-ease to accommodate the workmen on the estate."' Elsewhere the excellent fashion "° Cal. S.P. Dom. 1 689-90, p. 308. That some turbulent scenes were enacted would naturally be supposed, and the following extract from a news-letter preserved in the State Papers gives an example : ' Upon Sunday, 23 June 1689, in the parish church of Chester-le-Street, immediately after the Nicene Creed, several persons, according to previous agreement, rushed out of their pews to hinder the minister from going into the pulpit ; and, instead of the psalm which should then have been sung, there was nothing but outcries, according to different affections, some roaring out : Hang him, we'll hear none of him, we'll be revenged ; others : God bless him ; etc. The minister, who was then in the vestry as usual, goes into the choir, where he put a stop to several as they were going out at that door, and called to them to return to their seats and duties. In endeavouring to gain the pulpit he found the whole body of the conspirators drawn up in very formidable order, not suffering him to pass, till they were satisfied why he did not pray. Being unable to gain the pulpit door, though he had made considerable advances, he at last told them that by the present authority none were to be prosecuted till the ist of August next, which reason availed more than the others he had advanced, and the minister at length gained the pulpit. When he was seen there, shouts were raised of: Out ; turn out ; and the congregation rushed out of church, some threatening the minister with their sticks and fists. About three score of sober persons, mostly women, remained in their seats, and the minister proceeded, when about a score of persons returned with their hats on, and proceeded to ring the bells.' [S.P. Dom. William and Mary, vol. 14, No. 2.] '" Interesting particulars are given in jhe gossiping Hist, of Sunderland, written by Brewster, a lecturer of Stockton Church, in 1776. See op. cit. pp. 1 19-126. '" John Smith, 1659-1715, was not the least in the long list of Durham antiquaries. He had been domestic chaplain to Crewe, and by him was appointed in succession rector of Gateshead, and then of Bishop- wearmouth. He supplied Dr. Gibson with the Additions relating to the bishopric of Durham, which were incorporated in the new edition of Camden's Britannia. "^ See Surtees, Hist. Dur. ii, 273, and Richardson's Tdbk Book, i, 337. 61 A HISTORY OF DURHAM of erecting charity schools, which was so characteristic of the period in Lon- don, was copied with effect in the bishopric, in 1701 at Gateshead, in 171 5 at Darhngton, in 17 18 at Durham, and in 172 1 at Stockton."* The last three still exist, after various vicissitudes, and are doing good work. No record exists of the formation of religious societies in the county at this time, though Newcastle had its Society for the Reformation of Manners, founded in 1700 among the keelmen. An excellent charity, still known as the Cor- poration of the Sons of the Clergy, was first established in Newcastle in 1709,"° and took in later the southern end of the diocese. The disciplinary traditions of Archdeacon Grenville, of which some mention has been made, were continued by his successors. In the registry of the archdeacon of Durham an imperfect series of presentments survives dealing chiefly with moral offences, and ranging over the latter part of Crewe's episcopate. The returns give evidence of diligent inquiry at the visitations of the archdeacon with the sentences of penance which seem to have been carefully carried out."* No doubt the registries of archdeacons in other dioceses would, if examined, yield similar results ; but, so far as is known, such an examination has never been systematically carried out. At all events, there is direct proof that during the first forty years of the eighteenth century a system of strict church discipline was in use in the diocese of Durham. With Bishop Talbot (1721—30) commences a series of prelates who were, with the one great exception of Butler, characteristic of the period, and generally merit the appellation of the courtier prelates of Durham. Talbot, in the words of Hutchinson, was magnificent in taste and temper, and, if a liberal patron, was on more than one occasion embarrassed by his generous, perhaps prodigal, inclination. His theology is said to have had something of the Arian tinge which affected the writings of Clarke and others at this time. His sermons, however, do not seem to bear out the assertion,"^ and "' The particulars are given in the Table Book under the years mentioned in the text. "' The society of the Sons of the Clergy was founded in 1 709 in order to help the widows and orphans of the clergy, and such clergymen as might be in need of monetary assistance. It was very scantily supported at first, but as its operations extended it met with some success, and at last, in 1 773, took in the county of Durham as well as Northumberland. "° A large bundle of ' penances ' survives, the form being common to such documents elsewhere, and running as follows : ' A declaration of Penance to be done and performed by is appointed to be present in the parish church of upon some Sunday before the where being in penitential habit, having a white sheet on and a rod in hand, and standing upon some form or other high place immediately after the Nicene Creed in the morning shall with a distinct and audible voice say after the Minister as followeth, to wit : Whereas I, good neighbours, forgetting and neglecting my duty towards Almighty God, and the care I ought to have had of my own soul, have committed the grievous and detestable sin of to the great danger of my own soul and the evil and per- nicious example of all sober Christians offended thereby, I do here in a most penitential and sorrowful man- ner acknowledge and confess my said sin, and am heartily sorry for the same, humbly desiring Almighty God to forgive me both this and all other mine offences, and so to assist me with the grace of His Holy Spirit that I may never commit the like hereafter, saying "Our Father," etc' A note is then added : ' is to certify the performance thereof under the hands of the minister and churchwardens.' The particular document from which the above is copied is endorsed by the parish clergyman : 'October 25, 174.1. Jane Brown this day at the time and in the manner above described made the above declaration of penance.' The same person appends a note : ' Sir, I have at length got one of our Excommunicated persons to perform her penance. If you will be so good as to send me an absolution for her I shall be much obliged, and if you would please also to send me a couple more of the forms of penance that if the others will submit I may have the declaration ready for them you will much oblige.' This note shows that excommunication was sometimes neglected. As the returns, which are scattered over the years 1705-49, are only those of persons who submitted to the sentence, we are without accurate means of ascertaining the total number of those who came under the ban ecclesiastical. '" As bishop of Oxford and Salisbury, successively, Talbot had published various single and collected sermons. After his translation to Durham he published nothing more. See his Twelve Sermons. 62 ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY there is no trace of protest or dissatisfaction in the county at the time of his appointment. Friction there was, but it was due to reasons which touched the men of the bishopric in a more tender part. He got into great difficulty by an attempt to pass through Parliament a Bill ' to enable archbishops, bishops, colleges, deans and chapters, hospitals, parsons, vicars, and others having spiritual promotions, to make leases of their mines, which have not been accustomably letten, not exceeding the term of one-and-twenty years, without taking any fine upon the recovering or granting of the same.' It was construed as an attempt on the bishop's part to divert a great deal of money to the use of his own family, who would naturally prove the chief recipients of the benefit of such leases."* An urgent petition was promoted against the bill, and proved successful. The stigma of the attempt, however, attached to the bishop, who entered the diocese for the first time after the humiliation of his failure. It has been represented that he now brought into the diocese several promising men, on whose friendship and loyalty he might rely in order to counteract his unpopularity. Be that as it may, so far as the motive is concerned, Joseph Butler, promoted to the rectory of Haughton-le- Skerne, was one of those ready to welcome him when he made an unusually impressive"' entry into the diocese in 1723, as also Thomas Rundle, his favourite chaplain, recently appointed to the rectory of Sedgefield, and to a prebend in the cathedral. In 1724 Seeker and Benson were both collated to prebends which were steps to subsequent bishoprics. During the nine years of his episcopate at Durham, Talbot made seven appointments to canonries, two to archdeaconries, and had to fill most of the important benefices in his gift. Of all his appointments none is more interesting than his introduction to the diocese of Butler, his son's college friend, who was destined to do his most important work in a diocese to which he afterwards returned as bishop. Exchanging the rectory of Haughton-le-Skerne for Stanhope in Weardale in 1726, Butler now gave up his preachership at the Rolls Chapel, in London, and devoted himself to the composition of the Analogy which was published in 1736. The first edition of his Sermons appeared in the year that he first went to Stanhope. The bishop's great friend, Rundle, seems to have lived much at Auckland with his patron, and as Stanhope was easily accessible from the Castle, it is probable that Butler was frequently there. Bishop Chandler (1730—50) came to Durham with a great reputation as a successful controversialist in the Deistic disputes which had been long engaging the attention of the more serious thinkers of the day. His chief work appeared in 1725 under the title of A defence of Christianity from the Prophecies of the Old T'estametit, and was intended as a reply to the famous treatise of Collins, Grounds and Reasons of the Christian Religion. No further work, however, came from his pen after his translation to the north,'"" and no trace of contact with Butler survives, although the rector of "' Particulars are given in Hutchinson with the comments of Spearman. "' His appearance at a review was mueh commented on : ' I hope you have seen Thursday's Flying Post, and read the martial equipage in which the Bp. of Durham appeared at the review : "an haec est tunica filii tui ? " But it may be proper for a Palatine or Lord Lieutenant. I think he should be made General of the Ecclesiastics as Peterboro' [Kennett] is of the Marines.' i6 June, 1722, Portland MH. (Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. vii), 328. '™ The brilliant band of clergymen introduced by Talbot were beginning to disappear. Seeker went in 1734, Rundle in 1735, Benson in 1735. 63 A HISTORY OF DURHAM Stanhope continued to reside in Weardale for nearly seven years whilst Chandler was bishop. The only personal touch connected with Chandler is a speech made by him at Quarter Sessions in 1740. A time of great scarcity had led certain traders to buy up all the corn upon which they could lay their hands in order to keep up prices for their own benefit. This drew down upon them a dignified rebuke from the bishop who presided and addressed ^-^ those present upon the importance of enforcing an Act of Edward VI against those guilty of such action. Otherwise the episcopate of Chandler is marked by two matters of importance in which the bishop had no hand. The first is the deepening of that stream of educational and chari- table activity of which there had been some commencement under Crewe and Talbot. Schools were erected in Newcastle and at Easington, and alms- houses were built at Gateshead and elsewhere. '^^ The other is the beginning of the Evangelical Revival which made its appearance fitfully before 1750, but matured after that year. Wesley first passed through the county in 1742 and 1743, on his way to and from Newcastle.^^' At this place he made a very considerable impression, and it is scarcely probable that the zeal which found expression in Newcastle during Chandler's episcopate was confined to Northumberland. Constant communication with the northern city and its enthusiastic societies would inevitably draw into the bishopric itself some influence from a revival which was already stirring so large a part of England. The first recorded work of Wesley in the county of Durham was a sermon at Sunderland in 1743, when he preached in the High Street. 'The tumult subsided in a short time so that I explained without any interruption the one true religion, Righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.' Butler, who had been familiar with the diocese for sixteen years as vicar, returned to Durham as bishop in 175 1. His tenure of the see was brief, and although appointed in 1750 on the death of Chandler, he did not enter the bishopric until nearly a year had passed. In July, 1751, he delivered his famous primary charge, and, it would seem, in Newcastle, not in Durham, as is generally supposed.'^* This historic document, which is almost the only relic of his episcopate in the north, draws a very gloomy picture of the general condition of religion. '^^ ' It is impossible for me, my brethren, upon our first meeting of this kind, to forbear lamenting with you the general decay of religion in this nation.' So he begins, and after pointing out that this is admitted, he proceeds : ' Different ages have been distin- guished by different sorts of particular errors and vices, the deplorable distinction of ours is an avowed scorn of religion in some, and a growing dis- regard of it in the generality.' The picture, of course, is perfectly general and is not intended to be a representation of the state of a diocese which he had left thirteen years before. Indeed, in view of the probably indifferent state of Butler's health at the time, and the somewhat antiquated references "' The speech is preserved in B.M. Add. MSS. 6468, fol. 54, where there is also a contemporary print. The statute referred to is 5 and 6 Edw. VI, against Forestallers, Regrators, and Engrossers. '-' Schools at Easington, Surtees, Hist. Dur. i, 39. Almshouse at Gateshead, Sykes, Local Records, I 738, a useful authority for many events and dates in the northern counties. An act of mob violence directed against a Romanist chapel in Sunderland in 1746 is described in the Gent. Mag. for that year, p. 42. '■' For his early work at Newcastle, see Journ.of the Rev. John IVesley ('Everyman's Library'), i, 373 ; ibid. i, 426. '-' The dates are given in Sykes's Local Rec. and Richardson's Table Book. '" Printed in Buder's Works, first by Bp. Steere, and by later editors. 64 ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY in the charge to other writers and authorities, it is tempting to believe that it was written by him at an earher period and was adapted in the opening hne to the present occasion/-^ He ignores the work of the Wesleyan societies, which in England generally, and in the diocese of Durham in par- ticular, were now in vigorous activity. It is an interesting fact that from a month or so before Butler came to Durham as bishop, until the time of Wesley's death, the great preacher made the county a constant scene of his mission work, and for many years strove to visit the district every other year.^" His first recorded visit to Durham itself was in May, 1751, when he met a few people on his way to Stockton. He came again in 1752 and addressed at Durham 'a quiet stupid congregation,'^"^ whereas at Sunderland he found ' one of the liveliest societies in the north of England.' '^' At Barnard Castle a jostling crowd gathered round him, and in rough horse-play some of the rabble pumped water on the listeners from a fire-engine which they brought up."° It was at this time that the important work of Wesley in Weardale •'*' was begun, which matured rapidly and en- countered many vicissitudes in the years that followed. Bishop Trevor (1752-71) was one of the most amiable of the Durham bishops, and the remembrance of his cliaracter recorded at the time of his death by a Durham friend was long cherished in the diocese. Occupied much with improvements which Butler had only begun, he was not idle in the administration of his diocese, and some fragmentary notices and returns of some of his visitations survive."^ More than one building, as at St. John's, Sunderland, and at Esh, also Parkhurst's Hospital, remains to attest, at all events, some activity at the time. There is, however, no proof of any active sympathy manifested by the bishop for the rapidly deepening volume of the Wesleyan revival in all the chief centres of the county, and also in parts more inaccessible. ^'^ At the beginning of Trevor's episcopate Wesley made a tour of some duration in the county, and at Gateshead drew together on Whit Sunday ' a huge congregation,' for he had already found in the pitmen listeners as sympathetic as those he had known at Kingswood."* He returned to the county in 1755, and again in 1757. On the latter occasion he preached in Durham ' in a pleasant meadow near the river side,' identified not improbably with the Sands below the city.^^^ The congregation was large, and many of them he noticed as wild in appearance. As he crossed the Tees and reached Yarm on his way south he summed up his impressions : ' I find in all these parts a solid serious people quite simple of heart, strangers to various opinions, and seeking only the faith that worketh by love.'^^^ Two prebendaries of some importance were promoted by Bishop Trevor — Dr. William Warburton and Dr. Robert Lowth. The disuse of the "•^ He quoted three or four writers who had lived in the earlier years of the eighteenth century. Butler, in ill-health, left the diocese for Bath a few months after his charge was given. "' See the handy edition of Wesley's "Jouni. in ' Everyman's Library,' 4 vols. »' Ibid, ii, 195. "' Ibid. 225. ™ Ibid. 228. •■" Ibid. ™ Visitation returns for Dur. City 1754^; cf Surtees, Hist. Dur. iv, 165. A visitation of 1770 is referred to in Hutchinson, Hist. Dur. i, 726. For the chapel at Esh, Surtees op. cit. i, 337 ; Sunderland, ibid. 254 ; Parkhurst's Hospital, ibid, iv, 391. "^ Wesley's Journ. "* He says, ' They shame the colliers of Kingswood, flocking from all parts on the week-days as well as the Sundays,' ibid, iii, 211. "^ Ibid, under 4 July, 1757 ; cf ii, 461. "= Ibid, ii, 383. 2 65 9 A HISTORY OF DURHAM famous Durham copes which are said to have been worn in the cathedral according to the terms of the canons of 1604 is ascribed to Warburton/" His residence at Durham was the least productive period of his life, until his promotion to the see of Gloucester. Lowth appears to have written some of his later works either at Sedgefield, where he was rector, or at Durham. In these two eminent men the bishop carried on the tradition of promoting learned divines from without to Durham prebends, but generally speaking the dignified clergy were not at this time conspicuous for learning. There seems to be no means of estimating correctly the general standard of piety and efficiency reached by the contemporary local clergy. Wesley says of South Shields in 1761 : Why is there not here, as in every parish in England, a particular minister who takes care of all their souls ? There is one here who takes charge of all their souls ; what care of them he takes is another question."* It is said that some of them opposed his work, whilst others, as at Whick- ham, were glad for him to address their people.''' One interesting con- temporary proof of a widening interest in clergy and people is the great success which attended a tour made by an ordained Indian to solicit help for work amongst the tribes of the north-west."" The societies founded by Wesley and his helpers in the county of Durham continued to flourish during the episcopate of Egerton (1771-87) and of Thurlow (1787-91). Wesley's own visits were perhaps less frequent, but he came to the north at intervals until 1790. He says of Darlington in 1777, 'I have not lately found so lively a work in any part of England as here.' "^ But his labours were not confined to the towns ; in Weardale the efforts he had made in previous years were now producing a considerable result, and particularly among the children. A tour of 1772 is fully described by him, in which some account of the people of the district is given. He does not seem to have reached the upper parts of Teesdale, but the embrace of his journeyings through the county is prodigious. The last, or almost the last, notice of Wesley's work in the county is as follows : I preached a charity sermon in Monk Wearmouth Church, for the Sunday School, which had already cleared the streets of all the children that used to play there on a Sunday from morning to evening.*''^ The abiding result of the influence of the societies upon the county must have been very considerable, and one proof of its permanence on the material side is to be found in the large number of trust deeds connected with the various Wesleyan societies between 1736 and 1836.'" In the return made from the Close Rolls 63 such deeds are credited to the Methodists, and 37 only to the Church of England."* Other causes, so far as property goes, were not strongly represented during the period named, for the Independents claim 8, the Romanists i, Presbyterians i, the Baptists 5. '" There is at Auckland Castle a MS. account of the prebendaries of Durham in the time of Warburton. For the copes see Low, Diocesan Hist, of Dur. 3 1 4. 638 Wesley's Journ. iii, 60. '" See Low's account (as above), 302. "» Sykes, Local Rec. i, 263. "' Wesley's Journ. iii, +73, &c. •''" Ibid, iv, 504. '" The returns are given in the Dep. Keeper's Rep. xxxii, App. ii. One deed may include various buildings and lands. '" For the further progress of Wesleyanism see below, p. 70. 66 ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY It is curious how little can be recovered as to the period represented by the episcopates of Egerton and Thurlow. The former was one of the most popular of Durham bishops, and if his rule yields few traces of church extension or administrative energy, a picture of the courtly and amiable prelate was handed down, in which he appears as a peacemaker whose delight it was to reconcile contending parties and interests."^ He made him- self popular in the county by his long summer residences and his bountiful hospitality at Auckland. At Durham he recovered something of the lost prestige of the bishops in the city by restoring the charter which had been suspended for some years. A stronger character or a more statesmanlike bishop would in all probability have done incalculable harm at a time when the long Whig ascendancy was breaking up and party politics were absorbing the attention of the gentlemen of the county. It seems to have been feared that the question of Roman Catholic relief and the Gordon riots in 1780 would find more than an echo in the north. Major Floyd was accordingly sent down in that year to test the state of feeling. His report gives an interesting view not only of the groundlessness of the fears referred to, but, so far as the city of Durham is concerned, of the general relations of religious parties. He says, writing from Durham : — All is quiet in the country. Newcastle is only thirteen miles off: a very large place and full of colliers, mightily disposed to be troublesome, but at present they are quiet. They have five companies of the loth Foot among them. Sunderland is a very populous place, thirteen miles from here. A squadron of our regiment is there. All quiet. There are prodigious numbers of Catholics in and about this town [Durham]. The street I lodge in is almost all Catholic. The people of this house, too, are Catholics. This place is very large, but not populous, being prodigiously over-run with clergy, who in all countries take up a great deal more room than they ought, and eat out the industrious and useful. The chief good I know of the clergy here is that they are quiet, and the populace is too inconsiderable to be an object of terror to the Catholics.^*^ The words harmonize with the general impression of respectable religious apathy and dulness which a survey of the bishopric at this time leaves on the mind so far as existing records survive.^" The really energetic religious force was the societies of John Wesley to which reference has been made. The Baptist churches, never considerable though often vigorous, had been passing through a period of stagnation and decay, and were just beginning to revive under the leadership of a minister called Whitfield, who rallied the cause at Hamsterley with much fervour.'*' The Calvinistic controversy which had elsewhere paralysed the progress of the evangelical revival greatly impeded the work of the Baptist community and divided their churches."^ '" See the account given by Hutchinson, Hist. Dur. iii, p. xi. '*' MSS. of the Earl of Pembroke (Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. ix, App. ii), 383. H7 It may be worth while to quote in illustration of the religious conventionalism of the time the follow- ing extract from a private letter dated Newcastle, Nov. 1 760 : ' Mr. Montague is gone to-day to attend Mr. Bowes' funeral, which according to the custom of this country is to be magnificent. There is more pomp at their funerals than weddings.' Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. xiii, App. iii, 140. ^' The account is given in Hist, of the Northern Baptist Churches. In 1740 there was much complaint at the annual meeting of the decrease of piety and of members. Differences between the minister and the people prevailed (p. I 54). Whitfield, a Weardale man, had been a convert of Wesley, but turning Baptist became a real power in his native county and outside Tt in frequent journeys and conferences (pp. 201, 214). He had the reputation of considerable Hebrew learning (p. 264). He died in 1797. "' Ibid. 170. See too the estimate of the condition of religion in and out of the Church of England about 1770. Ibid. 200 : The writer is inclined to minimize the activity of all religious bodies at that time. The Presbyterians, thoroughly Scottish in their affinities, were a prey to the Moderatism which then characterized the Church in Scotland. The Independents were not numerous, and were not remarkable for piety or activity. 67 A HISTORY OF DURHAM It was in Bishop Egerton's time that the dean and chapter of Durham Cathedral ordered a survey of the building. This revealed a condition of such insecurity and rapid decay that repairs were begun in 1776, which pro- ceeded with little intermission for many years to come at considerable annual expense."" The period is otherwise remarkable as having witnessed the last instances of public penance which have been recorded by tradition.'" Bishop Thurlow presided over the see for only four years (1787-91), having won his way to Durham through the good offices of his brother, the Lord Chancellor. He seems to have carried on the easy-going and hospitable traditions of his two predecessors, but nothing that illustrates the church history of his episcopate has been preserved. The one fact that the centenary of the landing of WiUiam III was celebrated in all the large towns of the county without riot or disorder goes to prove that the violence of religious dissension had entirely died out at this time, and testifies to the truth of Major Floyd's observations as quoted above. With Bishop Barrington (1791-1826) we reach a period which some of the oldest inhabitants of the county can just remember. It forms in several ways a connecting link with the still older generation that passed away with the eighteenth century, and a real point of transition from the old to the new. Bishop Barrington came to Durham in the critical days of the French Revolution. His charges reflect the excitement and unrest, both religious and political, which are characteristic of the years that followed. To meet what he considered to be the chief dangers which threatened England in consequence of the Revolution he addressed himself with great assiduity to a vigorous Protestant campaign and to the improvement of the clergy. Son of the first Viscount Barrington, he had inherited his father's strong Protestant feeling. His view was that the doctrines and practices of the Church of Rome were among the chief causes of the Revolution. To this he gave expression in various charges and sermons. At the same time he professed himself willing to grant Romanists ' every degree of toleration short of political power and establishment.' It was also characteristic of one of the most generous of men that he helped the emigrant bishops and clergy of France with money and hospitality. One or two of his tracts on the Roman question became standard treatises in the religious world, where they long maintained their popularity. As to his measures for the improvement of the clergy, he set himself to work to introduce into the diocese men of some prestige and position who might prove an elevating influence upon the rank and file of the clergy throughout the diocese. He brought Archdeacon Paley into the diocese in 1795, and made him rector of Bishopwearmouth, which was then worth at least jCS'S^o ^ 7^^^. Paley's Moral Philosophy, published in 1790, was already a Cambridge text-book, and his Evidences of Christianity was, in all probability, the immediate cause of his preferment by the bishop. Despite ill health in his new home Paley was able to complete his Natural Theology whilst rector of Bishopwearmouth. George Stanley Faber held more than one benefice by Barrington's collation, and '^° From Sykes's Loc. Rec. sub anno. "' The tradition has been preserved in a footnote by Dr. Barmby, Surtees Soc. Publ. xcv, 1 60. Instances of penance in Durham in the reign of Queen Anne and long after are quoted above. A paper in Jrch. Ael. ii, 59, refers incidentally to contemporary change in the cathedral ceremonies on 29 May. For the blowing in of the east window, ibid, vii, 131. 68 ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY began his literary career in the vicarage of Long Newton near Stockton, returning to the diocese under Bishop Van Mildert, who made him master of Sherburn Hospital. Barrington was a munificent patron of Benjamin Kennicott who, at Oxford, was beginning the search for Hebrew MSS. of the Old Testament."^ The younger Kennicott was brought to Sunderland as rector by the bishop. Several prebends at Durham were given to men from other dioceses who afterwards became famous, as, for instance, Bathurst bishop of Norwich, Gray bishop of Bristol, Jenkinson bishop of St. Davids, Phillpotts bishop of Exeter, Sumner archbishop of Canterbury. Others promoted by him were Gaisford, afterwards dean of Christ Church, and, of those who remained long in the diocese to do excellent work in their different ways. Thorp first warden of the university, Gilly a canon and rector at Durham, and Townsend, still remembered for his edition of the Acts and Monuments of Foxe, and other works of a Protestant character. But a more direct influence on the younger clergy of the diocese was exercised by Barrington at the ordination seasons. It is often supposed that at the beginning of the nineteenth century examinations before ordination were a mere form, and that bishops accepted all candidates of competent learning. To Barrington, then, belongs the credit of having anticipated the stricter methods of later days. His charge of 1794 shows, in an appendix, the really well-chosen list of books which the newly-ordained were directed to read, and his exhortations in his various subsequent charges prove how high a standard of really useful theological learning they were expected to reach. He recurs to the subject in nearly every surviving charge. With the bishop's influence upon agriculture we are not here concerned, but mention must be made of the generous liberality which promoted the cause of good learning in the diocese, and still promotes it. The Barrington fund for 'promoting religious and Christian piety in the diocese of Durham' was the outcome of a successful lawsuit which he won on the question of certain leases of lead-mines which had lapsed through neglect. It may have been through emulation of the bishop's benefactions that the dean and chapter of his day set to work to bring the poorer livings in their gift up to ^(^150"' a year, and this task they nearly accomplished before the formation of the Ecclesiastical Commission."* A very different action on the part of the dean and chapter concerns the fabric of the cathedral."^ External restoration had been in progress since 1776, as recorded above, and this consisted chiefly of a process of chipping and paring designed to obliterate the weathering of the stone. Wyatt, of notorious memory, was now called in, and not content with carrying on the same policy dictated still further destruction, which culminated in 1799 with the demolition of the chapter-house. About this time was founded the important Roman Catholic institution known as Ushaw College, the fuller name being St. Cuthbert's College, Ushaw.^^^ Reference has already been made to the permanence of Roman "' See, for instance, his letters in B.M-AdJ. MSS. 35129, No. 492. '" Such is the assertion of Van Mildert in his second charge, 1831, Sermons and Charges, 551. Canon Low in his Diocesan Hist. 316 says ;^300. '" See again below, p. 73. '" Carter's letters written in 1795 on the state of the cathedral fabric will be found in the Gent. Mag. (ist Ser.), Ixxi, 1092 ; Ixxii, 30, I 33, 228, 399, 494. "' For the history see Vshaw College — A Centenary Memorial, 1894. 69 A HISTORY OF DURHAM Catholicism in the county, and to its varying fortunes since the days of EHzabeth. The neighbourhood was a continuous stronghold of the cause, and several of the oldest families in the county are Romanist to this day. A Jesuit Mission had made the district a 'residence' since about 1590, w^ith its head quarters in the city of Durham. The mission continued to work side by side with a secular mission until 1824. In its earliest days the mission had been reinforced from Douai and other seminaries. In 1793 the French Revolution drove away from Douai the English college founded there by Cardinal Allen in 1568. Despite an Act of 1791 which declared it illegal to found any Roman Catholic school or college, it was decided to found a new Douai in the north of England, not only as a nursery for the priesthood, but also as a public school for boys. Settled first for a brief interval at Tudhoe, under the Rev. John Lingard, after- wards famous as an historian and controversialist, and then in 1794 at Crook Hall, ten miles from Durham, the new institution was at length in 1808 transferred to the breezy heights of Ushaw, some four miles from Durham. Here the old Douai manner of life was followed, and is still followed after a century with great fidelity. Since the first establishment at Crook more than 900 priests have been trained in the college, and a large number of laymen, numbering in all over 3,000 who have shared the common life and work of the place have gone out into various walks of life.^^^ Towards the end of Harrington's episcopate a popular religious move- ment of some importance made its appearance in the county of Durham in the shape of Primitive Methodism.'" Like the ordinary Wesleyan Method- ism in all essentials, this new kind of Methodism, which had commenced its career in 1807, differed from it in the great use made of the camp meeting and in the prominence of the lay element in church organization. There can be little doubt that the opportunity which it gave to its humbler members to exercise any gift of prayer or preaching rendered it attractive to the miners of Durham. Its first preachers, Clowes and Branfoot and Laister, entered the bishopric in 1820 and 1821."^ Finding its converts at first amongst the older Wesleyans, the movement soon gathered out in every important town and in some country districts a rapidly-increasing band of adherents.'^" These, in no few instances, were men of the humblest classes, whom the characteristic organ- ization of the society taught not merely religious principles, but social and in- dustrial improvement, as they learnt in their meetings to express their views and to band together for protection.'" The miners of those days were sub- ject to many disadvantages, and by degrees the men themselves formed unions to gain some kind of amelioration of their condition. Certainly a large chapter in the local history of the labour movement is connected with the Primitive "' Nothing perhaps is more eloquent as to the changes that time brings than the fact that several Ushaw students are regularly matriculated undergraduates of the University of Durham, and come to and fro daily in term time to attend lectures under the shadow of the cathedral. ^'^ The story is well told in the Hist, of tie Prim. Met/i. Church, written by Rev. H. B. Kendall, a Durham graduate. '" The exact dates are : Darlington, 1820 ; Sunderland, Weardale, South Shields, 1821 ; and Gateshead rather later. ^ In 1823 a considerable religious revival occurred in Weardale, which had previously been the scene of Wesley's efforts. '*' See Kendall's Hist, ut supra, ii, 186-188. 70 ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY Methodists of Durham. It has been said by the historian of the Northum- berland and Durham miners that the earnest men who have been stigmatised ' Ranters ' have been wforking out the social, intellectual, and moral improvement of the miners, and in this great reform they have been materially assisted by the temperance advocates who have from time to time laboured amongst the miners.'*^ On the death of Bishop Barrington the see was offered by Lord Liver- pool to Bishop Van Mildert, of Llandaff. The appointment was made at a moment when the dignified clergy, and indeed church institutions generally, were beginning to be the objects of a hostile criticism, which increased as the years went on/*'' The announcement was received with mingled feelings — of surprise that Llandaff" should prove a stepping stone to Durham, and elsewhere of satisfaction that the new bishop was an exception to the long list of prelates of distinguished family, and that he had neither sons nor nephews to promote.^** Letters which survive sketch pretty vividly the early months of a bishop new to the county and engrossed by the multitude of engagements of all kinds which awaited him/" The description will stand mutatis muta?idis for an account of the first entrance into the diocese of any bishop of the eighteenth or early nineteenth century. The bishop's primary charge, delivered in 1827, gives expression to the anxiety which all churchmen then felt in regard to the growing disposition to ' wage war with established opinions, chiefly because they are established.' ^** He considered the diocese to be ' in general well conditioned, and its pastors well disposed.' ^" This somewhat optimistic im- pression was rather modified in the next years, so far as the diocesan organiza- tion was concerned. Van Mildert opposed the bill for the Emancipation of Roman Catholics, and beheld its triumph with feelings of considerable misgiving, if not of alarm. ^^^ He did not, however, oppose the repeal of the Corporation and Test Acts, and in such an attitude to the two measures felt that he carried the diocese with him.'*' In 183 1, despite ill-health, the bishop gave his second charge shortly after the rejection of the original Reform Bill. Such a time of political exasperation was not a good opportunity for pastoral work."" He complains of the preoccupation of men's minds with the con- troversies of the day, and also he complains of the animosity and exaggeration which characterized the attack upon the Church. And yet substantial pro- gress had been made in the four years since the former charge : twenty-seven new schools had been added, and eighty-five united to the National Society. Various glebe-houses had been built, and fourteen churches or chapels had been erected, whilst eight others were proposed or in progress."^ Increasing acquaintance with the diocese had displayed a great and increasing want of '" Fynes, The Miners ofNorthumb. and Dur. 282-3 — quoted by Kendall, op. cit. 187-8. A summary sup- posed to have been written by Mr. W. T. Stead in 1875, says, speaking of the early days of the movement : 'The accounts published at the time concerning the results produced by their ministrations among the semi- savage colliers of the North remind us of the glowing narratives of the most successful missionaries.' Ibid. 188. "' Sermons and Charges, 525. '" Dur. County Advertiser, Feb. 1826, quoting current London newspapers. '^^ ' Life ' (by Ives) prefixed to Sermons and Charges, 74-7. ^^ Sermons and Charges, 523. «' Ibid. 81. '«Mbid. 9+. '»'Ibid. 91, 541. "" Ibid. 535. See also a sermon, 279, 'A sort o{ anti-j>astora/ spiih singularly characteristic of modern times continually undermines our best efforts.' '" Ibid. 537. 71 A HISTORY OF DURHAM places of worship, which he proposed to remedy by erecting ' auxiliary chapels similar to those in ancient times called oratories.' Van Mildert hailed with satisfaction Archbishop Howley's bill to em- power deans and chapters, impropriators, and parochial incumbents to make voluntary acts of endowment, which eventually took shape in the Ecclesiastical Commission."^ Tradition ascribes to him the representations to the dean and chapter of Durham which induced them, after much deliberation, to con- template the founding of the university of Durham."' Towards this scheme the bishop himself contributed first ^^1,000 and then ^2,000 a year during his life, in addition to the annexation of prebends to certain professors, and the surrender of Durham Castle, which he had used with a hospitality more lavish than that of any prelate since Egerton."* The institution of the university opened a new chapter in the history of education in the north of England at a time when, as yet, there was no rail- way communication with the south. It had an immediate effect upon the clergy of the north in general, and of Durham in particular, which has not been properly appreciated. The long distance of Durham from the older universities, and perhaps the wilder, bleaker character of the county, had brought it to pass that even when Van Mildert became bishop, men from Oxford and Cambridge were few, so that the clergy were largely non- graduate, and not merely non-graduate, but 'literate persons,' and without very definite preparation. Ten years before he came to Durham the Theological College at St. Bees in Cumberland had been founded in order to train men for the ministry in the diocese of Carlisle and elsewhere. Van Mildert determined to ordain no more literate persons, but to demand some course of training at St. Bees.'" The early archives of that college are too imperfect to enable us to trace its influence upon the diocese of Durham, which was probably considerable. The new university, whose graduates largely sought ordination, though not necessarily in the diocese of Durham, must before long have contributed a regular supply of duly equipped men for the clerical office. The university from its connexion with bishop, dean, and chapter was largely clerical, and of the four bachelors in arts who graduated in 1839 three were at once ordained. In 1846, of 224 M.A.'s on the books, 165 were ordained. Of a staff of twenty-four, all but five were in orders."* The full course in arts and theology, which all were desired to take if possible, occupied five years. Provision was made by various scholarships for those who would probably become clergymen. Thus the Barrington trustees for some years gave scholarships to the sons of clergymen, and a theological scholarship was founded as a memorial to Van Mildert. The subjects of examination in arts comprised, as they always have at Durham, a large amount of theology. '" Sermons and Charges, 550. '" Mr. James Raine, the elder, who was brother-in-law to Dean Peacock of Ely, used to say that the dean took the dean and chapter of Durham to task for being unwilling to make a move, and warned them of the consequence that their recalcitrance would probably bring to all capitular bodies. Evidence of the bishop's part in the matter will be found in the introduction to the early numbers of the Dur. Univ. CaL, also in the speech of the Warden at the first University Convocation in 1839 (^"''- Advertiser, June, 1839). The bishop, of course, made much of the generous action of the chapter, and scarcely mentioned his own part. '■* Sermons and Charges, 77. The letters quoted are now in B.M. Add. MSS. 34589, fol. 248-51. '" See Van Mildert's charge of 1 827, Sermons and Charges, 520. "^ The evidence for the figures given will be found in the Durham University Calendars for the years named. 72 ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY There was, however, no test until the degree was reached, and the test was swept away in 1865. Bishop Van Mildert's last year was troubled by ill-health, and the prospects of radical changes in the church at large, and in the diocese of Durham in particular, which were due to the first report of the Ecclesiastical Commission published in 1835. When the bishop died in February, 1836, the dignities of the see, in the attenuated form which a second report now proposed, were offered to the Whig Bishop Maltby of Chichester (1836-56). The main idea of the second report, so far as Durham was concerned, was to appropriate episcopal and capitular revenues estimated to be in excess of the needs of the diocese itself, and to hand over the ^(^40,000 so accruing to the work of the church in other dioceses. Seldom had the diocese been so much moved. "^ Meetings were held, and petitions flowed in from every consider- able town and village in the old bishopric. A vigorous correspondence in the local journal pointed out that the proposal was radically unjust, since there were in the county of Durham at least eleven benefices below ;^70 a year, twenty-eight under jCioo> sixty under ^^200, and seventy-nine under ^300, and this notwithstanding the effort of bishop, dean, and chapter to improve the value of the poorer livings which had been in progress since the passing of the Augmentation Act of 183 1."' Hard things were said in Parliament of the vast wealth of the diocese compared with the backwardness of the people in religion and in education. To such charges an effective reply was made by producing statistics of what had actually been achieved."* It was pointed out that the Diocesan Society, instituted in 18 12, maintained in a population of 250,000 some 309 schools with an aggregate of 23,428 scholars, and that of the total funds provided by the society nine-tenths were supplied by bishop, dean, and chapter, and the clergy generally. One writer asserted on the strength of such figures compared with government statistics that ' there are more children in proportion to the population under a course of instruction than in any other part of England save Westmorland and Rutland.' ^^° Lord Londonderry was the chief champion of the diocese and its claims in the House of Lords, and strove hard to get a select committee to inquire further into local claims. Whilst this storm was in progress the bill to separate the palatine juris- diction from the bishopric was introduced into Parliament and was carried without special difficulty.*" The diocese was lukewarm to this proposal, and the flood of petitions do not seem to have had it in view. The palatinate power had long ceased to be really popular, and found few defenders. Nevertheless its transfer to the king marked the extinction of one of the most interesting anomalies in English history. Thanks to the petitions, the Act which was passed in August, 1836, to give effect to the reports of the commissioners recognized the intentions of Bishop Van Mildert, and provided for the augmentation of certain benefices '" Tie Dur. Advertiier of 2 5 March, i § 3 6, contains the following extract quoted from the liberal Sunderland Herald. 'We have to call the attention of our readers to the intended appropriation of a considerable pro- portion of the revenues of the See of Durham for the benefit of the poor dioceses. We understand that Dr. Maltby, the new Bishop of Durham, is to have _^8,oo3 per annum, and that the remainder of the large revenue is to be diverted into a channel altogether foreign.' The reference is to the second report. "' See the Dur. Advertiser, I July, 1836. The Augmentation Act is I and 2 Will. IV, cap. 45. "' Ibid. 8 April. '"" Ibid. 6 May. '" See Lapsley, Palatinate of Dur. 204. 2 73 10 A HISTORY OF DURHAM in the diocese."^ The Act swept into the coffers of the permanent com- mission now erected by it all the episcopal revenues in excess of the _^8,ooo assigned to the bishop, and further annexed under the powers given to it the episcopal estates.^*'* The lands and funds of the dean and chapter were untouched for some years to come, until the Act of i 840, which suspended six canonries.^^* Bishop Maltby succeeded to the diminished external prestige of the see without real regret. ' I can no longer,' he said, ' exercise the large hospitality, nor what is more important, the unbounded beneficence which marked the career of my predecessors. ... I relinquish secular power without any regret.' ^^^ His appointment was greatly due to the hopes entertained of the influence so eminent a scholar was likely to exert upon the nascent university, and there can be no doubt that at a time when great pressure was being brought to bear upon government to widen the whole scope of the university and to throw it open to Dissenters, Maltby was able to keep the control of dean and chapter upon it, and he certainly proved a considerable benefactor to it.^^" The more absorbing problem that faced the bishop was the enormous growth of population on the one hand, and on the other the diminished resources of the church. The population of the county proper was 239,256 in 1831, 307,963 in 1841, and the proportion of sittings was decreasing year by year. At the beginning of the century the church provided accommoda- tion for one person in 4*232, but in 1841 only one in 6*268. Church- building did not increase rapidly, though progress was made. It was a sore point with Durham people that the original understanding by which local claims were to receive some satisfaction was not fulfilled. As a result of this injustice church accommodation became more inadequate in the county of Durham and in Northumberland than in any other part of England. Eventually, but not until Bishop Maltby had resigned, a strong effort was made to compel the Ecclesiastical Commissioners to take a proper view of the claims of the diocese."^ This effort was too late to make up for arrears. The rapid multiplication of railways and collieries was filling the county with a huge rough population for whose social and spiritual welfare church machinery was imperative. The numbers had about doubled during the twenty years of Maltby's episcopate. The translation of his successor. Bishop Longley, who had pressed forward the question, left its further solution to Bishop Baring. He inaugurated a new fund which gave an energetic im- pulse to church-building, so that between 1871 and 1881 fifty parishes were added, a record which no decade has exceeded. The mediaeval see of Durham had remained untouched during all the vicissitudes recounted in these pages. It contained, of course, not merely the '" 6 and 7 Will. IV, cap. 77, supplemented as regards this point by an Order in Council dated 21 June, 1837, and a second dated 30 July, 1838. '^ Sect. I, 41, 42 and 54. *" The question was before Parliament for four years, and only received solution in the Act i and 2 Vict. cap. 30. The de.in and chapter had already under the Act of 4 July, 1832 (2 and 3 Will. IV, cap. 19), conveyed to the university certain estates, and in 1841 canonries were assigned by an Order in Council to two professorships, the actual money and securities being handed over to the university in 1842. '*^ Reported in Dur. Advertiser, Sept. 1836. "^ Account of Bishop Maltby, Gent. Mag. 1856 (2). '" The figures and facts as set forth in the text are given in a charge of the Ven. Archdeacon Watkins of Durham in the Diocesan Mag. for Oct. 1884. 74 ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY county of Durham, but the whole of Northumberland, save Hexhamshire, subject to York, and one or two stray districts in Yorkshire and in Cumber- land. North Durham had been stripped from the bishopric, though not from the see, in 1844.^*' Hexhamshire was added to the see in 1836, on the recommendation of the second report of the commissioners, and a new archdeaconry of Lindisfarne was carved out of Northumberland in 1842. A change more momentous than anything that had taken place in the history of the diocese was carried through by Bishop Lightfoot when the division first suggested in the reign of Edward VI was effected/'* This question had been constantly revived, and indeed was especially brought up by the Town Council of Newcastle in 1854, who desired to see it carried out, since 'the effective administration of the diocese had become impossible.' ^*" Dropped for the moment, however, it reappeared despite the objection constantly reiterated that the division would still further lower the prestige of the diocese. The nucleus of the endowment fund was given by Mr. T. Hedley in 1877, and the design was completed in 1881.^" Only second in impor- tance to this diminution of the see was the institution of a new archdeaconry of Auckland, preceded by a rearrangement of rural deaneries. '^^ From time immemorial the archdeaconry of Durham had been co-extensive with the county. ^'^ Partly in it and partly in the rest of the old see was the old peculiar jurisdiction known as the OfHcialty of the Archdeaconry.^'** It consisted of all those parishes which by ancient grant had been placed under the supervision of the prior and later of the dean. This curious exempt jurisdiction, consisting of thirty-nine parishes, was abolished in 1882. The ancient seven rural deaneries in the county were increased to eleven in 1880. '^' Stat. 7 and 8 Vic. cap. 6 1. '*' The whole story is best told by Bishop Lightfoot in his Charge of 1882. "» Ibid. 8. "• Ibid. 10. "' Ibid. 15. '" For its history cf. ibid. 16-19. "' See the Schedule, ibid. 103. 75 A HISTORY OF DURHAM APPENDIX ECCLESIASTICAL DIVISIONS OF THE COUNTT As part of the province of Bernicia, the district which was later to become the county of Durham came under the influence of Celtic Christianity and was included in the see of Lindisfarne, which, co-extensive with the province, was established by Oswald under St. Aidan in 635.^ The work of Archbishop Theodore hardly affected the district,- but after the Danish ravages of the latter part of the ninth century the seat of the great northern see was transferred from Lindisfarne to Chester le Street.' Again, in 995, according to Symeon of Durham,^ in fear of a Danish raid the seat of the see was finally transferred to the newly-founded city of Durham, the self-chosen resting-place of St. Cuthbert's body. From this date until the taxation of Pope Nicholas of 1291 there is nothing to mark the pro- gress of the ecclesiastical organization of the county. The names and limits of the deaneries were fixed by 1291, and although those of the diocese included in the county are not given under a heading as within the archdeaconry of Durham, a footnote to the effect that the church of Easington was appropriated to the archdeacon of Durham proves that the archdeaconry was then in existence.' There were five deaneries in the county, including altogether fifty-seven parishes, viz. : — The Deanery of Durham, including the thirty-five parishes of Billingham, Boldon, Brancepeth, Castle Eden, Dalton le Dale, Durham St. Oswald, Durham St. Nicholas, Easington, Ed- mondbyers, Elwick Hall, Gateshead, Greatham, Hart, Hartlepool (chapel of), Hesleden, Hilton, Houghton, Jarrow, Kelloe, Merrington, Bishop Middleham, Pittington, Ryton, Seaham, Sedgefield, Stanhope, Stranton, Trimdon, Monkwearmouth, Bishopwearmouth, Washington, Whickham, Whitburn, Whitworth, Wolsingham. The Deanery of Auckland," including the parish of Auckland. The Deanery of Lanchester, including the parish of Lanchester. The Deanery of Chester le Street, including the parish of Chester le Street. The Deanery of Darlington, including the twenty parishes of Aycliffe, Cockfield, Coniscliffe, Darlington, Dinsdale, Egglescliffe, Elton, Gainford, Haughton, Heighington, Hurworth, ' Long Newton, Middleton in Teesdale, Middleton St. George, Norton, Redmarshall, Sockburn, Staindrop, Stainton le Street, Winston.' On account of the system of arrangement of the Valor of 1535 as regards Durham, it is some- what difficult to gather clearly what the ecclesiastical divisions of the county were at that date. The parishes belonging in 1 291 to the deanery of Durham are not grouped under the deanery, which is nowhere mentioned, while under the archdeaconry of Durham only the two churches Easington and Houghton, appropriated to the archdeacon, are given. The constitution of the three deaneries of Chester le Street, Auckland, and Darlington had considerably changed since 1 29 1. Several parishes belonging to the deanery of Durham had been added to each, in several cases the rectory being attached to one deanery, the vicarage to another. ' See ante, p. 2. ' Stubbs, Const. Hist, i, 246. ' See ante, pp. 5-6. * Symeon of Durham, Opera (Rolls Ser.), i, 78-83. ' The archdeaconry of Northumberland, including that part of the diocese without the county of Durham, is given {Pope Nick. Tax. (Rec. Com.) 316-17), and in all probability both archdeaconries date from the general foundation of territorial archdeaconries after the Conquest (See Stubbs, Const. Hist, i, 255, «). At any rate, the archdeaconry of Durham existed before 131 1 ; See Reg. Palat. Dunelm. (Rolls Ser.), i, 12. * The heading under the taxation of 129 1 is ' Porciones de Aukland,' and the last entry in the group is ' Vicar Ecclesie de Aucland,' to which a note is added, ' ' Q ' dicitur Decanu' Aukelan' ' ; Pope Nich. Tax. (Rec. Com.), 315. Again, in the 'Nova Taxatio ' made in 13 17-18, under a similar heading, 'Porciones de Aukland,' comes 'Decanatus de Aukland tax. etc' (ibid. p. 329-330), clearly proving the existence of the deanery. The same evidence applies to the existence of the deaneries of Lanchester and Chester le Street. The three deaneries were undoubtedly in existence before 1 3 1 1 , and are constantly referred to in Kellawe's Register ; See Reg. Palat. Dunelm. (Rolls Ser.), i, 3, 21, 107, &c. ' Pope Nich. Tax. (Rec. Com.), 315. 76 < < (J H < bJ U O UJ L , ^ •0 ^' ■n >o << 0 ^ -^ u to X 1/i o ^ o < ^ (0 Q o u "90 ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY Lanchester Deanery remained unchanged. The Deanery of Chester le Street now included the seventeen parishes of Boldon, Brancepeth, Chester le Street, Durham North Bailey, Durham South Bailey, Edmondbyers, Gateshead, Kimblesworth, Ryton, Stanhope, Washington, Bishopwearmouth, Whickham, Whitburn, Witton, Wolsingham. The Deanery of Auckland included the eleven parishes of Auckland, AyclifFe, Billingham (rectory), Gainford (rectory), Grindon, Hart and Hartlepool (rectory), Heighington (rectory), Merrington, Middleton in Teesdale, Seaham (rectory), Sedgefield. The Deanery of Darlington included the parishes of Bishopton, Cockfield, ConisclifFe, Darlington, Dinsdale, EgglesclifFe, Elton, Elwick Hall, Gainford (vicarage), Houghton, Hur- worth. Bishop Middleham, Middleton St. George, Norton, Redmarshall, Sockburn, Staindrop, Stainton le Street, Stranton, Winston. In 1882 under the Act of 1878 the diocese of Durham was reconstituted, and being narrowed down to include only the county of Durham, with part of the parish of Sockburn (Yorkshire), was divided into the two archdeaconries of Durham and Auckland. The Archdeaconry of Durham consists of eight deaneries as follows : — Jarrow, containing 23 parishes ; Chester le Street, containing 20; Gateshead, containing 15 ; Durham, containing 17 ; Houghton le Spring, containing 15 ; Wearmouth, containing 26 ; Easington, containing 20 ; Lanchester, containing 13. The Archdeaconry of Auckland consists of five deaneries, namely : — Auckland, containing 23 parishes; Stanhope, containing 16; Darlington, containing 28; Stockton, containing 16; Hartlepool, containing 15. 77 THE RELIGIOUS HOUSES OF DURHAM INTRODUCTION The great religious work carried on in the district now known as the county of Durham during the seventh and eighth centuries under the guidance of St. Aidan and his followers centred itself in the Saxon monas- teries at Wearmouth and Jarrow, and in the smaller foundations of St. Hieu and St. Hilda. These were the homes, not only of religion, but also of culture and civilization, and their history so far as it is known is full of interest. They were, however, almost completely swept away by the Danes in their repeated invasions, and for some two hundred and fifty years the monastic life almost ceased to exist in co. Durham, It was revived in 1073 by Aldwin, the Benedictine prior of Winch- combe ; and ten years later the great Benedictine abbey of St. Cuthbert was founded at Durham. Thenceforward that house dominated the entire bishopric. As early as 1239 the Franciscans penetrated to Durham, but they never attained to any degree of power or importance either there or at Hartlepool. An attempt made at the end of the twelfth century to introduce the Austin Canons resulted merely in the endowment of a cell to Durham at Finchale ; and it is doubtful whether the Austin Friars ever obtained a footing in the bishopric at all. Traces of the Dominicans are few and uncertain. The only independent houses that really flourished were the small Benedictine nunnery at Neasham, and the great hospitals under the bishop's immediate control. These latter were, considering the size of the county, very numerous, and some of them were wealthy. The enormous power and influence exercised by the monks of Durham were no doubt largely due, at all events in the first instance, to their possession of the remains of so eminent a saint as Cuthbert. As time went on this effect might very possibly have worn off, had it not been for the curious, or as it was then thought miraculous, preservation of the revered relics. When after intervals of many years, sometimes even of centuries, the coffin was opened and the saint's body discovered to be still intact, the impression of his unusual sanctity was naturally deepened ; and awe-struck worshippers hastened to pour their gifts at his shrine. So it came about that the temporal power of the monks increased until their possessions rivalled even those of the great prince-bishops themselves. It must, however, be said to their credit that they do not appear to have become nearly so worldly as the religious of some less famous houses ; and their worst enemies found very few charges to bring against them as to their life and character. 78 RELIGIOUS HOUSES The behaviour of the members of the collegiate churches was far less satisfactory. In spite of vigorous efforts at reformation on the part of Bishop Kellaw in the early fourteenth century, and of Bishop Langley a hundred years later, the canons neglected their duties, both spiritual and temporal, to a disgraceful extent. This was probably due to the fact that they were pluralists on a large scale, many of them holding five, six, or even ten ecclesiastical preferments in various parts of England. A striking feature of religious life in the county of Durham was the number of hermits, notably in the fourteenth century, who found a home there. At first, no doubt, their existence was wild and solitary enough ; but after a time it became a much more formal matter, and persons were admitted to the profession of an anchoret, and collated to their hermitages, just as in the case of any other order. In the time of Bishop Bek the Templars held lands, rents, &c., in Barnard Castle and Summerhouse, besides various places in the bishopric, but not in the county of Durham.^ In 1313 the pope directed an inquiry to be made as to what lands the Knights Hospitallers held in the Northern Pro- vince. The bishop of Durham replied that in his diocese they had nothing but the house of Chibburn in Northumberland.^ The pope then commanded the bishop to hand over to the Hospitallers all possessions whatsoever lately belonging to the then dissolved order of the Templars in his diocese.' Durham was rich in historians ; Bede, Simeon, Reginald, Geoffrey of Coldingham, Robert of Graystanes, and William Chambre, were all inmates of one or other of her religious houses. SAXON MONASTERIES THE MONASTERY HARTLEPOOL OF The ancient monastery at Hartlepool was founded about a.d. 640 by Hieu, a native of Ireland, under the auspices of St. Aidan. Hieu was the first of the saintly female recluses of Northumbria,' and the first also of the specially gifted women whom St. Aidan placed in charge of double religious houses for men and women.^ Nothing is known of her parentage, but her ability as organizer and administrator is vouched for by St. Aidan's selection.' After ruling the new monastery for a few years Hieu* retired in 649 to Tadcaster, and was succeeded by Hilda,^ who, under the direc- ' Reg. Palat. Dun. (Rolls Ser.), ii, 857-8. >Ibid. i, 387, 389. ' Close, 7 Edw. II, m. i6 Sched. This order was repeated in 1324 ; Close, 17 Edw. II, m. 7, 4. ' Bede, Hist. Eccks. lib. iv, c. 23. ''Arch. Aeliana, xix, 47. ' Ib'rd. * Hieu has frequently been confused, by Leland {Coll. iii, 39) and subsequent writers, with S. Bega •or Begu ; but there are strong reasons for thinking that they were distinct persons ; see Arch. Aeliana, avii, 202, note. 'Bede, Hist. Eccles. lib. iv, c. 23. tion of Aidan and other learned men, established a regular and orderly monastic life at Hartlepool (Heorthu).' It seems probable that she had under her rule men as well as women ; Bede speaks of male students in the monasteries of the Abbess Hilda,' and on the tombstones in the little cemetery of Hartlepool Monastery, which were excavated early in the nineteenth century, some names of men were found.* In 655 King Oswi, in fulfilment of a vow made before the battle in which he defeated Penda, gave his daughter Elfleda, who had barely completed her first year,' to be conse- crated to God in perpetual virginity,^" and sent her to Hartlepool to the care of Hilda. Two years later (a.d. 657 or 658) Hilda, by Aidan's desire," went south to found the house afterwards so renowned as Whitby Abbey, and took Elfleda with her.^" ^ Ibid. ' Ibid. ^Journ. of Brit. Arch. Assoc, i, 185; V.C.H. Dur. i, 212. 'In Vitae Sanctorum it is stated that Elfleda was born in 654 and died in 713. '» Bede, Hist. Eccks. lib. ii'i, c. 24. " Matt. Paris, Chron. Ulb. '' Pat. 10 Edw. II, pt. I, m. 11. *° Pat. 14 Edw. II, pt. I, m. 4. *' Mickleton MS. No. 32. '•'' Close, 22 Edw. Ill, pt. 2, m. 5 d. ^ Dur. Epis. Reg. Hatfield, fol. 130. " Hunter's MSS. ; Surt. Hist. Dur. iv (2), 65. ^ Dur. inlls (Surt. Soc), 66 n. ; Hunter's MSS. «« Mickleton MS. No. 32. ^' Dur. Treas. Reg. iii, fol. 241. *' Sciipt. Tres. (Surt. Soc), App. ccxlviii. '' Hunter's MSS. "Mickleton MS. No. 32. " Dur. Epis. Reg. Fox, fol. 1 3. " Surt. Hist. Dur. iv (2), 65. " Hunter's MS. ■* Ibid. " Mickleton MS. No. 32. 113 15 A HISTORY OF DURHAM century) bears the crossof St. Cuthbert, with the legend — SIGILLU • SANCTI * EGIDII * DUNELMIE ; the other a cross with two arms, and the words — SIGILLUM • SANCTI ' EGIDIl/* 17. THE HOSPITAL OF ST. MARY MAGDALEN, WITTON GILBERT This hospital was founded by Gilbert de la Ley, lord of Witton (c 1154-80), who granted to the almoner of Durham 60 acres of arable land in Witton field, a rent of 30^., free mul- ture, and common of pasture for the support of five lepers therein. On the death of any inmate the almoner was to appoint another sufferer to fill the vacant place." This grant was subse- quently confirmed by Philip son of Gilbert, and in 135 1 by Philip's granddaughter {sic) and her husband.'^ There exists an undated list of the names of the brethren and sisters of the house at Witton, with particulars of their allowances. The names are as follows : — John Stele ; John Binchester, chaplain ; John Marshall ; John Short ; Jane Partrike ; Jane Wharram ; Alice Waynfleet, and Margaret Lesshmaker. The brothers had for their corrodies one bushel of wheat every three weeks ; /^.s., pro nami'n suis, at Christmas ; and for 'soul silver' 81. 8d. per annum. Those brethren who lived in the house had two chalders •of coal for fuel. The sisters had a similar supply •of wheat and coal, and in addition four oxen were divided amongst them, and they each had 200 red herrings.'^ They also received is. for 'egg silver' ; and two whole loaves 'at the cove' ■every week.*** Apparently the hospital was no longer in existence at the time of the dissolution.^^ 18. THE HOSPITAL OF BATHEL The first mention of this hospital occurs in the life of St. Godric.^ A certain widow had a daughter who was a leper, and in her distress she appealed to the priest of their town, Halie- " Jrci. Aeliana (New Ser.), ii, 56. " Chart, ex Orig. zb. Spec. " Ch.irt. Surt. Hist. Dm: ii, 370. " Surtees thought there must have been some clerical error here, as it was unlikely that the provision for the women should exceed in quantity that for the men. ^ Surt. Hist. Dur. ii, 370. " In Hunter's MSS. No. 37, occurs the following list ; ' Fratres et Sorores Hospitalls Sti. Petri juxta Witton, 1532.' The names of 1 3 men and 1 2 women are given. Some are described as ' de Maison Dieu,' and some as being in the infirmary. The above dedi- cation is probably a mistake, as there is apparently no mention elsewhere of a hospital of St. Peter. ' Vita Sti. Godrici (Surt. Soc), 456-7. tune [? = Haughton-le-Skerne], for advice and help. He procured the admission of the daugh- ter into a hospital at Darlington, which was ;Iy thr iles away. and was called ' Badele.' The treatment there, if any were tried, does not seem to have been successful, for the sufferer remained for three years in the in- firmary, growing steadily worse, and was finally cured by a miracle.^ For nearly two hundred years there is no further mention of the hospital, though the names ' Bathela,' ^ ' Bathelgate,' ^ ' Bathley,' ^ and ' Bathel,' ' occur under Blackwell near Darlington in Boldon Book in 11 83, and Hatfield's Survey, c. 1377. In these entries there is no mention of any building, but only of land, herbage, and pasture. In February, 1 340- 1, we find the collation of Hugh de Picton, chaplain, to the chantry of Bathelspital, near Darlington, vacant by the death of William de Haltwhistle, and in the bishop's collation.' In July, 1362, William of Brantingham was collated to the hospital of Bathel, vacant by the death of 'Dominus Wade,' the late priest.* Then follows another long gap in the history, but in 1 41 8-1 9 begins the series of appoint- ments given below : — John Ukerby, chantry priest of Darlington manor, master and warden of the hospital of Bathel, d. I4i8(r)^ Roger Wakerlein, collated 6 January, 141 8-1 9, p.m. J. Ukerby i» Richard [Gardener], rector of Dinsdale, ex- changed with R.Wakerlein, 24 December,! 41 9 '^ Bernard Warde, vicar of Coniscliffe, exchanged with R. Gardener, 18 March, 1420-1 " Robert Bett, al. Grissemere, priest, collated 16 May, 1422, p.m. B. Warde." Resigned 9 September, 1422 '■* Stephen Austell, resigned 15 April, 1433 ^^ William Blomeley, collated 4 October, 1437, p.r. S. Austell i« After this all trace of the hospital seems lost, unless it be the house of which Leland speaks as ' a priory not far from Darlington, as I remem- ber about Tees River.' " Bathel appears to have ' Ibid. The editor of this volume says [p. 456, note] ' that of this Hospital no other notice exists ' ; but there seems no reason to doubt that the hospital men- tioned so frequently in the Episcopal Registers is the same. (See below.) \Bo/don Bk. (Surt. Soc), 17. ' Hatf. Surv. (Surt. Soc), 3. 'Ibid. II. Mbid. 13. ' Reg. Palat. Dun. (Rolls Ser.), iii, 378. ' Dur. Epis. Reg. Hatfield, fol. 128. ° Ibid. Langley, fol. 1 04. ■o Ibid. " Ibid. fols. 105, 272. '» Ibid. fol. 107. " Ibid. fol. 112. " Ibid. fol. 113. " Ibid. fol. 204. " Ibid. fol. 252. " I tin. (2nd ed.), vii, 50. 114 RELIGIOUS HOUSES been situated somewhere between Darlington and the Tees, but it seems unlikely that it should be styled a priory. 19. THE HOSPITAL OF SS. LAZARUS, MARTHA, AND MARY, SHERBURN Sherburn Hospital was founded in or about 1 181 by Bishop Pudsey, who dedicated it to Christ, the Blessed Virgin, Lazarus, Martha, and Mary.^ It was built for the reception and entertainment of sixty-five poor lepers, men and women, with a master and three priests. Of these priests two were to officiate at the altar of St. Mary Magdalen, and the third to sing mass in the chapel of St. Nicholas, which adjoined the building occupied by the sisters on the south side. The original endowment comprised the vill, mill, and pasture of Sherburn ; Ebchester, 'the place of anchorets upon the Derwent,' for feed- ing animals for the use of sick brethren, and I carucate of land there for their shepherds ; 9 oxgangs in Witton ; the vill of Garmonds- way ; i carucate called Raceby ; a carucate and an oxgang in Sheraton ; and the churches of Kelloe, Grindon, Sockburn, Ebchester, and Bishopton.^ Subsequent grants included lands in South Sherburn,' a messuage in Ebchester,* free warren in Sherburn, Whitwell, Garmonds- way, and Ebchester,^ and other small holdings. Little is known of the hospital during the thirteenth century. About the middle of that period died Martin of St. Cross, master of Sher- burn, a wealthy and important personage. In his will he provided for his burial at Sherburn, should his death take place there ; and in that case he bequeathed some vestments to the hos- pital. He also left to it some books, including his Argenteui Textus (i.e. probably a copy of the New Testament written in silver characters), and a pittance of ioj. each to the inmates of any religious house where he might die.^ Pre- sumably his death occurred at Sherburn, as the brethren and sisters received an annual pittance on Holy Cross Day in memory of him, though the amount was reduced by Bishop Kellaw to 5^. ^d. Bishop Kellaw (r. 1316) confirmed and ' After the Reformation it was always called ' Christ's Hospital, Sherburn,' or simply ' Sherburn House.' In Reg. Palat. Dun. (Rolls Ser.), ii, 1224, Pat. 10 Edw. II, pt. I, and elsewhere, it is spoken of as the ' Hospital of S. Mary Magdalene of Sherburn' ; the mistake may have arisen from a confusion between Mary Magdalen and Mary of Bethany, or from the fact that there was an altar of St. Mary Magdalen in the hospital. ' Allan, Collections relating to Sherburn. ' Ibid. * Reg. Palat. Dun. ii, 1289. ' Allan, Coll. ' If'ills and Invent. (Surt. Soc), i, 8. enlarged the original constitutions of Bishop Pudsey. He built a new chapel, dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, on the north of the old chapel, and added a fourth priest, who sang mass daily, somewhat later than the usual service, for those brethren who were too infirm to rise and hear mattins. On Sundays and festivals high mass was cele- brated in the principal chapel for the lepers of both sexes, who entered at their respective sides of the chapel in procession, preceded by their prior and prioress, and after service departed again within the veil of separation.' The lepers were liberally supplied with food, clothing, and firing ; but, considering that the inmates were all more or less afflicted, the dis- cipline of the house was somewhat severe. In case of disobedience the prior was to chastise the offender with a rod ; should that prove ineffectual, he was to be kept on bread and water ; and if still contumacious to be expelled from the com- munity.' During Advent and Lent all the brethren were required to receive corporal dis- cipline in the chapel three days in the week ; and the sisters in like manner in the presence of their prioress donee omnes vapulent? A place in the hospital was nevertheless regarded as a thing to be coveted ; Edward II asked the bishop as a favour to admit Joan widow of John Chamber, by way of showing his gratitude for the good service of her late husband against the Scots.i" In 1378 Bishop Hatfield issued a commission to the priors of Durham and Finchale to visit the hospital,^' but no returns of this visitation exist. Apparently at this time the house was falling into decay, for in September, 1429, when Bishop Langley's chancellor visited it, it was in such a destitute and miserable condition that the bishop applied to Pope Eugene IV for help.'^ The pope readily granted him a faculty to make new rules and ordinances, which he accord- ingly issued on 22 July, 1434. He appointed a priest as master, to have under him four chap- lains, four clerks or singing-men, and two boy- choristers. Two lepers, if so many could he found^ were to be maintained apart by themselves, and thirteen poor men were to be fed and clothed, to mess and lodge in the same house, and to attend mass daily. On the death of any brother the master was to choose a successor within fifteen days or forfeit a mark to the fabric of Durham Cathedral. A sober woman-servant was to attend on the brethren at the master's expense to wash their linen and do other offices. The master was made responsible for the goods and ' Surt. Hist. Dur. i (2), 128. * Reg. ii, Eccles. Dun. fol. 324. ' Surt. Hist. Dur. i (2), 128. "' Close, 12 Edw. II, m. z-] d. " Dur. Epis. Reg. Hatfield, fol. I40 Ibid. " Ibid. " Dugdale, Mon. Angl (ed. 1846), vi, 668. " Ibid. " Ibid. '"■ Ibid. " H. A. Mitton, Account of Christ's Hispital, p. 10. " Dugdale, Mon. Angl. (ed. 1846), vi, 668. " Ibid. '' Ibid. ™ Ibid. " H. A. Mitton, ut supra, p. 18. *' Engraved on title-page of Allan's Coll. "^ Orig. Chart, in the vestry at Gateshead. celebrate and to maintain three poor men to pray for the soul of the donor ;*^ and by an un- dated charter Baldwin-with-the-head gave to Gerard son of Geve, steward of the hospital, seventeen acres in the south part of his field called Alrisburne, reserving a rent of id. towards the repair of Tyne Bridge. ^^ The house seems to have been poor and un- important, and in 1248 it had sunk so low that the inmates could afford to live neither a religious nor a secular life. Bishop Farnham in conse- quence of this united it with his new hospital of St. Edmund the Confessor.*^ 21. THE HOSPITAL OF ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST, BARNARD CASTLE This hospital is said to have been founded in or about the year 1230 by the elder John Baliol, but the evidence is imperfect.^ It was dedicated to the honour of St. John the Baptist, and was occupied by three poor women who received a pension in money and coals to pray for the soul of the founder." Surtees describes the house as ' a low thatched building, containing one room only, called the bedehouse.'^ In the fifteenth century, however, it possessed a church of its own, for in 1497 the pope granted an indulgence of a hundred days to all who attended ' the church of the said hospital ' on the feasts of the nativity and beheading of its patron saint. This was done to aid the funds of the house, which were low at the time.'' The Valor Ecclesiasticus of 1536 gives the clear value of the hospital as /^5 95. 4^. The list of its possessions at that time includes the site and house ; land called Septem (or Sewinge) Flatts and a cottage ; lands, pasture, &c. in Selby [Seleby] ; rents in Hullerbush [Hullerbuske] and Ovington ; a pension of ^i 6j. id. from Rievaulx Abbey ; and tithes from the mills of Barnard Castle, Gainford, and Bywell. The particulars given in the Commissioners' Report in 1594 agree in the main with the above, the pension of j^ i 6j. %d. being then paid from the revenues of the dissolved abbey of Rievaulx. The sole event in the pre-Reformation history of the hospital is a robbery of certain of its goods which took place in 1355, and was punished *' Madox, Formul. Angl. 58. *' Brand, Hin. Newcastle, i, 464-5. ^ Orig. Chart, in Aug. Oft'., printed by Brand, Hist. Newcastle. ' Surt. Hist. Dur, iv (i), 80 ; see Hutchinson, Hist. Dur. iii, 237. ' Surt. ut supra ; see Arch. Aeliana (New Ser.), vi, 45. ^ Hist. Dur. Iv (i), 80. * Indulgence, printed by Surt. Hist. Dur. iv (l), 12 1; possibly this church may be identified with the ' Bedekirk,' an old deserted chapel which stands at the head of Gallowgate, and the history of which is unknown. 17 A HISTORY OF DURHAM by the excommunication of the unknown marauders.' Being a lay foundation (though the master was always supposed to be in holy orders)/ the hospital continued to exist after the dissolution, and the patronage fell into the hands of the sovereign, as appendent to the manor of Barnard Castle.' In 1866 the property was put into the hands of trustees, and the hospital is now incor- porated with the North Eastern County School.' Masters of Barnard Castle Hospital John de Mortham, d. or res. 1304' John de Horton, app. 1 304 John de Harewood, occ. April, 1355 ^^ Christopher Hilton, occ. 1497 " Richard Leigh, occ. 1536,'^ 21 March, 1557-8;" d.c. 1562" Edmund Treasurer, c. 1562 ^' Christopher Jackson, app. by the Lord Chan- cellor, 17 December, 1596'* John Chapman, occ. 1689^'' Peter Ferron, occ. 1705 ^' Rev. E. Browell, D.D., occ. 15 July, 1756" Rev. A. Wood, M.A., app. 3 August, 1763-" Rev. W. Lipscomb, app. 1783, d. 1842^^ Rev. y. Davidson, app. 1842, d. 1847" Rev. G. Dugard, app. 1847, d. 1865=' 22. THE HOSPITAL OF ST. EDMUND, BISHOP AND CONFESSOR, GATES- HEAD This chapel or hospital was founded by Bishop Farnham in or about 1248, and was dedicated to the honour of St. Edmund, bishop and con- fessor, and St. Cuthbert. The establishment consisted of a master and three other priests, whose duties were simply to celebrate the divine offices and to pray for the soul of the founder, his predecessors, and his successors. Each of the subordinate chaplains was to receive from the master the sum of 20j. yearly. The bishop en- dowed his new foundation, which was almost invariably called the chapel of St. Edmund, with the vill of Ulkistan, the old lordship of Gates- ' Dur. Epls. Reg. Hatfield, fol. 62. * Jtri. Jeliana (New Ser.), vi, 45. ' Ibid. * Char. Com. Rep. 190Z. ° This and the following name are given from in- formation kindly supplied by E. Wells, esq. "> Dur. Epis. Reg. Hatfield, fol. 62. " Surt. Hist. Dur. iv (l), 1 2 1. " Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.) " WUh and Invent. (Surt. Soc), i, 160. " Arch. Aeliana (New Ser.), vi, 46. " Ibid. " Dugdale, Mon. Angl. (ed. 1846), vi, 760. " Char. Com. Rep. 1902, p. 2. " Ibid. " MS. Allan, 6, 2. »» Ibid. " Char. Com. Rep. ut supra. ^ Ibid. " Ibid. head, Benchelm Wood which contained 43 acres,, and 29 acres of land in ' Alluresacyres ' ; in lieu of all which he granted certain other lands to- the church of Durham.^ He also united with it the chapel or hospital of the Holy Trinity, Gateshead, which had fallen into great poverty."' The bishop of Durham for the time being was to be patron of St. Edmund's.' By an undated charter, probably of the early fourteenth century, John of the Kitchen [de Coquina], burgess of Gateshead, gave land to the hospital ;* and in 13 16 was proved the will of John of the Kitchen, chaplain (possibly the same person), by which he left an annual rent of half-a-mark to ' the house of the Holy Trinity and St. Edmund the Confessor." In the Nova Taxatio of the temporal and spiritual goods of the Durham clergy in the four- teenth century the temporalities of the ' Hospital of St. Edmund the Archbishop' were valued at 5 marks.^ Martin of St. Cross, master of Sherburn, whose will is dated November, 1259, bequeathed some vestments to St. Edmund's Chapel ; ' and other benefactors must have followed his example, for in February, 1325-6, the hospital possessed two gold chalices and a goodly store of vestments and books, some of the best of which were gifts from John of Denton, late master. The inventory which was taken after his death shows that the buildings of the hospital included a chapel, hall, kitchen, &c., and that the brethren owned oxen and other live stock, and had, besides a good supply of corn in the granary, 72 acres of land sown with wheat. There is no hint of any accommodation for poor or sick persons.* In addition to the goods of the house the late master's executors delivered up to his successor, Roland de Jorz, bishop of Armagh, 'a certain writing of the ordination of the chapel of St. Edmund.' 9 There was in the hospital as early as 1382 '* a chantry of the Holy Trinity, which was still in existence in 1430.^^ It may have been a relic of the incorporated hospital of the Holy Trinity. ' Found. Chart. Bourne, Hist. 'Newcastle, 1 69 ; Ordinatio, ibid. 170. ' See above, Hosp. Holy Trinity. ^ Ordinatio, Bourne, Hist. Nezvcastle, I 70. ' Chart, printed, Brand, Hist. Newcastle, i, 469 ». ' Ibid. 470 n. From an old deed, then in Brand's possession. ' Ibid. 469 n. From an MS. in the Exchequer. Brand says that in the Taxatio of 1292 the temporali- ties of ' the Hospital of Gateshead ' were valued at j^i8 ; but this may possibly refer to the Hospital of St. Edmund the King, q.v. ' IVilh and Invent. (Surt. Soc), i, 7. ' Amongst other household stores are mentioned two ' nappae ' [? tablecloths] for the hoys. ^ Reg. Pa/at. Dun. (Rolls Ser.), iii, 83. '» Hatf. Surv. (Surt. Soc), 88. " Randall's MSS. Brand, Hist. Neurast/e, i, 471 n. 118 RELIGIOUS HOUSES In May, 1378, Bishop Hatfield issued to the priors of Durham and Finchale a commission to visit the hospital of St. Edmund the Archbishop;'" but no returns of this visitation exist, nor of another which took place in 1 42 1." Ten years later the bishop, dissatisfied with the conduct of John Walkington, master, again ordered that the hospital should be visited, and in consequence of the state of things which was discovered, seques- trated the goods alike of the house and of its master (11 May, 1431).'* It seems probable that Walkington was removed as untrustworthy, since the collation of George Radcliffe occurs in January, 143 1-2." In 1436 the hospital was robbed: chalices, books, vestments, &c., being stolen from the chapel by some persons unknown. ^^ Two years later the nuns of St. Bartholomew, Newcastle, who had sustained severe losses by fire and by the non-payment of certain pensions, appealed to the bishop for assistance. He re- sponded (7 October, 1448) by appropriating to them and incorporating with their house the hospital of St. Edmund with all its possessions. The nuns in return engaged to provide two chaplains to celebrate in St. Edmund's chapel ; to keep the chapel and the buildings belonging to it in repair ; and to pay out of the issues or the hospital two pensions : — one of 6s. 8d. to the bishop, and one of 3s. ^.d. to the prior of Durham.^' This appropriation was followed in May, 1449, ^y ^ formal grant to the nuns by William Hilderskelfe, master, of the hospital with all its appurtenances. This later docu- ment binds the nuns to supply a chaplain to celebrate in the hospital, and a priest to cele- brate in St. Bartholomew's church at the death or promotion of Hilderskelfe, and to pay to the latter a pension of 10 marks per annum. ^* From this time onwards the history of the hospital is merged in that of the nunnery, and it was in all probability included in the possessions of that house at the time of the dissolution.^' In a rental of the nuns' possessions, of a date between 1489 and 1545, the following entry occurs : — ' Gateshead. Item, the hospital of St. Edmund the Bishop and Confessor, by year A master is mentioned in a list of persons summoned to a synod in 1507, but his name is not given. ^' " Dur. Epis. Reg. Hatfield, fol. 140 a'. " Ibid. Langley, fol. I 76. » Ibid. fol. 179 a'. " Surt. His/. Dur. n, 127. " Dur. Epis. Reg. Langley, fol. 23*7. " Bourne, Hist. Newcastle, 213, 215. " Madox, Formui. Angl. (ed. 1702), 271. " Brand, Hist. Newcastle, i, 230. '"Ibid. 231. " Script. Tres. (Surt. Soc), App. cccxvi. Masters of the Hospital of St. Edmund THE Bishop, Gateshead Gilbert, occ. c. 1248^^ Hugh de Segrave, occ. before 1316^' John de Denton, occ. 1316 ; ^ d. 1325 ^* Roland de Jorz, bishop of Armagh, coll. Feb- ruary, 1325-6, p.m. John of Denton. ^^ John de Thornsby, app. 2 October, 1333 "' Walter Fauconberg, coll. I March, 1 340-1 ^^ John de Appleby, coll. 20 August, 1353^' I Adam Fenrother, occ. 10 January, 1366-7;^" res. 1376 '^ Hugh de Conyngham, coll. by exch. with Fenrother, 5 August, 1376'- Henry de Manchester, coll. 1 7 September, 1381^^ Richard Levesham, coll. 27 March, 1383 ^^ Laurence de Allerthorp, occ. 20 November, 13883'' John Walkington, occ. 20 March, 1430-1 ^^ George Radcliffe, coll. 29 January, 1431-2;^' res. 12 March, 1435-6'* John Heyworth, coll. 12 March, 1435-6; p.r. G. Radcliffe.^" Thomas Kirkeby, occ. 1441 ^^ William Hilderskelfe occ. 1449*^ A Master (name unknown), occ. 1 507 ^ 23. THE HOSPITAL OF ST. MARY MAGDALEN, DURHAM By a composition between the priory of Durham and the hospital of Kepier,' about the middle of the thirteenth century, the hospital ceded to the convent certain lands at Hurworth and 12 acres in Southcroft near Durham, pro- ducing together an annual rent of 3 marks, to be devoted by the almoner to pious uses in a certain place for the benefit of the soul of John '^ Found. Chart. Brand, Hist. Newcastle, i, 446 n. ■^ Ibid. 469 n. '* Ibid. 470 n. "' Wills and Invent. (Surt. Soc), i, 22. "^ Ibid. " Pat. 7 Edw. Ill, pt. 2, m. 17. '* Reg. Palat. Dun. iii, 380. " Dur. Epis. Reg. Hatfield, fol. 74. »" Ibid. fol. 141. " Ibid. fol. 195. " Ibid. *■ Pat. 5 Ric. II, pt. I, m. 23. " Pat. 6 Ric. II, pt. 2, m. 2. " Pat. 12 Ric. II, pt. I, m. ID. '° Dur. Epis. Reg. Langley, fol. I 76. " Surt. Hist. Dur. ii, 127. '' Dur. Epis. Reg. Langley, fol. 225 a'. »' Ibid. *" Surt. Hist. Dur. ii, 127. *' Madox, Formui. Angl. (ed. 1702), p. 271. " Dun. Eccles. Reg. v, fol. 88. ' MS. Treas. Dur. 6'% 4"", Elemos. No. 1 2. The document is headed : 'Hospital of St. Mary Magda- lene near Kepier.' 119 A HISTORY OF DURHAM de Hameldun. This probably gives us the origin of the hospital of St. Mary Magdalen.^ There is, however, another document in exist- ence, belonging to the early part of the four- teenth century, which gives a somewhat different account. The writer, who complains that the deeds of Magdalen Hospital have been stolen by John de Bulford, almoner of Durham, states that the hospital was founded by a certain Sir John le Fitz Alisaundre, who erected a chapel and other buildings. Sir John, according to this statement, established in his new foundation a chaplain and thirteen good men and women who had seen better days. For their support he gave to the almonry of Durham the vill of Rilley and the right to grind corn in Chilton Mill ; he also gave lands near the hospital, and others lying before the gate of Sherburn House. Un- fortunately this document bears an endorsement by the prior and convent to the effect that it ' does not contain truth for the most part ; ' ' but possibly this refers chiefly to the accusation against John de Bulford. In any case the two accounts of the foundation are not wholly in- consistent if we take John le Fitz Alisaundre to be the same person as John de Hameldun ;^and that some at least of the statements in the ' com- plaint' are correct is proved by a terrier of the hospital lands taken before the dissolution, which describes the property as consisting of twenty-four and a half acres lying near the hospit.il, and sixty acres in one large close called M.iudelyn- leas, before the gate of Sherburn Hospital.' In 1391 Bishop Skirlaw granted an indulgence of forty days to all who contributed to the sup- port of Magdalen Hospital in Gilesgate ; ^ and a certain vicar of Billingham granted to the hospital a rent of 3^. in Crossgate.' The original chapel was almost entirely re- built in 1370.* It was considered as parochial and rectorial.' In February, 1449-50, it had again fallen into a ruinous condition, owing to the dampness of its situation ; and leave was sought and obtained from the bishop to remove it to another site farther west.'" The work of rebuilding was at once commenced, and in May, 1 45 I, licence was granted to the suffragan bishop ' Holensis ' [.^ of Hola, in Iceland] to consecrate the new church. ^^ Curiously enough, there is no mention of any master of Magdalen Hospital,^^ ' Mem. of St. Giles' (Surt. Soc), introd. pp. rxx- xxxii. ^ MS. Treas. Dur. Cart. Elemos. 6'% 4"'% No. 16. * Mem. ofS. Giles' (Surt. Soc), introd. pp. xxx-xxxii. 'Printed by Surt. Hist. Dur. iv (2), 68. «MS. Treas. Dur. 2264, 6'% 4'"% Elemos. No. 15. ' Ibid. 2273, 4", 2''% Elemos. 2 A. 'Almoner's Account Rolls, 1370. 'Surt. Hist. Dur. iv (2), 67. '° MS. Treas. Dur. 2265. " Ibid. 2266. '^ Possibly the almonsr of Durham fulfilled most of the duties of that office. and the master of the Farmery School was- bound to say mass twice a week in the chapel.'* The inmates consisted of brethren and sisters, some of whom lived in and some out of the house, the allowance being the same in either case.'* In 1534 there were three brethren and two sisters, each receiving 241. per annum. "^ On the feast of St. Mary Magdalen the inmates received an annual pittance.'^ When Durham priory was dissolved, and the new cathedral established, the office of almoner was not restored, but the revenues annexed to it were granted to the dean and chapter, who- leased out the hospital lands, giving a salary to a clerk to officiate in the church of St. Mary Magdalen. A few remains of the ancient infir- mary of the house were discovered in 1822." 24. THE HOSPITAL OF ST. STEPHEN, PELAW Scarcely anything is known of St. Stephen's Hospital at Pelaw, near Chester-le-Street. It appears to have been in existence as early as 1260, in which year William Litell, priest, was collated to the mastership.' In 13 13, when ' Peter called le Ponte ' was appointed, the master's duty was stated to be the celebrating, or providing for the celebration of divine service, and the performance of the other functions of his office, as had been the custom up to that time.'' In 1 38 1 John son of Robert de Pelaw sold his manor of Pelaw, and the advowson of St. Stephen's chapel in the said manor to Wil- liam, Joan, and Thomas de Elmedon.^ It seems, however, that the property subsequently came into the hands of the bishop ; for in 1450 Bishop Neville confirmed to William, son («V) and heir of William Elmedon, his (the bishop's) manor of Pelaw, with the advowson of the hospital or chapel of St. Stephen, at a rent of 135. ^d. In this charter there is a special clause, 'saving always to William Lambe, Chaplain, Master of the Hospital, and his successors, all lands, rights, and tenements of the hospital,' but "Mickleton MS. No. 32, p. no. " Surt. Hist. Dur. iv (2), 67-8. "Hunter's MSS. '* Ibid. Hunter states that some at least' of the inmates were persons of the upper class, basing his assertion on the fact that in 1532 one of the three sisters then in the hospital was ' the mother of Robert Benet,' and that in 1534 both mother and son were among the inmates. This Robert Benet he takes to be the future prebendary of Durham j but this is a mistake, as that Robert Bennett was bursar of Durham at the time ; see Dur. Household Bk. (Surt. Soc). " Surt. Hist. Dur. iv (2), 67-8. ' Ibid, ii, 188. ' Reg. Palat. Dun. (Rolls S;r.), i, 476. ' Rot. Hatfield, 7 Apr. anno 26. 20 RELIGIOUS HOUSES what these consisted of is not specified.^ Surtees says that the foundation was long ago re-absorbed in the landed estate.* Masters of Pelaw Hospital William Litell, priest, coll. 1260^ Richard Fayre, priest, coll. 1274* Hugh de Driffield, coll. 131 1* Peter called ' le Ponte,' coll. 3 December, William Marckam, chaplain, coll. 131 7 ^^ William Lambe, chaplain, occ. 4 October, 1450" 25. THE HOSPITAL OF SS. MARY AND CUTHBERT, GREATHAM Greatham Hospital was founded in 1272 by Robert Stichill, bishop of Durham, who dedi- cated it to the Blessed Virgin and St. Cuthbert, and granted to it, by way of endowment, the manor of Greatham, free of all charges, and the advowson of the church. He also promised forty days' indulgence to any person making a charitable donation to the hospital,^ and in his will left ;^200 for the improvements of the wood belonging to it.^ In 13 13 Bishop Kellaw granted to the house 1 7 acres of waste in Weardale Forest, with pasture for sixty cows, at an annual rent of 2s. ^ and it is stated in the charter of refoundation of James I that Henry IV bestowed upon Greatham Hospital a market and two fairs. '' The original foundation consisted of a master, five priests, two clerks, and forty poor men born on one or other of the bishop's manors. The master and the other priests, when officiating, were ordered to wear surplices and black hoods after the manner of the canons of St. Augustine; the hours of service to be the same as at Sher- burn Hospital.* The provision for the poor men at Greatham was on a very liberal scale. They seem to have been divided into two classes, distinguished by their dress, the quality of their food, and the fact that one class had, and the other had not, personal attendants of their own. In 1311 Matthew Lardener received a grant of an allowance for himself and his servant in the hospital. He was to have ' the room called the Frerechamber ' for his private use, and to sit at 'Surt. Hist. Dur. ii, 187. 'Ibid, nbid. 188. "Ibid. " Ibid. ; see Hist. MSS. Com. Rej>. iv, 391. ' Reg. Palat. Dun. i, 476. '"Surt. Hist. Dur. ii, 188. "Ibid. 187. ' Found. Ch.irt., printed in Allan's Collections re- lating to Greatham Hospital. 'Reg. Palat. Dun. (Rolls Ser.), i, 318. 'Allan, Co//. 'Ibid. ' Ordination, printed in Allan's Coll. the chaplains' table, while his man dined with the other servants of the house. His daily por- tion consisted of two loaves — one of white bread, and the other of an inferior quality — a flagon of the best ale, and a mess of food from the kitchen. He also received fodder for his horse, and every year a gown for himself de secta armigerorum.^ The recipient of another fourteenth-century grant, of which we have the particulars, received daily a loaf of second-best bread, half a flagon of second-best ale, a rack [raccatum] of hay, and a peck of oats ; with the use of a private chamber, litter for a horse, a candle and a peck of coals each winter, and every year a gown de secta garcontim hosphalls? The early history of the hospital is singularly devoid of incident. An occasional dispute oc- curred as to the right of presentation to the mastership,* or the patronage of Greatham rectory;^ and in 1378 the bishop commissioned the priors of Durham and Finchale to visit the hospital.^" No record, however, of this visitation exists. The clear value of the house was given in 1535 as ;^97 6f. 3^.^' Being a lay foundation it did not fall within either of the dissolving statutes, but continued to exist. ^^ The Royal Commissioners in 1594 reported that the posses- sions of the hospital included the township of Greatham, and the tithe corn of Greatham and Claxton, together with a large quantity of stock and household gear. There were then only thirteen brethren, who received in all, besides diet and fire in the brother-house, j^i4 4^. a year. Four persons were awaiting admission when a vacancy should occur, and were mean- while in receipt of a small annual sum. The hospital retained the following staff of servants and officials : — Porter, clerk of the chapel, bailiff of the liberties, cook, under-cook, butler, baker, brewer, horsekeeper, laundress, four women ser- vants, shepherd, neatherd, slaughterer, swine- herd, sixteen labourers, steward, and two serving men. Henry Dethicke, LL.B., was master ; but service was said twice a day by the vicar of Greatham, who received in return his diet and j^2 per annum." King James I refounded the hospital, 20 July, 1 6 ID, settling the number of inmates at thirteen, all to be poor men and unmarried ; and con- firmed the possessions of the house. ^'* ^ Reg. Palat. Dun. \\,-]z-]. ' Allan, Coll. 'Ibid.; see Dur. Epis. Reg. Hatfield, fols. 121-32. ' Reg. Palat. Dun. i, 2 i 7. "•Dur. Epis. Reg. Hatfield, fol. 140a'. " In the list of hospitals in Bishop Tunstall's Epis., Reg. 1530, the value is given as ^^26 13/. 4*/. '" Allan, Coll. " Arch. Aeliana (New Ser.), vi, 41. " Allan, Coll. 121 16 A HISTORY OF DURHAM In 1 76 1 the then master of Greatham built almshouses for six poor women near the hospital,^* and in 1788 the chapel was pulled down and rebuilt. A skeleton with a chalice was found in the old building, and was re-interred.^^ Masters of Greatham Hospital Andrew Stanley, coll. 23 January, 1272—3 '' Thomas de Levesham, occ. 22 November, 1301 '' John de Botheby, occ. 131 1," 1313^° William de Middleton, occ. 18 January, 1343-4'' William de Tykhill, appointed by the king, II May, 1345'^ William de Middleton, occ. 1348-9^^ John Stockton, occ. 1 35 I '* William de Westcley, coll. 12 May, 1351 ^° ; occ. 1353=^ Thomas de Bridekirk, occ. 1358-9" William de Westeley, coll. 7 August, 136 1, p.m. Th. de Bridekirk^* Henry Snayth, app. by the king, 18 Novem- ber, 1361^'; admitted by the bishop, 30 January, 1361-2'" John de Sleford, coll. 18 June, 1363, p.r. Henry Snayth '' Henry Snayth, coll. i December, 1363, p.r. John of Sleford '- William de Denby, coll. 20 July, 1366, by exchange with Henry Snayth '' John de Henley, occ. 28 August, 1372'^ John Burgess, occ. 27 November, 1384^^ Thomas Weston, occ. 9 October, 1407 '^ John de Tybbay [?Tebay], coll. 18 October, 1408, p.m. T. Weston" Ralph Steel, occ. 1 41 5'* John Hunteman, coll. 2 April, 1 41 5, by ex- change with R. Steel '' "Hutchinson, Hist. Dur. iii, 104. ^'G^nt. Mag. 1788, p. 1046. "Ordinatio, printed in Allan's Co/L "Dugdale, Mon. Angl. (ed. 1 846), vi, 690; see Reg. Patat. Dun. i, 318 ; ii, 784. ^^ Reg. Palat. Dun. ii, 727. •"Ibid, i, 318. "Ibid, iii, 365. "Pat. 19 EJw. Ill, pt. I, m. 12. '" Rot. A. Hatfield ; anno pont. 4. " Dugdale, Mon. Angl. (ed. I 846), vi, 690. " Dur. Epis. Reg. Hatfield. '"Allan, Col!. " Rot. A. Hatfield, anno pont. 14. *'Dur. Epis. Reg. Hatfield, fol. 121. ''Allan, Coll. '»Dur. Epis. Reg. Hatfield, fol. 125. "Ibid. fol. 132. ''Ibid. 'Mbid. fol. 138. '* Dugdale, Mon. Angl. (ed. 1846), vi. 690. "Pat. 8 Ric. II, pt. I, m. 6. '"" ff'illi and Invent. (Surt. Soc), ii, 47. " Dur. Epis. Reg. Langley, fol. 28 . Aeliana (New Ser.), vi, 44, note 7. ' Rot. 3 ; Booth, m. 9 d. "> Arch. Aeliana (New Ser.), vi, 43-4. " Ibid. of masters there is scarcely any mention of the house until 1546, when the following account of it is given by the commissioners appointed by Henry VIII : The hospital of St. Edmund in the parish of Gates- head was founded by the predecessors of the bishops {sic) of Durham by report, but to what intent or purpose we know not, for we have not yet seen the foundation thereof Yearly value, 109^. \d. — value according to this survey j^8 as appeareth by rental ; whereof is paid out for the King's M.ijesty's tenths 12/. 3d. ' Ibid. Fox, fol. 26 d. ' Rot. 2 Fox, A. m. 28. '° Tanner, 'Notit. Mon. " Chant. Cert. Surt. Soc. Puhl.\o\. 22, App. vi, p. Ixv. " Ibid. '' Hutchinson, Hist. Dur. iii, 335. " Pat. 10 Edw. II, pt. I, m. 10. " Reg. Pakt. Dun. (Rolls Ser.), i, 6:9. '•^ Pat. 10 Edw. II, pt. 1, m. 10. " Hutchinson, Hist. Dur. iii, 334. '* Reg. Pakt. Dun. (Rolls Ser.), iii, 320. "Ibid. 321. ^Mbid. 463. *' Hutchinson, Hist. Dur. iii, 334. -- Ibid. 126 RELIGIOUS HOUSES Richard de Barnard Castle, occ. 1369 -^ John de Newthorpe of Pontefract, occ. 1377°* William de Walworth, coll. 3 September, 1377, p. r. J. Newthorpe "' Hugh de Westwick, occ. 1388 '^ John Burgess, occ. 1395,^' 14^5 "' Thomas Lyes, coll. 17 May, 141 5, p.m. Burgess ■' Thomas Hebbedon, coll. 29 December, 1431'" William Doncaster, coll. 30 June, 1435, p.m. T. Hebbedon " Robert Thwaites ^^ Bartholomew Radcliffe, occ. 1466'^ John Kelyng, occ. 1476''^ John Newcourt '* William Sherwall, or Sherwood, occ. 1485,^^ 1498" William Thomeson, coll. 21 July, 1498, p. m. Sherwall ^* Thomas Patenson, coll. 1 5 1 1 , p. m. Thomeson^' William Strangeways, coll. December, 1520, p. m. Patenson '"' Robert Hyndmer, coll. 1541, p.m. Strange- ways ; *' dean at the dissolution *^ 33- THE COLLEGE OF NORTON The date of the foundation of the college at Norton is unknown.' The earliest authentic mention of it occurs in the Patent Rolls of 1227, when, the see of Durham being vacant, the king presented to prebends in Norton Col- legiate Church.^ At and after that date it con- sisted of eight prebends, and so continued until the dissolution. In 1 291 these prebends were valued at ^6 per annum, but the total value in 1534 was £jf 6s. 8d. each, or ;^34 13J. 4.d. the whole ;^ and in 1548 the total yearly value is given as ;^48.* The stipends arose from part of the tithe corn of Norton parish.^ The succes- sive vicars of Norton appear to have acted as heads of the college, but did not bear the title of dean. '^ Hutchinson, Hist. Dur. iii, 334. "Dur. Epis. Reg. Hatfield, fol. 188. " Ibid. ^'^ Hutchinson, Hist. Dur. iii, 334. " Ibid. '" Dur. Epis. Reg. Langley, fol". 70 J. '' Ibid. =" Ibid. fol. 182^. " Ibid. fol. 219a', " Hutchinson, Hisi. Dur. iii, 334. " Ibid. " Ibid. '' Ibid. '' Ibid. " Dur. Epis. Reg. Fox, fol. 19. *» Ibid. '' Hutchinson, ut supra. "> Ibid. ■" Ibid. " Chant. Cert. Surt. Soc. Publ.vol. 22, App.vi, p. Ixv. ' Surtees, Hist. Dur. iii, 154. It is said that some of the ejected seculars from Durham were placed here by Bishop William (Leland, Coll. i, 332, 385), but Tanner doubts this statement, as there Is no mention of the college till 1227. ' Pat. II and 12 Hen. III. ' Surt. ut supra. * Chant. Cert. Surt. Soc. Publ. vol. 22, App. vi, p. Ixix. ' Surt. Hist. Dur. iii, 154. 34. THE COLLEGE OF LANCHESTER The church of Lanchester was rectorial till the year 1283, when Bishop Bek erected it into a collegiate church consisting of a dean and seven prebendaries. To the dean were allotted the altarage of the church and its three chapels, and the messuages belonging to the chapels, saving only such room as the prebendaries should re- quire for the storage and sale of their corn. The fee-farms belonging to the rectory were divided amongst the prebendaries. The dean had the cure of souls in the parish, and was responsible for the repair of the chancel, and the supply of two chaplains. He was also bound to provide ministers for the chapels, and to take special care that mattins was sung daily for the parishioners to attend before going to their day's work. Each of the first three pre- bendaries had to provide at his own charge one vicar chaplain, and the remaining prebendaries each one chaplain in holy orders (i.e. a deacon). Strict rules were made for the conduct of these vicars both in and out of church.' In the Taxation of Pope Nicholas, 129 1, the revenues of the college were rated at ^^90 1 35. J^d. ; at the dissolution, ;^49 3^. ^d.;^ and in the survey returns of 1 548, ;{^73 lOi.' About the year 1378 Bishop Hatfield found fault with the canons of Lanchester for not paying the salaries of their vicars,^ but his ad- monitions on the subject produced no lasting effect. In the time of Bishop Langley the dean was non-resident ; * the church, chapels, and houses of the college were in a ruinous con- dition ; the vicars' places were vacant, and their salaries went into the pockets of the canons.^ At the dissolution small pensions were re- served for the curates of Lanchester and the three chapels ; the rest of the collegiate posses- sions were scattered under crown grants.' Deans of Lanchester John de Craven, app. 1283' William de Marclan, occ. 131 1 ' William de Whickham (Quykham), occ. 1313-171° Richard de Kilvington, coll. 1339 ^^ John de Newbiggin, occ. 19 June, 1350'^ ■ Surt. Hist. Dur. ii, 309, 310. * Ibid. 311. ' Chant. Cert. Surt. Soc. Publ. vol. 22, App. vi, p. Ixxiii. * Dur. Epis. Reg. Hatfield, fol. i^za. ' Ibid. Langley, fol. 284 ' Ibid. " Pat. 3 Hen. V'l, pt. I, m. 27. "* Surt. Hist. Dur. ii, 311. « Ibid. '' Ibid. »' Ibid. "' Ibid. " Chant. Cert. Surt. Soc. PuiJ. vol. 22, App. vi, p. Ixxiii. The first three prebendaries, who seem to have been considered the wealthiest, were bound to maintain three vicars in orders {vicarios capellanos) ; and the remaining four to provide four vicars-deacons in due canonical habit. The service was to be performed according to the ritual of either York or Sarum.^ In April, 141 5, a monition was directed to the canons of Chester for neglect of their duties. They had failed in the due performance of divine service, in the care of their church and its ornaments, &c.^ Later in the same year, the repairs ordered not having been executed, and the chancel and guest house (hospice) being in a ruinous state, the bishop sequestrated the fruits of the prebends.^ The canons, indeed, appear to have had but little sense of their duty, for three times after this during Langley 's episco- pate, in 141 8,* 1 43 1,' and 1434,^ the bishop was obliged to remonstrate with them for neglect. In the Taxation of Pope Nicholas (1291) the deanery and prebends were rated at j^ 1 46 135. \d. ; in 1534 they were valued at ;^77 I2j. 8^.;^ and in 1548 at ^27 2i. %\d. only.^ The possessions of the church become vested in the crown in 1547, by the Act for the Dis- solution of Collegiate Churches and Chantries. A small pension only was reserved for a stipendiary curate.' Deans of Chester-le-Street William de Marclan, occ. 131 1 *" Robert de Kygheley, coll. May, 131 6'* Roger de Gilling, occ. 30 June, 1345 '^ John de Sculthorp^' John de Kingston, coll. October, 1354, by exch. with John de Sculthorp '* Richard de Wellington, coll. 21 March, 1362-3, p.r. John de Kingston (Kymbsten)'^ Hugh de Arlam, coll. 13 March, 1364-5, p.r. R. Wellington " Thomas Cupper, coll. 7 May, 1378 '' Henry de Hedlam (Hedelham), occ. 26 April, 1382'^ John de Derby, occ. 4 June, 1390 '' Thomas de Hexham, occ. 1407 "" ' Found. Chart, printed Dugdale, Mon. Angl. (ed. 1846), vi, 1338. ' Dur. Epis. Reg. Langley, fol. 70. ' Ibid. fol. 72 d. * Ibid. fol. 270. 'Ibid. fol. 181. « Ibid. fol. 211. ' Surt. Hist. Dur. ii, 143. ' Chant. Cert. Surt. Soc. Publ. vol. 22, App. vi, p. Ixiv. ' Surt. Hist. Dur. ii, 143. '» Ibid. " Reg. Pa/at. Dun. (Rolls Ser.), ii, 806. " Surt. Hist. Dur. ii, 144. " Dur. Epis. Reg. Hatfield, fol. 86. " Ibid. "Ibid. fol. 131. '" Ibid. fol. 137. " Ibid. fol. i37A^. '* Pat. 5 Ric. II, pt. 2, m. 19. '' Surt. ut supra. -" Ibid. 128 RELIGIOUS HOUSES John Thoralby coll. 6 April, 1408^' John Dalton, coll. 7 April, 1408, by exch. with Thoralby ^^ W. Bosum, coll. 16 April, 1408, p.r. J. Dalton" Robert Ashburn, or Ashbury, coll. I May, 1408, by exch. with Bosum;-'' occ. 28 January, 1411-12" Nicholas Hulme, coll. 10 February, 141 2-1 3, p.m. R. Ashburn 2*= John Akum, occ. October, 141 7 ^" Richard Diggle (Digyll), coll. October, 141 7, by exch. with Akum ** John of Newton, occ. 1454"^ John Baldwin (Bawdwyn), coll. 149 1 ^^ John Balswell, occ. 1 501 " Robert Chamber, occ. 13 June, 1505 ^^ Thomas Keye, occ. 14 May, 1532" Richard Layton, coll. I September, 1533, p.r. T. Keye '' William Wawin, or Warren, coll. 1544, P-"'- Layton ; ^^ dean at the dissolution ^^ 36. THE COLLEGE OF STAINDROP The college of Staindrop was founded in 1408 by Ralph earl of Westmorland. The establish- ment was to consist of a master or warden and certain other resident chaplains and clerks, with a number of poor and decayed gentlemen or other poor persons.^ It seems probable that the earl intended the house to serve as a place of retirement for his retainers and servants when they grew old or infirm. In 1544 six of the inmates were ' gentlemen sometime in the ser- vice ' of the then earl.^ Four years later the household consisted of the master, four priests, brethren of the house, two choristers, two lay clerks, five poor gentlemen, six poor yeomen, and two poor grooms, all ' brethren.' ^ The college, which really partook more of the nature of a mediaeval hospital, was built near Langley Beck, to the north of the church. Apparently Joan Beaufort, countess of West- morland, carried out or completed her husband's design, for Leland states that ' Johan erectid the very house self of the college.' * The original endowment consisted of two messuages and 12 acres of land in Staindrop, " Dur. Epis. Reg. Langley, fol. 14 a'. " Ibid. '' Ibid. fol. 15. '* Ibid. " Ibid. fol. 53. ^Mbid. fol. 65 a'. "Ibid. fol. 287 ^ '» Ibid. ^' Surt. Hist. Dur. ii, 144. 'Mbid. "'Ibid. >^Mbid. " Ibid. " Ibid. " Ibid. ^ Chant. Cert. Surt. Soc. Pu6/. vol. 22, App. vi, p. Ixiv. ' Surt. Hilt. Dur. iv (2), 134. ' Ibid. 135. ' Chant. Cert. Surt. Soc. Pui/. vol. 22, App. vi, p. Ixxiv. * I tin. (2nd ed.), i, S5. with the advowson of the church there. ^ Later the churches of Lytham,* co. Lancaster, and Brigham,' co. Cumberland, were appropriated to the college in augmentation of its revenues. The clear value at the dissolution amounted to ^126 5J.8 In 1 41 2 Bishop Langley confirmed the appro- priation of Staindrop church to the college, and ordained that, lest the cure of souls should suffer neglect, a perpetual vicarage should be instituted, the vicar to be appointed by the warden and chaplains of the college. The house was to pay 4.0s. per annum to the bishop, and 20s. to the convent of Durham, as an indemnity for any loss which the church might suffer by this arrangement.' This vicarage lasted until the dissolution, when all the possessions of the college were surrendered to the crown, a small stipend only being reserved for the officiating minister.'" Masters of Staindrop Robert Knayton, clerk, occ. 1432'' John Norman, occ. 1438 " William Lambert, occ. 1457, 1477 '^ Thomas Nevill " William Pollard, app. 20 July, 1498, p.m. Nevill " John Claymond, M.A., app. 19 October, 1500" William Mawdesley, app. 1501, p.r. Cla) - mond '' Edmund Nattres, occ. 1537'* William Garnett, occ. 1548'' 37. THE COLLEGE OF BARNARD CASTLE In February, 1477-8 Edward IV granted permission to his brother Richard, duke of Gloucester, to found and endow a college at Barnard Castle, within the castle there. The establishment was to consist of a dean, twelve chaplains, ten clerks, six choristers, and one clerk {sic), to celebrate divine offices in the castle chapel. It was to be dedicated to Christ, the Blessed Virgin, St. Margaret, and St. Ninian, ^ Surt. Hist. Dur. iv {2^, 134. " Pat. 2 Hen. IV. ' ' Pat. 16 Hen. VI. * Surt. ut supra. The value in the Chant. Cert, of 154.8 is ;^I44 8/. 6d. " Reg. Eccles. Dun. iii, 37. '" Surt. Hist. Dur. iv (2), 137. " Madox, Fortnul. Angl. 143. " Rot. Neville, B. No. 15 in dors. " Surt. Hist. Dur. iv (2), 135. '* Ibid. '^ Ibid. " Rot. 2 Fox, m. 1 1. '^ Ibid, m, 17. " Surt. ut supra ; Leland, Itin. i, 92. " Chant. Cert. Surt. Soc. Publ. vol. 22, App. vi, p. Ixxlv. 129 17 A HISTORY OF DURHAM and was to have land purchased for it not exceeding the yearly value of 400 marks. ^° Whether or not this project was ever executed is not known ; but as the licence of foundation appears to be the only document in existence relating to the college, it seems probable that in the increasing pressure of public business the duke forgot or omitted to carry out his pious intention. 38. HERMITAGES The county of Durham was unusually rich in hermitages. From very early days, owing per- haps to the example set by St. Cuthbert,' religious persons of both sexes frequently chose the solitary life, and established themselves in some more or less retired spot where they lived either quite alone or with one or more attendants. At the beginning of the twelfth century there dwelt at VVolsingham a well-known hermit named Elric (or Ethelric) with whom St. Godric lived for about two years, practising the ascetic life.2 After Elric's death Godric settled at Finchale under the auspices of Bishop Flambard.' There he lived for many years, and built an oratory and a little house. He cultivated the ground and fished in the river, supporting him- self by his own labour.* For a time his sister Burcwen joined him, and lived in a little cell which he built for her near his own ; but she fell sick and died in a hospital in Durham.^ After a time St. Godric placed himself under the control of the prior of Durham,* who at every festival used to send one of his monks to Finchale, there to celebrate Mass for the hermit.'' Many legends are told of St. Godric, and he was regarded with great awe by the country people. He built a chapel, which he dedicated to the honour of St. John the Baptist, in which he often slept,* and where he ultimately died and was buried.' In his old age he was attended by servants,^" and for the last eight years of his life was confined entirely to his bed.^^ There existed in St. Godric's time, and pos- sibly long before, a hermitage called Yareshale (or Yarehaulgh) on the River Derwent near Ebchester, which was granted by the bishop to a religious who came to ask St. Godric's advice on the matter. It was probably built on the site of St. Ebba's monastery, which was well adapted for such a retreat.^^ Its history is rather *> Pat. 17 Edw. IV, pt. 2, m. 16. ' In 676 St. Cuthbert retired to Fame Island and built himself a hermit.-ige there, in which he lived for eight years ; Bede, Fita Stl. Cuthberti, cap. xvii. ^ Vita Sti. Godrici (Surt. See), 45, &c. ' Ibid. 66. * Prion of Finchale (Surt. Soc), pref. xiii, &c. * FilaSti. Godrici (Surt. Soc), 139-43. "• Ibid. 135. ' Ibid. 202. Mbid. 187. ' Ibid. 326, 33c.. '" Ibid. 195. "Ibid. 311. 'Mbid. 192 «. difficult to follow. Bishop Pudsey, between 1 163 and 1 188, granted to Sherburn Hospital, as part of its endowment, ' the place of anchorets ' on the Derwent near Ebchester,^^ and in 1 183 Robert of Yolton held ' the land on the Der- went, which was the hermit's,' and paid a rent of 25. for it,^* but soon afterwards" Geoffrey son of Richard (the second lord of Horden) granted to St. Mary and the House of Yareshale (Yare- haluh) two oxgangs of land in his vill of Horden, with common of pasture and 13 ' weihts ' " of corn of Durham measure.''' This grant was confirmed by his son Geoffrey (between 1212 and I 214) to ' Brother John and his successors ' in ' the House of the Blessed Mary of Yareshale (Jharhale)."* In ' le convenit ' (1231) Bishop le Poor stipulates that, in return for certain con- cessions he has made to the Durham monks, 'the place which is called Yareshale (Yreshale), with all its appurtenances,' shall remain for ever in the ordination of the bishops of Durham, ' ita quod providebimus qualiter elemosina futuris temporibus durabit.'" St. Mary's of Yareshale is mentioned as being, in the time of Bishop Langley (1406-37), the private chapel of one of that bishop's suffragans, in which ordinations were occasionally held.^" At the end of the north alley of the choir in Durham Cathedral was a porch called the ' Anchorage,' containing a rood and an altar for a monk to say daily mass. In ancient times it was inhabited by an anchoret. The entrance was up a stair adjoining the north door of St. Cuthbert's feretory.^' Mr. John Cade, the well-known antiquary, writing in 1789, says that there was at that time ' a plat called the Anchorage,' near the church- yard of St. Oswald's, Durham, which appears to have been the cell of some anchoret or recluse even prior to the foundation of St. Oswald's church. ^^ On 28 September, 13 12, the bishop of Dur- ham collated 'John, called Godesman,' to the hermitage of St. Cuthbert on the Tyne, near the bishop's park.^' Writing of Heighley Hall, Winston, Surtees says — A chapel or hermitage, which is mentioned in some early inquest, stood low down in the holme, shaded by a thick overhanging wood. . . . The last remains of the hermitage were lately removed in forming a new hedge ; the masonry was " Surt. Hist. Dur. i (2), 283 ; ' Ordinatio ' of Sher- burn Hospital. '* BoUon Bk. (Surt. Soc.), 68. " Temp. Prior Bertram, 1 1 89-99. - ■ '^ Measures. " Dur. Cart, ii, fol. 99. '* Ibid. " Script. Tns. (Surt Soc), App. p. Ixxi. '" Dur. Epis. Reg. Langley, passim. " Rites of Dur. (Surt. Soc), 15. " Arch. Lond. x, 6 1 . " Reg. Palat. Dun. (Rolls Ser.), i, 197. 130 RELIGIOUS HOUSES excellent and the windows ornamented. The piscina is preserved in Mr. Deighton's garden wall at Winston." This is a remarkable statement, because in 131 5 Bishop Kellaw, when granting a quitclaim for the rent of this ground, speaks of it as ' certain waste lands and wood in Heighley (Hegheley) in Winston called Hermitage ' as if the cell or chapel was even then nothing more than a memory.^* In 1340 Bishop Bury granted a licence to select a site in Gateshead churchyard for an anchoress' cell ; ^^ and in 1373 Bishop Hatfield granted to William Shepherd, a hermit, a piece of waste land, 80 ft. by 40 ft., for a messuage. William in return was to pay id. a year for life." A few years later (20 May, 1387) a similar grant was made to a hermit of the name of Robert Lambe. Bishop Fordham gave him an acre of waste land in Eighton for the building of a hermitage and a chapel in honour of the Holy Trinity, on condition of his offering prayers for the bishop, his predecessors, and successors.-* There was an anchorage near Pounteys Bridge, as well as the chapel there. In December, 1426, ■* Hist. Dur. iv (i), 38. " Reg. Pakt. Dun. (Rolls Ser.), ii, 1280. " Ibid, iii, 300. In 1366 Bishop Hatfield collated Richard de Cavil! to th? hermitage of Rynstanhirst (Dur. Epis. Reg. Hatfield, fol. 141). I have not been able to locate this hermitage. "Rot. Hatfield, 2, m. 4a'. " Rot. Fordham, m. 9. John, prior of Durham, collated William Bynde- lawes of Burdon in Lonsdale, hermit, to this her- mitage, then vacant and in his collation.^' In the fifteenth century the notices of hermits are not so frequent, but they still continued to exist. In February, 1434-5, Robert Perules, ' hermit of the chapel of St. Mary Magdalen of Barmore,' in the parish of Gainford, lost his chapel, his house which stood by it, and all their contents, by fire, everything being totally de- stroyed. Bishop Langley granted an indulgence of forty days to all contributing to the repair of the chapel and the support of the hermit.^" ^" H93 John Auckland, prior of Durham, by means of a very curious document ' created ' a hermit ; i.e. conferred the rank or degree of hermit upon one John Man, a Yorkshireman, who desired to escape from the world and to assume the profession of an anchoret.'^ It seems probable that there was at one time an anchoret, male or female, at Chester-le- Street. In the Chantry Certificate of 1548^^ there is a mention of 'the Anker's House.' There was then no ' incumbent,' and from the quantity of lead on the roof the building would appear to have been but small. In 1627 an almshouse at Chester-le-Street in which dwelt certain poor widows, was known as < the Anchorage.''' -' Surt. Hist. Dur. ili, 228. '° Dur. Epis. Reg. L.-ingley, fol. 2 1 7. '■ Reg. Parv. iv, fol. i6b. ^' Surt. Soc. Publ. vol. 22, App. vi, p. Ixiv. "Parish Books of Chester-Ie-Street, a.d. 1627. 131 POLITICAL HISTORY THE area now known as the county of Durham was formerly part of the Bernician Province of the kingdom of Northumbria, and was described as having been in the seventh century ' a waste wilder- ness, the habitation of animals, and therefore subject to no man's sway.'* Of its early history whilst part of Northumbria but little is known. Whilst the evidence of place names indicates but slight traces of Danish settlement in Durham and Northumberland,^ the invasion of Halfdene in 875 has left a permanent mark — the transfer of the seat of the great northern diocese from Lindisfarne to the district south of the Tyne. In 883, after several years of wandering, Bishop Eardulf and the congregation of St. Cuth- bert settled at Chester-le-Street, under the youthful King Guthred, a converted Dane, who had succeeded the pagan Halfdene as king of Northumbria. Guthred gave to St. Cuthbert (and the grant is said to have been confirmed by King Alfred) the whole of the district lying between the rivers Wear and Tyne, with sac and soc and infangthief. Thus was laid the foundation of the franchise which ultimately developed into the Palatinate of Durham." During the period (883-995) that the seat of the bishopric was settled at Chester-le-Street the power of Northumbria declined. In the seventh century, after Oswy's victory over Penda, the Northumbrian kingdom, stretching possibly from Aberdeen to near the Wash, was the predominant state in Britain, and Bamburgh seemed destined to become the capital of England. By the end of the ninth century it had sunk to the level of an earldom. The earls, however, enjoyed an independence and exercised powers almost as extensive as the Danish kings, whose rule ceased on Eric's death in 954. In the year 995 the seat of the ancient see of Lindisfarne was trans- ferred to Durham. According to Simeon the reason for this transfer was the fear of a Danish raid. In the spring of 995 Bishop Aldhun, warned, Simeon informs us, of the irruption about to be made by some pirates {piratarum), fled with the congregation of St. Cuthbert to Ripon. After three or four months, peace being restored, they started on their return journey, but, when near the site of the present city, it was revealed to one of their number that Durham should become the resting-place of St. Cuthbert. The work of preparing the site of the future city was performed by the inhabitants of the district between the rivers Coquet and Tees, under the supervision of Uchtred the son of Waltheof, the earl of Northumbria.* It is possible that the Scots were responsible for the transfer of the see from Chester-le-Street to Durham. For over a century there had been a fierce struggle for the possession of the ' Simeon, Hist. Eccl. Dun. (Rolls Ser.), i, 339. ' Hodgkin, Political Hist, of Engl, to 1066, p. 316. ' Simeon, op. cit. i, 70. For early grants of land to St. Cuthbert, see ' Historia de Sancto Cutiiberto,' best studied for the purpose in Hodgson Hinde's edition of Simeon, Hist. Eccl. Dun. (Surtees Soc), I 38 et seq.; also Hardy's preface to Kellaw's Register (Rolls Ser.), i, p. Ix. ' For a fuller description of the foundation of Durham see ' Eccl. Hist.' ante, 7. 133 A HISTORY OF DURHAM Lothians — a struggle in which the Northumbrian position was materially weakened by the cession in 945 of Cumbria to the Scots.' Before this cession Bamburgh could be regarded as a suitable fortified centre from which to govern a territory which extended to the Forth, but with Cumb*erland in the hands of the Scots the earl may well have felt the want of some more southern fortress to check their inroads by the Pennine Passes. Strong in itself, Durham, situated at the junction of the valleys of the Wear, Dearness, and Browney, was admirably placed to watch the western marches and to protect the more populous and cultivated eastern districts. As the direction of the flight from Chester-le-Street suggests that the danger lay to the north, so Uchtred's activity and the employment of the entire population of the district between the Coquet and Tees indicate that the foundation of the city of Durham was due, not to a supernatural cause, but to the military requirements of the Northumbrian earldom. However this may be, the transfer of the see provided the earl with a new fortress and a garrison to man it.'' Durham soon attracted the attention of the Scots, and in 1006 King Malcolm, with the entire military force of Scotland, after devastating the province of the Northumbrians, laid siege to Durham. Waltheof, the earl, too old for active service, shut himself up in Bamburgh. His want of energy was amply compensated for by that of his son Uchtred, the bishop's son-in-law, who, with the men of Northumbria and Yorkshire, raised the siege and decisively defeated the Scottish forces.'' Malcolm and a few others escaped with difficulty. From the numerous slain Uchtred selected some of the best-looking heads to decorate the city walls, and a cow apiece was given to the four women who washed the heads. For his initiative and gallantry on this occasion Uchtred superseded his father as earl. Twelve years' peace ensued, but in 1018 the Northumbrian forces suffered a disastrous defeat at Carham, whereby the Lothians were added to the kingdom of the Scots, and the boundary of Northumbria was permanently forced back to the Tweed. Nearly the whole population, Simeon states,* from the Tyne to the Tees, were cut off in the conflict, and Bishop Aldhun survived but a few days the news of the slaughter of his people — ' the first, but not the last, bishop of Durham to have his life made burdensome by the incursions of the Scots.' A few years later (1039)' the Northumbrians had their revenge. Duncan the First, who had succeeded his grandfather Malcolm in 1034, with a large force of cavalry and foot invaded the earldom and laid siege to Durham. On this occasion the besieging force was defeated with heavy loss by the unaided efforts of the inhabitants of the city. Again the heads of the slain were collected to decorate the town. Before this siege took place Cnut, probably in 103 i when on his way to Scotland,^" visited Durham and made certain grants of land to St. Cuthbert." ' As to the effect and extent of this cession see F.C.H. Cumb. ii, 228. * The tract on the siege of Durham, Simeon, op. cit. (Rolls Ser.), i, 216, proves the existence of walls round Durham, but whether of earth or stone is uncertain. ' Simeon, op. cit. i, 216 ; as to the date see Annals of Ulster sub anno 1006, and Skene's Celtic Scotland, i, 385. ' Ibid, i, 84. 'The date 1035 given by Simeon, op. cit. (Rolls Ser.), i, 90, is wrong. He states that the invasion took place in the 20th year of the pontificate of Bishop Eadmund, who was enthroned in 102 I. The correct date appears from the ' Annales Dunelmenses' in Pertz, Monumenta Germ. Hist. Scriptorei, xix, 506. '" Angl.-Sax. Chron. sub anno 1 03 1. " Simeon, op. cit. (Rolls Ser.), i, 90. POLITICAL HISTORY For the wretched inhabitants of Northumbria (which then included the present county of Durham), the period of Norman Conquest, with its repeated invasions by the Scots ^' and still worse devastations of the Conqueror, was indeed a time of trial. The opportunities presented to Malcolm Canmore, first by the Anglo-Danish struggle, and later by the Northumbrian insurrections, were not allowed to pass. In 1018 his father had added all Lothian to the Scotch dominion, and his son, kinsman to the leading Northumbrians and brother-in-law to Edgar Atheling, might reasonably hope during these commotions to round off his southern boundary by the addition of the country north of the Tees to Cumbria, then a part of the Scottish kingdom. Taking advantage of Earl Tosti's absence in 1 06 1 on a pilgrimage to Rome, Malcolm furiously 'ravaged the earldom of his sworn brother Tosti and violated the peace of St. Cuthbert in the Island of Lindisfarne.' Malcolm's second invasion did not take place till after the first Northumbrian insurrection against the Conqueror's rule. During the first two years after the battle of Hastings the Conqueror did not attempt to exercise direct control over the country to the north of the Tees. At the beginning of 1069 the Conqueror appointed Robert Cumin earl of Northumberland. With a small force, only some 700 strong,^^ Cumin marched north, his men acting with that licence which was customary when the Conqueror's strong hand was not there to restrain them. On hearing of his approach the Northumbrians at first decided to fly, but being prevented by a sudden snowstorm, they determined to await and attack the earl. The latter, disregarding Bishop iEthelwin's warning, entered the city of Durham on 30 January, 1069. Very early the next morning the Northumbrians assembled outside the town and rushed the gates. Most of the earl's men scattered throughout the town fell an easy prey, but the bishop's house, defended by the earl himself, offered an effective resistance until it was set on fire, and its defenders either burnt to death or massacred as they attempted to escape. Of the whole force one man alone escaped. The revolt thus begun spread rapidly, and it was some time before the Conqueror found time to visit and punish the district responsible for the death of the first Norman earl of Northumberland. The first punitive expedition retired after reaching Northallerton, the retirement being due to St. Cuthbert's intervention according to Simeon," but the Danish invasion of Yorkshire is a more probable cause. At the end of 1069 the Conqueror himself came north and personally commanded the force which took such a terrible revenge for the massacre of their fellow countrymen. The loss of property must have been great; but the people, accustomed as they were to Scottish raids, appear to have escaped, for we are told that although the king's army spread over the whole of the area between the Tyne and the Tees, they found the dwellings every- where deserted, the inhabitants having sought safety in flight or by lying hid in the woods or in the fastnesses of the mountains. ^^ No sooner had the Conqueror retired south than Malcolm, with a countless multitude of Scots, made his second raid. Marching thr^^ugh Cumberland he turned east and devastated " As to these see Hodgson Hinde's note in Simeon, op. cit. (Surtees Soc), p. xxviii. " This is the figure given by Simeon, op. cit. (Rolls Sen), i, 98, the only author who gives details of this affair. In the Angl.-Sax. Chron. sub anno 1068, the figure is 900, and in Ordericus Vit.ilis, Hist. EccL (Migne's edition, 316), 500. " Simeon, op. cit. (Rolls Ser.), i, 99. " Ibid, ii, 189. A HISTORY OF DURHAM the valley of the Tees. Then dividing his forces, he ordered part to retire the way they came. Hearing of this retirement the inhabitants left their hiding places and were surprised by the remainder of the Scottish army." The flight of Bishop ^Ethelwin, 1070, gave the Conqueror an opportunity by the appointment of Bishop Walcher of introducing a foreign influence less likely to irritate the Northumbrians than Cumin and his uncontrolled troopers. Walcher's success as an ecclesiastic tempted the Conqueror in 1075 on Waltheof 's execution to appoint the bishop as his successor in the earldom of Northumberland. The selection was an unfortunate one, for the saint-like but irresolute bishop was not the man either to rule the turbulent Northum- brians, or to control the officials whom he appointed. Five years elapsed before he met, with his Norman followers, the same fate as Cumin. This event was brought about by a quarrel between Ligulf an Anglo-Saxon noble, and Leobwin chaplain to the bishop and his councillor in matters secular as well as ecclesiastical. Leobwin resented the influence of Ligulf with the bishop, who consulted him in all secular business. Frequent disputes took place between the two, and at last Leobwin, stung by some retort of Ligulf, determined to be revenged on his opponent. He accordingly called to his aid Gilbert, a relation of the bishop and sheriff of the earldom. Gilbert readily assented, and with his own troops and some of those of the bishop and Leobwin, marched by night to the place were Ligulf resided and murdered him and almost all his family. The crime called for immediate retribu- tion, but the bishop temporized. Instead of punishing he merely threatened punishment, protesting that he was not privy to the murder, and retired to his castle at Durham. He arranged a conference with the relatives of Ligulf at Gateshead. On his arrival there the bishop and the principal members of his party retired to the church whilst the friends of the murdered man remained outside. Several overtures were made, but when it became known that, after the murder, the bishop had amicably received Gilbert and his associates all hopes of a compromise were at an end. First the bishop's retainers outside the church were killed and then the church itself was attacked and set fire to. The bishop vainly attempted to appease the infu- riated mob by sacrificing the guilty Gilbert, but was himself slain as he attempted to leave the burning church. Immediately after the bishop's murder the insurgents attempted to seize the newly founded castle at Durham, but the garrison defended it with such success that after four days' siege the assailants withdrew, but not without loss." This second revolt was speedily and terribly punished. Odo, bishop of Bayeux, at the head of a large force, devasted the whole district, both innocent and guilty suffering alike; ' they reduced nearly the whole land into a wilderness. The miserable inhabitants, who trusting in their innocence had remained in their homes, were either beheaded as criminals or mutilated by the loss of some of their members.' ^^ The attempt to combine the ecclesiastical and civil control of the country to the north of the Tees in the person of the bishop was not repeated in the case of Walcher's successor,William of St. Carileph, a man of very different character from his saintly but weak pre- '* Simeon, op. cit. (Rolls Ser.), ii, 90. " Ibid, i, 1 16, 208 ; ArcL Je/. xx, 48. '" Simeon, op. cit. (Rolls Ser.), i, 1187. 136 POLITICAL HISTORY decessor. Clever, selfish, and unscrupulous, William of St. Carileph was a wise and sagacious administrator, and under his rule Durham soon recovered from the ruin wrought by the two Norman punitive expeditions. For over seven years the county benefited by the bishop's strong rule, but being implicated in the rebellion against William Rufus he was deprived, and after a siege the castle of Durham was surrendered to Ivo Taillebois and Erneis of Burun, the king's representatives, on 14 November, 1088. '** Three years elapsed before the bishop was restored. Towards the end of that period, in May, 1091, King Malcolm, taking advantage of William Rufus's absence in Normandy, again invaded Northumbria and penetrated as far as Chester-le-Street."" Rufus hastened back to repel the invasion, and on his march to the frontier restored the bishop to his see on 14 September, 1091.-^ About this period, 109 1—2, was executed the charter to which, it is submitted, the Palatinate rights of the bishops of Durham may be traced. This document purports to record the sale by Robert Mowbray, earl of Northumberland (with the king's sanction), to the bishop of Durham and his successors (i) of the earl's right to half of certain fines within lands mostly in the parish of Aycliffe ; (2) the. passagium outside the city of Durham ; and (3) ' quicquid praedictus Comes calumnia- batur Super omnes terras et consuetudines et homines Sancti Cuthberti.' "^ It is to this third clause that attention is directed. At that period the whole of the country between the rivers Tyne and Tees did not belong to the see of Durham, for the district known as the wapentake of Sadberge, bordering on the Tees, did not become part of the bishopric till it was purchased by Bishop Pudsey a century later. Over the land, however, then belonging to the see, the earl it appears had certain rights, and by this grant he conveyed to the bishop whatever rights he (the earl) had. It is therefore necessary to try to ascertain what the earl's rights were. We have seen above that until 954 Northumbria was a separate kingdom under, from 829, a more or less ill-defined suzerainty of the English kings. In 954 the kingdom was reduced to an earldom ; but the change was almost nominal, for the earls, mostly of the house of Bamburgh, were virtually independent and exercised regal powers. It does not appear that the Conqueror cut down their privileges."^ The only direct evidence now subsisting of the. Jura regalia exercised by the earls is a fine taken before Henry of Pudsey, justiciar of Bishop Hugh Pudsey in 11 90 when he was earl of Northumberland.^* If in Pudsey's time the earls of Northumberland still had jura regalia it may be assumed that a century earlier they exercised similar powers, the tendency during that century, and especially during the latter part of it, being to cut down the powers exercised by the holders of great franchises. " Angl.-Sax. Chron. sub anno 1088. '" Simeon, op. cit. (Rolls Ser.), ii, 218, 221 ; Angl.-Sax. Chron. sub anno 1 091. ■' Simeon, op. cit. (Rolls Ser.), ii, 218. " The charter is printed in Fcodarium Prior. Dun. (Surtees Soc), p. Ixxxii. The original is missing,, and only a transcript made early in the twelfth century exists in the Treasury at Durham. The transcript is on a piece of parchment which also contains a transcript of a charter of Hen. I to Bishop Flamb.ird. Feod. p. Ixxx. Canon Greenwell is of opl,nion that there is nothing to raise any suspicion as to the authenticity of this charter. '*" Davies, England under the Norman and Jngevin Kings, 5 1 7. " A copy of the bishop's fine together with a note on its curious history is given in Northumb. County Hist, ix, 73. Canon Greenwell, who saw the document now missing, was satisfied as to its authenticity. Further evidence as to the 'jura regalia ' will be found in Mr. W. Page's article on the Northumbrian Palatinates and Regalities ; Arch. Ii, 143. 2 137 18 A HISTORY OF DURHAM The existence of jura regalia in the earl of Northumberland at the time of Mowbray's grant being allowed, the creation of such rights in favour of the bishop of Durham must be in derogation of the earl's rights, and the rights themselves obtained by grant from the earl, though it would be ad- visable, as was done in this case, to obtain the king's confirmation of the grant. The amount of the consideration {c. libras denariorum) shows that the earl was parting with rights of no mean value, but as to the extent of the earl's rights within the episcopal territory there is little evidence. Simeon, how- ever, relates that when Walcher was appointed to the see of Durham, Waltheof, then earl of Northumberland, built the castle at Durham.''* At the time of the Conquest, therefore, we have the great earldom of Northumberland, within which the bishops of Durham had been by territorial acquisitions gradually building up a great franchise."^ In Walcher for the first time the powers of bishop and earl were united, and for the first time a bishop of Durham exercised jura regalia, but he did so as earl and not as bishop. Walcher's successor to the bishopric was not the man to allow powers which had been exercised by his predecessor, whether as bishop or as earl, to pass from his hands or to tolerate any interference by the earl. While the incompetent Alberic was earl he would have little to fear, but with the accession of a strong man like Mowbray to the earldom trouble ensued. ^° To settle these disputes the king intervened, and the charter in question w^as the result of such intervention. Before this charter the earl exercised jura regalia within the territories of the bishop of Durham ; by it the earl quitclaimed all his rights over the episcopal lands to the bishop, who thereby became entitled to exercise within his territories the jura regalia formerly wielded by the earl." After his return. Bishop Carileph appears to have concentrated his energies on rebuilding the cathedral. This, however, does not seem to have fully occupied his time, for in 1095 he was again suspected of rebellion ; but, summoned to appear before the king, he died at Windsor on 2 January, 1096."* Three years elapsed (during which the king drew jr30o annually from the bishopric ^^) ere a successor was appointed, and that successor was " Simeon, op. cit. (Rolls Ser.), ii, 199. Dr. Gee first drew attention to the fact that Waltheof and not the Conqueror was the founder of Durham Castle ; Durham and Northumb, Arch. Soc. Trans, v, p. clxxiv. ^' The numerous franchises which grew up within the earldom (see Mr. Page's article, Arch, li, 145) seem to indicate a marked tendency to disintegration, probably due to the independent spirit of the people and the frequent changes of ruler. '^ Simeon, op. cit. (Rolls Sen), i, 125 ; Liber Ruber Serif l. Tres (Surtees Soc), p. ccccxxv. " For many centuries the origin and extent of the bishop of Durham's _/«r<7 regalia have been the subject of inquiry. In the Treasury at Durham there are two notes dealing with the question; one (Loc. 21, No. 18) by Prior Wcssington (14.16—46), who favours the bishop's rights and quotes Simeon, Hoveden, and the forged foundation charters of the convent in support. The other is in the first (fifteenth century) Cartulary (fol. 186 a'.), where, under the heading 'Evidencia pro curia temporali Prioris,' the rights of the bishop are belittled for the purpose of exalting those of the convent. In the seventeenth century Miles Stapleton, Bishop Cosin's secretary, traced their origin to Guthred's charter [Raine, A'. Durham, i]. The next writer to deal with the question was Gilbert Spearman, who in 1729 published his Inquiry into the Ancient and Present State of the County Palatine of Durham, in which the rights are particularized and their origin ascribed to prescription. There is an interesting copy of this work, extensively annotated by Thomas Gyll, solicitor-general to Bishop Trevor, in the Dean and Chapter Library at Durham (Allan MSS. A. 17). Sir Thomas Duffus Hardy, in his 'Introduction to Kellaw's Register' (Rolls Ser. 1873), traces their origin partly to prescription and partly to grant. In 1887 Mr. Page, in his ' Paper on Northumbrian Palatinates and Regalities' (Arch, li, 143), traces the origin of they'ara regalia of the bishops of Durham to the regality of the ancient kingdom and earldom of Northumbria. Some of Mr. Page's contentions have since been criticized by Dr. Lapsley in The County Palatine of Durham, 16. ^' Simeon, op. cit. (Rolls Ser.), i, 134. '' Ibid. I 35. 138 POLITICAL HISTORY the redoubtable Ralph Flambard. From a political point of view Durham was fortunate in being ruled by a man whose ability, whatever his other failings may have been, was undoubted. Under his firm rule Durham pros- pered materially, and many public works of importance were carried out, the most notable of which was the castle of Norham guarding one of the principal fords over the Tweed against Scottish aggression."^* Shortly after the accession of Henry I, Flambard was seized at London (15 August, i 100) and com- mitted to the Tower, whence he escaped on 3 February, i loi, to Normandy.^" He was one of those who obtained an amnesty under the treaty between Duke Robert and the king ; but though restored to his see he could not obtain the king's favour, and the inhabitants of Durham suffered much from his exactions for the purpose of buying his way into the king's good graces.**' His attempts were unsuccessful, and Henry is said to have cancelled the charters granted by the Conqueror. At Flambard's death great progress had been made in the reorganization of Durham. Delayed by the incompetency of Walcher, under his two able successors the development of the resources of the county had proceeded rapidly, and at Flambard's death the defensive strength of the northern border had been materially increased by the building of Norham Castle and the strengthening of the defences of Durham. With the accession of Bishop Geoffrey, chancellor to King Henry I, Durham enters on another stage, that of her struggles as a frontier county against the Scots. Till the king's death, 1135, the bishop had two years of peace, but the unrest which followed Stephen's accession was soon felt in the north. David of Scotland, in support of his niece, the Empress Maud, and mindful of his oath to the late king, invaded England in 1 136, took Norham Castle amongst other strongholds, and overran the county as far as Durham, which he intended to attack. Stephen, however, with a large force, arrived there on 5 February, and David, foiled in his attempt, retired to Newcastle. ^^ Stephen remained fifteen days at Durham, and during that period came to terms with David, who gave up Norham and the other castles he had taken in Northumberland. Hostilities ceased, but not for long ; the next year David again threatened to invade, but was checked by the rapid concentration of the English forces at Newcastle.'^ Early in the following year, 1138, David reached Hexham, and a portion of his army crossing the Tyne, laid waste a great portion of the western part of the county.'* In Lent, however, Stephen's offensive operations against Scotland relieved the county for a short time, but owing to lack of supplies ^^ he had to retire, leaving the county exposed. After Easter (3 April, 11 38) the Scottish king again advanced, and ravaged the eastern portion of the county.'^ David with his retinue took up his abode near Durham, but being disturbed by a mutiny of Picts and a false report of the approach of a large English force, he retreated and laid siege to Norham. At first the castle, owing to the gallantry of the towns- men, was defended with vigour ; ^^ but many having been wounded, and despairing of aid from the bishop, the garrison surrendered, the nine knights and their men who formed the regular garrison being permitted to retire to "» Simeon, op. cit. (Rolls Scr.), 140. '" Ibid. 138. " Ibid. 139. ^" Richard of Hexham, Gata Stcphani, sub anno 1 136. " Ibid, sub anno 11 37. '< Ibid, sub anno 1 138. " Ibid. ^'' Ibid. " Ibid. 139 A HISTORY OF DURHAM Durham. As a result of this surrender while the defences were unimpaired and supplies abundant, the garrison were censured for their feeble resistance, and the bishop for neglecting properly to garrison so important a point in times so disturbed.^' After capturing the fortress, David offered to restore it to the bishop if he would desert Stephen ; but Geoffrey, unlike most of the Northumbrian nobles, remained true to his king, and Norham was accordingly dismantled. '^^ After a vain attempt to capture Wark, David, now openly sup- ported by the powerful help of Eustace Fitz John,*" again entered the territory of St. Cuthbert. Effecting a junction with some Picts, Cumbrians, and men from Carlisle,''^ he passed by Durham, crossed the Tees, and advanced south with a force of 26,000 men,*- until he was defeated at Northallerton by the force raised by the energy of the aged Thurstan archbishop of York.*^ During their retreat through the Palatinate, the Scots received as little mercy from the inhabitants as the latter had received from the invaders, who are described as exceeding all others in the commission of cruelties." Shortly after the battle Alberic bishop of Ostia reached Durham, and negotiated a truce so far as the Palatinate was concerned, till 11 November, 11 38,** and in 11 39 the truce was converted into a peace, whereby Stephen granted Henry son of King David the earldom of Northumberland, it being, however, specially provided that Henry should claim no rights over the territory of St. Cuthbert.*^ The treaty was signed at Durham on 9 April, 1 139, by Henry son of King David in the presence of Queen Maud. By this treaty the Scottish border was advanced to the Tees, for at this time the southern part of Durham known as Sadberge had not been acquired by the bishopric, and still formed part of Northumberland. David had not to wait long for an opportunity of adding St. Cuthbert's territory to that already acquired, for two years later, May, 1141,*^ William Cumin, his chancellor, on his arrival at Durham, found the bishop, Geoffrey Rufus, at the point of death. Cumin hurried off to David for instructions, and on his return, shortly after the bishop's death, seized the temporalities of the bishopric, and obtained possession of Durham Castle from the late bishop's nephew.** In addition he won over the barons of the bishopric to his cause, a matter apparently of but little difficulty. David arrived at Durham soon after his chancellor, and pressure was brought to bear on the convent to obtain Cumin's election as bishop. The monks proving stubborn, David and Cumin went south to appeal to the Empress Maud, who was then in power. She assented, but his election was opposed by the legate, Henry bishop of Winchester. David and Cumin, who both had been besieged in Winchester and escaped with difficulty, returned to Durham about Michaelmas,*' when Cumin was left in the castle as guardian of the bishopric for the empress, David being surety between the garrison and the prior and convent that neither party would inflict or suffer damage. '' Richard of Hexham, Gesta ^tephani, sub mm 1 1 38. '' Ibid. *" Ibid. " Ibid. " Ibid. " John of Hexham, Hist, sub anno 1 1 38. With the exception of Bruce and Ballioi, the names of Durham men do not appear in the list of those engaged. " Ric. Hexham, Gesta Siefhanl (Rolls Ser.), 66. *' Ibid. 54. " Ibid. 58. " The bishop died in 1 1 41, not 1 140, as it was the year in which the Empress Maud was driven from London and the battle of Lincoln fought ; Simeon, op. cit. (Rolls Ser.), i, 145, 161. " Ibid. 164. "Ibid. 145. 140 POLITICAL HISTORY After David's departure, however, Cumin behaved as though he were bishop, receiving the homage of the barons and disposing of the episcopal domains. For some time Cumin appears to have remained peaceably in possession of the temporalities of the bishopric and strengthened his position by building a castle at Northallerton (part of St. Cuthbert's territory locally situated in the county of York), which he handed over to his nephew William, who had married a niece of the earl of Albemarle. On 14 March, 1 143, William of St. Barbara was elected bishop in spite of Cumin's efforts, and shortly afterwards made his first attempt to oust the intruder. It appears that Roger Conyers, one of the episcopal barons, had refused to do homage to Cumin as his brethren had, and fearful of Cumin's anger, had fortified his house at Bishopton, some fourteen miles south of Durham.'"' Thither the new bishop, somewhat unwillingly, proceeded towards the end of August. Many flocked to meet him, and escorted by Conyers and some other barons he proceeded towards the castle of Durham. The bishop's first attempt to oust the intruder was anything but successful. Cumin, disregarding the bishop's attempts to compromise, assumed the offensive, and on their approach drove back the episcopal troops, who retired to St. Giles's Church, situated on a height about a mile to the east of the castle. The next morning Cumin attacked St. Giles's, drove his opponents back, and fortified the church as an advance post from whence the bishop's troops were harried by frequent sallies of the garrison consisting of a company of men-at-arms and archers. The bishop's position was now precarious, as Cumin had entered into arrangement with the earl of Richmond to attack the bishop in rear. He accordingly retreated to Bishopton, the movement being attended with loss owing to the activity of Cumin's troops." Meanwhile the bishop fortified and occupied Thornley, a village commanding the Hartlepool road some eight miles from Durham, but, famine threatening, a truce was arranged on 30 November, 1143, to last till 13 January, 1144. Before this truce had expired, and through the mediation of the archbishop of York, it was extended till 24 June, 1 144, the terms being that Cumin was to occupy the castle at Durham and receive a third of the rents of the bishopric lands between the Tyne and Tees." The truce was ill observed, for after the bishop had spent some time in Northumberland he returned to Jarrow, where Cumin — who during the bishop's absence had won over to his cause some of his adherents, including Hugh the son of Pinton his steward — made (6 May, 1 144) a desperate but unsuccessful attempt to capture him.^^ The bishop then retired to Lindisfarne and enlisted the somewhat doubtful assistance of Henry earl of Northumberland, son of King David. He, however, had been induced to make a separate truce with Cumin till 15 August, 11 44. On 14 August Cumin began to fortify the church of Merrington, which stands on a height some nine miles to the south of Durham, possibly enabling him to keep open his communications with the earl of Richmond. Berfore the work was completed three of the bishopric barons, Roger Conyers, Geoffrey EscoUand, and Bertram Bulmer, collecting all their available forces, attacked and carried the church by storm.'* " Simeon, op. cit. (Rolls Sen), i, 150. " Ibid. 152. "Ibid. 155. "Ibid. 157. "Ibid. 158. 141 A HISTORY OF DURHAM Meanwhile Earl Henry with the bishop crossed the Tyne with his army and approached Durham. After burning those parts of the city which had been spared by Cumin's troops Henry proceeded to the castle of Thornley which, when it surrendered to him, he refused to hand over to the bishop, his troops meanwhile ravaging the bishopric." Cumin's position was now becoming serious, and after an interview with the king of Scotland at Gates- head ^^ he entered into negotiations with Roger Conyers, and on i8 October, 1 144, surrendered the castle, receiving in exchange Conyers's fortress at Bishopton." Thus ended Cumin's attempt to secure the bishopric of Durham for his king, who does not appear to have had any real affection for the cause of the empress or to have been actuated by any higher motive than selfish greed. ''^ The attempt was daringly made, and the rapidity with which Cumin acted makes it look almost as though the plan was preconcerted. Obtaining possession of the temporalities as custos for the empress during the vacancy, his position was not illegal till the election of William of St. Barbara, and as this was not confirmed by the empress, whom alone Cumin recognized as sovereign, he was fully justified in retaining the temporalities until, with Stephen's growing power, the contest proved hopeless.^' After the stormy beginning of his episcopacy William of St. Barbara passed the remaining years in peace, and on 22 January, 1 153, Hugh Pudsey, a cousin of King Henry II,^° was elected. His long episcopacy, extending over forty years, was marked by steady progress and development, for the strife and turmoil of his life were but slightly reflected in the history of the franchise which he governed. Shortly after his accession Henry H resumed possession of Northumber- land, whereby Durham again became an integral part of the kingdom, and not a mere outlying liberty." Pudsey's relationship to the king stood him in good stead and enabled him to evade the centralizing tendencies of the crown and to obtain charters confirming the privileges of his franchise. °" During the first years of his episcopacy Pudsey seems to have spent his time in developing the resources of his territory, though his absences at the king's court appear to have been frequent.^' The castle of Norham, which had lain waste since its surrender to King David, was repaired" and the defences of Durham strengthened." In 1173 he sided with the young Prince Henry, and though he did not join in the rebellion he informed William the Lion that he wished to remain at peace," and gave him permission to pass through his territories." Early in 1 174 Pudsey had a conference with King William " Simeon, op. cit. (Rolls Ser.), i, 159. '^ Ibid. " Ibid. 166. The authorities for the Cumin episode are the Continuators of Simeon, op. cit. (Rolls Ser.), i, 143-66, and the Poem of Lawrence (Surtees Soc.) ; as they were bitter opponents of Cumin their decidedly unfavourable criticism of his proceedings must be received with caution. ^ Rait, Relations between England and Scotland, 23. " It should be noted that Cumin's attempt was merely an incident in the Scotch plan to push back the English frontier. See Tait, Medieval Manchester, 168, as to Scottish activity on the Lancashire side at this period. ™ Scriptores Tres (Surtees Soc), App. p. 1. " Stubbs, Constit. Hist, i, 455. " Script. Tres (Surtees Soc), App. p. 49 et seq. "^ Diet. Nat. Biog. under 'Pudsey.' *' Reginald of Durham, Libclks (Surtees Soc), iii. ^' Script. Tres (Surtees Soc), iz. '* Jordan Fantosme, Chron. (Surtees Soc), 27. *' To reach Alnwicic, the Scots' first objective, it would be necessary to pass through those outlying portions of the bishopric which lay close to the Scottish border and were guarded by the castle at Norham. 142 POLITICAL HISTORY and for 300 marks purchased a truce. ^' Meanwhile the bishop strengthened the castle at Northallerton," and on the very day (13 July, 1174) that the king of Scotland was captured at Alnwick, Hugh count of Bar landed at Hartlepool with 40 knights and 500 Flemings for whom the bishop had sent. On hearing of the Scottish king's fate the bishop promptly ordered the Flemings to return to their country, and garrisoned the castle of Northallerton with the knights, over whom he placed his nephew the count of Bar.™ The price Pudsey had to pay for his treachery seems small." Going to Nottingham, he met the king and surrendered the castles of Durham, Norham, and Northallerton. With difficulty he obtained permis- sion for the garrison of the last of these strongholds to return home." The reasons for Pudsey 's action in this matter are difficult to ascertain. By his means, it is true, the bishopric escaped the terrible ravages incidental to Scottish warfare ; possibly he was influenced by his connexion with the French court." It was not till 11 77 that he was able to purchase peace from the king, and Durham and Norham Castles were not handed over till later, whilst Northallerton was dismantled about this time.''* In 1 181 Pudsey was again in trouble for refusing to account to the king for 300 marks received from Roger archbishop of York, who died in this year. The king ordered Durham Castle to be seized, but Pudsey was soon pardoned." Meanwhile the Palatinate suffisred from the bishop's exactions to enable him to fulfil his vow to proceed to the Crusades, but Richard's accession enabled Pudsey to divert the money thus obtained to other uses. Present at the king's coronation, he purchased at the subsequent ^° sale of offices the earldoms of Northumberland and Sadberge. Up to this period the episcopal territories did not comprise all the land between the rivers Tyne and Tees. Along the bank of the latter river (except at Darlington and Stockton) lay a band of territory which still formed part of Northumberland. Originally part of the patrimony of St. Cuthbert, it appears to have been transferred by Bishop Aldhun to the earl of Northumberland." The exact boundaries of the wapentake of Sadberge are uncertain,^' but it included the barony of Gainford, which with Barnard Castle as caput baronae brought the Balliols into direct contact with the bishop, and during the follow- ing century the prestige of the latter was rather eclipsed by the powerful holders of Barnard Castle. To the east, Sadberge included Hart, owned by the Bruce family, whose interests, however, fortunately for the bishops of Durham, «« Hoveden, Chron. (Rolls Ser.), ii, 57. '' Ibid. "Ibid, ii, 63. " ' Henry doubtless saw that his own policy was to make it the bishop's interest to be faithful and aot to risk on the side of Scotland the substitution of a weaker even if more trustworthy champion.' Stubbs in Hoveden, op. cit. iii, Pref p. xxxvii. " Hoveden, op. cit. (Rolls Ser.), ii, 64. "^ Diet. Nat. Biog. under ' Pudsey.' " Gest. Hen. (Rolls Ser.), i, 160. '^ Giraldus Camb. Opera (Rolls Ser.), iv, 367. " Though the charter, Script. Tres (Surtees Soc), App. No. xl, is dated 18 Dec. the month should be Sept. See H. Hinde, Hist. ofNorthumb. 230. " Simeon, op. cit. i, 82. Raine, JV. Durham, i. Purchase of Sadberge ; Authorities : Scriptores Tres (Surtees Soc), 14 ; Chart. App. No. xl ; Reg. Kellazu (Rolls Ser.), i, Pref 68 ; ibid, iii, Pref 8. The grant of adberge is in the charter of Richard I stated to be in exchange for certain knights' fees in Lincolnshire, whilst the confirmatory charter of 5 Aug. l\()0, Scriptores Tres No. i, mentions also a sum of 600 marks ; fcut as to money payment see H. Hinde, Hist, of Nortkumb. 230, 273. " H. Hinde, Hist. ofNorthumb. 274; Surtees, Hist, of Dur. iv, 266. 143 A HISTORY OF DURHAM centred more in Yorkshire. In Hart lay the port of Hartlepool, then and till the seventeenth century the great port of the Palatinate.^" Pudsey did not, however, retain Sadberge or the earldom long, for four years later he was deprived on the ground that the loss of the king's first seal, with which the charters had been sealed, invalidated the grants. Pudsey resisted, but when on the point of yielding, he died on 3 March, 1 195. The fifty years of Pudsey's rule form one of the most important periods in the history of Durham. Succeeding in 1 153, when the bishopric had hardly recovered from terrible cruelties indicted by the Conqueror, the effects of which had been intensified by the Scottish raids and disorders following on the Cumin episode, Pudsey's strong but beneficent sway left Durham at his death prosperous and contented. For fifty years the bishopric had enjoyed peace, and in whatever light Pudsey's action in 1 173 may be regarded it had at least spared the Palatinate the ravages which the neighbouring districts suffered at the hands of the Scots. Notwithstanding the centralizing tendencies during the reign of Henry II, he managed not only to preserve but also to develop the Palatinate privileges. He had every opportunity and many qualifications for becoming a very great man, and in spite of his failures, he left a mark upon the north of England which is not yet effaced.™ Philip of Poitou, Pudsey's successor, offered Richard 500 marks for the restoration of Sadberge. The offer was accepted, but Richard died before the transaction was completed, and the bishop had to pay 1,200 marks to King John for confirmation of Sadberge, and for liberty to disforest the woods of Crake and Cliffe, and that he might be quit of the aid the king sought from the whole of England." After Bishop Philip's death in 1208 the see remained vacant for nine years, during which period it was entrusted first to Robert Vipont and then to Philip of Ulecote.*^ " It is somewhat difficult to understand the bishop's position in regard to the Bruce and Balliols' possessions between the Tyne and the Tees. King Richard's Charter, Script. Tr,?/, App. No. 40, granted the bishop (l) the manor of Sadberge with the wapentake pertaining to that manor, (2) the service {servitium) of Peter Carew of one knight's fee, the service of Thomas of Ammundaville of one knight's fee, and the service of Godfrey Baard of two-thirds of a knight's fee, to hold the same as the bishop holds his other lands and knights' fees in the bishopric. No mention is made of the Balliols' 5 J knights' fees or Bruce's 2, or of the other fees set out in Hinde, op. cit. 275. John's charter dated 4 March, 1200, grants the manor and wapentake of Sadberge without any restriction as to knights' fees, ' Sicut Richardus frater noster in propria manu sua habebat.' Mickle- ton MSS. i, 102 ij'. Hutchinson, //w/. of Dur. i, 230, gives rather a mutilated transcript of the charter. In the sequel we shall find disputes arising between the bishop and the Balliols and the Bruces as to their respective rights and obligations. In regard to the Bruce fee it should be mentioned that in I 201 John granted a charter erecting Hartlepool into a borough (Surtees, //;V/. of Dur.'w, 386), notwithstanding the bishop's jura regalia. As to the scutage payable after the transfer by the Balliol and Bruce fees (Hinde, op. cit. 278, 281) in 1211-I2 the ReJ Bk. of Exch. (Rolls Ser.), 608, states that the bishop of Durham had ten knights' fees in the wapentake of Sadberge. ^ Stubbs, Pref to Hoveden, op. cit. iii, p. xxxv. *' Reg. Kellait! (Rolls Ser.), iii, Introd. 9. There is a transcript of the charter in the Mickleton MSS. i, 102 d. — .the copy given in Hutchinson, Hist, of Dur. i, 230, is inaccurate, the grant includes 'Manerium de Sadburga cum Wapentagiis et feodis militum . . . sicut Rex Richardus frater nos'er in propria manu habebat.' This would appear to vest all the knights' fees in the bishop. For details of the acquisition of Sadberge by the bishops of Durham, see Reg. Kellaw (Rolls Ser.), i, Introd. 68-71 ; ibid, iii, Introd. g ; Hodgson Hinde, Hist. ofNorthumb. 230, 273. 'Mt is somewhat difficult accurately to ascertain the relative position of these two. In April, 120S, Vipont was appointed {Rot. Pat. (Rec. Com.), i\b) and appears to have actually taken possession as cu%\.o%, FeoJ. (Surtees Soc), 232. He seems, however, to have soon been replaced by Ulecote, for In April, I 20g, the king addressed a writ to Aimeric archdeacon of Durham and Ulecote as guardians of the bishopric {Rot. Pat. (Rec. Com.), gi). Thenceforward Ulecote appears to have remained in charge, for though in August, 1215, the castle of Durham had to be handed over to Vipont {Rot. Lit. Pat. (Rec. Com.), 152^), Ulecote is a little later still treated as the king's representative {Rot. Lit. Claus. [Rec. Com.], 247). 144 POLITICAL HISTORY Under the latter's firm rule the bishopric was not only retained for the king, but large sums of money were collected on his behalf.^^ Ulecote's position was one of great difficulty, as the north was the stronghold of the baronial discontent, and in addition the Scottish forces maintained a threatening attitude. Fortunately for John he was supported by the Balliol interest, then the most powerful in the bishopric. Settled soon after the Conquest at Gain- ford by the Tees, the Balliol family rapidly increased in power. Bernard Balliol, who died about 1167, built on the Tees the castle which is named after him, and became the head of the extensive lordship which spread over the greater part of the southern and western portion of the present county. As part of Sadberge, Barnard Castle passed, by Richard's grant, under the control of the bishop,*^ though as will be seen later the Balliols did not acquiesce in this transfer without a struggle. At this period Hugh was the head of the house of Balliol, and with his brother Bernard supported John. During the rising after the grant of Magna Charta, Ulecote appears to have taken charge of Northumberland whilst Vipont held the country between the Tyne and Tees for the king.*" On 5 June, 1216, Hugh Balliol was appointed to succeed Ulecote, who was thought to be dying. *^ Ulecote, however, recovered. With the North- umbrian barons in open revolt, and Alexander of Scotland actively support- ing them,*'' the situation was so serious that John himself came north and early in 121 6 restored order in the district. At the beginning and again at the end of January he was at Durham, where he received the submission of four of the principal men of the bishopric — Gilbert Hansard, Robert of Amundaville, Roger Daudre, and William of Laton,"" and in addition Henry Neville fined to the king for the castle of Brancepeth, which was to remain in the king's hands.** After John had retired Alexander advanced through Cumberland and approached Barnard Castle about July.*' During a reconnaissance, however, Eustace de Vesci, his brother-in-law, was killed, and Alexander retired. After this stormy period Durham enjoyed peace for nearly a century. Of the series of bishops who occupied the see between Pudsey and Bek there is but little to relate, and during the period in question the Balliols appear to have been the dominant influence, especially in the person of John, who during the barons' war supported the king's party as his father Hugh had supported King John. Of the other great barons Robert Bruce '" stood by Henry III whilst Richard Neville sided with the barons at Lewes. It is in connexion with Montfort's rising that the first conflict took place between the king and the bishop of Durham as to the latter's right to forfeitures of war within the Palatinate. After the battle of Evesham the king seized the manor of Greatham held by Peter de Montfort, and granted it to Thomas of Clare. Bishop Kirkham protested, and the king revoked his grant to Clare and acknowledged the bishop's right to forfeitures in the Palatinate." ^' Boldon Bk. (Surtees Soc), App. xiii et seq. " Rot. Lit. Claus. (Rec. Com.), i, i 29. ^ Rot. Lit. Pat. (Rec. Com.), 152^., Both Wendover and Matt. Paris, Chron. Maj. (Rolls Ser.), ii, 64.1, state that Hugh Balliol and Ulecote were placed in charge of the land between the Tees and Scotland, but the entries on the Close and Patent Rolls do not bear this out. "^ Rot. Lit. Pat. (Rec. Com.), 1S6. *' He besieged Norham in Oct. 1215 without success. Chron. Melrose, sub anno 1215. *'"^ Rot. Lit. Pat. (Rec. Com.), 163. *' Excerf>ta e Rot. Fin. (Rec. Com.). *' Melrose Chron. sub anno 1 2 16. '" Dugdale, Baronage, 450. " Lapsley, Co. Pal. of Dur. 42 ; Surtees, Hist. Dur. iii, 134. 2 145 19 A HISTORY OF DURHAM The main interest, however, during this period is in the struggle between the bishop and his great feudatories — a fitting prelude to the coming conflict between Bek and the crown. During the thirteenth century the bishop was engaged in a contest for supremacy with the prior and convent of Durham and the three principal lay tenants, Balliol, Bruce, and Neville, each of whom attempted to oust or evade the bishop's jurisdiction. Almost from the be- ginning there had been friction between the bishop and the great Benedictine convent which Carileph founded at Durham. During Flambard's episcopacy relations were very strained, due, the convent alleged, to the bishop with- holding part of the conventual estates. '- Towards the end of the twelfth century another difficulty arose — that of jurisdiction. Under Pudsey, who had acted as a royal justice in eyre, the bishop's court was being gradually transformed from a seignorial court into one modelled on the royal courts of Henry 11.°' The convent also tried to develop their seignorial court on similar lines, and during the long vacancy after Bishop Poitou's death with some measure of success. With Bishop Richard Marsh's accession a struggle began and con- tinued till 1229, when by an agreement between Bishop le Poor and the convent the attempt of the latter to render their court co-ordinate in juris- diction with that of the bishop was defeated. By this agreement, while the convent obtained a share of the profits of the jurisdiction in matters both civil and criminal affecting their tenants, the bishop's right of jurisdiction was upheld and the powers of the prior's court restricted to seignorial matters."* The trouble with the Nevilles arose from an attempt to exclude the bishop from the right to primer seisin. Humphrey de Conyers died seised in capite of the bishop of certain lands which the bishop's bailiff seized except the manor of St. Helens, Auckland, part of the Neville fee. Robert Neville seized the manor and refused to give it up. The bishop thereupon appealed to the king, who in 1271 commanded Neville to permit the bishop and his bailiffs to have possession." The question of primer seisin was not settled definitely till Bishop Bek's time.°^' In the case of the disputes with Bruce and Balliol the question raised was whether the bishop had the same jura regalia within Sadberge as he " See Canon Greenwell's pref. to the Feodarium (Surtees Soc.) as to the joint ownership of the bishop and congregation of St. Cuthbert and subsequent partition of the estates. " Lapsley, op. cit. i6l et seq. " The convenit with 'attestationes de placitis coronae' and ' attestationes testium ' are printed in the Feed. (Surtees Soc), 212 seq. The evidence on the bishop's behalf falls into three groups : pp. 221-230, witnesses dealing with North Durham matters; pp. 230-253, witnesses relating to Durham matters ; and pp. 254-261, witnesses dealing with matters relating to Yorkshire. No similar division is noticeable in the case of the convent's witnesses, many of whom speak to matters concerning the then widely separated divisions of the Palatinate. ^' Writ dated 8 Sept. 1 271 (55 Hen. III). The writer has had the advantage in this and other instances of using the valuable collection of transcripts made by the late Mr. W. H. D. LongstafFe which are now deposited in the Dean and Chapter Library at Durham. Also Durham Treasury Cart, i, fol. 189, where this and three other cases are referred to. One of these seems to indicate that the bishops in the thirteenth century could not always maintain an effective hold over their tenants : ' Quando Philippus de Chyleforth senior decessit venit Dominus Nigellus de Rungeton tunc ballivus Episcopi et misit se in saysinam terrae de Coton prope Elleton quam idem Philippus tenuit de domino Radulpho de Coton patre Radulphi de Coton junio.is quod audiens idem dominus Radulphus senior congregatis amicis suis et consanguineis violentissime ejecit dominum Nigellum cum suis. Hoc videns dominus Nigellus congregavit omnes quos potuit de potestate episcopi et euntes ad aratrum ut ipsum ejecerit. Sed dictus Radulphus cum suis defendit domum et earn tenuit contra potestatem episcopi et oplinuit custodiam terrae et heredis qui pene erat quatuor annorum usque ad legitimam aetatem et turn tenuit de Episcopo alias terras per servitium militare.' '" hifra. p. 151. 146 POLITICAL HISTORY had in the remainder of the county. The rights of the bishop in the territory of Hart and town and port of Hartlepool were the subject of dispute with Robert Bruce in 1280. By agreement the difference was referred to the arbitration of the bishop of Norwich and Anthony Bek, then archdeacon of Durham, who whilst allowing Bruce free warren, free borough, free port, free market and fairs, confirmed the bishop's right to wreck. In addition, prisoners charged with offences beyond the jurisdiction of the local courts were to be taken to Sadberge Gaol and tried there. ^^ The question of homage was the subject in dispute between the bishop and the Balliols. The latter held in chief of the king the barony of Gainford, which was within the wapentake of Sadberge, by service of 51 knights' fees. On the transfer of Sadberge the bishop claimed the homage of 5 J knights' fees from the Balliols. They resisted the claim, but in 1231 an agreement was made between Bishop le Poor and John Balliol, whereby the latter undertook to do his best to persuade the king to allow the bishop to have the homage of the fees within the wapentake. John Balliol did not carry out the agreement, and was in 1234, and again in 1241, ordered by the king to do homage to the bishop. In 1255 the dispute culminated in an attack by John's brothers Eustace and Jocelin de Balliol on the bishop and his retinue, four of the latter being taken as prisoners to Barnard Castle. The king then intervened and John Balliol submitted." Before dealing in detail with the history of the fourteenth century in which the Scottish wars play so large a part, it may be as well shortly to review the general military situation of Durham in the Middle Ages, first considering the routes by which Durham was liable to be invaded, then the invading force, and lastly, the means at the disposal of the bishop to repel the Scottish inroads. Three main routes were available to the Scots. By the first the Tweed was forded, and the whole length of the county of Northumberland traversed ; the valley of the North Tyne formed the second, whilst the third ran from Carlisle to Hexham. Of these the second may be dismissed, for it does not appear that by this route Durham ever suffered serious invasion ; the difficulty of supply may possibly be the reason. By the first route the Tweed had to be forded in face of the resistance offered by the castles of Wark, Norham, and Berwick, and it is of interest to note that on no occasion do these fortifications appear to have offered an effective opposition to an offensive movement by the Scots. To such skilful foragers the march through the county of Northumberland would offer no difficulties in the matter of supply, whilst the castles of Bamburgh, Alnwick, and Wark- worth were merely passively defensive. The passage of the Northumbrian rivers would not be a difficult matter, but the Tyne was a more serious obstacle, and had to be crossed by the fords above Newcastle. The Carlisle route requires but little comment ; no river of importance had to be crossed, though in the mountain section some difficulties may have been experienced in the matter of supply. "^ Transcript of award, LongstafFe MSS. The dispute as to wreck was one of longstanding, see Kellaw's Reg. (Rolls Ser.), iii, 46, where some of Peter Bruce's men were fined at Sadberge in Bishop le Poor's time. As to the bishop's right to wreck see Lapsley, op. cit. 3 I 7. '' H. Hinde, Hist, of Nortkumb. vi, 41 et seq., where the 1 231 agreement is printed from the copy. Hunter MSS. iv, 289, Durham Cathedral Library. 147 A HISTORY OF DURHAM Of the two routes, that by CarHsle, from a military point of view, was the most desirable. It was some twenty miles the shorter, and the threat of invasion from this direction kept the English troops concentrated by New- castle, and enabled small parties of Scots to overrun the northern part of Northumberland with comparative impunity. In addition, by using this route the forces in Durham were kept in a state of suspense as to the direction from which they would be attacked, whether the Scots would travel by Consett and the valley of the Browney, as they did in the Neville's Cross campaign, or by the valleys of the Wear or the Tees. The fact, however, remains that the Northumbrian route was the one generally adopted. That an army advancing by this direction would protect the fairest part of the lowlands from raiding may account for this, and in addition, the lengthy passage of the Scotch army through their own country, which the Carlisle route involved, must have been very trying to the inhabitants, for even Froissart, a favourable critic, says incidentally of the Scots, ' They are all thieves. ''* The sea route, fortunately for Durham, was closed, as the English always retained the command of the sea, the only effect of the Franco-Scottish alliance being to impede somewhat the passage by sea of supplies to the English garrisons in Scotland. Notwithstanding the English command of the sea, alarms of over-sea raids constantly recur. In 1336 the king sent his mandate to the bishop to cause all the ports and the sea-coast within the liberty of Durham to be safely guarded, and to cause all competent men to be arrayed, as an immediate invasion was expected, particulars of the invading fleet — twenty-six galleys and other ships in great numbers — being given. °' We now come to the Scotch army, which Froissart, in connexion with the 1327 invasion, describes — The Scots are a bold hardy race and much inured to war. When they invaded England they were all usually on horseback, except the camp followers ; they brought no carriages neither did they encumber themselves with any provisions. Under the flap of his saddle each man had a broad plate of metal ; and behind each saddle a little bag of oatmeal, so that when occasion needed cakes were made of oatmeal and baked upon the plates ; for the most part, however, they ate the half soddened flesh of the cattle they captured and drank water."* Mobility was the great feature of the Scottish force, which appears to have consisted of feudal levies, though occasionally some Flemish mercenaries were employed to conduct siege operations. It was a force very suitable for raids, but ill adapted to carry out protracted operations, and one of the most marked features of the Scottish invasions is the lack of objective, for they all appear to have been raids for the purpose of plunder and destruction, and not military operations to obtain an effective hold on the country. The difficulties of the Scottish commanders were due partly to the composition of the force under their command — feudal levies liable to service of but short duration, and dependent on plunder for their remuneration — and the want, as a rule, of a regular or mercenary force to direct and undertake the sieges of the important strategic points, the possession of which would have given them a real hold on the country. Probably for this reason the development " Froissart, Chronicles sub anno. " Kclkzes Reg. (Rolls Ser.), iv, 201. "" Froissart, Chronicles sub anno. 148 POLITICAL HISTORY of artillery in Scotland was much retarded.™ Supply was another difficulty, which was accentuated by the English command of the sea, which closed the only practical route by which a constant supply of food and stores could be obtained from Scotland, and the Scots in consequence were dependent on the country they passed through. The county of Durham, therefore, was liable to invasion by a force of great mobility without any vulnerable line of communication. This force, although not dangerous to the kingdom at large, was by its method of warfare a most terrible scourge to the unfortunate districts which suffered from its raids. Of the districts lying near the border that of Durham offered in its eastern and southern areas the fairest field for the operations of such a force. The force at the bishop's disposal to deal with these invading hordes has now to be considered. First he had his tenants, who were under feudal obligation to military service. The exact nature of this obligation is a matter of doubt. It is called in Bishop Hatfield's Survey servitiutn forinsecum, replacing the older term utivare}^- In 1300 Bek, Durham's most warlike bishop, compelled the men of the bishopric to follow him twice into Scotland. On the second occasion they returned without leave. This brought matters to a crisis, for the defaulters were imprisoned. The people of the bishopric appealed to the king against Bek, their complaint being : — Whereas no free man is bound to do service beyond the waters of Tyne and Tees there have come the bailiffs of the Bishop and have distrained them to do service elsewhere at their own proper charge, and those who were not able they took and imprisoned together with those who went into Scotland, and for default of means, having received no money from the Bishop, returned. To this complaint the bishop replied : — That he doth will, that from henceforth they shall not be thereto distrained to go at their own charge, but only at his own expense, and this in great need in defence of the franchise.^"^ The victory, therefore, lay with the tenants, but it was a hollow one, for whenever it suited them the king or bishop disregarded the above agree- ment, and fortunately so, for had the narrow view of their obligations put forward by the tenants been sustained the plight of the Palatinate would "' Siege artillery was first introduced into Scotland at the beginning of the fifteenth century by James I. ; Lang, Hist, of Scotland, i, 3 I 5. In I496, when James IV was meditating an invasion in support of Perkin Warbeck, Ramsay, the spy, gives but a poor account of the Scots' artillery ; ibid. 369. "" In HatfieliTs Sun>. (Surtees Soc), 140, William Hoton holds in Ryhope a messuage and 32 acres. ' per servitiiim forinsecum.' This is the same holding (see Surtees, Hist. Dur. i, 252) as that which is referred to in the inquisition on the death of Philip Ryhope in 1 34 1, where he is stated to hold ' in capite ' of the bishop, ' faciendo utware ' ; Randall MSS. Dur. Cathedral Lib. i, 34. ^"^ Kellazv's Reg. (Rolls Ser.), iii, 45, 555. In 1581 the regulations for border service in Durham were as follows, viz : — On threat of invasion all men between sixteen and sixty had to assemble at Gates- head Beacon, where the bishop's tenants placed themselves under his officers, and the tenants on the Wcit- morland and Dean and Chapter Estates, and the inhabitants of Barnard Castle, under their respective stewards ; any unattached tenants ranging themselves under the sheriff. After the muster had been taken and the necessary number of men selected, they were then to proceed to the borders and remain there till their period of service had expired. If required to remain after their period of service had expired or to invade Scotland they were to be ptfid wages. The period of service seems to have been ten days on the borders in addition to two days for the journey there and two days for the return. After the defeat of Ancrum Moor in February, 1545, the men of Durham received five shillings a head for remaining, at their bishop's request, for an additional four or five days on the border pending the arrival of levies from Yorkshire and elsewhere. Hunter MSS. (Dur. Cathedral Lib.), xxii. No. 5 ; and Allan MSS. vii, 136. 149 A HISTORY OF DURHAM have been bad indeed, for the only hope of protecting it from Scottish in- roads lay in a vigorous offensive. As to numbers it is difficult to give any reliable estimate, but at the battle of Lewes no fewer than eighty-five knights, all dwelling within the Palatinate, took part. As the list '"* of these knights gives their place of residence it is possible to ascertain their distribution throughout the county. They appear to have been principally resident in the southern and eastern districts, whereas Bishop Hatfield's Survey shows that military tenure was most pronounced in the north-west portion of the county — the part which was most exposed to the Scottish inroads. The difference may possibly be accounted for by the desire that the most vulnerable part of the county should not be left defenceless when the main body of knights went south to Lewes, and that some of the knights resident on the frontier were, therefore, left for its protection. In addition to his feudal tenants the bishop could call on (as he did in 1322)^"° all the able bodied men of his liberty between the ages of sixteen and sixty. This was an unusual step apparently, and the more general plan was to call upon each township to provide a certain quota ^"^ or appoint commissioners to raise a certain number of men.^"^ The numbers raised in this way for service against the Scots were sometimes considerable. In 13 13 writs were issued for 1,500 archers,"* and later in the century (1335) the number of archers was reduced to 300, but in addition 200 hobelers had to be raised, the writ requiring each of the latter to be provided with a horse, hand sword, and light armour."* What the total armed force of the Palatinate amounted to is doubtful. Froissart, not a very reliable authority where numbers are concerned, described the bishop in 1388 as being at the head of 7,000 men, namely, 2,000 mounted and 5,000 foot."° The nature of the service demanded from the general body of the inhabitants may be seen from a report in 1591 by Sir William Bowes on Barnard Castle, which he describes as being within the wardenry of the East March towards Scotland. ' The inhabitants are all bound to fourteen days' service in their proper persons of their owne charges at the borders uppon an houre's warninge.' '" The command of the Palatinate forces was vested in the bishop, and men like Bek assumed the actual command. In 1343, when Bury, certainly not a military character, was bishop, a royal mandate was addressed to the prior of Durham to collect as many men-at-arms as he could and proceed to the Marches to repel an expected invasion."^ In general, however, the bishop entrusted the command and direction of his troops to his principal feudal tenants. Bishop Fordham's roll for 1386 included a payment to Sir William Bowes and three other knights by way of retainer in peace and war."' They would form the bishop's military staff. Having dealt with what may be called the field army, the castle of Dur- ham and its garrison have to 'oe considered. From its foundation the city of Durham had been a fortress. In addition the castle was a great arsenal, and >" Hatfield's Surv. (Surtees Soc), xiv. "" Rvmer, Foedera, v (3), 964, printed Hutchinson, op. cit. i, ^28. "•^ Ke/law's Reg. (Rolls Ser.), i, 17. "" Lapsley, op. cit. 306. "' Kef/atv's Reg. (Rolls Ser.), iv, 112. "" Ibid. 191-2. "° Froissart, op. cit. 453. "' Surtees, Hist. Diir. iv, 56 ; also suj>ra, p. 149. "* Kellaw, op. cit. iv, 250. '" Hatfield's Survey (Surtees Soc), 267. 150 POLITICAL HISTORY Lawrence in the twelfth century records the supplies of food and armour "^ stored there, whilst the Pipe Rolls at the beginning of the thirteenth century indicate the existence of a siege train. ^^' The same rolls also show that pon- toons, picks, shovels, hatchets, &c., were sent to Ireland and Wales from this county, and doubtless stores of the same nature would be kept at Durham. Further, there are payments to the keeper of the armour in the castle."" The castle appears to have been garrisoned on feudal principles, no mer- cenaries being employed. The inferior tenants in certain townships in the eastern and southern portions of the county (being those less exposed to in- vasion) were under obligation to furnish men called Castlemen who kept watch and ward at a definite period of the year. These men would form the rank and file of the garrison."^ The superior part of the garrison was supplied by the barons of the bishopric, who in turn were each for a period responsible for the defence of a section of the wall."' It would appear that these services were never commuted for a money payment, for in 1557 the Venetian Am- bassador in dealing with the border garrisons refers to the city of Durham as a place of very great renown among the English. Though in the city no soldiers are commonly kept and paid yet being very popular it has always been reputed one of the chief bulwarks against the inroads of the Scots."' In 1284 began the episcopate of Anthony Bek 'of that state and greatness as never any Bishop was, Woolsey excepted.' ^-'' The period was a stirring one owing to the outbreak of the Scottish war, which was to last so long and cause so much misery in Durham. Although the bishop of Durham was after Edward I the most notice- able figure of this time, the great events which rendered the period so memorable took place beyond the River Tyne, and do not, therefore, concern us here. Durham, except on the occasion when the Scots crossed the Tyne and burnt Ryton in 1297, did not directly suffer from the war, but the demands for men, money, and carriage brought about in the Palatinate a constitutional crisis, which is the main feature of Bek's episcopate. It was under Bek that the jura regalia of the bishops of Durham reached their fullest development ; a development so great that it became necessary for the crown to limit the powers of a subject so capable of wielding them. During the first years of his episcopate, Bek, a favourite of the king, carried all before him. After the beginning of the fourteenth century, however, he exasperated his subjects by his exactions and arrogant '" Laurence, Dia/ogi (Surtees Soc), lines 403-8. '" Bo/don Book (Surtees See), App. xvii, xxii. "* Hatfielcfs Survey (Surtees Soc), 271. '" BoIJon Book (Surtees Soc), passim. "* An inquisition post mortem in 1348 states that Jordan de Dalden holds certain houses in the Bailey or the castle of the bishop, ' in capite videlicet in Baronia sicut cetira de ballio.' Randall MSS, i, 45. A deed about 1200 by which Reginald Basset conveyed a house in the Bailey contains the following reservation : 'Cum autem contigerit me vel heredes meos stagium facere ad custodiam castelli Dunelm., praefati monachi Dunelm, michi et heredibus meis unam cameram competentem et stabulum ad quatuor equos tantum in eadem terra pro- videbunt, in quibus propriis sumptibus stagium perficere possimus.' Feodarium (Surtees Soc), 1 96. An Inq. p. m. in Langley's pontificate further indicates that the holders of houses in the Bailey were responsible for the defence of certain sections of the wall. Surtees,' Hist. Durham, iv (2), 37. Simeon's continuator's account of the Cumin incident shows that the barons of the bishopric were a somewhat numerous body, and it seems probable that at the beginning of the twelfth century all who held of the bishop by knight service were known as ' Barons of the Bishopric' It is possible to identify many of the knights whom the bishop in 1 1 66 in his return to the king mentions as being of the old feoffment, not only as barons but also as owners of houses in the Bailey. '" Calendar ofVenelian State Papers. '*° Coke, Institutes, iv, 216. A HISTORY OF DURHAM behaviour, and forfeited his sovereign's goodwill by his tactless, if sincere, remark at the Parliament at Lincoln and the contemptuous manner in which he disregarded the compact which Edward I had arranged between him and the convent of Durham. How great Bek's influence was during the early years of his episcopate may be seen in his collision with the crown over the Quo Warranto pro- ceedings, and his high-handed treatment of the officials of the archbishop of York. The Quo Warranto proceedings (under the Statute of Gloucester) are of interest, as they describe the privileges of the franchise, and were the cause of first seizure of the temporalities of the bishopric by Edward I. In January, 1293, Hugh of Cressingham and his fellow justices itinerant were at Newcastle on Tyne, and the twenty-four jurors ^^^ of the county of Northumberland presented in regard to the bishop of Durham : — That by his BaiUffs he was wont to meet the Justices about to go in eyre at Chylewell or at Fourstones or at Quakenbrigg, and afterwards to come before them at Newcastle on the first day of the Eyre and as well at the meeting of the Justices as at Newcastle sue for the Articles of the Crown. This had been done by all Bek's predecessors till Bishop Robert de L'isle allowed the practice of craving Court to drop. That he had his Chancery,'"^ and by his Writs and by his own Justices he pleaded in his Liberties of Durham, Sadberge, Bedlington, and Norham. That he had his Mint'-' at Durham and his Coroners'-* one for Sadberge and three in the other Wards'-^ of the Liberty of Durham and one at Bedlington and one at Norham. That immediately after the close of the Eyre at Newcastle the Bishop firstly at Durham and then in his other Liberties by his Justices pleaded all pleas of the Crown of the same Liberty and all other pleas by the Law of England and by the Articles delivered to him at Newcastle. That he had gallows at Durham and Norham and used infangenethef and utfangenethef. That he had Market and Fair at Durham, Darlington and Norham. That he pleaded at Norham pleas of the Crown every fortnight or three weeks at his will. That he put men in exigent and caused them to be demanded every six weeks till outlawed. That if outlaws returned he granted them his peace at will. That he had of late raised warren at Tweedmouth where it was never before. That he granted free warren to whomsoever he would. And that his Bailiffs seized at Berwick Bridge all wools, hides, or skins for sale which did not bear the mark called Coket.'-' '" Of the twenty-four jurors twelve were drawn from beyond the Coquet and twelve from the district south of the Coquet. The present county of Durham would appear to have once formed part of a district of which the northern boundary was the Coquet. Compare Simeon's account of the foundation of the City of Durham (Rolls Ser. i, 8l), when the entire population between the Coquet and the Tees assisted. "' This appears to be the earliest mention of the Bishop's Chancery (Lapsley, Palatinate, i86), though before the middle of the thirteenth century Walter de Merton held the office of chancellor to the bishop nbid. 175). It is possible that earlier chancellors may have existed, though the absence of any such official as witness to the numerous deeds of the twelfth century which have survived renders it improbable (ibid. 94). '^' For mint at Durham see Mark Noble's Tzco Dissertations on the Mint and Coins of the Episcopal Palatines of Durham, and Lapsley, op. cit. 278. Royal coins were struck at Durham from the time of the Conqueror, but the origin of the episcopal as distinguished from the Royal Mint is obscure. It can first be traced with surety during Geoffrey Rufus's episcopate. '" Coroners are first mentioned in 1279; Lapsley, op. cit. 86. They would appear to have been always appointed by the bishop and not elected as was the case in the kingdom (ibid.). '" This is the first reference to the division of the bishopric into wards. None are mentioned in Boldon Book. In addition to the three civil wards, Chester, Darlington, and Easington, there were forest wards, viz. Chester, Lanchester, and Roughside in Chester civil ward, and High Forest in Darlington civil ward (Longstaffc Papers, Dean and Chapter Library, Durham, i.x). '^' The other holders of franchises in Durham mentioned in the Quo Warranto proceedings are the prior of Durham who had infangenethef, a moiety of the chattels of felons condemned in his court, amendment of assize of bread and ale broken in Elvet, and a moiety of wreck upon his land ; John Balliol, king of Scotland, 152 POLITICAL HISTORY Bek failing to appear before the justices at Newcastle and prove his right to these privileges, the temporalities of the bishopric of Durham were seized into the king's hands. Bek then appealed, and the case was heard before the king and council in Parliament at London, when, on the ground that no proclamation had been made as required by the Statute of Gloucester (the proclamation by the sheriff of Northumberland not affecting the bishop of Durham's liberty), the judgement was revoked and cancelled, and the liberties restored.'"^ Thus ended Bek's first contest with the crown. At the same period Bek was engaged in a contest with his metropolitan, whose messengers, bearing official letters of citation and canonical mandates, were imprisoned by the bishop's officers.^-^ The archbishop of York promptly excommunicated Bek, who appealed to Parliament, and it is in connexion with this appeal that counsel for the king remarked that ' Episcopus Dunelmensis habet duos status videlicet status episcopi quoad spiritualia et status comitis palatii quoad tenementa sua temporalia.' ^"^ For having excommunicated a lay baron without the king's leave the archbishop was fiined ^^° 4,000 marks. Some years elapsed ere Bek entered on his great struggle with the convent and the men of the Palatinate, which was only ended by the king's intervention. Meanwhile the Scottish war of independence had broken out, and Balliol's extensive estates were added as forfeitures to swell the episcopal revenue. Though the Palatinate did not suffer invasion during this period — the invading force of 1296 retiring after it had reached Hexham — the demands made for men, money, and carriage caused great distress in the district which had so long enjoyed the benefits of peace. The exaction of a second term of military service in Scotland led to rebellion. When led by the bishop into Scotland the men of the Palatinate returned home, and, as has been before mentioned, were later imprisoned as deserters. ^^^ The bishop was then engaged in a struggle with the prior and convent of Durham, and Ralph Neville and John Marmaduke, two of the principal men in the bishopric, taking advantage of the occasion, induced nearly all the knights and freeholders to revolt, saying that they were Haliwerfolk who held their lands for the defence of St. Cuthbert's body, and were under no obligation to serve beyond the Tyne or Tees either for the king or the bishop."'^ The bishop's tenants at Barnard Castle had market, fair, pillory, tumbrel, gallows, infangenethef, chattels of felons condemned in his court, and free chase and free warren ; Agnes de Valence, who at Gainford had gallows and infangenethef, chattels of felons condemned in her court and free warren ; Robert Brus, who at Hartlepool had market and fair, amendment of assize of bread and ale broken, all liberties which to a market and fair pertained, and port of sea, keelage, and prises of fish ; John of Greystok, who at Coniscliffe had gallows and infangenethef, chattels of felons condemned in his court, and free warren. In addition the following had free warren : Ralph Neville at Brancepeth, Robert de Hilton, Wychard de Charron, John Marmaduke, Henry de Lisle, Walter de Wissingdon, and John de Gildeford ; Placita de Quo Warranto (Rec. Com.), 604. It is of interest to note that with the exception of the prior and the rights of free warren all these franchises are within the wap^mtake of Sadberge. '" R}-ley, Placita Parkmcntaria, 1 74. '■' Ryley, op. cit. 135 ; Letters from Northern Registers (Rolls Ser ), 97. The actual point taken was that the archbishop's officials were imprisoned in the castle at Durham which pertained to the bishop's barony (' castrum quod est pertinens ad baroniam ') by the bishop's lay officials, and that therefore the act was done by the bishop in his temporal and not in his spiritual capacity. '2' Ibid. "" Ibid. "' Seep. 149. '" Gmystanes, Script. Ires. (Surt. Soc), 76 ; Lapsley, op. cit. 1 28 seq. Haliwerfolk originally meant a tract of country lying to the north of the Tees. In the smaller chartulary, thirteenth century, in the treasury at Durham, the rubric ' Ghana de Haliwerfole ' includes territory between the rivers Tyne and Tees, Bedling- 2 153 20 A HISTORY OF DURHAM appealed to the king, and forwarded a petition setting out their various grievances. '^'^ The case was brought before the ParUament at Lincoln in February, I 30 1, where Bek on being asked by Edward I if he would support the king against the earls, replied that as they laboured for the advancement and honour of the realm and the crown, he stood by them and not by the king against them. By this reply Bek is said to have lost the king's goodwill,"* and that consequently, when at Easter, 1303, Edward in person dealt with the case at Durham, the agreement "^ which resulted was greatly to the benefit of the bishop's subjects. Bek's charter to his subjects has been analysed by Dr. Lapsley (op. cit. 131) as follows : — (a) Correction of abuses in the administration of justice. § I. No freeman to be imprisoned except by inquest of Sakeber (see Pollock and Maitland, Hist, of Eng. Law, ii, 160) or if he be taken with the stolen goods in his possession. § 2. No freeman shall be impleaded in the court christian except for matters relating to testament and matrimony ; and if any other action be attempted he shall have prohibition and attachment against the official. & 6. No freeman shall be impleaded in a halmote or other villein court, and even if a villein be party to the suit the freeman shall have a w^rit enabling him to plead in a free court. § 7. For the purposes of arrest and imprisonment, the wapentake of Sadberge is to be regarded as a venue distinct from the rest of the palatinate except in cases of trespass against the bishop. § 9. The bishop shall not seize any lands or goods in the palatinate without a writ, except in the case of the death of a tenant in chief. § 10. Without due recovery in court no officer of the bishop shall levy debt on any freeman except the ascertained debts of the bishop. § 15. In the forest courts procedure by inquest is to be allowed and fines are to be amerced by the suitors of the court and not arbitrarily by the bailiffs. § 16. Arbitrary imprisonment and refusal of procedure by inquest for forest offences are not to be tolerated. § 21. Except for distress no issues shall be levied on any freeman until the party has come into court. (i) Suppression of unauthorized exactions from the freemen of the palatinate. § 8. No tolls shall be taken on sales and purchases except in vills merchant, and all transactions in the open country (uppelaunde) shall be free. § II. Except in time of war no carriage shall be levied of freemen without re- imbursement, unless such carriage is involved in their tenure. § 18. Forest officers shall make no unaccustomed exactions of freemen in the way of corn sheaves and the like. § 20. Dues from such of the bishop's wastes as have been put to farm and sub- sequently abandoned by reason of poverty shall not be levied from the neighbours. (f) Restraint of abuse of feudal privileges by the bishop. § 3. The bishop shall have the wardship of only such tenements in drengage as are held of himself and the prior. § 4. Like the king the bishop may have the wardship of all the tenements of his tenants in chief, whether such tenements be held of himself or of a mesne lord. § 5. The freemen of the palatinate may make mills on any of their lands that do not owe suit at the bishop's mill, and they may open and work mines of coal and iron on their own land. ton documents being included under Northumbria. It would appear, however, that the term applied to some parts of the present county of Northumberland, for in some charters in the treasury at Durham relating to Ellingham Church (twelfth century), Ralph de Calgi addresses himself to 'omnibus baronibus et amicis suis et hominibus de Haliwerfokh,' 4'% a""", No. I. See Lapsley, op. cit. 28, Reg. Pal. Dunclm. i, 8, for use in time of Hen. II ; Durham Miscellaneous Charters, 420. '" Kellatd's Reg. (Rolls Ser.), iii, 41, translation 550. '" Graystanes, Script. Tres (Surt. Soc), 78. '" The agreement is printed in Registrum Palat. Dunelm. (Rolls Ser.), iii, 61, 555. POLITICAL HISTORY {if) Confirmation of sundry special privileges enjoyed by the people. § 13. All men of the bishopric may have free entry to the shrine of St. Cuthbert except in time of war. § 14. Hunting is to be free under certain restrictions and in districts not especially privileged such as parks and the like. § 17. Persons living in the free chase may, in respect to the use of timber, freedom from pannage and the like, have all privileges that by reason of their tenure belong to them. § 19. All inclosures made in the free chase by Bishop Bek which in any way infringe on commonable rights shall be removed within the year. {e) General. § 12. Only the four chief coroners may be mounted and none of the deputies may go on horseback. § 22. The bishop undertakes to observe and support all of these articles and for the honour of the king, who is concerned in the negotiation, to renounce any rancour or illwill which he may have felt towards his people. They in turn give up any claim for damages or the like that they may have had against the person of the bishop by reason of the abuses mentioned and corrected in this agreement. It will be noticed that the question which brought about the revolt — the obligation to serve beyond the Tyne and Tees — is not dealt with in this charter. It appears, however, in the petition by the men of the Palatinate to the king, the eighteenth article of it reading — Whereas no freeman is bound to do service beyond the waters of the Tyne and of Teise, there have come the bailiffs of the bishop, and have distrained them to do service elsewhere, at their own proper charge, and those were not able, they took and imprisoned, with those who went to Scotland, and for default of means returned, where no money from the bishop they received. The bishop doth will, that from henceforth they shall not be thereto distrained, to go at their own charge, but only at his own expense, and this in great need in defence of the franchise.*'^ It would appear therefore that the bishop's reply was considered satis- factory by his men, who in any case would not have been likely to have got the king to accede to so dangerous a principle.^" Ere this agreement had been made the temporalities of the see had been seized in July, 1302.^^* There were probably other motives actuating the king besides irritation at the bishop's reply at the Lincoln Parliament. In the hands of Bek, whose resources had been largely augmented in 1296 by the forfeiture of the Balliol estates, including the great fortress of Barnard Castle, the privileges of the bishopric had been developed to an unprecedented degree, and unless checked might have become a source of danger to the central power. In addition, Edward at this time was preparing for the conquest of Scotland, and the existence of an almost independent state close to the frontier must have proved a serious hindrance when all orders within that area had to be transmitted indirectly through the bishop. The temporalities were soon restored (July, 1303),^'' but Bek was again in trouble in December, 1305,"" and for the third time they passed into the king's hands, where they remained till after his death. Edward II in Sep- tember, 1307^" restored the temporalities, but they had been materially diminished by the grant of the Balliol forfeitures to the earl of Warwick and the Bruce estates to Clifford."^ Bek did not long survive his third '" Ke//aw's Reg. (Rolls Ser.), iii, 55 5- '" Compare the king's ruling in the case of Wardship, § 4 of the charter. ™ CaL of Pat. 1 301-7, p. 43. "' Ibid. 149. "» Ibid. 409. "' Ibid. 1307-13, pp. 2, 17, 50. •'- Script. Tn-s (Surt. Soc), 88. 155 A HISTORY OF DURHAM restoration, and died 3 March, 131 i, the last years of his Hfe being occupied in renewing his quarrel with the convent. The episcopate of Richard Kellaw, Bek's successor, was one of the most disastrous in the annals of Durham. Owing to the supineness of the central authority, the men of the bishopric were left to a large extent to their own resources in dealing with the Scottish inroads. In August, 13 12, the Scots under Robert Bruce, after burning Hexham and Corbridge, marched with such secrecy and rapidity into the bishopric that the city of Durham itself was surprised and burnt, and a large part of the bishopric was ravaged. The prior of Durham (in Kellaw's absence at London) purchased a truce — a practice which became not uncommon — and called forth the king's disap- proval.'*'' Two years later 800 marks were paid for a similar truce when the Palatinate was invaded after the defeat of Bannockburn."* The year i 3 i 5 witnessed a further raid, in the course of which the prior of Durham, who was residing at his summer residence at Bearpark, was surprised and only just escaped capture. His equipage, horses and furniture, and many of his servants fell into the Scots' hands. On this occasion Hartlepool, then the great seaport of the Palatinate, and the eastern districts, were ravaged by James Douglas, and the usual truce was purchased for 800 marks.'*" It is some- what difficult to distinguish the various Scotch raids during Kellaw's episcopate.'*^ The meek and pious Kellaw was not the man to grapple effisctively with the difficulties of the military situation, accentuated as they were by the defeat of Bannockburn, and the condition of the Palatinate at this period, when famine aggravated the evils of war.'*^ A letter written by Edward II to Lewis Beaumont, Kellaw's successor, gives some idea of the hardly ecclesiastical qualities which a bishop of Durham then required. We bear in mind that during the lifetime of Richard, your predecessor of good memory, it was frequently said of him reproachfully by our beloved and faithful Cousin, Henry of Beaumont, your brother, that it was through the negligence and lukewarmness of your said predecessor that portions of your Bishopric had so often been wasted by the Scots, our enemies and rebels, and that if you or any of your noble kinsmen had had the government of the same church of Durham, you would have safely defended those parts, like a stone wall, against aggression of our said enemies by the power of yourself or others of your noble race. Beaumont however — a cripple, and a man of no ability — proved but a broken reed, for the letter proceeds — But behold ! We now positively know that, through your default, negligence, aiid lukewarmness, greater damage has happened and still daily happens in parts of your bishopric and the other neighbouring places than in the time of your aforesaid predecessor, notwithstanding the promises of advice and assistance offered by you, your kinsmen and friends."' Two incidents early in Beaumont's episcopate throw light on the disturbed condition of the Palatinate at this period. Travelling northwards in September, 13 17, to Durham, after his confirmation at Westminster, '" Script. Tres (Surt. Soc), 94 ; Kellaw's Reg. (Rolls Ser.), i, 204 ; ii, p. xcvi. '" Script. Tres (Surt. See), App. xciv. '" Script. Tres (Surt. Soc), 96. '" Full particulars of the state of the borders at this period will be found in Ridpath, Border Hist, of Engl, and Scotland, 240-51. '" See Notices collected in Introd. Kellaw's Reg. iii, p. xcviii. "' Rymer, Foed. iii, 94 ; Reg. Palat. Dun. (Rolls Ser.), i, p. Ixxix. 156 POLITICAL HISTORY accompanied by two cardinals and his brother Henry, the bishop and his party were attacked by Gilbert Middleton at Rushyford, some ten miles south of Durham. The cardinalswere robbed of everything they possessed, and Beaumont and his brother were carried captive, the former to Morpeth and the latter to Mitford Castle in the north of Northumberland, and held to ransom."' So ! daring were these freebooters that six days later Middleton and some of his men appeared in Durham Cathedral during service, spoke to the earl of Lancaster, and were allowed to return unmolested. In the sequel the bishop and his brother were ransomed and Middleton was captured and executed. ^^° The other incident occurred the following year (131 8), when Richard Marmaduke lord of Horden and the most important official in the Palatinate was killed by Ralph Neville, the Peacock of the North, on Framwellgate Bridge right under the castle of Durham, and the murderer was allowed to go unpunished."^ The early years of Beaumont's episcopate were marked by one serious invasion. Early in 1322 the Scots, having overrun the eastern districts, made a feint of crossing the Tees and invading Richmondshire. Deceived by this feint many of the inhabitants who had fled to Cleveland for safety returned home by sea, and were surprised by the Scots who suddenly returned the way they had come."^ The year 1327 witnessed another though a less disastrous invasion by the Scots. In July 4,000 Scottish knights and squires with some 20,000 light horse under Sir Thomas Ranulph earl of Moray and Sir James Douglas crossed the Tyne and started to ravage the rugged western, districts of the Palatinate. Edward III, who had reached Durham with a considerable force about the middle of the month, started for Stanhope near the head of Weardale where the Scots were encamped. His spies soon brought word that the enemy were in retreat, and the king made a forced march to Haydon Bridge, on the River Tyne, in the hope of cutting off their retreat. On arriving at the Tyne, however, no signs of the Scots could be found, and some days were spent in futile reconnaissance. The king then offered knight- hood and lands of the value of j^ioo a year to the man who should bring him intelligence of the whereabouts of the Scottish army. On 3 1 July, whilst the army was advancing down the valley of the Derwent to Blanch- land, a squire, Thomas Rokeby by name, galloped up to the king with the news that the Scots still lay at Stanhope. The English army was immedi- ately halted, and next day marched over the moors of Stanhope Common, down into the narrow valley of the Wear, where on the southern bank they were confronted by the enemy drawn up in battle array. So strong was the Scotch position that the English dared not attack ; but Douglas, with some two hundred followers, penetrated one night into the English camp up to the king's tent, the cords of which they cut, and retreated with but little loss, after having killed some three hundred of the English. For three days » '" Bates, Northumb. 157. ''° Script. Ties (Surt. Soc), 100. There appears to have been some understanding between Middleton and the earl of Lancaster ; Bates, op cit. 157. '" Surtees, Hist. Durham, i, 26 ; Gesta Edwardi de Carnarvan (Rolls Ser.), ii, 56. Marmaduke was the bishop's steward, then and till the middle of the fifteenth century the most important administrative official of the bishop. Lapsley, op. cit. 77. '" Script. Tres (Surt. Soc), 102. 157 A HISTORY OF DURHAM the armies lay opposite each other, and then the Scots, who were in want of supplies, quietly withdrew in the night. Pursuit of so mobile a force being hopeless, Edward III retired to Durham, and disbanded his forces. ^^^ The pontificate of the celebrated Richard Bury (1333-45), Beaumont's successor, was not marked by any striking event. Owing to the activity of Edward III Durham enjoyed comparative peace for some years, though in 1343 an armistice was purchased from the Scots."* The main interest of this period is, however, in the various steps by which the Palatinate rights, somewhat overshadowed by the repeated seizures during Bek's pontificate, were reasserted. Bury, shortly after his enthronement — a ceremony graced by the king and queen of England, the king of Scotland, two archbishops, and many other nobles — was made successively Treasurer and Chancellor of England. He was therefore in a position to act with vigour where he considered his jura regalia infringed, and on one occasion outlawed the commissioners appointed by the king to inquire into the obstructions which hindered the navigation of the River Tyne.'^^ Another instance in which Bury resisted the central authority was when the king tried to enforce the assumption of knighthood on some of the bishop's subjects. Bury protested, and the matter was referred to the Barons of the Exchequer for inquiry."' A further illustration of the bishop's jura regalia in the matter of taxation is afforded by the case of the wool tax in 1338. In theory the Palatinate was free from ordinary royal taxation, and Edward III, when Parliament had granted him half the wool in the kingdom, addressed a mandate and request to the bishop to convoke a representative assembly of his liberty, explaining the necessities of the king in regard to the defence of the realm, and to obtain a grant of half the wool which was to be carried to Newcastle on Tyne."^ To Bury succeeded Thomas Hatfield (1345-81), whose long episcopate save for the battle of Neville's Cross is singularly devoid of incident. Despite the Black Death, which ravaged the Palatinate"' in 1349 and 1350, the "' For this invasion the most vivid account will be found in Froissart, Chron. i, cc. 17, 18 ; see also ¥orA\i-a, Annals (Scotch Historians), i, 140 ; Ridpath, op. cit. 283 ; Northumb. County Hist, vi, 317 ; Surtees, Hist. Dur. i, p. xli. '" Durham Cursitor Rolls, printed Reg. Palat. Dun. (Rolls Ser.), iv, 273. The entry is of interest as the truce is stated to have been made ' de communi consilio et unanimi censensu totius communitatls dcminii et libertatis nostre regie.' The price paid was £160, which was raised by commissioners appointed for the purpose from various wards into which the bishopric was thus divided, viz. west ward, Sadberge, £l€> ; east ward, Sadberge, j^i6 ; Darlington ward, £\z ly. \d. ; Stockton ward, ^^21 6s. 8d. ; Chester ward, j^33 12/. ; and Easington ward, j^30 8/. '" Lapsley, op. cit. 320. The rights of the bishops of Durham over the southern half of the River Tyne were a subject of frequent dispute. It is unfortunately not known what ultimately happened in the above case. The king protested against the outlawry and ordered the bishop to allow the commissioners to proceed with their inquiry ; the bishop in reply issued a commission of his own to inquire as to the persons who had unlawfully interfered with the right of navigation and fishing in the southern half of the waters of the Tyne. Reg. Pa/at. Dun. (Rolls Ser.), iv, 258, 334. "^ The result of the inquiry is unknown, but as no more is heard of the subject after 1346 it may be concluded that the bishop's claim was allowed. Reg. Palat. Dun. iv, 21 1, 265. '" Reg. Palat. Dun. (Rolls Ser.), iv, 225 ; Lapsley, op. cit. 116, 298. It may be mentioned here that the large revenue the bishops of Durham received as landlords of the vast episcopal estates rendered it seldom necessary for them to resort to direct taxation of their subjects, the purchase of truces from the Scots being the principal cause of such action on their part. Dr. Lapsley, op. cit. 273, states that in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries direct taxation was a regular, if infrequent, source of revenue, being reserved to meet extraordin.iry expenses, and that owing to the disturbed condition of the borders in the fourteenth century it was then more frequently resorted to. "' For details see ' Soc. and Econ. Hist.' 158 POLITICAL HISTORY period was one of steady progress owing to the immunity from Scottish invasions. Towards the end of 1346 King David of Scotland, urged by his ally the Icing of France, invaded England. Advancing through Cumberland at the beginning of October, and marching by Hexham, he crossed the Derwent at Ebchester and travelled down the valley of the Browney to Bearpark, a place some three miles west of Durham, where the prior had a summer residence. David had hoped to find the country denuded of troops owing to the invasion of France by Edward IIL"' In this he was mistaken, for William de la Zouch, who with Ralph Neville and Henry Percy had been in the previous August appointed to the command of the country north of the Trent, concentrating his forces at Richmond on 14 October, marched that day to Barnard Castle, where he was joined by Lord Percy and Sir Thomas Rokeby the sheriff of Yorkshire. On 16 October the force marched to Bishop Auckland and encamped in the park there. On this day the first collision took place between the opposing forces ; Sir William Douglas, with some cavalry, while making a raid to the south, was surprised near Ferryhill by some English. Douglas beat a rapid retreat, but being overtaken near Croxdale his force was very roughly handled and suffered severe loss, Douglas with difficulty escaping to bear the tidings to his king. David immediately concentrated his army, which had been permitted to raid the neighbouring country and levy a poll-tax from such of the wretched inhabitants as had not fled south. Early on the morning of 17 October the English marched from Bishop Auckland, past the right flank of the Scotch force, and took up a position on the high ridge which lies just to the west of Durham and separates the valley of the Wear from that of the Browney. On the English right were the Northumbrians under Henry Percy; the centre, under the archbishop of York and Ralph Neville, who was in supreme command, was composed of the bishopric troops ; whilst the left, which was the largest division of the three, consisted of levies from the south of the Tees, under Sir Thomas Rokeby sheriff of Yorkshire, and Lord Mowbray. There was in addition a reserve division under Lord William de Roos. The Scottish force was also divided into three divisions. David commanded the centre, Sir William Douglas and the earl of Moray the right, and the High Steward of Scotland and the earl of March the left, which, as in the case of the English force, was the largest of the three divisions. The battle began at nine, and by mid-day all was over. The Scotch right, advancing over difficult ground, were thrown into confusion by the arrows of the English archers. Attacked then by Rokeby's division, they were unable to withstand the charge, and, broken and disordered, were driven back on the centre, Moray being killed and Douglas taken prisoner. The English left, however, which was opposed to the High Steward, whose division was the largest of the Scotch force, did not fare so well, being sorely pressed until relieved by the arrival of Roos's reserve division. Thus reinforced the English right pressed the Scotch left with such success that the High Steward determined to retire and leave the centre and ^he shattered remnants of the Scots' right wing to their fate. Meanwhile a desperate struggle was taking place in the centre between the men of the bishopric and the Scotch king ; but Neville, first reinforced by Rokeby's victorious left and then by the troops which had '" Hatfield was absent with King Edward III in France ; Diet. Nat. Biog. sub nom. ' Hatfield.' 159 A HISTORY OF DURHAM defeated the High Steward, concentrated such a force on the Scotch centre that David's troops were overwhelmed and he himself was taken prisoner by John Coupland after a desperate struggle.'^" The victory of Neville's Cross, coupled with the ravages of the plague in Scotland, helped to secure peace for Durham during the remainder of Hatfield's reign. The bishop's relations with the central government were good. In 1374 the king levied a subsidy in the Palatinate without asking any leave or licence, but he afterwards granted letters patent that the pro- cedure should not be treated as a precedent — a course which the central government generally adopted when it was convenient to ignore the privi- leges of the franchise.^" With the degradation of Bishop Fordham (1382-8), Hatfield's successor and one of the principal advisers of Richard II, from the see of Durham to that of Ely we enter on the great struggle between the houses of York and Lancaster, which was to bring into prominence the Durham family of Neville. The first member of the family to be connected with the Palatinate was Geoffrey Neville, who in the twelfth century married Emma Bulmer the heiress of Brancepeth. Isabel, their daughter and heiress, married Robert the son of Maldred lord of Raby, and the issue of their marriage, who took the name of Neville, became the lords of Raby and Brancepeth. Robert Neville, who died in 1282, was the first member of the family who comes into prominence as a Border soldier. Though possessed of extensive estates both within and without the Palatinate, it was not till the middle of the fourteenth century that they began to occupy the same position in the Palatinate which the Balliol family did in the thirteenth century. In the Quo Warranto proceedings at the end of the latter century the only franchise belonging to the Nevilles was the comparatively unimportant one of free warren, which stands in striking contrast with those claimed by the Balliols and the Bruces, and also with the numerous privileges which later appertained to the earls of Westmorland. In the fourteenth century three men of exceptional ability successively became head of the family, viz. : (i) Ralph (died 1367), the commander-in-chief at the battle of Neville's Cross ; (2) John his son, who died in 1388, a great soldier and supporter of Edward III ; and (3) Ralph son of John and first earl of Westmorland, the most influential man in the north. At first a supporter of Richard II, who in 1397 created him earl of Westmorland for his assistance when the duke of Gloucester and the other lords appellant were brought to trial, he was one of the first to join Henry IV when he landed in Yorkshire in 1399. Thenceforward he was '™ The two principal authorities for the battle of Neville's Cross are the letter from the prior and con- vent to Bishop Hatfield : Letters from Northern Reg. (Rolls Ser.), 387 ; and Chronicon de Lanercost (ed. Maitland Soc), 348. The whole of the evidence has been most carefully considered by Canon Brown in his two articles on the battle in the Ushaiv Mag. i, 213 ; ii, 35. See also in an article by Robert White, Arch. Aeliana, i, 271. It is difficult to estimate the numbers engaged, but taking into consideration that the centre was composed of the bishopric men, the right of the Northumbrians, and that the whole force was able to march from Bishop Auckland to Neville's Cross, some eight miles, including the passage of the Wear, before dawn on 17 October, the numbers cannot have been large. It is to the capture of the Scottish king that the battle owes its celebrity. In regard to the question whether the High Steward retreated with his division before or after the capture of David, it is submitted that the fact that Coupland, his captor, was a Northumbrian and therefore belonged to Percy's division, or possibly to Roos's division, which were engaged with the High Steward's division till it retired, indicates that the High Steward retreated before his king had been captured. '*' Script. Ties (Surt. Soc), App. No. cxxv ; Lapsley, op. cit. 298. 160 POLITICAL HISTORY one of the most staunch supporters of the house of Lancaster. He was twice married. The issue of his first marriage, who succeeded to his Durham estates, followed in his footsteps, John the only son of the second earl being killed at the battle of St. Albans in 145 i whilst fighting for Henry VI. The more distinguished children of his second marriage with Joan Beaufort daughter of John of Gaunt as a rule were Yorkists. With the exception of his son Robert, who was bishop of Durham from 1437 to 1457, and does not appear to have shared the ambitious and intriguing spirit of his brothers, the members of this branch ceased to be directly connected with Durham. It is probably greatly due to the influence of the Durham branch of the Neville family — whose extensive territorial possessions extended over the greater part of the western portions of the county, including the castles of Brancepeth and Raby — that the Palatinate was a Lancastrian stronghold."'' Though during the struggle much fighting took place in both Yorkshire and Northumberland, there is no record of any action being fought in Durham. To Fordham succeeded Bishop Skirlaw (1388— 1405), who although not a politician is stated to have connived at the Percy Rising in 1403, which the earl of Westmorland refused to join, and by his operations prevented the earl of Northumberland from joining his son Hotspur at Shrews- bury. When therefore two years later the earl of Northumberland again attempted to rebel, he tried to rid himself of the earl of Westmorland, but the attempt to surprise him in Sir Ralph Eure's castle at Witton le Wear failed."' After this rising several persons were executed at Durham, but none of them appear to have belonged to the county."* Bishop Langley's long episcopate (1406—37) was a period of peace, save for a slight disturbance at Barnard Castle."" The principal interest of his episcopate lies in the action he brought to protect the Palatinate rights from infringement. An attempt had been made under a commission from the king's Chancery to take an inquest at Hartlepool, which was within the Palatinate. Langley petitioned, and the matter came before Parliament. At the hearing Sir William Eure, counsel for the king, alleged that the bishop's claim to have Jura regalia between the rivers Tyne and Tees by prescription was bad, as Richard I was seised of the manor and wapentake of Sadberge. Still Langley prevailed, and the Palatinate rights were fully acknowledged."* In 1457 Laurence Booth was appointed bishop in succession to Robert Neville. As a Lancastrian Booth had a difficult part to play when, after the battle of Towton (1461), the Yorkist party became supreme and the north the centre of the struggle. Though Barnard Castle was held by the ""' For the history of the Nevilles see the excellent series of articles in the Diet. Nat. Biog. on the various members of the family. Also Surtees, Hist. Dur. iv, 149. It should be mentioned that Richard earl of Warwick, the king-maker, became entitled to Barnard Castle in right of his wife Anne Beauchamp. '«3 Wylie, Hist, of Hen. IF, ii. 178. "^ Ramsay, I'ori and Lane, i, 92. '" In 1426 Sir John Jonson is pardoned for assembling an armed crowd of malefactors at Barnard Castle. Dur. Cursitor R. E. Langley, m. 15. ■** Pari. R. (Rec. Com.), iv, 427. The whole case is most interesting. Eure's allegation would appear to be fatal to the bishop's claim ; but Langley, who had three times been Chancellor, was a man of influence, and under the Lancastrian rule there was no tendency to cut down the Palatinate privileges. Langley also brought a successful action against the mayor and community of Newcastle on Tyne for the southern part of the River Tyne and the bridge over it between Newcastle and Gateshead. Spearman, Inquiry, lo ; Script. Tres (Surt. Soc), App. No. clxxxii. 2 161 21 A HISTORY OF DURHAM earl of Warwick, the bishopric was Lancastrian, and we find the prior and convent of Durham advancing money to Queen Margaret and other members of that party.^" There is no trace of any engagement taking place between the Tyne and Tees, though in June, 1461, John Lord Neville and others made a raid from Ryton to Brancepeth ' with standardes and gytons unrolled.' ^°* In the consequent act of attainder the rights of the bishop of Durham to forfeitures were set out and allowed. During this period King Edward IV was several times in Durham directing the operations of his troops in Northumberland.^*' In 1462 (7 December) he seized the temporalities of the see, and the accounts of this period show that the king had a garrison in the castle of Durham."" On 17 April, 1464, Booth was restored, and from this date he appears to have gone over to the Yorkist side."^ So much so that he reopened with success the question of the Balliol and Bruce for- feitures, and in 1470 obtained a full acknowledgement of his rights.'^'' In the case of^ the Neville rising in 1469 Durham again seems to have been fortunate in being outside the area of operations, which appear to have been south of the Tees. Of Booth's two successors, Dudley (1476-83) and Sherwood (1484-94), but little can be said. The latter, a partisan of Richard III, does not appear to have been regarded with favour by Henry VII, and the circumstances under which he retired to Rome are obscure. In 1477 Richard duke of Gloucester became possessed of Barnard Castle, and in 1480 was appointed commander-in-chief of the northern forces against the Scots. Personally popular, he appears to have been largely instrumental in winning over Lancastrian Durham to the Yorkist side,'^* and it was probably due to their loyalty to the memory of Richard III that in 1488 the people of the bishopric rose in rebellion."'* This rising was caused by a tax of a tenth on movables, which the people of the Palatinate refused to pay. When Henry VII declined to remit it ' the rude and beastlie people with great violence set upon the Earle ' (of Northumberland), who was en- trusted with the levying of the tax, and ' furiouslie and cruellie murthered both him and diverse of his household servants.' "* With the accession of the house of Tudor the existence of the Palatinate of Durham as a virtually separate state was doomed, though in 1492 Henry VII promised to respect the privileges of the franchise,"' and it was not till 1536 that the Act of Resumption was passed. For some time '" Scri/'t. Tres (Suit. Soc), App. No. cclviii. "^ Rot. Pari, quoted by Hutchinson, op. cit. i, 423. '*' At the end of 14.62 Edward IV, when marching north to support Warwick who was besieging the Northumbrian strongholds, fell ill with measles at Durham ; Ramsay, Tork and Lane, ii, 293. '™ King's Receiver's Accts. printed in Raine, Auckland Castle, 5 i. '" Thomas Lumley also became a supporter of the new regime. Governor of Scarborough Castle for Henry VI, he assisted Edward IV in his operations against the Northumberland garrisons. In the first year of his reign the king restored his peerage on reversal of the attainder of his grandfather, who, being involved in the rising of 1 400, had been lynched by the mob at Cirencester and attainted ; Surtees, Hist. Dur. ii, 156 ; Ramsey, op. cit. i, 21. '" As we have seen above (p. 155), Edward I, notwithstanding the bishop's admitted right to the for- feitures of war, had granted Barnard Castle to the Beauchamp family and Hart to Robert Clifford. Kellaw, Beaumont and Langley had each obtained a bare recognition of their right to those two forfeitures, but failed to obtain possession ; Lapsley, op. cit. 43. '"Surtees, Hist. Dur. iv (i), 66 ; (2), 114. '"* Lapsley, op. cit. 299. "* Holinshed, Chron. iii, 769. '" Materials Illustrative of the Reign of Henry Vll (Rolls Ser.), i, 99. 162 POLITICAL HISTORY before that date the disturbed state of the north owing to the Scottish wars had necessitated a special form of government which after the Pilgrimage of Grace developed into the Council of the North. The first seeds of this rival power which was to overshadow the Palatinate were sown in 1522, when a royal lieutenant was sent down to the north. In 1525 Henry duke of Richmond was appointed the king's lieutenant-general north of the Trent, and he and his council governed the northern counties, the council including Sir William Bulmer, the sheriff, and William Franklyn, the chancellor of the Palatinate. Although the council did not hesitate to infringe the privileges of the franchise by sitting as justices of assize and summoning witnesses before them, Ruthall (1509—23) and Wolsey (1523—9), who successively filled the see during this period, were too ardent supporters of the centralizing policy of the Tudors to care much about the curtailment of the rights of the Palatinate, which the latter never visited and from which the former was fre- quently absent."' In the beginning of 1536 was passed 'an acte for recon- tynuyng of certayne liberties and franchises heretofore taken from the Crown.' "^ Although not specifically directed against Durham it was the only county palatine left outstanding in the hands of a subject. By this Act all judicial appointments were to be made by the king, who alone would pardon offences. In addition all writs and other legal processes were to run in the name of the king. Shortly it may be stated that by the Act, whilst all the Palatinate privileges were preserved, the sanction proceeds from the king and not from the bishop."* Firmly wedded as the people of Durham were to the old religion, the changes wrought by the Reformation could not be carried out in the Palatinate without causing grave discontent, even though a man like Tunstall was deputed to carry them out."' Twice the flame of rebellion burst forth, first in 1536 and again in i 569. It is somewhat difficult to estimate the part played by the men of the bishopric in the Pilgrimage of Grace. The lower classes appear to have enthusiastically supported the rising in October, 1536, but such of the upper classes as joined seem in certain cases, including that of Lord Lumley, to have acted under compulsion.^*" Fortunately for the government the earl of Westmorland remained loyal and free ' from the infection of their traitorous poison.' '" Gathering together at Spennymoor, some seven miles south-west of Durham, the rebels of the Palatinate marched with the banner of St. Cuth- bert south to Pontefract, where they joined the main body.^*' Tunstall, alarmed for his safety, fled to Norham, whilst the earl of Westmorland seems to have gone to London, although he is one of the representatives of the '" For the Council of the North, see Lapsley, op. cit. 259 ; Coke, Inst, iv, 245. '" Stat. 27 Hen. VIII, cap. 19. '" It should be noted that the Act was passed early in 1536, and has therefore no connexion with the rising known as the Pilgrimage of Grace, which did not take place till October in th.it year ; see Lapsley, op. cit. 197. 179 Qf Tunstall Lord Acton wrote {Quarterly Rev. cxliii, 23) : 'He is the only Englishman whose public life extended through all the ch.inges of religion, from the publication of the Theses to the Act of Uniformity. The love and admiration of his greatest contemporaries, the persecution which he endured under Edward, his tolerance under Mary, have preserved his name in honour. Yet we may suspect that a want of generous and definite conviction had something to do with the moderation which is the mark of his career.' ^^Dkt. Nat. Biog. sub 'Lumley' ; L. and P. Hen. Fill, xii (i), 29. "'i. and P. Hen. Fill, xl, 1003. '»- Ibid, xii (i), 29. 163 A HISTORY OF DURHAM bishopric nominated to take part in the conference at York between the earl of Norfolk and the baronage and commonalty of the northern counties.^^^ Accepting the pardon of Pomfret at the beginning of December the bishopric forces appear to have dispersed, and Sir Francis Bi god's attempt to stir them up to take part in the attack on Scarborough Castle met with but a meagre response.'** Still a strong undercurrent of suspicion prevailed, and in January the Lancaster Herald was ' ungoodly handled ' at Durham and did not escape with- out danger,"^ whilst Sir Ralph Sadler was set on at Darlington and rescued with difficulty."^ He, however, reported the bishopric quiet on the whole. At the beginning of March the duke of Norfolk, despite the fact that the bishopric had been omitted from his commission, tried and executed a batch of prisoners."'" The period which intervened between the rising of 1536 and the 1569 rebellion is marked by the duke of Northumberland's bold but unsuccessful ' attempt to possess himself of the Palatinate powers during the brief reign of Edward VI.""" Northumberland's first step was to get rid of Tunstall. Accordingly about July, 1550, he was charged by one Ninian Menville with having con- sented to a conspiracy in the north for raising a rebellion. For some time the charge languished for want of proof, but a so-called incriminating letter being found among the duke of Somerset's papers at the end of 1551 Tunstall was removed to the Tower. In March, 1552, a Bill for his deprivation was, despite Cranmer's opposition, passed by the House of Lords, but fell through in the Commons. The attempt to attaint Tunstall in Parliament having failed, a commission was issued in September, 1552, to the Lord Chief Justice and some others to try him. Being refused both counsel and time to prepare his defence, Tunstall was on 1 1 October deprived of his bishopric. Meanwhile Northumberland had written on 7 April, 1552, to Cecil, desiring the grant of the Palatine jurisdiction of Durham,"^ and at the beginning of 1553 obtained an Act of Parliament"'* dissolving the bishopric. On 21 May he was appointed steward of the revenues of the bishopric, but the death of Edward VI on 6 July put an end to his designs. Upon the accession of Mary Tunstall was promptly released, and in April, 1554, an Act was passed for ' the repeal of two several Acts made in the seventh year '" L. and P. Hen. VIII, xi, 1 1 55. The others were Lord Lumley, Sir Thomas Tempest, Sir Thomas Hilton, Sir William Eure, Mr. Franklyn, with twelve gentlemen. "* Ibrd. xii (l), 148. The men of Durham had taken their oath to the earl of Westmorland to rise at no man's command except the king's. '*Mbid. xii (i), 50, 201. '** Ibid, xii (l), 259. On 5 Feb. Tempest writes to Norfolk that the country is out of order owing to the absence of the bishop and the earl of Westmorland. '*'" Ibid, xii, 615, 478. The prisoners did not include any person of importance, and among them were two cooks at the abbey. The only man of note who suffered (at Tyburn) was George Lumley, only son of John, sixth Baron Lumley. He and his father took part in the October rising, but the latter returned home after the pardon of Pomfret, whilst his son joined in Hallom's rebellion {Did. Nat. Biog. sub nom. ' Lumley '). The only estate of importance forfeited by this rebellion was the manor of Thorpe Bul- mer, belonging to Sir John Bulmer of Wyton in the county of York (Dur. Cursitor Rec. Dep. Keeper's Rep.xYiv, 334). The bishop granted this estate to his nephew with the assent of the king, and thus avoided raising the difficult question of his right to such forfeitures. '«>> See 'Eccl. Hist.' p. 33. "' S.P. Dom. Edw. VI, vol. xiv, No. 18. •5'^ Stat. 7 Edw. VI, No. i. 164 POLITICAL HISTORY ■of King Edward the Sixth, touching the dissolution of the bishoprick of Durham.' '''^ Tunstall did not long survive Elizabeth's accession, but for refusing to ■consecrate Parker as archbishop of Canterbury he wzs deprived on 28 Sep- tember, 1559. Within two months (18 November) he was dead. During the vacancy Elizabeth, under the authority of the Act of i Elizabeth, cap. 19, took into her hands a large part of the temporal possessions of the see.^** When the temporalities were restored to Pilkington on his appointment as bishop, Norham, Allerton, Crayke, Sadberge, Middleham and the Easing- ton Ward, Coatham, Mundaville, and Gateshead were excepted. In 1556 the above lands with the exception of Norham were restored, but in respect of those between the Tyne and Tees the bishop was burdened with an annual rent of jr88o."«^ The outbreak in 1569 was far more serious, and for a time the queen's authority absolutely ceased to exist in the bishopric. In Durham the rebellion centred round the person of Charles, sixth and last earl of Westmor- land,'*'"" who being only six and twenty years of age was influenced by the earl of Northumberland. During the month of September the rumours of the plotting of these two reached the ears of the earl of Sussex, the president of the North at York, through Sir George Bowes. At the beginning of October the outlook became more threatening, and Pilkington, the somewhat unpopular bishop, discreetly withdrew to London. Both earls were summoned to York, and the result of an interview with Sussex on 8 October seems to have somewhat quieted the latter's suspicions,"' whilst on 2 November Bowes forwarded a reassuring account of the state of the Palatinate to the Privy Council."" Meanwhile, however, the earls had been maturing their plans. On the night of 6 November the earl of Westmorland concentrated his armed retainers at the castle of Brancepeth some 4I miles south-west of Durham."' Bowes immediately garrisoned and provisioned Barnard Castle, whilst Sussex, now thoroughly alarmed, summoned both the earls, who returned evasive answers, and on 10 November ' the earl of Northumberland, armed in a previe cote, under a Spanish jerkyn, being open, so that the cote might be ""■ Stat. I Mary, Sess. 3, cap. 3, printed in Hutchinson, op. cit. i, 530. The other Act of Edw. VI referred to as being repealed is 7 Edw. VI, cap. 10, 'For the uniting and annexing of the town of Gateside to the town of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.' To conciliate the opposition of the Newcastle corporation to the Marian Act, Tunstall had to grant them a lease at a nominal rent of the salt meadows and borough tolls for 450 years. See Surtees, Hist. Dur. ii, ill, and Hutchinson, op. cit. ii, 579. For the proceedings against Tunstall see Dixon's Hist. Church of Engl, iii, 321 ; Burnet, Hist, of Reformation (ed. Pocock), iii, 356 ; Diet. Nat. Biog. Tunstall. '" The annual value of the temporalities being taken as ^^2,821 is. ^i/., Elizabeth seized j^l,ooo. An abstract of this valuation made 26 Hen. VIII is as follows : — Rents : Darlington Ward, X^'^ ' S-'- 'i*^- > 'Ro- chester Ward, £476 6s. 5jti. ; sheriffs' and escheators' profits, £1^ "js. llii. ; coal, iron, and lead mines, ^185 ; courts, j^io ; pensions, ^^87 I'^s. \d. ; Norham rents, &c., 'tempore pacis ' ('tempore guerre nihil'), £\zo ; AUertonshire, ;£259 1 1/. 3^12'. ; Crayk, ^^48 zs. o\d. ; Hoveden, £z%\ 15/. 3^'. ; the house of the bishop in London, £18 l^. \d. ; total, ^[3,128 17/. %\d. (sic) ; less various outgoings (including X^^l 13^. 4" Ibid. p. 73. 168 POLITICAL HISTORY On the afternoon of 28 August, 1640, the Scots, who lay on the high ground which is, on the north bank, close to the river and commands the low-lying flats on the southern bank, began the action by artillery fire, which soon rendered the English trenches untenable. A body of Scotch cavalry, the tide being low, then dashed across the river. Charged by the English cavalry the Scots were driven back, but being reinforced succeeded in forcing the English to retire. Though the Scots did not pursue, the retirement soon became a flight, and the panic-stricken troops fled, some to Newcastle and others to Durham."* Conway immediately vacated Newcastle and retired on Durham, which was in turn abandoned. Meanwhile the advance of the Scots was unchecked. On I September they were at Chester le Street, and the next day Durham — almost a deserted city — was seized. Thenceforward for nearly a year part of the Scotch force was quartered on the county of Durham, which had to pay ^^350 a day towards its subsistence.""' Firmly held by the Royalists, Durham escaped scatheless during the first period of the Civil War, the only other fight being a skirmish at Piercebridge in December, 1642, when the earl of Newcastle forced the passage of the Tees on his march to York from Newcastle."^ When, however, Lord Leven with a large Scotch force crossed the Tweed in January, 1 644, the earl of Newcastle marched north to oppose him and Durham became the field of operations."' Leven's objective was Newcastle, the principal Royalist centre in the north. Failing in his first attempt on Newcastle the Scotch commander determined to march to Sunderland, which was a Parliamentarian borough."* On 22 February, breaking up his camp before Newcastle, Leven marched up the valley of the River Tyne past Newburn, where he found the ford so strongly fortified "^ that he made no attempt to force it. The next day he distributed his force along the north bank of the Tyne from Ovingham to Corbridge, a distance of some six miles. Heavy snowstorms had so swollen the river that any attempt to cross was impossible till 28 February, when the whole force crossed without opposition the still swollen river by fords at Ovingham, Bywell, and Eltringham. Resting that night near the river the force advanced to the River Derwent, which was in such high flood that the infantry had to pass in single file over a tree bridge at Ebchester. This tedious operation occupied two days, and the force camped a mile to the west of Chester le Street on i March. Crossing the Wear next day at Lumley they marched to Herrington, and after resting there on Sunday, 3 March, entered Sunderland on the next day. "* For the battle of Newburn see Conway's account, printed in Burton, Hist, of Scotland, vi, 304. Conway was unaware that the Scotch had any artillery, and his dispositions were made accordingly. He refers to his men as ' being the most of them the meanest sort of men about London,' and so but few of the bishopric troops can have been engaged. "' Cal. S.P. Dom. 1 640-1, p. 75. See also Hutchinson, op. cit. i, 622, where various petitions for relief are set out. "* Surtees, Hist. Dur. i, xcvii. '" Leven's force consisted of 18,000 foot, 3,000 horse, and 500 or 600 dragoons; Professor Terry's article in Arch. Aehana, xxi, 152. "° The possession of Sunderland was of great importance to Parliament, as it was the port whence London drew its supplies of coal, which could not be obtained from the Royalist town of Newcastle. It had received Parliamentarian garrisons in the first period of the Civil War ; Surtees, Hist. Dur. i, 257. "' Profiting by their previous experience the English had fortified the hill as well as the low-lying ground. Arch. Aeliana, xxi, 1 64. 2 169 22 A HISTORY OF DURHAM On 6 March the marquis of Newcastle, after being reinforced by some troops from Durham and cavalry from Yorkshire, started in pursuit. Crossing the Wear by the same bridge as his opponents, he soon after came in sight of the enemy on the high ground south-west of Sunderland. The following day was spent in manoeuvring, neither side caring to attack the other, and on 8 March the Royalists after a slight skirmish withdrew to Durham under cover of a heavy snowstorm. On the 1 2th Leven, who was in great difficulties in the matter of supplies,'^" advanced to Durham, which Newcastle had evacuated, but finding difficulty in securing forage for their cavalry the Scots withdrew to Sunderland. On the i 5th they made an unsuccessful attempt to take the fort at South Shields, but on the 20th, under the eyes of their general, a storming party after the moat had been filled with bundles of sticks and straw carried the fort by escalade. The capture of this fort commanding the entrance to the Tyne enabled the Scots to cut off Newcastle from the sea and to replenish their meagre stock of supplies from the incoming ships which were captured. Meanwhile Newcastle, who had been joined by Montrose on the 1 5th, had again moved north. On the 20th some of his horse were surprised and captured at Chester le Street. Determining to attack Leven, who was contemplating moving south to join Fairfax and obtain supplies, Newcastle moved to Chester le Street on 23 March, and on the following day took up a position at Hylton on the north bank of the Wear, some two and a half miles from Sunderland. The Scots were drawn up on a ridge to the east between the English and the sea. The action which ensued did not begin until late in the afternoon, and continued most of the night, consisting of a hot engagement between the opposing infantry, the inclosed nature of the country preventing the cavalry from engaging. The action was a drawn one. On the morrow the Scots attempted a turning movement with their cavalry, which was checked by Sir Charles Lucas's brigade of horse. The 26th saw the English retire to Durham, and on the 31st Leven marched to Easington Hill, where he remained till 8 April, on which day he moved to Quarrington Hill. This movement cut Newcastle's communication with Hartlepool, and he on the night of 12 April retired to Bishop Auckland, leaving all his provisions behind. So quietly had this movement been carried out that it was not till the afternoon of the 13th that the Scots discovered their opponents had vanished. Leven immediately started in pursuit and reached Ferryhill that night. Starting early on the morning of the 14th, the Scotch cavalry reached Darlington before seven in the morning and captured some prisoners and supplies. They missed, however, the main body of Newcastle's force, which marched south by Piercebridge and Barnard Castle. The departure of the Scotch force southward, leaving garrisons only at Sunderland and South Shields, was an opportunity of which the Royalists were not slow to avail themselves. In May Montrose, who had left the marquis of Newcastle on 26 March, to attempt to rally the Royalists in Scotland, returned to the bishopric. The fort at South Shields was re- captured, but an attempt on Sunderland was frustrated by the seamen of the ""Of five ships carrying supplies for Leven, three were lost at sea and the other two driven into the Tyne by bad weather and captured by the Royalists. Ibid. 167. 170 POLITICAL HISTORY town, who under the command of Colonel Fairfax drove Montrose back to Newcastle.''"^ By the beginning of June the Royalists were masters of the county of Durham/" and Leven and Fairfax arranged to send a thousand horse into the bishopric to oppose Montrose. ^^' The arrival in July of Lord Callendar with a second Scotch army put an end to the Royalist dominion. Crossing the Tyne at Newburn the Scots marched first to Sunderland and then to Hartlepool. On 24 July Hartlepool and Stockton surrendered without fighting, and were garrisoned. Callendar now proceeded north to Newcastle, the last royal stronghold left in the north. On the 27th his advance guard was repulsed on the hill outside Gateshead, but the next day Callendar with the niain body ' fiercelie facing the enemy beat them from the hill, chased them downe the Gatesyde, and husling them along the bridge, closed them within the towne.' With the capture of Gateshead the war was over as far as Durham was concerned."* Occasional Royalist risings occurred. In 1645 Raby Castle was captured, and held for a short time,"^ and in 1648 there were further outbreaks, but the bishopric was too strongly held to allow anything more than a temporary success."* Until February, i 647, the Scotch army was quartered on the county of Durham, and loud were the complaints at their exactions from ' this poor ruinated county,' as Sir George Vane writes to his father in November, 1644. The Parliamentarians were much exasperated by Leven raising his contribu- tions on the basis of a valuation made by the marquis of Newcastle, under which, needless to say, the king's opponents, and the owner of Raby in par- ticular, had to pay heavily."" Another matter which caused great inconvenience was dislocation of all judicial business owing to there being no chancellor of the Palatinate. In October, 1644, ^" application was made for redress, on which is endorsed ' whether not fit to dissolve County Palatine.'"* The difficulty was overcome by ordering the judges of the northern circuit to sit at Durham, but in 1654 the high sheriff complained that there had been but one assize in the last four years."' In 1653 the inhabitants of the county of Durham petitioned Cromwell that they might in future be represented in Parliament, which privilege they had not hitherto enjoyed, owing, they said, to their bishops,"" and in June, 1654, writs were issued for Durham to return one member for the city and two for the county.^ 231 "' Parliament voted the seamen j^2O0 for their 'affection and fidelity.' Ibid. 177. '" Cal. S.P. Dam. 1644, p. 197. >» Ibid. p. 242. "' The account of the campaign of 1 644 is based on Professor Terry's articles in Jni. JeTiana, xxi, 146—80, where a series of letters from the Scotch head quarters are printed. *" Kingdom's Weekly Intelligencer of i and 14 July, 1645 ; Burney Newspapers (Brit. Mus.), No. 21 ; also Weekly Account of 7 and 22 July, and True Informer of 28 July, 1645. "^ Mercurius Pragmaticus of 16 May, 1648 ; Burney Newspapers (Brit. Mus.), No. 30 ; CaL S.P. Dom. 1648-9, p. 168. "' Raby Castle, the property of the Vanes, after being three times seized by the Royalists, was occupied by the Scots ; Cal S.P. Dom. 1644-5, P- '^2. Ibid. p. 47. Ibid. 1654, pp. 63, 204. "" Several Proceedings, 4 May, 1653 ; Burney Newspapers (Brit. Mus.), No. 44. "' Ibid. 2 June, 1654 ; Burney Newspapers, No. 47. A single member for the county was returned in 1653 ; see ^ List of the Knights and Burgesses who have represented the County and City of Durham in Parlia- ment (pub. Sunderland, 1831), 13. Soon after Henry VIII had abridged the Palatinate privileges an attempt was made to obtain representation in the House of Commons. In 1563 a Bill was read in Parliament for the 171 S2S ■ 229 A HISTORY OF DURHAM At the Restoration Bishop Cosin opposed the freeholders' demand for representation, and a protracted struggle took place. In 1660 a bill enabling such representation received a first reading, but nothing further was done till 1666, when the Grand Jury, on behalf of the freeholders, at Quarter Sessions presented a ' paper ' to the magistrates to join them in their ' endeavours to right our hitherto injured county.' Despite the opposition of the dean, the magistrates by a majority decided to send proper persons to solicit Parliament. Cosin protested, and was sufficiently powerful to prevent the bill, which was introduced on 26 March, 1668, being carried. Immediately after his death an Act was passed enabling the freeholders to elect two knights for the county, and the mayor, aldermen, and freemen of the city of Durham to elect two burgesses to represent them in Parliament.'''^ Owing to Cosin's energy and ability the county rapidly recovered from the devastations caused by the Civil War, and, except for the Derwentdale Plot,'''* the district enjoyed such a period of quiet as it had not known since the Reformation. The Revolution of 1688, despite the efforts of DeanGren- ville, caused but Httle stir, and both the county and city members joined the association to stand by King William in 1696.'''* In that year there had been some commotion at Durham, for a letter of 1 6 March states : — We have been mightely allarmed aboute y.e late conspertsy and inteended invation. There came downe last weeke three messingers for taking sum persons into custody, amongst whome (for which I am very sorry) Captain Tempest is one : the messinger did seas him.-" The eighteenth century was marked by great industrial progress, and for that reason probably but little is heard of either the 171 5 or 1745 rebellions.-'^ A few years later, in 1759, the Durham Regiment of Militia was raised under the Act of 1757. The earl of Darlington was colonel, and the battalion, 369 strong, was made up by the quota of the different wards, Chester supplying 105, Darlington 131, Easington 59, Stockton 45, Norhamshire 11, and Islandshire 18. The uniform consisted of a wide flapped red coat, breeches and leggings of woollen material, and buckled shoes. The hair was powdered, and a slouch hat looped up at the brim was worn.''" This battalion became the South Durham Militia, and is now the 3rd BattaHon of the Durham Light Infantry. The 4th BattaHon (formerly North Durham Militia) was raised in 1853."'' In 1758 the 2nd battalion of the 23rd Foot was formed into a distinct corps as the 68th Regiment, and John Lambton became their first colonel, and thus began the association of the regiment with the county. In 1 88 1 the 68th Light Infantry became the ist Battalion of the Durham Light Infantry. 2S» County Palatine of Durham 'to have tvyo knights from thence into the Parliament' ; ibid. p. 7. In 1614., 1620 (when fourteen members were claimed), 1623, 1624, and 1640 further attempts were made, and on 7 April, 1642, a Bill passed the House of Commons. In 1645 the petition of the county passed both houses, and on 21 December, 1646, an ordinance that they have knights and burgesses was read a first and second time. No members were summoned to the 1659 Parliament ; on 31 March a Bill was brought in for restoring members for Durham ; ibid. p. viii. "" Ibid. 8. Owing to a technical defect in the Act, no members were elected for the city till 1678. '^ See 'Eccl. Hist.' p. 51;. "* List of Knights and Burgesses, 18. ^^ Hunter MS. (D. and C. Library, Dur.), viii. No. 31. "* The Quarter Session Records for these years indicate the passage of troops, whilst a letter printed in Surtees, Hist. Dur. ii, 1 8, shows that considerable alarm was felt on the former occasion. "' The Dur. Militia (pub. Barnard Castle, 1884), p. 5. ''" Ibid. 42. "' Hist. Rec. of the Royal Welsh Fusiliers, 71. 172 POLITICAL HISTORY The principal event of the nineteenth century in Durham was the virtual abolition of the Palatinate privileges after the death of Bishop van Mildert by an Act which separated the Palatinate jurisdiction from the see of Durham and vested it in the crown. The idea originated with Lord Melbourne, who rushed through the House of Commons a bill for the abolition of the Palatinate. In the Lords, however, the local opposition to the measure was conciliated by vesting the franchise in the crown, whereby the local courts were preserved, with the exception of the county court, which was specifically abolished. The Act was passed on 21 June, 1836.^*" Of the two courts which survived, the Court of Pleas was abolished in 1873, whilst the Court of Chancery of the County Palatine of Durham and Sadberge still exists — the sole surviving symbol of the great powers formerly exercised by the prince-bishops of Durham. "" Lapsley, op. cit. 204 ; Stat. 6 & 7 Will. IV, cap. 19. 173 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY I — Durham before Boldon Book FEW counties have more thoroughly disappointed the first promise of civilization than Durham. In the seventh century the banks of the Tyne and Wear were the home of literature and the arts, but before the eighth century had closed decay had set in and Durham remained a thinly-peopled land of heath and fell till the industrial revolution of the eighteenth century. And yet Durham, even in its decay, is a fascinating study to the economic historian, for the partial independence w^hich it enjoyed under its Palatine Bishop, who was also landlord of a considerable portion of the county, has led to the preservation of records which, even in their present fragmentary condition, encourage investigation while they tantalize by their lacunae. The present sketch is founded largely upon personal examination of the splendid series of Halmote Rolls and similar documents in the Treasury at Durham^ and in the Public Record Office. Boldon Book in its earliest form was drawn up in 1 183, and our informa- tion about the preceding centuries is scanty in the extreme. However, it is possible to glean a few facts about the social and economic condition of the county from local historians, from place-names and language, and from hints given in Boldon Book and other documents. The county seems to have been thinly peopled both in prehistoric and in Roman times. Celtic place-names, except for rivers, are few, and only one Chester (Binchester) is found far from the Roman Wall, although Roman settlements, camps, and other remains can be traced all over the county. The rivers of Durham generally flow eastwards, and in their valleys and at their mouths are the earliest settlements. Between the rivers were moors and fells far down into the eighteenth century, and in the west, sloping up to the Pennines, were moors and forests where wolves lurked down to the seventeenth century. Across the county, generally north and south, ran a number of Roman roads. One of these, in Saxon times Deor Street — the Forest-way, perhaps gave its name to the county. It ran from Ebchester to Lanchester, and thence, after a deflection to the east, to Binchester near Bishop Auckland, and reached Piercebridge, on the Tees, without further deflection. Deor Street was used as the Roman highway from York to the Great Wall, and was in later times known as the Northern Watling Street. In the eighteenth ' The writer would like to acknowledge the great kindness of the Dean and Chapter of Durham in unreservedly placing '.heir documents at his disposal ; and of the Rev. Canon Greenwell and Mr. K. Bailey, the late and present curators, for help rendered. A HISTORY OF DURHAM century it was a ridge two yards in height and eight yards broad, all paved with stone. ^ At Lanchester another road called the Wrekendike ran to Urfa," the Roman station at South Shields. From Startforth, near Barnard Castle, the Roman Causey crossed Deor Street just south of Bishop Auckland and ran towards Garmondsway. At the south end of the Roman bridge across the Tyne, the modern Gateshead, a Roman road seems to have run through Chester le Street towards Middleton One Row, being joined near Chester, perhaps, by a road starting near Jarrow (? Rycknild Street) and south of Durham city by another road from Urfa. Other Roman roads may be traced with a little less certainty, but it is probable that the site of one is now covered by the sea between Seaton Carew and Hartlepool. There were doubtless pre-Roman roads or tracks across the county, some of which may have been re-made by the Romans, and our modern highways are descendants in many cases of the old Salters' Tracks and Coal Roads of Saxon and mediaeval times. The great Salters' Track ran between Wearmouth and the salt-pans of Billinghamshire, with one branch towards Hartlepool and another to the once famous mediaeval port of Yarm- on-Tees, a few miles above Stockton. Closely allied to the roads as means of communication are bridges and ferries or fords. The swing-bridge between Gateshead and Newcastle occupies the site of the only known Roman bridge in the county. The history of the fords and ferries is less certain, and the former would be at the disposal of both Celt and Roman. Sunderland ford on the Wear perished in 1400* by one of those inundations of the sea which have not only destroyed the once fine harbour of Wearmouth, but have also affected so materially the contours of the Durham coast. The Tees was apparently never bridged by the Romans, but there were many fords over it, and in historic times there were or are ferries at Croft Spa, Stockton, and Middlesbrough. The history of the last of these is curious. In the neighbourhood of Middlesbrough a Roman trajectus helped men to pass between North Yorkshire and the salt-pans of South-east Durham. In Saxon times a ferry still existed and the tolls of ' Billingham Ferry ' were farmed out by the prior of Durham generally at ^2 annually. However, the prior had the right to purchase at the rate of 4^. a hundred all the fish called ' sparlings ' which the ferryman or his servants might catch, and the prior and his chief officials together with their luggage had the right of free passage.* Besides the ferry there was a ford across the Tees at Newport, on the right bank of the river. Both, however, were practically superseded in 1862 by a steam ferry between Middlesbrough and Port Clarence, which in turn is shortly to give place to a transporter bridge. The oldest existing bridge over the Tees is the famous Yarm bridge built by the bishop in 1400 and strengthened in 1807. The original Croft bridge was probably built at an even earlier date, while Stock- ton bridge dates only from 1771 when it superseded the bishop's ferry. The first bridge over the Wear was Ranulf Flambard's bridge at Durham, built about 1 1 20. The Sunderland bridge was not opened till 1796. ' Hutchinson, Hist, of Durham, ii, 432 n. {sub Ebchester). ' The Roman name is lost. ' Wearmouth R. (Surtees Society, xxix), 24.8. * MS. Prior's Halmote Book, i, fol. 136, and ii, fols. 122 and 195. Billingham ferry was the only ferrj- which did not belong to the bishop. Strictly speaking, the prior only farmed on", half of the tolls, as the other half belonged to the lord of the manor on the other side of the Tees. 176 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY Roman civilization in Durham was too superficial to affect the Angle settlers who swarmed into the country in the early sixth century. The modern county seems to have been the southern and unimportant portion of the kingdom of Bernicia. Such settlements as were made would be near the sea in the river valleys. We can recognize them in villages such as Billingham, Harton or Wyvestowe (Westoe), and their scattered nature at first can be inferred from the curious filial arrangements that existed in the Middle Ages between them and the vills which grew up on the surrounding waste and shared their pasture or helped to till their demesne lands. In Saxon times Durham possessed no great royal village or castle, but m 673 we find the noble Benedict Biscop laying the foundation of the first monastery at Monkwearmouth. It is true that, like St. Cuthbert's dwelling and oratory on Holy Island, this monastery was at first of wood, but next year saw a stone church begun by continental masons, perhaps from the same France whence came the glaziers whom Benedict imported to glaze the windows of his new church and also teach the art to his people. Civilization was beginning in Durham, and the church was encouraged in its work by Ecgfrith, king of Northumbria, who, in 682, gave the site of the Jarrow monastery overlooking his port near the present Jarrow Slake. The name Jarrow (Gyruu) means a marsh, but the industry of the monks soon turned the neighbourhood into the glory of Northumbria, and in 685 Ecgfrith is said to have given to Cuthbert, then bishop of Lindisfarne, certain lands in North-east Durham. The life and writings of Bede prove that the Angles were fast losing their barbarism, but unfortunately their civilization made them unwarlike. In the middle of the ninth century the Norsemen fell upon Durham, and in 867 the monasteries were plundered and burnt. When we can get more definite information it is that the monks of Lindisfarne had found a refuge upon the hills of Durham in 995, and, protected by the surrounding forest and most of all by the holy body of St. Cuthbert, were beginning their mission once more of civilizing Durham. Between 883 and 995 the congregation of St. Cuthbert, after eight years' wandering, had lived at Chester le Street and, thanks to Alfred's victories over the Danes, had found favour in the eyes of Guthred, the local Danish king. Although in their first fury the Danes had made a special point of destroying churches and monasteries, Guthred, probably by Alfred's mediation, restored or recognized St. Cuthbert's right to all the land between Tyne and Wear. Such a franchise was not strange to the Danish invaders, who at a later date left Northern Bernicia to a Saxon ruler. Probably the church had little real hold upon the ceded lands till the time of the Christian Canute, but the congregation of St. Cuthbert, which would of course com- prise many who were not monks, would be a refuge for the oppressed natives and would be looked up to as their natural protectors. Durham was a safer home than Chester le Street, and in the chaos of Northumbrian history in the eleventh century the bishop and monks from their official position were able to extend their possessions by purchase, legacy, or less innocent means. However, it was not before Norman times that St. Cuthbert recovered all the lands which the savage local rulers had torn from the church, as when Ella, at the end of the ninth century, appropriated Billingham. 2 177 23 A HISTORY OF DURHAM Until recent years it was a commonplace to talk of the Danish character of the northern counties, but recent investigations have throw^n considerable doubt upon the existence of any strongly Danish elements in the population except in Yorkshire, at least so far as the eastern districts are concerned.^ In county Durham much can be learned by an examination of the place-names and folk-speech.^ From it we see that, roughly speaking, only the southern half of the county bears any trace of Danish place-names.^ The suffix 'by' is only found three times* — Raby, Aislaby, and Killerby — all in the south, and ' beck ' (Danish for a rivulet) has only superseded the Anglo-Saxon ' burn ' in South Durham. Not one 'beck' flows into the Tyne, but twenty-four flow into the Wear and thirty into the Tees. On the other hand, no 'burn' flows direct into the Tees, and the village of Castle Eden furnishes us with a striking contrast ; the rivulet on the north of the village is called Castle Eden Burn, that on the south Coundon Beck. It would be tedious to elaborate the argument further to sustain the view that Danish influence, except in South Durham, the old wapentake of Sadberge, was only superficial, but it is interesting to notice that serfdom lasted longest in the south-east portion of the county, where the pressure of the Danes was greatest.^ A line drawn westwards from Castle Eden would form the northern boundary of effective Danish occupation, though even here they would be little more than a governing aristocracy. North of the Wear their influence was certainly infinitesimal except on the coast between Tyne and Wear, in which district a non-Angle dialect, even to-day, hints at alien blood.' It is safer on the whole to believe that the native population of the county looked to and found a protector in the bishop when once he had secured himself at Durham. Not till after the Norman Conquest did the bishop or monks regain all the villages they claimed in the south and begin to organize the bishopric south of the Tyne, after the sword of the Norman king had avenged the murder of Walcher in 1080. More than a hundred years elapsed after the Norman harrying before Boldon Book gives us a picture of the county in 1183, just before Bishop Hugh Pudsey acquired the wapen- take of Sadberge — Danish South Durham — from Richard I. During that time the bishop and monks had steadily gained in importance, and not only Angles but also the Danish 'drengs' or lesser nobles of the county were dependent on the bishop. Commendation and the other processes which, under the pressure of the Danish invasions, produced Anglo-Saxon feudalism were at work in Durham also. The bishop and his monks, at first joint landlords of St. Cuthbert's patrimony, would possess sake and soke, the usual jurisdictions of landowners, but from the cases of Sedgefield^ and, at a later date, Wolviston* we see that St. Cuthbert's rights were not the same over all the land. The early Norman bishops brought with them Norman lawyers who would not be able to understand the peculiar position of the Saxon ' Arch. Ael. (New Ser.), ix, 59. ' Ibid, x, 173. ' Ibid. 93. ' Follonsby, near the Tyne, is a doubtful case. It seems to have been a later vill founded after the time of Will. I. See Feodarium (Surtees Soc. Iviii), iizn. ' See/>wrp. 221. * Arch. Ael. (New Sen), x, 93. ' Simeon of Durham says {Optra, Rolls Ser. i, 208) that Bishop Cutheard bought with the money of St. Cuthbert the vill of Sedgefield and all belonging to it, except the holdings of three men, over whose lands, however, he had sake and solie. ' Feodarium (Surtees Soc. Iviii), 141 «. shows how the prior and convent gradually became owners of all rights in the vill. 178 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY bishop of Durham and his secular canons. In Durham, as elsewhere in England, we can assume that the new lords sharpened the traditional claims of their Saxon predecessors and imported a new spirit of order and regularity into the vague relations of former times. We know that Bishop William of St. Carileph reorganized the convent and introduced regular Benedictine monks in 1083, and in doing so suppressed the independence and annexed the possessions of the re-established monasteries of Jarrow and Wearmouth. William was succeeded by Ranulf Flambard, the minister of Rufus, and it is probably to his genius that the bishopric owed the economic and fiscal organization we find in Boldon Book. Certainly local tradition at Durham painted him as an able and kindly ruler,^ and the distance which separates Hugh Pudsey from the Norman Conquest makes it very probable that the arrangements described in Boldon Book date from an earlier pontificate. In Pudsey 's time, despite the harrying of the north by the Scots under Stephen and the troubles caused by Cumin on the death of Bishop Geoffrey Rufus, the Palatinate appears as a land of scattered but well-organized agricultural vills ; and only by isolated survivals, such as the payment of cornage or castleman- money, do we get any hint of the Durham where the chief, if not the only, wealth of the people lay in their cattle, when the constant raids made it unprofitable to till the ground except in certain sheltered spots. Even when the Halmote Rolls at the very end of the thirteenth century begin to supple- ment the picture of Boldon Book we still get the impression of oases of agriculture in vast deserts of moor and forest, from which the inhabitants were just beginning to annex a few acres of 'frussura' or, less frequently, to wrest land for new vills. When in the fourteenth century the Palatinate had begun to develop in population and wealth the Black Death aided the Scottish raiders, and the second surviving Palatine Survey, that of Bishop Hatfield, gives a woful picture of ruin and decay which is borne out by the Court Rolls. II — From Boldon Book to the Black Death As Boldon Book and its contents are the subject of a special article, they will only be used here as one of the quarries for material out of which a picture of mediaeval Durham must be built up. Of course, Boldon Book only deals with the episcopal vills,' but a comparison of the earliest existing Halmote Rolls of the prior with those of the bishop justifies the natural expectation that, down to the fourteenth century at least, the two sets of vills did not materially differ in their general conditions of life and tenure, although in course of time the tenants of the prior had to pay at least in theory a rack- rent for their holdings, while the episcopal tenants pay the same dues in Hat- field's Survey as they did according to Boldon Book. When Bishop Pudsey acquired the wapentake of Sadberge by purchase from Richard I, he and his successors became the owners of practically all the modern county' as well as of large tracts in Northumberland. Even the prior of Durham was only a tenant of the bishop, but he and a number of other ' barons of the bishop ' never exceeding ten in all, occupied a far different ' Laurence of Durham, Dia/ogi (Surtees Soc. Ixx), 22. ' The survey of Prior Melsanby (1233-44) is now missing. See FeoJarium (Surtees Soc. Iviii), Introd. * Raby and Barnard Castles did not belong to the bishopric. See Lapsley, County Palatine, 91 n. 179 A HISTORY OF DURHAM position from that of the holders of one or two manors who held their lands by knight service, often however coupled with a money payment. No one of his barons was a serious rival authority to the bishop, but the prior and convent held a number of vills, especially in the north-east and south-east of the county, and from the existing records of these vills it is perhaps permissible to assume that the conditions of the bishop's vills were common to all in the bishopric. Boldon Book is by no means a satisfactory substitute for a Domes- day of Durham, and so it is impossible to mention the number of free and servile tenants in the county. All that can be said is that the wide pre- valence of copyhold and leasehold tenures in the modern county points to a scanty free population in early times. Such free tenants as we do meet with in Boldon Book may represent Saxon freemen who did not wholly lose their rights at the Norman Conquest, but they do certainly in some cases represent nothing more than favoured servants of former bishops. The Anglo-Saxon thegn ^ is mentioned so late as the Pipe Roll of 1 130' together with the dreng and the ' smalman.' He has disappeared by 1183 and the dreng and the smalman have become semi-servile. The servile tenures of Durham are most interesting, and the degrees of servitude range from the once free dreng, perhaps a royal or episcopal atten- dant in earlier times, to the selffode of Hatfield's Survey. Roughly speaking, freemen held their lands by military service, while servile land was liable for personal service, actual or commuted, but we do hear of land held in socage * although that is not until later times. It is, however, difficult to insist upon the distinctions free and servile except as regards the land itself, for even Boldon Book deals rather with the condition of the land than with that of the inhabitants. The dreng was probably free in person from the beginning, but the tenure of drengage would be looked upon as an unfree one by the Norman lawyers, because the services were not in the feudal sense purely military. Probably Professor Maitland* is right in tracing a connexion between the rod-knights or riding men of Domesday and the drengs of Durham, but the drengs as a distinct class died out soon after the Conquest or were merged into the ordinary bondmen. However, drengage as a tenure lasted in theory far into the sixteenth century.^ According to Boldon Book the dreng was bound to plough, sow, and harrow a certain portion of the demesne land of the bishop, to make precariae in the autumn, to keep a horse and a dog for the bishop's use, to help in the great roe-hunt in Weardale with dogs and ropes, to cart wine and to go messages. Apparently his services were not so onerous as those of the ordinary villeins and they could be performed by deputy. In Ranulf Flambard's time all the permanent landowners in Northamshire and Islandshire were drengs, for a thegn was only a dreng who held more than one estate.^ They paid a money rent instead of service, but like the drengs of ' According to Canon Greenwell's interpretation of the returns in the Testa de NevUl for Northumbria (Record Series, pp. 381-96), the thegn was only a dreng who held more than one manor ; see Boldon Book (Surtees Soc. xxv),App. Iviii. ^ In Boldon Book (Surtees Soc. xxv), 1 6, we are told that ' Gilbert holds Heworth for three marks and is quit of the old works and service which thence as of theinage he was used to make for Ricknall which he quitclaimed.' ' e.g. Dur. Curs. No. 15, fol. g. * In Engl. Hist. Rev. v, 625-32. ' Dur. Curs. No. 19, fol. 322, mentions a case at Redworth. An instance is given by Canon Greenwell (Surtees Soc. xxv, App. 43) in which Bishop Philip of Poitou (i 197-1208) changes a drengage holding at Whitworth into a holding by one quarter of a knight's fee and probably similar cases are not rare. ^ Boldon Book (Surtees Soc. xxv), App. Iviii. 180 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY South Durham they were liable to merchet, heriot, and tallage. In historic times drengs, or land in drengage, occur in connexion with Herrington, Red- worth, Middridge, West Auckland, Easington, Hulam, Norton, and Carlton. Probably the tenure was found in early times in the prior's vills, but dis- appeared together with most extraordinary tenures before the existing Halmote Books begin. As the dreng had to pay a fee to the steward of the halmote court for licence to alienate or enter upon his lands, and was bound to ' do to the lord and neighbours the things incumbent,' his lands probably lay in the town fields. They were certainly under the obligation of mill-suit, and in general possessed no special point of difference from the ordinary town lands, save that the dreng was not personally unfree.^ When we come to the wholly unfree tenants the question becomes very difficult. The mediaeval lawyers could talk of the ' villein en gros ' and the ' villein regardant,' for the former term described the fast diminishing race of personally unfree serfs and the latter the more numerous personally free cul- tivators of holdings for which they owed or had commuted personal services. Unfortunately, Boldon Book is by no means as explicit as Domesday upon the matter of serfdom, and the few references it does give to serfs are evidently from the context later interpolations. The original text of Boldon Book describes the holdings of a vill in such vague terms as ' In Boldon are 22 vil- leins each of whom holds 2 oxgangs of 30 acres etc' It does not give the names of the tenants as do Hatfield's and Langley's Surveys, except where the tenant is a freeman and holds upon special terms.^ In Hatfield's Survey some personally unfree tenants are distinctly styled nativus and the inference is that all not so designated are free. Such an interpretation at least is the only one consistent with the various transactions recorded in the Halmote Rolls. The probability is that the villeins and perhaps the cotters of Boldon Book represent the original personally unfree tenants of the bishop, whose status was for a time legally debased at the Norman Conquest, although the servile incidents may have become attached to the land. Exactly how far the pre-Conquest bishops had secured a control over the persons as opposed to the lands of the peasants cannot now be determined. They would cer- tainly succeed to the legal rights of the lords in the various lands they acquired by purchase or gift, but the county was too unsettled immediately before and after the Conquest to allow of the legal rights being pressed too hardly. All we can say, therefore, is that some of the villeins in Boldon Book probably were personally unfree, but that the class steadily grew smaller. However, with very few exceptions all the tenures in the vills, at least so far as the village community was concerned, were unfree, and the holders, so long as they remained on the land, were liable to the servile incidents and duties. It is significant that throughout the later Middle Ages the land in the town fields was called ' bond-land ' and the personally unfree nativus was called a ' bondman.' Upon the lands of the bishop we find a number of tenants whose holdings, though servile, differ from those of the ordinary villein. The ' The entries in Boldon Book under Herrington and especially Sheraton leave a strong impression that the dreng was, before the Conquest, the lord of the village under the bishop. ' e.g. under Boldon we find ' Robert holds two oxgangs of 37 acres and renders half a mark.' 181 A HISTORY OF DURHAM malmanni or molmen appear in the Royal Pipe Rolls as ' small-men,' and are classed with the drengs. They are found most numerously at Norton,, Sedgefield, and Stockton, but they also occur at Bedburn and Blackwell, but in Boldon Book we find them only at Newton by Boldon. It has been suggested that the prefix ' mal ' has nothing to do with ' small,' but should rather be referred to the Anglo-Saxon ' mal '=tribute.^ In this case it is possible that the preferential terms they received from the bishop may be the reward of efforts made to resist invaders who attacked the bishopric by way of the Tees or Tyne, and both they and the drengs may have originally been a kind of small episcopal standing army. The services paid by the molmen were not the same everywhere, but although their holdings were a little smaller than those of the ordinary villeins (24 acres as compared with 30 at Boldon) they paid more in money and less in personal service ; hence, perhaps, their name. It is curious that the tenants, e.g. at Norton, who are called malmamit sive Jirmarii in Hatfield's Survey, appear 2>.%Jirmarn only in Boldon Book, and seem to have become blended into the more general heading Jirmani. Cer- tainly in the bailiff's accounts^ the villein or bondus is distinguished from the molman as late as 1338, and after the Black Death the molmen cease to be a class. Then we begin to find in the Halmote Rolls 'land of the malmanni,' 'maleland,' or ' mailand,' and finally we are told that in 141 1 a certain Robert Johnson paid a fine of 40J-. to hold ' by custom of the court ' a tenure he had hitherto held as maleland,' and that all the tenants of maleland in Stockton and Norton commuted their special mowing works at the rate of 8^. for every acre they held.* The evidence tends to show that the various tenures gradually became merged into the commonest — the holding by custom of court, although the meaningless names lingered on. The firmars or firmarii form the remainder of the alien tenants of the village, if, indeed, they can be distinguished from the molmen. They are an alien element, because they seem to have formed no part of the original village community of Durham so far as we can judge from the rents and services they paid. If they were not always identical with the molmen, and perhaps it is unsafe to make the identification absolute, we must place the origin of those who were not molmen at some period between the Norman Conquest and Boldon Book, most probably when the great re- organization took place, whether under William of St. Carileph or Ranulf Flambard. Boldon Book shows us new vills, such as 'Old Thickley, which was made out of the territory of Redworth,' and we come across several vills such as Warden or Morton, where all the tenants are firmars with identical holdings and services. A comparison between the composite rents paid by the villeins of Boldon and the fairly simple dues of the firmars is a strong argument in favour of the later creation of the second tenure. In the Court Rolls we frequently find men taking so many acres of bondland and so many acres of land of the malmanni or land of the exchequer, but as in each case the tenure is ' by doing to the lord and neighbours the things incumbent ^ ' Cf. Dur. Curs. No. 29, m. \(^d. where we read that three messuages in Durham city were burgage* held by the service of ' land-male,' viz. of paying \d. yearly at the Tolbooth of Durham. ' e.g. Auckland Roll (in Surtees Soc. xxxii), 208. 'Dur. Curs. No. 14, fol. 420. * Ibid. fol. 422. 182 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY we may assume that the land Hes within the town fields, although probably in the exterior ' flatts ' taken in from the waste. ^ It is tempting to suggest that the firmars were the personally free and the villeins and cotters the personally unfree tenants in Pudsey's time, but the evidence is too scanty to make this more than a possible solution. Certainly where we find firmars and villeins in the same vill the services and holdings differ rather in quantity than quality, except in so far as the villein services by their complexity point to an earlier form of tenure. If there seem to be a connexion between the molmen and the firmars there is probably a closer one between the tenentes scaccarii^ or chekermen, and the firmars. There is actually an entry ^ in the Halmote Books under Blackwell in 1468 referring to a lease of 'two oxgangs of maland otherwise called Exchequer-land.' Boldon Book tells us that there were five firmars at Blackwell holding four bovates, who rendered and did services as the firmars of Darlington. However, we are told that the latter did no works, but paid a firm jj. for each bovate as the villeins did. Hatfield's Survey, borne out by Langley's Survey thirty years afterwards, tells us that the firmars or molmen of Darlington and Blackwell had become tenentes scaccariihy 1380, i.e. tenants who paid a money rent only to the treasury.* What happened at Darlington or Blackwell is typical of the gradual commutation of tenures in the bishopric. As population increased fresh land was taken in from the waste. At first this land was given to freemen for life, partly for a money rent, partly for services. In some places, as at Blackwell and Darlington, these services were wholly commuted, and there would be a tendency on the part of both lord and tenant to prefer a money rent, especially as services were not needed by the lord and had become attached to the land rather than to the person of the tenant.* At other places, such as Norton and Stockton, we find in Bishop Hatfield's Survey distinct classes of malmanni she Jirmarii, and terrae scaccarii, but the latter are generally small and described in language which makes it clear that they are but recently won from the waste,^ while in the case of the former we are distinctly told the prices at which the various services had been commuted. Perhaps at first, cheker- men had formed a distinct class from the firmars and molmen, but it is plain that by 1380, perhaps even before the Black Death, terra scaccarii or cheker- land described the land for which money rather than services was rendered. That the chekermen were in a more favoured position than the ordinary villeins is clear from the fact that they only paid one measure in sixteen ° to the mill at which they ground their wheat compared with the one in thirteen paid by the villeins. Light as this was in comparison the chekermen ' Cf. Bp. Hatfield's Surv. (Surtees Soc. xxxii), 89. 'The jurors say that the parson of Gateshead holds in different placet of the field there, xiv acres of land, which they believe to be the land of the exchequer.' •Dur. Curs. No. 16, fol. 178 a'. ' Hatfield's Survey and Langley's Survey each contains a clause stating that the tenentes scaccarii are jointly liable for the ' operationes ' of the four original ' cottages ' at Darlington, due to the mill and at harvest, until the ' operationes ' could be attached to the proper cottages. The meaning of this is clear when we remember that the original ' firmar-holdings ' had been swamped by the fresh land taken in from the waste ; Bp. Hatfield's Surv. (Surtees Soc. xxxii), 5-6, enumerates about thirty tenentes scaccarii, some of whom have holdings described as ' captum de vasto Domini.' * Ibid. ''Dur. Halmote R. (Surtees Soc. Ixxxii), 7, says : ' And for the three acres and a half of new land he shall pay the firm to the Treasury.' * Dur. Curs. No. 12, fol. 1 29, but fol. 82 d. seems to make the rate one in twenty-four. 183 A HISTORY OF DURHAM of Hardwick persistently ground their corn at the mill of Blakiston and not at the nearest mill of the lord,^ and doubtless the favoured position of the chekermen was partly responsible for the general insubordination of the villeins proper after the Black Death. It should be added that chekerland wsis not unknown under the prior,^ but together with the other holdings it gave way before the system of renewable leases.' But these various tenures of the drengs, molmen, chekermen, &c. were later accretions to the villeins, who, as their name implies, formed the village community proper. It is impossible to find a more typical vill than Boldon to illustrate the payments and services due to the lord, although interesting variations of service occur, among other places, at Darlington, Heighington, North Auckland, and Lanchester. At the time of the first survey in 1183, there were twenty-two villeins at Boldon, who each held 2 oxgangs of land. At Boldon an oxgang was i 5 acres, the average size, but we find oxgangs of 8 acres at Lanchester, of 12 at Newbottle, and 16 at Bedlington, so that the size of the oxgang probably did correspond, at least in theory, with the ease with which the soil could be tilled. For his 30 acres the Boldon peasant paid partly in money and partly in kind or by service. He rendered 2J. 6d, as scat-pennys, i.e. an acknowledgement perhaps of i^. for every acre of land he held, and 16^. as averpennys,* i.e. instead of allowing the lord to use the oxen or horses of the tenant which legally were the lord's property. He was bound to carry five loads of wood and to give two hens and ten eggs also, in addition to various labour services. These services due from the villeins to the lord were the most important feature of rural economy up to the thirteenth century at least. The three- field system seems to have prevailed throughout the bishopric, but need not here be described. Probably one-fourth of the arable land of the village was retained as the lord's demesne^ or home farm, and was cultivated through a bailiff with the help of the villeins' services. In most cases the lord's demesne lay scattered in strips among the tenants' holdings, but it may have been wholly or partly inclosed in some cases. The bishop and prior held many vills, and even before Boldon Book had leased or let at farm a large number of the demesnes. But the lessee had the same right to the villeins' services as the bishop's baihfF had, and these services are in consequence described in detail even when, as at Boldon, the demesne was at farm. The villein at Boldon worked for his lord three days in every week with the exception of Easter-week, Whit-week, and thirteen days at Christmas. Besides this the villein and his family, except the housewife, were bound to reap four days in autumn. This liability was termed precariae or ' boon-days,' the theory being that the villein did them as extra service at the request of the lord. It is curious, however, to note that they had to be formally commuted at a later date and indeed survived longer than the rest as actual services rendered. To these day-works must be added certain task- works. We are told that he had to reap and plough 3 roods and each villein plough ploughed and harrowed 2 acres, in which week they were excused 1 Dur. Curs. No. 12, fol. 82 d. They should have used Norton Mill. ' Dur. Halmote R. (Surtees Soc. Ixxxii), 35. ' Ibid. * If a new house had to be built by the villeins each was quit of 412'. of averpennys. • B/>. HatfieWs Surv. seeas to show that at Boldon this was the proportion. 184 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY other work. There were due also mowing at Houghton, works of carting and lodge building, perhaps as alternatives to week-work, and at these he received food. Perhaps the Durham peasant had not been so successful as those about Abingdon and Peterborough^ in commuting his services by 1183, but it is probable that the process had already begun and it was certainly helped by the growing disinclination of the lord to work his own demesne lands. There were already a few rent-paying peasants at Boldon besides the cotters who did works proportionate to their holdings. Halfway between came the molmen of Newton. Other dues from the peasants were cornage, milch cow, castleman, yolwayting, and michelmet. Few paid all, and the last two were confined to a group of villages around the bishop's hall at Heighington. Yolwayting may be some duty formerly exacted at Christmas, but afterwards commuted, while michelmet may refer to works of reaping about Michaelmas or else to some meeting or moot at that time. Castleman generally occurs in connexion with the village where a dreng is found or which is near the bishop's hall at Heighington. In Boldon Book it was paid by the actual service of a ' castle- man ' perhaps at Durham, but in Hatfield's time it was commuted. The ' castle ' points to a post-Conquest origin, but it may be a reorganization of the military service of the pre-Conquest dreng.^ Cornage and milch cow are too often found together not to have a com- mon origin. Generally the liability to provide a milch cow is commuted in Hatfield's Survey at the rate of 6j-., but unlike cornage it was a payment in kind in 1 183. It may represent either the increase of the flock which fell to the lord, or more probably his right to sustenance when in early times he travelled from vill to vill. Cornage is a much thornier subject, but one explanation,'' that it refers to tenure by blowing a horn to give warning of the Scots' approach, may safely be dismissed. In the vocabulary of an old Durham book* we find ' Hornebiel (in margin Hornegeld) this is to be free from a certain custom exacted by tallage throughout the land.' Probably we see an explanation of cornage in this, for a charter of Henry I to the monks of Durham ^ tells us that the cornage of Borton was at the rate of id. for every horned beast. Cornage is not paid by all villa in Boldon Book, and we are distinctly told that the men of Norton escaped it because they lacked pasture. Probably the vills which did pay cornage were primarily pastoral in pre- Conquest times, but the tax became somewhat arbitrary in later times and we find apparently new vills paying it and the assessments of older vills increased. The tax was sometimes levied on the whole vill, at other times on the villeins or each villein paid separately. Probably in time the incident like others became attached to definite holdings. The Stockton ward had only three episcopal cornage-paying vills. The due, together with milch cow, was paid at several of the prior's vills as late as i 507, and probably in episcopal vills also, but the origin had long been forgotten. ' Norgatc, Engl, under the Angevins, ii, 472 et seq. ' In post-Conquest times one of the Bulmers of Brancepeth built the church of St. Mary the Less ia Durham for the use of his men when they performed Castle-ward. ' By Littleton and Spelman. ■• The Registrum Primum belonging to the dean and chapter. ' Printed in Feodarium (Surtees Soc. Iviii), 145 n. 2 185 24 A HISTORY OF DURHAM Besides the dues already mentioned certain vills or holdings near the great roads were bound to carry the lord's goods, such as wine, herrings, mill- stones, &c., when required. As usual these dues were freely commuted in later times, but other obligations such as thatching the mill, cleaning out the pond or the stream, or working on the roads, lasted as actual tasks till com- paratively modern times. The cases of South Biddick and Ryton prove that even the Durham peasants had made some progress towards emancipation in the twelfth century. They farmed their vills from the bishop, and later interpolations in Boldon Book show how Bishop Walter de Kirkham (1249-60) allowed the peasants in the outlying districts of Bedlingtonshire to commute many of their labour services. Probably similar commutations took place elsewhere. Most of our knowledge of the mediaeval Durham village is derived from the Halmote Rolls. The halmote was the manorial court of the bishop and prior, but it seems to have been much more powerful than the similar court elsewhere. It met three times yearly and the vills were grouped in sections which afterwards received the name of manors.^ At one, generally the same vill in each group, the steward, or in the case of the prior sometimes the bursar or terrarer, presided at a meeting of the lord's tenants from the vills of that group. Each tenant was fined bd. if absent, but the vill as such was represented by the reeve and a jury, generally of three to five men, who made presentments of offences against the local by-laws and generally carried out the orders of the halmote in their vill. The reeve and jury were in theory elected yearly and sworn. The office was naturally not a grateful one, and those chosen often earned only abuse by their attempts at arbitration or at repressing wrong-doing. The jury, besides presenting offenders, valued deterioration of cottages and holdings. The reeve was the lord's agent in procuring that the tenants did their quota of work but his own exemption was dearly purchased by the obloquy he often found. He had also to give notice of the holding of the halmote. The halmote served both as court leet and court baron, but although the free tenants often took up their holdings or did homage at the halmote, its power over them was confined to attaching them to appear at the lord's free court.'' Over the bondagers the halmote's power was very great, but its penalties were wholly pecuniary. Here the villein recovered his debts, entered upon his holding, and if a neif, or nativus, swore fealty. Such litiga- tion as was necessary had to be carried out in the halmote, and the lord's tenant was forbidden to seek redress in any other court, ecclesiastical or lay, when he could obtain it from his lord's halmote. The suitors were the judges, and if a tenant disputed the presentment of the jurors he had to bring six compurgators to establish his innocence before them. The halmote, especially in later times, often became a scene of disorder, and the peasants appear at times to have been garrulous and litigious, especially the women. It was not, however, merely a petty law court, but it also served as a sort of' district council.' The reeve and jury may be compared with com- ' In the Halmote Rolls manerium always means the manor-house, but the phrase 'custom of the manor' occasionally occurs ; e.g. Dur. Curs. No. 14, fol. 397. ' The prior and bishop had each a free court. These courts met at Durham every three weeks, but the existing rolls are late and tell us little of their procedure. We learn from the Inventarium of 1464 that the prior's tenants refused to attend unless distrained ; Feodarium (Surtees Soc. Iviii), 207. 186 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY mittees representing the villages, and apparently the halmote had power to break itself up into a number of smaller bodies, one for each vill, whose recommendations and orders, if accepted by the steward, were entered on the halmote roll and were enforced by the court. We often find entries such as ' It is ordered to all that . . . ,' or ' it is ordained by the common assent . . . .' Sometimes the free tenants appear as assenting.^ It would be interesting if we could find out the precise connexion between the halmote and the local village assembly which might be convened by the reeve when necessary to discuss matters of common interest or profit to the villagers and the lord. Unfortunately this ' tun-moot ' is seldom re- ferred to in the rolls, and then only in terms which show that attendance at it was become slack in the fourteenth century.^ It probably lingered in some form or other until it received a fresh lease of life as the vestry in Tudor times, its secular side thus being revived as the halmote was sinking into impo- tence before the justice of the peace and the constable, who had jurisdiction over bond and free tenant alike. But this shadowy village meeting had little importance in the village beside the officials whose election by the tenantry took place in or was con- firmed by the halmote. The reeve and jury have been mentioned already, and next to them came the ' messor ' or hayward, who acted as foreman over the autumn works of the peasants and had also duties in connexion with the village pasture. In some vills he seems to have acted as assistant reeve. None of the officials were popular, and the messor fared worst of all. The peasant naturally resented the order that he should reap the lord's crop whether his own was spoiled or not,^ and the careless owner disliked the fine that ensued when the messor impounded beasts that had strayed. After the Black Death the messor was the official whom the vills most frequently refused to appoint. The pinder, or pounder, was an important village official. His main work was the impounding of straying cattle till their owners redeemed them from the village pinfold. Sometimes the more daring offenders would attempt to rescue their cattle by a sudden night attack, but if caught they were severely punished. Like the reeve the pinder escaped ordinary field work, and often had in addition a few acres of land and sheaves of corn from the other tenants. He paid his rent in the form of hens and eggs, or later a money equivalent. In the fourteenth century we find that the pindership was sometimes held by the vill in common and a deputy was paid to perform the work. There was a common pinfold for the whole county at Sadberge in the eighteenth century. We also meet with the village shepherd and the village swineherd, but in some vills they appear to have had difHculty in obtaining their wages. In other vills the tenants acted as shepherd or swineherd in turn, but all agreed in showing a steady disinclination to do their share. The village geese were supposed to be sent out in charge of a ' goose-boy,' but after the Black Death we find frequent complaints that tenants did not 'keep hirsill' (i.e. send a keeper) with their pigs and geese. The hens, of which even the poorest ' E.g. at A)'clifFe ; Dur. Halmote R. (Surtees Soc. Ixxxii), 171. * E.g. at 'Coupon,' now Cowpen Bewley ; Dur. Halmote R. (Surtees Soc. Ixxxii), 172. ' To refuse obedience to the reeve or messor w.is to incur a fine. 187 A HISTORY OF DURHAM peasant had a few, were apparently allowed to wander at their will. Naturally, as the gardens were unfenced, we hear frequent complaints of devastation, and walls of various kinds were ordered. In mediaeval Durham the common drink was beer brewed from grain, generally barley. It took the place of tea and coffee, and, with the coarse brown bread made from maslin ^ or occasionally wheat, formed the staple of the peasant's meal. Potatoes were, of course, unknown, and meat was not only too dear for him, but not very appetizing in winter, being roughly preserved by inferior salt. Naturally we find the assizes of bread and ale referred to frequently, especially the latter. Each village down to the nine- teenth century was supposed to appoint two men as ale-conners or ale-tasters, and the same or two others were appointed as bread-weighers. The toll of beer belonged to the lord, and we find that he granted a sort of licence to brew to certain people, generally ale-wives. These were forced to submit the ale to the verdict of the tasters, either before sale or when required, and were fined if the inferior quality broke the assize of ale. Some of the regu- lations are startlingly modern, such as those which forced the ale-wife to use sealed measures and to sell either on or off the premises, at the option of the buver. The price was fixed for each vill and varied from id. to \ld. a gallon. The seller had to exhibit a sign before his or her dwelling and must sell to anyone. If the publican was secured in his monopoly he had also to suffer drawbacks. At Sedgefield and perhaps elsewhere the brewer gave the lord, by ancient custom, a gallon of beer every time he brewed,' and in the prior's vills he had to supply the lord's officials with good ale when they came to the vill. Sometimes the brewers on the great roads developed into innkeepers, who, we are told, were apt to pay more attention to the rich man on horseback than to the poor man on foot,' and the halmote denounced the reprehensible if natural custom. Breaches of the assize of bread are not often referred to in the rolls,* but we hear a great deal of the common oven, which was a necessity, as the wretched huts of the peasants contained no convenience for cooking. The common oven was leased either to an individual or to the vill,* and in the latter case the peasants tended it and found fuel in turn. It was a profitable investment in manv cases, and we find that the obligation to use it was resented after the Black Death. When it was clear that the firmars of the oven could not enforce their rights, the lord licensed private ovens,^ but the common oven lingered for centuries in some villages. There was generally a smith in each group of villages and sometimes a carpenter. They both held a few acres of land according to Boldon Book. The smith was the more important, and he was bound to make plough-irons and other instruments. Many of the tools were of wood shod with iron, which was very expensive. Probably much of it was from native ore, but the finer kinds were imported from Spain.' There was usually in each village a common forge which the tenants were bound to keep in repair. ' Maslin, a mixture generally of wheat and n-e, was used as late as the early nineteenth century to make the brown bread which was the main article of diet ; Bailey, Gen. View of the Agr'u. of Dur. 358. ' Dur. Curs. No. 12, fol. 120 a'. ^ Dur. Halmote R. (Surtees Soc. Ixxxii), 138. * In 1366 one of the bread-wives of Billingham was fined for forestalling and for selling bre^d /ton Je integro frumento. ' Dur. Curs. No. 12, fol. 258. * Dur. Acct. R. (Surtees Soc. xcix), 71, 143, 5:c. 1S8 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY They were forbidden to make their own ironwork, but in return they could force the smith to be present at fixed times to do what they wanted. Not the least important person in the village was the miller. The mill, worked either by water, or more rarely by wind, belonged to the lord, and all tenants of the lord had to grind their corn there, and to pay a portion for the service, which varied with their status. Some free tenants might get exemption ; others ground, but only paid perhaps -^-^ of the produce ^ ; the chekermen paid from y^ to 5^,^ the burgesses in some burgs paid y\,' but the bondager paid J^.* We find that some mills had been farmed out as early as Boldon Book. Sometimes the whole village was the firmar, but generally we find the mill in the hands of one or two men who, for the length of their lease, had all the rights of the lord. Besides being compelled to grind at the mill the tenants had to thatch it, to clean out the mill-pond and stream, and to carry millstones when required.* Sometimes the free tenants helped in the work, but their obligations are not very clear.* Hand-mills were forbidden to the tenants, but probably were often used. If the miller was cheated he seems to have often been a rascal in his turn, and some of the vills made desperate efforts to free themselves from the obligations of mill suit.' Technically the obligation lasted as long as the mill worked, but early in the seventeenth century the Durham Chancery Court decided that pur- chased grain was exempt. The Westoe jury in 1662 apparently strained this decision and declared that no inhabitant of Shields or Panns need grind at the mill unless he pleased.' The local mill is now scarce in the county, and foreign wheat has largely displaced the native product. Besides corn-mills we read of fulling-mills, each one of which served a large area. These were used in the manufacture of local homespun cloth. At Oxenhall we learn from Boldon Book there was also a horse-mill which an ex-dreng was allowed to have free from suit or work at the mill. In connexion with the mill it might be as well to recall that the famous Newcastle grindstones of the Middle Ages really came from the Palatinate. They were gained from the quarries about Gateshead and Heworth, and we find the prior granting men licences to work and export them outside the prior's territory.' In later times the ordinary village officials shrank into comparative insignificance before the constable, who became the henchman of the justice of the peace and the representative in the vill of the central government. The bishop introduced into the Palatinate in some form or other the reforms and legislation of the central Parliament. The Assize of Clarendon was put into force together with similar legislation, and we find the usual machinery of justice and police at work in Durham in the thirteenth century. For instance, each ward had a coroner, and often a sub-coroner, and justices who were commissioned by the bishop to see that the various royal statutes were carried out. In i 3 1 2 we find Bishop Kellaw appointing a Custos Pacis,^° and ' The rate varied, and a free tenant at Merrington paid ^^ ; Dur. Halmote R. (Surtees Soc. Ixxxii), 35 ' Dur. Curs. No. 12, fol. 82 . Hatfield's Surv. (Surtees Soc.xxxii), 20. * Autumn included the days from i Aug. to 11 Nov., i.e. about ten weeks. According to Boldon Book the villeins owed 2 days a week in autumn and i day a week for the rest of the year. At this rate autumn week-work was valued at i^d. a day, as compared with ^d. a day for other week-work, but the former rate seems to have prevailed only when a/I autumn works were commuted. 204 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY claimed id. a load and even the wood-carriers got ^d'. As the bailiff could hire men for hay-making and loading at the rate of i ^d. a day, he naturally allowed the peasants to commute at least part of their services, so long as labour was plentiful. At the end of the compotus of 1337 we have an inter- esting account of how the 28 bondmen of Auckland, Newton, and Escombe performed the services which they did not commute. The 28 men owed jointly 1,064 day-works at the rate of one day a week for 38 weeks. They harrowed seven days each at Coundon Grange and then spent a day in carrying stakes and other material for inclosing the park and its meadows. For six days they mowed the meadow and then for three days made hay, receiving kd. each for food. Then they carried the hay for two days and got id. in lieu of food. In this way they accounted for 532 works. They were allowed to commute 420 of the remainder, and the remaining 112 were reckoned as the four weeks' holiday they could claim by Boldon Book.^ This system of commutation worked well enough until the Black Death made labour scarce. Then came the question — must the lord allow the tenant to commute at the old rate ? ^ In the autumn of i 349 Roger de Tikhill, the new bailiff of Auckland, was faced by a difficult problem. He could not hire labourers enough with the commutation money formerly paid, but could he force the bondmen to work at any rate in the autumn ? The compotus roll ^ tells us that Roger, or some other official, proposed an inquiry should be held as to whether the commutation was by right or by favour. Before the effect of the Black Death can be properly explained something must be said about those bond tenants who were not personally free — the nativi or neifs — whose apparent helplessness tempted the perplexed officials to acts which seem sheer oppression. The question of the nativi, serfs, or personally unfree tenants of the bishopric, is a very perplexing one. As has been already pointed out the authentic text of Boldon Book gives no help towards determining the pro- portion of free to unfree tenants. Practically, all our information upon the status and fate of these nativi comes from the Halmote Rolls and a bundle of manumissions in the Treasury at Durham.* It is tempting to say that the unfree peasant legally held only at the will of the lord, although in practice seldom disturbed if he paid his dues, and that the free tenant had a life interest in his holding and could transmit some kind of tenant-right to his son. How- ever this theory may suit most cases, it does not suit all. We are, indeed, told that certain tenants ' held at the will of the lord because a nativus,' ^ but at Coupon, in 1368, Stephen Fowler, who is not called a nativus, and so was probably free, took several cottages for a money rent, ' to hold at the will of the lord,' and one ruined cottage ' until the lord or one of his tenants wished to build it up.' * Again, at Mid Merrington we find a man taking two bond- ages for 2 8j. yearly but he was to hold one for the term of his life and the other at the will of the lord.'' We also find nativi who held for life.* All we ' This supports Thorold Rogers' contention that the saints' days of the church were not celebrated by idleness and stoppage of work ; Rogers, Six Cenluries of Work and Wages, i, l8l. * At a later date (14.31) the Prior had certainly the right to choose whether he would accept money in- stead of service, in some cases ; MS. Prior's Halmote Book, vol. i, fol. 115. ' Bp. Hatfield's Sun'. (Surtees Soc. xxxii), 211 n. * Loc. 28, No. I. ' Dur. Halmote R. (Surtees Soc. Ixxxii), 113. ^ Ibid. 76, 77. ' Ibid. 78. ^Ibid. 123, 131. 205 A HISTORY OF DURHAM can say is that perhaps in the stress of the Black Death the old distinctions were waived in favour of the nativi, but why a freeman consented to be a mere tenant at will is not clear. The personal rights or disabilities of the nativus are much better known to us. His lot in early times could only have been tolerable if shared with a large majority of his neighbours, and the frantic efforts to escape from their bonds made by the surviving nativi of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries are very intelligible. He felt the sting of his lot from his very birth. Were both his parents serfs he could only hope to gain freedom by manumission or flight. The child of a nativus and a freewoman was in law only a nativus and his mother's holding escheated to the lord.^ If a freeman married a nativa, or female serf, he had practically to buy her freedom of the lord, as when Adam Coke of Cleadon paid 20s. to the lord for permission to marry a nativa.^ When the woman was free but the man a nativus the lord only exacted 2s. because his possible loss of help was less.^ Merchet was of course paid as usual when a female serf married in her own station, and an obscure passage in the Prior's Rolls seems to indicate that until merchet had been paid the marriage of a nativa was not valid.' However, when the lord recognized the marriage, the nativa had nothing more to fear. She and her husband could generally obtain a cottage or messuage with land and work, and they never experienced the misfortunes of their class outside the bishopric. Both the bishop and the prior seem to have been considerate landlords till 1350, and we find no cases of selling serfs either as whole families or separately. After 1350 the serfs passed through a half-century of oppression, but that period will be dealt with later. In Durham, as elsewhere, the serf had no rights against his lord and could own nothing. However, in practice, especially by the fourteenth century, the lord was always considerate. In the serf's lifetime he was allowed to live in unmolested enjoyment of his possessions, but at his death his goods were valued by the jury, e.g. on 6 December, 1409, the jury of Easington pre- sented that Richard Watson, a nativus of the lord had died on the Thursday before the feast of St. Martin last, possessing the following goods and chattels, viz. : one horse worth 6s., three oxen worth 30J-., one cow worth 6s. Sd., sixteen sheep worth 16s., three pigs worth 3J. And they were ordered to give an account of his household goods and dead stock, concerning which they report later that his household goods were worth 6s. SJ., and that there were likewise three quarters of wheat worth 24J., four quarters of barley worth 24J., seven quarters of peas worth i6s., six quarters of oats worth 15J., four acres of sown wheat worth 26s. 8^., and one plough with its gear worth 3J-. 2d.* A few pages afterwards we find — Be it remembered that the goods and chattels of Richard Watson nativus of the lord, now dead, are valued as appears in the court last past at ^^8 ijs. id. From this sum an allocation of 135. ^d. was made to Walter Peirson the Collector this year for the firm of the said Richard at the Martinmas term last past. And an allocation is also made to Margaret, who was the wife of the said Richard and is now tenant of the lord of one messuage and one husbandland which were the said Richard's while he lived, to complete ' Dur. Curs. No. 12, fol. \7 d- We find from Dur. Curs. No. 12, fol. 90 <^. 91 d.. that the husband was allowed a life interest in his wife's land after her death, but at five times the firm she paid. ' Dur. Curs. No. 12, fol. 25. ^ Dur. Halmote R. (Surtees Soc. Ixxxii), 126. * Dur. Curs. No. 14, fol. 307. 206 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY the payment of the firm of the said Margaret from the term of St. Cuthbert in March, the Nativity of St. John the Baptist and St. Cuthbert in September which occur this year and for the satisfaction of the firm of 4 acres of wheat sown 26s. 8d. Total of the allocations 4.0s. And to John son of the said Richard for his third share 45$. 8d. which are delivered to John Bene the Reeve to keep safe until he receives another command from the Lord Bishop or his steward. And to Thomas Watson executor of the will of the said Richard for paying his debts, for his third share 45J. Sd.^ If the nativus could make a will which the lord acknowledged, and if the rights of the widow and son were thus clearly recognized, wherein lay the disabihties of the class .? His great difficulty was that he had no legal status outside the halmote, at least in respect to civil cases, until he received a charter of manumission. When Thomas de Melsanby (1233-44) freed one of his serfs he used practically the same formula as his predecessors and successors : Know ye that we have manumitted and quit-claimed and freed from every yoke of servitude Henry le Orselin of Dalton a born neif (nativus). Wherefore we will, and I having regard to charity and his servile estate, do grant that the said Henry and all his \ offspring shall have power of departing and returning wheresoever they please as freemen. So that neither we nor our successors shall have power in the future to make good any claim upon them, based on their servile condition. In witness whereof etc. However, the ' wherefore ' or definitive clause was made more explicit when the freeman's rights were unsettled. Hence we find Prior Hugo in 1265 introducing a slightly altered form : Wherefore we will and do order as far as lies in our power that the said Gamell of Jarrow and all and singular of his descendants in defending themselves or in bringing suits against others and in bearing witness (in giving a gage for wager of battle) and in all causes and contracts named and unnamed, be received as free men for ever, wherever free men and freeborn men have been able freely to obtain a place. These charters show us the serf fixed in his native village, unable to defend himself in the law courts of the king, or to enter into any valid legal contract. Perhaps in the earliest times little inconvenience was felt when all or nearlv all his fellow villagers were no better off, but even by 1 183 we can see that village life in Durham was in a state of transition. How many of the twenty-two villeins of Boldon were personally free we have no means of learning, but it is probable that Robert, who held two oxgangs of 37 acres was not only free but had also commuted his labour services. Some of the twenty-two villeins, however, must have been serfs, as we meet with their descendants in the fourteenth-century Court Rolls. In the thirteenth century the serfs seem to have become dissatisfied with their lot. When bailiff-farming began to die out on most manors it would be difficult to prevent the serfs from leaving their native village and posing as free labourers in other parts. Sometimes they fled to Hartlepool, Newcastle, or other accessible towns, for by remaining there for a year and a day they secured their freedom. Sometimes the prior or the bishop granted letters of manu- mission, generally in return for a money payment which the charter forgets to mention. And so by flight or by payment the serfs began to disappear rapidly in the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. The surviving manumissions all date between 1233 and 13 18. The bishop and prior at last realized what was happening, and made strenuous efforts to recover control over the runaways and to keep a firm hold 'Dur. Curs. No. 14, fols. 332, 402. 207 A HISTORY OF DURHAM over the rest. When a serf was freed he received a chirograph or half of a piece of parchment torn down the centre in a jagged Hne. If it did not correspond with the copy in the lord's possession the serf could only vindicate his freedom by appealing to a jury — generally of twelve men — drawn from the neighbourhood, who were probably serfs themselves.^ At first the jurors seldom had any difficulty in agreeing upon their verdict. An early and probably thirteenth-century interpolation in Boldon Book tells us how John son of Eustace and Alexander his brother, of West Auckland, were arraigned as serfs but were acquitted by a jury. From entries on the Court Rolls we know that the jury ' said upon their oaths that they were free and of free condition.' ^ However, sometimes the jury, perhaps against their will, could not give a verdict for the serf. Then they ' say upon their oaths that John son of Adam is a serf of the lord, and both he and his ancestors were held for such from all time as they have heard from their ancestors.' ^ In the interval between the accusation and the trial the serf was allowed to go free if he could tind a surety * that he would not attempt to escape. If the decision was given against him he had the right, at least in the fourteenth century, of appealing to a second jury drawn probably from a wider area.^ The cost of the appeal was 6s. %d. and seems to have made the practice uncommon. When all these devices failed the serf had to find pledges that he would do fealty to the prior's or bishop's representative at a given date. He swore upon the Holy Gospels that he would submit himself [justkiabilis erit) to the lord bishop (or lord prior and convent) and his servants both with his body and with his goods, movable and immovable, and with his offspring procreated, or to be procreated, and that he would not take himself from his lord's land.* The serf had then three possible courses to him. He might accept the verdict and make the best of his position, but after the Black Death that position generally drove the more hardy to renewed flight, regardless of what might happen to their sureties.^ Others, who lacked courage for flight but did not wish to remain in the vill, adopted the third course, they purchased permission to absent themselves by agreeing to pay to the lord a small annual tax called ' Albanaria.' The actual sum paid varied from 2j. upwards,^ but the con- ditions were, at least on paper, very stringent. In the case of one of the prior's serfs he had to take an oath that he would come yearly in person to Durham at Pentecost and Martinmas to pay his albanaria until the lord should think fit to make some other arrangement or he could prove he ought to be freed.' In the bundle of manumissions already referred to is an interesting specimen by Prior Bertram (1244—58). It is the earliest surviving example ' Most of the jurors whose names appear on the Dur. Halmote R. (Surtees Soc. Ixxxii.), 137, are knowa to have been serfs. ' Dur. Halmote R. (Surtees Soc. Ixxxii.), 1 26. ' Cf. ibid. 161 with MS. Rolls of 1379 (iii) and MS. Prior's Halmote Book, i, 18. * Dur. Curs. No. 12, fol. 123. ' Ibid. fol. 229 J. ' Cf. ibid. ; Dur. Halmote R. (Surtees Soc. Ixxxii), 123, 129, 137. ' The sureties would of course be responsible for the debts of the fugitive, and after the Black Death they were also made responsible for working the vacant holding until they brought back the fugitive ; see Dur. Curs. No. 12, fol. 45. ' In one case, however, the serf only paid 6ti. a year ; perhaps because his licence entitled him to be absent no longer than six years and he had to find a pledge ; see Dur. Curs. No. 12, fol. 241. ° Dur. Halmote R. (Surtees Soc. Ixxxii), 137. 208 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY of an albanaria, rather than a pure manumission, and, after the conventional salutation, runs : Know ye that we have liberated from servitude William Picot, a neif, and have quit- claimed the same to Edmund the reeve of Durham for five mancae (or thirty shillings) which the same Edmund had given us. But on the understanding that the aforesaid William shall give us each year 12 pence at Rogationtide by way of recognition (? of his servitude). Witness, etc. If we read the scanty evidence aright the bishop and prior became less willing to grant albanariae after the Black Death, and the conditions became more stringent. For instance, when John Kressh of Easington gained the coveted licence to migrate it was on condition that his employer became surety for payment, and it only held good if successive masters toolc up the pledge.^ However, as population increased and harvests were good in the early fourteenth century the lord made no difficulty about exchanging the unwilling serf for an eager free tenant who often commuted the labour services of the holding. The scanty information we possess about the period just anterior to 1349 all bears out Thorold Rogers' belief in the general prosperity of the country." Rents were rising, for men were eager to obtain land. Fresh strips of the waste were taken into the common fields, and in some places, as at Darlington, the very demesne lands were cut up into fresh bondage holdings.' Elsewhere, as at Boldon, the villein whose sons and brothers could not obtain separate farms rented a share of the demesne and thus found them employment.* Even the ravages of the Scots ceased for a time about 1328, and Scotland attracted the northerners in turn by the attractions it offered for plunder. Neville's Cross in 1346 ended the last serious ravaging of Durham by the Scots for many years. It seemed as though serfdom and labour-rents would disappear from purely economic causes, as a freeman eagerly helped the serf to escape that he might have his land at a money rent.° Everywhere was prosperity, and on the first page of the mutilated Halmote Book of Bishop Thomas de Hatfield we see his steward reckoning up the increase of rents for the past term.* We are told in the Prior's Rolls that before 1349 every holding had a separate tenant,'' and we know that none were unoccupied. But in the summer of 1349 the blast of the Black Death swept across the bishopric and left desolation and poverty behind. Ill — The Black Death In the Halmote Rolls the Black Death is almost invariably referred to as the prima pestilencia. It was the first of the six great epidemics of the Middle Ages, and is said to have originated in the centre of China about 1333. It reached Europe along the great caravan routes, and first appeared in England at Weymouth on i August, 1348. Its progress was heralded by stories of horrors, which made men easier victims by exciting their fears. Not content with describing the dark purple patches that appeared on the skin of those attacked, men told how everywhere its approach was ' Dur. Curs. No. 1 2, fol. 23 I d". * Rogers, Six Centuries of Work and Wages, i, 2 19. ' Bp. Hatfield's Surv. (Surtees Soc. xxxii), 3 ; these were doubtless let at a definite money rent from the first. ' B/>. Hatfield's Surv. (Surtees Soc. xxxii). ' Dur. Curs. No. 12, fol. 3. * Ibid. No. 12, fol. I. ' Dur. Halmote R. (Surtees Soc. Ixxxii), 121. 2 209 27 A HISTORY OF DURHAM accompanied by earthquakes and atmospheric disturbances, while it moved forward from the stricken east in the form of a dark and foetid mist. By January, 1349, the plague had reached Norwich, and during the spring and early summer it crept up towards the Palatinate along the North Road. The Durham peasants who lived along the Salters' track, that passes from Stockton to Sunderland, caught the alarm first.^ The steward of the lord bishop opened the summer halmote at Chester le Street on Tuesday, 14 July, and business was transacted as usual,' but the next day, on his arrival at Houghton le Spring, he found the peasants in a state of panic. For the first time for many years there was no one willing to take up the vacant hold- ings that were in the hands of the lord. Argument was useless, for seeing certain death approaching, men cared nothing for future needs. The steward had to content himself with issuing a general proclamation apparently promising remission of fines and rents ' until God should send a cure for the pestilence.' * At Easington, on the Thursday, a similar scene occurred. It was quite impossible to obtain fresh tenants. At the best of times the peasants at Easington were not very prosperous, and at the approach of the plague they lost heart entirely. The steward was glad enough to let three holdings at ridiculously low rents to men who had apparently bargained for them at the previous court, for, as he naively puts it, ' the lord would gain more by the payment of this firm than by allowing the lands to remain untilled.' He had indeed no other option, ' because no man would take the land on any other terms,' He offered to make the payment of rent con- tingent upon their surviving the pestilence, he called attention to his proclamation, and expressed himself willing to consider any conditions that might be proposed, but ' they utterly refused to fine.'* On Friday, 17 July, he held a court at Middleham,' which lies off the main road somewhat. Here men had not yet begun to show alarm. It is probable that the plague had not yet crossed the Tees, although there may have been isolated cases at Sunderland or Hartlepool. At any rate, the ordinary business of the court was dispatched at Stockton on 18 July, and meetings of the halmote were held at Sadberge and Darlington on the Monday following.^ Here again, as at Wolsingham^ and Lanchester,* he found the old willingness to take up holdings, but after the Lanchester halmote on Thursday, 23 July, there is an ominous silence in the MS. which is not broken till the court sat again at Wolsingham on 7 April, 1350.' A blank space appears in the MS., presumably for the entries belonging to the winter halmote, which, however, probably never met. For information as to what happened in Durham during that awful autumn of i 349, we are dependent upon scattered notices of a later date. The bishop's Halmote Rolls are unusually full for the remainder of Hatfield's episcopate, but the prior's rolls for the years 1348—56 are lost. However, in their stead we have three interesting manuscripts. Two of them'" give us the 'names of the prior's ' It is possible that there had been cases of the plague at Sunderland before the middle of July, for we find that four of the bishop's tenants at Wearmouth, who had broken the Assize of Ale, were dead ; Dur. Curs. No. 1 2, fol. 2 d. ' Dur. Curs. No. 12, fol. 2. ' Ibid. fol. 2 d. ' Ibid. fols. 3, 3 (/. ' Ibid. fol. 4. « Ibid. fol. 5 ' Ibid. fol. 5 d. ' Ibid. fol. 6. ' Ibid. fol. 80. '" Loc. 4, Nos. 146-7, in the Treasury at Durham ; No. 147 really consists of two rolls. 210 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY tenants who died in the First Pestilence and were tenants at will and not free tenants.'^ The third is a much mutilated and in parts illegible list of the free tenants who died.' A careful study of all available evidence seems to show that the pestilence first broke out in South-east Durham. It raged with especial virulence in Billingham. Forty-eight tenants of the prior were included among its victims. In some cases husband and wife died together, in others the widow appears to have escaped. Billingham was certainly a large vill, but it is impossible to doubt that at least half the population was carried off, and the proportion may have been greater. Twenty-eight tenants died at Wolviston, and fifteen at Newton Bewley. Fugitives carried the infection to neighbouring vills. The bishop received mortuaries on behalf of twenty dead tenants at Norton during the vacancy in the living.' At Stockton only three-fourths of the usual number of autumn works were rendered ' on account of the pestilence of death,' as the bailiff put it.* We can see how the plague swept along the roads in the east of the bishopric till it reached Shields and Newcastle and passed into Northumber- land. Practically every vill belonging to the prior was attacked more or less severely, and in the case of the two Heworths two-thirds^ of the tenants disappeared.^ It was impossible for the bishop's vills to escape, and we know that some of them, especially Easington' and Sunderland,* suffered rather severely. During September the infection was carried into the western parts of the bishopric. The bailiff of Coatham, near Darlington, tells how four ploughmen belonging to the manor died just before Michaelmas,' and we know, from various entries in the later Halmote Rolls, that the western vills suffered rather severely before the plague was stayed. As though the horrors of the plague were not enough, the Scots planned an irruption in the autumn, and invented a new oath ere they plundered. But ' the foul death of the English ' broke out among the raiders as they lay in Selkirk Forest, and Scot- land paid a heavy fine for the invasion.^" In winter the plague died down, but it left behind it a ruined and dis- pirited people. Every rank in life suffered — freemen, clergy,^^ peasants. Such of the serfs as escaped often left their native villages in panic. We hear of a peasant driven stark mad with grief and wandering about the country. ^^ Sometimes the people deserted the old site of the village in a body (as according to local tradition the men of Wallsend and Harton did) and built the village elsewhere. ' No tenants came from West Thickley ' Loc. 4, No. 141. ' The present headings of these rolls are of later date than their contents. For the deaths in the various rolls see App. I. ' Bp. Hatfield's Suit. (Surtees Soc. xxxii), 243. * Ibid. 242. ' MS. in Loc. 4, No. 147, gives the number as 21, but it is possible that the figures may only refer to servile tenants. * Dur. Halmote R. (Surtees Soc. Ixrxii), lil ; cf. MS. Prior's Halmote, Bk. ii, l<)od., where we are told that the value of the mill had fallen from 53/. \d. to 20/. at Nether Heworth. ' Dur. Curs. No. 12, fol. 13 d'. » Ibid. fol. 23 d. ' Bp. Hatfield's Surv. (Surtees Soc. xxxii), 247-8. '" See Knighton, Ciron. (Rolls Sen), ii, 62-3. Rogers, in his Six Centuries of Work and Wages, i, 223, curiously misinterprets the passage. " It is unfortunate that Hatfield's Register is defective for the years 1349, I350>and I35l,but it is signifi- cant that it ends abruptly with an incomplete entry of an ordination at Chester le Street in Sept. 1349, ^^ which time the plague was certainly raging in the bishopric. " Dur. Curs. No. 12, fol. 58. 211 A HISTORY OF DURHAM because they are all dead ' ^ is one entry on the bishop's rolls, and in another place we are told that only one tenant was left at Rowley.* These were only small vills it is true, but there was desolation everywhere both in east and west. In the three vills of Shields, Harton, and Westoe forty-one tenants fell victims, while at Jarrow sixteen and at Wallsend and Willington the same number died. At Southwick. eight and at Monkwearmouth eleven of the prior's tenants died, whilst across the river at Bishopwearmouth ' a very large number of the houses were fallen in ruins for want of tenants,'^ and the firmar of the rising burg of Sunderland had to ask. for an abatement of four marks on his year's rent.* By 1380 the firm had fallen from the £^ of Boldon Book to £1 12s. 8^/.' A careful tabulation of the lettings of land during 1350 would supply an approximately* accurate list of the number of tenants who died in the bishop's vills, but two instances may suffice. In the eastern district sixteen new tenants took land at East Boldon and six at West Boldon,^ while at Bedburn (with which were grouped Ham- sterley and Wodingfield) there were twenty-three lettings.* In the winter and spring of 1349-50 no attempt was made in some vills to sow the land. The bailiff of Middleham could not let all the agist- ment of the lowlands because men feared the plague would recur,' and for the same reason the bailiff at Coatham could let neither pasture nor meadows.^" To make things worse the neifs of the Palatinate who had survived the Black Death began to show signs of insubordination where they did not actually take to flight. In the Chester Ward matters came to a head. Certain of the neifs of Boldon and district, nine in number, appeared before William de Kirkeby, the coroner, in the early spring of 1350, and announced through their leader, Thomas Short of Boldon, that they wished to flee from the land of the lord bishop and take land elsewhere. Then, as the manuscript quaintly puts it — upon this they paid nothing from the term of St. Cuthbert in March last past (i.e. 20 March, 1350). And from this wickedness and from malice aforethought they gave in the iron shoes of their ploughs to the lord at Auckland on Thursday next before the feast of Pentecost (13 May). For which cause they were arrested and imprisoned at Durham till Saturday in the vigil of Trinity (22 May). The steward, Sir Thomas Gray, seems to have become alarmed at the out- look, and possibly the daring of the neifs had been cooled by imprisonment. At any rate Sir WiUiam Westle, the Receiver, arranged terms for the rebels. They were to receive their freedom on finding sureties for the payment of a proportion of their arrears to be fixed by the Receiver, and they were each allowed to be sureties for the others that they would not repeat the exploit." Thomas Short did not keep his promise in the spirit, for he appears later as aiding and abetting the flight of a kinsman in the winter of 1352-3,^^ but in the letter he did, and was for many years a juror of Boldon." In the June of 1350 Sir Thomas Gray held the bishop's summer hal- motes and saw for himself the devastation of the land. He was at Chester ' Dur. Curs. No. 12, fol. 18. ' Ibid. fol. 42. ' Ibid. fol. 80. ' Ibid. fol. 24. li. ' B/>. Hatfield's Surv. (Surtees xxxii), 137. ^ It is clear, however, from later entries under Boldon that all the vacant holdings were not taken up, e.g. Dur. Curs. No. 12, fol. 35^. ' Dur. Curs. No. 12, fol. 10. ^ Ibid. fol. 20. ' Bf. Hatfield's Surv. (Surtees xxxii), 237. " Ibid. 245. " Dur. Curs. No. 12, fol. 34 J. " Ibid. fol. 79 d. " Ibid. fol. 65 d 212 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY le Street on Monday, 7 June, and the Boldon jury approached him with a pitiful tale. The whole vill was so poor that no one could pay any rent, and no tenant appeared to fine for any land in the lord's hands ; in fact, two of the tenants wished to surrender their lands, but there was no one to receive the surrender. According to the testimony of the coroner only fourteen of the bondi had sowed their land.* This complaint from Boldon, following so closely on the exploit of the neifs, convinced the steward that extraordinary steps must be taken to reassure the frightened peasants. He therefore pro- ceeded to act according to his proclamation of the preceding July, and on Saturday, 19 June, he and the chancellor met together in chancery at Durham and formally decreed that large remissions should be made to the bishop's tenants for the year beginning 20 March, 1350. The manuscript account of the remissions shows signs of not being completed, and most of the re- missions are in respect of the mills, which were often leased to the villagers. At Ryhope, however, a rebate of ^5 os. lod. was allowed on the demesne lands, while the bondi of Bedlingtonshire in Northumberland received a rebate of ^^8 13^. 4^. on their rents for 1350, and even in 1351 the rebate was to be twenty-five per cent, off the rent.^ Later on, in January 1351, certain poor tenants at Middridge were allowed to give up demesne holdings they had taken in more prosperous days until their state should improve. When harvest-time came round in 1350 the steward again showed himself considerate. It seems clear that before the Black Death labour services due from the tenants had been generally commuted, but this year the tenants had neither money to commute the lord's claims nor time to work in person. The crops of 1349 had too often rotted as they stood, and if the peasants failed to garner such grain as they had sown for 1350 starvation would be their lot. Hence Sir Thomas Gray ordered the lord's bailiffs to reap the crops by hired labour.' As has been pointed out before there was some thought, at least at Auckland Manor, to exact labour services in kind,* and the scarcity of labour and the high wages demanded by the hired labourers were largely responsible for the troubles that arose. At Auckland, Roger de Tikhill managed to exact the autumn works at appa- rently the old rate, but he found he had to pay 9^. i\d. in 1350 for the mowing of a meadow which used to cost only js. bd} The bailiffs of Quarrington, Middridge, and Coatham obeyed the steward. At Middridge reapers and binders got \\d. or b\d. a day,' at Quarrington ^d. or 5^.,^ and at Coatham 5^. or 6^., loaders also receiving 5^.* The increase in cost is evident when we remember that the villeins had been able to commute these autumn works at about \%d. a day, while men could be hired to load hay at I \d. a day before the Black Death.* It is not very probable that the free labourers demanded more from the bishop's bailiffs than from other employers, but even the increased wages were too small, as food rose in price. The distress was particularly acute at Easington, and at the halmote ' Dur. Curs. No. 1 2, fol. 35 a'. ' Ibid. fol. 23 . Hatfield's Surf. (Surtees Soc. xxxii), 232. ' The lost rental of Bishop Beaumont (13 18-33) probably cont-iined the commutation rates before the Black Death, and would be invaluable. It is referred to in HatJieWs Survey, i.e. ' videatur antiquum rentale Ludovici ' (Surtees Soc. xxxii), 51. 2 217 28 A HISTORY OF DURHAM is an even better photograph of the permanent than of the temporary changes wrought in Durham by the Black Death. In the case of Quarring- tonshire we see that by 1380 all works had been commuted, but at a some- what higher rate than before. For instance, works of ploughing were valued at i6d. instead of izd., averrepes (reaping) at 6d. instead of 4!^., and autumn works, which in 1350 were commuted for <)d. from each household, were now valued at izd., but to save the lord from loss every additional member of the peasant's household paid izd., if over fifteen, and 6d. if under fifteen.^ Hatfield's Survey preserves us a few interesting notes of other lettings at penyferme, such as at Heighington ^ and Boldon.* The process seems to have been general, and John de Heron, who was steward in the last year of Hatfield's life, continued it when in office under Bishop Fordham. We hear in Hatfield's Survey of a nova dimissio or new letting of the demesne and bondlands to the Boldon tenants at a money rent, and the manuscript Langley's Survey* of 141 8 shows that the arrangement was renewed in Fordham's time by John de Heron and was maintained in the fifteenth century. The peasants of Boldon were plainly copyholders by Langley's time, and it is certain, despite the unfinished condition of the survey, that they were not in a unique position. As the prior's rolls are defective for this period we have little informa- tion as to the arrangements made in his vills, but there is frequent mention ' of lettings at penyferme in the later rolls. Indeed it is difficult to see what other arrangement could have been made when one man was responsible for two or more bondages and could not afford to perform labour services for each, even had he been willing.' It is uncertain to what extent the bishop or the prior really did try to obtain actual work from the tenants. Apparently week-work was not insisted upon, but at Wolviston, West Rainton, and Dalton we find cases where men paid the fine of \2d. rather than perform the reaping works in autumn.^ This spirit of defiance among the peasantry was very marked in the latter half of the fourteenth century. Numerous cases occur in which the by-laws were broken * and the village officials defied,* and as a matter of course services admittedly due to the lord, such as carriage, were systematically neglected or shamefully performed.^" Sometimes we read of a riot as a protest against unpopular demands, as when the men of Stanhope in 1360 fired the thatch of the local mill and refused to re-roof it." When the tenants had made their bargain with the lord either in- dividually or collectively for the commutation of their works, there often arose some difficulty within the vill itself as to payment. Just before the Black Death a new village officer, the collector, was created, who, as his name implies, gathered in the lord's rents and commutation money. His task was not a pleasant or popular one, but it was a grave offisnce to give him a ' Cf. Bp. Hatfield's Surv. (Surtees Soc. xxxii), 147 and 232. Perhaps we may understand 'pro quolibet famulo ultra etatera xvj annorum . . . . 1 2d. et pro quolibet pagetto infra etatem predictam 6d.' to mean that for every ii bovates a peasant had, he kept a man and a lad to assist him. * Bj>. HatfieWs Surv. (Surtees Soc. xxxii), 19. ' Ibid. loj. • In P.R.O. Rentals and Surv. fol. 88. ' Dm: Halmote R. (Surtees Soc. Ixxxii), 30, 35, 89, 122, 160, &c. ^ Ibid. 114. ' Ibid. 72, 108, 162. * Dur. Curs. No. 12, fol. 45 et seq. ' Ibid. fol. 4; J. '° Ibid. No. 12, fol. 143 ; Ibid. No. 13, fol. 124 ; Dur. Halmote R. (Surtees Soc. Ixxxii), 67, 140. " Dur. Curs. No. 12, fol. 258 ./. 218 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY refusal.^ Sometimes, however, the tenant denied that his tenement was liable for certain services, but he generally had great difficulty in persuading a jury to relieve him of a burden that would inevitably fall on themselves/ When bailiff-farming was given up by the lord, the question of works was simplified. The commutation money was paid to the treasury of the bishop or prior at Durham (at times it seems after being long in arrears),^ or as frequently hap- pened the vill leased the meadows and demesnes to which the works were due just as the old firmars had done. For instance, at Middridge in 1394 the thirteen or fourteen bond tenants of Hatfield's Survey had decreased to eight, and these eight were allowed to take the fifteen bondage holdings (450 acres) and 42 acres of the demesne for twelve years at 1 2d. an acre. It is true there is a proviso that their right lapsed if anybody else offered to work the land at the old rent, but that contingency was not very likely.* In Hatfield's Survey only two of the bondages were professedly at penyferme, but it is noted that this arrangement held good for six years only. The tenants, who commuted their week-work in the usual way, only paid about \\d, per acre for their holdings, but we are told that they owed works in the meadow and at the hay harvest, and these works would represent the 'j\d. difference. The men of Sedgefield, Middleham, and Cornforth in a similar way leased the meadows and the works they owed to them for twelve years,^ but at Stockton and Norton the tenants of maleland were only allowed to commute the meadow-works at 8 Dur. Curs. No. 12, fol. 82. '» Ibid. fol. 138. 2ig A HISTORY OF DURHAM the coroner received orders to take security upon his goods and chattels. It is but fair to point out that only the wealthiest peasants were chosen for the extra burden.^ If a free peasant proposed to surrender the single holding he was well able to work he was fined for ' disrespect to the lord.' " The worst sufferers, however, were the unfortunate serfs. Before the Black Death they had generally lived a life differing in little save legal rights from that of the free peasants. It is true that they held their land and all their possessions at the will of the lord, but apparently it had been an easy matter to obtain leave to absent themselves from their native village. All this was changed after 1349. The steward diligently sought out every peasant whose ancestry was in the least degree assailable, and forced him to throw him- self on the jury to establish his free condition.'* If he could not the steward committed to him one of the vacant holdings in his native village.* It did not matter wfhere the serf was or how long he had been away. The jury of each vill were asked for a list of the lord's neifs who belonged to the vill, and the persons named were brought back by the coroner.^ Of course, the serfs, already decimated by the plague, became alarmed at the prospect and took to flight whenever they could. ° The steward thereupon sent round an order to the vills that all wandering nativi should be arrested.'^ We read of the ' hospicium ' of the bishop to which neifs were to be sent by the coroner.* Even the dry records of the halmote become thrilling in dealing with the last tragedy of serfdom. At Boldon, William Short, a kinsman of the Thomas Short already referred to, found the burden imposed upon him by the coroner was too great. Aided by Thomas Short and others he took to flight. He escaped, probably to Newcastle, the serf's Canada, but those who ' aided and abetted him ' were made responsible for his land.' Sometimes, as in the case of John Roumanger, a neif of Shadforth, friends came by night with carts and carried off his scanty possessions — vi et armis as the rolls say. John would be lucky if he escaped capture at South Sherburn, where he first took refuge.'" All neifs were not friendless, and in one case the steward was successfully defied for many years by two runaways, John Rede and Nicholas Todd, who had made friends with the powerful lessee of the burg of Sunder- land, Richard de Heworth. The neifs in question belonged to Bishop- wearmouth, but when the slave-hunt began they disappeared. For some time the authorities were baffled, but at last their uncle was coerced into saying that they were hiding across the Wear in South wick, and William de Kirkeby, the Chester coroner, was ordered to arrest them. Then began a game of hide and seek. For several years Kirkeby and a fellow coroner of Easington ward, John Boner, received repeated orders to arrest the neifs who flitted about between Silksworth and Tunstall, until the steward threatened that further delay should cost Boner his ofBce. The threat seems to have induced Boner to appeal to Richard de Heworth for his good offices, as in June, 1357, the two neifs appeared at Chester and took out licences as ' albanarii ' with their protector as pledge. However, they were still unprofitable servants, tor they were fined \^d. each a little later for not paying suit of court." ' Dur. Curs. No. 12, fol. 138. "- Ibid. fol. 133. ' Ibid. fol. 59. ' Ibid. fol. Wt, d. » Ibid. fol. I33 Ibid, ii, fol. 112^. 113. 221 A HISTORY OF DURHAM representative appears of the serfs who, in 1 407, were dwelling at Pickering, Redcar, AUerton, York, and across the Tyne. In 1469 the serfs enumerated lived, as a rule, in the south-eastern corner of the bishopric, but there were others at York or in the vague 'south country.' Perhaps, like the serfs of an earlier date,^ they came back at intervals to see their parents, but when these died they returned no more. It is possible that serfs were to be found in the Palatinate as late as 1575, when Elizabeth manumitted the serfs of the Palatinate of Lancaster,* but no traces remain in any of the Durham records. IV — The Age of Transition The Black Death gave the final blow to an economic system which was already fast decaying. Sufficient emphasis cannot be laid upon the fact that serfdom and labour rents were an anachronism even before 1349. After that date circumstances forced men to admit that a new organization was necessary, but as there was no master mind to suggest a scheme, landlord and peasant blundered on for nearly two hundred years in mutual hatred and distrust. There was no peasant revolt in Durham, but nowhere was the spirit of silent defiance stronger than in the Palatinate during the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries. The prince bishop and the lordly prior were too power- ful from their spiritual position to be resisted openly, but all possible petty annoyances that could suggest themselves to the peasant mind were inflicted upon the luckless steward and his assistants. Reference has been made already to the indifferent way in which services were performed when they were not shirked entirely. When the steward and his men arrived at a village weary after a long journey they were refused accommodation by the peasantry, although by custom they were entitled to beds in the cottages.' So common was this refusal that it must have been the result of a general understanding among the villagers. At another time we find the lord's rights of purveyance resisted, and the steward or terrarer was unable to buy the fowls or other victuals he required.* A reference under Billingham suggests that the peasantry found certain itinerant traders had been taking advantage of their simplicity and reverence to obtain fish at a cheap rate,^ but when we find that the peasants were selling their standing crops in defiance of the lord's rights of pre-emption,* a less favourable interpretation of the former transaction is possible. Before the fourteenth century was over the terrarer or other official who held the halmote was unable to obtain carriage for his victuals and other impedimenta from some of the vills.'' One of the most striking symptoms of the passive rebellion of the peasants was their growing hostility to the halmote as an institution and to the village community as the symbol of restraint. Before the Black Death neglect of suit of court was rare, but after 1 349 it becomes increasingly common, both in the bishop's' and prior's vills.' Often those who did come ' Dur. Halmote R. (Surlees Soc. lixxii), 169, 170. ' Tram. Roy. Hist. Soc. (New Ser.), xvii, 235. Mr. Savigne mentions that so late as 1 61 7 there were on the manor of Falmer in Sussex three persons who were apparently legally serfs. See also the Lau>' Quarterly Rev. ix, 348, for an article by Mr. I. S. Leadam on 'The Last Days of Bondage in England.' ' Dur. Halmote R. (Surtees Soc. Ixxxii), 72, loi, 118, 140, 146. * Ibid. 49, 50. ' Ibid. 51. ° Ibid. 90-93 passim. ' Ibid. 125, 144. • Dur. Curs. No. 12, fol. i^J d.; No. 16, fol. 243. " Dur. Halmote R. (Surtees Soc. Ixxxii), 43, 44.. 222 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY arrived late,^ and their behaviour in the presence of the steward would not have been tolerated in earlier times.^ Is it fanciful to see in this volubility and abuse of the jury an unusual excitableness due to a feeling that of late years the peasants had become more important ? Certainly in the decade before the prior's rolls finally ceased both sets of tenants calmed down some- what in their behaviour, and if, as seems probable, the halmote became more and more formal the change is easily intelligible. Before the Black Death the communal life of the village had been necessary to the peasant, but after it his whole attitude changed. In many cases population was small, and some of the old arrangements were now burdensome if not actually superfluous. We can understand, therefore, that the vill no longer cared about keeping a common fold or hiring a village shepherd. It is not surprising to find that a common ' messor ' or hayward was dispensed with, but the most unaccountable point is the attitude of the villagers to the immemorial custom of meeting together under the presidency of the reeve or messor to take counsel upon the affairs of the village. The bishop's rolls do not refer to the matter, but again and again we find in the prior's rolls the same order couched in some such terms as these: 'AH tenants are ordered to come to treat of the common affairs of the vill when summoned by the reeve and messor.' * At Aycliffe a novel experi- ment was begun in 1369. Six men were elected, apparently at the halmote court, ' for the ordering of the village, viz. for laying down by-laws and ordinances for the community of the vill, and to report to the court at the next meeting.'* We learn from a later entry in 1379 that both the free and the bond tenants took part in the election of this select vestry or parish council,^ and a similar appointment was made in 1383^ just before the prior's rolls cease. Whether the Aycliffe system was copied elsewhere or not we are not told, but it is perhaps possible to see some connexion between it and the village committee which in the fifteenth century leases meadows, &c., from the lord 'in the name of all the tenants of the village.'^ At any rate, it forms a link between the halmote jury and the overseers and churchwardens of the sixteenth-century vestry.* However, even in the prior's vills the communal system had not wholly died out as late as the eighteenth * century, but the machinery was beginning to creak soon after the Black Death. Men refused to be jurors or collectors, and in one case the collector declined to teach his successor his duties.^" When elected, the officials often made the merest pretence of performing their duties, and the presentments by the jury in the fifteenth century rolls are neither numerous nor important. The unruly vill of Stanhope chose as collector a man who was almost blind, ' in derision of the court,'" while the men of Blackwell chose as their reeve the village simpleton, whom the roll calls 'sharp Tommy' (Thomas Acris^**). Both the bishop and the prior had ' Dur. Curs. No. 12, fol. 161 d. ; Dur. Halmote R. (Surtees Soc. Ixxxii), 70. ' Dur. Curs. No. 12, fol. 43 d. 144, 243 d. ' Dur. Halmote R. (Surtees Soc. Ixxxii), 93, 94, 123, 138, 142, 161, &c. • Ibid. 82. ' Ibid. 155. * Ibid. 180. ' e.g. Dur. Curs. No. 12, fol. 223 tores Jres. (Surtees Soc. ix), cclxxxv. 226 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY 1464^ in a picture of universal desolation and decay. In 1446 at Shields the revenue from the vill had shrunk by £^ 5J. Sd. to £12 6s. %d. in a few years. The malting house returned 8j. instead of 40J-., and there were fifteen tene- ments lying in the hands of the lord, and the vill lay for the most part desolate and uninhabited. It would be tedious to quote similar instances from the later account, but it may be said that at Shields, and in practically every vill, there is the same tale of a fall of rent and population, and some- times we get a hint, as at Southwick, how some powerful lay-lord oppressed the prior's tenants till they either fled away in despair from their lands or agreed to become his retainers.^ The prior was driven to make still greater concessions, and so we get the third arrangement between him and his tenants — the whole vill was leased to all the tenants, or the more important of them, in equal shares as the demesne lands had been before. The first case in the rolls is at Wallsend in 1435. The record runs : The tenants among themselves, viz. John Punchon (and six others) took from the lord all the vill of Wallsend with the demesne lands there and appurtenances to hold from the Feast of St. Martin, 1436, for six years paying yearly £12 js. 3^^^. , . . and the aforesaid tenants among themselves shall sustain eight messuages with appurtenances and five cottages with appurtenances lately built and deliver them up in good repair at the end of the term. The Wallsend arrangement was repeated in 1441, and at intervals in the century following.' At first the system of leasing the whole vill to the tenants was tentative, and there are indications that the lord did retain a direct control of some of the smaller holdings,* but by 1492 this was the usual arrangement for all the prior's vills according to the Halmote Books. The only alteration was that each tenant took singly a fractional part of the vill, corresponding to the number of lessees, but all the leases were taken at the same meeting of the court and for the same number of years. The system probably lasted in its main outlines as long as the convent did, and the arrangements disclosed by the Bursar's Rental of 1539^ prove that the prior's vills were at that time held under a system very similar. Harton, for instance, was held in ten equal portions, as it was in 1492, but the rent payable had risen by 3.3'. to 54J. jd} The Halmote Books are silent as to the reason for this change, and it is impossible to fix the actual date. There are, however, a few interesting en- tries as to the conditions of the lease apart from the usual obligation to repair. After several leases we find — The condition of these preceding leases is that if the aforesaid lessees from now and henceforth keep peace and concord among themselves the leases of the said land shall stand effective. Otherwise if any controversy or discord shall arise among them, then the aforesaid leases shall be of no virtue, strength or moment, etc' Under Wallsend the condition was attached that whenever the lord pleased the tenants would build the aforesaid five cottages at their own expense (e.g. besides the eight messuages).^ An entry under Billingham seems to show ' Feod. (Surtees Soc. Iviii), 302. ' Ibid. 119 ; MS. Prior's Halmote Bks. i, 51 (under ' Sheles '). ' MS. Prior's Halmote Bks. i, fol. I 33. The number of lessees varied from six to eight. * Ibid, iii, fol. 124 a'. ' Printed in FeoJ. (Surtees Soc. Iviii), 302. ^ The rise took place in 15 10. MS. Prior's Halmote Bks. iii, fol. iz\ J. ' MS. Prior's Halmote Bks. iii, fol. 2. 227 A HISTORY OF DURHAM that the leases comprised, besides the common-fields, ' meadows, feedings, pastures, works and other usual customs, and all other appurtenances.' ^ There is nothing said in any of the holdings as to tenant-right, although these leases were renewed as a matter of course even if the rent was a little increased.'' One important condition, however, must be mentioned in the 1510 lease of Harton — not only is the rent raised 3^., but the significant addition is made that death voids the lease.'* Whether these isolated conditions applied to all leases cannot be determined at this date, but it is submitted that even before the sixteenth century or the advent of the dean and chapter, the system of renewable leaseholds had deprived the tenantry of legal copyhold right with- out, so far as we know, a protest on their part.' The precarious tenure of the prior's lessees in the sixteenth century is the more remarkable when we find that the system made very little headway among the bishop's tenants. We do meet with lessees for a term of years, especially in the case of whole vills,* but as early as 1458 we find that the halmote recognized a ' right and estate ' of certain tenants in their holdings which they could transfer or sub-let (tabernate) in the halmote subject to the usual fine.^ Our materials for describing the social history of the Palatinate in the fifteenth century are very meagre, but the main outlines are clear. It was a time of misery and poverty and oppression for lord and tenant, freeholder and bondager. Pestilence or war raged more or less all the time, and the con- sequent depopulation left its mark for over two hundred years. The Black Death never really died out in the land ; its recrudescence is referred to again and again. Several times the assizes had to be postponed ' because of the pestilence,' ° and what the pestilence left the Scots or the greedy Nevilles and their henchmen devoured. The prevalence of the plague in its various forms was largely due to the insanitary habits of the people, their wretched dwellings and their polluted water supply. Even the Black Death had not taught wisdom. The peasant drank of the brook into which the filth of kitchen-middens drained, he allowed cess-pools and dung-heaps to stand in the streets,^ and he cleaned his plough-irons and washed his clothes in the well from which he drew his drinking water. Orders were made in the halmote which betokened a dawn- ing recognition of the evils,^ and possibly there was improvement in places. In Durham city attempts were made in 1451 to obtain an adequate and pure water supply,^ and even the little vill of Nether Heworth set apart one brook for brewing and baking bread. ^° The clergy were not behindhand in taking precautions, and we find the parson at Ryton arranging for a private and unpolluted water supply.^' However, there was in some vills a reckless dis- ' MS. Prior's Halmote Bks. iii, fol. 122 is'. ' A comparison of the Halmote Books with the Bursar's Rental for 1539 shows a general tendency to a slight rise in rent. ' Strictly speaking there could not be copyhold of demesne lands, and in these joint leases demesne and bondage strips were taken without any distinction being made. * Dur. Curs. No. 1 3, fol. 144 ; cf. No. 16, fol. 238, where we learn that five men ' conjunctim et divisim ' leased the vill of Tunstall in 1470. There are a few other cases. ' Dur. Curs. No. 1 6, fol. 2 I . ' Dur. Halmote R. e.g. Dur. Curs. No. 35, m. 10, ibid. No. 38, m. 8 d. and No. 46, m. 2. ' Dur. Halmote R. (Surtees Soc. Ix.xxii), 158. * Ibid. 143, 146. " Dur. Curs. No. 44, m. 9. '" Cf. Dur. Halmote R. (Surtees Soc. Ixxxii), 38 and 176. " Dur. Curs. No. 32, mm. 4 C5°o ^^^ of interest, to encourage the woollen manufactory, if anyone would bind himself to employ a sufficient capital for carrying on the business. Durham did not succeed in becoming a seat of the woollen industry, and the attempt to create a cotton industry in the city failed even more completely. In 1792 a factory for making corduroys and 'cotton' goods was started at Castle Eden, which found employment for '200 boys and girls' in spinning, besides a number of men for weaving, cutting, &c. The owners moved the trade to Durham in 1796, but before long the new factory was destroyed by fire and was not re-erected. The old buildings at Castle Eden became a sail-cloth factory, but the industry ruined its founders and the building was taken down. Other towns were more fortunate. Darlington used to be famous for linen, and the manufacture of huckaback, diapers and sheeting employed 500 looms in 18 10. Bailey tells us that worsted goods were being made there too, partly by hand and partly by machinery. 300 looms, and 100 combers, and 5,000 spinners by hand were needed, and even then much of the yarn was spun in Scotland. Another Durham inventor was John Kendry, who invented a machine for grinding optical glasses in true spherical form, but derived much more benefit from inventions for spinning flax. In 18 10 there 243 A HISTORY OF DURHAM were four mills for spinning flax and one for spinning worsted. Darlington prospered by the decay of Barnard Castle's industries. Up to about 1760 there was a flourishing worsted manufacturer at this town, but competition tempted the manufacturers to undersell each other at the risk of producing an increasingly inferior article. The result was that they offended their customers and lost the trade. The workmen migrated to Durham, Darling- ton, and elsewhere. Probably the decrease in Durham's activity as a manufacturing county has been more apparent than real, as Gateshead, South Shields, Sunderland, Hartlepool, and even Darlington and Stockton, have made large gains in wealth and population during the last century. The failure of inland towns and villages to retain manufactures is largely due to a question of transport. The mediaeval roads that survived to the eighteenth century are described in caustic terms by Arthur Young.^ The first Durham turnpike road dates from 1742.^ Between that date and 1751 the principal Durham roads were made, but little was done after 175 i until 1789, when road-making recommenced. Financially the turnpikes were a success, but the gradients in many parts of the county are still very steep. The materials used for repairing the roads are whinstone, limestone, river gravel and freestone, the first being preferred whenever available. Brindley surveyed the Tees valley in 1768 for a canal to link up Darlington and Stockton. Nothing came of it, as it was super- seded by the Stockton and Darlington Railway in 1825. Canals never came into favour in Durham except so far as the Tyne, Wear, and Tees were all canalized or straightened during the nineteenth century. The favourite method of transport is now the railway, with which Durham is well served. Sir John Eden in 1797, Bailey in 18 10, and Mackenzie in 1833, supply a chain of interesting information as to the state of the working classes down to the reform of the Poor Law. The population of Durham increased from about 97,000 in 1730 to 135,000 in 1750.* The census of 1801 gives us the first authentic figures, 160,361. In 1821 and 1831 the figures were 207,673 and 253,910 respectively. The increase was in the commercial, manufactur- ing, and mining districts. Bailey* points out with glee that in the purely agricultural parishes the population was either stationary or decreasing except where inclosures and improved methods of cultivation were to be found. In the decaying parishes much arable land had been laid under permanent pasture. Durham's method in dealing with the indigent and pauper class was no better than that of other counties. The industrial revolution had created an unemployed question in Durham as elsewhere, and unfortunately the character of the justices of the peace was not calculated to produce originality or resource in a difficult situation. Spearman's view is, of course, a prejudiced one and at the most only refers to those of the early eighteenth century, but the clerical and tradesmen justices against whose ignorance and folly he inveighs ^ were to be found after Spearman's time. The Elizabethan Poor Law broke down from sheer maladministration, and it is possible that laziness ' Bailey says that even in l8io the township or by roads were much neglected and blames the system of statute labour for it. Bailey, Gen. View of Agric. of Dur. 274. ' From Durham to Yarm and Catterick Bridge. ' Mackenzie and Ross, Hist, of Dur. i, Ixxvii. * Op. cit. 333. ^Inquiry, 103. 244 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY and timidity had quite as much influence on the justices' treatment of the poor as compassion had. Our three authorities agree in saying that the poor were well and even kindly treated. Out-relief was given freely, especially in small parishes. Relief varied from one to seven shillings a week, and was theoretically graduated according to the recipient's power of earning his own living. As usual, the deserving poor were crowded out by the idle and worthless, there was no labour test, and drunkenness and immorality were the marks of the pauperized class. Some of the towns and more populous parishes found it advisable to have workhouses. Darlington adopted the statute of 22 George III, and a visitor and two guardians of the poor were appointed annually. They provided food and clothing and appointed a salaried master and matron for the workhouse. The visitor and guardians held weekly meetings to discuss the matters brought before them by the master or governor as he was called, and to grant out-door relief. There was a parish doctor for the sick poor, and regulations as to the kind of food, but not as to the clothing of the inmates. The able-bodied inmates of the workhouse were employed in the spinning and weaving mills of the town, but their earnings were credited to the township. At the beginning of the nineteenth century Stockton adopted something akin to what is now known as the Elberfeld system, and a committee of the more respectable inhabitants investigated the actual circumstances of appli- cants for relief, and outside assistance was only given in deserving cases. The workhouse inmates varied from twenty-five to thirty in 18 10. For each the master was allowed 4J. The 200 out-door paupers seldom got more than is. a week. The total expense was ^1,000 a year, towards which the labour of the able-bodied paupers seldom contributed ^10 a year. A few of the larger centres followed the example of these towns in attempting to grapple with the problem, but generally the parishes took the line of least resistance. Sunderland gave out-door relief on a large scale, but published a list of the recipients. Framwellgate parish in Durham appointed visitors to investigate the conduct of outside paupers. Gateshead tried to make the paupers contribute something towards their food. However, these were exceptions. At Stanhope the upkeep of the workhouse was let by contract, and as usual the state of affairs was very bad. The poor of Crossgate parish at Durham were contracted for at the rate of 2^. 'zd. a week each. In general parishes considered workhouses expensive, and several followed the example of those in Durham in giving outdoor relief freely, or else, like the parish of Brandon (near Brancepeth) on the eve of the new system, they boarded out their poor in the neighbouring workhouse, in this case at 2j. bd. a week. The conditions of life in these workhouses and the food supplied were too often equally bad. The regulations as to diet were a farce, and when wheat became dear during the great war it simply disappeared from the paupers' diet. All the workmen were not thriftless, and in most towns and villages box clubs were to be found. The members paid a small sum, seldom more than id. weekly, and payments analogous to those by the modern friendly societies were made on the death, birth, or marriage of members of the con- tributor's family, or the sickness of himself, or sometimes when he was unable 245 A HISTORY OF DURHAM to follow his employment. Unfortunately, few of the box clubs survived long in the nineteenth century. Bailey instances a case in 1808 where the Cockfield Box Club was dissolved after fifty years' existence by the action of a few of the more turbulent younger members who wished to divide the capital. The members got ^3 each, and yet some of the older ones had been paying to it all their lives. In the nineteenth century the box clubs found more worthy successors in the great friendly societies, which are strong in Durham. Trade-unionism is seen at its best in Durham, whether among the colliers, railway workers, or shipbuilders, and about the middle of last century there sprang up in the towns and villages an enthusiasm for the teaching of the Rochdale Pioneers which carried out the principle of co-operation into every form of retail trading, and taught habits of thrift and sobriety to a population hitherto not remarkable for them. The story of trade-unionism in Durham is worthy of more detailed treatment than can be given here.* Something must be said, however, about the various unions, and especially about the miners' union. The Durham pitmen fared no better than their fellows elsewhere at the hands of the speculators who controlled the mines. All the horrors of woman and child labour underground familiarized by Lord Shaftesbury were to be found in Durham, while the truck system and the countless fines deprived the miner of what little freedom was left to him under the system of the yearly bond. He was legally bound to serve a mining owner at a certain fixed rate of pay when required, although the master was not bound to guarantee him work ; when he had filled his tub with coal underground he had no certainty that the weigher on the bank would not only deprive him of payment on the ground of short weight, but would not also under colour of a fine cause him to pay the mine owner for the privilege of working for nothing. When the miner at the fortnight's end did receive his scanty pay it was in the shape of a note on the local ' tommy-shop,' kept generally by the relative of a mine official. By the beginning of the nineteenth century mining was one of the few pursuits open to the Durham villager. Can we blame him if in the agony of despair he threw down his tools time after time despite the terror of the Combination Laws ? The 'sticks' or strikes of the Durham miner, however, were as savage and brutal as they were useless. As far back as 1662 a petition to the king was mooted in a vain effort to induce the owners to secure better ventilation in the pits. Explosions from fire-damp were painfully common until science was called in, and we must remember that the miner was com- pelled by law to descend the mine when ordered under the terms of his yearly bond. It is true that the Durham miners were never in the awful position of the Scottish serfs to whom Parliament finally gave freedom of contract in 1799, but in 18 10 the northern coal-masters decided to alter the duration of the bond without consulting the men. It was a small matter, but it opened the eyes of the miners to their semi-servile condition. The resulting strike was carried on by an oath-bound confederacy recruited by the practice of ' For more detailed information see Webb (S. and B.), Hist, of Trade Unionism (London, 1894), and Industrial Democracy, 2 vols. (London, 1897) by the same authors; Fynes, R. The Miners of 'Nor thumb, and Bur. (Blyth, 1873) ; Sykes, Local Records ; Wilson, J. A Hist, of the Dur. Miners Association (Durham, 1907). 246 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY brothering, ' so named because the members of the union bound themselves by a most solemn oath to obey the orders of the brotherhood under the penalty of being stabbed through the heart or of having their bowels ripped up.'^ Many of the owners were magistrates or friends of magistrates ; and so the military were called in, and in a very short time so many of the leading strikers were arrested that 300 had to be accommodated in the bishop of Durham's stables. When they had imprisoned the men the masters were still helpless. Thanks to the mediation of the Rev. — Nesfield, a clerical magistrate, and of Captain Davis of the Carmarthenshire Militia, a compromise as to date of binding was arrived at, but the bond still remained, as the ' binding money ' often reached twenty guineas when miners were scarce, and the miner could not refuse such an opportunity for a carouse. From 1 8 10 to 1830 the miners jogged along in the old way from which the co-operative doctrines of their fellow miner Mackintosh were unable to rouse them. The famous ' Tommy Hepburn,' co-operator and chartist, was more successful, and 'Tommy Hepburn's Union' in 1830 swept into its organization the elite of the miners on both sides of the Tyne. It was the first permanent fighting union, and after meetings at Black Fell near Gateshead and upon Newcastle Town Moor, at which their manifold grievances were discussed, the miners refused to renew the annual bond in April, 183 I, unless their grievances as to unjust weights, tommy-shops, unfair rules, colliery houses, &c. were remedied. The strike ran its usual course. The men destroyed all they could, and the owners used the military and im- prisoned the miners who offended against the law, which despite the repeal of the Combination Laws in 1825— 6 was still against trade-unionists. How- ever this time the men won a concession. The working-day for boys was to be only of twelve hours' duration, and as the first victorious leader Hepburn was extremely popular. He was intelligent and honest, and was one of the first who realized the importance of popular sympathy. Perhaps this strike would have been less violent had not the presence of the military alarmed the men. The masters had not realized that a new era of trade-unionism was dawning, and so they took all the old precautions.' The masters only saw in the union's strength an uncompromising hos- tility, and so in 1832 they decided that only non-union men should be allowed to work at the pits. This of course provoked a fresh strike, and despite Hepburn's exertions outrages were committed, sometimes of an exceedingly serious nature. The masters imported outside workmen, and the union gradually went to pieces, until most of the men were glad to return to work on any terms. Hepburn was a marked man. Sullen hatred or fear pre- vented the miners from helping him to earn a livelihood, even as a pedlar of tea, and at last he had to beg for work at Felling Colliery. He received it upon promising to take no further part in trade-unionism. Everyone knew he would keep his promise, but his counsel to the union men, ' to know how to wait is the secret of success,' should cause him to be remembered as the chief founder of the new order in Durham mining. ' Evidence of a colliery engineer in the Newcastle district before the committee on the Combination Laws ; quoted in Hist, of TraJe Unionism, 79. ' For a sympathetic account of Hepburn's union see Fynes, op. cit. ch. iv, v, and vi. 247 A HISTORY OF DURHAM Hepburn's union found a successor about 1841 in the Miners' Associa- tion of Great Britain and Ireland, and after 1842 the grievances of the miners as to defective steelyards and falling wages caused it to expand with great rapidity. Miners' leaders were now seldom attacked in the law courts as the union had no unlawful oaths, but the law of ' master and servant ' then in force caused individual workmen to be liable to imprisonment for quite technical offences. Martin Jude was the great leader of this revival, and the men found an able legal defender in W. T. Roberts, a chartist lawyer, who had far more ability than the employers' advocates, and even fewer scruples. In 1844 the Miners' Association appointed Roberts to be their standing legal adviser at a salary of a _^ 1,000 a year. The 'miners' attorney-general,' as he was called, earned his money, even to the satisfaction of his critical clients. In April 1844 the men once more refused to renew the yearly bond save on their own terms, as to more convenient payment of wages, better inspection of mines, and a juster system of weighing. Many of the com- plaints are highly technical, but were not less real on that account. Henry Clay, the famous American politician, is stated to have maintained that the only true solution of the labour problem was for the capitalist to own the labourer, whether white or black. The leading spirit among the Durham mine owners was Lord Londonderry, who was also lord-lieutenant of the county. Probably he and his friends would have denied that their insistence on the bond and their objections to trade-unions were at all akin to Clay's doctrine, but in every part of England the capitalists and employers looked with suspicion upon any attempt of their workmen to assert their indepen- dence. The town of Seaham was practically the creation of Lord London- derry, and there is an account of a curious proclamation by him printed in the Northern Star of July 6 and 27, 1844, in which he threatens severe dis- pleasure to all the shopkeepers of Seaham, who by giving credit to his late pitmen assist in prolonging a hopeless and injurious strike. Soon the miners' sufferings were increased by eviction from many of the colliery houses, and in some cases the workhouse was closed against the women and children of the strikers. Many of the owners imported out- side workmen, and at last the strike collapsed. Not all the revolted work- men could obtain work even on humiliating terms, and it is not surprising that the imported workmen received such hard treatment that in the end most of them left the county. The leaders of the late strike, however, were as usual marked men, and the union all but disappeared for a time. Although the strike had failed Martin Jude found a useful Parlia- mentary ally in Slingsby Duncombe, M.P. for Finsbury. On 30 June, 1847, the latter brought in his bill for the better regulation of mines and collieries, and although this bill was withdrawn the subject was never allowed to drop. To carry the bill a fresh organization of the Miners' Union took place, but its progress was delayed for a time by the ravages of cholera and by the fact that for a miner to belong to a union was to court dismissal from his work. In 1850 the Mines Regulation Act was passed, but the report of the first inspector sent into the northern counties was bitterly attacked by Jude, who maintained, probably not altogether incorrectly, that the inspector had obtained his information solely from the colliery agents, and that it was therefore one-sided. 248 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY Meanwhile the miners were developing in fresh directions. The Rochdale Pioneers found disciples at West Cramlington in Northumber- land, and during the 'sixties the Co-operative movement spread rapidly in Durham.' As usual co-operative distribution has been a success, and the existence of the ' store ' has been an important factor in prolonging strikes as well as inculcating teachings of thrift and forethought. Co-operative production, however, has been no more successful in Durham than elsewhere, and the miners who formed the Co-operative Colliery Company of 1873 paid dearly for their enterprise. During the 'sixties the London Trade Unionist Junta (Messrs. Apple- garth, Allen, and others) had won much support for their cause in the reformed Parliament. They had northern colleagues of a like cautious nature in Alexander Macdonald, who once more organized the Miners' National Union, and John Kane of the North of England Ironworkers. Kane after a great struggle established the Amalgamated Ironworkers' Association, with its centre at Darlington, in 1868, and he remained its secretary till his death in March, 1876. It was largely due to his shrewdness and reasonableness that he and Sir David Dale called into being the famous doctrine ' that wages should follow prices,' and so made possible the amicable relations between employer and workman that prevail in the north to-day. The Miners' National Union was inaugurated in 1863, but at the Leeds Conference of that year Crawford the Durham delegate gave the first hint of the secession ^ which has since occurred on the Eight Hours' question. In Durham and Northumberland the hewers work in two shifts of six hours each, while the boys then worked single shifts of twelve hours. As the miners elsewhere are generally in favour of a legal eight-hours' day the difference is almost irreconcilable. However, the split did not occur for some time, and Macdonald bided his time until a weakening on the part of the Yorkshire coalowners enabled him to get a clause inserted in the Mines Regulation Act of i860, empowering the miners of each pit to elect one of their number as check-weigher so as to secure that the hewers were paid fairly for their work. Naturally the owners did not welcome the presence of the check-weigher, but his rights were strengthened by the Act of 1872, and finally in 1887 it was laid down that the majority of the men in any pit have the right to elect a check-weigher to keep an independent and accurate account of each man's work, and that all the hewers may be assessed towards his wages. It is only natural that such men as are chosen should be strong trade-unionists. Often the check-weigher acts as secretary of the local miners' lodge, and of late years such men have become increasingly numerous on the council of local governing bodies in Durham. Other unions followed in the paths marked out by Jude and Macdonald. Between 1866 and 1871 the engineers of Tyneside and Wearside had fought and finally won the battle for a nine-hours' day. A ' nine-hours' league,' 'In 1891 It was estimated that the percentage of co-operators in Durham was 52'l, the highest in England. Northumberland with 40-2 percent, came a close third to Yorkshire's 40-8. * On the death of Macdonald in 1 881 differences arose among the members of the National Miners' Unien. In 1888 there appeared the semi-Socialistic Miners' Federation, which agitated for a legal eight hours' day and a minimum wage with its corollary of limitation of output. As a result the National Miners' Union, which clung to the sliding scale, was practically confined to Northumberland and Durham. 2 249 32 A HISTORY OF DURHAM which included both trade-unionists and non-unionists, was backed up by Joseph Cowen of the Newcastle Chronicle, and ably organized by John Burnett, afterwards the first labour correspondent to the Board of Trade. After a five- months' struggle the masters found that even the Times and the Spectator opposed them, and they gave way to the demand for a week of fifty-four hours. The boiler-makers or iron ship-builders were organized into a strong society in the 'seventies under the leadership of Robert Knight, and the idea of trade-unionism became unceasingly popular until bad trade appeared. In more recent times the London Dock Strike of 1889 produced the Tyne- side and National Labourers' Union, while the National Amalgamated Sailors' and Firemen's Union also took its rise in 1887 ; this time at Hartlepool and on Tees-side. In 1863 the miners had to face a threatened reintroduction of the yearly bond, which for the past eighteen years had been abandoned in favour of a monthly agreement. It was this move of the employers that enabled Macdonald and Crawford to reorganize the union in Durham and Northum- berland. Strikes broke out in every direction, but as the miners had in 1863 organized a permanent relief fund, and saw that a national union had been formed they entered upon the struggle with a light heart. However the miners' leaders began to quarrel, and in 1864 the owners succeeded in again enforcing the yearly bond. In disgust the Northumberland miners seceded from the union of the two counties, and it was not until 1869 that the present Durham Miners' Association arose upon the ruins. The new union was lucky in securing William Crawford as its agent in 1870, and the fall in wages that had just occurred helped Crawford to form a strong society. In 1872 began the better era of Durham mining. In March both masters and men agreed to abandon the yearly bond, and in April it was arranged that a joint committee of masters and men should settle all disputes that arose. In August the Coal Mines Regulation Act was passed, and since that date strikes have rarely taken on the bitter nature of earlier days. In 1875 Alexander Macdonald could boast of his success in in- ducing 75,000 workmen and their masters to submit their differences to arbitration. The victory was only gained after twenty-five years' hard work, but the principle of arbitration still holds the field in most matters. In Durham there are two pieces of machinery which may vary from time to time in detail, but are best described as the Board of Con- ciliation and the Joint Committee of Masters and Men. Their working is somewhat complicated, and they are concerned with quite different sets of circumstances.^ From time to time representatives of masters and men meet as a Board of Conciliation to settle whether wages should rise or fall in relation to an artificial figure known as the County Average. Apparently the men claim increased wages when the selling-price of coal rises, and resist as far as possible the masters' proposals for a reduction in a falling market. The Board consists of eighteen representatives of each side with an umpire mutually agreed upon, or in default nominated by the Board of Trade. However, when the agreement has once been reached the Board of Con- ciliation are not further concerned with any disputes that may arise with ' For an interesting account of this machinery, see Webb's Industrial Democracy, i, 192. 250 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY regard to affairs at any particular colliery. These are dealt with by the Joint Committee of masters and men, which is rigidly confined to the application of the existing agreement to particular mines or seams. The work of the Joint Committee is incessant, but although its impartiality is recognized its necessary dilatoriness and lack of personal knowledge has resulted in its being often superseded by a committee of one masters' repre- sentative and one workman with power to choose an umpire. It says a great deal for the proverbial ' canniness ' of the North-country- man that this complicated system of arbitration and collective bargaining should have lasted so long and worked so well. It is true that strikes have not been wholly avoided, but they have been less bitter and frequent. Since 1869, the year of its foundation, the Durham Miners' Association has engaged in four arbitrations between 1874 and 1876, and its members worked under a sliding-scale from 1877 to 1889. Even under the sliding- scale a strike occurred in 1879, but both sides had learned wisdom, and both on this occasion and several times during the years 1888—92 arbitration settled disputes as to wages. At last in 1892 occurred the great Durham Coal Strike. For three months the men held out against the proposed 10 per cent, reduction, which the masters demanded in a falling market. It was the worst strike for perhaps half a century, and as trade grew worse and other industries felt the want of coal, the masters demanded even greater reductions. At last when the whole county was on the verge of ruin the good bishop of Durham (Westcott) earned his title of the ' Miners' Bishop ' by persuading the masters to allow the pits to re-start at a 10 per cent, re- duction in wages, not, as he said, on business grounds, but for the sake of ending the misery of the people. In this connexion should be mentioned the undoubted fact that the success of collective bargaining in Durham is due to the presence of public- spirited men like Dr. Westcott, or Dr. Robert Spence Watson, who time after time have given of their time and ability to the cause of industrial peace without receiving any monetary reward. In 1888, to mention only one case among many. Dr. Spence Watson acted as arbitrator in a dispute in the iron trade, and the principle of collective bargaining, often with the mediation of an outside public man, has been accepted by most of the trades in Durham. In the dark days of the 'eighties many of the unions were less success- ful than that of the miners in keeping up their numbers. The skilled boiler- makers or iron ship-builders of the Tyne and Wear suffered severely as the total tonnage built fell from 1,250,000 tons in 1883 to 473,000 in 1886, and the secretary of the boiler-makers (Mr. Robert Knight) in his annual report for 1886 hinted that their unavoidable sufferings were inducing men to criticise an organization of society which made them possible. It is but natural to find that the idea of direct labour representation is so popular in Durham, which with i i"2i per cent, of its population in a trade- union is barely second to the leading trade-unionist county in England — Northumberland, with a percentage of 1 1*23. However, the Durham miner is seldom a socialist ; but there are signs that he is becoming less contented with some of the doctrines of his older leaders. During the strike of 1892 a miner is reported to have said {Times of 24 March, 1892), 'Why should 251 A HISTORY OF DURHAM my wages fall when the masters can sell the coal at any price they like and then choose to take less for it ? ' When the miners lack a succession of leaders of the old type the practice of collective bargaining may fail to solve such differences of interest as the more ignorant miners may conceive to exist. The depth of degradation for the Durham working-men was the two decades before the reform of the Poor Law. At this time the artificial stimulus of war was removed from agriculture, while manufactures felt an in- crease of foreign competition. Mackenzie gives some interesting figures to illustrate the growth of poor relief. The county poor rates for the year end- ing Easter 1750 were ^7,143. In twenty-five years they had about doubled; by 25 March 1803 they had risen to ^51,966. The year after Waterloo they reached ^83,650; from 1818 to 1820 they oscillated at a little over ^T 10 1,000. Then for a few years they varied between ^75,000 and ^(^97,000 with a slight tendency to decrease, but in 1832 the rates were again over ^T 100,000, and out of the actual rate of ^102,951, ;r86,ooo was spent solely on the relief of the poor, although the population was little more than 250,000. And what a weltering confusion was this system of relief. It was adminis- tered by eighty-six select vestries and sixty-eight assistant overseers, not to mention the ordinary parish organization. In 1832 we learn that 193 paupers were employed on the roads and earned ^1,618 8j.; 357 paupers employed in parish work earned >r663 131.^ The new Poor Law of 1834 was a powerful, if unpleasant, remedy for the increasing pauperization of the workers, but it was as ill received here as elsewhere. Riots developed into militant chartism, especially in the neigh- bourhood of Newcastle, and chartism was followed by the growth of the Labour Party, whose trade-unionist wing is especially strong on the local governing bodies of the county and has several representatives in Parliament. However, thanks to the mediation of Bishop Westcott in 1892 Durham has been singularly free from labour troubles since the great strike of that year. The old days of bull-baiting, pugilism, and hard drinking seem to have passed away in Durham, but there is still much to be deprecated in the social and moral life of the county. Intoxication is a painfully common vice among the colliers, especially at week-ends ; while the language and behaviour of the crowds at football or bowling matches too often recall the habits of their mediaeval ancestors.*^ However, real progress in education and refinement is being made. If colliery villages are often ill-built and insanitary the reason is that they are the result of fluctuations of population almost inseparable from the industry, and even so public opinion is slowly but surely effecting improvement. Serious crime is certainly on the decrease in the county, and minor offences, generally the result of drunkenness and moral perversion, will probably disappear considerably as education and the higher ideals of trade-unionism and co-operation increase their hold upon the working classes. ' Mackenzie and Ross, Hist, of Durham, i, Ixxxv. ' It is curious to note that ' pila,' some kind of football or bowls probably, was a favourite game in Durham in the fourteenth century. Repeated but vain attempts were made to suppress it. In I 381 a match between the prior's tenants at Southwick and Monkwearmouth and those of the 'lord of Hylton ' ended in a free fight in which the prior's tenants were ' in grave peril of their bodies.' Dur. Halmote R. (Surtees Soc. Ixxxii), 171. 252 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY VII — The Boroughs In the report of the commission on municipal corporations, five boroughs were recognized in the modern county of Durham. These were Durham, Hartlepool, Sunderland, Gateshead, and Stockton, but at least two others. Bishop Auckland and Darlington, appear in the Durham documents. Little is known of any of the seven ^ before the time of Bishop Hugh Pudsey (1153-95), who sold charters to Durham, Sunderland, Gateshead, and more doubtfully perhaps to Darlington, Stockton, and Bishop Auckland. The difficulty is that most of these charters have disappeared, and the character of the two best-known survivors, those of Wearmouth (Sunderland) and Gateshead, makes us hesitate in accepting any early claims to municipal self- government in Durham. Pudsey's charters to Gateshead and Sunderland ** point to Newcastle as the model upon which the rights were based, apparently referring to Henry I's charter,' but the burgesses of Gateshead, for example, are only guaranteed certain vague forest rights like those enjoyed by Newcastle, and it is remarkable that none of the towns of the Palatinate, save perhaps Hartlepool, could produce a charter for real self-government of an earlier date than the sixteenth century. Traditions of past greatness there might be, but except at Hartlepool and Durham mayors and aldermen had doubtful legal claims to their titles in 1835. Hartlepool was the only royal borough in the Palatinate. It could point to a charter from King John in 1201 guaranteeing it the rights of Newcastle,* and although in 1230 Bishop le Poor forced it to accept a charter from him, the terms were fairly liberal. It obtained a mayor and the only gild-merchant in the county. Thanks to the rival claims made upon its allegiance by the bishop, the king, and the powerful family of Bruce, the town of Hartlepool managed to retain a fair degree of independence and self-government, but the other towns, even Durham, were less fortunate. Down almost to modern times the bishop's bailiff or similar officer took the place of the mayor in all the other boroughs except Durham, for even the mayor of Stockton did not possess undivided control of the town, as the borough only comprised one-fourth of the manor. At Gateshead the bailiff was appointed by the bishop until 1681. After that date no bailiff was appointed. Two stewards ^ elected by the bur- gage holders and freemen managed the borough property subject to half- yearly meetings of their electors, while the manor court, the justices of the peace, and, above all, the curious select vestry known as the ' Four and twenty ' provided such government of the town as there was. In 1835 the burgage holders of Gateshead were content to explain their title as a question of tenure and denied that there ever was a borough corporate at Gateshead. Even Durham had to wait for its real charter until the time of Bishop Pilkington in 1565. Before that there was the usual vague charter of Pudsey, but even a confirmation by Pope Alexander III did not increase its ' Simeon of Durham says that the Usurper Cumin in 1 140, on the death of Geoffrey Rufus, forced certain burgesses to take an oath of fidelity to him ; Symeon of Durham, Opera (Rolls Ser.), i, 14.6. ^ Printed in App. to Boldon Book (Surtees Soc. xiv). ' Printed in Stubbs' Select Chart, iii. * Ibid. 313. ' Mackenzie says that the churchwardens fulfilled the duties of stewards until the latter were appointed in 1695 ; Hist, of Newcastle and Gateshead, ii, 748. 253 A HISTORY OF DURHAM freedom. Pilkington's charter, followed by one of Bishop Toby Matthew in 1 602 placed the government in the hands of a mayor, twelve aldermen, and twenty burgesses elected by the gilds. The experiment was never a success, and at last in 1780 a fresh and more definite charter was given by Bishop Egerton. The story of the other boroughs contributes no additional information upon the subject of municipal history in Durham. One thing alone is clear. Down to the seventeenth century, at least, the bishop retained practically complete control over the boroughs, with the doubtful exception of Hartlepool, and even Hartlepool's freedom was fitful. It will be seen, therefore, that the towns in the Palatinate had not made any serious advance towards self-government in the Middle Ages. So long as he could the bishop treated the towns as a source of revenue. Pudsey tallaged the boroughs as well as the vills of the bishopric,^ and all the boroughs except Hartlepool were farmed out to the highest bidder in mediaeval times. The amount paid gives us a rough idea of the relative importance of the boroughs. Durham city was, of course, the most important, being farmed for;r86 3^. 4^. in 1385,'' but Darlington for many years averaged little less.' Gateshead was farmed for _^2 2 in 1356.* Sunderland brought in ^(^20 in 1357," but only ^6 in 1465.° Auckland was worth 50 marks in 1356,'' but only ^^16 6^. in 1442.^ Stockton seems to have grown greatly in importance in the four- teenth century and steadily increased from 4 marks in 1350— i ' to ^4 in 1405,^° and probably superseded Yarm as a port. It is significant that these leases of boroughs appear as part of the transactions of the Halmote Court. What they meant can be gathered from one of the few leases given in full. At the Darlington halmote Ingelram Gentill and two others came before the steward and took to farm the borough of Darlington with the bailiwick of the same, and with the mill there and of Haughton and Blackwell with the oven of the said burg with the soken of the same, and with the court of the burg the soken fines, amerce- ments, and services of the same, and with other courts there ; likewise with whatever toll ' Shamelhires ' rents and services approvements, &c., as is accustomed by lease ; and likewise with all other commodities and profits to the same burg and bailiwick belonging and thereof coming ; except escheat and forfeitures of lands and tenements there falling. It is granted also to the same firmars that they have power to arrest and punish and adjudge all the trespasses against the peace in the same burg. And likewise that they may have the office of marshal to their own use with the profits of the same, according to the law and custom of the county, so that no sheriff or marshal or other bailiff shall intrude himself unless by default of the same firmars during their term To have and to hold, &c., for one whole year, rendering for the said year £So^^ Under such a system a real corporation could not exist. It was not applied to Hartlepool so far as we know, but over Hartlepool and Durhanx ' Boldon Book (Surtees Soc. xxv), App. vi. ' Dur. Curs. No. 32, m. 8 77i> 18. ■772, of Durham (87-96), gives the following in most cases apparently to pasture lands : Elvet (Durham) Lanchester Chester-le-Street Barnard Castle Ryton and Crawcrook Townfields,&c. Urpeth Weardale stinted moors and pastures Tanfield Blackburn Fell, Kibblesworth, and Beamish and Hedley Framwellgate (Durham) and Witton Gilbert Escombe and Etherley Beamish South Moor Byers Green, Middleton, and Eggle- ston Middlehope Gateshead 19. 1772, 20. 1773, 21. 1794, 22. 1794, 23- 24. 1794, *i796. 25. 26. 1799, 1800, 27. 1801, 28. I80I, 1803, 1803, 1804, 1809, 1809, According to Bailey, all the above, except those marked (*), were divided under an Act of Parliament. Those marked (*) were divided by agreement. Between 1756 and 1809 the area inclosed and divided amounted to 114,071 acres 2 roods 17 poles, and Bailey estimates the undivided commons in i8i0 at 19,400 acres. D. — The Parliamentary Return {Inclosure Awards), No. 50 or 1904, gives the remaining inclosures of the nineteenth century. The figures refer to the date of the award, and are followed by the date of the authorizing Act. Inclosures referred to by Bailey and cases of parishes now included in Northumberland are omitted. 1. Gateshead Fell, 1822 (49 Geo. Ill) 2. Woodland Common, 1825 (54 Geo. Ill) 3. Gateshead Townfields and other commons, 1 8 18 (54 Geo. Ill) 4. Ruffside Common (Edmondbyers), 1870 (General Inclosure Acts) 5. Cockfield Fell, 1868 (General Inclosure Acts) 6. Middleton in Teesdale, 1 8 1 7 (45 Geo. Ill) ; again in 1 84 1 (4 Will. IV) 7. Whickham Fell, 1821 (51 Geo. Ill) 8. 9- 10. II. 12. 13- 14. Winlaton Manor Wastes, 1829 (4 Geo. IV) Woodside Common (Ryton), 1829 (4Geo. IV) Barmoor Hall Banks, &c. (Ryton), 1829 (4 Geo. IV) Tanfield Moor (Chester-le-Street), 1807 (40 Geo. Ill) Boldon Fell or Common, 1859 (General Inclosure Acts) Bolam (Gainford), 1786 (22 Geo. Ill) Greatham Marsh, 1809 (agreement among tenants, dated ii September, 1807) 260 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY The writer has been unable to discover the dates of any other inclosures, but it is probable that many of the names, such as Billingham, Stockton, &c., refer to the inclosure of the common- able lands in the whole of the ancient extensive parishes. He has endeavoured to make it clear whether the dates appended refer to the agreement to inclose or the dare of the confirmation. In many cases there is a difference of a few years between the figures of the Registrar's Book and those in Mickleton, and between the figures of Bailey and the Return No. 50 of 1904, the probable explanation being that the process of inclosure was generally spread over several years. At the present time, 1906, there are still a few undivided commons in the west, such as Hamsterley Common, and curiously enough a considerable proportion of the ancient town fields of Hamsterley still lie ' open ' with ' rigs ' and ' balks,' although of late years many of them have been laid under grass, and when used for pasture are surrounded by a temporary fence. APPENDIX III TABLE OF POPULATION, 1801 to 1901 Introductory Notes Area The county taken in this table is that existing subsequently to 7 & 8 Vict., chap. 61 (1844). By this Act detached parts of counties, which had already for parliamentary purposes been amalga- mated with the county by which they were surrounded or with which the detached part had the longest common boundary (2 & 3 Wm. IV, chap. 64 — 1832), were annexed to the same county for all purposes ; some exceptions were, however, permitted. By the same Act {7 & 8 Vict., chap. 61) the detached parts of counties, transferred to other counties, were also annexed to the hundred, ward, wapentake, &c. by which they were wholly or mostly surrounded, or to which they next adjoin, in the counties to which they were transferred. The hundreds, &c. in this table are also given as existing subsequently to this Act. As is well known, the famous statute of Queen Elizabeth for the relief of the poor took the then- existing ecclesiastical parish as tlie unit for Poor Law relief. This continued for some centuries with but few modifications ; notably by an Act passed in the thirteenth year of Charles IPs reign which permitted townships and villages to maintain their own poor. This permission was necessary owing to the large size of some of the parishes, especially in the north of England. In 1 80 1 the parish for rating purposes (now known as the civil parish, i.e. 'an area for which a separate poor rate is or can be made, or for which a separate overseer is or can be appointed ') was in most cases co-extensive with the ecclesiastical parish of the same name ; but already there were numerous townships and villages rated separately for the relief of the poor, and also there were many places scattered up and down the country, known as extra-parochial places, which paid no rates at all. Further, many parishes had detached parts entirely surrounded by another parish or parishes. Parliament first turned its attention to extra-parochial places, and by an Act (20 Vict., chap. 19 — 1857) it was laid down (a) that all extra-parochial places entered separately in the 1851 census returns are to be deemed civil parishes, {b) that in any other place being, or being reputed to be, extra-parochial overseers of the poor may be appointed, and (c) that where, however, owners and occupiers of two- thirds in value of the land of any such place desire its annexation to an adjoining civil parish, it may be so added with the consent of the said parish. This Act was not found entirely to fulfil its object, so by a further Act (31 & 32 Vict., chap. 122 — 1868) it was enacted that every such place remaining on 25 December, 1868, should be added to the parish with which it had the longest common boundary. The next thing to be dealt with was the question of detached parts of civil parishes, which was done by the Divided Parishes Acts of 1876, 1879, and 1882. The last, which amended the oneof 1876, provides that every detached part of an entirely extra-metropolitan parish which is entirely surrounded by another parish becomes transferred to this latter for civil purposes, or if the population exceeds 300 persons it may be made a separate parish. These Acts also gave power to add detached parts surrounded by more than one parish to one or more of the surrounding parishes, and also to amalgamate entire parishes with one or more parishes. Under the 1879 Act it was not necessary for the area dealt with to be entirely detached. These Acts also declared that every part added to a parish in another county becomes part of that county. Then came the Local Government Act, 1888, which permits the alteration of civil parish boun- daries and the amalgamation of civil parishes by Local Government Board orders. It also created the 261 A HISTORY OF DURHAM administrative counties. The Local Government Act of 1894 enacts that where a civil parish is partly in a rural district and partly in an urban district each part shall become a separate civil parish ; and also that where a civil parish is situated in more than one urban district each part shall become a separate civil parish, unless the county council otherwise direct. Meanwhile, the ecclesiastical parishes had been altered and new ones created under entirely different Acts, which cannot be entered into here, as the table treats of the ancient parishes in their civil aspect. Population The first census of England was taken in 1801, and was very little more than a counting of the population in each parish (or place), excluding all persons, such as soldiers, sailors, &c., who formed no part of its ordinary population. It was the de facto population (i.e. the population actually resident at a particular time) and not the de Jure (i.e. the population really belonging to any par- ticular place at a particular time). This principle has been sustained throughout the censuses. The Army at home (including militia), the men of the Royal Navy ashore, and the registered seamen ashore were not included in the population of the places where they happened to be, at the time of the census, until 1 841. The men of the Royal Navy and other persons on board vessels (naval or mercantile) in home ports were first included in the population of those places in 1 85 I. Others temporarily present, such as gipsies, persons in barges, &c. were included in 1841 and perhaps earlier. General Up to and including 1 83 1 the returns were mainly made by the overseers of the poor, and more than one day was allowed for the enumeration, but the 1 84 1— 1 901 returns were made under the superintendence of the registration officers and the enumeration was to be completed in one day. The Householder's Schedule was first used in 1841. The exact dates of the censuses areas follows : — ID March, 1801 30 May, 1831 8 April, i86i 6 April, 1891 27 May, i8ii 7 June, 1841 3 April, 1871 i April, 1901 28 May, 1 82 1 31 March, 1851 4 April, 1881 Notes Explanatory of the Table This table gives the population of the ancient county and arranges the parishes, &c. under the hundred or other sub-division to which they belong, but there is no doubt that the constitution of hundreds, &c. was in some cases doubtful. In the main the table follows the arrangement in the 1 841 census volume. The table gives the population and area of each parish, &c. as it existed in 1 80 1 , as far as possible. The areas are those supplied by the Ordnance Survey Department, except in the case of those marked ' e,' which are only estimates. The area includes inland water (if any), but not tidal water or foreshore. t after the name of a civil parish indicates that the parish was affected by the operation of the Divided Parishes Acts, but the Registrar-General failed to obtain particulars of every such change. The changes which escaped notification were, however, probably small in area and with little, if any, population. Considerable difficulty was experienced both in 1 891 and 1901 in tracing the results of changes effected in civil parishes under the provisions of these Acts ; by the Registrar-General's courtesy, however, reference has been permitted to certain records of formerly detached parts of parishes, which has made it possible approximately to ascertain the population in 1901 of parishes as constituted prior to such alterations, though the figures in many instances must be regarded as partly estimates. * after the name of a parish (or place) indicates that such parish (or place) contains a union workhouse which was in use in (or before) 185 I and was still in use in 190 1. J after the name of a parish (or place) indicates that the ecclesiastical parish of the same name at the 1 90 1 census is coextensive with such parish (or place). O in the table indicates that there is no population on the area in question. — in the table indicates that no population can be ascertained. The word 'chapelry ' seems often to have been used as an equivalent for 'township' in 1841, which census volume has been adopted as the standard for names and descriptions of areas. The figures in italics in the table relate to the area and population of such sub-divisions of ancient parishes as chapelries, townships, and hamlets. 262 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY TABLE OF POPULATION, 1801— igoi Ancient or Geogra- pliical County '■ Acre- age 649.352 1801 1811 149,384164,463 1821 1831 1841 1851 193.511:239.256307,963390,997 1861 508,666 1871 685,089 867,258 1891 1,016,454 igoi 1,187,361 Acre- Parish age 1801 1811 1821 1831 1841 1851 1861 1871 1881 1891 1901 Ckesifr Ward— East Division (excluding Bed- lington Parish) Boldon t . . . ■ 4,031 619 662 733 855 915 I,ooS 1,024 1,745 3,097 4,87s 5,389 Gatesiiead (with Gateshead Fell)^ Jarrow :^ 3-005 8,597 8,782 11,767 15,177 19,505 24,805 32,749 47,808 65,041 84,728 108,024 10,305 15,624 21,468 24,189 27,995 33,945 42,448 52,925 85,616 115,216152,196 182,362 Harton Town- 1 ship! 1,430 160 205 235 217 265 770 877 2,164 3,484\ 4,525 5,056 Heworth Chap.^ 2,S11 2,SS7 2,905 3,921 5,424 7,008 8,869 10,313 13,755 17,138 18,454 24,331 Hedworth, 4,225 1,566 3,193 3,530 3,598 3,600 3,835 6,494 24,361 37,719 50,826 55,712 Monlcton and Jarrow Town- ship f South Shields 90 8,103 9,001 8,SS5 9,074 9,082 9,625 8,973 8,677 7,710 5,946 2,804 Township^ Westoe Town- 1,749 2,903 6,164 7,618 9,682 13,990 19,349 26,266 36,659 49,165 72,445 94,459 ship'' Monkwear- 5,180 6,293 6,504 7,644 9,428 12,493 16,911 23,440 29,041 36,358 41,866 49,171 mouth: — Fulwell Town- ship t Hilton Town- 737 55 145 118 158 134 169 208 318 527 1,038 2,989 2,593 312 363 320 420 550 546 487 638 1,533 1,313 1,715 ship Monkwear- 550 1,103 1,091 1,278 1,498 2,1 SS 3,366 3,343 5,507 8,355 9,125 9,929 mouth Town- ship! Monkwear- 2S7 4,239 4,264 4,924 6,051 7,742 10,109 15,139 16,641 17,765 20,077 21,810 mouth Shore Township ^f Southwick 1,013 554 641 1,004 1,301 1,912 2,721 4,263 5,937 8,178 10,313 12,728 Township f Washington : — 5.563 2A7i 2,589 2,687 2,673 2,396 3,485 5,981 7,115 8,901 9,058 11,969 Barmston 919 49 48 79 73 81 210 475 703 650 592 588 Township Great and Little 2,671 1,236 1,277 1,365 1,477 1,374 2,051 3,677 4,209 5,229 5,144 6,822 Usworth Township t Washington 1,973 1,190 1,264 1,243 1,123 941 1,224 1,829 2,203 3,022 3,322 4,559 Township Whitburn f 4,250 675 843 856 1,001 1,061 1,203 1,215 1,343 2,024 2,760 3,311 1 Ancient County. — The county as defined by the Act 7 & 8 Vic. c. 61, which reduced Durham to the following extent: — (i) Craike Parish was annexed to Yorkshire (North Riding), and (2) Bedlington Parish and the whole of Islandshire and Norhamshire were added to Northumberland. The area is taken from the 1901 Census Volume and includes certain lands common to two or more Parishes (or Places), which uninhabited lands, however, are not included in the areas of the Parishes (or Places) to which they jointly belong. The 1811 population is exclusive of 830 militiamen, who were not assigned to the places to which they belonged. ' Gateshead. — In 1821 seamen belonging to registered vessels included. ' Heworth. — The 1841 population e.\cludes 118 seamen in vessels. * In 1S31, i.oSo seamen in South Shields and 1,037 'n Westoe were excluded from the populations of those places. * Monkwearmouth Shore. — In 1841 the population includes 119 mariners at sea belonging to it. 263 A HISTORY OF DURHAM TABLE OF POPULATION, 1801— 1901 {continued) Parish Acre- age i8oi 1811 1821 1831 1841 1851 1861 1871 1881 i8gi 1901 Chester Ward- Middle Division Chester le Street 28,339 10,454 11,059 12,052 12,528 14,062 15,937 21,018 27,106 37,222 44,227 57,086 (part of) : — Birtley Chap. . 1,429 1,026 1,094 1,386 1,520 1,759 1,833 2,246 2,868 3,540 4,175 5,373 Chester le Street Township t Edmondsley Township \ Harraton 2,900 1,662 1,726 1,892 1,910 2,599 2,580 3,013 4,205 6,646 8,227 11,014 1,960 439 223 205 150 253 348 434 864 930 1,051 1,392 2,460 1,607 1,759 2,217 2,171 1,601 1,614 1,642 1,667 2,108 2,177 2,161 Township f LamesleyChap.t 7,178 2,121 2,054 2,167 2,387 2,262 2,590 3,234 3,817 4,670 4,931 5,346 Pelton Town- ship t Plawsworth Township t Tanfield Chap, t 1,161 539 672 522 550 1,030 1,207 2,787 3,070 4,130 4;966 6,603 1,266 177 225 227 249 266 286 681 717 942 1,028 1,199 6,SS7 2,228 1,810 2,357 2,498 2,671 3,480 4,593 7,283 10,282 12,610 18,417 Urpeth Town- 1,723 524 1 1 650 716 907 952 1,123 1,412 1,692 2,148 2,608 ship! 7,479 1 Ouston Town- ship Waldridge 641 48 J 1 304 273 282 300 320 311 854 953 963 732 S3 77 125 104 432 747 945 892 1,428 1,961 2,010 Township St. Oswald (part of):- Broom Town- ship 1,086 118 123 93 93 108 123 136 151 719 1,508 2,253 Chester Ward- West Division Edmondbyers : — 13. '71 430 699 769 995 1,025 1,100 1,233 1,047 854 523 429 Edmondbyers 5,132 215 313 358 484 458 485 455 343 352 252 209 Township! J Hunstan worth 8,039 215 386 411 511 567 615 778 704 502 271 220 Chap.: Kimblesworth 638 22 42 32 36 33 36 37 34 1,132 1,192 1,216 Extra-Par.f Lanchester (part of):- Benfieldside 42,467 3,768 4,248 4,730 4,846 7,582 15,444 21,971 29,748 42,907 48,907 60,218 1,832 _ 275 341 534 1,074 2,475 4,026 4,432 5,700 6,272 7,463 Township^ t Billingside 289 54 . — . 45 18 13 16 10 11 8 12 11 Township ' f CoUierley 1,998 539 549 556 526 853 576 1,322 2,906 3,856 4,455 4,648 Township" t Conside and 2,715 — 139 141 146 195 2,777 4,953 5,960 6,746 7,742 9,279 Knitsley Town- ship"! Ebchester 1,126 168 210 200 255 331 610 697 830 1,402 1,398 1,649 Chap, t Esh Chap, t ■ • 3,119 276 3S3 470 486 518 642 942 2,294 6,305 6,341 7,802 Greencroft 3,183 184 205 229 235 392 720 717 1,602 2,000 3,005 2,920 Township \ Healeyfield 1,2S2 145 156 161 159 189 299 336 380 357 410 507 Township \ Iveston 1,956 251 214 238 212 448 2,500 3,327 3,495 4,032 4,189 4,316 Township f Kyo Township \ 2,203 281 385 448 412 965 1,401 1,679 2,502 4,065 4,561 7,366 Lanchester (and 15,235 955 1,151 1,240 1,210 1,595 2,221 2,398 3,115 4,038 5,258 8,417 Hamlets)Town- ship"*! Langley 2,472 83 102 97 75 81 80 129 116 143 135 154 Township t Medomsley 5,057 754 391 461 466 796 840 1,296 1,957 4,133 4,999 5,525 Chap. ' » t Satley Chap. 't — 78 88 103 112 132 287 139 148 122 130 161 ' Benfielddde returned with Medomsley in 1801. ■' Ccmidc and Knitsley returned with Medomsley in 1801 •' Lanchester includes Burnop and Hamsteels, Butsfield, and Holmside. ' The area of Satley is included in that given for Lanchester. 264 ^ CoUierley includes Billingside in 1811. SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY TABLE OF POPULATION, 1801 — 1901 continued) Acre- Parish age 1801 1811 1821 1831 1841 1851 i85i 1871 1881 1891 1901 Chester Ward- West Division (cont.) Miiggleswick Par. 13,086 201 224 278 298 421 688 788 1,677 841 799 893 Chap.' t Ryton :— 5.459 1,956 1,953 2,231 2,363 2,589 2,757 3,052 3,943 5,3" 6,341 9,266 Crawcrook 1,136 325 268 308 340 290 320 319 346 450 1,054 2,435 Township \ Ryton Township 1,220 432 462 445 590 677 739 1,140 1,939 3,036 3,393 4,708 Ryton Wood- 2,813 885 838 1,057 951 1,059 1,133 1,051 1,066 1,082 1,106 1,309 side Town- ship t Stella Township 290 314 385 421 482 563 565 542 592 743 788 814 Winlaton : — 9.o;9 3,367 3,354 3,532 4,205 5,326 6,085 7,372 8,282 9,944 12,583 18,973 Chopwell 3,842 346 291 237 254 320 458 563 788 1,614 2,193 4,183 Township Winlaton 5,217 3,021 3,063 3,295 3,951 5,006 5,627 6,809 7,494 8,330 10,390 14,790 Township Whickham f 5,961 3,659 3,746 3,713 3,848 4,319 5,565 5,921 6,483 7,976 9,167 12,708 Witton Gilbert 3,249 359 399 364 417 1,243 1,758 2,098 2,708 3,430 4,668 5,710 Par. Chap.H Darlington Ward — South-east Division Auckland St. An- 8,445 793 896 1,009 1,187 1,820 3,042 3,716 4,682 9,972 10,350 9,843 drew (part of):- Byers Green 1,082 77 199 231 207 489 1,025 1,634 1,852 2,452 2,346 2,333 Township t Coundon Grange 63S 25 23 28 44 313 585 552 846 1,864 1,893 1,740 Township t Eldon Township 1,421 101 86 94 129 186 238 311 742 1,389 1,646 1,610 Middlestone 893 78 88 117 92 113 451 497 482 1,733 1,941 1,789 Township Middridge 1,160 198 199 201 307 345 300 313 331 853 874 774 Township f Middridge 950 41 39 58 55 40 54 56 46 64 77 65 Grange Township ° \ Old Park 414 20 14 30 67 30 26 23 18 910 902 873 Township Westerton 699 56 58 77 85 89 210 196 211 463 495 480 Township Windlestone 1,188 196 190 173 201 215 153 134 154 244 176 179 Township Aycliffe t :— 11,106 1,137 1,129 1,379 1,564 1,372 1,366 1,458 1,374 1,290 1,079 1,175 Aycliffe, Great 2,191 640 633 807 937 823 812 840 822 839 702 765 Township f Brafferton 2,428 212 204 263 247 211 206 254 2?6 171 157 129 Township Preston le Skerne 2,680 119 127 126 176 131 139 146 137 135 102 135 Township Woodham 3,807 166 165 183 204 207 209 218 179 145 118 146 Township f Coniscliffe % : — 3,178 351 376 391 374 422 451 434 456 519 498 415 Coniscliffe, High 1,858 220 234 245 234 244 248 234 192 355 338 280 Township f Coniscliffe, Low 1,320 131 142 146 140 178 203 200 264 164 160 135 Township f Darlington : — 7,805 5,349 5,820 6,551 9,417 11,877 12,453 16,762 30,298 36,666 39,450 45,958 Archdeacon 1,064 72 71 64 50 63 62 61 50 54 52 68 Newton Township Blackwell 1,564 277 281 268 271 299 272 336 343 406 391 372 Township ^ Mtiggkswi'ck. — The increase in population in 1871 is attributed to the presence of labourers employed in con- structing two reservoirs. 2 Witton Gilbert Parochial Chapehy was said to be connected with Durham St. Oswald Ancient Parish. ^ Midilridge Grange, although entirely shown in Auckland St. Andrew Ancient Parish, v/a.s stated to be partly in HeighingtoH Ancient Parish. 2 265 34 A HISTORY OF DURHAM TABLE OF POPULATION, 1801— 1901 {continued) Acre- Parish age 1 801 i8n 1821 1831 1841 1851 1 861 1871 1881 1891 1901 Darlington Ward — South-east Division (cont.) Darlington {cont) Cockerton Township Darlington 1,SQS 330 409 469 522 482 537 576 2,176 2,778 3,108 3,323 3,369 4,670 5,059 5,750 8,574 11,033 11,582 15,789 27,729 33,428 35,899 42,195 Township Gainford (part 2,052 243 242 247 274 249 267 244 224 187 203 181 of):- Denton Chap. 987 141 129 125 144 119 121 111 111 84 114 104 Houghton le 1,065 102 113 122 130 130 146 133 113 103 89 77 SideTownship Haughton le 6,899 589 673 746 1,108 1,008 883 979 1,413 1,302 1,323 1,263 Skeme (part of):- Barmpton 1,545 126 127 105 90 124 135 127 112 108 103 100 Township Burdon, Great 605 78 66 76 102 117 96 104 112 120 104 89 Township Haughton 1,946 308 398 466 710 576 474 536 661 713 737 627 Township ' Morton Palms 1,359 — — — 83 73 68 59 85 105 101 70 Township ' Whessoe Town- 1,444 77 82 99 123 lis 110 153 443 256 278 377 ship Heighington ' : — 7,429 1,118 1,074 1,182 1,432 1,347 1,294 1,323 1,326 1,485 1,412 1,345 Coats a moor 455 9 17 12 13 19 21 16 20 17 16 10 Township f Heighington Township t Killerby Town- ship Redworth 1,766 543 502 557 767 695 6S5 668 697 621 626 653 635 66 85 107 95 105 93 109 97 89 90 91 1,8S6 322 284 307 370 351 322 325 325 553 522 449 Township School Aycliffe 531 41 34 37 32 25 31 25 27 23 20 20 Township f Walworth 2,158 137 152 162 155 152 142 180 160 182 138 122 Township Merrington : — 8,164 1,068 1,098 1,279 1.325 1,704 2,673 4,046 4,997 8,204 7,992 8,363 ChiltonTownship 2,422 176 171 182 168 1S9 977 1,456 643 2,693 1,536 1,411 Ferryhill Town- ship «t Hett Township 2,502 507 507 574 591 850 958 1,423 2,647 3,510 3,971 4,306 1,279 157 178 233 227 234 234 241 394 338 357 369 Merrington 1,961 228 242 290 339 431 504 926 1,313 1,663 2,128 2,277 Township Whitworth Par. Chap. : — Tudhoe Town- ship t Whitworth 3.351 331 407 409 341 617 1,059 4,988 10.035 13.772 13,943 13,962 1,785 219 292 298 237 327 400 1,359 5,007 7,585 7,648 7,644 1,566 112 115 111 104 290 659 3,629 5,028 6,187 6,295 6,318 Township St. Oswald (part of):- Croxdale with "j Sunderland 1 Bridge Town- [ 1,438 250 224 204 283 262 204 227 355 1,372 1,359 1,402 ship J Darlington Ward — South-west Division Cockfield :— 4,491 539 577 688 1,013 1,187 887 1,256 1,294 1,785 2,266 2,545 Cockfield Town- 7,765 461 475 533 790 944 647 1,004 1,030 1,205 1,596 1,857 ship t Woodland 2,726 78 102 155 223 243 240 252 264 580 670 688 Township f 1 Morton Palms was first distinguished in 1831 ; it is supposed to have been previously returned with Haughton Township. '' See note ('}, p. 265. ^ Ferryhill. — A new village of Low Spennymoor built here between 1851 and 1861 266 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY TABLE OF POPULATION, 1801— 1901 {continued) Acre- Parish age 1801 1811 1821 1831 1841 1851 1861 1871 1881 1891 igoi Darlington Ward — South-west Division (cont.) Gainford (part 22,710 4,884 5,046 5,966 6,801 6,834 7,08 1 7,020 6,917 6,823 6,955 6,937 of):- Barnard Castle Chap, t Bolam Town- 4,077 2,966 2,986 3,581 4,430 4,452 4,608 4,477 4,278 4,269 4,525 4,594 1,013 93 121 121 115 119 125 113 111 117 134 141 ship Cleatham 1,124 73 103 126 94 95 107 95 101 125 87 88 Township ' Gainford 2,345 445 431 500 524 585 669 735 820 897 868 869 Township Headlam SOS 89 175 232 109 777 129 102 105 107 87 87 Township Langton 1,0S5 78 65 90 107 99 95 116 114 101 79 86 Township Marwood 3,711 156 177 212 200 224 205 241 200 197 174 166 Township f Morton Tin- 416 23 28 31 19 28 28 27 33 31 35 27 mouth Town- ship Piercebridge 973 193 231 236 278 224 235 211 253 206 219 207 Township Stainton and 2,952 272 232 251 324 373 344 351 387 340 299 292 Streatlam Township f Summerhouse S30 158 156 189 192 165 777 1S4 145 118 127 95 Township Westwick 1,467 93 95 97 98 67 63 76 91 74 72 78 Township Whorlton Chap4 1,969 245 246 300 311 286 296 292 279 241 249 207 Middleton in 40,929 1,843 2,218 2,866 3,714 3,787 3,972 4,557 A679 4,412 3,812 3,588 Teesdale : — Eggleston 8,073 306 335 464 623 617 636 788 756 747 653 560 Chap. 1 1 Forest and Frith 17,699 460 601 723 760 884 904 862 792 757 675 635 Township X Middleton in 10,497 796 988 1,263 1,824 1,770 1,849 2,266 2,386 2,292 2,008 1,987 Teesdale Township f Newbiggin 4,660 281 294 416 507 516 583 641 645 616 476 406 Township f Staindrop' : — 12,206 1,930 1,950 2,187 2,527 2,436 2,447 2,406 2,198 2,302 2,329 2,374 Hilton Town- ship Ingleton Town- 1,096 88 104 113 118 112 101 98 113 106 91 100 847 236 285 295 355 334 305 300 247 246 290 311 ship Langleydale and 4,692 143 160 198 217 185 163 220 178 224 237 257 Shotton Township f Raby and Kever- 2,814 213 201 203 247 284 313 295 270 280 266 246 stone Town- ship Staindrop 2,006 1,156 1,087 1,273 1,478 1,399 1,429 1,333 1,234 1,318 1,307 1,307 Township Wackerfield 751 94 113 105 112 122 136 160 156 128 138 153 Township Winston % • • ■ 3>044 307 284 287 327 293 301 342 336 334 312 344 Darlington Ward — North-west Division Auckland St. An- drew (part of):- 39,755 6,246 6,413 7,241 9,974 17,280 19,596 28,395 38,082 44,046 48,630 54,108 Auckland 7,275 121 135 119 296 1,367 1,329 7,40/ 1,811 2,289 3,110 3,508 St. Andrew Township ' Cleatham, although entirely shown in Gainford Ancient Parish, was stated to be partly in Staindrop Ancient Parish. 267 A HISTORY OF DURHAM TABLE OF POPULATION, 1801— igoi {coniinued) Acre- Parish age 1801 1811 1821 1831 1841 1S51 1861 1871 1S81 1S91 1901 Darlington Ward North-west Division (cont.) Auckland St. An- drew (part of — cont.) : Auckland 1,510 206 209 220 410 720 789 842 972 918 923 932 St. Helen Chap. Auckland, West 3,410 978 971 1,106 1,529 2,310 2,303 2,581 3,187 3,177 3,651 3,702 Township t Bedburn, North 2,858 245 282 351 387 457 1,151 1,771 2,305 2,426 2,503 2,437 Township f Bedburn, South 7,409 310 421 366 296 350 349 332 283 345 307 293 Township t Binchester 583 42 45 49 37 43 30 33 40 52 53 54 Township t Bishop Auckland 2,126 1,961 1,807 2,1S0 2,859 3,776 5,112 7,279 10,112 11,632 12,436 14,886 Township' f Coundon S24 163 163 222 475 990 1,073 2,765 3,148 3,510 3,671 3,801 Township t Evenwood and 5,433 769 719 785 1,019 1,729 1,381 2,674 3,060 2,954 3,882 4,428 Barony Town- ship f Hamsterley 2,967 491 529 552 503 490 532 522 475 493 510 545 Chap, t Hunwick and 1,594 122 150 160 164 338 486 1,203 1,558 2,086 2,115 2,225 Helmington Township f Lynesack and 6,375 517 602 732 795 910 787 1,120 1,386 2,347 2,760 2,989 Softley Township t Newfield 206 11 16 11 8 345 1,016 1,024 995 1,150 1,130 1,043 Township Newton Cap 1,681 114 134 145 156 US 280 404 1,030 1,349 1,503 1,506 Township \ Pollard's Lands 438 82 93 117 138 224 212 355 583 614 539 — Township ' f Shildon 598 101 124 115 867 2,631 2,144 2,947 5,574 6,946 7,870 9,011 Township Thickley, East 468 13 13 11 35 452 622 1,142 1,563 1,758 1,667 2,748 Township Brancepeth (ex- 21,239 1,508 1,481 1.905 1,449 2,151 6,041 14,353 24,617 35,160 39.279 40,492 cluding Whit- worth Par. Chap.) :— Brancepeth 4,565 367 455 539 329 352 470 1,496 1,558 1,567 1,964 1,952 Township "f Brandon and 6,840 522 435 609 478 467 525 1,486 4,273 10,853 14,242 15,579 Byshottles Township ^ t Crook and Billy 4,056 193 176 228 200 538 2,764 5,134 9,401 11,096 11,430 11,471 Row Town- ship Hedleyhope 1,653 47 48 51 72 48 91 93 381 1,504 1,418 1,274 Township ' Helmington 1,274 121 120 154 97 435 1,182 3,469 3,900 4,040 3,981 3,923 Row Town- ship t Stockley 1,347 89 62 103 57 53 44 282 712 1,094 1,137 1,073 Township \ Willington 1,504 169 185 221 216 25S 965 2,393 4,392 5,006 5,107 5,220 Township t Escombe Par. 1,063 162 190 232 282 510 1,293 3,743 4,313 3,982 3,449 3,678 Chap, t Lanchester (part of) Cornsay 3,oS8 234 254 249 230 201 370 367 1,432 2,327 2,275 2,255 Township t 1 Bishop Auckland and Pollard's Lands Townships are returned together in igor. "^ Brancepith and Brandon and Byshottles — The 1831 decrease in both is attributed to the removal of workmen employed in building Brancepeth Castle in 1821. ^ Htdleyhope, although shown entirely in Brancepeth Ancient Parish, was stated to be partly in Lanchester Ancient Parish. 268 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY TABLE OF POPULATION, 1801— 1901 {continued^ Acre- Parish age 1801 1811 1821 1831 1841 1851 1S61 1871 1881 i8gi 1 90 1 Darlington Ward North-west Division (cont.) Stanhope t ■ • ■ Si, 195 5, '55 6,376 7,341 9,541 7,063 8,882 9,654 10,330 8,793 8,045 7,777 Witton le Wear 3,i6S 450 544 531 502 565 918 1,366 2,329 2,469 2,601 2,783 Par. Chap, f X Wolsinghain ' t • 21,934 1,834 1,983 2,197 2,239 2,086 4,585 5,531 7,778 7,895 7,519 7,653 Easington Ward — North Division Bishopwearmouth : 9,225 7,806 8,810 11,542 16,590 27,092 35,035 50,541 67,253 88,102 103,048 118,851 Bishopwear- 2,669 6,126 7,060 9,477 14,462 24,206 31,824 45,673 59,032 74,441 87,648 99,437 mouth Town- ship Bishopwear- 6 564 476 483 363 298 316 272 264 193 68 5 mouth Panns Township Burdon 1,135 69 107 149 162 114 123 95 116 104 125 195 Township * Ford Township 1,029 602 712 791 911 1,720 1,922 2,036 2,477 2,631 2,737 2,954 Rvhope Chap. . 1,5S5 254 255 368 365 423 475 2,082 4,576 6,024 7,541 10,414 Silksworth 1,993 138 150 210 252 267 305 289 398 401 426 446 Township Tunstall 808 53 50 64 75 64 70 94 392 4,306 4,503 5,400 Township Chester le Street 3,2oS 1,211 1,205 1,884 2,950 2,297 2,182 2,058 2,294 2,492 2,648 2,717 (part of) : — Lambton 691 266 253 293 256 720 115 130 149 757 164 151 Township Lumley, Great 1,642 696 693 1,240 2,301 1,796 1,730 1,555 1,819 1,830 1,927 2,004 Township Lumley, Little 875 249 259 351 393 381 337 373 326 511 557 562 Township Dalton le Dale :— 4,439 185 181 211 1,305 2,709 5,125 8,432 10,376 12,650 14,912 I7,9'5 Dalton le Dale 812 40 52 49 73 88 83 102 128 118 134 339 Township Dawdon 1,101 22 27 35 1,022 2,017 3,538 6,137 7,132 7,714 9,044 10,163 Township ' Cold Hesledon 1,030 48 31 55 112 S3 117 89 99 108 682 899 Township Murton, East 1,496 75 71 72 98 521 1,387 2,104 3,017 4,710 5,052 6,514 Township Houghton le 15,575 6,414 8,339 12,550 20,524 16,833 20,284 22,582 27,135 35,"5 38,794 41,757 Spring :— Biddick, South 332 490 141 167 199 74 38 48 50 50 58 48 Township Bournmoor 513 889 955 1,139 938 891 891 973 1,206 1,355 1,362 1,449 Township Cocken 464 17 59 59 71 65 96 77 104 184 176 100 Township Eppleton, Great 706 35 28 43 47 74 63 71 87 55 78 65 Township Eppleton, Little 337 6 30 32 17 38 24 26 37 38 31 36 Township Herrington, East 1,037 123 161 133 229 231 250 242 221 159 206 279 and Middle Township \ Herrington, 1,022 209 253 329 381 343 344 752 832 3,017 3,601 3,769 West Town- ship! Hetton le Hole 1,617 212 264 919 5,887 4,158 5,664 6,419 7,935 10,945 12,726 13,673 Chap. Houghton le 1,551 996 1,356 2,905 3,917 3,433 4,075 4,741 5,276 6,041 6,476 7,858 Spring Town- ship ' Wohinsham. — Tow Law in this Parish, which gave name to a single village containing about 2,000 persons, ■^ Dawdon includes 183 seamen on vessels in 1841. 269 farmhouse in 1S41, had become in 1S51 a A HISTORY OF DURHAM TABLE OF POPULATION, 1801 — 1901 {continued) Acre- Parish age :8oi 1811 1821 1831 1841 1851 1861 1871 1881 1891 1901 Easington Ward — North Division (cont.) Houghton le Spring (cont.) Moor House 282 23 28 29 30 45 49 94 72 71 90 89 Township Moorsley 603 36 43 48 748 821 942 973 1,025 1,078 1,108 1,033 Township Morton Grange 462 188 251 308 295 185 185 220 226 194 209 238 Township Newbottle 1,454 970 1,224 2,306 2,198 1,835 2,067 2,674 3,508 4,740 5,552 5,742 Township Offerton 847 77 175 198 190 200 218 172 136 137 112 159 Township f Painshaw Chap. 1,087 1,399 2,275 2,090 2,539 1,912 2,120 2,075 2,495 2,605 2,918 3,777 Rainton, East 1,091 294 455 671 1,600 1,414 1,695 1,505 1,611 1,680 1,510 1,422 Township Rainton, West 1,631 435 629 1,160 1,184 1,054 1,509 1,447 2,237 2,670 2,496 1,938 Chap, t Warden Law 499 15 12 14 54 60 54 73 77 96 85 82 . Township Seaham : — 2,917 211 247 198 264 328 929 2,827 3.030 3,'85 5,026 5,544 Seaham 1,525 115 121 103 130 153 729 2,591 2,802 2,989 4,798 3,285 Township Seaton and 1,392 96 126 95 134 175 200 236 228 196 228 259 Slingley Township Sunderland ' . . 220 12,412 12,289 14,725 17,060 17,022 19,058 17,107 16,861 '5,333 14,558 14,238 Easington Ward — South Division Castle Eden % . . 1.949 362 257 281 260 558 491 535 693 880 1,257 1,354 Easington : — 13.524 944 1,060 1,112 1,390 5,573 7,062 7.336 10,449 9,829 9,843 9,673 Easington 5,073 487 542 593 693 812 916 1,073 1,428 1,260 1,262 1,731 Township Haswell 3,224 93 114 lis 263 3,981 4,356 4,165 5,623 6,156 6,276 5,512 Township Hawthorn 1,520 114 118 140 162 177 183 227 268 282 330 513 Township Shotton 3,707 250 286 264 272 603 1,607 1,871 3,130 2,131 1,975 1,917 Township Kelloe :— 11,235 553 654 679 663 11,223 12,278 12,867 12,069 13,398 11,834 16,881 Cassop 1,636 53 59 78 69 1,076 1,769 1,661 783 596 691 653 Townshipt Coxhoe 1,058 117 171 132 154 3,904 4,101 4,171 3,749 2,455 3,133 3,278 Township Kelloe Church 1,596 80 72 101 102 156 149 530 509 937 976 1,050 Township Quarrington 1,622 112 143 177 173 732 1,063 1,056 865 329 501 957 Townshipt Thornley 1,148 56 58 60 50 2,730 2,740 3,306 3,059 3,132 2,070 2,938 Township Wingate 4,175 135 151 131 115 2,625 2,456 2,143 3,104 5,949 4,463 8,005 Township Hart (part of) : — 1,185 29 39 33 38 33 42 40 37 41 50 35 Nesbitt 333 5 5 9 10 12 11 12 7 10 11 13 Township Thorpe Bulmer 852 24 34 24 28 21 31 28 30 31 39 22 Township Monk Hesledon: — 6,903 412 411 470 463 935 2,709 2,077 2,351 4,422 7,143 4,038 Hutton Henry 2,017 156 155 774 162 287 1,067 392 539 1,825 3,151 2,578 Township Monk Hesledon 2,540 150 148 164 176 490 1,495 1,533 1,636 2,421 3,819 1,302 Township 1 Sunderland. — The population in 1801 is exclusive of 1,249 seamen and 322 keelmen. 270 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY TABLE OF POPULATION, 1801 —1 90 1 {continued] Parish Acre- age 1801 1811 1821 1831 1841 1851 1861 1871 1881 1891 1901 Easington Ward — South Division (cont.) Monk Hesledon {cont.) Sheraton with 2,346 106 108 132 125 158 147 152 176 176 173 158 Hulam Town- ship St. Oswald (part of):— Shincliffe 1,378 244 282 367 302 1,137 1,175 1,544 2,123 969 640 784 Township Pittington : — 6,830 656 762 808 2,205 4,577 6,241 5,699 5,345 6,741 6,801 6,994 Pittington 2,676 220 277 304 1,632 2,295 2,530 2,155 2,106 2,424 2,389 2,449 Township f Shadforth 2,904 184 226 223 236 336 1,348 1,164 1,064 1,677 1,424 1,495 Township Sherburn 1,310 252 259 281 337 1,946 2,363 2,380 2,175 2,640 2,988 3,050 Township Sherburn Hospital 740 80 56 67 59 86 34 186 142 196 217 235 Extra Par. Trimdon .... 2,495 278 274 302 276 382 1,598 2,975 3,266 3,057 4,136 4,844 Whitwell House 643 27 17 38 32 173 160 180 143 135 210 174 Extra Par. Stockton Ward — North-east Division Billingham ; — 10,394 962 940 1,154 1,212 1,653 1,811 2,166 2,749 3,221 4,437 5,483 Billingham 3,036 335 341 395 401 782 723 931 1,022 1,488 2,675 3,729 Township Cowpen Bewley 3,348 128 125 132 137 196 217 448 970 997 1,051 1,026 Township Newton Bewley 1,564 88 84 S6 92 87 121 134 132 131 126 121 Township Wolviston 2,446 411 390 541 582 588 750 653 625 605 585 607 Chap. Bishop Middle- 6,241 738 813 827 837 1,434 1,719 2,272 4,175 3,377 5,313 5,956 ham : — Bishop Middle- 2,087 331 391 404 387 511 446 432 506 480 445 552 ham Town- ship Comforth 1,758 324 327 330 353 700 1,040 1,619 3,416 2,553 4,459 5,060 Township Garmondsway 1,149 28 41 35 43 157 129 125 109 156 160 111 Moor Town- ship Mainsforth 652 55 40 44 39 42 59 58 51 114 158 144 Township Thrislington 595 — 14 14 15 24 45 38 93 74 91 89 Township Elwick Hall t . . 4,438 129 129 176 169 .65 187 206 217 166 178 258 Greatham J : — 3,372 484 453 4S4 551 687 700 779 768 788 918 949 Claxton Town- 8S1 42 46 38 32 52 49 55 51 51 48 40 ship Greatham 2,491 442 407 446 519 635 651 724 717 737 870 909 Township Grindon : — 4,29; 363 275 314 384 337 317 343 490 1,026 1,481 1,490 Grindon Town- 3,511 325 230 255 309 285 267 303 348 345 400 391 ship J Whitton Town- ship Hart (part of) : — 784 38 45 59 75 52 50 40 142 681 1,081 1,099 6,644 517 523 590 624 695 878 1,380 2,543 4,353 6,666 9, J 75 Dahon Piercy 1,006 70 68 75 79 78 91 98 69 82 86 103 Township Elwick Town- ship Hart Township 1,537 170 179 213 232 238 250 240 247 228 206 256 2,465 219 228 231 243 278 297 297 309 291 291 300 Throston 1,636 58 48 77 70 101 240 745 1,918 3,752 6,083 8,516 Township Hartlepool . . . 139 993 1,047 1,249 1,330 5,236 9,503 12,245 13,166 12,361 14,585 14,074 271 A HISTORY OF DURHAM TABLE OF POPULATION I, 1801- — 1901 continued) Parish Acre- age 1801 1811 1821 1831 1841 1851 i86i 1871 1881 iSgi 1901 Stockton Ward- North-east Division (cont.) Sedgefield :— 17.839 1,756 1,936 1,955 2,178 2,105 2,192 2,656 2,940 3,505 3,712 4,108 Bradbury 2,111 106 125 752 147 167 171 174 165 193 223 242 Township Butterwick 1,543 60 49 54 38 51 64 48 58 61 51 40 Township Embleton 3,425 98 105 102 105 98 113 136 129 114 147 134 Township Fishburn 2,126 154 171 192 212 239 261 255 288 317 290 323 Township Foxton and 1,S03 53 62 63 73 44 58 56 49 48 52 58 Shotton Town- ship Mordon Town- 1,572 101 117 124 174 161 163 179 203 171 133 144 ship Sedgefield 5,259 1,184 1,307 1,268 1,429 1,345 1,362 1,808 2,048 2,601 2,816 3,167 Township Stainton, 1,996 141 .36 154 248 132 ■55 140 156 172 147 125 Great % :— Elstob Town- ship Stainton, Great 738 37 29 28 94 27 38 30 49 74 59 49 1,258 104 107 126 154 105 117 110 107 98 88 76 Township Stranton : — 6,997 610 659 704 736 2,106 4,769 14,515 23,246 30,9 H 44,252 63,756 Brierton Town- 762 22 •\ / 21 22 27 33 30 27 37 38 41 ship Seaton Carew 3,404 263 = 659\ 312 333 588 728 SS4 1,053 1,734 2,388 2,253 Township Stranton Town- 2,831 325 ) I 371 381 1,491 4,008 13,601 22,166 29,143 41,826 61,462 ship Stockton Ward— South-west Division {excluding Craike Parish) Bishopton X : — 4,175 450 408 453 512 473 4 84 448 515 459 460 416 Bishopton 2,178 349 312 365 423 362 365 342 409 350 357 322 Township Newbicigin, East 852 42 34 26 35 37 37 33 44 39 40 36 and West Township Stainton, Little 1,145 59 62 62 54 74 82 73 62 70 63 58 Township Low Dinsdale X . 1,174 loS 125 III 169 169 157 208 243 252 221 238 Egglescliffe X '■ — 4,93' 420 476 542 625 628 701 698 729 844 965 1,426 Aislaby Town- 2,318 116 148 166 143 128 141 752 142 125 108 128 ship f Egglescliffe 1,523 270 293 332 424 443 493 496 539 655 791 1,240 Township Newsham 1,090 34 35 44 58 57 67 50 48 64 66 58 Township f Elton t . . . . 1,444 78 76 105 103 92 84 108 90 "3 106 113 Haughton le 3,719 563 547 499 578 510 520 494 473 498 475 525 Skeme (part of):- Coatham Mun- 1,631 172 151 184 175 138 149 139 125 127 138 129 deville Town- ship t Sadberge Chap. 2,088 391 396 315 403 372 371 355 348 371 337 396 Hurworth X ■ — 4,075 867 960 1,124 1,348 1,599 1,449 1.525 1,722 1,940 1,774 1,761 Hurworth 2,438 661 692 811 1,017 1,235 1,154 1,192 1,357 1,519 1,439 1,377 Township Neasham 1,637 206 268 313 331 364 295 333 365 421 335 384 Township Middleton St. 2,516 215 202 209 299 433 332 294 826 1,103 870 1,157 George Newton, Long . . 4,3" 29s 253 338 313 293 325 353 313 268 287 386 272 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY TABLE OF POPULATION, 1801 — 1901 {continued) Acre- Parish age 1801 1811 1821 1831 1841 1851 1861 1871 1881 1891 1901 Stockton Ward — South-^vest Division {excluding Craike Parish) (cont.) Norton 1 1 • • • 4,653 965 1,053 1,186 1,486 1,628 1,725 2,317 2,824 3,195 3,778 4,523 Redmarshall : — 3,52s 228 223 264 335 272 332 278 320 350 360 389 Carlton Chap. 1,300 99 105 140 183 157 186 176 185 209 217 254 Redmarshall 875 60 76 75 56 48 76 62 75 91 78 55 Township Stillington 1,153 69 42 49 96 67 70 40 60 50 65 80 Chap. Sockburn (part 712 34 37 43 50 42 43 59 35 44 44 74 of) ' Stockton upon 5,324 4,177 4,406 5,184 7,991 10,071 10,459 13,761 28,339 42,242 50,653 52,833 Tees :— Hartburn, East 1,045 104 7 75 121 152 13S 174 163 20s 360 474 559 Township Preston upon 1,117 64 62 57 76 111 113 111 110 163 156 521 Tees Town- ship Stockton upon 3,162 4,009 4,229 5,006 7,763 9,825 10,172 13,487 28,021 41,719 50,023 51,753 Tees Town- ship t Durham City Castle Precincts 9 55 — 138 57 24 29 38 35 37 and Site of Old Gaol Extra ■ Par. 2 University Extra 28 106 103 112 61 86 84 62 91 66 107 83 Par. St. Mary-le-Bow 14 477 552 44S 501 308 269 300 324 334 302 294 (or North Bailey) ^ J St. Mary-the-Less 4 ■54 ii8 157 128 87 104 106 liS no 103 133 (or South Bailey)''! St. Nicholas t • . 73 1,754 1,958 2,215 2,265 2,757 3,031 2,606 2,482 2,134 2,167 1,886 St. Oswald (part of) ■ — 8,077 4,099 4,316 5,598 5,903 7,379 9,366 11,057 12,519 15,323 15,049 16,389 Crossgate Chap. 504 1,201 1,011 1,454 1,403 1,712 2,074 2,591 3,123 3,799 3,907 4,710 El vet (Barony 3,891 1,S27 2,115 2,621 2,916 3,344 4 207 4,140 4,848 6,293 5,596 5,974 and Borough) Township f 1 Framwell<;ate 3,682 1,071 1,190 1,523 1,584 2,323 3,085 4,326 4,548 5,231 5,546 1 5,705 Township t St. Giles (or Gilli- gate) Magdalen Place (or 1,729 940 906 1,237 l,V7 3,396 5,423 6,135 5,852 5,420 5,394 5,854 27 . 18 16 27 16 17 St. Mary Mag- dalen) Extra Par. General Notes for Durham 1. Many of the great fluctuations in the population of some of the places in the Table are occasioned by the expansion or depression of the coal-mining industry. 2. The abnormal increases in population in 1831 and 1841 of some of the places in the Table are mainly due to the presence of labourers on railway vi'ork. 1 Sockburn — The part in Durham is known as Sockburn Township. The remainder of thi-; Ancient Parish is in Yorkshire (North Ridms). ^ Castle Precincts and Site of Old Gaol. — Castle Precincts in 1801, 1811, and 1831 was included in St. Mary-le-Boui Parish. Site of Old Gaol included in St. Mary-Ie-Bow Parish in 1801, and in 1811-31 in St. Mary-the-Less Parish Rightly shown together 1841-1901. 273 35 A HISTORY OF DURHAM 3. The Parishes which are divided are all entirely in this County, unless a note is made to the contrary. 4. The following Municipal Boroughs and Urban Districts are co-extensive at the Census of 1 90 1 with one or more places mentioned in the Table : — Municipal Borough, or Urbaa District Crook U.D Hetton U.D Houghton le Spring U.D. Ryton U.D Seaham Harbour U.D. Shildon and East Thicldey U.D. South Shields M.B. Place Crook and Billy Row Township (Darlington Ward — North-west Division) Hetton le Hole Chapelry (Easington Ward — North Division) Houghton le Spring Township (Easington Ward — North Division) Crawcrook, Ryton, and Ryton Woodside Townships (Chester Ward — West Division) Dawdon Township (Easington Ward — North Division) Shildon and East Thickley Townships (Darlington Ward — North- west Division) South Shields and Westoe Townships (Chester Ward — East Division) 274 INDUSTRIES INTRODUCTION THE industrial development of the county of Durham, except in re- spect of mining, is of late date. The constant inroads of the Scots, the isolation from the rest of England which resulted from its position as a county palatine, the ruthlessness of Newcastle in suppressing any possible rival, all tended to retard its progress. But from an historical point of view the mass of details available concerning the early salt and iron trades amply compensates for the tardiness of the county in reaching a full industrial development. All the towns of more than a few thousand inhabitants lie to the east of a line drawn from Gateshead through Durham to Darlington ; the west of the county though containing many mining villages is sparsely populated. In spite of this limited area it has succeeded in crowding into its industrial life illus- trations of many of the most interesting phases of economic development. This is the more remarkable as the county is by no means rich in gild records, the source of so much of our knowledge of early trade. Little has been pre- served concerning the gilds of the city of Dur- ham ; Gateshead alone of Durham towns can supply adequate materials for a picture of gild life. For so many centuries episcopal influence was the controlling factor in determining the lines along which Durham should develop that there is a certain dramatic fitness in the earliest in- formation of the industrial activity of the county being the fact recorded by Bede that the art of glass-making was taught to the English by the foreigners brought from Gaul by Benedict Biscop to glaze the windows of the great abbey he was building at Wearmouth. When, after an inter- mission of more than a thousand years, glass- making was once more begun on the Wear, and Sunderland became for a time one of the best- known centres of the industry, the site of the nineteenth-century glass-works was not far from the spot where the seventh-century glass-blowers plied their trade, and among the employees in the modern works numbers of French workmen too were included. Unfortunately there is no corresponding early account of the salt industry, though in all maritime counties the salt-maker was from the earliest times an important member of even the smallest village community, and the great monastic establishments of Wearmouth and Jarrow, aamirably placed for producing this necessity of life, doubtless made salt by evapora- tion for their own use. But what the salt trade, as compared with the glass trade, loses in antiquity it gains in continuity. In the possession of MSS. giving an uninterrupted account of an industry from the thirteenth to the twentieth century, Durham has a heritage of the utmost historical importance. Each link in the chain of events which connects the granting of a salt-pan at Hart for the rental of a pair of white gloves in 1290 to the export of salt from the Cerebos Works at Greatham in 1907 can be supplied from authentic records. A fourteenth-century trades directory seems an anachronism, but a MS. is extant which shows that William Pult, William Assom, William de Thorp, Gilbert Boys, William Schephyrd, John Golding, Thomas de Schorneton, Gilbert son of John, William son of Roger, Thomas Mart, John Staneson, Richard Pult, Gilbert Wodrof, William de Seton, and Thomas de Ferry at their twenty- four salt-pans were engaged in 1396 in making salt at Cowpen, practically in the same way in which salt is now being made at Greatham only a mile distant, the one difference being that the fourteenth-century salt-makers used sea water, and the modern salt-maker bores 1,000 ft. into the earth for his brine. Nor is it only as a study in continuity that the Durham salt trade repays investigation. The misdirected energy of the Stuarts in attempting to interfere with the economic freedom of the people was an important factor in bringing about their downfall. The impression among all classes that the Stuart industrial innovations were beneficial to the king but prejudicial to the com- munity was universal and possibly justifiable. It is as a source of information of the Stuart methods of producing the maximum of irritation with the minimum of financial profit, that the history of the company of the salt-makers of North and South Shields stands unrivalled. In the eighteenth century the centre of in- terest moves from the salt to the iron trade. The settlements at Winlaton and Swalwell which owed their initiation to the enlightened 275 A HISTORY OF DURHAM despotism of Ambrose Crowley afford an inter- esting example of one of the earliest efforts after industrial betterment. The attempt to found a new industry at Shotley Bridge by bringing over German sword- makers from the world-renowned Soligen was a reversion on the one side to the methods of Burghley ; but there is an essential difference be- tween the Elizabethan experiments and the attempt in the reign of Anne : the one was the work of a statesman, the other of a private com- pany. The disaster of the Stuarts was too fresh in every one's mind for quasi-royalist company- promoting to be countenanced. But . to turn from these interesting industrial experiments to the region of inventions, here too Durham can claim to have left her mark. It seems but natural that a maritime county the chief indus- try of which is ship-building should have been the birthplace of the lifeboat, and the honour of this invention undoubtedly belongs to South Shields. Durham has never taken a foremost part in the textile industry ; still, a Darlington man, John Kendrew, was the first to apply machinery to the spinning of flax, though it was the Marshals of Leeds who utilized the inven- tion on a sufKciently large scale to render it a financial success. Coal is the staple industry of Durham, and Bailey in his well-known General View of the Agriculture of the County claims for George Dixon the discovery of coal tar. The discovery is generally attributed to Lord Dundonald, but he did not take out his patent until 1781, when George Dixon had been supplying the Sunderland shipbuilders with coal tar from his works at Cockfield near Barnard Castle for fully two years. Dixon claimed to have arrived at his results twenty years before putting them into practice. On the other hand there is no evidence to prove that Dundonald took out his patent as soon as he made his dis- covery, in fact, as he was generally penniless, the immediate realization of his discovery is im- probable. There is, however, not the slightest doubt that Dixon was a man of ingenious and inventive mind. He was unquestionably among the first to realize the potentialities for illuminat- ing purposes that lay in coal. Bailey describes with every mark of verisimilitude being present as a boy when Dixon with the very rudest appli- ances, a kettle half filled with coal, tobacco pipes, a lump of clay for fastening the pipe to the spout, and a hot fire, succeeded in producing a brilliant light. A serious explosion which took place while Dixon was pursuing further investiga- tions into the nature of coal tar led him to abandon all hope of being able to apply his dis- covery practically. The use of gas for the light- ing of mines or houses seemed to him fraught with too much danger to be feasible. Unfor- tunately somewhat the same story is told of Dun- donald. It is impossible to decide between the 276 rival claims of two men working at the same time at the same subject, but Dundonald is universally accepted as the inventor of coal-tar; the patent too stands in his name, and as, according to Bailey himself, Dixon relinquished the manufacture in 1783 as unprofitable, Dun- donald seems substantially to have the greater claim. It is, however, beyond dispute that friction matches were invented at Stockton. In April, 1827, Mr. John Walker, a chemist by trade, but a scientific investigator by nature and training, while experimenting with an explosive mixture dashed some of it on the hearth-stone, the friction produced explosion, and suggested to the experi- menter the idea of the friction match. The first box sold contained fifty matches, made like the old-fashioned fusees with double tips ; a piece of folded sand-paper was supplied with each box, the total cost being a shilling. The exact com- position of the mixture was never divulged, but Walker described the contents of the box as sulphurated hyperoxygenated matches, and it is doubtless owing to his lack of business capacity that he derived but slight advantage from his invention.^ Before the introduction of railways trade followed the rivers. Iron and steel forges and paper-mills clustered round the Derwent, abundant coal and iron were near it, and the rapid fall in the lower part of the river supplied a motive power of more importance at that time than in these days of electricity and steam. On the southern banks of the Tyne, salt, glass, and, at a later date, chemicals and shipbuilding were the chief industries. A network of mills — linen, wool, and worsted — were on either side of the Skerne ; and the same description fits both Wear and Tees — carpet-weaving in the higher reaches of the river, shipbuilding and potteries in the lower. But Durham is the home of lost indus- tries ; at the beginning of the nineteenth century the county had a world-wide reputation for pottery, glass, carpets, linen, leather, mustard, and nails ; for all practical purposes these industries are now extinct. Almost all the towns had their tanneries. Darlington especially, in the days of slow methods and excellent wear before chrome and chemicals were so exten- sively used, counted amongst its inhabitants many tanners and many dyers ; now worsted has to be sent into Yorkshire to be dyed, and one small tannery represents the multitude of tan-yards given in early directories and maps. When Arthur Young travelled through the north, he reports that round the city of Durham there is much mustard cultivated. The farmers sow it alone, on good rich moist ground, and on that which is pared and burnt. They get from thirty to one hundred bush<;ls per acre, some crops worth ;^I0O an acre have been known. 1 Arch. Ael. (New Ser.), vii, 217. INDUSTRIES John Timbs gives a circumstantial account of the way in which an old woman named Clements residing in Durham in 1720 invented a method of extracting the full flavour from the mustard, the details of which method she refused to impart to anyone ; George I and the various notabilities of the capital are said to have patronized her. How much truth there is in the story it is difficult to gauge accurately, but the fact remains that within the memory of many people Durham mustard was highly esteemed for its extreme pungency, and the industry was sufficiently flourishing to keep one of the Gateshead potteries busy in supplying the pots in which to send it away. The Durham mustard trade was killed by the competition of an article with less flavour but at a lower price. How far the competition of Germany is answerable for the collapse of the trade in earthenware is a difficult question to decide. The study of the history of the individual potteries leaves the impression that an important if not the determining factor in the matter was the incapacity of the managers who were installed on the death of the original founders. Many of the potteries came into the market at the moment when the rapid development of the iron and shipping industries led men to prefer to place their capital where a high rate of profit and a quick return could be commanded. Speculation was in the air ; frugal men, contented to watch the development of their own trade, had built up the pottery business ; unfortunately they did not succeed in handing down their own traditions to their sons, and the firm often consisted of persons ignorant of the details of the business. The situations of Sunderland, Stockton, and South Shields near the mouths of rivers gave them an advantage over the Staffordshire pot- teries ; and the success of the Malings at New- castle, who left Sunderland early in the last century, suggests the inference that had the Durham firms been willing to put energy, brains, capital, and new machinery into the potteries, Wearside and Tees-side might have held their own against competition, foreign or home. Another factor which must not be overlooked in accounting for the decay of both the glass and the pottery trades is that sometimes the site of the works was required for the extension of the shipyards, and the temptation to sell out when trade was not very flourishing was irresistible, especially when, as during the boom of shipping, shipbuilders were willing to pay enormously for land in the immediate neighbourhood of the shipyard. The loss of the carpet and dress material manufactures was doubtless partly due to the geographical position of Durham, Darlington, and Barnard Castle, the places chiefly associated with the trades. Buyers rightly prefer a market where, if one establishment does not supply their wants, they can without loss of time find another in the neighbourhood ; the centralization of northern textile industries in the West Riding of Yorkshire is economically sound, though the pathos of a decaying industry tends to make one overlook the inherent weakness of its claims to sympathy. The closing of the American market militated seriously against the Durham trade, and the more extensive use of linoleum against the cheaper carpets made at Barnard Castle. Nails were once extensively manufactured ; now Messrs. Galloway, of Gateshead, are the only important dealers. The trade has gone to Staffordshire. The fact of the extensive em- ployment of women in Staffordshire, with the consequent lessening of the cost of production, may be one reason why Durham, where, except in the textile industries, the employment of women is rare, has ceased to be a nail-making centre. Now that the potteries have vanished, and the manufacture of glass gone to Lancashire, the capital and energies of the county have concen- trated during the last fifty years on the building of ships, the working of iron, and the making of chemicals. This change has seriously affected the distribution of wealth and population ; Hartlepool, Barnard Castle, Bishop Auckland, and Durham, proud of their historic past, naturally mourn their lost precedence, but Con- sett, Blackhill, Spennymoor, have practically been created by the iron industry, Jarrow and West Hartlepool by the shipping and timber trade. In the midst of the enormous iron and steel works which spread like a net over many parts of Durham, it is difficult to realize how modern the trade is. But until the application of steam engines to the working of blast furnaces at the end of the eighteenth century, which almost immediately doubled the production of pig iron, the output in Durham was very small. The iron trade made steady progress for the first half of the nineteenth century, for the next quarter it grew rapidly, but the substitution of steel for iron rails about 1876, and, a few years later, of steel plates for iron plates in shipbuilding, has revolutionized the trade. In shipbuilding, the Durham tradition ot a firm handed down from father to son, the family system, still continues ; but in the iron and steel industry, except in the case of Bell Brothers, at Port Clarence (geographically a Durham firm, but for convenience of classification generally included as a Middlesbrough firm), there is no such continuity. The most marked feature of the steel industry in Durham during the last few years has been the amalgamation of many of the large works under one directorate ; the same applies to the chemical works ; the gradual sub- stitution of a trust system as contrasted with the family system of the last century is clearly dis- cernible throughout the county. 277 A HISTORY OF DURHAM During the initial stages of its industrial development the county of Durham owed much to imported energy. The influence of the Cooksons from the middle of the eighteenth to the middle of the nineteenth century, and of the Peases during the nineteenth century, cannot be overrated ; but both these families belonged to other counties — the one came from Cumberland, the other from Yorkshire. The rapid growth of Sunderland was one of the marvels of the early Victorian age. The zeal with which Sunderland had espoused the Parliamentary cause was prophetic, for it was as a town free from gild or corporation restrictions that later she was to appeal to England. It is true that the Stallingers or 'the Freemen of the ancient borough of Sunderland,' as they grandiloquently styled themselves, appropriated various rights often taken by gild fraternities or corporations ; but a certain sense of incongruity in their environment, and a knowledge of the slender basis on which their pretensions rested, restrained them from much active interference. No one in Sunderland seems to have taken the Stallingers very seriously except themselves. But at one time Sunderland stood to England in the relation that the Colonies do to-day. The restless son of the Yorkshire dalesman, chafing at the restric- tions of narrow country life, was attracted to Sunderland by the somewhat lawless traditions of the place, while the absence of all trade restrictions naturally appealed to the Scots. When the stolidity and caution of the York- shireman was tempered by the strenuosity and enterprise of the Scotchman, a type was pro- duced whose tenacity of purpose is nowhere more clearly shown than in the history of the struggles to overcome the natural defects of the River Wear. But not only does the removal of the impedi- ments to navigation in the Wear show the energy of Sunderland. Its iron bridge, designed by Tom Paine, and executed by the enterprise of Roland Burdon, points the same moral. It was among the early iron bridges in England ; ^' built in 1796, its single span of iron excited the greatest wonder and some alarm. A local poet celebrated thus the completion of the work : — Sunderland Bridge Ye Sons of Sunderland, with shouts that rival ocean's roar, Hail Burdon in his iron boots, that strides from shore to shore. O may ye firm support each leg, or much, O much I fear Poor Roland may o'erreach himself in striding cross the Wear. A Patent quickly issue out, lest some more bold than he Should put on larger boots, and stride across the Sea ! Then let us pray for speedy peace, lest Frenchmen should come over, And, following Burden's iron plan, from Calais stride to Dover.' As an engineering feat the building of the Sunderland bridge at the time was rightly re- garded as marvellous, and it still claims our admira- tion as the symbol of the enterprising and pro- gressive spirit that dominated the town. Stockton was once the centre of acorn-growing district, and so fruitful was the land in the neigh- bourhood of Hartlepool that ' Those of the cor- poration afKrm that with six weeks' warning they can provide corn for an army, and the like for butter and cheese.' ^ Even as late as 1832 about one-third of the labouring class of Durham were engaged in agriculture, but these t'lings seem incredible as one looks at the intersecting blast furnaces, collieries, engineering works, shipyards, and chemical works that extend in an almost un- broken line from Jarrow, through South Shields, Sunderland, Hartlepool, Stockton, and Clarence, to the mouth of the Tees. IRON AND STEEL The heaps of iron scoriae which still remain scattered over the west of the county of Durham, far distant from any known iron works of modern times, point to the working of iron at a very early date.^ These mounds of slag are, it is true, generally in the neighbourhood of known Roman stations. The iron and steel discovered '' The first iron bridge was over the Severn, built in 1779. ^- Cunningham, Grotvlh of English Industry and Commerce ; Modern Times, 525. ' The Bishoprick Garland. Collected by Sir Cuth- bert Sharp, 1834. ' S.P.Dom.Chas.I,Feb.i638-9, vol.4i2,No. 57. at Vinovium may possibly be of local manu- facture ; still, in the absence of the discovery of tools or coins of Roman origin among the slag, it remains an open question whether the ore was worked during the period of the Roman occupation, or not until mediaeval times. The evidence of the Pipe Rolls of Richard I and John disprove Scrivenor's statement that the ' Sir Isaac L. Bell, ' Manufacture of Iron,' Industrial Resources of Tyne, Tees, and Wear, 82 ; W. H. D. LongstafFe, ' Durham before the Conquest,' Proc. Arch. Inst. Newcastle, 1852, p. 72. 78 INDUSTRIES iron of the north of England was rarely worked from the Conquest to the death of John,^ while later records show that a considerable amount of iron was produced during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The bishops of Durham, however, sent to Spain when in need of iron of superior quality. Little information is extant as to the methods adopted in the early ironworks, whether Roman or mediaeval. Probably the ore was sandwiched between layers of charcoal and placed in tall furnaces, the site being carefully selected on a high hill or in a draughty valley, the wind thus providing a capricious but natural bellows. Two tunnels have been discovered on the side of a hill near Lanchester, thought by Collingwood Bruce to be of Roman origin.' These tunnels taper from a wide mouth and converge on a point where the furnaces were placed. The mouths were towards the west, from which quarter the wind in that valley principally blows. The happy discovery by Mr. Lapsley among a miscellaneous bundle of Auditors' Records in the Public Record Office of the account roll of John Dalton, the first Durham ironmaster of whose work any accurate account is extant, throws a flood of light on the subject during the fifteenth century. This extremely interesting document gives a detailed and consecutive account of the working of some newly-erected furnaces from 1 2 June, 1408, to II November, 1409. Up to this date the bishop had apparently put the mineral products of the Palatinate out to farm ; but Bishop Langley tried the experiment of running a forge of his own, and put the venture into the hands of John Dalton. The history of the enterprise subsequent to 1409 is not recorded ; possibly it was unsuccessful ; though the mana- ger seems to have put both energy and foresight into his work, for he visited a neighbouring forge to get an insight into the best methods of working his own. It is impossible to settle with complete certainty the precise site of the new undertaking. ' Byrkeknott juxta Bedbourne ' has disappeared, but pro- bably Mr. Lapsley is right in identifying it with Bedburn Forge, a very small hamlet close to Bedburn Beck, between Hamsterley and Wolsingham. A foundry was carried on there in the early nineteenth century,* but the buildings are now used as a stocking factory. Any ambiguity there may be about the position of the bishop's forge is amply compensated for by the precise description that is given of the erection of the works. Two furnaces — a ' blomeharth,' where the ore passed through the ' H. Scrivener, Hist, of the Iron Trade, 6. ' J. C. Bruce, Tke Roman Wall, 433-4. * White & Parson, Dir. Northumb. and Dur. 1828, p. 234. preliminary process of smelting, and a ' stryng- harth,' where any impurities that still remained were got rid of, and the iron was heated for its second working by hand into vendible shape — were erected by local workmen under the super- vision of John Dalton.^ Probably the furnace discovered and described by Mr. Richardson in 1884 was somewhat of the same nature. It had an internal diameter at its widest part of from five to six feet, contracted at its boshes to about 1 8 inches. Higher up the bank was found a heap of iron ore, where it had probably been placed to be calcined before being put into the furnace. About 30 loads of slag, some birch charcoal, and some lime- stone for flux were found round the furnace, and at the bottom of the furnace were a few small lumps of imperfectly smelted iron. . . . . the water of the burn furnished the power for the blast. The furnace was entirely built and lined with stone, and no bricks were found.^ These primitive methods were a slight advance on the very earliest fashion of smelting, for an artificial blast was produced by a bellows, kept in motion by a wheel' turned by water from the dammed-up stream. Apparently this was the sole mechanical appliance, for no forge hammer is mentioned among the detailed list of tools given. The stafF consisted of the general manager, John Dalton ; a collier, who prepared the char- coal from the brushwood of the neighbouring forest ; a ' blomesmyth ' or ' smy thman ' in charge of the ' blomeharth,' and a ' faber ' working at the ' stryngharth.' Some additional help must have been required, and from a reference to William Aycle, who undertook a journey to Yorkshire in order to procure workpeople, it may reasonably be conjectured that more hands were employed than are specifically enumerated. The employ- ment of the wives of the foreman and smith lends an air of domesticity to the little settlement. The wife of John Gyll, 'the blomesmyth,' seems to have been a general factotum ; sometimes helping her husband or the labourers, then work- ing at the bellows. At first her employment was intermittent and her payment irregular, but later she seems to have settled down to fixed employment at a regular rate of \d. a blome, i.e. a weight of 15 stones of 13 pounds each. ' R. Dur. Aud. Rec. 5, 149, printed in Engl. Hist. Rev. xiv, 509-29. * J. C. Hodgson, Hist, of Northumb. vi, 161. ' At the bishop's forge we hear of the making of a ' water gate ' and a waterwheel and of ' les spowtes lignea ducentia aquam i dicto Watergate usque dictam rotam pendentem,' but it is doubtful whether water power was always applied for working the bellows, as the wife of the ' blomesmyth ' is not only mentioned as ' folles sufflans,' but also on occasion ' operariis auxi- lians ad le belowes.' 279 A HISTORY OF DURHAM Piece work and specialized employment was the order among the men. The collier was paid 2d. a load for burning the charcoal, the blome- smyth received dd. for smelting a blome, the same sum was paid to the faber for working over the iron at the stryngharth, id. z blome was given for cutting the iron into suitable lengths for sale. The output was not great according to modern standards ; but if we consider the primi- tive character of the appliances a weekly produc- tion of 2 tons is considerable. The account roll gives a clear picture of a self-sufficing community, working up materials procured in the immediate neighbourhood to supply the wants of the district, the enterprise being in the hands of local men, living on the scene of their labours, for four houses are men- tioned among the building operations undertaken in connexion with the forge, but having under them workmen from the neighbouring county. How long Bishop Langley continued the experiment is not recorded, but doubtless the iron obtained from the Durham mines, to which we have frequent reference in the fifteenth century, continued to be worked at local forges' under much the same conditions as at the forge of John Dalton. The fact, however, that in 1473 all the ' conyng iryns ' for the bishop's mint had to be supplied by William Omorighe of York, may point to a lack of competent workers in iron in the Palatinate.' Early in the sixteenth century another change was made in the management of the mineral wealth of the Palatinate. A committee consisting of Robert Chambers, chancellor of Durham, William Senoys, clerk, William Lee, and John Rakes"' was appointed, and two years later a surveyor .of mines was added. '^ No change of management made any difference to the prime factor in the retrogression of the iron trade — the scarcity of timber. Elizabeth legislated freely" to prevent further depredations, with the result that, according to Scrivenor, the ironworks in many parts of the country were stopped entirely, and in other parts materially decreased." The immediate effect of this legislation was probably to hinder the development of the Durham iron trade ; but the effect was not permanent, for a piteous picture is drawn by A.L. in 1629, in a ' Relation of Some Abuses against the Common- wealth composed especially for the County of ' Robert Kirkhous, ' irynbrenner,' in 1430 cove- nants to work certain forges, for which the bishop will furnish suitable ground and iron ore at a fixed rate. Dur. Curs. 37, m. 3 d. ' Dur. Curs. No. 49, m. 6. '» Ibid. No. 64, m. 6. " Ibid. No. 64, m. 23. '■•' I Eliz. cap. 5 ; 23 Eliz. cap. 5:27 Eliz. cap. 19 ; 28 Eliz. cap. 3, 5. " H. Scrivenor, The Iron Trade, 7. Durham,' '* of the reckless destruction of timber for smelting purposes. For wee have scarce a Lord or gentleman (entring to his bndes) but the first act wch hee doeth (after hee hath called a Court and inhansed his rentes) is to view his woodes, and if it can appcare that eyther the tymber (for building) the underwoods (for iron or lead workes) or the barke (for tanners) will yeild pre- sent money, then the woodes are the first thing wch come to ruine. ... I have often heard that the Spanyards (for the maintayninge of their iron workes) plant six trees for each one wch they cut downe ; but wee (to mainteyne iron workes, lead workes, tillage &c.) for each tree which wee plant cut downe six hundred (I might sale six thousand, for, in these partes, there is no such thing as planting or springing of woodes heard of) the consideracon whereof makes me thinke that such poore Bachellors as myselfe (wch have neither wives nor children) are happy men ; for to what purpose do men marry wives or beget chil- dren ? or how is it likely or possible that those wch succede us shall live, when wee (ourselves) use all meanes to destroie and waist our countries ? and (which is worse above all comparison than the rest) without all sence of sorrow for the same ! . . . There is one man, whose dwelling place is within twenty miles of the cittye of Durham, which hath brought to the grounde (to omitt all underwoades) above 30,000 oakes in his life tyme, and (if hee live longer) it is to be doubted, that hee will not leave as much tymber or other woode in this whole country as will repaire one of our churches if it should fall, his iron andleade workes do so fast consume the same. The extraordinary paucity of material concern- ing iron-working during the early Restoration period enhances the value of a bill, dated 1664, in the Mickleton MSS." It is the account of John Hodgshon, who had charge of the bishop's iron furnace ; the locality is not named ; the first item is a charge for repairs of the furnace, amounting to ;^4I "js. ^.d. Itm paid by him for the charges of getting Iron Stones and Coales for the blast last Somer and the Founders for casting ye Iron and other charges as 219. 18. 01. Sume 261. 05. 05. On the opposite page 'The Proffetts' are There was cast into rough from last somer 43tun. zhund. 2qr. at 5//. per tunne comes to 2 1 5. 15. 00. So that John Hodgshon was out ot puree more then ye rawe Iron was worth ye sume of 045. 10. 05. but he helps to repay himselfe by his having sold 6 tunne and a halfe of rawe Iron at 11/ per Tunne, which was cast into smelting hearthes at ye furnice and 3 Tunne drawn into bans wch will reimburce him about 40// when reed. " B.M. Add. MSB. 18 147, fol. 8, 9. " Cosin's Lib. Mickleton MSS. Nos. 91, 29. 280 INDUSTRIES Into this Stock my Lord putt in Money 50. 00. 00. in Iron Stone wch lay upon hunnicke Moore 20. 00. 00. & 7 Tunne of BuUetts and grenades 28. 00. 00. & a yeare Rent for ye furnice & Ironstone 02. 00. 00. Sume 100. 00. 00. And there is more due to my Lord this present yeere 1664 for 1000 cord of wood which he tooke out of Badbernne Birtley wood and for a yeer Rent of ye furnice by a new bargaine made with Joh Hodgshon the present yere 1664 10. 00. 00. Sume soe due to my Lord 160. 00. 00. of wch pd by Joh Hodgshon to Edw Arden and acco in his booke of Disbursmts p. 2420 050. 00. 00. & due from Jo Hodgshon to be pd at Mart next 055. 00. 00. And more to be pd by him at Pent 1665 055. 00. 00. which makes ye sume 160. 00. 00. The civil wars stopped all industrial develop- ment, and under the Commonwealth the pro- sperity of the county of Durham seems to have focussed itself in Sunderland owing to the pronounced Parliamentary bias of that town. The effects of the general outburst of commercial activity which greeted the Restoration, and the prevalent scientific spirit of that period, were not immediately felt in the northern county ; but in 1682 Ambrose Crowley, a well-known and enterprising ironmonger of Greenwich, possibly struck by the absence of foundries where iron was plentiful, chose the rapidly developing town of Sunderland in which to found a branch establishment.'* The building where the enterprise was started still stands in Low Street ; but the people of Sunderland objected to the foreign element among Crowley's work- people, and Crowley had to appeal to the king for protection : — Upon the petition of Ambrose Crowley, Ironmonger of London, praying his Majesty to order that the Cat- hock (sic) and other workmen which he shall employ in the Factory he hath set up in Sunderland in the County of Durham for making Iron ware may as quietly enjoy their Religion and be not molested as Protestant Strangers or as the English do." The king referred the petition to the attorney- general ; '* unfortunately the actual petition has eluded a somewhat prolonged search, but the Privy Council Register gives a summary of the " J. Cowen, 'Northern Tribune, i, 25. " P.R.O. S.P. Dom. Petitions, Entry Bk. vol. ii, 24. '* At the court at Whitehall, 2 July, 1 688. 2 2! facts brought forward by Ambrose Crowley to support his claim for royal interference : — Upon Reading the Petition of Ambrose Crowley of London Ironmonger setting forth that he hath erected at Sunderland a Factory for making of Ironware, where he employs at present about one hundred men, several of whom came from Liege, and there he de- signcs to employ three or four hundred men more in the said Factory, That the Persons already imployed by the Pef have taught the English workmen there to work better and swifter than formerly and to make such nailes as are used in Holland for sheathing of Shipps wherefor humbly praying that his workmen may not be molested on account of their Religion or otherwise As in the Petition a Copy whereof is hereto annexed is more at large exprest And upon reading a Report of his Majesty's Attorney Generall to whom the same was Referred And due consider.ition had thereof His Majesty in Councill is graciously pleased to order. And it is hereby Ordered that the Right Reverend Father in God the Lord Bishop of Durham do take speedy and effectual care that the Petitioners workmen be protected and quieted in their carrying on the manufacture in the said Petition named, And that his Lordship do signify this his Majestys pleasure to the Justices of the Peace in the neighbourhood where the Petitioners men Reside to the end the same may be observed by them accordingly. At the Court of Whitehall the sixth day of July 1688.'" But the men of Sunderland gave little heed to royal mandates ; the persecutions continued, and Crowley, actuated partly by this hostile attitude and partly by the fact that a district lying between the rivers Tyne and Derwent, in the immediate neighbourhood of mines of coal and stretches of forest-land, offered him even more facilities for his works than this position at the mouth of the Wear, moved in 1690 to Swalwell andWinlaton. On the banks of the Derwent, in a district of considerable beauty, one of the most inter- esting enterprises of the early eighteenth century centred. A self-made man, probably the original of Addison's Sir John Anvil,^" Crowley's in- domitable energy and appreciation of the im- portance of detail started an industry which gave employment to hundreds, and turned the most deserted part of one (at that time) of the least industrial counties of England into a thriving manufacturing district, the fame of which has left its traces on the local ballads of the time : That day a' Hawks's blacks may rue They gat mony a verra fair clanker-o Can they do ouse wi' Crowley's crew Frev a needle tiv an anchor-o \ " and spread to the Colonies, for William Penn, when he came over to England to consult the best authorities for the development of Penn- sylvania, obtained from Ambrose Crowley " P.C. Reg. 1687-8, fol. 702. ^'' Spertator, 12 Feb. 1712. " Swalwell Hopping, North country song. I 36 A HISTORY OF DURHAM directions as to working the iron of the colony.^^ It is said that the last hoes sent to the slave plan- tations in the West Indies, the weight of which roused the indignation of the writer whose description of the works in 1793 appears in the Athenaum of 1 807, were made at Winlaton.^' Crowley continued to live in London, but his frequent visits to the north kept him in touch with both works. In a letter from Winlaton, dated 13 November, 1702, he attributes the success of his enterprise to Sir William Bowes, to whom the letter is addressed : — My business at home is very pressing for me to be at London, but the greatest of my griefs is that I am not in London to show how sensible I am of the great favours I have had from you even to the enabling of me to establish the Iron Manufactory in this country which will be to your immortal glory." The works were carried on at Swalwell, Win- laton, and Winlaton Mill ; the heavy goods, such as anchors, were made at Swalwell, for the river was navigable as far as that point, and as the anchors weighed as much as 70 cwt. or 80 cwt. there was a saving of carriage ; but a great many goods were shipped from Blaydon, for the cost of conveying from Swalwell to Winlaton was IS. 5^., from Winlaton to Blaydon only qd. At Swalwell, too, were the forging hammers and slitting mill. The lighter goods were made at Winlaton and Winlaton Mill. A tilt-hammer that excited some astonishment by its rapidity of action, 520 strokes to the minute, was erected at Winlaton Mill.^* All the iron used was brought in bars to the works, much coming from the Baltic, and the most extraordinarily minute direc- tions are laid down in the regulations drawn up by Crowley for the conduct of his works, as to the correct counting of the bars when disem- barked from the keels at Swalwell or Blaydon ; ' that thoughtless bruit Thirkeld ' had counted wrongly and caused this new law to be made. The teller must have a clear voice and not be given to idle talking, ' he must cry aloud (I say very loud) ' so that the bystanders could be a check on him."^ Even to the present day the whole district is reminiscent of Crowley. At the mill dam, about a quarter of a mile from Winlaton, ' Sir Ambrose Crowley, 1 691,' is carved in the stone ; the ' Sir ' must be an interpolation, for he was not knighted until 1706 ; at the works, the bell with its date 1799 recalls the fact that for nearly 200 years, from 1690 to i860, the Winlaton Mill curfew was rung each evening ; the time- gun which was fired at nine each evening, when " J. M. Swank, Manufacture of Iron in all Ages, 163. " J. Cowen, op. cit. 26. " Letter inserted in beginning of Law Book. '° Athenaeum, loc. cit. 1807. '* Law Book of the Crowley Ironworks, Winlaton, Law 30, v. 5,fol. \ib ; B.M. Add. MSS. 34555. the men began their night shift, is also in existence." (PI. Ill, fig. I.) An old brass clock with four cherubs' heads at each corner, used at the Crowley works, still gives the time to the workers at the Winlaton Mill, which goes on under Messrs. Raines, the works having been sold in 1863, after having been carried on under the same name for more than 170 years. The Swalwell factory does not show so many signs of its age ; on different parts of the buildings, where Messrs. Ridley & Co. still carry on the manufacture of steel, various dates, 1713, 1 81 2, 1842, appear, and it is said that a much earlier date is to be seen when the water supply is drawn off. How rapid was the growth of the works in the early days is shown by some facts recorded in the Univenal Magaxine for August, 1788 : — Before Sir Ambrose settled his people here, the place (Winlaton) consisted of a few deserted cottages, and now contains about 1,500 inhabitants, chiefly smiths. The works carried on in this town are various. The making of nails is the chief branch ; but there is an eye of jealousy on inquiry, and the traveller can reap little information as to the various articles manufac- tured, or quantity produced." A Crowley bill of 1795, for ^^38 i8j. -]()., gives a good idea of the local trade done by the firm.^'' Nails of various kinds, flat-heads, sharks, spike, rose and drawd, are the principal items ; but locks of every description, chisels, claw-hammers, trowels, glass-house shovels,screwbolts,Birmingham spades, are included, and miscellaneous items as bread, lime, sand, pantiles, and glue.^" Further par- ticulars of the trade are given in an advertise- ment inserted by Crowley in The Post Boy}^ Mr. Crowley at the Doublet in Thames Street, London, Ironmonger, doth hereby give notice that at his works at Winlaton, near Newcastle upon Tyne, any good workmen that can make the following Goods, shall have constant Imployment, and their wages every week punctually paid, (viz) Augers, Bed- screws, Box and Sad Irons (flat-irons, sad = heavy). Chains, Edge-Tools, Tiles, Hammers, Hinges, Hows for the Plantations, Locks, especially Ho- Locks, Nails, Patten Rings, and almost all other sorts of smiths Later, Crowley's steel had an immense reputa- tion in the mercantile world, the waters of the " I am indebted to the courtesy of Mr. Parker Brewis of Newcastle-upon-Tyne for the photograph. '* Universal Mag. Aug. 1788, 57. " I am indebted to the courtesy of Mr. Mackey of Pudding Chare, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, for the loan of this document, and also for drawing my attention to an article in the Athenaum for 1807 concerning Swalwell. '" Bill of Sir Thomas John Clavering, ban., to Messrs. Crowley, Millington & Co., from 24 Jan. 1795, to 17 Dec. 1796. " The Post Boy, No. 510, 1699. 282 INDUSTRIES Derwent being supposed to be peculiarly adapted for tempering steel. The following document gives an idea of the trade in this commodity : — Sent on board the Anne Ralph Jackson Master by William Johnson Skipper the 15 th April 1712 as by shipping bill of this day's date viz. :— 250 Baggs of Nailes 5 Casks ID Whole Faggots of Steel 6 Half Faggots of ditto 45 Bundles of Hoops 10 Bundles of Rod Steel zo Whole Bars of Blistered Steel 8 Barrs of Iron 172 Bundles of Rod Iron 525 Parcels being 21 tuns." The extant Crowley Law Book is the joint work of Sir Ambrose Crowley and his son John, who on the death of his father in 1 7 13 carried on the works on the same lines. This voluminous code of laws and orders, numbering 119, deals with every detail of the workman's life, and lays down the most minute directions for the carrying on of the firm's busi- ness. Possibly Ambrose Crowley had tried his prentice hand on a similar experiment at his works in Thames Street, Greenwich, as two or three allusions are made to the success which had attended the enactment of a similar rule in the older establishment. The most interesting feature is the arrange- ment by which the workpeople, instead of settling their grievances by an appeal to the law of the land, sought remedy in a local tribunal set up for their benefit by Sir Ambrose Crowley, as he says in the preamble to the law dealing with the court, to prevent which (sundry irregularities), I did frame and it hath been my continual thought to be framing such good wholesome Rules and Orders for them to be governed by as would make them quiet and easy among themselves and a happy and flourishing people among their Neighbours. The better to see such good Rules ordered and observed have thought fit to com- mit the Administration of the same to five persons to be termed Arbitrators that in my absence shall hear and determine all petty differences amongst my work- men and to whom they may appeal in case of any Aggrievance and to have power to inflict the penalties upon the offenders and disturbers of our peace and Societie as by the said Rules and Laws are pre- scribed." This committee of arbitration consisted of the chaplain, two members appointed by Ambrose Crowley, and two elected by the workpeople, one being chosen from the nailers and the other from the odd waremen. Each workman who had given bond, received a stock of iron and paid to the poor box at Winlaton was allowed a vote. The standard of conduct required from the arbitrators was high, they were disqualified " Law Book of the Crowley Iron Works, Winlaton, fol. 80^. ^ Ibid. Law 49, fol. 84J. by selling strong liquor, behaving badly in church, going there drunk, conniving at the chaplain's letting the seats in church, treating or standing treat, misapplying the poor's money, spending the public money on liquor, except at a funeral, even then their expenditure was limited to gs. They took a stringent oath to hold sacred the standing law and rules of the factory, to foster and rightly administer the fund devoted to the poor. Con- sidering the onerous nature of their duties, their pay was small ; 2d. an hour while they were attending at court or overlooking the workpeople's stock, the last payment being forfeited if they sat down or drank or smoked during their supervi- sion hours. '^ Time was divided into ten weeks, and every Wednesday when the unit was three or eight, the court sat. Both plaintiff and defen- dant paid a nominal fee, 2d. and id. respectively, to the clerk. There was a right of appeal from the court of arbitration to the council, or a fresh trial was granted, in case either party was dis- satisfied with the verdict, on the payment of a fee of 2s.^^ The final court of appeal was Ambrose Crowley himself. John Crowley, in re-enacting this law after his father's death in 17 13, says that the reason why the court was first instituted was to avoid the expenses of liti- gation ; evidently the workpeople had been some- what disorderly, for their constant appeals to the magistrates ' had brought an odious character upon the works.' He adds, too, that the proceedings were instituted at the request of the governors of the poor, the committee of grievances, and in the name and behalf of the whole society. The juris- diction of the court was restricted ; in case of treason, murder, felony, or any other heinous crime, the criminal was prosecuted in the ordinary law courts, the prosecution being instituted by Crow- ley himself, and the cost defrayed out of the poor's stock.'^ The court sat first at Winlaton, but in 1 8 16 it was moved to Swalwell.'^ The Court Book of the Arbitrators, covering the period from 1806 to 1846, is still extant, and the record of the proceedings of one court throws light on the nature of the cases brought forward : ^* Wednesday Evening March nth, 1807. Account 5329- present T. Litchfield T. Hall A. Hall W. Bennett J. Hirst W. Belt R. Rutter A. Belt T. Hall B. Jameson J. Rowell Law No. 16 was read. Benj.imin Summerland requests the loan of 5/- Granted. " Ibid. Law 40, verses i2-38,fols. 85.;, 85^. '* Ibid. Order 50, verses 3-9, fol. 87. "^ Ibid. Law 53, Preamble, fol. 90J. " Crowley MS. Newcastle-upon-Tyne Free Librar}-, 24 July, 1816, Account 168 I 8. '' Crowley MS. Newcastle-upon-Tyne Free Library. 283 A HISTORY OF DURHAM Joseph Greenfield being very infirm and unable to do work humbly requests the superannuation allowance. 4/6 per week granted. Robert Haddrick requests Joseph Greenfield's shop in the Square. Granted. Robert Siddoway's Note requests a shop in the Square. Rejected, the shop not being suitable. Joseph Wright requests a stock of his own. Desired to produce his Register. John Oliver requests to be superannuated. Granted to have 7/- a week. John Ayre being 63 years old. A report being pre- valent that he is going to marry a foreigner It is ordered that in the event of his superannuation this Committee consider nothing for this wife or in the event of his Death the widow so left will not be intitled to relief from the Poor Box. Women frequently figure in the court : — Mary Wright is reprimanded for not cleaning the chapel thoroughly ; ^' Margaret Ayre was put into the court for scandal, and the arbitrators agreed that in all such cases the defendant, although a widow, must pay the court's charges ; *° Mary Brew- house requests that her son may be bound to patten-ring making.^' Heavy fines were exacted from any transgressing the laws which affected the successful working of the mill. Thomas Evans', John Evans', and William Evans' stock having been found incorrect, on being weighed by the Governors They are judged guilty of borrow- ing and lending contrary to Law 51 verse 10 and 2. They are therefore ordered to be mulcted 8/- per verse 5, to be collected by 6 J. per week for the Benefit of Winlaton Poor." Contracts between those workmen who em- ployed hammermen were also drawn up in this court, I 5J. being the usual weekly wage.'*' But the principle of popular government does not always work smoothly; in 1704, Sir Am- brose Crowley was forced to dismiss the com- mittee of aggrievances and gives his reasons for his action in an order which throws considerable light on the founder's requirements in his co- workers : — And I do appoint to chuse six new Committee men and do order that you see they be chosen in a fair way and not such that by their evil practices are not Qualli- fied ; and that the odd Waremen choose 3 and the Nailers 3 and recomend to them to chuse Men of good principle of a Quiet and sober temper to such I shall always give a due regard to what they write, and my workmen will find all matters of agrievance redressed, but if they chuse men of Turbulent spirits that will set forth Agrievances and there is none, its but reason- able to think that it will much lesson their complaints of real Agrievances and quite overthro my good designe to have all my People's Agrievances fairly laid before '' Crowley MS. Newcastle-upon-Tyne Free Library, 18 March, 1807, Account 6330. " Ibid. 10 Feb. 1813, Account 6638. " Ibid. 6 Jan. 1808, Account 6372. " Ibid. 18 Oct. 1809, Account 6465. " Ibid. 24 Dec. 18 14. me, and then I will never be wanting to do them jus- tice. I would have you consider the Trust you have taken upon you, its no less than to hear all my peoples Agrievances and to lay them before me, without Favour or affection, Illwill or hatred, you must not be afraid to write against any of my clerks if they in any way abuse my people or do not in all LawfuU Hours give their attendance and duly dispatch every Reckoner and chearfully in their due course. I also recommend to you to use your best Indeavours to keep my people Quiet and Peaceable and show them a good example and shun the pernicious advice of that base and wicked fellow Za Goodwin, who always was the promoter of Villany and the overthrow of all that was good. I also recommend to you when you see any of my People agrieved that you complain first to the Council, if they do not relieve you then write to me.** But the power of general supervision of the mills, whether at Winlaton or Swalwell, was vested in a grand council, which sat at Swalwell, and held weekly meetings. Their business was to hear and Determine all Requests complaints or appeals of workmen with true regard for my orders favouring the just and careful and in no respect to en- courage the persons who are guilty of the breach of Law 48, particularly verse 2 and order 57. The utmost care was taken that the meetings should be decorous. Swearing, cursing, giving any man the lie, challenging anyone, using pro- voking language, interrupting, talking of any thing foreign to the subject, were finable offences, 'every joke or jest' cost the perpetrator id. ; as a rule the fines went to the fund for the poor, but the fines for misbehaviour at council meet- ings were divided equally among the other mem- bers of the council.^' In order to prevent waste of time by too frequent applications to the council at Swalwell, a committee was appointed by the head of the firm to manage the Winlaton mill. They met each day, read the letters, settled the business of the day ; all matters were decided by the votes of the Committee ; in case of equality of voting the member of the committee, who was also a member of the council, had the casting vote. All action taken by the committee was to be laid before the council at Swalwell, who had a sus- pensive power, until the views of the head of the firm could be ascertained.^^ Any workman could be suspended by the action of the governors, the council, the committee of survey, or the committee of aggrievances, but a minute of the proceedings had to be sent to Crowley to be endorsed or countermanded.'" The system of payment was somewhat com- plicated. A newcomer had to enter into a bond for a considerable amount before the tools and materials necessary for his work were advanced "Council Direction, E.N. verse II 15, 26 Dec. 1704 ; apparently copied from another MS. '*' Law Book, Law 83, verse 3, fol. 130. " Ibid. Law 44, verses 7-18, fols. JS", 7S^- " Ibid. Law 53, verse 20, fol. 51a. 184 INDUSTRIES to him.** The regular master-worker when his stock was getting low went to the ironkeeper, who gave him the requested amount of iron and entered it to him at a fixed rate of 22s. per 1 60 lb. ;^' this he took to his shop, where, with the help of hammermen to whom he paid 155. a week, or apprentices to whom he paid lOs., he made it into the articles that, by application to the overseer, he knew were required. He then re- turned to the surveyor, who, after examining the goods, weighed them, allowing a certain percen- tage for waste in making up, counted them, and then deducted the price of the iron. The final payment after all deductions, the price of the material, the assessment for the poor, and any fines the men had to pay, was called ' the gets.' '" Of course it was impossible that payment by piece should be made in all cases, and the domestic system by which the master-worker did the work in his own shop, assisted by his own family, work- people, and apprentices, was superseded in some cases by a system more akin to the present factory system. But the shops in the square, that is the shops erected by Crowley himself for his work- people, were always in great request, in spite of the fact that the tenants had to lead a life corre- sponding in many ways to the English collegiate life of the present day. The square was in charge of a warden, whose duty it was to ring the bell for beginning work at five in the morning, three hours later he rang the second bell for breakfast, for which meal half an hour was allowed ; twelve was the dinner hour, but work began again at one, and continued until eight.^' The utmost vigil- ance was used with regard to the square ; on Sundays every one was compelled to come in by nine at night, and before ten on weekdays, and no Hawkers, tinkers, pedlers, or any such like suspected, pilfering people, nor any suspicious persons with great Coats or Cloaks or any Woman with Hoods on or Coats tucked up were allowed there.'^ Drunken people were to be driven out unless they lived in the square, in which case they were to be persuaded to go to their own homes. The warden was warned to prevent from coming within the boundaries tho?e who make any disturbance or do any injury or throw Coals Stones Snowballs or anything else or shall fight quarrel or abuse anyone in any place whatsoever or shall use scurrilous language against me or any of my officers or by blowing of a horn or other ways raise a Tumult or Mobb ; betting within the square or boundaries above the value of 2d. in three hours' space was fined. Children breaking any of the regulations were either to be whipped by their parents or their *' Law Book, Law 17, verse 3, fol. 411^. " Ibid. Law 88, verse I, fol. I35(5. "' Cf. R. O. Heslop, Northumb. Words. " Law Book, Law 40, verse 23, fol. 6717. " Ibid. Law 40, verse 24, fol. 67^. parents were to pay the fine ; a fine of 2d. was inflicted for cursing." Some of the methods adopted to keep up a high standard of morality are open to objection. The treasurer was to make his chief concern 'to Pry and Enquire' into the conduct of the clerks and report if they were extravagant, too fond of change and pleasure, especially if they often went to Newcastle, ' which hath been the ruine of several.' Intercourse with women ' under a light charac- ter ' is explicitly forbidden; even if the suspected people ' have as much sanctity as John Walford and Mrs. Junning,' they are to be kept under supervision.^* Smoking was forbidden as being the occasion of ' much time spent, but little business done,' for the first offence the fine was id'., for others 2d.^^ Drinking is strongly reprobated, but, as if total abstinence were a counsel of perfection, evening drinking was connived at, although every possible precaution was taken against morning drinking, for it hath been of fatal consequence to all that hath made a practice of it. 1st. It is of all things the most destructive to business. 2nd. It destroyeth health memory and understanding. 3rd. It produceth nothing but folly and madness. 4th. It wasteth the only time to do business. It is therefore declared that Mr. Crowley will take effectual care to discharge all such as shall for the future Practice the Drinking of any Strong Liquor before they go to dinner. The treasurer was required to forward a list of the clerks, and declare ' Except those which I have fixed and have set a * against, I have not heard of their Drinking on Mornings.' '* An excellent plan was adopted for stopping drinking habits ; debts were recoverable in the Crowley Court ; as soon as the debt was proved, a certain percentage was stopped off' the man's wages until the debt was cancelled, but Crowley refused to recognize debts for liquor. And whereas I have had most grievous complaints of my workmen and their families being Impoverished by their being trusted by people keeping Publick houses and in an extraordinary manner have been encouraged to drink and game untill they have been in debt be- yond their ability and then put in the Court, and by reason of their selling of Liquor have had an oppor- tunity of gratifying the governors and thereby procured grievous awards therefore it is ordered that all persons whatsoever selling of Liquor shall be debarred from having any award for any debt whatsoever." The shop where materials for work and some necessities of life could be obtained was con- ducted as far as possible on the ready-money prin- ciple, but a limited amount of credit was allowed " Ibid. Law 51, fol. 90. " Ibid. Order 85, verses 1-8, fols. 133;;, 134a. " Ibid. Law 35. " Ibid. Order 85, verse 8, fol. 133^, " Ibid, Law 61, verse 12, fol. 102^. 285 A HISTORY OF DURHAM to the old hands ; men were given credit in pro- portion to the number of years they had been at the works ; a workman of one year's standing was given 4.5. credit, one of three years' standing, 6s., and so on. Married but childless men were allowed half as much more credit as bachelors, and married men with children twice as much/^ No part of the scheme shows better how far Crowley was in advance of his age than his efforts to grapple with the problem of poverty. A fund to support the superannuated, the sick, the widows, and the orphans was raised by a trifling tax on all money earned in the works. That the Chaplain, the Clerk to the Poor and all Domestics upon the Monitor's List and every work- man whatever shall pay one farthing in the shilling (altered to Ninepence in the pound) out of all money they shall earn that is of the full sum or produce of wages and Sallaries that comes due to them by the Account and Reckonings made up in Sir Ambrose (John inserted) Crowley's (Esqr's inserted) for the Poor's Books." The Crowleys paid handsomely toward this fund. A curious arrangement was made by which the Poor fund was answerable when a workman was discovered without material ; in return Sir Ambrose paid weekly to the fund 4/6,*" As the rules were drawn up to ensure the smooth working, and it was to the interest alike of master and man to prevent a breach, appeals are constantly made to popular opinion. When the Poor by workmen running out of stock shall be indebted and not have cash wherewith to pay there must In- stantly be an additional Sess and the Reason Declared to the End all Runners out of Stocks may be odious in the Workmen's Eyes." The governors of the poor held a meeting on Thursday evening * when the unit is nine,' that is the first week of the decades into which the year was divided, when the clerk brought the assessment books and each case was carefully considered before the orders were given to the cashier for the necessary deductions from the workmen's wages. The ironkeeper had stringent orders not to give any iron to anyone who neglected or refused to pay the awards, but appeals were allowed in case the workman con- sidered his assessment too high. The master who employed hammermen had to receive 2d. a week from them for the fund. Information having reached Crowley that ' sun- dry of his workpeople have oft been put to it for lodgings,' to prevent a recurrence of what he regarded as a slur on his management, he ordered the council to advance 30J. repayable by is. a week, ' provided the same be actually laid out in setting up a bed.' " Thus the Crowley workmen '' Law Book, Law 70, verses 20-31, fol. 11 63. ''Ibid. Law 8, verse 7, fol. 1415. *"Ibid. Law 8, verse 6, fol. l^i. "Ibid. Law 8, verse 15, fol. i^a. "Ibid. Law 10, fol. igi. were never on the rates, and when the burden of the poor law of that time is remembered, the statement by a disinterested witness, ' this is one of the few manufactories in Britain that is not regarded by its parish with an eye of malig- nancy,' is quite credible.^' The institution of municipal pawnshops is still a desideratum of the present-day social reformer. Crowley devised a scheme which met the difS- culty. An elaborate system, by which any properly qualified workman applying for work in London might be transferred to Winlaton, his passage paid, if he left in pawn sufficient to cover his expenses, is given with much detail, and in this case, as in many others, an example is given of the way in which the transaction should be entered on the books. Claim 1,549. John Smith at the King's in Turnball Street. Dr. To Cash Lent him upon i Coat Waistcoat I Pr. of Stockings for which there was advanced as per cash account 785 01. 10. o. Hazard and Freight per lb. lid". 00. 01. 06. Pawn in John Hallford's hand Dr. to do. 01. 11. 06. The goods were sold at the end of forty weeks to defray expenses, or in case the owner did not put in an appearance at Winlaton within fifteen weeks.^^ An account is quoted in connexion with the Poor Fund which shows that Ambrose Crowley had not succeeded in putting down drinking at funerals, a fruitful source of disorder at that time. Having examined the sundries charged for the funeral of William Siddoway, the cashier is to pay the following : — To Matthew Newton for a coffin o. 05. 06. To Henry Bonce for Drink among ye Workmen o. 05. 04. Church Fees o. 01. 02. For a Messenger going to Ryton o. 00. 04. o. 12. 04. Pay to John Appleby Sexton of Ryton Church one half year from May the first to November the eleventh 1707 cighteen-pence." Anxious as the Crowleys were to inculcate self-help, they undertook to provide a chaplain and a surgeon for their people at their own expense. Moreover, Ambrose Crowley not only rebuilt the old chapel, which had been destroyed during the rebellion of the earls, but rented the gallery of Ryton church for the use of his work- people. According to the rent roll, 1772-82, the chaplain had three rooms in a house belonging to the firm, called Middleton's Hall, for which he paid a rent of is. 2^d. His duties were arduous, for he had to sit on most of the committees, ^^ Atheneeutn, loc. cit. June, 1807. '* Law Book, Law 60, verse 3, fol. \o\b. "Ibid. Law 107, fol. \l\a. j86 INDUSTRIES and to supervise the education of the children and the general morals of the people ; to preach twice on Sundays and all saints' days, and be the champion of the workpeople in cases of official oppression. The surgeon was especially warned to see that the medicine the people got from him was for their own use, and not to be sold again to the country people around. The schoolmaster was to supervise the accounts of the poor, in fact was called the clerk of the poor, to act as chapel clerk, and to teach the children both by precept and example to 'show respect to superiors and aged people,' and to punish all guilty of 'lying, swearing, or suchlike horrid crimes. He was never to dismiss the school upon account of races, cock-fighting, rope- dancers or stage-players.' Above all he was not to think too highly of his own attainments to ask questions, ' for there is not a rock upon which more have split than that of conceitedness, to think he is too old to learn or too wise to be taught.' ^^ From an account written in 1793, the schoolmaster, owing to taking in scholars that did not belong to the works, had more pupils than he could manage ; probably he eked out a slender salary in this way.^' Each page of the Law Book makes clear the secret of the rise of Ambrose Crowley from a working blacksmith in the leather doublet, which he adopted as his sign at his shop in Thames Street, to being alderman and sheriff of London, member of Parliament for Andover, with a fortune of ;^200,000. He had obviously a genius for organization, but possibly his ready appreciation of the power of work of the north countryman if handled with a due respect for his independence was the most important factor in his success. Such extra- ordinary minutiae of petty detail are dealt with, that organization sometimes seems to run riot. All scraps of loose iron are to be carefully collected, candles are to be 'kept secure from ratts and mice,' ** bags are to have a fastening stitch at every third stitch,^' frying-pans are always to be packed bottom upwards to prevent rust,'" when letters are sent they are to be wrapt in clean brown paper.'^ These trivialities are wedged in between laws dealing in the wisest and most large-minded way with the real welfare of the people. The wisdom of trying to work a small self- sufficing community, with its own code of laws and its own standard of morality, may be ques- "' Law Book, Law 97, verses 5-1 1, fol. 141/1, 142. " Athenaeum, June, 1807. From notes taken at Swalwell, near Newcastle-on-Tyne, in Sept. 1793. ** Law Book, Law l, verse 5, fol. I ; Order 100, fol. 146. *' Ibid. Law 27, verse 3, fol. 4 1 3. '° Ibid. Law 46, verse 39, fol. 81^. " Ibid. Law 57, verse 17, fol. 99^. tioned. So long as the actual organizer of the scheme lived, his spirit pervaded the works ; but even under his son, who died in 1781, friction arose. John Crowley died without male heirs, and his daughter Theodosia took a partner, Millington ; the firm continued under the name Crowley, Millington & Co., but by 1827 the works had lost their characteristics, the usual fight between labour and capital had begun, and as a contemporaneous account grandiloquently asserts. Disunion has unhappily annihilated the charitable institutions which formerly wiped away the tears of the widow and the orphan, and alleviated the distresses of the afflicted and superannuated." Crowley's crew, as they are always called in the annals of the times, were in their early days staunch Tories, but the Chartist movement got a strong hold upon them, and the facilities for making weapons which their work afforded them rendered them a formidable danger to the state. There is no doubt that it was to Crowley's crew that the mayor of Newcastle referred in his letter to Viscount Sidmouth : — Newcastle, Oct. 17, 18 19. It is impossible to contemplate the meeting of the lith without awe, more especially if my information is correct that 700 of them were prepared with arms (concealed) to resist the civil power. These men came from a village about three miles from this town, and there is strong reason to suspect that arms are manufactured there, they are chiefly forgemen." But the crew did not always come off victorious. In 1792 they were attacked by a crowd of keel- men and their wives, and had to fly for their lives, the onlookers thinking that they escaped almost by a miracle.'^ Mr. William Hawks, a working blacksmith like Crowley, began with a few forges near Gateshead. The works were started to work up the old iron brought by collier vessels as ballast. The Tyne shipping trade had increased so enormously that there was a great demand for anchors and chains. A few years ago a document was extant giving a brief sketch of the beginning of the firm : — The present firm of Hawks, Crawshay and Sons was commenced by Mr. William Hawks, who commenced business with a few blacksmiths' shops near New Deptford in or about the year 1747. Signed G. Hawks, January 7, 1827, grandson of the last named Hawks, attested by Elias Henderson, aged 8 1 years, the oldest servant of the company, from his own knowledge and that of his elders." " White and Parson, op. cit. ii, 184. " Netvcastli Couranl, 4 Dec. 18 19. '* Newcastle Advertiser, 9 Aug. 1792. " North Country Monthly Chron. Mar. 1887, p. 28 ; J. Bailey, Gen. View of the Agric. of Dur. 288. 287 A HISTORY OF DURHAM About 1780 Hawks bought the Lumley Forge, where excellent iron was made for ordnance pur- poses. This forge is said to have been dismantled because the hammers disturbed Lumley Castle. Only a few years after Cort had invented grooved rolls in rolling mills in 1783 '^ William Hawks had started a rolling mill. He also worked the Teams Iron Foundry.^' From 1829-77 the Beamish Forges near Chester-le-Street were worked by the firm, which changed its personnel during the period. Messrs. Hawks, Son & Co. held the Beamish Forges from 1829 to 1841 ; from 1 84 1 to 1 856, the firm was Messrs. Hawks, Stanley & Co. ; another change took place in 1855, when the firm became Hawks, Crawshay & Son.'' In 1877 the mill dam was swept away, and as the firm was unable to come to terms with the landlord, the forges were dis- mantled. Shovels, hammers, files, and buffers were the chief articles manufactured. During the second quarter of the nineteenth century, about fifty women were employed, all the work was paid as piece-work, and pay varied considerably from 51. to I OS. a dozen for shovels. A wagon and two carts were kept constantly at work taking the goods manufactured to the chief factory at Gates- head. Children of seven were employed to blow the bellows. The total earnings of husband, wife, and child often reached as high as ^^5 a week. Though the firm never attempted to follow Crowley's schemes of labour organization, the accounts of the Beamish Forges give no impres- sion of capitalist tyranny, but rather of a contented people, working long hours it is true, but at a healthy occupation, in salubrious air, and receiving a fair wage. ' Hawks's Blacks,' as they were known, waged internecine warfare on ' Crowley's Crew,' but there seems little evidence of their setting law at defiance in the systematic way followed by their better-known rivals." It was not only as the makers of nails and domestic implements that the Hawks were known ; but in 1813 they were the first to make studded cable chains ; they also erected the cast- iron bridge over the Ouse at York, reconstructed the noted Sunderland bridge, and supplied iron for the high-level bridge at Newcastle and the iron pier at Madras. They often undertooic large contracts for Government and the East India Company, Hawks, Crawshay & Co. sold all their north-country works in 1890. " Ironmonger, ex, 427, 489 ; Iron and Coal Trades Rfv. Ixx, 1698, 1766. " The Interest of Gt. Brit. List of Forges. B.M. E. 2199. " Rent Book Be.imish Estate Office. I am indebted to Mr. Richards of the Estate Office for these details. " I am indebted to Mr. Skelton, who began work at the Beamish Forge seventy-five ) ears ago, as bellows- blower to his father, a shovel-maker, for information about the forge. Owing to a curious error of transcription in the parish register the date of the beginning of sword- making at Shotley Bridge was placed early in the seventeenth century, but there seems little doubt that the century was almost ended before the works were started. The wording of their first trade advertisements shows that some enterpris- ing business men, who were acquainted with Solingen the centre of European sword-making, had foreseen the great demand for swords in the eighteenth century, and imported foreign work- people to meet it. This view of course up- sets the popular tradition that they landed in London, driven from their country by religious persecution, and only came to the Derwent be- cause they wished for a secluded place where they could pursue their occupation without fear of their trade secrets being discovered. Whereas great industry hath been used for erecting a Manufactory for making sword blades at Newcastle by several able working men brought over from Germany which being now brought to perfection the undertakers thereof have thought fit to settle a ware- house at Mr. Isaac Hadley's at the Five Beds in New Street near Shoe Lane where callers may be furnished with all sorts of Sword Blades at reasonable Rates.™ The only possible date for the beginning of the trade is therefore anterior but approximate to 1690. Apparently the company did not flourish, and according to evidence given at the Morpeth Sessions the Shotley Bridge Sword Works closed in 1 702. They were however re-opened in 1703, when Hermon Mohll, who had gone back to Germany, at the special request of the company returned in order to work at the reconstructed company's works, and brought with him some hundred sword blades from Solingen to supply the British market. Unfortunately a certain amount of secrecy was observed in disembarking the weapons ; Jacobite risings loomed dark before all those answerable for public peace, the surrep- titious importer of arms could not be overlooked, and Hermon Mohll was seized and put in Morpeth Gaol. Henry Villiers, J. P. for Northumberland, at once communicated with the Secretary of State, who replied from Whitehall that the arms must be detained until some satisfactory explanation could be given. Henry Hooper, sword-blade maker of Shotley Bridge, and Thomas Cornforth, cutler of Newcastle, both gave testimony as to Mobil's respectability ; the former had worked with him for about fifteen years for the Sword Blade Company at Shotley Bridge. The Sessions Records do not refer again to the matter ; *' how long Mohll was detained is not known, but he Was buried in 1 7 16 near Shotley Bridge, and *" Lend. Gaz. Aug. 25-28, 1690. I am indebted to Mr. W. W. Tomlinson, of Monkseaton, for drawing my attention to this advertisement and for a transcrip- tion of the Morpeth Sessions Records. *' Morpeth Sessions, Dec. 1703. 288 INDUSTRIES another of the family ten years later.*- The precise time when the sword factory passed from the company into the sole proprietorship of Robert Oley is uncertain, but within the last few years a great deal of the property in Shotley Bridge belonged to descendants of the Oleys. Many houses still possess steels and knives bearing the name, and a curious horn with very elaborate keys of ironwork said to have been in their possession is still to be seen. A German inscrip- tion with the date 169 1 is legible on a stone over the door of a house in close proximity to where the first sword factory stood : — Des Herren segen machet Reich ohn alle Sorg w.in du zughleich in deinem stand Treuw und Fleisig Bist und duest was Du Befohlen ist. 1 69 1 . Another and more interesting inscription has now completely disappeared : — Deutschland . die Stadt Ge . .... Eingan. ver vatterland s . . Heer Beht . . . . se . und Possibly the completed inscription was : — Deutschland ist unsuer Vatterland Soligen ist die Stadt Gehasset Der Herr behiite deinen Ausgang und Eingang.'^ It is futile to speculate whether the German sword-makers came on their own initiative or were driven here by religious persecution or came at the request of some company, who knew that the waters of the Derwent were admirably adapted to temper steel, and that the proximity of coal and iron rendered the situation ideal for that particular industry, though the most authentic evidence supports the last theory, but the whole neighbourhood bears witness to their presence. The house where William Oley lived, with its inscription, Cutlers Hall W ° A 17S7 still stands, though now divided into two houses ; a cottage now occupies the site of the first mill, but some distance from Shotley Bridge, about 300 yards below Allansford Bridge, a little higher than the farm-house, there are some interesting remains of a hexagonal furnace, the bricks show- ing signs of extreme heat, and the slag in the immediate neighbourhood proving that iron was smelted there. A little higher than the furnace some faint traces of a calcining kiln may be seen, though the remains are not so evident as when Mr. Lax wrote his historical poems, the notes to which contain much interesting tradition "' Ebchester Reg. 6 Dec. 1716 ; 28 Jan. 1726. ^ Surtees, Hist. o/Dur. ii, 287, 294. Surtees asserts that they were driven from their country by religious persecution, but I have found no evidence to support this theory. 2 ■ 289 concerning Mohlls, Oleys, Vooz, and Bertrams.*^ In the Delves colliery many indications of the old method of working coal are to be seen ; tradition points to the Germans as working both coal and ironstone, and some probability is lent to this by the absence of any information that can account for the subsidence in any other way. Nothing is known of any other workers in the immediate neighbourhood. The Oleys were the sword-makers, the Moles — for Mohll soon became corrupted into Mole — ground the swords ; tradi- tion says that the Vooz managed the trade with Germany, for blades were often imported and fitted with hilts at Shotley Bridge. At one time there must have been a great output of these weapons, but it is difficult to find one now ; an excellent specimen, however, is preserved in the Black Gate Museum, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, for a description of which I am indebted to Mr. Parker Brewis : — Shotley Bridge Sword at the Black Gate Museum, Newcastle-upon-Tyne This sword weighs I lb. 1 2 02. and is 3 ft. and J in. long over all. The Blade is two-edged, and 301- in. in length and I J in. broad at its base, tapering to fin. at I in. from the point. It is of Vesica section and slightly fluted in the forte, having one sh.ilIow central groove (probably this central groove accounts for the term hollow being applied to these swords "), 5-| in. long on each side, in one of these is the word 'shotley' and in the other ' bridge,' and beyond the groove on either side is the running fox, or wolf, mark, having the feet to the same edge as the tops of the letters. (PI. I, figs. I and 2.). Inscriptions on sword blades read from hilt to point, but when so viewed the Fox mark is almost always upside down. This m.ay be accounted for by the fact that it was originally in the nature of an assaye mark, and was not then put on by the maker of the blade, but by the Guild in the market place. It was granted by the Archduke Albert in 1349 to the Armourers' Guild at Passau, a Bavarian town on the Danube, but by the fifteenth century it had become a very common mark on the swords made at Solingen. These blades were imported into England in such quantities that the common name for a sword was ' Fox,' thus Shakespeare says ' Thou diest on point of fox,' King Henry F, and in Webster's White Devil ' O what blade is't r A Toledo, or an English Fox ? ' &c. Perhaps the occurrence of this mark on the Shotley Bridge swords may be accounted for by the German origin of their makers. The Fox mark is also very common on Ferrara blades. The Hilt is of brass, and appears to be contemporary with the blade ; it consists of counter curved quillon prolonged forward into a knuckle-bow, from either side of which springs a counter guard which coalesces with a shell guard on either side of the quillon. These two shells are also of cast brass, and are ornamented " I am indebted to Mr. C. F. Scott for showing me these furnaces and also for much information concern- ing the subject. '■^ Sessions Record, Jan. 1703. 37 A HISTORY OF DURHAM on both sides in relief. (PL I, fig. 3, which is rather larger than full size.) The pommel is spherical and ijin. in diameter. There is a hole into which the knuckle-bow appears to have entered, but it is now filled up with lead, and a new one made nearer to the grip. In 1828, the manufacture of sword-blades was still carried on at Shotley Bridge by Mr. Christo- pher Oley, a direct descendant of the first German sword-blade maker.*'' It is interesting to note that Thomas Bewick, in his autobiography, tells us that his first employ- ment was to etch sword-blades for William and Nicholas Oley, sword manufacturers at Shotley Bridge." But by 1832 the district had lost much of its industrial glory : — The iron works at Wlnlaton Mill were formerly of great extent, and the several paper mills, steel forges, and other manufacturing establishments in the Vale, evince how well this part of the country is adapted for such purposes. But cutlery at Shotley Bridge is almost forgotten ; Winlaton Mill is comparatively a deserted village.'^ The Bertrams, another family of German settlers, worked the Blackhall steel mills.*' The ruins of the mill still remain, and a curious old sun-dial of German type is built into one of the walls ; further up the Derwent, on the opposite side at Derwentcote, there is another old steel mill ; both these mills were in the hands of Isaac Cookson early in the nineteenth century,^" but there is no evidence that the Bertrams were ever at Derwentcote. There were very few industrial enterprises of the later eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries in Durham with which the name of Cookson was not connected. The first blast furnace with coked coal in the north of England was erected by Mr. I. Cookson, on Chester burn, at Whitehill.*'^ The foundry was begun early in the eighteenth century.'^ Some indentures re- '"^ White and Parson, op. cit. ii, 174. In a letter from William Bell to Robert Surtees written 21 June, I 8 I 2, there is a reference to these swords. ' Last week I met with a fine sword made by the Ouleys of Shotley Bridge, which has the figure of William and Mary on the blade with " Shotley Bridge 1697," you no doubt h.ave seen such.' " A. Dobson, Memoirs of Thomas Bewick, 57-8. ^ T. Sopwith (Surveyor), Observations to accompany a Map of the Vale of Derwent, 1832. "' Arch. Jel. xxiii, 128. *" White and Parson, op. cit. ii, 185. Mr. N. C. Cookson tells me that when he was called upon to wind up the business, between twenty and thirty years ago, he found a mere handful of men, but the steel they produced was of extraordinary excellence, and the workers were all between sixty and seventy. ^' ' Manufacture of Iron,' Industrial Resources of Tyne, Tees, and IV ear, 84. '* Mr. N. C. Cookson thinks that the blast fur- naces at Whitehill were started about 1704. cited in a deed of 1760 throw considerable light on some of the Durham foundries working at that time : — also that by indenture dated 25 March 7 George I, between William Cotesworth late of Gateshead Park and the said Isaac Cookson and Joseph Button, the two latter were entitled to the two houses lately built for a founding house for casting iron wares near the East end of the Quay or staith called Old Trunk Staith at Gateshead, for the residue of a lease. It is wit- nessed that the parties thereunto should be partners in the art trade or mystery of carrying on iron foundries at . . . and Gateshead for 3 1 years from I September 1729, and that the capital should be 48oOj{^ of which Joseph Button contributed <^og£ And whereas Joseph Button died, leaving John Button executor, and the said John Button is dead also, leaving Gabriel Hall and John Cookson executors ; And whereas John Button and the other parties agreed for a 31 years lease of ground near Whitehill, CO : Durham, and have built a blast furnace etc. there, and the said John Button at his death and his co- partners were entitled to a freehold estate, mill and colliery near Clifton, 4/5 of an iron foundry and several messuages in Pipewellgate, and freehold pre- mises in Clifton, Gateshead, Whitehill, and Newcastle. And whereas Gabriel Hall and John Cookson arc entitled as devisees and executors of the said John Button to one sixteenth part or share of the said four- fifths of the premises in Pipewellgate and the same of all the other premises and profits, and have agreed to sell the said shares to the said John Williams for 8iOj^. Now this indenture witnesseth etc.^' Witnesses : John Widdrington Nat Punshon. The Whitehill furnace was 35 ft. high, 12 ft. across the boshes, and produced 25 tons of iron per week. The blast was supplied by bellows worked by a water-wheel placed on Chester burn, but the poor supply of water led to the furnace being abandoned. The iron ore came from Robin Hood's Bay as well as from the immediate neighbourhood, and at one time the Government got most of their ordnance from the forge at Whitehill. There still lives an old inhabitant of the ' Furnance,' as the row of cot- tages close to the site of the works is called, who can describe the situation of the different parts of the works, having got his information from his grandfather, who worked at the ordnance fac- tory, and he asserts that the bank on the opposite side of the burn, which rises to a considerable height, is studded with cannon balls, for the cast-iron guns made there were tested by the balls being projected across the river. A tra- dition is still current that Cookson wealth owes its origin to their command of capital, which enabled them to fulfil their contracts and take payment in government stock, which at the period of their greatest activity during the Napo- leonic wars was very low, and to make colossal profits by realizing when consols rose after the ™ From a copy of the original deed, kindly lent me by Mr. Richard Welford, Gosforth. 290 Fig. I. — Blade Fig. 2. — Blade Fig. 3. — Hilt Plate I : Details of Shotlev Bridge Sword INDUSTRIES conclusion of peace. ^* But the firm did not restrict itself to the manufacture of warlike im- plements, for in 1813 the churchwardens paid to Messrs. Cookson for the iron chest ;^I0 ioj.'^ But Cookson's was not the only iron foundry near Chester-le-Street, for in the first half of the nineteenth century W. and J. Murray of Chester- le-Street were the most noted engineering firm of the county.'^ The change that had been wrought by Ambrose Crowley in the early eighteenth century in the neigiibourhood of the Derwent was to be re- peated on a much more gigantic scale not far from the scene of the first experiment. In 1839, John Nicholson, a cartwright by trade, but a somewhat speculative man by nature, discovered ironstone on the blue heaps at Consett (the present site of part of the public park). He took a specimen to Jonathan Richardson, mana- ger of the Northumberland and Durham District Bank, who in his turn submitted the specimen to the Quaker managers of the Bishopwear- mouth Iron Works. They at once agreed to take up the enterprise, and in 1840 the works were started under the name of the Derwent Iron Company, with Jonathan Richardson as managing director.'' In 1857 the stoppage of the District Bank caused a crisis in the affairs of the company, for nearly a million was owing to the bank. Some of the shareholders of the bank formed themselves into a company registered under a new name, the Derwent and Consett Iron Com- pany, Limited ; but the new company were not able to complete the purchase, and the works came again into the market. They were pur- chased by the present Consett Iron Company in 1 864. The transaction was a large one ; eighteen blast furnaces, with puddling forges, plate, angle, and bar mills, producing 80,000 tons of pig iron, and from 40,000 to 50,000 tons of finished iron were purchased. Five hundred acres of free- hold land, 1,000 cottages, and coal royalties were included. Mr. Jonathan Priestman was appointed managing director,'* and the company was reconstituted by him, with Mr. Dale, later Sir David Dale, as adviser. On his resignation in 1869, Mr. Dale, who had throughout acted as his chief adviser, succeeded to his post, and in 1884 become chairman. But many changes have taken place in the works since the inauguration of the new com- pany. When Mr. Dale took over the manage- ment in 1869, the firm had practically con- " From inform.ition given by Mr. N. C. Cookson of Oakwood, Wylam. " Rev. Canon Blunt. A Thousand Years of the Church in Chester-k-Street. Extract from church- wardens' accounts. '^ White and Parson, op. cit. i, 236. '" I am indebted to Mr. C. F. Scott of Leadgate for these details. °' W. Jenkins, Description of the Consett lion Works, 1 2 . centrated on the manufacture of iron rails and plates ; taking the home, colonial, and foreign trade about the year 1876, the output for rails alone sometimes touched a weekly maximum of 2,000 tons. The substitution of steel rails for iron about this time reduced the output at Con- sett fully one-third. Fortunately, however, the increased demand for iron plates for shipbuilding neutralized the effect of this change ; they con- centrated on iron plates, the rail mill was aban- doned, and by 1882 frequently nearly 2,000 tons of iron ship-plates were turned out each week. Another cliange was imminent in 1882, for steel plates made by the Siemens-Martin process were being rapidly substituted for iron plates. To meet this new demand the company had by 1883 erected two small Siemens furnaces, a steam hammer, and an additional Siemens fur- nace for heating the ingots. Before long eight furnaces had been built, cogging substituted for hammering, and a 20-ton melting furnace for the Siemens gas-heating furnace. Exclusive of collieries and coke ovens, the Consett Iron Works consist of seven (an eighth is being built) blast furnaces. Each furnace has seven tuyeres and three Cowper stoves, is 55 ft. high, is fed with imported Spanish and other ores by means of a bell and hopper, with standard beam hydraulic brake. The average weekly pro- duction of each furnace is 700 tons. The hema- tite ore comes from Bilbao, in which mines the company have a large share, and the limestone comes from the company's own quarries at Stan- hope. The temperature of the blast when it enters the furnace is 1,200 dcg. Fahr., the pressure 5 lb. per square inch. Tliere are two melting shops for supplying ingots for the manufacture of steel plates, twenty furnaces with a total capacity of more than 500 tons, and producing about 4,200 tons of ingots per week. There are four plate mills with twenty-five boilers, all driven by high-pressure, direct-acting, non-condensing fly-wheel engines, each having one stand of pinions, one stand of roughing, and one stand of finishing rolls ; in addition, No. 3 has one stand of chequering rolls, 5 ft. 6 in. by 25 in. No. I and No. 3 have steam lifts with slab-raising capacity of about 25 cwt.. No. 4 is a 28-inch clutch reverse mill, with a weekly output of 1,250 tons of steel plates. It has also an over- head 15-ton steam travelling crane running upon stecl-built girders. All the mills have plate and scrap-shearing machines conveniently placed for their use. The total maximum output from the four plate mills is 3,000 tons of plates per week. There are three angle mills : there is a 32-inch, a 22-inch, and a 12-inch angle mill, the total capacity of the three mills being about 2,000 tons of finished material per week. Two over- head cranes with boiler attached run the whole length of the three angle mills. At the south end of the mills is a bar bank. The loading is 291 A HISTORY OF DURHAM done by two 3-ton steam travelling cranes, having 30-foot jibs; eighteen boilers arranged in pairs and working through nine brick-lined iron chim- neys are attached to these mills. The ingots for the angle mills are supplied from the seven Siemens-Martin melting furnaces immediately adjoining with a producing capacity of nearly 2,000 tons a week. The 45-inch cogging mill is opposite the melting furnaces, so that little heat is lost in transmitting the ingots from the melting furnaces to cogging heating furnaces, which are served by a steam derrick locomotive crane. Directly in front of the cogging mill, but at a distance of 75 ft., is an enormous bloom shear, connected with the 32-inch and 22-inch angle mills, which are 125 ft. distant, by live roller gear. The live roller gear also leads to the scrap- cutting billet shears and steam circular sawing machines, the latter being of vertical type worked by hydraulic force. The new angle mill plant was designed by the company's mill engineer, Mr. James Scott. In connexion with the plate mills there is also a 28-inch cogging mill, capable of dealing with 1,650 tons of ingots per week, and a 45-inch mill ; in a line with the latter is placed a large bloom shear, driven by high-pressure reversing engines. This mill is capable of cogging 2,600 tons of ingots per week. Eleven collieries, 1,050 coke ovens, a foundry at Crookhall, brick works about half a mile from the iron and steel works, and numerous engineer- ing shops, supply material or repair the wear and tear of the works. Practically the whole world is their market ; but a small pamphlet bound in bright yellow linen, illustrated with diagrams and containing the price list of the Consett Works in Japanese, which the firm have thought necessary to have drawn up, testifies to the activity of their Japanese trade.'' The Weardale Iron and Coal Company was started by Charles Attwood, financed by Baring Brothers, who purchased a small furnace at Stanhope, where the first pig iron from Weardale ironstone was smelted ; the old furnace is still to be seen there. In 1845 five blast furnaces were built at Tow Law, within a few miles of Stanhope. It was not, however, until 1853 that the Tudhoe iron works were begun in order to deal with the pig iron manufactured at Tow Law. Two forges and two mills were soon so fully occupied that two years later it was necessary to add two more, and the works developed so rapidly that they soon covered 60 acres of ground. In 1 86 1 the Bessemer process of making steel was begun, Tudhoe being one of the first places ^ I am indebted to Mr. George, of the Consett Iron Works, for much of the .ibove information ; W. Jenkins, op. cit. ; Excerpt Minutes of Proceedings of the Institute of Mechanical Engineers at Newcastle, 1885. where it was installed. The plant was laid down under the direct supervision of the inventor himself. In 1870 two blast furnaces were built at Tud- hoe and exclusively devoted to smelting Cleveland ore. Gradually, however, steel was substituted for iron. In 1899 a complete change took place in the history of the work, up to this date the company had consisted practically of the Baring family, but in October, 1899, the private com- pany became a limited liability company, with nine directors, of whom Sir Christopher Furness was chairman. Inclusive of their coal and coke works, the company pays j^ 1,000 a day in wages. The South Durham Steel and Iron Company, of which Sir Christopher Furness is chairman, was formed by the amalgamation of three com- panies : the Stockton Malleable Iron Company, the Moor Steel and Iron Company, and the West Hartlepool Steel and Iron Company. The Malleable works at Stockton are the largest; they cover 90 acres, and the plant consists of 8 Siemens furnaces, I cogging mill, 3 plate mills, I sheet mill, 32 puddling furnaces, I angle mill, i pack- ing mill, I guide mill. Two furnaces for the Talbot process of steel manufacture are being added. These works have the enormous advan- tage of a river frontage on the Tees and a wharf of their own. The smallest of the works, those at West Hartlepool, which only cover 22 acres, are adjacent to the North Eastern Railway, and are able to secure pig iron from the neigh- bouring blast furnaces. Two furnaces for the Talbot process are to be installed here also. The Moor works, also at Stockton-on-Tees, cover almost twice the ground covered by the West Hartlepool Works ; the shops for making and repairing the electric motors for both the South Durham and the Cargo Fleet (Yorkshire) Companies are there. At the meeting of share- holders in 1906 the ciiairman reported that the output from the three works reached almost 8,000 tons of finished material, the weekly wage bill was about ^8,000. During the last nine months they had paid ^37,845 in railway carriage and dock dues. At none of these works is the raw material manufactured ; this fact places them at a disadvantage as regard the Consett and Wear- dale Works. There is an allusion to an ironfounder in Darlington as early as 1798.""' In 1807 Edward Carlton was bound to Messrs. Ridsdale and Porter, forgers, makers and grinders of Heckle- pins, Darlington, for seven years. ^"^ During the first half of the nineteenth century a number of small foundries were at work. In 1827 two iron merchants, John Botcherley, Union Row, and Wass Bright, Grange Row, and three iron and brass founders, one in Commercial Street, one in the Market Place, and one in the Horse Market, '™Reg. of the Church of St. Cuthbert, Darlington. "" Parish Apprentice Reg., Hurworth. 292 INDUSTRIES were at work in Darlington.'"^ From one of these small foundries, started some fifty years ago, the Darlington Forge has developed. At one time Sir Thomas Bouch, the engineer of the fatal Tay Bridge, was connected with the works. In the early days they were chiefly employed in supplying the needs of the North Eastern Rail- way, but now their chief work is marine forgings and castings. The stupendous size of some of these emphasizes the growth in the dimensions, during the last few years, of the liners for which they are made. The castings for the two Cunarders, the Mauretania and the Lmitanla were made by this firm during the current year (1906). They are the heaviest and most complicated castings of this type hitherto produced. The total weight of stern frame, rudder, and brackets for each ship is 223I tons.'"^ Gun tubes for the Government are also made here, and the propeller shafts for H.M.S. Defence, 76 ft. long, 23!^ in. external diameter, were supplied by this firm. The Weardale Iron Company have also exten- sive wagon and engineering works in Darlington. The St. Bede Works at Tyne Dock were opened in April, 1900, by the Fownes Forge and Engineering Company. Possibly the success of the enterprise owes something to the position of the works, for they are situated between South Shields and Jarrow, abutting on Jarrow Slake, the dreariest district in the whole of England, but in the very centre of industrial activity. The works were enlarged in 1902 according to the design of Mr. Henry Fownes, managing director, whose experience has been gained on the Mersey, the Clyde, and as manager of the Ouseburn Forge on the Tyne. A huge hydraulic forging press capable of crushing ingots of 40 tons weight is a marked feature of the works, but the extent to which hydraulic power is utilized is also remarkable. The great marine engineering firm of Messrs. Richardsons, VVestgarth & Co. is situated on the west side of the harbour at Hartlepool. This business was founded about 1 842 at Castle Eden by Mr. Richardson. It was transferred to Hartlepool in 1847, and carried on under the name of T. Richardson & Sons. In 1894 the business became a private company, and in 1900 an amalgamation was arranged between Sir C. Furness, Westgarth & Co. of Middlesbrough and William Allan & Sons of Sunderland, the new company being called Richardsons, Westgarth & Co. ; originally builders of locomotives and stationary engines, since 1854 they have specialized on marine engines and boilers. THE CHEMICAL WORKS' Rock salt was discovered in the county of Durham about i859,but itwas not until 1885 that a company was started for utilizing the discovery. It was, however, rather the revival of an old trade than the beginning of a new industry, for as early as 1290 there is an allusion to the working of salt at Hart. This reference is found in a grant '" by Robert de Brus, lord of Annandale, grandfather of Robert Bruce, king of Scotland, to Sir John de Rumundebi of a salt-pan in the territory of Hart, formerly held by Adam the Miller, at the rental of a pair of white gloves or a penny at Easter. The date is not given, but from intrinsic evidence it must have been previous to the passing of Quia Emptores in 1290. But even in the fourteenth century Cowpen was the centre of the salt industry ; a list of salt-pan holders for 1396 is given with the rent paid in kind.^ The Halmote Court Rolls ' and the Durham Account Rolls'* give many interesting details of "^ White and Parson, op. cit. i, 249. '" ' Darlington Forge Works,' by Thomas Putnam, managing director, Syren and Shipping, Mar. 1906. ' It is difficult for me to acknowledge adequately t'le help I have had in this section from Canon Greenwell and Mr. Bayley of Durham, and Mr. Craster of All Souls College, Oxford. the Cowpen salt trade ; in 1330, 35 quarters of salt were bought at different prices, but the total cost was j^5 75. bd. It is somewhat difficult to get a precise idea of the manner in which these early salt-pans were worked, but an account is preserved of the working of the pans a few miles from Cowpen, at Coatham, and probably the same method was followed in both places. And as the Tyde comes in, yt bringeth a small wash sea-cole which is imployed to the makinge of sake, and the Fuell of the poore fisher Townes adjoininge : the oylie sulphurousness beinge mixed with the Sake of the Sea as yt floweth, and conse- quently h.ird to take fyre, or to keepe in longe with- out quenchinge, they have a Meanes, by makinge small vaults to passe under the hearthes, into which by fore-setting the wynde with a board, they force yt to enter, and soe to serve insteede of a payre of bellowes, which they call in a proper worde of Art, a Blowecole.' '"The grant is in the possession of Mr. William Brown of the Old House, Sowerby, Thirsk. It was printed in the Proc. Soc. Antiq. (New Ser.), iv, 211. ^Dur. Treas. Rentale Bursarii, 1396. ^ Dur. Hal. R. (Surtees Soc. jxxxii). *Dur. Hal. R. 1330; Dur. Treas. MSS. ; Dur. Acct. R. (Surtees Soc. xcix-ciii). ' B.M. Cott. MS. Julius, F. vi, 185, fol. 455. 293 A HISTORY OF DURHAM The salt was extracted by perpetual boiling and reboiling of sea water ; at Ross in Northumber- land the salt water was first exposed to the heat of the sun for some time, and then salt could be extracted by one boiling of twelve hours, but in Durham the usual plan was to apply artificial heat at once, and this often necessitated eight different boilings before salt could be obtained.^ Until within the last few years distinct traces of salt-pans having been worked were to be seen at Seaton Carew near the present golf links ; the inquisitions post mortem and Chancery enrolments furnish a complete history of these for more than a century. In 1 38 1 a salt-pan was in the possession of Robert Lumley,' but Avisia, widow of Thomas Elmeden, in 1425 inherited estates round the Tees, the passage of the river, ' una salina edificata et una salina et quarta pars unius saline,' also rents issuing out of divers lands and tenements and out of a salt-pan with the ominous name of 'make-beggar' ('de una salina vasta vocata Makebegger *); later, Thomas de Carrowe owned four salt-pans there.' During the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries 'saltdeGretham' had more than a local celebrity,^" but the award of 1650 states that the salt-cotes were long since washed away or rendered useless by the tides of the sea. One of the branches of the Salters' Track, an old road running south- wards from Wearmouth, which got its name from the fact that it was constantly used by the salt pedlars, leads to Greatham." Surtees says that traces of these ancient salt-works were still to be seen in his day, and that several farms in the neighbourhood paid a salt rent to Greatham Hospital.^^ A considerable quantity of salt was made at Sunderland, but it is not until the reign of Eliza- beth that any definite account is found of the trade ; then John Smythe asked Lord Burghley for a lease of the salt-pans and ' other implements appertaining to them ' in Sunderland. This lease could not be granted without Mr. Bowes's con- sent, for Ralph Bowes had in 1511 been granted the ' fermhold ' called Sunderland, for the term of five years at 66s. 8d. per annum, and his de- scendants had retained their hold on the neigh- bourhood.^^ Smythe asked also that the licence for making salt which had been granted to Mr. Wilkes should be made so stringent that other ^ Portland Papers {iV\n. MSS. Com. Rep. xiii), App. pt. v, 100 ; 'Journeys in England of Lord Harley,' MS. at Welbeck Abbey. 'Dur. Curs. Rec. P.R.O. Inq. p.m. 36 Richard de Bury Reg. ii, fol. 107. "Ibid. 20 Thomas de Langley Reg. ii, fol. 227. 'Dur. Curs. No. 31, m. 12. '"Thorold Rogers, Hist, of Agrtc. and Prices, ii, 390 ; Compotus Finchale (Surtees Soc), 1.^47. " W. H. D. Longstaffe, Dur. before the Conq. 72. " Surtees, Hist, of Dur. (under ' Greatham ' ) ; J. Brewster, Hist, of Stockton, 61. "Dur. Curs. No. 71, m. 2. makers would be prevented, and that any salt made at Sunderland should have free sale, other- wise the salt-pan would be useless, but in return for these concessions he offered to make a yearly payment of ^800.-'^ It is however in South Shields that the salt trade eventually centred, although as late as 1580 the inhabitants of Cowpen petitioned Mr. Thomas Wylson, Secretary of State and dean of Durham, against the sale of salt at Yarm in Yorkshire by the Scots, who paid no duty for unloading.^' Shields is referred to as having salt-pans in 1448-9, 1449, HSS-"" Certain deeds" of 1489 and subsequent years, preserved in the treasury at Durham, record the successive leases granted by the prior and convent of land near St. Hilda's Chapel between Jarrow and South Shields, where salt-pans existed. The substance of one of these, wkich is in English, can alone be given here. Indenture made 10 January, 1490, between John Prior and the Convent of Durham of the one part and John Raker of Duresme of the other part : ' berith witnesse that the Prior and Convent hath grauntyd ... to the said John Raket a parcell of ground lying betvvix Shelys mihie and Ebgare con- tinuyng xi yerdys in lenth lying Est and West and iiij yerdys in brcyd above the hough, and from that ground into the ground-eb of the watyr of Tyne,' to hold from Whitsunday next ensuing for the term of Ix years, paying yearly to the Bursar of Duresme 3/. \d. at ' Martynmasse in Wynter ' and Whitsuntide. Power of re-entry. Power to John Raket and his assigns to have free issue and entry to pass and repass for all manner of carrying as well horse wayne, cart as other, as well ' for bying of salt and sellyng as for re- payryng, mendyng and upholdyng of all maner of bildyng.' Raket to have ' fre licence to byg a salt pan or als mony salt pannys upon the forsaid parcell of ground with the appurtenaunce as they shall thynk to them cxpcJyent or behovefull with fre licence to breyk the erd ther to make pittes for the kcpyng of salt watyr and condettys for the same for makyng of salt and the forsaid John Raket and his assignes the seyd parcell of ground with housys for the same pannys or to kepe salt in duryng the seyd terme shall uphold, reparelle and maynteyn at their owne propre costys and chargys.' Raket and his assigns to have tymber and stone sufficient during the said term ' within the woddys and quarellys ' of the Prior and Convent for building, keeping and upholding of the said houses, ' heyeying ' stathes, pits and conduits. Raket and his assigns on the expiration of this lease to have power to take away, hold and ' rewse ' the said pan or pans without interruption.'" During the first quarter of the sixteenth cen- tury the Church seems to have kept the salt trade at Shields in its own hands. "S.P. Dom. Eliz. 15 Sept. i 591, vol. 240, No. 13. 'Mbid. vol. 146, No. 38. "^ Compote Domus de li'ermouth (Surtees Soc. xxix). '' 2da, 4ta, Spec. Nos. 24, 26-28 from the tran- scripts kindly made by Canon Greenwell. '" No. 24, ut supra. 294 \ INDUSTRIES De duabus salinis nuper LioncIIi Bell nichel, quia in manu domini Nee respondetdc ij salinis juxta Jarowe causa praedicta." Eighteen years later another entry occurs re- ferring to the same subject : Sed respondet de xiiij/; vij/ recepta de viij salinis super aquam de Tyne nuper magistro de Jarowe ad solvendam pensiones trium confratrum viz. Jarow, Wermouth et Farn Et solutio bursario Dunclm. pro libera firma salinarum vlj/.'" From 1530 to 1537 the monks at Dur- ham seem to have relied chiefly upon Shields for their supply of salt, Willelmus Walshe, capellanus de Sheyles, Robertus Kare, et Relicta Taylyor being the chief vendors."' A curious feature of the salt industry is the persistent appearance of women as owners or workers of salt-pans. In 1580 a widow Bow- maker pays a rent of ^^2 131. 413'. for salt-pans at South Shields.^^ Another widow had a salt-pan at South Sliields at the same time ; a bill for the repairs of it is still extant. Sexto Junii A° dni I 580. ffor spanishe and englisshe lerne bought at Newcastell for balkes and hemp- stottes for a salt pan at South Sheles rent by yere o xlvi*^' viii''' letten by lease to one vvidowc car & for work- manship thereof and ekynge & amed- inge [sic) fyve of the old balkes ffirst to georgc ffarnabie marchant for^ foure scoore two stone & thre pounds V of spaiiysshe lernc after xix"*' the stone j Itm to george whltfeld m'chaunt for "i : ill : stoones and iiii : pounds of brode englisshe lerne after xvii'^' the stone To Symonde waughe for workinge all the said spanisshe lerne in foure new balkes except : viii : stones & one poundewch balkes vveyed : " : xlii : stones & one pound at iiii''' a stone workmanship To the seyd waughe for mendynge and\ new workinge fyve of the old balkes, whereto he occupyed the seyd reme- n^'nt of the newe lerne & moste of the old lern wch v balkes weyed ; " : XV : stones & viii pounds at iii''' a stone workmanship To Robert Trewthwayt for workingeN the sayd englisshe lerne, and pte of s. d. the old lerne in the four hemstotts \. xxx iiii wch hemstotts weyeth " & xi stones after iiii''' the stone " Compoti Domus de 'Jarow, 1 500 (Surtees Soc. xxix). '"Ibid. 1518. '^ Dur. Household Bk. (Surtees Soc. xviii), 1530, 1533-4 ; Dm: Acct. R. (Surtees Soc. ciii), 1536-7. ^' ' A Book of Surveighe,' printed in the Dur. Hal. R. (Surtees Soc. Ixxxii). li. s. d vi li. x ii d V xviii i Itm for carynge of the sayd lerne to andN fro both to Newcast : & westowe, .^ ''• \, IX X and backe again after yt was wroughte f to the pan where yt remaneth ) ffor two dayes that I went the second"! ^ ^ tyme abowte the seyd pan my owne > ii iiii charges & hire of a horse & horse meat) Sma 0/ xvi'' xlii'"' x'*' Sold to the sayd Symonde waughe the\ old lerne that remaned unoccupied weyinge xxvii stoones & :x : pounds ''' ^. ''• V XV xiii V at ix**' a stoone wch deduct owte off the secunde some the some remayn- I inge wch is the chairge / Tobias Matthew Dec Ricardi Johnsonn " At the opening of the seventeenth century the suggestion that an official measurer for salt should be appointed roused the northern salt-makers to vehement protest. They drew up a description of the salt trade in Durham and Northumberland which is full of interesting details.^' The salt produced by the two counties amounted to about 7,650 weys annually, 430 workmen were em- ployed at the pans, the coal used in heating the pans was brought chiefly by water, 120 keelmcn being employed, but cadgers and wainmen also brought coals where there was difficulty in get- ting coal by water. Salt-making does not appear to have been a very profitable investment. The owner supplied the coals, which for one pan cost ^42 1 35. 4.d. In return for this the worker delivered to the owner forty weys of salt, which if sold at 25^. the wey, ' communibus annis yealdeth the owner ^50.'^* The annual yield of a pan being fifty weys, the salt-maker only gains ten weys, or ^^12 los. for his yearly wage from each pan. But the owner's ;^50 was not all gain ; from that had to be deducted a rent of los. per annum,"' and wear and tear of pans and im- plements, £4.. The initial expenses too were large ; each pan cost ^^lOO,^' then the owner had to provide keels and keep a stock of coal, so that allowing for the fact that the statements are of an ex parte nature, possibly those who drew up the account were not far from a true estimate in stating ' that the owner receiveth for everie pann singulis annis but only 56;. 8(/.' As the " MS. in Dur. Treas. in a bundle of miscellaneous bills, sixteenth century. " Duke of Northumberland's MSS. Syon House, Collectanea Warburtoniana. 'A true narrative of the Trade and State of Salters and Saltmaking upon the Sea Coste in the Countyes of Durham and Northum- berland, c. 1605.' ''' Duke of Northumberland's MSS. same date s.ays, ' From the first of December until the 15th of April a waye of s.alt is commonly sold for 20s. and 22/.' '° Dur. Treas. Rentals. " Sir William Brereton, bart., Notes of a Journey through Dur. and Norlhumb. in the year 1635, Chet. Soc. I ; MS. in private library. 295 A HISTORY OF DURHAM appointment of the new official, the ' Monopoli- taine Measurer,' would lead to further diminution of profits, for he was to be paid ?,d. for measuring each wey, the owner to pay for each pan 28j. 8i., it is easily credible that the suggestion was not received with favour. Even the salt- worker did not escape 'and which were more lamentable, he should receive Gs. Sd. per annum out of the poor salt makers waiges.' Incidentally the document throws much light on the northern salt trade as a whole. The greatest number of salt pannes in these coun- ties lye partly on the mouth of the River Weare, where the Bishopp of Durham hath the Manner and /ura regalia, and cheeflie in the mouth of the River Tyne, where on the south side the Deane and Cha- piter of Durham hath the Mannor and the Bishop hath y«r- On the death of Dame Elizabeth the heiresses. Sir William's three daughters, Alice Brown, Katherine Cowlans, and Margaret Coles, put a mortgage on the salt-works, which was taken by Robert Blunt. In 1726 Robert Blunt offered " Minute Book of the Ancient Vestry of St. Hilda's Church, South Shields. I am indebted to Mr. Robert Blair, F.S.A., for the use of his transcription of the MS. The rentals in the treasury cannot always be relied upon, but according to them as late as 1 791 there were nearly two hundred salt-pans at South Shields, by 1827 the number had decreased to fifty, and for all practical purposes by the end of the first half of the nineteenth century the Shields salt trade was at an end, although salt-pans were still worked as late as 1880 by Mrs. Cassidy in West Holborn, but the brine was obtained from rock salt,^' not from sea water. Various reasons, " From deeds in the possession of Mr. N. C. Cookson and copies of leases in the Dur. Tre.isur)'. The plan of the salt-works was attached to one of the Cookson Deeds, 1708, and probably represented the property as it existed at the end of the seventeenth century. "Cheshire rock salt was first brought to Durham about 1825. 299 A HISTORY OF DURHAM none entirely satisfactory, are given for the col- lapse of the Shields salt trade ; probably the discov- ery of rock salt and the fact that the owners of the salt-pans, who were often identical with the owners of the collieries, found another use for their inferior coal, when the demand for coke in- creased, had a prejudicial eflFect on the trade. Still the marvel is not that the trade ceased when it did, but, considering the long and tedious process employed, that it continued as long as it did. Before the trade was quite extinct, an import- ant discovery had been made, 1858-62, by Mr. John Vaughan (Messrs. Bolckow,Vaughan & Co.), who, while boring for water, discovered on the Yorkshire side of the Tees near Middlesbrough a bed of rock-salt. No practical results followed from the discovery ; and although Messrs. Bell Brothers found salt on the Durham side at Port Clarence in 1874 at a depth of 1,127 ^-j '"^ '^^^ not until 1882 that the actual business of making salt was begun. Three years later the Newcastle Chemical Co. started works in connexion with their chemical works on the Tyne, and about the same time the Haverton Hill Salt Co., the first to make salt for domestic purposes, began work, and later the Greatham Salt Co., the most north- erly of the works, started at Greatham. Once started the development of the trade was rapid ; in 1882 Durham only produced a little more than 3,000 tons of salt ; ten years later, including the North Ormsby and Lackenby Works, 231,060 tons were being produced. The salt district ex- tends over an area of 20 square miles on either side of the Tees, and is estimated to contain 2,000,000,000 tons of salt, the average thickness of the bed being from eighty to ninety feet. Cheshire with its rock-salt near the surface has a great advantage over Durham, where the bed is at a depth of about i ,000 ft. ; on the other hand the proximity of coal and a navigable river to a certain extent counterbalance this disadvantage. For the great quantity of coal used is a serious item in the expense of working salt. Originally the boring down to the rock-salt was done by the diamond boring process ; but the substitution of the drilling system, as used in the American oil districts, of derricks and free falling * string of tools,' has been the means of saving time and expense. The tube which is inserted is per- forated three times, to admit the water from the sandstone ; then when the salt bed is reached to allow the water to flow over the rock-salt, and again at the bottom of the salt bed so that the brine can get admission to the inner pump tube. The brine is then pumped to the surface, con- veyed in pipes to the filter, and thence to large pans, in which it is evaporated. The substitution of iron and steel for lead pans is the only change that has taken place in this part of the process during the last 2,000 years. The vacuum process, which decreases the con- sumption of coal by fifty per cent, and does away with the necessity of blocking and grinding, is probably the method of the immediate future as far as the works for the manufacture of fine salt are concerned. The utilization of the surplus heat from the blast furnaces decreases the expense of those works in their neighbourhood, but only the coarser salts can be made in this way. The salt-works at Clarence, where this method is adopted, originally belonged to Messrs. Bell Brothers. They are now worked by the Salt Union. The waste heat from the blast furnaces is conducted in flues under the salt-pans. The gases from the furnaces are burnt under boilers to raise the steam required to actuate the blowing machinery, and the results of combustion pass away from the end of the boilers at a high tem- perature, a'rci? 1,400 Fahr. Between the chimney which draws the gas from the furnaces under the boilers and the boilers themselves, arrangements are made to place the shallow salt-pans, and in this way the heat which would otherwise be lost is utilized. The temperature obtained is not high enough nor under sufficient control to permit the manufacture of the various kinds of salt ; what is called technically chemical salt is the chief product ; still a small quantity of fishery salt is also obtained.^* The United Alkali Company have two sets of salt-works on the Tees, one near Bellingham, the other near Clarence, and both in the Haverton Hill district, and the Tees Salt Company also work salt at Haverton Hill. The fineness of the grain depends upon the temperature at which the brine is evaporated. '^^ By a curious coincidence, Greatham, near West Hartlepool, where in the fourteenth century the best English salt was made, is now the site of the extensive Cerebos Salt Works. The business was begun in 1894 for the manufacture of a very fine table salt ; the invention is due to Mr. George Weddel, the present managing director of the company. In order to replace the phosphates lost when food is cooked, he conceived the idea of mixing in a definite proportion certain phosphates with the salt. The invention met with phenomenal success, and enlarged premises soon became necessary. In 1 901 offices and works were erected in Elison Place, Newcastle, where the salt manufactured at Greatham is put through the final refining processes. The phos- phates, the addition of which differentiates Cere- bos from all other salt, are here added, the salt is put through various mills, sieves, and ovens, weighed by automatic scales, and finally emptied by automatic fillers into the cases, some of the labour-saving devices in this department being due to the ingenuity of Mr. Patterson, director of the " I am indebted to the courtesy of Messrs. Bell Bro- thers for this account of the Clarence Salt Works. '^ MiJd/esirougi Sail Industry, by Richard Grigg. Minutes of the Proceedings of the Institute of Me- chanical Engineers, 2 Aug. I 893. 300 INDUSTRIES works. The weighing and fiUing are in the charge of girls wearing the neat uniform supplied by the company, scrupulously clean white aprons, blouses, and caps. But during the whole process the salt is never once touched by the hand. Modern labour-saving machines worked by electricity, by which all the nails required to make one box are driven in by one blow, make all the boxes required for packing on the premises. A glance at the company's books at once re- veals the enormous area covered by their trade operations. They have customers in every coun- try of Europe, do an extensive American trade, and have clients in the centre of Africa and the north of Queensland. But an important change is to take place shortly. In 1903 the Greatham Salt and Brine Works were purchased by the company for ;f 33)500 ; they were held under a lease for forty years from the trustees of the Greatham Hospital from 1887, and the company have now decided to move from Newcastle to Greatham, so that the whole process from the initial pumping up of the brine to the final packing and dispatch of the salt will take place in future at Greatham, thus a great saving in transit is effected. It is sometimes asserted that the first reference to chemical works, other than salt, on the Tyne is found in an account of the examination in 1638, before the attorney-general, of a certain John Cornelius, who was accused of trying to entice workmen from the Tyneside Alum Works to begin the industry in Denmark.** It is probable, however, that the works referred to were in the North Riding of Yorkshire. But if the Northumberland Alum Works existed, the site is unknown, and it was not until nearly a century later that Mr. John Cookson started works at South Shields on the spot still called Alum House Ham. Possibly the works were run in connexion with the Saltwich Alum Works near Whitby, for the alum liquor which was crystallized into alum was brought in specially devised vessels fitted with tanks from Saltwich,*' and Ralph Carr, one of the partners in the Salt- wich Works, into which he put ^^4,000 in 1758, appears in 1762 as the owner of the Alum House at South Shields. If the welfare of the two businesses were interdependent these early alkali works were not a success, for after losing money for thirty years the Whitby Alum Works were closed in 1789.** Until the end of the eighteenth century alkali was made from Scotch kelp or barilla ; but Mr. William Losh, who was living in Paris at the time of the French Revolution, observed the methods used by Leblanc, by which soda was "S.P. Dom. Chas. I, 16 Sept. 1538, vol. 398, No. 90. " J. Salmon, South Shields : its Past, Present, and Future (1856), 19. *' Carr Family, iii, 68. obtained by decomposing salt by sulphuric acid. He returned to England and, helped by the earl of Dundonald, began a series of experiments which resulted in a patent being taken out in 1795 for treating neutral salts to obtain alkalies, and the English alkali trade was begun by the establishment of a manufactory of soda at Walker-on-Tyne (Northumberland) in 1806. But the new industry soon crossed the Tyne ; in 1822-3 ^''- Cookson established a manu- factory at Templetown (Tyne Docks), and later built furnaces and chambers at South Shields on a plan given to him by Mr. Doubleday. Messrs. Doubleday and Easterby had as early as 1808 established works at Bell Quay, and the repeal of the salt duty in 1823 produced a sudden expansion of the trade. John Alden began at Felling Shore in 1827-8, A. Clapham at Friar's Goose in 1829, C. Allwood at South Shore in 1830, Mr. Bell at Jarrow in 1836, Mr. R. Imeary also at Jarrow in 1839, five years after the foundation of the historic firm of Pattinson and Co. at Felling.*' In the early days the gas which was thrown off during the process of manufacture escaped into the air and destroyed all vegetation round the works. Messrs. Cookson especially were subjected to constant and wearing prosecution. They had however, the most enthusiastic support of their workpeople. In a lengthy address they not only recall the fact that many of the Cookson works had existed for more than a century, and express the utmost contentment with the rewards they enjoyed in return for their labour,'" but ofler to relieve the firm of expense in any defence they might be called upon to make, being as they say Quite satisfied that the continuance and prosperity of the works is more a matter of interest to us than to you. Our subscriptions though separately small will '' W. Gossage, History of the Alkali Manufacture ; R. C. Clapham, ' The Commencement of the Soda Manufacture,' Trans. Newcastle-upon-Tyne Chem. Soc. 1, 43- '" We consider it impossible that any persons can have joined in such proceedings, who are at all acquainted with the vast importance of your works to the town or who have reflected on the incalculable mischief that must arise to the working classes by any interference with the peaceful working of those manu- factories, the suspension of which would bring ruin and misery upon hundreds. We have ever reflected with pleasure on the spirit and enterprise with which you have conducted your various works within the Borough, and when we call to mind that some of these works have existed for a hundred years and have been the support and comfort of our Forefathers, we cannot but regard your Families and Connections as the working man's Best Benefactors, and feel compelled to express our most earnest hope that in spite of all vexatious Persecutions, your establishments m.ay continue to benefit the poor man for generations yet to come. ?0l A HISTORY OF DURHAM be collectively large, and we shall be proud to under- take the defence of the works against what we must deem an unprovoked attack on the dearest interests of the working man." In spite of this support, in 1843 Messrs. Cookson ceased to manufacture alkali, and in 1844 the works were acquired by the Jarrow Chemical Company. Under the management of James Stevenson they rapidly increased, until they became the largest in the North of England. In the great Exhibition they exhibited a minia- ture of the Arctic regions in crystal soda, which weighed 2 tons and measured 6 ft. In 1858 the Friar's Goose Works united to the Templetown concern, and the amalgamated works were then the largest in the kingdom, employing nearly fifteen hundred men. The United Alkali Company acquired the whole concern in 1891.'" The Templetown Works, generally known as the Tyne Dock Works, were closed and later pulled down, but the Friar's Goose Works still continue, though not in full work. In October, 1886, the chemical firm of Pattinson & Co., founded seventy years before at Felling, closed their works, and more than fourteen hundred men were thrown out ot work ; the magnificent buildings still stand un- occupied. The Hebburn Works, once owned by Charles Tennant and partners, are now worked by the United Alkali Company, whose most extensive works are in the borough of Gateshead, and were formerly under the control of the New- castle Chemical Company.*' The chemical works founded by H. Lee Pattinson in 1837 at Washington, and bought in 1872 by Mr. Newall, still continue. But the chemical industry was not confined to the Tyne. As early as 1772 copperas works were started at Deptford by Messrs. Taylor and Inman. Pyrites for the purpose was obtained from Lyme in Dorsetshire, a ton costing 30J. On the death of Inman, the remaining partner, in 1780 the works were bought by Mr John Bliss and managed by him for seven years ; his son succeeded to the business and took Mr. Bernard Ogden into partnership. The works were enlarged and the manufacture of Glauber's and Epsom Salts begun. Mr. Ogden became the sole proprietor in 1820, and six years later a further extension of business took place. Pyroligneous retorts were installed and the manu- facture of acetate of soda begun. Dr. Ogden succeeded his father, in 1831, and extended the manufacture of acetate of soda and acetic acid, until the works became one of the largest of the kind in the world. From 1869 to 1892 Mr. John Maude Ogden, his younger brother, was manager. His executors carried on the business, but sold the whole estate to Doxford & Sons, and in 1902 every vestige of these chemical works, and the old Deptford Hall, which Mr. Inman the founder of the firm had built, was swept away to make room for the extension of the Shipbuilding and Engineering Works." SHIPBUILDING Shipbuilding is the most characteristic and im- portant industry in the county of Durham, and Durham is the most important shipbuilding county in the United Kingdom. Four hundred and sixty-eight ships above 1,000 tons were built in the British Isles during 1905 ; of these 175 were built in this county. Durham accounts for 589,944 of the 1,808,771 tons that represent the total tonnage of England, Scotland, and Ireland. Taking England, exclusive of Durham, as the standard of comparison, the pre-eminent position of Durham is still clearer, for England turns out only 465,460 tons, so that Durham with its output of 589,944 tons exceeds the total English output (exclusive of Durham) by 124,484 tons. Nor can this great industrial development be traced to any natural advantage ; the Wear is " From a copy of an address to Isaac Cookson and William Cuthbert, esqs., from their workpeople, agreed to at a meeting held in South Shields Market- place on 22 Jan. 1832, kindly lent to me by Mr. N. C. Cookson. '^ Chemical TraJcs Journ. 1890, pp. 32, 33. the only exclusively Durham river, for Northum- berland and Yorkshire claim the lion's share of the shipbuilding of the Tyne and the Tees, and it has been rightly said that man has done every- thing for the Wear, nature nothing. Sunderland is often spoken of as a mushroom growth of the mid-seventeenth century, but its shipping had a history long anterior to that period. Among the Mickleton MSS. is a document com- piled in the early part of the seventeenth century^ which contains a list of all the rolls then in existence which dealt with Sunderland shipping. They cover a period from 1 183 to 1609. In many cases the date of the document only, no hint of its contents, is given. The first one quoted is dated 1 9 Edward III, and runs, ' Thomas Menvil held a certain place called Hendon for building of ships and paid yearly for the same *' I am indebted to Mr. Alfred Allhusen for many of the details of the Durham Alkali Works. ^ From a manuscript description of the Deptford Copperas Works in possession of the Sunderland Antiquarian Society. 302 INDUSTRIES 25.' ' A more comprehensive entry follows, headed : Diverse copies of Rolls of Accts showing ye Bishopps to have ye Passages and Feery Bootes at Sunderland and account for making new Bootes allowed upon ye accounts 1345, 1406, 1457, 1494, 1502, 1508. The bishop's rights were not always undisputed. To a copy of a patent granted by Tobias, Bishop of Durliam, to one Evans Witting for the anchor- age of Sunderland, is added the pregnant sen- tence, ' The master of Trinity House preuved him to have a Patent from ye King and ye Bishop will not allow it.' ^ Probably these copies of rolls bearing on shipping were compiled for the use of the bishop in his admiralty jurisdiction, for the admiralty court was an important part of the administration of the county palatine.^ The episcopal jurisdiction does not seem to have fostered or developed the trade of Sunder- land ; the Report of the Commissioners for the care of Ports and Havens within the Bishopric of Durham, presented in 1565, says of Sunder- land : There are neither ships nor boats and only seven fish cobbles that belong to the town occupying 20 fisher- men. This town is in great decay of building and inhabitants.' * By 1626, according to the return made to the Privy Council, Sunderland, where the coal trade is one-fourteenth that of Newcastle, ought to pay a fourteenth of the charge of setting out two ships for the king's service, but the traders of Sunderland deny to yield any contribution. Ten years later Sunderland was assessed at ;r20 for ship-money, Gateshead paying ;^50, and Darlington ^^25.' But its development was very slow until the out- break of the Civil War, when, as Royalist New- castle refused to send coal to Parliamentary London, the metropolis had to rely upon Sunder- land and Blyth for the supply. An ordinance dated 12 May, 1643, ordered that there should be free and open trade in the port of Sunderland. The jurisdiction of the bishop abolished, no trade or gild restrictions to hamper its development, supported by the government, Sunderland forged ahead with almost incredible rapidity. Coal was only found in the higher reaches of the river ; a local industry, the building of keels to convey the ' R. Surtees, Durham, i, 256. ' Cosin's Lib. Durham ; Mickleton MSS. No. 10, fol. 362. ' Diverse copies of Rolls to prove that ye Bishop of Durham hath ye Borough of Sunderland and Rents for ye fishing ; which ye Prior had there, and yt ye Bishop had a place therein in ancient time for arrival of ships paying a rent.' ' G. J. Lapsley, The County Pal. of Dur. App. ii, 3 1 7. ' S.P. Dom. Eliz. Add. 26 Nov. 1565, vol. 12, No. 86 (1); W. Cunningham, Grozvth of Engl. In Just, end Commerce, i, 66. 'S.P. Dom. Chas. I, March, 1636, vol. 317, No. 96. mineral to the harbour where it was shipped, was already begun. But the development of the coal trade increased the keelbuilding trade ; men ac- customed to building keels found little difficulty in dealing with the small wooden vessels so much used at the end of the seventeenth century ; when, therefore, there was an increased demand for ships in the eighteenth century, a race of men were at hand on the banks of the Wear with an inherited manual dexterity brought to its utmost development in the satisfactory training school of voluntary apprenticeship. The woods of Dur- ham, which the Petts had ransacked early in the seventeenth century to get timber for The Sovereign of the Sea, building in the naval dock- yards at Woolwich, had diminished so rapidly that the men of Sunderland could not rely on their own county for their needs, but they were favourably situated for commanding an inex- haustible supply from the forests of the Baltic regions.^ Early in the eighteenth century several shipbuilders were on the Wear, though the average size of the vessels was only 135 tons. In 1753 only about 190 ships belonged to this port ; ' four ships are mentioned as going annually to the Greenland Sea, but whether they were locally built it is impossible to say.* Bailey gives the table of the ships built in Sunderland which was presented to the House of Commons in 1807 : Years 1790 I79I 1804 1805 Surtees gives statistics of the number of ships building at various dates, which taken in conjunc- tion with the previous list shows that the trade fluctuated considerably : mbcr Average Tonnage of Tonnage Largest •9 '44 312 6 202 356 51 163 3+9 36 163 337' Date Number Tonnage December, I 8 1 0 37 8,410 November, I 8 1 1 32 8,020 November, 1 8 1 2 37 8,437 March, I 814 31 6,693 He adds, within the port of Sunderland there are twenty shipbuilding yards.'" The Napoleonic wars are supposed to have given an immense impetus to Sunderland ship- building, but the evidence given before a select committee of the House of Commons in 1833 does not support this theory. The evidence * M. Oppenheim, Administration of the Navy, 261 ; F. W. Dendy, ' Extracts from Privy Seal Dockets,' /4nh. Aeliana, xxiv. ' 'Letter from Sunderland, 13 June, 1755,' Gent. Mag. XXV. * Brit. Univ. Dir. 1792. ' J. Bailey, op. cit. 299. '" R. Surtees, op. cit. 264. 303 A HISTORY OF DURHAM brings out the facts that of thirty-four or more shipbuilding yards on both sides of the Wear, nineteen had been started since the peace ; that ships were built cheaper at Sunderland than else- where ; that every place where a ship could be built was a yard ; and that the smaller ship- builders, who undersold the larger shipbuilders, were generally carpenters who clubbed together and started business in the hopes of getting better wages for themselves than when they worked for others.^^ These builders without capital were often the tools of the timber merchants, who advanced the timber, and who, in case the builders were unable to meet their claims at the end of the nine months for credit given, seized the vessels and put them on the market in a hastily finished condition. In many cases where the builders were working on contract, a quarter of the value was advanced. Over-production followed, and as a writer in the first number of the Northern Tribune, in 185 I, says: Until about ten years ago the character of the vessels built on the Wear was considered sloppy and the c.ipital of the town had somewhat of a papery reputa- tion. In fact, ' Sunderland Barley Barrells,' as at one time the Wear-built vessels were called, were synonymous with vessels built to enrich the owner and drown the crew. In 1840, 251 ves- sels were built on the Wear, with 64,446 gross tonnage; in 1843, only eighty-five, gross ton- nage 21,377.'^ But the Irish famine, emigration to Australia, and the Crimean War, restored the prosperity of Sunderland shipping. In 1850,158 vessels of 51,374 gross tonnage were built ; this number was never exceeded, although the tonnage in 1853 ^^^ increased." This was the high- water mark of wooden shipbuilding, although as late as 1857 there were seventy-one wooden- shipbuilders, and the industry lasted until 1875, when William Gibbon built the last wooden ship. In 1852 the first iron sailing-ship built on the River Wear was launched. It was the Loftus, built by Mr. Clark, during 1 851, for Mr. George Forster of the Consett Iron Works, to carry Cleve- land ore from Yorkshire to the Tyne." The Amity, from the shipyard of James Laing, was the second Wear-built iron vessel. The firm of Sir James Laing & Sons is the oldest firm on the River Wear ; the founder was Mr. Philip Laing, who in 1793, in partnership with his brother John, started shipbuilding on the Monkwearmouth shore, where the Strand Ship- way Company have their works. The partner- " Evidence of Mr. Henry Tanner of Sunderland, given 10 [uly, 1833. " Lloyd's Reg. 1 840. " Mr. T. Ray of Ryhope, to whom I am indebted for many details of early Sunderland shipping, saw eight ships launched on one d.iy in January, 1850. " Rep. of Mech. Engl. March, 1885 ; Lloyd's Reg. 1851. ship was dissolved in 1 81 8, Mr. Philip Laing then buying the Deptford Yard, where the busi- ness is now carried on.'^ The firm have still a MS. volume containing an account of all the ships built by them since the inauguration of the trade. The Horta, tonnage 248, was the first ship built ; it was for Captain Forster of Whit- burn. The receipt for the building of the Polly for Captain Wheatley, who paid ;r5,426 14J. as purchase-money, dated I December, 1814, is still extant ; her tonnage was 283^ J. Sir James Laing succeeded to the business on his father's retirement in 1 843 ; of course all the ships built were of wood, but Sir James introduced the use of East India teak to supplement the use of oak, and he imported the first cargo of Moulmein teak into Sunderland. The firm took an active part in the emigrant shipbuilding in the forties and fifties. A number of Scotch emigrants from Glasgow, accompanied by their pastor, went over to Dunedin in 1846 in the Philip Laing, the bell of which ship was given to the Dunedin church to supply the place of the cracked bell then in use. The ill-fated Dunbar, built in 1 85 3, was a large ship, more than 200 ft. in length ; she was wrecked at the entrance to Sydney Harbour, and, except one old man, all, both crew and emigrants, perished. In 1855 the La Hogue, the biggest ship built in the north up to that date, 221 ft. long, was launched.'^ But as early as 1853 Sir James had begun the building of iron ships, his first iron ship being the Amity. The firm have always been celebrated for their first-class work- manship, and have built for the P. and O., the Royal Mail, Union, West India and Pacific, British India, Beaver Line, and for the Japanese line Toyo Kisen Kabushiki Kaisha of Tokio. The building of oil boats, which require the utmost nicety of finish, is also a specialty of the firm. The Tuscarora, one of the largest oil steamers afloat at the time of the launch, was built for the Anglo-American Oil Co. A new type of trunk deck steamer was introduced by \ Sir James Laing & Sons a few years ago for carrying grain, ore, and other general cargo in bulk, where self-trimming is indispensable. The shipyard covers an area of 1 7 acres, with six berths. The most interesting ship launched lately from the yard is more like a floating dock- yard than an ordinary vessel ; it was built for the Government in 1 906 to accompany the fleet, so that in case of accidents the repairs can be done at sea ; it contains all the machinery neces- sary for repairing on the most extensive scale. The extensive brass-works belonging to the same firm not only supply their own ships, but also enable them to fulfil contracts with the Admiralty and the War Office. A propeller foundry was added in 1902. " Hue and Cry, 12 Dec. 18 18. " lllus. London News, I I Aug. 1855. 304 INDUSTRIES Messrs. Doxford, of Sunderland, in 1905 secured the blue ribbon for the largest output of tonnage in the world ; they built twenty ships with an average tonnage of 4,332 tons. The firm was started in 1840 by Mr. William Dox- ford, father of the three senior members of the present firm, who began as a wooden-shipbuilder at Coxgreen ; he left Coxgreen in 1857, and started iron shipbuilding at Pallion near the site of the present works. In 1878 an engine-build- ing department was added ; in 1891 the firm became a limited liability company. The rapid development of the firm is unparalleled, and is chiefly owing to their having introduced the turret steamer in 1892. The main idea of the turret steamer is a combination of strength with lightness, a maximum carrying capacity with a minimum net register. With the exception of the space devoted to machinery and water ballast, the entire hull is used for cargo, and the holds are free of all obstruction. The hold beams during the last year (1905) have in some cases been en- tirely dispensed with, and vessels of this type are increasing in popularity. In 1895 a new method of rolling ships' plates with joggled edges was adopted. The great advantage of the innovation was to reduce the weight of the vessel by abolishing packing, which was no longer necessary as the joggled edges of the plates fitted into each other. In 1892-3 the output was about 2,000 tons ; in 1902 it was 43,780 tons. In 1905 the firm turned out the three largest single-deck turret steamers afloat," when the output was 8 7,000 tons. For the Clan Line alone Doxfords have launched thirty turret-decked steamers, of from 6,000 tons to 8,000 tons capacity ; and they have also built for the P. and O. and the British India, and for America, Spain, Italy, Holland, Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. The most novel feature of the building slips is the arrangement of overhead gear ; above each vessel, resting on columns and beams, are tracks along which the hoisting trollies travel. These tracks overlap the vessel both on the shore and river ends, greatly facilitating and accelerating the bringing of the necessary material to the place where it is wanted. The startling fact that the establishment launches a vessel a fortnight is partly due to the extraordinary rapidity with which the slips can be cleared and the materials for the erection of the new vessel got into place. Another old and important firm on the Wear is Messrs. J. L. Thompson & Sons near the mouth of the river, founded in 1846. For the first twenty-four years of their history the firm were occupied solely with wooden vessels ; in 1 87 1 the first iron steam vessel was built; in 1898 their gross tonnage launched amounted to 40,815 tons; from 1885 to 1902 they fifteen times headed the annual output of tonnage on the Wear ; for three successive years they held the " The Ouiloa, Querimba, and Queda, each 1 2,000 tons dead weight. fourth position in the annual output for the United Kingdom, and in 1905 were the eighth on the list with thirteen vessels and 48,009 grosS' tonnage. Messrs. Short Brothers, Pallion, begun in 1849 by Mr. George Short, is now carried on as a limited liability company; in 1905 they built nine vessels with a gross tonnage of 27,805 tons. Messrs. Osbourne, Graham & Co. started busi- ness in I 872 at North Hylton ; the second steamer launched in 1877, the ChiUingham CaUle, of 1,613 tons, attracted great attention, for at that date it was considered to be of enormous size. The first vessel lighted by electricity built on the Wear was the work of this firm. John Priestman & Son was established in 1882 at South wick by Mr. John Priestman. In 1894 he patented his self-trimming trunk vessel. The Southwick yard has turned out some large vessels especially adapted for the cattle trade. Another old-established shipbuilding yard at Southwick is that of Messrs. Robert Thompson & Son. William Pickersgill & Sons, John Bulmer & Co., S. P. Austin & Son, turned out six vessels during 1905, the average size of the first firm's vessels being nearly 4,000 tons, of the last, 1,215 tons. John Crown & Sons with three vessels, total tonnage 3,377 tons, the Sun- derland Shipbuilding Co. with eight vessels averaging nearly 2,000 tons, and Bartram & Sons, bring up the total number of Wear-side ship- builders to thirteen, the total tonnage of the Wear to 306,759 tons in 1905. On the Durham side of the Tyne, Jarrow, South Shields, and Hebburn are the shipbuilding centres. The Jarrow works were founded in 185 i by Charles and George Palmer ; where the town of Jarrow, with its 70,000 inhabitants, now stands, there was then but one house. They are the only shipbuilding works in the world where it is possible to watch all the processes through which an amorphous heap of iron-stone passes before it emerges as a seaworthy vessel. The shipyard covers an area of about 100 acres, and is on the site of an old yard where wooden frigates had been built early in the century for the British government. It has a river frontage of nearly three-quarters of a mile. Within this area there is a shipyard, graving dock and slipway, engine and boiler works, steel-works and blast furnaces. There are five blast furnaces, and in the steel- works there are eight smelting furnaces and cog- ging, sectional, sheet, and plate mills. The works are completely self-sufficing, having their own forge and rivet works, fitters', plumbers', joiners', and cabinet-makers' shops. The engine works are capable of turning out thirty-four sets of engines and boilers in one year. When the shipyards are at their busiest, about eight thou- sand men are employed. There are about eight 305 39 A HISTORY OF DURHAM miles of railway within the works, and twelve locomotives are constantly at work conveying materials from one department to another. The competition of the newly opened-up Midland coalfields was seriously affecting the staple industry of Northumberland and Durham when Charles Palmer opened his shipyards, and in order to counteract this new competition he designed an iron screw steamer, the yohn Bowes, having a carrying capacity of 650 tons, which, although launched on 30 June, 1852, is still afloat under the name of the Transit, and is owned by a Swedish firm. It is, however, chiefly as a builder of warships that Palmers' Company is noted. They launched their first warship, H.M.S. Terror, during the Crimean War ; she had a displacement of 2,000 tons, was three-decked, and mounted twenty guns of the largest calibre. She was built in three months, 900 men being employed, for the government ■would brook no delay. The substitution of rolled for forged plates accounts for the short time in which the ship was built. The firm have built sixty-nine warships for the government, consist- ing of a troopship, the 'Jumna ; ten battleships. Terror, Defence, Cerberus, Gorgon, Swiftsure, Triumph, Resolution, Revenge, Russell, Lord Nelson; ten cruisers, twelve gunboats, twenty-five torpedo boat destroyers, and ten torpedo miners.'* The Lord Nelson is the largest battleship yet launched in the north of England. Length, 410 ft. ; beam, 79 ft. 6 in. ; draught, 27 ft. ; displace- ment, 16,500 tons ; horse-power, 16,750; speed, 18 knots ; maximum coal capacity, 18,000 tons ; primary guns, four 1 2-inch and ten 9'2-inch ; cost, j^ 1, 6 1 6,083. ^^ '^^^ launched on 4 Sep- tember, 1906. At Hebburn on Tyne Messrs. R. W. Haw- thorn Leslie & Co., a firm celebrated for their Russian connexion, have their shipbuilding yards. Of their first seventeen vessels, eleven were built for Russia. They make a special feature of tank ■steamers for the carriage of oil in bulk, and their vessels for the Australian and New Zealand ■chilled-meat trade are well known. In they launched six vessels of an average tonnage of 4,809. In the report to Queen Elizabeth, three ships are given as belonging to South Shields, called the Usiven, the Edward, and the yohn of Shields, belonging to John Bowmaker, William Lawson, and Edward Kitchin. In addition there were six boats, or cobbles, all occupied in fishing.^' The shipping of South Shields was long hin- dered by the repressive policy of Newcastle,"" but early in the eighteenth century Robert Wallis successfully defied the authority of Newcastle 1905 gross '* Palmer Rec. Oct. 1 906. >' S.P. Dom. Eliz. Addenda, loc. cit. '° R. Cirdiner, England's Grievance 1655. Discovered, and opened shipyards there. ^' Fryer's map of 1773 gives only two shipyards. Hutchinson, writing in 1787, says that forty years ago not more than four ships belonged to the town, but that in i 78 1 eleven ships were built and launched there. -^ Bailey, writing in 1809, says there were four shipbuilding yards with docks adjoin- ing, one shipbuilding yard without a dock, and seven boatbuilding yards. ^^ The petition to the queen asking for incorporation in 1850 says that South Shields possessed graving docks and patent slipways capable of accommodating twenty-three ships at one time for repairs, and in addition fourteen yards for the building of ships. Mr. Marshall was the pioneer iron shipbuilder at South Shields. In 1839 the Star, apparently the first iron Tyneside vessel, and certainly among the first twenty iron vessels in the world, was built by him. It was intended for the pas- Fenger and towing trade on the Tyne. He also built the first iron screw steamer in the north of which there is any official account.^'' The vessel was built to the order of the Bedlington Coal Company, in order to convey loaded coal wagons from Blyth to the colliers in Shields harbour. It failed to fulfil the purpose for which it was built, and was turned into an ordinary cargo vessel. The Russians sank it in the Baltic during the Crimean War. It is owing to this lack of success that the Q.E.D. screw steam collier, built by Mr. Coates at Walker's Quay, and fitted with a 20 h.-p. engine by Hawthorn, is known as the first vessel of this class. The arrival of the Q.E.D. at Rotherhithe caused an amount of excitement which certainly warrants the idea that it was a pioneer. The Illustrated London News contains a long account of it, and the description ends with the confident hope ' that the time is not far distant when our ships of the line will be fitted with engines and screw in a somewhat similar manner.'"^ South Shields early entered the steamship building trade, but the boats were of small size, about fifty tons ; by 1844 twenty-eight of these were afloat ; as the total number of steamers owned on the Tyne then only reached 135, South Shields had evidently done yeoman service in this pioneer trade.^" When Mr. Marshall retired, this early ship- building yard was taken over by Mr. J. Read- head about the middle of last century ; he had been engineer to Mr. Marshall, and in partner- ship with Mr. John Softley, another employee, took over the business. The firm stopped work- ing during the great depression in shipbuilding, but Mr. Readhead reopened the yards without ■' G. B. Hodgson, Borough of South Shields, 320. " W. Hutchinson, Hist, of Dur. ii, 483. ^ J. B.iilev', op. cit. 295. '' Lloyd's Reg. i 843. " Illus. Lond. Nezvs, 28 Sept. 1844. ^^ Lloyd's Reg. 1843-4; cf. G. B. Hodgson, op. cit. 324. 306 INDUSTRIES Mr. Softley, and the trade developed so rapidly under his sole management that by 1 88 I exten- sions in the yard became necessary. In 1905 the firm, J. Readhead & Sons, turned out eiglit vessels of the average size of 3,530 tons. J. P. Rennoldson & Sons, who started the first engineering works at South Shields in 1826, are also shipbuilders. Their special line is tugs of 200 or 300 tons. They built seven of these during 1905. J. T. Eltringham & Co. are another ship- building firm at South Shields, but they are better known as makers of marine boilers. South Shields was the birth-place of the life- boat. To settle the exact question of the man to whom the invention was really due is almost impossible. Greathead is described as the inven- tor on his tombstone in Saint Hilda's churchyard. He received a parliamentary grant of 1,200 guineas, 100 guineas from Trinity House, 60 guineas and their silver medal from the Society of Arts, and a diamond ring from the Emperor of Russia for his work. But many people defend Mr. Woulhave's claim, and still more think that the invention was really due to suggestions from various sources. Many facts in connexion with the building are fortunately in- controvertible. It was built at South Shields by subscription, under the inspection of a committee of whom Nicholas Fairies was chairman, by Mr. Greathead, to whom the idea of a curved keel was entirely due. The terrible catastrophe, the wreck of the Adventure dit. South Shields in September, 1789, at the entrance to the harbour, when the men dropped from the rigging, exhausted by cold and hunger, into the sea before the eyes of thousands of helpless spectators, was the imme- diate cause of the effort to build a boat that would live in the stormiest sea. It was first used on 30 June, 1790, when several sailors were saved. Whatever doubt hangs over the real inventor, no one has ever disputed that South Shields was the home of the invention."' In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries Hartlepool was the best-known port on the north-east coast. In the list of the fleet before Calais drawn up in 1346, ' Hartilpole has con- tributed five ships and 145 men.'-^ In 1565 it possessed one ship, the Pete)-, belonging to John Brown and George Smith, also three five-men boats and seventeen small cobbles.^' As late as 1614 it is spoken of as the only port town within the county of Durham, although some twenty years later the three travellers from Norwich allude to it even then as only interesting on account of its antiquity. Likewise that ancient decayed Coast Towne wch is surrounded some halfe a mile with the maine Sea " J. Salmon, op. cit. 11-15. '* R. Hakluyt, Vo-jages, \, 1 24. '= S.P. Dom. EHz. Addenda, loc. cit. every twelve howers. This hath been formerly a brave stately and well fortifyed Towne, now only a sea land habitation for Fishermen.'" But Hartlepool is completely overshadowed by West Hartlepool, an entirely nineteenth-cen- tury growth. When Queen Victoria came to the throne, a mill and a farm-house were the only buildings where the populous town now stands. Ralph Ward Jackson founded West Hartlepool, as some say, with the idea of having a port in Durham to rival Liverpool. The docks were begun in 1845 in connexion with the Stockton and Darlington Railway, and though it has not grown with the rapidity some of its promoters expected, it is now an important ship- building centre with a total gross tonnage of 128,898 tons. The oldest firm, Messrs. William Gray & Co.,, was begun at Old Hartlepool by Mr. William Gray, in partnership with Mr. Denton, who had opened a shipbuilding yard there in 1836. In 1864 the new firm, Denton, Gray & Co.,, launched their first iron steamer. Five years later the firm removed to the yard in West Hartlepool that had been worked since 1853 ^7 Pile Spence & Co. When in full work about six thousand men are employed. The firm have six times headed the list with the greatest output in the United Kingdom ; the last time they held the blue ribbon was in 1 900. In 1 90 1, although their total tonnage, 82,262, was a few hundred tons greater than in 1900, they were beaten by a Belfast firm and have not yet regained their supremacy. In 1883 it was determined to add an engineering department ; the marine engine works were opened in 1885 ; they have since been extended, and now cover almost ten acres of ground. Another enterprising shipbuilding firm at West Hartlepool is that of Messrs. Furness, Withy & Co., who were the first to adopt the use of electricity as a motive power throughout their shipyard. They have built to the order of the Wilsons and Furness-Leyland Line, the Chesapeake and Ohio S.S. Co., the Hamburg- American and Allan Line. In 1905 they built ten vessels, aver.age size 4,459 tons. The chair- man, Sir Christopher Furness, is also chairman of Irvine's, the third shipbuilding yard at West Hartlepool. Bishop Pudsey, fired with the desire to go on the crusades, had, according to Hutchinson, a large vessel built either at Hartlepool or Stock- ton,'' but he did not carry out his intentions. In the history of the Exchequer the further career of the ship is narrated. Et in reparatione Magnae Navis quae fuit Epis- copi Dunelemensis xij^^ xv/. iijV. ob. . . . Et in ™ 'A Relation of a Short Survey of 26 Counties, 1634.' Lansd. MSS. 213, fol. 320. Printed, Stuart Set: vii. " Hutchinson, Hist. o/Dur. i, 175. 307 A HISTORY OF DURHAM Custamento ducendl praedictam navem Londiniam xl, per idem breve, et Roberto de Stockton qui duxit eandem Navem xiijj. iiijV. pro servitio (?) suo, per breve ejusdem.'* But if Stockton were of sufficient importance to be the building-place of the vessel it had sunk into complete insignificance as a port by the reign of Elizabeth, for the report of the Eliza- bethan commissioners treats it in a somewhat slighting manner. There is also a creek called Tees Mouth, three miles from Hartlepool, but no town nor habitation until Stockton ID miles distant where ships may come near the shore and boats may come on land.'' But in the seventeenth century Stockton was more flourishing; a report drawn up in 1638 says of the Tees that the effect of the tide was felt as far as Yarm, and that ships 'of 60 tons come into the river many at a time that bring corn from Dantzic' '* So important had the Baltic trade at Stockton become by 1 67 1 that the Eastland merchants thought it necessary to ap- point a surveyor there.'^ There is a local tradi- tion that the revival of shipbuilding in the middle of the eighteenth century was due to a Mr. Chap- plelow, a government agent, who coming to get timber for the royal dockyards, stayed there to work up the inferior wood available in great quantities, but too small to be worth transporta- tion to London. The Headlams, who migrated to Gateshead as early as 1750, were the first shipbuilders, but the names of the Humphreys, Haws, Mellanbys, and Markhams are all con- nected with wooden shipbuilding at Stockton during the later eighteenth century. Mr. Haw built sixty-one vessels between 1782 and 1800.^^ In 1779 the Bellona, a fine frigate, was built for the government ; it was unfortunately wrecked in the Texel.^' It is difficult to associate the small town of Yarm, miles from the mouth of the river, with a shipbuilding industry, but there is no doubt that the increased prosperity of Stockton was due to the decay of Yarm as a port. At the end of the '^ Madox, Hist, of the Exch. i, 714. '' S.P. Dom. Eliz. loc. cit. '' Ibid. Chas. I, 1638, vol. 409, No. 189. 'Mbid. Chas. II, 8 M.ir. 1671, Entry Book 25, fol. 194. '^ H. Heaviside, Ann. of Stockton, 58. "J. Brewster, Hist, of Stockton, 155. eighteenth century there were two shipyards at Stockton where vessels of 800 tons could be built.^' The unnavigable nature of the Tees militated against its development as a shipbuild- ing centre; between 1838 and 1857 no less than eighteen vessels had been totally wrecked and sixteen stranded at the Tees mouth. '^ The first iron shipbuilding yard was on the Yorkshire side of the river, but Messrs. Pearce, Lockwood & Co. started building iron steamers in 1854 on the Durham side. They met with immediate success, and by 186 1 were building for the Indian government. The Talpore was built for conveying troops on the lower Indus, was fitted with 800 berths, and could, in case of urgent necessity, accommodate 3,000 troops. The following year they received another order for a large vessel for the same government. In 1888 the yard was taken over by Mr. Ropner, a West Hartlepool shipowner of German origin, in partnership with his son, Mr. Robert Ropner. The firm devotes itself specially to producing vessels with a great cargo-carrying capacity. In 1895 Mr. R. Ropner patented a new model, the trunk steamer, which soon achieved great popu- larity. In 1892, and again in 1894, the works were at a standstill for a considerable time on account of disastrous strikes of thirteen and four- teen weeks. In 1900, by their output of 42,263 gross tons, they secured the sixth pLice among the shipbuilding firms of Great Britain. In 1905 they built nine vessels of nearly 4,000 tons. When in full work they employ about 1,5:0 hands. Unlike many of the Durham firms, Messrs. Ropner & Son do not build their own engines, but are supplied by Messrs. Blair & Co., whose works immediately adjoin the shipyards. This engineering firm is on the site of some old works started by Messrs. Fossick and Hackworth in 1839 ; here the first pair of marine engines were built in 1853 ; later Mr. G.J. Blair became first assistant, then manager, then owner of the works. The total production of new shipping from the several shipyards on the River Tees for the year 1905 was forty vessels, representing 138,577 tons,''" but only nine of these vessels, with a tonnage of 33,560, can be claimed for the county of Durham. " British Universal Dir. 1792. '' J. S. Jeans, 'Notes on 'Northern Indust. 48. *° Ports of the River Tees, compiled by the Secretary to the Tees Conservancy Commissioners. 308 INDUSTRIES GLASS WORKS There is no evidence to support the theory that glass was manufactured in England during the Roman occupation, but the first glass made of which we have any authentic information was certainly manufactured at Wearmouth. When Benedict Biscop's church and monastery at Wearmouth was approaching completion, he sent to Gaul for workers in glass, who were unknown in Britain, to glaze the windows of his church — more than this they taught their art to the English."^ Not only window glass, but glasses for domes- tic uses were manufactured there; but by 758 the art had completely died out, for at that date the abbot of Jarrow was sending to Mayence for a man who could make vessels of glass.^ There is a blank in the history of northern glass-making for many centuries, but the glass- makers from Lorraine soon found their way to the Tyne, and Sir Robert Mansel, who in 161 5 obtained a patent for making glass with coal, according to his own evidence given in 1624, after trying to start works in London, the Isle of Purbeck, and Milford Haven, was enforced for his last refuge contrary to all men's opinion to make trial! at Newcastle upon Tyne where after the expence of many thousand pounds that worke for window-glasse was effected with Newcastle Cole.' The fact that the register of All Saints' Church contains upwards of six hundred entries of mar- riages and burials of Henzeys (Hennezels), Til- lorys, and Tyzacks, shows the extent of the French settlement of glass-makers, beginning early in the seventeenth century.* How soon this new Tyneside industry crossed the river to the Durham side it is impossible to say with certainty. Salmon, writing in 1856, refers to a mixing book of plate glass made in South Shields in 1650, a letter written by John Cookson from his glass-works at South Shields in 1690, and the ancient books of the South Shields plate and crown glass-works of 1728, as being then extant.^ A lease, dated [722), 27s 22 November, cf. Mickleton ' Bede, Hisf. Eccl. (ed. MSS. 10. ' Eptstolae Bomfacti, cxiv. ' S.P. Dom. Jas. I, 1624, vol. 162, No. 63. * ' Rise of the Art of Glass Making on the Tyne,' by James Ciepham, Arch. Aeliana, viii. S. Graze- brook, Collection for the Genealogy of the noble families of Henzley, Tyller'^, and Tyzack, Stourbridge, 1877. (Privately printed, a copy in the Newcastle Free Library). ' If any of these are in existence, they have eluded a somewhat persistent search, nor have I been able to find anyone who has ever seen them. The Cess Book of St. Hilda's from 1660 to 1 7 1 4 throws no light on the subject, and so far the Durham Treasury has yielded no earlier lease than one of 1737. 1737, refers to the building of two glass-houses on the south bank of the Tyne. The dean and chapter lease all that their parcel of ground set lying and being on the south side of the River of Tyne nigh South Sheles aforesaid containing in breadth six and twenty yards or thereabouts whereon two glass houses now in the tenure or occupation of the said John Dagnia his undertenants or assignes were lately erected to the said John Dagnia.^ There is no positive evidence as to the site, but the expression ' from the top of the Bank there on the South to the low water mark of the River Tyne on the North,' together with the known fact that the river frontage on the east of the Mill Dam was in other hands, points to the site of John Dagnia's works being either where Altringham's works now stand near the Mill Dam, or higher up Holborn where Moore's glass-works are situated. Fortunately there is no doubt as to the site or history of the celebrated crown and plate glass works of Messrs. Cookson on Cookson's Quay. On II March, 1737, Isaac Cookson leased the property from the administrators of the will of Robert Blunt for ;^900, and the following year John Cookson, his son, and Thomas Jeffreys, of Snow Hill, London, entered into partnership, the one putting in ;{^3,750, the other ^^2,250, as manufacturers of crown and plate glass, each swearing that he would not at any time make known or reveal any of the secrett or secretts relating to the mixing of metalls for the making of the said crown and plate glass. Jeffreys undertook the management of the Lon- don warehouse, and travelled for the firm, as he already ' as merchandizing in Hairs travelled the principall towns between South Shields and the Land's End.' The London warehouse was in Old Swan Lane, Upper Thames Street, the lease being granted by the Worshipful Company of the body of Christ of the Skinners of London, for ninety-nine years at ^^o ; on the renewal of the lease it was raised to ^^1,000 a year. John Cookson managed the South Shields branch. The business increased rapidly; by 1746 the firm consisted of John Cookson, acting partner, Thomas Jeffreys, Richard Jeffreys, Sir John Delange, James Dixon, and Joseph Cookson. Thomas Jeffreys retired from the firm in 1748, and transferred his share to Richard, who also bought out Sir John Delange. But in 1776 John Cookson bought all his ten shares for ^ For an interesting account of the D.ignia family see 'John Dagnia of South Shields,' by C. E. Adam- son, MA., Arch. Aeliana, 1894. 309 A HISTORY OF DURHAM ;r8,ooo ; thus only Dixon and Cookson were left in the firm. John Cookson died in 1783/ The extensive foreign trade done by the firm is shown by an old day book, 1745-47,* in which 'adventures' to Hamburg, New York, Rotter- dam, Copenhagen, Dantzic, Lisbon, Edinburgh, and Rhode Island are of frequent occurrence. As John Dagnia appears as a purchaser in this day book, the popular idea that he was a partner in the Cookson firm is disposed of. The Cess Books of St. Hilda's from 1760 to 1797 contain each year returns of the payment of the Cookson glass-houses; in 1760 Cookson and Deer paid jTi OS. ^d., John Cookson 155. 6d., but by 1766 Cookson and Deer were paying at £1 Js., Joim Cookson had become Cookson & Co. and was paying ^^i 14!." As Deer was a son-in-law of Dagnia, his con- nexion with the glass trade is easily explained. Apparently these were the old glass and bottle works in East Holborn ; unfortunately all the books and papers concerning these works were destroyed a few years ago, and the works having been carried on by a limited liability company were then taken over by Lamberts and eventually closed in 1873. In 1823 Mackenzie says that they employed about 100 men. Perhaps nothing can give a more vivid impression of the extent of the glass trade in the north than the description given in the Newcastle Courant of 20 September, 1823: On Friday last the flint glass makers employed in the houses on the Tync and Wear walked in proces- sion in this town, and the elegant and magnificent display of workmanship exhibited on that occasion evinced the perfection this art has attained, as it may safely be affirmed that in the number of objects, the variety of the forms, the excellency of the workman- ship and the difficulty of their execution it has seldom been equalled. The men all wore sashes, and glass stars suspended from their necks, by chains or drops of variegated colour, the great majority of them had glass feathers in their hats, and each individual carried a glass ornament in his hand. The men from six glass hou;es composed the procession. South Shields, flag ; large cut glass upon pillars, supported by two swords ; bugle ; wind mill ; a fort mounted with seven cannon; violin and bow; the men wore white sashes trimmed with blue. Sunderland, Wear. Silk banner with "Wear" and the arms of Messrs White and Young ; large cut vase and cover ; two chandeliers with branches, ornamented with coloured button drops ; bearing cut decanters, wines &c. and a wind mill at work, at the top ; 2 goblets with an engraving from Burns' song of ' Willie brew'd,' &c. ; a bible lying open with 2 verses from Proverbs ; a glass case containing a ship, the Henry, mounting 64 guns ; a curious tube representing by me.ms of the action of different fluids the circulation ' From deeds kindly lent me by Mr. N. C. Cook- son, and leases in the Durham Treasury. * In the possession of Mr. N, C. Cookson. ' Cess Books of St. Hilda's, South Shields ; i, 1690- 17 16; ii (missing), 1716-60 ; iii, 1760-97. of the blood in the human body .... 3 glass cases, one containing a Cossick ; another a gentleman driv- ing a gig, with his dog fol'owing him ; and the third a representation of his infernal majesty. The men had pink sashes trimmed with blue, with the word " Wear " upon them, the cutters had a cut rose, thistle and shamrock supporting the feathers in the cap. Durham, flag. Gateshead arms on on: side ; Dur- ham and British Fint glass works in the circle, and " By honourable exertion " in the garter on the other. Large Prussian lamp ; obscured and painted figure of Justice stained ; 28 words; crown gilded glass, with 2 tassels, supported by 2 persons carrying white wands ; 2 cut candlesticks, mounted with spangles and icicles ; crown borne by a person wearing a glass hat, with the Motto "Industry and Unity " ; a representation in stained, painted and engraved glass of Samuel declaring the judgements of God upon Eli's house ; 2 variegated pedestal lamps with painted shades. The men of these works had blue silk sashes trimmed with orange, with the letters D. G. W. on them and all cut rosettes below. But the glass-works on the east side of the Mill Dam, where blown plate glass was manu- factured, continued to flourish ; in 1 833 Mr. Isaac Cookson, in evidence given in to a Govern- ment Commission of Inquiry sitting at Newcastle on the glass trade, stated that the eighteen glass- houses at Sunderland and South Shields paid in all ;^I33,I96 in duty out of ^680,004 paid in all England, and five years later Mr. Shortridge, himself a South Shields glass-maker, in giving evidence before a Royal Commission says that he thought the firm had been in existence for about a century and a half and that they were the largest glass-makers in the kingdom.'" The works re- mained in the hands of the Cookson family until the year 1845, when the returns of the excise duty show that there was more plate glass made at South Shields than at any other manufactory in the kingdom. ^^ Possibly these were the original Cookson glass-works. The Cooksons then re- tired from the trade ; the firm became R. W. Swinburne & Co. In 1858 a syndicate took over almost all the plate glass manufactures of England, the managing director was R. W. Swinburne of South Shields ; many of the works were stopped, but the South Shields were kept at full work; in 1862 they were paying ^30,000 in wages annually. In 1868 the syndicate dis- solved, and the limited liability company who took over the works failed in 189 1. Another important firm established in 1797 was that of Shortridge & Co.^^ Possibly these early works were the flint glass-works in West Holborn, but later the firm had crown and bottle works near the Mill Dam. In 1827 the glass '" Rej>. from the Select Com. on Church Leases, 1838, p. 123 ; Evidence of Richard Shortridge. " R. Swinburne, 'Glass,' Industrial Resources of Tsne, Tees, and f fear, 198. " St. Hilda's Cess Book, iii. 310 INDUSTRIES manufacturers were Isaac Cookson & Co., crown and plate, at Cookson 's Quay ; Cookson, Cuthbert & Co (bottle), in East Holborn ; and Shortridge, Sawyer & Co., flint glass-works. '^ A great deal of glass was also manufactured in Sunderland and its neighbourhood. In 1 751 the numbers of ships employed in carrrying not only ceils and salt but glass and other merchan- dize to diverse parts of the kingdom as well as abroad makes it a fine nursery of seamen." In 1772 there were three green bottle-houses and one flint glass-house there. Thomas Wilson, who died in 1776, and was buried in Bishop- wearmouth Church, was a glass manufacturer at Ayre Quay. In 1818, 1,543 cwt. 2 qrs. 241b. of bottles, 1,296 cwt. I qr. 19 lb. of crown glass, and 463 cwt. o qrs. 13 lb. of flint glass were ex- ported from this port. In 1827 the trade was flourishing ; two glass- works at Deptford, one at Southwick, and three in Sunderand proper were not only supplying local needs but exporting largely. The Ayre Quay Bottle Works, the oldest on the river, were then managed by John Candlish ; Philip Laing and Sir James Laing were partners in the firm. Pemberton's Bottle Works were also at Ayre Quay, but were closed many years ago. There were also two large establishments at Deptford, the Wear Flint Glass Works in the hands of Mr. Booth, and Featherstonhaugh's or the Wear Glass Bottle Works. Later the bottle- works engulfed the flint glass-works. In Sunder- land proper, Fenwick & Co. had crown glass and glass bottle-works in Low Street, and Hilkiah Hall bottle-works at Bridge End." Ten years later Dibdin visiting Sunderland was much struck by the development of the industry. My daughter was delighted with what she saw. An order had come down that morning for a thousand dozen of gin glasses. The ordinary wine or beer bottle is the prevailing article of commerce, but decanters, tumblers, and wine glasses, vases with their accompani- ments, are manufactured in a style of surprising beauty and in endless variety."" '^ J. Salmon, op. cit. 22, 23. '* EnglancTs Gazetteer, 1 7 5 1 . '^ White and Parson, op. cit. i, 343, 360, cxxxii. '" Dibdin, Tour in the Northern Counties of England, i. 3'4- At one time the glass cutters were quite a feature of the Sunderland glass trade. Sailors in search of local novelties to take away as presents were their chief patrons. Glasses with Sunder- land Bridge cut on them, decorated with the initials or names of the buyers, found a ready sale ; these goods were not only manufactured in the works, but the trade was carried on as a domestic industry. Early in the nineteenth century Thomas BuHer and Robert Pile, Low Street, Robert Greener in High Street, and Robert Haddock, Low Quay, were experts in the art. In 1877, except the Ayre Quay Bottle Co., all these glass-works which fifty years before had been giving remunerative employment to many men were closed.^' Occasionally in going over the shipyards a site is pointed out as being the locality of the old glass-works, but few traces still remain. This is not, however, so astonishing as the total collapse of the celebrated works of James Hartley & Co., for, comparatively speaking, they are a modern firm. They were begun about 1842, and gained a world-wide reputation on account of the invention by James Hartley of a new kind of plate glass called rolled plate, some- thing like unpolished plate glass, but not so heavy, and of the greatest utility for roofing and other purposes, where translucency only is required ; in 1863 Mr. Hartley stated that one-third of the English-made sheet glass used in England was made in these works, and some idea of their output may be gained from the fact that their account with the North Eastern Railway Company for the month of March 1865 was ^^692 15J. \d. These works covered an enormous area on the Hylton Road, where Hartley's Buildings now stand, and at one time employed 700 men, but the works were closed and dismantled in 18 The Stockton Glafs Works at one time did a very flourishing busncis, but they are on the Yorkshire side of the river. Glass, at onetime one of the leading industries of Durham, is now represented by the Ellison Glass Works at Gateshead, Moores at South Shields, three firms in Sunderland, and one in the neighbourhood of Gateshead. " Taylor Potts, op. cit. 162, 163. " From a bill in possession of Mr. Williamson, Hylton Road, Sunderland. 3" A HISTORY OF DURHAM POTTERIES The manufacture of white earthenware was introduced into the county of Durham between 1730 and 1740.^ The pottery was begun by Mr. Warburton at Carr's Hill near Gateshead ; some of the original buildings still remain in a dilapidated condition, and a small brown-ware pottery is still carried on there. The initial stage once passed, the development was rapid, and soon four potteries were at work on Gateshead Fell.^ White clay, a prime necessity in the production of fine pottery, was cheap and abundant, as it was brought by the Devonshire and Cornish vessels fetching coal from the Tyne as ballast. The Newbottle Pottery was started as early as 1755, and, in spite of its isolated position, managed in the hands of the Scotts, Fairbairns, and Brod- riclcs to do a considerable trade for the first six decades of the nineteenth century. The trade, however, concentrated itself chiefly on the banks of the Wear, and early in the nine- teenth century in one year the export numbered 292,042 pieces. This export trade was princi- pally with North-East Europe. Norway Denmark Prussia Germany Holland Guernsey Jersey British Northern Colonies took 16,000 pieces 5.950 „ „ 47,000 „ » 4>300 >. „ 145,092 „ ., J4.55° » 15,800 „ 43.350 .. 292,042 ■ The favourite purchase of the many sailors who frequented the port of Sunderland was a set of Sunderland jugs or a gaily painted glass rolling- pin. The principal firms were Antony Scott, founded in 1788 at Southwick ; a rice dish with the mark AS and date in a circle is in the Sunderland Museum, and also a curious smoker's companion, a pagoda-like erection consisting of spittoons, ash-dish, candlestick, and extinguisher fitting into each other. The firm celebrated their centenary in 1888, but stopped working, and the works were dismantled and sold in 1896. Their best-known pattern was views of Haddon Hall, Derbyshire ; at one time the Haddon Hall pattern rivalled the Willow pattern in the North of England in popularity. The Wear Pottery at Southwick was founded by Brunton in 1789, but taken over by Samuel ' Jewitt, Ceramic Art o/Gt. Brit. ' J. Bailey, Gen. Fiezv of the Jgric. ofDur. ^ T. Potts, Hist, of the Town, Port, Trade, and Com. of Sunderland, 165. Moore in 1803 ; it did an extensive continental trade at one time, but falling into the hands of inexperienced managers the trade decreased and it was dismantled. The excellent specimen of what is known as Sunderland pottery, probably made about 1820, in the British Museum, is stamped Moore & Co. The plate has in the centre the favourite design of a steamship, trans- fer printed ; the sea is washed with colour, the sides and rim decorated with pink lustre, the rim moulded with a shell and scroll design. The firm got their supply of flint from near Beamish, where they leased the Poctrerley Flint Mill ; * there was another flint mill neai Whitehill, and a third near Fencehouses ; all these were kept employed supplying the Wearside Potteries. It was, however, at Hylton that two of the best- known potteries were situated ; the earliest was founded at North Hylton in 1762 by John Maling, whose great-grandchildren now carry on the largest pottery in the North of England at Newcastle, to which place the works were re- moved in 1817.* But the finest buildings and the best-conducted pottery on Wearside was that of John Dawson at the Low Ford Pottery, South Hylton ;® unfortunately the works have been dismantled, but an interesting document was discovered when the flint mill chimney was taken down in 1896 : John Dawson, Esq. Hylton Lowford Pottery Charles Frederick Dawson William Dawson William Trotter Agent [A list of the workmen employed in building the chimney follows.] This building was erected A.D. 1840 by J°°- Daw- son for the express purpose of grinding Flint. Colour. Engineer, R. Hawthorne, Esq., Newcastle-on- Tyne, Engine, 27^ Horse Power. Mr. J""' Dawson aged 80. C. F. Dawson aged [no age given]. W. Dawson aged 15. Nachdem Charles F. & William Dawson ihre Erziehung in Deutschland bekommen hatten kam der erste in seinem l6ten & der letzte in seinem I5ten Jahre nach England zurilck um in dem Frabrika ihres Gross-vaters das Steinzeug Geschaft fortzusetzen unter dem Aufsichte ihrer Vormunde der Herrn ' Beamish Estate Office ; ' Messrs. Smith, Moore & Co. held Poctrerley Flint Mill on a 14 years lease from April 5 , 1 8 2 7 to 1 8 4 1 ; then Samuel Moore & Co. took another 14 years lease from April 5, 1841.' "White and Parson, op. cit. i, 55. '^ Ibid, ii, 263. 312 Plate II : Sunderland Pottery INDUSTRIES Ed"""- Lawrey J. Vint Tho'- Gales. Johann Hichtenschleld ist jetzt unser Rcisender lebt mit seinem Familien in Hamburg thut den Aufsicht Uber unserer Lager in Hamburg. Charles F. Dawson. William Dawson. Have generally 6 Glost Kilns drawn every week. employ about 200 hands in the Factory George Chambers Foreman George Naisley Warehouse 1840 Building commenced April about 150 ships of large dimensions are build- ing in the Wear.' The mill was capable of grinding 20 tons of flint a week. But John Dawson died in 1848,* and although the pottery continued in the hands of trustees, who at one time refused j^g,000 for it, until 1864, no purchaser could then be found, the plant was sold by auction, the moulds and copper plates commanding a ready sale. About 1830 Dawson's pottery produced the best earthen- ware and had the largest output of any pottery on the Wear. One reason for his success was the encouragement given to the workpeople to bring their minds to bear on their work ; they were encouraged to make new designs, and these were passed through the oven for them without question or delay. They were especially success- ful with their blue willow ware. Whether Dixon & Austin took over the North Hylton works when the Malings migrated to Newcastle it is impossible to say with certainty ; a John Phillips, whose identity is difficult to establish, hovers over the Hylton and Sunderland potteries, the marks John Phillips, Hylton Pottery,^ J. Phillips, Sunderland Pottery,^" and Phillips & Co. still existing. Possibly he worked the pottery at Hylton before Dixon & Austin took it over. But leaving the region of hypo- thesis, the Sunderland, or as it was called by the workpeople, the Garrison Pottery was established by Robert Dixon & William Austin in 1807, in a building that up to that time had been used as a whiting factory ; Pottery Buildings now occupy the site. Later they were joined by Thomas Henderson ; and then Alexander Phillips, the nephew of John Phillips, who acted as clerk to the firm, was taken into partnership.^' As early 'The document is in the possession of Mr. William Ball of Deptford Pottery, to whom I am Indebted for many local details concerning the Wearside potteries. * He was buried in the family vault in Hylton Church. ' A specimen in the Victoria and Albert Museum has this mark. '°Mr. Ritson has a finely printed mug in his collec- tion with the mark J. Phillips, Sunderland Pottery. " From information supplied by Mr. Dixon ot Brisbane, Queensland, once partner in the firm. 2 3 as 1827 the firm consisted of Robert Dixon, William Austin, Thomas Henderson, and Alexander Phillips, though it traded under the name of Dixon, Austin, Phillips & Co.'^ The firm carried on the Hylton and Sunderland works simultaneously. They did a large export trade, and were especially noted for their pink lustre ware. At one time the firm turned out excellent work even from the artistic point of view ; the following description of a jug gives a typical example of their work about 1830. Sunderland globular Jug of white earthenware, 1 1 in. high, loin.from tipofspout tocurveofhandle. Decora- ted with band of leaves and flowers in colours round neck and with borders of dark purple lustre round the top and bottom of neck and the base of jug and on the spout. The body of the jug is decorated with purple lustre splash and designs in black transfer printing filled in with red, blue, green, and yellow, as follows — On front of jug — Below spout a shield with anchor on it ; supporters two sailors bearing colours ; crest full-rigged ship. Below shield is motto — ' Deus dabit vela,' and below is inscribed — ' Mariner's Arms,' Above this design is the address — ' Battle Bridge, Hawk ' ; below, the name ' Henry Chatters.' On one side is the well-known design of the Wearmouth Bridge surmounted by inscription giving dimensions and date. On the other side is a design inscribed below 'Chelmsford Road 1822' and shewing a gig of marvellous construction out of which apparently two men have been thrown on to a high road. Further on in front of a screen of bushes is the figure of a man in dress of naval officer 1 8th or early 19th century together with woman and two children all in lachrj-mose attitudes and with ship of war at sea in distance and boat waiting in foreground. Under this is the name of the engraver. Below this design is this inscription — The orders giv'n. In haste the deck I the signal gun is mount,compar'd fir'd with me And the last mo- The storm knows ment of my stay rest & peace the expir'd raging sea. In the middle of which is the name of the firm of potters, ' Dixon Austin & Co., Sunderland,' in an oval. An extremely popular product of these works was the lion ; the photograph is from a specimen in Mr. Ritson's collection. It is of finely potted white earthenware with lustrous white glaze. The height is 9 in. and the length 10 in. ; it has the mark Austin, Dixon & Co. impressed on top of base. Date f. 1825.'' There is much difficulty with regard to the borough of Sunderland Pottery. Jewitt, whose assertions deservedly carry great weight, states " From agreement in the possession of Mr. Ritson ; White and Parson, op. cit. i, 359. " I am indebted to Mr. V. R. Ritson for the descriptions and the photographs. (PI. II.) 13 40 A HISTORY OF DURHAM that the Sunderland or Garrison Pottery was founded by J. PhilHps but Mr. Dixon, who as a later partner in the firm had exceptional oppor- tunities of knowing the truth, affirms that his grandfather was the founder. Chaffers, whose statements about Sunderland pottery are open to question, makes confusion worse confounded by writing of two potteries, one the Garrison and the other the Sunderland, whereas the Garrison was only the workmen's name for the Sunderland pottery. In addition to these well-known potteries there were a number of smaller firms, whose aggregate output reached a considerable total. A pottery was begun at Seaham by Captain Plowright in 1836, but he worked it for only a few years; then it was taken in hand by the workmen as a co- operative enterprise, but quickly abandoned ; again reopened by R. C. Wilson it was finally closed in 1852. At one time it manufactured a willow pattern in blue of exceptional excellence. Of all these numerous and flourishing potteries two only remain : — Ball Brothers, the Deptford Pottery, founded in 1857, which still manufac- tures some brown ware, but is principally employed as a factory, doing considerable trade in German ware ; and Messrs. Snowdon & Co., founded in i840byThomasRickabyat Sheepfolds. It is possible that Francis Place, the celebrated painter and potter, may have carried out some of his pottery experiments at Dinsdale, a few miles from Darlington. A few years ago some fur- naces were discovered there ; they were of brick with iron gates, and were at first supposed to be of Roman origin ; further investigation, however, pointed to a much later date, late seventeenth or early eighteenth century. As Place lived at Dinsdale before he went to the Manor House at York, where he had furnaces built and pursued many interesting experiments in the manufacture of pottery, the Dinsdale kilns may have been used by him.'* At one time a con-, siderable amount of pottery was manufactured at Stockton-on-Tees ; Thomas Ainsworth had two glost kilns and a bisque kiln ; he started in 1850 in partnership with his brother William; the firm continued until igoijthe site being then bought by Colonel Ropner for the enlargement of his shipyards. William Smith had a pottery in the same neighbourhood, but removed to Hartlepool about 1896; he was unsuccessful and soon retired from the business. But the better-known firm of William Smith & Co., which started in 1826, is on the Yorkshire side of the river, and still continues. The Tyne or South Shields Pottery was estab- lished in Waterloo Vale by Mr. R.obertson in 1830. In 1841 the business was bought by Mr. John Armstrong, who worked it success- fully until 1 87 1, when Isaac Fell and George Young purchased it. They confined themselves to manufacturing ordinary brown ware and Sunderland ware; if any Sunderland pottery was manufactured it was small in quantity and fur- nished no good specimens. The works were closed in 1890. TEXTILE INDUSTRIES The textile industries belong entirely to the south of the county, and date from the end of the seventeenth century. Spinning and weaving were carried on as a domestic industry from the earliest times, but there is a complete absence of reference to early textile industries in the county. Darlington dyers are alluded to in Boldon Book, and at the close of the thirteenth century ' Madersgarthis,' the place where the dye was grown, is mentioned as belonging to the Wal- worth's. Dyeing would hardly be carried on to any great extent unless cloth was manufactured in the district, but all accounts of the trade seem to have escaped record. Glovers figure frequently in the history of Darlington, but they were makers of leather not cloth gloves. In the city of Durham the woollen industry was sufficiently developed to admit of an influential gild of weavers. Fuller ' makes no allusion to Durham in enumerating the centres of early woollen industry. In 1647 and 1655 silk weavers occur in the register of St. Cuth- bert's at Darlington, but these are isolated ' T. Fuller, a. Hist. (ed. 1665), iii, 112. examples, and left no mark on the industrial history of the town. It is true that as early as 1 53 1 the flax cultivated to a considerable extent in the neighbourhood of Houghton-le- Spring was spun in the district, for a note is added to the value of the tithes as given in the parish books, ' We have a bundle of iyne or flax mostly spun by the women, dame Hakford the smith's wife of Newbotill and others.' ' Gates- head, too, had a reputation for its woollen and linen goods,' but these are exceptions. The county of Durham is especially exempted from the provisions of the Act of 1557-8, that cloth-making should not be carried on outside corporate towns or market towns where the manufacture had been carried on for the last ten years,* which seems to point to the fact that the woollen industry was either non-existent or "I am indebted to Mr. J. P. Gibson of Hexham for this interesting suggestion. * ' Rec. of Houghton-le-Spring,' by R. W. Ramsay in Engl. Hist. Rev. Oct. 1905. "Old Gateshead,' by J. Clephan, Jrch. Ael. viii, 228. *4 & 5 Phil, and Mary, cap. 5, sec. 22-6. 314 INDUSTRIES in such poor case that the government felt that special legislation was necessary to foster it. Probably the report on the salt trade correctly represented the condition of affairs in the county about 1605. It is to be noted that in the Countyes of Durham and Northumberland there be no great trades as clothing and suchlike used, by which the poorer sort are sett on Worke and relieved from begery saving only the trades of Colyery and Salting.' But by the end of the century the industry had made some headway in the south of the county, and though Bishop Auckland, Barnard Castle, and Castle Eden as manufacturing centres had brief and fluctuating careers, Durham carpets retained their reputation until within the last few years, and Darlington had still worsted mills of great importance. Ralph Thoresby,when passing through Barnard Castle in 1694, mentions leather as its chief industry,^ ' now chiefly famous for bridles there made,' but some forty years later 'a great woollen manufactory of stockings' was carried on there.' According to Bailey, whose authority as a native of the coujity and an observant man can- not be disregarded, the trade was lost owing to the manufacturers trying to undersell each other, and producing inferior goods. The customers were drawn away and the unfortunate employees forced to seek work in Durham, Darlington, and the neighbouring counties.* But the popularity of Barnard Castle carpets continued after the other worsted industries were lost. The waters of the Tees were supposed to be peculiarly well adapted for producing brilliant colouring from the dyes ; before the introduction of chemical dyes, this was a matter of the utmost importance. By 1827 there were five carpet factories in the town, manufacturing Dutch, Kidderminster, and Brussels carpets, and employing several hundred hands. The majority of these firms did not spin, but imported their worsted and yarn from York- shire ; the largest of the factories, however, Messrs. Monkhouse & Whitfield, did their own spinning. At one time they employed more than 200 men, and the closing of their works in 1870 was the final blow to the prosperity of the town. The last carpet factory, that of Smith, Powell & Co., was closed in 1888.' The flax mill, which was started in 1760, is still work- ing,^" and is one of the largest shoe-thread mills in the country, doing an extensive export trade with Spain, Turkey, and the Colonies. All the flax is imported from Belgium, Ireland, France, and Russia. The mill is worked by Messrs. ' Duke of Northumberland's MSS. Collectanea Warburtoniana. * R. Thoresby, Diary, \, 279. 'Camden, Gough''s Additions, iii, 1 1 2. 'J. Bailey, op. cit. 294. ' I am indebted to Mr. Vincent Ord of Barnard Castle for information about the carpet trade. '"The mill is on the Yorkshire side of the river. Ullathorne, descendants of the original founders of the business. The firm has branch establish- ments in Melbourne, Paris, and London. About 100 men and 1 00 women and children are em- ployed. In addition to shoe-thread, a certain amount of twine and rope is made, in order to utilize the yarn which is not of sufficiently satisfactory quality to be made into shoe-thread. In 1792 a manufacture of corduroys and sail- cloth was begun by Mr. Burdon at Castle Eden ; about 200 boys and girls besides men were em- ployed in spinning and weaving. A row of houses called the Factories, where the overseers of the works used to live, still remains and gives some idea of the extensive nature of the enter- prise. All traces of the square where the factory was have disappeared, but in the coal-house of a cottage, still called the Bleacheries, there are the ovens of the bleaching ground ; a great quantity of sail-cloth was manufactured here. But the enterprise was not successful. The industry was removed to Durham in 1796, and the building where the transferred business was carried on being burnt down, it was never re-established.'^ Darlington from the earliest time was associa- ted with spinning and weaving. Boldon Book alludes to the dyers of Darlington, and the Cursi- tor's records constantly refer to the mills on the Skerne. But no records giving the exact date when the corn mills changed into woollen or flax mills have yet been unearthed. Darlington was noted for its linen manufacture long before it won a reputation as a worsted industrial centre. Thoresby says that the linen manufacture was settled at Darlington owing to the influence of the late Queen Mary ; possibly he meant that the linen trade developed considerably under William and Mary throughout England, not that Queen Mary interested herself specifically in Darlington.'^ In 1690 three linen corporations for England, Scotland, and Ireland were formed as joint-stock companies, to introduce the im- proved French methods of linen and damask weaving. In England and Ireland they were organized on the basis of buying up existing undertakings ; the discovery in a book of modern newspaper cuttings of three documents in a late seventeenth-century handwriting points to some connexion between Darlington and the newly- established King's and Queen's Corporation of Linen Manufacturers. 'Darlington the 28th ^ 96. 300 : = : = Six days sight of this my bill be pleased to pay to Jno. Grainger three hundred pounds as per advise of your friend Robert Trueman. The Committee of Linnen Manufactory Old Affrlcan House in Trogmorton Street London.' " J. Bailey, op. cit. 293. " R. Thoresby, op. cit. ii, 430. 315 A HISTORY OF DURHAM The second document is similar, but dated ye 17" ^o, 1696, and for ^500. The third is fuller. London 26 June 1 696. Sr. Pay under John Grainger for the account of Robert Trueman, the sum of Five hundred pounds, being in part, for his bill of Six hun- dred pounds, the 7th of Aprill 1696 for the use of the King and Queen's Corporacon for the Linnen Manufacture in England and for your so Doing this shall be your Warrant. Paul Doeminique, William Shepherd, Thom. Morice, Wm. Lascoe, Dpty. John Blackler, Sam. Onglev, Phin. Bowler. Apparently John Grainger was a banker, Robert Trueman the manager of a weaving or flax- supplying concern at Darlington. The King's and Queen's Corporation had bought goods from or through Trueman, or (supposing there was a weaving factory owned by the corporation there) it had ordered goods produced there to be sent to London. Payment was made by Trueman drawing a bill of exchange on the corporation which was accepted by the corporation. As all three documents deal with round numbers, possi- bly there was a continuous series of transactions between Trueman and the corporation.^' The Universal Magazine in its descriptive account of Darlington says : — It is the most noted place in the whole world for huckabacks, being made from half an ell to 3 yards wide. The price varies from jd. to 18/., the broad sort being made nowhere else." Early in the eighteenth century the linen trade was chiefly in the hands of Quakers, and this fact gave Harley an opportunity for a gibe at the sect. Describing Darlington he says : — The Skerne runs at the bottom, and there is a navi- gable river eight miles off, which is a great promotion of the trade of the town, which lies chiefly in Hucka- back. I bought a coarse piece of it for towels, and that I might be sure to be imposed upon with great brevity {sic) dealt with Dobson a Quaker." The study of the registers of St. Cuthbert's throws considerable light on the industries of Darlington. By the end of the eighteenth century there is ample evidence that a great pre- " I am much indebted to Professor Scott of St. Andrews for elucidating these documents for me. Cf. W. R. Scott, ' The King's and Queen's Corpora- tion for the Linen Manufacture in Ireland,' Royal Soc. Jnftq. Ireland, xxxi. " Universal Mag. Oct. 1749, p. I47- '* Portland MSS. (Hist. MSS. Com. 1899), v, 100. Journeys in England of Lord Harley, afterwards second earl of Oxford, 3 May, 1725. ponderance of the people worked at one or other of the textile industries. Of the sixteen people buried in the month of April, 1797, nine were weavers or wool-combers. The list comprises weaver, taylor, husbandman, wool-comber, black- smith, weaver, weaver, weaver, skinner, wool- comber, weaver, wool-comber,husbandman, weaver, husbandman, spinster. ^^ Still, a great deal of the linen sold was not woven in Darlington, but in the surrounding villages. At Hurworth many of the sheds built at the back of the houses, where the weaving used to be carried on, are still to be seen, and some of the oldest in- habitants can recall the days when the road to Darlington was kept busy by weavers either carrying their linen in packs on their backs or driving donkeys laden with it to sell at the fac- tories. The high-water mark of Hurworth linen-weaving was reached early in the nine- teenth century ; of the forty-three people who had their children baptized in 1813, thirteen were weavers ; ten years later only ten out of thirty- nine, in 1833 nine out of forty-two, in 1843 ^'^ out of fifty-two, and in 1853 only two out of thirty-six.'' In some cases the merchants bought the linen in an unbleached state, and the earliest map of Darlington has a large space marked as bleaching grounds j'^but the eighteenth-century newspapers, especially the Newcastle Courant, are full of ad- vertisements of owners of bleaching grounds seeking clients ; so evidently bleaching was car- ried on as a separate industry.'' Defoe, who had an intimate knowledge of the north, says that Darlington was noted for its successful bleaching of linen, so that quantities of the mate- rial were brought from Scotland to be bleached there; but as early as 1773 the trade had decreased so seriously that the inhabitants pre- sented a petition to the House of Commons on the subject. A petition of the Huckaback table linen manufac- turers of Darlington in the County of Durham was presented to the House, setting forth that Petitioners are informed that a committee is appointed to enquire into the present state of the Linen Manufactory of these Kingdoms, and representing to the House that the Linen Manufacture in that part of the Kingdom has within the last few years p.ist greatly declined, and that the manufacturers are at present in a most distressed situation and the trade and manufacture there in danger of being lost which Petitioners appre- hend is owing to the increased importation of Foreign Table Linen.'" '* St. Cuthbert's Parish Registers, 165 3-1 797. These registers have not been published, but are full of interesting matter. " Hurworth Parish Registers under date. '* The original map is in the possession of Mr. Edward Wooler. " Newcastle Courant, 1 750-1 800. '" Com. Jouni. 19 Mar. 1773. !l6 Fig, I. — SwALWELL Time-Gun FlC. 2. COATHA.M MCNDEVILLE MlLL Plate III INDUSTRIES But the case was not so desperate as the petition represents for, thirty years later, 500 looms were employed in Darlington manufacturing hucka- backs, diapers, and sheeting.^* Arthur Young attributes the decay of trade to the idleness of the Darlington poor. At that town is a considerable manufacture of Hucker- back Cloths, in which the workmen earn from lOi^. to 2J. (id. a day, and women and children propor- tionately. One Master Manufacturer employs about fifty looms and asserts that he could easily set many more at work and employ numerous women and children if the idle part of the poor would be per- suaded to turn industrious ; but numbers of hands, capable of working, remain in total indolence ; and that in general, there need never be an unemployed person in Darlington. They make their cloths up to \\s. 3. yard." Brewster, too, an observant man, writing about the same time, draws attention to the indolence of the people of Stockton, and attributes it to the want of manufactories.^' John Kendrew owned a flax mill on the Skerne as early as 1788 ; ^^ he was an inventor of great ingenuity ; Bailey says He was the first that invented the mode of grinding optical glasses of a true spherical form by machinery. He neglected to get a patent, and it was meanly stolen by some person of superior capital near Sheffield, who engrossed nearly all the demand by having riders to take in orders in every part of the Kingdom." The spectacle mill adjoined Mr. Backhouse's woollen mill. But it is in connexion with the application of machinery to flax-spinning that John Kendrew's inventions are of the greatest importance.^^ In partnership with Porthouse he became the first spinner of flax by machinery in the world. On the dissolution of the partner- ship Kendrew went to a mill at Haughton-Ie- Skerne. The mill still stands, a large and imposing building, with the date 1782 on it. According to the evidence of the church registers early in the nineteenth century almost the whole village worked in some capacity at the mills. They were then in the hands of Edward Parker •& Sons, who, some thirty years ago, removed their business to Ireland.^' Among the Hurworth parish registers there is an interesting MS. account of parish apprentices, where Edward Parker is spoken of as a woollen manufacturer, but this " J. Bailey, op. cit. 194. " A Young, S;> Months' Tour through the North 0/ £ng!. 1769, ii, 427. " y. Brewster, Hist, of Stockton, 103. " Darlington Leases. " Bailey, op. cit. 294. "■' Specification of Patents, 1787, No. 1 61 3. " Registers of Haughton-le-Skerne, 1801-52; White and Parson, op. cit. 238. is probably due to the carelessness of the parish authorities. 1804. Elizabeth Rickaby female 12 bound to Edward Parker woollen manuficturer Haughton for four years. (No fee is mentioned.) 1805. Edward Scarr male 9 bound to Edward Parker woollen manufacturer for c years, fee £1 i6s. I 81 5. Richard Gouldborough male II bound to Edward Parkerwoolleu manufacturer Haughton four years £z 2s.'^ The Coatham Adundeville Mill had a disastrous history ; it was successfully worked as a shoe- thread mill for many years by Porthouse, then by Gibson, who removed to Selby about 1 840 ; it then became a flour mill and was burnt down. (PI. Ill, fig. 2.) The I'Ansons, the Backhouses, and the Peases were all connected with the Darlington linen industry .^^ The Peases came to Darlington early in the eighteenth century ; the earliest document pre- served amongst the leases of the manor of Dar- lington relating to the family is the copy of a plan and valuation ' of a water corn mill, bark mill, &c., in the parish of Darlington. Mr. Joseph Pease lessee for 3 lives. Sherburn 10 May i 793.'^'* These mill buildings had been bought from Edward Stamper by Joseph Pease in 1781 for ;r890.'' Mr. Backhouse seems to have made a determined effort in 1795 to get complete possession of the Skerne from his own mill as far as Mr. Pease's (i.e. from the present I/eadyaril Mill to the Priestgate Mill). But the bishop's surveyor interfered ; he writes that there is a mill for the spinning of wool and a mill for the grinding of spectacle glasses, the former a spacious Building and the latter a very convenient and useful one. One must be of the value of at least ^60 p. ann. for the uses at present put to, but having been built only seven years Mr. Backhouse assures me they are rated the poor at no more than X'6 p. ann. He gives his opinion very emphatically that Mr. Backhouse's request should be refused : — I do not think the Bishop ought to grant Mr. Back- house the river Skern between the Spinning Mill and Mr. Peas's Mill; nor do I see what use it can be of to him, if he raise his spinning mill dam, it will naturally injure Mr. Peas's Mill by checking the stream and causing Logg or Backwater ; and also it may be prejudicial to the See by preventing similar erections. The spinning mill is turned by steam and at present has a dam or head no more than 1 8 inches high. Lowes a Tanner and Locking a stone cutter " Register Book of Parish Apprentices. *' Richley, Hist, of Bishop Auckland ; 'Romance of Commerce,' in The Friend, 21 Oct. 1898. '° These leases are kept at Durham in the office of the Halmote Court (to which I had access by the courtesy of Mr. Wall of Darlington). ^' H. D. LongstafFe, Hist, of Darlington, 284. A HISTORY OF DURHAM both incroached upon the river the former by Tan- pitts and the latter by a stone cutter's yard, and Mr. Peas (sic) appears to be encroaching upon the wastes at X. Arthur Mowbray. Sherburn 20 Sept. 1795." The mills mentioned in the documents are doubtless worsted mills ; it is said that the spin- ning and weaving of worsted goods was begun by the Peases in 1752 ; '^ they claim to be the oldest manufacturers of this class of goods in the kingdom. In these days of cut-throat competition it is almost impossible to believe that a Pease from Darlington used to meet the senior partner of the Bradford Spinning Mill, and that between them they used to fix the prices for the ensuing six months. Spinning worsted by machinery was begun about 1796, the machinery being obtained by the Peases from Buck of Settle. But in the early part of the nineteenth century the Dar- lington mills were chiefly employed in spinning yarn to supply the West of England serge manu- facturers and the Scotch tartan manufacturers.^* At the opening of the nineteenth century there was a large worsted manufactory where spinning both by hand and machinery was car- ried on ; about 300 looms, 100 combers, and 5,000 hand-spinners were employed. But the workpeople in Darlington were not sufficient for the demand ; a considerable quantity of wool had to be sent into Scotland to be spun ; Mr. Pease alone paid ^TSoo a year for spinning in Scotland.'* Some idea of the rapid develop- ment of the Darlington woollen trade may be gained from the fact that the terrible fire which occurred at the mill of Messrs. Edward and Joseph Pease in 1817 destroyed property to the value of ^^30,000, and threw 500 people out of employment.'^ When, in 1825, the last grand septennial festi- val was held at Bradford of wool-combers, comb- makers, dyers, &c., in honour of Bishop Blaize, said to have invented wool-combing, William Clough of Darlington, who had enacted the part four times previously, was elected king. '^ In 1832 when a dinner was given to the workmen of Darlington to commemorate the passing of the Reform Bill, a procession repre- senting the leading industries of the town was organized : wool-combers, worsted-weavers, linen- weavers, bricklayers, and carpet-weavers were in full force.'* In 1838 the factory inspectors prepared a re- turn of all the worsted mills and factories in the " Darlington Leases. '^ The worsted business h.id been begun at Dar- lington before 1727 ; Defoe, Eng/. Tradesman, ii, 61. ^* J. James, Hist, of the Worsted Manufacture, 387. " J. Bailey, op. cit. 163. ^ W. H. D. LongstafFe, Hist, of Darlington, 3 1 8. " J. James, op. cit. 596. ^ W. H. D. Longstaffe, op. cit. 167. United Kingdom. In the county of Durham only two towns — Darlington and Gateshead — figure. Darlington had three mills with four steam-engines of 104 h.-p., and one water-wheel of 20 h.-p. Thirty-six children between the age of nine and thirteen and 194 youths and girls between thirteen and eighteen were employed, the total number of hands being 405. Gates- head had only one mill with one steam-engine of 12 h.-p., and employed twenty-seven hands.'' According to a similar report issued nine years later, the total number of people employed in the worsted trade in the county only reached 638.« At one time the Peases had three sets of worsted mills in different parts of the town as well as factories near Clay Row. The North- gate or Railway Mills were built by the Fells, but came into the Pease family by marriage. These mills were employed principally in pro- ducing materials, merinos, alpacas, and mohairs ; but they stopped working in 1880. The Lead- yard Mills are now used as an iron factory, but the Priestgate Mills still continue in active work, in spite of a disastrous fire in 1894, which did ;^20,000 worth of damage, and threw about six hundred people out of work. Early in the nineteenth century the Priestgate Mills were worked by Edward and Joseph Pease; the firm changed and became first Henry Pease & Co. and then Henry Pease & Co.'s Successors (i.e. Sir Joseph Pease, Mr. Henry Fell Pease, and Mr. Arthur Pease) ; the firm still retains the name, but is now a limited liability company. In 1886 the firm went in for producing dress materials, but weaving has now been entirely abandoned, though the wool which is obtained from Spain, Australia, and the neighbouring coun- tries is sorted, scoured, combed, and spun here. Between six and seven hundred hands are em- ployed, chiefly girls and women ; about one- third of the yarn is exported, but a great deal goes to Bradford and Scotland. At one time Darlington had a great many carpet manufactories, but the success of the Durham carpet industry threw Darlington into the shade, although in 1827 Francis Kipling & Son and William Thompson, both in North- gate, did considerable trade. Until within the last few years no carpets had a better reputation for durability and brilliancy of colour than Durham carpets. The rage for cheaper and flimsier goods, the failure of the American demand, and the tendency of manu- facturers to concentrate in one locality for con- veniences of sale, are the chief reasons for the decay of the trade. The initial impetus to the worsted in- dustry in Durham was given by a local charity. '' Return of Worsted Mills in the United Kingdom, ordered by the House of Commons, printed 1838. " Return of Factory Operatives, 1847. 318 INDUSTRIES In 1689 Mr. Thomas Cradock gave ^^500 to build a convenient house and work houses for the master and workmen, for the employing a stock for a woollen manufactory, for to set the poor of the county on work." But the works were not successful; in spite of the assistance lent by the charity, Mr. Starforth and Mr. Cooper failed to make the concern pay. In 1 814 an advertisement appeared in the New- castle Courant that the county justices would advance ^^400 to anyone willing to re-establish the industry, and able to give securities for the capital. Mr. Gilbert Henderson, a weaver from the parish of Merrington, was the successful candidate. Coming of frugal and hardworking stock, married to an enterprising wife, under him the business developed rapidly. On the early death of Mr. Henderson the business was carried on by his wife and eldest son. Later the youngest of Gilbert Henderson's sons was taken into partnership, and the firm attracted a great American trade ; even to-day people who were fortunate enough to furnish their houses with Durham carpc-ts show them in excellent condition after ten or fifteen years' wear. The secret of the success of the firm was their early recognition of the necessity of putting in new machinery as it was invented, and adding new buildings as they were required. The factory was carried on by members of the Henderson family until 1903, when the goodwill was sold to Messrs. Crossley of Halifax, who did not, however, take over the buildings, part of which have since been let to Messrs. Mackey & Co., Ltd., who still carry on a carpet manufactory there. The capital advanced in 1 8 14 was not repaid until 1876, when the attention of the members of the flourishing firm being called to what was then a small detail, the money was at once repaid. A considerable trade was done at one time in ropes and sail-cloth ; in Sunderland alone there were in 1827 nineteen ropemakers and twenty sail-makers, but the substitution of wire for hemp rope and of steamers for sailing vessels has materi- ally affected both trades. Webster & Co. at Dept- ford, Haggle & Co. and Craven & Speeding at Sunderland, and the Hepburn Rope and Sail Works supply many of the Sunderland shipyards. The first application of machinery to the manufacture of ropes in the world was made at the works of Messrs. Webster & Co. at Deptford. This historic firm obtained a patent in 1797 by which spinning machinery was introduced, the cumbrous way of making ropes at long rope- walks superseded, and the resistance power of the rope, according to tests made at Shields, Sunder- land, Liverpool, and London, doubled. The first idea of the invention is said to have occurred to Mr. Grimshaw, who, while helping a scientific lecturer, whose experiment had failed, to get his apparatus into order, was struck with the possi- bility of applying the same principle to rope- making. With the assistance of Ralph Hills, a clock-maker, the experiment was successfully carried out. Hills, however, did not derive much profit from his share of the undertaking ; he became a shipowner, had his ships seized by the French, and was forced to sell his share in the ropery, the original firm being Grimshaw, Webster & Co. When Dibdinwas in Sunderland he visited the rope-works and thought that the most wonderful department in trade there was the rope manu- factory. The length and size of the ropes especially attracted his attention : one rope was 3^^ miles long without a single splice ; another of 4,900 yards long weighed 1 1 tons ; it was 6 in. in circumference, and valued at ^^450. The grand-nephew of the founder of the firm. Mr. Webster, still carries on the Deptford works. MINING It is so obvious a truism that the mining industries of any district depend first and fore- most upon its geological structure that a know- ledge of the geology of Durham may be pre- supposed in all who take an interest in the development of its mineral industry. As this subject has already been treated in the first volume of this history it is only necessary here to recall briefly the more characteristic features. It will be remembered that the western edges of the county consist of Carboniferous or Mountain Limestone, forming the hilly region intersected with deep dales in which the Tyne, Wear, Tees, and their tributaries take their origin. This formation is traversed by numerous fissure veins •' Will of Mr. Thomas Cradock, 5 Feb. 1689, proved at York. 3 carrying galena and at times also zinc blende ; the galena is argentiferous, but the deepest ores are, as is practically always the case, far poorer in silver than the oxidized lead ores — carbonates, sulphates, phosphates, &c. — of the outcrops. This phenomenon of the secondary enrich- ment of mineral veins is, of course, one that is well known in all mineral districts, the reasons for which to-day are abundantly intelligible. In these veins, the gangue of the lead ore frequently contains spathic iron ore in smaller or larger quantities, and in the Weardale district this spathic ore becomes of considerable importance ; moreover, the limestone traversed by these veins is often changed locally into carbonate of iron by metasomatic action, whilst the carbonates of iron have in places been further converted into hydrated 19 A HISTORY OF DURHAM peroxide of iron by the process of weathering. Both the brown hematites so formed and the original spathic ores have been mined, and have laid the foundation of an iron industry in that part of the county. The ores are nowadays barely worth working, and the amount of iron so raised is unimportant, but the ironworks originally founded to treat them survive in the form of important iron and steel-works, treating ores imported from the neighbouring counties or from abroad. Directly above the Mountain Limestone Series comes the Millstone Grit, which forms an irregular belt about five miles wide, running, roughly speaking, north and south across the county. This formation contains but little workable mineral ; some thin and usually unprofitable beds of coal occur in it, but they are of no practical importance. In the overlying Lower Coal Measures, which pass gradually into the Coal Measures proper, a bed of ironstone exists, a little below the Brockwell seam, and was for some time worked in the Derwent valley, its outcrop having been exposed in the valley of that river. This ironstone has not been worked for over half a century, but was the material from which sword-blades were made by German workmen, in the valley of the Derwent, a locality which at one time enjoyed a high reputation for this craft. The well-known Consett Iron Works (first known as the Derwent Iron Works) were founded originally to smelt these ores, and still exist as flourishing iron and steel-works, although not a pound of ore is mined in the district, the whole of the ores there smelted being imported from abroad. The greater portion of the north-eastern part of the county of Durham consists of true Coal Measures, within which numerous seams of coal are known. Some fifteen different workable seams are known to exist, with a total thickness of about 40 ft. of coal. In the southern and eastern portion of the county the denuded Coal Measures dip underneath the unconformable overlying Permo-Triassic rocks, but still exist at a depth which admits of their being worked to advantage. The area of exposed Coal Measures is probably about 250 square miles, whilst the coalfield continues underneath the newer rocks for a further area of about 200 square miles. Furthermore, it must be borne in mind that the coalfield is not bounded by the sea-shore, but exists underneath the sea, and is in places already worked there. It is generally supposed that it may be workable for a total distance of ten miles beyond the shore-line. Upon this basis the recent 1903 Coal Commission estimated that there were 4,401 million tons of coal remaining to be worked in the Coal Measures of the county of Durham up to the shore limit, and a further 870 million tons of coal could be won underneath the sea, making the total amount of coal capable of being won in the county of Durham 5>27i million tons. The Permo-Triassic rocks overlie the Coal Measures quite unconformably, there being evidence of considerable erosion of the upper portions of these Measures before the newer rocks were deposited. The lower member of the latter consists of a bed of yellow sand carrying an enormous quantity of water, which has proved to be one of the most serious obstacles to the working of the Coal Measures beneath these newer rocks. Thus in the magnificent sinking recently completed at Horden, Seaham Harbour, close upon 10,000 gallons of water had to be pumped per minute during the course of the sinking. Above this sand comes the Magnesian Limestone, which is frequently extensively fissured, and carries also very large bodies of water. This Magnesian Limestone is extensively quarried, but otherwise contains no minerals of commercial importance, although small lead-veins are known in it, and veins of copper have been met witli in the quarries at Raceby Hill and Garmondsway, but not in workable quantities. The overlying or so-called Red Beds developed in the southern portion of the county are frequently known as the Salt Beds on account of their containing thick layers of rock-salt and gypsum, which have given rise to an important salt-producing industry in the neighbourhood of the River Tees. It is scarcely possible to write an account of mining in the county of Durham without continual reference to the operations going on in the adjoining counties, because neither geological structures nor mineral deposits are respecters of county boundaries. In coal-mining the question is further complicated by the facts that not only does the great northern coalfield extend over the adjacent counties of Northumber- land and Durham, but that the principal coal- exporting port, namely the River Tyne, is common to these two adjacent counties ; and, furthermore, the districts assigned to the Inspectors of Mines coincide neither with county boundaries nor geological structures. Such a history must in fact be the history of a coalfield and not that of the county or counties within which it may happen to lie ; hence, this article, especially in as far as it relates to coal, must be read in con- junction with that of the history of coal-mining in Northumberland. COAL Although lead ore has long been mined in the hilly district that forms the western portion of Durham, and although iron ore has been worked in several places within the county, these branches of the mining industry are reduced to utter insignificance in comparison with the enor- mous development of coal-mining, which may be said now to form the staple industry of Durham. Here, as elsewhere, the origin of coal-mining is lost in obscurity, and it is quite uncertain when 320 INDUSTRIES coal was first used as fiiel.^ It is highly probable that the first coal used in this coalfield consisted of the rounded lumps of coal washed up on the beach from the seams that outcrop along the sea-shore in Northumberland, and that these were collected ^ and used as fuel, just as they are used to-day by the poorer fishing folk along the Northumbrian coast. It could not be very long before the outcrops of similar material in the valleys of the Derwent and other rivers also attracted attention, and these coal seams would then have been attacked and gradually followed downwards, thus forming the commencement of the industry of coal-mining. It is probable that the coal picked up along the shores was originally known as ' sea-coal,' and that which was dug out of the ground as ' pit-coal,' the words * sea-coal ' and ' pit-coal ' that so frequently occur in documents of the seventeenth century showing apparently that the two terms bore somewhat different meanings at one time, although the material described by them was also recognized as being identical. One of the difficulties of determining the real beginning of the use of coal lies in the indis- criminate use of the word ' carbo ' to designate both charcoal and mineral coal. The notices preserved in the Boldon Book of the smiths at Wearmouth and Sedgefield and of the colliers at Escombe who in Bishop Pudsey's time were bound to provide coal {carbonem) for the making of plough-shares, relate more probably to charcoal fuel, as is certainly the case in the almost parallel though rather later record in the register of Worcester Priory of the holding of one John the collier who was to make each coke of coal for id? There is however no doubt that the rich and powerful bishops of Durham in their capacity as counts palatine favoured the development of coal-mining in their principality at a very early period, and it is to this fact that we owe the greater completeness of the records of the industry in this part of the country as compared with other portions of Great Britain. There is good reason to believe * that coal from the neighbourhood of Plessey in Northum- berland was shipped to London quite early in the reign of Henry III, and already in 1256 complaints were made that the approaches to Newcastle ' For evidence of its use in Durham during the Roman period see Hodgson, Hist, of Northumb. (i 8 1 2), ii, 17. ' Galloway, Annals of Coal Mining, i, 21. Cf. the Charter of Adam de Camhous to Newminster Abbey about 1236. ' Et dedi et concessi eisdera monachis ut caplant algam maris ad impinguendam eandem terram,et viamad libere ducendum earn super praedictas terras, et ad carbonem maris capiendum, ubi inventus fuerit a praedictis terminis usque Blithe et versus mare quantum ad praedictas terras pertinet.' Chart, de Novo Monaster io (Surtees Sec. Ixvi), 55. ' Galloway, op. cit. i, 14, 15. * Ibid. 29 et seq. 2 32 were rendered dangerous after nightfall ' by derelict or unfenced coal-workings. In the next reign it was found by inquisition ^ that the pros- perity of the same town had during the past century been enormously increased by traffic in coals. For the working of coal in the Palatinate during the thirteenth century there is less evidence, probably in great measure owing to the reckless destruction of the archives of the see, but as early as 1 243 we find an entry on a roll ' of Pleas of the Crown before the justices appointed by Bishop Nicholas Farnham that in Darlington ward, Ralf the son of Roger Wlger had been drowned 'in quodam fossato carbonum maris* probably a derelict coal-pit. The use of the term fossatum is worth notice, and probably indicates an open-cast working. In northern England, as in the Forest of Dean, open-cast workings and bell-pits marked the first development of mining, though in Northumberland and Durham the pit and adit stage had been reached in certain localities by the middle of the fourteenth century, if not before. It is hardly probable that the coal- mining industry of Durham during the thirteenth century was comparable in extent with that of the neighbouring county of Northumberland, to which the history of the early export trade un- doubtedly belongs, but with our fragmentary sources of information no exact estimate can be formed. It is not until the year 1274-5 that a specific reference to the profits of the bishop's coal-mines is found in the accounts of the See. References at a much earlier date to mines generally may have covered mineral coal as well as lead and iron, but as to this no certainty is attainable. During the vacancy however con- sequent upon the death of Bishop Robert Stichill, the accountant who answers for the issues of the bishopric of Durham from 20 August 2 Edward I to 12 November of the following year includes ^34 71. ^d. from the farm of the fisheries, with the mines of coal and brew-houses {hracinagiis) for the same time.' Rather more than twenty years later we learn from the Great Roll of Receipts of Bishop Anthony Bek that a regular profit was being derived from a coal-mine in the ward {quarterio) of Chester,^ while the increasing recognition of the value of the new fuel is probably indicated by the composition of 1303 made by the same bishop with his great manorial freeholders when he was obliged to confirm to them the right of taking certain minerals in their several lands.'" ' W. Page, Assize R. NoMumb. (Surtees Soc. Ixxxviii), 34, 103. * Misc. Inq. Chan, file 40, No. 25. ' Assize R. (P.R.O.), 223, m. 4. ' Pipe Roll, 2 Edw. I. ° Two payments of I 2/ .6d. at two terms are entered. See BoUon Bk. (Surtees Soc. xxv), App. p. xxviii. '° ' Et que chescun preigne mine de charbon [et] de ferre en sa terre severale.' Reg. Pal. Dun. (Rolls Sen), iii, 62. I 4» A HISTORY OF DURHAM The early use of mineral coal was undoubtedly for industrial rather than domestic purposes, lime- burning in particular, and probably the working as distinct from the smelting of iron. But early in the fourteenth century the introduction of the iron chimney probably made the use of mineral coal less open to objection, and it may be noted that in 1 310 the monks of Jarrow had '^ two iron chimneys in their hall [aula) ; thus it may be no coincidence that in the earliest of their accounts extant,^^ those for 131 3, we find men- tioned a purchase of nine chaldrons of sea-coals ^^ {carbonum mar'ttinorurn). We are unable to fix the exact date when coal-mining began on the southern bank of the Tyne at Gateshead and Whickham, and there is little doubt that the men of Newcastle-on-Tyne did everything possible to hamper the develop- ment of the industry, but probably coal was being worked in this neighbourhood and possibly shipped in vessels moored at the wharves on the southern side of the river in the early years of the four- teenth century. It is certain that by 1356 the industry had become well established at Whick- ham, as Bishop Hatfield in that year granted '* to Sir Thomas Gray, knt., and John Pulhore, rector of Whickham, five mines on lease for twelve years at a yearly rent of 500 marks, an enormous sum for the time. Some conditions of this lease are deserving of careful attention. It is agreed that the bishop shall not allow new mines to be opened in the neighbourhood which might depreciate the value of the privileges of the lessees. As to the mines of Gateshead, which were then already open and at work, the bishop promised that none of their output should be carried or sold to ships, while the holders of the Whickham mines should be allowed the option of acquiring the lease of the Gateshead mines also at the expiry of the term then existent. As to the management of the Whickham mines, the lessees were obliged to work them as far as they could with five barrow-men, according to the view and oath of the master forester and the viewers, the rate of output being fixed at not more than one keel '^ of coal per day. The master forester on his part was bound to furnish a reasonable amount of timber not only for the timbering of the pits, but also for the staiths or wharves. It is significant however that any damage done to the bishop's tenants in Whickham either by mining operations or the carriage of coals had to be made good by the lessees. " Invent, of Jarrow (Surtees Sec. xxix), 3. " Ibid. 8. " Perhaps more correctly sea-borne coal. The origin of the term carbo maris was being forgotten. " Dur. Curs. No. 30, m. \\ d. " About twenty tons. A measure taken from the carrying capacity of keels which plied between the riverside wharves and the sea-gomg vessels below Newcastle Bridge. It is probable that the lessees of the Whickham mines did ultimately acquire a lease '^ of those at Gateshead, at least for a time, but the shipment of the coals from this neighbourhood was not effected without strenuous opposition from the burgesses of Newcastle, and the appeasement of the quarrel required the intervention of the king." In connexion with a grant of mining rights at Gateshead about 1364, we find the first specific reference in this district to the use of the 'water- gate ' or tunnel for the draining of the pit.^* In respect to the working of the Tyneside mines after the Black Death, it may also be mentioned that in 1373-4 John de Belgrave and Nicholas Cooke were authorized '^ to seize workmen and coal-bearers within theliberty of Durham to supply the lack of labour at Whickham and Gateshead. Another important colliery in this district was in Winlaton, held by Lord de Nevill of the bishop of Durham. In 1366-7 no less than 576 chaldrons of coal were purchased here by order of Edward III for the works at Windsor Castle,^" while at about the same time the earl of Northumberland was holding the manor ^^ of Fugerhous with a coal-pit for which he paid a yearly rent of £26 13;. ^d. The importance of the mines along the south bank of the Tyne during the fourteenth century give them the first claim to attention, but coal- working activity was not restricted to that dis- trict. At Ferryhill, Hett, and Lanchester we hear^^ of coal-pits before 1350, and in this year some interesting technical details are preserved in Hatfield's Survey ^^ of the opening of a fresh mine at Coundon, when ropes, scopes, and wind- lass were bought for the work, and the total expense was 5;. dd. Furthermore the monks of Durham were leasing a mine in the township of Ferry" at least as early as 1354, and in 1 36 1 they possessed a coal-pit at Rainton.*'' From the Bursar's Roll-* for 1376-7 we find them paying £6 6s. 6^d. ' in sinctatione unius putei ' at He- worth, together with the making of the necessary picks, buckets, and ropes (cordis). Another pit also was sunk there to a depth of 6 fathoms at '^ Dur. Curs. No. 31, m. yd. " Pat. 41 Edw. Ill, pt. i,m. 19. Later, in 1384, Richard II granted a charter to Bishop Fordham for the mooring of ships and the loading of coals on the south side of the Tyne ; Galloway, op. cit. i, 50. '* Pat. 38 Edw. Ill, pt. 2, m. 26. It had cer- tainly been used earlier in the colliery of the prior of Tynemouth at Elswick, and also about 1354 in a mine rented by the prior of Durham at Ferryhill or its neighbourhood ; Surtees, Hist, of Dur. iii, 285. " Dur. Curs. No. 31, m. 5 US 1874 30,543,800 (Durham only) 62,528 1884 28,552,303 „ 98,496 1894 32,556,924 „ 102,607 1904 36,154,273 „ 129,212 i9°5 37.397.176 ,, 128,537 LEAD Lead-mining was actively earned on within the district between the Tyne and Tees long before the commercial exploitation of the coal. It is indeed possible that the Romans worked the lead deposits of Weardale and Teesdale, but no such positive and direct evidence of their opera- tions exists as in Derbyshire and Somerset. The mines of Alston, however, just across the Cumberland border, were certainly worked for both silver and lead in the reign of Henry I, and it is unlikely that the neighbouring mines of Durham were quite neglected. Yet the first specific reference to their existence is found in the well-known charter ^ of Stephen, in which he notifies the grant of the mineral rights^ of Weardale to his nephew, Bishop Hugh Pudsey. Since there is little doubt that at the time of the grant the bishop of Durham already owned the minerals exclusive of precious metals found on his demesne, it has been suggested with great probability that by this instrument the grantee was enabled to retain not only the lead raised from his mines but also the silver extracted from the lead, which, outside the Palatinate at least, was a special perquisite claimed by the crown. This interpretation is made the more likely by our knowledge that about this time a mint was established at Durham. Rather later also in his episcopate we find the same prelate, Hugh Pudsey, granting' amongst other property a mine of lead to the hospital of St. Giles at Durham ' for covering the church of St. Mary and All Saints and of the Infirmary of the Hospital aforesaid.' Very definite references to the mint at Durham, the purchase and smelting of lead, and the extrac- tion of silver are found on the Pipe Roll 8 Ric. I (i 196-7) during the vacancy of the see following the death of Bishop Pudsey. For making at the mint {Ad cambium faciendum) j^i30 13/. 8 After the Restoration the Weardale mines continued to be worked on lease by Humphrey Wharton, who sold his interest to W. Blackett about 1696. The royalty paid to the bishop seems to have been about one load in nine of the ore. Apparently trouble arose owing to the claims of the rector of Stanhope, but he established his case, and a tithe of lead ore was decreed to him after a verdict in his favour on trial at law.^" The next important event in the history of the lead-mines of Durham may be said to have been the extension to Durham of the operations of the company generally spoken of as ' The London Lead Company,' the full title of which, according to its charter, is ' The Governor and Company for smelting down Lead with Pit Coal and Sea Coal,' which was founded in London in the year 1692 under a charter of William and Mary. It was originally formed for taking over lead smelt- ing works at Bownham near Bristol from Sir Talbot Clerke, but soon extended its operations to Wales, and in 1704 acquired also the Ryton works in ' Aldstone Moor.' About 1725 mines were acquired in the manor of Muggleswick in Durham, beside others in Swaledale, Yorkshire. In 1745 the company took a lease of the mines of ' Redgroves,' Rampsgill, and ' Bromgill' from the Commissioners of Greenwich Hospital, and finally, in 1 77 1, a lease of ' Mannen Gill ' and ' Hake- bridge ' from the earl of Darlington, and ' a lease of Mineral Ground from Timothy Hutchinson in the Common of Eggleston with a smelt-mill at a rental of £6 per annum and ^ duty.' Thus commenced the long connexion of the London Lead Company with the Teesdale district, which continued up to the close of the company's opera- tions in 1905, the smelting works at Eggleston remaining in work to the last. In 1792 the company abandoned all its other mines and con- centrated its operations in the dales of Durham and the adjoining portions of Yorkshire. In 1801 a lease of several mines and a smelt-mill at Stan- hope was taken at a rental- of ^^30 and a royalty of one-sixth, and in 1803 of the manors of Patter- dale and Ravenstonedale from Lord Lowther, and of the manor of Cregill from Lord Darlington, at a royalty of one-fifth. Further, sixteen leases of mines from Green- wich Hospital were executed in 1808, and the importance of the company's holdings may be gauged by the fact that they satisfied the demand " Stowe MS. (B.M.), 1046, fol. 88. "a Surtees, Dur. ii, 361. *' Martin, Index to Rec. l^ja. made by the bishop of Durham in 1809 for royalties from the Weardale mines by the payment of over ^^5,000. Up to 1850 or thereabouts the company enjoyed a period of great prosperity, but gradually the output of lead diminished, the ore became progressively poorer in silver, and these facts, together with the low price of metals that characterized the end of the nineteenth century, caused this famous old company to cease opera- tions in the year 1905. Bailey, in the General View of the Agriculture of the County of Durham^'' states that in the year 1809 there were working in the county eighty- six lead mines, namely : in Weardale on the north side of the river, twenty mines, of which ten belonged to the bishop of Durham, all of which were leased to Colonel Beaumont ; in Weardale, on the south side of the river, fourteen mines, seven of which belonged to the bishop of Durham, and seven mines also were leased to Colonel Beaumont ; in Teesdale forty-eight mines, of which forty-two belonged to the earl of Darlington, and six were leased to the London Lead Company ; in the Derwent valley four mines ; there were also four smelt-mills in the Derwent valley, three in Weardale, and three in Teesdale. Of the whole number of mines then at work, the most profitable were Jeffries' Rake in the Derwent valley, Brandon Wells, Wolf Cleugh, Breckon Side,^* Pasture Grove, and Coves in Weardale, and Wiregill, Marlebeck Head, Old Pike Law, High Langdon Grass Hill and Ashgill Head in Teesdale. From many of the others little ore was raised, and some were working at a considerable loss. According to Westgarth Forster -^ there were in 1 82 1 thirty-six mines at work in Weardale and thirty-eight in Teesdale, the former produc- ing about 1 7,000 bings and the latter about 8,000 bings of lead ore per annum. The yield of metallic lead was about I ton from 4J bings (36 cwt.) of ore. The smelt-mills were at Rookhope, Gleaton (High, Middle and Lower Mills), Gandless, Stanhope, Bodyhope, Edmond- byers, Jeffries and Healeyfield. In the year 1905 there were only eleven mines at work in the whole county ;'" the Weardale mines produced only 2,553 tons of lead ore, all the others together only 335 tons, making the pro- duce of the entire county 2,888 tons of ore, equal ''Op. cit. 37. ''This famous mine of Breckon Side or Breckon Syke is said to have at one time yielded nearly 10,000 bings (i bing = 8 cwt.) of lead ore in one year ; Forster, Strata (3rd edit.), 148. '' Op. cit. 304 et seq. '"These were Cow Green at Harwood Fell, Flush O'Mea, Lady Rake in Teesdale, Pike Law in New- biggin, Wiregill Deep in Teesdale, with the following mines of the Weardale Lead Company, Bolt's Burn, Craig's Level, Groverake, Killhope and Sedling, all in Stanhope and Wolf Cleugh; Mines and Quarries Gen. Rep. and Statistics, 239. INDUSTRIES to 2,039 tons of lead and 14,462 oz. of silver, the ore production being just about one-tenth of what it was fifty years ago. The once flourishing lead- mining districts now present a dismal picture of decay, many of the districts formerly occupied by the miners now being almost depopulated. The only company still doing any considerable amount of work is the Weardale Lead Company, Limited, some of whose deep mining at Stanhope Burn is giving promising results, whilst the principal mine. Bolt's Burn, is doing extremely well, producing about 7,000 bings of ore yearly, the increase in the price of lead in 1906 having been of great assistance to this company. IRON No authentic record exists of the origin of iron-mining between the Tyne and Tees. It is however probable that as in Gloucestershire and Sussex surface deposits may have been worked by the Romans or even before their time,' but the first specific notice that remains to us is no earlier than the second half of the twelfth century. Bishop Hugh Pudsey, whom we have already seen working the lead and silver mines of his bishopric, granted ^ to the Hospital of St. Giles at Durham ' a mine of iron within Rokehope for making ploughs and other necessaries.' It is also worth notice that this mine was situate in the same dis- trict which at the present day still provides the meagre output of iron-ore credited to the county of Durham. Early in the following century there is ample evidence that iron was being pro- duced to a considerable extent within the Pala- tinate, and the records of sales of the bars wrought in the bishop's forges appear regularly on the ac- counts ' of the see in the few years for which these are extant. For the period from Midsum- mer to Martinmas (10 John), Aimeric, archdeacon of Durham, and Philip de Ulecote render account of 1 14s. for 733 hens and 624 bars {esperdutii) ot iron sold. In the year following there is a return of ;^93 4J. <)\d., the value of perquisites of the forest with pannage-money, the issues of the ferry of Howden,* and iron sold. In the two follow- ing years the issues of the forests with pannage and iron sold amounted to ;^I05 I'js. id. and ^^129 lOs. 2d. respectively. Owing to a system ' The ' cinders ' or slag found in such enormous quantities on the Durham moorlands and attributed by early antiquaries to the Danes, are probably for the most part the refuse of the mediaeval forges. A small portion may however go back to an earlier time. * Boldon Book (Surtees Soc. xxv), App. p. xlvi. ' As already stated the early records of the bishopric of Durham have been to a great extent destroyed. Happily a few accounts when the see was vacant are entered on the gre^t rolls of the national exchequer. See Pipe Rolls for Cumberland, (Vestmorland, and Durham (Soc. of Antiq. of Newcastle-on-Tyne), 197 et seq. * The amount derived from the ferry was a small amount varying from four to eight or at most twelve marks at this time. of accountancy which classes fowls and iron to- gether it is difficult to obtain any precise idea of the amount of iron obtained at this time from the mines of the bishop. These evidently lay within his forest, doubtless in Weardale,' and furnished a valuable portion of the forest issues, as in the parallel instance of the Forest of Dean. The mention of iron sent to Ireland and of 1,260 shovels, 240 spades, 160 picks, and 100 hatchets sent to Wales, may also point to the activity of the iron mdustry within the Palatinate. In the Pipe Roll 14 John (12 13), the issues of the forest with pannage and iron sold are returned at ^^130 "]!. 3«/., while the profit of the lead-mines amounted to £(^0 8j. id., besides twenty-one loads [of lead] which the king had. It is also noted that 1,070 bars of iron had been bought and placed in the castle of Norham, and that III;, id. had been paid for anchors and other armament for the king's great ship which came from Portsmouth, while the manufacture^ of 97,175 quarrels cost ;^88 i8j. 2d. Besides this we read on the same Pipe Roll of 320 bars of iron sent from Newcastle to Portsmouth, and of 700 horse-shoes with nails, and of 1,060 shovels sent to Chester. In short, the consideration of the entries in these Pipe Rolls certainly suggests a considerable output of iron in and around the Palatinate of Durham, even allowing for a certain importation from abroad. About a century later there is again significant evidence' that the Weardale mines were still productive, for the annual issues of the forges between Tyne and Tees are returned at j/^15 i6i. It is possible that this sum represents the value of the smelters' licences,* or the amount at which the forges as a whole were farmed or leased. In 1368 we hear of a bloomery in Gordon and Evenwood leased ' by Bishop Hat- field through his forester, Alan de Shotlington, to John de Merley and three others for a term of years, while towards the close of that century ' It is of course possible, but not very probable, that at this time the bishop owned iron-mines outside the boundaries of the present county of Durham. ^As in the Forest of Dean, so in the Palatinate of Durham, the manufacture of quarrels was continued during the reign of Henry III. ' Et in quarellis fab- ricandis in episcopatu et flechandis et pennandis ad opus Regis ad balistas de j pede et ij pedibuSj^29 I 2/. ^d. per breve eiusdem,' and again, ' In cariagio xxxv mi- liarum quarellorum a Dunelmo usque Londoniam £^'j,' Pipe R. I 3 Hen. Ill, m.l. The forest wood and iron in both Gloucestershire and Durham invited and almost rendered inevitable the manufacture of such material of war. ' Mins. Accts. (Gen. Ser.), bdle. I 144, No. 17, 4 Edw. II. * In the Forest of Dean in 1282 the annual licence paid to the constable of St. Briavels for each forge at work the whole year through was 7/. ' Hutchinson, Hist, of Dur. iii, 338 ; Boyle, Guide to Dur. 1 15. 353 45 A HISTORY OF DURHAM it is probable that the mines of Evenwood with those of Raly, Caldherst, Hertkeld, Hethers- clough, otherwise Tow Law, and Wollewes, were leased to Sir Ralf de Eure, since in 1424 Bishop Langley granted to Master William de Eure a renewal "* of the lease ' of his mines of coals and of iron under the said coals, which mines his ancestor Ralf de Eure (whom God assoil) held at the time of his death ' for the term of nine years at the annual rent of ^Ti 12 13X. ^.d. As to this lease it may be noted that in 1432 a writ '^ was issued for the recovery of _^356 <)s. ^d. rents due from Sir William Eure. The large rental was doubtless due to the increasing value of coal.^^ It was from the mines ^^ leased to Sir Ralf Eure at Raly, Hertkeld, and Morepytt, that ironstone was procured for the forge at Byrke- knott (Bedburn Forge?), worked in 1408 on behalf of Bishop Langley. It is also possible that the slag or 'cinders' of earlier smelters" was in request in the Palatinate, as in the Forest of Dean, even as early as the fifteenth century. An indenture'* made in 1438 between the bishop of Durham and Robert Kirkhous, ' Iryn- brenner,' affords still more information as to mining and smelting within the Palatinate. The lessee was to get ' stooneoeure ' at Kahogh or near by if it may be found, and ' cinders ' or slag at Ambrosegarth. But if it hap that the forsaid Robert may not get in the places aforsayd sufficient stooneoere for a smythie then it shal be leeful to the same Robert to gete at his cost irynoeur in the westsyd of Rookop and in the northsyd of Stanhop Park in the ground of the said bishop except Mardencrag sufficient for the brennyng and colyng of the sayd wode paying there- for to the sayd bishop alleweye for thre doseynes of oere two stone of the same iryne that is made of the same oeur. And of the same oer the said Robert shal latte noon othir man have part without leave of the said bishop. The wood granted by the bishop for the manu- facture of charcoal for the forge was also paid '» Dur. Curs. No. 38, m. 20 a'. " Ibid. No. 37, m. 6d. '° These leases were on more than one occasion renewed. The important renewal of 1458 already considered shows that these mines were especially valuable as coal-mines. " ' Et in liii duodenis petrae minerae ferri de Radulpho de Eure milite pro ferro inde faciendo, duodena ad in. ex conventione secum facta per com- putatorem emptis cv'is.' For further details see the ' Iron-master's Roll ' printed by Lapsley, Engi. Hist. Ret: xiv, 518. " ' Et in stipendio Radulphi Sclater cum plaustro suo, per xij dies ad viija'. cariantis sindres a dicto campo de Hopyland usque dictum forgeum pro ferro novo ibidem cum eisdem temperando, ex conventione per computatorem cum eodem facta, viijV.'; Engl. Hist. Rev. ut supra. " Dur. Curs. 37, m. 3 d. for in kind ; ' 20 stone of such iryne as the same [Robert] shall doo brenne theer ' for ten dozen of ' coles.' It is evident from the accounts of 1408 and the mention of the ' Watergate ' in the lease under consideration that water-power was by this time being applied to the bellows, though not exclusively so, at least on the earlier occasion. Probably when there was an insufficiency of water or any defect in the mechanical connexions resort was had to the older foot-blast. As we have already seen in the smelting of lead the same partnership might use either a wheel or a foot-blast as occasion served. It is difficult to determine certainly, owing to the fragmentary character of the evidence which still remains to us, whether the output of iron in Durham was increasing or declining during the fifteenth century. On the one hand it is incon- testable that, owing to the application of water- power and other mechanical improvements, each forge at work turned out more metal ; on the other hand the store of easily-reached ore was probably diminishing, forges were almost certainly not so profitable, while Spanish iron was exten- sively imported and regarded as superior to that produced in Weardale. The account '^ of the bishop's chief forester about 1440 is not inconsistent with this view of the matter. Concerning the farm of the iron-forge {forget ferri) of Redgate in Hamsterleward which was wont to return j^6 1 3/. \d. nothing here because no forge exists there. Nor concerning the farm of the iron mine of Weardale which was wont to return 26/. %d. annually, because Lord Latymer ought to make return in respect thereto on account of a certain agreement as to it made between him and the lord (bishop). Nor of the forge within the park of Bedburn because it is worked by {occufatur) William Blirthorn on a lease from the seneschal. Therefore the seneschal should make return in respect thereto. In the account '' of the chief forester (Sir George Lumley) for 1486-7 there is no specific mention of the Weardale iron-mines belonging to the bishop. It is possible, however, that they were included under the head of the coal-mines, which were at this time accounted for by the receiver-general. But as to the forge there is this significant note : ' Nor indeed of the farm of the forge there (in Weardale) because it is not worked [occupatur) but remains in the lord's hands.' About the time this account was presented, however, we meet with a mention of the Wear- dale iron-mines in a lease'* granted by Bishop Sherwood on 21 May, 1488, to Thomas Ferror of Brythburne, of his iron-mine in Weardale, '* Eccl. Com. Mins. Accts. 190030. For the first and second years of Bishop Neville. " Ibid. 19003 I. '* Dur. Curs. 56, m. 4. 354 INDUSTRIES called ' HenrysongreyfF,' with certain wood for charcoal to smelt the iron, the bishop, however, reserving to himself the right of winning at his own cost sufficient ore for Ralf, earl of West- morland, and the prior of Durham, to smelt at their iron mills. This reference to the great Benedictine House of Durham may remind us that as early as 1360-61 their bursar '^ was buying Weardale and Spanish iron ' Marescalcia. In 4 lades ferri de Werdall 5ii. In 21 petras ferri de Spayne, petra g^ti. — i6j. Jjd.^ And from the Almoner's roll"" nearly a century later, between 1 44 1 and 1446, we find the priory procuring metal from one of the forges already mentioned, * Et in undecim petris ferri de Werdall emptis de Roberto Kirk- house precio $5. 6^.,' but simultaneously Spanish iron was bought, 12 stones for 9;., working out at gd. a stone. At this time it is evident that fhe imported metal fetched half as much again as the native product. The mining of iron in the Weardale continued during the sixteenth century, though in its closing years probably in diminishing quantities. In the fourth year of Thomas, bishop of Durham, al- most certainly Bishop Ruthall, we meet with a licence^' issued to Thomas Siggeswyk, chaplain, and Thomas Pikhall, to open the lord's soil and win iron ore in Weardale from the feast of St. Peter's Chains for two years at a rent of 1 80 stones of iron a year or the money value at 6d. a stone. Payment was to be made to the general receipt, the issues of the mines being no longer accounted for by the chief forester. In connexion with this licence two of ' lez smethes ferri infra parcum de Wolsyngham ' were leased to the same parties in the suitable allowance of brushwood for charcoal for two years from Mar- tinmas at a rent of ^^20 a year. Although it is hazardous to draw too definite conclusions from isolated entries in the general accounts of the bishopric, a summary^' of about 1509 is perhaps significant. From the coal-mines, ;^209 6s. T^d. ; licences for carting coal, ^10 ; sale of lead, j^3i 2s. 8d. ; sale of iron, ^^i 5J. Wolsey's lease '' of all mines of metals and minerals within the bishopric and the country called ' Wardall,' to Thomas Wynter in 20 Henry VIII, though no doubt referring especially to lead may have included the iron-mines as well. It was for thirty years at the rent of ^5 per annum. In a book of the great receipt ^* of Bishop Tunstall's seventh year, while the amount derived from mining, leases, wayleaves, &c., is entered at ;{^2 28 lOJ., there is a blank space opposite the " Dur. Acct. R. (Surtees Soc. xcix-ciii), 562. "Ibid. 235. " Eccl. Com. Var. 220217, ^o'- 7^S- "Ibid. 220216, p. 451. An account cancelled, but probably only because elsew^here entered. " Dur. Curs. 73, m. 2. " Eccl. Com. Var. 220208, fol. 16. rubric ' Firma Minerae Ferri in Wardel!,' but this may be accidental since Weardale iron was certainly being produced at this time as the Durham Priory accounts clearly show. It is probable that all the iron-mines of the bishop were then let on lease. On the account "* of the bursar of the priory for 1536-7, we have an entry of 26/. 8d. received as the price of 80 stone of Weardale iron won at Muggleswick {lucratas apud Muglesvjyk ad 4^. hoc anno), perhaps surplus stuff, for at the same time they were purchasing"' the metal in considerable quantities, paying 22s. 6d. to James Lawson of Newcastle for 30 stone of Spanish iron at gd. a stone, and 4.15. Sd. for ' 100 petras ferri de Wardall emptas de Richardo Crosby de Rychemond ' at Srt'. a stone. And this was not all the native iron bought in this year, since 280 stones of Wear- dale metal were purchased 'de tenentibus de Edmundbyrez et pastoribus de Mugleswyk' for ;^5 i6j. Sd., and this price works out again at ^d. z stone. Towards the middle of the sixteenth century the great wastage of timber, which resulted from smelting operations in all the mineral-producing districts of England, began to excite attention, and measures were taken to deal with the matter. It is probable, as already suggested, that the working of iron in Durham was already becom- ing less profitable, and any restriction of fuel would still further discourage the speculative renting of furnaces. From that time, however, until the present, iron has been mined intermit- tently within the county. In 1626 we hear of an iron-mine near Chester ; "' about the time of the Restoration iron was still got in the west of Weardale, while in the late seventeenth or early eighteenth century it is probable that ironstone as well as coal was mined, if only to a small extent, by the German sword-makers of Shotley Bridge. The great Whitehill furnaces of Mr. Cookson, founded originally in the early years of the eighteenth century, were supplied partly with local ore and partly with ore from Robin Hood's Bay. In the first half of the nineteenth century the ironstone of the Derwent valley was for a time exploited for the works at Consett and else- where, but in 1852 the Derwent Iron Company ceased to mine the local ore, as with the greater facilities for the transport of large quantities of mineral that railways now afforded, it was found cheaper to bring the Cleveland ironstone over the county border. The Weardale iron ore deposits have been exploited during the last century chiefly by the Weardale Iron Company, under the management of Mr. Charles Attwood, who acquired a furnace at Stanhope in 1845, which had been erected by Mr. Cuthbert Rippon, followed by six others at " Dur. Acct. R. ut supra, 686. "• Ibid. 694. " Eccl. Com. Var. 220193. 355 A HISTORY OF DURHAM Tow Law, a position convenient for both iron ore and coal. In 1853 forges, and in 1870 blast furnaces, were also erected at Tudhoe, and these are still smelting the only ironstone ^^ mined in the county of Durham, namely from the Carrick Ironstone Mines and the Rookhope Iron Mines, both in Weardale. The production is, however, very small, so that even the well-known ' Tud- hoe and Weardale ' brand of pig-iron of the Weardale Iron Company is made from a mixture of Weardale and Cleveland ironstone. The present company, known as the Weardale Steel, Coal and Coke Company Limited, has joined forces with two other large companies, the South Durham Steel and Iron Company Limited and the Cargo Fleet Iron Company Limited, the latter owning extensive ironstone mines at Cleveland, " In 190;, 9,579 tons of brown iron ore were mined at Carrick, or Craig's Level, and 3,114 tons obtained from quarries or open-cast workings. The average production of iron may be reckoned at about 30 per cent, of this ; Mines and Quarries Gen. Rep. 1906, and here again the business of iron-smelting has advanced by leaps and bounds, whilst that of iron-mining has shrunk to very small dimensions. BARYTES Durham is one of the few English counties from which sulphate of baryta is obtained in any quantity, the output in 1905 reaching a total ot some 5,626 tons, of which 1,507 came from the Cow Green Mine, 85 from the Flush O'Mea, and 4,034 from a very curious fault-fissure in the New Brancepeth Collieries. The estimated value of the mineral raised was ^^2,630.' FLUORSPAR A considerable amount of fluorspar is obtained from Weardale, the chief producers being Sed- ling and Stanhopeburn mines, and the output about 10,000 tons per annum. ' Mines and Quarries Gen. Rep. and Statistics for 1905 (1906), p. 163. 356 AGRICULTURE IN the county of Durham as elsewhere in England there were large areas of uninclosed waste land till the middle of the eighteenth cen- tury. Between 1756 and 1797 over 1,500 private Inclosure Acts were passed, and finally a general Commons Inclosure Act was passed in I 80 1. During this period the county took, its full share in the develop- ment of English agriculture, as is well shown by comparing Arthur Young's Northern Tour, 1768, with Bailey's account of the agriculture of Durham in 1810. Young, in his Tour, describes how he crossed the Tees to Barnard Castle, and proceeded thence to Middleton-in-Teesdale and further west. He speaks of the valley towards Middleton as ' a noble extensive valley, inter- sected with hedges and a few walls into sweet inclosures which, being quite below the point of view, are seen distinct, though almost numberless ' ; thus showing that a considerable amount of the valley land was inclosed at that time. Beyond Middleton he still found inclosures, and describes the wild banks of the Tees as ' clothed with the freshest verdure, and cut by hedges full of clumps of wood, and scattered with straggling trees.' It is evident, therefore, that hedgerow timber is of old standing in the county. Young noted that grass inclosures in the valley were let at 25J. an acre, and that parts of the moors recently inclosed by the then Earl of Darlington, after ' paring, burning and liming, sowing with turnips, oats and hard grain,^ and laying down with grass seeds,' produced a rental of js. 6d. an acre. He also stated that a very large amount of the waste land of the district was well worth inclosing. His description of the Earl of Darlington's Home Farm at Raby is full of interest. Its extent was about 1,100 acres, of which 430 were arable, 288 meadow for mowing, and 357 pasture. The rent was estimated at jC8°°' Thirty-three labourers were employed, including six boys, and there were twenty horses and eighteen draught-oxen. The rotation of crops varied, but was usually: (i) fallow, (2) wheat, (3) fallow (dunged), {4) barley, (5) swedes. Peas or turnips might take the place of one of the fallows. The farm buildings were extensive and included a large barn, feed- ing-houses for fattening cattle, and even a sheep-yard, with a covered shed for the sheep in bad weather, while the urine from the animals was not allowed to drain away, but was collected in a reservoir and used as manure. In connexion with these buildings Young notes that he has ' seen a vast number of farms in this part of the kingdom that have nothing deserving the name of a farm-yard,' and urges the need and the advantage of protection of cattle during the winter. In the previous year the grass land had included in its stocking thirty-seven Scotch cattle and fourteen cows. The cows were polled, in order to do less injury to the young plantations, and also because ' Wheat or wheat and rye. 357 A HISTORY OF DURHAM they were excellent milkers, giving eight gallons each a day. Unfortunately the breed is not mentioned, but it may be noted that Marshall in his work on Yorkshire (1796) stated that the ancient breed of black cattle was the most important breed of North Yorkshire, and that although mostly horned some of them were polled or hornless. The sheep were very profitable on this farm ; on an average there were three lambs to every two ewes, while each ewe's wool sold at 6j'. Most of the grass land was drained with stone drains, which were cut about 2J ft. deep, while the drains were from 4 to 7 yards apart. In laying land down to grass the seeds sown per acre were about 171b. white clover and 4 bushels cleaned hayseeds, along with small quantities of ribgrass and trefoil. Cabbages had also just been introduced on this farm with success as a field crop. In describing the general farming of the district, Young states that rents were about i6j-. an acre, that rentals varied from about jC^o to jC^°°' ^^^ that the common courses of farming were either (i) fallow, (2) wheat, (3) oats, or (i) turnips, (2) barley, (3) seeds. The amounts of seed sown and the average crops were as follow : — Crop Seed per acre Time of sowing Crop per acre Wheat 2 bushels September 25 bushels Barley • 2i )) April 35 » Oats • 4 » March 40 „ Rye . 2i n ? 40 „ Peas . 2i » March 30 ,, Young notes that they knew nothing of red clover. The cost of stocking a farm was estimated at £^ an acre, and land sold at thirty-five years' purchase. Tithes were generally compounded, wheat paying 6s. an acre, barley 4.S. 6^., and hay 2s. Poor rates were 6d. in the £. Labourers' wages were is. a day in the winter and up to 2s. a day in harvest, while dairy-maids received ^^5, boys £6, and men from ^(^i i to ^14 annually. In connexion with this he estimated that the average value of servants' board, washing and lodging was £g a year. The labourers' house rents were about 35J., and their firing about 25^. a year. Candles and soap were expensive at 6J. a pound, while meat of all kinds was about Tt^d., butter 71^., cheese 2j^., and rye bread id. a pound. Farm carts cost about jTj 10s., ploughs about 22s., and harrows about ioj. ; there were no four-wheeled farm-wagons, and rollers were nearly unknown. Proceeding from Raby to Durham, he found much good land rented on the average at about 22J-. an acre, the farm rents being as a rule under jC^oo a year ; and again between Durham and Newcastle he noted that ' land is in general good and lets very high, even round Newcastle extravagantly, from 40J. to £^ an acre.' Further on he contrasts the agriculture of Northumber- land with that of Durham, and states that the farms are much larger in the former county, and that the small inclosed farms are well farmed, but the larger waste farms poorly managed and in poor condition. This account by Young shows that the farming of that time in the county was of a simple and primitive character, and also that the com- paratively small amount of inclosed land was farmed by a frugal and industrious class of farmers, whilst the owners of a few well-managed farms 358 AGRICULTURE like the Home Farm at Raby were improving the methods of cultivation, introducing fresh crops, importing cattle and other live stock into the county, and building good accommodation for live stock. A General View of the Agriculture of the County of Durham was written in 1810 by John Bailey of Chillingham, for the Board of Agriculture. Bailey besjan life as a schoolmaster and became steward to Lord Tankerville at Chillingham. He was a man of sound judgement and great practical know- ledge, his services were in great request as a valuer of land, and he claimed an intimate acquaintance with the agriculture of the county for upwards of forty years. The first authentic records of inclosure of commons he found were those of the Ryhope (1658) and Stockton Common Fields (1659), both containing 1,765 acres. In connexion with these dates it should be noticed that in 1652 Walter Blith, an officer in Cromwell's army, had published the third edition of The English Improver Improved, in which he strongly urged the inclosure of common lands, and it is evident that the influence of this advice was soon felt. Bailey gives a full account of the commons divided and inclosed in the county between 1756 and 1809, their total acreage being over 1 14,000 acres. The largest were the Weardale stinted moors and pastures (25,000 acres), and the Middleton and Eggleston commons (18,000 acres). Of the total of 114,000 acres, only about 74,000 were considered to be ' capable of improvement by the plough.' The whole, however, was ' well inclosed, and sub-divided into proper sized fields by thorn hedges or stone walls, and a great many new farm houses, offices, etc., have been erected.' The inclosure of these lands greatly enhanced their worth ; in fact Bailey states that he 'valued and let an allotment for fy^o, for the common right of which before the division, the proprietor and his tenants never received benefits equal to as many shillings,' and he estimated that by inclosing these lands their average value had increased at least tenfold. Farms were usually let for from three to twelve years, the time of entry being Old May Day. Old pastures could not be broken ; when drainage was done by the landlord, seven per cent, on the outlay was paid annually by the tenant, and the tenant on leaving had a waygoing crop from two-thirds of the ploughed land, with use of the stackyard and barn for a year later. Minerals, &c., were reserved, but damage caused by their working was met. As to farm buildings he had ' not found any meriting any particular notice.' The cottages were ' comfortable dwellings of one storey, covered with thatch or tiles.' The farms were small, the greater number being between 50 and 150 acres; while only one is mentioned as being as large as 1,000 acres. The few large farmers however were ' men of education and superior intelligence, who travel to examine the cultivation of distant countries, and improved breeds of cattle, sheep, and other animals,' and had capital to carry out their ideas. Among these were the Messrs. CuUey, the great agricultural improvers of the north. The small farmers had little capital, had worked on the farm from childhood, toiling from four in the morning till eight in the evening in summer, and in winter from ' twilight to twilight,' and obtaining their scanty education during the winter months; they were greater slaves than their servants. Rents had greatly increased during the previous twenty years, in many cases being doubled. Rent for arable land varied from 5^. to £2 ^" 359 A HISTORY OF DURHAM acre, the best pasture and meadows from 30^. to ^t^, and land near towns^ reached ^4 to ^^5. Farm servants were hired by the year ; a good man-servant was paid £21, and a woman-servant £%, with bed and board in the farmer's house. The married labourers' yearly earnings averaged about ^^38 a year. The cost of labour had doubled within twenty years. The average prices of provisions in Durham for the seven years 1803—10 were: wheat ioj-. a bushel ; beef 7^^'. a lb.; butter is. 6d. a lb.; fowls is. each ; eggs 6d. a dozen ; and potatoes zs. a bushel. The turnpike roads were in good repair, ' but the road from Stockton to Durham is very ill kept ' as well as the great post-road from Darlington to Newcastle, and the township roads were in wretched repair. These latter were kept by statute labour, of which every one did as little as possible, and Bailey suggested that if 6d. to is. in the pound had been charged for this ' every good farmer would cheerfully pay it, rather than have his draughts and his men taken off to perform statute duty.' At this time swing ploughs ^ only were used in the county. When Bailey knew these ploughs forty years before, the mouldboards were made of wood, and were very full at the breast, but when he wrote they were mostly made of cast iron. Great attention was then being given to the construction of ploughs so as to lessen the draught and make the mouldboard turn over the furrow in the best manner, as is shown in the full description given by Bailey. In 1770 Clarke of Belford, a northern agricultural improver, had been awarded a Gold Medal by the London Society of Arts for an essay on the construction of ploughs, which was published in Dossie's Memoirs of Agriculture. Paring and burning was then a regular practice and had been in vogue for centuries. All turf over about seven years old (including common land reclaimed) was subjected to this process when it was broken up. Four or five expert labourers could pare off sods one inch deep from an acre daily, but Bailey noted the introduction of a paring plough which greatly facilitated this work. This operatipn, which is now practically obsolete, was done in early summer, the turves being afterwards stacked loosely in heaps, and burned when dry enough, after which the ashes and burned soil were care- fully spread. Corn drills were at this time in use by one or two of the best farmers, while turnip seed drills were common. Threshing mills were also general, although the first had only been introduced by Robert Colling in 1795, and there was actually one worked by steam in 18 10. Carts had almost entirely taken the place of wagons, and the one-horse cart was coming into use on the roads, although two- or three-horse carts were principally used on the farm. Bailey had also seen a rake, drawn by a horse, on Robert Colling's farm. Tithes were drawn in some places, but were usually valued and let every year, according to the value and average crops of grain less cost of marketing. Tithe lambs were due at midsummer, and wool when clipped ; turnip tithe varied from zs. bd. to js. bd. an acre, and potato tithe from ioj. to lbs. Poor rates varied from is. 3^. to zs. bd. a pound in the rural districts, and ' Ploughs without wheels. 360 AGRICULTURE from 2J-. bd. to 4J-. bd. in the towns, on rentals reduced from one-third to one-fourth. Numerous agricultural societies had now been formed, some most thorough agricultural experiments had been conducted, and great progress had been made in improving methods of cultivation and in introducing new varieties of crops, especially of cereals. Great agricultural improvers like the Culleys, the Collings, and other prominent Durham farmers, made large profits at the beginning of this period, as, while rents and cost of labour were still low, their improved methods of farming and the rising prices of agricultural produce gave them a handsome return for their skill and energy. These returns, however, were considerably reduced when a balance was established between rent, labour, and the farmer's profits.' James Caird, in 'English Agriculture in 1 850-1, at a time of agricultural depression records that on the heavy farms of the county a three-course rotation was being followed, viz.: — i. fallow ; 2. wheat ; 3. one-half oats and one-half clover. Most of the fallow was uncropped, so that green crops were limited on these soils. Wheat was the main source of income, and lime the only manure purchased. Rents varied from \\s. to i6j. an acre, and tithe ^ and rates were about 3^. bd. an acre. This system had considerably reduced the average number of bushels produced by the cereal crops. On the loams and lighter soils the four-course system was practised, and more of the fallow break was devoted to green crops, while in some cases the Northumberland five-course system was adopted, in which the ' seeds ' were left down for two years. A good deal of the heavy land was drained by the landlords, who charged the tenants five per cent, annually on the outlay. On Lord Ravensworth's well-managed estate to the south of Newcastle rents varied from ^2 to ^^3 an acre. Dairy farming for milk supply was already greatly developed in this populous district, and a cow's produce was reckoned to be worth j^io a year. The home farms of the large estates were all well farmed. Lord Durham bought Highland heifers, eighteen months old, each autumn at 50J. a head, so that store stock was evidentlv low in price. Shorthorns were the principal cattle of the county, but the best herds were now on the Yorkshire side of the Tees. On most farms the housing accommodation for live stock was still inadequate. Dr. Bell, in a paper in the Koyal Agricultural Society s yournal iov 1856, recorded that a further 25,000 acres of common land had been reclaimed since 1809, which included 9,000 acres at Middleton-in-Teesdale, and the Eggleston Moor (6,000 acres). He estimated that the arable land of the county was then let at an average of 1 9/. and the old grass-land at i 5/. an acre. By this time the annual meetings of the Durham Agricultural Society had become important, and greatly encouraged the breeding of farm live stock ; many good farm horses were reared, chiefly of the Cleveland breed, while a considerable number of blood horses and hunters were bred. The ' As an example of the remarkable development of this period it may be noted that the Messrs. Culley, who migrated from Durham to Northumberland in 1767, entered the farm of Wark, near Coldstream, in 1786, the area being 1,200 acres, and the rental j^Soo. In 18 12 the farm was let at ^^3,200 ! Roy. Agric. Soc. Journ. (1841), p. 159. 'The Tithe Commutation Act of 1836 had reduced this to a charge fluctuating with the price of corn. 2 361 46 A HISTORY OF DURHAM sheep of the lowland pasture were chiefly of the Leicester breed, with black- faced on the hill farms, the cross between the Leicester ram and the Cheviot ewe being popular. A hind's wage was then 12s. to 13J. a week, with cottage and garden, while day labourers received zs. to 2s. bd. and women field workers \od. a day. Many of the drains put in at this time were only 30 inches deep. An estimate of the cost worked out to the low amount of ^3 lOJ. an acre. When the show of the Royal Agricultural Society was held at Newcastle in 1887, the Earl of Durham (Lambton Castle), was awarded the first prize of ^^50 for the best farm in Durham or Northumberland, occupied and carried on in conjunction with a colliery. As large areas are now farmed by colliery proprietors, mainly to avoid meeting claims for surface damage by tenant farmers, this kind of farming has become very important. The two farms which obtained the prize extended to 759 acres. The stock comprised 17 horses, 170 cattle, nearly 600 sheep, 290 lambs, 20 pigs, and 37 ponies. Over 3,000 loads of dung were made annually, which was supplemented by artificials and some gas lime. At the previous Christmas sale on the farm 49 fat bullocks had realized on the average ^^29 5;-. and in the following June, 59 fat cattle gave an average of jC^S- The arable land was farmed on the four-course system. In the final Report of the Royal Commission on Agricultural Depres- sion, issued in 1897, it was stated that in the north-eastern counties (includ- ing Durham) arable farmers had lost from the fall in the price of grain, and sheep breeders from the fall in wool and the low prices for sheep in 1892-3. Graziers and horse-breeders had done better, while dairy-farmers had hardly suffered. Arable farms were let at twenty to thirty per cent, less than in 1879, but the reduction was less on grass farms. Farms were let readily, although farmers had lost large amounts of capital. Landlords' outgoings on improvements had increased considerably, so that the net rental had suffered more than the gross. Having thus completed our survey of the agricultural history of Durham during the nineteenth century, it will be advisable before dealing with the present state of agriculture in the county, to consider the important and per- manent factor of the soil. The New Red Sandstone formation underlies the drift deposits to the south-east of a line from the Hartlepools to Darlington, but is all covered with Boulder Clay and Glacial Sands (drift). The clays on the Boulder Clay here are better and more loamy in character, as a considerable amount of the underlying sandstone is found in them. The Magnesian Limestone extends from this to an irregular line drawn from South Shields by Houghton- le-Spring to Ferryhill, and thence by the east of Bishop Auckland and by Headlam to the Tees, one and a half miles east of Gainford. This limestone immediately underlies much of the county between Sunderland and Ferry- hill, where it forms a reddish brown soil, often thin, light and poor where it rests on the rock. Where it is overlaid by Boulder Clay, however, the clay soils are usually of a poor and infertile character, and recent field experiments indicate that the soils formed directly from this limestone are in special need of phosphatic manuring. Still further to the west the Coal Measures extend to a line drawn from the north-west boundary of the county at Wylam, right 362 AGRICULTURE away south to Barnard Castle. The soils lying directly on these are usually thin and poor sandy soils on the sandstones, and poor stiff clays on the shales of this system. While there are considerable areas of these sandy soils, there are thousands of acres of these poor clays, but Boulder Clay covers the greater part of this system, affording soils which are usually poor and shallow clays, but with some good sandy loams on the Glacial Sands. Very large areas of these, to the west, are overlaid by moorland and peat. The Mill- stone Grit occupies large areas of the high-lying land above the upper valleys of the Wear and the Tees in the west of the county, while this is the principal underlying formation for a few miles to the north of the Tees from Barnard Castle to Gainford. In this latter district dryer clay loams are found on the overlying Boulder Clay, but there are extensive tracts of poor sandy soil on the sandstones of this formation, and some poor clays on the shales with which the sandstones are interbedded. These poor sands and clays usually occur on high-lying areas, chiefly as moorland, much of which is of a peaty character. The sandy soils are usually very deficient in plant food, and are in great need of potash manuring, as has been shown by recent experiments. The valleys of the Wear and the Tees in this western part of Durham, as well as the flanks of the hills, lie chiefly on the Mountain Limestone, which here consists of a great succession of sand- stones and limestones, the former to the largest extent. Strong reddish soils of a good character are formed from the limestones, which are especially healthy for stock raising, while poorer sandy soils are formed from the sand- stones. Again, very much of this formation is overlaid by peat and moor- land. The extent of the Boulder Clay deposits may be realized from the fact that of about 435,000 acres under crops and pasture (exclusive of moun- tain pasturage) in the county, at least 250,000 acres lie on Boulder Clay. This differs from a sedimentary clay in that it was deposited under ice during the Glacial Period, without being subjected to weathering agencies. Its character usually depends to a large extent on the underlying and adjacent rock, although it may contain other rocks transported from con- siderable distances. These soils are, as already stated, of a better character in the south-east of the county, where they are derived largely from New Red Sandstone, but are as a rule poor and cold when derived from the shales of the Coal Measures. When they contain limestone rock they are usually of a valuable character. The great bulk of these Boulder Clay soils in the county however are thin, and are lying on a poor clay subsoil. On these soils deep ploughing is inadvisable, as this mixes with the small amount of surface soil the poor and unhealthy subsoil material. Some good sandy loams are found on the Glacial Sands and Gravels associated with this clay, which in places extend to quite considerable areas. The areas of good alluvial soil in the river basins are not extensive, as there are practically no wide and open valleys. A reference to Professor Lebour's geological map^ will show the relative position of the underlying formations, but not of the drift deposits. y.CH Dur. i. 363 A HISTORY OF DURHAM AGRICULTURAL STATISTICS FOR COUNTY DURHAM (Extracted from Agricultural Returns for Great Britain) Total Area 1867 1870 1880 1890 1900 1905 Total acreage under crops and grass ' 389,556 403,135 415,626 435,084 438,713 434,828 /Wheat 40,099 41,935 1 31.557 20,572 14,114 14,333 Barley 12,900 16,476 19,406 16,565 17,492 16,121 Corn Crops ■ Oats . Rve . 43,706 96 39,838 21 I 35,676 102 33,7'4 "9 32,750 120 32,641 132 Beans . 3.871 3,194 2,612 1,432 935 980 I, Peas . 3, '39 3,083 818 673 315 '32 Total . 103,811 104,737 90,171 73.065 65,726 64,339 / Potatoes 5.596 8,262 9,874 7,821 9,399 ",799 Turnips and Swedes 22,720 24,114 21,205 21,322 20,813 20,151 _ ^ Mangels <^'""<^'°P^j Cabbages, Rape, &c. . 50 507 66 578 240 497 144 464 806 633 768 576 Vetches , Other Crops } 3,563 3,052 2,976 2,490 f 1,500 1 335 1,150 479 Total . . 32,456 36,108 34.835 32,285 33,486 34,923 Clover and Grasses f For Hay . under Rotation \ For Grazing (?) 33,607 (?) 40,133 38,728 37,031 0) 18,673 (?) 16,385 13,052 10,060 Total . 41,644 52,280 44,582 56,518 51,780 47,091 „ ^ T» if For Hay . Permanent Pasture' ] „ r^ ■ ( ror (jrazing (?) (?) 57,320 129,037 (?) (?) 89,705 '70,359 91,185 189,005 97,948 185,699 Total . 183,134 186,357 226,867 260,064 280,190 283,647 Flax 126 16 3 I 1 Small Fruit (?) (?) (?) 263 344 301 Bare Fallow 28,511 23,525 19,155 12,886 7,186 4,526 Horses .... (?) 15,309 16,859 17,925 20,167 20,771 (Including Agricultural) (?) 11,297 11.27' 11,624 14,310 14,688 Cattle 50,915 57,166 62,395 69,037 78,185 78,648 (Including Milch Cows) 18,164 18,790 21,124 26,004 28,882 28,569 Sheep .... 209,819 192,093 214,427 224,504 258,257 238,729 Pigs • 17.4-17 10,910 7,732 14,758 10,624 11,792 The total extent of land in the county is 645,926 acres, of which 434,926 are under crops and pasture, the remainder being moor and moun- tain land. The earliest reliable agricultural returns were taken in 1867, and the figures are given for that year, for every ten years from 1870 onwards, ' Not including moorland and mountain pasture. 364 AGRICULTURE and for 1905. The area under wheat has decreased to an enormous extent, and was actually under 7,000 acres in 1904. Barley has been fairly constant, but oats have diminished by about one-fourth. Wheat is sold to the largest extent in the corn markets of Sunderland and Stockton, barley in Stockton and Darlington, and oats in Darlington. Rye is of little importance and is now grown principally as an early green food. Beans and peas were fairly extensive crops in 1867, but the areas of these, especially of peas, have latterly become very small, as the large amounts of oil-cakes now available for feeding purposes have made the use of beans and peas, which are both rich in albuminoids, not nearly so necessary on the farm, while the greater cost of harvesting them, especially peas, and the increase in the value of labour, have also restricted their growth. Much of the clay land also, which was especially suitable for beans, has been laid down to pasture. The area of potatoes has been more than doubled, while turnips and swedes have slightly decreased. Mangels are not important, although they have con- siderably increased in the past few years ; the short summer, however, and the prevalence of summer frosts operate specially against this crop. Cabbages are not extensively grown as a field crop, though they are found to be most useful on some of the dairy farms. Clovers and grasses under rotation are usually mown in the first year, and grazed when allowed to lie for a second. Practi- cally no sainfoin or lucerne is grown, nor clover excepting in a mixture with grasses. The area of permanent pasture has increased by about fifty per cent, and of meadow hay by about eighty per cent, and now nearly two-thirds of the old arable is laid away as pasture or meadow land. Bare fallowing is practised only to one-fourth of the extent of i 867. A considerable area of flax was grown about 1870, but this as a fibre crop was not a success and it has been practically given up. Mustard also, which was largely grown about 1770 for manufacture as a condiment, has for long been unimportant and has now disappeared. The four-course rotation is usually followed in a modified form, and is frequently lengthened to a five-course by keeping the seeds down for a second year. For the average of the ten years 1 894-1903 the yields of crops (per acre) in the county compared with those of England and Great Britain were as follow : — Co. Durham England Great Britain Bushels Bushels Bushels Wheat Barley Oats .... Beans 30-44 36-14 37-99 . 26-63 30-95 33-00 41-09 28-02 30-95 33-17 39-06 28-25 Peas .... 24-27 26-35 26-29 Tons Tons Tons Potatoes Turnips and swedes 5-43 13-02 5-80 11-96 5-75 12-79 Mangels^ 14-64 18-36 18-30 Cwt. Cwt. Cwt. Hay (rotation) Hay (old land) . 33-94 2427 29-03 24-05 29-13 23-63 ' Summer frosts (on the grass) are very prevalent in the north-east of England. An inquiry during the past few years has shown that this crop suffers both in bulic and quality to a marked degree when these frosts are frequent. The comparatively short summer of the county is also distinctly unfavourable to the mangel ■crop. On the other hand, barley does remarkably well in the county, probably because the local summer conditions prevent a too rapid ripening. 365 A HISTORY OF DURHAM From these figures it will be seen that the county produces heavier crops of barley, turnips and swedes, and rotation hay, but smaller crops of oats, beans, peas, and mangels than the average of England. Shorthorns are the cattle^ of the county. In about 1750, a Sedgefield breeder brought a bull from Holland, which is said to have greatly increased the size of the local cattle, and in the beginning of the nineteenth century the brothers Colling, by selection for quality, bred remarkably fine specimens of Durham cattle, as they were then called, from which all pedigree shorthorns are descended. Later the best breeders were located in North Yorkshire. This rapidly became the best-known breed of cattle in all parts of the world, and still maintains this position. Mr. George Harrison, of Gainford Hall, Darlington, now the principal breeder of these, has bred some of the best-known shorthorns of the day. During the eleven years 1893— 1903 the herd, now numbering nearly one hundred, won about £j,ooo in prize-money. Among other leading breeders of these cattle are Lord Barnard, Lord Londonderry, and Messrs. Procter (Durham), Heugh (High ConisclifFe), Wilkinson (Stockton), and Reid (Weardale), while excellent non-pedigree dairy shorthorns are bred in Teesdale and Weardale. The total number of cattle has increased 50 per cent, since 1867. Farm horses are chiefly of the Clydesdale breed, but shires are also kept. Among the leading breeders are the Seaham Harbour Stud Company and the Earl of Durham. As a general rule the farmers breed one or two foals every year. The increase of farm horses by about 20 per cent, in the last thirty years indicates that many more are now bred than was formerly the case. Half-bred (Leicester-Cheviot) sheep arc kept principally in the east, and blackfaced on the higher lands of the west, but other breeds form part of the flocks. The total number of sheep tended to increase till about 1900, since when it has rather decreased. The pigs are mostly of the Middle White Yorkshire breed, and they are sometimes crossed with the Berkshire. Breeders find a ready sale for young pigs in the colliery districts, and though their total number decreased largely about 1880, they have again nearly reached the average of the past thirty years. With regard to animal diseases the county is now in a fortunate position. There were in 1905 only ten outbreaks of swine-fever, thirteen of sheep-scab, and no cases of other important contagious diseases. There were seventy -five owners of 1,000 acres and upwards of land in the county in 1875, among whom the following owned over 10,000 acres : — The Duke of Cleveland (now represented by Lord Barnard), the Marquis of Londonderry, the Earl of Durham, Viscount Boyne, and the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. The University of Durham owns nearly 3,000 acres. Perhaps the largest agricultural estate in the county at the present time is that which has been for nearly 300 years in the hands of the same family, and to which the present Lord Barnard of Raby Castle succeeded on the death of the last Duke of Cleveland in 1891. The Raby estate comprises some 56,000 acres, which lie mostly in the Valley of the Tees, and include a con- siderable extent of moorland. The average rental in 1875 varied from ' See Table, sujira. 366 AGRICULTURE 32J-. zd. an acre for mixed farms to i8j. \od. an acre for grass farms, whereas now the former stand at 25J. f)d. and the latter 15/, jd. an acre, a reduction of about twenty per cent, and seventeen per cent, respectively. But while the expenditure on up-keep (buildings, drainage, &c.) was Sj. 3^. in the ^ in 1875, it is IOJ-. \d. in the jT now, so that the reduction of net income is considerably greater than the above figures indicate. The holdings are of small size in the lead-mining districts of Upper Teesdale, where the occupiers generally combine mining with their farm work, but usually extend to over 200 acres towards the east of the county. The homesteads are nearly all built of stone with slate roofs, and as a rule are in good repair, a striking feature of the whole estate being that they are all whitewashed either annually or every two years. Lord Barnard places good shorthorn bulls, shire stallions, and a thoroughbred stallion at the disposal of his tenants for nominal fees. Leases are neither asked for nor granted, but it is unusual for a farm to change hands, although tenants by choice sometimes move to other farms on the estate. Agricultural land was on an average worth about thirty years' purchase in 1875 ; it had dropped to about twenty-five a few years ago, but has now slightly recovered, varying from that to about twenty-seven. The in-coming tenant usually enters into full possession on i 3 May, the out-going tenant giving up to him half of the tillage-land and all the straw on the preceding 30 November, the grass land for hay on 26 April, and the pasture land about 10 May. All dung made from 30 November is handed over to the in-coming tenant. In 1904 there were in the county 159 farms over 300 acres in extent, and 2,334 between 50 and 300 acres. There were also 3,057 smaller holdings of between 5 and 50 acres, and 1,197 ^^ ^^^^^ ^^^^ extent. On the smaller farms the farmer usually works a pair of horses himself, and while most of his time on the larger farms is required for superintending he is generally ready to take part in the work at busy times. The last census revealed a striking decrease in the number of male agricultural labourers in the county, as there were 10,004 of these in 1851 and only 5,049 in 1901. For this, the increased cost of labour, improved agricultural machinery, greater extent of pasture and lower prices for agri- cultural produce are all responsible. The custom of engaging the men at hiring markets is now being replaced by the better method of advertising in the newspapers. The hinds, or ploughmen, are usually hired from 13 May (old May Day) for one year. The wages of married men have increased from about lis. a week in 1845 ^° about 20J. at the present time with a free house, about 7J cwt. of potatoes, and sometimes other allowances. The unmarried men usually live in the farmer's house and receive from jC3° ^o ^(^36 a year, instead of about ,^18 as in i 850. The old custom of giving ' arles ' at the time of engagement has not yet disappeared. The food has been greatly improved, and usually now includes eggs and bacon for breakfast and meat with vegetables for dinner. Sixty years ago the food included oatmeal porridge with coffee, bread, and skim milk for breakfast, and ' dumpling ' rather than meat was the principal dinner course. The hours of labour have also been considerably reduced, and overtime is now paid for at about \d. an hour, or is compounded by a payment of about £^1 or f^\. a year. Some women 367 A HISTORY OF DURHAM labourers are engaged at an average of about is. id. a day. The wages of dairymaids and of domestic servants have greatly increased. Farmhouses and homesteads are, as a rule, commodious, substantially built, and suitable for the farms, and labourers' cottages show a marked improvement on what they were fifty years ago. Many of the farmers are now allowed to sell hay and straw on condition that equivalent manure is returned, and more free- dom of cropping is allowed, always providing that the condition of the holding is maintained. Generally speaking rents are lower by over twenty per cent, than they were in the seventies, but farms have always been in demand, and conditions have again slightly improved within the last few years, especially in those districts where dairy-farming is rapidly developing. Large amounts of manure produced in the county are available, and artificial manures are largely used, especially for roots, while basic slag is invaluable for pasture and meadow hay on the heavier soils. Lime is less extensively used than formerly, and care has to be taken to avoid the limes which con- tain much magnesia. The Magnesian Limestone quarries of East Durham usually produce lime containing too much magnesia for agricultural purposes. Oil-cakes of all kinds, mostly manufactured at Hull, are largely used for fattening animals and dairy cows, and add greatly to the manurial value of the dung produced. Full advantage has been taken of the improvements in farm implements of all kinds. From thirty to forty years ago 'prize ploughs' which cut a narrow and deep furrow, and with which a good ploughman could do well- executed work, were in use, but have now given place to digging ploughs with wheels. The latter are much easier in draught, they invert the furrow more thoroughly, bury the stubble better, and to a large extent break up the furrow as thev turn it over.^ The American chilled plough was the pioneer of these, but English-made ploughs of this kind are now generally used. Corn drills are also in common use, although till about twenty years ago grain crops were generally sown broadcast. Till about fifty years ago corn crops were ' shorn ' with hooks, but then the scythe came into more common use, and the reaping machine became general early in the ' seventies' as did the ' binders ' about twelve years ago, there being a great rush for them about 1898. Haymaking — of so great importance in this county — is more assisted by better implements than any other farm operation. The mowing machine, the horse rake,' the swathe- turner, the ' pike ' lifter, and the horse fork, have all become invaluable for use in hay-harvest.^ Potato-diggers and manure distributors are also in common use, the latter being largely used for distributing basic slag on old pasture. The lighter classes of American forks, shovels, etc., introduced over thirty vears ago, became very popular. The English makes of these, as well as of many light implements are now, however, excellent, last longer than the former, and are at the present time in most common use. ' The ' irons ' of the old swing-plough were made of malleable iron and had to be ' laid,' or renewed, frequently by the country blacksmith. These are now faced with cast steel, and are replaced by duplicates when worn out. * Introduced about i860. ' The northern system of haymaking is practised in the county. The hay is cut, put into ' kyles * (small heaps), then into ' pikes ' (small ricks), which are finally carried to the haystack. 368 AGRICULTURE On dairy farms where butter is made the cream separator is now in general use, and this has become much more efficient and less costly in the past ten years. A milking machine is also being used with success at a large dairy farm near Sunderland. These latter machines have still, however, to win the general approval of the dairy farmers. The amount of milk produced for consumption must have increased enormously with the great increase of the population of the county. From figures taken from a paper read by Mr. R. H. Rew to the Royal Statistical Society in 1904, it may be assumed that the annual consumption of new milk per head of the population was about 11 gallons in 1868, and about 15-9 gallons in 1904. A cow yielding milk for sale would give on an average annually about 400 gallons in 1867, and about 550 gallons in 1904, as the milk-producing powers of cows have been greatly developed in recent years owing to improved feeding and management, especially in the more populous districts. From these figures it is calculated that of the 20,130 milch cows in the county in 1867, about 17,000 would have been required to produce all the milk needed. In 1905 the number of milch cows was 28,572, or about 10,000 less than would have supplied the county with milk for that year. Very large amounts of milk, however, are now imported from North Yorkshire, West Cumberland, and the south of Scotland, and at the same time butter and cheese are being produced to a decreasing extent. Some Wensleydale and other cheeses are still made in the south-west, and a good deal of butter in the more rural districts, but these are rapidly diminishing. A movement is now on foot to develop co-operative dairying in Tees- dale, which, especially as it promises better facilities for the transit of milk, is certain still further to increase the production of milk for con- sumption. Milk-selling farms have greatly increased in the populous districts. For these shorthorn cows (non-pedigree) come from south-west Durham and North Yorkshire through Darlington, Gateshead and other marts. Many milk-sellers buy these cows at six to eight years old, when at calving, and milk them till they go dry, when they are fed off for the butcher. These produce about 750—800 gallons of milk per cow annually, for which liberal feeding is necessary, but recent experiments in the county show that fre- quently this high feeding is carried to excess. Other milk-sellers buy the cows a year or two younger, and breed from them for a year or two. . The milk from these dairies is usually retailed locally by the farmers at or near ^. a quart. The railway milk which comes from a distance is purchased by dairy- men at about an average of %d. a gallon; the evening's milk in this case not being retailed till the following morning, and the morning's on the evening of the same day. The production of milk is a most important branch of farming for this county. It entails long hours and close atten- tion to the management of the cows and of the milk, and there is no more hard-working class of farmers than those so engaged in the county. The dairy research station at Offerton Hall, referred to later, is specially adapted for carrying out experiments on milk production, the results of which have already considerably modified local practice. 2 369 47 A HISTORY OF DURHAM Taking into consideration all the facts we may consider that the agricul- ture of the county is in a comparatively healthy condition. Reduced prices for grain and other farm produce generally and the increased cost of labour are serious drawbacks, but the dense population provides good local markets for all kinds of farm produce, even for by-products which are not saleable in thinly populated districts. Mining villages, when some distance from a port, are much better markets for the farmer than towns like Newcastle or Stockton, as foreign produce incurs the cost of the local transit from the port to the inland villages. The Durham agriculturists as a class are hard-working and energetic, and as a rule make the best of their farms, while they are fortunate in possessing several important educational establishments and a number of useful agricultural societies. This county has taken a prominent part in agricultural research. George CuUey, the greatest farmer of his time, was born at Denton in 1734, went to Bakewell, the leading pioneer breeder of live stock in Leicestershire, as a pupil in 1762, became, with his brother, the great agricultural improver of Durham and Northumberland, and died in 18 13. An Experimental Society of Agriculture met in Durham in July 1796, and passed resolutions to establish an experimental farm in the county. This was to extend to at least 200 acres, to be stocked with a variety of the best breeds of live stock and with proper machines and implements, and an annual mm of X^300 was to be raised to enable the experimental work to be done thoroughly.^ Nothing definite came of this, but an Experimental Society was formed at Rushyford in 1803, of which the brothers Colling were members. This society carried out most careful experiments on the farms of its members, and Bailey gives the results of many of these which deal with tests of varieties of corn and root crops, as well as with lime and manures from different sources. The tests of varieties of crops were most thorough, and as a result of these experiments with lime they have the credit of showing that 'the lime produced from the limestones which lie to the eastward of the coal district ' had marked burning effects on the crops, and produced what was called the 'burning lime'; while 'the lime to the westward of the coal district produces no such effect, and is hence called the mild lime.' Thus early did it become known that the magnesian limestones of the east of the county did not usually produce good agricul- tural lime like the mountain limestones to the west. Thomas Bates, the great shorthorn breeder, who was closely connected with the county, at the age of thirty-five attended courses of instruction in agricultural science in Edinburgh University during 1809— 11 to equip himself thoroughly as an agriculturist. Johnston, the noted agriculturist and chemist, held the Readership in Chemistry in Durham University from 1833 to 1855, and was also chemist to the Agricultural Chemistry Association of Scotland. His work on Agricultural Chemistry and Geology is still in use in a revised form. Although Scotland claimed most of his attention, he made considerable investigations into the soils and limestones of this county. His trustees contributed to the cost of equipment of the 'Johnston' chemical laboratory of Armstrong College, Newcastle, and also founded scholarships in chemistry at that college. ' Young, Annals of Agr'u. xxvii, 204. 370 AGRICULTURE At the present time agricultural education is carried out in the county by three bodies : 1. The Durham County Council, from its Residue Grant under the Local Taxation Act, 1890, spends about j^ 1,400 a year on agricultural instruction which includes : (i) travelling dairy schools and a fixed school, (ii) scholarships to agricultural and dairy students, and (iii) work done through the Agricultural Department of Armstrong College (see below). Most of this work has been in operation since 1892. 2. The North Eastern County School, Barnard Castle, established an agricultural side in 1890. This school provides a thorough secondary educa- tion for farmers' sons in a good public school and at a moderate cost. On an average about fifteen of the right class of pupils are enrolled on this side. The special teaching provided is excellent, and it is to be regretted that agriculturists do not make more use of it. 3. The Agricultural Department of Armstrong College, Newcastle-upon- Tyne (in the University of Durham), in co-operation with the Durham County Council, {a) give lectures on agricultural subjects throughout the county, {b) carry out field experiments and research work dealing with the manurial needs of the various soils for the principal crops grown in the county, {c) make investigations on variations in the quality of milk and on the feeding of dairy cows and other farm live stock and carry out examinations in dairy work, [a] provide complete courses of instruction in agriculture, dairy-farming, forestry, and estate management at Armstrong College, and (e) give advice on matters relating to agricultural science to farmers in the county. The College works in close connexion with, and is subsidized by, the Board of Agriculture. Dr. Somerville (now of Oxford) was first Professor of Agriculture from 1892 to 1900. He was succeeded by Professor Middleton (now of Cam- bridge), who held the chair from 1900 to 1902, and was in turn succeeded by the present writer. Large numbers of farmers' sons from the county have attended the College classes and hold important posts both at home and abroad, whilst many former students are now engaged in practical farming in the county. The College has issued reports which deal with the manuring of pasture and meadow land, the effects of various manures on different crops, and tests of different varieties of grain and root crops, and of different seed mixtures for hay and pasture. Offerton Hall, a dairy farm of nearly 600 acres near Sunderland, has become since 1903 a centre for investiga- tions in dairy work, the tenant, Mr. James McLaren, hiving co-operated with the County Council and the College to have thorough investigations made on his farm as to the best conditions for the feeding and manage- ment of dairy cows. The results already arrived at have been greatly appreciated by the milk-producers of the county. A lectureship in Forestry has been recently established, and an arrange- ment has been made by H.M. Commissioners of Woods which provides that the Chopwell Woods, extending to about 900 acres in the county of Durham, are now managed by the College and are available for de- monstration and teaching purposes. Investigations are in progress in other woods in the county, and lectures are also given on forestry at some centres. A HISTORY OF DURHAM The Darlington Chamber of Agriculture was formed and admitted to the Central Chamber in 1884. There are now over three hundred and fifty members, who represent a large area of the county. There is a club-room at Darlington, where lectures on agricultural subjects are given, and it holds annually an Entire Horse Show and also a Seed, Grain, and Potato Show. The Marquis of Londonderry provides the chamber with a Clydesdale entire horse, for mares owned by the members. The Stockton Chamber of Agriculture, formed in 1888, is also affiliated to the Central Chamber, and has about three hundred and fifty members. Lectures are provided for the members, regular meetings are held for agricultural discussions, grain and root competitions are conducted, and much other work is carried out. The Farmers' Protection Association has its head quarters at Darlington, was founded in 1899, and with its branches at Bedale, Barnard Castle, and Lartington, has now about six hundred and fifty members. This body is doing most valuable work in giving mutual protection to farmers in all business matters ; assisting also in settling difficulties with servants, with rail- way companies, in connexion with the sale of grain or live stock, and the purchase of feeding stuffs and manures and other substances. The Newcastle Farmers' Club was formed in i 846 (although preceded by older clubs), and has nearly three hundred members, of whom many are from Durham. This club has long enjoyed a high reputation for the ex- cellent and practical papers read before its members, and its ' Scale for Compensation for Unexhausted Improvements ' has long had the confidence of the north of England agriculturists. The Northumberland and Durham Dairy Farmers' Association has a large number of members, many of whom are dairy farmers in north-east Durham. Excellent work is done by this body in providing lectures on dairying and in providing its members with information as to the production and sale of milk. These associations have a great influence on the agriculture of the county, and three of them are the real founders of the North-Eastern Agricultural Federation, an influential body which has for its main object the formation of a compact agricultural party in all rural constituencies. The Durham County Agricultural Society has been in existence since 1786. It now numbers about four hundred and fifty members, offers about £joo in prizes at its annual agricultural shows, subsidizes four horse clubs which provide good entire horses in different parts of the county, and acts as a medium for members, obtaining analyses of feeding stuffs and manures at modified fees. At the annual shows prizes are offered for cattle (mainly for Shorthorns, but some for Polled Angus and for dairy cows), for agricultural horses (Shires and Clydesdales), Hunters, Hackneys, Dale and other ponies, and for sheep, Border Leicester, Half-bred (Leicester- Cheviot), Black- faced and Oxford Downs. There is usually excellent competition in all the classes. In the poultry department also all the principal breeds are well represented. There are besides local agricultural societies, which hold shows annually at Barnard Castle, Middleton-in-Teesdale, Sedgefield, Stanhope, Wolsingham, and at other centres. 372 FORESTRY jA LTHOUGH few counties are less /^L famed by reason of their wood- Z__m lands than the County Palatine of / m Durham, it still possesses sufficient features of arboricultural interest to repay those who may take the trouble to investigate them. It would be beyond the scope of this article to describe the forestry of Durham in as comprehensive a manner as the subject deserves, but an attempt will be made to deal with the most salient features of its past and present condition, and to note such of the individual trees in the county as are above the average in size, rarity, or interest. Clearly to understand the condition of forestry in the county it is necessary to glance at its physical, geological, and climatic features, to- gether with such of its industries as affect or influence the utilization of land. As is well known, the boundary lines of Durham form an irregular equilateral triangle, the apex of which points almost due west, while its base is repre- sented by the coast line of the North Sea. Its physical features are characterized by a tract of high-lying and mountainous land reaching almost to the centre of the county from its western apex, and which slopes gradually downwards towards the east. This mountain land forms some of the most elevated portion of the Pennine Chain, and is cut into and divided by the river valleys of the Derwent (which ultimately joins the Tyne above Newcastle), the Wear, and the Tees, the first and last of which form the north-east and south-west boundary lines of the county, while Upper Weardale practically divides the district lying to the west of a line drawn between Consett and Barnard Castle into two equal portions. It is thus seen that the physiography of the western portions of the county is very different from that prevailing on the east side. , In the former, high-lying, exposed mountain land, intersected by deep valleys, provides con- ditions which alternately retard and favour the growth of trees ; while on the east, the existence of large tracts of gently undulating or flat land, at low elevations, would lead one to assume that tree-growth would meet with more favourable conditions than those prevailing in the hill districts. When the geological and climatic features of these two fairly distinct portions of the county are studied, however, it is found that they have almost as much influence upon the existence of trees as those arising from the elevation and con- tours of the land. While the surface of the western portions of the county is chiefly made up of soils formed directly from the Millstone Grit and other beds of the Carboniferous Series, a large proportion of the low-lying land to the east is entirely covered with a thick layer ot boulder clay. In the hill districts, again, the climate, although bleak and cold in winter and spring, is marked by a heavier summer rainfall and more humid conditions than that of the eastern sea-board, and although the western gales are more severe in the high-lying districts, the tendency of the ground to slope towards the east renders the surface less exposed to their force than on flat ground or slopes facing the west. The east of the county is often subjected to long spells of dry and cold winds blowing off the North Sea during late spring and early summer, while the generally low level of the land and its flat nature render late spring frosts of frequent occurrence. The combined influence of the geological and climatic conditions in these two portions of the county upon the growth and development of trees and plantations is fairly well-marked. In the west, wherever the situation is comparatively sheltered and the elevation not too great, species which favour a fairly porous and well-drained soil do better as a rule than in the east, where the stiff, cold nature of the soil and the absence of high grounds to serve as wind-breaks, render the growth of almost all species very slow after the first few years. The most favourable con- ditions for tree-growth throughout the county are found, as might be expected, in the river valleys. The Derwent, the Wear, and the Tees, with their numerous tributaries, not only provide sheltered ground along their banks, but the soil of the latter is usually much deeper, more porous, and more favourable in many ways for the growth of timber than the land between which they flow, which is usually devoted to agriculture and pasturage. At the present time the economic conditions prevailing in various parts of the county also indirectly affect the existence of woods, and in some cases their growth. The extensive Dur- ham coalfield, with its numerous collieries, iron-works, and coke-ovens, not only causes a more or less vitiated atmosphere, which injuri- 373 A HISTORY OF DURHAM ously affects the growth of many species, but the dense population, which is an inevitable accom- paniment of these industries, mihtates against the preservation of existing woods and timber trees, and discourages the formation of new plantations except on carefully inclosed land in the vicinity of county seats. The enhanced value of agricultural land in such districts also tends to remove many inducements to plant wliich exist in most rural localities wherever the nature of the soil is not conducive to high cultivation, and in consequence, brings in a low rental. In colliery districts, again, the value of grazing land is usually comparatively high, and little of it can be spared for such purposes as tree planting. The original condition of the county as regards woodland in prehistoric times probably differed little, if at all, from that found else- where in the northern counties. The greater part of the low-lying part of the county, and the valleys running into the hill districts, were covered with a forest growth of such trees as the oak, ash, wych elm, hazel, alder, holly, yew, &c. Although no actual remains of these forests now exist, except in the buried trunks and other portions which are occasionally found under clay, peat, or gravel, their descendants can be recognized with tolerable accuracy on any piece of waste land which carries self-sown trees of any kind. The steep banks of rivers, faces of cliffs, and the various ' denes ' formed by streams cutting through the clays, shales, and softer strata in different parts of the east of the county, which are specially marked along the coast line, all carry fairly reliable evidence of what we can safely assume to be types of the original woodland of the county. Oak un- doubtedly occupied a prominent place in the composition of these woodlands, ash probably com- ing next in importance, wych elm predominating near rivers and rocky places, which gave it oppor- tunities of competing with its taller neighbours. Of the precise condition of these woodlands, so far as their density and the size of individual trees went, nothing is known. The probability is that the finest timber in prehistoric times existed where the best timber is found to-day, and there is the strongest evidence that the valley of the Derwent and the lower parts of Weardale and Teesdale possessed finer oak and other timber trees than other parts of the county. In the hilly districts forest growth could only have been of a stunted and irregular character, consisting chiefly of birch, juniper, and possibly Scotch pines, with alder, ash, willow, &c., in the glens and ravines. Birch undoubtedly covered large tracts at elevations up to 2,000 ft., as its roots are found everywhere under the peat at the present day. As to whether the Scotch pine existed to any great extent in these districts little evidence can be found one way or another. It is reported to have been found under the peat in Weardale, but records of its existence are so- few and doubtful that it is safer to leave it an open question. Regarding the gradual disappearance of these natural forests, the probability is that those in the lowlands gradually gave way before the increase of population and the advance of agriculture, while primitive methods of mining and iron- smelting hastened their destruction to some extent. Although the Romans are credited with the destruction of much forest growth in various- parts of the kingdom, little is actually known of the extent to which it proceeded, nor of the results which followed it in the way of perma- nently changing the character of the vegetation. It is practically certain, however, that the forests of Durham were not spared any more than those of other counties, and in the vicinity of their roads clearings would be made for strategic and other reasons. In the hill districts the disappearance of what- ever forest existed was due to other causes, although many destructive agencies were com- mon to both parts of the county. But there is little reason to doubt that the final destruction of these birch forests was mostly brought about by the persistent grazing of sheep, which prevented natural regeneration from following its usual course, while the practice of firing the heather from time to time and its accidental ignition contributed to the same result. According to Leland and the evidence afforded by old maps of the seventeenth century, considerable tracts of woodland existed in Teesdale and Weardale, but these had disappeared by the end of the eighteenth century, and it was not until the passing of Inclosure Acts permitted the fencing off of small patches of what previously existed as enormous commons, that forest growth was again introduced by artificial agency. The term forest has for so long a period been appropriated to a great wood that it is necessary to state in the briefest way that this term in its earlier signification normally implied a wild dis- trict or waste appropriated or reserved for royal sport. A forest always included a certain amount of woodland or thickets which were necessary as cover for the game, and not infrequently had parks or special inclosures within its limits. But in several instances, as Exmoor, Dartmoor, and the High Peak, the open stretches of woodland or heath covered a very much larger area than the woods or undergrowth.' This was, to a great extent, the case with the widespread district of Weardale in the west of Durham ; there were several parks within Weardale, each containing some timber, as well as patches of woodland and cover in the hollows of the dales, but broadly speaking, Weardale Forest was bare of trees. ' Cox, Royal Forests, i . 374 FORESTRY In the county of Durham, however, the forest rights with other jura regalia were usually, for some four centuries at least, vested in the bishop, and only during a vacancy ' of the see or the punitive resumption of the palatine privileges, <:an we expect to find the king actively con- ■cerned with the forest of VVeardale. These forest rights of the see of Durham were ratified by Henry I in a charter repudiating the claims of Balliol, baron of Bywell, and others as to hunting and taking a certain quantity of wood for fuel and shipbuilding.^ The same king, however, during the vacancy of the see which followed the death of Ranulf Flambard, granted to the prior and convent of Durham freedom from forestage and pannage in all their demesne manors, as well as to the clergy holding churches in their gift.' The evidence to be gleaned from the various rolls and records both of the see and the priory of Durham, show that the county was in many parts well supplied with woodlands, par- ticularly in the western half. In addition to the large parks of Weardale and the partially wooded district comprising Hunstanworth, Edmond- byers, and Muggleswick on the Northumberland borders, there were the great parks of Raby and Barnard Castle in lay hands in the south. Near Newcastle the bishop held woodland at Winlaton, and the prior at Hedworth. Round Lanchester there was much timber. Near Durham the prior had the important park and woods of Beaurepaire, and the bishop woodlands on the manor of Killerby. And between Bishop Auck- land with its park and Darlington in the south abounding with timber and underwood, there was an almost continuous stretch of wood-bearing manors, such as AyclifFe, Heighington, and Haughton. Considerable information may be derived as to the actual working of the forest regulations within the county of Durham during the twelfth century from certain charters of Bishop Hugh Pudsey granting various exemptions and privi- leges. Amongst his manifold activities was the re- building and reorganization of the Hospital of St. Giles Kepier which had been destroyed during the conflict between Cumin and Bishop William de St. Barbara. This hospital possessed in the Weardale a ' cow-close ' or dairy, and in the winter months strict ward was needful against the wolves of the fell, mastiffs or other dogs being kept as guardians of the cattle. Bishop Hugh ' One reference to the woodlands of Durham during the vacancy following the decease of Philip of Poitou may probably be found in the entry on the Pipe R. II John, m. ll J. : ' Magister Simon de Fer- llnton xIot et iiij canes vulpectares pro misericordia in quaposituserat pro bosco de Auelent (/ic Auclent)scisso.' ' Surtees, Dur. i, pp. xx, cxxv-vi. ' Cal. Chart. R. ii, 484. Pudsey, amongst other privileges, granted ^ to the brethren exemption for their dogs, whether at Durham or on the Weardale, from the ' lawing ' or mutilation * which the forest laws prescribed. He, however, ordained that the herdsmen who tended the cattle of the hospital within his forest should hold their dogs in leash that they might not molest the beasts of the chase {feris). By a still earlier charter the bishop had granted the brethren the right of pasture for their cattle within the forest, as well as firewood and timber and exemption from pannage.* As in the grants to the Kepier Hospital we see the forest law impinging on the external life of a religious community, so in the charter ' to Gateshead the predatory officials of the bishop's forest are shown restricting, or at least harassing, the activities of the townsmen, until the bishop himself intervenes to grant greater liberty, and to establish a standard of dues in place of arbitrary exactions. In respect to ' forestage ' the bur- gesses were to pay in future every half-year from Whitsuntide to Martinmas for each cart [quad- riga) which went to the wood 2d., and for each horse 2d., and for each man carrying* id. No forester was to be allowed to arrest any bur- gess or resident of Gateshead, or stop his cart or horse laden with timber or firewood in the country lying between the forest boundary and the borough. Any dispute arising between a forester and a burgess must be heard within the borough with a right of appeal to the bishop if it could not be determined there. The burgesses were permitted to take grass, reed, bracken and heath for their own use wherever they were accustomed, on condition that they made no sale thereof. A burgess again might make a gift of wood, bona fide, to anyone dwelling south of the Tyne, but not sell it without view of the forester. And the foresters on the other hand were for- bidden to interfere with merchandise in the space between the forest boundaries and the borough. Again in a charter ^ granted to Ralf Basset by the same bishop in respect to lands in ' Pencher ', he allows him timber from the forest for the making and repairing of his mill, under the con- dition that it should be taken by view of the bishop's foresters and felled in the same place where wood was procured for the bishop's own mills. Ralf and his heirs besides being respon- sible for a money payment were to provide for the bishop's great hunt [magna chacea) one man with two hounds [leporariis], a customary service annexed to the land of Nicholas de Pencher which had been taken over by Ralf Basset in * Mem. of St. Giles, Dur. (Surtees See. Ixxiii), 199 ' It generally consisted in the removal of three claws or the ball of the fore foot. ' Mem. ut sup. 195. ' Boldon Bk. (Surtees Soc. xxv), App. p. xl. ' Reading portante for piscante. ' Boldon Bk. App. p. xlii et seq. 375 A HISTORY OF DURHAM exchange for land at Middleham. Furthermore as Ralf had consentsd in a friendly manner to the exchange at the bishop's request, he and his heirs were to have firewood and other easements from the bishop's forest for their buildings at Painshaw under the regulation of the foresters, and should be quit of the pannage of the pigs ' de propria nutritura sua quos non adquisierint contra pannagium nostrum.' Other charters contain similar provisions ; the forest rights of the bishop are carefully guarded, or exemptions given as a special favour or for a fixed consideration. In a grant ^ of Cornsay and Hedley to the nephews of Simon the chamber- lain, we find the clause ' Salva nobis in omnibus foresta nostra.' But firewood and wood for repairs could be taken by view of the foresters sine vasto. And as to the payment of pannage they were to be quit thereof in respect to the swine of their demense ' sicut alii barones et milites nostri quieti sunt et esse debent.' The under-tenants as other charters prove ^ were how- ever liable to pay pannage-money for their pigs. Again in a grant ^ to the monks of Durham the saving clause as to the forest is explained, 'quan- tum ad feras et sartationem ultra quod predictum est.' There is no Domesday Survey to refer to for Durham, but the Boldon Book,* of the close of the twelfth century, throws much incidental light on the question of the trees and forestry by the details of the customary services from villeins and tenants of the bishop on his different manors. In two cases, namely, at Winlaton and Tursdale, particular mention is made of woods [nemui). On the manor of Darlington there were 48 bovates, and the service of each of these involved the carrying of a cartload of wood to Auckland, as the chief residence of the bishop. At Heigh- ington each of the six villeins had to carry eight cartloads ; at Thickley each of the eight villeins was lesponsible for four loads ; whilst single cartloads had to be carried from Houghton and Whessoe. There were fourteen villeins at Killerby, near Durham, each of whom had to carry seven loads, and the twelve of North Auckland were responsible for three loads apiece. Mention is made of swine pannage under Lan- chester. Wolsingham had to supply the bishop with no less than 120 loads ot wood yearly. Probably in all these cases these loads were for fuel. The tenants of the vills of Bedlington- shire had to cart timber for the bishops. Particulars have already been given of the highly interesting service due from the tenants of the forest vills of Weardale of erecting a series ' Boldon Bk. App. p. xliv. ' Ibid. xlv. ' Et homines sui debunt pannagium de porcis suis sicut alii homines militum nostrorum qui in foresta manent.' ' Boldon Bk. App. p. xlvi. * Boldon Bk. see F.C.H. Dur. i, 257-341. of booths for the bishop's magna caza, or great autumn hunt, and of furnishing dogs and horses,, &c., for the same occasion.' In most instances ropes or cords had also to be furnished, which affords fair proof that the sport largely consisted in the taking of the small roe deer, which were usually caught in nets ; indeed this fact is estab- lished by the great hunt being twice characterized as the rahunt or roe hunt in the Boldon Book.* The prevalence of roe deer in the county at a much later date is further established by the entry of considerable sums on three different occasions in the fourteenth century in the priory accounts for the purchase of cords for repairing or making of roe-nets.' It is not certain that there were any regularly appointed foresters for Weardale in the twelfth century who gave their whole time to that office, as was the case at a later date. Entries in the Boldon Book show that Wolsingham,. Stanhope, and Holmside, had each to find a man to act as forester for forty days during the fawn- ing and rutting season ; and Hunstanworth and Edmondbyers were also held under the service of finding a man for the forest, probably under like conditions.* The occasional entries relating to the bishopric of Durham found on the Pipe Rolls of Richard I and John afford some notion of the value of the forest regulations as an aid to revenue. In 1 197 is mentioned a sum of ;^47 18/. 2d. arising from pannage and perquisites of the forest, while eleven years after, in the next reign, the amount derived from the same source was ;^87 3J. ^d. The sums enrolled in the three years following seem to show that the issues of the forest were increasing, and furthermore the accountants of 121 1 return no less than ^T 1,1 96 31. 4;^. in fines for assarts and purprestures and in payments by women to avoid marriage. But what proportion this last item bore to the rest of the account is unknown. Early in the reign of Henry III the forest of Durham was in the king's hands through the vacancy of the see. Thus, in 1226, Master Guy the royal huntsman, who had been visiting with his hounds the forests north and south of Trent^ naturally crossed the borders of the bishopric and hunted therein. The venison he took was ordered to be well salted and delivered to Stephen de Lucy for the benefit of the famous Martin dc Pateshull and his fellow-justices, and other the king's lieges.^ Again, in the last month of the following year, we hear of twelve oaks assigned to the warden of the bridges of Durham for ' V.C.H. Dur. i, 271-99. « Ibid. 333-41- ' Dur. Acct. R. (Surtees Soc. xcix-ciii), 555, 588, 593- * F.C.H.Dur.i, 333-5. ' Close, 10 Hen. Ill, mm. 1,7; Pat. 10 Hen, III, m. I. 37( FORESTRY their repair, while Luke, the dean of St. Martin's, London, was authorized to sell loO marks' worth of dead wood in the forest of Weardale as a set- off to damages suffered in respect of his crops at Middleham, which the late bishop had seized.' In 1254 Lord Robert de Nevill ^ sold, for 630 marks sterling, to the priory of Durham the whole covert and produce [totum coopertum et vestituram) of his wood of ' Aldewde ' near Brancepeth, of which the metes are noted as ' del West de Bruningburne usque Wivelingtona et de Branspeth usque in Wer,' with livery during a period of 30 years at the rate of at least 6 acres a year. Throughout the entire extent of ' Aldewde ' the monks were at liberty to take the timber (meremium) as suited their convenience, under restrictions^ however which should safeguard the fresh growth of young wood. The lord might indeed continue to send his demesne oxen and swine from Brancepeth into the wood, but with this exception the profits of herbage and pannage fell to the prior and con- vent. Furthermore, eyries of hawks and all beasts of the chase {omnibus ferii) were reserved to the vendor, with a saving clause that the lessees should take no harm from the lord's hunting. The foresters of both of the contract- ing parties were pledged to have regard to the interests of the other as well as their own. Late in the thirteenth century that high- handed prelate Anthony Bek had much trouble with his free tenants over various matters, and for a time his franchises were resumed by the king. At last an agreement was come to as to the matters of complaint on 19 July, 1303. The following were the forestry conclusions : It was prayed that every freeman might course and take all manner of beasts beyond the bounds of the free chase, beyond the park and within the free chase of Agregarth (or Arkengarth) for hares, fox, cat, and badger, not now permitted ; the bishop granted that every freeman might course and take all manner of beasts of venison found without the bounds of the free chase, if it be not in park, or unless the beast chased is followed by man or dog from out the chase. As to coursing and taking hares, fox, cat, and badger within Agregarth Chase, the bishop granted this to such as are specially enfeoffed by charter by him and his predecessors, save only his venison. Whereas the freemen of the bishopric, who ' Close, 12 Hen. Ill, m. 14. ' Hist. Dun. Scriptores Tres. (Surtees Soc. ix), App. p. Ixxxiii. ' ' Dummodo ita provideatur indempnitati domini Robert! quod crescentla bosci illius salvetur post secti nem ei in < mnibus per se vel suos providenda, vidilicet quod de ramalio circa stipitem magnae arboris incisae facient quandam clausturam, quam licebit dictis Priori et Conventui in fine temporis asportare et quod sectio fiet per pedem arboris, ita quod sub securi nichil decorticetur.' 2 3 were attached for vert or venison of the free chase, were wont to acquit themselves by jury in all times of his predecessors. Bishop Anthony's ministers have taken them and imprisoned and retained them at will, by the averment of a forester without any inquisition — the bishop consented that such an attachment should cease, and that offenders should be proceeded against in the forest courts {en la court de la dite chace) by inquest as elsewhere in England. Whereas all men who dwelt in the free chase were wont to have wood for house and hedge repair, and to be quit of pannage, the bishop consented to the retaining of these customs. It was also agreed that the freemen of the chase were not to be charged with more foresters than they used to have, that no ward be divided into two, that no forester be on horseback save the two masters ; that the foot-foresters take no corn-sheaves nor any other things from free tenants. But the bishop reserved to himself the appointment of other foresters at will, either horse or foot, provided this was done at the cost of himself and his villeins.* Bishop Kellaw's registers (131 1— 18) contain references to woods on Weardale, at Evenwood^ and elsewhere, and also grants of free warren, made in the exercise of his palatine privileges.^ In the thirteenth century and subsequently the extensive district of Weardale Forest, some- times called the High Forest of Weardale, was presided over by a chief forester, appointed either for life or at the pleasure of the bishop. Robert Strangeways, chief forester in the days of Bishop- Langley (1406-38), had the custody of the herbage of the park of Stanhope, and of the frithopes of Middlehope, Swinehope and Weston- hope, together with the houses on the Sheles, granted to him in 141 9 for the term of fourteen years, at a rent of 100 marks.* The lead-mining of this forest was in the hands of the chief forester, and he had the power of farming it for a term of years.' * Reg. Pal. Dun. (Rolls Ser.), iii, 64-7. Ct. hsi^i- Xty, Palatinate of Durham, 132-3. It maybe men- tioned here that a decision in the bishop's court in 1365 established firmly the right of an under-forester to collect certain dues in kind from every husband- land in the vill of Urpeth. Dur. Curs. 162, Nos^ 34-9, cited by Lapsley, Palatinate, 61 note. ^ Reg. Pal. Dun. i, ii, passim. 'Dur. Curs. No. 35, m. 17. ' Ibid. No. 3, m. 5 d. It may be noted here that ia 1430 Bishop Langley granted to Robert Kirlchous, ' irynbrenner,' all the wood belonging to him in a certain district near the town of Crawcrook, ' except ooke, esshe, holyn, wodapiltre, and crabtre ; and also except all the wode that wol be felyes or beemes the whuche allewey shall bee fellyd b. tha\'ys oftheconsell of the forsad Bysshop afore that the colyers make coke theer,' in order that he might convert it into charcoal. Drp. Keeper's Rep. xxxiii, App. ii, 157,, and Eng. Hist. Rev. xiv, 5 1 4. 77 48 A HISTORY OF DURHAM In 1436 Bishop Langley appointed Thomas Lumley, esq., chief forester of Weardale, during pleasure, and surveyor of all the bishop's parks, coal-mines, and iron forges ; but two years later, when Thomas Lumley had been knighted, he had a renewal of this grant for life.^ In 1476 the last-named grant was cancelled by Bishop Booth in favour of a new grant of the office of chief forester and surveyor of the parks during the lives of Sir Thomas Lumley and George his son, or either of them.^ Richard, duke of Gloucester, had a grant of an annuity of ;^ioo from Bishop Dudley in 1479, for the bishop's lifetime. To secure the payment the bishop granted to the duke a lease of the park of Stanhope and of the high forest of Weardale for the same term.' In 1483 John Scrope, lord of Bolton, had a grant for life of the offices of chief forester of Weardale and surveyor of the parks of Even- wood and Auckland.* The chief forestership of Weardale seems to have been almost a sinecure. The work was done by four under-foresters, and their appointment was always made directly by the bishop. Bishop Langley in 1439 appointed Alexander Fetherstonhalgh to one of the foresterships of Weardale, during pleasure, in place of Thomas del Hall ; recognizances were entered into for his good behaviour during the holding of the office.^ John Atelowine was appointed one of the Wear- dale foresters in 1438, by Bishop Neville, in the place of Thomas Atkynson,^ and John Harper was appointed in the same year to another of these four foresterships, in the place of his father of the same name.' It was customary in the bishop's courts to take recognizances or bonds on the part of ofienders in respect to the game, as shown in the rolls of Bishop Skirlaw and several of his successors. Thus, in 1397, recognizances were taken from John Blakheved, Richard Maddyson, Thomas de Egliston, and John Falderley, that John Belling- ham should not drive or take game in any park or forest of the bishop, and be of good behaviour to all his officers.* There are several similar bonds extant of Walter Skirlaw's (1380-1406) episcopate. The recognizances of Langley's epis- copate include some relating to trespasses on fish- ponds and warrens. In addition to the park adjoining their chief residence at Bishop Auckland, the princely bishops of Durham had large parks at Wolsingham and Stanhope in Weardale Forest, as well as at Evenwood, a few miles to the south of Auckland, and at Middleham, a few miles to the east. They also held smaller parks at Bedburn and at ' Dur. Curs. No. 36, m. 'Ibid. No. 49, m. 8. *Ibid. m. 17. Mbid. No. 42, m. 6. 'Ibid. No. 33, m. 17. Gateshead, which are occasionally mentioned in the rolls and other documents of the see. The park at Wolsingham was of great extent and lay to the north of the town of that name. On I August, 1331, Bishop Beaumont made a grant for life to Robert Strig of Lyndestede, one of his household, of the custody of the whole park of Wolsingham with the stipends which the two parkers there used to receive, namely, ^d. a day.' Thomas Rogerley and three others entered into recognizances in 1427 to the effect that the said Thomas would keep well and truly the 'savagyn,' vert and vension of the park of Wolsingham whilst he was keeper thereof.^" In 1434 Bishop Langley leased for twenty years to James Oculshagh, clerk, and four yeomen, the park of Wolsingham within the inclosure of its stone walls, together with a pasture in the high forest of Weardale. The lessees were to enjoy the pastures and to have the right of cutting timber sufficient for rebuild- ing or repair of their houses; but all rights in coal and lead mines were reserved to the bishop.^' Peter Berwyk, in 1441, was granted the custody of a moiety of the park of Wolsingham, for which he was to receive 2d. a day from the chief forester.^^ There were often two keepers of this large park ; Richard Wandesforth was granted for life one of these two offices by Bishop Dudley in 1 48 1." Stanhope Park was another large tract of elevated land, having a circumference of twelve miles, between Stanhope and St. John's Wear- dale. William Emerson was appointed parker of the new park of Stanhope, inclosed by a wall within the old park, in 1500, and was at the same time made one of the four foresters of Weardale.^* In 1505 Richard Clarvaux was granted the office of keeper of the new park of Stanhope, and of the park of Bedburn, and of the wood of Blackbank, for life.'' Thomas Marche, yeoman, was appointed one of the keepers of Stanhope Park by Bishop Tunstall in 1533" There are a few appointments to the keeper- ship of Evenwood Park in the episcopal rolls ; such are those of William Whitehead in 1453,'' and of William Belt in 1491.'* The park of Middleham was an inclosure of 100 acres of very various soil, to the south-east of the castle." There are various appointments throughout the rolls of the office of keepership of the warren on Holy Island. The foresters of Weardale were informed by ^ Cal. Pat. 1330-4, p. 189. 'Dur. Curs. No. 38, m. 15. 'Ibid. No. 54, m. 9, 'Ibid. No. 37, m. I d. ' Ibid. "Ibid. No. 37, m. 12. "Ibid. No. 54, m. 14. " Ibid. No. 64, m. 22. " Ibid. No. 44, m. 19. " Surtees, Dur. iii, 3. " Ibid. No. 42, m. 12. "Ibid. No. 61, m. 13. " Ibid. No. 77, m. 4. "Ibid. No. 58, m. 4. 378 FORESTRY Bishop Fox in 1498, that he had appointed the prior of Durham ' Maister of our Game,' and were directed to supply him with 'a deer of the season,' whenever he shall require one.^ The deer in the parks were fallow ; those that ran wild in the Weardale Forest were chiefly red deer. The descendants of the latter were maintained in the bishop's park at Stan- hope until about 1640." From a return dated 15 May, 1457, it appears that there were then in Auckland Park 100 bucks and does (fallow deer), in Wolsing- ham Park 140, in Stanhope Park 200, and in Evenwood Park 100.' Middleham had probably by that time ceased to be an episcopal resi- dence. The bishops of Durham from time imme- morial also appointed keepers of their woods at Benfieldside and elsewhere in the parish of Lanchester. Surtees prints a grant of this ( ffice by Bishop Matthew Hutton in 1590 to William Baker and his son Oswald for the term of their natural lives.'* Leiand, in 1538, notices the fair park of ' Akeland having falow dere, wild Bolles and kin.' Of the park of Stanhope he says : — The bishop of Duresme have a praty square pile on the north side of the Were Ryver, callid the West- gate, and thereby is a parke rudely enclosid with stone of a I 2 or 14 miles in compace, it is xii miles up in Were Dale from Akeland Castelle.' The prior and convent of Durham had a house and chapel for retirement and rest at Beaurepaire, a short distance from Durham. Here a park was inclosed by Prior Hugh of Darlington (1258-74). Bishop Bek, during his quarrel with the priory, broke down the paling and drove out the game which then abounded. Bishop Kellaw, in 1311, granted licence to Prior Tanfield to enlarge this park ; but in 131 5 the Scots destroyed almost the whole of the game and stock. The keepers of this park were appointed for life, and three successive members of the Cowherd family held this office from 1353 until 1437. In 1436 Bishop Langley granted a pardon to the keeper of Beaurepaire Park for stabbing a man on the moor in the shoulder with a knife, because he had a poke of nuts on his back, which the keeper supposed he had got in the park.^ The hazel was a common underwood of Durham, as well as of England generally. The priory accounts make mention of hazel-nuts at various dates ; they were probably only purchased when the nut crop on their own manors failed or was defective. The bursar's accounts for 1394 show that 45. was spent in the purchase of apples, 'Dur. Curs. No. 61, m. II. ' V.C.H. Dur. I, 196. ' Surtees, Dur. i, p. clviii. * Ibid, ii, 293. ' Leiand, I tin. i, 73. 'Surtees, Dur. ii, 373-4. pears, and nuts. In 1 400-1 2,000 nuts were bought in Lent for the prior. The cellarer's rolls of 1416 show the purchase of 1,200 nuts for i^d-y the price was higher in 1417, when 500 were bought for %^d. and 700 for \od. The large sum of 8r. was spent on nuts in 1431-' The entries in the priory accounts with reference to Beaurepaire and its park are very numerous. In 1356-7 the wood of Swyne- hurst in this park was cleared; in the same year stones were carried for repairing the wall round the park. In 1 43 1 we read of timber being felled for building purposes ; at another time wood for fence palings was cut in Beaurepaire. The woods of this manor were under the charge of a forester and there was in addition a parker. The park contained a lodge for the forester, and also a larder where the deer were salted down at Martinmas for winter consump- tion.^ There was another important and well- wooded manor at Hett, four miles south of Durham, where the prior held his court as lord. Here the priory maintained a forester, whose stipend in 141 6-1 7 was only 3;. i^d., but doubt- less he had various perquisites. In 1511-12 mention is made of four wagon-loads of wood for fuel being carted from Hett Wood to the priory. In 1524-5 the tenants of Hett re- ceived lod. a load for carting fifteen loads of timber from this wood to Durham. There was a keeper of the wood who received 6j. 8rt'. a year.* The priory had a deer park at Hedworth, near Newcastle, as early as the time of Bishop Farnham (1241-9). Prior Hugh of Darlington inclosed another park at Muggleswick on the borders of Northumber- land. The references in the accounts to Mug- gleswick are very numerous. There were two park gates and two park keepers ; one of the latter had charge of the pales with which it was fenced. There was also a forester of Muggles- wick.io Of old parks in Durham that were in secular hands the chief were those of Raby Castle, near Staindrop, where Leiand noted three parks, of which ' too be plenished with dere, the middle park hath a lodge in it';^' Ravensworth, near Newcastle, imparked to the extent of 200 acres in 1391'^; and Barnard Castle on the southern border of the county, where Leiand noticed two parks." Most of the Durham manors of the great priory were well supplied with timber, as is ' Fowler, Dur. Acct. R. (Surtees Soc. xcix-ciii), 54,55,56,288,599,603. ' Dur. Acct. R. (Surtees Soc. xcix-cii), /j//;ct. ' Ibid. 286, 291, 296, 297. '° Ibid. 485, 575, 704. " Leiand, Itin. i, 86. " Cal. Pat. 1388-92, p. 395. " Lel.md, Itin. i, 87. 379 A HISTORY OF DURHAM apparent from the account rolls of the different officials or obedientiaries. There was a fine old oak wood at Aycliffe. On the manor was a park and a park keeper and also a forester. To the latter office various perquisites must have been attached, for in 1396-7 the forester- ship of ' Acleypark ' was sold by the convent to Richard de Thikle, under their common seal, for the large sum of ;^I0.^ King James, in 1606, wrote to the dean and chapter of Durham complaining of their treatment of Aycliffe oak- wood. It disappeared during the Common- wealth, when much was felled for the repair of bridges.^ At Hanging the priory had a wood of con- siderable size. There must have been much felling in 1278, for in that year the bursar's receipts show £ 1 7 from the sale of timber in this wood.' The treasurer's book of the dean and chapter makes mention of a keeper of * Haning Wood.' * The vast amount of timber required by the priory for churches, conventual buildings, mills, bridges, granges, coal-mining, fencing, and for every kind of carpenter's work, as well as for fuel, was as a rule furnished by the Durham Priory estates. In some rare cases it was drawn from outside the county. Thus, in 1378, an oak was bought from the abbot of Blanchland (Northumberland) for lOi. ;^ and in 141 8 the carriage of a great oak from the priory estate at Bywell (Lincolnshire) for the making of tables cost 1 31. 4^/.° The priory accounts have many references to oak bark and its value for tanning. Among other trees that are named occur alder, ash, birch, and maple. There are two interest- ing entries respecting acorns. In 1389-90 it is explained that there were no pannage payments to enter, as the acorns had totally failed for that year.' It has more than once been stated that the sowing of acorns to grow oak trees was first done in England in the sixteenth century ; but %d. was paid in 1430 for sowing acorns in Beaurepaire Park, by order of the prior.* In the sixteenth century the woods of Chop- well, which came into the possession of the •crown at the dissolution of the monasteries, were providing large quantities of oak timber for the repair of Berwick Bridge, Norham Castle, Dunstanburgh, and other places. In the seven- teenth century the same woods were also called upon to supply Berwick with timber for the bridge, and Newcastle also received a grant for the repair of Tyne Bridge. The greatest drain upon these woods for oak timber was made in ' Dur. Acct. R. (Surtees See. cxlx-ciii), 600. ' Surtees, Dur. iii, 325. ^ Dur. Jcct. R. (Surtees Soc. xcix-ciii), 489. * Ibid. 714. ' Ibid. 387. « Ibid. 710. ' Ibid. 136. Ubid. 710. 1634-6, when shipwrights were sent down to pick out trees which were suitable for ship- building, and an order was signed by the king that 2,500 trees were to be cut ' before the sap should come into them.' Phineas Pett, the crown surveyor and naval architect, came down to inspect this timber which was required for building the first three-decker. The Sovereign of the Seas, and found it necessary to go to Brancepeth, ' where there was excellent provision of long timber,' for 1,400 trees. This appears to have exhausted the supply of the oak timber in Chopwell, although the town council of Newcastle applied for forty trees in 1649 for repairing their bridge.' The old oak wood at Aycliffe was also cut down during this century, and in common with the remainder of the county the stock of oak timber in Durham had by then reached a very low ebb. In the eighteenth century most of the older plantations which now exist in the vicinity of country seats were formed, and in many cases this work was contemporary with the creation of the seats themselves. This period seems to have marked several important stages in the development of landed property, not only in Durham, but throughout the kingdom. Of the large country seats marked in Speed's Map of Durham, which appeared early in the seven- teenth century, very few now remain except in name, and many seem to have fallen into decay and been abandoned, more modern residences being built in their stead. At this period land- scape gardening was rapidly coming into fashion, and tree-planting occupied an important place in its development, while this work was greatly assisted by the passing of Inclosure Acts which enabled plantations to be formed on land hitherto existing as open common. It was probably owing to these causes that so many estates in the county possess woodlands dating from this period. In most of them beech largely pre- dominates in the vicinity of the mansion house, and is probably the surviving species of a more or less mixed crop of beech, oak, larch, Scotch pine, and other trees, most of which have been taken out in various thinnings from time to time. In many cases these beech have now developed into very fine specimens, little if at all inferior to those found in the southern counties of England, and certainly form one of the most striking arboricultural features in many parts of Durham. Of the ordinary woodlands planted at this time few now remain intact, but they appear to have been formed on the ' coppice with standards' system, which was almost universal in the eighteenth century. The demand for mining timber in most parts of the county led to their being worked with a view to the production ' Jrci. Jeliana, xix, pt. iii ; W. W. Tomlinson, ChopKcll Woods. 380 FORESTRY of that class of wood as much as possible, while the welfare of the oak, which was studied so carefully in other counties, was more or less lost sight of. These woods consisted chiefly of oak, ash, wych elm, birch, and alder, with hazel undergrowth. The latter was largely used for corf-rods, i.e. rods used in making wicker baskets employed in the mines for carry- ing coal, &c., of which an enormous quantity must have been required before the advent of modern machinery. The method employed in working these woods consisted in cutting them over about every sixteen to eighteen years, but leaving most of the oak standing until it was about sixty years of age, to the number of some fifty trees per acre, when they were valued at about j^iSo. The coppice wood cut was worth about ;^50 per acre, and was used for mining purposes. Birch and alder were used for the pur- poses of the lead mines at seventeen or eighteen years of age, and made up in various sizes, and sold in ' dozens ' of ten to a hundred in number, which represented a load for the back of a gal- loway pony, by means of which all carrying was done in the lead-mining districts.* It was about this time that timber imports began to take place in the east coast ports of Stockton, Sunderland, &c., from Norway, Sweden, Germany, and other countries in in- creasing quantities, and although they had not begun to affect the prices of home-grown timber as yet, they doubtless prevented that great in- crease in the value of home-timber which would have resulted from its growing scarcity, although prices went up considerably in spite of them. Between 1789 and 18 18 an increase in the price of oak and ash took place of — oak from i;. bd. to 3^. dd. ; ash from is. ^d. to 2s. 3^., while oak bark rose from ;^5 to £\2 per ton in the wood. It is said that 6 acres of old oak timber were sold about this time by the dean and chapter of Durham for ^6,000. In the early part of the nineteenth century a large number of plantations were formed, or had recently been formed, in various parts of the county, and premiums offered by the Society of Arts for the planting of a specified number of trees were secured by several landowners. Bailey states that one of the oldest planters was Sir John Eden of Windlestone Hall, whose opinion was that planters should grow their own trees in preference to buying from nurserymen or em- ploying the latter to plant them. He was also a believer in thick planting, and thinning out in five or six years' time. At various dates, be- tween 1773 and 181 1 a large tract of inclosed common was planted by Mr. Thomas White on his estate of Woodlands, near Lanchester. The value of the fee-simple of this land was not more than 20s. per acre. The cost of planting ' Bailey, Agriculture ofDur. amounted to about £(> an acre, and at that time the thinnings of mixed plantations would pay for the latter at six or seven years of age. At fifteen years the thinnings were used for corf- rods, pit-props, &c., and at twenty-four years they came in for the building of sheds and other small erections, the larch selling at is. bd. per cubic foot, while eight years later the timber of this tree was worth 2s. per cubic foot. At thirty- five years of age the value of the thinnings was supposed to cover the entire cost of planting. For his enterprise Mr. White was awarded two gold and one silver medal by the Society of Arts. In 1 81 3-1 5 the crown commenced plant- ing Chopwell Woods, which then existed as farms, with the exception of about 1 00 acres. The contract for this work was given to Mr. Falla, a nurseryman of Gateshead, whose nurseries extended to 500 acres, and the planting was supervised by William Billington, who recorded, in a book published in 1810, his experiences of raising young plantations of oaks. Billington had previously been employed in the planting of a large area in the Forest of Dean, and was an exponent of the art of pruning. In his account of the planting of Chopwell, he states that the plants used at the commence- ment of the work were one-half larch, one-quarter oak, and the other quarter ash, elm, beech, sycamore, and alder. Later on, he suggested that fewer larches should be planted, as they smothered the oaks, and he also introduced the Spanish chestnut in mixture with oak, which formerly was supposed to be too tender for the district. Amongst other details recorded by Billington are the good effects of cutting back the side branches of young trees, and the high value of small thinnings for corf-rods, pit-props, and other purposes in those days. The ground planted at Chopwell carried an extraordinary crop of whins or gorse, which attained a height of from 8 to 9 ft., with stems over 20 in. in girth. These were sold for conversion into charcoal. It is not quite clear if the ground planted at this time was the same as that previously mentioned as yielding large quantities of oak in the seven- teenth century. If the same, it had evidently been cleared of woodland entirely, as of the eight or nine hundred acres planted at Chopwell the greater part is said to have existed as farm land previous to 1 81 3. Other places at which planting was done about this period were Wynyard (where ex- tensive plantations were formed of mixed coni- fers and hard-wood trees), Dryderdale, and Hoppy- land, near Wolsingham (chiefly larch, Scotch pine, and spruce at the former, and these species with beech at the latter) and many plantations in the hill districts following the inclosure of commons. In the colliery districts plantations on the whole have tended to decrease rather than increase, for reasons which are obvious, but else- A HISTORY OF DURHAM where the formation of small plantations has been steadily if slowly going on during the last century, although much remains to be done in the hill districts. At the present time the total area of wood- lands in the county extends to about 30,000 acres, or about 4 per cent, of the total area. These woods are rather unequally distributed, the bulk of them being confined to the central portion of the county, or a broad strip, the northern boundary of which follows the Derwent valley, and the southern the valley of the Tees between Barnard Castle and Darlington. To the east of this strip the county is chiefly occu- pied by agriculture, while to the west the land rises into bleak and barren moorlands, practically bare and free from woods. The best wooded portions of this strip are the Derwent valley between Muggleswick and Swalwell, the neigh- bourhood of Lanchester, the south banks of the Wear between Wolsingham and Witton-le- Wear, and the estates of Lambton and Lumley north of Durham, and Brancepeth, Whitworth, and Croxdale to the south of that city, while near Barnard Castle, Streatlam, and Raby are the most important wooded estates. On the east side of the county the principal woods are at Wynyard and Castle Eden, between which and Newcastle few woods of importance exist. The system of sylviculture followed at the present time is chiefly that of the mixed planta- tions of hardwoods with coniferous nurses on the low-lying land, and a mixture of larch, spruce, and Scotch pine in the hill districts. Patches of the older system of coppice or ' cop- pice with standard,' still remain in the Derwent and Wear valleys and other parts of the county, but no serious attempt is made to retain it, and most of the woods under this system are regarded more or less as game-cover. The general method of planting is that ot planting the broad-leaved trees, chiefly sycamore, ash, beech, and occasionally oak, alder, poplar, and others at distances varying from 8 to 16 ft. apart, the intervals being filled up to 4 ft. with larch, Scotch pine, or spruce. The former are usually pit-planted at sizes varying from I to 3 ft. in height, and the latter slitted or notched in, the plants being about four years of age. On the stiff clay soils the plants rarely make much progress until they have been three or four years in the ground, and they frequently suffer from late spring frosts to a considerable extent. On more open soils and on the banks of the rivers the trees are usually making a good growth after the first two years, and from that time until their thirtieth or fortieth year their most rapid growth is made. Thinning is usually commenced about the tenth or twelfth year by taking out the rub- bish and diseased and sickly trees, and by this time a great many of the larch are often badly diseased or have died out altogether. The next thinning usually takes place about the twentieth year, when the larch is large enough for fencing posts and rails, pit-wood, &c. At this thinning the trees are pruned up about 6 ft. from the ground, which enables beaters to pass between them easily in the shooting season, and is sup- posed to improve their appearance. By about the fortieth year thinning should cease, and the crop of four to five hundred trees per acre can then remain until it approaches maturity, which in the case of conifers is about the eightieth year, but such broad-leaved trees as oak, sycamore, and wych elm may be kept until well over a hundred. In the latter case the conifers are gradually thinned out until few or none remain by the seventieth or eightieth year, an age at which most pure crops of conifers are felled altogether. The above is the system of forestry adopted on nearly all the estates in the county, and is fairly universal throughout the north of England. The details chiefly vary with the success or failure of the larch. This species is very uncer- tain, and may die out in twenty or thirty years, or continue sound and healthy for over a hundred years. In the latter case the hardwoods are often allowed to get smothered and suppressed by the faster growing conifer, and the latter eventually becomes the main crop. Plantations of this kind are usually more valuable than when the original idea of making the hardwoods the permanent crop has been realized, and it is doubtless good policy to treat each plantation according to the development of the larch rather than by any cut- and-dried method. Plantations in the hill districts are treated much in the same way as regards thinning in the early stages, but later on their management be- comes more or less irregular and uncertain, according to their size and situation. Small plantations which have been planted more with a view to shelter than timber production rarely receive any regular or systematic thinning after the twentieth year, being more often regarded as sources of fencing-wood, as this is required on the farms, and in the majority of cases being opened up for the grazing of sheep at an early age. Larger woods may be slightly better managed, but it is seldom that a full crop is found on the ground after the fiftieth year, especially when larch predominates. This is principally due to the constant demands made upon this species for various purposes in rural districts. Where spruce prevails in a wood, however, less inducement to thin prevails, and it is often kept thick and close until late in life, and under favourable conditions as to soil and situation, fairly fine timber is produced. As regards the condition of the various woods throughout the county, they vary to a considera- ble extent with the species, soil, and situation. On estates where a regular system of clearing and replanting is practised, asat Raby, Lambton, 382 FORESTRY Wynyard, and others, the young plantations are naturally in a better condition than where this work has been neglected. But conditions of soil and local climate affect the development of cer- tain species to an equal or greater extent than any system of management, and must be considered accordingly. The development of oak or larch, for instance, requires certain conditions which cannot everywhere be found, and the failure of these trees is not necessarily a sign in itself of bad management. Taking the woods as they are, however, a few of the most noteworthy may be mentioned which exhibit good specimens of the ordinary forest trees of the county. Oak woods, pure and simple, are not numerous, but probably the best type of timber may be seen in those at Hamsterley in the Derwent valley, where trees containing from forty to sixty feet or more of timber are common. Younger oak woods of a promising character may be seen at Lambton, Wynyard, Brancepeth, and else- where, although the growth of this tree in the cold stiff clays of these districts is very poor. Other broad-leaved trees chiefly exist in small clumps, or in mixture with other species, but a considerable number of beech woods or clumps exist in various parts of the county, chiefly in or near parks or pleasure grounds. The finest of these may be seen at Gibside, Hamsterley Hall, Axwell, and Ravensworth, on the banks of the Derwent; Lambton, Lumley, and Bishop Auck- land on the banks of the Wear ; and at Raby and elsewhere in the Teesdale district. Of conifer- ous woods, the best are probably those in Upper Weardale, between Wolsingham and Witton-le- Wear, in which larch, spruce, and Scotch pine may be seen containing from fifty to eighty feet 01 more of timber and over lOO feet in height. Fairly large plantations of Scotch pine and larch also exist at Woodlands Hall, Weather- ly Hill, Bedburn, along the banks of the Der- went above Shotley Bridge, and in various parts of Upper Weardale and Teesdale. At the higher altitudes in the latter districts spruce succeeds better than Scotch pine as a rule, al- though most of the plantations are too small to obtain the best results. Sycamore, ash, and beech also grow at these elevations to moderate sizes, but it is only in sheltered places that the larch attains to timber dimensions. The timber trade in the county of Durham suffers considerably from the heavy imports of mining and other timber along the east coast. One hundred years ago practically all the pit- props and other timber used in the mines was grown in the county, while oak was exclusively used for ship and boat-building, beech for colliery rails and sleepers, ash for wagon building, wheels, tool handles, and so on. For many years now, however, foreign woods of all kinds have been steadily replacing English timber, until, at the present time, only such timber as oak and larch can be readily disposed of for mining purposes, and ash for wheelwright work. Large sycamore can also be sold at fair prices, but nearly all other species are often difficult to deal with in a satisfactory manner, even when lying at the pit's mouth. The average prices for the principal kinds of timber are as follows : — Per cubic foot, and standing in the wood J. d. s. d. Oak I o to I 6 Ash I o ,, I 6 Beech o 4 ,, o 8 Elm o 4 „ o 8 Sycamore . . . . i o „ 2 o Larch o 9 „ I o Scotch pine . . . o 3 „ o 6 Spruce . . . . o 2 „ o 4 Much, of course, depends upon the quality of the timber, and the situation in which it is grow- ing, but it is only occasionally that higher prices than those quoted above are obtained. Of the various enemies to which trees and woods are exposed, none are peculiar to the county, although the more common of them may be mentioned. Rodents are chiefly repre- sented by rabbits and hares, squirrels and voles. The last-named do a great deal of damage to young plantations from time to time, especially to broad-leaved trees. Billington mentioned injuries caused by these animals having destroyed young oaks in Chopwell 100 years ago, and the same method of trapping he employed to destroy them, by digging pits in the ground, is still adopted in the county. Insect and fungoid pests are chiefly represented by the pine-beetle and weevil, pine-bud moth, spruce gall aphis, larch-mining moth and woolly aphis, giant sirex, beech felted scale, and others. The most destruc- tive fungoid pests are the larch canker, heart rot, beech canker, honey fungus, and numerous others of minor importance. In the way of noteworthy trees in parks or pleasure grounds Durham cannot compare favour- ably with many counties. The following list of large or interesting trees may be given, which includes most of those existing at the present day, and which have been recently measured : — Oaks The finest in the county is probably the 'King Oak,' at Gibside, which girths 15 ft. 7 in. at 4^ ft. and contains nearly 500 ft. of timber. Other large oaks are at Axwell, 15ft. 8 in.; Brancepeth, 17 ft. 8 in. ; Bishop Auckland, 13 ft. 4 in. ; and Raby, 16 ft. Ashes A tree at Raby has a girth of 16 ft., while one at Wynyard girths nearly 20 ft., but has a very short bole. 383 A HISTORY OF DURHAM Beeches Some of the largest girthed trees are at Ax- well, the tallest at Lumley ; the former girthing 1 6 ft. at 4i ft. from the ground, the latter reach- ing a height of from i lo to 120 ft. Elms The largest wych elm, 1 6 ft. 8 in., is at Gib- side. Good English elms also exist at Bishop Auckland, 13 ft. 4 in., and also at Raby, 10 ft. Sycamores At Axwell two very fine trees stand in the park with girths of 14 ft. 8 in. and 15 ft. 10 in., and at Raby is a tree 1 6 ft. in girth and contain- ing 400 ft. of timber. Limes Good specimens of this tree may be seen at Lambton, Lumley, Stanhope, Axwell, and other places. A tree at Axwell girths 15 ft. 8 in., and a tree with the same girth exists at Raby. Spanish Chestnuts Several fine specimens for the north of England stand in Bishop Auckland Park, the largest girth- ing 14 ft. 8 in. and at Raby containing 200 ft. of timber. Horse Chestnuts Two fine old trees grow at Walworth Castle 16 ft. and 14 ft. girth. Planes [Platanus ortentalis) Probably the finest tree in the county is at Lambton, which is about 70 ft. in height — a large tree for the district. The finest coniferous trees to be met with are the larches at Raby (the largest of which con- tains nearly 300 cubic ft. of timber), Dryder- dale, Bedburn near Wolsingham, and elsewhere. At Dryderdale probably the best Scotch pine and spruce are to be found, the former up to 7 ft. 6 in. and the latter 7 ft. and over 1 00 ft. in height. At Hamsterley Hall in the Derwent valley good spruce and silver fir may be found, the latter up to 12 ft. in girth, and at one time of great height, but the tops of the remaining trees are decaying. The Scotch pines at this place are also good trees. Of the rarer conifers the cedars of Lebanon at Ravensworth are probably the oldest, the largest of which have girths of 13 ft. 4 in. and 13 ft. Conifers planted within the last half-century or so exist at Streatlam, where a very fine col- lection has been planted, most of which are doing well on a stiff clay soil, especially Pinus monticola. At Raby and Lambton conifers of various kinds have been planted, many of which are doing well, but as a general rule these trees require sheltered situations to reach any great size. The most promising on ordinary soils is the Corsican pine, which grows well on the strong soils and exposed sites so frequently met with in the county. Neither the Douglas firs nor Weymouth pines do well as a rule, although both grow rapidly for a time, and until their tops are exposed to the wind. Of indigenous conifers the yews at Castle Eden are remarkable for their size, height, and age, and are probably direct descendants of the natural growth which gave the Dene its name. A Scotch fir at Raby has a girth of 10 ft. 4 in. and contains 1 80 ft. of timber but is indubitably a planted tree. 384 SPORT ANCIENT AND MODERN To the inhabitant of the south of England, the notion that any form of field sport can flourish in the county of Durham may possibly appear absurd. If, when poking his fire, his thoughts should be diverted by train of consequence to such a hyperborean region, he probably pictures it to himself as a vast cinder-heap, only relieved from hideous monotony by the reeking chimneys of blast furnaces and collieries, where the inhabitants heave the pro- verbial ' 'arf-a-brick ' at strangers, and find relaxation from their subterranean toil in the fine old English pastimes of dog-fighting, badger- baiting, and selling their wives for pots of beer. Yet in good truth, Durham is naturally one of the most beautiful counties in England. Granted that part of it has been scarred and defaced by man's handiwork, where hideous collieries and their attendant squalid pit villages stand cheek by jowl with grand old Saxon churches and Norman castles, there equally remain large tracts whose pristine beauty is still undefiled, while it may be safely asserted that the manners and customs of the proletariat admit no inferiority to those of similar great industrial districts, where work is both plentiful and highly paid. Moreover, from the earliest times, no part of England has been more closely associated with field sports, and it is probable that, with the ex- ception of the New Forest, there were few larger tracts reserved for sporting than the great forests of Weardale and Teesdale, which respec- tively formed the hunting-grounds of the prince- bishops of the palatinate, and their scarcely less powerful neighbours, the Nevilles of Raby. The exact extent of the forest of Weardale does not seem to have been defined, but it probably in- cluded all the district now termed Weardale to the west of Stanhope — the villeins of which mostly held their land by due of forest service — and north-west again to at least the valley of the Derwent. Frequent reference to the bishop's forest and its requirements is found in the Boldon Book, a survey of the palatinate estates made in 1 1 83, by order of Bishop Hugh Pudsey, to an admirable monograph ^ on which, by Canon Greenwell, the writer is indebted for much inter- esting information. From this it would appear that, no doubt owing to difficulty of locomotion, the great hunts of the bishops necessarily partook of the natureof veritable expeditions. Enormous stores of provisions, wines, and beer, were trans- ported into the forest, where temporary habita- tions were erected for the prelate, his guests, and retainers — though it is probable that a good many of the latter ' lay all night up among the deer out on the open fell ' — and relays of men were employed in carrying the venison down to Auck- land and Durham, and returning laden with fresh luxuries or necessaries for the bishop's table. Indeed, the whole affair seems to have been conducted on much the same epicurean lines as the tiger-shooting or pig-sticking excursions of Anglo-Indians of a past generation. Thus we read that All the villans of Auklandshire . . . find at the great hunts of the Bishop for each oxgang — the extent of their arable land — one rope, and make the Bishop's Hall in the forest of the length of 60 feet, and of the breadth within the posts of 1 6 feet, with a buttery and a hatch, and a chamber and a privy, also they make a chapel of the length of 40 feet, and of the breadth of 1 5 feet . . . and they make their part of the fence round the lodges, and they have on the Bishop's departure a whole ton of beer, or half if it remain, and they guard the aeries of hawks which are in the district of Ralph the Crafty . . . Moreover all the villans and farmers attend the roe-hunt ' at the summons of the Bishop. Again, Moreover all the villans^-of Stanhope — make at the great hunts a kitchen and a larder and a kennel, and they find a settle in the hall and in the chamber, ' Publications of the Surtees Society, vol. xxv, 1852 ; BolJon Book, &c., by the Rev. William Greenwell, Fellow of University College, Durham. ' Note the distinction between the great hunt — ' Caza Magna ' — when presumably only red deer were killed, and the roe hunt — ' rahunt.' 385 49 A HISTORY OF DURHAM and carry all the Bishop's corrody ' from Wolsingham to the lodges . . . and carry venison to Durham and Auckland. The object of the ' ropes,' of which frequent mention is made in the Boldon Book, as forming part of the forest service of the episcopal tenants and villeins, appears at first rather obscure, but according to Canon Greenwell, they were re- quired to make the haia or inclosure into which the deer were gradually collected. From this it would appear that the great hunting parties lacked all element of true sport, save the woodcraft re- quired to collect the deer in the inclosure, where the hapless animals, unable to escape, were butchered by the bishop and his fellow-sportsmen at their ease. The deer were apparently hunted with greyhounds, or more probably, wolf or stag hounds, the provision of which also formed part of the obligations of certain of the episcopal tenants or villeins. Thus, 'the dreng^ of Great Usworth feeds a dog and a horse, and attends the great chase with two greyhounds — lepororih — and five ropes,' and when we consider that Us- worth is 25 miles, as the crow flies, from Stan- hope (where the confines of the forest proper would begin), and by road is certainly more than half as far again, and further, that the man's recom- pense for this special service was only his food and such share of the 'half ton of beer ' as he might be lucky enough to secure at the termination of the hunt, one can only presume that the fertility of his holding at Great Usworth was adequate indemnification for his trouble. Other forest service exacted of the tenants was the special watching of the forest for forty days in the calving or fawning season — tempus de foyneson ^ — and again for a similar period in the rutting-time — ruyth. The repeated mention in Boldon Book of the bishop's roe-hunts shows these animals to have been abundant in Durham in early times, and as the roe is essentially a timber-haunting deer, it is evident the county must have been more densely wooded than at the present time.* No record exists of the exact year in which Weardale was disforested, but it ceased to be used for sporting purposes by the bishops on the appointment of William Dudley to the see of ' Corrody, food or sustenance. Here it refers to the food and drink which the bishop gave to the villeins who were making their stated work for him. From this word Canon Greenwell derives the word ' crovvdy,' still in use in the north, which is porridge made of oatmeal with boiling water poured on it. * ' Drengh,' a half-freeman ; one who was midway between a free tenant and a villein. ' This was held to extend fifteen days before to fifteen days after Midsummer Day. " The present master of the North Durham Fox- hounds informs me that his hounds occasionally still find a roe-deer in Lord Bute's plantations between Lanchester and Consett. Durham in 1476. That prelate, however, granted a lease of it, in 1479, ^'^ Richard, Duke of Gloucester. The lease lapsed with the bishop's death four years later, and as farm-leases were granted to the inhabitants of Weardale by Bishop Ruthall in 151 1, the disforestment must have taken place between these dates. Red deer, however, lingered on in the dale for about another two centuries, owing to the ' parks ' that had been inclosed with the increase of agri- culture, both for the better protection of the tenants' crops and the preservation of the deer. One of these parks was at Stanhope and another at Wolsingham. The date when they were first inclosed is not known, but as early as 1327 Edward III is known to have camped in Stanhope Park when conducting his fruitless expedition against the Scots under Douglas and Randolph. A new park is believed to have been inclosed by Bishop Neville, of which Leland in his Itinerary'' remarks that it ' was rudely enclosed with stone of 12 or 14 miles in compass,' and further adds, that ' there resorte many rede deer straglers to the mountains of Weredale.' To such an extent had these stray deer increased by 1530, that a lease of Burnhope — the highest ground in Wear- dale — contains provision for a ' frith,' for the better preservation of the deer in that locality. None the less, the deer kept steadily decreasing. According to Matthew's Survey of Weardale^ Stanhope Park, which had contained 200 deer in 1575, maintained but 40 in 1595, and half a century later, in 1647, it is recorded that neither red nor fallow deer existed in Weardale.' A number of causes had contributed to this ; the great increase of agriculture, and especially of the head of pastoral stock maintained by the bishop's tenants ; lack of interest in sport on the part of the prelates themselves, and consequent neglect to feed the deer in the parks in winter ; and probably poaching also, though no special reference is made to this. None the less, long after the above date red deer must frequently have strayed into Weardale from the forest of Teesdale, which marched with it, and was not disforested until a very much later date. When this actually occurred is not known, but in the muniment room at Raby is preserved, under date of 7 June, 1682, the ' Letters patent of Keeper of the Forest of Teesdale to George Simpson of Shipley, and Surrender to the Hon*"' Christopher Vane.' '" Further, there is also a grant, dated 7 July, 1689, from William and Mary, to '1506. '1595- ' I am indebted for much interesting information respecting the forest of Weardale to Stanhope and its Neighbourhood, by W. Morley Egglestone, published by the author in 1882. '° The date of this surrender is not given in the schedule of deeds at Raby, but it would presumably coincide with the general pardon granted to Vane by James II in 1688. 386 SPORT ANCIENT AND MODERN Christopher Vane, of the ' Forests of Barnard Castle and Marwood.' '"" Deer must have been very numerous in Teesdale, for on the authority of Mr. Christopher Saunderson, the Samuel Pepys of Barnard Castle, whose diary is believed to be preserved at Armathwaite Castle, we learn that 'at Rood Day, 1673, there were above 400 red deer in Teesdale, but perished in the snow.' It is thus tolerably evident that wild red deer existed in Durham until the beginning of the eighteenth century, or later, and it seems prob- able that the original stock of the Cumbrian forests of the present day was identical with these deer. Falconry, the gentleman's sport par excellence of mediaeval times, does not appear to have been greatly practised in Durham, though reference is made in the Boldon Book to the bishop's falconer or keeper of the hawks. It is probable, however, that so rugged and densely wooded a county as Durham did not lend itself to the sport, while on the other hand the moors would not afford safe riding ground for following a flight. With the gradual decay of the great episcopal or baronial rights, sport became in time the amusement of the many, and not of the few. Hunting, which appears to have been always the chief sport of the county, was firmly established on a modern basis by Lord Darlington and Ralph Lambton, in what must then have been one of the best hunting countries in England,*' parts of which still maintain their old repu- tation. The western fells, unhuntable on horseback, have for generations provided sport for pedestrian packs of harriers, while at the same time they afford admirable breeding grounds for foxes. But it is in connexion with these same western fells that the greatest change has come over Durham sport. Time was, and that not many years ago, when a bag of from twenty to thirty brace of grouse killed over dogs, and dis- tributed among three or four guns, would have been held an excellent day's sport on almost any Durham moor. To-day the same ground will probably yield a bag five or six times as great. The causes which have determined this result are easy of explanation ; they are careful pre- servation, ruthless extermination of vermin, '"" Both Barnard Castle and Marwood were chases, but the term ' forests ' here probably includes Tees- dale, as the grant from Charles I to Sir H. Vane of date 1635, is of ' the Game in the Forest of Teesdale, and Common of all the Parks, Chases, and Forests within the Lordship of Barnard Castle.' This grant makes mention of ' wild cattle,' but no record exists of them. "In 1825 Nimrod considered Durham 'a very sporting country,' and placed the Sedgefield portion of it at ' the head of the provincials.' judicious heather-burning, and above all, sys- tematic driving. Proof of what the latter has effected is best illustrated by an anecdote repro- duced from an article on ' Grouse Shootina: ' contributed by the present writer to The Bad- minton Magazine in November, 1903 : — It is but little more than half a century ago since the late Mr. Milbank of Thorp Perrow, shooting over dogs on famous Wcmmergill," made to his own gun the excellent bag of some forty brace of grouse — I forget the exact figure — and not ill-pleased, sent word of his success to his kinsman, the then Duke of Cleve- land, himself the owner of some of the best moors in England. The Duke however was much perturbed in spirit by the news, averring that such sport was ' mere butchery,' and that if other people behaved like his brother-in-law, game would become extinct. Yet since those days upwards of a thousand brace have been killed in a single day's shooting, not only on Wemmergill, but on the Duke's adjoining High Force Moors. Nor can this revolution in grouse-shooting be disregarded from an economic point of view. The rents of moors have risen enormously, in some cases a hundredfold, and as a consequence, a proportionate circulation of money has taken place in the dales. Only last year [1906] the local newspapers recorded the arrival at Middleton-in-Teesdale of a special train from Liverpool bearing a party of wealthy Americans who had crossed the Atlantic for a month's grouse-shooting in Teesdale — a suiScient testi- mony to the value of grouse moors as a national asset. Though steeplechasing is still vigorous, flat- racing is extinct in Durham, and how far this is a matter for congratulation or the reverse must be left to the reader's personal feelings. One point, however, is certain ; the abolition of racing has had no deterrent effect on its con- comitant evil of betting. Finally, while the growth of the taste for healthy field sports is undoubtedly a matter for congratulation, a less optimistic view must be taken of the present condition of games and pastimes. It is but too evident that our great national sports of cricket and football are fast degenerating into mere exhibitions of skill by combinations of highly paid professionals. There is scarcely a town or a colliery village in Dur- ham which does not maintain a football club ; but while its supporters will flock to line the arena and bawl encouragement or disapproval, few of them ever actively participate in the game. Nor, comparatively slight as is its hold on popular affection in Durham, can cricket be said to be in any better plight. " Wemmergill is of course in Yorkshire. 387 A HISTORY OF DURHAM FOX-HUNTING It seems fairly certain that the first pack of foxhounds in the county of Durham was kept at Streatlam between 1730 and 1740 by Mr. Bowes. These hounds were originally the property of Mr. Thomas Fownes of Steeple- ton in Dorset, by whom they were sold to ' A'Ir. Bowes of Streatlam in Yorkshire.' ^ Now although the bulk of the Bowes estates, which have now passed to the Earls of Strathmore, lie to the south of the Tees, Streatlam itself is in Durham, and as the hounds must have been kennelled there, they can fairly be counted as a Durham pack. On the first day they were taken out hunting they ran their fox ' into a nobleman's park — I believe Lord Darlington's — which was full of all kinds of riot,^ and it had been customary to stop all hounds before they could eoter it.'^ Unfortunately no record of these hounds exists at Streatlam at the present day ; and but little information can be gleaned respecting a pack of presumed foxhounds which was undoubtedly kept at Raby, only three miles away, about the middle of the eighteenth century, by the Duke of Cleveland and Southampton, the uncle of the second Earl of Darlington. But though so little is definitely known about these packs, one feels the greater pleasure in rescuing that little from oblivion. It is even doubtful whether the palm for priority of fox-hunting in Durham should not be awarded to the inhabitants of a sea-port, which few people nowadays would credit with much sympathy with the chase, although the enterprise of its honest burgesses has been obscured by the glamour of such famous names as Lambton and Darlington. According to the Newcaitle yournal of No- vember, 1765, we learn as follows : — We hear from Sunderland that an assembly is held there during the winter season on every Thursday fortnight, and that the gentlemen of the independent hunt, every Monday fortnight hunt the fox till Candlemas : after which they then for certain change it to Monday and Thursday weekly till Ladyday.* It should be noted that in the above para- graph, the editor does not refer to the ' inde- ' Anecdotes respecting Cranbourne Chase, by the Rev. William Chafin. ' In the oldest English treatise on hunting. The Master of Game (141 3), the author tells us that when a hound chased a rabbit in covert he was to be rated with a shout of ' war ryote war,' for no other wild beast in England was called ' ryote ' save the coney.' The expression had evidently come to have its modern and more extended meaning in 1730. ^ Anecdotes respecting Cranbourne Chase. * Richardson, Local Historian^s Table Book (New castle, 1843). 388 pendent hunt ' as an innovation, but rather as an established institution ; and the sport that it afforded for its supporters appears at times to have been of a truly remarkable description. Thus — February 20th 1770. The gentlemen of the Sun- derland Hunt turned out a bag-fox at Newbottle ; just as the dogs went off a hare started which they killed at view ; they fell on the foxe's scent again and after a chase of 1 2 miles he lept down a lime-kiln and crept out at the eye, when the dogs took up the scent again, he soon after took through a conduit and eluded them for some time, but being again closely pressed he lept down a rock and took the river, but not being pursued he soon returned and was again taken up by the dogs, and after another chase for near 14 miles he ran on board a ship at Ayres Quay, where he was taken alive by the sailors.'' This must indeed have been a stout-hearted bagman, to have survived a run of 26 miles, a lime-kiln, a conduit, and a (literally) 'navigable arm of the sea ' ! Let us sincerely trust that the sailors were as kind to him as Jack usually is to dumb animals, and that after delivering him from his persecutors, they eventually restored him to well-earned liberty. THE RABY, MR. CRADOCK'S, AND LORD ZETLAND'S FOXHOUNDS We must now retrace our steps to Raby, where we first find mention of an orthodox pack of foxhounds in 1787, instituted in that year by the second Earl of Darlington, for the amusement of his son Lord Barnard, who succeeded to the title five years later, and, at all events in sporting matters, is always known as the 'famous' Lord Darlington. History does not relate whence Lord Darlington obtained the material for the foundation of his pack, and it is pretty evident that at the outset this was of rather a rough-cast description, which confined its operations to the immediate neighbourhood of Raby. But in a very few seasons Lord Darlington succeeded in creating a first-rate level lot of hounds, while his sphere of action extended over a huge district stretching from the south of Yorkshire almost to Northumberland, and including the Badsworth, and most of the present York and Ainsty countries, the whole of the existing Bedale and Zetland territories, and practically all the area now hunted by the Hurworth and North and South Durham Hounds. It of course goes without saying that this cannot be termed Lord Darlington's ' coun- try' in the modern acceptance of the term. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, sub- scription packs of hounds with their rigidly ' Ibid. SPORT ANCIENT AND MODERN defined limits for hunting had not yet come into existence, and a great nobleman like Lord Darlington, provided he refrained from encroach- ing too heavily on the territories or the suscep- tibilities of other magnates, was probably free to hunt foxes wherever he chose to seek them in the north of England. None the less it is certainly curious that he should have elected to travel so far from home — at a time, too, when means of locomotion were exceedingly limited — as the south of Yorkshire, where for a few seasons, in late spring and early autumn, he hunted part of what is now the Badsworth country. Equally curious, and, in a sense, re- grettable, is it that the oft-quoted song of the Raby Hounds with its Irish-like refrain of ' Bally- namonaora ' should apply to this district, which Lord Darlington only retained for a few years.^ It was not long before he gradually relinquished the rest of his Yorkshire territory, reserving only the present Bedale country — probably the cream of the whole of it — which in conjunction with practically the whole of the county of Durham ' proved an ample field for even his energy and resources. As it was, he found it necessary to maintain a separate establishment at Newton House, near Bedale, for the purpose of hunting the Yorkshire side of his country, where at ' the 220th milestone on the London and Glasgow road' he built commodious kennels and stables and spent ' the happiest days of the year.' ' The kennels at Raby still exist, and within the last few years have been converted into a gamekeeper's house. Lord Darlington kept hounds for over fifty years, but he was not merely a master in name : he was his own huntsman for thirty-six seasons, and in addition took the most minute interest in kennel detail. It was his custom to draw his hounds himself on hunting mornings, and to feed them at night, while he personally supervised their drafting, breeding, and exercise. Small wonder that he should refer to them as his ' darling hounds,' or note their performances in his famous diary with such pride and delight. His hounds were of the big, speedy type, and despite his keen eye for individual hound-work it is pretty evident that he was a riding, not a hunting, man. Not only is this the verdict of his contemporaries,* but it is amply corroborated by his own frequent references in his hunting ' Much of the information here given respecting Lord Darlington's hounds is, by courtesy of the Editor of the Badminton Magazine, reproduced from an article on Raby which the present writer contributed to that periodical in March, igo,).. ^ Except that portion hunted by Mr. Lambton, of which more anon. A pack of foxhounds is said to have been kept at Gibside, near Newcastle, at the beginning of the nineteenth century by the then Earl of Strathmore, but no record exists of them. ' Nimrod's Northern Tour. ' ' He was all for riding : four couple of hounds in front, and the rest coming on anyhow.' The Druid, journal to ' lifting ' his hounds. Moreover, he would get away with his fox with, if need be, only two couple of hounds, leaving the body of the pack to be brought on, his theory — in which he has had many imitators — being that when hounds have been left in covert once or twice they learn to fly quicker to the horn. The most precise information, from an out- side source, respecting Lord Darlington and his hounds, is found in the writings of Charles James Apperley — better known by his nom de plume of Nimrod — who visited his lordship both at Newton House and at Raby in 1826, when engaged in producing his famous series of ' Hunt- ing Tours' for the proprietors of the Sporting Maga- zine. Reading between the lines of Nimrod's rather extravagant eulogiums, it is pretty evident that Lord Darlington — now Marquess of Cleve- land— no longer rode with his former freedom. Nor is this a matter for surprise when we recol- lect that he was at that time sixty years of age, and had kept hounds for thirty-nine seasons. According to Nimrod : — He rides all his horses with a hard hand, and he has a peculiar way of putting them at his fences. I have seen him absolutely make them paw down the fence before he will let them rise, if there should be a blind and a deep ditch on the other side, by which plan he no doubt saves many falls. And again : ' His perfect knowledge oj the country — the italics are mine — also gives him a great advantage in getting to his hounds, and he is seldom far from them when wanting ' («V).' Yet this ill accords with earlier contemporary verdicts of Lord Darlington's style of going, or with the statement attached to Chalon's portrait of one of his favourite horses, ' Flora, a celebrated hunting-mare of the old English breed,' on which he made ' an extraordinary leap over a hedge four feet high with a ditch beyond measuring seven and three quarter yards.' Nimrod's dictum is equally at variance with the oft-quoted lines from the Badsworth hunting song : '" — Then, first in the burst, see dashing away. Taking all on his stroke on Ralpho " the grey, With persuaders in flank, comes Darlington's peer, With his chin sticking out, and his cap on one ear.'' With my Ballynamonaora The hounds of Old Raby for me. Nimrod gives many interesting details concern- ing Lord Darlington's hunting establishment, Scott and Sebright. ' Many of the old hands still speak of him as always having his finger in his ears, or his cap in his hand, and consider that his hunting was conducted on no especial system.' Ibid. ' Nimrod's Hunting Tours — Yorkshire. '" Howell Wood ; or the Raby Hunt in Yorkshire, by Martin Hawke. A new hunting song to the tune of Ballynamonaora, n.d., probably circa 1795. " The hide of this horse still adorns an armchair at Raby. " From about 1805 onwards, not only Lord Dar- lington, but all his hunt servants wore hats, not caps. 389 A HISTORY OF DURHAM which he estimates to have been the most costly of that day.'^ None the less Lord Darlington was exceedingly methodical in all matters appertain- ing to the upkeep of his hunt, keeping careful account of expenditure, and being supplied with a weekly report of the state of the coverts, and their fences, &c. Nimrod further adds that he annually paid ;^340 to his own tenants for fox- coverts, which seems a rather paradoxical state- ment. Lord Darlington was also a man of con- siderable initiative in the minor accessories of the chase. He was, for instance, the inventor of the modern kennel-coat, an article unknown to his guest, and described by him as 'a sort of white smock something like what the better order of butchers wear,' which in conjunction with ' a pair of calashes ' enabled the master to leave the kennels ' fit to walk into a drawing- room.' Another of Lord Darlington's wrinkles that favourably impressed Apperley was that of causing his hounds to pass from the feeding-house to their benches along a trough 6 in. deep in broth. This caused them to lick their feet, 'and the healing properties of a dog's tongue to a sore are well established.' Nimrod mentions two whip- pers-in and a second horseman as forming Lord Darlington's field establishment, but only gives the full name of one of them. This was Will Price, who had previously whipped in to Mr. Musters in Northamptonshire. As showing that there is nothing new under the sun, it is worth mentioning that Lord Darlington's daughters hunted in pink, a fashion that it was attempted to revive some years ago with, how- ever, but little success, in one or two hunts in the United Kingdom. One of the most remarkable proofs of Lord Darlington's devotion to fox-hunting was his habit of keeping a most accurate record of every day's sport. Neither the hardest day in the saddle nor what Nimrod politely terms ' the merriest evening ' afterwards, prevented him from posting his diary before retiring to bed at night. These diaries were religiously kept every year till 1833, when the Bedale country was handed over to Mr. Milbank of Thorp Perrow." It is a regrettable fact that no complete set of the diaries is in existence, not even at Raby itself. The earliest diaries that we have seen are those for the seasons 1789-90 and 1 790-1 ; but curiously enough they do not appear to have been printed till 1804, when they were published by H. Reynell, of 21 Piccadilly, 'near the Black Bear,' under the title of The Earl of Darlington i"^^ " This seems very probable ; the Raby pack con- sisted of 80 couples of working hounds. " The profits resulting from their sale were given to William Storey, a valued servant of Lord Darlington for over fifty years. The still existing Storey's Whin near Piercebridge was named after him. " This title was adhered to, even after Lord Dar- lington's elevation to the Marquessate of Cleveland. Foxhounds — Operations of the Raby Pack. In these the proceedings of each hunting day are conscientiously recorded : ' The names of coverts where the Hounds threw off'; 'The coverts where Foxes have been found ' ; ' The number of Foxes earthed and killed by Lord Viscount Barnard's Foxhounds ' ; and ' Coverts whence Foxes have been killed ' : the above all neatly shown in tabular form ; while in addition each day's sport and its noteworthy incidents are faith- fully recorded, with a description of the weather, and the names of the horses ridden by the master and the hunt servants. The former's favourite hunter during these two seasons seems to have been one rejoicing in the curious name of Pam-be-civil, a prophetic cognomen that smacks rather of i 85 I than 1790. One noticeable fact about the early days of the Raby Hunt is the diversity of the hours at which Lord Darlington threw off: thus, on 27 September he did so at noon, on 1 1 Oc- tober at 6.30, on the two following days at 10 and 1 1 respectively, on 7 November at 7 — there can surely have been but little daylight at such an hour — while he finished up the season on 24 April by meeting at 5.15 at Warden Law — an exceedingly bleak hill overlooking the sea, midway between Sunderland and Seaham Har- bour. A more uncongenial trysting place at this hour of a northern spring morning can hardly be imagined. Moreover, as the crow flies it is about twenty-six miles from Raby, and hounds must this is not mentioned in they found and killed a be an easy matter in the same district at the present day. The crowning glory, however, of the season of 1790 was a run from Dobinson's Whin near Piercebridge, to Witton Gilbert, about four miles north-west of Durham, ' a most remarkable chase of four hours and thirty-five minutes, very much hard running, and computed to be forty- five miles, my mare first at the death, much the freshest.' This run was honoured by a notice in the Newcastle ' Newspaper ' {sic), which is quoted in the diary, and irresistibly recalls the ' Splendid run with Mr. Puffington's Hounds.' It concludes with the mention that 'only two were in at the death, his Lordship and Mr. Ralph Saunderson ; and what is remarkable, Mr. Saunderson being quite unprepared for the chase, rode it without boots, whip, or spurs.' A list of the hounds is first given in the diary for 1797, and that for 1806 contains further in- formation as to their breeding, ages, &c. Lord Darlington was by no means averse to hunt- ing bagged foxes ; several entries in his diaries record good runs with them, notably one in January, 1799, when he turned down at 'Selaby Carrs a fox brought me by Robert Waite from Cutherstone this morning,' and killed it after a ' desperate hard burst of forty-seven minutes.' Nor does his lordship confine himself to acommon- have lain out, thoug the diary. However, fox, which would not 390 SPORT ANCIENT AND MODERN place record of each day's sport, but enlivens his narrative by comments, favourable or the reverse, on the behaviour of his field. Thus in 1811 he administers a rebuke to a gentleman who spoilt a run by overriding the hounds, whom he charit- ably describes as an excellent sportsman, who never means to do wrong, but from great keenness is sometimes too for- ward, which as an old sportsman I claim a right to say to him. Again in 1825 we find him in happier vein bestowing praise without stint on a hard-riding clergyman — I cannot omit to mention that the Rev. John Monson shone as conspicuously this day on his grey mare a? in the pulpit, and was alone with the hounds over Ainderby Mires." A final extract (in 1826) may be given as showing that even in those days game- and fox-preserving had, alas 1 become antagonistic interests : In consequence of the innumerable foxes which Lord Tyrconnel reported to me were about Kipling, and attacking his hares ... I selected sixteen couples of my best and steadiest hounds to go to Kipling at eleven o'clock and obey his lordship's commands, when they tried every myrtle, rush, whin-bush, hazel-tree, brick- kiln remains, thorn-hedge, pleasure ground, and pheasant preserve appurtenances without ever finding a fox for nearly three hours. . . The last volume of The Operations of the Rahy Pack was issued in 1833, by which time its master, who was created Duke of Cleveland in the same year, had begun to evince the first symptoms of the strange dislike that characterized his latter years for the sport he had formerly held so dear. Hounds were kept on at Raby for a few more seasons under the care of a pro- fessional huntsman, but the duke's interest in them and their performances gradually died away, until in 1839 the once famous Raby pack, quantum mutatus ! was sold at York for the in- significant total of 250 guineas." '^ This is indeed ' approbation from Sir Hubert Stanley,' for his lordship had the reputation of not liking to see others in front of him in the chase, as shown by the following extract from Houiell Wood : — Lying close in his quarter see Scott of Woodhall ! And mind how he cheers them with ' Hard to the cry I ' Whilst on him the Peer keeps a pretty sharp eye. " It is an illustration not only of Lord Darlington's devotion to fox-hunting, but also of the power formerly wielded by great landowners, that in 18 18 he success- fully opposed the application to Parliament for the formation of the first Stockton and Darlington Rail- way, on the ground that it would interfere with one of his fox-coverts, and it was not until a fresh survey was made, and the coverts avoided, that he withdrew his opposition. Three years later the duke himself died in London, and with him expired the last of that race of masters of hounds which began with Hugo Meynell and John VVarde, and elevated fox-hunting from the obscure pastime of a few Squire Westerns to the dignity of a great national sport. None the less his scutcheon of sportsman is not without a stain. For some years prior to his death relations between himself and his eldest son had become strained, and the duke hit on an exceedingly characteristic method of annoy- ing his heir, a man as devoted to hunting as him- self. He proceeded methodically to grub up coverts and exterminate foxes on his estates, a course of procedure that a few years earlier he would have regarded as little short of sacrilege. So thoroughly, too, did he effect his purpose, that when the second duke succeeded to the title, he found neither foxes to hunt nor hounds to hunt them with ; but, nothing daunted, he got together a scratch pack of hounds, and hunted the carted stag for five years, by which time the coverts had re-grown to a fox-holding capacity. But little record exists of what may be called the second period of the Raby Hunt. Its masterappears to be overshadowed by his more famous father's personality, while he further unfortunately omitted to follow the first duke's practice of keeping a hunting diary for the benefit of posterity.'* From all accounts, however, the second Duke of Cleve- land appears to have been a conscientious and popular landlord, and an indefatigable master of hounds. His huntsman was George Cox, with Jack Morgan and Tom Sebright as whips. Hounds were maintained at Raby until 1 86 1, when the pack was sold at Tattersall's, and realized good prices, the first five couples being sold for 100 guineas, and three other lots at over 80 guineas.^' On resigning his country, the Duke of Cleve- land proposed to divide it between the neigh- bouring Durham County and Hurworth hunts — to whose funds, as well as to those of the Bedale, he generously contributed ;^500 a year, until his death in 1864. But this offer could not be accepted in its entirety, and for several years the famous Raby country lay fallow and unhunted.-'^ " One curious custom prevailed at Raby during his lifetime : on hunting days, when a fox had been killed, its tongue was grilled and served up as a separate course at dinner the same evening — needless to s.iy, as a mere quaint conceit, and with no gastronomical intention. None the less, I have it on the authority of an eye-witness of the incident, that a guest, a lady into the bargain, once insisted on tasting the morsel. " Bell's Life in London, Jan. 1873. ^^ During this time, those keen sportsmen, Mr. Cradock of Hartforth, and his neighbour Mr. Gilpin- Brown of Sedbury, subscribed ^^500 a year apiece to Mr. W. H. Duncombe — now Lord Feversham — the then master of the Bedale, on condition he hunted the Yorkshire side of the Raby country one day a week. 391 A HISTORY OF DURHAM That it was resuscitated was due to the enter- prise of the late Mr. Cradock, of Hartforth near Richmond, who came forward in the year follow- ing the Duke of Cleveland's death, and undertook to hunt a large part of his former country in Yorkshire and Durham,^^ five days a fortnight, with a subscription of about ;^2,ooo a year. It is no easy matter to revive hunting in a country where it has been allowed to lapse. There were neither hounds nor kennels, and but few fox- preservers ; but Mr. Cradock threw himself into the work with such energy that in his third sea- son he hunted seventy times without a single blank day, and in six years ^^ his hounds were known as ' the best little pack in Yorkshire.' ^' At what expense this result had been achieved is best exemplified by the fact that of thirty couple of draft hounds drawn from the best kennels in England no less than twenty-five couple had to be destroyed in one day for sheep- worrying, the pack having broken away when at exercise on Gayles Moor, and enjoyed some ex- cellent sport on its own account with the black- faced sheep of the neighbourhood.^* Mr. Cradock's first huntsman was Dick Christian, who died in 1 8 70. He was followed by Bridger Champion, who was retained by Lord Zetland when he succeeded Mr. Cradock as master in 1876 ; Champion retired in 1 906 owing to failing health, after thirty-six years' con- tinuous service — a most remarkable record. Not only did he hunt the hounds four days a week, but in addition from 1878 onwards used to drive the hound-van drawn by four horses, which was utilized for reaching the distant side of the Durham country. The best run in the Durham country that took place during Mr. Cradock's mastership was on 25 March, 1873, when a fox found at Houghton Whin, ran past Bolam and Keverstone to Cockfield, thence through Raby Park to Streatlam, where it was killed at Fryers Coat Farm. Time — three hours, and only two horsemen saw the finish, the late Colonel Wilson of Cliffe, and the hunts- man. Mr. Cradock, to the regret of all concerned, gave up his hounds in 1876, but for the next twenty years he was a regular follower of the pack he had helped to form, and took the keenest interest in its welfare. In 1874, in conjunction with the late Mr. W. T. Scarth of Staindrop, he revived the Old Raby Hunt Club, with the " Including Sim Pastures and the district round Middridge, which was given to the South Durham when Sir William Eden became master of that pack in 1877. " Twelve years is the period usually considered necessary to ' make ' a pack. " Bell's Life in London, Jan. 1873. -* I am indebted to his son, Major Cradock, D.S.O., the present owner of Hartforth, for this and much other interesting and valuable information. object of investing a capital sum for the future welfare of hunting in the Raby country.-^ This result has been happily achieved, thanks to the energy and foresight of Sir J. E. Backhouse, hart., the honorary secretary and treasurer of the club. The Raby Hunt Club now consists of sixty-four members, who pay an entrance fee of five guineas, and an annual subscription of like amount ; and a substantial sum has been laid by to meet the necessity, should it ever arise, of purchasing a new pack of hounds for the country. On Mr. Cradock's retirement, his country was taken over by Lord Zetland, by whose name it has been known ever since. The term ' popular ' in connexion with a master of hounds has of late years become almost an accepted truism, but it is impossible to conceive one to whom it can be more honestly applied than to Lord Zetland, who for thirty years has hunted four days a week without subscription, — a trifling poultry and covert fund excepted — and spared neither trouble nor expense to pro- vide sport for his followers. The fact that his outside meets in the Durham country at Knitsley Fell or Black Banks are 25 miles from the kennels at Aske, and that hounds have to be vanned to Staindrop to reach these and many other distant meets, is perhaps the strongest proof of his devotion to fox-hunting. Taken as a whole, Lord Zetland's country is probably the best in the county of Durham — though some may give the palm to the Hurworth. Except on its extreme northern fringe, where it is bounded by the North and South Durham terri- tories, it is free from the taint of coal-pits or manu- factories, while its plough rides light and carries a good scent, though grass is its predominating note. The Tees, which practically bisects it, though an exceedingly beautiful river in itself, is perhaps its worst attribute as regards hunting, as foxes, especially in the Barnard Castle district, are apt to take refuge in its steep and woody banks. The Zetland country contains every variety of fence, and though its envious neighbours occasion- ally apply an unflattering nickname to it, it takes a good man on a good horse to live with hounds when they run hard across it. This may be instanced by the famous run of I January, 1900, from Houghton Whin to Westwick — ten miles in seventy minutes — when of a very large field only five horsemen. Major Cradock and his brother, the late Mr. T. Sowerby, Champion, and one other, saw the finish. " The Old Raby Hunt Club had been originally founded by Lord Darlington, but had ceased to exist on the death of the second Duke of Cleveland. In Lord Darlington's day the club dined every Thurs- day night at the 'Swan' at Bedale, when hunting his Yorkshire country. His pink dress-coat with white silk facings, and a black velvet collar with embroidered foxes, was adopted by the members of the new club. 392 SPORT ANCIENT AND MODERN THE LAMBTON, THE DURHAM COUNTY, AND THE SOUTH DURHAM FOXHOUNDS Famous as Lord Darlington's Hounds must always remain in the annals of fox-hunting, it is doubtful whether, at all events in the county of Durham, they were ever so enshrined in popular affection as those of his equally great compeer, Mr. Ralph Lambton. Yet it should not be over- looked that this pack was originally instituted, not by him, but by his elder brother, Mr. Wil- liam Henry Lambton, and the exact date is fixed by a letter written by the latter to his friend Mr. Robinson from London in April, 1793 : — Having given up hunting in Leicestershire, I purpose keeping a small pack of hounds in Durham. I have reason to think that Lord Darlington and my- self shall agree about the division of the country. As you are a good sportsman pray let me know what can be done in your neighbourhood to promote our sport. From the banks of the river to the seaside we might sureh improve the country by inclosing some patches of whin, or making other coverts. I am sure you will have the goodness to keep a strict look-out that no litters are destroyed during the breeding season. I will thank you for any hints, and shall be obliged if you will assure persons that upon fair cases I will satisfy them for any loss they may sustain."* William Henry Lambton was the son of General Lambton, of Harraton Hall, who com- manded the Coldstream Guards, and raised the 2nd Battalion of the 23rd Regiment, now the famous 68th or Durham Light Lifantry. There is reason to believe that after his retirement from the army. General Lambton kept a small pack of hounds, with which he hunted fox or hare indis- criminately in the northern part of Durham. Mr. W. H. Lambton lost no time in starting his hunting establishment, for having presum- ably settled with Lord Darlington as to the limits of his new country ^' he purchased Lord Talbot's pack of sixty couples of hounds, which had hunted the Sudbury — now the Meynell — country in Derbyshire, taking over Lord Talbot's hunt-servants with them. These were James Shelley as huntsman, and George Deane (who had whipped in to the Prince Regent's hounds in Hampshire) and Dick Norman as whippers- in. But, unhappily, Mr. Lambton did not live long to enjoy the fruits of his enter- prise ; within three years his health failed, and '' The Field, 24 April, 1901. " This is understood to have included all the county of Durham north of a line drawn from Castle Eden on the east to Wolsingham on the west, thence north through Edmondbyers to Corbridge in the present Tynedale country, thus including part of Northum- berland. A portion of the Raby country is omitted from mention in the operations of the Raby Pack in 1793, though no direct allusion is made to its cession to Mr. Lambton. leaving England he died at Pisa in December, I 797.^' Short as his tenure of office had been, it had sufficiently opened his neighbours' eyes to the charms of fox-hunting in first-rate style to make them anxious for a continuance of it, and pending the time when it would be convenient for his younger brother, Ralph Lambton, to take on the hounds, Mr. Baker of Elemore came forward and hunted the country with a small sub- scription until 1798, in which year Mr. Lamb- ton commenced his mastership. For several seasons he retained Shelley as huntsman, after which he hunted hounds himself uninterruptedly until 1829, when owing to two very bad falls, in 1825 and 1827, he relinquished the horn to Jack Winter, his first whip. In the first six seasons the hounds were kennelled at Lambton, but when, in 1 8 14, Lord Darlington gave Mr. Lambton his Sedgefield country — now the cream of the South Durham Hunt — kennels be- came also necessary at Sedgefield. Like Lord Darlington, Ralph Lambton omitted none of the duties of a huntsman, paying the greatest atten- tion to all details of kennel management, never failing to feed and exercise his hounds himself and taking the keenest interest in their breeding. His type of hound was a good deal smaller than Lord Darlington's, being no more than 24 inches, or even less according to some authorities, and his great pleasure was to have them strictly uniform in size. He scoured England for the best hound blood, being particularly partial to the Duke of Beaufort's and Mr. Warde's strains. Although his hounds are invariably spoken of as ' Ralph Lambton's,' their proper designation was ' The Lambton,' owing to the master's accepting a small subscription. The amount of this appears to have varied : the ubiquitous Nimrod — who included a visit to Mr. Lambton and Sedgefield in his Northern Tour — places it at ' about ;/^8oo,' ^^ but this is obviously incorrect, as Mr. Ord, of Sands Hall — himself, as will be seen, a quondam master of the South Durham Hunt — whose great-uncle was hon. secretary to the Lambton Hunt, is able to state authoritatively that the largest subscription ever received in one year was no more than ;^402 lyj., or almost exactly half Nimrod's estimate.^" But even the larger estimate could not have gone far towards such an establishment as Mr. Lambton's ; for he invariably hunted four and often five days a week, had four admirably mounted men in the field, and kept sixty couple of hounds. " Mr. W. H. Lambton was no mere tox-hunting squire. He had travelled a great deal on the con- tinent, and in Parliament, where he represented Dur- ham for seven years, his fluent oratory attracted attention. '' Nimrod's Northern Tour. '" The Sedgefield Country, by the author of The Fox- hunter's Vade Mecum, W. Dresser & Sons, Darlington, 1904. 393 50 A HISTORY OF DURHAM In the early part of the last century the social side of fox-hunting was an important element in its welfare ; reference has already been made to the ' assemblies ' of the Sunderland Hunt, and the dinners of the old Raby Hunt Club, and Ralph Lambton was responsible for the founda- tion of two Hunt Clubs : The Tallyho, which used to meet at Chester le Street in the northern country, and the Sedgefield, instituted after his acquisition of that territory, in 1804. Unfor- tunately, no precise record exists of the date of either the institution or the dissolution of these clubs, but it is undoubtedly to the former of them that we are indebted for all the three portraits that were painted of Ralph Lambton, the first by Warde in 182 1, the second by Ferneley a few years later — both of these with hounds — and the third of Mr. Lambton only, in 1836 by Sir Francis Grant.'' Little is known of the Tallyho Club, but the Sedgefield ' meet- ings ' took place twice during the hunting season, for six weeks from the first Monday in Novem- ber, and again for a month in February. During these periods the little village of Sedgefield earned, and not without good cause, the title of the * Melton of the North.' Not only was every stable in it, or its vicinity, taken, but even the humblest lodging that could accommodate a visitor was secured weeks beforehand, while all the country houses of the neighbourhood were filled with fox-hunting guests. The club dined every night at the Hardwick Arms, where ' every- thing was good and substantial, but without luxury,' while to discourage heavy post-prandial drinking, the landlord was fined a bottle of wine if he neglected to bring in the bill exactly three hours after the members had sat down. Dinner was served at seven o'clock, an hour which even the fashionable Nimrod, fresh from Melton, considered unduly late ; and the dress-coat of the club was black, with a white waistcoat, and a scarlet under-waistcoat of silk or cloth. *^ Nimrod, who gives a very interesting account of the Lambton Hunt and its supporters, stayed several days at the Sedgefield Club, during which time he was fortunate enough to take part in a remarkably good run from Foxyhill to Elstob Whin, where they changed foxes, eventually killing the fresh one after running hard for two hours and seven minutes in all. Only fifteen horsemen, out of more than a hundred, were up at the finish, and at least one horse died in the field. Another famous run with the Lambton Hounds was that of New Year's Day, 1820, " The Field, 24 April, 1897. " NimroJ's Northern Jour. We cannot trace the date when the present blue collar of the South Durham Hunt was adopted for both hunting and dress coats. There appears no solid foundation for the statement sometimes made that it was selected to commemorate the old ' royal ' colours of the prince-bishops of Durham. from Wrekenton Whin — now no longer existing — near Gateshead, across the Wear, just fining down after a flood at Hylton, to Houghton le Spring, Painshaw Hill, and then turning east, to the neighbourhood of Seaham Harbour, where the fox was killed.**' This run is specially worthy of note as being the occasion when Mr. John Harvey, then a boy of sixteen, was first entered to fox-hunting, and so well did the lad acquit himself that he was the only person, besides the master and the hunt-servants, who saw the finish. His good performance naturally attracted Mr. Lambton's attention, and with characteristic kindly feeling he piloted him back towards New- castle, the delighted boy little thinking then that the day would come when he, in his turn, would be a master of hounds in the very Sedgefield country, over which Mr. Lambton then presided, and that he had that day laid the foundation of a close friendship which only ended with the latter's death. Before quitting the Lambton Hounds it is perhaps excusable to draw a comparison be- tween those great contemporaries. Lord Dar- lington and Ralph Lambton, between whom there were many points of common resemblance. Both were men of old territorial family in the districts which they hunted ; both were ani- mated with that passionate love of fox-hunting which led them cheerfully to accept the drudgery as well as the pleasures of the chase ; both esta- blished fox-hunting on a firm basis in a part of the country where it had been previously in- secure, and both were fearless riders to hounds. Nor did either of them allow sport to interfere with their public duties — the Duke of Cleveland would post from Raby to London to attend an important division in the House of Lords, and Ralph Lambton represented Durham in the Commons for several years.'^ But here the resemblance ceases — the Duke of Cleveland was respected with the awe that rank then inspired to a degree unknown nowadays, but Ralph Lambton was revered with an affection happily common to no particular period — the one — though he cheerfully consented to others sharing his sport as long as he was able to enjoy it him- self— really kept hounds for his own amusement, but the other did so, not only because he loved " The Sedgefield Country. It would be a stout- hearted fox, and an even bolder rider that would go straight at the present day from Wrekenton to Houghton le Spring. " R.dph Lambton did not share his elder brother's gift of oratory. Having once to address a meeting from the hustings at Durham, after a good deal of hesitation, he finally came to a dead stop for want of words. His predicament was appreciated by a hunt- ing-farmer in the crowd, who holloaed out : ' How way, Mr. Ralph ! Thou's i' Sacriston Wood [a par- ticularly dense covert] noo, ar's warned,' an apt comparison which provoked a roar of laughter, under cover of which Mr. Lambton retired. 394 SPORT ANCIENT AND MODERN hunting himself, but because he wished others to enjoy it also. One more curious note of dis- similarity may be noted. So far as is known, Lord Darlington never had a serious fall in his life. Ralph Lambton had three. The first occurred in 1825, and for some time paralysis was feared, but thanks to his marvellous con- stitution ^' he recovered so far as to be able to ride about. Then, when only convalescent, his hack fell with him in the followingyear on the road between Morton and Lambton,^* with the result that he carried his head to one side for the rest of his life. Nevertheless he again hunted hounds for eleven seasons, until his favourite hunter. The Kitten, gave him a terrible fall on the flat in 1837, from which he never recovered, and though he lingered on for another seven years he was practically a cripple. He died in 1844, the last of the old school of masters of hounds, leaving a blank in the county of Durham that has never since been filled. His hounds were sold in 1838 to Lord Suffield, the then master of the Quorn, for 3,000 guineas, but only a year later they were purchased by Sir Matthew White Ridley for about a third of that amount, and came back to the north of England. Mr. Lambton's old huntsman. Jack Winter, was pensioned off, but his three whip- pers-in, Hunnam, Harrison, and Robinson, took service under Sir Matthew at Blagdon.^' From the date of Mr. Lambton's retirement in 1838 the history of fox-hunting in Durham becomes somewhat involved. In that year a meeting of those interested was held, when Mr. ' Billy ' Williamson, a brother of Sir Hed- worth Williamson of Whitburn, was elected master, with a guaranteed subscription. Mr. Williamson, who was probably the hardest- riding man of his day in Durham, continued in office for three seasons, and with Glover as huntsman showed excellent sport. On his retirement in 1842 he was succeeded by the third Marquess of Londonderry, who took no subscription, the hounds being kennelled at Wynyard and known as the Wynyard and South Durham Foxhounds. Unfortunately in the following year Lord Londonderry had a bad fall and broke his arm ; a serious matter for a Peninsular veteran, and he was forced to retire in favour of Mr. Russell of Brancepelh. This gentleman had already kept hounds of his own for four seasons previously — since 1839 — hunting the country round Brancepeth, as far as Harperley on the west and Chester le Street to the north, but not going south of the Wear. His huntsman had been John Swinburne, whose "'He was not made of steel; he was of those stub-heads they make gun-barrels of.' ^° Hounds were kennelled at Lambton, but Mr. Lambton himself lived at Morton House, three miles distant. " The Field, 24 April, 1897. manuscript diary has been kindly lent me for in- spection by Mr. Russell's grandnephew, the pre- sent master of the South Durham Hounds. The diary records no very eventful runs, but the pack appears to have had capital sport over a wild country, which in those days was not so cut up by collieries and their attendant wagon-ways as at the present time. It is said that although fully cognizant of the great mineral wealth which lay beneath the surface of his estates, Mr. Russell would allow no pits to be sunk on them where he thought this might be injurious to fox-hunting. THE DURHAM COUNTY HOUNDS Mr. Russell did not long retain the undivided mastership of the South Durham Hounds. In 1844 the pack was purchased for ;^300, and renamed the Durham County Hounds ; '' Colonel Tower of Elemore and Earl Vane, afterwards the fourth Marquess of Londonderry, acting as a committee in conjunction with Mr. Russell. This arrangement lasted for a couple of seasons, when Colonel Tower became sole master. He showed excellent sport till 1852, when he retired in favour of the ever-green ' Billy ' Williamson. The latter's reign, however, only lasted for three years, when Mr. Henderson undertook office for the season of 1856-7, making way in this year for Major Johnson of the Deanery, Chester le Street, who, with Tom Harrison and subse- quently Will Snaith as huntsmen, showed ex- cellent sport till i860, when Mr. Henderson, as ever the guardian angel of Durham fox-hunt- ing, once more assumed the mastership for a single season. This year — 186 1 — was a momentous one for the county hunts, being the date on which the second Duke of Cleveland offered to divide the Raby country between the Hurworth and Durham County Hunts, and to give a sub- scription of ;^500 per annum to each of them. This generous offer could not, however, be accepted in its entirety, the existing Durham country being already too large and unwieldy for a single pack, besides necessitating the main- tenance of two sets of kennels, one at Elvet Moor — close to the present (1907) North Durham Kennels — and the other at Sedgefield. Mr. Henderson was succeeded by a committee ; but only a year later he once more came forward and acted as joint-master with Mr. John Harvey until 1872, when the Durham County Hounds ceased to exist as a single pack. Martin Carr was huntsman from 1863-7,'' '" which year he had been succeeded by Thomas Dowdeswell. The question of dividing the Durham country, which had been frequently mooted, was finally decided in a very unexpected and tragic manner. ^^ This was due to the initiative of Mr. John Henderson of Durham. ^' Snaith went in this year to Devon as huntsman to the Hon. Mark Rolle ; The Sedgefield Country. 395 A HISTORY OF DURHAM In October, 1 87 1, a hound called Carver was found to be mad. Four hounds which Carver was known to have bitten were at once destroyed, and it was hoped that the worst was over, but other hounds manifested symptoms of rabies proper, the epidemic showed no signs of abatement, and at a meeting of the subscribers to the hunt, held at Durham on 17 November, it was reluc- tantly decided to sacrifice the entire pack of forty-one couples/" Such a catastrophe as this, coming too at such a season of the year, might well have daunted most masters of hounds ; but Messrs. Henderson and Harvey at once set to work to get together a new pack, and thanks to the sympathy awakened in the hunting-world by the calamity that had overtaken the Durham Hounds, they actually succeeded in taking the field again in five weeks, and meeting at Aldin Grange in their northern territory on New Year's Day of 1872, blooded their new pack by killing a leash of foxes ! ^' From 1872 the Durham County Hounds were divided into two distinct packs, the South Durham, with Mr. Harvey as master, having their kennels at Sedgefield, and the newly created North Durham being taken over by Mr. Anthony Maynard of Newton Hall near Durham. Mr. John Harvey was born in 1804, and served his early apprenticeship to hunting with the harriers of the Newcastle Corporation. Re- ference has already been made to his first introduction to fox-hunting in 1820, and it is probable that the impression then produced on him by Mr. Lambton went far to mould his character for life. There were strong natural points of resemblance between the two ; both were men of extraordinary resolution, univer- sally beloved and respected, and endowed with a passionate love of hunting. In Mr. Harvey's case this latter trait was the more remarkable, for as a hardworking man of business — he was head of a famous and long-established firm of tobacco manufacturers at Newcastle-on-Tyne — he had naturally many calls on his time. None the less these never prevented his hunting three days a week throughout the season, but at the same time they probably accounted for his being less of a ' hound man ' than his prototype, Ralph Lambton, or indeed, most famous masters of hounds. He was, however, an undeniable man across country, no obstacle being too big for him, and it has been left on record by his whip " The Sedgefield Country. It is a highly interesting fact as showing how long the germs of the disease had been lurking in the Durham Kennels prior to its outbreak, that a draft of four couples of hounds, sent the month previous to India, developed the same complaint, with the same ultimate fatal result, at almost the actual time when it broke out in England : ibid. " Ibid. Jack Bevans, that tears ran down his face, when, at the age of sixty, he turned from a fence for the first time in his life.*^ Most remarkable, and equally characteristic, is the fact that for many years of his life it was his invariable custom on hunting days to hack the twenty-six miles from Newcastle to Sedge- field, get his hunter there, ride on to the meet, hunt all day, and then hack back to Newcastle at night, being frequently in the saddle for twelve hours. Indeed, on the first occasion that he hunted with the Lambton Hounds, they had a most extraordinary run from near Blakiston to Great Ayton in Cleveland, on which occasion it is computed by careful map-measurement that he rode as nearly as possible ninety miles ! *" Even when advancing years compelled him to sleep at Sedgefield the night before hunting he always returned to Newcastle the same evening by a late train. No doubt his exceptional power of endurance in the saddle was due not only to Mr. Harvey's light weight — he never rode more than about 9 stone — but also to his abstemious habits ; for many years he never ate anything on hunting days between an early breakfast and his dinner, which merely consisted of a mutton- chop and a single glass of claret." For the first two years of Mr. Harvey's mastership the huntsman was Thomas Dowdes- well. He was succeeded by William Claxon from the Bicester, with J. Bevans and C. Hawkes as whips. Mr. Harvey continued in office for fifteen years, during nine of which he had been joint-master with Mr. Henderson. He resigned in 1878, when he was in his seventy-fifth year. It is impossible within the limits of the present article to enumerate even a tithe of the first-rate runs that took place during his mastership ; but it is pleasant to be able to record that his last season, 1877-8, was almost his best. In the following year he was presented by the members and friends of the South Durham Hunt with his portrait by Charlton, on his favourite mare, Polly, capping his hounds away from Lea Close. Mr. Harvey lived to be eighty-nine, a striking tribute to the health-giving qualities of fox- hunting combined with an abstemious habit of life. He died in 1893, regretted by all who knew him, an expression which in his case means much, for izvi men ever had a larger circle of friends in all classes of life than John Harvey. On his retirement, Sir William Eden of Windlestone was elected master of the South Durham Hounds, with a guaranteed subscrip- tion of ;{^900 a year, on which he undertook to hunt the country two days a week. Sir William purchased the pack for £lOO, and built new kennels at Rushyford within easy reach of his own house. In the following year, however. Ibid. " Ibid. " Ibid. 396 SPORT ANCIENT AND MODERN the master generously forwent a subscription — except the poultry and covert funds — and hunted the country three days a week at his own ex- pense, and from this date until he resigned office in 1 88 1 the pack was known as Sir William Eden's Hounds. On his retirement, Mr. Ord of Sands Hall ^' was unanimously elected master with a guarantee of j^ 1, 600 per annum. Mr. Ord's mastership lasted till 1884, during which time he showed good sport, and did much to popularize fox-hunt- ing among that most important body, the tenant- farmers. When Mr. Ord resigned office Sir William Eden once more came forward, and was ap- pointed master with a subscription of ^"JOO a year. Sir William's second mastership lasted for six seasons, all of which may be deemed above the average. The kennels were retained at Rushyford, and Claxon continued as huntsman until 1887, when he retired, and was succeeded by George Gillson from the York and Ainsty. Sir William Eden finally gave up the hounds in 1890 when they were taken over by the Hon. Gustavus Hamilton-Russell, the grandnephew of Mr. William Russell, who was master of the South Durham Hounds in 1843. He has re- tained them ever since to the great satisfaction of all concerned, hunting the country three days a week on a subscription of ^T 1,000 a year, which includes poultry and covert funds. On Mr. Hamilton-Russell's assuming office, the old kennels at his residence, Hardwick Park, were again utilized, and W. Sheppard was appointed huntsman until 1894, since when the master has hunted hounds himself with Will Goodall as kennel-huntsman and first whipper-in. Mr. Hamilton-Russell has shown admirable sport during his sixteen years' mastership, but for the past two or three seasons there has been a scarcity of foxes owing to the epidemic of mange that has devastated every country in England. It appears, happily, to have died out, and to be quite extinct now in the county of Durham. The South Durham country is still a first-rate hunting district. It may justly be termed a flying country, though in places it contains a certain amount of bank and ditch. Two-thirds of it are sound old pasture ; it has no big wood- lands, and landowners and farmers are staunch fox-preservers. Six new coverts were planted during the ' eighties,' namely Kap's Hill near '* Mr. Ord represents a family long connected with hunting in Durham, his great-uncle Mr. Ben. Ord having been one of Ralph Lambton's chief supporters, and hon. sec. to the Lambton Hunt. Mr. Ord has done much to help fox-hunting, not only in his own country, but throughout England, by his admirable little work, The Foxhunter's Vade Mecum, the profits derived from which every year go to swell the funds of the Hunt Servants' Benefit Society and Royal Agricultural Benevolent Institution. Rushyford, Brierton New Whin, and Firtree, Bradbury, and Black Plantation Whins — the latter three being all Mr. Ord's property.'*^ THE NORTH DURHAM FOXHOUNDS On the establishment of the North Durham Hunt in 1872, the Durham County Hounds were divided between Mr. Harvey and Mr. Maynard, the former being allowed priority of choice ; while Mr. Maynard further strength- ened his pack by a draft of fifteen couples from Lord Eglinton. The pack thus formed has ever since remained the property of the North Durham Hunt, each retiring master being bound to hand over to his successor the number of hounds which he received on assuming office. Mr. Anthony Lax Maynard, the master of the newly-formed pack, came of a family long con- nected with sport and agriculture in the north of England. He was a very good man to hounds, wonderfully popular with all classes, and showing remarkable tact in dealing with an unruly field. Many of his quaint, dry sayings are remembered and quoted to this day. Mr. Maynard undertook to hunt the country three days a week,*' with Henry Haverson — who had previously been first whipper-in to the Bedale — as huntsman and T. Noble and W. Hawkeswell as first and second whippers-in. The hounds were kennelled at Mr. Maynard's residence, Newton Hall, near Durham. Mr. Maynard's mastership lasted until 1884, when advancing years obliged him to resign. He had shown consistent good sport for twelve years, and, what is more important still, had established fox-hunting on a firm basis in the face of great natural difficulties in a district where but for him it might easily have died out. Per- haps his best season was 1873, and almost his most remarkable run one from Broomshields to Dukesfield in the Haydon country. Mr. Maynard was succeeded by a committee consisting of the Earl of Durham, Mr. (now Sir) Lindsay Wood, and Messrs. P. H. Chapman, and N. W. Apperley, the kennels being moved to Viewley Grange near Plawsworth, with Richard Freeman, who had succeeded Haverson in 1880, as huntsman. This arrangement lasted until 1888, when Mr. J. E. Rogerson was elected master, with a guarantee of /^8oo a year. He has now held the post for eighteen years, to the great satisfaction of all concerned, sparing no pains to ensure sport and to popularize hunting among the farmers of the country. It " Mr. Ord, to whom, and to whose interesting book The Sedgffield Country, we are indebted for much valuable information, is honorary secretary to the South Durham Hunt. " This was subsequently reduced to two days a week. 397 A HISTORY OF DURHAM is of course to be expected that in a great industrial district like North Durham portions of the country must from time to time become unhuntable, and of late years Mr. Rogerson has had to resign a large part of his eastern country lying between Silksworth and Castle Eden, but on the other hand he has been able to resume operations in the Wear Valley on the west, where mining operations are now decreasing. Freeman retired from the post of huntsman in 1906, after twenty-six years' continuous service, during which time he had only been one day off duty. Mr. Rogerson has erected new kennels at his residence. Mount Oswald, near Durham, and will in future hunt the hounds himself, with Joseph Smailes, who has hitherto been first whip, as kennel huntsman. The North Durham country is naturally a fine wild sporting one. On its western side, where the best sport is usually enjoyed, it con- sists almost entirely of grass and moorland, with some big woodlands ; on the east, of about equal proportions of grass and plough, but the curse of wire is rather prevalent in this part of the country. Every variety of fence is to be met with, including stone-walls. The season of 1905-6 has been the best of the whole of the eighteen years of Mr. Rogerson's mastership, some really remarkable sport having been en- joyed, especially in the west country. Like most of the Durham packs, the North Durham commemorate the Duke of Cleveland's reign by their black velvet collar. THE HURWORTH HUNT Leaving the north of the county we must now return to its southern extremity, to en- deavour to trace the fortunes of the Hurworth Hunt. The most careful research and inquiry have only produced the most meagre results, a matter for deep regret in connexion with so famous a pack ; and we must go back to the pages of Nimrod for information respecting it. The Hurworth Hounds were founded originally as a private pack of harriers, towards the end of the eighteenth century, by three brothers, Messrs. Thomas, Lozalure, and Matthew Wil- kinson of Neasham Abbey, near Darlington, but were promoted to fox-hunting in 1799. As far as can be gathered each brother acted as master in turn, Thomas, the eldest of the three, doing so until his death in 1820, when he was suc- ceeded by Matthew, who was master at the time of Nimrod's visit in 1826. The last of the three brothers died in 1840, when the master- ship was taken over by his nephew, Mr. Thomas Wilkinson, the hounds having thus been con- tinuously under the management of the Wilkin- son family for upwards of sixty years. During the whole of this time they were to all intents and purposes a private pack, with the kennels at Neasham Abbey, though a subscription was accepted from such as chose to offer it. In Matthew Wilkinson's day this only amounted to ;^'75 ^ ys^"") * s'J'Ti which, as Nimrod remarks, might ' with good management find meal for the hounds.' The pack then consisted of twenty-six couples of working hounds, with four couples at grass.'** Apperley, who reviewed the Hurworth after visiting the aristocratic Lambton and Raby establishments, admits he went prepared, in his own words, ' to meet with something still more out of the common way,' and as frankly admits the error of his preconceived notions. The Wilkinsons of Neasham, a family ot landowners long settled in Durham, repre- sented at the beginning of the last century the best of that now unhappily extinct class, the wealthy yeomen, who aspired with good reason to no higher rank, and rather prided themselves on a certain bluntness of manner and speech, the latter usually couched in their native Doric. To this day many of Matty Wilkinson's terse expressions in the hunting-field are quoted in his native county, and one can only share Apperley's regret that they would not look well in print. Still, to quote the latter's own words : — A polish weakens the vigour of native powers. Eton and Christchurch might easily have spoiled Matty Wilkinson, and deprived him of a niche in the Temple of Fame ; and he aptly sums him up as — an English sportsm.in of the old stamp — resolute and daring in his favourite pursuit, and manly and powerful." Although he rode 17 stone, Matty Wilkinson hunted his hounds himself, and had a wonderful knack of living with them ; and Apperley refers with admiration to his method of handling his horse across country, though on occasion he was not above dismounting and leading over an awkward place. None the less Mr. Wilkinson was practically without fear where hunting was concerned, and though unable to swim, thought nothing of crossing the Tees when in flood, to get to his hounds. Matthew Wilkinson died in 1840, and was followed by his nephew Mr. Thomas Raper, who assumed the name of Wilkinson on succeed- ing to the family estates ; the hounds were still kennelled at Neasham while the hunt was practi- cally carried on at the master's expense, the sub- scription being still merely a nominal one. Mr. Wilkinson hunted the hounds himself for several years, but then handed the horn over to Frank Coates, the first of several professional huntsmen who were in his service. Under Mr. Wilkin- son's mastership the Hurworth Hounds and country soon acquired a more than local reputa- tion, and it is a matter for Nimrod's 'Northern Tour. regret that his death " Ibid. 398 SPORT ANCIENT AND MODERN in 1 86 1 should have coincided with the acqui- sition of a large slice of the Raby country, and the accompanying subscription of ;^500 a year from the second Duke of Cleveland. On Mr. Wilkinson's death the hounds were sold by his executors to a committee of the hunt, and the mastership was offered to and accepted by Mr. Cookson of Neasham, well- known as a breeder of blood stock. Mr. J. Parrington,*" who had latterly acted as huntsman for Mr. Wilkinson, remained in the same capa- city with the new master. From this date, however, it is impossible to write a detailed history of the Hurworth Hunt, owing to the frequent changes of mastership. In twenty- seven years there were no fewer than nine changes in this respect, and we can merely note these up to the present time. Mr. James Cook- son was master from 1862-5, when he was succeeded by Major Elwen, who continued in office till 1869. In that year Mr. Cookson returned again until 1872, when he retired in favour of Lord Castlereagh, the present Mar- quess of Londonderry. He, in turn, in 1875 gave way to Major Godman, whose mastership lasted until 1879, when Mr. Cookson came forward for the third time. He finally retired in 1884, when he was succeeded by Mr. W. H. A. Wharton of Skelton Castle, who gave up the Hurworth two years later to assume the mastership of the adjoining Cleveland country, which he has held ever since. Sir Reginald Graham followed him as the master of the Hur- worth in 1886, but his tenure of office only lasted till 1888, when he retired in favour of the present master, Mr. William Forbes of Callendar. The old adage that it is ' an ill wind that blows nobody good ' was never better exemplified than in the case of the Hurworth Hunt and Mr. Forbes, who from 1877 to 1884 was master of the Kildare. In 1882, owing to agrarian agita- tion fostered by the Land League, hunting was stopped in the Kildare country, and Mr. Forbes, bringing his horses to Croft, near Darlington, to hunt from there, was so pleased with the sport he enjoyed that, on resigning the Kildare country two years later, he returned to York- shire and accepted the mastership of the Hur- worth in 1888'^ a post he has now held for eighteen years. During this long period he has shown admirable sport, practically at his own expense, hunting the country three days a week on a guaranteed subscription of only ;r400 a year ! As, in addition to Bishopp, his present huntsman, Mr. Forbes has three whippers-in in the field, while the pack consists of forty-six couples of working hounds, it will be understood that the subscription does not go far towards the expense of such an establishment. ^ Mr. Parrington was subsequently master of the Sinnington Foxhounds. *' TAe Sedgefield Country. The Hurworth is a good hunting country, though plough predominates, especially on the Yorkshire side, but this carries a good scent, and its grass is considered by many to be the best in Durham. There is a little moorland, and the woods are small ; six new coverts have been planted within recent years. Every variety of fence is to be met with, and it requires a good man and a free-jumping horse to live with hounds over the best of the country. THE BRAES OF DERWENT The Braes of Derwent Hounds hunt the extreme north-west of the county and a slice of Northumberland to boot. This country was originally hunted by one of those trencher-fed packs formerly so common in the north of England, and records of its existence date from the middle of the eighteenth century, when it was founded by Mr. Humble of Eltringham. On his death it became known as the Prudhoe, and later still, about 1837, as the Prudhoe and Derwent. Though no reliable record exists of the latter, it is certain that Mr. Thomas Ramsay of Park Head was master for several seasons ; but beyond that nothing is certain, and even the date when the pack ceased to exist is unknown. However, in the late 'forties' we find the country being hunted by the Slaley Hounds, under the mastership of Mr. Nicholas Maughan, afterwards the master of the Tynedale. This pack was soon dissolved, and for a few seasons a pack of hounds was kept at Castleside by the late Mr. Jonathan Richardson of Shotley Lodge, who founded his kennel with a draft given to him by the second Duke of Cleveland. Although these hounds were essentially a private pack, and probably but few people have ever heard of their existence, they must always possess an interest for hunting men, when it is known that their huntsman, Joe Kirk, was the original James Pigg of Handley Cross.^'' The exact date at which the Slaley Hounds ceased to exist cannot be traced, but it would be presumably about 1850, when the Derwent Valley remained unhunted for four years, save for '' Mr. Surtees, whose own residence of Hamsterley Hall was within a few miles of Mr. Richardson's, used frequently to hunt with his hounds, and many of the Doric witticisms attributed by him to Pigg are known to have been actually used by Kirk. More- over, some of the incidents in Handle^ Cross ire known to have been associated with the latter, notably the melon-frame one which Leech's pencil has immor- talized, and which took place in a market-garden at Hexham ; while I am informed, though I confess I have not verified the statement, that, ' gin ye gan to the Newcassel Formory ' you will see the charitable bequest of one Kirk ' clagged agin the walls in great goud letters.' 399 A HISTORY OF DURHAM occasional visits from the Tynedale, whose then master, Mr. Maughan, retained an affection for his old country. '' In 1854 Mr. William Cowen of Blaydon Burn, a prominent north-country sportsman,'* came forward, and getting together a pack of hounds founded the present Braes of Derwent. Mr. Cowen's mastership covered fifteen seasons, until 1868, when he was suc- ceeded by his brother, the late Colonel John Cowen. At first this gentleman, who took on his brother's pack, had his kennels at Coal Burn, but they were subsequently moved to Blaydon Burn. His huntsman during the twenty-five years of his mastership was Siddle Dixon, who, Mr. Priestman, the present master of the Braes of Derwent, informs us, was the best blower of a horn, and had the finest voice of any huntsman he has ever known — no mean advantages among the great holding coverts and steep rocky gills which are such prominent features of the Der- went country. Indeed, it was with a view to obtaining a fuller cry of music in these that Colonel Cowen, who was a noted breeder and exhibitor of bloodhounds, introduced a strain ot their blood into his foxhounds, but the experi- ments did not prove a success, the half-bred hounds having a tendency to potter and dwell on the line. Colonel Cowen died in 1895, when his hounds were sold and the hunt establishment broken up. For a full year after his death it seemed as though the country would cease to be hunted, but in 1896 Mr. Lewis Priestman, of Derwent Lodge, came forward, and consented to accept the mastership. He at once set to work to get together a new pack of hounds,'" for which he built kennels on his own property at Tinkler's Hill. He has now been in office for eleven years and has spared no endeavour to promote sport and further the cause of fox-hunting ; and how well he has succeeded is amply proved by the fact that every season he is able to find walks for fifty or sixty puppies. The working pack con- sists of twenty-six couples of hounds which hunt two days a week. From the outset the master ^ As successors to the Slaley Hounds, the Tynedale long claimed, and occasionally exercised, rights over a large portion of the existing Braes of Derwent country. As a matter of fact the claim still exists, but by amicable arrangement between the present masters of the two packs the Tynedale do not draw east of Healey Burn. " Mr. Cowen was well known on the Turf, and I believe sold Lord Rosebery the colt Ladas, which ran in the latter's colours in the Derby of 1 869, while he was still an undergraduate at Christchurch. Mr. Cowen was also the brother of the famous orator and patriot, 'Joe' Cowen, who was a prominent figure in Parliament towards the end of the last century. " Curiously enough Mr. Priestman laid the founda- tion of much that is best in his present pack by breeding from a bitch that had been drafted from the North Durham Hounds for being a persistent hare- hunter ! has hunted his hounds himself with marked success in an extremely difficult county. Mr. Priestman has no guaranteed subscription.^^ The Braes of Derwent country is a wild sporting one, of which more than half is grass, with a very small proportion of plough, the remainder being wood and moorland. Stone walls and bank-set thorn hedges predominate, and, considering the industrialism of its eastern extremity, wire is not so formidable a feature as might be expected. The upper portion of the Derwent Valley is an exceedingly attractive bit of hunting country, yet curiously enough better sport is usually obtained in the more populous district to the east. THE GROVE Among extinct packs of foxhounds in Durham mention must be made of the Grove Hounds, which existed for a few seasons some thirty-five years ago. The joint masters were the late Mr. Henry Surtees of Redworth and The Grove, and the late Mr. W. T. Scarth of Staindrop, for many years the agent for the Raby Estates. Even after such a comparatively short lapse of time, it seems impossible to glean any definite information respecting these hounds, which how- ever were, to all intents and purposes, a private pack hunting an out-of-the-way and sparsely inhabited corner of the county. Their country seems to have extended from about Crook across the Wear into Mr. Surtees' estates at The Grove, and thence to the Tees west of Barnard Castle. Part of the pack was kept at The Grove itself and part at Keverstone near Raby, where Mr. Scarth then resided. The writer recollects having heard from Mr. Scarth's own lips the accounts of some excellent runs, notably one from Hargill Hill above Witton le Wear to — he thinks — Eggle- ston, but any really definite information respect- ing these hounds is entirely lacking. The pack was dissolved in the early seventies, the best of it going to Mr. Cradockat Hartforth, and a draft to the Calpe Hunt at Gibraltar, while the remainder found a premature grave where the rippling Bedburn flows through the lovely Grove plantations." ^ I am indebted for practically all the above infor- mation as to the Braes of Derwent Hunt to the article by ' Shotley ' in Tie Foxhounds of Great Britain and Ireland, by Sir Humphrey de TrafFord (London : Southwood, 1906). " In making researches about these hounds I chanced on an old gentleman who had been employed in some menial capacity about the kennels, and append his matter-of-fact account of the dispersal of the pack : — ' Wy, Champion cam' and took part hunds tee Hartforth, and ar've heerd theer was part went furrin, and ar joost felled t'oothers an' pitted them doon by t' beck-side.' 400 SPORT ANCIENT AND MODERN HARE-HUNTING It is probable that there was a period when few Durham squires of any position were with- out their pack of harriers, but the earliest men- tion that has been traced of hare-hunting is in 1766, when 'some gentlemen were hunting on Gateshead Fell the hare and three hounds fell into an old pit-hole and were drowned.'' The first reference to harriers as a distinct class of hound occurs nine years later, in 1775, when, under date of 27 November, we find that as the harriers of John Burdon of Hardwick, esq., were running a hare they chanced on a fox, which they ran and killed near Darlington after a very smart chase of 25 miles, and crossed the Skerne ; out of 25 horsemen only two and the huntsman were in at the death.' From about this date it is probable that hare- hunting waned in popularity before the new style of fox-hunting introduced by Mr. Lambton and Lord Darlington ; but about the beginning of the nineteenth century Mr. George Baker of Elemore, a famous all-round sportsman of his day, who had been master of the Lambton Hounds in 1797, kept a private pack of harriers. Little is known of them beyond the assertion that they once found a fox at Elemore, and killed it in Raby Park, a most remarkable point, the length of which would lead one to suppose that hounds changed foxes in the course of the run, but this is disproved by the fact that it was 'a bob-tailed fox that they found, and a bob- tailed fox that they killed." A well-known pack of a slightly later date was that of Mr. Bowser, an extensive land- owner near Bishop Auckland, the reputation of which was so far established that even the great Nimrod found it worth his while to have a day with it in 1825. None the less he evidently considered the whole thing beneath the serious attention of a fox-hunter, and beyond stating that Mr. Bowser took the field in pink, and that hounds were hunted by an amateur, a yeoman of the name of Harry Chapman, well known with Lord Darlington's hounds, he has little to tell us. But if Nimrod failed to do justice to Mr. Bowser and his harriers their fame has been handed down in imperishable verse by John Borrowdale, town constable, poet and tragedian, in his Lay of the Auckland Hunt. This poem, dealing with one of the not infre- quent occasions where Mr. Bowser hunted a fox instead of his legitimate quarry, used to be recited periodically on the boards of the Auckland theatre by the author in person, clad in cast- ' Gillespy's Col. ' Ibid. It is curious to observe how Hardwick appears to have always been associated with sport. ' The Field, 24 April, 1897. 2 40 off hunting apparel of Mr. Bowser's. A short extract from it is interesting, as giving the names of some followers of the pack ^ — ' The sportsmen of the chase were those Bowser,' Ch.iytor,* Harland,' and two Shaftos.' Wooler, Dobson,Chapman,°and our young Squire '" And Lowson " who nobly brought up the rear. With Joplin, too, as I've told you.' None the less, despite its more than local reputation, nothing further seems known of Mr. Bowser's pack, and the dates of its institu- tion and of its dispersal are equally untrace- able. However, his son, Mr. Richard Bowser, the ' young Squire ' of the poem, kept up the family tradition by purchasing a pack of harriers from Mr. Hutchinson of Eggleston, in 1854, with which he hunted his father's country until 1863, when he gave up hounds, only to resume them again in 1868. Mr. Bowser kept this second pack, with which he showed first-rate sport, until i88i, when he finally sold them into Wales. It is curious that no other pack of ' mounted ' as opposed to ' foot ' harriers appears to have existed in Durham until 1898 when Sir William Chaytor started a private pack at Witton Castle, of which the foundation was laid by his taking over part of the Wolsingham foot harriers. These hounds, however, proved useless for mounted work, and Sir William purchased the Ayton Harriers out of Cleveland, and supple- mented them with drafts of dwarf foxhounds from the Belvoir, Bilsdale, and other packs. By these means he got together an exceedingly smart pack of forty couples of 22 in. hounds, which were hunted by his brother-in-law, Mr. Allan Havelock-Allan of Blackwell Manor, and showed first-rate sport for three seasons, when the pack was broken up owing to the master's temporary ill-health, and sold by auction at York.12 ' M. Richley, Hist, of Bp. Auckland. ^ Mr. R. Bowser. " Mr. Chaytor of Witton Castle. ' Mr. Harland of Sutton Hall, York. " The Messrs. John and Thomas Duncombe Shafto of Whitworth Park. ' Thomas Chapman, the huntsman. '" Mr. Bowser, jun. " Mr. Newby Lowson of Witton Tower, the friend and pupil of Turner, R.A. " Mention should be made of the ' Northumber- land and Durham Harriers,' the property of Mr. Frederick Lamb of Newcastle, who for many years hunted the country round Newcastle both north and south of the Tyne. They were, I believe, the descendants of, or successors to, the Newcastle Cor- poration Harriers, and can scarcely be regarded as a Durham pack, though hunting part of the county. I 51 A HISTORY OF DURHAM If a scarcity of mounted packs of harriers has existed in Durham, an exactly opposite state of things presents itself with regard to ' foot ' harriers or beagles. Without going quite so far as a cynical friend who warned the writer before- hand, that everyone in the county who owned a pair of thick shoes and could afford to pay for a dog licence, kept a pack of beagles at some period of his life, he must confess to having been appalled at the number of pedestrian packs of hounds that has been brought to his notice. Space alone would forbid reference to each of them, and at the risk of giving unintentional offence to many excellent sportsmen, he is obliged to confine himself to the mention of two packs only, the Durham Beagles and the Dar- lington Harriers. The first-named were originally a private pack of Mr. Marmaduke Salvin of Burn Hall, who gave them up about 1850, when they were sold to a committee of the undergraduates of Durham University, and became the ' University College Beagles.' The pack consisted of about fifteen couples of pure-bred 15 in. beagles, and was kennelled at Lowes Barn, fresh blood being introduced about 1854 by a draft from Lord Sefton's. The expense of the hunt was entirely borne by the members of the University Hunt, assisted by subscriptions from some of the fellows, notably the present provost of Eton, then a tutor at Durham, and the warden — the late Archdeacon Thorp — to whom the first hare of the season was always presented. Another good friend to the pack was the late Mr. Parrington, then agent to the Brancepeth estates, who was able to procure leave for much additional country. He invariably hunted the hounds (on horseback) during the University Christmas vacation, with the inevitable result of making them too fast for pedestrians. In those days, it must be borne in mind, the neighbourhood of Durham was much better adapted for hunting than at present, the Auckland railway was only in process of making during the 'fifties,' and Brandon Hill and the adjacent county were innocent of coal-pits. The University Beagles flourished for many years, providing admirable sport, but the pack was dispersed in 1874. They next passed into the possession of Mr. Creighton Foster of Dur- ham, who sold them in 1886 to Mr. J. E. Rogerson, the present master of the North Durham Foxhounds, who thus served that apprenticeship to hare-hunting, which so many authorities have held to be the best training for the pursuit of the fox. During Mr. Rogerson's mastership his hounds were kennelled at Crox- dale Hall, near Durham, until 1889, when he sold them to Mr. Craig of Bishop Auckland. They were subsequently disposed of to Mr. Deevey of Wolsingham, when they became known as the Wolsingham Harriers, a pack which has now ceased to exist. Having traced the history of the original Durham Beagles,^' we must now turn to the more famous Darlington Harriers, which date back to 1872, when Mr. 'Tom' Watson of Darlington formed the nucleus of a pack. On the dissolution of the Durham University Beagles, he obtained a pure-bred bitch called Violet, which he mated with a dog from a scratch pack kept by some lead-miners at Middleton in Tees- dale, and her first litter formed the foundation of the famous Darlington foot-pack which for eighteen years hunted all the western dales of Durham, besides a considerable slice of the Cumberland and Westmorland fells, in addition to its home country. The pack usually con- sisted of fifteen couples of trencher-fed hounds which were gathered up the evening before hunting, and on the conclusion of the day's sport were left to find their own way home to their respective kennels. The little pack showed most extraordinary sport. During Mr. Watson's mastership it accounted for 1,042 hares, and the average number of kills for the last six seasons was 103 — all fairly hunted hares — those chopped in covert, &c., not being counted. This is believed to be a record for a pack of foot harriers, and is a really remarkable performance in view of the wild country which the master preferably hunted. Small wonder that when he gave up his hounds he should be presented with a por- trait of himself and his favourite hounds by Heywood Hardy, subscribed for by friends and followers of the pack. The hounds were sold to go into Hampshire, but one dog and bitch were reserved, and the resulting litter formed the foundation of a small pack which was hunted for a few seasons by the present Sir Spencer Havelock- Allan, and was then taken over by a committee. This little pack still hunts the district, and shows good sport with Mr. Watson's former whip, George Robinson, as huntsman. Other existing packs of foot harriers in Dur- ham at the present time are the Stockton, and the Woodlands Beagles. " These must not be confused with the existing Durham Beagles, a subscription pack which was started about 1 890, and is kennelled at Shincliffe. The first master was Mr. Hall of Shincliffe, who was succeeded by Mr. Roberts of HoUinside. The latter in turn gave way to the present master, Mr. C. G. Wilkinson of Newcastle-on-Tyne. 402 SPORT ANCIENT AND MODERN OTTER-HUNTING It is impossible to say when a pack of hounds solely used for hunting otters was first kept in Durham, but probably the first person to do so was Mr. John Gallon, a native of St. Helens, near Bishop Auckland, who latterly resided at Ponteland. Unfortunately but little informa- tion can be gleaned about these hounds, but they are known to have existed for many years prior to 1873, when Mr. Gallon was most unfortu- nately drowned when hunting a river in Ayr- shire.^ On his death the pack was purchased by Major Browne of Callaly Castle, Northum- berland, who, in conjunction with Mr. Fenwick of Sandhoe, hunted Durham and Northumber- land until 1877. In this year Mr. T. L. Wil- kinson of Neasham Abbey, near Darlington — the representative of the family which had founded the Hurworth Foxhounds nearly a cen- tury earlier — came forward and purchased seven and a half couple of pure-bred otter-hounds from Mr. Traherne, which he supplemented with a few other hounds that he was able to pick up in his own neighbourhood. In the next five years Mr. Wilkinson showed most excellent sport in North Yorkshire, Durham, and Northumber- land, taking no subscription, and hunting on an average twenty-four days a season, which would probably have been more had it not been for the great distances he had to travel to get to his water, otters being comparatively few and far between in those days. The hounds were ken- nelled at Neasham, his whippers-in being Kit Hunter and George Dodds. In 1882 Mr. Wil- kinson sold his pack to Mr. William Yates, who then hunted the Cheshire and Lancashire streams. To these Mr. Yates now added Mr. Wilkin- son's country, whither he brought his hounds regularly every season for a few days' hunting until 1888. In this year Mr. Wilkinson once more started a pack of otter-hounds, buying seven couple of rough-haired hounds from Lord Bandon. With his second pack, which was a subscription one, Mr. Wilkinson showed marvellous sport, almost his best season being in 1889, when, with what was practically a strange pack, he hunted thirty- one days and killed fifteen otters. His average for the eleven years that he kept this pack was thirty days' hunting per season and twelve otters ' It is, of course, understood that neither in Dur- ham nor any other part of England, does a p.ick of otter hounds confine its operations to a single county. killed, his best season being in 1896, when he brought sixteen otters to hand in 36 days. His whippers-in were Kit Hunter and Robert Hall, the latter of whom is now kennel-huntsman to the Northern Counties otter-hounds, and, as before, hounds were kennelled at Neasham. Mr. Wilkinson's ' country ' may be said to have stretched from Ouse to Tweed, and his best sport was obtained on the latter ; but he would go anywhere, and travel any distance, on the chance of finding an otter. His wonderful pedestrian powers enabled him to draw a very large extent of water in the course of a day's hunting. In the writer's opinion he was the best heel-and-toe walker he ever saw, getting over the ground without apparent effort at a pace that kept his field at a jog-trot. Mr. Wilkinson's last season was in 1899, and he died early in 1900, when his pack of twenty- one and a half couple of hounds — of which three couple were foxhounds — was broken up and sold. There was keen competition for them among the various packs of otter- hounds in the kingdom. A few of them even found their way to Italy, a country one does not usually associate with such a sport as otter-hunting. A very good portrait of Mr. Wilkinson (and of many of his hounds and habitual followers) is to be seen in the well-known picture ' Gone to Ground,' an engraving of which was subscribed for and presented to him by the members of his hunt. The original picture, which was of enor- mous size — some 14 ft. square — represented an actual incident on the Till at Fowberry, and was the work of two Alnwick artists, one of whom painted the portraits, and the other the back- ground and hounds. It is owing presumably to its unwieldly proportions that this picture has, we believe, found a most unsuitable resting-place in the lobby of a Newcastle theatre ! For the first three seasons after Mr. Wilkinson's death his country was hunted by invitation by various packs of otter-hounds, including such distant establishments as the Culmstock from Devon and Mr. Courtenay Tracy's from Hampshire. In 1903, however, a subscription pack, chiefly drawn from the Culmstock kennels, was started under the title of the ' Northern Counties Otter Hounds,' and now hunts Northumberland, Durham, and the North Riding of Yorkshire, as far south as the River Ure. The kennels are at Loansdean, near Morpeth, and the present master is Mr. F. P. Barnett. 403 A HISTORY OF DURHAM COURSING We cannot claim that the Palatinate county has ever taken high rank as a coursing territory. Nor is the history of public coursing of the hare in its wild state within its confines distinctly traceable to any period earlier than a century ago. The more important meetings extending over two, three or more days, that were wont to be held in the neighbouring counties of the north and on the Scottish border always over- shadowed the gatherings held in the county of Durham. Noteworthy among the noblemen who patronized coursing in the purely sportman- like fashion was the Duke of Cleveland. He maintained a kennel for some years, but never ran any of its inmates at public gatherings, rather preferring to test their merits by drawing them in ' eights ' and running them privately within the area of the park at Raby. His kinsman, the present Lord Barnard, though in nowise a breeder or runner of greyhounds, indirectly countenances coursing ; for since he inherited the Raby estates he has in the most open-handed manner given permission for public meetings to be held on his preserves by the North of England Club under the secretaryship of Mr. Thomas Snowdon, and latterly under the direction in the same position of the present writer. In like manner Lord Barnard has given the necessary leave on other lands which he owns in the county. Prominent among other noblemen and gentlemen who have conceded like facilities may be mentioned the Earl of Ravensworth on the Ravensworth estate, and over his preserves at Eslington in the county of Northumberland. The present Earl of Durham too, like his fore- hears, has been a patron, though not an ardent courser himself ; the Chase and the Turf having possessed more attractions for his house since the days of Ralph Lambton, who for many seasons hunted the county. Within the same category in recent years we must mention the late Mr. John Bowes, Mr. Shafto, Mr. Pemberton of Hawthorn, and Major Vaux of Grindon, the Marquess of Londonderry, and Mr. V. W. Corbett, J. P., who holds the shooting rights over Lord Londonderry's West Rainton estate. For nearly quarter ofa century the North of England Club has held periodical meetings at West Rainton, which is not an ideal coursing country, surrounded as it is by a mining population and intersected by roads and footpaths. It would appear somewhat remarkable that hares can be preserved in such a district ; but it is gratifying to find that by way of return for the permission to run their greyhounds the miners act as so many game preservers, a code of honour existing amongst them to co-operate with the patrons of meetings in the preservation of game. Yet a more wonderful coursing territory was that at West Stanley, where Major W. G. Joicey, a large colliery owner in the district, was the patron of the meetings held there from time to time, some twenty-five to thirty years ago. For a period Major Joicey ran a few greyhounds ; one of the most notable being that grand bitch Haytime, which he bought from the Messrs. Heslop, now of Kirby Moor, near Brampton, for The district round about Barnard Castle has been long celebrated for its coursing re-unions. The writer can recall old Mr. Errington judging some of the meetings here when he was well advanced in years. He never wore the red coat or hunting cap of the orthodox judge, rather favouring a high silk hat and cut-away swallowtails. About that period the late Mr. George Maw of Bishop Auckland was running a sterling greyhound named Weardale, of which old Mr. Errington was a great admirer. On one occasion when the dog had won a course, he shouted ' Weardale's won ' which was contrary to all rule, for it is presumed that a judge is igno- rant of the names of dogs that may be engaged, while he should never signify his decision other- wise than by calling the colour of the winning dog, or signalling the white or red handkerchief. But rules were, perhaps, more elastic in those days than they are under the stern jurisdiction of the National Coursing Club. The present Sir William and Lady Eden have also patronized the sport in recent years as owners of greyhounds and by laying open the fine Windlestone estate to the public courser. Here again the North of England Club held one and sometimes two meetings a year. An abun- dant stock of game of the right straight-backed sort was always to be met with at Windlestone, with the result that the trials were of the best, and afforded the highest enjoyment to the people of the countryside, who regard the ' Coursing ' as so many red letter days in the monotony of their lives. Perhaps the most notable of Durham coursers was the late Mr. George Gregson of Warden Law, near Houghton le Spring. He coursed for upwards of half a century, his love of ' the comeley greyhound ' and the ancient sport being unabated up to the end of his long life. Even when he was over eighty years of age he bred and reared dogs and followed them to slips. His unabated passion for the sport was equalled only by that of the late Lord Masham, who h"ke Mr. Gregson, went far and near to see his greyhounds run, attending the Waterloo meetings until he was approaching ninety years of age. The last litter bred by Mr. Gregson includes Hongleton, 404 SPORT ANCIENT AND MODERN owned in the present day by Mr. V. W. B. Corbett, for whom the dog has won several minor stakes in the county. Mr. Gregson achieved the highest ambition of the courser, that of winning the Waterloo Cup. This triumph was gained by his handsome bitch Roaring Meg, by Beacon — Polly, in 1862, the only occasion in the long history of the Cup on which a greyhound bred, reared, trained and owned in Durham gained the most coveted honour of the leash. Of other dogs owned by him, which were more or less successful, may be mentioned Whipcord, Polly, The Mummy, Bellona, Cat o' Nine Tails, and Cassop Lass, all whelped between 1850 and i860. The last notable hound that he bred and ran was Flora's Wreath, which, alike on the coursing field and as a matron, earned a good name. A contemporary of Mr. Gregson's w.is the late Mr. Robert Anderson of High Felling, Gates- head-on-Tyne, who bred Annoyance in 1857, Agility in 1861, and Armstrong Gun in 1862. Annoyance was the ancestress of an illustrious line of greyhounds whose exploits find place in the calendar. She was the dam of Agility by Fandango ; of Armstrong Gun ; of King Death (winner of the Waterloo Cup for the late Dr. Richardson of Harbottle) ; of Tullochgorum; and of Johnny Cope and Theresa, by Canaradzo, the last-named brace being a litter later than the former celebrities. Mr. Anderson's son, the pre- sent Mr. Anderson, owned a fast dog in Harvester and a useful one in Royal Letter, while Amuse- ment was the best of a deteriorated kennel. The late genial and good-hearted Dr. O'Kelly of the Felling, Gateshead, was also a keen courser ; his bitch Kindle being noted for a great turn of speed, though she could rarely steady herself from the turns. Another prominent breeder and owner was Mr. Thomas Lamb of Hetton le Hole, who mated Roman Strong with Dr. Richardson's Minute Gun in 1876, the result being that the dam produced such good runners in high-class coursing as Arquebuse, Lighthouse, Londonderry and Mitrailleuse, in addition to Labitza and Ptarmigan in 1883. Increasing years led to Mr. Lamb's retirement from the sport about a quarter of a century ago. He still survives at a great age. The name of Royal Stag (bred by Mr. J. Robinson of Durham in 1881) recalls many stirring recollections of the great inclosure days and the ' thousand pounders ' that were promoted at High Gosforth Park and Kempton. A dog of tremendous speed. Royal Stag won five courses in the Gosforth Derby. He was subsequently sold to Mr. Lambert Nicholls for ^T 1 00, and won for his new owner the ^^ 1,000 stake at Kempton in the spring of 1883. Mr. W. H. Jamieson of Lanchester also must be included in our gallery of coursing celebrities. His speedy puppy, Jawblade by Prince Willie — Mutiny, divided the Gosforth Derby (104 acceptances) in 1885. Jawblade, like Accident, a son of old Annoyance, was minus his tail, which had been cut clean off by a passing train in his sapling days. The mishap no doubt mili- tated against his being able to turn with his game so smartly as could have been desired, yet he was by no means a slovenly performer. Later in his career Jawblade was beaten in the semi- final of the Cardinal Wolsey Stakes at Kempton by the speedy MuUingar, the eventual winner, a triumph which the latter supplemented by winning the Gosforth Gold Cup in 1887. That the giving of big money for saplings is not the golden way to success on the coursing field is exemplified in the case of Mullingar, one of the fastest dogs ever slipped. He was owned by the late Mr. H. G. Miller of Sherborne in Dorset, and purchased as a sapling for the paltry sum of 9 guineas. Mr. Jamieson also owned Judge Hawkins by Aquafortis — Lady Ella (1898) a divider of the Hornby Castle Derby in 1899. Aquafortis belonged to Mr. J. Sisterson of Low Fell, Gateshead, who for many years has been a consistent supporter of coursing without the success he merits. After giving great promise as a young sire Aquafortis sustained a fatal accident, which meant no small loss to his worthy owner. Away on the north-east coast at West Hartlepool Mr. W. Everton has long courted fortune in his endeavours to get a ' clinker ' ; but the best in his ownership that we can call to mind was Our Nell by Reality — May Fly, bred in 1884. In 1886, the late Mr. Alfred Potts of Gates- head was to the fore with Snowflake by Lord Haddington's Herrera — Duteous, which was subsequently bought for stud purposes by Mr. Nathaniel Dunn, of Newcastle-on-Tyne. If not a flier to game, Snowflake, which was a gift from Mr. Dunn to Mr. Potts, was wonderfully smart at close quarters, one of his best perform- ances being the division of the Studley Royal Stakes (64 subs.) with Mars Hill. From the year 1870 up to the close of the century Jack Thompson of Spennymoor made a great name as a breeder and owner of running greyhounds. A remarkably brilliant litter that he bred in 1883 by Macpherson from Star- gazing II included Jenny Macpherson (late Black Lass), Jinnie Macpherson, Lance Macpherson, and Rose Macpherson. Two years later the same happy cross produced the mighty Herschel and the moderate Bird's Head. The difference in merit between the pair was as wide as the poles — a proof that in the mating of longtails there is no royal road to success. Jenny Macpherson was noted for all-round excellence of the highest class, and had she been kept for the classic events, as were FuUerton, Master McGrath, and many other great runners, it was quite probable that she would have gained re- markable renown on Altcar plain in the Waterloo 405 A HISTORY OF DURHAM Cup. But Thompson was a poor man, and he made ' Jenny ' as game a piece of greyhound flesh as ever was whelped, ' sweat for t' brass.' It is claimed for Jenny Macpherson that she raised more flags in public than any other grey- hound, the total number certainly exceeding eighty-four. She represented Mr. N. Dunn in Bit o' Fashion's and Miss Glendyne's Waterloo Cup, but was dismissed in the first round by Iowa, and then beaten in the second round for the Purse by Nobleman. 'Jenny,' ' Jinnie,' 'Jock,' ' Lance,' Rose Macpherson and Bird's Head all hailed from Spennymoor ; but Herschel, the Koh-i-noor of the litter, became the property of that famous Lancashire courser, the late Mr. T. D. Hornby, and divided for that gentleman the Waterloo Cup of 1887 with his kennel companion, Mr. R. F. Gladstone's Greater Scot. Herschel was indeed a great all-round dog ; for, apart from his victory in the Cup, he ran a splendid course in the following year against the mighty Fullerton. He had, too, the worst of the handicap ; for whereas the Shortflatt wonder (owned by the late Colonel North, who gave Mr. Edward Dent ;^850 for him) had got lightly off on the preceding night, Herschel had been run to a standstill by a real Altcar ' stag.' By a cross between Lance Macpherson and Border-at-Home, Mr. Thompson bred a useful bitch in Never-at-Home (1887), who produced Flitting Far, Found Faithless, and Mull-at- Home to Mullingar in 189 1. He also owned one of the hardest and soundest dogs that ever went after a hare in Randy Scot by Greater Scot — Rora(i89i), 'Randy' being the sire of Our Nellie, a Netherby Cup winner in 1899, then running in the ownership of Mr. W. Anderson Felling. British Engineer, Jarrow Engineer, and Lake- side II whelped in 1893, were also Durham- bred dogs, always fairly useful when placed in their own class. The first-named pair did good service at minor meetings for Mr. Z. Harris, ex-mayor of Jarrow-on-Tyne. Come we now to the sensational flier Can- goroo,^ whelped in 1884 by Bothal Park — Bundle- and-Go, and owned by Mr. J. Kellet, of Butter- knowle, for whom he won the Gosforth Gold Cup (128 entries) in 1886, beating in the final course Mr. R. F. Gladstone's great dog Green- tick. After this fine performance Cangoroo ran for Mr. T. Wilkinson, also a county Durham man, who owned the dam of the speedy black as he did also Bundle and Go II. — a smart runner of a hare. Never a greyhound of all-round attributes, Cangoroo thereafter distinguished him- ' A little story is attached to the naming of Can- goroo. Kellet, his owner, intended that the dog's name should be ' Kangaroo ' ; but adopting his own orthography he spelt it ' Cangoroo,' and as such the name was accepted by Mr. David Brown, of Dairy, N.B., the first keeper of the Greyhound Stud-book. self on the field by running into the last four for the Gosforth Gold Cup of 1888. He was a product of the spurious inclosed coursing which originated under the late Mr. Thomas Case at Plumpton nearly thirty years ago, and which obtained at Gosforth Park for some seven or eight seasons in the ' eighties ' of the last century, and at Haydock Park. The modus operandi of inclosure coursing was essentially artificial. The hares were collected overnight into a ' prison ' and driven out to the slipper in the field, puss making as a rule straight for the escape covert at the far end of the inclo- sure. It was, in fact, more a case of racing than of true coursing in the open, where the hare has all the many chances of escape at sough, drain, fence, smeuse or covert ; her dodging and doubling bringing out all-round cleverness rather than pace alone. At the period we are speaking of a breed of greyhounds came into existence whose speed alone was their forte. Our Nellie (1895) by Randy Scot — Our Mary was owned by Mr. W. Bland of Boldon Colliery, and won a few stakes for him during her running career, the Netherby Cup of 1899 being her greatest exploit. The late Mr. R. Nellist, of Bishop Auckland, was a prominent supporter of coursing a quarter of a century ago, but he never possessed a top- sawyer. Nor should the names of the late Jim Simpson (the owner of Mousquetaire), Mat Forrest, and Mr. ' Joe ' Harley, all of Sunder- land, be omitted from a list of Palatinate coursers. Simpson was afterwards closely associated with the great Shortflatt kennel of Mr. Edward Dent, training for him the great Fullerton and others of the brilliant stud that carried everything before them between 1880 and 1890. The blight of impaired health and misfortune fell upon poor Simpson in the closing years of his chequered career, and he died a broken-hearted man. Mention of the name of Mr. 'Joe' Harley recalls one of the most exciting scenes ever witnessed in an inclosure. He owned a very smart but slow bitch in Border Lass. She met the great Irish dog. Alec Halliday, in the course of a Gosforth Gold Cup. The ' Emperor of judges,' the late Mr. James Hedley, officiated at nearly all of those great meetings. Long odds were laid on Alec Halliday, who took a com- manding lead ; but the bitch, nicking in from the turn, scored and fairly outworked the favourite. When Mr. Hedley decided for the dog he came in for a most hostile demonstration from the spectators, as nearly every man on the stand thought it was a clear win for the bitch. At the period of which we are speaking, Mr. Hedley judged the courses at Gosforth from a ladder which was placed in the middle of the trial field, the competing greyhounds running between his view and that of the crowd. Thus he viewed the courses from a totally different 406 SPORT ANCIENT AND MODERN angle from that of the crowd. Never again did he judge from the ladder. The very next day and thenceafter he was mounted and rode after his dogs in the same line of vision as the specta- tors, thus minimizing any illusion of angles.^ One of the oldest coursers in the county is Mr. W. Howson of Shildon, always a dangerous ' one dog ' man. He has been a consistent breeder, owner, and runner for fully half a cen- tury, amongst the best winners he has owned being Ned Hannam, Romping Fly, Polly Hart, Babbling Brook, Sadler Watson and Bella Byers. More modern recruits are Mr. W. Smith of Shiney Row and Mr. D. Beaton of Philadelphia. The former's fame rests chiefly on Water Chute and First Down, the latter by Under the Globe — Flowing Wit, bought by Mr. Willie Campbell of Glasgow for ;^I0, and trained for him by Mr. W. Smith. First Down (1900) was lent by Mr. Campbell Smith to the late Mr. William Dewar of Edinburgh to fulfil that gentleman's Waterloo Cup nomination, and won three courses before being put out in the fourth round by Father Flint, the ultimate winner in a short contested course. Mr. Dewar backed the dog to win ;^20,000 at very long shots, and he put Mr. Smith ' on ' ^2,000 to nothing, and the writer of these notes a like sum on a similai liberal condition. First Down afterwards won the Carmichael Cup, beating a good class of greyhounds over the late Sir Wyndham Anstruther's fine coursing ground in Lanarkshire. Mr. D. Beaton, during his short association with the sport, has run some smart dogs, the most noteworthy being Biddick Ferry, Barrington Ferry, and Broughty Ferry. Others bred in the county that have gained more or less distinction are Night Hawk (1900), Sir Christopher (1901) who won or divided three stakes within a week, Wear Valley (late Sammy ' An incident of a similar kind occurred many years ago at Southport in which Mr. Hedley was also concerned. A greyhound belonging to Sir Thomas Brocklebank was running against a dog called Sir James, the latter getting the verdict to the amaze- ment of the crowd. So decisively did Sir Thomas's dog appear to win, and so hostile was the demonstra- tion against the judge that the baronet (who although he ran greyhounds in the Waterloo Cup for half a century, never achieved his great ambition of winning it), went across to Mr. Hedley and asked him to give a description of the course. It so happened that Mr. Harold Brocklebank, son of Sir Thomas, was at the foot of the ladder on which the judge was placed. When Sir Thomas questioned the decision Mr. Harold exclaimed with surprise, ' How could you ever imagine that our dog won, father ? He was never once next the hare ! ' The disclaimer of the son was quite sufficient for Sir Thomas, whose subsequent explanation to the crowd smoothed down the resent- ment against the judge. But this is one of the many instances that could be cited of how frequently a judge incurs hostility through a foul-running dog causing illusory angles. Moody) (1900) and Longdale' (1902), Mr. G. Wright's Winning Wargrave, Westwick (1904), Ryton Ferry ( 1 904), Hesledon, Houghton, Harton, and Horden (1903) bred by old George Gregson proved useful for the county. Durham also can lay claim to having sent out two recent Corrie Cup dividers in Bewcastle and Newcastleton. Mr. J. J. Bell-Irving, their part owner, resides at Rokeby Park, Barnard Castle, where he has promoted meetings during his tenancy of the estate. It would be ungallant to omit Miss Maud May of Simonsidc Hall, South Shields, from the list of county coursers. This plucky sports- woman, besides upholding a good breed of Borzois and other show dogs, has raised a promising kennel of greyhounds, of which the most successful has been Millions of Money by Fabulous Fortune — Allan Water (1S99), a win- ner of several good stakes. Another of her best is March Mists. On the borders of the county Messrs. P. and J. Mason of Middlesbrough may also be honourably mentioned as good coursers. Market Day by Wet Day — Mary Landale, who represented them in the Waterloo Cup of 1904, has won several stakes in good company and proved himself a stout-hearted, clever greyhound. Farther back into the 'eighties' of the last century we can recall a sterling greyhound in Mr. Morgan Robinson's, of Sacriston, Free Flag, which ran well in the Waterloo Cup, but was unluckily defeated in a wretched trial by Mr. Vyner's slow but clever Vindictive. Free Flag afterwards showed his true quality by winning the Netherby Cup in the most brilliant fashion. For nearly the third of a century Mr. E. J. Wardle had a small kennel at Craghead near Chester le Street. The first good dog that he owned was Sterling Wine, a winner at West Rainton in the early 'eighties.' Some few years afterwards his smart little bitch Xebee (late What is It) more than paid her way, one of her most remarkable performances being at Raby. During her progress through the stake long odds were laid against her. She had been run to a standstill in the semi-final, and as a consequence odds of 10 to I were laid on her opponent for the final. She, however, upset the odds in the most brilliant fashion, proving herself one of the gamest bitches ever seen in the county of Durham. Xantippe also got to the end of the stake for Mr. Wardle, who of late seasons has not been rewarded with the good fortune he deserves. The late Mr. Robert Widowfield of Pelton coursed from boyhood. His dog Durham won the Newmarket Champion Puppy Stakes and in later years Nine for Nothing won him ' This dog unfortunately broke its leg at the outset of what promised to be a brilliant career. His owner, Mr. T. Stobbs of Consett, had the leg amputated, since when the dog has done good service at the stud. 407 A HISTORY OF DURHAM a few stakes. Another Palatinate courser is Mr. Stark of Croxdale, from whose kennel several useful dogs have been sent out during the last twenty-five years. After having practically retired for some twenty years, Mr. George Gregson of Warden Law bred from Chillingham Rose. The litter from her by Our Randy included Houghton, Harton, Horden, and Hesledon, all of which have been successful at various small meetings held in the county. Bonnie Pit Laddie, a good runner, was also bred by Mr. Gregson and sold to Captain R. Scott of Alnwick. Since the sport has been established on a firm basis, officiating judges at the meetings in the district, in addition to the late Mr. James Hedley, have been Messrs. Thomas Heads, B, Golds- borough, James Dodd, Hector Clark, Robert Huntley, and on a few occasions Mr. J. Cutter. Among the officiating slippers the name of the late Tom Raper, the famous Waterloo slipper, stands out in great prominence. Although not a Durham man by birth, Raper followed his profession with unequalled ability in this county for many seasons. Later slippers were George Gowland, now retired, and the present Tom Sutton. At the long defunct Darlington Club, the slipping was for many seasons in the hands of that grand all-round sportsman Mr. Thomas Watson, who when he went out with his wonderful pack of harriers often ran 50 miles a day. Darlington was once a stronghold of the sport ; but whereas dozens of greyhounds were kept in the district some thirty years ago when Mr. Tom Watson was the leading spirit there are but few to call upon at the present day. For a long period of years the veteran Mr. George Buckle of Etherley has been a good supporter of the sport, the best of his greyhounds being perhaps Schoolgirl II and the useful Giddy Girl II, both winners of minor events in the county. Within the last three decades the names of Mr. G. F. Fawcett and the late Mr. C. J. Fawcett are writ large in the history of Coursing. Up to the time of Mr. C. J. Fawcett's death in 1906 the brothers ran most of their greyhounds as partners, but since the latter passed away Mr. G. F. Fawcett on his own behalf has maintained the largest kennel ever owned by an individual courser. The county is proud to claim these honoured descendants of an ancient Durham family as supporters of coursing. For a few years they bred and reared extensively on their estate at Lanchester, and for several seasons the worst of ill-fortune attended their early efforts to send out winners. Their names were synony- mous with failure for a weary period. Men of less grit would have been tempted to retire from the fray. It was not until the kennel was removed from Lanchester to Saughall in Cheshire that the horizon brightened and that success at last rewarded their perseverance and indifference to defeat. Henceforth the story of the Fawcett kennel belongs rather to Cheshire than to our own county. We cannot here make more than bare mention of the names of the famous blue bitch Faster and Faster, runner up for the Waterloo Cup in Fullerton's third year, 1891 ; of Fabu- lous Fortune, the Waterloo winner in 1896 ; of the magnificent Fearless Footstep, winner of the Waterloo cups in 1900 and 1901 ; of Farn- don Ferry, which won the cup in 1902 ; and of the great Father Flint, the winner in 1903. But in the doings of these greyhounds, and of others almost as famous, that have been bred and trained in the breezy Bewcastle moors, Durham sports- men may well take a legitimate pride. < The county of Durham is further indirectly associated with Waterloo honours, as Mr. Thomas Holmes of Jarrow-on-Tyne owned Gallant by Young Fullerton — Sally Milburn the winner of 1897. Gallant's victory was never anticipated by the public at large, though to his owner and to his breeder and trainer, the late Mr. Thomas Graham of Stonerigg, the dog was much ' ex- pected ' after his home trial with Under the Globe. They won a nice stake over Young Fullerton's son, ^17,000 being netted, it is said, and that invested at the remunerative odds of 50 to I, a price which was obtainable through the dog having been beaten hollow the preceding October in a minor stake at the Border Union Meeting. Mr. Holmes has not only gained renown on the coursing field but also on the turf, having owned such good winners as Harriet Laws, Lawminster, Lauriscope and others during a long lifetime. Mr. J. E. Neale of Durham has been a liberal supporter of the sport ; but as yet has hardly got his due meed of success. His best greyhound, no doubt, was North Road (late Langton II) which he bought of Mr. Allgood, of Titlington, Alnwick, for ;^30. This dog did a great per- formance at Ripon meeting when he won the 32 for all ages. In his way to the end of the stake he dismissed representations of the formid- able kennels upheld by Messrs. Fawcett, Colonel North, Mr. Pilkington, and Mr. Allgood, his original owner. For many seasons old Mr. Kent promoted meetings at Aycliffe. He was wont to drive the hares from two plantations into a field, the plantations and running field being wired in so as to prevent game escaping. It is asserted that he had one hare only for one of his meetings which lasted two days, the result being one decided course only. The old fellow had an eye for 'Number One,' for he provided a liquor booth on the field which went by the name of 'Jumbo.' After each course he reminded his patrons of its existence and, ' Noo, we' gang and see Jumbo agyen,' was his appeal between almost every trial. Out in the west part of the county small 408 SPORT ANCIENT AND MODERN meetings used to be held at Iveston, Laiichester, Stanley, Greencroft, Tow Law (Inkerman), and Cornsay for many years, but owing to the effect of legislation, hares became scarce and the pleasant little gatherings dropped out of the calendar. The sport was conducted on very primitive lines ; and according to the testimony of the still surviving Mr. George Elliott of Seaton Moor, these meetings were very small affairs. The farmers used to get some six or seven dogs together and run them for small stakes. They thought it a very good day if they obtained half a dozen trials. The coursing dinner, too, before or after the running was then a great institution, the good fellowship which sport promotes keeping them in a state of joviality for days after. A figure at these meet- ings was John Havelock, who was head keeper to Mr. John Gregson for sixty years. The passing of the Hares and Rabbits Bill threatened for a time the extinction of coursing in the county. But a reaction has set in within the last two decades. Landlords find that the granting of the necessary permission to course over their acres suppresses poaching of game in a great measure, for the miners, who as a rule are fond of the greyhound, act as so many unpaid watchers in return for the privilege granted. The barbarous, cowardly and inhuman practice now so popular in mining districts of coursing rabbits in an inclosure with greyhounds has very materially affected the sport. Hundreds of greyhounds are now kept solely for this purpose. The patrons of this horrible libel upon sport find they can win more money with less outlay by rabbit coursing than they can at the more legitimate and more health-giving recreation in the open fields. SHOOTING Judged by the standard of modern require- ments, big bags, Durham, with the exception of its grouse moors, is not a good shooting county. Its natural disadvantages of a generally heavy soil, a cold climate, and a high-lying elevation are inevitably augmented by its mineral indus- try. It is scarcely exaggeration to declare that throughout its length and breadth there does not exist one of those dense warm hedgerows that form such admirable nesting and ' dusting ' places for the partridges of the southern counties ; its woods are largely composed of beech, a selfish tree which forbids undergrowth, and its teeming population is by no means the least factor in discouraging a large head of natural — as opposed to artificially produced — game. This is not so much due to poaching, for the Durham miners pay but scant attention to this branch of indus- try, as to their extraordinary predilection for trespass. The pitman has one attribute in com- mon with his homing-pigeon, that of making straight for the place where he would be, and as soon as he, in his own vernacular, 'comes to bank,' he makes a bee line for home, until un- interrupted user of this practice for generations has produced the most astonishing network of so-called ' rights of way ' all over the county. Game is thus not only constantly disturbed by pedestrians, but as most pitmen like to be accom- panied by a dog during their leisure rambles, the nests in the breeding season are perpetually harried by hunting curs. Other causes militate against the natural pro- duction of game in Durham. It is an admitted fact that game always flourishes best on large farms, and it is rare to find one of over 300 acres in the county, where, indeed, the majority of the holdings would probably average less than 2 409 half that size. Another potent factor for ill is the great increase of late years in the number of rooks, a matter which affects the farmers no less adversely than sportsmen. This is undoubtedly due to the fact that rook-shooting has become the fashion. Then, too, if preservation has in- creased, so too have shooters, with the result that all game, but especially partridges, is deci- mated to an extent that precludes reproduction. The chief glory of Durham, as far as shooting is concerned, must, however, be attributed to its grouse moors.^ At the present day a line drawn from Eggleston on the south to Edmond- byers on the north would define the grouse- producing zone of Durham with tolerable accu- racy. There are, of course, neither ptarmigan nor capercailzie ' in the county ; and black game are only found in very limited quanti- ties on the fringe of the moors, though until quite recently they were occasionally shot on Brandon Hill, within four miles of the city or Durham.' It is only within the last thirty or forty years that the Durham moors have achieved their true standard of excellence, and the reason may be summed up in the one word — ' driving.' Up to 1870 all grouse were shot over dogs, and grand sport as this is, the sportsman who would make a bag on an English moor by these means must ' In 1668 ' Spenny Moor and the adjoining moor of Byers Green were open commons, and covered with heather' ; Richley, Hist, of Bishop Auckland. ^ Bones of the capercailzie have been found in the Teesdale ' cave,' so it must have once been indigenous to the county. ' The last — a grey hen, sad to relate— was shot during the season of 1902-3 in the 'Middles' near Brancepeth Castle. 52 A HISTORY OF DURHAM combine a philosophical temperament with re- markable pedestrian powers. At the present time a day's driving will probably yield a bag five or even ten times as large as that which was formerly obtained on many of the Durham grouse moors over dogs, and this is especially the case on the famous Raby moors in Teesdale. It is to be regretted that the practice of keeping game-books or shooting diaries did not commend itself to the sportsman of a past generation. Fortunately, however, Henry, Duke of Cleveland, was an exception, and through the kindness of Lord Barnard we have been enabled to see those of his game-books which are still at Raby. The oldest of the duke's game-books is for the year 1 846, where in ' Teesdale ' {sic) the day's bag on 12 August was 75 brace of grouse, the number of guns not being stated. The total bag for the same season on the Raby estates was 2,058 head, made up of 557 grouse, 373 par- tridges, 263 pheasants, 19 woodcocks, 693 hares — of these 1 14 were killed in a single day — and 153 rabbits.* The year 1849 must have been a famous one for grouse, as between 14 and 24 August, five guns, muzzle-loaders be it remembered, killed 1,073 grouse over dogs in Teesdale, an average of almost exactly 60 brace a day — a remarkably good performance. The duke gives the indi- vidual scores of each gun on the 14th — himself 21 brace, Sir J. Trollope 20 brace, Lord Seaham 14 brace, Lord Hinton 12 brace, and Colonel Arden 4 brace. Another entry for the same year is ' Womergill {sic) 2 1 grouse,' but no further details are vouchsafed. In 1857 three guns — the duke, Mr. Cotes, and Sir J. Trollope — killed 97 grouse on Hinedon Edge ; while curiously enough the largest bag killed that year in Teesdale by the same guns only amounted to 52 brace. Hinedon, which may be described as the home moor at Raby, practically forms the south-eastern extremity of the Durham fells, and is a remarkably prolific shooting. It only extends to a little over 2,000 acres, of which a propor- tion is ' white ground ' and reclaimed grass land, yet in 1904 it yielded a bag of 740 grouse, the best day being 13 September, when seven guns killed 142!^ brace. The Raby moors in Teesdale are divided into eight distinct beats, known respectively as Middle End, Pike Law, Langdon, the Banns, Ashgillhead, the Weelside,Willyhole, and Widdy- bank, and of these the first two are incompara- bly the best. It is a regrettable fact that no records have been kept of the bags formerly made on these famous moors. The only authen- * In 1 906-7 the total bag on the Raby estates was 6,792 head — including a large proportion of rabbits — but this applies only to the comparatively small area retained by Lord Barnard for his own shooting, the whole of the Teesdale moors, and a great part of the low ground to the east and north of Raby, being let. ticated one that has been traced is on Langdon in 1872, when seven guns killed 987 brace in a single day's driving, and one of the party once informed us that the bag would have be^n con- siderably increased if the supply of cartridges had not run short early in the day. A thousand brace, more or less, are said to have been killed in recent years in one day on Middle End. Another excellent Teesdale moor, wedged as it were into the Raby estate, is Mr. Hutchinson's at Eggleston, and crossing the march into Wear- dale we come to what is probably the most attractive shooting in Durham, the Grove estate, belonging to Captain Surtees, where lovely scenery is combined with a first-rate grouse and covert shooting. The rabbit-shooting is also a great feature, and the theory that rabbits and black game will not exist in any numbers on the same ground is confuted here, the latter being remarkably plentiful for the county of Durham, where, as a general rule, they do not seem to thrive.' Beyond the Grove comes the vast stretch of moorland belonging to the Ecclesiasti- cal Commissioners that extends to the Northum- berland boundary. The Weardale moors are never rated quite so highly as those in Teesdale, but with one or two exceptions there is very little, if anything, to choose between them, and in a good season more than one Weardale shoot- ing will yield from four to five hundred brace in a day's driving. As is usual in all the northern counties a small proportion of grouse are killed on the Durham moors every season which are smaller and paler in colour than the ordinary birds. They are invariably dubbed ' furriners ' by the dalesmen, by whom they are held to come from Northumberland, just as in the latter county they are reputed to migrate from Scotland ! The reason for their slight but quite perceptible differ- ence in colouration — the writer has seen them almost golden in tint — has never been satisfac- torily explained, but the generally accepted and most natural theory is that they are birds of later broods whose plumage has not reached maturity of colour. It is impossible to say when grouse-driving was first introduced into Durham, nor by whom. Mr. Claud Hutchinson, of Eggleston, states that his grandfather not only introduced grouse- driving into Teesdale, but claimed to be the in- ventor of the practice as well. There is no doubt that grouse-driving in rudimental fashion was practised in Durham, as elsewhere, long be- fore it became a general custom. Mr. Fenwick, of Forester's Lodge, Wolsingham, maintains it was in vogue on Colonel Hildyard's Weardale moors over sixty years ago ; but the first person to introduce systematic driving into Teesdale seems to have been the late General Hall, of Black game are increasing in Teesdale. 410 SPORT ANCIENT AND MODERN Six Mile Bottom, who was lessee of the High Force moors during the sixties, from whence it gradually spread over the country. It may, however, be laid down that prior to 1865 nearly all grouse shot in Durham were killed over dogs.^ Durham is happily little afflicted with the curse of grouse netting, which has proved so disastrous in other parts of England. It is, how- ever, openly carried on in several instances in Upper Weardale. The practice dates from 1877.' Durham is not a good partridge country, grass land predominates over arable, and the latter is usually of a stiff clay inimical to a large natural head of wild game. Moreover, the natural dis- advantages enumerated above might be largely counterbalanced were driving more generally the custom ; but here again the broken and hilly character of the county intervenes, the whole of the north and west of it being practically a network of 'denes' and 'ghylls,' which render the handling of driven birds almost an impossi- bility. Still there are certain districts where the stock of partridges could be enormously in- creased by systematic driving, notably the great level stretch of the Raby estate which extends for nearly nine miles from Piercebridge up to Staindrop. As a proof of what can be done in this respect we may instance the success achieved by Major Trotter, of Langton, on a not very large extent of ground, about 2,000 acres, near Bolam. Up to five years ago the largest bag to four guns walking up the birds was nine brace. In 1906, not a particularly good partridge season, seven guns killed 106 brace in a single day's driving in October. This is sufficient proof of what driving can do on land by no means natur- ally adapted to a large stock of partridges.* Probably the best partridge-shooting in Dur- ham is on Sir William Eden's estate of Windle- stone. Here in 1905, four guns — Lords Lon- donderry and Grimthorpe, Mr. Sutton Nelthorpe, and Sir William Eden — killed 138 brace of partridges walking in line. This may fairly be taken as the record for partridge-shooting in Durham, as although a considerably larger bag was made this year at Wynyard, a certain proportion of it consisted of hand-reared birds. Other good partridge-ground in the county is found on Lord Boyne's estate, at Brancepeth ; on * According to the volume on Shooting of the Bad- minton Library, G. Sykes, the head keeper at Rhys- worth, is considered to have been one of the pioneers of grouse-driving, and he was imported into Tees- dale to lay out the High Force moors for driving, but the date of his doing so is not given. ' Mr. Joseph Peart of Rigg Foot, to whom we are indebted for this information respecting grouse-netting, adds that black game have never been so plentiful in Weardale. ' Major Trotter informs us that for the last two years he has supplemented driving by the practice of the ' Euston ' system. Foxes are remarkably plentiful on this ground. Mr. Shafto's at Witton, and Mr. Bewicke's at Urpeth. But there is no doubt that the stock of partridges is not only much larger than was the case thirty years ago, but that it is still increasing, owing to more careful preservation, and especially to the constant introduction of fresh blood. Pheasant-shooting, or to give it its present appellation, covert-shooting,' has in Durham, as elsewhere, become a practically artificial sport — the era has long passed away when a warm October sun, a hedgerow, and an industrious spaniel formed the desiderata for a day's pheasant- shooting. Durham is not naturally adapted to the pro- duction of a large head of game, even when hand-reared, and except at Lambton and Wyn- yard very heavy bags of pheasants are the ex- ception rather than the rule.^** In one respect, however, it possesses a most important ad- junct to good covert-shooting. Its broken and hilly character affords to those keepers who understand their business admirable opportunity for ' showing ' their birds properly. Artificially reared wild duck, which in some parts of England bid fair to supersede pheasants, are practically disregarded in Durham. With regard to ground game the days have long passed, owing to legislation, when hares proved an important accessory to a day's shoot- ing in almost any part of Durham. Indeed, in some parts of the county they are almost extinct. However, where coursing is permitted, hares are still remarkably plentiful, it being a point of honour with the pitmen, who are great sup- porters of ' the leash,' not to disturb them. In proof of this may be cited the bag of 1,334 hares made at Windlestone in 1904. It is, however, the tenant-farmer and not the poacher who has been responsible for the diminution in the stock of hares, and especially in those in- stances, so common in Durham, when the shoot- ing over small, or outlying, properties is let to a game tenant. In the writer's experience farmers will always try to preserve game for a con- siderate landlord, but the feudal spirit rarely extends itself to a shooting-tenant, no matter how open-handed or well-meaning he may be. Rabbits still hold their own, though now, not only tenants, but in some instances landlords also, are seeking to exterminate them. Lord Boyne at Brancepeth, and Lord Barnard at Raby, have both declared war on the coney, and other proprietors in the country are following their example. It is, however, the smaller class of farmers who are most bitter against rabbits ; tenants of larger holdings, who have sufficient leisure to kill them down themselves, or who are ' This has happily displaced the odious term ' battue.' '" In 1858, 128 pheasants were killed in one day in Ladywood at Raby. This is the first ' century ' that we can trace. 411 A HISTORY OF DURHAM able to employ professional rabbit catchers to do so, are by no means averse to a certain stock of rabbits on their farms, as they have a definite and practically unfailing market value. A few years ago a friend of the writer's, renting a shoot- ing in West Durham, offered to compensate the farm-tenants for crop damage by rabbits, if they would not avail themselves of the Ground Game Act. Only one man among them, the largest tenant on the property, refused, who sub- sequently admitted having trapped some 2,000 rabbits. As his farm was largely a grass one, and his rent only {jZ20 per annum, his venture must have been tolerably profitable. With the exception of Wynyard, where enormous bags of rabbits are made, the preservation of them for sporting purposes is not a great feature in Durham. Despite its large extent of sea-board, wild- fowling in Durham is practically a dead letter. The coast line, save in the estuary of the Tees, offers none of those mud-flats which are the chief attraction to sea-fowl ; and with the growth of the ports of Stockton and Middlesbrough, this has lost its former reputation for wild-fowl- ing, though a shore-shooter who is content with a moderate bag may still find amusement here. Nor does the county inland afford any better sport, owing to its dense population, the rapid course of its rivers, and the absence of suitable marshes or sheets of water, though before it was drained, Morden Carrs is reputed to have rivalled an east-country fen. Of course a certain num- ber of wild fowl are none the less killed inland every year ; and the writer himself has, at various times, either shot, or shot at, the commoner varieties — teal, wigcon, scoters, and especially wild duck, in different parts of the county. The latter species is the one most generally met, and we could point out an estate within three miles of the cathedral city, where upwards of a hun- dred wild duck have been seen during an after- noon's stroll in hard weather. The writer has been frequently asked whether poaching be not rampant in Durham — a question to which he is no less happily than truthfully enabled to reply in the negative. As a general body pitmen are not poachers. Whatever the fictitious joys of poaching, it offers but little at- traction to a hard-working man whose high wages enable him to indulge in horse-racing, dog-racing, rabbit-coursing, pigeon-flying, ball-playing, ' ex- cursions, ' and a score of other diversions, far more to his taste than crawling about in a damp wood, with the chance of a broken head, and a visit to petty sessions — nay, perhaps to ' Dorm ' '' itself, as the sequel. A keeper's office is no more a sinecure in Durham than elsewhere, but in proportion to the population, the number of systematic poachers is very small. What poaching there is, is almost entirely confined to rabbits, which find a ready market dead or alive, and especially for that brutal thing — we know not what name to give to it, it is not sport — rabbit-coursing. The advent of the hand-reared pheasant has, however, created a new and rather deadly method of poaching with the catapult. The poacher secretes himself in a quiet corner of a stubble-field near a covert, which he perhaps ground-baits with a few raisins, and bags his unsuspecting quarry as it feeds up to him at a few feet distance. There is no noise to scare the birds, or attract gamekeepers, and though it seems improbable that such a weapon as a catapult would kill so large a bird as a pheasant dead, a keeper once assured the writer that he tested one taken from a poacher on his own coalhouse door, and sent the bullets clean through it. It is noticeable that poaching becomes more prevalent in the west of the county, due perhaps to some inherent strain of the old forest-blood, and westward from the Aucklands is probably the worst district for it. Here have always occurred the bloodiest poaching affrays, the most famous of which is the ' Battle of Weardale,' which took place in 1 81 8. About this time poaching had become so rife in Weardale, but especially on the moors of the Bishop of Dur- ham, that the episcopal keepers were unable to cope with it, and it was therefore decided to reinforce them with posses of constables from Bishop Auckland and Darlington, and capture the ringleaders of the poachers by a coup de main. Accordingly the Auckland and Darlington con- tingents trysted at Wolsingham Bridge on Sun- day, 6 December, 181 8, and after a most adventurous night march across the fells, met the bishop's head-keeper, Rippon, at St. John's Chapel early on the following morning. Here they immediately effected the capture of two notorious poachers, Charles and Anthony Siddle, whom they found in bed, and after handcuffing and locking them up in the Black Bull Inn, started in quest of John Kidd, another poacher, who lived at East Dene Bridge. The mother of the Siddles was, however, by this time sum- moning the dale by blowing a horn,'^ and Kidd had escaped from his house before the keepers reached it, and as a matter of fact was waiting behind a hedge, gun in hand, intending to fire on them, only desisting from doing so on the repeated entreaty of a friend, who had hurried down from Chapel to warn him. The keepers then returned to Chapel, and placing their cap- tives in a cart, started for Durham with them, boasting before they left that they could ' sweep Weardale with a black pudding,' a curious threat " Durham gaol. The vernacular expression that a man has been ' in Dorm ' has only one meaning. '^ This exemplifies a curious survival of mediaeval custom. 412 SPORT ANCIENT AND MODERN that was fated to recoil on their own heads, and is still sung in Weardale. One verse will, The news of the capture quickly spread in the neighbourliood, and ere long six of the stoutest- hearted of the local ' free-shooters,' armed with loaded guns, started in pursuit of the keepers, swearing they would release the prisoners or die in the attempt. As they hurried down the vale accompanied by a mob of sympathizers, which vires acquhivit eundo, they fell in with a travel- ling tinker at Park House, whom they pressed into their service and took with them as far as Stanhope. On arriving here they found the bishop's officers had halted at the Black Bull — now the Phoenix — Inn for breakfast, and rushing into the house, a most bloody affray ensued, which ended in a complete victory for the poachers. Such of the constables as showed fight suffered unmerci- fully, two of them so badly that their lives were subsequently despaired of, one had his eye knocked out, another his arm broken, and all were more or less severely wounded. The floor of the ale-house swam in blood, which one of the poachers bade the landlady mix with meal to make the black pudding of which the keepers had boasted at St. John's Chapel. Such of the bishop's unfortunate men as were capable of flight sought refuge in neighbouring houses, and only two of their number escaped injury, having concealed themselves, the one under a joiner's bench, and the other in the copper of the inn brewhouse,^^ as soon as the fight began. The released poachers were then marched in triumph to Stanhope market-place, where the impressed tinker was made to remove their hand- cuffs. The extraordinary part of the whole affair, as seen through modern spectacles, is that, despite the stir the affray naturally caused in the county, no punishment appears to have overtaken the offenders. A special meeting of the County Magistrates was indeed summoned to consider the matter at Quarter Sessions, with the result that the rectors of Stanhope and Wolsingham were elevated to the bench ; but beyond this their worships appear to have taken no steps to vindicate the law.'* ' Parturiunt montes, nascitur ridiculus mus ! ' However, as was usual in those days, the ' Battle ' afforded rich material for the local poet,'* who produced a ballad, ' The Bonny Moor Hen,' of nineteen verses, dealing with it, which achieved enormous popularity at the time, " A man of mettle jumped into a kettle, At the battle of Stanhope in Weardale. — Old Darlington Ballad. " We have searched the files of The Durham County Advert'uer of this year (1818) in vain for any mention of this meeting. '^ This gentleman is believed to have been one Thomas Coulson, the schoolmaster of Eastgate, de- scribed as a ' fair local poet and a contributor to the Ladies^ Diary.' however, probably satisfy the reader : Ye brave lads of Weardale, I pray lend an ear, The account of a battle ye quickly shall hear, That was fought by the miners so well you may ken, By claiming a right to the bonny moor hen.'" Poaching continued to be rife in West Dur- ham until the formation of the new police force, and sixty years ago was practised to a degree, and in a manner scarcely conceivable at the present day. Gangs of men with blackened faces ravaged the country in open defiance of the law, and matters finally culminated in 1848 in the murder at Trundlemire Wood,'' on the Raby estate, by a gang of armed poachers, of John Shirley, the first whipper-in to the Duke of Cleveland's hounds. Three of his assailants were arrested, two of whom, named Dowson and Thompson, were subsequently sentenced to death. The former was, however, respited and transported for life, but Thompson was hanged in public at Durham, 26 March, 1848.'^ This vindication of the law was not without its proper salutary effect, and though poaching was of course not stamped out, it was practised in a less notorious fashion. It, however, broke out again in much the same form some years later in Teesdale, and about 1863 an affray took place on Middle End Fell, where two masked men were surprised poaching by three keepers under the command of the Duke of Cleveland's agent, the late Mr. Scarth of Staindrop. When the poachers found flight was useless, they stood back to back, and on the approach of the party, shot two of the keepers — one of them" so severely that his life was despaired of — and then escaped under cover of a dense fog. A man from Mid- dleton in Teesdale, who was believed to be the culprit, was arrested the same evening, and tried at the following assizes at Durham, but the evidence against him was not held conclusive, and he was acquitted. Here again, however, good resulted from evil, and at the present day Upper Teesdale is probably as free from poaching as any part of Durham. '* We are indebted for the above information to a pamphlet entitled The Bonny Moor Hen, written and published by Mr. W. M. Egglestone of Stanhope. " We believe another of the Raby keepers was shot in the same wood, but in this case his presumed assailant was acquitted at the assizes. " Extraordinary precautions were taken to preserve the peace on this occasion, a troop of cavalry and a large body of police being drafted into the town. It is estimated that 10,000 people witnessed the execution, many of whom had tramped all night to Durham from every part of the county. " This man, Bcadel by name, was subsequently promoted to be head keeper on the Teesdale estate, but never really recovered from the effects of his wound. 413 A HISTORY OF DURHAM One last instance may be quoted as showing that the murderous instinct in the poaching fraternity still smoulders in the county. It is only eight years since Mr. Stobart of Witton Tower was deliberately shot, and left for dead, by a young man whom he found poaching in one of the coverts on the estate. In this case also, the person charged with the crime was tried and adjudged innocent by twelve of his fellow-countrymen, and it is therefore perhaps better to make no further reference to the matter. ANGLING Of angling in the county of Durham one is fain to cry Ichabod. In common with all the northern counties, with their hilly configuration, it is admirably adapted by nature for the con- templative man's recreation ; it is bounded on the north and south by two important and prolific salmon rivers, a third — though alas ! a salmon river only in name — almost bisects it, and innumerable tributaries of these streams have their course down every valley. But the destroying hand of man has poisoned most of the river system of the county to an extent that is hardly credible ; and while it may justly be urged that the great industrial interests of the shire should not be subordinated to sentimental or sporting considerations, it is undoubtedly the case that much of this pollution is preventible, and should be prevented, if only those in autho- rity would exercise the powers that the legisla- ture has given them. Nor, if its economic side be taken into consideration, is the matter purely one of sentiment, a point which was once so admirably put by Charles Kingsley, that I cannot forbear quoting his words : — Of all Heaven's gifts of food, the one to be protected most carefully is that worthy gentleman salmon, who is generous enough to go down to the sea weighing five ounces, and come back next year weighing five pounds, without having cost the soil, or the State, one farthing.' It is pitiable to see a river like the Wear, once famous for salmon, now only used of migratory fish by worthless bull-trout, and though we can never hope to see ' fresh-run fish as plentiful under Durham towers as in Holly Hole at Christchurch,' ^ something could surely be done to attract the king of fresh-water fishes back to its old haunts. It may be safely affirmed that, from Bishop Auckland to Sunderland, there is not a single influent of the Wear which is not contaminated with noxious matter of some description ; and the sight, and smell, of such once charming trout-streams as the Cong Burn at Chester le Street, which now rolls a turbid gamboge-coloured flood ; of the Merring- ton Beck at Spennymoor, which can be dis- covered by the nose before it is apparent to the eye ; of the Gaunless, the Browney, and a score of other once pure brooks, is an object lesson in twentieth-century industrial civilization. Yet, even now, many of the less polluted of these ' The Water Babies. ' Ibid. 4 streams contain trout, and given a fair chance of rehabilitating itself, the Wear might yet again become what it once was, a fair salmon river, and a first-class trout stream. As is the case with all rivers having lofty water- sheds and comparatively short courses, the intro- duction of land drainage during the past century has done much to alter the character of Durham streams. Formerly a heavy fall of snow or rain was gradually filtered into the main artery or river by means of its tributaries, taking days to get into it, and equally long to get out, keeping up a steady supply of fish food during the time, and maintaining the water at fishing size for long periods. Now the rainfall is at once caught up by the open ' grips ' of the moorlands and the pipe-drainage of the agricultural lands, and promptly carried out to sea in one raging flood, after which in a dry season the river subsides into a mere succession of stagnant pools con- nected by trickling streams, its bottom becomes foul with green weed, and the fish grow languid, and even diseased, for want of proper aeration of the element in which they live.' It has always been a moot point with the writer whether these altered conditions have not largely conduced to confine the main run of the migratory salmonidae to the autumn, when a fairly constant supply of fresh water is usually forthcoming.* The Tees, which forms the boundary between Durham and the neighbouring counties of York and Westmorland, is undoubtedly the most im- portant of our rivers. The Tees rises on Cross Fell in Cumberland, and for the first few miles of its course is a mere moorland beck, until it widens out into the great pool or ' dub ' locally known as the Weel. ' During the dry summers of 1904-5 there were many places on the Upper Wear, where an active man could have pici^ed his way across the river, dryshod. * There is abundant evidence that in the eigh- teenth century salmon used to be taken in great quantities in the East Coast rivers during the spring and summer months. On 15 July, 1771, upwards of 4,000 salmon were exposed for sale in New- castle fish-market, which sold for about l^i/. per pound. One hundred and seven salmon were caught that morning at one fishery above Tyne Bridge ; Richardson, Local Historian's Table Book. The Tyne is still a fairly prolific salmon river ; but ' quantum mutatus ab illo.' 14 SPORT ANCIENT AND MODERN This, which resembles a narrow lake, is re- puted to contain very heavy trout. It requires a strong breeze to fish it properly, though it must be admitted that this is a requisite rarely lacking in Upper Teesdale. After leaving the Weel, the Tees re-assumes the character of a mountain torrent, and within a distance of a few miles forms the cataracts of Cauldron Snout and High Force, the latter being the highest point to which salmon can ascend the river. Below the High Force the Tees cannot truthfully be styled an angler's paradise, though the salmon-fishing lias improved very much lately, and shows signs of still further amelioration. The trouting in the Tees is not very good, or perhaps it would be more correct to say that the trout of the river are of poor quality, usually small in size, ill-fed, and white-fleshed, though game as all fish of mountain-fed streams invariably are. The poverty of the Tees trout has been usually attributed to the 'hush' from the lead- mines in Upper Teesdale,' though as the latter are fast becoming exhausted, this complaint will remedy itself. But the hard, rocky bed of the river is probably equally at fault, as being de- ficient in fish food. The best trouting tributaries of the Tees are on the Yorkshire side of the river ; but mention must be made of the charm- ing little Langley Beck, which trips through Langleydale and Raby Park to 'join the statelier Tees ' above Gainford, and holds good store of well-fed fish. Near Darlington the angling is preserved by a local angling association, which does good service in protecting the fish, and introducing fresh trout. The salmon fisheries of the Tees have of late years been much improved, as is shown by the greater, and increasing, quantities of fish which ascend the river, not only at a much earlier date than formerly, but at every possible opportunity during the year. This is un- doubtedly due to the demolition of Dinsdale Dam, a wall of solid masonry which formerly stood nearly seven feet above the summer level of the pool below, and extended in a curve right across the river for nearly seventy yards. The question of its removal had long been mooted, but 'vested interests' proved insuperable until 1893, when the Tees Fishery Board, recognizing the necessity for its demolition, applied for and obtained a provisional order authorizing them to do so, an exhaustive inquiry having previously been held at Darlington by Mr. C. E. Fryer, the Chief Inspector of Fisheries. On his report to the Board of Trade the Provisional Order was ' I remember once fishing the Tees at Snow Hall on a Monday, when the river was comparatively pure, owing to no lead-washing taking place on the preceding Saturday and Sunday. I killed a nice dish of trout in the morning, but about mid-day, when the first hush began to arrive from the upper reaches, the fish stopped rising at once. obtained, and a Bill at once introduced to con- firm it, but this was naturally opposed by the owners of the dam. Negotiations were then entered into between these gentlemen and the late Mr. James Lowther of Wilton Castle, the then chairman of the board, with the result that the former finally accepted a sum of ^^3, 500 in full compensation of all claims, and the dam was demolished from buttress to buttress. The results achieved by this have been entirely satis- factory. Salmon, which formerly could only pass the dam in times of heavy flood, now have an uninterrupted run from the tide-way to the spawning-beds, and the spring and summer runs of fish have increased to a remarkable degree. Still, the Tees is mainly an autumn river, at which season great numbers of migratory salmonidae ascend it, and it is scarcely exaggera- tion to say that in a wet year some of its tribu- taries are almost paved with spawning fish, of which, however, a large proportion is bull-trout. As a general rule the Tees salmon do not run heavy. The record fish — killed on the fly — is believed to be one of 32 lb. taken in 1905 near Darlington, and the best bag in a single day since the demolition of Dinsdale Dam is one of nine fish, weighing 57 lb., taken on Lord Barnard's water on 12 September, 1903, by Mr. George Trotter, of Staindrop. Below Dinsdale the Tees is perhaps more of a salmon than a trout stream, and coarse fish are found in considerable abundance as far as the tidal water. The Wear, which is the chief river whose whole course is entirely in Durham, rises in Hillhope Law, within a few miles of the sources of the Tees and Tyne. The trout of its upper waters are small and not very plentiful until it reaches Stanhope. From this point the Wear was designed by nature for a first-class trout- stream ; it has deep, shady pools, and swift, gravelly streams, and flows through a fertile country that should provide an ample supply of fish food, and from contemporary accounts appears formerly to have been an excellent river for angling. But now this is all changed, and this beautiful river has become the common sewer of the district it drains. None the less, from Bishop Auckland, where the worst pollu- tion begins, down to Chester le Street, where it loses its character of a trout-stream, it still con- tains a fair number of lusty fish, while in a wet autumn bull-trout ascend it in great numbers. Even an occasional small salmon or grilse is netted in the lower reaches. Yet pollution is not the only factor that has tended to the depre- ciation of the angling capabilities of the Wear. If the fishing rights were carefully preserved, and some restriction placed on the number of anglers and the methods they employ, the river might recover itself to some extent ; but from source to mouth the riparian owners, almost 415 A HISTORY OF DURHAM without exception, appear to have come to the conclusion that it is past redemption, and either made their rights over to angling associations, or practically surrendered them to the public. How far the interests of the few should override the pleasure of the many is a question that does not come within the province of this article, but there is no doubt that at present the river is fished to death with fly, and bait of every description from worm to salmon-roe. We could point to many beautiful stretches of the Wear — beautiful to the artist's no less than the angler's eye — where careful preservation and restriction of the number of rods would go far to restore its trouting capa- bilities ; but this could only be effected by a com- bination on the part of the riparian owners. Nor, perhaps, would such action be held to be specially desirable from a social standpoint, in view of the gratification that the less wealthy portion of the community derives from practically unrestricted angling. Praiseworthy as the efforts of the various angling associations are as regards pre- servation and restocking, they naturally look to the numbers of their members as the means for effecting these, and thus the remedies do little to counterbalance the evils. Nor are the tributaries of the Wear in any better plight. Nearly every one of them is ruined by pollution. Exception must, however, be made of the charming and and carefully preserved little Bedburn, which joins the main stream opposite the village of Witton le Wear. Byt below this, every other tributary of the Wear is merely an increased source of pollution, while two of them — the Gaunless, which unites with it at Bishop Auck- land, and the Browney, which does so at Sunderland Bridge — are of suiKcient volume to merit the name of trout streams in themselves. It is only of comparatively recent years that the latter has become polluted to its present extent ; the writer can remember fishing it twenty-five years ago at Lanchester, when it was perfectly pure, and literally teeming with trout. This was a striking proof of what could be done by a determined riparian owner ; the then owner of the Ford estate near Lanchester, the late Mr. Kearney, though not a fisherman h ms;lf, steadfastly refusing to allow the stream to be used as a conduit for colliery effluents. The Wear still nominally ranks as a salmon river, but it is difficult to fix even the approxi- mate date when it actually ceased to deserve that title. That its fisheries were once of con- siderable value is shown by the carefully kept accounts of the monks of Finchale;* but the ° The prior of Finchale derived great profit from his fishery of salmon. In 1 53 1 he sold not fewer than 51J dozen of salt salmon to the bursar of Dur- ham at 6s. per dozen. Fresh salmon were sold at a higher rate. From I March, 1532, to 13 April following, 173 salmon were cooked in the kitchen at Durham. In January a ' seamyn,' or load, of fresh river appears to have gradually lost its character, no doubt with increasing pollution through successive centuries, while the owners of dams on the lower waters appear to have had extremely selfish ideas as to what proportion of fish should pass on to benefit their neighbours of the higher reaches. One of the worst salmon obstructions was the dam at Chester le Street, and the writer was once told by the late Colonel Johnson, ot the Deanery, that the fishery below this was of considerable value in the early part of the last century. None the less, the Wear does not give the impression that it can ever have been a first- class salmon river ; it is too small, and in a drought quickly runs out of order, and for this reason the pollution becomes intensified tenfold. It is possible that if the latter objection could be abolished, or at least mitigated, salmon would again ascend the river in fair numbers, despite its comparatively small volume.' Of other Durham rivers, only one, the Der- went, which divides the county from Northum- berland, needs mention. Here again, we have the spectacle of a lovely stream ruined by pollu- tion, though above Consett it is not yet past redemption, and the local angling association has done much for its betterment. Given proper care, and a fair chance of recovery, the Derwent might easily become the best trout-stream in Durham. Before finally quitting the subject of Durham angling, it may be interesting to recall the fact that one of the best salmon flies in existence — the Wilkinson — and in the writer's opinion the very best trout-fly, the Greenwell's Glory, were invented by residents of Durham. The former was the creation of the late Mr. Percival Wilkin- son, of Mount Oswald, and the latter of Canon Greenwell, no less renowned as an angler than an archaeologist, and its history may fittingly be given here. The actual insect of which it is the imitation was first noticed by Canon Greenwell when fishing the Tweed more than fifty years ago, and a pattern of it was dressed according to his directions* the same evening by James Wright, salmon cost 9/. The price of a single fish varied during the season from is. zd. to dd. (Surtees Soc. vol. ii, 1837). All these salmon, however, were not taken in the Wear, many of them being brought from the prior's fisheries on the Tyne. Trout, too, had a marketable value, as shown by the following entry in the priory accounts for 1361' : ' Et de ii*' v""' ob receptis de troudes venJitis per tempus compoti.' Comfotus, the yearly reckoning or account of the priory (ibid.). ' Of late years salmon have taken to re-ascending the Northumbrian Coquet, which is a smaller stream than the Wear. Of course there is no pollu- tion here. * The proper dressing of the fly is — wing of the inside of a blackbird's feather, coch-a-bonddhu hackle, and pale yellow or tinsel body. The present Wright of Sprouston ties them better than any other tackle- maker of our experience. 416 SPORT ANCIENT AND MODERN the tackle-maker of Sprouston, with the result that on the following day it provided the canon with one of the best day's trout-fishing he ever enjoyed, filling not only a most capacious creel, but his pockets to repletion. In those days a sort of informal club or Tahaks-Parlement of the notables of Sprouston used to meet every night at Wright's shop, and on the occasion in question the chief topic of conversation was of course Canon Greenwell's great catch. To mark so auspicious a day the canon had presented the assembly with a bottle of whisky, and in acknow- ledging his generosity, a hope was expressed that he would step down and name the new fly. This he kindly did, but pointed out on arrival that he could not be at once parent and sponsor, a piece of 'epeescopal' reasoning that only the schoolmaster was capable of appreciating. He however, rose to the occasion, and bidding the company charge their glasses, asked them to drink success to ' Greenwell's Glory,' by which name the fly has ever since been known. HORSE-RACING It is certainly curious that so little attention appears to have been paid to systematic racing in a county tiiat has always been devoted to sport, and where certain districts have for centuries been noted horse-breeding centres. But legitimate race meetings have always been scarce, and no flat-race meetings under Jockey Club rules have existed in the county since the abolition of Durham races in 1887. Whether this be a subject for congratulation or not must be left to the reader's opinion, but it is certainly remark- able in view of the pitman's love for horse-racing and betting. How far this may have been due in the past to ecclesiastical influence is largely a matter of conjecture, but that the Bishop of Durham was a power to be reckoned with as late as the end of the seventeenth century is shown by the following extract by Surtees : — January, 1 690. At the Quarter Sessions at Durham the justices resolved to give their wages ' towards pro- curing a plate or plates to be run for on Durham moor, and Mr. Mayor, Chairman of the Quarter Sessions was desired to communicate the same resolution to the Bishop of Durham. Signed by Geo. Morland, and 9 others. Unfortunately the historian omits to give the bishop's reply. Nor is the above the earliest record of public races in the county, for which we are again indebted to Surtees : — 161 3. Thomas Robson and John Bainbigge, Gents, bound themselves (to Sir George Selby and Sir Charles Wren) in a recognizance of a hundred marks to provide a piece of gold and silver plate in the form of a bowl or cup to be run for yearly at the nozv usual weighing place on Woodham Moor on Tuesday before Palm Sunday. Although this is the first mention of recognized racing in the Palatinate, it would appear from the italicized words that Woodham had been already selected as a suitable place for the purpose. How long it continued to be so cannot be traced, but in 1 61 9 James I journeying to Scotland, stopped ' From this it would appear that in those days the magistracy did not merit the title of the Great Unpaid. at Durham on Easter Eve, and on the following Monday ' rode to see a horse-race on Woodham Moor, and returned to Durham.' " Another reference by Surtees to racing is of a less agreeable character, though probably the incident was not an uncommon one in turf his- tory in those days : — Dec. 4, 1636. John Trollop the younger, of Thornley, county of Durham, in a sudden quarrel at a horse-race fought with William Selby of Newcastle, at White Hall Dike Nook, and slew him on the spot. Trollop immediately iled, and was outlawed at the Assizes at Durham, 7 August, 1637. Races were also held at Bishop Auckland. Thus in 1662 we find that Mr. Arden, house- steward to Bishop Cosin, writing to Mr. Staple- ton, the bishop's land agent, on business, inter- polates this little bit of gossip : — Auckland, March 3. This day wee have horse- races heare on Hunwicke Moore. Mr. Davison has a little nagg runs with the like of Captain Darcy's. Mr. Bricknell rides Mr. Davison's nagg. There will be much company there. Our Ladys goe in my Lord's coache from heare. From this it would seem that the races had the ecclesiastical patronage, while the concluding paragraph makes it clear that the bishop's lady had nothing in common with Mrs. Proudie of Barchester fame. Yet it is probable that the neighbourhood of Bishop Auckland can claim far greater antiquity in this respect, for it is maintained by Thomas Knight, the local historian, of Byers Green, that the Romans had a race-course at Binchester — Binovium — midway between Auckland and Spennymoor, to which he makes the following reference : — Near to this village — Byers Green — is also a manifest Roman circus, all good ground and two miles in com- pass ; which, as being in the neighbourhood of the camp, is supposed to be that of Albinus, his principal camp being at Achnum, now Auckland, and the un- doubted Binovium of Ptolemy. This (circus) I pro- cured to be restored in the year 177S by a subscription of the neighbouring gentlemen, and it is judged to be the finest piece of race-ground in the north of England.' ' Surtees. ' Thomas Knight, The Celt, the Roman, and the Saxon. 417 53 A HISTORY OF DURHAM Towards the middle of the eighteenth century Auckland races had attained considerable impor- tance. They took place in the month of April, and extended over four days, the proceedings being enlivened with cock-fighting and other amusements. One ;^5o plate was run for each day, but this being of course on the ' heat ' system provided a sufficiently lengthy programme for our easily contented forefathers. In 1753 the races had so far prospered that a second meeting was held for three days in October, but without cock-fighting. On the first day the only event — and with reason — was a match between Messrs. Hilton and Hopper, three four-mile heats, carrying 13 stone each.* Of course these were ' cocktails,' but it would be instructive to know how many horses there are in training at New- market at the present day that could ' get ' twelve miles in an afternoon with 13 stone on their backs. How long these races lasted cannot un- fortunately be traced, nor curiously enough does any record exist of where they were held, opinion being divided as to whether the race-course was on Etherley or Byers Green Moor. The cock- fighting appears to have far outweighed the racing as regards the money at stake. Thus on 9 April, 1 75 1, and following days : — Captain Mark Milbank fought Doctor Dunn, showing thirty-one cocks on each side for 10 guineas a Battle, and 200 guineas the Main. In which Main 16 battles, 9 won by Captain Milbank, and 7 by Doctor Dunn.' Heber gives a list of thoroughbred stallions standing for hire in Great Britain, but it is curious that from 1 75 1-3 Durham should be almost the only county in England without one, while among the eleven Durham subscribers to his book, there does not appear the name of any of the old county families, though the Duke of Cleveland, the Shaftos, Vanes, and Lambtons all had horses running in various parts of England, as well as Durham, at this time. The Auckland races appear to have gradually fallen into decay, though * leather-flapping' and galloway races continued to be held either on the Flatts or on the site of the present railway station until at least 1 816. In 1862 an attempt was made to institute a race meeting under Jockey Club rules, which took place in April of that year, and it is curious nowadays to read in Ruff''s Guide of four-year-olds running four furlongs for a stake of ^^23 ! Only two of the stakes exceeded j^35 in value, and the programme included a hurdle-race, but the meeting did not take place again. A last effort was made to revive racing in the Auckland neighbourhood a few years later in the * A Historical List of Horse Matches run, and of Plates and Prizes run for, in Great Britain and Ireland in 1753 ; edited by Reginald Heber. * Ibid. early seventies, at a time when the county of Durham was enjoying a period of prosperity such as it has never known before, nor since.^ A race-course was laid out near Spennymoor, on the estate of the late Mr. Duncombe-Shafto, of Whitworth, member for South Durham, and a well-known figure on the Turf of those days, and meetings were held under Jockey Club rules. But the business was badly managed, and the ' Whitworth Race-course Company ' came to an untimely end with the advent of the inevitable period of depression that followed the good times. According to Surtees the first races at Durham were run in May, 1733, on the Smyddyhaughs, ' where they have since continued with little interruption.' These races were of the same character as those at Bishop Auckland to which reference had already been made. They were supported by the same owners and eked out with cock-fighting and other amusements, and judged by modern standards were no better than pony or galloway races. Thus in July, 1 75 I, when the meeting extended over three days, there was a ';^50 Plate for horses 14 h. h. to carry nine stones, give and take, all above or under to be allowed weight for inches, 4 mile heats.' This was won by Mr. Pearson's ch. h.. Little Partner, 14 h. fin., carrying 9 st. 5 lb. 4 oz.' This precision as to fractions of a pound avoir- dupois leads one to presume that the jockeys of those days must have been even more carefully trained than the animals they bestrode. Little Partner won the first and last heats, but was fourth in the second — the betting on these heats must have been instructive.* At the same meeting Sir Edward Blackett fought the Duke of Cleveland, showing 41 cocks on one side, 10 guineas a Battle, and 20D guineas the Main, which consisted of 30 Battles, 16 won by his Grace, and 14 by Sir Edward Blackett.' ' This was due to the Franco-German War. ' Heber, Hist. List, &c. * Little Partner won this race three years in succession. ' Heber, Hist. List, &c. Cock-fighting has been very properly condemned alike by law and public opinion for a great number of years, but the writer has reason to believe it would not be a matter of great difficulty even yet to fight a main in the county of Durham. Less than twenty years ago a gallant Irish- man was summoned by his military duties to reside there. Among the equipment that had accompanied him from the Emerald Isle was a magnificent game- cock of a strain long cherished in his family, which, to quote its owner, had ' cleaned out Connemara.' Stirred by the Captain's laments over the lack of Saxon enterprise that denied further gratification to his pet, one of his neighbours was moved to set the law at de- fiance, and sought counsel of a friendly gamekeeper, who at once volunteered to produce a bird from the colliery district to the north, capable of cutting the Hibernian comb. Accordingly a match was made, and the 418 SPORT ANCIENT AND MODERN The first ofBcial issue of the Racing Calendar was in 1773, in which the Durham meeting duly makes its appearance, to continue till 1 85 1, when it lapses until 1854, reappearing in 1859 and in 1864, to contmue until its final disappear- ance in 1887, when it shared the fate of the score of minor race meetings that have become extinguished of late years by gate money and big prizes. The Smyddyhaughs are now the uni- versity recreation ground, yet there must be many who regret the dangerous little circular track, and the quaint old stand where one poked one's head out of a back window to catch a momentary glimpse of the horses as they flashed by. It is probable that Durham races would have succumbed even before this date, but for the support of a few of the influential north-country families — Lambtons, Vyners, Shaftos, and others. The actual cause of their extinction was the refusal of the university authorities to renew the lease of the race ground. The last meeting, extend- ing over two days was held in July, 1887. Mention must also be made of the races established in Lambton Park by Mr. John George Lambton — afterwards first Earl of Dur- ham. The inaugural meeting took place on 18 October, 1821.'° At first these races were private ones, but were soon thrown open to the public. The meeting, however, appears to have been instituted on much the same lines as those at Croxton Park and Hooton Park, where the racing was chiefly confined to gentlemen riders drawn from the influential patrons of the Turf The second Earl of Wilton — in his day possibly the finest gentleman rider in England, whether on the flat or across country — and the late Duke of Portland, an equally good horseman, were among those who used to perform at Lambton. The meeting was discontinued after a few years, probably on account of Mr. Lambton's increased devotion to politics. But one other flat-race meeting remains to be noted, and it is even questionable whether it can legitimately be regarded as belonging to Durham. Although the town of Stockton is in this county, its races, which I believe have existed more or less intermittently for more than 150 years,'^ were prior to 1839 run on 'The Carrs,' on the coach-house of an elderly maiden lady — to this day happily ignorant of the outrage — selected as a spot likely to be free from interference, whither the Dur- ham bird was brought— in a paper bag ! — by its owner, a bandy-legged little pitman. The contest was a severe one, but the Pride of Durham decisively van- quished its antagonist, and after an exhibition of weak brandy and water was re-transferred to its paper bag, ready, according to its master, to ' tak on ony bord in England or Ireland at ony time.' '" Richardson, Loiral Historian s T^'^k Book. " Stockton meeting appears in the firsi official issue of the Racing Calendar \n 1 77 3, but Heber notes its existence in 1752, and there is reason to believe it existed for a ew years prior to this date. Yorkshire side of the Tees. In that year, how- ever they were removed to Tibberslev, near Billingham in Durham, when the meeting lasted for three days, during which time eleven races were run, the added money being ^^125 ! The races continued to be held at Tibbersley until 1847, when the meeting lapsed for eight years, and on its revival in 1855 ^^.s once more transferred to Yorkshire. ^^ Organized steeplechasing is everywhere of comparatively recent development, and the first meeting in the county of Durham of which record exists took place in 1846, at that hub of Durham sport, Sedgefield," where steeplechases have been held uninterruptedly ever since. It would be interesting to know how many other steeplechase meetings in England there are that can claim greater longevity than this. The first meeting took place over West Layton Farm, and such good sportsmen as Mr. Baker of Elemore, and Mr. Cookson of Neasham, ran horses at it. The races were subsequently run over natural courses at Hely House, Ryal Farm, Harpington Hill, and Cote Nook, finally settling down per- manently at their present home on the Sands Hall Estate, a singularly appropriate venue, in view of the owner's — Mr. R. Ord — close con- nexion with both chase and turf, he being a quondam Master of the South Durham Hounds, and one of the actual official handicappers to the Jockey Club. It is probable that the proximity of Wynyard Park had much to do with the institution of the Sedgefield Steeplechase Meet- ing, and the present Marquess of Londonderry has shown his sympathy with it in a very prac- tical manner. Since 1893 he has presented a challenge cup, and ^^25 added money to be competed for by tenant farmers in the South Durham Hunt. The cup has to be won three years in succession on different horses to become the absolute property of the holder, and it is interesting to note that three cups have been won outright by the late Mr. John Trenholm, Mr. Stephenson of Crawley, and Mr. George Menzies of Quarrington. The Sedgefield steeplechase course is a circular left-handed one, about a mile and a half round, and is exceedingly well laid out over gently undulating ground. Until about ten years ago it included a small proportion of plough, but this is now laid away to grass, to the regret of that alas ! small body of purists, who maintain that steeplechasing should always attain as nearly '* I am indebted to the kindness of Mr. T. Hunter of Stockton for most of the above information. Mr. Hunter, who is now in his eighty-sixth year, has attended Stockton races since he was eight years old. " Races took place in Hardwick Park two hundred years ago. A book containing particulars of them used to be in the possession of the late J. Coates, who was private trainer for the late Marquis Talon at Hardwick. 419 A HISTORY OF DURHAM as possible to 'natural' conditions. In 1897 the meeting was extended to two days, and usually takes place about the beginning of April. A permanent grand stand was erected some years ago, which enjoys the rare distinction among its kind of being at once convenient and attractive in appearance. Another steeplechase meeting was inaugurated in 1890 under the title of the Durham County and West Hartlepool Steeplechases. Two days' racing were provided during the year, in April and November, the course being at Stranton Farm, near West Hartlepool, but although the meeting appears to have received a fair measure of public support, it only lasted for two years, and is omitted from the Racing Calendar in 1892. Three years later a more successful venture was launched by the enterprise of a small syndicate of people interested in racing in the neighbourhood of Durham, of whom the Master of the North Durham Hounds was the moving spirit. A lease was procured of the flat table-land at ShinclifFe Bank Top, about two miles from Durham, on which a course was laid out, and the inaugural meeting, under the title of the North Durham and ShinclifFe Steeple- chase, was held on 15 May, 1895. So successful did this prove that the syndicate was resolved into a public company, the race-course enlarged and improved, a permanent stand erected, and a second day's racing provided in the autumn. Since then the undertaking has proved so uni- formly prosperous that three days' racing in March and May are now allowed by the National Hunt Committee, and not only pro- vide good sport for the public, but return a fair profit to the shareholders in the company. The course is oval, about a mile and a quarter round, and the run-in up a gradual ascent. It was probably owing to the success achieved at Shincliffe that a meeting of similar character was started a few years later at Grindon, about two miles to the south of Sunderland, by the en- terprise of a small syndicate of local sportsmen. The first meeting took place on 30 April, 1898, but unfortunately the venture seemed doomed to failure from the outset. Although in such close proximity to the teeming centres of industry on the banks of the Tyne and Wear, the public did not afford it the support that was reasonably to be expected, and persistent bad weather invariably affected the attendance at the first few meetings. Latterly the meeting was beginning to pay its way, but not to such an extent as to allow of the stakes being increased in accordance with the new rules of the National Hunt Com- mittee, and it was finally decided to abandon it in 1906. The course at Grindon was oval in shape, about a mile and a quarter round, and all grass. Point-to-point racing was inaugurated in Durham in 1889 by the members of the Zet- land Hunt over a course near Brusselton, the chief event being won by the present master of the South Durham Hounds, but the North Durham is the only pack that consistently sup- ports this admirable form of sport. ROWING North-country rowing has been famous from early days. But its history is a much wider subject than the history of rowing in the county of Durham ; for a history of rowing in the north would deal largely with the Tyne and Tyne- siders. It would, indeed, be difficult to exagger- ate the importance of the Tyne. The matches in days gone by between rival schools of Tyne- side professional oarsmen, and between Tyne and Thames, excited an amount of interest which is comparable to that displayed on the Thames when Cambridge met Harvard. The names of such Tyneside heroes as the Claspers and the Taylors, Chambers and Cooper and Renforth, were once in every mouth, and are still remembered. Old men still quote their sayings, and gossip about their triumphs to a generation that is devoted to football and to The decay of professional rowing in these modern times was attributed by one of the admirers of the giants of old days to the spread of education and the growth of board schools — ' for,' said he, ' to row well, a man must be Strang f th' back and thick i th' 'ead.' But it would be a mistake to suppose that Durham rowing was a mere by-product of the Tyne. The Wear and the Tees have traditions of their own. In the palmiest days of the Tyneside professionals there were men at Durham who were their match. Such names as Ebdy and Howson, Newby and Marshall, were almost as well known as the names of the Tyneside cham- pions ; and in more than one great race, at Durham Regatta and elsewhere, the Tynesiders had to be contented with second honours. If we turn to amateur rowing it may perhaps be claimed that Durham is rather the parent than the child of the Tyne. The stimulus given by Durham Regatta has had much to do with the creation and with the vitality of Tyneside clubs. It is impossible to say when rowing first began at Durham. The boys of Durham School, who 420' SPORT ANCIENT AND MODERN are interested in tracing back their modern institutions to their origins in the dawn of English history, assert in their school song that in the days of Aldhune . . . down below where waters flow, They learnt in coracles to row, While Fxho flung from crag and scar Their ' Floreat Dunelmia.' This may be so ; but, leaving untouched the possibilities of early centuries, we find that Durham Regatta was first held in 1834, some years earlier than Henley, and we may conjecture that rowing had flourished at Durham for some time before the first regatta. Durham Regatta was established by Mr.William Lloyd Wharton, the squire of Dryburn ; and the name is still preserved by the Wharton Cup, presented in 1877 ^Y *^^ Right Honourable John Lloyd Wharton, to be competed for by crews from the various clubs in the city of Durham. One of the most popular features of the early regattas was the procession of boats with which the regatta concluded. There is a sketch by * Cuthbert Bede,' the author of Verdant Green,^ of such a procession in the year 1848. This procession of boats continued to be one of the attractions of the day till comparatively modern times, and was only discontinued when the programme of races became longer, and boats became more frail and more liable to receive damage in a crowd. The details of the early races do not seem to have been recorded, but in 1886 the Reverend Robert Beaumont Tower, M.A., presented to the Museum of Durham University a silver medal which he won for sculling at the regatta in the year 1835. There is also in existence the oar with which a member of one of the crews of these early days used to row. It is a wonderful implement, the work of a local carpenter, and one feels that the Virgilian nunc, nunc imurgite remis must have been very applicable to the stout- hearted men who with such oars and in such boats — for one can deduce the boats from the oars — had to race from 'Ash Tree' to 'Counts Corner.' It is on record that, in 1838, there were on the river two University four-oar wherries named the St. George and the St. Cuthbert, and a four-oared wherry from the school named the yirgo. The stroke of this latter crew was J. R. Davison, afterwards member for Durham City, Judge Advocate-General, and a Privy Councillor. The course, not quite a mile and a quarter in length, between 'Ash Tree' and 'Counts Corner' is as well known in the north of England as the Thames between Temple Island and Henley ' Although FerJant Green is a story of Oxford life, the author was an undergraduate of Durham Univer- sity. Bridge is known in the south. Well known as this reach is, and many as are the gallant races which it has seen, it cannot be described as an ideal course for racing. The river at Durham is tortuous and, except when swollen by floods, shallow and sluggish. Between the starting point and the finish there are two long corners, and about half way over the course the river is spanned and well-nigh barred by Elvet Bridge. The quaint narrow arches of this beautiful and historic structure barely leave room for the oars of a racing boat. It is a spot which tests a coxwain's skill and nerve, and at Elvet Bridge some crews meet with disasters which are fatal to their chances, but accidents are not as common as one might anticipate. To equalize the corners the course is always buoyed out for races. Thus the crew which gets the advantage of the inside turn early in the race is driven far out at the second corner, which bends round to the finish. The result is that it is not uncommon to see a lead of two or three lengths over the earlier part of the course wrested from a crew in the last two minutes of the race. Those, therefore, who are taught their rowing at Durham learn, from the conditions under which their races are rowed, that a race is never lost till it is won, and that it is never won till the winning-post is passed. They learn to row races out to the bitter end ; and Durham Regatta encourages the kind of 'stroke' who is good at leading a forlorn hope and at snatching a race out of the fire. As eight-oared rowing has never been seriously cultivated either on the Wear or the Tyne we find that the principal race at Durham Regatta is the Grand Challenge Cup for Fours, instituted in 1854, and that date may be taken to mark an epoch in the history of the regatta. Up to that time the programme of amateur races had not attracted much outside competition, the interest in them being probably subordinate to that aroused by professional races. The institution of the Grand Challenge Cup opened the principal amateur race to all comers, and from this time onwards the regatta tended to become an event of attraction to first-class crews from all rivers. The Grand Challenge Cup did not, however, at first draw entries from an extended area. Between the years 1854 and 1862 University College, Durham, won the Challenge Cup seven times ; but the opposing crews, were, as a rule drawn from Hatfield Hall and Durham School. In 1857, however, a crew appears from the Lady Margaret Club (St. John's College, Cambridge), and carries the Challenge Cup away from Durham, for the first time. Next year the cup returned to University College, but the crews against them were both from Durham, one from Hatfield Hall, one from the School. In 1859 University College was again victorious ; but this year saw extended entries. The Lady Margaret Club was again represented, and crews 421 A HISTORY OF DURHAM from Sunderland and the Tyne appeared for the first time. Two years later the Tyne Amateur Rowing Club won the Challenge Cup, and a crew from the Durham Amateur Rowing Club was entered for the first time. Hitherto there does not seem to have been any organized city club in Durham. In 1854 a crew called the 'St. Oswald's Club' rowed ; but no other city crew appears till 1 86 1. The members of the first Durham crew were. — W. Brignall, P. Forster, C. Rowlandson, Wilson Story (stroke), R. Oswald (cox). Durham Regatta, and north-country rowing generally, has owed much to the Durham Amateur Rowing Club, and the first appearance of this famous club is an important event in the history of north- country rowing. The Tyne and Durham clubs were always among the entries for the next year or two. The D.A.R.C. won in 1 863, the Tyne A.R.C. in the following year. The University and School crews were also regular competitors, and in 1864 a crew of old boys of Durham School was entered. This crew contained C. R. Carr, who had been president of the O.U.B.C. and had rowed in a victorious Oxford crew, and S. R. Coxe, who was a well-known member of the Brasenose eight ; so we may be justified in supposing that the victorious Tyne crew must have been of a good class. In other words, we may say that, by the year 1864, the institution of the Grand Challenge Cup had succeeded in creating an interest other than local in the regatta, and had raised the standard of Durham rowing. In 1865 the cup was won for the first time by Durham School, the boys defeating a crew from the Tyne A.R.C, and two crews from the D.A.R.C. Since the foundation of the race in 1854 Durham School, in weak years and in strong years alike, has sent in a crew. Most clubs have more or less picked their time. They have sent in crews when they have felt strong enough to do so. If they have had material which has not been up to the average they have thrown their strength into one of the minor races, and have not attempted the hard struggle for the greater honours. But the boys have always entered, and have always raced for the Grand Challenge Cup. Sometimes they have plainly been outclassed : more often their keenness and style have carried them into the later stages of the contest, and they have failed to win more from inability to last through a series of races, tlian by reason of inferiority to their victors. They have won six times. Only two clubs have a greater number of wins to their credit ; only two clubs have the same number of wins. Many clubs have striven in vain to win the Grand at Durham ; six well-known clubs have won it a smaller number of times than the school. But the number of wins recorded for the school is, comparatively, a trivial matter : what we wish to emphasize as important from the point of view of north-country rowing is that the various north-country clubs have all been strengthened by the material which Durham School has shaped by this steady aim at the highest honours. Let the crews entered at the regatta in any given year be analyzed, and it will generally be found that the best crews of the best clubs contain oarsmen who, having learnt their rowing at Durham School, have taken with them into the clubs of their choice not only their style and their pluck, but also their spirit of sportsmanship and comradeship. In 1866 and 1868 the Durham A.R.C. won the Challenge Cup ; in 1867 the school was agam victorious. In 1869 the Tyne A.R.C. won. For the next three years nothing could resist the Tynemouth Club, whose crew was one of the fastest ever seen at Durham. It was not only unusually strong and well to- gether, but also was ahead of the rest of its com- petitors in adopting and mastering the use of sliding seats. It contained that fine sculler, W. Fawcus, who won the Diamonds at Henley and the Wingfield Sculls (the amateur champion- ship of England) in 1 87 1. In 1873 and 1874 the cup went to Sunder- land. In 1875 and 1877 the school defeated all comers. In 1876 the Newcastle A.R.C, a club which competed with success at Henley, won for the first and only time. In 1878 the Tyne A.R.C. won ; and in the two following years the Durham A.R.C. were the victors. All through the sixties and seventies rowing flourished at Durham. The entries for the Challenge Cup were generally good in number, and in many years they were good in class. During these years rowing was the sport in the north. Regattas flourished at other places besides Durham, and boat races attracted keener crowds than any other sport. The names of prominent oarsmen, amateurs and professionals alike, were as well known as the names of the County XI are known in Yorkshire. But dur- ing the eighties there was a lull in the interest taken in rowing, and there was a general falling off in class. The entries at Durham Regatta were small, and the average of rowing was poor. It was, however, remarkable that during these lean years the crews from the Durham A.R.C. maintained a high standard. This was due partly to the fact that the club had a run of un- usually strong men, but more especially to the hard work and the good coaching of Mr. J. A. Ornsbv, an old Oxford Blue. Between 1881 and 1891 the Challenge Cup was won once by Durham University, twice by Durham School. It was won once by South Shields, once by Sunderland, once by Jesus College, Cambridge, and five times by the Dur- ham A.R.C. 422 SPORT ANCIENT AND MODERN Towards the end of the eighties the standard of rowing began once more to improve, and it became common to see several crews of a fair class entered for the Challenge Cup. In 1889 a Sunderland crew, coached by the Reverend A. F. Sim (who died abroad, ' multis flebilis bonis,' a year or two later), showed both style and pace. A series of good crews came from Ryton — a modern Tyneside club, which has owed much to a succession of Durham School oars. Several university crews, of which Mr. Malcolm Buchannan, one of the finest oarsmen ever sent from Durham School, was the leading spirit, displayed merits of a high order. During the years 1900 to 1906 one of the most grati- fying features of the regatta has been the revival of the glories of the Tyne A.R.C. This revival has been largely due to the enthusiasm and hard work of Mr. James Wallace, who, in the sixties and seventies, was one of the most accomplished oarsmen in the north of England, and in these later times has toiled unsparingly as a coach and inspirer of the younger members of his club. But there is still much to desire in the class of the average Durham crew. This was clearly exhibited in the year 1 901 when a crew of officers of the Royal Artillery stationed at New- castle rowed at Durham under the colours of the D. A.R.C. There was an entry of eight crews, but there was nothing which could touch the soldiers : in style and in pace they were im- measurably superior to any other crew. Yet when the same crew went to Henley it was quickly outclassed in the race for the Wyfold cup for fours. Nevertheless, in spite of deficiencies in class and style, there is good rowing and good sport to be seen at Durham Regatta. An analysis of the results from 1892 to 1906 shows that the Challenge Cup has been won three times by Sunderland, twice by Middlesbrough, twice by Durham University, twice by the Tyne A.R.C, five times by Ryton, once by Durham A.R.C, i.e. by the above-mentioned officers' crew. A survey of the years since 1854, when the Grand Challenge Cup was instituted, shows that it has been won as follows : Dur- ham A.R.C, eleven times ; Durham University, ten times ; Durham School, six times ; Tyne A.R.C, six times ; Sunderland A.R.C, six times ; Ryton A.R.C, five times ; Tynemouth A.R.C., three times ; Middlesbrough, A.R.C, twice ; Lady Margaret Club (St. John's College, Cambridge), once ; Jesus College, Cambridge, once ; Newcastle A.R.C, once ; South Shields A.R.C. once. Next in importance to the Grand Challenge Cup is the Wharton Challenge Cup which, as has already been said, was presented by the Right Honourable John Lloyd Wharton in 1877. This race is confined to the following clubs in the City of Durham, the Durham A.R.C, the University, the School, and Bede College. The racing for this cup generally provides good sport and much enthusiasm, as there is keen, though generous, rivalry between the local clubs. Since its institution in 1877 the Durham A.R.C. has won seventeen times ; the University has won six times ; the school also has won six times. In the year 1892 the race was thrown open to the county of Durham for that year only, and the cup was won by Sunderland, who defeated crews from the Durham A.R.C, from Durham School and from Ryton. The Wharton Cup superseded the University Plate, one of the oldest races at the regatta, which, at any rate from 1854 onwards was, like the race for the Wharton Cup, confined to crews in the city of Durham. It is singular that the change of the name of the race coincides with a change in the relative strength of the competing clubs. In the years between 1854 and 1876, when the race was called the University Plate, crews hailing from the university won fifteen times, the D. A.R.C. won five times, the school three times. The Corporation Challenge Cup for junior oarsmen was instituted in 1892. It does much to encourage rising talent, and produces keen struggles over the short course of little more than half-a-mile. Short races of this kind are a feature of north country regattas. At Durham there is a special reason for the popularity of a race over the short course. The windings of the river make it difficult to view a race over the long course from start to finish. Such a view is, indeed, only possible for those who are prepared to gird up their loins and run. But it is more than doubtful whether a scramble over half-a-mile fosters a good style of rowing. The Corporation Challenge Club has been won by Sunderland five times, by Ryton three times, by the Armstrong A.R.C. twice, by Middlesbrough twice, byTynemouth once, by the Tees A.R.C. once, by Bede College once. The Corporation Challenge Cup superseded an older race for junior crews called the Stewards' Plate. From 1854 onwards it seems to have been a popular race, attracting a large number of entries. It was won in turn by most of the leading clubs in Durham and Northumberland ; while an occasional winner hailed from York, and even from Cambridge. It is much to be regretted that the revived interest in rowing that has marked the last twelve or fifteen years has not led to a revival of pair-oared rowing in the north. Pair-oared rowing is the supreme test of watermanship ; and those who remember such pairs as Wallace and Ayton, Chisman and Brignall, Mason and Dunn, will regret that our northern clubs do not devote themselves now-a-days to this most ex- quisite type of the oarsman's skill. An attempt was indeed made some twelve years ago to revive pair-oared rowing at Durham Regatta, but the 423 A HISTORY OF DURHAM attempt was not very successful. For a year or two, however, the Tyne A.R.C. and the Durham School Club sent in crews, and on two occasions at least the race afforded capital sport. This was notably the case in 1896, when A. Appleby and S. Sutherland, from the School, won a very fine race against a Tyne pair by a foot or two. Nor has Durham in late years attracted much sculling talent. T. Bourn of Ryton was a good sculler in the nineties ; and in earlier days the Tyne A.R.C. had high-class scullers in Pickett and Wallace. In the seventies the regatta saw Lawton, a sculler of great power and style from York, and Fawcus of Tynemouth, who was in a class by himself. Professional rowing in these days is not what it once was. There are still professional races at the regatta : a handicap race, in clinker-built fours, over the short course, attracts many entries and is the occasion of much enthusiasm among the supporters of the various crews. But the rowing is not of the class which characterized the days of the great north-country champions. In the fifties and sixties and seventies there were races for professionals both in fours and pairs over the long course. Thus in 1856 a crew containing Chambers, R. Clasper, H. Clasper and Jack Clasper won the Patron's Plate for fours, while Jack Clasper and H. Clasper won the pairs. A four-oared crew of much the same composition won in 1857. In 1858 the crew of Claspers — father and sons — won a celebrated race against the Taylor brothers. The same great names occur for many following years. The families of Clasper, Chambers, and Taylor, and men like the Matfins and Winships and Cooper raced at Durham Regatta in fours and pairs and sculls. To meet the heroes of the Tyne Durham turned out Ebdy and Howson, Newby and the Marshalls, who rowed with strong limbs and stout hearts and varying success. Later on the Tyne sent Renforth. It was at Durham that poor Renforth rowed his last race. He came with the four (Percy, Chambers, Kelly, Renforth) which was just about to start for America to row a great match. It will be remembered how during the American race Renforth was suddenly taken ill and was lifted out of the boat to die. Durham rowing owes a great deal to these professionals. Their matches inspired a great deal of enthusiasm. The men themselves were enthusiasts in their sport. They were first-rate exponents of oarsmanship and fine watermen. Rising amateur oarsmen watched these men row and received the same sort of stimulus which the young cricketer receives when he watches Hirst or Rhodes or Hayward. North-country rowing drew an impulse and a strong vitality from the northern professionals. While Durham Regatta has done good work in fostering rowing in the north, it may also claim to have done no small service to rowina: in general by affording an early training to a nurhber of oarsmen who have afterwards dis- tinguished themselves at Henley and in the Oxford and Cambridge boat race. Durham School has sent out a number of men who have won their blues, and it is certain that Durham School rowing would not have been what it has been without the stimulus of Durham Regatta. Before the institution of the Challenge Cup in 1854 W. King from Durham School had rowed in the Oxford Eight. In 1854 we find the name of J. Arkell in the school crew. Arkell rowed in the Oxford Eight in 1857 and the two following years. He was president of the O.U.B.C. in his third season, and as presi- dent instituted the Trial Eights at Oxford. At Henley he won the Silver Goblets for pairs. Two years later (1856) in the school crew were B. N. Cherry and H. J. Chaytor, of whom the former rowed for Cambridge in i860, the latter in 1859, i860, and 1861. C. R. Carr appears in the school crews from 1857 ^° i860. He rowed in the Oxford Eights of 1862 and 1863 and was president of the O.U.B.C. in the following year. From 1865 to 1867 W. H. Lowe was in the school crew, and in 1868, 1870, and 1871 he was in the Cambridge Eight. Contemporaries of these men, although never in the school crew, were J. H. Fish, who rowed in the Oxford Eight in 1867, as did E. S. Carter in 1868 and 1869. In 1 87 1 and 1872 C. D. Shafto was learning in the school fours at Durham the style and generalship which he displayed as stroke of the Cambridge Eight four years later in 1876 and again in 1877 — the year of the dead heat. E. H. Dykes belongs to the same period as Shafto. He was not a ' blue,' as he was too light for the Putney course, but he was one of the most perfect oarsmen and watermen who ever rowed at Durham or at Cambridge. He did work for Durham and for Jesus College, Cambridge, which puts him in the very foremost rank of north-country oarsmen. In 1878 another Durham boy, E. H. Prest, who had rowed in three school crews, stroked the Cambridge Eight, and a schoolfellow, LI. R. Jones, who had been in the school crew from 1875 to 1877, was bow. Prest was presi- dent of the C.U.B.C. in 1879 and 1880, row- ing bow in these years. His schoolfellow, Jones, was secretary of the C.U.B.C. in 1 881 and rowed in the University boat race of 1882. In 1879 Prest and Jones were stroke and bow respectively of the Jesus College Eight which won the Grand at Henley. They had had in 1875 as companion in their school crew R. H.J. Poole, who rowed in the Oxford Eight in 1880 424 SPORT ANCIENT AND MODERN and 1881, and in the Leander Eight which won the Grand at Henley in 1 880. He was secre- tary of the O.U.B.C. in 1 88 1. 2 In 1 88 1 two old Durham boys, A. M. Hutchinson and C. W. Moore, were in the Cambridge crew. Hutchinson had been in the school four of 1879. Moore, though he rowed at Durham, never reached the crew. Hutchin- son was secretary of the C.U.B.C. in 1882, when he again rowed. Moore rowed again in 1882, 1883, and 1884, and was president of the C.U.B.C. in his last year. Hutchinson was afterwards captain of the Thames Rowing Club and won the Grand and many other races at Henley. It will be seen, therefore, that in three decades Durham Regatta trained up a line of oarsmen who carried the fame of north-country rowing to the south. Nor does a list of Blues exhaust the record of the debt which the rowing world owes to Durham and its regatta. Besides those who in after days won the coveted blue cap there were many others who did good service in college crews at Oxford and Cambridge and wlio only failed to attain the highest honours. Since 1884 only two Durham trained men have rowed in the University boat race. These were G. C. Kerr, who rowed in the School crews of 1888, 1889, 1890 and in the Cam- bridge Eights of 1892 and 1893, and C. T. Fogg-Elliot, who rowed in the School crews of 1887 and 1888 and in the Cambridge Eights of 1 89 1 and three following years. Both these men were presidents of the C.U.B.C ; Kerr in 1893 and Fogg-Elliot in 1894. But during this period Durham School has sent to the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge three other men of quite first-rate class. The first of these was W. A. King, who was in the School crews in three seasons and who was chosen as 7 in the Oxford crew of 1886. Ill- health caused his retirement from the boat about three weeks before the race. The second was J. W. Fogg-Elliot, who rowed in the School crew of 1885, and was reserve man for the Cam- bridge Eight in 1888. He rowed in 1888 for a Tiiames crew which won the Grand at Henley. The third was H. Graham, who rowed in the School crew from 1892 to 1894, and was reserve man for the Oxford Eight in 1896, and rowed at Henley for Leander. His rowing career at Oxford was dama;:;ed by a serious, and almost fatal, illness in his first term. So it will be seen that the break in the chain of Durham oarsmen is more apparent than real. We should also mention ' Special reference must be made to Mr. Poole's services to Durham rowing. As a schoolboy he stroked a winning crew at Durham Regatta as far back as 1873, •'"'i fo"" more than twenty years has been practically responsible for the many good oars- men turned out during that time from his old school. — Ed. the name of Malcolm Buchannan, who rowed in the School crews of 1896 and 1897 ^"'^ '^^° afterwards went to Durham University. Had he gone to Oxford or Cambridge he would almost certainly have added another name to the list of Durham blues. Contemporary with Buchannan was S. Sutherland, who rowed in the School crews of 1895 and 1896, and was in the trials soon after going up to Cambridge. He would have had a great chance of winning his blue. ' Dis aliter visum.' He went on a voyage to Iceland in the long vacation of 1897 » the ship was lost and has never since been heard of. Such are the men whom Durham and Durham Regatta have trained. It is an honour list which in itself would go far to establish the claim of Durham Regatta to be considered as one of the most important aquatic events in the year. But it would be easy to make an equally long list of oarsmen who have done all their rowing in the north, but who, had fortune taken them to other scenes, would have made their mark in any company. Most of the well- known north-country clubs have had, at one time or another, men who were first-rate oars- men. In the early days of the Durham A.R.C. W. Brignall, C. Rowlandson, and P. Forster were men who did yeoman service. Later on the same club had a really first-rate man in C. E. Barnes. Again, they found a race of high-class oarsmen in S. F. Prest, A. Ward, L. Ward, all of whom received their early training at Durham School, and would have been welcomed in the strongest eights on the Thames or the Isis or the Cam. In the eighties and early nineties the Durham A.R.C. was fortunate in having, in E. A. White, a stroke who was consistently successful, with Rickerby and E. Bulman and F. Bulman to do the heavy work in the middle of the boat. If at the present time there is no single oarsman in the Durham A.R.C. who stands out as prominently as some of those whom we have mentioned, still there is a quantity of young and improving material. If we turn to other clubs whose colours are well known at Durham Regatta, we can point to such first-rate men as J. Wallace and W. J. F. Ayton of the Tyne Club, as L. James and L. Armstrong of the same club at an earlier date, as the members of the victorious Tyne crew of 1903, S. H. Lawson, R. W. Glass, H. Molzer, F. H. Edwards. Glass and Edwards were also in the winning crew of 1904, when they had as colleagues M. M. Snowball and F. S. Dyke. It is true that these men are not, strictly speaking, Durham oars, but Durham Regatta has been the scene of their races, and Durham Regatta is the central event in the north-country oarsman's year. F. Mason of the Newcastle 425 54 A HISTORY OF DURHAM A.R.C., W. H. Potts and M. A. Graydon of the Sunderland Club, T. Atkinson, C. Renold- son, and R. Purvis of the South Shields Club, W. Fawcus, G. R. Ramsay, J. Morrison, J. L. Browne of the Tynemouth Club, were all men who, in the seventies or early eighties, made no ordinary mark. Durham University has had at various times men who have impressed good judges of rowing as being of far more than average merit. Such were L. Taylor in the fifties, C. H. Brown in the early sixties, E. W. J. Symons in the later sixties, A. Hemstead, A. A. Cory, W. H. Macaulay, and F. E. Lowe in the seventies, H. B. Smith in the early eighties, G. C. Pollard in 1895, and M. Buchannan, whom we have mentioned above. The above names are only a few of many which might be selected as types of oarsmen of sterling excellence who have been trained by Durham Regatta. Of late years no club has been more successful than Ryton. C. M. W. Potts, G. Oswald, C. C. Maughan, G. K. Walker, T. W. Bourn, and E. Bateson are names of high-class oarsmen whom it is easy to enumerate from the crews of this club. In the late eighties and early nineties W. Greenwell, G. F. L. Preston, L. Browne, and F. Ranken of Sunderland were men whose victories were the due reward of sterling excellence. The history of Durham rowing, then, is practically the history of Durham Regatta. Durham Regatta, at any rate, is the centre of the history. It gives the impulse and the motive to north-country oarsmen, and aflFords a training for those young oarsmen who hope afterwards to distinguish themselves at Henley or at Putney. It is satisfactory that the regatta has flourished for more than seventy years. That it is at the present date so prosperous is largely due to the whole-hearted devotion with which it has been served for many years by its secretary, Mr. John Chisman. It would be difficult to over-estimate the value of the services which Mr. Chisman has rendered to north-country rowing. The record of our rowing is full of the names of good oarsmen, good comrades, and good sportsmen. No one who knows north-country oarsmen need hesitate to apply to them the words which the late Lord Esher spoke at the Jubilee dinner of the University boat race in 1881 : 'Our boating career taught us persever- ance and energy ; and perseverance and energy, and much more a manly generosity, make, as far as my experience goes, everybody succeed in any career in life.' GOLF The history of the royal and ancient game begins in the county of Durham with the year 1873, when the late Dr. McCuaig, a physician in practice at Middlesbrough, began play on the fine turf that grows amid the sand-hills along the coast at Seaton Carew, about two miles from West Hartlepool. The keen eye of the Scots- man saw that here was undulating turf of the true golfing quality, with such plenty of wide and deep sand bunkers and bent-covered hillocks that the place was ideal for his national game. His enthusiasm soon bore fruit. In the next year a society was founded under the name of the Durham and Yorkshire Golf Club, with the doctor himself as captain, to play over a course of fourteen holes along the tide-washed shores of Tees estuary. By the year 1884 four more holes had been added ; a well-appointed club- house was built, and the club was refounded as the Seaton Carew Golf Club, which thus plays over one of the oldest courses in England. It claims with justice that its golf is of very high quality. The soil is sandy, the turf through the green and on the putting greens is excel- lent ; the hazards, consisting of sand bunkers, ponds, and mighty ramparts and spurs of the sand-hills, afford a fine test of golfing skill ; while the holes, varying in length from 140 to 500 yards, are admirably planned. The total length of the links is some 3^^ miles ; and if it must be conceded that a few of the holes are somewhat flat and grassy, the sporting character of the remainder of the round more than com- pensates for this slight defect. The short seventh hole, a mashie shot over a lofty sand-bank on to a perfect blind green, is as good a hole of its kind as may be found anywhere. The amateur and professional records of 76 and 74 respectively testify that consistently accurate play meets with its due reward. But an ideal score is hard to come by in that wilder- ness of sand-hills, and Bogey is contented with a modest 84. The principal prizes of the club are the Londonderry Cup, the Gray Trophy, the Calcutta Cup, and the Thompson Medal. With Seaton Carew we take leave of the only real seaside links in the county ; for though the courses of the South Shields and the Sunderland (Wearside) Golf Clubs are within sight and sound of the sea, neither of them has the sandy soil, the natural bunkers and the fine turf that are the pride of the premier club. The South Shields course is one of eighteen holes. It is on high ground overlooking the Vale of the Wear, and commands fine views of the coast-line between Redcar and Newbiggin. The Wearside Golf Club, founded in 1892, has its course at Coxgreen, some six miles from 426 SPORT ANCIENT AND MODERN Sunderland. On that long and narrow stretch of land on which the course is laid out are eighteen holes providing a round with a total length of about three miles. The links, which are for the most part on clay soil giving heavy grassy lies, are diversified by broken ground which, with some hedges and artificial bunkers, serve as hazards. There are seven inland courses in the county, of which the oldest is that at Pinker Knowle, about two miles south of the cathedral city. The Durham Golf Club, founded in 1887 on the initiative of Mr. Thomas Milrain, Captain Roberts, the late Sir Hedworth Williamson, and Dr. E. S. Robson, played here at first over a short course of six holes. Three new holes were added in 1894, whereby the course became 2,200 yards in length. The links are on undulating pasture land with a sandy soil, and accurate driving and careful iron-play are essential to success, since rough grass and whins border the course ; and roads, a railway cutting, and a deep ravine that has to be crossed twice, are dire traps for the careless player. The par score is 39 for the 9 holes ; and the amateur record made by Dr. T. E. Hill is 79 for a double round. The going is good all the year round — possibly best in the autumn. The ideal golfer is, we know, impervious to the charms of scenery ; but the glorious views of the city and the beautiful country about it which are to be had from most of the tees may well excuse him if he allows his eye to wander now and again from the ball. In the early nineties golf had taken so firm a hold on the affections of Durham folk that five more clubs were established in quick succession. That at Sunderland has been already mentioned. The year 1 892 saw the foundation of the Barnard Castle Golf Club, which has a good course of nine holes at Wyse Hill near Startforth in Teesdale. The chief hazards here are fences and gorse ; and the course enjoys the unusual advantage that summer play is the best. In 1893, the year in which the South Shields Club was founded, a very sporting course of nine holes was opened two miles from Shotley Bridge, a charmingly situated little watering-place which lies embowered in the beautiful woodland country on the banks of tiie Derwent between Newcastle and Bishop Auckland. The links are on high land, 700 feet above sea-level, with natural hazards of quarries, whins, roads and hedges. Yet another nine-hole course is that of the Bishop Auckland Golf Club, founded in 1894, at High Plains, on the outskirts of Auckland Park. At High ConisclifFe, overlooking the valley of the Tees between Darlington and Barnard Castle, is the course of the Darlington Golf Club. Founded in 1896 as the High ConisclifFe Club by Mr. (now Sir) James B. Dale, Mr. E. Hutchin- son and the late Mr. E. E. Meek, this club was renamed on entering upon its new course of eigh- teen holes in 1906. The links are on reclaimed moorland with heavy pasture and a clay sub- soil ; but the course gives promise of affording capital golf when it has emerged from the ex- perimental stage, and has had more play. The hazards are stone walls, fences and a brook, with a few artificial bunkers of turf and sand. Spring and autumn are the best seasons of the year for play. The Tees-side Golf Club, founded in 1900 by Dr. Randolf Smith and Mr. W. Ridley Make- peace of Stockton-on-Tees, has a nine-hole course at Mandale Bottoms near Thornaby, about mid- way between Stockton and Middlesbrough. The links are on pasture land on a peat soil, and the hazards are becks and made bunkers. Play is possible all the year round ; but spring is perhaps the best season. The principal club prizes are the William Warner Memorial Trophy and the Crosthwaite Cup. FOOTBALL In recent years Durham football has come very prominently before the public by reason of the county's frequent successes in the County Championship. But years before the champion- ship was instituted county football in Durham was on a firm footing. So far back as 1873 the county team met and defeated Yorkshire at Dar- lington, and the fixture has been continued ever since. In the first three matches between the two Durham was successful, which speaks well for the proficiency of the players of that day in the smaller county. It was not until 22 March 1875 that Yorkshire gained their fir^t victory at the Holbeck Recreation Ground at Leeds by two goals to one. In 1877 it was deemed advisable to form the Durham Union on a constitutional basis. Mr. A. Laing of Sunderland was elected the first president, and other leading spirits in the movement were Dr. Sanday, principal of Hatfield Hall, J. H. Kidson, J. H. Brooks, and P. B. Junor. For many years subsequent to this the large increase of clubs in Yorkshire and the great strides the game made in that county led to a long sequence of Yorkshire successes in the annual tourney, though Durham always gave their opponents a good game. Northumberland was added to the county fixtures in the season of 1878-9. Since the decline of Yorkshire foot- ball Durham has assumed the chief position in the north. The team's first victory in the County 427 A HISTORY OF DURHAM Championship was gained in the season of 1 899-1 900, when they defeated the holders, Devonshire, at Exeter by eleven points to three. The following year they were runners up to the same county. In 1 90 1 -2 the northern county regained the championship by defeating Glouces- tershire, a performance they repeated against Kent the next year, a magnificent dropped goal by the veteran J. T. Taylor just giving them the victory by four points to three. Kent, how- ever, turned the tables in 1904 by the narrow margin of eight points to six. In the final against Middlesex in 1905 Durham won by a single point, but in 1906 Devon again wrested the championship from the northern county. In 1907 Durham somewhat unexpectedly drew with the holders, who had no less than nine international players in their team. After two draws had been played in the final it was decided to divide the championship honours between the two counties. It will thus be seen that during the last eight years Durham has won on four occasions, tied once, and been in the final three times, a performance which speaks for itself as to the high standard of play in the county. In 1902 Durham, as champion county, had the honour of playing the Rest of England, but suffered defeat by thirteen points to nil. They have also played the powerful teams which have visited us from New Zealand and South Africa. Against the former they were the first side to cross the Colonials' line, but were eventually beaten by sixteen points to three. In their match with the South Africans the team were at a disadvantage, since this was their first appearance of the season, but even allowing for this, their play was disappointing, and resulted in a defeat by twenty-two points to four. The prominence of Durham gained them a seat in the Rugby Union governing body so far back as 1879. Their first representative was J. Lowthian Bell, a member of the Sunderland club, and a devoted follower of the game. He was succeeded by the late C. Kidson of the same club. The present Durham representative is Mr. H. E. Ferens, and Mr. J. Marsh holds the position of county secretary. Club football in the county is in a well-organized state. There are both senior and junior inter-club compe- titions, the former instituted in 1880. Of individual teams the Hartlepool Rovers, winners in 1907 of the County Challenge Cup, rank among the strongest in the kingdom. Founded in 1 881 they have contributed many prominent players to the county fifteen. West Hartle- pool, founded at a somewhat later date, is another powerful combination. In point of age Darlington was the doyen of Durham clubs, and supplied a powerful nucleus to the team. Founded in 1865, the scene of their exploits was the Darlington Cricket Ground. The club, how- ever, was disbanded some years ago. Sunderland, which is again r edivivus, dztes back to 1870, and was for many years the most powerful organiza- tion in the county. It enjoys the distinction of having supplied in the person of H. E. Kayll the first Durham man to obtain his English cap. Mr. Kayll played for the North in 1877, and against Scotland in the following March. A noted athlete, he took numerous running and jumping prizes in the north, and won the amateur pole-jumping championship in 1877. Football and club football especially owe much to the missionary zeal of an enthusiastic Scotsman, P. B. Junor. This fine player, an old Glasgow Academical, lived in the 'seventies in the county, and founded many clubs. To his energy the Houghton, Tudhoe and other clubs owe their inception, and when at Durham in 1874 he inspired the city team, of which he was captain, with great activity. Another famous fifteen in the early days was the Bensham, from which was largely formed the well-known North Durham Club in 1875. T. M. Swinburne, for many years the Durham representative on the Rugby Union executive, was first captain of the N.D.C. The team won the County Challenge Cup in the season of 1882-3, ^""^ ^^^^^ occupies a prominent position among northern teams. Durham School, though probably better known for the fine oars- men it has produced, is by no means without football honours. F. H. R. Alderson's distinc- tions are alluded to elsewhere, but in addition to him the following old alumni of the school have played for England : — E. B. Brutton, who also captained Cambridge, R. W. S. Bell, N. S. Cox, F. C. Lohden, and J. W. Sagar. The univer- sity has also placed a team in the field for many years, and has at times turned out some good players. The other prominent clubs in the county comprise The Hartlepool Old Boys, Stockton Heath, Westoe, and Hamsteels. Among individual players a foremost place must be assigned to F. R. H. Alderson, the respected head master of Hartlepool Grammar School. Though a Northumbrian born, he received his football training at Durham School, and his later residential qualification led to his renewed association with the county, whose captain he was elected in 1890. At Cambridge he had represented his university against Oxford on the three-quarter line, and in 1 89 1 he was selected to play for England in a similar position. His knowledge of the game and judicious handling of a team subsequently led to his being appointed captain of the English side, a position he very worthily filled. Mr. Alderson still takes a keen interest in the game, and his school proves a valuable nursery for young players. Another Durham county player, H. Oughtred, more recently captained the English team. A clever and capable half-back, he had in his day no superior in England. Co-temporaneous with Alderson in the Durham and English teams was 428 SPORT ANCIENT AND MODERN W.Yiend, a player of fine physique, and an honest pushing forward of the old stamp. Though a native of Gloucestershire, Yiend's football days were chiefly passed in Durham. In 1884 the county received a great accession to their strength by the presence of the Rev. C. H. Newman, the Welsh captain, one of the finest half-backs of the day. He was elected captain of the side which he very ably led for some seasons. The most striking personality, however, in the county team of recent years, and an important factor in its success, has been the veteran J. T. Taylor. His record is remarkable. Grounded in the grammar of the game at Castleford, he graduated in the Yorkshire fifteen, and was first chosen to play for England in 1897. Subse- quently in 1 90 1 he migrated to Durham. A long and accurate kick, he has dropped numerous goals, and his knowledge of the finer points of the game is equal to that of any three-quarter now playing. Altogether Taylor has played nine times in the English team, and has preserved his form over a much longer period than the generality of football men. Other notable Dur- ham men who have worn the red rose of England are F. E. Pease of Darlington and C. H. Elliott of Sunderland. Both began as Association foot- ballers, the one at Harrow and the other at Repton. As will be seen by the above list, Durham has in several instances benefited sub- stantially from services rendered by residents not native born. On the other hand, prominent players such as A. E. Stoddart and the late C. W. Alcock settled elsewhere, and were lost to the county. In addition to those already mentioned the following Durham men have gained international honours : — R. Poole, Hartle- pool Rovers ; N. S. Cox and E. W. Elliott, Sun- derland ; R. H. Oakes, J. E. Hutchinson, J. Jewitt, G. Summerscales, T. Imrie, Durham city ; J. Duthie, S. Murfitt, and J. Bradley, West Hartlepool ; and J. Hall, North Durham. 429 ^1 iw^l l-^^l l>^i i'^^l iSdf^ )jiivj.jo'^ ^^ojnvjjo^^ "^-TilJDNVSOl^ ^WJIWJJO"^ ^OJIWJJO'^ CAIIFO/?^ ^OFCAIIFOP^ avaaiii^"^ ^;OfCAlIF0R(j. .-\;0FCAIIF0% % - >OAavagn# ^- ' UNIVER^/A ^lOSANCFlfjv. 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