ANNALS OF OLDHAM No. XV 1794 Jan. 1st – This year commenced on Wednesday, which was an uncommon fine day, but owing to the failure of all sorts of business there was very little Christmas cheer for very few families were able to buy malt and brew. Roast beef and pies were not to be seen, so that the poor after a year’s misery meet with a wretched Christmas treat for as the old year concluded with unparalleled misery, the new year does not commence with better appearances. But may the almighty God of his great goodness grant that things may have a happier turn, that the poor may have their bellies full which are now very much short. The negative form in which Rowbottom writes of the state of things, is evidence of the good old times when “roast beef and pies” formed a ruling feature in the Christmas feastings. E. Butterworth, speaking of Christmas as it was kept in Oldham during last century, says:- “Labourers and mechanics of the neighbourhood paid their annual visit to the kitchens of the gentry, yeomen, and principal manufacturers of their respective localities, where they could produce a claim however weak, and no particular attention was paid to the bearing of the guests. Then came out the two gallon copper, foaming with brown October. The full horns were handed round with cheerfulness, and a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year invoked on the heads of the family even down to the favourite lap dog. Ale brewed expressly for the season, and uncommonly strong, called Christmas drink, was prepared for the holiday. Every visitor, whether friend or stranger, was invited to, and treated with a pot of beer and a mince pie. Dances took place at the village inns, and public card parties for geese, buns, or pears, were held at the farmhouses. The stress of the times in 1794, is shown by the entire absence of these outward and visible signs. In a manufacturing town like Oldham, this distress was general. High and low, workman and master, were reduced almost to a common level of poverty, and as was seen by the number of bankruptcies in the preceding year, many of those who furnished these Christmas treats would be themselves involved in the common ruin which prevailed on every hand.
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Jan. 1st – This day Joseph Scholes having got a recruiting order for the 57th regiment of foot, beat up in Oldham in a superb new suit of cloathes. It was not necessary for a man to be a soldier to be appointed a recruiting agent, although Joseph Scholes was afterwards made into a sergeant. It will be found in these annals that the Oldham Freemasons with their Worshipful Master at their head, paraded the streets for the purpose of recruiting. – Joseph Scholes was son of Jacob Scholes, who was a kind of collector of market tolls. He lived at the Top of Bent. He had also a son Adam, who went with his father to collect the tolls, and book the sums as they were paid. As old Jacob fingered the money, he called out to his son, “Book it, Adam”, hence the Oldham proverb. Joseph Scholes was a man of large bodily proportions, and probably for this reason was chosen for recruiting purposes to attract attention – he seems to have had a “superb new suit of clothes”. He was commonly known as “Big Dody”. He died in the year 1814, his body weighing thirty-six stone, or twenty-five score four pounds. He must not be confounded with a “big dody” of more modern times.
We are very sorry to say that on Jan. 2nd, Joseph Garlick was committed to Lancaster charged with stealing a mare, the property of Mr. H. Lees, of Ashton-u-Lyne. Jan. 3rd – Joseph Lee, of Chadderton, and two of his sons were apprehended for stealing fish, of Sir. Watts Horton’s, when Jos. was committed to Lancaster, and his two sons suffered to enlist. Jan. 8th – Abraham Ogden, Nathan Row, interred at Oldham. Jan. 8th – 47 recruits of the 80th regiment, marched up Burnley-lane. On their rout from Bolton to Doncaster. Jan. 9th – Martha Taylor, of Scholes Fold, interred this day. Jan. 13th – An uncommon thawing day. Jan. 13th – Being the new market at Rochdale, there was a great deal of sergeants beat up and offered large bounties for recruits. Jan. 13th.– Wife of Thomas Jackson, Priest Hill, Oldham, died in child bed of the 16th child was interred at the Methodist Chapel, and being the first body buried there caused a great concourse of people. |
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Jan. 22nd – As a proof of the influence which the military have over the fair sex, a young woman possessed with less virtue than beauty decamped from the Cotton Tree, Oldham, with one of the train of artillery, but by the timely interference of her friends the affair was quashed in its infancy. Jan. 23rd. – The young woman and the soldier who decamped from Cotton Tree Tavern, were privately married at Stockport. Jan. 22nd. – Captain Blairs of the 12th of foot, with his Sergeant Hammond with a large retinue of recruits beat up in a very sumptuous stile this day at Oldham. This day Wednesday the sessions commenced at the New Bailey, Manchester, when Joseph Needham for stealing a powder horn out of the house of James Potter, Boggart Holde, Oldham, sentence 6 months imprisonment and privately whipped. Jan. 25th. – Uncommon cold day attended with a very high wind and snow. At night it terminated in freezing. Jan. 27th. – Captain Horsfall, of 39th regiment of foot, roasted a sheep and gave it with bread and potatoes to the populance in Oldham, where his sergeant and Sergeant Hammond of the 39th of foot, beat up in a very superb style. Jan. 25th. – The miseries of the poor it seems are not up to the utmost height of wretchedness. For at Manchester this day, Mr. Hibbert dropped his velveretts to 18s. per piece. Last night the weather turned to a very rapid thaw, Jan. 31st. Jan. 31st. – Mr. John Clegg, of Bent Hall, Oldham, hat manufacturer, died in an advanced age. E. Butterworth gives a good account of the Cleggs. “School Croft Head was their original residence – a building now taken down, which stood near to the present Doctor Syntax public-house. Abraham Clegg, the first of his family resident in Oldham, was the son of Anthony Clegg, of Newfield Head, in Butterworth, yeoman, third son of James Clegg, gentleman of Butterworth, living 1624, apparently a relative of the Cleggs of Little Clegg.
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Mr. Abraham Clegg acquired estates in Oldham and Chadderton, and was father of John Clegg, gentleman, of Werneth, afterwards of Chadderton, who died 1725, and was father of Abraham Clegg, gentleman, who became resident at Bent Hall, and to whom Oldham appears to have been indebted for the introduction of the hat manufacture, shortly after the commencement of the last century. This benefactor was born in 1686, and died in 1748. His sons, Messrs. John and Abraham Clegg, entered largely into the hatting trade at Bent Hall, Lower Bent, and Bent Grange, and ranked for many years amongst the principal hat manufacturers in the kingdom. John Clegg, Esq., of Bent Hall, erected Bent House, a few years subsequent to 1760”. – This is the Mr. John Clegg whose death is here notified. He married Miss Hannah Dawson, of Glodwick. Butterworth, in one of his unpublished memoranda, describes the family of Clegg as enriching Oldham by their enterprise in the hatting trade. They carried on much traffic in hats, which were conveyed for sale to the south by pack horses. At the time Mr. John Clegg lived at Bent Hall. Prior to 1758 the hall is described as being on the edge of Bent Green. It was a goodly portly Elizabethan mansion, decorated by a gateway adorned by two “nobbed” pillars, and a range of flags leading under an archway into a kind of court yard in front f the hall. It is a “court” still, but of a different sort. The interior was said to have been much “stuccoed”. The estate extended towards Bankside, and over lands now closely crowded by habitations designated Bent Fields and Closes. Mr. John Clegg resided at the old hall some years, but afterwards built Bent House or Lower Bent, an elegant stone dwelling. Mr. John Clegg had two sons, James and John, and six daughters. James erected Bent Lodge, where his sister Mrs. Close lived. He had a numerous family. John appears to have been a timber merchant. Mr. Robert Taylor, of Mumps, died. The different vicissitudes of fortune experienced by this man, ought to be a useful lesson to mankind. In the early part of his time he fully experienced misery, and in a little time he advanced to the utmost pitch of splendour, but at his death his affairs were in a deranged situation. E. Butterworth says:- Mr. Robert Taylor, a native of Bardsley Brow, emerged from comparative obscurity to the rank of one of the principal manufacturers of the place entirely in consequence of his own exertions. About 1782 he erected Bell Mill or Bell factory near Mumps, and was remarkable for the extremely near and tasteful dwelling he possessed in the vicinity of his manufactory. When the Fustian Tax or duty of one penny per yard upon all bleached cotton manufacturers was sanctioned by Parliament in 1784, great excitement ensued throughout all the manufacturing districts. Delegates and petitions |
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William Rowbottom's Diary as published in the Oldham Standard |
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