The ancient and barbarous custom of treating suicides, though whether as a warning to the living or the dead I know not, was by interment at a four lane ends. This took place at dead of night, and it was usual to drive a stake through the body. According to tradition it was a Lancashire custom in old times, but I know of no particular case. March 1st – This morning died, in advanced age, Mr. Abraham Clegg, hat manufacturer, of Lane End, Oldham. March 3rd – Oldham, this day, meal 3s. 10d. to 4s. a peck; flour, 4s. to 4s. 6d. a peck; barley flour, 2s.6d. to 2s. 9d. a peck; malt, 3s. a peck; boiling peas, 6d. a quart. This time we find these annals begin to mention “barley flour”; perhaps it was the best substitute for wheat flour, better perhaps than potatoes, but poor toiling man could not pay for wheat flour, and, therefore, he must be fed on hen meat. Potatoes, of course, were out of his reach, as well as wheat flour. The frost still continues, and is very severe; there is no snow, and the wind north-east. March 8th – Last night it froze most uncommonly, so that several wells and other waters, where froze over, wich very seldom are froze over. March 10th – No alteration in the price of provisions this week. March 11th – Yesterday a very cold windy day, attended with snow at night; it turned to rain, and commenced a thaw. And yesterday died James Butterworth, of Mumps. He was standing overseer of the poor of Oldham. March 12th – was observed as a general fast by order of the Government, but it is with heartfelt concern that I relate that the poor fast in general every day. March 12th – Yesterday died, after struggling for a long time with misserey and want, Mary Fox, lately Mary Slater. She died at Old Clarks. March 17th – Oldham, this day meal sells at 4s. to 4s. 2d; flour, 4s. 4d. to 4s. 5d. a peck; potates, 13d. a score; hops, 3d. per peck; beef, mutton, and pork, 7½ d. per pond; bacon, 9½d. per pond. March 19th – It as been a very cold day, and for several days last past the wind, which is verey severe, attended with frost, is east north-east; it is so cold that is stops all vegetation, so that there is no appearance of spring.
|
The poor are in a most shocking situation; a great deal are starving for bread, and very few can get anything better thanbarley bread, barley pottage, barley dumplins, potatoes being so excessively dear that the poor cannot buy them. It’s all among the barley! The extremely wet weather in 1799 had had its effect both on the quantity and quality of the corn, and ushered in what are known as ‘barley times’. Flour was both bad and dear. One of my grandmothers, Mrs. Kitty Wrigley, at that time kept the Grapes Inn, Hey, and many is the story I have heard of these ‘barley times’. In outside places like Hey as much as 7s. a peck was paid for flour during these barley times, which was so bad that people in these days would hardly think the wheat from which it was made good enough to feed the hens with. It was not only discoloured, but unripe and sometimes rotten. I have heard my kinsfolk say that the flour would not rise in the mug before or after being kneaded, and that the dough when put into the oven would run almost as thin as batter for pancakes, and that it would run over the loaf-tin onto the bottom of the oven, and out of the oven on to the house floor. Sometimes the wheat was ground into flour without being cleared of its outer shell, and this made the flour coarse and dark coloured, and as the wheat had lain so long in the field the bread was almost black. What the barley bread was like I never heard tell, but no doubt wheat flour and barley flour were largely mixed together. There was a certain kind of coarse flour used at this time called “Billy ground down” in allusion to William Pitt, the once popular but now unpopular Prime Minister. March 23rd – This morning was found drowned, in a pit near Holden-fold, John Butterworth, of Highgate, near Royton. It appeared he had left home early that morning, and that he had been deranged in his sencess for some time. March 24th – Oldham meal sell 4s. 0d. to 4s. 4d. a peck. Flour about the same. March 2nd – This morning died Joseph Stot, a boy eleven years of age, an apprentice to John Buckley, of Maygate-lane, weaver. It is believed that this unfortunate boy has been very badly treated, and it is believed that he was much pinched for meat, besides being compeled to weave more than reasonable, as he wove a fair day’s work the day before he died. He was not buried till the 27th, and was in the meantime opened, but the result of this business is postponed until Mr. Ferrand, the coroner, returns from Lancaster, it being the assizes. March 31st – Oldham meal sell 4s. 1d. to 4s. 6d. Flour the same, except American flour, wich sells at 5s. 2d. to 5s. 6d. a peck. Joseph Wood, in Chadderton, sold some American flour at 6d. a pond. |
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Pottatoes 15d. a score. Beff and mutton 8d. a pond. It as been a remarkable fine month, and spring is making visable appearances. The earth is sending forth vegetation, wich is the harbinger of earthly happiness, and, our hope is that the heavens will be favourable unto us, and send us a good crop, for without we are utterly undone. April 7th – Oldham meal sold 4s. 6d to 4s. 8d. Flour 2d. a peck less then meal. Pottatoes 16d. a score. April 8th – Uncomon fine weather, and all sorts of vegetation in great forwardness. April 9th – The corronor’s jury met for the third time at Oldham this day, when their verdict was willfull murder against John Buckley, and he was, of course, committed to Lancaster to take his trial for the murder of Joseph Stot, his apprentice. In the latter part of the last and the beginning of the present century, says E. Butterworth, a large number of weavers in Oldham, and the neighbourhood, particularly at Heyside, possessed spacious loom shops, where they not only employed many journeymen weavers, but a considerable proportion of apprentice children, procured from the parish workhouses of the metropolis and other equally distant populous places. Hundreds of these poor children, from the age of seven to fourteen, were sent down into the North, and the utmost possible quantity of work was exacted from them. They were subjected in many instances to extremely cruel treatment, although the master weavers and journeymen were at the same time gratifying their own love of independence just as their feelings or inclinations led them. This lamentable system continued to prevail more or less until the power loom transferred the weaving business from the cottage to the factory, from 1824 to 1834. April 9th – Oldham no material alteration in the price of mail or flour. Beef 9d., mutton 8d. a pond. Apples, 1s. 6d. a peck. Hay, 10d. a stone. Potatoes, 15d. a score.
|
April 19th – Died, Edmund Cheetham, of Bottom of North Moor. He was far advanced in years. April 20th – The weather has been wet for the last fortnight, but it has been moderately warm, wich has caused the earth to send forth her fruits in abundance, especially grass, wich is promising abundance. Nettles, paitiance, docks, green saus, water cresses, &c., are pluced (plucked) up by poor people as a substitute for pottatoes, and scores of poor wretches where wandering in a forlrn state, eagerously picking up any sorts of vegetables wich fell in their way. Nettles sell at Oldham 2d. a pond. This account of compulsory vegetarianism exactly agrees with what tradition says. There are few Oldhamers who have not heard of “porridge and rap”. This was the standing dish at dinner in most houses during barley time – indeed it was the only dish. It consisted of thin oatmeal porridge, often made without salt, for salt at that time was very dear. The porridge was teamed into a large dish which was placed in the middle of the table. At times the table drawer did duty for a dish, if no dish was to be had. A piece of hard fat, butter, or a spoonful of treacle was dropped into the middle of the porringer, and each eater was supplied with a spoon. At a given signal, the spoons dived into the porridge, and rapped at the fat or butter or treacle, in the centre. “Just to give a flavour, you know”, and thus the frugal meal was consumed. This was familiarly known as “porridge and rap”. Old Sam B--- had a large family of children, and was put to great straits to find them food during those hard times. He was, moreover, a wag in his way. He had no money to buy coals, and so he had to fetch turf from Highmoor to keep his chimney reaching. Having one day piled up his square cobs of turf in the chimney corner to dry out, one of his neighbours called in to see him, and remarking, “Yo’n getten some noice turf, theer, Sam”. Sam replied, “Yigh, yigh, mon; say nowt abeawt it. It’s so noice ut aw very nee getten th’ childer agate o atin’ it. Awst get throo if aw con nobbut mak’ em think it’s black puddin’! It is same colour, un awd very nee as soon ate it mysel’ as some ut stuff ut I ha’ to ate.” There was always a laugh at old Sam’s waggish idea of feeding his children on turf. |
Page 54
William Rowbottom's Diary as published in the Oldham Standard |
 |
 |
 |
